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Assassin's Creed Syndicate |OT| Once more unto the glitch
- Thread starter Skux
- Start date
CopperPuppy
Member
Are you trying to show that it's leaked already, or something?
A similar chart was previously posted.
A similar chart was previously posted.
Crossing Eden
Hello, my name is Yves Guillemot, Vivendi S.A.'s Employee of the Month!
I think the engine may have a memory leak issue since the same thing happens in Unity even after all the patches.
Last minute testing it seems. I wonder if the pc version will have settings for npc counts.
keltickennedy
Member
Just grabbed the PC version for $30. I can finally sink into it.
flipswitch
Member
Enjoying the game much more with the HUD off and it somewhat feels that the game is running smoother
CoachKevin
Member
Any word on how the pc version is?
Nope. I was happy with Unity, though, but I should note that by the time I got around to playing it (~March as I had to upgrade from two 2GB 670s to a 980), it'd received a few patches.
Mr.Fletcher
Member
Just stumbled into the
. Totally took me by surprise.
Loving it.
Played every mainline Assassin's Creed and for me this is the best title in the series. Enormous improvement on everything Unity was trying to do which, to its credit, was trying to push the franchise forward.
Great assassinations, excellent city, better movement (with less animation priority?), snappier combat, great new gameplay additions and a likeable cast.
Performance is good too.
World War One missions
Loving it.
Played every mainline Assassin's Creed and for me this is the best title in the series. Enormous improvement on everything Unity was trying to do which, to its credit, was trying to push the franchise forward.
Great assassinations, excellent city, better movement (with less animation priority?), snappier combat, great new gameplay additions and a likeable cast.
Performance is good too.
GavinUK86
Member
I was in a similar boat. Played Unity at launch, got about half way through on 2 660's then carried on with the rest with a 970 when I upgraded and it was far more enjoyable. I'm expecting Syndicate to be, at least, a little bit more optimised than Unity at launch.
For those of you who bought the season pass, could i get your input/opinions?
I am thinking of getting the season pass but i am about half way through the game. Is it worth it (the extras that you get immediately, not the jack the ripper dlc of course) since i am this far into the game?
With black flag i just waited and got the freedom cry dlc when it came out where you could purchase it individually.
So what do you guys think? Is the other stuff you get when you first purchase the season pass worth it if i am already half way through the game?
I am thinking of getting the season pass but i am about half way through the game. Is it worth it (the extras that you get immediately, not the jack the ripper dlc of course) since i am this far into the game?
With black flag i just waited and got the freedom cry dlc when it came out where you could purchase it individually.
So what do you guys think? Is the other stuff you get when you first purchase the season pass worth it if i am already half way through the game?
Yeah, Unity doesn't like having less than 3GB of VRAM to play with in the slightest. Even at low settings I'd eventually get slight but persistent stuttering that completely vanished when I installed the 980.
I'd settled on the 970 myself with a view to SLI, but after "3.5GB-gate" I figured I might as well pay the costly premium for a true 4GB card, just in case. (Needless to say, SLI is no longer on the cards; instead, I'm hoping just the one 980 will be enough to hold me over until Pascal.)
The Last Wizard
Member
Just beat the game,
are the queen Victoria missions any good?
flipswitch
Member
My first assassin's creed game, I bought it about a week or two ago then took it back a few days later after installing it 3 times. Last week I bought it again after looking at some videos of it , and so far I'm really liking.
I think everything just clicked. Removing the HUD made for a more immersive experience and I felt the gameplay improved because of that.
The setting is perfect.
I always wanted a game set in the Victoria era. Sure we had The Order but that's just a tiny corridor compared to Syndicate. I wanted something big to explore. Love all the landmarks and the attention to detail is beyond anything I've experienced in a game.
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How well did Unity sell?
I think everything just clicked. Removing the HUD made for a more immersive experience and I felt the gameplay improved because of that.
The setting is perfect.
I always wanted a game set in the Victoria era. Sure we had The Order but that's just a tiny corridor compared to Syndicate. I wanted something big to explore. Love all the landmarks and the attention to detail is beyond anything I've experienced in a game.
