The challenges in brotherhood seemed poorly recorded as well. I've lept from a horse to a beam about 50 times and it still says 16/20, I even specifically spent 5 minutes doing it 20 times in a row. Likewise for almost every other challenge.
You have to do it a specific way
You have to leap to a beam in such a specific manner that Ezio will swing under it, do a backflip and land on the next beam
I'm having issues with the challenges in Revelations. There's a few that just refuse to register, I've killed god knows how many guards from a blend space but it perpetually says 2/5. It's infuriating. And it's not the only one.
Little hint to spare people the 40 minutes of frustration I went through in trying to 100% The Champion Part II:
Caltrops are your very best friend in the whole world for that fight.
this mission can go fuck itself.
I'm getting really pissed at some of the 100% requirements in this game. It's like they felt like adding bombs gave them free reign to make the requirements complete horseshit frustrating.
Well the caltrops tip isn't helping at all. They're straight up ignoring them. I'm just going to bomb the area. Fuck the civilians they just get in the way.
EDIT: ROFL nm, that kills the herald.
God this is stupid.
EDIT2: Yeah caltrops aren't going to work for me at all here. I'm going back to smoke bombs. At least they did a damn thing.
Also, gotta love the completely arbitrary removal of your ability to use your assassins. Way to give them a point when you have them taken away for no fucking reason when you could use them. Who the hell needs them outside of missions?
Stupid. I'm getting more and more frustrated with this game. So many steps back from II/Bro. Inexplicable things.
Well the caltrops tip isn't helping at all. They're straight up ignoring them. I'm just going to bomb the area. Fuck the civilians they just get in the way.
EDIT: ROFL nm, that kills the herald.
God this is stupid.
EDIT2: Yeah caltrops aren't going to work for me at all here. I'm going back to smoke bombs. At least they did a damn thing.
How are you using them?
I just stood right by the herald, and dropped a bomb when the attackers got close. That immobilised most of them, and slowed them enough for me to kill them. I found it better to go after the guys who were'nt stunned, and most of the time my assassistant finished them off for me.
It still took a couple of tries, but it was way better for me than using the smoke bomb.
I still can't figure out when to get a stun to work in multiplayer. It might just be lag, what with all the people I'm playing with/against being from all over the world, but I swear it's frustrating as heck.
Well the caltrops tip isn't helping at all. They're straight up ignoring them. I'm just going to bomb the area. Fuck the civilians they just get in the way.
EDIT: ROFL nm, that kills the herald.
God this is stupid.
EDIT2: Yeah caltrops aren't going to work for me at all here. I'm going back to smoke bombs. At least they did a damn thing.
How are you using them?
I just stood right by the herald, and dropped a bomb when the attackers got close. That immobilised most of them, and slowed them enough for me to kill them. I found it better to go after the guys who were'nt stunned, and most of the time my assassistant finished them off for me.
It still took a couple of tries, but it was way better for me than using the smoke bomb.
I remade some smoke bombs with the widest payload and it worked much better for me than the caltrops. I just turned on eagle vision and murdered them. They come in sets of three then 4 at the end.
I actually dropped a shrapnel bomb off the bat even though it kills the herald; it doesn't fail the "don't let him be injured thing" and when it reloads the checkpoint all the civilians are gone making it much easier.
However even doing that with caltrops, the templars would frequently just straight up ignore them and run right up to him and hit him. That's with the widest powder and on the heralds face. They just didn't care. And it doesn't disable them in the same way so you can't always get off assassinations. With the smoke bomb I could take care of all of them before it wore off, and the assassin usually took out one anyway.
Either way, the whole thing made me realize that it is abundantly stupid that you can't LT target while in eagle vision.
I still can't figure out when to get a stun to work in multiplayer. It might just be lag, what with all the people I'm playing with/against being from all over the world, but I swear it's frustrating as heck.
stun is an interesting mechanic in that you should NEVER DO IT unless the person your about to stun is either unaware or, you are doing it from behind. stuns from the front are NOT likely to win, even if you get it off they will likely still get the contested kill. stun is a defensive move, but really it should be your last ditch effort to escape. people are easily frustrated because they think they HAVE to stun to survive. really, if you know an enemy has you in his sights and is closing in, you need to RUN. your job when hiding is self preservation, and putting yourself into a fight with your pursuer is pretty much gonna kill you. hide near chase breakers and lifts so you can get away quickly from them and hide again instead of confronting them.
Ok, at this point I'm sure income is bugged. I haven't had any deposits in the last two hours played.
