>playing the first game and loving the idea of faceless renagade hackers
Dedsec in WD1 were losers who worked for the mob tracking down people who owed the mob money. Aiden was given a phone with pre-loaded hacks. The hacks on highways signs where they say stuff like "I can has cheezeburger" or "old long Johnson" are dedsec, they were meme-bros in WD1 too
Clara was the only member we really meet (and she worked for the mob) the others only make themselves known at the end when they beg Aiden to let them in through a backdoor in the system. Aiden basically tells them to fuck off lol
Clara’s individual self-interest does not represent the collective, she is not the only member we meet, you can hack the billboards before you get access to their system exploits (which means it’s Aiden being a doofus), and the others make themselves known multiple times throughout the game prior to the end, they just don’t speak to Aiden directly… oh actually they do. They’re the ones leaving the QR codes around and contact Aiden once he scans them all.
Really, DedSec in WD1 mirrors DedSec in WD2 in that everything they do is ultimately completely pointless. The difference is that both the game and the world seem to agree that they’re not what one might call heroes in WD1. They fuck up. They fail. They’re controversial. They’re wrong, and the game never tries to claim they’re completely right.
That’s not the case in WD2, where they’re always framed as the heroes of the day who can do no wrong, even though they cause way more damage and death — during mandatory events, not open world gameplay you can brush off as noncanon — all with a big smile on their faces indicating they don’t really see the problem here. That game desperately needed a more detailed reputation system, and a rewrite to make them less dickish considering your experience points are literally social media followers. And I don’t think Ubisoft was making a clever commentary on how total assholes can make bank with their YouTube subscribers.
Last paragraph is the reason why I wanted WD game where I play as Blume operative trying to take down local DedSec group
Anyone still even remembers Sleeping Dogs and True Crime with their key ability to play as genuine cop, officer of the law?
There's a reason WD2 is set in SF and why they're successful there. Dedsec is basically a group of independent cells. The one in SF just happens to be the focus in WD2 and they are a bunch of woke hipster kids. The ones in Chicago are emo dedsec haha.
It's a group of independent cells as of WD2, but it didn't used to be. The ctOS did not exist in any city other than Chicago prior to WD2. Ubisoft could've made the decision to say that as the ctOS expanded, DedSec made coordinated efforts to do the same under core leadership. They *chose* not to.
Hilariously, this is actually a decision they planned on reversing in Watch Dogs Legion. The original -- and fully functional in leaked builds -- story presented the involvement of DedSec International, with the leaders from their branches in Houston, Sydney, Cairo, Caracas, Seoul, and Berlin all working with your characters to help DedSec London figure out what had happened to the original team.
In the final game, all of this was cut for time, and they only brought back DedSec Cairo's leader, Sabra Gamal, in a side mission. This despite the fact that she was originally killed in the intro, because all the DedSec International Leaders had their models [recycled to be generic cannon fodder operatives that didn't survive past the prologue](https://www.reddit.com/r/watch_dogs/comments/o39wiz/fun_fact_the_dedsec_operatives_seen_in_the/).
Considering DedSec New York is apparently more like a violent extremist militia according to Horatio, and a side mission in WD2 involves trolling a swatter who claims to be affiliated with DedSec, I think even Ubisoft realised how stupid it was to make DedSec operate on the principle of "anyone can be DedSec with no supervision" and figured it was time for some actual structure to return. But again, they cut it late in development for time, and because they blew their budget on revising their entire gameplay system very late in the process.
I wouldn't exactly say DedSec SF succeeded either, because if WDL is any indication, nothing they did had any last effect on the world or Blume. The ctOS 3.0 is even more powerful than 2.0, Marcus has been forced to go into hiding, and Blume is now so powerful they're not even bothering to attack them directly. They're fighting gang crime and PMCs. I've said this before and I'll say it again: the problem with making DedSec the protagonists is that they're always going to lose overall. Their goal is to stop the ctOS, but without the ctOS, there is no Watch Dogs gameplay. They're literally losers, because they have to be for the sake of the plot continuing.
After the game released, a number of beta builds for the game somehow found their way online. The modding community got ahold of them and unpacked everything we could. We used to have a lot of video footage uploaded on YouTube, but Ubisoft nuked it. Rest of the people who had it got spooked. Didn’t upload anymore.
