AC Unity runs poorly on PC...and on consoles too

[mizifih]

[mizifih]

http://www.forbes.com/sites/insertcoin/2014/11/12/congratulations-ubisoft-youre-the-new-ea/

Congratulations Ubisoft, You're The New EA

Yesterday, the dam broke for Ubisoft, and the gaming press and gaming public stopped fighting each other after two months of GamerGate warfare to turn toward a new common enemy. In fact, Ubisoft seems to have crossed so many lines with their recent Assassin’s Creed dual release, that critical disdain and public outrage over their policies has reached EA levels of fervor.

EA, twice voted the worst company in America by extremely zealous anti-fans, hasn’t entirely avoided controversy this year. There’s still the forever-question of “was Titanfall a failure?” hanging over their heads with sales data apparently locked in a safe and buried under two hundred feet of concrete somewhere in Redwood. Then there was some kerfuffle with The Sims and swimming pools which I could never really wrap my mind around. But for the most part, they’ve kept their heads down this year and generally avoided fan ire. In fact, they’ve even scored a huge win with the apparently great Dragon Age: Inquisition, if you can believe the reviews of more or less every major gaming outlet.

But this has been an especially bad year for Ubisoft, and it’s only gotten worse as of yesterday. Whereas EA is usually cast as a corporate industry villain, Ubisoft isn’t normally quite as persecuted. Before this, their most memorable controversies involved overly-intrusive DRM, but now? They’re being painted as the face of everything wrong with modern gaming, from deceptive marketing to recycled concepts to crass monetization.

Here’s a list of the charges from this year alone, in rough chronological order:

- Watch Dogs was accused of “overdressing” E3 footageto look incredibly cinematic, yet the final product was a less remarkable visual experience and far from the next-gen graphical revolution that was promised.

- Watch Dogs failed to live up to its own hype, much of it arguably put forth by Ubisoft, or at least Ubisoft working through the press. The game was serviceable, but unremarkable, which was deemed a sin by the public given how much was promised.

- During E3 2014, Ubisoft stumbled over questions about why the recently revealed Assassin’s Creed Unity didn’t have playable female characters, saying that it was simply too much work to animate.

- Ahead of the Assassin’s Creed Unity launch, Ubisoft revealed the game would be locked at 30 FPS to create a more “cinematic” experience, an explanation fans deemed a PR whitewash of a technical hurdle they were simply unable or unwilling to overcome

- Arriving at the launch of Assassin’s Creed Unity, review copies were given out to critics, but with the stipulation that their reviews could not go live until 12 full hours after the game’s midnight launch. Then, when it was revealed that Unity suffered from a myriad of technical problems across all platforms (including framerate, ironically), the move looked to many like an attempt by Ubisoft to sell day one copies to fans before any negative press could get out regarding the technical problems or the quality of the game itself.

- Assassin’s Creed Unity features a number of troubling gameplay elements, including microtransactions that offer in-game currency for packages priced as high as $99. Past that, the game scatters chests throughout the map that canonly be accessed if you game is connected via an AC app or Uplay.

- Far Cry 4 is yet to be released, but already fans are wary of the game also becoming a part of Ubisoft’s new “annual” release schedule, accusing it of looking like extended DLC rather than a meaningful evolution of the series.

 In general, fans decry Ubisoft’s constant use of an extremely similar formula across all their major series, including capture points on an open world map and a huge amount of copy/paste sidequests and collectibles, which may have reached their peak with the drowning-in-icons AC: Unity map.

That’s eight different controversies, each a differing level of seriousness, but all come together to form a picture of a company that seems to be on the wrong track, at least according to the fans who buy its products.

The oldest charge is one that’s going to resonate well into the future. Ubisoft has been a master of creating eye-catching, buzz-building cinematic trailer for their games, using actual pre-rendered CGI, but also stylized gameplay. But the problem is now, the gameplay shown at events like E3 simply doesn’t match the final product. That was most prominently on display with Watch Dogs, but it’s already happening again with The Division, which seems to get less visually impressive the closer it gets to becoming a reality. The issue now is that Ubisoft can show any kind of visually spectacular footage and be met with claims of “well it won’t look like that at launch.”

Some of the intermediate issues are relatively minor and industry-wide. Ubisoft botched the playable female character question with Unity, but obviously more women in meaningful lead roles is something that is not an entirely Ubisoft-specific problem. Neither is the eternal loop of hype-building between publishers, the press and fans, building up games with impossible promises and expectations, and then having them be let-downs at launch as a result.

But the most recent issues with Unity are serious and related to Ubisoft directly. The “weaponized review embargo” as Polygon’s Ben Kuchera recently put it, was a nasty bit of a game-playing that looked entirely self-serving and was the largest issue that managed to unite a feuding games press with their readers for the first time in months.