I'm beginning to think that 20 minutes means 20 minutes of straight being in the city time. Time spent in menus, redoing DNA missions, aborting or restarting missions... I don't think they add up time.
Me, I'd just leave my character sitting on a bench or way up on a viewpoint and check back every hour.5 or so. Really helps in Sequence 3 when you're claiming all the districts and shops. Nintendo would be proud.
My first questions are: What do you like or dislike about AC:R so far? What would you like to see changed in future versions of the game? This applies to both single player and multiplayer.
Some of my comments have already been covered, but here are my thoughts (I'm in sequence 3).
I like the zip lines - a lot. They're fun to use, and it's something that sets Constantinople apart from the various cities in Italy that we saw in II/Brotherhood. Assuming we go somewhere else for III I would like for zip lines to not make the transition - I like the idea that they're unique to Constantinople like the hook blade seems to be.
I don't like that renovating shops makes my Templar awareness go up. I control that district - renovating shops is supposed to be one of the rewards for completing an optional objective. Along with removing wanted posters all it really does is disincentivize me from playing parts of the game. It'd make sense if I could renovate shops in districts under Templar control that their awareness would go up, but I can't do that so it's kind of a moot point.
I feel like significantly less is explained in this game than in previous games. Yes, a lot of tutorials pop up with the "press back to practice this thing" but other things are, as far I can see, just assumed. The example that really gets me is that the map has changed. Bomb crafting tables were added to the map. That's great. They are represented by a bomb symbol on the map. This is fine. What is not fine is not ever communicating to the player that pigeon coops are always right next to bomb crafting tables and no longer have a map symbol. As somebody who has played all of the previous games I come in with knowledge of the mechanics already, and I'm struggling to figure some of these things out - I seriously pity the poor players that are starting from scratch here.
Den Defense, what little of it I've played so far, seems fun, but the view isn't great. It's a struggle to properly place units, and the lack of an upgrade option is baffling - especially with as small as the maps are. A top-down view would also be great, but I understand that artistically you're still playing as Ezio and surveying the area as he sees it.
I like the idea of longer missions for assassin recruits, too, but my first guy has been gone for a very long time. It'd be nice if I could check up on his progress. Until I came looking around for information I actually thought that the game broke and he was never coming back. For my other guys the longest they've been gone is, I think, 12 minutes. To have that first guy gone for about as many hours as I've played the game at this point doesn't feel right - especially since I have no idea how he's doing.
I'm enjoying the game quite a bit, but Revelations feels like a small step back to me from Brotherhood. Also, Subject 16's new voice and the new faces for familiar characters are both not very good. 16 seems crazy now (maybe he always was) instead of just troubled and trapped and familiar faces, particularly Desmond, don't look right to me.
Dr_KeenbeanDumb as a buttPlanet Express ShipRegistered Userregular
Regarding finishing the Desmond sequences:
When the scenery started changing in sequence 4 & 5 I thought to myself 'oh shit do I finally get to do some actual killing as Desmond?' That is something I've been waiting for since AC1.
I was a little disappointed that your reward is just a Desmond skin for single player, but that made me pretty happy.
I still can't figure out when to get a stun to work in multiplayer. It might just be lag, what with all the people I'm playing with/against being from all over the world, but I swear it's frustrating as heck.
stun is an interesting mechanic in that you should NEVER DO IT unless the person your about to stun is either unaware or, you are doing it from behind. stuns from the front are NOT likely to win, even if you get it off they will likely still get the contested kill. stun is a defensive move, but really it should be your last ditch effort to escape. people are easily frustrated because they think they HAVE to stun to survive. really, if you know an enemy has you in his sights and is closing in, you need to RUN. your job when hiding is self preservation, and putting yourself into a fight with your pursuer is pretty much gonna kill you. hide near chase breakers and lifts so you can get away quickly from them and hide again instead of confronting them.
I can only speak from watching videos from Subject 17 and Shenmue36 youtube channels (they are the reason of my current interest in multiplayer now), but a big question is whether or not you've actually identified your pursuer. If all you're hearing is whispers you should definitely run like crazy, as you either lose your pursuer or go into a chase where they can't get more than 150 points and you can get some (I think 100) for escaping--assuming you didn't run right into your pursuer. Be aware that doing that high profile running will let them auto lock on to you but if you're hauling out of there it won't matter much if they think they can walk to keep up.
Now, if you think you've identified your pursuer you can lock on to them and try to do a surprise run stun. If you watch videos from the channels I linked it usually starts with the player blended into a standing crowd, hearing whispers or just looking around for their target. Usually the pursuer is rather obvious as they will start making a bee line for you, so the player locks on to them and when they are not quite in kill range runs right at them and stuns. It's not always successful, but just getting the contested kill is good, but it does rob you of more time to pursue your targets and thus if you're not leading the pack you might be hobbling yourself.
