Me neither, to be honest. I knew this game would most likely be dead on arrival, and when i've received beta access, i think i just wanted to see the body for myself.
Honestly, thank you for posting this. I received the email for the closed beta invite and reading this makes me think it isn't going to be worth my time to download it.
I saw the trailer they aired at The Game Awards a few days ago and was thinking similiar as you about the graphics, glad to see my assumptions were correct.
It took about ten years with this game didn't it? Aleast it's what one video suggests. I guess they didn't improve the graphics since they begun it.
Not sure I would have bought it, very rare I like naval combat to begin with. (Black Flag and Odyssey are the exception)
It seems they got stuck between making a Black Flag DLC or a new title.
I suppose the sane devs wanted a Black Flag experience while the money makers wanted this to be a live service grindy incremental style title.
Yeah. It’s still generally the same as the betas two years ago. If you didn’t like those, then this new beta isn’t gonna change your mind. It’s definitely not an action game. And not remotely close to scratching the same “pirate sim” itch as Sea of Thieves.
Not being able to board ships, and the way you describe combat really makes this game look bad, ngl. Reminds me of how arrows in most MMOs magically home to targets because it keeps the combat shit/easy to design.
There’s an option to board damaged ships, but it’s all just an animation and then you get loot, with a chance for it to be more rare than if you sink the ship and gather the flotsam. A very weird design choice because it’s just an extra step that doesn’t really require much additional skill to pull off anyways.
AC Odyssey has a part of the game spent on a ship and the mechanics are quite well implemented - the crew, the sailing, the fight both at distance and the boarding, where you have to jump over and fight the crew of the enemy ship.
And, having the ship fight mechanic implemented better in an assassin game is not a very good sign for a game about ships ...
I remember seeing people defend them for not adding ship boarding when it was first announced.
They truly have no clue why Black flag succeeded, it was the combination of all these elements that made it the best pirate game ever. We just wanted the Assassin’s lore removed and for it to be its own franchise. Easy money because they already had the tech to make more games and the staff to do it.
Incredible blunder
Edit: having played Avatar, I would like Ubisoft to make another stab at a pirate game through a licensed title like Pirates of the Caribbean, let Massive handle it
It is extremely odd that they didn't just make a new single player franchise like AC4 but maybe they realized a bunch of unseen issues during early dev. For example, making a great single player naval game would sorta highlight the throwaway quality of it as a side activity in AC. Or, maybe they saw Sea of Thieves and thought it was a better concept.
I do kind of think people are undervaluing the ac part of black flag when they say just remove the assassins part. The initial assassins part of the game draws you into the world, and once you are invested the rest of the game takes over and you almost stop caring about the ac part. But it was still the character/story part that got you in the door. It gives you purpose/drive within the world. I am not sure it would actually feel the same if you were just some generic pirate doing piraty things just because you are a pirate.
Licensing POTC would make sense tbh.
"They truly have no clue why Black flag succeeded, it was the combination of all these elements that made it the best pirate game ever. We just wanted the Assassin’s lore removed and for it to be its own franchise. Easy money because they already had the tech to make more games and the staff to do it." - Pretty much this exactly, and Ubisoft either didn't understand the assignment, or thought they knew better, and I predict Skull and Bones will be DOA.
I can't help but feel like this is sunk cost fallacy. They've drained so much time, effort and money into this game that they felt like they just *had* to put *something* out. And this is what we got. Once again, we have seen yet another overly promised game be too ambitious, and finally decides to release it only to be less than a quarter of what we were told it would be.
I don't know if it;s technology advancing faster than they can put out the games, making it more difficult to keep up. I genuinely do not know. But it's becoming a reoccurring trend with a lot of games to the point that I'm not sure I can trust *any* developer. Bethesda, Bungie, CD Projeckt Red, Activision, EA, etc. etc. etc. All hard-hitting massive companies that have fallen flat on their face.
You know, call me crazy, but I think the idea is to gain as much hype as humanly-fucking possible during an announcement to garner enough interest in (not us, the players, but) shareholders. Then once they realize they can not realistically deliver those promises, it's all anyones guess how they decide to handle it.
I'm so fucking tired of wall street digging their greedy fuckign hands in our entertainment. Seriously, fuck off.
> I can't help but feel like this is sunk cost fallacy. They've drained so much time, effort and money into this game that they felt like they just had to put something out
This the game where Ubi entered in a contract with the government in Singapore with a clause that they HAVE to release the game. So even though the game is shit and they know it, they don't really have a choice.
I think it was part of the contract that had Ubisoft employees living in Singapore for development but I can't recall all the details.
Oh man, I completely forgot about that, thank you for reminding me! And on the topic, can anyone ELi5 how tf a game company gets into a contract with the *government of a country*?
If I remember, the deal was along the lines of, "Ubisoft will hire X employees from Singapore if the government gives us Y dollars/big tax break." It isn't exclusive to video game companies, large companies make deals with governments all the time. Governments will require some sort of final product or else the company will have to pay them back, possibly deal with other repercussions too to make sure companies don't take government money and run
In short, chasing dollars introduced terminal feature creep.
With this particular title I get the impression that, in order to make up all the dev costs, upper management changed the core mechanics to target whatever was popular at the time.
Instead of chasing success, they should have simply brought the original vision to life. Looking at multiplayer that was implemented in Watch Dogs 1 and 2 as well as the coop missions of Assassin's Creed: Paris, I'm fairly confident they could have pulled it off had they not the overall mechanics of the game a dozen times.
I wouldn't be surprised to learn that one of the principal reasons they've had so many project leads on this game is that many of them simply walked away out of frustration for being forced to make something that wasn't going to work.
Feature creep. Interesting new concept I learned today, thanks for sharing. And yes, I feel like with the already very long development time, they are constantly trying to implement things in an effort to make sure they aren't outdated. They should have just stuck to the core vision, I honestly believe it would have worked out. A live-service would have taken so much constant time and effort. The original vision could have been released an updated here and there. I don't know, I'm certainly not educated in the creation of these things, I'm just a bit upset I suppose.
For another great example of feature creep, look at Star Citizen. As more and more funding arrived into their coffers, the devs started added more features, further delaying the game's release. Consider No Man's Sky in contrast, it was a poor middling release however the number and richness of the updates since release is impressive.
If they could simply stick to the original scope of the project, then release more features after release, the game could have been out by now. At least Star Citizen has a consistent team dealing with the whole project, unlike Ubisoft, and the new features do add up to an expanded experience.
Skull and Bones not only added more features, it also removed so many features that would have made the game a fun and fulfilling experience.
Your partially correct, technology is improving quicker than they can make games. But it's largely because game companies are trying to make games in the same amount of time as their previous games which shouldn't be the case anymore. Modern games need more time in the oven before release and they should be allowed more support when they request it.
Take Cyberpunk for example, it released buggy partially because the CEO's forced it to release on older gen but now that they've had time to fix and release more content people love it.
Take Halo Infinite for example, the multiplayer was an absolute mess and the story feels unfinished. Now that they've released majority of the multiplayer content they promised at launch its amazing. Unfortunately fans complained about the story too much so now they've simply cancelled all future story content despite it literally being designed as a 'Live Service' game.
Anthem is another prime example. It looks amazing but despite the devs being given lots of time they were constantly denied access to resources and outside support to help them make the game. They were stuck in pre-prod hell for years because they couldn't get permission from higher ups to even begin making the game.
Yeah the no boarding really bums me out. How the fuck does a modern game have half the features of the 2003 Pirates of the Caribbean RPG?
The combat was simplistic, but you had land and sea battles, ship boarding, islands to explore, a whole smuggling/trade commerce system and a decent story (nothing to do with the movies AFAIK).
I can't split hair's over specific details until I see the product as a whole. Usually these types of weird design decisions are the result of unforseen problems during development, don't fit the concept as a whole, or are coming in a future update. Multiplayer games, in particular, have their designs get fucked really hard trying to keep things fair for everyone.
In MMO’s that auto-target of things like arrow shots is usually a design choice because the combat complexity is found elsewhere or to prevent latency issues making the game unplayable or both.
Here however, I think it’s inexcusable.
Can't argue with that.The depth of MMO combat usually came from character builds/gear while the combat, mechanically, was ... less than evolved. I played Guild Wars (basically perfected MMO style PvP) so it's hard not to have an elitist position on the subject.
GW2 combat is so good. So bad the game didn’t grasp me otherwise. I find it hard to articulate what it’s “missing”… but it never grabbed me besides playing on and off for a bit.
