It’s annoying that we’re like 20 assassins games in and there’s still no option to lower the intensity of the highlight effects. Like I get sick of assassinating red blobs, I just need an option to turn down the effect brightness even a little bit
You can turn it off but that puts you at a disadvantage, I just want it to not overwhelm the character models
Man when the combat clicks in this game it really kicks off. The blood effects look spectacular, remind me of the bright and rich blood effects in gears of war
Crash tackling guys over edges, headshotting with bows (which looks way better when you turn off damage numbers indicators), decapitating, scorpion chain flinging guys everywhere, kicks fucking ass
is it just me or do arrows seem like way powerful in acv. maybe I’m just bad at these but they seem good, haven’t played an ac since the first before this tho
I didn't mind Wincestre so much. The keys weren't that big a deal, and the assassinations weren't as badly written as Jorvik's.
Smart boy, that Aelfrid though. I guess he really wanted all his soldiers to die while I left, and then for the next-door monastery to immediately get raided. What a brilliant negotiator.
is it just me or do arrows seem like way powerful in acv. maybe I’m just bad at these but they seem good, haven’t played an ac since the first before this tho
Arrows kick ass in Valhalla. Also the ability to stagger with them, they feel a lot more part of a mixed fighting style. I mean they were powerful in odyssey too but here even if you don’t put skills into them they’re very useful.
Also are the clips in the skill tree ability icons suddenly super sped up for anyone else?
Another thing that’s pretty impressive about this engine that doesn’t get much focus but is a personal plus for me is how long the bodies stay and how many pile up. I love seeing like corpses everywhere after a battle, makes things feel more tangible and like you actually killed them and not just generic npcs that fade away like in most games
Damnit my saves glitched with a common bug, stealth recon stopped working, and odins sight as well is no longer highlighting enemies, ah well I guess it’ll make stealth more challenging
Edit: ok good switching from performance to quality and back again fixed it. My god the 30fps quality mode is horrendous after playing the 60fps one, and gun to my head I couldn’t tell you the visual difference
Edit edit: ffs it’s back, as soon as I saved it stopped working again
You can just tell Ubisoft pushed this out for the release date. So many bugs and glitches, way more than I experienced in odyssey or origins
Ugh, I've run in to a big ass bug, which is apparently a by-product of the recent patch. The game won't autosave and I can't quick save or manually save.
Oh and fast travel seems to be permanently disabled, too.
Only lost about half an hour of progress, but definitely going to have to stop playing this until it's fixed.
Sometimes this game is unintentionally hilarious. I was having issues with the Lunden event where a guy is stuck in a warehouse and you have to move shelves to get him out, preferably without breaking his wares. One of the shelves was completely stuck.
Some genius figured out that corpse physics override other physics stuff. So I murdered a couple outside and threw their corpses at the shelf over and over, moving it a few mm every time.
Eventually the stuck guy comes out but since I broke some jars he stands on the corpses of the innocent bystanders and goes "You got me out, but at a price. Oh well, thanks!" and saunters away.
I had the last shelf get stuck where it wasn't open far enough for me to slide through but wouldn't let me interact with it again. I figured it had to do with too many interactables in the area so broke all the pots. It took absolutely forever since Eivor projectile vomited after each pot. It worked though.
When I did that warehouse he hadn't spawned in it because he only shows up after you do the region quest. So I busted a bunch of those jars moving all the shelves only to find an empty room.
I came back later after the quest and all the jars had respawned but the shelves were in the same spots I moved them to, so he just walked out and thanked me for releasing him without breaking anything.
I'm actually getting pretty frustrated with the story in this one, it for sure feels like there's just too much stuff in here that you have to do in order to get anywhere near the main thrust of the story, and a lot of it isn't especially compelling or barely makes sense for Eivor to be involved with.
I can tell I'm approaching some sort of end because I'm running out of regions and my order page is nearly full. I'm running out of steam, though, and it's a bummer.