Inside was a fuck ton of features like Car on Demand, individual progression for every operative, more weapons, more customisation, more upgrades, a more thorough and interesting story, and an extremely incomplete build of a full fledged expansion DLC taking place in the British Virgin Islands. We could’ve had a whole new DLC with a new map, and a new story, in *addition* to Bloodline.
The most important of these, however, was the fact that the Play As Anyone system they originally showed off in 2019 was working and functional. They changed it to what we got. Deliberately.
When people defend the crappy end result we got, saying it’s a great idea it was just underbaked, they’re objectively wrong: it was ***overbaked.*** Usually Ubisoft shows off a good idea, but it’s all smoke and mirrors and deceptive editing. The final release is disappointing. But in this case, they actually made the better idea first, got it working, then spent time and money making it *worse.* They baked it more than enough, they just burned it into a nasty charred husk.
The exact reasons for this are a bit more complicated and a subject of speculation. I have my own little theory based on the timeline of releases. Regardless, it’s just one in a string of countless bad decisions they made for this game. Wasting resources on a shitty zombie mode nobody wanted. Removing DSI. Locking weapon types to certain operatives. Making about 50% of all cosmetics in the game unobtainable. On and on and on.
This game is a failure, and it *deserves* to be because Ubisoft literally did it to themselves. They shot themselves in the foot so many times, they probably had to reload the gun.
So, it's no secret that after 2017, Ubisoft started poking around with more RPG elements in their games. Assassin's Creed especially. Watch Dogs Legion would've been no different, but this was actually an interesting idea they had. The community seemed to agree.
The original Play As Anyone system was showed off in June of 2019 at E3, and then again shortly after at Gamescom. It featured the following elements:
* Any operative could use any weapon.
* All NPCs in the game spawned with one or two base traits depending on their profession. Most of these were statistics-based in some way. For instance, a mercenary could have a +40% damage bonus with rifles, or a barfly would take 20% less damage after drinking alcohol. There were dozens of these, and the numbers could vary.
* When you recruited an operative, you would assign them one of three classes: infiltrator (stealth), enforcer (combat), or hacker (hacking). From there, you could level up your operatives by using them in the world. Every 5 levels, you could pick a perk from the pool based on their class. The interesting thing here, is that this went hand in hand with the operative's base traits. You had to think about builds, and how to tailor each operative to your playstyle. For instance, if you found an operative with 40% faster recharge time on hacks, you'd want to make them the hacker class and give them perks like new hacks.
* Same goes for weapons. If someone had a +60% damage with shotguns, you give them a shotgun. It was all about building your ideal character.
* Permadeath was not optional either. This made each individual operative that much more valuable. You'd need to use the right agent for the right job, lest you send someone in unprepared and lose them. And you'd care more about your team since losing them would mean losing an investment.
This is what was working in the beta builds. And people liked it. RPG elements in Ubisoft games had been controversial, but it seemed like they had a smash hit on their hands.
Later that year in October 2019, Breakpoint was released. People did not like it. The heavy RPG elements were one of the most commonly slammed aspects of it. Suffice to say, sales and reviews did not perform as Ubisoft expected. After that, it was complete radio silence on Watch Dogs Legion for an entire year.
This is where we start speculating. What we think happened, is that Breakpoint's failure scared Ubisoft. They lost all confidence in the current plan for Watch Dogs Legion, and immediately scrambled to course correct. They cut out as many of the RPG elements as possible. No more individual operative progression. Everyone shared everything in a tech menu. No more unique stat-based traits for everyone you come across. Now there are a couple of unique operative types like hitmen, construction workers, street artists, etc. and so on. No more classes. No using all things with all operatives.
These were huge changes. It would've taken a tremendous amount of time and effort to make them. And come Ubisoft Forward 2020, exactly one year later, that's what they presented to us. That's the final product they showed off, and what we got on release.
We suspect that this fuck up in management along the way is what caused so many other issues. The countless bugs and glitches on release. The delayed launch of online modes. Cutting the DSI plots and the BVI DLC. Removing the new unique location for the La Casa De Papel mission. They literally didn't have the resources or the time left to do any of these things. No more delays. No choice but to rush it out the door as it was, and duct tape it together along the way.
The results kind of speak for themselves. Support was ended after about a year. They planned on doing six tactical ops. We only got two. Online mode released with game-breaking bugs that were never fixed or even acknowledged. No major improvements were ever made to the core gameplay system. The one thing they *didn't* fuck up was the Bloodline DLC.
