Watch Dogs Legion - Hack All

The first update is pretty hilarious in its attempts to sidestep blame for the author's error: "A page on the Hitrecord website has emerged that claims the artists have been paid, contradicting its own website that claims they have not." I love it when pages on websites emerge.

As I pointlessly refresh the UPS tracking info for my copy, since I definitely can't play until after dinner anyway, are you all planning on playing with permadeath on for your crew or no? I almost always like the idea of permadeath in theory but can never stomach it in reality. But usually permadeath is something I avoid because a)it means a full game over restart or b)it means missing out on a more detailed story about the character I have lost, but it sounds like neither of those are in play with WDL. So...maybe?

I’m perma-deathing, for sure. It actually has made me play the game differently in a good way. For instance, I parked a cargo drone close to a rooftop and jumped off to grab something. When it came time to jump back onto the cargo drone, I felt really uneasy about the jump and questioned it for a moment before hacking into the drone and moving it to a guaranteed safe jumping spot. In most games I wouldn’t even second-guess myself and just hurl my digital body off the roof.

Put a few more hours in after work and forget what I said earlier about no performance issues on One X. I have hit areas where the game straight-up freezes for 5 seconds while I’m driving. I’m guessing to load assets or whatnot?

Loving the “recruit anyone” mechanic. I’ve only done 1 main story mission and have just been messing about walking down streets and searching for good recruits. I chose one person and am currently on a side mission related to recruiting them. That’s pretty neat.

Also, I hacked a van that was sitting in an intersection. It lunges forward onto the sidewalk and ran over a pedestrian. Many people walked by and eventually another pedestrian stopped and called 999 while checking on him. Currently watching them waiting for an ambulance to show up. I’ve set the helper pedestrian to be a new recruit because that’s the type of person I want in my DedSec.

Forbes is basically a blog hosting platform at this point. I don't look to it for reputable news.

mrlogical wrote:

As I pointlessly refresh the UPS tracking info for my copy, since I definitely can't play until after dinner anyway, are you all planning on playing with permadeath on for your crew or no? I almost always like the idea of permadeath in theory but can never stomach it in reality. But usually permadeath is something I avoid because a)it means a full game over restart or b)it means missing out on a more detailed story about the character I have lost, but it sounds like neither of those are in play with WDL. So...maybe?

Permadeath for sure. Legion only seems to have lite permadeath anyway, as you indicate.

I enjoy permadeath, usually, and try not to be a save scummer in games.

Complaint, though - why can’t you allow an audio pick-up to play when you close the menu? These podcast and radio clips are upwards of 3-5 minutes long. Who wants to just sit in the menu to listen to them?

Yes! This is one of the dumbest things I've encountered in a while. I've picked up a dozen of these audio things already, why would I want to stare at a menu screen and listen to them when I could do it while I'm cruising around town? It's a bummer, they seem pretty good.

Certis wrote:
Complaint, though - why can’t you allow an audio pick-up to play when you close the menu? These podcast and radio clips are upwards of 3-5 minutes long. Who wants to just sit in the menu to listen to them?

Yes! This is one of the dumbest things I've encountered in a while. I've picked up a dozen of these audio things already, why would I want to stare at a menu screen and listen to them when I could do it while I'm cruising around town? It's a bummer, they seem pretty good.

I have seen this feature in all of like two games, and I don't understand why it hasn't become the industry standard.

kazooka wrote:

I have seen this feature in all of like two games, and I don't understand why it hasn't become the industry standard.

Yeah. I think the last game I saw it in was Borderlands. Or Elite: Dangerous, I guess, if the news bulletins count.

Aright the hype train is chugging along and I'm still happy to be driving. I sunk in a day and so far Legion hits all the notes, even on my relatively dated CPU/GPU. The amazing thing technically is, the game seems to have no graphics settings. (edit: I'm wrong about this, next post..) Usually with any game like this my first 30 minutes is spent fiddling with antialiasing and whatnot. This game, you have an option to turn on V-sync and that's pretty much it, and for me at least performs beautifully. It's probably not rock-solid 60fps, but it's good enough to not care about.

I also wondered about the audio-drop thingies not playing outside the menu. But this seems to be an issue with the two clips you find right away in the hideout; all the subsequent clips I found were very short.

Happily surprised about the way DedSec works - in the trailers it looked like it was a big organization that you join, but in the game it's more of an empty shell you're rebuilding it from scratch, so there really aren't any protagonists except the people you recruit. (apart from one former member who was whisked out of London by the plot fairies, and the AI continuity device.)

