INCOMING RANT TO UBISOFT
I don't know what is more astonishing - the fact that any of this got past QA, or the fact that management did not accept this bug earlier in development. I really don't know who to blame here. I expect nightmare-fuel models on PCs since they have different configurations and shit can hit the fan on certain configurations, but to have it occur on a console is inexcusable. It feels like every single department lost sight of what was important and failed to keep their scope reasonable.
- We don't need a million NPCs who do or add nothing to the experience.
- We don't care about "cinematic". If we wanted cinematic we would go watch a movie.
- We don't need massive, shallow worlds. We are happy with small, rich worlds.
- We don't need yearly releases. What you lose in a year will be made up with more sales of a superior and more polished product. You can't put a price on reputation.
- If your art team had any knowledge of their professions at all, it would take absolutely no effort to add a female assassin. When it comes to dialogue, having the player be their desired sex is more immersive than NPCs saying a specific, non-meaningful name.
- Immediately admitting mistakes when called out on them may not get you far with your stakeholders, but it goes miles with your customers.
Ubisoft, I can tell you have some brilliant people working on your games, but none of that matters if you treat your customers like garbage. As much as I want to disagree with what I am about to say, people are not stupid sheep like you make them out to be when it comes to video games. They act like it sometimes, but ultimately they can spot the fundamental problems and have a basic understanding of computers.
INCOMING RANT TO GAMERS
On the other hand, and I know I'm going to get a lot of flak for this, to the gamers, 30FPS is not unplayable. It doesn't feel as smooth as 60, but the difference between 30 and 60 visually is minimal (don't misunderstand me here - I agree it exists, but the difference is not "unplayable"). Likewise, having good systems does not mean you are obligated to get great performance from a game and it doesn't mean it is poorly optimized.
Stop confusing "poorly optimized" with "need for alteration". Having 10,000 NPCs at 20FPS when you can get 10,000 NPCs at 30FPS is "poor optimization". Having 10,000 NPCs at 20FPS where there is no room for improvement is "need of alteration". In that case they would need to reduce the number of NPCs to bring the framerate back up. I'll summarize - optimization is being able to do the same thing better. Alteration is doing something different that will achieve a better result.
Learn to differentiate between the two. It is obnoxious to see people throw the term around without having a clue what it implies. Telling devs to "optimize their game" does nothing to tell them how to improve it. What can the dev do to improve the experience? If you can't give a concrete example (remove NPCs is an extremely good example) you have no business complaining and aren't helping to fix the issue. With all of that said, I have no idea whether the issue is actually poor optimization or if alteration is needed. It is, however, safer to assume that alteration is needed. Alteration provides faster and clearer results than optimization does.
INCOMING RANT TO REVIEWERS/CRITICS
This goes for reviewers/critics too. You are failures as reviewers if you say "X is poorly optimized". You are not qualified to make that statement and you are not CRITIQUING - you are whining and being unhelpful. You complain about how devs and publishers treat you, but your reviews are not helping developers improve.
Critic: "WAAAHH! I don't like the taste of this cake!"
Baker: (Internally) "Well, what's wrong with it?"
Critic: "It tastes bad."
Baker: (Internally) "What part of it tastes bad?"
Critic: "And it has a really weird consistency."
Baker: (Internally) "Well, that is subjective. Many people have different preferences."
Critic: "6/10"
Do we see the issue here? With all of the complaining the baker knows you don't like the cake but has absolutely no idea how to improve it for next time since you did not express your preferences. And what is going to happen? The baker is either going to make something else completely gross or will stick to what was already made because they feel safe making that cake since enough people like it.
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There is my rant on our industry. Game development is an iterative process. Devs are clueless because customers/reviewers are whiny and unhelpful which leads to devs being clueless because customers/reviewers are whiny and unhelpful. It is a never ending cycle and the best way to break it is to give constructive feedback instead of endlessly complaining without providing ways to improve it and expressing personal preferences.