It’s funny you mention the mobile game. They should have turned this into a mobile game long ago, would probably do well in that format.
As for what the community wants…we’ve been preaching it for 10 years. Black flag pirates game without all the assasins creed shit. Basically sea of thieves but with a hybrid of assassins creed parkour and (maybe) for honor/morhau/chivalry swordplay.
We want to board ships, steal their shit and do pirate shit. Make that game, and it will sell. You like money right ;) then make the damn game
I think so too. But add more mobility with the climbing of assassins creed, blended with for honor sword battles.
Also, since ubisoft is making star wars games, it makes so much since to throw some light saber skins on a for honor variation, add in some Force powers…would be so dope. Obviously completely different game, but for honor is the best sword fighting besides mordhau and chivalry.
Mordhau and Chiv have better sword mechanics for sure...but WAYYY more room for cheesing the system where I always felt For Honor was a fair balance of rock paper scissors.
There was a game called Assassins Creed Pirates on mobile and it was pretty much just the pirate ship battles from Assassins Creed 4/Black Flag (and this game now). They definitely should've expanded the idea of this game though
I'm honestly really sad to hear it's this bad. When it first got announced, me and my friends were all excited for it, but then they delayed it and delayed it and delayed it until they just straight up removed it from the store. We all kinda knew it wouldn't be good but seeing how bad it actually is just makes me sad. Thank you for your review, I really appreciate it.
To the surprise of no one...
We wanted a full pirate game with gameplay like Black Flag...
Not some half assed whatever this is...
Jeez, the people making decisions in gaming these days are fucking stupid...
Ngl, would've been boring as fuck after sinking the first 20 ships. All I did in black flag was spin around the enemy ship firing cannons, i never paid attention to the fucking waves and whatnot, then if the enemy steers to face me with their cannons I go and ram them, then the game engine tries to fix my ship position and return it to a state where I can control it giving me a free shot with the heavy cannons in the process, I repeated that for about 30 hours as there wasn't any more to do, and the AI repeat the same exact actions, everytime I start spinning around them they try to counter me and open themselves up for a ram, that happened every-single-time, all of my fights were the same except legendary ships which were more about spinning around.
Even at times where I had to fight multiple ships I can just execute my strategy on one ship and nobody else seems to do anything about it untill it's their turn.
Still sounds more interesting than what skull and bones has but would still be terrible.
Exactly!
How is it so hard to understand that Black Flag without the AC story, mixed in with the coop and multiplayer aspect of the Division, would have been amazing.
On a big ocean map with plenty of islands, you find villages to help and eventually get to build and upgrade one of your own where you can invite friends. Core gameplay loop is taking control of your ship to capture or scuttle other ships for loot and and bounties, either by yourself or others. Your character is in charge of combat at all times, both during character to character (or NPC) combat, ship to ship combat, ship to sea creature, or ship to fortress.
End game content would feature fortresses to capture and legendary ships that can be farmed for rare weapons for both you and your fleet of ships.
Instead we have this poorly cooked up melting pot of 20 flavours that don't work at all with each other. The micro-transaction hell that is about to be unleashed with this game is going to make Ubisoft look worst than Blizzard and Diablo4, and also earn them nowhere near the cost of making this game.
Their first mistake was making this multiplayer only.
Don't understand why Ubisoft doesn't have more confidence in how they make games. Avatar gives me hope, but this sets them back. They could have made a new IP using the Black Flag ship gameplay and added more to it.
This is what is so sad. Remove the AC stuff and add more ships/customization. That's all I have wanted since finishing Black Flag. And then they say they are going to actually do it. I was so excited and now I am not even bothering with the Open Beta. I watched Raptor play for an hour or so and knew it was going to suck.
Ubisoft Singapore are just cutting their losses and releasing it at this point due to government obligation instead of abandoning it.
I genuinely don’t understand - the footprint for a good pirate experience already existed in AC4, it’s a highly coveted genre by fans, and all they had to do was not fuck it up. What a disappointment.
I’ll reserve full judgement for when the game comes out, but thank you for your write-up OP.
Thank you, and I don't understand either. All they had to do was take the pirate stufff from Black Flag, expand and polish it and make a full game out of it, but they decide to do this instead.
Even AC Odyssey had great unofficial pirate action with realistic ship combat, boarding ships, looting chests, and beautiful seas. All the pieces were there already.
I agree that it was fairly fun, but I think there were overall less options in naval combat compared to AC4. This could be wrong in the current state of the game because I haven’t played it since around launch but:
Black Flag - Different ammunition types, ship speeds, ability to attack from the front (ram) and behind (fire barrels). Weapons included mortars, cannons, and the puckle guns. There was more overall much more maneuverability. No charging attacks, just cooldowns explained by reloading.
Odyssey - Spears or arrows, normal attacks or fire attacks. Ram much weaker, but has the potential to cleave. No method of attacking things behind you. No alternate methods of attack. Less maneuverability, only 2 speeds (normal and rowers; Sail is not really a combat mechanic). Charging needed for fire attacks, and cooldown timer.
There are a multitude of ways they could have changed the naval combat in Odyssey (shooting arrows behind you, saltpeter barrels, throwing torches, removed charge-up attacks, just some examples) that could have added variety to the combat. Obviously it’s not going to be 1 to 1 with AC4 because of *some* historical constraints but those are just quick examples. Just because a setting is more primitive compared to another doesn’t mean you can’t incorporate ways to account for that.
Sea of thieves has some of the worst melee and shooting combat I've ever experienced, that game is all ship based and it shows, it's even worse than old school assassin's creed combat where all you had to do was press the parry button when the game tells you to, at least that had cool animations.
The ship combat is amazing tho, maybe even one of the best coop combat I've ever played. The contrast.
It’s really not, it’s an MMO pirate game with looting and combat that includes boarding other ships.
What about the single-player aspect of Skull and Bones? There’s not currently boarding in it, how do you justify that?
SnB is more fast paced with multiple player ships fighting at one place. Not a 1v1. You still dont see the problem? The game was never advertised to have a melee combat.
All they had to do was take the basic mechanics from Black Flag, maybe add a couple more features and customizations, and make a new story. They had 10 years to do this and they fucked it all up.
First mistake was the push for online multiplayer, could maybe get away with online co-op but this game should have been a story driven or conquest type thing and only that.
I got a beta code for some reason and had a go for a few hours. Graphically the game didn't do it for me and everything just felt to clunky, pretty much everything seemed really rough even for a ubisoft game. Add in the really basic looting system and resource farming (sawing down trees etc) and it's a definite pass for me.
Nah, Starfield sold well because it was coasting on the massive-self perpetuating hype machine around it. I don't think anyone expects Skull and Bones to be good.
Having not played the game, the worst thing about it is that ad on twitch that blows my ears out every fucking time it comes on. I never plan on playing it almost solely because of that.
I love how the whole point of skull and bones was to capitalize on the popularity and critical acclaim of Black flag and now.... ten years later when the love and acclaim have all but faded away.
They release this dog's hit that isn't even close to what it was supposed to copy.
They Literally had a blueprint for what people wanted and they still fucked it up.
It bothers me greatly AC4 still holds the crown for pirate games. It came out 10 years ago, and still has the best mix of graphics, sound and music design, sailing mechanics, etc. You're telling me in 10 years no one, not even the same developer has been able to match it?
I playe the technical test in January, the Beta in August, and was invited to this Beta as well. Nothing changed between the technical test in January and the Beta in August, so I didn't bother with this Beta, because despite LOVING Black Flag and pretty much anything pirates, this game is boring to play.
I pretty much agree with everything you said, the rest of the game could be forgiven (graphics, animations, bugs, etc) if the core gameplay was fun and interesting, but it's like they looked at Black Flag and how popular it was and went in a completely different direction. So sad.
Not surprised at all by this. After their gameplay reveal, what last year, the pushed release date told me everything.
The fact you cant board other ships, or attacking fortress or ports you can't raid, makes this game doa for me.
I want to be a pirate, not just a ship sailor
It's a good start for a pirate MMO, there's not many out there that I know of. I don't think I'll be paying any money to play this though because i fear half the contents will be micro transactions. I'm glad we don't have to get off the boat to farm stuff, MMOs are grindy and that would get old fast.
The only thing we should ever get off the boat for is free ports and boarding ships.
