History YMMV / AssassinsCreedIVBlackFlag

*** Turn on the cheats for unlimited [=ammo/health=], always night, and the skeleton crew, and use the Black Ship Sails, and you can captain the Black Pearl herself.

** Under certain conditions,[[note]]the Legendary Ships' AI will only be hostile with Edward at the wheel, so if you refuse to take the helm of the ''Jackdaw'' after the boss' introductory cutscene, the boss will continue sailing with "neutral" AI[[/note]] [[BonusBoss the Legendary Ships]] can be stealth-boarded and then [[OneHitKO sunk with one cannon]] just like any other ship. It works best with ''[[LightningBruiser El Impoluto]]'', but can even be done against ''[[DualBoss HMS Fearless]]'' [[DualBoss and]] ''[[DualBoss Royal Sovereign]]'' with enough patience and fortuitous wind.

** Edward Kenway is unique in being largely mercenary in motivation, a more-or-less normal person thrust into the ongoing Assassin/Templar conflict. The Templars are appalled that Edward would prefer piracy over their ideas of a OneWorldOrder, while the Assassins regard him as a selfish jerk who's wasting any potential he might have. Even his own beliefs about making money to provide for his wife is suspect, since she loved him for who he was and it was he who wanted "a good life, and easy life". Whether he's a good man who's a JerkWithAHeartOfGold or a self-destructive FailureHero who wasted many of the best things that happened to him is up to fans to decide.
*** The above also sometimes informs opinions on the Caribbean's Assassin Order. Those who think Edward is a good man led astray may bristle at the Assassins presumption that he owes them anything [[note]]Albeit he ''did'' lead an ambush to their doorstep that led to many deaths. And when prompted for the reason, Edward simply said "Money was my only aim", showing no seeming concern for the unintended consequences of his actions. [[JerkassHasAPoint Hardly a response that most people would keep their cool upon hearing...]][[/note]]. Keep in mind, the Assassins who didn't know Duncan Walpole's face would definitely have been given a description; as far as they knew, Edward was simply a hired guard. If you consider this interpretation to be true, their indignation doesn't seem to stem from a desire to see Edward better himself, but rather a sense of jealousy and shame that some of their trained Assassins were floored by a lucky drunk, perhaps disguised by a sense of self-righteousness as well.

** That decision usually informs their opinions on the Caribbean's Assassin Order. Those who think Edward is a good man led astray bristle at the Assassins presumption that he owes them anything. Keep in mind, the Assassins who didn't know Duncan Walpole's face would most DEFINITELY be given a description. As far as they knew, Edward was simply a hired guard, like the hundreds of faceless and clueless nobodies the Assassins have been gutting for centuries. If you consider this interpretation to be true, their indignation doesn't seem to stem from a desire to see Edward better himself, but rather a horrible sense of jealousy and shame that some of their specially trained Assassins were floored by a lucky drunk. That shame is disguised by an insufferable self-righteousness that has plagued the Assassin Order in later games.

** Far, ''far'' too many of the missions are tail missions, especially in late-game.
** Even less well-received were eavesdrop missions, which are tail missions that force you to stay close (within 20m or so) of your target. While they walk around in areas crawling with guards.

** Wreck diving sucks to some players because all your skill, armor and weapons don't mean squat down there. They're also {{Timed Mission}}s in areas with numerous invincible patrolling enemies, which doesn't do the feature any favors. Made worse by the fact that most of the ''Jackdaw'''s elite upgrade plans can only be found in nondescript chests at these locations, so you're pretty much forced to do them if you want to have a chance at taking on the legendary ships.
** Smuggler hideouts are similar in that deep diving is required to access them. Once more, Kenway is forbidden from bringing his gear for these runs, but to twist the knife further, he'll have to contend with hostile pirate smugglers [[TheComputerIsACheatingBastard armed with the usual sets of weapons]]. It can be difficult to neutralize them all without swords, guns, or even darts! If that wasn't enough, there's the possibility of treasure maps and assassination missions taking place in these areas. Woe be to those who explored the place to get the usual chests, then having to visit it again to unearth buried treasure, then ''do it a third time to kill a mark''. At least for wreck diving there's no possibility of such a blindsided reason to revisit them.
* ScrappyWeapon: Firebarrels. Given that in naval combat, you're mostly going to be resorting to broadside attacks, a mortal barrage at the start, and the occasional chain shot and ram for frontal assaults, there's essentially little use for deploying fire barrels in the rear. Enemy ships avoid it with impunity, and you'll end up just maxing out these barrels in your storage with no effort at all, since most enemy ships carry a crapload of them for whatever reason.

** Among the forts, '''Conttoyor'''. It is one of the only forts to spawn specific conditions once you get near it. Those conditions? A storm and not one, but ''two'' waterspouts that ''circle the damn thing''. One runs a tight ring around the fort, and one runs a more distant ring, and as with all other waterspouts, getting caught in them means certain death, so this means you have to be careful never to leave a very narrow, very specific circle around the fort. You won't be able to stay in that ring at all times due to the fort's mortars targeting you, so in essentials you have to wobble in and out of the nearest waterspout's circuit while making sure not to be hit by it, which is a chore on its own since the waterspout travels faster than your ship does.
-->'''[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LEUtAT4Oig0 Ryan]]''': Apparently God had a vested interest in that particular fort.
* ThatOneLevel: Ambergris Key is easily the worst Smuggler's Den to go through. The den itself is incredibly tight, small, and narrow, with little room for hiding. Enemies are grouped together, and since [[TooDumbToLive Kenway never brings his own swords in Smuggler Den takedowns]], it's impossible to do dual assassinations. There's also many [[DemonicSpiders Brutes]] in the map, all too happy to smack you around with an axe and bomb you with grenades, and many of the smaller pirates have pistols. This is one of those areas with both buried treasure ''and'' an assassination mark.

** Those damn sea-shanties. They're hard as shit to locate on the map, easily blending into its surroundings so that you'd have to scour every inch of it to find them. Like the Almanac pages from ''III'', they're floating pages that fly away when you get near them, requiring you to run all over the friggin city chasing them down. And if you don't catch them in a certain amount of time they disappear, requiring you to go all the way back to the start and wait several minutes for them to respawn. Most become trivial to catch by simply spawn-camping their respawn point for a minute after their disappearance, but it's still tedious and annoying.
** As described under {{Padding}} above, achieving OneHundredPercentCompletion wouldn't be bad at all if it didn't include hunting down ''79'' useless collectibles on tiny islands all over the Carribean Sea.

* FranchiseOriginalSin: When it was released, Black Flag was generally well received for breathing new life into a franchise that had begun to fall prey to StrictlyFormula. However, some of the things that set apart it apart from previous instalments (An outsider protagonist who is indifferent to the Assassin/Templar conflict, and a large part of the game focusing less on stealth and more on pure combat with [[RPGElements RPG Elements]] - In Black Flag's case naval combat.) are also things later games in the series, particularly Videogame/AssassinsCreedOdyssey and Videogame/AssassinsCreedValhalla, would be criticized for.

* UncannyValley: Deliberately invoked with the Sages' face. Their unnatural blue and yellow eyes are unsettling enough, but in the denouement of the modern-day portion, we're given an up-close look at John's face, with every single blemish, every bit of stubble, being visible and magnified.