I realise that this game is not getting much love from Ubi any more, but there is one, ONE thing that would massively improve the Online mode, and that's fixing the horrible Playlist for co-op missions! Since progress through that resets every time you log off, it's almost impossibleto actually get to the missions at the end of it, and you just end up playing the same first 2-4 missions over and over again every single time. It doesn't need a big fix, just changing it so that it randomises the missions each playthrough would be enough to make it 100x more useful and entertaining.

If you guys don't do anything else, at least do this ONE thing! Please, I'm begging you...

Rodney

I do not understand the design decision behind making all Co-op missions (except Paperless) only accessible via a fixed playlist. It's driving me and my friends crazy while playing Online. We have done Dysfunction so many times, but still haven't even seen the later missions on the list. For the love of all that's holy give us a Co-op mission chooser, or at the very least, a randomised playlist instead of a fixed one.

You guys are really shooting yourselves in the foot with this. I absolutely love Online in this game, but this is killing my desire to continue playing. Why would you not want players to have easy access to all the great stuff you have made? I don't get it.

So... picked up the game a few days ago and my wife & I have been playing it incessently since, and a couple more friends of ours just picked it up so they can join us. We love playing co-op games, love stealth missions, gadgets, and modern style (and we live in London) so this game ticks every box for us. And yes, we think it's pretty much a masterpiece. However Online mode could really benefit a LOT from a few, relatively small fixes. Here we go:

Fist impressions on seeing the Map: lots of mission to click on. This is good. But most of them are Solo missions? Why? The whole point of Multiplayer is to, y'know, play with other people. So filling half the map with Solo missions seems counter-intuitive. But I guess that's fine, gives me something to do if I have a free half hour while waiting for the rest of the crew to show up.

But where are the Co-op missions? I see a grand total of TWO links: one to a Playlist, the other to the Paperless mission. OK, maybe more will appear later, like how the Solo missions pop up at random times and places. Except... they don't. I don't get this AT ALL. You guys clearly have the tech already there to start Co-op missions from the map, and the tech to place random event starts on the maps, so why don't you do this for more of the Co-op missions? Just having the choice of ONE mission that is permanently on the map seems like missing an easy opportunity to drive people to do more Co-op missons. Solution: have 2 or 3 randomly selected Co-op missions on the map at any one time, and rotate them in and out every 20 minutes or so. A relatively simple fix requiring very little in the way of coding and UI changes, but with a HUGE impact on the game.

The Playlist: so we hit this and start into Dysfunction. It's a tough mission for 2 newbies like us, but after a few tries we get through it, and it's on to the next mission. After we've played that for a while we take a dinner break and come back to the game later. Restart the Playlist, and guess what? We are right back on Dysfunction again. We don't really want to play that again, so we assume it's just a random glitch and restart the Playlist again. And again we get Dysfunction. Turns out, the Playlist always starts with the same mission and appears to run through the same list each time. This is, frankly, stupid. If we only have a couple of hours to play in the evening we don't want to spend it replaying the same couple of missions over and over again. Apparently there are about a dozen Co-op missions but the chances are we will never get to see the second half of that list. Solution: give us a randomised (or pseudo-randomised) Playlist so that we can just hit the button and start playing whatever comes up. Again, this should not be a difficult fix - very little coding and UI changes required; but with a massively improved User Experience.

Another solution of course would be that when I click on the Playlist button I get a dialog that give me the choice of all of the above: a fixed list, a random list, or the ability to select a particular mission to play. That requires a little bit more work, but still not a huge amount - but with a huge impact on the player experience.

Any of the above solutions would be a very acceptable improvement to what we currently have and I really urge you guys to implement at least one of them as a matter of urgency asap. It will really help Multiplayer in this game a LOT.

Next thing: so we are doing our first Multiplayer mission and doing pretty ok. Then one of us (me) makes a stupid mistake and FAIL. Right back to the start. Wait, what? That's... very hardcore. Now, I enjoy a challenge as much as anyone, but this seriously punishing. You can be doing a great job as a team, 95% of the mission done, then some idiot runs in guns blasting and it's all over for everyone immediately. That's... not fun. Solution: instead of the mission going to instant FAIL, allow the downed player to rotate in another teammate instead. This game is literally built on the mechanism that you have a roster of Operatives that work together, so please use it! Don't punish the entire team for one person's stupid mistake. Or if you like, have 2 Difficulty modes: keep the current mode as a Hardcore mode, and add a Standard mode where death isn't instant FAIL but allows the downed player to grab another character from their roster. I'd be happy to take reduced XP in such a mode, just so we could keep playing - and so my wife wouldn't keep getting exasperated at me when I cause the mission to fail with another stupid mistake.

