Assassin's Creed

And Odyssey's open world and RPG mechanics fall into that "mile long, puddle deep" trap.

Well, there were certainly memorable moments. Like that time I spent half an hour coaxing a high level captain too strong to take on directly out of his camp after killing all his buddies from a distance, needling him to death while hiding, finally having him at the point where I can recruit him as my very first lieutenant... only to have him die because he rolled down the frigging hill.

Can make the same criticism to any mechanic in the same franchise. I always have to pause when people say "AC used to be a stealth game" coz it feels so weird. Like, oh yeah, it had stealth mechanics, I guess. But the applications were always so shallow.

For what it's worth I still enjoyed Odyssey greatly. Is it flawed? Yeah. But I've not had this much fun with an AC game since black flag. And it's the only game in the series where combat isn't an absolute bore.

And sparta kicking people off high thing never gets boring.

Edited by Ghilz on Feb 25th 2020 at 9:48:10 AM

It's not completely wrong to say that AC has always been about the open world grind. I just got so bored of it in Origins, though. Maybe it's the final straw that's been building up for a long time.

Edited by Fighteer on Feb 25th 2020 at 9:53:11 AM

It started to reach that point in III already, though, with that stupidly huge forest.

I think 3 was the worst for that for sure. So many quests that just exist to fill space and have no story to them. Like the assassination missions that have no dialogue or even a name for the target. Or most of what's attached to the homestead.

Oh, yes. The open world of AC3 was boooooooooooooooooooring. I still liked the game; in particular I found Connor to be a far more interesting character than most people seemed to give him credit for, and the exploration of early American history was fascinating. But the gameplay is so tedious.

Edited by Fighteer on Feb 25th 2020 at 9:59:44 AM

I never did the AC 3 DLC which was a shame. Loved the game but it was clearly a sort of prototype. I wish we'd had more Haytham as well; plus more snow. That felt interesting - forcing you to use the trees.

TBH I think Ubisoft could make one hell of a Predator game using AC as a template. A SCI FI AC in a cyberpunk city (Watch Dogs 3 is looking close to it) could be great.

As for Origins... it was a weird one; loved it but again it was an ALMOST game. The map was glorious but poorly paced - the majority of quests were in the East, so if you cleared out sidequests it meant the West of the map you just blitzed through by the time the story got there.

Odyssey was great, I was actually sad by the time the stories ended. Loved the closing to it though.

I DO need to play through Syndicate again - enjoyed it but for some reason never finished it.

I loved hunting cult members.

Origins had the added problem that it straddles the pre- and post Roman periods of Egypt, and wants to have it both ways. This is why the North-West part of the map is surrounded with beef gates: it wouldn't make sense to have Roman settlements and camps when the Romans haven't even arrived yet.

Heaven forbid the world map evolve with the changing political situation.

There's trade off when you do that in that it can cause quests to become misseable when you've progressed enough to make the map change so much. Which is a bigger problem in an open world game.

I dont think there's specifically a wrong or right way to do this. It's a matter of choice and preferences. I don't think one way is less valid than the other.

Given how huge these maps are these days, it's probably prohibitively expensive.

World of Warcraft does phasing in multiple zones and it's an MMORPG that has to deal with millions of simultaneous players. I refuse to believe it's that difficult for a company that can spend millions of dollars making a shiny store front to sell overpriced junk "experience enhancers" to gullible whales time-conscious gamers.

Edited by Fighteer on Feb 25th 2020 at 2:19:16 PM

I highly doubt they spent millions on it. It's the same exact storefront they had in Origins, for one.

And can you really compare those two games? Do they have the same level of detail?

Are you actually pointing to WOW as an example of it done well? Coz it's not. WOW's approach leads to world map that's robbed of all coherence with neighboring zones that exist at different points in time. I create a Zandalar troll, get an intro asking to report to Sylvanas. Get to Orgrimmar and the quests now all talk about how Garrosh is Warchief but the NP Cs around me are all talking about Sylvanas. "Oh yeah, my character's story totally makes sense". Orgrimmar exists in some sort of half-between state where it's located a no specific point in time.

And lets not even go into how Blizzard needs to leave an NPC in every zone that has multiple versions of itself so players can move between them coz in 15 years they'd not been able to find a smoother way to ensure continuity of content.

Yeah, doing it the WOW way would be so much worse.

(Also like WOW doesn't have a shiny store front to sell stuff to gullible whales. Hello 30$ for a mount that does nothing in game) :-P

Edited by Ghilz on Feb 25th 2020 at 3:15:47 PM

Also, please let's stop exaggerating about those microtransactions. They're not that heinous, all things considered.

"All things considered", huh. Nah, microtransactions in full-price AAA games are a scourge. They should be heavily restricted, if not banned. They represent a nefarious trend of intentionally handicapping the basic gameplay experience and then selling you back the fun parts for extra cash.

Why sell an XP booster? Because the default leveling rate is so slow. Why is the default leveling rate so slow? To get you to buy an XP booster. It is absolutely disgusting.

Edited by Fighteer on Feb 25th 2020 at 4:24:17 AM

I never had issues leveling up. so 🤷‍♀️

Yeah leveling up was pretty brisk. It's the gear that more an issue. If anything you level too fast, it makes items grow obsolete insanely fast. I hate the way gear works. Legendary items shouldn't exist because they make the regular stuff into useless vendor trash you'll never touch.

I disagree. I absolutely love the legendary items with the extra effects. But I come from Skyrim, where Vendor Trash is simply a fact of life.

But I might be a special case. I never fast travel. Almost never, anyway. I walk, ride, swim, sail everywhere. I collect every treasure between here and there. I collect every stick of wood, every scrap of ore. I randomly punch out patrolling guards and nick their pockets. I never run short of resources.

So.

It may just be that this game is uniquely suited to my playstyle?

I dunno.

Skyrim legendary items operate different. for the most part, most of them aren't actually straight up better than what you pick up. Just different. Dawnbreaker can't be easily improved with smithing, doesn't hit hard, but it does AOE on undeads, for example. But it can be outdone by plenty of regular weapons, both dropped and crafted.

Here the game will shower you with loot which will NEVER be worth even looking at. Coz legendary items exist. And legendary items are better than the regular gear. Coz they have better/more bonuses, and because they give set bonuses.

And that's kind of an issue when you make the entirety of the loot you gain pointless. It makes almost all the rewards you get completely unrewarding.

Edited by Ghilz on Feb 25th 2020 at 4:38:56 AM

Not really. The point of the loot is to be vendor trash. I have a trireme made of the swords of my enemies!

Then they could just make enemies drop wood and iron and cut out the middle man.

and it doesn't change that the game going "You quest reward for doing this long complex quest is a purple sword" becomes completely unrewarding when I wont even look at the stats of a weapon if it's not gold coz I know it's pointless.

Heck it's not even a trireme of the swords of your enemies since the weapons enemies drop don't match what they used (again, unlike Skyrim)

Edited by Ghilz on Feb 25th 2020 at 4:42:40 AM

I wish there were a way to protect some items from accidentally being dropped or sold.

Barnabas gifted me with his own custom daggers and i heartlessly sold them.

And I have definitely passed over Legendary weapons in favor of Epic or Rare weapons with the actual enchantments I wanted instead of just any random 3.

Weapons sell for like 300, 400 drachmae apiece. I kinda like that I always have more money than I think i do.