Definitely going perma-death. Note though, even if you enable it permadeath doesn't take effect until you finish the first 3-4 story missions, a couple of which unlock operatives. I died once by falling off a building and got a message and option to restart that mission, then after my next mission got a "permadeath is now enabled" message. I kind of hope that it only actually applies to combat deaths, and that you get some kind of mulligan for accidental falls. But not going to test it.

Quibbles noticed so far:

  • Had two CTDs, both while driving. Hopefully stability patches happen.
  • When you switch a car radio to a news channel and get plot-themed audio, it always seems to play segments from the beginning. I wish it was more like GTA, where the radio had its own timeline and you'd hear wherever it happened to be at. That makes it feel more like a world, and also you don't keep hearing the beginning of each segments but missing the end because you stopped driving.
  • Procedural people - to be expected, but I wish there was a bit more variety. The people of London do feel varied in some ways, but none of them are tall or short, fat or thin, ugly or attractive, etc. It's a city of racially diverse medium people.
  • This may vary with which borough you're in, but every procedural character I've unlocked so far has spoken full-on hardcore estuary. Does London have any posh people? It's weird playing as a hipster-looking white guy whose dialog is all "Ayo bruv less' f*ckin go innit blud BR-RAP-BAP-BAP"
fenomas wrote:

The amazing thing technically is, the game seems to have no graphics settings. Usually with any game like this my first 30 minutes is spent fiddling with antialiasing and whatnot. This game, you have an option to turn on V-sync and that's pretty much it, and for me at least performs beautifully. It's probably not rock-solid 60fps, but it's good enough to not care about.[/list]

Maybe we were in different menus or it's a region difference thing but I found TONNES of graphics options and was pretty impressed by the way they displayed the impacts of various settings.

fenomas wrote:

This may vary with which borough you're in, but every procedural character I've unlocked so far has spoken full-on hardcore estuary. Does London have any posh people? It's weird playing as a hipster-looking white guy whose dialog is all "Ayo bruv less' f*ckin go innit blud BR-RAP-BAP-BAP"

Counter point. I've only found high brow, classy acts to recruit. There's lots of variety there.

staygold wrote:

Maybe we were in different menus or it's a region difference thing but I found TONNES of graphics options and was pretty impressed by the way they displayed the impacts of various settings.

Okay, I must have missed a submenu.. thought surely I had to be crazy there. That said, it's still definitely the first game like this where I haven't needed to twiddle anything.

staygold wrote:

Counter point. I've only found high brow, classy acts to recruit. There's lots of variety there.

Glad to hear this. Maybe it's because I've only recruited in Camden? I guess the only way to check a recruit's voice is to start the process with them, so maybe I'll do that with some more characters and then prune the list.

Hocking says somewhere that they have voice tech such that two recruits who sound different may actually be using audio assets from the same voice actor, so presumably the game has a one/few sets of assets for each style (estuary, RP, Irish, ..), and then it does some kind of filtering to vary it. It's definitely working for me so far - even where NPCs have similar accents, they sound individualized. It's not like GTA where somebody says "hey watch it!" and your ear notices it being the exact same audio that you heard from someone else earlier.

I am surprised I like this game as much as I do. I didn't expect much but it really captured me in the last couple of days. I like how you approach some site, you look around and think "There is no way I can break into that" and then you scout some more, start finding some vulnerabilities and, eventually, break into and complete the mission. It's very satisfying and feels great.

I also like finding new recruits - most of the "civilians" are pretty standard but you can find some individuals with very unique and interesting skills. It's a fun minigame to find, recruit and try out new interesting recruits.

I am playing on hard and permadeath and don't find it too punishing. I've noticed a long time ago that most Ubisoft games are too easy on normal. With permadeath it's not an instant game over when you fail - your character can get arrested or end up in a hospital in addition to getting killed, forcing you to start using your other characters. A true game over is possible if you manage to lose all your operatives but to achieve that you need to be ignoring the recruiting part of the game for a while.

It's also interesting to switch operatives and gadgets depending on the mission you are facing. I am going to do my best not to get stuck in one playstyle and try different approaches.

[edit] BTW the patch is out on all platforms.

Picked this up and am also enjoying it. Playing on PC, on hard / ironman, with most of the UI turned off - it's thankfully less of the usual Ubisoft icon hunt.

The characters are the main draw, but I love how the little emergent moments in the game work -- driving around, following traffic rules, being cautious with pedestrians, and interacting with the environment all feel good and add to the experience. Just getting started, but positive so far!

