Watch Dogs: my "true next-gen experience" - the video that blew me away

[Sauron]

I don't get it. Ok, the game is not very good. What I don't understand is the title. What were people expecting from """"next gen"""" games? Were you seriously expecting they would be anything other than "last gen" games with slightly better graphics? The new consoles got insta-capped by launch titles, many of which don't even run at 1080p 60fps, which was supposed to be this generation's big edge over the last one. And people thought there would be any headroom whatsoever to introduce any significant innovation in gameplay or level design? Seriously? There was no reason to expect this game to be any better than, say, gta 5, simply because it was """"next gen"""". The new generation of consoles simply marked an improvement in the way consoles render games compared to the 8 year old hardware people were stuck with before, but you have got to realize they are basically low end pcs and a "next gen" sticker on them won't change this fact. You are deluding yourself if you are expecting them to have some kind of hidden potential that magically improves a.i. , voice acting, physics and game mechanics. Sorry to tell you, but games won't improve because the new consoles came out. There is no such thing as a "true next gen experience".

[Sauron]

There are many problems and glitches which are just plain unacceptable today.

Why does the year it came out in make any difference? if the developer doesn't care you get bugs, if they care you don't. Doom 3 was almost perfect programmingwise and that was 10 years ago.

[XTankSlayerX]

Almercenary, on 30 May 2014 - 5:51 PM, said:

Sad, but true. Sucks they fucked it up that bad. I might still buy it, but not until it's like 5 bucks.  TBH, i don't blame people for pirating it when ports/games have this big flaws.

I feel like piracy should be a right at this point with all these broken games we've been getting.

[ACatWithThumbs]

Why does the year it came out in make any difference? if the developer doesn't care you get bugs, if they care you don't. Doom 3 was almost perfect programmingwise and that was 10 years ago.

Bug free releases don't exist anymore.

Games are just to complex now that you just can't release it bug free.

Even the highly polished,260 million budget, and 5 year long developed GTA V has hundreds of bugs some of which are game breaking.

 

[DeViLzzz]

So much bad in this video but is a large majority of this able to be fixed with a patch?
By the way to the people who say physX and physics don't matter uh when it is done right and not done like it is in Watch Dogs it does add to the game.  What Ubicrap and company did here is pretty bad from what we see in the video.  Still though it won't stop me from renting this game and having a good time with it for a few days.

[Sauron]

Bug free releases don't exist anymore.

Games are just to complex now that you just can't release it bug free.

Even the highly polished,260 million budget, and 5 year long developed GTA V has hundreds of bugs some of which are game breaking.

And that makes me believe they investe much more in things like voice acting and marketing than they did on gameplay. Maybe they even made the game over a couple of times in order to make it playable on 8-year-old consoles. As for bug free releases, the first two batman:arkham games didn't have many bugs at all. It's just a matter of the deveolper caring about releasing a finished game or only about throwing in as many things as they can even if they can't make it run properly just to get the hype going and rush the release. Maybe gta 5 needed a couple more years of development. Doom 3 took 5 years to make, and it wasn't even open world. Maybe an open world game needs 7.

[thewhitestig]

I don't get it. Ok, the game is not very good. What I don't understand is the title. What were people expecting from """"next gen"""" games? Were you seriously expecting they would be anything other than "last gen" games with slightly better graphics? The new consoles got insta-capped by launch titles, many of which don't even run at 1080p 60fps, which was supposed to be this generation's big edge over the last one. And people thought there would be any headroom whatsoever to introduce any significant innovation in gameplay or level design? Seriously? There was no reason to expect this game to be any better than, say, gta 5, simply because it was """"next gen"""". The new generation of consoles simply marked an improvement in the way consoles render games compared to the 8 year old hardware people were stuck with before, but you have got to realize they are basically low end pcs and a "next gen" sticker on them won't change this fact. You are deluding yourself if you are expecting them to have some kind of hidden potential that magically improves a.i. , voice acting, physics and game mechanics. Sorry to tell you, but games won't improve because the new consoles came out. There is no such thing as a "true next gen experience".

You missed the point completely. It's not a matter of level design or mission design or whatever. The point that this video was trying to get across is that the game is unfinished. It's broken. The lighting doesn't work correctly, the physics engine doesn't work at all, and the AI is nonexistent. Last gen GTA 4 had an amazing physics engine. I had no idea that we would actually go backwards in this 6 year time frame. It's not a matter of hardware limitations. It's a matter of will. They released the game unfinished on purpose - to meet their quarterly targets. 

[euniqe]

Why does the year it came out in make any difference? if the developer doesn't care you get bugs, if they care you don't. Doom 3 was almost perfect programmingwise and that was 10 years ago.

 

I was referring to the state of the market. There are so many graphical, physical and gameplay features that we take for granted today that are just non-existent or broken in watch_dogs.