Though Ubisoft has mostly avoided EA-style disasters of launching games to inoperable servers, as their games are mostly single-player, the technical problems with Unity are a different sort of launch issue, and one that’s just as serious. It’s here that we see the cracks starting to show in Ubisoft’s newfound mandatory yearly release schedule for Assassin’s Creed, and now presumably Far Cry as well. Essentially blackmailing the press with a bizarre embargo time (either you agree to it or you don’t get review copies any more) let players pick up the game on good faith alone before anything negative could be written about it. But that’s the problem with “ good faith;” it goes away.

The gaming public is quickly becoming wary of what companies like Ubisoft are doing. As I mentioned earlier, glorious, too-good-to-be-true E3 footage is going to draw skeptics going forward after what happened this year. And huge AAA games which are forcing post-launch review embargos on the press are going to look like they have something to hide. These are tricks you can pull only so many times before your customers catch on. There’s a fine line between doing what you have to do to sell your product, and tricking (formerly) loyal customers into picking a game they might not have bought otherwise if they had all the facts.

In terms of Ubisoft’s struggles with what their roster of games actually contains, Unity is full of rotten ideas for the “future of games,” whether its $99 microtransaction bundles in a $60 game, or locked chests that can only be opened with companion iPhone apps. Though Ubisoft isn’t the first company to use microtransactions in full-retail games or try to shoehorn in their own services or apps, they’re doing it in a way with Unity that is simply obnoxious, and between these items and the multiple-AC-games-per-year release schedule, it looks desperate, like they’re trying to squeeze every single drop of blood out of the stone. Say what you will about an also-annual franchise like Call of Duty that many view as derivative and sometimes exploitative, but even they’re not offering $99 “unlock all guns” bundles. Yet.

A common refrain when we deal with these kinds of issues is that “well, publishers need to make money.” I understand that, but there’s a limit to what you can do without completely alienating your customers. You have a game like Elder Scrolls Online (not Ubisoft) which has A) a traditional box-copy cost B) a subscription model and C) in-game microtransactions. And how big of a hit was that game? Game developers can’t have it all. Even if a game like AC: Unity is only doing two out of three, there are gamers out there who remember when “unlock everything” was a cheat code in single-player games, and now it’s a $99 macrotransaction.

Yes, making games is expensive, and especially so when it comes to AAA blockbusters, but the further we get down this road, the less the “games are art” argument seems to apply. Assassin’s Creed can be a fun, thoughtful, intelligent series when it’s at its best. Why does it have to be forcefully milked by its own publisher with rushed-out sequels, cash-grab microtransactions and “enchanced” elements like app-locked chests? It’s like if after Gladiator won an Oscar, there was a new sequel released every year, and by the time Gladiator 5 rolls around, you’re paying 50% more to see it in 3D and you have to download an app to watch bonus scenes on your iPad.

The film/TV comparisons are always tough because games have the unprecedented ability to charge for anything and everything, whereas all other forms of media can do is raise ticket prices or subscription rates. Non-F2P, non-indie video games have the $60 price point locked in place, and now publishers are trying to figure out how games can cost $100 or more between DLC season passes, microtransactions, subscriptions and more. Ubisoft is rushing out games and trying controversial revenue generation all at the same time, and it’s not just creating a poor user experience, it’s making them look sloppy and cavalier about their relationship with their fanbase.

Yesterday, I talked about how the Assassin’s Creed franchise needed to slow down or it would go off the rails completely, but now I’m starting to realize that this seems like it applies to Ubisoft as a whole. EA lost consumer trust more or less completely for a period of time, and is just now starting to earn it back. But this year, Ubisoft has fallen into the same trap in different ways, with consumers no longer trusting their advertising (because of enhanced footage) or their retail releases (because of an apparent attempt to silence the press). And in pumping out more games from their beloved series more often, they’re diluting all the properties involved by rushing out a final product that doesn’t have enough time to be an innovative evolution for the series, or one is filled with technical issues. Or both.

Consumers want:

A) A product that looks like what was advertised

B) Not to be talked down to in PR speak

C) A working product at launch

D) To be respected for shelling out $60 for a new game, and not goaded into paying even more

These are not difficult goals to accomplish, and it’s amazing how far a little honesty will go in an industry where consumers constantly feel misled. Obviously every company exists to make money, but when your customers feel deceived or like their loyalty is being exploited, you’ve taken a wrong turn. And Ubisoft has taken at least a half dozen wrong turns this year, and now seem to be lost in the labyrinth EA only recently escaped from.

 I’ve reached out to Ubisoft for comment for this story, but have not heard back at the time of publishing.