I’m kind of approaching the story much more broadly and just accepting whatever happens rather than waiting for a big satisfying central arc, as it seems this one just doesn’t have one. It’s a bummer but there’s some fun in just building a life for this Viking clan. But yeah they seem to have forgotten you need a stronger central arc. I’m like 20 hours in 3 main stories down and the order has barely come up at all, I don’t mind that, I’ve enjoyed the stories that have been there instead, it just feels odd. It’s definitely the least “assassins creed” game of all of them so far in terms of the narrative
I think at this stage they need to refocus on stronger cinematics and editing. There’s very little improvement over the last 3 games in terms of editing and framing of scenes. Everything has a very stilted stop start quality you get when there’s just too many stories and dialogue scenes but not enough pillar action scenes. For instance like when you talk to a crowd, or there’s a big event, there’s still that mass effect vibe of like 6 npcs clapping with a single clap sound effect
Scenes will cut together in stilted jolts and starts between gameplay that just doesn’t quite connect. The actual world is beautiful and a joy to be in, and there’s moments that work, but too much of the games cutscenes just feel flat, and it’s been this way for the last 3 games, they need to hire better directors just in terms of the moment to moment cinematography and blending of gameplay and cutscenes
I feel like they can stick with the open world but maybe just cut down on the amount of story, and instead focus on creating more epic and cinematically satisfying moments
So many times you’ll reach the climax of a fight and there will just be an odd cut away, no epic finisher. Or you’ll rally the troops for a big epic speech that feels like youre talking to 5 people with vacant npc face
It’s not terrible, it just feels like the game could do more
And while the visuals in terms of the environment and some technical aspects are phenomenal and create a great world, up close a lot of npcs and armour looks very low texture and unimpressive, combined with the kind of bespoke animation system during dialogue it’s often an underwhelming experience just on a visual level when you’re talking to people. The leap when you reach a properly mocapped scene makes the contrast feel even worse. I understand mocap is expensive, but maybe cut down on the misc quests and focus more on the main stuff
Often the most affecting and well done stuff is the smaller moments, they struggle to really capture epic cinematic moments, but some of the quieter simpler stuff between characters really works well. Its what keeps me coming back, even if the overall story isn’t compelling, and some of the crescendos land with a thud, there’s so many small powerful moments really passionately crafted that I stick with it.
It’s very much a case of like I enjoy what’s here, but I’d trade it for less at a higher quality. But it’s Ubisoft and it keeps selling so it will probably stay about the same. And honestly that’s fine, im just going to enjoy it for what it is
yeah i don't really understand eivor's motivations at all. i guess she wants to go to valhalla but she isn't nearly as passionate about that as say, sigurd or ivarr. conquering england was really more her brother's idea that she is just kind of going along with, and a lot of the alliances you are making feel superfluous. i definitely don't understand why she would go out of her way to hunt templars.
strangely this is the opposite of most assassin's creed games, where I understand, say, why bayek is doing the main story, but not why he would raid random forts to loot their chests. the side activities, raids, ravensthorpe stuff all make sense for eivor, but not a lot of the alliance map.
I just mentioned this on a different thread but yeah, the game is fun to play and gorgeous to look at but while the characters and mysteries are very well-written the overall story is just a mess and the ending isn't really satisfying. What's worse is it doesn't feel satisfying because of a lack of plot but because it's just handled so messily in ways that were easily fixable. There's also the obvious tinge of "oh you wanted the ENTIRE story? Well that'll be in three months for another $30" to it which, I mean, yeah, but still.
Got a laugh out of one of the side mission easter eggs.
A bard named Keith is being harassed by a local priest for playing his "devil music".
This leads to Eivor getting in a fist fight with this priest, the self-proclaimed "Bishop of the Ruins". During the fight you can hear Keith encouraging you on by shouting things like "punch the priest" and "smack the bishop". After the fight, Keith says he's going to commemorate this victory in song. So he starts singing:
"Smack my bish-op"
"Smack my bish-op"
Event completed: The Prodigy
So yeah, Keith Flint is an NPC in this game.
Just remember that half the people you meet are below average intelligence.
yeah i don't really understand eivor's motivations at all. i guess she wants to go to valhalla but she isn't nearly as passionate about that as say, sigurd or ivarr. conquering england was really more her brother's idea that she is just kind of going along with, and a lot of the alliances you are making feel superfluous. i definitely don't understand why she would go out of her way to hunt templars.
strangely this is the opposite of most assassin's creed games, where I understand, say, why bayek is doing the main story, but not why he would raid random forts to loot their chests. the side activities, raids, ravensthorpe stuff all make sense for eivor, but not a lot of the alliance map.
