[Assassin's Creed]: Modern day political intrigue video gaming - NEW GAME AND NEW THREAD

Nosf

I want one set in feudal Japan. Total revenge flick too, ninjas and everything.

Preacher

Nosf wrote: »

I want one set in feudal Japan. Total revenge flick too, ninjas and everything.

It's insane there hasn't been. I mean now they've been beat by that other not ubisoft but totally ubisoft style samurai game. But like if ever there was an obvious era to have a game set in.

Or shit have a martial arts inspired one set in China, where you follow a kung fu assassin. It's insane how Ubisoft is so deathly afraid of the east.

Drez

I want one set in Futile America. They set one against the American Revolution but America didn’t really adopt the Futile System until just recently.

chamberlain

Nosf wrote: »

I want one set in feudal Japan. Total revenge flick too, ninjas and everything.

That game already exists: Ghost of Tsushima.

Jealous Deva

I’d like a China game set in one of the big rebellion times, like the Yellow Turban rebellion or one of the White Lotus rebellions.

Yellow Turban Rebellion —> Fall of the Han Dynasty and early White Lotus/Red Turban —> Rise of the Ming Dynasty would both be eras with a lot of interesing philosophical and political ground to cover.

JOE_1967

Pre-contact Mesoamerica, please.

Andy Joe

Nosf wrote: »

I want one set in feudal Japan. Total revenge flick too, ninjas and everything.

Nah, Boshin War. More ideological grounding, weird mashups of medieval Japanese and early modern Western weapons technology.

BlackDragon480

Ugh...while must anything not leather be a random drop off critters?!

I've effectively depopulated Oxford and Scroipshire or rabbits and squirrel and I still don't have enough animal guts, bones, and/or hare's feet to finish the hunter turn-ins.

On the plus side, I've gotten good enough with predator bows that I can bullseye a fleeing rabbits ass from 100 paces with aim assist off.

Capt Howdy

BlackDragon480 wrote: »

Ugh...while must anything not leather be a random drop off critters?!

I've effectively depopulated Oxford and Scroipshire or rabbits and squirrel and I still don't have enough animal guts, bones, and/or hare's feet to finish the hunter turn-ins.

On the plus side, I've gotten good enough with predator bows that I can bullseye a fleeing rabbits ass from 100 paces with aim assist off.

Are the rewards even worth the headache?

Spaffy

Nosf wrote: »

I'm kinda playing, kinda annoyed with the game? It's clearly worse than Odyssey and maybe that's just the setting being less compelling. It appears to be barred from the other side. Asgard should have been far more exciting, but instead I was waiting till I could leave and welp, that's definitely a problem. It appears to be barred from the other side. There's a host of other irritating issues with the game, the talent tree is much, much worse and combat isn't nearly as fun as the last game. It appears to be barred from the other side. The ships are....nearly pointless, down from the incredible fun they were in Black Flag and still quite a bit of fun in Odyssey. The singing sounds entirely canned and is one person, not the entire crew near as I can tell. It appears to be barred from the other side. Part of me wants to push through and be done with it, and that's a terrible attitude. At the same time I do like trundling about as Eivor who is far less compelling than Kassandra ever was and visiting places and killing whoever happens to be there. The map, while appearing to be smaller feels less dense with activities, and less interesting. It appears to be barred from the other side. Even with Asgard, the game just feels less fantastic and exciting; coming across the creatures of greek mythology was so exciting and then they explain how they're there too. Here? Kill this enormous wolf that keeps calling his pals.

Yeah I share a lot of these feelings too. The world in Valhalla feels far less crafted than Odyssey was, too cut and paste, too much empty identical space with much less compelling content to fill it. The Mysteries are, by and large, lazy filler, with no relation to anything else that's happening in the world and seemingly written by a team that thought they were working on a different game in a different, whackier genre set in the same place.

The combat, gearing, and skill trees all feel half-baked compared to Odyssey, too, with no meaningful feeling of development and fewer interesting systems to work on.

I do like the main storyline as it pertains to Eivor, and I think male Eivor's VA does a lot to make the character feel believable and empathetic. I played a few hours as female Eivor and the drop-off in quality of the voicework was noticeable. But the main story is really, really thin compared to Odyssey's, which did a much better job of setting up the Kult of Kosmos, the desire to dismantle it, and an engaging cast of characters that will help you do it. I'm 50 hours into Valhalla and I'm not even sure on what it is the Order of the Ancients do, that's so bad, or why exactly I am running all over the world murdering them all.