Damn. I'm currently making my way through breakpoint right now and have to admit, it isn't nearly as entertaining as wildlands. Where would one find a copy of this build?
Probably on one of the modding servers. I wouldn’t count on anyone who has one giving it up, though. Getting it to run is also an enormous pain in the ass. Still, worth a shot. I think you can find an invite link on Disboard.
ikr, they literally said in the WD2 behind the scenes trailer that the series had its own unique style. just removing that style and replacing it with a generic blue UI and a couple red splotches was an absurd decision
Really, the way to save it was to have a singular main character. They could still have the anyone can be dedsec system and use that for more side missions with a focus on the main character, but there has to be a main character. I played the game as if Aidan and Wrench were the main characters (with Wrench being more secondary) and it kind of bypasses some of the issues people had with the game.
If they do a watch dogs 4, i think they should bring back the WD1 dedsec. It showed how hackers are now, just quiet and deadly. WD2 Dedsec was good but not great, more about popularity
They’re entirely different in the beginning of the game both in circumstances, methods, and structure, and you can literally make your entire DedSec London out of nothing but Clan Kelley members.
It was the best version of it, and I have no idea why they wanted to keep using their name without enhancing and developing what they started in the first game.
You could have easily given WD2 and legion another name and it would work just as fine because the name dedsec has no real baring on them.
I agree they were so much cooler in wd1. Although I didn’t mind wd2’s dedsec as much because Marcus is such a badass. But legions dedsec completely ruins it for me
>playing the first game and loving the idea of faceless renagade hackers Dedsec in WD1 were losers who worked for the mob tracking down people who owed the mob money. Aiden was given a phone with pre-loaded hacks. The hacks on highways signs where they say stuff like "I can has cheezeburger" or "old long Johnson" are dedsec, they were meme-bros in WD1 too Clara was the only member we really meet (and she worked for the mob) the others only make themselves known at the end when they beg Aiden to let them in through a backdoor in the system. Aiden basically tells them to fuck off lol
That was my thought, in WD 1 they’re shown to be super ineffectual and really only talked a big game
Clara’s individual self-interest does not represent the collective, she is not the only member we meet, you can hack the billboards before you get access to their system exploits (which means it’s Aiden being a doofus), and the others make themselves known multiple times throughout the game prior to the end, they just don’t speak to Aiden directly… oh actually they do. They’re the ones leaving the QR codes around and contact Aiden once he scans them all. Really, DedSec in WD1 mirrors DedSec in WD2 in that everything they do is ultimately completely pointless. The difference is that both the game and the world seem to agree that they’re not what one might call heroes in WD1. They fuck up. They fail. They’re controversial. They’re wrong, and the game never tries to claim they’re completely right. That’s not the case in WD2, where they’re always framed as the heroes of the day who can do no wrong, even though they cause way more damage and death — during mandatory events, not open world gameplay you can brush off as noncanon — all with a big smile on their faces indicating they don’t really see the problem here. That game desperately needed a more detailed reputation system, and a rewrite to make them less dickish considering your experience points are literally social media followers. And I don’t think Ubisoft was making a clever commentary on how total assholes can make bank with their YouTube subscribers.
Last paragraph is the reason why I wanted WD game where I play as Blume operative trying to take down local DedSec group Anyone still even remembers Sleeping Dogs and True Crime with their key ability to play as genuine cop, officer of the law?
There's a reason WD2 is set in SF and why they're successful there. Dedsec is basically a group of independent cells. The one in SF just happens to be the focus in WD2 and they are a bunch of woke hipster kids. The ones in Chicago are emo dedsec haha.