I feel like they solved this with Kassandra by having her be a mercenary, but that's obviously not a well they can keep going back to. As is, it's weird they still have quests where Eivor is like, "time to solve this labor dispute by burning everyone's house down" or like, giving out love advice to shit ass needs
I think this game's biggest problem is that it only has like three characters i want to spend time with and it won't let me because it assumes I care about lord dipshit of the south and how sad he is that he has to do work
Got a laugh out of one of the side mission easter eggs.
A bard named Keith is being harassed by a local priest for playing his "devil music".
This leads to Eivor getting in a fist fight with this priest, the self-proclaimed "Bishop of the Ruins". During the fight you can hear Keith encouraging you on by shouting things like "punch the priest" and "smack the bishop". After the fight, Keith says he's going to commemorate this victory in song. So he starts singing:
"Smack my bish-op"
"Smack my bish-op"
Event completed: The Prodigy
So yeah, Keith Flint is an NPC in this game.
There’s an explodable wall next to them and when you blow it up he shouts “You’re a firestarter!”
Yeah, Eivor's character writing is kinda a problem. She doesn't really have any motivation, so the quests are just kinda doing stuff for your group, but nothing about what it actually means to Eivor personally.
Like Eivor doesn't need to climb in station - she's already an elite from the beginning. Don't need to redeem your family's honor or get revenge - you do that in act 1. You don't really need to protect your friends - you don't really have any, except for like your adopted brother who doesn't show up a ton and when he does we're really not given any reason to get attached. You're not even motivated by just like being the baddest viking - in the story you're basically invincible and never lose a fight, you're already the baddest fucker in England.
Eivor's just kinda a blank slate generic viking power fantasy all the time.
I do appreciate that the writing team at least seems to kinda realize this, so since this is Fantasy Vikings anyway they just go all in on it. No slaves, nobody cares if you're gay, and gender equality. None of this like, "Silly Power Fantasy for Some, Shitsack World for Everyone Else" that a lot of pseudo-historical stories do.
A trap is for fish: when you've got the fish, you can forget the trap. A snare is for rabbits: when you've got the rabbit, you can forget the snare. Words are for meaning: when you've got the meaning, you can forget the words.
I found all the clues to one of the five high level people, tracked him down... and it was just some dude hanging out on a street corner. Said maybe two lines to him in the post-assassination conversation.
I mean I can understand the lower people maybe not being anything important, but this is one of the big five. Put some effort into them.
The order and the zealots are flat out worse than the order and mercenary stuff from Odyssey. It's bad enough that they shouldn't have bothered. The rewards are uninspiring, the plot around why I'm hunting them down is nonexistent, and there are maybe two characters in the entire list. I'm trying to think if anyone in the game I've met would be interesting as the big leader and I just...don't think there's anyone?
The order and the zealots are flat out worse than the order and mercenary stuff from Odyssey. It's bad enough that they shouldn't have bothered. The rewards are uninspiring, the plot around why I'm hunting them down is nonexistent, and there are maybe two characters in the entire list. I'm trying to think if anyone in the game I've met would be interesting as the big leader and I just...don't think there's anyone?
This is just a guess, I have no knowledge to back it up but I'll spoil it anyway
Librarian's ghostLibrarian, Ghostbuster, and TimSporkRegistered Userregular
I was on my way to some armor spot and came across a camp and killed everyone there. The leader was an order dude who I have no information on and had no idea who he was. He was a real push over.
I was on my way to some armor spot and came across a camp and killed everyone there. The leader was an order dude who I have no information on and had no idea who he was. He was a real push over.
This happened to me in odyssey a few times, assassinated someone and only then found out they were order
Yeah odyssey did this better. They should have done something different, done their own thing
I love this game, its gorgeous and still super fun, but after origins and odyssey it just feels like a lateral move rather than an improvement. I’m hoping they shake things up again for the next instalment, something more ambitious, still open world but with a bigger focus on cities and central narrative. Maybe China. That setting has big cities but also open land for open world stuff
I actually wish they’d made mortals Fenyx rising an assassins game, like a cartoon kids offshoot. It’s basically the same game and it would’ve been fun to have a lighter cartoon version of the world.