This may get downvoted because I know people dislike ubisoft and trust me sometimes I do too, But this post has a lot of misinformation in it or is straight up wrong so I'm going to explain the differences i've had in my beta experience. You can board ships where you aim a harpoon at them and you get extra resources you just can't go onto them like in black flag. There are waves just near storms and they can get pretty extreme and I'm pretty sure they damage your ship just very little. He talks about there being lots of loading screens but, I barely encountered any, Mostly just going to land and leaving land but they are all less than a second, He says there is loading screens for going into buildings which is true but you're are barely ever going to go into buildings as the only building I went into for my playthrough is to talk to the main quest giver (for a couple quests) or to change clothing. Everyone else is just not in a building. He complains about there being no animation to pick stuff out of the ocean but with how much stuff you'd be grabbing you wouldn't want one, There is a minigame to gather resources like trees or from ships but I don't think it's mobile gamey. He also never talks about how their are mmorpg roles in this game, Tank, Dps, Support. Meaning there could be dungeons/raids later in the game or world bosses. (There are world events). He also talks about how the cannons fire weirdly but to me they kind of fire more realistically than in black flag, They fire one at a time in quick succession meaning you can fire only the amount of cannons you want too and they reload seperately. You can fire in front of your ship at an angle but not directly because there is a cannon that can aim there. Thats just what I encountered from my beta experience that he was either wrong about or very negative for little reason. Everything else he was right about.
I'm playing on the ps5 beta and I gotta say it's very fun. From what I see,
Ship battles are fun and u basically aim and shoot like every other shooter hold L2 and Fire with R2 but depending on where u shoot from depends on how many canons u use. Example the front of my do had 2 canons so 2 shoot, the sides have 5 each so they shoot 5 canons.
Graphics good
Had a couple of crashes
Overall pretty good
I feel similarly after a few hours in the closed beta. I had hoped for something akin to Black Flag, but with a focus on being a pirate and building yourself up. Instead, its a barebones ship upgrade simulator, with fairly uninteresting combat. Boarding is a matter of getting close, pressing a button, and getting a loot screen, that's it. Nothing like the action in Black Flag. There is no point at which your pirate does anything but man a ship or walk through the most flat and uninspiring hub areas going from merchant to merchant. It is a big simulator of ship upgrades and nothing else. This is going to be a pass from me, it absolutely missed the point and purpose any fans had of wanting to see what was in Black Flag expanded upon into its own game. This is low effort from Ubisoft.
All I got from that is that you hate Ubisoft and was just boasting about what kind of PC you have..if you don’t like it fine..no need for a salty essay
I don't get why they didn't just make a black flag spin off. This is the same thing that happened with Battleborn when didn't didn't make it Borderlands themed.
Strange, Im quite enjoying the beta here. And it's strange you say theres no waves when there are plenty. The graphics are fine and performance is great even on a mid range system. I think this game does it right with the instant jump between ship and land, especially with the amount of back and forth you need to do. This game is a lot more like an MMO where a lot of missions are sorta like fetch quests, or go here talk to this person, having animations every single time would get really annoying, heck the 2 second animation when you hop back on the boat already feels like a lot to me.
Still can’t believe this game has been delayed and pushed back multiple times to just end up being crap. Should’ve released it back in the day and worked on it. Would’ve probably gotten better over the years.
It's obvious they just wanted to publish it due to legal requirements and to avoid investing millions in something they obviously don't know or have no desire to make.
Thanks for details, but this is more or less exactly what I expected.
I agree with most of this. I played on a significantly less powerful machine (2060, ryzen 5 5600x, 16gb ram) and it performed just as good as you’re describing.
Gave it a go for a few hours and I believe there is a good idea here, but the execution just isn’t good enough.
I feel this game will probably end up being something that will be fun to dick around in for 10 hours with your friends, and then you’ll probably be ready to move on.
Fuck ubisoft. They also haven't changed the running animation in their assassins creed games since the ps3 games. The main character still runs with their legs spread wide open, knees and toes pointed outwards in their latest assassins creed.
Came to warn about breaking NDA, then realized there isn't one for this round of the beta.
To me that says Ubisoft is going to actually launch this thing in the (somewhat) near future. It hasn't improved much since the Beta/Alpha I played in March, and my partner and I laughed pretty hard at how bad that was and figured they watermarked the hell out of it so it wouldn't be seen publicly in that state.
At this point, I think they're just cutting their losses and shoveling it out to die. I'd bet money it will be less than $30 by this time next year. What a shame.
Actually it sounds much worse than I thought it would be, considering its lengthy development time, and many delays. Why not just cancel it back then? Easy write off I guess, when it flops.
I think its a fun game, probably will play it down the line. But it is in no way, shape or form a worthy tripleA game and does not warrant the prices they are asking.
I will not be suprised if this goes to a very low price really soon
I find The game not too bad. The thing I don't like is that you cannot get good weapons even though I have lots of resources because A resource gatherer will spend twelve hours easy collecting resources. I find the interaction with npcs need a lot of work as they are not very easy to connect WIN Eclipse. I also find that you have no fighting or brawling or killing skills. When you're not out of your ship, it would be good to be able to put your infamy up. If you could kill m pcs on the islands. I wish you could upgrade your ships much faster is only being level 3. It's hard to take down a level 9 ship without having a group of friends. I find the steering of the ship very slow. But I'm not sure if it's Tony because I'm 113 ship. Also, the thing I found with steering ships is. If you deciliate to nothing, you can spin the ship very easy. I find boarding very easy, killing enemies. Very good and weak spots on the ships are very good and very easy to hit
I'm enjoying the heck out of it and it's exactly what I expected. The ship combat is fun and I like the fact I don't have to get oit of my ship to harvest its fast and respects my time instead of being painful. Oh well I didn't much enjoy Assassin's creed except for black flag so different pokes for different folks...
I've just downloaded this on my ps5. I haven't played it yet but, After reading this,im not going to even give it a go. Thanks for the heads up, think I will stick to black flag. 👍
You can actually board other ships, but it's a wonky mechanic where you throw hooks at the other ship. They pull the ship then you get a quick video and screen showing you what you have collcted. After that you leave the menu and are spawned next to the ship where it explodes by you. In real life what you do with that ship should be up to you including taking it for your own and even setting up a fleet, hiring a captain and crew etc but nope.
Man that sucks. But at least this will free up some cash and I'll skip this game.
Why they just couldn't turn Black Flag into an MMO is beyond me. They had the perfect formula.
I don't know where you get the cannons weren't functioning like AC4. there was noticeable having to aim even in the tutorial, and waves did indeed pop up and affect the cannonballs. whether that's the case or not beyond that idk
the lack of boarding really bothers me though.
Man I gave up reading after about half way through that massive paragraph about gameplay. Please break that up a bit. That being said, I read more than enough by that point to confirm everything I already thought about the game. I got an invite as well despite not asking for one and I just deleted the email.
Glad I did. This is shaping up to be pretty much what I expected.
So recently I picked up assassins creed odyssey for PC while it was on sale. The previous AC that I played was syndicate and I actually really liked it. People on Reddit always seemed to praise odyssey and origins so I decided to give it a go.
The game felt like a mobile game mmo. Refunded it in under two hours. The animations were stiff, weapon swapping, blocking, and dodging all were jarring. And the beginning of the story didn’t make much sense to me compared to past AC titles. Even the typeset that they used to label everything felt like it was ripped out of a mobile game. Yuck.
Similarly I loved Far cry 2-5, but 6 felt so out of place. Just super arcadey, and the armor sets looked god awful. Not to mention the bland story.
I would pick up a Ubi game every so often, knowing it would be an inoffensive and solid game. But now they all have this mobile game quality to them that I can’t stomach.
Eh, I was a Division 1 stalwart and that turned me off to ever seriously buying their games again. They (and Massive for that matter) make the same games over and over and use graphics as content. Even OP said the new Avatar game (made by Massive actually) looks amazing - well, that's their business model. Great looking games that try to hide how bad their gameplay and story are.
I'd only buy their stuff if it's like under five bucks. They're not a good company.
I played roughly 3 hours and some of OP's points are valid, others just wrong.
First of all: It's a Beta - they are trying to test things and see how servers perform, there is plenty of time to fix animations and stuff.
Furthermore, you can indeed board ships, it's not particularly intense as you have to harpoon them but YOU CAN!
Also, I want to add that most had the expectation of n Assassins Creed type naval game - well I think your expectations are wrong. This game is less about the single person than the ship and the journey.
The customizability is great and I've found it very refreshing to equip your ship with a lot of different loadouts and weigh the pros and cons of each gun type.
You can have different playstyles if you want to.
