I can spend a good hour or so just killing all of the guards in the cities with this game, I've completed the main story but have hardly touched the side missions yet - are they really worth it?
I like the Homestead missions. And the naval battles.
[QUOTE=RagamuffinIIII;38413922]I can spend a good hour or so just killing all of the guards in the cities with this game, I've completed the main story but have hardly touched the side missions yet - are they really worth it?[/QUOTE]
You're missing a lot if you don't play the homestead missions. The naval missions and Pegleg missions are fucking amazing as well.
So yeah, they're worth it.
I need to vent a bit about AC3, and I ask that you all understand that I think the game is good, and I am enjoying it, but it has key issues that I feel need to be addressed, if only to get some input from other people so I can form a more coherent picture.
[b]Combat:[/b] Combat in AC3, to me, feels sloppy as all hell, mainly due to the fact that the steady rhythm that all of the previous games encouraged you to keep (and assisted in doing so by the very visible sparks and the audible clashes of metal as enemies blocked your strikes while you whittled away at their health) has been removed completely. Mashing attack is a sure victory against most enemies, and the enemies that do block your strikes are countered by breaking their defense and then mashing attack until they die. It's also really hard to get a reading on how close you are to killing someone as they don't have a health indicator anymore, and nor (as far as I can tell) do they have stances that denote injury. This problem is exacerbated by the fact that Connor's combat moves are so convoluted and overly complex that it's hard to tell whether or not the enemy you're fighting is in fact dead. In the previous games you knew a fight had ended when a complex animation played itself out, the camera shifted angle to show it off better and so on. Connor's moves look awesome, but they look so much like final blow animations that I find it easy to get confused. Taunting to draw the ire of an enemy you want dealt with as quickly as possible is gone (admittedly, not a feature that was used all that often, but it was nice to have nevertheless.) You can no longer grab enemies unless you counter one of their attacks, which strikes me as really odd, I always felt that that was a fairly useful thing to have the option to do (throwing people off of rooftops). Dodging is no longer a thing unless you're countering an attack that is uncounterable. Don't get me wrong, they've done a lot to mix things up for AC3 and keep it from feeling like a mere change of scenery, but along the way they seem to have removed or reworked a lot of things that didn't need reworking.
[b]General Out-of-Combat actions/Sidemissions/Systems:[/b] Dual assassinations are for all intents and purposes gone, only available if you're sprinting directly at the enemy and holding down attack long before you get there. If anyone else that is classified as hostile gets between you and your target, or even anywhere near you, you'll immediately pounce on them instead, alerting everyone to your presence, and even if that didn't happen and you did assassinate the two targets you had intended to kill every other guard in the area is now alerted to your presence, meaning that unless there's only two guards within earshot, you're going to be detected. Now, I know that there are other tools that can deal with this problem, but in AC2 and its expansions, you could fairly reliably assassinate two guards and then move on to the third before the other ones hit the dirt by making use of fast walk to close the distance between your targets and the hidden blade while in low-profile mode to stay hidden. While that could be viewed as too easy, it was a plan that only worked if you had the time to kill every other guard in the area before they saw their colleagues die, if you couldn't they'd pretty much immediately turn hostile. Why am I not allowed to harm civilians unless I specifically target them? Minstrels, beggars, the insane and other wretches have been a staple of the AC series, they're there to make it impossible for you to blend and block your way to a target. An annoyance in most cases, but if you're in a restricted area, they can easily get you spotted. This could always be dealt with by giving them a solid punch out of range of any nearby guards. In AC3, this NPC archetype is made up of a bunch of the most annoying children I've ever encountered in a videogame, so you cannot get rid of them by that method. And while the addition of the distinction between lethal and non-lethal attacks is really good to have, it's less good that any unarmed attack on a bystander will knock them out cold in one hit, instead of just dispersing them. Not allowed to use any ranged weapon or indeed, any weapon without being locked onto or within range of a valid target, minor niggle, but it feels restrictive. Side missions are obtuse, and directionless. While to some this will be an improvement and make