Snotinghamscire is one of the better alliance quests, which is fitting because it's the last one on my map for now
Very smart to give Eivor personal stakes in this decision on who to elevate to Jarl, because she grew up with them. It also puts a lot more weight into why they're listening to her: their old Jarl loved and respected her, and asked specifically for her help. The quests are simple, but full of characters questioning where Eivor's head is at, with her place in her clan and her relationship to Sigurd and to fate, and it fits in more thematically than most. Eivor also feels like a full character for the first time in a while.
I wish more of the alliance map quests had been like this, instead of what we largely got. I'm not done with it yet, so maybe it'll end with another fucking siege, but I'm really pleased with it so far. I was wondering if I was even going to bother pushing through to the end for a minute, and this has made me want to follow through.
well...finished off what appears to be the main quest, or at least, I finished off what looks like the modern section of the quest, I still have one alliance quest to go plus a bunch of side stuff
Parts of that ending were very cool. The groundhog day effect in Valhalla was neat! Having Basim come back as a villain is, on paper, a fun twist, as is revealing him to be uh, Odin somehow? didn't fully work that out, but I haven't finished the Asgard stuff fully, so maybe there's more there. Overall it's...hmm.
As a resolution to Layla's arc, I kind of hate this? Especially since it's also a shitty end to Kassandra's arc. Effectively, Kassandra lived for thousands of years, to pass on this staff to a person...who is immediately betrayed and killed for it. Now, the implication here is obviously that she's going to play a role in the future, and she's gonna work with computer Desmond to...fix the world, eventually, but you know, whatever. I really don't like the framing of having Basim go, "haha well now I get to see all of your secrets you loser!" since uh, now I'm effectively Basim rooting through Eivor's memories to be a creep?
Basim as the ultimate antagonist of this also doesn't fucking work because...Basim introduces a conflict with Eivor at the very last minute, and you know, maybe this is explained in the Jotunheim stuff I haven't finished, since apparently he's Odin? And he's mad about Eivor killing his kid so I guess he's...maybe actually Loki? Fuck if I know. But ultimately, it's probably going to go largely unexplained in this one, and I really hope that Basim's not the modern era player character going forward because I don't...I don't care? Especially if he's going to be in full smarm villain mode the whole way like he apparently is just going to be?
As far as the Sigurd stuff...that went nowhere interesting, in the end, at least from a conflict point of view. He's like, "well, Eivor, I guess I was wrong, and you're super cool and great, so you can be Jarl now," which, yeah, but I expected some conflict about sleeping with his wife, but I get back to town and he's like, "well, we got a divorce, bye!" and that's it, I guess? Eivor and Randvi are just gonna fuck on the map table some more and we're not going to have any comments on it?
I went into this sequence really needing to be sold on what this game is, and it almost got there. It just...didn't get there. The groundwork wasn't there.
I'm going to knock out the remaining arcs I have and probably put this one away, this is...a really frustrating game
Posts
You can turn it off but that puts you at a disadvantage, I just want it to not overwhelm the character models
But I finally found some antlers, they drop from a different kind of deer instead of the normal boring ones that only have hooves.
Similarly wolf fangs don't drop from wolves, they drop from arctic foxes.
There’s nothing like asking for wares while the guys house is on fire, or having a drinking completion with a guy as I’m raiding his village
Viking as heck
https://gameclips.io/Prohass/ca442ed0-b29a-44e0-b43f-ce7f6691dc85
Every time this happens I crack up
Also for some reason recordings are super dark even though it’s bright on my tv
And I just charged at a wolf and did a full two feet jump kick into it. GOTY
I think I beat AC: Odyssey.
Spoiler for about maybe 30 minutes or so into the Glowecestrescire main quest
Steam Live: Azraith PSN: AzraithDeMitri
Crash tackling guys over edges, headshotting with bows (which looks way better when you turn off damage numbers indicators), decapitating, scorpion chain flinging guys everywhere, kicks fucking ass
DLC is rarely discounted on its own
But I just shot them with the fire trap arrow ability thing immediately and they burned to death in 4 seconds.