More obvious but I'll mention anyways:
-Using the tripwire bomb and smoke bomb disables your pursuer for an easy stun, but the tripwire has a short disable and sometimes people get a kill off before the smoke--or are smart enough to jump in a nearby bale of hay and get a hidden bonus on you as well.
-If you've locked one person that's all you get to interact with, so if you've locked your target and notice your pursuer you have to release your lock. Lock if you can but some situations, massacres in deathmatch come to mind, might be better not to if you're hearing whispers.
-Haven't found this confirmed or not but stunning an npc will reset your kill streak count so if you're nearing that 7-streak and really want an awesome poison score it's best just to run.
*puts down monocle and tea* I'm sure when the PC version comes out I'll be a total pro from just watching these videos.
Little hint to spare people the 40 minutes of frustration I went through in trying to 100% The Champion Part II:
Caltrops are your very best friend in the whole world for that fight.
this mission can go fuck itself.
I'm getting really pissed at some of the 100% requirements in this game. It's like they felt like adding bombs gave them free reign to make the requirements complete horseshit frustrating.
Oh god, yeah, I spent an hour and a half (maybe 2) just retrying this one god damn mission. It's awful. No matter what I did, one guy would manage to run straight through and smack the herald while he's standing there like a complete moron. After trying it a multitude of different ways, my successful run was basically a smoke bomb for the first wave, the hidden gun for the next wave and then a smoke bomb for the last wave (directly on the heralds position, otherwise the two douchebags that run around the corner can avoid it).
I'm having a bit more fun with the game now that I've got 7 master assassins and don't have to worry about the crappy tower defence minigame but I'm really avoiding the Desmond parts as much as I can. I have no idea what they were thinking coming up with those parts. I also seem to have some trouble keeping cities up as I've captured all of them. I'm guessing I was meant to assign as many as I could to each city as I was going capturing them? Wish I'd have known that beforehand, it would've made it a lot easier to manage them.
Also
Giant Bomb were completely right in saying the Altair parts are disappointing. Just finished the second one (and sequence 4) and it was like 3 minutes of gameplay.
You don't have to do the Master Assassin missions for the 100% achievement, it's just the main story missions for that. But there are plenty of bullshit requirements for those, too.
Protip: When you select a mission on a city and are selecting an assassin to assign to said mission, if you hit X (or whatever it is on the PS3) you will switch to the assassin's assigned to that city and you can send them on those missions freeing up your unassigned assassins to do other, more important things...like taking other cities. This drastically changes the way I go about this stuff.
This isn't working for me. Is there a certain point in the game where it gets unlocked? Because I'm assuming I should be seeing a button prompt to allow me to do this, and I see none.
Protip: When you select a mission on a city and are selecting an assassin to assign to said mission, if you hit X (or whatever it is on the PS3) you will switch to the assassin's assigned to that city and you can send them on those missions freeing up your unassigned assassins to do other, more important things...like taking other cities. This drastically changes the way I go about this stuff.
This isn't working for me. Is there a certain point in the game where it gets unlocked? Because I'm assuming I should be seeing a button prompt to allow me to do this, and I see none.
I missed this entirely in my run through the game, and made Mediterranean Defense much more tedious than it needed to be as a result. You can only assign assassins to a city once you've reclaimed it from the Templars (which is a regular city mission). You can only use assassins in a city to go on missions once you have more than one assigned to that city. In both cases you do this by pressing the X button on the 360 when the option is given at the bottom of the screen.
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SteevLWhat can I do for you?Registered Userregular
Protip: When you select a mission on a city and are selecting an assassin to assign to said mission, if you hit X (or whatever it is on the PS3) you will switch to the assassin's assigned to that city and you can send them on those missions freeing up your unassigned assassins to do other, more important things...like taking other cities. This drastically changes the way I go about this stuff.
This isn't working for me. Is there a certain point in the game where it gets unlocked? Because I'm assuming I should be seeing a button prompt to allow me to do this, and I see none.
I missed this entirely in my run through the game, and made Mediterranean Defense much more tedious than it needed to be as a result. You can only assign assassins to a city once you've reclaimed it from the Templars (which is a regular city mission). You can only use assassins in a city to go on missions once you have more than one assigned to that city. In both cases you do this by pressing the X button on the 360 when the option is given at the bottom of the screen.
Ah, there's my issue. I only have one assassin assigned to the city!
