could you elaborate on how specifically, because I really don't understand how you're reading the design of ac1 as fundamentally different from the rest of the series
mechanically it definitely doesn't do anything differently, it has detection meters, silent takedowns from behind, hiding spots, slow walking, and throwing knives. you could perhaps argue that ac1's relative mechanical austerity is to its benefit, which I disagree with, but I don't think that itself makes something more of a stealth game. you don't have any distraction tools or whistling, your silent takedowns can only be done from a few angles, your social stealth options are limited to monks and benches, and you have no reliable way to take cover. and then there's the fucking beggars which are the worst thing in the universe why would they have that be your "challenge" for walking slowly through a crowd
design wise you have several stealthy options for your investigations and can stealth through most of the assassinations until you get to your target, which is cool but also true of all of the other games. ac1 is actually exceptional in that you cannot "ghost" a target, it is scripted to set a city-wide alert right after the cutscene. I actually thought those parts were great but that is not something I would consider characteristic of a game primarily about stealth
later games definitely went harder on action-based missions but ac1 also has plenty of these, mostly at the beginning and end. you can, however, go 8 assassinations in a row without combat, which I suppose is unique to ac1 since the other games sprinkle their action missions throughout. I guess the city chases act as the action sprinkles but you can just run and not fight in those. still, avoiding combat in those 8 assassinations is something the player has to commit to on their own, because ac1 doesn't really encourage it any harder than the other games encourage stealth. there are action missions like beating up guards to save someone or beating up an informant for your investigation, and you can always action your way through the main assassinations
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Indie Winterdie KräheRudi Hurzlmeier (German, b. 1952)Registered Userregular
ok so
I'm at a model UN crisis TOC right now so I can't give this the attention it deserves
I promise you I will read and try my best to respond when I get the time
also some thoughts on combat in stealth games and ac while I'm here thinking about ac game design
I've been playing styx: master of shadows, it's a pretty solid stealth game
the combat is atrocious and it is intentionally atrocious, it gives you just enough ability that you could theoretically get out of it so it is less frustrating than an auto-fail for detection, but not enough ability that you ever actually want to be in combat
so while the combat itself is bad, its place in the overall design is very well done
in assassin's creed 1 and 2 the combat was not at all difficult, but it was tedious. I think the tedium was intended to be your deterrent but it didn't work because you were still so good at combat that it was an acceptable alternative to stealth and hey some of those slowmo kills look pretty cool too, you could derive some satisfaction from an action approach
assbro leaned into that and made a faster combat system with guard breaks and chain kills and stuff, and it got faster and faster up through rogue. this struck a weird, but imo enjoyable balance where the stealth and the combat were getting better at the same time and I was quite happy to do both depending on what I felt like at the time.
for all its faults I think unity actually struck the best balance for combat being a deterrence to getting caught. it has the most difficult combat but it's still faster than ac1 or 2, it can get you out of a jam but it's not enjoyable enough that you want to get into it too much. the problem is just that unity's stealth mechanics are horrible so you're always getting into that combat
syndicate is going back to the fast action which, okay I guess, but I'm disappointed that they didn't choose to refine unity's style. which wouldn't even need much refinement of the combat itself, it would just need the stealth to be fixed. as much as I like the assbro to rogue model we got six games of that already
and, crouching
I liked ac's comittment to no crouch button because I've always thought crouch buttons were silly
in a stealth game you basically need to always be crouching so it should just be your default state
in ac your default walking state was perfectly fine for stealth, ac1 had the prayer too but that was dumb
it worked with the concept of social stealth because humans don't crouch walk. act like you're supposed to be there and people will think you're supposed to be there, even if it's only for a second
and just walking up to someone and stabbing them always looked cooler than crouching up to someone and stabbing them
the only time I like crouching is when you need to take cover behind something low. the ac3 games did this automatically with bushes but I did welcome being able to crouch behind ledges in unity
in assassin's creed 1 and 2 the combat was not at all difficult, but it was tedious. I think the tedium was intended to be your deterrent but it didn't work because you were still so good at combat that it was an acceptable alternative to stealth and hey some of those slowmo kills look pretty cool too, you could derive some satisfaction from an action approach
I beat AC1 a little while ago and talked about in the Playstation thread, because this thread was dead back then, but
Given your opinion on the combat, what do you think of the whole climactic sequence being a bunch of fighting sequences, one after the other?
If Jacob Frye existed in the modern day he would wear t-shirts that boast about how sarcastic he is and would always want to debate you on why you don't like Spencer's Gifts
I have just always had this hunch that Jacob is going to be the good guy Assassin and Evie is going to be the bad girl Templar
Evie seeming pro-technology and Jacob being a rabblerousin' good ol boy means it will really surprise me if that dynamic doesn't play out
Assassins' Creed as a series has been getting more and more that both sides are kind of awful, though, so it may be a rejection of those ideologies for something else.