I'm really starting to feel like Valhalla needed another 6 months to a year in the oven to have a similar level of depth / density of content to Odyssey. I was never a huge fan of the ship-stuff, but pretty much everything else about Odyssey felt more... finished?... than Valhalla, which instead feels like a lot of busywork, lots of copy and paste environments and tasks, and not a lot of actual game.

Jealous Deva

I wonder how much the lead getting fired affected the final few months of development.

Its kind of hilarious how Immortals might end up being the best out of the UBI end of year openworldfest, even though it sort of looked like a throw away game during development.

urahonky

The lack of horse combat is baffling as well.

syndalis

urahonky wrote: »

The lack of horse combat is baffling as well.

Bow only. It is odd, and a bit of a regression from Odyssey.

Meanwhile, I am annoyed at how much I love the axe and shield fighting style, because shields would have been PERFECT in Odyssey.

BlackDragon480

Capt Howdy wrote: »

BlackDragon480 wrote: »

Ugh...while must anything not leather be a random drop off critters?!

I've effectively depopulated Oxford and Scroipshire or rabbits and squirrel and I still don't have enough animal guts, bones, and/or hare's feet to finish the hunter turn-ins.

On the plus side, I've gotten good enough with predator bows that I can bullseye a fleeing rabbits ass from 100 paces with aim assist off.

Are the rewards even worth the headache?

Couple of decent runes and rare crafting/upgrade mats, so YMMV.

BronzeKoopa

What do heavy shields have defensively over light? They don't seem to stop red rune attacks, feel slower to parry, and limit my movement when blocking.

urahonky

They look cooler.

Although there was that light shield that glowed... I had to drop using the Sarcophagus one for that.

Drez

The next game should be Assassin's Creed: Cossack.

Drez

Wow I just realized that Cossack is a perfect anagram for ass cock.

And AssCock would probably be the shortened nickname for Assassin's Creed: Cossack.

BronzeKoopa

Found the full set for the galloglatch armor so I went about to equipping and upgrading it. The chest piece didn't seem to actually upgrade, I absentmindedly kept holding upgrade and not seeing the upgrade bars fill in. Backed out and now I have two chest pieces.

Searching online and it's a known bug where equipment gets duplicated. If you keep upgrading you risk filling up your inventory with duplicate armors. Some are exploiting this to duplicate runes, but this is probably a showstopper for me now.

Update:
Here's a reddit post explaining the bug and how to avoid it. So far it's the Galloglatch and Huntsman chest pieces that are known to be affected by this. And if you do have it duplicated the post explains how to safely keep upgrading without your inventory filling up. As well as specifically how to exploit it to farm runes.

https://www.reddit.com/r/assassinscreed/comments/jxohix/spoiler_armour_duplication_how_to_avoid_it_how_to/

Might as well just have fun with this and duplicate good runes for my armor and selling runes for unlimited silver.

Koldanar

So question about something I noticed on the characters - Only in Oxenefordshire, so please don't spoil me!

I noticed a few things about the Asgard chars - Tyr / Sigurd share a voice actor, and so do Loki / Basim. I saw a weird scar on Loki's neck too, and the same on Sigurd. Does this pay off later?

Zilla360

Koldanar wrote: »

So question about something I noticed on the characters - Only in Oxenefordshire, so please don't spoil me!

I noticed a few things about the Asgard chars - Tyr / Sigurd share a voice actor, and so do Loki / Basim. I saw a weird scar on Loki's neck too, and the same on Sigurd. Does this pay off later?

Yes. Especially if you do all of the animus anomalies.

urahonky

Huh I didn't even notice that.

Schadenfreude

Finished it. Though I think I'm done with AC. Ever since they started turning into these open world sort of RPGs I've been enjoying them less and less.

Imperfect

Finally done with this game.

Most-annoying bug: I'm playing on PC with an Xbox One controller and the game would just LAG like crazy. Like, it would hard stutter, and the only solution I found was, amazingly, turning off the controller by taking out the batteries, and then re-connecting it. I'm sure it has to do with the weird audio freeze the game would do when switching from controller to mouse/keyboard, which ALSO sucked, because of how often I would slightly bump the mouse and the audio would hitch while switching, then hitch while switching back to controller. But until I figured out this fix, I just dealt with the game having like... 10 frames a second with janky audio, because I figured it might be temporary and resolve by itself.