[Lancer14711]

Watched this the other day, sums this situation up perfectly

 

http://youtu.be/mv04aKBhZ9U?t=1m35s

[Sauron]

You missed the point completely. It's not a matter of level design or mission design or whatever. The point that this video was trying to get across is that the game is unfinished. It's broken. The lighting doesn't work correctly, the physics engine doesn't work at all, and the AI is nonexistent. Last gen GTA 4 had an amazing physics engine. I had no idea that we would actually go backwards in this 6 year time frame. It's not a matter of hardware limitations. It's a matter of will. They released the game unfinished on purpose - to meet their quarterly targets. 

I get that, I even said at the beginning of  the post that I understand the game is broken/not very good. What bothered me was the fact that he implied it should have been better because it is next gen.

[thewhitestig]

I get that, I even said at the beginning of  the post that I understand the game is broken/not very good. What bothered me was the fact that he implied it should have been better because it is next gen.

Alright. But it should've been better because its next gen. Say whatever you want, but the PS4 still has a 2 Tflop GPU. It's weak by PC standards, but it's still much better than the old gen which had anywhere between 0.2 and 0,3 tflops of computing power. And even if you think that new consoles are not able to provide better games in terms of graphics, physics, lighting etc., you still wouldn't expect them to go backwards. But they did. The example I always give is GTA 4. The physics engine in that game was absolutely phenomenal even for today.

[Sauron]

Alright. But it should've been better because its next gen. Say whatever you want, but the PS4 still has a 2 Tflop GPU. It's weak by PC standards, but it's still much better than the old gen which had anywhere between 0.2 and 0,3 tflops of computing power. And even if you think that new consoles are not able to provide better games in terms of graphics, physics, lighting etc., you still wouldn't expect them to go backwards. But they did. The example I always give is GTA 4. The physics engine in that game was absolutely phenomenal even for today.

Of course they're faster than the previous generation, but since pc has already been there before we can't expect games to be any better that what we got on pc for the last 2-3 years because the ps4 is faster than the ps3. All we can really expect as improvements is better graphics. The fact that we went backwards is due to lazy development. Not saying you're wrong, it's just that the title of the video should have been something like "my game of the year experience" or something like that.

[thewhitestig]

Of course they're faster than the previous generation, but since pc has already been there before we can't expect games to be any better that what we got on pc for the last 2-3 years because the ps4 is faster than the ps3. All we can really expect as improvements is better graphics. The fact that we went backwards is due to lazy development. Not saying you're wrong, it's just that the title of the video should have been something like "my game of the year experience" or something like that.

But the PC was held back by last gen consoles. PC has rarely "been there". Now it would be held back by the newer generation, but at least the bar is set higher. 

[Sauron]

But the PC was held back by last gen consoles. PC has rarely "been there". Now it would be held back by the newer generation, but at least the bar is set higher. 

Sure, the problem is it is set already. If at least the games of this first year of these console's lifes had all been able to run at 1080p 60fps we could still hope for future improvements, but at this point we have instantly reached the maximum potential of these machines (proof of how far behind consoles actually were) and we won't get anything better than this.

[thewhitestig]

Sure, the problem is it is set already. If at least the games of this first year of these console's lifes had all been able to run at 1080p 60fps we could still hope for future improvements, but at this point we have instantly reached the maximum potential of these machines (proof of how far behind consoles actually were) and we won't get anything better than this.

I don't think they're reaching their limits at all. Developers are not even tapping into the GPGPU capabilities of the consoles at this point. There's still a long way to go. I think this poor optimization is due to games being released on 5-6 different platforms when they have limited budgets and limited time for development. I have no doubts that the PS4 can provide 1080p 60fps on Watch Dogs IF the game was actually designed for that platform (and then ported to the PC) and they didn't spread development budget over so many different platforms. Just wait until E3 2016, 17 and 18 to see what the new consoles are really capable of. I'm not a console gamer, but I'm still interested to see how those console exclusives (like the new Uncharted) will look. I'm gonna be watching all the E3 keynotes next Monday, even those of Sony and MS. I have a feeling that MS will talk more about PC this time around - DX 12 maybe?

[Sauron]

I don't think they're reaching their limits at all. Developers are not even tapping into the GPGPU capabilities of the consoles at this point. There's still a long way to go. I think this poor optimization is due to games being released on 5-6 different platforms when they have limited budgets and limited time for development. I have no doubts that the PS4 can provide 1080p 60fps on Watch Dogs IF the game was actually designed for that platform (and then ported to the PC) and they didn't spread development budget over so many different platforms. Just wait until E3 2016, 17 and 18 to see what the new consoles are really capable of. I'm not a console gamer, but I'm still interested to see how those console exclusives (like the new Uncharted) will look. I'm gonna be watching all the E3 keynotes next Monday, even those of Sony and MS. I have a feeling that MS will talk more about PC this time around - DX 12 maybe?