Single player completed! I have to say, I really liked the conclusion of Ezio's and Altaïr's respective stories. A particular nice touch was:
Ezio embracing his messenger role and "talking" to Desmond.
Now how does a Pee Ess Trippple owner like me go about watching AC Embers?
I could have sworn it was in the PSN store.
Or was that XBL marketplace? It all blurs together.
In my 360 copy, there is a code that you can use both in-game for items, and again on the AssCreed site to download Embers and the OST. So... go read the back side of that promo code paper.
Yeah, sorry. And its important to note that the first assassin assigned never can be assigned to missions. That one is always "locked' for inexplicable reasons. Since various missions require specific assassin weapons, just make sure that the ones available are one of each weapon, if at all possible. You can still swap that assassin if it's a weapon you need that's rare (crossbow for instance), but once an assassin is in that first "slot" they're locked as far as actually running missions goes.
For no reason whatsoever. It's incredibly frustrating. Most everything about that meta game is so poorly explained that it starts to become incredibly tedious once you start controlling several cities. The rate at which you lose standing is never explained so you can be at 100% and then for no reason at all next time you'll check 10 minutes later that city will be at 25%. Whether you have zero or 5 assassins assigned makes zero difference to the rate at which you lose control.
The end result is that, if you at all care about keeping the city in your control, you have to constantly keep your assassins in the city running the 4 available (after you've run all the "story" missions) in order to keep any semblance of control; and since many of those low star ones are like 3-5 minutes long you can barely play the main game and keep control of the cities you control since you need to perpetually be running to stations to manage the missions.
The whole damn thing is broken and little to nothing about it is explained. If I have 5 level 10 assassins in a city and have it at 100% it should fucking stay at 100%. Those assassins should be able to run even "fake" missions, I don't care if they don't give rewards, to keep the city at 100%, or at the very least protect it from being attacked like you can with the den's. Once you have all the cities, like I said, you can barely play the main game and hold them with any reasonable efficiency. The entire system needs to be reworked, and I'm not sure if a title update could fix its core problems.
After I get everything and the achievement I might just let the whole thing drop and stop caring. I don't need the money anymore, I haven't even started sequence 4 and I'm getting about 50k/20 minutes and I've already 100% rebuilt the city/own everything. I'll only need money, apparently, for book missions, and by the time I get to them I should have hundreds of thousands of cash, easily. The reasoning behind holding the cities will be gone entirely. And I'm not about to go to the stations every 5 minutes to reassign every assassin.
How do I access the Vlad The Impaler mission/sword quest?
I put in my code and got a confirmation, but there's no option to download anything through PSN. Is it on the disk? If not, where do I find it?
You put in the code in the game and there is no download; it should put a book icon in sofia's shop. You go inside the shop and use your eagle vision to find whatever you're supposed to be searching for (it's on a shelf). This unlocks it in the game, it's over by the city wall in the Arcadia district.
How do I access the Vlad The Impaler mission/sword quest?
I put in my code and got a confirmation, but there's no option to download anything through PSN. Is it on the disk? If not, where do I find it?
You put in the code in the game and there is no download; it should put a book icon in sofia's shop. You go inside the shop and use your eagle vision to find whatever you're supposed to be searching for (it's on a shelf). This unlocks it in the game, it's over by the city wall in the Arcadia district.
Is it wrong I preordered from *gulp* gamespot just to get that bonus?
Vlad is a super interesting historical dude, and I want to be killin manz with his messed up sword.
How do I access the Vlad The Impaler mission/sword quest?
I put in my code and got a confirmation, but there's no option to download anything through PSN. Is it on the disk? If not, where do I find it?
You put in the code in the game and there is no download; it should put a book icon in sofia's shop. You go inside the shop and use your eagle vision to find whatever you're supposed to be searching for (it's on a shelf). This unlocks it in the game, it's over by the city wall in the Arcadia district.
Is it wrong I preordered from *gulp* gamespot just to get that bonus?
Vlad is a super interesting historical dude, and I want to be killin manz with his messed up sword.
I orderd there too for the stuff. I felt dirty about it, but sometimes the bonuses they get can't be ignored...which I think is the point sadly.
Either way, the Vlad sword is decent. I don't think you have to wait till any point in the story for it really, I got it in the middle of sequence 2 iirc.
However, for whatever reason, maybe because I spent an inordinate amount of time on assassin's and buying up the city, I have somehow unlocked the 3 5star weapons for swords, 2h and daggers; which are inexplicably better than the faction weapons, by a fair amount. I have no idea how I got these, things like Yusiefs sword. They just periodically unlocked. And again, I just finished sequence 3, haven't touched 4. IIRC I got them during sequence 3, but again, I have no idea how.