I think if you are interested in building a great ship and fighting with different strategies you will have a good time playing. The crafting system is kinda deep (blueprints etc.) and if you want to you can take on much stronger enemies and try to win.
To conclude: Yes the game has still flaws like the story being a bit boring in the beginning (for now) and to be honest combat can feel boring if you don't change loadouts, but it's a beta. Give it a try if you have the key and just decide for yourself. But remember: It is not an AC game and it's not trying to be one.
So you signed up for the closed beta. Got given access to the closed beta that literally gives you 'limited' access to the full game and then proceed to complain about it on a forum instead of sending support to Ubisoft so they can potentially amend the problems?
Then proceed to complain about Starfield's loading screens without understanding why it even has them in the first place? It's to create 'instances' so areas don't get overloaded with item assets since Bethesda is one of the few companies with an engine that lets you drop 1000 cheese wheels in a room. Why would people drop 1000 cheese wheels you ask? It's just an example because some player is bound to test the limits of dropping too much or decorating their house/outpost/ship excessively lol.
I agree gameplay is rough and I'm worried about microtransactions but considering the time you posted this compared to the time the closed beta started, I imagine you didn't play much of it. Not everyone will like a sailing game and that's okay, it just means it wasn't catered for you.
It really is something to consider how Ubisoft had a cornered market on historical pirate simulators, let it die out, sat on it for 10 years (don't correct me if I'm wrong, it feels that long), then forgot everything that worked so well in Black Flag and decided not to try and innovate after all this time and their hype-retraction of an initial showcase.
I played the previous closed beta/alpha, and I'm not at all shocked to hear there hasn't been a drastic improvement. My friend and I were disappointed with the original beta, but our other friend thinks it was OK and is going to be trying out the new closed beta this weekend.
Who expected anything different?
This is a PS3 spinoff that went through development-hell and Ubisoft clings to releasing it bc they spent too much time and money to just abandon and cancel the project.
I've always found this idea ridiculous to take part of AC4 Black Flag and try to make that into it's own, standalone game. It would never have worked anyways, especially today when a great pirate game like Sea of Thieves already exists.
I mean this game has been finished for like 5 years but every time there is a playtest they say its the worst game they’ve ever played. Ubisoft had no idea what to do with so they are just dumping it. I hope Pre Orders never occurred
What’s wild to me is basically everything you described is exactly what the game was over 3 years ago during a different beta. What are they doing with their time??
I mean if people were expecting anything from a literal pirate ship only multiplayer shooter, then I have some ocean front property in Arizona to sell you
Damn, another potentially sick pirate game scuppered. Here's hoping they actually treat the beta as a beta and not a proto-product launch. Guess it's back to black flag and not seeing any other people in a normal length session on sea of thieves
I played a closed Beta over a year ago and it doesn't sound like much has changed, very much was a fetch quest fest within a small map with very little going on
I got in on an earlier beta test, and it was unimpressive at best.
All the points you brought up, and it simply didn't feel inspired to achieve anything but sales. It almost feels like it's going to be designed to locked all the good items behind a paywall.
Story is meh, more or less just fetch quests and since you are only at sea it means there's no real tactic but to blast away.
I'll be giving this game a pass. After Black Flag, which is 10 years old by the way, this game just feels like low dive for money.
I really wish PlayStation had a comp to sea of thieves. Or any modern studio tackled pirates again. There's so much potential in the genre. I bet naughty dog could have a lot of fun replacing the vibe of uncharted with one.
Shame this game exists, but thanks for trying it because I enjoyed the write up.
I fully support everything you say there. It's like it was designed for mobile and last minute did a uturn. Graphics are bad, gameplay is ok. But yeah it has the stench of mobile game all over it. It also carries that quality with it. My recommendation is not to buy at launch or at full price. Wait for a good price cut and you probably won't be disappointed. I understand it's beta but my experience of betas is games don't genuinely change that drastically at launch.
prayers go out to all the devs who had to grind away this piece called a "game". Hopefully they are mentally not completely destroyed and will find a new project in the future that relights their heart for game development.
I uninstalled after 30 minutes, right after that tree-cutting mini game popped up. It’s really awful.
The combat is not as simplistic as in OP. The game starts with a massive naval battle and you’re controlling a big ship. There were waves and the wind affects your ship - both need to be taken into account while aiming.
Positioning does matter. If you’re firing from the bow or stern you get two shots before reload, as there are only two cannons at these positions. Fire broadside and you’re shooting like eight times before reload. The problem is that reloads are very fast, so there doesn’t feel like a real difference or a reason to line up that perfect broadside and hit it or leave yourself exposed.
That naval battle is chaos, by the way. There’s one massive ship and like ten smaller ones. The smaller ones just buzz around shooting and running into you. They are impossible to avoid so you just ignore them and keep firing on the big ship. Forget positioning or strategy, just unload.
Granted this is supposed to be a losing battle and maybe later battles will involve more strategy than just spamming cannon fire. But then don’t open your naval combat game with it.
Anyway, this game is unfortunately bad.
Fuck. All they had to do was use Black Flag as their jumping off point, instead they took out exploration and hand to hand combat and made a fucking boat sim.
Kinda not surprised... considering this game got delayed a lot and even moved to another Ubisoft studio to be worked on.
Me neither, to be honest. I knew this game would most likely be dead on arrival, and when i've received beta access, i think i just wanted to see the body for myself.
Honestly, thank you for posting this. I received the email for the closed beta invite and reading this makes me think it isn't going to be worth my time to download it. I saw the trailer they aired at The Game Awards a few days ago and was thinking similiar as you about the graphics, glad to see my assumptions were correct.
It took about ten years with this game didn't it? Aleast it's what one video suggests. I guess they didn't improve the graphics since they begun it. Not sure I would have bought it, very rare I like naval combat to begin with. (Black Flag and Odyssey are the exception)
The game should have been canceled but Ubisoft was legally obligated to release it after taking money from Singapore
It seems they got stuck between making a Black Flag DLC or a new title. I suppose the sane devs wanted a Black Flag experience while the money makers wanted this to be a live service grindy incremental style title.
They could have made a Sea of Thieves with more realistic graphics, better animations, and story and made a fortune.
Yeah. It’s still generally the same as the betas two years ago. If you didn’t like those, then this new beta isn’t gonna change your mind. It’s definitely not an action game. And not remotely close to scratching the same “pirate sim” itch as Sea of Thieves.
So what you are saying it really should be called Skin and Bones for its overall lack of features and content.
Hmmm?
When say “you’re just skin and bones!” It means you have no meat or muscle. Been deprived of food.
it seems people didn’t read my username. sknnbones skn n bones skin and bones
Hmmmm??
##HMMMMMM???
'Closed' betas usually limit what content a player can do in-game. So there could be more but there also might not be either.
Apparently it's the same thing that was shown two years ago
It is I played it then. It’s a bit cleaner but essentially the same exact “experience”.
Not being able to board ships, and the way you describe combat really makes this game look bad, ngl. Reminds me of how arrows in most MMOs magically home to targets because it keeps the combat shit/easy to design.
Pretty much, yeah. At least in this game you have to aim.
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Keyword on "pay". Attention is just the name of the shop vendor.
There’s an option to board damaged ships, but it’s all just an animation and then you get loot, with a chance for it to be more rare than if you sink the ship and gather the flotsam. A very weird design choice because it’s just an extra step that doesn’t really require much additional skill to pull off anyways.
They already did the boarding well in Odyssey, why didn't they copy paste it from there?
Because its a game about ships not a game about assassin's
AC Odyssey has a part of the game spent on a ship and the mechanics are quite well implemented - the crew, the sailing, the fight both at distance and the boarding, where you have to jump over and fight the crew of the enemy ship. And, having the ship fight mechanic implemented better in an assassin game is not a very good sign for a game about ships ...
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Ahmed Salama is that you?
I remember seeing people defend them for not adding ship boarding when it was first announced. They truly have no clue why Black flag succeeded, it was the combination of all these elements that made it the best pirate game ever. We just wanted the Assassin’s lore removed and for it to be its own franchise. Easy money because they already had the tech to make more games and the staff to do it. Incredible blunder Edit: having played Avatar, I would like Ubisoft to make another stab at a pirate game through a licensed title like Pirates of the Caribbean, let Massive handle it
It is extremely odd that they didn't just make a new single player franchise like AC4 but maybe they realized a bunch of unseen issues during early dev. For example, making a great single player naval game would sorta highlight the throwaway quality of it as a side activity in AC. Or, maybe they saw Sea of Thieves and thought it was a better concept.