it feel more organic, and to others, like me, it's just a mess. At one point I must have accidentally picked up a delivery quest, because every now and again I'll be greeted with an NPC with a blue hex over his head, and when I interact with him, he'll spout something about forever being in my debt before handing me £500. Assassinations are my favourite part of the AC games, and while the games have never made any real attempts at forcing you into stealth, nor ever had the systems to back that playstyle up you can still get some pretty sneaky kills in, so naturally I made a beeline for the nearest assassination sidemission as soon as I found one, but when I interacted with the quest-giver I only had the briefest of mission objectives pop up in the upper left of the screen before it faded out, and so far I haven't figured out how to check what sidemissions I currently have active, so I was only able to glance "Kill 5 templars [0/5]" before it disappeared for seemingly forever (If there is a way to check the log, and I'm just too retarded to find it, feel free to dismiss this point.) Additionally, I have no clear grasp on who counts as a templar and who doesn't. The high-profile/low-profile modes are now less convoluted, but somehow more infuriating, by holding down the high-profile button, you now immediately launch into a dead sprint with no middle ground, in the previous games, you could lower your rate of detection by slowing down, so if I needed to cover some ground and get out of sight before guards got too suspicious, I could slow to a crawl and walk past them and hope their SSI meters wouldn't fill up, or I could jog past, which made the meter fill up faster, but I was also moving faster, so it nullified it to an extent, but not to the point where it didn't make sense to stick to low-profile. Notoriety now feels a bit arbitrary, seeing as it only has 3 levels, and no sliding scale. In AC2 and its expansions, notoriety did a lot of things. At 25% notoriety it made guards take notice of you when you walked past, and every percentage point towards 50% made their suspicion grow faster, at 50% they would immediately move to investigate, and as with the first notoriety level to the second, the closer you got to the third, the less time you had to get the hell out of dodge. Now, the problem I have with the notoriety system in AC3 is two-fold, the aforementioned is part of the problem, the other is how some missions arbitrarily assign notoriety levels to you. In AC2, it benefited you to keep your notoriety as low as possible between missions because it made it way easier to get to an assassination target. Some areas were off-limits and guards would investigate you immediately regardless, but it was very plainly indicated on the minimap which areas you risked detection in, in AC3, this is less obvious.
[b]The Metagame:[/b] AC2 had Monteriggioni, your own little slice of Italy where you were completely safe from any templars or guards, and you could shop in your own stores. By making use of one of the many fast-travel points found in the game, you could easily travel back there, pick up some money and purchase equipment in one of the stores there, which gave you a discount depending on how much you'd upgraded it, it was rudimentary, optional and most importantly it had a direct benefit to you. Renovating Monteriggioni meant more money, and repairing shops and such, like I said, provided you with a small discount. In AC3, you're in charge of the Davenport homestead where you have to travel around in the wilderness and do Homestead missions to recruit settlers. These settlers will then start producing goods for you, and if certain requirements are fulfilled/missions completed, their goods would be of higher quality and you'd get more of it. You then use the ledger to purchase their goods, and have a craftsman make something from it or you just sell it as-is to a merchant. In AC2, your renovation of Monteriggioni had a direct and obvious benefit with minimal hassle involved to get your rewards, in AC3 however, you're spending a fair bit of time in menus ordering craftsmen to make the most valuable thing you can make, looking over recipes and trying to find the items necessary, and once you're done with that, you select a wagon, load it up with up to three items and send it off to a merchant. You then have to evaluate the risk of sending it, the tax that will be levied on it and what kind of profit you'll be making. If a wagon gets destroyed, you'll need to make another, and you can upgrade them with additional cargo space. After all is said and done, and the wagon is on its way, you're looking at perhaps a 20 minute wait for it to deliver its wares and for you to turn a profit, now, I don't require instant gratification in games, but this is just tedium, boring busywork. It would have been absolutely perfect if settlers increased the value of your property, meaning you got a larger deposit, like in AC2, and the more missions you did relating to the homestead, the better things you could purchase from your craftsmen.