Most-annoying story issue:

None of this shit means anything to Eivor, like, not any of the Assassin's Creed shit. As far as they care, it's all about making a home in England and being a Good Viking. The Order is just a couple dudes they kill early on, the "gods" are weird, but they shrug that shit off like it doesn't matter (and it doesn't, you can skip it all and it doesn't matter to the end of the game), none of it makes a difference to their priorities. When I cleaned up the Order with Cassandra, it felt good and right. When I cleaned up the Order with Eivor, it was checkmarks on a list.

No wait, actually it's:

You lose. Layla gets chumped on and stuck in the simulated world forever, Basim/Loki gets free and gets to take over Layla's duties in the Animus, and Loki/Basim gets to gloat over Odin/Eivor and then you have to keep playing as the prick if you want to see the rest of Eivor's story. I just felt dirty.

Unless the next AC gets 10/10 across the board, I'm not picking it up. I know I have a mean completionist streak, and letting it fester on games like this that not only aren't rewarding, but are actively antagonistic is just asking for trouble.

Fencingsax

Question:

Is Eivor more apathetic to the larger Assassins stuff, or is he more just completely ignorant and kinda stupid, like Arno?

Snicketysnick

Fencingsax wrote: »

Question:

Is Eivor more apathetic to the larger Assassins stuff, or is he more just completely ignorant and kinda stupid, like Arno?

It's 100% a Side Gig to Eivor

Movitz

Man I am spent on this now. I'm trying to keep interest up it but it's a goddamn slog.

I'm still interested in the main story and where it leads to but there is to much alliance-building and bullshit in between. In Odyssey the characters and environment was interesting. Here it's just classic fantasy with rawr-manly men and insane amounts of generic fighting.

Should I give up and just read a summary or is there any way to bypass most of the padding for the rest of the game?

I just got to:

Where Sigurd is back sans arm. And thought that the story might finally pick up the pace. But no, I just unlocked 3-4 new areas to conquer and now I'm supposed to battle picts I guess

syndalis

Movitz wrote: »

Man I am spent on this now. I'm trying to keep interest up it but it's a goddamn slog.

I'm still interested in the main story and where it leads to but there is to much alliance-building and bullshit in between. In Odyssey the characters and environment was interesting. Here it's just classic fantasy with rawr-manly men and insane amounts of generic fighting.

Should I give up and just read a summary or is there any way to bypass most of the padding for the rest of the game?

I just got to:

Where Sigurd is back sans arm. And thought that the story might finally pick up the pace. But no, I just unlocked 3-4 new areas to conquer and now I'm supposed to battle picts I guess

No plot spoilers here, just time.

You need to do the alliance arcs for every available place on the map before the next big story beat happens.

And, I'll be honest, its really quite annoying.

There are some major pacing (and sequencing) issues with this game. I love it all the same, but who thought that the order of events and endings made any sense at all.

Movitz

syndalis wrote: »

Movitz wrote: »

Man I am spent on this now. I'm trying to keep interest up it but it's a goddamn slog.

I'm still interested in the main story and where it leads to but there is to much alliance-building and bullshit in between. In Odyssey the characters and environment was interesting. Here it's just classic fantasy with rawr-manly men and insane amounts of generic fighting.

Should I give up and just read a summary or is there any way to bypass most of the padding for the rest of the game?

I just got to:

Where Sigurd is back sans arm. And thought that the story might finally pick up the pace. But no, I just unlocked 3-4 new areas to conquer and now I'm supposed to battle picts I guess

No plot spoilers here, just time.

You need to do the alliance arcs for every available place on the map before the next big story beat happens.

And, I'll be honest, its really quite annoying.

There are some major pacing (and sequencing) issues with this game. I love it all the same, but who thought that the order of events and endings made any sense at all.

Well crap. I'm done then. Thanks for the info and saving me the time and frustration.

urahonky

If it makes you feel any better that's about when the plot goes off the rails. It's very clear that they didn't finish the back half of the story.

Movitz

urahonky wrote: »

If it makes you feel any better that's about when the plot goes off the rails. It's very clear that they didn't finish the back half of the story.

Heh, yeah I read a plot summary and it all seems a bit silly.

Er, sillier than usual AC that is.

Movitz

Imperfect wrote: »

Finally done with this game.

Most-annoying bug: I'm playing on PC with an Xbox One controller and the game would just LAG like crazy. Like, it would hard stutter, and the only solution I found was, amazingly, turning off the controller by taking out the batteries, and then re-connecting it. I'm sure it has to do with the weird audio freeze the game would do when switching from controller to mouse/keyboard, which ALSO sucked, because of how often I would slightly bump the mouse and the audio would hitch while switching, then hitch while switching back to controller. But until I figured out this fix, I just dealt with the game having like... 10 frames a second with janky audio, because I figured it might be temporary and resolve by itself.

