Watch Dogs

Maximus Alexander

Robert ninja wrote: »

But it does lead to the question... how many games has this happened to in the past and how many in the future? 2015 will have a new generation of GPUs that could seem like fruitless investments if there are no big budget games making any REAL use of things that don't go beyond Sony and MC's 2 year old hardware.

But sure this has already been happening since the last generation of consoles came out. For years we've been getting multiplatform games that did nothing of substance to utilize the extra power and features of more modern GPUs, apart from allowing you to increase screen and texture resolution or improve frame rates.

aaronjumper

firestarter51 wrote: »

How long does it go on for, I've done the got to a couple of levels passed the helicopters ?

Sorry didn't have internet there for a few days.

It lasted for around twelve missions and starting from scratch I was able to hit level ten when I completed it. You could probably get to a higher level but it took me a bit to get used to the controls.

Chewy Bluey

hey guys
finally getting round to playing watch dogs. haven't really gone into the main storyline yet, just driving round to get a feel for it. was just wondering do the random crime things respawn? say if you accidently blow up the victim :P, will you have chance to re do it at some point?

MajesticDonkey

Chewy Bluey wrote: »

hey guys
finally getting round to playing watch dogs. haven't really gone into the main storyline yet, just driving round to get a feel for it. was just wondering do the random crime things respawn? say if you accidently blow up the victim :P, will you have chance to re do it at some point?

They're random, and you don't have to do any of them if you don't want to.

Chewy Bluey

cheers

Robert ninja

Statement by Ubisoft

Watch Dogs PC Update



The dev team is completely dedicated to getting the most out of each platform, so the notion that we would actively downgrade quality is contrary to everything we’ve set out to achieve. We test and optimize our games for each platform on which they’re released, striving for the best possible quality. The PC version does indeed contain some old, unused render settings that were deactivated for a variety of reasons, including possible impacts on visual fidelity, stability, performance and overall gameplay quality. Modders are usually creative and passionate players, and while we appreciate their enthusiasm, the mod in question (which uses those old settings) subjectively enhances the game’s visual fidelity in certain situations but also can have various negative impacts. Those could range from performance issues, to difficulty in reading the environment in order to appreciate the gameplay, to potentially making the game less enjoyable or even unstable.

Thanks for playing Watch Dogs and stay safe on the mean streets of Chicago.

-The Watch Dogs Team

A response by youtube personality Total Biscuit

Transcript by /u/-ferrocactus

ROUGH TRANSCRIPT

Ladies and Gentlemen, my name is TotalBiscuit.

Hate to say I told you so... I knew it! I bloody well knew they'd say something like this. I mean, what option did they really have, to be fair. They had to say something along these lines, but it's interesting to see how much they're actually disputing this.

So, Ubisoft came out with a little piece of information about the PC, saying that the version of Watch_Dogs, of course, would be updated, and their statement goes as follows:

[TotalBiscuit reads Ubisoft's statement]

Wow. That's aggressive. That is a really aggressive response. More so than I expected, honestly. And unfortunately, it flies in the face of all of the evidence that we currently have.

Okay, so, I can believe that settings were old and deactivated for a variety of reasons. Yes, absolutely. And I can believe that the reason they were deactivated in the first place was because you didn't spend enough time on the PC version. That indeed, your claim that the PC version was the lead platform in fact not the case. That, I can believe. That, I will accept. What I will not accept is the notion that this is, one, a mod that makes it look subjectively better, and two, a mod that causes performance issues and makes the game unstable, potentially less enjoyable.

I am sorry, but what?

The evidence that we've seen up to this point, which is, of course, for the most part extremely anecdotal, but from a large number of people, is that performance is either equal to or currently better than the standard version of Watch_Dogs, and I have experienced that as well. I experienced no performance increase, but I certainly didn't experience a performance decrease, either. There was no effect to stability whatsoever.

