Ubisoft Will no Longer Sell DLC That Affects The "Full Game Experience"

[Grouchy Imp_v1legacy]

I agree with most of what you say, but the renown per match you've quoted seems to be the amount you get for Terrorist Hunts and casual online matches. Playing ranked matches nets you around 600 to 1000 renown per match in my experience, which greatly increases the speed at which you can afford the full roster.

Seriously? I've played quite a lot of ranked in the previous season and even there I only see a modest increase of 50 or so per loss (for 150-200 renown for a loss) and about 100 for a win, for 350-450 for a win. Terrorist Hunts yield about 100-150 renown, depending on type.

For the most part I'd say that we saw easily a doubling, sometimes even tripling of the renown earned when my friends and I switched from casual to ranked. I think the extended rounds per match, plus the increased likelihood of close-fought matches due to the ranked system tends to help towards the bigger payouts.

That being said, Ubi have shaved the ranked round times down from four to three minutes with the new DLC in an effort to force attacking teams into quicker assaults, so I wonder if this reduced match time will translate into a reduction in ranked renown.

 

[ShakerSilver]

I think you've gone a bit overboard with your examples there. We're not talking about whether or not a game ships without a main campaign line, we're talking about whether the player's gun is cobalt or brushed aluminium. The former clearly affects how everyone experiences the game, while the latter really only affects how an individual player experiences the game.

Re-read what I wrote. I suggested shipping the game with the campaign and actual gameplay elements but only without the story that dresses up that gameplay. I mean does the antagonist's motivations or the romance between two characters actually matter to the game's mechanics and content? More often than not things like this are purely cosmetic elements. To many, gameplay is all they want and they don't really care for whatever story surrounds the tasks they are performing, and would probably be fine with a game shipping with just placeholder graphics and bare-bones objectives to engage them, then having back the story and graphical assets sold to them as "optional" DLC.

My point was that by saying that one kind of content is expendable to the money-grubbing content-sanctioning practices of publishers just because they don't have an effect on gameplay means that all other types of content of similar relevance to gameplay are fair game, regardless of how important they are to the individual person's experience. If you're okay with costumes and other graphical stuff being lopped off for DLC/microtransactions, why not just sell all elements of a game that don't affect gameplay separately?

 

[Amaror]

And yet Watch Dogs 2 just launched with extra missions as preorder bonus. Truly cosmetic, right ubisoft?

I'm not sure they're capable of travelling back in time for that one.

Why not? They could just give the dlc for free to everyone. Or they could fix it for the pc version which hasn't been released yet. Or they could have just executed their plans, which I can assure you have not been made today, before releasing Watch Dogs 2. But they didn't. Because they don't really care, they just want good publicity.

 

[The Enquirer]

Now the question is are they going to still give you the offer to buy these dlc's with cash and allow you to purchase them with in game money, at a ridiculous rate, encouraging you to simply shell out real cash?

 

[Grouchy Imp_v1legacy]

I think you've gone a bit overboard with your examples there. We're not talking about whether or not a game ships without a main campaign line, we're talking about whether the player's gun is cobalt or brushed aluminium. The former clearly affects how everyone experiences the game, while the latter really only affects how an individual player experiences the game.

Re-read what I wrote. I suggested shipping the game with the campaign and actual gameplay elements but only without the story that dresses up that gameplay. I mean does the antagonist's motivations or the romance between two characters actually matter to the game's mechanics and content? More often than not things like this are purely cosmetic elements. To many, gameplay is all they want and they don't really care for whatever story surrounds the tasks they are performing, and would probably be fine with a game shipping with just placeholder graphics and bare-bones objectives to engage them, then having back the story and graphical assets sold to them as "optional" DLC.

My point was that by saying that one kind of content is expendable to the money-grubbing content-sanctioning practices of publishers just because they don't have an effect on gameplay means that all other types of content of similar relevance to gameplay are fair game, regardless of how important they are to the individual person's experience. If you're okay with costumes and other graphical stuff being lopped off for DLC/microtransactions, why not just sell all elements of a game that don't affect gameplay separately?