Arrows kick ass in Valhalla. Also the ability to stagger with them, they feel a lot more part of a mixed fighting style. I mean they were powerful in odyssey too but here even if you don’t put skills into them they’re very useful.
Also are the clips in the skill tree ability icons suddenly super sped up for anyone else?
Another thing that’s pretty impressive about this engine that doesn’t get much focus but is a personal plus for me is how long the bodies stay and how many pile up. I love seeing like corpses everywhere after a battle, makes things feel more tangible and like you actually killed them and not just generic npcs that fade away like in most games
Edit: ok good switching from performance to quality and back again fixed it. My god the 30fps quality mode is horrendous after playing the 60fps one, and gun to my head I couldn’t tell you the visual difference
Edit edit: ffs it’s back, as soon as I saved it stopped working again
You can just tell Ubisoft pushed this out for the release date. So many bugs and glitches, way more than I experienced in odyssey or origins
Oh and fast travel seems to be permanently disabled, too.
Only lost about half an hour of progress, but definitely going to have to stop playing this until it's fixed.
Some genius figured out that corpse physics override other physics stuff. So I murdered a couple outside and threw their corpses at the shelf over and over, moving it a few mm every time.
Eventually the stuck guy comes out but since I broke some jars he stands on the corpses of the innocent bystanders and goes "You got me out, but at a price. Oh well, thanks!" and saunters away.
I came back later after the quest and all the jars had respawned but the shelves were in the same spots I moved them to, so he just walked out and thanked me for releasing him without breaking anything.
His voice actually has a lot of character but he just looks like such a chunk-head
I can tell I'm approaching some sort of end because I'm running out of regions and my order page is nearly full. I'm running out of steam, though, and it's a bummer.
I think at this stage they need to refocus on stronger cinematics and editing. There’s very little improvement over the last 3 games in terms of editing and framing of scenes. Everything has a very stilted stop start quality you get when there’s just too many stories and dialogue scenes but not enough pillar action scenes. For instance like when you talk to a crowd, or there’s a big event, there’s still that mass effect vibe of like 6 npcs clapping with a single clap sound effect
Scenes will cut together in stilted jolts and starts between gameplay that just doesn’t quite connect. The actual world is beautiful and a joy to be in, and there’s moments that work, but too much of the games cutscenes just feel flat, and it’s been this way for the last 3 games, they need to hire better directors just in terms of the moment to moment cinematography and blending of gameplay and cutscenes
I feel like they can stick with the open world but maybe just cut down on the amount of story, and instead focus on creating more epic and cinematically satisfying moments
So many times you’ll reach the climax of a fight and there will just be an odd cut away, no epic finisher. Or you’ll rally the troops for a big epic speech that feels like youre talking to 5 people with vacant npc face
It’s not terrible, it just feels like the game could do more
And while the visuals in terms of the environment and some technical aspects are phenomenal and create a great world, up close a lot of npcs and armour looks very low texture and unimpressive, combined with the kind of bespoke animation system during dialogue it’s often an underwhelming experience just on a visual level when you’re talking to people. The leap when you reach a properly mocapped scene makes the contrast feel even worse. I understand mocap is expensive, but maybe cut down on the misc quests and focus more on the main stuff
Often the most affecting and well done stuff is the smaller moments, they struggle to really capture epic cinematic moments, but some of the quieter simpler stuff between characters really works well. Its what keeps me coming back, even if the overall story isn’t compelling, and some of the crescendos land with a thud, there’s so many small powerful moments really passionately crafted that I stick with it.
It’s very much a case of like I enjoy what’s here, but I’d trade it for less at a higher quality. But it’s Ubisoft and it keeps selling so it will probably stay about the same. And honestly that’s fine, im just going to enjoy it for what it is
strangely this is the opposite of most assassin's creed games, where I understand, say, why bayek is doing the main story, but not why he would raid random forts to loot their chests. the side activities, raids, ravensthorpe stuff all make sense for eivor, but not a lot of the alliance map.
A bard named Keith is being harassed by a local priest for playing his "devil music".
