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Yeah, I definitely deserved a "words" for what I wrote. That was pure unfiltered anger. I play a lot of poo poo games, since I rent everything. And Unity was the bridge too far for me. The freerunning might be able to be salvaged, but it still guesses wrong way too often. And when the penalty of the game picking the wrong ledge is "instant mob fight with five guards", it is that much more terrible. Ignoring the terrible interface - Making me choose whether to "accept" or "accept and track" and then trying to find a way to untrack a sidequest required me to delve into like five menus to find out how. Ignoring the story and the combat and the myriad technical issues - The stealth and cover system are the root cause of how frustratingly bad Unity is. Clunky, unworkable, erratic.... words that are too kind to describe what happens here.
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Dec 28, 2014 03:54
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To be honest, I don't get why Ubisoft isn't embracing the Historical Assassin Superhero thing they were going for before. They basically ended up unintentionally creating a franchise where you were historical Batman and each game ended up being about tracking down wacky items that give you superpowers. Just embrace that poo poo already. If you're running around in ancient Mayan bulletproof armor trying to track down mind control alien artifacts, you've already gone outside of realism. Enjoy that poo poo and base the mechanics around it instead of trying frantically to try to go back to realism when you're never going to pull it off. Brotherhood was one of the better games because they kinda wholeheartedly embraced the Magic Artifacts + Computer Simulation = Wacky Fun poo poo and you got to ride a unicorn and pilot a tank and play as Raiden.
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Dec 28, 2014 03:57
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hiddenriverninja posted:Throughout my playthrough I only got the 'Arno did not kill civilians' message once. I don't know how it happened because 1)you can't intentionally attack civvies and 2) swinging your sword at an enemy clips through civilians anyway. Use ranged weapons more. I've managed to kill a disconcerting number of them with misplaced Phantom blades and duck-foot pistol shots.
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Dec 28, 2014 08:49
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I would be down with them going for the "assassins should be sneaky and not death dealing whirlwinds of steel" route if sneaking around was anywhere near as fun, engaging, and loving functional as it is in a number of other games like the Arkham series, the most recent Splinter Cell, and even that 2D stealth game Mark of the Ninja. Instead we get "oops you accidentally double assassinated and now you have to run while dropping smoke bombs like you have the trots" and a cover system that makes me think they've never seen a game with a cover system before. It's like if you were trying to play an older MGS game and every time you got spotted someone kicked you in the ghoulies. Octavian posted:Use ranged weapons more. I've managed to kill a disconcerting number of them with misplaced Phantom blades and duck-foot pistol shots. This is how you kill civvies, yes. I tried once to kill a guard with a phantom blade while blended and quickly found out that you just don't really get to do that. Poison bombs might also kill civilians but given how hilariously impotent they are I can't actually say for sure.
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Dec 28, 2014 09:44
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Klades posted:I would be down with them going for the "assassins should be sneaky and not death dealing whirlwinds of steel" route if sneaking around was anywhere near as fun, engaging, and loving functional as it is in a number of other games like the Arkham series, the most recent Splinter Cell, and even that 2D stealth game Mark of the Ninja. I dunno, one of my favorite parts of Black Flag was dropping poison darts on the assassination targets while staying in stealth and then waiting for the game to congratulate me for killing him with a flying leap without being detected. There's something to be said for its stealth side, but I guess my experience isn't really the one they intended.
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Dec 28, 2014 10:36
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The White Dragon posted:I dunno, one of my favorite parts of Black Flag was dropping poison darts on the assassination targets while staying in stealth and then waiting for the game to congratulate me for killing him with a flying leap without being detected. There's something to be said for its stealth side, but I guess my experience isn't really the one they intended. Don't get me wrong, I always tried to play the other games stealthy because that's how I figured it was meant to be done, but a lot of people didn't, and having a backup plan that wasn't poop your pants and run was nice. I'm just saying, if they want to encourage stealth that's fine but they did a sorry job of it in Unity.