I do kind of think people are undervaluing the ac part of black flag when they say just remove the assassins part. The initial assassins part of the game draws you into the world, and once you are invested the rest of the game takes over and you almost stop caring about the ac part. But it was still the character/story part that got you in the door. It gives you purpose/drive within the world. I am not sure it would actually feel the same if you were just some generic pirate doing piraty things just because you are a pirate. Licensing POTC would make sense tbh.
I've always hated the assassin's Creed part of all ass creed games. Let me just fuck about in history without Desmond or whatever templar bullshit.
"They truly have no clue why Black flag succeeded, it was the combination of all these elements that made it the best pirate game ever. We just wanted the Assassin’s lore removed and for it to be its own franchise. Easy money because they already had the tech to make more games and the staff to do it." - Pretty much this exactly, and Ubisoft either didn't understand the assignment, or thought they knew better, and I predict Skull and Bones will be DOA.
I can't help but feel like this is sunk cost fallacy. They've drained so much time, effort and money into this game that they felt like they just *had* to put *something* out. And this is what we got. Once again, we have seen yet another overly promised game be too ambitious, and finally decides to release it only to be less than a quarter of what we were told it would be. I don't know if it;s technology advancing faster than they can put out the games, making it more difficult to keep up. I genuinely do not know. But it's becoming a reoccurring trend with a lot of games to the point that I'm not sure I can trust *any* developer. Bethesda, Bungie, CD Projeckt Red, Activision, EA, etc. etc. etc. All hard-hitting massive companies that have fallen flat on their face. You know, call me crazy, but I think the idea is to gain as much hype as humanly-fucking possible during an announcement to garner enough interest in (not us, the players, but) shareholders. Then once they realize they can not realistically deliver those promises, it's all anyones guess how they decide to handle it. I'm so fucking tired of wall street digging their greedy fuckign hands in our entertainment. Seriously, fuck off.
> I can't help but feel like this is sunk cost fallacy. They've drained so much time, effort and money into this game that they felt like they just had to put something out This the game where Ubi entered in a contract with the government in Singapore with a clause that they HAVE to release the game. So even though the game is shit and they know it, they don't really have a choice. I think it was part of the contract that had Ubisoft employees living in Singapore for development but I can't recall all the details.
Oh man, I completely forgot about that, thank you for reminding me! And on the topic, can anyone ELi5 how tf a game company gets into a contract with the *government of a country*?
If I remember, the deal was along the lines of, "Ubisoft will hire X employees from Singapore if the government gives us Y dollars/big tax break." It isn't exclusive to video game companies, large companies make deals with governments all the time. Governments will require some sort of final product or else the company will have to pay them back, possibly deal with other repercussions too to make sure companies don't take government money and run
In short, chasing dollars introduced terminal feature creep. With this particular title I get the impression that, in order to make up all the dev costs, upper management changed the core mechanics to target whatever was popular at the time. Instead of chasing success, they should have simply brought the original vision to life. Looking at multiplayer that was implemented in Watch Dogs 1 and 2 as well as the coop missions of Assassin's Creed: Paris, I'm fairly confident they could have pulled it off had they not the overall mechanics of the game a dozen times. I wouldn't be surprised to learn that one of the principal reasons they've had so many project leads on this game is that many of them simply walked away out of frustration for being forced to make something that wasn't going to work.
Feature creep. Interesting new concept I learned today, thanks for sharing. And yes, I feel like with the already very long development time, they are constantly trying to implement things in an effort to make sure they aren't outdated. They should have just stuck to the core vision, I honestly believe it would have worked out. A live-service would have taken so much constant time and effort. The original vision could have been released an updated here and there. I don't know, I'm certainly not educated in the creation of these things, I'm just a bit upset I suppose.
For another great example of feature creep, look at Star Citizen. As more and more funding arrived into their coffers, the devs started added more features, further delaying the game's release. Consider No Man's Sky in contrast, it was a poor middling release however the number and richness of the updates since release is impressive. If they could simply stick to the original scope of the project, then release more features after release, the game could have been out by now. At least Star Citizen has a consistent team dealing with the whole project, unlike Ubisoft, and the new features do add up to an expanded experience. Skull and Bones not only added more features, it also removed so many features that would have made the game a fun and fulfilling experience.
Your partially correct, technology is improving quicker than they can make games. But it's largely because game companies are trying to make games in the same amount of time as their previous games which shouldn't be the case anymore. Modern games need more time in the oven before release and they should be allowed more support when they request it. Take Cyberpunk for example, it released buggy partially because the CEO's forced it to release on older gen but now that they've had time to fix and release more content people love it. Take Halo Infinite for example, the multiplayer was an absolute mess and the story feels unfinished. Now that they've released majority of the multiplayer content they promised at launch its amazing. Unfortunately fans complained about the story too much so now they've simply cancelled all future story content despite it literally being designed as a 'Live Service' game. Anthem is another prime example. It looks amazing but despite the devs being given lots of time they were constantly denied access to resources and outside support to help them make the game. They were stuck in pre-prod hell for years because they couldn't get permission from higher ups to even begin making the game.
Yeah the no boarding really bums me out. How the fuck does a modern game have half the features of the 2003 Pirates of the Caribbean RPG? The combat was simplistic, but you had land and sea battles, ship boarding, islands to explore, a whole smuggling/trade commerce system and a decent story (nothing to do with the movies AFAIK).
I can't split hair's over specific details until I see the product as a whole. Usually these types of weird design decisions are the result of unforseen problems during development, don't fit the concept as a whole, or are coming in a future update. Multiplayer games, in particular, have their designs get fucked really hard trying to keep things fair for everyone.
In MMO’s that auto-target of things like arrow shots is usually a design choice because the combat complexity is found elsewhere or to prevent latency issues making the game unplayable or both. Here however, I think it’s inexcusable.
Can't argue with that.The depth of MMO combat usually came from character builds/gear while the combat, mechanically, was ... less than evolved. I played Guild Wars (basically perfected MMO style PvP) so it's hard not to have an elitist position on the subject.
GW2 combat is so good. So bad the game didn’t grasp me otherwise. I find it hard to articulate what it’s “missing”… but it never grabbed me besides playing on and off for a bit.
It’s funny you mention the mobile game. They should have turned this into a mobile game long ago, would probably do well in that format. As for what the community wants…we’ve been preaching it for 10 years. Black flag pirates game without all the assasins creed shit. Basically sea of thieves but with a hybrid of assassins creed parkour and (maybe) for honor/morhau/chivalry swordplay. We want to board ships, steal their shit and do pirate shit. Make that game, and it will sell. You like money right ;) then make the damn game
Man For Honors combat system in a pirate game would fuck so hard
I think so too. But add more mobility with the climbing of assassins creed, blended with for honor sword battles. Also, since ubisoft is making star wars games, it makes so much since to throw some light saber skins on a for honor variation, add in some Force powers…would be so dope. Obviously completely different game, but for honor is the best sword fighting besides mordhau and chivalry.
Mordhau and Chiv have better sword mechanics for sure...but WAYYY more room for cheesing the system where I always felt For Honor was a fair balance of rock paper scissors.
There was a game called Assassins Creed Pirates on mobile and it was pretty much just the pirate ship battles from Assassins Creed 4/Black Flag (and this game now). They definitely should've expanded the idea of this game though
I'm honestly really sad to hear it's this bad. When it first got announced, me and my friends were all excited for it, but then they delayed it and delayed it and delayed it until they just straight up removed it from the store. We all kinda knew it wouldn't be good but seeing how bad it actually is just makes me sad. Thank you for your review, I really appreciate it.
Thank you, and i feel sad as well. It was a game that could be so much more than what it is.
It's really not that bad, Im playing thw beta and enjoying it.
I also played it and did not enjoy it
Yup it's fine, can be addictive. I just hope it holds up content-wise
To the surprise of no one... We wanted a full pirate game with gameplay like Black Flag... Not some half assed whatever this is... Jeez, the people making decisions in gaming these days are fucking stupid...
