Ubisoft's Agenda? | Forums

[Daedalus_89]

We've seen the trailers for R6 and Blacklist, we've played the latest that Ghost Recon has to offer.
What's one thing that they all have in common right now?
Overhaul.

The way these games are played are all becoming pretty much exactly the same. Is it just my imagination, or is each Tom Clancy franchise slowly losing the traits that set it apart from the other ones?
The obvious differences are still there...
Sam Fisher is and hopefully always will be, apart from outside support, a solo act.
Ghost Recon is pretty much just that. Squad-based recon in various environments, fulfilling multiple purposes as needed. Kind of the Swiss Army knife of the groups.
Rainbow Six; as per Tom Clancy's original design, is a group with a lot of international latitude, dedicated to fighting terrorism.

But that's where the differences are starting to end.

The same cover system; albeit a groundbreaking and creative one, that we saw in Conviction was used in GRFS and it appears from the trailer, that we'll also be using it in R6: Patriots.
There is less emphasis on stealth gameplay in all three of the franchises; most notably Splinter Cell, since that had been considered the paradigm of stealth-action up until recently. But stealth and strategy was always an important factor in both R6 and Ghost Recon; mostly because the odds were not stacked in your favour, and the only way of besting those odds was to whittle your targets down to a more manageable level.

Who remembers staring at a blueprint of a building; to figure out where Price, Chavez and the rest of the crew ought to infiltrate?
Who remembers that feeling of panic when you lose one of your team members, knowing you weren't going to be able to get him back?
I sure do.

But these games are obviously being changed to accommodate a new generation of gamers.
Stealth and thoughtful approach is being exchanged for brutality and a more cinematic experience, in order to curry favour with a broader market.
This is all well and good. Perfectly understandable from a business perspective, but where do the action-thinkers go now, when we used to rely on the Tom Clancy games to fulfill our needs?
Are we supposed to simply drop our preferences and forget about the style of gameplay that we loved, in order to make room for this new generation of popcorn, call of battlefield lovers?

Or do we simply default to the games that are intentionally made challenging, like Demon's/Dark Souls and Dragon's Dogma?
I want to feel rewarded at the end, and I want to be able to improve my "score" based on things that are actually tangible, not on how many kills I've racked up.

Yes, I'm open-minded and willing to give Blacklist a shot.
But I don't want to trade the feeling of being challenged and thusly rewarded, for the feeling of being Beland's "powerful panther."

[sameer_monier]

I don't know if it's an agenda or not, seems not the case at all.

As for Cover mechanics, R6P use a different mechanic all together, the cover is more dynamic, and you need to peek to look around the cover, SCC use fast & silent cover to cover movements, while GRFS uses loud and fast Cover to Cover, they maybe the same but I don't think that's a bad thing, instead of riping off from different developers, they are using their own ideas and improving them to suit each title.

For example The Synchronized Shot in GRFS, it is similar to SCC M&E but it is one hell of an addition, one that is so great, focus on stealth, a teamwork, so it is not that bad that they are using ideas from other Clancy titles.

As for the challenge, well SCC & GRFS where kinda a reboot, so there were mistakes and no solid direction yet ..........etc, with SCB the devs are bringing back many old features, they are bringing the whole Ghosting back, so I believe Challenge well be back one way or another.

As you said they need a bigger audience, that's why they are mixing ex. SCB (SCC+SCCT), .........etc, they are trying to pleas both sides as much as they can, I believe they may succeed with SCB. (but we will be sure of that when we get our hands on it, until then it's all wishes)

[Daedalus_89]

I don't know if it's an agenda or not, seems not the case at all.

As for Cover mechanics, R6P use a different mechanic all together, the cover is more dynamic, and you need to peek to look around the cover, SCC use fast & silent cover to cover movements, while GRFS uses loud and fast Cover to Cover, they maybe the same but I don't think that's a bad thing, instead of riping off from different developers, they are using their own ideas and improving them to suit each title.

For example The Synchronized Shot in GRFS, it is similar to SCC M&E but it is one hell of an addition, one that is so great, focus on stealth, a teamwork, so it is not that bad that they are using ideas from other Clancy titles.

As for the challenge, well SCC & GRFS where kinda a reboot, so there were mistakes and no solid direction yet ..........etc, with SCB the devs are bringing back many old features, they are bringing the whole Ghosting back, so I believe Challenge well be back one way or another.

