Assassin's Creed

That doesn't really work because the Rich Vinter, by virtue of being rich, can more easily afford food when prices rise and starvation hits. Heck, by virtue of being rich he might be able to relocate or simply ride it out. He's got far more means to mitigate than a potter who suddenly finds his entire market vanishing in a time of harvest coz there's no need to jar food people don't have, and no one's got money for pottery.

Like, food wont vanish instantly, it'll get rarer and pricier and the rich is the one who feels the effect of that last as opposed to the poor.

You have to remember that the poor can buy into such beliefs as well. After all, if you're poor, God probably meant you to be poor. It was all part of the divine plan. This generally kept the poor more accepting of their place in the world.

Religion is a powerful force that tends to make people want things to stay the way they are, and be more accepting of them staying that way. There is a reason religion tends to be associated with conservatism. Once people become more progressive-minded and allow that the divinely ordained system can indeed be changed by mortals, without apparent retribution by God, things start falling apart rather quickly religion-wise.

Optimism is a duty.

It's presumably also why the wealthiest people tend to be conserv too.

Say to the others who did not follow through You're still our brothers, and we will fight for you

Is level 70 the cap before new game plus comes into play, or is it set to 99 even in an original run?

I'm not touching the last tier of ship upgrades if it's the latter, I need money to keep my equipment up to shape.

The gear system is easily the weakest aspect of Origins and Odyssey. I hope they move to a different system, with fewer pieces of gear with more difference between them. Dismantling and upgrading is a chore.

Politics is the skilled use of blunt objects.

If there really is a level cap I need to minmax harder.

Maybe I can get rid of all my Warrior abilities and solely rely on archery and assassinations...

Say to the others who did not follow through You're still our brothers, and we will fight for you

It's 99, as far as I can tell. And just upgrade your ship already, you ought to be swimming in cash at this point. That you aren't suggests that you are either not doing much side stuff, or you are spending too much on upgrading weapons and armour.

You don't need to upgrade every level. Everything should hold up for about 5 levels or so before you really notice it.

Optimism is a duty.

Ugh, this is why I stopped playing (among other reasons). AC isn't supposed to be a looter RPG.

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"

And the loot for the most part isn't even good.

I've cleared the map, finished all the main story missions and every side missions I could find, cleared the Legacy DLC episodes, and up until what I thought were the last few levels I was only upgrading my weapons every 5 levels (I just traded out armor until I got the Demigod set which I settled on to buff Hero Strike and Charge Assassinate to stupidly potent levels). The only aspect I really ignored were the procedurally generated quests (I did enough to get the trophy), because those are pretty boring and I couldn't be bothered to grab them every time I visited a town. I don't think I've ever cleared 300k, and other than ship upgrades, the occasional bribe and upgrades, I didn't spend it on anything.

The last tier of ship upgrades have massively inflated costs (like, the second last tier costs about 15-19k for most, the last tier is largely over 200K, going as high as 270k, and that's not counting resources). They were clearly intended for a 2nd run, which I can't see myself doing within the next few years, if at all. At this point, I hope that the Atlantis DLC stays away from naval combat, or that my penultimate upgrades carry me through it.

—- I am liking the DLC simply because they do what the main story largely failed to do, connect the game to the rest of the franchise. The Eagle Bearer's story...I could care less for, especially because the choices ran deadlong into the DLC (the status of your family being the big one) script. I hope that the next game moves away from branching storylines and choice, it doesn't fit the franchise very well.

Edited by Rationalinsanity on Feb 24th 2020 at 5:14:34 AM

Politics is the skilled use of blunt objects.

God I LOVE the loot system. I love raiding fortresses and stealing war supplies and nation treasures. I love that burning fields and murdering soldiers actually harms the defenses of the nation you're in.

Odyssey is a LOT of fun, but the problem is once you finish the story stuff there's just not much left to do other than "get more powerful". The problem is, without story, there's just not much reason to "get more powerful".