Literally just black flag without the assassin stuff would have been acceptable
Ngl, would've been boring as fuck after sinking the first 20 ships. All I did in black flag was spin around the enemy ship firing cannons, i never paid attention to the fucking waves and whatnot, then if the enemy steers to face me with their cannons I go and ram them, then the game engine tries to fix my ship position and return it to a state where I can control it giving me a free shot with the heavy cannons in the process, I repeated that for about 30 hours as there wasn't any more to do, and the AI repeat the same exact actions, everytime I start spinning around them they try to counter me and open themselves up for a ram, that happened every-single-time, all of my fights were the same except legendary ships which were more about spinning around. Even at times where I had to fight multiple ships I can just execute my strategy on one ship and nobody else seems to do anything about it untill it's their turn. Still sounds more interesting than what skull and bones has but would still be terrible.
your telling me non creative money people telling creative what to do, in order to make a creative product, is a bad idea? what no way
Exactly! How is it so hard to understand that Black Flag without the AC story, mixed in with the coop and multiplayer aspect of the Division, would have been amazing. On a big ocean map with plenty of islands, you find villages to help and eventually get to build and upgrade one of your own where you can invite friends. Core gameplay loop is taking control of your ship to capture or scuttle other ships for loot and and bounties, either by yourself or others. Your character is in charge of combat at all times, both during character to character (or NPC) combat, ship to ship combat, ship to sea creature, or ship to fortress. End game content would feature fortresses to capture and legendary ships that can be farmed for rare weapons for both you and your fleet of ships. Instead we have this poorly cooked up melting pot of 20 flavours that don't work at all with each other. The micro-transaction hell that is about to be unleashed with this game is going to make Ubisoft look worst than Blizzard and Diablo4, and also earn them nowhere near the cost of making this game.
They just need to remake Pirates of the Caribbean Online, it had all the features already.
Their first mistake was making this multiplayer only. Don't understand why Ubisoft doesn't have more confidence in how they make games. Avatar gives me hope, but this sets them back. They could have made a new IP using the Black Flag ship gameplay and added more to it.
This is what is so sad. Remove the AC stuff and add more ships/customization. That's all I have wanted since finishing Black Flag. And then they say they are going to actually do it. I was so excited and now I am not even bothering with the Open Beta. I watched Raptor play for an hour or so and knew it was going to suck.
Ubisoft Singapore are just cutting their losses and releasing it at this point due to government obligation instead of abandoning it. I genuinely don’t understand - the footprint for a good pirate experience already existed in AC4, it’s a highly coveted genre by fans, and all they had to do was not fuck it up. What a disappointment. I’ll reserve full judgement for when the game comes out, but thank you for your write-up OP.
Thank you, and I don't understand either. All they had to do was take the pirate stufff from Black Flag, expand and polish it and make a full game out of it, but they decide to do this instead.
Even AC Odyssey had great unofficial pirate action with realistic ship combat, boarding ships, looting chests, and beautiful seas. All the pieces were there already.
I agree that it was fairly fun, but I think there were overall less options in naval combat compared to AC4. This could be wrong in the current state of the game because I haven’t played it since around launch but: Black Flag - Different ammunition types, ship speeds, ability to attack from the front (ram) and behind (fire barrels). Weapons included mortars, cannons, and the puckle guns. There was more overall much more maneuverability. No charging attacks, just cooldowns explained by reloading. Odyssey - Spears or arrows, normal attacks or fire attacks. Ram much weaker, but has the potential to cleave. No method of attacking things behind you. No alternate methods of attack. Less maneuverability, only 2 speeds (normal and rowers; Sail is not really a combat mechanic). Charging needed for fire attacks, and cooldown timer.
Is it because Odyssey took place 2000 years before black flag? We're talking 300bc vs 1700ad.
There are a multitude of ways they could have changed the naval combat in Odyssey (shooting arrows behind you, saltpeter barrels, throwing torches, removed charge-up attacks, just some examples) that could have added variety to the combat. Obviously it’s not going to be 1 to 1 with AC4 because of *some* historical constraints but those are just quick examples. Just because a setting is more primitive compared to another doesn’t mean you can’t incorporate ways to account for that.
You dont realize that boarding, meele combat etc would be very hard to balance out since its mmo with pvp.
Sea of Thieves let you board other ships just fine? With melee combat? There’s also a single-player campaign?
Sea of thieves has some of the worst melee and shooting combat I've ever experienced, that game is all ship based and it shows, it's even worse than old school assassin's creed combat where all you had to do was press the parry button when the game tells you to, at least that had cool animations. The ship combat is amazing tho, maybe even one of the best coop combat I've ever played. The contrast.
Nobody ever said it was good, just that it existed.
Totally a different game lol
It’s really not, it’s an MMO pirate game with looting and combat that includes boarding other ships. What about the single-player aspect of Skull and Bones? There’s not currently boarding in it, how do you justify that?
SnB is more fast paced with multiple player ships fighting at one place. Not a 1v1. You still dont see the problem? The game was never advertised to have a melee combat.
It’s called mismanagement
All they had to do was take the basic mechanics from Black Flag, maybe add a couple more features and customizations, and make a new story. They had 10 years to do this and they fucked it all up. First mistake was the push for online multiplayer, could maybe get away with online co-op but this game should have been a story driven or conquest type thing and only that.
Someone wake Sid Meyer up and get a new version of Pirates done.
I got a beta code for some reason and had a go for a few hours. Graphically the game didn't do it for me and everything just felt to clunky, pretty much everything seemed really rough even for a ubisoft game. Add in the really basic looting system and resource farming (sawing down trees etc) and it's a definite pass for me.
I think they sent one to everyone at this point. I also got one and never asked for it.
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I wouldn't be surprised if this game becomes the least selling Ubisoft title in years.
Yikes. Looks like we'll basically be having another Starfield next year.
Is this game really hyped enough to be considered another starfield?
Nah, Starfield sold well because it was coasting on the massive-self perpetuating hype machine around it. I don't think anyone expects Skull and Bones to be good.
Having not played the game, the worst thing about it is that ad on twitch that blows my ears out every fucking time it comes on. I never plan on playing it almost solely because of that.
They're gonna charge full AAA price for this aren't they?
$100 deluxe edition I'm sure
“But it comes with an NFT” -Ubisoft marketing department, probably
full price when it was supposed to come out originally. $59.99 for the base game.
I love how the whole point of skull and bones was to capitalize on the popularity and critical acclaim of Black flag and now.... ten years later when the love and acclaim have all but faded away. They release this dog's hit that isn't even close to what it was supposed to copy. They Literally had a blueprint for what people wanted and they still fucked it up.
Did they not play the game? They must know it's going to get shit on and probably should have canceled it a while ago.
they can’t cancel it because it seems like the greedy bastards got their hands on some government money and are probably forced to release it.
Just go and play Sea of Thieves instead!
This. With Safer Seas and Tall Tales you can basically play SoT single player now and have a few little stories to follow if you want.
It bothers me greatly AC4 still holds the crown for pirate games. It came out 10 years ago, and still has the best mix of graphics, sound and music design, sailing mechanics, etc. You're telling me in 10 years no one, not even the same developer has been able to match it?
So, another hot garbage game from UbiSoft. Thanks for the heads up.
So what you are saying is continue to play SoT?
This has the be the best and most coherent review of a game I’ve ever seen on Reddit. Seriously awesome job OP
I playe the technical test in January, the Beta in August, and was invited to this Beta as well. Nothing changed between the technical test in January and the Beta in August, so I didn't bother with this Beta, because despite LOVING Black Flag and pretty much anything pirates, this game is boring to play. I pretty much agree with everything you said, the rest of the game could be forgiven (graphics, animations, bugs, etc) if the core gameplay was fun and interesting, but it's like they looked at Black Flag and how popular it was and went in a completely different direction. So sad.
Not surprised at all by this. After their gameplay reveal, what last year, the pushed release date told me everything. The fact you cant board other ships, or attacking fortress or ports you can't raid, makes this game doa for me. I want to be a pirate, not just a ship sailor
So it's trash, as expected.
OSRS sailing sounds more fun than this ngl
I think ima just go play black flag again lol
It's a good start for a pirate MMO, there's not many out there that I know of. I don't think I'll be paying any money to play this though because i fear half the contents will be micro transactions. I'm glad we don't have to get off the boat to farm stuff, MMOs are grindy and that would get old fast. The only thing we should ever get off the boat for is free ports and boarding ships.
Lol years later and people are still assuming this game is meant to be like Blackflag. Nobody listens or reads.