If w_d was developed with pc in mind (which is what the dev promised but failed to deliver), how do you explain the terrible performance you get even on very high end rigs? And it's not the only game that had to compromise either, look at this : http://insiderp.com/list-of-sub-hd-games-on-ps4-xboxone.html

while the ps4 seems to be faring better, that list does not comprehend 1080p games that run at 30fps. The "optimization can get better" argument was valid on the ps3 because it had a very strange and innovative architecture, but the ps4 and xbone have x86 cores and gcn graphics cores, which developers know perfectly already. Titanfall is a pretty well optimized game (and not amazing looking I might add) and yet it runs at 720p on the xbone and I believe 1080p 30fps on the ps4. Maybe dx12 will help, but the difference will be marginal at best and still, pc will benefit from it too if not more so the gap can only get wider. We are literally talking apus with 7790s here, stuff that you would find on low end pcs and worst of all, stuff that has already been taken advantage of to the absolute max. It's literally bad pc hardware.

[KingCraigx]

Wow, just wow! This video has been a massive eye opening to me as I was about to hand over my hard earned money yesterday and im so glad I didnt!

I mean yeah there will be patches for the game to fix little bugs but for the physics and car movement there is no chance of that changing!

Just going to have to hop that there will be some graphic enhancer packs later on that external users have made

[thewhitestig]

If w_d was developed with pc in mind (which is what the dev promised but failed to deliver), how do you explain the terrible performance you get even on very high end rigs? 

There is no such thing as "PC in mind" or "PC is a lead platform". It's a myth. They always bring back the features to the lowest common denominator. All the core functinalities and game mechanics like the the AI, the physics engine, the rendering engine, character animations etc. need to be able to run on the consoles. The only thing they can add to the PC is some sparklier effects like explosions with more particles, better dust and smoke, better textures, water quality, physx, tressfx etc. In other worlds, they're just adding stuff on top of what already exists. They're not changing the core of how the engine functions and how much core features it provides.

 

 

And it's not the only game that had to compromise either, look at this : http://insiderp.com/list-of-sub-hd-games-on-ps4-xboxone.html

Compromises are made mainly because old gen is holding them back + they're hoarding development resources - manpower and money.

 

 

The "optimization can get better" argument was valid on the ps3 because it had a very strange and innovative architecture

It's also valid here, because developers are still not tapping into the GPGPU capabilities of both consoles. The Xbox 360 didn't have an innovative architecture but they still got way better graphics in 2013 than they were able to get in 2005. Even the difference between FC2 in 2008 and FC3 in 2012 is staggering. And just look at AC1 vs AC4. I'm telling you, just wait a few years and you'll see that you were wrong. There is much to be done on both consoles, even though they're both very weak in terms of hardware (at least compared to gaming PCs).  

 

 

Maybe dx12 will help, but the difference will be marginal at best and still, pc will benefit from it too if not more so the gap can only get wider. 

DX12 will not help. The Xbox One already has low level access to it's hardware. The only place where it can help is to provide more features. Good examples of new features to DX is tessellation introduced in DX11, and tiled resources in DX11.1. But DX12 will mainly help PCs, and bring them closer to consoles in terms of optimization. Basically what Mantle does. 

[_TechPuppet_]

Welp...

 

Saved me some money... Not buying this game now.. *cries in corner*

 

 

 

 

and I was so excited too...

[Sauron]

There is no such thing as "PC in mind" or "PC is a lead platform". It's a myth. They always bring back the features to the lowest common denominator. All the core functinalities and game mechanics like the the AI, the physics engine, the rendering engine, character animations etc. need to be able to run on the consoles. The only thing they can add to the PC is some sparklier effects like explosions with more particles, better dust and smoke, better textures, water quality, physx, tressfx etc. In other worlds, they're just adding stuff on top of what already exists. They're not changing the core of how the engine functions and how much core features it provides.

 

 

 

Compromises are made mainly because old gen is holding them back + they're hoarding development resources - manpower and money.

 

 

 

It's also valid here, because developers are still not tapping into the GPGPU capabilities of both consoles. The Xbox 360 didn't have an innovative architecture but they still got way better graphics in 2013 than they were able to get in 2005. Even the difference between FC2 in 2008 and FC3 in 2012 is staggering. And just look at AC1 vs AC4. I'm telling you, just wait a few years and you'll see that you were wrong. There is much to be done on both consoles, even though they're both very weak in terms of hardware (at least compared to gaming PCs).  

 

 

 

DX12 will not help. The Xbox One already has low level access to it's hardware. The only place where it can help is to provide more features. Good examples of new features to DX is tessellation introduced in DX11, and tiled resources in DX11.1. But DX12 will mainly help PCs, and bring them closer to consoles in terms of optimization. Basically what Mantle does. 

I'm not convinced, but I guess we'll see.