Say to the others who did not follow through You're still our brothers, and we will fight for you

I'm with Fighteer. While I love the core gameplay loop of "raid fortress for stuff," so much of the stuff is little more than completely worthless vendor trash, no matter what color rarity it is, that it feels meaningless eventually. It's a recurring problem with looter RPGs.

The best way I've seen to fix it is to center everything around a crafting system, so rather than looting equipment you don't care about, you loot crafting materials to make equipment that you care about.

Most of the Fortresses are well designed, but the loot is just cash and resources. You very rarely get an amazing weapon, and its best to just replace armor (according to play style, which for me meant keeping Assassin damage as high as possible) until the late game when you find a set that suits you.

95% of the stuff you loot just sits in your inventory or gets dismantled for....yet more resources.

Every weapon of its type largely acts the same to, and until sets get involved armor is just a modifier.

And at some reasonable point, the level cap should max out (aside from Mastery points) and let us enjoy our power, not constantly having us invest resources in our gear because corporate wants to sell more microtransactions.

I also wouldn't mind seeing some of the biggest abilities (Hero Strike ends most encounters on its own, as long as you dodge while it charges) toned down, along with Hunter damage and skills as a whole next time.

---

I also hope they move away from so many bosses (and even elites) being damage sponges instead of truly difficult (puzzles, attacks that require counters other than just dodging). Fuck that Gorgon in particular for having more health than any boss has any right to, with few chances to stun it.

Politics is the skilled use of blunt objects.

See, previous AC games were largely skill-based. Sure, some weapons dealt more damage than others, and you could gain extra health, but mostly it was about counterattacking and reading movements. Now it's just chipping away at health bars. As soon as assassinations stopped being lethal to enemies more than 2 levels higher, I gave up (well, I gave up after finishing the main story of Origins and realizing it was just more looter grind forever and ever).

And the point, as always, is to sell time savers and premium gear with microtransactions. Fuck Ubisoft.

If you enjoy it, fine. Don't let me take away from your personal experience, but I'm particularly bitter about this because AC is one of my favorite video game series of all time, or was until they threw the bridging sci-fi narrative in the bin along with structured gameplay challenges and started trying to milk the whales.

I thought it was a hilarious bit of meta humor in Black Flag that Abstergo Entertainment was being ordered by its corporate masters to make drab schlock for the masses. Now I realize it was the developers crying for help, and we didn't listen. *sob*

Edited by Fighteer on Feb 24th 2020 at 7:28:12 AM

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"

For all its faults, Odyssey (and Origins) has given the modern plot more respect and relevance than Syndicate, Black Flag and Rogue did.

They should definitely move away from player input on the lead character's personality though. The Eagle Bearer...is boring. They've got their moments (especially when they get angry), but those moments come from when they are allowed to be a character instead of a player avatar.

Edited by Rationalinsanity on Feb 24th 2020 at 8:32:38 AM

Politics is the skilled use of blunt objects.

Really? When I found out that the big Juno story that Black Flag, Unity, and Syndicate were setting up got resolved offscreen in a tie-in comic, I threw in the towel. Origins gave us a girl in a cave. While it was a bit of a lark, it hardly seemed relevant to anything.

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"

Layla gets deep into First Civilization shit, especially in Odyssey's DLC (which I admittedly have not finished yet). Like, its looking like Desmond levels here.

I agree about your point though, I still haven't forgiven Ubisoft for resolving the Juno plot in a fucking comic. That was spitting on the efforts of half a dozen games plots.

And then they had the gall to portray Cleopatra's assassination in a comic as well! Aya should have gotten a mini DLC to wrap up that plot (though frankly I wouldn't have minded another game with her and/or Bayak. Those two were great).

Edited by Rationalinsanity on Feb 24th 2020 at 8:35:03 AM

Politics is the skilled use of blunt objects.

Hmm. Well, maybe I'll watch an LP or a compilation of her story. I have no real interest in playing Odyssey.

