u/Checkerknight

TLDR: Avg Bitrate of 10k, or RF 18 with 10k cap?

I know this has been asked time and time again but I have a specific question related to my personal settings I have.

I have a profile saved (1080p, x264, RF 18) that I use for encoding my rips that move onto a Jellyfin Server. This profile looks perfectly fine to me, but (for compatibility reasons) I have a bitrate cap set in Advanced Options (vbv-maxrate=10000:vbv-bufsize=10000).

There were certain devices that I came across that would force transcoding if the bitrate was too high (Gen 1 Chromecast, I've been doing this a while lol). That device had a streaming limit of 10Mb hence the Advance Option I set. I have routinely checked for updated responses but it still generally seems like a decent bitrate recommendation for 1080p blu rays range from 6k-10k, so i have not removed this and have just kept everything as is.

The question here is, would I get better results if I just threw the 10k into Avg with Multi Pass, or should I leave Constant with the cap?

I have just the official Jellyfin app on all of my devices (android, Google TV, Chromecast) and I was curious as to why people switch from the official app to others such as Wholphin and Kodi.

Is this purely a customization preference or a performance standpoint? I have no issues with my server as far as transcoding, playback, or compatability, so maybe I'm just not experiencing the reasons people switch.

Is there a point to having Frigates in your fleet? I know they restock warehouses, but with all the plundering I do at sea, I feel like I'd rather just us the space for extra trade ships.

Also does mission risk and damage keep rising? My Briggs and Schooners seem to have enough health to survive at well over 100% risk level. Is it just a money suck to repair at that point?

This is not intended as a ranting post, everyone knows I already have one of those, but this is a post with features I would like to see added to the game. To be clear, this is not content, or game mechanic changes, but more of a QoL and game setting changes that I think would be a good addition. Some of these may just be for me, and if you know fixes please let me know, but some of these I feel may be actual bugs. I will continue to add my own and suggestions from others as well. Look out for edits, I'll do my best.

Edit 1* Added points 9 and 10

1. ADS sensitivity slider (or fix) for controller users: For some reason the ADS speed gets tanked on controller, but stays the same on mouse and keyboard.

2. Store page item previews: When viewing items in the store it is very hard to see what youre actually buying. The ship, outfit, and weapon customization screens all have a preview image, but store pages do not.

3. Increased FOV slider for player and/or seperate slider for sailing: This may be due to playing on ultrawide, but I feel that the ship sailing FOV has Edward right in my face, and I would not mind seeing the view pulled back a little bit

>!4. A individual volume slider for Brace Perfect Block noise: Not much to say for this one, I just thing its a bit too loud, but the other sound effects are just fine. !<

5. Takedown camera reorientation: When doing takedowns the camera goes cinematic, but does end up recentering itself not with your players orientation. I'd like either more control during the cinematic, or the camera to reorient back to where it was when the cinematic started.

6. Critical Tips ONLY: This one might just be a me thing. I got into my first shark combat and the screen froze when the shark began to charge. I could pause but not do anything else. Turns out the having the tips and hints notifications turned to "off" in the Hud settings did literally just that. The game was still freezing for the notification to come up, but just didnt show it. Turned it on, pressed Left Stick and B to move, and then we were good.

7. Queueing Ships for Fleet: Guess this qualifies as a game mechanic change, but theres nothing worse than defeating a group of ships and finding out you don't have room. I tried to go into my fleet to delete some before boarding and upon exiting all the ships were despawned.

8. Enemy NPC's screaming while sinking: This one is actually preference but it feels a bit too real sometimes. It would be nice to turn this off. Another slider under "Sensitive Content" for this would be good.

9. Pass time on ship: Passing time is great (I prefer daytime tbh) and being able to do that on see would be very cool

10. Increase in Photo Mode Features (AdFar5664): Increased zoom distance, and weather/date and time features.

If you guys have thoughts or more then let me know. Maybe we can get enough traction if these are good ideas and get them implemented.

EDIT I guess for some reason Sync points are also conflicting with the A interaction binding. I have resorted to rebinding the interact keybind specifically when I sync a viewpoint, otherwise it's working.

That makes Loot interaction, Fort Door interaction, Sync Interaction, and mission starting interactions all seen as different priority level controls.

Been spending some more time with this game and I think I've found the sweet spot for combat controls IMO. While they're not perfect, here are the keybinds that I changed that make the game feel a bit better and as close to legacy as I could get....other than R2 for sprint. I know this is the big one that everyone wants, but while I would love it, I also don't mind being changed to stick.

*Controls based off of a Xbox One S controller*

Movement:

Crouch - Rb

Combat:

Attack - X

Assassinate - A

Parry - Y

Dodge – B

Takedown – X

Actions:

Interact - A

Eagle Vision - LB (Press)

I tried my damnedest to get “B” to be the main button for interaction in general, but for whatever reason loot/pickup interaction is programmed differently than opening fort doors and sitting down on benches interactions. The only way to get it all to work was to just use “A” instead. Now this will trigger a lot of confliction warnings, but so far I have not run into any issues with controls not working.

TLDR: The game is unarguably pretty, but unarguably pretty different...in a bad way.