[b]Mission design, narrative, waypointing and the UI:[/b] Mission design was never the AC series' strong suit, from the flag retrieving, pickpocketing and interrogation missions of the first to the fairly forced encounters in its sequels, they've always played out a bit illogically, so I won't give AC3 too much shit for this, but missions feel forced. It feels like I'm playing through the Greatest Hits edition of the american revolution, without spoiling anything, a lot of mission openers are completely pointless, they don't inform me of what I'm supposed to be doing in the upcoming mission, and often Connor will be dragged into some zany revolutionary plot without any real reason to before they drag some templar motivation kicking and screaming into the picture, and then he's really gung-ho about getting it done. Sometimes the waypointing falls apart completely, and the objective markers on the ground that denoate areas you need to stay within are sometimes impossible to see, in AC2, your mission marker was always a big fat white glowing, shimmering mass of light on the ground, fairly easy to spot even against a completely white background, in AC3, it's a slightly shimmering and rippling ring that lies so close to the ground that if any dust particles pass over it, it becomes invisible. One really egregious instance of this was during a certain mission that those of you that have played it will be familiar with, it involved a lot of infantrymen, some firing lines and a bridge that someone wanted to cross, and someone else wanted to stop the others from crossing. [sp] It took me 5 minutes to figure out that I wasn't standing in the right spot, so my orders to fire didn't register with the men, all because I didn't stand in the arbitrarily assigned spot that was nearly impossible to see in the battle dust.[/sp] The narrative feels very loosely cobbled together, due to the two points brought up above, and perhaps most importantly, I don't feel invested in it at all, Connor's motivation to do what he's doing beyond [sp] Minerva telling him that he has to[/sp] isn't particularly well founded nor explained. His narrative arch to set him up as the protagonist was way too short, and it didn't really help cement his cause. While Ezio's set-up drags on a bit, his reasons for taking up the Assassin's cause is pretty simple, he's out to get revenge, and over time his revenge mission turns to something more important, Connor doesn't have that, I feel. One strong point that I will argue FOR however is that AC3's villains are significantly better written than any of the villains in AC2 and its expansions, if anyone else really enjoyed the muddled morality of your targets in the first AC, then AC3 brings that back, while AC2's were comically evil at times (I'm looking at you, Vieri.) While I realise that for realism's sake that missions cannot take place in rapid succession over a small period of time, the fact that the game will gladly skip ahead many months at a time also serves to make the narrative feel disjointed. The UI is for the most part fine, but the weapon wheel is abhorrent. I'm fine with it freezing the game completely, but making it so you can't see a fucking thing because it loads a background for it is stupid design, and it doesn't flow well, opening the weapon wheel has a short, but still annoying load time before it opens, meaning that switching weapons on the fly feels a bit stilted.
[b]Final, miscellaneous:[/b] The health system is pretty dull now, I enjoyed the medicine concept of AC2 and the way it enabled the developers to allow your health to be crippled so that if you were out of meds and hurt, any fight you got into would see you at a disadvantage. Now it pretty much instantly refills the second you step out of combat. I get why it wouldn't make sense in a historical context, but also not being able to up damage resistance in any way is also a bit odd to me. Having to stand still to activate Eagle Vision, something rectified by AC2 that made it significantly more useful as a tool is also a really odd design choice to go back to. And while I greatly enjoy it, hunting is pretty much 100% useless as you can get through the game without spending any money beyond what you're forced to buy should you feel like it.
Now, I want you all to understand that I greatly enjoy AC3, I think it's a fantastic game, and well worth the purchase of the Collector's Edition, but at the same time, it has so many things wrong with it that I feel are worth pointing out, but at the same time it does a LOT of things right, being able to hide in foliage, hiding around corners, drawing attention to yourself to lure guards away, stealth kills around corners and all that good stuff makes the game so much more enjoyable, and I adore how they've implemented systems for players that are more inclined towards stealth. It should also be said that praise should be heaped upon any developer or publisher that is willing to shake things up when they had a winning formula on their hands, mad props to the people willing to take that risk, and I'm so glad it's not just AC2 in America, but they also made some really bad calls. Now, my word obviously isn't gospel, some of the changes I lament, someone else loves, and that is perfectly fine, I just wanted to share my impressions of the game, and I'd love for someone to prove me wrong or provide counter-arguments, I really do enjoy AC3, and by getting other people's opinions on the above systems, I could grow to enjoy it even more.