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How well did Unity sell?
Crossing Eden
Hello, my name is Yves Guillemot, Vivendi S.A.'s Employee of the Month!
Around 10 million combined with Rogue.
EDIT:Evie's outfit for the next free dlc.
That looks sharp.
Around 10 million combined with Rogue.
EDIT:Evie's outfit for the next free dlc.
Sweet. Any word on when it'll be out?
Dice//
Banned
So weird but I totally agree. Mystery played up really well in those games, I'm kinda worried the new ones don't.
They're ok. And you get a really cool looking cloak for Evie.
Crossing Eden
Hello, my name is Yves Guillemot, Vivendi S.A.'s Employee of the Month!
17th.
Yabberwocky
Member
It's the first season pass I've brought in my life without the DLC releasing first (I'm still kinda horrified I did it), so I can mention what I remember. I think I brought it when I was 1/5 of the way through?
-The Long Night mission is quick and fairly silly.
-The permanent EXP boost seems to only be active if you're online, but it is fairly useful regardless, as it seems to apply to acquaintance missions as well (someone please correct me if I'm wrong). There is unfortunately a little obnoxious EXP boost sign to the right of the mini-map when it's active.
-The 500 Helix points are useful for map buying (ie. music box or glitch maps, I bought the music box map with the 500 points).
-The Steampunk Pack comes with a extremely powerful gauntlet (it might nearly be at attack 10?), though I didn't find the rest of the items as useful for my play style. It seems to really work for other people, however.
I don't regret my purchase, but I was planning to get both of the DLC anyway, so I thought I might as well get the benefits out of getting it sooner. If you're not 100% on the DLC, you're not missing out on a lot. It's only really the added conveniences that the season pass brings.
Net_Wrecker
Member
Really bugs me how short the night portion of the day/night cycle is. Not only is twilight + nighttime when the game looks its best, but both are also when it looks the most stereotypically Victorian/Industrial London. Makes no sense that you spend what feels like the most of a ~40 minute cycle in bright light but the game speeds through these misty, dark moments.
In the interest of sparking some discussion about the future of this franchise I'd like to discuss the October NPD sales figures for this game. It was revealed that the game marks an 80+% decline in debut sales over past entries. For some context here are figures for previous entries' debuts compared with Syndicate.
As fans of this series what are y'all's thoughts on this? First impressions are obviously that Unity severely damaged the franchise but could there be some other causes that I and others not quite as in tune with the franchise might not know about? What bearing do you feel this will have on the future of the series?
As fans of this series what are y'all's thoughts on this? First impressions are obviously that Unity severely damaged the franchise but could there be some other causes that I and others not quite as in tune with the franchise might not know about? What bearing do you feel this will have on the future of the series?
thanks for the helpful info. i think i will go ahead and pick it up. i will use those helix points for the glitch map i think. i have over 500 at the moment so the 500 will give me the 1000 needed for it.
I'll start off by saying that I have not yet played Unity or Syndicate so I can't comment on the quality of those games. Also, I apologize for the wall of text.
A couple of months ago I was thinking about the popularity of the AC series. I was surprised how well the series was doing considering that the franchise, I feel, doesn't have a lot of mainstream appeal. There are some things that elevate the series: setting, art, parkour, but there's no denying that the series has grown stale. Then I saw the sales for Syndicate...
No doubt Syndicate is suffering for the faults of its predecessor and I feel as though the game had a poor marketing campaign which certainly doesn't help. Maybe Americans just don't care for the setting. Also, October was a very poor month for everyone and I'm sure November and December will help soften the blow. Even so, those numbers are abysmal. Ubi has to be concerned with the future of the franchise.
As to why the series has deflated so much, the Ubisoft Open-World Formula is holding the franchise back but it seems Ubi is afraid of changing things up too much. The annualization of the series means that change is slow to happen, as in it takes a couple of iterations to see the changes take hold. Franchise fatigue has no doubt set in and probably was the case when Black Flag came out. However, that title came out at an opportune time early in the generation and Unity was a true "next-gen" game. Syndicate has done nothing to convince people that its special in anyway. Positive WoM will help it but there's no recovering from those numbers.