So, I am a die hard fan of the original 2013 black flag, and it's honestly the only Assassins Creed game I have played through or even really played for that matter. I know that game by heart and love most everything about it and I've played it multiple times including getting it loaded up on the steam deck (perfect experience btw), but this remake is just not doing it for me

While visually it cannot be argued that this game is incredible, I think the combat changes, world changes, and especially the control scheme change did nothing but hurt this game. The Arkham style combat is what I loved about the first game (and the Arkham games ofc) but this new lock on, poise having, non free flow Odyssey like combat going on is making my experience less fun and more frustrating. I'm not fantastic at games by any means and like I said I've never played the modern games so maybe die hard Assassins Creed fans will adjust just fine, but I personally cannot. I ended up rebinding controls to get as close to original as I can, and I'm having a much better time, but it's just still unpleasant. Maybe it's just me, but having the D-pad be the main source of inventory/weapon wheel control didn't seem like an issue to me. Which also opens up the fact that you can no longer quick fire weapons with just the press of a button. Selecting the gun and just hitting "Y" to quick shoot, or the blowpipe and just hitting "Y" to use were very convenient, but now you get a "RT and Y" to use the gun, and then a whole separate wheel with "LT and D-Pad selections" to scroll through to find what you're looking for. (I am early, maybe you can change binds but I'm doubtful).

The absolute lack of unarmed or hidden blade combat, as well as the inability to end a fight without being REQUIRED to kill everyone is just crazy. Remember when you could hide in a bush and just knock people out instead of killing? I literally just did the first mayan temple mission with Kidd and received the blowgun. I am told "use this, you'll take fewer lives". I use it and then kidd knives the fuckin dude while he's sleeping on the ground! What's that about bro? If the point of this weapon was to do non-lethal stealth combat, then let me kick a dude while he's sleeping like we used to be able to.

The parkour is absolutely way to floaty. The 15ft vertical jumps that Edward does is the most ridiculous thing I've ever seen, and it quite literally negates the reason to have most of the climbing points. You can scale most buildings in 2-3 jumps now. Sure the parkour wasn't great in the first, felt stiff as hell, but at least it was more believable and felt like it had weight to it. Speaking of weight, have you thrown around dead bodies yet? You can pick up a corpse (because you know, you can't knock anyone out) and throw it about 20ft in front of you and watch it slide on the ground like it's on an ice rink. The game has become much too arcadey and is really trying to remind you that it's a game, and not an experience anymore.

I don't mind the lack of present day stuff, but I would have preferred at least the first segment forcibly left in, an introduced, and then you have the option to exit and enter at will. It would help break up the game a bit more I think, but I know that will be a well divided opinion. The new missions and characters I'm all about, although I haven't gotten that far yet, but it's still neat to have new story content added, I'll never be upset about something like that.

I have no real notes for ship combat, it seems largely untouched imo and new weapon modes are neat and welcome. I will say that the ship docking and boarding animations feel kinda wild. You will stop in place, the ship will spin on a perfect axis to line up, and your crew will summon the might of Zeus and pull the ship in at mach 3 speeds. It would be much better if the ships slowly were pulled together as if people were the ones doing it, not a magnet.

Now there are some good things for sure, waiting to let time pass is a nice feature. Not just for mission specific times, but the game looks much better during the day and I don't think there's a real reason to ever sail or wander at night. The graphics, as stated, are breathtaking and it really is how I remember the game looking in my head which really tickles that nostalgia part of my brain. But that does turn into me wanting everything the exact same from the first game. The "dynamic weather" could be neat, but so far it has either been windy as all fuck, or stormy as all fuck, so I don't know where the dynamic portion is coming from. The pets are perfect. Having a cat laying next to my wheel while we sing shanty's on the open sea is just peak.

Unfortunately I don't think the good is outweighing the bad, and I am so genuinely devasted to say this. If I was within my time limit I would probably request a refund. I had such high hopes for this, but something just isn't clicking for me, and I'm honestly more depressed about it than I have been about real things going on in my life. I'll try to play a bit more, but I think in the end I'll probably just try to pretty up the first game some more with some mods and give that a go through again.

I know I went on for a bit, and if you read it then I salute you, but if you guys have any genuine opinions or agreements let me know what you think. I could go without ridicule, but we're on reddit here so I already know that it's coming.

After 100hr I finally decided to look up what the Magellan fast travel "Magellan Evaluation" message meant. No wonder my plethora of lost cargo that I've been storing there hasn't been worth shit 🙃

That cargo gets docked what, like 75% the likes haha. Guess it's time to entrust or just deliver it all and stop storing it

Been fighting with myself about lvl 2 roads for a minute now. I got them and was excited about the speed upgrade, and the time fall thing is neat but really is unnecessary imo. I enjoyed speeding down the roads to my hearts content.

But then, nightfall came...

Those damn timfall covers are the biggest eyesore I have ever seen. During the day they're opaque and not too bad, but having a bright blue top half of the screen is just the opposite of the scenic environment that most of us play this game for.

Been debating reverting my save to before I unlocked roads, so that I don't see the player base upgraded ones as well. I know there has been a few threads about these roads, but my question is, what comes after the upgraded road reward from that distribution center? East Fort Knot I think? Is it super good or something that's okay to miss out on?