It's a group of independent cells as of WD2, but it didn't used to be. The ctOS did not exist in any city other than Chicago prior to WD2. Ubisoft could've made the decision to say that as the ctOS expanded, DedSec made coordinated efforts to do the same under core leadership. They *chose* not to. Hilariously, this is actually a decision they planned on reversing in Watch Dogs Legion. The original -- and fully functional in leaked builds -- story presented the involvement of DedSec International, with the leaders from their branches in Houston, Sydney, Cairo, Caracas, Seoul, and Berlin all working with your characters to help DedSec London figure out what had happened to the original team. In the final game, all of this was cut for time, and they only brought back DedSec Cairo's leader, Sabra Gamal, in a side mission. This despite the fact that she was originally killed in the intro, because all the DedSec International Leaders had their models [recycled to be generic cannon fodder operatives that didn't survive past the prologue](https://www.reddit.com/r/watch_dogs/comments/o39wiz/fun_fact_the_dedsec_operatives_seen_in_the/). Considering DedSec New York is apparently more like a violent extremist militia according to Horatio, and a side mission in WD2 involves trolling a swatter who claims to be affiliated with DedSec, I think even Ubisoft realised how stupid it was to make DedSec operate on the principle of "anyone can be DedSec with no supervision" and figured it was time for some actual structure to return. But again, they cut it late in development for time, and because they blew their budget on revising their entire gameplay system very late in the process. I wouldn't exactly say DedSec SF succeeded either, because if WDL is any indication, nothing they did had any last effect on the world or Blume. The ctOS 3.0 is even more powerful than 2.0, Marcus has been forced to go into hiding, and Blume is now so powerful they're not even bothering to attack them directly. They're fighting gang crime and PMCs. I've said this before and I'll say it again: the problem with making DedSec the protagonists is that they're always going to lose overall. Their goal is to stop the ctOS, but without the ctOS, there is no Watch Dogs gameplay. They're literally losers, because they have to be for the sake of the plot continuing.
Ubisoft really dropped the ball after WD1, although I still enjoyed WD2 a good bit. What’s this about a functional build for WDL?
After the game released, a number of beta builds for the game somehow found their way online. The modding community got ahold of them and unpacked everything we could. We used to have a lot of video footage uploaded on YouTube, but Ubisoft nuked it. Rest of the people who had it got spooked. Didn’t upload anymore. Inside was a fuck ton of features like Car on Demand, individual progression for every operative, more weapons, more customisation, more upgrades, a more thorough and interesting story, and an extremely incomplete build of a full fledged expansion DLC taking place in the British Virgin Islands. We could’ve had a whole new DLC with a new map, and a new story, in *addition* to Bloodline. The most important of these, however, was the fact that the Play As Anyone system they originally showed off in 2019 was working and functional. They changed it to what we got. Deliberately. When people defend the crappy end result we got, saying it’s a great idea it was just underbaked, they’re objectively wrong: it was ***overbaked.*** Usually Ubisoft shows off a good idea, but it’s all smoke and mirrors and deceptive editing. The final release is disappointing. But in this case, they actually made the better idea first, got it working, then spent time and money making it *worse.* They baked it more than enough, they just burned it into a nasty charred husk. The exact reasons for this are a bit more complicated and a subject of speculation. I have my own little theory based on the timeline of releases. Regardless, it’s just one in a string of countless bad decisions they made for this game. Wasting resources on a shitty zombie mode nobody wanted. Removing DSI. Locking weapon types to certain operatives. Making about 50% of all cosmetics in the game unobtainable. On and on and on. This game is a failure, and it *deserves* to be because Ubisoft literally did it to themselves. They shot themselves in the foot so many times, they probably had to reload the gun.
Would love to hear your theory about why, thank you for the info!
So, it's no secret that after 2017, Ubisoft started poking around with more RPG elements in their games. Assassin's Creed especially. Watch Dogs Legion would've been no different, but this was actually an interesting idea they had. The community seemed to agree. The original Play As Anyone system was showed off in June of 2019 at E3, and then again shortly after at Gamescom. It featured the following elements: * Any operative could use any weapon. * All NPCs in the game spawned with one or two base traits depending on their profession. Most of these were statistics-based in some way. For instance, a mercenary could have a +40% damage bonus with rifles, or a barfly would take 20% less damage after drinking alcohol. There were dozens of these, and the numbers could vary. * When you recruited an operative, you would assign them one of three classes: infiltrator (stealth), enforcer (combat), or hacker (hacking). From there, you could level up your operatives by using them in the world. Every 5 levels, you could pick a perk from the pool based on their class. The interesting thing here, is that this went hand in hand with the operative's base traits. You had to think about builds, and how to tailor each operative to your playstyle. For instance, if you found an operative with 40% faster recharge time on hacks, you'd want to make them the hacker class and give them