I fully agree with nearly everything you said. Especially considering the misison design and narrative.
[QUOTE=FlyingDog;38416223]I need to vent a bit about AC3, and I ask that you all understand that I think the game is good, and I am enjoying it, but it has key issues that I feel need to be addressed, if only to get some input from other people so I can form a more coherent picture.
-Wall of text goes here-[/QUOTE]
I seriously cannot hit the agree button hard enough. Among other things, you touched base with the three major issues I had with the game; stealth, Connor's character, and combat.
This final week is gonna kill me.
i kinda disagree. in the past games you could just mash attack to kill just about anyone.
and all you really had to do was hold down one button and then press another and dead guy.
if AC3 we have a similar thing. though you hold down block to parry and press during an enemy attack to counter, and right after that counter you can do a number of things with a button press. this flows way better and allows for more dynamic fights.
the whole deal with assassin's creed's fighting is it really is as fun as you make it. sure you can just mash buttons and counter everyone dead but where's the fun in that? especially considering now you take take a loaded firearm from someone and shoot them with it. if you want combat to be fun it's not going to be practical in the least bit, but with some imagination and spontaneity it's possible.
[editline]12th November 2012[/editline]
also seriously fuck the metagame of the previous games. in the end all it meant was a shitload of cash you had literally nothing to spend it on. this is actually the first assassin's creed where i felt like money was an actual resource. it's not that hard to get in game but it still requires effort, and i find myself sometimes having to go back out and get more money cause i can't afford something. THAT'S NEVER HAPPENED TO ME ONCE IN THE ENTIRE ASSASSIN'S CREED SERIES.
I mean in previous games all you had to do was idle and come back after an hour of doing something else and you can buy and rennovate a fucking ancient roman Colosseum
[QUOTE=NeoSeeker;38418636]i kinda disagree. in the past games you could just mash attack to kill just about anyone.
and all you really had to do was hold down one button and then press another and dead guy.
if AC3 we have a similar thing. though you hold down block to parry and press during an enemy attack to counter, and right after that counter you can do a number of things with a button press. this flows way better and allows for more dynamic fights.
the whole deal with assassin's creed's fighting is it really is as fun as you make it. sure you can just mash buttons and counter everyone dead but where's the fun in that? especially considering now you take take a loaded firearm from someone and shoot them with it. if you want combat to be fun it's not going to be practical in the least bit, but with some imagination and spontaneity it's possible.
[editline]12th November 2012[/editline]
also seriously fuck the metagame of the previous games. in the end all it meant was a shitload of cash you had literally nothing to spend it on. this is actually the first assassin's creed where i felt like money was an actual resource. it's not that hard to get in game but it still requires effort, and i find myself sometimes having to go back out and get more money cause i can't afford something. THAT'S NEVER HAPPENED TO ME ONCE IN THE ENTIRE ASSASSIN'S CREED SERIES.
I mean in previous games all you had to do was idle and come back after an hour of doing something else and you can buy and rennovate a fucking ancient roman Colosseum[/QUOTE]
You [i]could[/i] just mash attack, yes, but that took way longer than if you got a combo-strike together by rhythmically hitting the attack button. And yes, the "wait for an enemy to strike, counter and chain execute everyone else in the area" tactic is hilariously broken in every game so far.
I completely agree with you on how combat in the AC series has always been more about the path of most fun vs the path of least resistance, and I've had some really cool combat moments in AC3, but like I said, to me, it just doesn't feel as tight as its predecessors, and it feels like you have less control. If an enemy blocks my strikes in AC3, my only option is to break his defense, or wait for him to attack and see if I can disarm him/throw him while in AC2 you could sidestep, dodge, throw sand in his eyes, counter his attack, grab him or overpower him with heavy strikes. And while this should probably be charted up as a good thing, different weapons do different things. With some weapons you cannot disarm officers, hessians and grenadiers, but with others you can.