 

[mizifih]

[mizifih]

Everything happens for a reason

 

[MoonSpot]

Pre ordering makes no sense for digital downloads period.  Back in the day of physical media when pre-orders had physical bonuses and even some that had metal cases or special packaging it was a different story and could be a thing for collectors to justify(Lunar silver and blue stories, metal gear 4, resident evil 4, devil may cry 3 etc). 

But now?  Digitally downloaded artwork is a bonus instead of advertising hype? 

[mizifih]

Trolling

 

[shiftberry]

"Next-gen"

[.spider.]

http://www.finanzen.net/aktien/Ubisoft_Entertainment-Aktie

Almost 10% stock price lost

Edit: I am too late.

[WelshDdraig]

TotalBiscuit has just said on his Twitter

Oh well. My earlier post is no longer valid. shame. I honestly wanted to know his opinion on the game.

[Rohith_Kumar_Sp]

jesus christ Ubisoft 

[Faa]

Why? Nvidia Games Work's claimed reason to exist is optimization for the PC. All the recent Games Works tiles have horrible optimization/performance problems.

 

Daylight, Lords of the Fallen, Watch Dogs. AC. 

Bit hard to blame Gameworks for being the cause of bad performance.

Lets have a look at the driver overhead tests where AMD performs quite shitty without Mantle;

50% difference between a 290x/780 ti under a 4770K?

50% again? That's one Gameworks game. 2nd then.

Before people are going to misunderstand me, go get an idea what it means that drivers can cause overhead on the CPU which could lead into a possible CPU bottleneck and therefore limiting a GPU's full potential. The 290X wasn't in any of these tests running at full load because they were held back by the CPU due to lots of overhead from the driver.

Heres a good article, remember the driver nvidia brought out with "wonder driver reducing CPU bottlenecks" with 337.50? Their aim was to reduce CPU bottlenecks by reducing the overhead the drivers could cause which gave a massive boost and countering Mantle. Without Mantle, AMD really performs horrible compared to Nvidia when you're cpu limited; http://pclab.pl/art57235-3.html

Lets not blame Gameworks if AMD can't bring proper CPU's out & not being aware of their drivers causing too much cpu overhead.

[bomerr]

Pre-order, in my case, died with Watch_Dogs and Early Access died with DayZ.

destiny for me. 

[mizifih]

destiny for me.

Oh yeah, Activision. There's a rumor, because it can't be real, that Destiny 2 is already in development. Don't know how far it is under development, but either they knew it was going to be a hit three years ago when they started the first one, or they saw they have a new cow to milk and got it all started asap.

[bomerr]

Oh yeah, Activision. There's a rumor, because it can't be real, that Destiny 2 is already in development. Don't know how far it is under development, but either they knew it was going to be a hit three years ago when they started the first one, or they saw they have a new cow to milk and got it all started asap.

Honestly I don't blame Activision, I think Bungie was mostly at fault for what happened with Destiny. 

 

Bungie signed a 10-year 3 or 4 game contract with Activision. That's the something as pre-order. Install of buying a product because it's good they signed a contract to develop games based entirely on reputation. 

[OlekKing]

Made a GIF for this special occasion.

This Holiday season...

 

Ubisoft...

In...

Assassin's Creed...

 

They just keep on digging...

 

[thebennyboy]

- snip -

 

Why do you always have to turn these threads into AMD vs Nvidia/Intel? Also, the 290X performs badly in Watch Dogs... Ye... That must mean it's terrible. Get a grip, this is not a competition. AC Unity runs like shit on most setups right now due to just general poor optimisation, i don't however blame Nvidia for that. AMD and Nvidia have already pushed out new drivers to improve performance, there is only so much they can do with such a poorly optimised game. Watch Dogs & AC Unity, along with most Ubisoft titles.

[Faa]

Why do you always have to turn these threads into AMD vs Nvidia/Intel? Also, the 290X performs badly in Watch Dogs... Ye... That must mean it's terrible. Get a grip, this is not a competition. AC Unity runs like shit on most setups right now due to just general poor optimisation, i don't however blame Nvidia for that. AMD and Nvidia have already pushed out new drivers to improve performance, there is only so much they can do with such a poorly optimised game. Watch Dogs & AC Unity, along with most Ubisoft titles.

The 290X DOESNT perform badly in WD. I'd take a 290x anytime over a 780 for WD because I want to run all settings max'ed out 4GB > 3GB. Haven't you seen the benchmarks I included how much of a difference Nvidia's "wonder driver" or Mantle actually makes? Many games don't have DX support and AMD can fall hard behind as we seen and that's NOT because the processing power is lacking. Just to clarify a 290x performance's is 5-10% better or worse than a 780 Ti as far as I can remember, I actually don't care which one is faster and I won't be arguing about that. 