Again, this should not be a huge problem to fix - this mechanism already exists everywhere else in the game, so it's not like you have to redesign a lot to make it work. It's not a trivial fix like the fixes mentioned above, but it's not a massive job either. And again, would result in a big QoL jump for many players.

There are other things I'd like to see fixed or added, but that can wait until another time. The ones mentioned should take precedence, and I really urge you guys to consider implementing them, or something like them. This game has a potential to be an amazing multiplayer experience with a little more effort, and this could seriously extend the game's lifetime and earning potential (just look at GTA Online for the classic example). I already pulled in 3 more new players this weekend, just for the Online mode, so that should tell you something...

I look forward to hearing your comments

Rodney

@t1gerassassin The number of people required to do the missions isn't the issue. The issue is that you HAVE to play them all IN ORDER. Maybe you can solo them all in 10 minutes each or whatever and that's great for you, but for the average player we are talking having to spend several hours in one session working through the whole playlist just to even see The Red Blade mission. I'd like to be able to jump in for an hour or two and play a couple of random missions instead of having to play through Dysfunction and Dangerous Driving AGAIN every single time.

That's all I'm asking. It's really that simple, and not hard to implement.

@t1gerassassin The number of people required to do the missions isn't the issue. The issue is that you HAVE to play them all IN ORDER. Maybe you can solo them all in 10 minutes each or whatever and that's great for you, but for the average player we are talking having to spend several hours in one session working through the whole playlist just to even see The Red Blade mission. I'd like to be able to jump in for an hour or two and play a couple of random missions instead of having to play through Dysfunction and Dangerous Driving AGAIN every single time.

That's all I'm asking. It's really that simple, and not hard to implement.

@ubi-milky That sounds very much like a "No, this isn't ever going to be fixed", which is very disappointing. Changing the Co-op Playlist to randomise missions instead of playing though them in a same order every single time would be a relatively small and easy fix to make, but would make the online Co-op mode significantly better and more interesting.

As it stands, my friends and I are probably never going to experience half of the Co-op missions you guys created, because we just don't have the time to spend several hours in one sitting to play through the Playlist to the end - and there's literally no other way to experience those missions. I can't imagine the devs who created those missions are happy about them being effectively closed off to half the player base; and nor am I happy that I'll probably never be able to play a huge chunk of content that I paid for

I really love this game, it's almost one of the best games I've ever played (and I've played a LOT), but you guys seem to have done 99% of the work on it, and then just decided to give up right before getting to the finishing line. Like i say, disappointing. And really makes me wonder if it's worth buying Ubisoft games in future.

I realise that this game is not getting much love from Ubi any more, but there is one, ONE thing that would massively improve the Online mode, and that's fixing the horrible Playlist for co-op missions! Since progress through that resets every time you log off, it's almost impossibleto actually get to the missions at the end of it, and you just end up playing the same first 2-4 missions over and over again every single time. It doesn't need a big fix, just changing it so that it randomises the missions each playthrough would be enough to make it 100x more useful and entertaining.

If you guys don't do anything else, at least do this ONE thing! Please, I'm begging you...

Rodney

I do not understand the design decision behind making all Co-op missions (except Paperless) only accessible via a fixed playlist. It's driving me and my friends crazy while playing Online. We have done Dysfunction so many times, but still haven't even seen the later missions on the list. For the love of all that's holy give us a Co-op mission chooser, or at the very least, a randomised playlist instead of a fixed one.

You guys are really shooting yourselves in the foot with this. I absolutely love Online in this game, but this is killing my desire to continue playing. Why would you not want players to have easy access to all the great stuff you have made? I don't get it.

