If you didn’t know, a technical test for For Honor has been running for the last few days. It’s only open to players on PC, only to a select few, and those playing are subject to NDA.
But apparently not all is well. Things are so borked, in fact, that one of the testers has gone out on a limb and uploaded a video showing just how broken the game is right now.
The video, which was uploaded to the smaller sharing site Vidme, showcases some pretty severe issues with the matchmaking. Now while we don’t know where the uploader lives, what the quality of their internet connection is like, or particular details that could result in some of the issues seen, it does at least give us a better indication of what For Honor will look like (at least in terms of the front-end) at launch.
One of the main pressure points brought up, both by the uploader and elsewhere, is the use of peer-to-peer matchmaking, instead of dedicated servers. Not having dedicated servers is fine if you live in continental Europe or the United States, but it’s a royal pain for anyone living in remote regions. Even Australians in metro regions can run into issues, if the game or playlist they’re playing isn’t overly popular.
And it’s worth remembering that the game is still a technical alpha. For Honor launches on Valentine’s Day, but there’s still plenty of opportunity for Ubisoft to tweak the matchmaking algorithms and release optimisations that improve the stability and search time for multiplayer. It wouldn’t be the first game to have a rocky alpha, only for things to vastly improve upon release.
But some things can’t change, and the use of player-hosted lobbies is a big one. There’s already a small thread on the For Honor subreddit lobbying Ubisoft for dedicated servers, although it’s hard to see how that would be possible so close to release. It’s also a little odd, given that Ubisoft made a point of using Microsoft’s Azure datacentres for Rainbow Six: Siege to ensure quality of connections around the world (including in Australia).
As just one small example, it raises questions about cheating if lobbies are going to be hosted on the players’ end. At the very minimum it opens the door for nefarious behaviour with Net Limiter and the such, although no-one can say yet whether it could result in the similar nightmare that befell The Division at launch.
Comments
26 responses to “Not Everyone Is Happy With For Honor So Far”
After playing it at PAX my main concern is how long a player base will last. The gameplay feels less dense than Battlefront did when it came out.
An alpha tester having a whinge because there is online bugs.
If only there was a way to test those thing.
Register for the Pre Alpha-Beta: Beta: Alpha, now!
Ubisoft.
nuff said.
This really should be at the beginning of every sentence. This is the entire purpose of being in alpha; closed notwithstanding – to find, give feedback on, and squash shit like this.
Just pray that they listen to their testers’ feedback.
Exactly. Isn’t this the point of having a technical test?
Some people have no brain.
At least it’s being picked up now rather than at launch like most ubi games.
alpha or not it looks like typical bland crap from Ubisoft. and yet people still buy this shit in droves.
There is a few videos of Ubi execs giving talks, where they focus on games purely as a product rather than the game itself.
They go in to great detail about trying to make a $50-$60 product that can generate 2-3 times the amount etc. Never once talking about creating a quality game.
It’s actually pretty disheartening to see, considering their swirling logo used to be one that genuinely meant some degree of quality and passion.
This doesn’t surprise me. Ubisoft are inches behind Activision in the ‘worst producers in history’ department. I refuse to buy anything from either company. If you want to understand everything that’s wrong with gaming these days, just look at the shit they’ve been releasing for the last 10 years.
While gaming going totally overground has its advantages, it also breeds homogenised cookie cutter garbage with no soul. Ubisoft and Activision make this their business model.
To be honest I pretty much exclusively buy Japanese games because they still have idiosyncratic quirks and inventive systems and focus on the right things.
This is a generalisation I know, but big western games like assassins creed, GTA, far cry, etc always seem so soulless and dull to me.
So let me get this straight. There are bugs that need ironing out and concepts that need to be improved on in an Alpha test and somebody broke their NDA to upload the obvious.
Why even report on this?
Fake drama. People start talking and make noise, this becomes the objective perspective rather than a piece of information to consider in context and now there’s a new story to write about. I mean, an unfinished game looking unfinished? I am SHOCKED, i tell you.
so a PVP game that still has bugs and issues, and so players are complaining about the choices the devs made and how their ideas are better… in an ALPHA. how is any of this news? that sounds like every other online game for the last decade. Gamers are never ever happy these days.
How do you recognise it’s not news worthy, but then get sucked in to the narrative anyway?!
Post a video or a few tweets, imply outrage on a large scale and people eat it up.
They removed split screen just to pedal more wares, so i’m not buying it
considering there is going to be an open beta with no NDA this seems like kind of pointless risk to take
What is the point of this? Its a closed, small scale technical alpha, for UBI to get feedback and make changes. Matchmaking is bad due to it being in alpha and not an open one, meaning not a whole heap of people playing and like you mention, we don’t know where in the world this guy is from which is a pretty big deal.
I’m lost as to why this is news
It seemed fun enough when I played it at PAX, but with it being so focused on multiplayer I don’t think it’s something I’d buy personally unless it was in the $15-20 range. If it had robust single-player as well it’d be an easier sell.
So a technical test has technical issues, go figure.
How is this news?
The title should be ‘For Honor tester breaks NDA in ALPHA Testing’. Guy why not send this through to the devs, instead of breaking your NDA and tainting their release.
The guy is a complete idiot.
He’s now facing some serious legal consequences (Ubisoft already found out who he is), and his “problems” were PURELY due to the fact that he’s under strict NAT. That’s right; the idiot has his firewall blocking the game from connecting to other players, and then complains about connection issues.
Someone needs to invent a new word for how stupid he really is………
Yeah, it’ll be interesting to see how hard Ubi goes down on this one.
FYI: I edited the last bit of your comment just to tone it down a little. I like to be fairly lax most of the time, but if we can keep away from some of the more inflammatory tags (it’s still the holidays) that’d be great.
A day out from release and the peer to peer matchmaking is still total rubbish though, so this guy had a point. As much as I love the game itself, the way its hosting works is some of the most frustrating of any MP game I’ve played. I’ve had games where the game has stopped to find a new host 8 times. There’s also too much downtime between loading the next map and matchmaking the players.
Hopefully there is a ranked mode in the real game where players won’t quit the game so much when they’re losing, because with only 8 people in a game, theres a reasonable chance the quitting person will be the host.
I’ll still get it I think because the core gameplay is super satisfying, but I really hope Ubi change their minds on this hosting debacle.
Reminds me of the days of MW2 on PC when people kept bailing because of cheats and the match just kept stalling.