I still need to finish Black Flag and Rogue. When I got ACIII, I couldn't put it down. The games after that didn't have the same effect on me though. I really enjoyed the setting of 3.
I bought 3 after the heavy recommendations of this thread and others, but haven't really gotten into it as much. I'd like to go back, though, it's extremely pretty.
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DragkoniasThat Guy Who Does StuffYou Know, There. Registered Userregular
I still need to finish Black Flag and Rogue. When I got ACIII, I couldn't put it down. The games after that didn't have the same effect on me though. I really enjoyed the setting of 3.
Yeah, I know people complained about no real buildings but I loved the mix of wilderness and settlement.
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Indie Winterdie KräheRudi Hurzlmeier (German, b. 1952)Registered Userregular
edited August 2015
I'm replaying Unity. With French voices. I don't know what brought this on; I guess I wanted to see if my impressions of the game hold up.
It's actually... not bad. It's the the development of the series that a next gen AC should have been, and the dependency on the broken as hell companion app and multiplayer missions for unlockable was messed up, but at its core it's a better AC game than a lot of people gave it credit for - with better combat and better stealth mechanics than its predecessors, that you just weren't able to access and utilize correctly due the unforgivable amount of bugs the game had on release. But now? It's a solid little thing, a 7.5.
And I wonder if the game had a more positive buzz, it would have allowed people who have not experienced the AC franchise before to find Arno more compelling. Would he have been a new Ezio for a new "generation" of potential fans? I think they were definitely hoping for that. And I wouldn't lie, so would I - I'd have loved to see Arno hanging with Napoleon in French Egypt.
Meet Michael Fassbender as Callum Lynch in Assassin’s Creed.
Based on the massively popular — and prolific — video-game series of the same name, Creed is set to open in theaters Dec. 21, 2016.
Before hardcore Creed gamers start scratching their heads (and filling up the comments) about how exactly Callum Lynch fits into the game world, we can tell you that Fassbender’s character was created specifically for the film version. (The movie isn’t retelling any of the existing Creed games, but rather introducing new characters into the same world.)
Lynch discovers he is a descendant of the secret Assassins society through unlocked genetic memories that allow him to relive the adventures of his ancestor, Aguilar, in 15th Century Spain. After gaining incredible knowledge and skills he’s poised to take on the oppressive Knights Templar in the present day.
Also starring Marion Cotillard (The Dark Knight Rises), Michael Kenneth Williams (12 Years a Slave), and Ariane Labed (Before Midnight), cameras start rolling for Creed on Monday. Filming is set to happen in Malta, London, and Spain.
looks like that spanish inquisition rumor was correct
aguilar means "haunt of eagles" and callum means "dove"
Posts
3 was my favorite!
I would say liberation, 4 and rogue have the best stealth
the concepts are there in 3 too but its missions don't really make use of them
With the action being trivial and the stealth being wholly insignificant
At least 1 was committed to its mechanics, even if they lacked refinement
Steam: BrocksMullet http://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561197972421669/
mechanically it definitely doesn't do anything differently, it has detection meters, silent takedowns from behind, hiding spots, slow walking, and throwing knives. you could perhaps argue that ac1's relative mechanical austerity is to its benefit, which I disagree with, but I don't think that itself makes something more of a stealth game. you don't have any distraction tools or whistling, your silent takedowns can only be done from a few angles, your social stealth options are limited to monks and benches, and you have no reliable way to take cover. and then there's the fucking beggars which are the worst thing in the universe why would they have that be your "challenge" for walking slowly through a crowd
design wise you have several stealthy options for your investigations and can stealth through most of the assassinations until you get to your target, which is cool but also true of all of the other games. ac1 is actually exceptional in that you cannot "ghost" a target, it is scripted to set a city-wide alert right after the cutscene. I actually thought those parts were great but that is not something I would consider characteristic of a game primarily about stealth
later games definitely went harder on action-based missions but ac1 also has plenty of these, mostly at the beginning and end. you can, however, go 8 assassinations in a row without combat, which I suppose is unique to ac1 since the other games sprinkle their action missions throughout. I guess the city chases act as the action sprinkles but you can just run and not fight in those. still, avoiding combat in those 8 assassinations is something the player has to commit to on their own, because ac1 doesn't really encourage it any harder than the other games encourage stealth. there are action missions like beating up guards to save someone or beating up an informant for your investigation, and you can always action your way through the main assassinations
I'm at a model UN crisis TOC right now so I can't give this the attention it deserves
I promise you I will read and try my best to respond when I get the time
the autotargeting was a great quality of life change that made you more mobile but it lost something in the feel of closing in for a kill
I've been playing styx: master of shadows, it's a pretty solid stealth game
the combat is atrocious and it is intentionally atrocious, it gives you just enough ability that you could theoretically get out of it so it is less frustrating than an auto-fail for detection, but not enough ability that you ever actually want to be in combat
so while the combat itself is bad, its place in the overall design is very well done
in assassin's creed 1 and 2 the combat was not at all difficult, but it was tedious. I think the tedium was intended to be your deterrent but it didn't work because you were still so good at combat that it was an acceptable alternative to stealth and hey some of those slowmo kills look pretty cool too, you could derive some satisfaction from an action approach
assbro leaned into that and made a faster combat system with guard breaks and chain kills and stuff, and it got faster and faster up through rogue. this struck a weird, but imo enjoyable balance where the stealth and the combat were getting better at the same time and I was quite happy to do both depending on what I felt like at the time.