So... picked up the game a few days ago and my wife & I have been playing it incessently since, and a couple more friends of ours just picked it up so they can join us. We love playing co-op games, love stealth missions, gadgets, and modern style (and we live in London) so this game ticks every box for us. And yes, we think it's pretty much a masterpiece. However Online mode could really benefit a LOT from a few, relatively small fixes. Here we go:

Fist impressions on seeing the Map: lots of mission to click on. This is good. But most of them are Solo missions? Why? The whole point of Multiplayer is to, y'know, play with other people. So filling half the map with Solo missions seems counter-intuitive. But I guess that's fine, gives me something to do if I have a free half hour while waiting for the rest of the crew to show up.

But where are the Co-op missions? I see a grand total of TWO links: one to a Playlist, the other to the Paperless mission. OK, maybe more will appear later, like how the Solo missions pop up at random times and places. Except... they don't. I don't get this AT ALL. You guys clearly have the tech already there to start Co-op missions from the map, and the tech to place random event starts on the maps, so why don't you do this for more of the Co-op missions? Just having the choice of ONE mission that is permanently on the map seems like missing an easy opportunity to drive people to do more Co-op missons. Solution: have 2 or 3 randomly selected Co-op missions on the map at any one time, and rotate them in and out every 20 minutes or so. A relatively simple fix requiring very little in the way of coding and UI changes, but with a HUGE impact on the game.

The Playlist: so we hit this and start into Dysfunction. It's a tough mission for 2 newbies like us, but after a few tries we get through it, and it's on to the next mission. After we've played that for a while we take a dinner break and come back to the game later. Restart the Playlist, and guess what? We are right back on Dysfunction again. We don't really want to play that again, so we assume it's just a random glitch and restart the Playlist again. And again we get Dysfunction. Turns out, the Playlist always starts with the same mission and appears to run through the same list each time. This is, frankly, stupid. If we only have a couple of hours to play in the evening we don't want to spend it replaying the same couple of missions over and over again. Apparently there are about a dozen Co-op missions but the chances are we will never get to see the second half of that list. Solution: give us a randomised (or pseudo-randomised) Playlist so that we can just hit the button and start playing whatever comes up. Again, this should not be a difficult fix - very little coding and UI changes required; but with a massively improved User Experience.

Another solution of course would be that when I click on the Playlist button I get a dialog that give me the choice of all of the above: a fixed list, a random list, or the ability to select a particular mission to play. That requires a little bit more work, but still not a huge amount - but with a huge impact on the player experience.

Any of the above solutions would be a very acceptable improvement to what we currently have and I really urge you guys to implement at least one of them as a matter of urgency asap. It will really help Multiplayer in this game a LOT.

Next thing: so we are doing our first Multiplayer mission and doing pretty ok. Then one of us (me) makes a stupid mistake and FAIL. Right back to the start. Wait, what? That's... very hardcore. Now, I enjoy a challenge as much as anyone, but this seriously punishing. You can be doing a great job as a team, 95% of the mission done, then some idiot runs in guns blasting and it's all over for everyone immediately. That's... not fun. Solution: instead of the mission going to instant FAIL, allow the downed player to rotate in another teammate instead. This game is literally built on the mechanism that you have a roster of Operatives that work together, so please use it! Don't punish the entire team for one person's stupid mistake. Or if you like, have 2 Difficulty modes: keep the current mode as a Hardcore mode, and add a Standard mode where death isn't instant FAIL but allows the downed player to grab another character from their roster. I'd be happy to take reduced XP in such a mode, just so we could keep playing - and so my wife wouldn't keep getting exasperated at me when I cause the mission to fail with another stupid mistake.

Again, this should not be a huge problem to fix - this mechanism already exists everywhere else in the game, so it's not like you have to redesign a lot to make it work. It's not a trivial fix like the fixes mentioned above, but it's not a massive job either. And again, would result in a big QoL jump for many players.

There are other things I'd like to see fixed or added, but that can wait until another time. The ones mentioned should take precedence, and I really urge you guys to consider implementing them, or something like them. This game has a potential to be an amazing multiplayer experience with a little more effort, and this could seriously extend the game's lifetime and earning potential (just look at GTA Online for the classic example). I already pulled in 3 more new players this weekend, just for the Online mode, so that should tell you something...

I look forward to hearing your comments

Rodney