I signed up for Ubisoft+ to play this (and Valhalla and fenyx rising). I’ve played 4-5 hours. I’m enjoying it alright. I haven’t really played the previous 2, so I don’t know if I need background to feel stakes. So far most stuff seems frivolous. The game also feels old mechanically and design-wise. It’s odd that we are on the verge of a new console generation and this feels like a game that would have come out at the transition of the previous console generation. It feels more like a Xbox 360 open world game than a modern game. I think it was the on the Giant Bombcast that they compared it to a saints row 2 era open world, which feels right.

I’m sure I’ll play it more. It’s not a bad game. It has some interesting mechanics and I’m hoping the game becomes more interesting when I get access to more gadgets and hacking skills.

Tagging because this seems to be better than I expected it to.

I'm enjoying it so far. In terms of tone, I probably prefer 2 because there seemed a lot more banter instead of just straight up "you should go there and do this" instructions. Which is fine it's still fun to run around London and do mayhem.

edit: oh and as for

fenomas wrote:

This may vary with which borough you're in, but every procedural character I've unlocked so far has spoken full-on hardcore estuary. Does London have any posh people?

While none of my first three recruits has been posh, they also haven't been very "street" either. They're varied enough with Indian, Jamaican, & eastern European accents though.

I'm getting fairly regular crashes at the end of missions when the audio plays telling you the mission is done but before it auto saves so having to do the mission again

Didn’t like it at first but the game is growing on me. It reeeeaally needed some more time in the oven though, it’s the buggiest Ubisoft game I’ve played in recent memory.

Played a few hours last night. The intro felt like a missed opportunity...if you're going to show me how the controls work with a character and scenario that is obviously doomed, should probably make it a little cooler than "sneak around a handful of oblivious dudes, then shoot some, then interact with an object, then done." But I like the open world stuff and am having trouble not just spending all my time recruiting people. Looks good on my One X and load times aren't *too* bad, but I will be very interested to make the jump to Series X in 10 days or so. Oh, and you all convinced me to try permadeath. I think I'll stick with it but ask me again after I lose my first operative.

Some more thoughts after about 10 hours with the game:

Permadeath is rad, but none of the recruits are really “unique” enough for them not to be replaceable. I had my drone expert blow up in a car crash on his first mission, which was great in head-canon. I recruited a bare knuckle boxer and used him as kind of the “reckless assault” character. It was fun deciding to pick him when I felt like just going in fists-blazing, but he got killed when a shotgun toting woman came up from behind in a fistfight. I then switched to my Spy character and took her out in revenge. Put two in the head to make sure. It helps that the enemies that kill your team members have a red nemesis(?) icon on them. I wish it saved all your Dead team members on your Team Page, so you could see who died and what they accomplished.

When you view the Bio of characters on your team page it shows the latest events for them. Whether they injured someone, got injured and released from hospital, or killed people. Unfortunately, this only stores about the last 4 events. I wish it kept them all, so I could look back at it like a timeline for each character. I like to use certain ones for stealth, certain ones for murder missions, and certain for just messing around in the world.

I’ve had one Crash to Dashboard on the One X. Luckily it saved my progress beforehand.

The game does some cool things with lighting on certain missions. I had to use a drone to light my way on a light platforming section. This will be a really cool feature if they use it in the co-op missions coming out. I could see one character sneaking through the pitch black while another one flies the drone and lights the way.

I’m into the story more than I thought I would be. Maybe because taking down fascists is kind of carthatic in a way that a game couldn’t be say......4 years ago? Even with no main protagonist, I’m enjoying creating my own storyline of my characters in my head. I’ve just made it to “Chapter 2” because I’ve been mostly just mucking about in the world finding items and recruiting people.

I’ve gotten some wonky characters. Like 60 yr olds that look 20. Straight-up Caucasian looking characters with strong Jamaican accents. A spy who sounds like a buffoonish Eastern European. A doctor that makes £17,000 a year. It’s pretty funny.

It’s interesting using a character with a uniform that allows them to just walk around restricted areas. It almost like the Hitman franchise when playing that way. It’s actually quite intense trying not to be discovered and makes me feel like I’m actually doing hacker/spy movie shenanigans.

Also, the game is under-baked and could have used another few months in development. Great ideas, so-so execution. Also, the overall game feel is very “last gen”. Not “current gen” PS4/One X. It feels set up like a PS3/360 open world game. Just seems a bit dated game design-wise. I’m enjoying myself, though, and that’s what really counts.