Most-annoying story issue:

None of this shit means anything to Eivor, like, not any of the Assassin's Creed shit. As far as they care, it's all about making a home in England and being a Good Viking. The Order is just a couple dudes they kill early on, the "gods" are weird, but they shrug that shit off like it doesn't matter (and it doesn't, you can skip it all and it doesn't matter to the end of the game), none of it makes a difference to their priorities. When I cleaned up the Order with Cassandra, it felt good and right. When I cleaned up the Order with Eivor, it was checkmarks on a list.

No wait, actually it's:

You lose. Layla gets chumped on and stuck in the simulated world forever, Basim/Loki gets free and gets to take over Layla's duties in the Animus, and Loki/Basim gets to gloat over Odin/Eivor and then you have to keep playing as the prick if you want to see the rest of Eivor's story. I just felt dirty.

Unless the next AC gets 10/10 across the board, I'm not picking it up. I know I have a mean completionist streak, and letting it fester on games like this that not only aren't rewarding, but are actively antagonistic is just asking for trouble.

I didn't see this until now. But I had the same setup and issues. But they dissapeared when I made sure to close steam. I figured out was a driver issue since steam has its own settings for the xbox controller.

Drez

I just wish they'd fix all the goddamn bugs so I can play it.

I really don't see the point yet. Even if I forgot about the opal bug that I obviously have a bug up my ass about, it seems their "known issue" list is still huge with many unresolved items.

What are you guys' experiences so far?

Imperfect

Movitz wrote: »

I didn't see this until now. But I had the same setup and issues. But they dissapeared when I made sure to close steam. I figured out was a driver issue since steam has its own settings for the xbox controller.

oh MY god

like, how did they not test this stupid game on a machine that also has steam wtf.

Carpy

I had a couple crashes launch week but nothing recently. Most of my bugs have been animation issues, horse popping a wheelie and Eivor running around with an arrow knocked to her hand being the two most prominent.

Fencingsax

Carpy wrote: »

I had a couple crashes launch week but nothing recently. Most of my bugs have been animation issues, horse popping a wheelie and Eivor running around with an arrow knocked to her hand being the two most prominent.

That just sounds like a horse.

syndalis

Drez wrote: »

I just wish they'd fix all the goddamn bugs so I can play it.

I really don't see the point yet. Even if I forgot about the opal bug that I obviously have a bug up my ass about, it seems their "known issue" list is still huge with many unresolved items.

What are you guys' experiences so far?

I beat it and put well over 100 hours into it, 100%ed the map and got everything done except the town missions for shit like being the courier for some stuff, fishing and hunter drop quests.

Occasional crash to desktops, occasional loss of fast travel requiring me to save, quit and relaunch, and one questline that I sequence-broke and it was unable to be solved. Thankfully it was a "coda" quest for a region and I didn't break a mainline arc, that would have been infuriating.

Foefaller

Preacher wrote: »

Nosf wrote: »

I want one set in feudal Japan. Total revenge flick too, ninjas and everything.

It's insane there hasn't been. I mean now they've been beat by that other not ubisoft but totally ubisoft style samurai game. But like if ever there was an obvious era to have a game set in.

Or shit have a martial arts inspired one set in China, where you follow a kung fu assassin. It's insane how Ubisoft is so deathly afraid of the east.

I know an earlier Assassin's Creed Lead said it would be over their dead body before they had a Feudal Japan game. Then again, I think one of the tie-in products more or less confirmed the entire Hatori Clan were Assassins, so...

Still, I think I would prefer China more. If they wanted to go foward in history but still stay in "Hidden Ones" era, Tang China implodes into the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms Period about 50 years after Valhalla.

Or better yet, put it in the early 600's where the protagonist can be the impulsive-yet-lovable friend/bodyguard of a Buddist monk named Xuanzang as he travels to India...

Jingu Bang was a Staff of Eden, you heard it here first.

Movitz

I also think that the fascination with feudal Japan is to a large extent an American thing, and definitely a video game forum thing.

In order to appeal to the broad masses of console owners, other locations are probably better.

But then again, they did ancient Greece so what do I know.

Edit: I'd love a Chinese setting as its been virtually unexplored in videogames.

Fencingsax

A Gupta Empire game would be fun.