Anyone else disappointed with Watch Dogs?

There's already a meme, also Wash Dogs (FGI)

The problem isn't the shooting which the cover system almost ruins sometimes, but that level design and poor AI make stealth frustrating while shooting is easy

Like you keep getting spotted by stupid shit, BUT you can literally shoot someone in front of the other enemy npcs and it wont give you away or set off an alarm, because there isnt any

Now I just camp outside an opening behind a box with the specops 1911 and headshot every npc that comes walking out, one after the other, and the other npcs are like "what that!"

WATCH_DAWGS: TACTICAL DOG WATCHING ACTION

 

I found it pretty boring. The story gave me no motivation to play as it was pretty much just Max Payne. The hacking stuff and stealth crap gets old fast and the driving is terrible.

 

I knew it would be crap the second I found out they were going to make this a yearly franchise.

 

I have finished Act I last sunday and haven't played since then. I found the driving bad and the hacking is not that cool, I was expecting more. The game looks nice but I have seen better looking games on my PS4.

 

The driving is much better if you use the cockpit view, but it's still not very good. It's kind of baffling how the last-gen versions have apparently been toned down graphically, since on PS4 the game doesn't really even look as good as GTA V.

 

Leverage marathon today. All Ubisoft had to do was make a game starring Hardison. How the hell could they screw that up?

 

They couldn't even get it to 1080p 60fps on Next gen platforms. They can TRY to blame it on the hardware but when other games at least on PS4 anyway are doing 1080p 60fps then the whole thing reeks of laziness. Not that I care if a game is 1080p and 60fps, My TV only supports 1080i but still after all that delaying you still couldn't properly optimise the game?

 

so was all the graphics at the E3 demo was just CGI then?

 

It's not as bad as Aliens Colonial Marines, but this is another situation when graphics and gameplay promises were too much and not being achieved in the final product. I would put in the same place as Bioshock Infinite. At some parts, it looks like the 2012 E3 demo is a generation ahead.

 

Oh really? Ugh.

I had no expectations for the game to look/play like it did in that first demo that got everyone excited.

 

So anyone want to sell their Deadsec edition on PS3/PS4 (preferably out of Aus/UK, but will buy US)...?

 

Perhaps, then again this looks like something out of a late PS4 game or in a CG Live Action movie type or similar i guess. so, the question would be, what game engine was they REALLY using at the demo before the downgrade?!

 

So, it seems like Ubisoft intentionally downgraded the PC version to look closer to console ports. Some people already found hidden code that allow improving the visual quality and performance.

The Worse, creator of the mod on Guru3d, has made massive discoveries/improvements. He has discovered that almost all of the shaders and improvements seen in 2012 and 2013 are still in the game files, such as the e3 2012 explosions. For now he has managed to implement dynamic shadows from headlights, the increased rain density, increased NPC density, as well as 2012 e3 bloom and lens flare.
When he manages to unpack certain files, he will be able to activate everything, such as POMs, etc.

Included in this mod(not all features are available yet):
-Changes to the default fog values
-Enabled bokeh DOF for the main cameras
-Stuttering Improvements
-E3 2012 Bloom
-Performance Improvements
-Enabled Headlight Shadows
-LoD Changes
-Reflection changes
-Added 3 new cameras to the game(closer, normal, further)
-Rain changes(High quality rain drops, properly reacting to light, etc)
-LensFlares(WIP)
-Lighting changes(TESTING AND WIP)
-Civilians density changes

And many more things.. SOON.

More info here: http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=838538
Official TheWorse Mod topic : http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?t=390114

This picture is actually embarrassing though:



It's actually hilarious that a game about hacking, needs to be hacked to be actually look like it should. It started of with those few values being changed to '1', and now TheWorse has dug up a few more effects by unpacking the files.

 

Interesting.

As someone who knows nothing about current gen cross platform development...could this be for an innocuous / legitimate reason? Better game stability across the plethora of PCs perhaps? (Surely one could implement a turn off feature function to cover that?)

Or is it more nefarious, pressure from the XB1 / PS4 honchos to not outshine their babies (too much)?

Haven't seen any official word...

 

Oh this is rich, they crippled the PC version so none of the PS4/XB users would feel butthurt?

I bet someone paid them a pretty penny for that *cought*microsoftandsony*cough*

 

Actually, since most of the pre-orders were usually from consoles versions, i think they did this on purpose to not have people complaing about a shitty port over a "better" PC version.

Anyway, something rather interesting was discovered that might understand the game's poor performance. The game loads all textures twice:

And to you second question; apparently, for some technical reasons I don't understand, Watch_Dogs loads all texture twice:

Originally Posted by MaLDo

The game uses a very surreal texture implementation. For every texture, there is a basic texture with mipmaps and a higher resolution texture without mipmaps. Lower texture quality uses the medium mip of the regular texture as max. Medium texture quality uses the regular texture and high texture quality (called ultra ingame) uses regular texture BUT blend to higher texture for close ups. Close up distance depends of screen resolution. So it's a pixel/texel ratio in the end.

The problem is that I think gpu drivers are not optimized to load in memory every texture twice. They are optimized to mess with mipmaps to avoid shimmering and to save memory. Walking or driving in watch dogs implies you need to load a new big texture every time a material is near the camera. It's not the same that showing the big mip of the texture already loaded.

 

the only issue i found with watch dogs was that it was same same , once youve done 4 missions or so the rest seam to be very alike

 

I heard about the E3 values, what a utter joke. Ubisoft has probably lost a lot people's trust now.

 

Not really, if you head to the average game site everybody is hyped about teh divishun!

 

I'm waiting for the Wii U version... n.n