Well, as scary as that prospect is, I would hope in my naive way that story, worldbuilding and plot development were more integral to a game than you perhaps suggest. After all, a game without these things is simply a physics engine. I would suggest that plot, pacing etc are as much part of a game as bullet physics and hit-boxes, so I tend to think that they would be safe from the penny-pinching of publishers.

 

[tacotrainwreck]

Incidentally, Ubisoft is also looking for ways to change the general definition of the term, 'Full Game Experience'.

 

[ShakerSilver]

I would hope in my naive way that story, worldbuilding and plot development were more integral to a game than you perhaps suggest. After all, a game without these things is simply a physics engine.

Divorce the actual contents of a game that the player interacts with from the story and characters that dress it up. This is what I'm getting at - it's all essentially cosmetic at a mechanical level.

 

[Paragon Fury]

I agree with most of what you say, but the renown per match you've quoted seems to be the amount you get for Terrorist Hunts and casual online matches. Playing ranked matches nets you around 600 to 1000 renown per match in my experience, which greatly increases the speed at which you can afford the full roster.

Seriously? I've played quite a lot of ranked in the previous season and even there I only see a modest increase of 50 or so per loss (for 150-200 renown for a loss) and about 100 for a win, for 350-450 for a win. Terrorist Hunts yield about 100-150 renown, depending on type.

And you get the maps for free, which are the big thing; yeah, saving on Operators is nice, but of the 8 they've released in a full year, only Blackbeard could've been said to have been "necessary" for enjoyment; all the others were just nice options that weren't required.

Valkyrie is also considered S-tier and is generally considered an absolute must for high ranked play. Which means that the Season 2 operators are the ones that stand out as incredibly useful. Of the remaining 6, the Canadian and Brazilian operators are good but situational and the Japanese ones are poised to both take their place along Douchebeard and Valkyrie in the top tiers of rankings, due to the extreme utility their abilities offer.

Valkyrie is powerful, but was never on the level of BB is terms of being required.

The new Japanese Operators are good, but Hibana's gadget has a huge tell and is still Mute'able and Bandit vulnerable while both her weapons are hard to use.

Echo is good too but he is vulnerable to Thatcher and IQ and if he loses his drone he becomes a less effective Mute.

 

[Gethsemani_v1legacy]

Valkyrie is powerful, but was never on the level of BB is terms of being required.

Sure, previously the Beard was on a level of his own, with his transparent titan shield. With BB's huge shield nerf though, he was brought down from Godlike to merely very useful. That puts him in the same space as Valkyrie right now.

The new Japanese Operators are good, but Hibana's gadget has a huge tell and is still Mute'able and Bandit vulnerable while both her weapons are hard to use.

I've found the Type 89 to be an absolute beast, on par with Twitch's F2 in terms of sheer spray potential, albeit with a shorter full auto duration. And while her gadget has a huge tell, it also provides a unique and ubiquitous ability to the team, in that she's one of two operators that can take out reinforced walls and the only one who can make several holes from multiple directions on her own at once. Thermite is still the better operator for breaching action, but Hibana's ability to make murder holes is very powerful and I don't think we've seen its' true potential yet.

Echo is good too but he is vulnerable to Thatcher and IQ and if he loses his drone he becomes a less effective Mute.

I actually struggle to see Echo losing his drone to Thatcher unless Echo screws up or Thatcher does some really clever play. IQ is still a danger to it, but IQ needs some utility considering how mediocre her ability is (even after it got buffed). That Echo's MP5SD4 is a legitimately scary weapon helps him. Either way, my point was that both Hibana and Echo are poised to be more useful and more often picked than Frost, Buck, Caveira or Capitao. None of them are bad operators, but they all have abilities that are only situationally useful, whereas Echo and Hibana are likely to always find their abilities useful, much like BB and Valk does.

 

[distortedreality]

"No more DLC that you have to buy if you want to have the full experience. You have the game, and if you want to expand it - depending on how you want to experience the game - you're free to buy it, or not," explained Blondel-Jouin.

This still sounds like they can strip out story based content, to repackage as extra missions if they so desire.