And they're significantly better than the vlad sword kinda negating its usefulness. At least it was an extra (albeit redonkulously easy) dungeon.
How do I access the Vlad The Impaler mission/sword quest?
I put in my code and got a confirmation, but there's no option to download anything through PSN. Is it on the disk? If not, where do I find it?
You put in the code in the game and there is no download; it should put a book icon in sofia's shop. You go inside the shop and use your eagle vision to find whatever you're supposed to be searching for (it's on a shelf). This unlocks it in the game, it's over by the city wall in the Arcadia district.
Is it wrong I preordered from *gulp* gamespot just to get that bonus?
Vlad is a super interesting historical dude, and I want to be killin manz with his messed up sword.
I orderd there too for the stuff. I felt dirty about it, but sometimes the bonuses they get can't be ignored...which I think is the point sadly.
Either way, the Vlad sword is decent. I don't think you have to wait till any point in the story for it really, I got it in the middle of sequence 2 iirc.
However, for whatever reason, maybe because I spent an inordinate amount of time on assassin's and buying up the city, I have somehow unlocked the 3 5star weapons for swords, 2h and daggers; which are inexplicably better than the faction weapons, by a fair amount. I have no idea how I got these, things like Yusiefs sword. They just periodically unlocked. And again, I just finished sequence 3, haven't touched 4. IIRC I got them during sequence 3, but again, I have no idea how.
And they're significantly better than the vlad sword kinda negating its usefulness. At least it was an extra (albeit redonkulously easy) dungeon.
I didn't mean it was plot-related, just that you'll go to the book shop and then notice a new icon on your map because there's an active book in there.
Well, finally broke down and went to the official site to find the list of abilities and perks (click the multiplayer tab). Alas they don't actually list what they do.
Each ability set has:
2 Abilities
2 Perks
1 Kill Streak
1 Loss Bonus
Perks:
Sentry
Hot Pursuit
Resilience
Kill Buffer
Enhanced Auto-Bash
Blender
Resistance
Overall Cooldowns
Fast Getaway
Easy Chase Breaker
Only new abilities that really need explanation is Closure (think it triggers all chase breakers, but what's the range?), Teleport, and Bodyguard. Bodyguard is an interesting one I've seen on Shenmue36's channel, does it just stun your pursuer and does the pursuer trigger a lure if they kill the Bodyguard? Seem like it would replace Decoy then.
Somewhat lost of the perks, other than the obvious ones. I know kill streaks are usually score multipliers/animus hack while lose streaks are animus hacks/various buffs like an invisible Templar Vision or something.
Bodyguard is beautiful; it turns (or, if there's a lookalike in your vincinity) an NPC into your persona, walks towards the closest pursuer, and, if they haven't already attacked it, stuns them. You don't get the 200 points if it stuns them, but it's better this way. If there's nobody nearby it just stands there, giving it a better player feel. Sometimes it doesn't work, it just depends on how far away it is. It runs towards them at certain instances but I can't say anything definite on it's behavior. As far as specifics, you don't get a lure bonus if they kill it, but you do get a point for "The Boss" challenge if they do. It also works for targets, one time a pursuer used Bodyguard on me, and while it didn't kill me I did jump on it and stun it, not only leaving me open but also giving him a point for a challenge.
Decoy is still here. Combined with Blender and Bodyguard, I usually have no troubles with pursuers unless they get smart.
Teleport acts just like capturing a chest in Chest Capture, if you've played it.
Kill Buffer reduces your killstreak by one on death instead of resetting.
Easy Chase Breaker opens closed chase breaker gates when you walk up to them
As far as I know, Closure has a pretty good range.
What I really like is that bombs such as Firecrackers and Smoke Bombs can be thrown now.
Edit: Quick question on the MP characters, bar preorder/DLC, I'm getting mixed reports if you needed to have played AssBro or just preordered AC:R to get the courtesan? And to confirm the knight is the only one you unlock with uplay points?
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Oh god, yes please. It's great that they improved it so your mission icon shows up there, but this would be even better.
You have to do it a specific way
You have to leap to a beam in such a specific manner that Ezio will swing under it, do a backflip and land on the next beam
It's best to do it on houses outside of town
Origin: Galedrid - Nintendo: Galedrid/3222-6858-1045
Blizzard: Galedrid#1367 - FFXIV: Galedrid Kingshand
this mission can go fuck itself.
I'm getting really pissed at some of the 100% requirements in this game. It's like they felt like adding bombs gave them free reign to make the requirements complete horseshit frustrating.