for all its faults I think unity actually struck the best balance for combat being a deterrence to getting caught. it has the most difficult combat but it's still faster than ac1 or 2, it can get you out of a jam but it's not enjoyable enough that you want to get into it too much. the problem is just that unity's stealth mechanics are horrible so you're always getting into that combat
syndicate is going back to the fast action which, okay I guess, but I'm disappointed that they didn't choose to refine unity's style. which wouldn't even need much refinement of the combat itself, it would just need the stealth to be fixed. as much as I like the assbro to rogue model we got six games of that already
and, crouching
I liked ac's comittment to no crouch button because I've always thought crouch buttons were silly
in a stealth game you basically need to always be crouching so it should just be your default state
in ac your default walking state was perfectly fine for stealth, ac1 had the prayer too but that was dumb
it worked with the concept of social stealth because humans don't crouch walk. act like you're supposed to be there and people will think you're supposed to be there, even if it's only for a second
and just walking up to someone and stabbing them always looked cooler than crouching up to someone and stabbing them
the only time I like crouching is when you need to take cover behind something low. the ac3 games did this automatically with bushes but I did welcome being able to crouch behind ledges in unity
I had to stab a lot of dudes
I beat AC1 a little while ago and talked about in the Playstation thread, because this thread was dead back then, but
Given your opinion on the combat, what do you think of the whole climactic sequence being a bunch of fighting sequences, one after the other?
the large enemy count only highlighted the fact that geeze, these guys really are just standing there waiting to be countered huh
on the other hand the large body count also meant you could easily trigger the fear reaction and that's one neat little aspect of old ac combat
The shroud, huh
I don't suppose consus will come into play
Perhaps the erudite god is erudito
Steam
So apparently you can play most of the game as Evie.
Shitty Tumblr:lighthouse1138.tumblr.com
Jacob looks like the boring white breadiest of the boring white bread AC protagonists
yeah Evie is 100% secretly a Templar
I have just always had this hunch that Jacob is going to be the good guy Assassin and Evie is going to be the bad girl Templar
Evie seeming pro-technology and Jacob being a rabblerousin' good ol boy means it will really surprise me if that dynamic doesn't play out
Assassins' Creed as a series has been getting more and more that both sides are kind of awful, though, so it may be a rejection of those ideologies for something else.
I never played Rogue
Probably should, though, since it looks like more of The Best Assassin's Creed
I wish Rogue was the lead game for that year.
So, basically, being colossal idiots?
And I think Syndicate looks great, despite me not liking Unity very much at all.
I'm watching Peaky Blinders right now so this is right up my alley.
xbl - HowYouGetAnts
steam - WeAreAllGeth
Yeah, I know people complained about no real buildings but I loved the mix of wilderness and settlement.
It's actually... not bad. It's the the development of the series that a next gen AC should have been, and the dependency on the broken as hell companion app and multiplayer missions for unlockable was messed up, but at its core it's a better AC game than a lot of people gave it credit for - with better combat and better stealth mechanics than its predecessors, that you just weren't able to access and utilize correctly due the unforgivable amount of bugs the game had on release. But now? It's a solid little thing, a 7.5.
And I wonder if the game had a more positive buzz, it would have allowed people who have not experienced the AC franchise before to find Arno more compelling. Would he have been a new Ezio for a new "generation" of potential fans? I think they were definitely hoping for that. And I wouldn't lie, so would I - I'd have loved to see Arno hanging with Napoleon in French Egypt.
When I came back Arno was being attacked by revolutionaries for standing still and doing nothing
Satans..... hints.....
looks like that spanish inquisition rumor was correct
aguilar means "haunt of eagles" and callum means "dove"
PSN/Steam/NNID: SyphonBlue | BNet: SyphonBlue#1126