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Dec 28, 2014 10:56
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I applied for LLJK this morning, can someone let me in if possible? PSN: Colbey99
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Dec 29, 2014 11:56
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ImpAtom posted:To be honest, I don't get why Ubisoft isn't embracing the Historical Assassin Superhero thing they were going for before. They basically ended up unintentionally creating a franchise where you were historical Batman and each game ended up being about tracking down wacky items that give you superpowers. Just embrace that poo poo already. If you're running around in ancient Mayan bulletproof armor trying to track down mind control alien artifacts, you've already gone outside of realism. Enjoy that poo poo and base the mechanics around it instead of trying frantically to try to go back to realism when you're never going to pull it off. 2 also had the benefit of having that Assassin Army building simulator in it that's never truly been brought back to the series. It helped the game feel like it had progress with a great reward at the end of it (especially when combined with the city purchasing/rebuilding system) while all of the others have just focused on the standard lovely AC gameplay, with the exception of 4 that focused on being a pirate. The thing is, Ubisoft have kept the whole development progress mechanics in the games in some way or another but they've been implemented really badly. The homestead in 3 was a interesting concept but a chore in practicality. The "base" in 4 was a waste of money. The cafe in Unity only served to give you enough money to bypass the lovely money grind for all of the items in the game. Like in Unity, if Paris is supposed to be an assassin stuffed city, there could have been a "call for backup" system that worked like the one in Brotherhood. Like do missions in the assassin houses you buy and get more assassin buddies that owe you a favour in that district or something. Then have the option to dump money into the place to upgrade the weapons/gear stored there to then allow you assassin buddies to "level up" and be more effective when you whistle them in.
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Dec 29, 2014 12:17
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Kin posted:2 also had the benefit of having that Assassin Army building simulator in it that's never truly been brought back to the series. It helped the game feel like it had progress with a great reward at the end of it (especially when combined with the city purchasing/rebuilding system) while all of the others have just focused on the standard lovely AC gameplay, with the exception of 4 that focused on being a pirate. Unfortunately, I think the mobile app was supposed to take the place of the whole "run an assassin army" thing. Which is unfortunate, because it's super boring (even moreso than the mission/shipping minigames have been previously) and has no meaningful impact on the game proper except you can open a couple of extra boxes. I mean, at least it's not tower defense but still.
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Dec 29, 2014 13:13
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Kin posted:2 also had the benefit of having that Assassin Army building simulator in it that's never truly been brought back to the series. 2 didn't have that. It was something that started in Brotherhood, and present in Revelations, and 3. Unless you mean the way that they tried to give Desmond a crash course in being an assassin by being Ezio, but that sort of bled over into the the MP and ended up being a bad idea in the SP canon because of various bullshit psychological after effects that was the excuse for Revelations.
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Dec 29, 2014 15:35
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ayn rand hand job posted:2 didn't have that. It was something that started in Brotherhood, and present in Revelations, and 3. I think it's obvious I meant Brotherhood.
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Dec 29, 2014 15:37
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Kin posted:I think it's obvious I meant Brotherhood. You might want to play Revelations and 3 then, because it's in there. Thematically it doesn't work well in Unity, because in Brotherhood/Revelations/3 you're the grandmaster who is actively rebuilding/strengthening the Brotherhood. You're not that guy in Unity, at least until sometime after the story actually ends. By all accounts you're very close to Ezio in 2, someone who is on the periphery of the brotherhood and doesn't really become a full member until he tames his personal demons.
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Dec 29, 2014 15:51
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One thing that Rogue does which is kind of interesting is that it has you do the pigeon assassination missions from the other side. You find a pigeon and the target and then you run around taking out assassins before they can kill the guy.
