Assassin's Creed

ROFL. Yeah, that happens. It's why I filled my crew with Legendary Bounty Hunters. Easier to goad them on a flat plane :-P

I'm lucky - I got the option to lie about killing Nikolaos. Don't think it's hugely influential.

One funny thing - found a pair of soldiers in-flagrante in a bandit camp. Let those two live, they were having a good time. I was wondering about one of the side quests - the one with the amorous blacksmith and the bandit, if it's possible to do it WITHOUT fulfilling the prophecy of the Oracle.

So much to do - loving the cultist dynamic. Only dipping in and out of the conquest element. Game is so large!

You can see the seams of how the NP Cs are programmed in those camps very clearly sometimes. At some point, I was invading a camp where some guy would stand near the bushes and puke. Then another would come and do the exact same thing in that spot. And another one.

You can see the mechanic in action for yourself in Origins Discovery Mode, by the way. There are predetermined spots where an NPC will do a specific action, and in Discovery Mode, you can slot into those spots as well. It's pretty funny seeing a child wield a massive sledgehammer to crush rocks. Its hilarious when he keeps missing the stone because his model is too short to reach it.

I hope they adjust the upgrade prices a bit, because it is prohibitively expensive to upgrade regularly right now. Just one set of merely epic (purple) armour costs a fortune to upgrade. The main problem is that each piece is priced as if it is the ENTIRE armour, like in Origins.

I can see why - to a point. It encourages you to use other gear and not get too reliant... but if you have a nice gold set yeah, it's an arse.

I can forgive the canned animations at locations - it's part of the shortcuts you need in all games, to simulate a world. But yeah always funny when the thing glitches!

I'm trying to find the full snake set right now as if feels like one of the better Assassin / poison build users. The immortal set, not sure. And the Thesus set I want for the sword boosts.

Having explored a couple of the islands I've realised the world isn't as dauntingly hard - as soon as you start chipping away at the map it becomes a bit more manageable.

I think it's more a sign how influential and powerful the Templars have become that destroying them now has consequences. Also, that Jacob and Evie haven't been cultivating their usual brand of alliances like Ezio did. This is right before Abstergo basically makes the Assassins vs. Templar War a nonissue (The Templars having effectively won).

Yeah they're fighting back, but the Templars are so integral to everything it's a bit of a non-issue. How do you win?

In games you hit a weakpoint for massive damage, or take out the ONE integral person. But I think AC are quite good at showing Reality Ensues around the bad guys - you could defeat them in the ancient world, as there was a communication and technology lag. Failsafes weren't there. In the modern world it would be buggered. You have to hit all their pain points simultaneously, but the collateral damage would probably be scary huge.

It gets harder and harder to eradicate the Assassins for the same reason. I get the feeling the modern Templars are reluctant to jeopardize the world as well, because intel is so much easier to gather these days that anything they do would eventually come to light if it's too destructive.

Both sides are one bad data leak from having generations of work totally fucked over.

Edited by Rationalinsanity on Oct 8th 2018 at 11:36:18 AM

Just had my first encounter with Kosmos, and boy, they sure don't mind some new unknown recruit just joining their ranks without question... or having her snoop around conspiciously...

It's also pretty bad that as a woman you have a male face mask... I think it's an indicator of how they aren't REALLY all that... they're lax and greedy and just happen to have a powerful artefact.

I think it's an assumption that if you're a) in the right place and b) wearing the getup you should be there. But there weren't very many actual security elements in place.

Yeah, they seemed to rely on anonymity and everyone not even knowing they exist as primary security. That'd get them a lot further in 400 BCE than it would now. Though the ones you speak to, save one, all seemed to act like it was a big high-society social club.

I really wish that the 'bounty on a mercenary' contracts would actually tell you where the merc IS. Twice now I've ended up having to travel halfway across Greece for a target.

Edited by Cris_Meyers on Oct 8th 2018 at 11:15:02 AM

Yeah, I think it's a bit reliant on the setting and them not being that genre savvy. But they also seem to know each other outside of the masks as well... or at least enough that they can communicate via codename and by proxies.

And they don't wear the masks even when on "deployment" with Cultist guards.

I was surprised no one asked who you were, but as a framing device it was interesting. I think having the piece of the artefact helped. An infiltrator might know about the mask, the location... but not the importance of the isu artefact component

The good news is if you get the last piece of a set of uniques, the entire set gets upgraded at once to match the last piece (Which will always be at least your level -2 at the lowest).

And yeah, while not being able to upgrade all the time sucks, I've actually kinda liked being forced to sometimes use lower rarity equipment. It makes blues and purples worthwhile even when you got legendaries coz you can't keep using them.

Also note that going higher in mercenary ranks reduces blacksmith costs.

Re: Animation change

One thing I find myself missing is 90% of a fort going to sleep at night. That was nice.... Now you're lucky if 2 guards go to bed.