As you said they need a bigger audience, that's why they are mixing ex. SCB (SCC+SCCT), .........etc, they are trying to pleas both sides as much as they can, I believe they may succeed with SCB. (but we will be sure of that when we get our hands on it, until then it's all wishes)

The reason I say "agenda" which I actually forgot to mention in my original post (apologies), is because there has been a few crossovers between the franchises.
One example would be when the HAWX group helped Ghost Recon out of a tight spot.
So I'm wondering if we might see them in some kind of mash-up, which might also account for the increasingly similar play styles.

[DeafAtheist]

I can handle the way things are changing and games are being made more accessible for the casual gamer, but I think that games that have difficulty settings in the options should have the harder settings give fans of the original series the challenge that they crave. For instance in the legacy games at the hardest levels Sam only had his knife and OCP. I would REALLY love to see that come back for Blacklist. That would be so much fun to play through without ever firing a shot. Realistic difficulty in Conviction was a joke. Chaos Theory on the easiest difficulty level was harder.

[Andre202]

I can handle the way things are changing and games are being made more accessible for the casual gamer, but I think that games that have difficulty settings in the options should have the harder settings give fans of the original series the challenge that they crave. For instance in the legacy games at the hardest levels Sam only had his knife and OCP. I would REALLY love to see that come back for Blacklist. That would be so much fun to play through without ever firing a shot. Realistic difficulty in Conviction was a joke. Chaos Theory on the easiest difficulty level was harder.

It seems the people at Toronto do have now a more involved difficulty system that influences the gameplay enough to be able to please Casuals and Hardcore gamers. For example, infinite Ammo is only available on Easy. I am sure there will be alot of other things. Hopefully they use this system right because it sounds very good and we did discuss about that in the Conviction times.

[Daedalus_89]

I can handle the way things are changing and games are being made more accessible for the casual gamer, but I think that games that have difficulty settings in the options should have the harder settings give fans of the original series the challenge that they crave. For instance in the legacy games at the hardest levels Sam only had his knife and OCP. I would REALLY love to see that come back for Blacklist. That would be so much fun to play through without ever firing a shot. Realistic difficulty in Conviction was a joke. Chaos Theory on the easiest difficulty level was harder.

Agreed 100%
The reason I kept coming back to the original games, is because the challenge was a refreshing break from the less well thought out plethora of fighting and Tony Hawk games that came out in that time.
I like games that force me to think before I act; and Conviction is pretty much purely run on impulse which does have its value for the more casual gamer, but it also destroys replayability.
I've played all the Call of Duty Modern Warfare games, and the campaign with all of its scripted events is always awesome the first time around. But after that, you know that the Eiffel Tower is going to topple, and you know that Zhakaev's arm is going to get shot off.
With Splinter Cell; the games have always been scripted, but because you could always approach your enemies in different ways, it wasn't difficult to ignore how linear it really was.

As an unrelated sidenote; Deafatheist, I'm hard of hearing. I imagine it pisses you off even more than it does me, when a game doesn't have subtitles.

[DeafAtheist]

It seems the people at Toronto do have now a more involved difficulty system that influences the gameplay enough to be able to please Casuals and Hardcore gamers. For example, infinite Ammo is only available on Easy. I am sure there will be alot of other things. Hopefully they this system right because it sounds very good and we did discuss about that in the Conviction times.

I sure hope so. I did enjoy Conviction, but it did have obvious flaws. I see Conviction as a stepping stone for Ubisoft trying to better shape their vision for the series. To tweak it so that the stealth and action feels more balanced. Despite our love for the legacy games we all have to admit that the action was lacking unless by "action" you mean the pulse-pounding thrill of sneaking slowly up to enemies and running the risk of being caught and facing certain death. Sure that was thrilling for stealth fans but not so thrilling for action fans. I think Splinter Cell can be perfected to a level where it performs well for us fans of the stealth genre and fans of the action/shooter genre. I see it as an added bonus for fans like myself that enjoy both kinds of games because I can play through Blacklist the 1st time stealthy the way I prefer then I can go back and play through it a 2nd time guns blazing-bodies falling.

The unlimited pistol ammo was a pain in Conviction. I understand why they did it with Sam's melee moves having him discharge the pistol, but it would be better if they made melee animations that compensated for Sam running low on or out of ammo. Like instead of shooting the guy with his own pistol Sam would disarm the guy and shoot him with the guy's own pistol. I didn't mind the addition of picking up weapons from fallen enemies... but I never really used them anyway. I mostly used Sam's pistol and melee. I did not feel a need or a desire to use more powerful weapons beyond just checking them out.