Origin: Galedrid - Nintendo: Galedrid/3222-6858-1045
Blizzard: Galedrid#1367 - FFXIV: Galedrid Kingshand
EDIT: ROFL nm, that kills the herald.
God this is stupid.
EDIT2: Yeah caltrops aren't going to work for me at all here. I'm going back to smoke bombs. At least they did a damn thing.
Origin: Galedrid - Nintendo: Galedrid/3222-6858-1045
Blizzard: Galedrid#1367 - FFXIV: Galedrid Kingshand
Stupid. I'm getting more and more frustrated with this game. So many steps back from II/Bro. Inexplicable things.
Origin: Galedrid - Nintendo: Galedrid/3222-6858-1045
Blizzard: Galedrid#1367 - FFXIV: Galedrid Kingshand
How are you using them?
I just stood right by the herald, and dropped a bomb when the attackers got close. That immobilised most of them, and slowed them enough for me to kill them. I found it better to go after the guys who were'nt stunned, and most of the time my assassistant finished them off for me.
It still took a couple of tries, but it was way better for me than using the smoke bomb.
Rent it, don't by it.
Shitty Tumblr:lighthouse1138.tumblr.com
I remade some smoke bombs with the widest payload and it worked much better for me than the caltrops. I just turned on eagle vision and murdered them. They come in sets of three then 4 at the end.
I actually dropped a shrapnel bomb off the bat even though it kills the herald; it doesn't fail the "don't let him be injured thing" and when it reloads the checkpoint all the civilians are gone making it much easier.
However even doing that with caltrops, the templars would frequently just straight up ignore them and run right up to him and hit him. That's with the widest powder and on the heralds face. They just didn't care. And it doesn't disable them in the same way so you can't always get off assassinations. With the smoke bomb I could take care of all of them before it wore off, and the assassin usually took out one anyway.
Either way, the whole thing made me realize that it is abundantly stupid that you can't LT target while in eagle vision.
Origin: Galedrid - Nintendo: Galedrid/3222-6858-1045
Blizzard: Galedrid#1367 - FFXIV: Galedrid Kingshand
stun is an interesting mechanic in that you should NEVER DO IT unless the person your about to stun is either unaware or, you are doing it from behind. stuns from the front are NOT likely to win, even if you get it off they will likely still get the contested kill. stun is a defensive move, but really it should be your last ditch effort to escape. people are easily frustrated because they think they HAVE to stun to survive. really, if you know an enemy has you in his sights and is closing in, you need to RUN. your job when hiding is self preservation, and putting yourself into a fight with your pursuer is pretty much gonna kill you. hide near chase breakers and lifts so you can get away quickly from them and hide again instead of confronting them.
Me, I'd just leave my character sitting on a bench or way up on a viewpoint and check back every hour.5 or so. Really helps in Sequence 3 when you're claiming all the districts and shops. Nintendo would be proud.
XBL: Torn Hoodie
@hoodiethirteen
Some of my comments have already been covered, but here are my thoughts (I'm in sequence 3).
I don't like that renovating shops makes my Templar awareness go up. I control that district - renovating shops is supposed to be one of the rewards for completing an optional objective. Along with removing wanted posters all it really does is disincentivize me from playing parts of the game. It'd make sense if I could renovate shops in districts under Templar control that their awareness would go up, but I can't do that so it's kind of a moot point.
I feel like significantly less is explained in this game than in previous games. Yes, a lot of tutorials pop up with the "press back to practice this thing" but other things are, as far I can see, just assumed. The example that really gets me is that the map has changed. Bomb crafting tables were added to the map. That's great. They are represented by a bomb symbol on the map. This is fine. What is not fine is not ever communicating to the player that pigeon coops are always right next to bomb crafting tables and no longer have a map symbol. As somebody who has played all of the previous games I come in with knowledge of the mechanics already, and I'm struggling to figure some of these things out - I seriously pity the poor players that are starting from scratch here.
Den Defense, what little of it I've played so far, seems fun, but the view isn't great. It's a struggle to properly place units, and the lack of an upgrade option is baffling - especially with as small as the maps are. A top-down view would also be great, but I understand that artistically you're still playing as Ezio and surveying the area as he sees it.
I like the idea of longer missions for assassin recruits, too, but my first guy has been gone for a very long time. It'd be nice if I could check up on his progress. Until I came looking around for information I actually thought that the game broke and he was never coming back. For my other guys the longest they've been gone is, I think, 12 minutes. To have that first guy gone for about as many hours as I've played the game at this point doesn't feel right - especially since I have no idea how he's doing.