If you noticed they ran 720p & low settings for WD to simulate a CPU bottleneck for both GPU's so they can find out which one does better which then gives us a conclusion that AMD drivers cause more CPU overhead. Theyre not aiming to test which GPU performs better, trying to keep the GPU far away from their maximum load. In a normal GPU test they have to aim keeping all GPU's at 99% but you don't do this when you're trying to find out which drivers have more CPU overhead. More reviews need to do these kinds of tests just to wake AMD up, remember back when a few reviewers started to test frame latencies that made AMD improving it? Same thing has to happen here.

I actually give a fuck about supporting Nvidia, if this was the other way around I'd have said the same things

[ajoy39]

maybe that 8350 is holding your GPUs by a bit

1) It's in the games recommended specs 

2) It's barely using a single core of my processor

3) That shouldn't matter. If they're expecting people to have better than an 8350 to play this game ON MEDIUM that's their problem. Yes the 8350 is outdated at this point, but it's still an 8 core processor running at 4.4 ghz on my machine, and has yet to be my bottleneck in anything but single threaded minecraft (yes, I see the irony in minecraft running terrible on my PC)

[Guest Kloaked]

I have to agree with @deathjester , so far no games came out properly with Gameworks installed. The only thing it does is to harm AMD gamers with bad performance as they have no access to the source code used for these graphical effects. Reminds me of Nvidia Physix, sucks on both brands.

 

If you didn't notice, these recent GameWorks titles have been from Ubisoft.

 

If Witcher 3 runs fine on both vendor's cards, all of you should be forced to play nothing but Ass Creed for a whole year.

[Da'Argo]

Losing hope for Far Cry 4 at this point.

[Shahnewaz]

Ubisoft comments on pc http://forums.ubi.com/showthread.php/946542-AMD-Graphics-Cards-Compatibility-with-Assassin-s-Creed-Unity?s=9f546ef91d1aca615e955dc09c8aa2f5

 

Obviously cause it's a Gameworks / The Way It's Meant To be Screwed game. Remember Crysis 2, Batman Arkham Origins ?

More news about AC:U problems on AMD hardware: http://www.pcgamer.com/ubisoft-acknowledges-assassins-creed-unity-problems-on-amd-hardware/

 

And if you didn't remember Nvidia's notorious acts:

http://techreport.com/review/21404/crysis-2-tessellation-too-much-of-a-good-thing

http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/173511-nvidias-gameworks-program-usurps-power-from-developers-end-users-and-amd

[mizifih]

Honestly I don't blame Activision, I think Bungie was mostly at fault for what happened with Destiny. 

 

Bungie signed a 10-year 3 or 4 game contract with Activision. That's the something as pre-order. Install of buying a product because it's good they signed a contract to develop games based entirely on reputation.

 

You're right. Activision is probably more of a distributor in this case. Nonetheless, Angry Birds: Star Wars costs like $45~$50 on PSN, so they're not that innocent. But they are not as bad as Ubisoft, as the article from Forbes says, and I quote, "there are gamers out there who remember when “unlock everything” was a cheat code in single-player games, and now it’s a $99 macrotransaction", I remember that, game shark so yeah, Ubisoft is in on its own and unique level of cow-milking.

 

PS: there's nothing micro about a $99 transaction.

[mikeeginger]

Well It's a triple A game on Launch game what were 

you expecting? These big publishers don't care about

you only Money so yer it's broken 

[mizifih]

Well It's a triple A game on Launch game what were

you expecting? These big publishers don't care about

you only Money so yer it's broken

I remember when Atari 2600, Nintendo, Genesis, Master System, Super Nintendo AAA titles were released flawlessly, no matter what developer.

[Shahnewaz]

http://wccftech.com/ubisoft-points-finger-amd-technical-bugs-assassins-creed-unity/

 

LOL Ubisoft is now blaming AMD for poor performance/bugs in AC Unity :lol:.

 

Ubisoft + Nvidia = The way it's meant to blame

 

The game (in its current state) is issuing approximately 50,000 draw calls on the DirectX 11 API. Problem is, DX11 is only equipped to handle ~10,000 peak draw calls. What happens after that is a severe bottleneck with most draw calls culled or incorrectly rendered, resulting in texture/NPCs pooping all over the place.

 

Perfect candidate for Mantle. Too bad AC Unity is a Gameworks title. I mean really Ubisoft ? You intentionally avoid the potential optimizations because?

Ubi: But.....beca.....because that's The Way It's Meant To Be Played! Right?

The way it's meant to be screwed.

 

GG Ubi and NV this title and Botch_Dogs are piles of dog shit. Maybe because you all of you guys we're busy becoming gay because Tim Cook went gay?