I think its time to give the series a break, it's running out of steam. I love AC and don't want to see it go anywhere - I'm currently marathoning the series and trying to catch up to the newest games - but the franchise needs some time to recharge; give enough time for people to renew their interest, give the devs time to tackle the series with fresh ideas, a bold setting and story that will get people talking, etc.
For instance, what are they doing with the modern day stuff? It used to have some sense of progression to it but now seems to serve as a distraction and I've read many opinions that feel it breaks the flow and immersion. They've turned it into a self-referential satire which is funny and all but isn't adding much to the games. I'm someone who likes the modern day aspect but it seems Ubi has no idea what they're doing with it (perhaps the newest games have changed that?).
Ultimately, a more sensible release schedule should help significantly, a biannual release during the dry months of the year. AC isn't the money maker it used to be and it's time for Ubi to diversify, in fact, it's time for every large publisher to diversify; AAA games are being swallowed up by the AAAA juggernauts. I want to see future AC titles but at this rate I don't think it's sustainable.
panda-zebra
Member
Unity I'm not totally sure about. I've never played it having stayed the heck away due to all the negative talk, but from what I have seen on consoles vs what the PC offered, maybe even with WD to some extent, it's possible the designers and planners weren't expecting consoles that were so light on CPU resources with pretty weak low-power multi-core offerings. I think both games should have been well on in engineering and planning terms even before console devkits were on desks. I believe there was even some fuss at the time due to some PR blaming CPU performance. AFIAK, Black Flag was an adaptation of older tech - that's the last AC I played and enjoyed for the most part, it felt like more of the same just shinier at at the time that was all anyone could ask for, but maybe it gave people hope the next offering would be the real step up.
Franchise fatigue has to be something of a factor. From a recent presentation, the comment "UNRIVALLED capacity to RELEASE MANY open-worlds per year" we'd take as a given, but I sense all those open worlds and a slightly formulaic approach to creating titles cannot be sustainable without a little breathing space for each IP. AC doesn't get that. So the future of the series, they're maybe already on with creating one and engineering another given their usual timescales, in the shorter term I'm not sure how easily they could put the brakes on even if they wanted to.
Looking elsewhere in that document, their next big push could be targeting the earnings potential of multiplayer and keeping players locked in the way Destiny has - you can bet they along with many others have looked long and hard at what happened there and how they might leverage something in their locker in a similar vein. No idea how one would go about creating something that has that magic hook that keeps or kept players invested for so long.
From the same info, they mention the momentum for digital continuing, and they've been good about putting all those numbers out before. If I'm reading it correctly, it states digital represents 48% of total revenue in H1 FY16, now I'm not up in this stuff enough to know exactly what that entails, so wouldn't know how likely that might hint at a large number of digital copies of Syndicate to be added to that leaked ~400k retail number, but I don't think it'll be insignificant - at least relatively given the volume there. Either way, the number will be well down on both expectations and previous entries all told.
Not at all surprised we're seeing another FC appear so soon after that did exceptionally well.
lunchtoast
Member
Beat it last night. Last one I played was 3 which was a disappoint. This is my favorite, good time setting, and the characters were great, I actually cared about them. Going to go back and 100% the main missions I missed and finish the rest of platinum.
Really enjoyed the last mission.
Just need to figure out how to counter shoot because I didn't get one :/
Also what's up with the drifting? It doesn't count half the time. I don't know how exact is has to be for it able to count, it's annoying.
Really enjoyed the last mission.
Just need to figure out how to counter shoot because I didn't get one :/
Also what's up with the drifting? It doesn't count half the time. I don't know how exact is has to be for it able to count, it's annoying.
Just the usual "We're doing out best" spiel plus this GameWorks video. Unity PC is actually quite solid, its dislike for <3GB VRAM aside, so I'll be surprised if Syndicate is worse, especially given it runs notably better on the two platforms on which Unity struggles. To Ubi's credit, the delay of Syndicate PC doesn't seem to be entirely "strategic" as the Steam version has seen a number of updates over the past week-and-a-bit.
