December 2, 2020

I know you folks must hear a lot of frustration, some of which I am a contributor. For me – this occurs about 3% of the time. To be fair, I enjoy ACV very much! And more so when in my travels I come across clever writing that is edge on and unexpected; makes me laugh right out loud! A few come to mind (no spoilers):

• the unending prattle of a certain dwarf…
• the responses of the drunken bard found beneath a bridge…
• actually, just about every poet, bard, or flyter has been very entertaining

The immense lush detail that went into creating the latest realm is absolutely stunning! If Origins and Odyssey are taken as examples, I suspect that future Valhalla DLCs will be equally rich emersions.
  
Me: 160 hours invested since Nov-11 with 64% progress; Completionist = True, Having Fun = True.

Thank You for making a great Game! It nearly broke my video card; I’ll send that report later ;o)
Cheers!

I too ran into the same problem as the OP; here's a bit more detail.

BUG: Eurvicscire|Road to Hamartia, Dog takes excessively long circuitous route

December 9, 2020
Possible Spoiler Alert

About midway through the quest “Road to Hamartia” in the Eurvicscire province, we need to follow a dog that will lead us to where bad guys might be hiding.

It starts after the recovery of a scout at the “Temple of Brigantia”. Halfdan has a Rottweiler named Beonton that’s got the scent of bad guys and we need to follow him. Unfortunately the dog gets lost and misses the trail. He never does lead properly, and instead tortures us with indirection, bobbing and weaving left and right, then reversing from time to time, and eventually we wind up nearly at Picheringa when the doggone dog doubles back and heads all the way to Temple of Brigantia where it picks up the scent again (correctly this time) and heads to the Petuaria ruins. Estimating this took me at least 15 possibly 20 minutes to complete, and at the end of it I was very frustrated. 
I mean, washing my socks by hand would be more entertaining.

I went to youtube to get a proper measure of time wasted, and that’s where I discovered it was a bug because the dog in that video went straight from Temple of Brigantia to Petuaria ruins in about 1 minute.

As a pet peeve, I really dislike following NPCs for more than a minute, and especially when they take an indirect circuitous route.

As a Software Developer Engineer/Architect this would be filed as a “Content Bug” having low impact on gameplay, and therefore low priory to fix. 

My first experience with QC for large content projects was back in 1994 as the Content Developer for a multimedia title at Microsoft. All content, whether media-, meta- or text-based, was stored in a database. My role was to incrementally build the product as required through query on any number of fields, and provide reports to the Team. IMO, this is simply a content bug that missed being caught.  

Consider: Think of all the number of conversations, interactions, permutations, and total words spoken or written … consider that number, write it down on a piece of paper – whatever. Now count how many times you heard “he/she/him/her” references made that were opposite of the Avatar Gender. I counted 1 so far with 70% progress. If your count came to less than 10, it’s still noise in my book.  

As for Policy, if this was consistent throughout the entire product (and so far I haven’t found it to be), then I’d say it was intentional. Interesting read: Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie ISBN-10 : 031624662X; took me a couple hundred pages to figure out who was talking because everyone was referred to as "She" , and her 4^th book really distorts this even more! Great reads, all of them!

I wouldn’t bother asking Ubisoft to rerecord these issues. The fact that this post exists is enough for Ubisoft to take note and (hopefully) effect change for next product.

Cheers people!

December 2, 2020

I know you folks must hear a lot of frustration, some of which I am a contributor. For me – this occurs about 3% of the time. To be fair, I enjoy ACV very much! And more so when in my travels I come across clever writing that is edge on and unexpected; makes me laugh right out loud! A few come to mind (no spoilers):

• the unending prattle of a certain dwarf…
• the responses of the drunken bard found beneath a bridge…
• actually, just about every poet, bard, or flyter has been very entertaining

The immense lush detail that went into creating the latest realm is absolutely stunning! If Origins and Odyssey are taken as examples, I suspect that future Valhalla DLCs will be equally rich emersions.
  
Me: 160 hours invested since Nov-11 with 64% progress; Completionist = True, Having Fun = True.

Thank You for making a great Game! It nearly broke my video card; I’ll send that report later ;o)
Cheers!

@ezgamerbro

Me: Gaming PC using XBox Controller. Confirmed this is the way to do this yesterday with a caveat…
I was able to do this in half the time by climbing onto the pile of objects to the right of the bookshelf/doorway (as opposed to standing beside it), and aiming the body at the lowest visible part of the shelf of the upper shelf. In this way, physics (for all that it’s worth) provides an advantage in that you are not throwing the body UPWARD, but instead throwing it DOWN into the ever-widening gap; more leverage is obtained this way.