It is also I believe extremely hard to argue that it makes the game look subjectively better. Don't get me wrong, I'm a big believer in aesthetic, I'm a big believer in graphical fidelity being trumped it. But in the case of a game that is trying to look as realistic as possible, nerfing the lighting effects, nerfing the rain effects, nerfing things like reflections, and all sorts of things like that is not a subjective choice. It is an objective decision made for some reason. We don't know what that reason is. Again, maybe they were unfinished. But, I mean, do you want me to applaud that? You had six extra months, what were they spent on, exactly? Evidently it wasn't on polishing the PC version.

And this downgrade is real, we know the visual downgrade is real, even with the mod, there are still some changes that are things that are removed, like the original E3 demo outside the club actually had real bulbs in lighting at the top of the ceiling, there, in the awning just above the entrance to the club itself, whereas they just replaced those with fairly generic lighting effects in the final version. That's not added back in by the so-called "mod". And it is, of course, very amusing indeed that this is being called a mod and not a fix. An unofficial patch, I think, is the better term. We do not, in fact, have the modder creating a bunch of new effects out of thin air. No, no, no, they were already there, and they are simply being implemented the way they should have been in the first place.

So media are stubbornly trying to call it a mod as well, indeed, Rock Paper Shotgun went out of their way to say, "Yep, we're calling it a mod whether you like it or not". Well I don't like it, because that implies these effects have been created by a third party, and were never intended to be in the game in the first place, whereas it's blindingly obvious that the intention was absolutely there for those effects to be in the game and yet they decided not to put them in for god knows what reason.

An unofficial patch, or a tweak, or set of unofficial fixes would be a better way to describe that, and it would not be misleading, either. iCEnhancer is a mod, this is an unofficial patch. This isn't gonna go away, and frankly all this statement did was add fuel to the fire. The fact that they are aggressively attempting to argue against what we can see with our own two eyes is very bizarre to say the least.

I get that optimization is more difficult on PC, and I understand that it is possible that you would run out of time, but let's be frank, these effects were obviously in the game and required very little additional work to re-enable, so you have to understand why people would feel that this was somewhat suspicious. More suspicion is heaped on to the fact that there is an attempt to discredit the mod, it would appear, claiming that there are "subjective visual improvements", as opposed to the obviously objective visual improvements that are there.

Sure, some of the effects are subjective, such as the higher Depth of Field, that perhaps is not an objectively better looking effect, but there's no doubt that the improvement of things like the rain in the headlights, those are real objective improvements on the existing lighting system within that game. I find it fairly hard to make the argument that those are somehow "subjective improvements". And claiming that it makes less enjoyable or unstable? Now that, as far as I'm concerned, is absolute nonsense.

It could have various negative impacts such as what? We haven't seen any of those up to this point. The only one that we know of, and these fixes have been added on for several days, by the way, and no one has spotted anything else, is the flickering of the headlights, the occasional headlight flickering. Which compared to the ludicrous pop-in that, by the way, is still in the game and the ridiculous stuttering which happening on a wide variety of setups, is peanuts.

There is a lot that needs fixing in that game from a performance standpoint. And if you’re talking about optimizing, then I’ve got to wonder what the hell you were doing, if you thought that Watch_Dogs was somehow optimized, because I do not believe you. I’m sorry. I don’t. I can’t. I’ve played it on a variety of different platforms; I’ve used three in my house alone. I’ve turned on SLI, I’ve turned off SLI, I’ve tried one laptop, I’ve tried the other laptop, I’ve read ream on ream, page after page after page, of people on a wide variety of configurations, whether they be Nvidia, or whether they be AMD, and they’ve all said the same thing: this game just doesn’t run that well.

There are some real problems that need to be addressed and I’m glad that there is a patch coming, that’s good. But I do not believe, at all, that this answers the criticisms. Indeed, all that I believe that this is going to do, is create more of them. So, if this was designed to put a little bit of water on top of the fire, then I think they accidentally picked up the petrol instead.