Aye, money in AC2 and its expansions was hilariously easy to come by, and in a very short time you'd have bought everything at your current tier and then the only thing you could spend it on was consumables, but it didn't have the tedium of managing the homestead which is my main gripe with it.
[QUOTE=NeoSeeker;38418636]i kinda disagree. in the past games you could just mash attack to kill just about anyone.
and all you really had to do was hold down one button and then press another and dead guy.
if AC3 we have a similar thing. though you hold down block to parry and press during an enemy attack to counter, and right after that counter you can do a number of things with a button press. this flows way better and allows for more dynamic fights.
the whole deal with assassin's creed's fighting is it really is as fun as you make it. sure you can just mash buttons and counter everyone dead but where's the fun in that? especially considering now you take take a loaded firearm from someone and shoot them with it. if you want combat to be fun it's not going to be practical in the least bit, but with some imagination and spontaneity it's possible.
[editline]12th November 2012[/editline]
also seriously fuck the metagame of the previous games. in the end all it meant was a shitload of cash you had literally nothing to spend it on. this is actually the first assassin's creed where i felt like money was an actual resource. it's not that hard to get in game but it still requires effort, and i find myself sometimes having to go back out and get more money cause i can't afford something. THAT'S NEVER HAPPENED TO ME ONCE IN THE ENTIRE ASSASSIN'S CREED SERIES.
I mean in previous games all you had to do was idle and come back after an hour of doing something else and you can buy and rennovate a fucking ancient roman Colosseum[/QUOTE]
Mashing was always the easiest way of killing enemies. But I liked to make my kills badass and use various tactics to achieve my goal. Why can't I grab enemies anymore or taunt them? The counters are now even easier and all the regulars die directly which is really dumb. I do not like the dualwielding, it gives me less control over the combat. Connor always jumps like some dancing maniac with his weapons, making it confusing. The combat in this game is a lot more restricted and it gives the player less freedom. It is not versatile as before.
But I like that you can regain health by these potions and that enemies swarm you, making combat actually harder. I had times where I ran away because I was simply overwhelmed. Also the lines created by the soldier are really a neat feature, that can bring you health bar really down. Although I would like it to make it a lot more lethal than in the current state.
Potions?
Those damn health potions that you could buy in the previous AC, they instantly healed you during fights.
I didn't like the health potions that much. Making you do frequent runs to the doctor.
Also the previous games 'cept the first one forcing you to buy a piece of armor bugged me off as well.
Especially in AC:B where the Roman spaulders where ugly as heck.
Oh right, those.
you can grab and throw, you just need to counter to do it.
grabbing was insanely broken in all the other creed games because if an enemy couldn't counter your grab all you needed to do was press grab then attack and you cut their throat and they're dead.
also i was legitimately sad when connor killed [sp]his best friend[/sp]. it sort of cemented the fact that i like connor out of all the other assassins so far the best because i can relate to him the most. all the other assassins are just as cool, only thing is i can't relate to an italian playboy or some mysterious arabic badass. out of all of them connor came from the humblest of beginnings and this responsibility was thrown upon him with the most abandon.
either way i think my copy is insanely bugged. apparently you're supposed to do homested missions to level up your homestead peeps, but there aren't any markers for their houses on the homested, in fact the only markers for my homestead map iirc are peg leg's marker, the harbor master marker and the manor marker, maybe a few others for areas and travel points...
i've put 30 hours into this game so far, i'm [B]NOT[/B] starting a new fucking game.
where do you find emily? specifically? i'm sequence ten. does anyone know of a good trading/metagame guide? i don't even know how to trade by sea.
[QUOTE=NeoSeeker;38423776]you can grab and throw, you just need to counter to do it.
grabbing was insanely broken in all the other creed games because if an enemy couldn't counter your grab all you needed to do was press grab then attack and you cut their throat and they're dead.
also i was legitimately sad when connor killed [sp]his best friend[/sp]. it sort of cemented the fact that i like connor out of all the other assassins so far the best because i can relate to him the most. all the other assassins are just as cool, only thing is i can't relate to an italian playboy or some mysterious arabic badass. out of all of them connor came from the humblest of beginnings and this responsibility was thrown upon him with the most abandon.
either way i think my copy is insanely bugged. apparently you're supposed to do homested missions to level up your homestead peeps, but there aren't any markers for their houses on the homested, in fact the only markers for my homestead map iirc are peg leg's marker, the harbor master marker and the manor marker, maybe a few others for areas and travel points...
i've put 30 hours into this game so far, i'm [B]NOT[/B] starting a new fucking game.
where do you find emily? specifically? i'm sequence ten.[/QUOTE]
Markers only appear when you do the conversation thingy's and sidemissions.