[BoBwUzHeRe1138]

Honestly? I think the games need to look again at their original iterations and seek to pull them apart again. Keep the universe the same, the gameplay very different. Imagine if they did do a game where they all come together.

The multiplayer would be intense. (x

[Andre202]

The unlimited pistol ammo was a pain in Conviction. I understand why they did it with Sam's melee moves having him discharge the pistol, but it would be better if they made melee animations that compensated for Sam running low on or out of ammo. Like instead of shooting the guy with his own pistol Sam would disarm the guy and shoot him with the guy's own pistol. I didn't mind the addition of picking up weapons from fallen enemies... but I never really used them anyway. I mostly used Sam's pistol and melee. I did not feel a need or a desire to use more powerful weapons beyond just checking them out.

They did or could compensate. In Coop they had also a section where we only could use nonlethal attacks and Sam isn't shooting there when having the pistol equipped. So it was possible.

[DeafAtheist]

Agreed 100%
The reason I kept coming back to the original games, is because the challenge was a refreshing break from the less well thought out plethora of fighting and Tony Hawk games that came out in that time.
I like games that force me to think before I act; and Conviction is pretty much purely run on impulse which does have its value for the more casual gamer, but it also destroys replayability.
I've played all the Call of Duty Modern Warfare games, and the campaign with all of its scripted events is always awesome the first time around. But after that, you know that the Eiffel Tower is going to topple, and you know that Zhakaev's arm is going to get shot off.
With Splinter Cell; the games have always been scripted, but because you could always approach your enemies in different ways, it wasn't difficult to ignore how linear it really was.

As an unrelated sidenote; Deafatheist, I'm hard of hearing. I imagine it pisses you off even more than it does me, when a game doesn't have subtitles.

Conviction did have it's moments where you could do a bit of strategic planning. My favorite was the Michigan Ave Reservoir mission. Once you got inside the warehouse before going down to the basement setting it up to clear that entire main room within a few seconds was fun. Hang on the pipe above the roving guard that walks under it... toss a remote mine at the wall behind the guard in the little room. Mark the 2 guards standing in front of the little room as well as the other 2 roving guards on the opposite side of the room. Pull out your pistol and aim it at the EMP device hanging over the heads of the last 2 guards. Now to execute, blow the remote mine then manually fire a shot at the EMP device, Hit Y to execute the 4 marks and finally drop down on the roving guard under you. All dead in one fluid motion. It's a beautiful thing.

Yep I hate it when games don't have subtitles. I'm mostly bummed out about the original Assassin's Creed game. I love that series but playing through the cutscenes was boring and you couldn't skip them. I had to read up on Assassin's Creed wiki to get a feel for what I was missing from the story. I'm glad that every game today seems to include subtitles but there are still accessibility for a deaf gamer. For example the whispers in Assassin's Creed multiplayer that warn players that their pursuers are within their field of view. I absolutely DESPISE that feature because it puts me at a handicap. I ALWAYS have to be on guard for my pursuers, not just when the game tells me to watch my back because as a deaf gamer I can't hear it. It further aggravates me after I get killed in Revelations when the game "helpfully" suggests that I listen for the whispers. That feature just ruins the game for me. When Brotherhood 1st introduced multiplayer it had the whispers but the game never really explained what that was and people didn't realize or even pick up on it for the 1st few months after it released. That was the only time I really enjoyed the game because EVERYONE was on the same level as me. People were genuinely surprised by stealthy kills. And it was much easier for a stealthy player to get the drop on their targets. I even enjoyed it when a stealthy player killed me. The genuine shock and surprise made the game so much more fun. Now approaching a target they are always on their guard because they know you're near. It's not nearly as much fun because the element of surprise is all but gone. Revelations also "fixed" what wasn't broken with Brotherhood by making stunning MUCH easier. In Brotherhood you had to know in advance who was a pursuer in order to stun them. Getting a stun without using smoke bombs or mute to incapacitate your pursuer was much more challenging and therefore much more rewarding when you pulled it off. But as it is in Revelations you are prompted early enough to stun your pursuer that you can often stun them before they get close enough for a kill. It really cheapens the stunning ability. This makes it even worse for me. I've played a lot less multiplayer in Revelations than I did in Brotherhood.