I'm enjoying the game quite a bit, but Revelations feels like a small step back to me from Brotherhood. Also, Subject 16's new voice and the new faces for familiar characters are both not very good. 16 seems crazy now (maybe he always was) instead of just troubled and trapped and familiar faces, particularly Desmond, don't look right to me.
PSN/Steam/NNID: SyphonBlue | BNet: SyphonBlue#1126
I was a little disappointed that your reward is just a Desmond skin for single player, but that made me pretty happy.
3DS: 1650-8480-6786
Switch: SW-0653-8208-4705
I can only speak from watching videos from Subject 17 and Shenmue36 youtube channels (they are the reason of my current interest in multiplayer now), but a big question is whether or not you've actually identified your pursuer. If all you're hearing is whispers you should definitely run like crazy, as you either lose your pursuer or go into a chase where they can't get more than 150 points and you can get some (I think 100) for escaping--assuming you didn't run right into your pursuer. Be aware that doing that high profile running will let them auto lock on to you but if you're hauling out of there it won't matter much if they think they can walk to keep up.
Now, if you think you've identified your pursuer you can lock on to them and try to do a surprise run stun. If you watch videos from the channels I linked it usually starts with the player blended into a standing crowd, hearing whispers or just looking around for their target. Usually the pursuer is rather obvious as they will start making a bee line for you, so the player locks on to them and when they are not quite in kill range runs right at them and stuns. It's not always successful, but just getting the contested kill is good, but it does rob you of more time to pursue your targets and thus if you're not leading the pack you might be hobbling yourself.
More obvious but I'll mention anyways:
-Using the tripwire bomb and smoke bomb disables your pursuer for an easy stun, but the tripwire has a short disable and sometimes people get a kill off before the smoke--or are smart enough to jump in a nearby bale of hay and get a hidden bonus on you as well.
-If you've locked one person that's all you get to interact with, so if you've locked your target and notice your pursuer you have to release your lock. Lock if you can but some situations, massacres in deathmatch come to mind, might be better not to if you're hearing whispers.
-Haven't found this confirmed or not but stunning an npc will reset your kill streak count so if you're nearing that 7-streak and really want an awesome poison score it's best just to run.
*puts down monocle and tea* I'm sure when the PC version comes out I'll be a total pro from just watching these videos.
I'm having a bit more fun with the game now that I've got 7 master assassins and don't have to worry about the crappy tower defence minigame but I'm really avoiding the Desmond parts as much as I can. I have no idea what they were thinking coming up with those parts. I also seem to have some trouble keeping cities up as I've captured all of them. I'm guessing I was meant to assign as many as I could to each city as I was going capturing them? Wish I'd have known that beforehand, it would've made it a lot easier to manage them.
Also
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
Now how does a Pee Ess Trippple owner like me go about watching AC Embers?
This isn't working for me. Is there a certain point in the game where it gets unlocked? Because I'm assuming I should be seeing a button prompt to allow me to do this, and I see none.
I could have sworn it was in the PSN store.
Or was that XBL marketplace? It all blurs together.
3DS: 1650-8480-6786
Switch: SW-0653-8208-4705
I missed this entirely in my run through the game, and made Mediterranean Defense much more tedious than it needed to be as a result. You can only assign assassins to a city once you've reclaimed it from the Templars (which is a regular city mission). You can only use assassins in a city to go on missions once you have more than one assigned to that city. In both cases you do this by pressing the X button on the 360 when the option is given at the bottom of the screen.
Ah, there's my issue. I only have one assassin assigned to the city!
In my 360 copy, there is a code that you can use both in-game for items, and again on the AssCreed site to download Embers and the OST. So... go read the back side of that promo code paper.
For no reason whatsoever. It's incredibly frustrating. Most everything about that meta game is so poorly explained that it starts to become incredibly tedious once you start controlling several cities. The rate at which you lose standing is never explained so you can be at 100% and then for no reason at all next time you'll check 10 minutes later that city will be at 25%. Whether you have zero or 5 assassins assigned makes zero difference to the rate at which you lose control.
The end result is that, if you at all care about keeping the city in your control, you have to constantly keep your assassins in the city running the 4 available (after you've run all the "story" missions) in order to keep any semblance of control; and since many of those low star ones are like 3-5 minutes long you can barely play the main game and keep control of the cities you control since you need to perpetually be running to stations to manage the missions.