Thank you very much for listening folks, and I will see you next time.

[edit] When I get home, I'm going to try to make a "cleaned up" version with fewer "ands" :P

[edit2] cleaned up some errors

Captain Chaos

The setting for Watchdogs just came a little closer to reality.:D

http://www.dailytech.com/Chicago+Installs+Big+Data+Sensors+to+Watch+Citizens+Promises+Privacy/article36098.htm

dmcg90

Finished this at the weekend. The last mission wasn't as tough as I thought it'd be from the posts on here but overall I think I'll enjoy this game more in free play mode than story. What a boring story. What an unlikable main character.

I spent the whole game going "I really don't want to be this person for the next 10-20 hours".

maximoose

Yep, I finished act 3 at the weekend but have found myself doing all the side missions since then - just not really bothered with the story any more, pretty dull.

Penn

Picked it up at the weekend. Only played maybe an hour or so of it. Holy crap the driving is an abomination. Incredibly unresponsive, and when it does respond it's wild swerves.

Haven't gotten far enough into the game yet to give a better opinion, but the driving is just really, really bad.

Captain Chaos

Penn wrote: »

. Holy crap the driving is an abomination. Incredibly unresponsive, and when it does respond it's wild swerves.

The driving handling varies massively between car models as apposed to other GTA style games, some I won't go near but there is one or two that are good and very similar to GTAV handling. Overall though the driving model in the game is below average. You do get used to it after a few hours and you learn to live with it.

ScumLord

The worst driving I've come across in one of these games was in LA Noire. It was like there was a half second delay on the controls and it just lead to the car serving back and over on the road.

Keyzer

Penn wrote: »

Picked it up at the weekend. Only played maybe an hour or so of it. Holy crap the driving is an abomination. Incredibly unresponsive, and when it does respond it's wild swerves.

Haven't gotten far enough into the game yet to give a better opinion, but the driving is just really, really bad.

I heard people mention the game was built on a driving game engine, weird that the driving is garbage.

Think I'll be giving this game a miss until I can pick it up for 20 quid.

Captain Chaos

Keyzer wrote: »

I heard people mention the game was built on a driving game engine, weird that the driving is garbage.

Think I'll be giving this game a miss until I can pick it up for 20 quid.

It's not that bad but it's not where it should be either. The driving in Saints Row 3 and 4 are worse than this.

It's a not a bad game overall, spend a few hours with it and you don't notice the driving anymore. I payed €40 for this on the PS4 and I'm happy with the value for that. Wouldn't pay anymore than that for this. The game does have some real nice touches when you stop and look at it.

I value GTAV so much more now having played Watchdogs, it gets so many little things just right and I will be doubling dipping for the PS4 version on release.

folan

ScumLord wrote: »

The worst driving I've come across in one of these games was in LA Noire. It was like there was a half second delay on the controls and it just lead to the car serving back and over on the road.

should have let Rusty do all the driving for you. or force it into the cutscene ****.

god that game was great and terrible at the same time

ScumLord

folan wrote: »

should have let Rusty do all the driving for you. or force it into the cutscene ****.

Yeah, you do that then you come to one of the chase scenes and can't drive at all. The city was also ridiculously big for the size of the actual story which made driving even more horrible.

Penn

folan wrote: »

should have let Rusty do all the driving for you. or force it into the cutscene ****.

god that game was great and terrible at the same time

I always let my partner do the driving. Unfortunately, when the case came up where you had to go to landmarks based on clues, I had absolutely no idea where any of them were and could only find them by driving around randomly.

Maximus Alexander

Penn wrote: »

I always let my partner do the driving. Unfortunately, when the case came up where you had to go to landmarks based on clues, I had absolutely no idea where any of them were and could only find them by driving around randomly.

They're all on the map though, aren't they? :eek:

Penn

Maximus Alexander wrote: »

They're all on the map though, aren't they? :eek:

I think they get marked on the map after you've driven past them once, which I never did as I never drove.