Edited by Ghilz on Oct 8th 2018 at 1:43:32 PM

Yeah, these guards are complete insomniacs. They're also rather stupid. It's a toss-up whether they'll notice a corpse or just step over it to reach their post.

Also, when you kill one, another one tends to want to take their place, so you can often ambush them one by one that way.

Also, ancient Greece is oddly equal opportunities employment when it comes to women. I'm not sure what to make of it. One the one hand, it is nice to see so many female NP Cs and guards (even if they regularly end up dead at the end of your blade...), but on the other, it is not exactly historically accurate. Military leadership just accepting the advice of a female mercenary without a hint of scorn is ridiculous if you know anything about how women were treated at the time.

So what should we prefer, historical accuracy in-game, or equal representation in video games?

I've actually seen the opposite. I've seen guards spot corpses that have been hidden in tall grasses without entering the tallgrass.

In my experience guards are freaking CSI when it comes to finding dead bodies.

Going by the reaction of girls I know happy to play a cool mercenary girl, I'll go with "equal opportunity". If I can accept Magical Precursor artifacts, giant statues of Zeus, giant snake skeleton, impossibly huge statues in the wilderness, I can accept "Girls do things".

Also accuracy, if you know your Greek history, you'll see a lot of stuff missing for the sake of a modern audience sensibility. For example Greek Pederasty is (Thankfully) absent.

Edited by Ghilz on Oct 8th 2018 at 2:05:51 PM

Okay, I've sunk about four hours into Odyssey already, just to about the point of going to Ithaka, and wow this game is fun. It feels so different from Syndicate, which I just wrapped up earlier, and all the changes I've noticed are much for the better - Kass moves much faster and more smoothly, you don't need to hold R to go anywhere before the next solar flare, etc. And Kassandra is a more charming character than Desmond ever was in the first four hours!

It does suffer a little tiny bit from Bioware Vague Dialogue Choice Syndrome, but generally speaking it's not too bad, I find.

^Seconded. "Historical accuracy" went out the window when they introduced magic alien artifacts that enthrall the mind, AKA in the first game. Even discounting that, the Templars don't really exist either. I understand where you're coming from in that it's probably not super likely that bandit gangs had tons of women working for them, but on the other hand, look at Kassandra. Would you argue with her strapping on a sword and making a living that way?

Edited by RedSavant on Oct 8th 2018 at 2:41:29 PM

I'm pretty much on the Representation side here too. Kassandra was one of the driving forces for me getting the game. I'm always on the lookout for good games with women protagonists for my wife.

I can see an argument for accuracy, sure, but just not with this game. Once you've thrown in demi-gods, precursor artifacts, and DNA Memory Theater any claim to historical accuracy goes pretty much out the window.

Edited by Cris_Meyers on Oct 8th 2018 at 1:38:55 PM

Of course I don't mind a female protagonist at all either, it's great fun.

People DO complain about the history not being accurate in these games, though. Just look at Unity.

I did the stupid choice and chose Alexios. I regretted it right up to the point where you meet Kassandra as the Deimos of the Cult. After that I was thrilled with my choice because Kassandra makes the most fucking badass deimos

I appreciate the option to choose, but I’m going to use that option and choose Alexios for my first playthrough.

Alexios!Demios is fucking hilarious. The voice actor is hamming it up so bad I am wondering if this is a joke take they went with coz it was so funny. He's clashing so bad with everything around him, I can't help but love him

I love those moments, of... I guess we'd called them emergent gameplay.

I see a small bandit camp and I go "Fuck it, I got a pet lion, I'm baddass, no need to do the small sneaky shit, there's like 6 of them" And I keep wondering, what goes through the bandit's heads when a tall buff woman comes charging down a cliff wielding a knife, a broken spear, accompanied by a lion and then the first guy in front gets his face clawed off by an eagle that just swooped down?

Like, do you spend your last moment thinking Artemis herself came to smite you down?

Edited by Ghilz on Oct 8th 2018 at 5:12:11 AM

I just found a few of those Amazon cultist camps. These girls have tamed bears. Tamed. Bears.

And it gets worse: they shoot FIRE at you.

And EVEN worse: there's a bear den where one of those Amazons is guarding the bears. As if the bear itself isn't strong enough...

Huh, people no longer spot the lion when I stealth. Guess it must've been a bug?

I gotta say, having a pet is badass. A lion at least can take out some of the weaker captains solo...

There's a cave way up north called Myson Cave. It is a small Isu structure with one chest... and a blacksmith. Right there in the Isu chamber. In the middle of the wilderness.

You cannot interact with the guy other than the shop interface.

I really want to know this guy's story. No one else seems to be coming near here. Who on earth is he selling to? Why wuold you set up shop in such a remote location?

That's actually where I just left off. I was thinking the exact same thing. Plus 'how has smoke inhalation not killed this man?'

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I liked Evil Alexios. Aside from just liking the ham-tastic acting it kinda helped drive home the point that he's only nominally the leader. Everyone else knows he's just a weapon that they point at various targets