The whole damn thing is broken and little to nothing about it is explained. If I have 5 level 10 assassins in a city and have it at 100% it should fucking stay at 100%. Those assassins should be able to run even "fake" missions, I don't care if they don't give rewards, to keep the city at 100%, or at the very least protect it from being attacked like you can with the den's. Once you have all the cities, like I said, you can barely play the main game and hold them with any reasonable efficiency. The entire system needs to be reworked, and I'm not sure if a title update could fix its core problems.
After I get everything and the achievement I might just let the whole thing drop and stop caring. I don't need the money anymore, I haven't even started sequence 4 and I'm getting about 50k/20 minutes and I've already 100% rebuilt the city/own everything. I'll only need money, apparently, for book missions, and by the time I get to them I should have hundreds of thousands of cash, easily. The reasoning behind holding the cities will be gone entirely. And I'm not about to go to the stations every 5 minutes to reassign every assassin.
Origin: Galedrid - Nintendo: Galedrid/3222-6858-1045
Blizzard: Galedrid#1367 - FFXIV: Galedrid Kingshand
I put in my code and got a confirmation, but there's no option to download anything through PSN. Is it on the disk? If not, where do I find it?
You put in the code in the game and there is no download; it should put a book icon in sofia's shop. You go inside the shop and use your eagle vision to find whatever you're supposed to be searching for (it's on a shelf). This unlocks it in the game, it's over by the city wall in the Arcadia district.
Origin: Galedrid - Nintendo: Galedrid/3222-6858-1045
Blizzard: Galedrid#1367 - FFXIV: Galedrid Kingshand
If you beat him up with fists you get an achievement.
Also, I was doing some post-game wiki-ing and discovered something: Who do you think voiced Bill Miles?
I don't care if I'm slowpoking, this made me smile.
Also, Steve Blum was Manuel the Fat Byzantine.
Is it wrong I preordered from *gulp* gamespot just to get that bonus?
Vlad is a super interesting historical dude, and I want to be killin manz with his messed up sword.
I orderd there too for the stuff. I felt dirty about it, but sometimes the bonuses they get can't be ignored...which I think is the point sadly.
Either way, the Vlad sword is decent. I don't think you have to wait till any point in the story for it really, I got it in the middle of sequence 2 iirc.
However, for whatever reason, maybe because I spent an inordinate amount of time on assassin's and buying up the city, I have somehow unlocked the 3 5star weapons for swords, 2h and daggers; which are inexplicably better than the faction weapons, by a fair amount. I have no idea how I got these, things like Yusiefs sword. They just periodically unlocked. And again, I just finished sequence 3, haven't touched 4. IIRC I got them during sequence 3, but again, I have no idea how.
And they're significantly better than the vlad sword kinda negating its usefulness. At least it was an extra (albeit redonkulously easy) dungeon.
Origin: Galedrid - Nintendo: Galedrid/3222-6858-1045
Blizzard: Galedrid#1367 - FFXIV: Galedrid Kingshand
I didn't mean it was plot-related, just that you'll go to the book shop and then notice a new icon on your map because there's an active book in there.
2 Abilities
2 Perks
1 Kill Streak
1 Loss Bonus
Abilities:
Tripwire Bomb
Closure
Teleport
Bodyguard
Throwing Knives
Poison
Smoke Bombs
Morph
Mute
Charge
Disguise
Fire Crackers
Templar Vision
Hidden Gun
Decoy
Perks:
Sentry
Hot Pursuit
Resilience
Kill Buffer
Enhanced Auto-Bash
Blender
Resistance
Overall Cooldowns
Fast Getaway
Easy Chase Breaker
Only new abilities that really need explanation is Closure (think it triggers all chase breakers, but what's the range?), Teleport, and Bodyguard. Bodyguard is an interesting one I've seen on Shenmue36's channel, does it just stun your pursuer and does the pursuer trigger a lure if they kill the Bodyguard? Seem like it would replace Decoy then.
Somewhat lost of the perks, other than the obvious ones. I know kill streaks are usually score multipliers/animus hack while lose streaks are animus hacks/various buffs like an invisible Templar Vision or something.
Decoy is still here. Combined with Blender and Bodyguard, I usually have no troubles with pursuers unless they get smart.
Teleport acts just like capturing a chest in Chest Capture, if you've played it.
Kill Buffer reduces your killstreak by one on death instead of resetting.
Easy Chase Breaker opens closed chase breaker gates when you walk up to them
As far as I know, Closure has a pretty good range.
What I really like is that bombs such as Firecrackers and Smoke Bombs can be thrown now.
Edit: Quick question on the MP characters, bar preorder/DLC, I'm getting mixed reports if you needed to have played AssBro or just preordered AC:R to get the courtesan? And to confirm the knight is the only one you unlock with uplay points?