I hope anyway. I think I checked the map. If I spent that long doing that one f*cking case because I didn't look at the map....

folan

Penn wrote: »

I think they get marked on the map after you've driven past them once, which I never did as I never drove.

I hope anyway. I think I checked the map. If I spent that long doing that one f*cking case because I didn't look at the map....

only if you drove past them. I never once went past the tar pits, and so spent ****ing ages driving around to fine the bastarding place

Maximus Alexander

I'm pretty sure, and my memory might be faulty, that even if you haven't driven to them there is a question mark on the map for each landmark, or something along those lines. I feel like that's how I did it, because I hadn't driven either.

aaronjumper

Finished the story last night. The last mission is great craic altogether!

Managed to do the entire mission only firing one shot. I'm proud of that and I don't know why.

ScumLord

Maximus Alexander wrote: »

I'm pretty sure, and my memory might be faulty, that even if you haven't driven to them there is a question mark on the map for each landmark, or something along those lines. I feel like that's how I did it, because I hadn't driven either.

I think the question marks only popped up when you got to the general location or had been aimlessly driving around for half an hour.

Wossack

Took me a while to realise ye feckers are still talking about LA Noire

wouldnt mind but I remember trying to find those poxy tar pits for ages too lol

Josey Wales

Anyone ever have any stuttering problems on the PS4 version? I tried to play a game tonight but the sound would freeze and then the action on screen would freeze for 2/3 seconds. This would keep happening every few seconds.

Captain Chaos

Josey Wales wrote: »

Anyone ever have any stuttering problems on the PS4 version? I tried to play a game tonight but the sound would freeze and then the action on screen would freeze for 2/3 seconds. This would keep happening every few seconds.

Yep, it's started to hit me the odd time since I got to the middle of act 2. The sound is fine but the game would freeze for a second or two and then carry on happens about every 20-30mins or so. Also my game is taking way longer to load up than usual on start up. I spent a week on act one and the side missions just messing about and no problems at all with freezing and frame rates just from mission 3 or 4 on act 2, I don't know is it because there are move activities on the map since I have 11/13 ctOS towers unlocked or what.

Josey Wales

Captain Chaos wrote: »

Yep, it's started to hit me the odd time since I got to the middle of act 2. The sound is fine but the game would freeze for a second or two and then carry on happens about every 20-30mins or so. Also my game is taking way longer to load up than usual on start up. I spent a week on act one and the side missions just messing about and no problems at all with freezing and frame rates just from mission 3 or 4 on act 2, I don't know is it because there are move activities on the map since I have 11/13 ctOS towers unlocked or what.

I read on another forum that rebuilding the PS4 database will resolve the problem. I might try out Watch Dogs again before going this route.

Vyse

Just got the game today on PS4. I know graphics aren't the be all and end all but I have to say this game really does look like a high resolution last gen game. It's pretty poor looking. Everything looks flat and sterile with no life. Not what I would expect from a next gen game.

It really looks like the game was built for the PS3/ 360 and ported over. I know they say this isn't the case but it's hard to think of another explanation.

Seems interesting though, nothing special so far but I'll keep bashing away.

Muirshin Durkin

Jaysus that's a bit overdramatic.

Captain Chaos

Muirshin Durkin wrote: »

Jaysus that's a bit overdramatic.

Parts of the game are very poor looking on the PS4 version alright. The hands and faces being a weak point, and car damage and bullet holes in cars look terrible imo, like someone put stickers on the car. But at times the game looks very well imo. When its raining, the water effects, the trees and bushes swaying, the sun rays breaking through ally ways of tall buildings at sunset all look very good imo. Then there are things like when you zoom in on the receiver of the HK416 assault rifle you can see it has the real life trade marks on the gun on the correct parts, same with the slide on the PX4 Storm pistol. That's detail they didn't even need to do.