This is exactly how I read it as well - I wouldn't get too excited, mission packs aren't going anywhere anytime soon.

 

[HannesPascal]

But hey, if we're going to go down that route let's just ship the game with simple placeholder graphics and sell the actual finished graphical assets as "cosmetics". I mean it's all cosmetic so it should be fine, right?? Hell, you know what's also "cosmetic" and "optional" to game? Story. I wonder how many people would be okay with a game shipping without actual narrative to engage the player and only directing the player through bland instructions, while the actual story and characterizations of a game that dresses up those objectives was some "story DLC". It's just story and doesn't affect gameplay so it's fine, right?

Sounds like a great idea. For example my computer generally can't run games on high graphic settings so I wouldn't bother buying 4k textures but only lower quality textures and probably not even bother with any form of shadows. I mean why pay for something I won't be able to use.

Games without stories are fine, they generally aren't that good anyways so if I can get the game cheaper without a story I would be fine with that.

 

[ShakerSilver]

Sounds like a great idea. For example my computer generally can't run games on high graphic settings so I wouldn't bother buying 4k textures but only lower quality textures and probably not even bother with any form of shadows. I mean why pay for something I won't be able to use.

Games without stories are fine, they generally aren't that good anyways so if I can get the game cheaper without a story I would be fine with that.

You misunderstand. The reason why I'm complaining about game makers fleecing content from games and selling it back to you is because they haven't made the base game cheaper and are charging you for content that's already part of the game. Unlockable cosmetics used to be a thing earned in games normally and available to everyone, now games are shipping with that content sanctioned off behind extra paywalls while the game still has the same retail price. My point was that if people are okay with that "cosmetic" stuff being cutoff and sold back to them, they would essentially be okay with other "cosmetic" content being treated similarly and developers/publishers further dipping from the same well.

 

[Fulbert]

From this day on, the DLC vital for the full-game experience will be pre-order exclusive and not available after the game's launch.

 

[MerlinCross]

I cant' believe someone hasn't used this already. Oh well.


I'll believe it when I see it Ubi. Triple As have gotten so used to trying to fleece as much cash as they can using whatever ideas seem good to them at the time, damn what comes later. Besides, if Ubisoft does actually go this route, how long will they keep at it? I mean look at all the money these other companies are making, why do we have to suddenly make less of the money, we wants the money!

 

[Blitsie]

Rainbow Six Siege is a really, really bad example of the point they're trying to make.

Lets just look at the economy they got going there for a sec, because the "oh its just cosmetic stop whining" excuse is the go to one for this game but really, its a terrible excuse and you're not thinking things through at all if you use it:

Spoiler: RANT!!!

-The standard operatives are fine, they come at a reasonable price and don't take too much work to afford. The DLC ones on the other hand, cost 25k, now with you earning 100-300 points average per match (tons more if you have a consistent exceptional 5 man team for realistic mode and constant wins in PvP ranked, but very few is lucky enough to have that) imagine how crap long you're going to have to play to get those 8 (so far) DLC operatives. Its simply ludicrous, so what other option do you have? Oh, you can buy them separately with real cash or just get the season pass. Yeah, doesn't affect the full game experience my ass

-To get the renown earnings up to a reasonable amount you have to buy temporary boosters with real money. Yeah, doesn't affect the full game experience my asshole

-Now lets say you got all the operators and kitted out all their weapons (which is cheap), the last remaining thing you can spend renown on are cosmetics. But oh guess what, they range from 1k+ to 22k per item. Yeah, doesn't affect the full game experience my holeass


"But wait Blitsie, its all cosmetic! It doesn't affect the full game your ass" one would say.

No, it does affect the full game experience. When a huge part of the game is tailored around gaining renown, and the vast majority of the stuff you can spend it on is horribly costly in both time and currency unless you pay with real money, it sure as hell does affect the full game. It intentionally tries to make you feel like you're missing out so you can start reaching for your wallet

Rainbow Six is a terrible example because the game may not be pay to win, but throwing lots of money at it long after buying it improves the integral game experience a lot.

So Ubisoft, why you always lyin'?