Thank you for the link and your analysis.
I understand from a business perspective why they chase market trends but it still saddens me. Making their output bigger and narrower instead of leaner and wider is going to hurt the console industry. I'd argue it already has. I guess I'd like to see the console market become more like PC with tons of small titles, a number of mid-tier titles, and a few high budget titles. That was when the console industry was at its best IMO and it's more safe, less susceptible to the volatility of the market.
That "In-Game Monetization" part on slide 7 hurts me.
Just finished the game, I really enjoyed it!
I wasn't even sure I wanted to play this a month ago. But I'm glad I did - it's way better than Unity. This is my third AssCreed, and I enjoyed it almost as much as I did Black Flag. The game is fun and and everything worked smoothly. The story is nonsensical but the game is great overall.
I wasn't even sure I wanted to play this a month ago. But I'm glad I did - it's way better than Unity. This is my third AssCreed, and I enjoyed it almost as much as I did Black Flag. The game is fun and and everything worked smoothly. The story is nonsensical but the game is great overall.
Look! The Pie!
Member
Man, Westminster and the Strand look gorgeous at night. Also, just had a hilarious moment where I failed a mission because
Florence Nightingale accidentally stepped out in front of a carriage and got herself killed. God dammit, Flo!
petethepanda
Member
This is an insanely good-looking game, it really doesn't seem to get enough credit for that, but the one thing that drives me fucking insane is the reflections. I get that real time reflections are more expensive than these consoles can probably handle, but nothing quite breaks the illusion like seeing something like a lamp stretching down to a puddle and then not having a reflection. (Safe to assume the PC version will have options for beefier reflections? Haven't played one on PC since 2.)
Edit: One other thing about the game I don't think I've mentioned. I love that you can quickly descend buildings now, and I get that the game just isn't really about the somewhat complex wall-scaling that it used to revolve around, but when you're fast descending, I wish they would just slightly shorten up the gaps between the points you make contact with the wall. At this point you're practically taking two stories at a time, I'd love it if it were just slightly slower and still gave at least a bit of a feeling of actually climbing on stuff.
Edit: One other thing about the game I don't think I've mentioned. I love that you can quickly descend buildings now, and I get that the game just isn't really about the somewhat complex wall-scaling that it used to revolve around, but when you're fast descending, I wish they would just slightly shorten up the gaps between the points you make contact with the wall. At this point you're practically taking two stories at a time, I'd love it if it were just slightly slower and still gave at least a bit of a feeling of actually climbing on stuff.
Thank you for your in depth response. Sorry for the late reply, I just woke up. I think you're right about the yearly release. franchise fatigue certainly seems to be a large contributions factor. Part of the reason it is such a big problem is because (aside from setting) the AC games all feel incredibly similar as of the are cookie cutter copies of each other with little to no iteration in design or gameplay between releases. I whole heartedly agree that extra time is necessary to take it back to the drawing board so to speak.
I do think that the positive WOM might lead to some decent sales this holiday season. I'm not sure how many consumers were just waiting to make sure the game didn't suffer the same glitchy issues as its predecessor before buying but surely it's a decent sized group.
That's an interesting point about the CPUs. What sort of performance do you think they were expecting the next ten consoles to have CPU wise? Even if it was lower than expected shouldn't their engine be fairly scalable since they are using the sabe engine they used last gen?
As far as your pint about digital I don't see why AC would differ vastly from industry norms on that front. As such I'm sure they fall somewhere between 15% and 25% which given their low retail sales wouldn't be much. Do you feel like it would differ from the average ? If so why?
Seems like the standard lead up to a Ubisoft PC game. I skipped Unity so I'm not sure about that one. I'm hopeful since Black Flag actually had a decent port aside from the 30fps v-sync bug.
I really hope the PC port is good because I returned the PS4 due to the poor frame rate despite quite liking the game and aesthetic.
keltickennedy
Member
I did the same thing. Played a bit of the PS4 version. Now waiting for PC.