Anyone know if it’s possible to get rid of the preorder characters? You can’t boot them like other characters, they’re apparently immortal even in permadeath, and they’re tied to your account so they show up in your game even if you uninstall the dlc and start a new save. I find them cheesy and obnoxious and they won’t go away.

EDIT: okay, figured it out. They CAN die, but only through gunfire. Anything else just hospitalizes them.

I LOVED the gameplay of 2, but couldn't stand the characters/cutscenes.

Just curious because I'll be playing it eventually, but how are the characters/story of 3 compared to 2?

ruhk wrote:

Anyone know if it’s possible to get rid of the preorder characters? You can’t boot them like other characters, they’re apparently immortal even in permadeath, and they’re tied to your account so they show up in your game even if you uninstall the dlc and start a new save. I find them cheesy and obnoxious and they won’t go away.

EDIT: okay, figured it out. They CAN die, but only through gunfire. Anything else just hospitalizes them.

ruhk just running around shoving Albion mercs and insulting their mothers until they pull guns. I've sent my "special, unique" bonus characters on some missions ... mistakes may have been made. I didn't want fancy, gun-wielding characters right off the bat, totally killing the sense that I was building my own crew and working my way up.

I don't even like it when mission rewards are "a spy for your crew" or whatever, my base getting loaded up with strangers.

PaladinTom wrote:

I LOVED the gameplay of 2, but couldn't stand the characters/cutscenes.

Just curious because I'll be playing it eventually, but how are the characters/story of 3 compared to 2?

Finally someone on my side of the hated-the-WD2-plot fence! I've been so lonely!

For WD3, if you mean the story going on around the playable characters, I like it fine but it's not hugely notable so far. It's much closer to WD1 than 2 - i.e. more violent human trafficking rings, fewer humorously nerdy tech companies.

OTOH if you mean the playable characters, they're blank slates - basically just an accent and a description (like "ex-spy"), and whatever connection you form with them as you play. That's a neutral point for me so far - they sort of flow like water into the main-character-shaped hole at the center of the story, and that's not a bad or a good thing. Whether it ultimately winds up working, I guess I won't find out for some time.

I lost my first character to permadeath last night, probably 8 hours in. I was a bit disappointed...he was my first operative, a balding middle-aged businessman sort with a connection to the chief of police, and I was a bit attached to him. The circumstances of his death were frustrating, too: I had ridden on top of a supply drone to New Scotland Yard as part of a mission, and had to do a lot of work by hacking into the building's cameras. I did this from on top of the drone, but outside of the restricted area around the building, and wasn't causing alarms inside, so I assumed I was safe. Suddenly I was canceled out of my hacked camera view because a cop just started shooting me from behind, but the view had barely even snapped back before my operative was dead. I don't like that it came so quickly and with so little warning--apparently being on a drone and in eye view of Albion is a trigger all on its own, which I will keep in mind from now on!--but I think I'm okay with it overall. I'm sad I lost the character, but dealing with his loss does reinforce that I haven't missed out on much other than my memory of having acquired him originally.

Also, I love riding on drones, though I wish they were a little faster. It's a particularly good way to reach any high up objectives.

I lost my favorite operator today. A Hitman who looked like Sturgill Simpson that I dressed in a Neo-punk Terminator 1 style outfit. I got cocky and tried one too many Gunkata moves and got blown up by a bomb-spider-drone-thing.

I was bummed at first, but now I have a new boo. An Infiltrator with a silenced MP5 that I’ve dressed in glowing clothes and am using to exact the righteous vengeance of DedSec past. For every Drone Expert exploded in a car crash and every Pro Driver gunned down by a riot drone, I will put a silenced bullet in the face-piece of the enemy. No more taser guns. No more quarter.

Does the game eventually force you to go in guns blazing? So far I have been sending my (normal but fully upgraded) spider drone in and taser takedown-ing everyone which seems to have just worked through 3 borough takeovers.

That’s nice to read, I’ve been a bit saddened by all the gun talk after Ubi had been touting non-lethal combat as the standard in all the promo stuff I’d seen...

All the game I've seen so far has been 100% stealth friendly. Most of my operatives don't even have a gun, besides the default taser.

Actually one could argue that they've gone so far in this direction as to strain credulity - the game has non-lethal "shock" versions of the shotgun, the SMG, and the grenade launcher. I haven't unlocked them yet, but from the descriptions it looks like ubi just took the standard set of FPS weapons and wrote "non-lethal" on them, so people could run around like Duke Nukem but still pretend they were using stealth.