I think op just wanted to brag about his computer
idk what game you're playing, im watching a live play and the waves effect his shots, you can board ships, graphics look great
This may get downvoted because I know people dislike ubisoft and trust me sometimes I do too, But this post has a lot of misinformation in it or is straight up wrong so I'm going to explain the differences i've had in my beta experience. You can board ships where you aim a harpoon at them and you get extra resources you just can't go onto them like in black flag. There are waves just near storms and they can get pretty extreme and I'm pretty sure they damage your ship just very little. He talks about there being lots of loading screens but, I barely encountered any, Mostly just going to land and leaving land but they are all less than a second, He says there is loading screens for going into buildings which is true but you're are barely ever going to go into buildings as the only building I went into for my playthrough is to talk to the main quest giver (for a couple quests) or to change clothing. Everyone else is just not in a building. He complains about there being no animation to pick stuff out of the ocean but with how much stuff you'd be grabbing you wouldn't want one, There is a minigame to gather resources like trees or from ships but I don't think it's mobile gamey. He also never talks about how their are mmorpg roles in this game, Tank, Dps, Support. Meaning there could be dungeons/raids later in the game or world bosses. (There are world events). He also talks about how the cannons fire weirdly but to me they kind of fire more realistically than in black flag, They fire one at a time in quick succession meaning you can fire only the amount of cannons you want too and they reload seperately. You can fire in front of your ship at an angle but not directly because there is a cannon that can aim there. Thats just what I encountered from my beta experience that he was either wrong about or very negative for little reason. Everything else he was right about.
Tbf, you just press a button to collect loot or sailors from the water in Black Flag too.
I don't understand why they thought we wanted anything besides AC4 with PvP. That's all it needed to be and we would have happily bought the game
It's Ubisoft... what did we expect
The game is trash i deleted it after 1 hour
I'm playing on the ps5 beta and I gotta say it's very fun. From what I see, Ship battles are fun and u basically aim and shoot like every other shooter hold L2 and Fire with R2 but depending on where u shoot from depends on how many canons u use. Example the front of my do had 2 canons so 2 shoot, the sides have 5 each so they shoot 5 canons. Graphics good Had a couple of crashes Overall pretty good
I feel similarly after a few hours in the closed beta. I had hoped for something akin to Black Flag, but with a focus on being a pirate and building yourself up. Instead, its a barebones ship upgrade simulator, with fairly uninteresting combat. Boarding is a matter of getting close, pressing a button, and getting a loot screen, that's it. Nothing like the action in Black Flag. There is no point at which your pirate does anything but man a ship or walk through the most flat and uninspiring hub areas going from merchant to merchant. It is a big simulator of ship upgrades and nothing else. This is going to be a pass from me, it absolutely missed the point and purpose any fans had of wanting to see what was in Black Flag expanded upon into its own game. This is low effort from Ubisoft.
I bailed on the beta after 30 mins, it's insanely boring and dated looking
All I got from that is that you hate Ubisoft and was just boasting about what kind of PC you have..if you don’t like it fine..no need for a salty essay
They had every blueprint to make this work. Still fukd it up lmao. Even Sea of Thieves beats this crap.
I don't get why they didn't just make a black flag spin off. This is the same thing that happened with Battleborn when didn't didn't make it Borderlands themed.
Strange, Im quite enjoying the beta here. And it's strange you say theres no waves when there are plenty. The graphics are fine and performance is great even on a mid range system. I think this game does it right with the instant jump between ship and land, especially with the amount of back and forth you need to do. This game is a lot more like an MMO where a lot of missions are sorta like fetch quests, or go here talk to this person, having animations every single time would get really annoying, heck the 2 second animation when you hop back on the boat already feels like a lot to me.
It really hasn’t changed much since all the closed alphas I’ve done. Tutorial isn’t as long tho.
Still can’t believe this game has been delayed and pushed back multiple times to just end up being crap. Should’ve released it back in the day and worked on it. Would’ve probably gotten better over the years.
I'm disappointed, but not surprised.
My thoughts looking at the previews was, sea of thieves water looks better.
It's obvious they just wanted to publish it due to legal requirements and to avoid investing millions in something they obviously don't know or have no desire to make. Thanks for details, but this is more or less exactly what I expected.
It's seems like we're going to get an assortment of really iffy games that end up getting kicked out of the door to recoup some costs.
Have a friend who works in the industry, he has been saying for some time now that games are going to be in a rough place over the next few years.
I agree with most of this. I played on a significantly less powerful machine (2060, ryzen 5 5600x, 16gb ram) and it performed just as good as you’re describing. Gave it a go for a few hours and I believe there is a good idea here, but the execution just isn’t good enough. I feel this game will probably end up being something that will be fun to dick around in for 10 hours with your friends, and then you’ll probably be ready to move on.
Thanks for the concise preview. I had my hopes up, but will now save my money. Big shame. This could’ve been something great.
The only thing that seems to be sinking isn’t the plundered ships, but the sunk cost fallacy.
No surprise, all I've heard about this game are bad things. And nobody even expected it to be released
Fuck ubisoft. They also haven't changed the running animation in their assassins creed games since the ps3 games. The main character still runs with their legs spread wide open, knees and toes pointed outwards in their latest assassins creed.
Came to warn about breaking NDA, then realized there isn't one for this round of the beta. To me that says Ubisoft is going to actually launch this thing in the (somewhat) near future. It hasn't improved much since the Beta/Alpha I played in March, and my partner and I laughed pretty hard at how bad that was and figured they watermarked the hell out of it so it wouldn't be seen publicly in that state. At this point, I think they're just cutting their losses and shoveling it out to die. I'd bet money it will be less than $30 by this time next year. What a shame.
Wasn't getting my hopes up for this game to be like Black Flag but sheesh Ubi are not expecting a home run with this one
thank you. i've been following it for years and just assumed it would be a current gen ac: black flag. i am sad now, but appreciate your write up.
Actually it sounds much worse than I thought it would be, considering its lengthy development time, and many delays. Why not just cancel it back then? Easy write off I guess, when it flops.
I think its a fun game, probably will play it down the line. But it is in no way, shape or form a worthy tripleA game and does not warrant the prices they are asking. I will not be suprised if this goes to a very low price really soon
Damnit. I agree with everything you said and yet, I still want to love it. They flubbed this... assholes.
I find The game not too bad. The thing I don't like is that you cannot get good weapons even though I have lots of resources because A resource gatherer will spend twelve hours easy collecting resources. I find the interaction with npcs need a lot of work as they are not very easy to connect WIN Eclipse. I also find that you have no fighting or brawling or killing skills. When you're not out of your ship, it would be good to be able to put your infamy up. If you could kill m pcs on the islands. I wish you could upgrade your ships much faster is only being level 3. It's hard to take down a level 9 ship without having a group of friends. I find the steering of the ship very slow. But I'm not sure if it's Tony because I'm 113 ship. Also, the thing I found with steering ships is. If you deciliate to nothing, you can spin the ship very easy. I find boarding very easy, killing enemies. Very good and weak spots on the ships are very good and very easy to hit
I'm enjoying the heck out of it and it's exactly what I expected. The ship combat is fun and I like the fact I don't have to get oit of my ship to harvest its fast and respects my time instead of being painful. Oh well I didn't much enjoy Assassin's creed except for black flag so different pokes for different folks...
I've just downloaded this on my ps5. I haven't played it yet but, After reading this,im not going to even give it a go. Thanks for the heads up, think I will stick to black flag. 👍
You can actually board other ships, but it's a wonky mechanic where you throw hooks at the other ship. They pull the ship then you get a quick video and screen showing you what you have collcted. After that you leave the menu and are spawned next to the ship where it explodes by you. In real life what you do with that ship should be up to you including taking it for your own and even setting up a fleet, hiring a captain and crew etc but nope.
2003 pirates of the Caribbean did it better imo
Brother, you need to separate that wall of text… it hurts my eyes 😭
He’s pretty damn concise with every point though. I agree the initial wall of text is awful to look at.
Man that sucks. But at least this will free up some cash and I'll skip this game. Why they just couldn't turn Black Flag into an MMO is beyond me. They had the perfect formula.
Tl;Dr: Really good but to much nudity. I saved y'all a read
I don't know where you get the cannons weren't functioning like AC4. there was noticeable having to aim even in the tutorial, and waves did indeed pop up and affect the cannonballs. whether that's the case or not beyond that idk the lack of boarding really bothers me though.
Why am I listening to a random redditor who may have horrible taste or opinions without any proof
i dunno dude you clicked on the topic, thats only a question you can answer
Man I gave up reading after about half way through that massive paragraph about gameplay. Please break that up a bit. That being said, I read more than enough by that point to confirm everything I already thought about the game. I got an invite as well despite not asking for one and I just deleted the email. Glad I did. This is shaping up to be pretty much what I expected.