Crossing Eden
Hello, my name is Yves Guillemot, Vivendi S.A.'s Employee of the Month!
The thing is that they've done multiple huge shakeups of the formula before. Last year included. In fact they did a whole retrospective series that go in-depth about the changes made. (Despite what some who haven't even played the newer ones might say). I mean AC3-ACU was a ridiculous transition with three different eras that feel remarkably different. Unfortunately if you follow social media AC is one of those series where it's "fun" to make fun of it despite the positive reception. Hopefully when next year's title gets announced there won't be as much retrospective vitriol or "remember Unity" bullshit. UbiQuebec put a ton of work into the title and remained positive despite constant vitriol, so hopefully digital sales and the pc release bring in a good profit so they can continue as a secondary lead studio, not to mention that UbiMontreal got an extra year of dev time which according to them, the results that we should be seeing quite soon. I'm sure that Franchise fatigue would be more prevalent if they choose to do another European single city game while woking on the next major overhaul.
Despite my thirst for snowy Russia
Fairly late game spoilers
Probably the only real major blemish of the game. That and the kidnapping missions.
The WW I stuff is pretty trashy. It doesn't look like they did much work to the world for it despite trying to act like it's a whole other world within a world thing. I think they would have been better suited to do it like they did the Unity equivalent and I really liked those. More than the base game. But this feels so out of place, like I don't care about this girl at all especially because it follows two Jacob missions that made me more attached to him as a character. It just feels unncessary and the alien shit is THE worst
Probably the only real major blemish of the game. That and the kidnapping missions.
Crossing Eden
Hello, my name is Yves Guillemot, Vivendi S.A.'s Employee of the Month!
The next one should have more protagonists with their own mini sandbox. Lydia's backstory is quite interesting and it comes through in the tiny amount of screentime that she gets. The atmosphere also manages to feel quite different despite being a mini sandbox. Amazed that they kept it a secret as well during the marketing.
I really don't think you are being fair here Eden. THe series by and large has maintained the same gameplay and same style of open world across every single entry with very minor changes between each release. I think there is an argument to be made that playing such a similar experience every single year can definitely cause fatigue.
I also think its pretty ridiculous to play this off as if this all because of those evil consumers who just didn't know how good the games really were. Unity had issues. Ubisoft made that bed and they have to lie in it. People are going ot judge future releases off the mistakes and failures made with previous entries especially in the case of a yearly release franchise.
Honestly you seem to be incredibly dismissive of the consumers viewpoint here. Instead of dismissing the criticism as unwarranted hate you should consider what they have to say since they are responsible for the success and/or decline of the series. As a fan of the series you should want it to succeed and part of that is responding to the feedback/criticisms and wishes of their user base. If UbiSoft treats the issues like you seem to with a handwaive and then puts out more of the same I have no doubt that the series will continue to decline.
They're good. They're very similar to the regular story missions.
Crossing Eden
Hello, my name is Yves Guillemot, Vivendi S.A.'s Employee of the Month!
Well no, the series core is the same. You will be parkouring, sneaking and assassinating enemies in each entry just like you'll be fighting covenant in halo or treasure hunting in Uncharted, but there are fundamental differences especially when they majorly overhaul the gameplay systems and aesthetics. For instance, how is the American Revolution in anyway shape or form the same style as the Caribbean or French Revolution? The activities are quite different, the aesthetic is incredibly different, even returning activities are quite different. I feel it's just as dismissive to act dismiss the amount of changes that've happened over the series(along with the improvements) while referring to each game as "essentially the same thing." Especially if you haven't played the newest entries. Yes the sales of this entry are suffering in the same way that AC4's sales suffered after 3. The seemingly reduced marketing campaign certainly didn't help. It does remain to be seen how the pc version fares.
petethepanda
Member
Are side missions like Marx / Dickens / etc required for the platinum? Can't seem to find a concrete answer (hesitant to dig much deeper and wind up spoiling stuff for myself).
I mean, you could make the same argument for the Call of Duty series, but they all feel pretty samey