I know this may get me tied up and beaten with sticks, but AC 3 has by far my favorite meta story, in which Desmond actually gets off his ass and does Assassin stuff, culminating with that resoundingly brilliant climax at Abstergo HQ in Italy. I was hollering and whooping up a storm. (The less said about the actual game mechanics, the better, but the story... mmmm, the story.)

Also, Revelations has my favorite part of the ancestor storytelling. See, this is how you make a protagonist: you give them an actual personality, goals that are more important than "murder Templars", a legacy and an enduring connection with the future narrative. You can't have a compelling protagonist when they have a "choose your own personality" thing.

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"

Yeah, Layla is definitely going to be the new Desmond moving forward.

Try selling vendor trash instead of dismantling it. At some point you really don't need materials anymore, and if you do some looting or pirating once in a while, you should be swimming in that stuff anyway.

I'm not sure what you're doing wrong, but I was easily able to upgrade my ship fully around level 40 or thereabouts, and by the time the DLC added stuff, I had no trouble immediately buying that as well. Are you buying a lot of engravings? Those things are money sponges.

Wait, now I think about it... my preorder edition came with a money boost. That could be it, then.

Edited by Redmess on Feb 24th 2020 at 1:56:02 PM

Optimism is a duty.

In retrospect killing off Desmond after spending 4 whole games building him up was a huge mistake. They could have took the focus off of him without killing him off.

It left the metaplot struggling to stay afloat between Black Flag and Syndicate, with Origins soft reset finally starting (however slightly) to rerail things.

I ignored engravings for most of the game (until I found legendary weapons I liked, and even then those were only two or three times and I had a discount by then) until about level 65 where I engraved the Demigod set. Can't be that.

Edited by Rationalinsanity on Feb 24th 2020 at 9:03:14 AM

Politics is the skilled use of blunt objects.

Dude, the Dark Souls style combat is sooooo much better than the point click QTE bullshit that we got before. I can't play any of the older games anymore.

Say to the others who did not follow through You're still our brothers, and we will fight for you

Has anyone modded the game so that you can play as Kassandra while her twin sister becomes Deimos yet? Because Kassandra Deimos is genuinely scary-evil but also I want to try playing as Kassandra Misthios.

Say to the others who did not follow through You're still our brothers, and we will fight for you

I don't mean those engravings. I mean the ones you can buy in that secret cave in the North-east corner of the map, with the hidden blacksmith. He sells a second row of pips for your engravings for a lot of gold.

As for Desmond, I agree, it was a huge mistake. But what do you expect, with the fans decrying him so loudly? We have ourselves to blame for that one, I'm afraid...

Given how this game has a partial online element to it, and microtransactions to boot, I doubt Ubisoft would allow mods like that. It does sound interesting, though.

Optimism is a duty.

Here’s hoping the next game is less loot obsessed & with funner combat.

Edited by slimcoder on Feb 24th 2020 at 7:38:44 AM

"I am Alpharius. This is a lie."

I hope they decrease the open world a bit and instead add more meaningful encounters in it.

Ehhhhhhh. Up to Origins, the series had its unique, distinct flavor of combat that, while it could be clunky at times, made it feel like an Assassin's Creed game. Going for this generic action combat stuff just makes it no longer feel right. That said, each game touched up the combat enough that going back felt like a regression, so you can't say it doesn't march relentlessly forward.

There's nothing inherently wrong with an open-world RPG like Skyrim or The Witcher 3, or even a quasi-open one like The Outer Worlds. What matters is that there is interesting stuff to discover and do out there: new characters to meet and unique side quests to perform. Not "liberate 20 strongholds" or "collect 50 bat droppings". I want to feel that exploration is rewarded with more than just more pointless grind.

Every single side activity in TW3 was crafted distinctly and memorably. Did you leave Origins with fond memories of the time you defaced statue #13 or climbed tower #25? Ubisoft can keep the open world if they bother to put interesting things to do in it.

Edited by Fighteer on Feb 24th 2020 at 11:09:21 AM

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"

That is precisely what I meant. Open World can be a great thing, but I feel like ACO fell into the trap of creating a large map, but did not properly fill it with life.