A lot of the Homestead missions start in the Frontier and the cities.
It confused the shit out of me as well
There are a shit ton of them.
like it literally says homestead mission when you put the marker over it? or are they the delivery requests and assassination contracts?
there aren't any homstead mission markers anywhere on any map.
[QUOTE=NeoSeeker;38423905]like it literally says homestead mission when you put the marker over it? or are they the delivery requests and assassination contracts?
there aren't any homstead mission markers anywhere on any map.[/QUOTE]
They are labeled as Homestead missions with their own icon.
[QUOTE=NeoSeeker;38423905]like it literally says homestead mission when you put the marker over it? or are they the delivery requests and assassination contracts?
there aren't any homstead mission markers anywhere on any map.[/QUOTE]
They say "Homestead mission" and the icon is the homestead icon (from the map obviously). The more you progress through the game/complete sidequests/complete other homestead missions the more that'll show up.
[QUOTE=NeoSeeker;38423905]like it literally says homestead mission when you put the marker over it? or are they the delivery requests and assassination contracts?
there aren't any homstead mission markers anywhere on any map.[/QUOTE]
Have you done sidemissions and conversations?
hahaha jesus fucking christ am i screwed...
[editline]12th November 2012[/editline]
[QUOTE=mobrockers2;38424016]Have you done sidemissions and conversations?[/QUOTE]
there was one interactive conversation i did (the only one i've seen) and accidentally skipped it.
[QUOTE=NeoSeeker;38424020]hahaha jesus fucking christ am i screwed...
[editline]12th November 2012[/editline]
there was one interactive conversation i did (the only one i've seen) and accidentally skipped it.[/QUOTE]
Skipping isn't bad. Search for interactive conversations and sidemissions, homestead missions will only unlock after doing those.
i think my game may be bugged in regards to icons showing up on a map
[editline]12th November 2012[/editline]
really all i want is to find emily so i can craft dual holsters
[QUOTE=NeoSeeker;38424072]i think my game may be bugged in regards to icons showing up on a map[/QUOTE]
You do know icons only show up if you're in said map right. The only icons that show up no matter where you currently are in the game, are mission icons.
[editline]12th November 2012[/editline]
Emily is in new york.
i don't even know how to look at maps of other places other than the map of the area i'm currently in
you know for a game with 6 hours of fucking exposition a lot is left fucking unexplained and the ingame manual really helps fuck all.
[editline]12th November 2012[/editline]
[QUOTE=mobrockers2;38424115]
Emily is in new york.[/QUOTE]
yes yes i know, where in new york
[QUOTE=NeoSeeker;38424135]i don't even know how to look at maps of other places other than the map of the area i'm currently in
you know for a game with 6 hours of fucking exposition a lot is left fucking unexplained and the ingame manual really helps fuck all.
[editline]12th November 2012[/editline]
yes yes i know, where in new york[/QUOTE]
Zoom out. Also she's somewhere along the docks I think, not sure. I heard this girl cry for help and found her that way.
Sequence ~ 10 spoiler:
[sp]wow, Washington is a pussy and Connor isn't working with Haytham anymore. I don't know what side Connor is on now..[/sp]
[QUOTE=mobrockers2;38424185]Zoom out. Also she's somewhere along the docks I think, not sure. I heard this girl cry for help and found her that way.[/QUOTE]
zooming out just goes out to the most zoomed out position of the current map.
[QUOTE=NeoSeeker;38425067]zooming out just goes out to the most zoomed out position of the current map.[/QUOTE]
Should go further out to the map with the city's, move over to a different city and zoom in again.
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