perks like new hacks. * Same goes for weapons. If someone had a +60% damage with shotguns, you give them a shotgun. It was all about building your ideal character. * Permadeath was not optional either. This made each individual operative that much more valuable. You'd need to use the right agent for the right job, lest you send someone in unprepared and lose them. And you'd care more about your team since losing them would mean losing an investment. This is what was working in the beta builds. And people liked it. RPG elements in Ubisoft games had been controversial, but it seemed like they had a smash hit on their hands. Later that year in October 2019, Breakpoint was released. People did not like it. The heavy RPG elements were one of the most commonly slammed aspects of it. Suffice to say, sales and reviews did not perform as Ubisoft expected. After that, it was complete radio silence on Watch Dogs Legion for an entire year. This is where we start speculating. What we think happened, is that Breakpoint's failure scared Ubisoft. They lost all confidence in the current plan for Watch Dogs Legion, and immediately scrambled to course correct. They cut out as many of the RPG elements as possible. No more individual operative progression. Everyone shared everything in a tech menu. No more unique stat-based traits for everyone you come across. Now there are a couple of unique operative types like hitmen, construction workers, street artists, etc. and so on. No more classes. No using all things with all operatives. These were huge changes. It would've taken a tremendous amount of time and effort to make them. And come Ubisoft Forward 2020, exactly one year later, that's what they presented to us. That's the final product they showed off, and what we got on release. We suspect that this fuck up in management along the way is what caused so many other issues. The countless bugs and glitches on release. The delayed launch of online modes. Cutting the DSI plots and the BVI DLC. Removing the new unique location for the La Casa De Papel mission. They literally didn't have the resources or the time left to do any of these things. No more delays. No choice but to rush it out the door as it was, and duct tape it together along the way. The results kind of speak for themselves. Support was ended after about a year. They planned on doing six tactical ops. We only got two. Online mode released with game-breaking bugs that were never fixed or even acknowledged. No major improvements were ever made to the core gameplay system. The one thing they *didn't* fuck up was the Bloodline DLC.
Damn. I'm currently making my way through breakpoint right now and have to admit, it isn't nearly as entertaining as wildlands. Where would one find a copy of this build?
Probably on one of the modding servers. I wouldn’t count on anyone who has one giving it up, though. Getting it to run is also an enormous pain in the ass. Still, worth a shot. I think you can find an invite link on Disboard.
So you never got the audio files huh
i'm somewhat okay with WD2 dedsec but i'm pissed they completely removed the unique dedsec pixelated ASCII art style in legion for some reason
That was my favorite thing about WD2!! It was such a lazy choice to remove all of that beautiful art style.
ikr, they literally said in the WD2 behind the scenes trailer that the series had its own unique style. just removing that style and replacing it with a generic blue UI and a couple red splotches was an absurd decision
I like wd2 dedsec better tbh
Watch Dogs 2
so true
Deadsec from legion had a major potencial but well they really wanted to make that shitty "anyone can be deadsec" system
Idea of this system was really good, but realization was really poor. It was so underdeveloped and has many of wasted potential.
Really, the way to save it was to have a singular main character. They could still have the anyone can be dedsec system and use that for more side missions with a focus on the main character, but there has to be a main character. I played the game as if Aidan and Wrench were the main characters (with Wrench being more secondary) and it kind of bypasses some of the issues people had with the game.
Loved that Aiden gave no shits after Deadsec warned him that he would regret not giving them a chance to install a backdoor into Ctos.
I loved how Aiden was basically a faction on his own in WD1
If they do a watch dogs 4, i think they should bring back the WD1 dedsec. It showed how hackers are now, just quiet and deadly. WD2 Dedsec was good but not great, more about popularity
Wd2 dedsec is more realistic (outside of the weapons manufacture) arnt they based on the real Lulzsec? In wd1 they were all just really emo
I enjoyed wd2 dedsec though they were a bit corny at times. I enjoyed their dynamic and wished they had interacted with others cells.
Watch Dogs 1 is the only one worth playing
Dedsec in watch dogs legion was not just a gang in the uk. You need to rewatch the beginning of the game.
Dedsec at the beginning of the game and Desec for the rest of the game are essentially two completely different entities.
They’re entirely different in the beginning of the game both in circumstances, methods, and structure, and you can literally make your entire DedSec London out of nothing but Clan Kelley members.
Dedsec in watch dogs tokyo stomps aiden and marcus. Watch Dogs Tokyo dedsec supreme above all. ( i wish i was joking )
It was the best version of it, and I have no idea why they wanted to keep using their name without enhancing and developing what they started in the first game. You could have easily given WD2 and legion another name and it would work just as fine because the name dedsec has no real baring on them.
I agree they were so much cooler in wd1. Although I didn’t mind wd2’s dedsec as much because Marcus is such a badass. But legions dedsec completely ruins it for me