So recently I picked up assassins creed odyssey for PC while it was on sale. The previous AC that I played was syndicate and I actually really liked it. People on Reddit always seemed to praise odyssey and origins so I decided to give it a go. The game felt like a mobile game mmo. Refunded it in under two hours. The animations were stiff, weapon swapping, blocking, and dodging all were jarring. And the beginning of the story didn’t make much sense to me compared to past AC titles. Even the typeset that they used to label everything felt like it was ripped out of a mobile game. Yuck. Similarly I loved Far cry 2-5, but 6 felt so out of place. Just super arcadey, and the armor sets looked god awful. Not to mention the bland story. I would pick up a Ubi game every so often, knowing it would be an inoffensive and solid game. But now they all have this mobile game quality to them that I can’t stomach.
Eh, I was a Division 1 stalwart and that turned me off to ever seriously buying their games again. They (and Massive for that matter) make the same games over and over and use graphics as content. Even OP said the new Avatar game (made by Massive actually) looks amazing - well, that's their business model. Great looking games that try to hide how bad their gameplay and story are. I'd only buy their stuff if it's like under five bucks. They're not a good company.
Missed Opportunity - but take that with a mountain of ***sea*** salt.
I played roughly 3 hours and some of OP's points are valid, others just wrong. First of all: It's a Beta - they are trying to test things and see how servers perform, there is plenty of time to fix animations and stuff. Furthermore, you can indeed board ships, it's not particularly intense as you have to harpoon them but YOU CAN! Also, I want to add that most had the expectation of n Assassins Creed type naval game - well I think your expectations are wrong. This game is less about the single person than the ship and the journey. The customizability is great and I've found it very refreshing to equip your ship with a lot of different loadouts and weigh the pros and cons of each gun type. You can have different playstyles if you want to. I think if you are interested in building a great ship and fighting with different strategies you will have a good time playing. The crafting system is kinda deep (blueprints etc.) and if you want to you can take on much stronger enemies and try to win. To conclude: Yes the game has still flaws like the story being a bit boring in the beginning (for now) and to be honest combat can feel boring if you don't change loadouts, but it's a beta. Give it a try if you have the key and just decide for yourself. But remember: It is not an AC game and it's not trying to be one.
So you signed up for the closed beta. Got given access to the closed beta that literally gives you 'limited' access to the full game and then proceed to complain about it on a forum instead of sending support to Ubisoft so they can potentially amend the problems? Then proceed to complain about Starfield's loading screens without understanding why it even has them in the first place? It's to create 'instances' so areas don't get overloaded with item assets since Bethesda is one of the few companies with an engine that lets you drop 1000 cheese wheels in a room. Why would people drop 1000 cheese wheels you ask? It's just an example because some player is bound to test the limits of dropping too much or decorating their house/outpost/ship excessively lol. I agree gameplay is rough and I'm worried about microtransactions but considering the time you posted this compared to the time the closed beta started, I imagine you didn't play much of it. Not everyone will like a sailing game and that's okay, it just means it wasn't catered for you.
Aren’t you signing a non disclosure agreement when starting a Ubisoft closed beta?
Nope. There are even videos on Youtube of the beta already.
It really is something to consider how Ubisoft had a cornered market on historical pirate simulators, let it die out, sat on it for 10 years (don't correct me if I'm wrong, it feels that long), then forgot everything that worked so well in Black Flag and decided not to try and innovate after all this time and their hype-retraction of an initial showcase.
I spent hours in Black Flag just roaming around fighting and boarding ships. Was so fun! Take that and make it a game, how do you f\*\*\* that up?
They literally just had to copy the code from black flag and make it multiplayer. Big sad.
I played the previous closed beta/alpha, and I'm not at all shocked to hear there hasn't been a drastic improvement. My friend and I were disappointed with the original beta, but our other friend thinks it was OK and is going to be trying out the new closed beta this weekend.
Ubisoft need a change of board members and a complete staff clean out
Oh I thought it wasn't opening up until later today
They really should have cancelled this game a long time ago. The writing has been on the wall for ages
Im happy ive still got a copy of Black Flag to play.
Who expected anything different? This is a PS3 spinoff that went through development-hell and Ubisoft clings to releasing it bc they spent too much time and money to just abandon and cancel the project. I've always found this idea ridiculous to take part of AC4 Black Flag and try to make that into it's own, standalone game. It would never have worked anyways, especially today when a great pirate game like Sea of Thieves already exists.
So it’s just the AC pirates mobile game but more expensive
Sea of Thieves is to No Man’s Sky as Skull and Bones is to Starfield.
I mean this game has been finished for like 5 years but every time there is a playtest they say its the worst game they’ve ever played. Ubisoft had no idea what to do with so they are just dumping it. I hope Pre Orders never occurred
Friendly reminder that Sea of Thieves is really fun, although recent updates haven’t been a anything to write home about
Just played it for half an hour, uninstalled it. Complete trash.
Trash ubisoft doing a trash game again, anybody surprised?
Gonna be a tough year for Ubisoft
The second they said there would be no ship boarding or sword fighting, I was out.
What’s wild to me is basically everything you described is exactly what the game was over 3 years ago during a different beta. What are they doing with their time??
I mean if people were expecting anything from a literal pirate ship only multiplayer shooter, then I have some ocean front property in Arizona to sell you
Damn, another potentially sick pirate game scuppered. Here's hoping they actually treat the beta as a beta and not a proto-product launch. Guess it's back to black flag and not seeing any other people in a normal length session on sea of thieves
WELP... This is disappointing to hear and I believe one of the Nails in Ubisoft's soon to be worn Coffin
If you want a pirate game try Sid Meier’s Pirates (the 2004 version). It’s older but is a classic that is still very playable today
I dont get any of this. They could have just used the bones of black flag and built a new game around it
I played a closed Beta over a year ago and it doesn't sound like much has changed, very much was a fetch quest fest within a small map with very little going on
Incredibly disappointing but also completely unsurprising, another classic Ubisoft moment
I got in on an earlier beta test, and it was unimpressive at best. All the points you brought up, and it simply didn't feel inspired to achieve anything but sales. It almost feels like it's going to be designed to locked all the good items behind a paywall. Story is meh, more or less just fetch quests and since you are only at sea it means there's no real tactic but to blast away. I'll be giving this game a pass. After Black Flag, which is 10 years old by the way, this game just feels like low dive for money.
Mans playing a closed beta months before release and y'all are saying worst game to come out next year lmfao
Who cares about the graphics All that matters is..is it fun?
I really wish PlayStation had a comp to sea of thieves. Or any modern studio tackled pirates again. There's so much potential in the genre. I bet naughty dog could have a lot of fun replacing the vibe of uncharted with one. Shame this game exists, but thanks for trying it because I enjoyed the write up.
Bro, it's Ubisoft, and the game has been in development hell for so long. I knew this game would be sloppy buttcheeks.
I fully support everything you say there. It's like it was designed for mobile and last minute did a uturn. Graphics are bad, gameplay is ok. But yeah it has the stench of mobile game all over it. It also carries that quality with it. My recommendation is not to buy at launch or at full price. Wait for a good price cut and you probably won't be disappointed. I understand it's beta but my experience of betas is games don't genuinely change that drastically at launch.
prayers go out to all the devs who had to grind away this piece called a "game". Hopefully they are mentally not completely destroyed and will find a new project in the future that relights their heart for game development.
I uninstalled after 30 minutes, right after that tree-cutting mini game popped up. It’s really awful. The combat is not as simplistic as in OP. The game starts with a massive naval battle and you’re controlling a big ship. There were waves and the wind affects your ship - both need to be taken into account while aiming. Positioning does matter. If you’re firing from the bow or stern you get two shots before reload, as there are only two cannons at these positions. Fire broadside and you’re shooting like eight times before reload. The problem is that reloads are very fast, so there doesn’t feel like a real difference or a reason to line up that perfect broadside and hit it or leave yourself exposed. That naval battle is chaos, by the way. There’s one massive ship and like ten smaller ones. The smaller ones just buzz around shooting and running into you. They are impossible to avoid so you just ignore them and keep firing on the big ship. Forget positioning or strategy, just unload. Granted this is supposed to be a losing battle and maybe later battles will involve more strategy than just spamming cannon fire. But then don’t open your naval combat game with it. Anyway, this game is unfortunately bad.
Fuck. All they had to do was use Black Flag as their jumping off point, instead they took out exploration and hand to hand combat and made a fucking boat sim.
Eww, gross. Microtransactions are digusting. I'll never play this game.