One other thing…
BEFORE the Patch I had previously dispatched the NPC in the lower tower by slugging it out in close quarters. However after Patch the whole scene was reset. So on the 2^nd time around I tried a different method and achieved a better reward:
Look for the tree with an overhanging branch in view of the window where the NPC is sitting and climb onto it, shoot the boards blocking the window, then use a Predator Bow to nail the bully in the head.  Depending on your skills, it may take a few shots, though be warned – he’ll try to knock you off the tree with rocks. Anyways, I found this method to be quicker and more rewarding… plus I got to do this twice!

When I’m in the Boat, the object consistently has unstable rudder control at zero-to-low speed. In addition, the fidelity of Steering and Maneuverability is completely backward from paddling to sailing. Let’s review…

Using the Xbox Controller, the Navigate toggle controls the Rudder: 

• Push Forward and we go forward Ahead 12:00.  
• Push Backward and we go backward Aft 6:00.

These two actions work correctly. However, the next do not at low speed, especially when we’re trying to pull away from the dock or shore:

• Push Left, and that should give us Left Rudder
• Push Right, and that should give us Right Rudder.

Let’s combine the motions:

• Full Left Rudder, Forward -> Boat pitches Ahead to Port.
• Full Left Rubber, Backward -> Boat pitches Aft to Starboard.
• Full Right Rudder, Forward -> Boat pitches Ahead to Starboard.
• Full Right Rubber, Backward -> Boat pitches Aft to Port.

This should work at any speed.

Most people will agree that navigating a boat is an art, just like backing up a boat trailer at the ramp. What we have here in Game is confusion; at low speed it navigates counterintuitively BACKWARD, and then it switches up and navigates correctly once motion is established. In Hardware, if this was an electric motor, it would be attributed to having improper positioning which causes the motor to jitter until it knows which way it needs to rotate. Therefore I wonder if this is a device-interface issue with the Controller.

In Reality, at low speed, like when we’re padding – the boat should act very nimble and able to spin on a dime. I can do it in my canoe and kayak, but not so in ACV! 

In Game, I could be paddling at full speed and consistently struggle to corner the boat around a bend. However, if I have the sail up and running full speed – I can turn the boat on a dime?!? That is absolutely backward from real world experience! 
 
In Reality, if I have a boat load of Rowers (pun intended) at zero-to-low speed, without touching the Rudder, I have absolute control over position and speed. It’s like operating a tractor having Left/Right motor control. I can spin on a dime round and round, I can drag Left or Right side and power on the opposite – total and complete control with high fidelity!

In Reality, when sailing, all we have is the rudder, although because we have rowers, we can also drag Left or Right for tighter turning… sort of like a using a sea anchor.

Ubisoft has made three previous AC games with sailing involved: Black Flag, Origins, and Odyssey. This boat navigation issue should not be a problem.

Lastly, whilst I’m here: The Canoe navigation mechanic in AC Valhalla needs redesign; it’s worse than the Boat. Just copy the code from Origins and make it right.

When jumping onto the Boat, the “Take Command” function does not consistently capture the focus, requiring the User to click it several times, adjusting the position of the player-character until the darn thing latches.

My System: Gaming PC, Dual-monitor but served only on one, 16:10/1920x1200, Game is configured as Window Mode Borderless, using Microsoft Xbox Controller for PC.

Repro:
1.      Start a game, go a-viking. When possible, go on a raid (and succeed).
2.      Return to the Boat.
3.      Jump onto Boat. (This action problematic too but not nearly as annoying as the next step).
4.      When the UI presents “Take Command” (on Xbox Controller – that’s Y button), do so. 
5.      Result: It takes several clicks + adjusting the player-character just right for the action to latch. 

• Also – why offer the opportunity to “Take Command” from the other end of the Boat when it never does? That’s a contradictory UX.  

6.      Expected Behavior: The action should latch the first time automatically. "Take Command" should only be presented from the Aft end of the Boat.

When tabbing away from ACV Game Window when in World view|Map or Skills, the content is redirected to the North West corner, and is coupled with a most annoying sound that resembles the peel of multiple Mission Bells that are oversaturated with audio effects.
 
My System: Gaming PC, Dual-monitor but serving ACV game only on one, 16:10/1920x1200, Game is configured as Window Mode Borderless, using Microsoft Xbox Controller for PC.

Repro: 
1.      In Windows, open another application such as a Browser or Notepad. 
2.      Start/Open an ACV game, go to World view, and LB/RB to World (Map) or Skills where the content is larger than the window.
3.      ALT TAB to the other Windows application.
4.      Result -> The content in the ACV application scrolls to the NW corner, and as the Focus pulls farther away from where it was centered, a droning sound perpetuates as if it were in a feedback loop; it sounds like the peel of multiple Mission Bells that are oversaturated with audio effects. Very annoying.
5.      Expected Behavior: ACV application pauses/holds content static (does not wander off), and Audio is disabled – until the ACV application receives User focus again.

Who I am: A software architect and design engineer specialized in UA/UX.