"Smack my bish-op"
"Smack my bish-op"
Event completed: The Prodigy
So yeah, Keith Flint is an NPC in this game.
I feel like they solved this with Kassandra by having her be a mercenary, but that's obviously not a well they can keep going back to. As is, it's weird they still have quests where Eivor is like, "time to solve this labor dispute by burning everyone's house down" or like, giving out love advice to shit ass needs
I think this game's biggest problem is that it only has like three characters i want to spend time with and it won't let me because it assumes I care about lord dipshit of the south and how sad he is that he has to do work
Like Eivor doesn't need to climb in station - she's already an elite from the beginning. Don't need to redeem your family's honor or get revenge - you do that in act 1. You don't really need to protect your friends - you don't really have any, except for like your adopted brother who doesn't show up a ton and when he does we're really not given any reason to get attached. You're not even motivated by just like being the baddest viking - in the story you're basically invincible and never lose a fight, you're already the baddest fucker in England.
Eivor's just kinda a blank slate generic viking power fantasy all the time.
I do appreciate that the writing team at least seems to kinda realize this, so since this is Fantasy Vikings anyway they just go all in on it. No slaves, nobody cares if you're gay, and gender equality. None of this like, "Silly Power Fantasy for Some, Shitsack World for Everyone Else" that a lot of pseudo-historical stories do.
It's such a stupid design decision. Just make them all the same generic outline until we figure out who it is.
I mean I can understand the lower people maybe not being anything important, but this is one of the big five. Put some effort into them.
This is just a guess, I have no knowledge to back it up but I'll spoil it anyway
This happened to me in odyssey a few times, assassinated someone and only then found out they were order
Yeah odyssey did this better. They should have done something different, done their own thing
I love this game, its gorgeous and still super fun, but after origins and odyssey it just feels like a lateral move rather than an improvement. I’m hoping they shake things up again for the next instalment, something more ambitious, still open world but with a bigger focus on cities and central narrative. Maybe China. That setting has big cities but also open land for open world stuff
I actually wish they’d made mortals Fenyx rising an assassins game, like a cartoon kids offshoot. It’s basically the same game and it would’ve been fun to have a lighter cartoon version of the world.
I wish more of the alliance map quests had been like this, instead of what we largely got. I'm not done with it yet, so maybe it'll end with another fucking siege, but I'm really pleased with it so far. I was wondering if I was even going to bother pushing through to the end for a minute, and this has made me want to follow through.
I hope weapons and armour start coming in a lot at the end, cos there’s a dearth of them early on
As a resolution to Layla's arc, I kind of hate this? Especially since it's also a shitty end to Kassandra's arc. Effectively, Kassandra lived for thousands of years, to pass on this staff to a person...who is immediately betrayed and killed for it. Now, the implication here is obviously that she's going to play a role in the future, and she's gonna work with computer Desmond to...fix the world, eventually, but you know, whatever. I really don't like the framing of having Basim go, "haha well now I get to see all of your secrets you loser!" since uh, now I'm effectively Basim rooting through Eivor's memories to be a creep?
Basim as the ultimate antagonist of this also doesn't fucking work because...Basim introduces a conflict with Eivor at the very last minute, and you know, maybe this is explained in the Jotunheim stuff I haven't finished, since apparently he's Odin? And he's mad about Eivor killing his kid so I guess he's...maybe actually Loki? Fuck if I know. But ultimately, it's probably going to go largely unexplained in this one, and I really hope that Basim's not the modern era player character going forward because I don't...I don't care? Especially if he's going to be in full smarm villain mode the whole way like he apparently is just going to be?
As far as the Sigurd stuff...that went nowhere interesting, in the end, at least from a conflict point of view. He's like, "well, Eivor, I guess I was wrong, and you're super cool and great, so you can be Jarl now," which, yeah, but I expected some conflict about sleeping with his wife, but I get back to town and he's like, "well, we got a divorce, bye!" and that's it, I guess? Eivor and Randvi are just gonna fuck on the map table some more and we're not going to have any comments on it?
I went into this sequence really needing to be sold on what this game is, and it almost got there. It just...didn't get there. The groundwork wasn't there.
I'm going to knock out the remaining arcs I have and probably put this one away, this is...a really frustrating game