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Dec 29, 2014 16:07
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Without getting all spoilery, does Arno ever get motivation? I made it just past the big Notre Dame assassination (the one in previews), and Arno just kinda like... wanders on over to the assassins for no drat reason. Shay's story is poorly told in some spots, but it benefits greatly from a sense of structure. A sense that I didn't find in Unity, at least in the first few hours
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Dec 29, 2014 16:07
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Narcissus1916 posted:Without getting all spoilery, does Arno ever get motivation? Not really alk that spoilerly, but tagged in case. Ultimately it more or less taking down the ones responsible for Delaserre's death to soothe his guilt for not delivering the message that might have saved his life. He wanders over to the assassins for that and it pretty much dominates his mentality for the rest of the game. It runs pretty similar to 2 in that regard, where you start working up through the layers of conspiracy.
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Dec 29, 2014 16:17
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I'm actually digging the companion app. I have my iphone next to the keyboard and it serves as an interactive map always showing where Arno currently is in Paris. It even works during cutscenes so it's great to have a visual indication of where the protagonist currently is in the context of the whole city. It's also pretty cool as I don't have to bring up the big in-game map ever and just glance at the phone where I can clearly see where the next view synchronization point is or whatever. There are also the nomad missions that serve as that old managment meta game. I actually see this whole thing as a cool idea on Ubisoft's part. Also after all those years of people whining that the combat is too easy in AC it's funny to see the same whining from the other side for the easier combat to come back. You just can't satisfy the whole fanbase. I dig this game and I'd have no major problems with it if not for the ridiculous npc/environment pop-in.
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Dec 29, 2014 16:38
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I hope the summon backup Assassins thing never comes back. People complain about the series being too easy, but being able to summon my personal murdersquad with no delay in response time made everything trivially easy. I enjoyed building up the brotherhood more through the story component, like Ezio assisting on missions to develop master Assassins in Revelations. That was a lot more satisfying to me.
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Dec 29, 2014 17:03
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ayn rand hand job posted:You might want to play Revelations and 3 then, because it's in there. Did you even read what I wrote after your rush to correct my mistake of writing "2" instead of "brotherhood"?
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Dec 29, 2014 17:40
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Kin posted:Did you even read what I wrote after your rush to correct my mistake of writing "2" instead of "brotherhood"? Did you even read the last part of the post where I discuss reasons why it doesn't make sense given the stories of the game?
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Dec 29, 2014 17:48
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I've put about ten hours into Unity so far and I have to say I've really been having fun with it. I've enjoyed every game in the series so far, but with all of the negative impressions Unity has been getting I was a little worried. I like that it's kind of a 'back-to-the-basics' style of game by moving the setting back to a densely packed city and putting the focus of the main story on the more open assassination missions. I'm really glad they put in the option to solo co-op missions too, as I have no interest in playing multiplayer. My only real issue is how overstuffed the game feels. There are so many side missions and collectibles that really feel like they're content put in there for the sake of having content. I wish they would have done a better job integrating them into the story and given some sort motivation to complete them aside from clearing the icon from the map. That's not to say some of them aren't fun, but there are a lot that just feel like busywork. It's probably a good thing I waited for some patches to start playing. The only technical issues I've experienced has been the occasional freeze that seems to happen almost randomly and lasts a couple of seconds. Luckily it happens pretty infrequently, and when it does happen it doesn't skip the game ahead and screw with my inputs.
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Dec 29, 2014 18:38
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Hannibal Smith posted:
Spending the helix points you get for free on the cockade and chest locations is the best. I can finally feel a bit of relief as districts slowly become uncluttered because my god there are a LOT of things to collect.
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Dec 29, 2014 18:43
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We complained for years that the combat was too easy. And its true, its no longer easy. Its just slow, sluggish, and a few years behind the curve. Copy the goddamn Arkham combat and move on, for the love of God.
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Dec 29, 2014 20:49
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I did the poison hot chocolate murder mystery and that sure was dumb.
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Dec 29, 2014 22:47
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I'm trying to do all the Café Theatre missions as soon as they became available to make sure I end up with ALL THE MONEY later on. I am not, however, enjoying being killed in what feels like a single shot from any firearm. So two questions, does Arno ever stop being such a bullet lightweight, and should I just do some story missions or something and level up a bit, or grit my teeth and just power through the remaining café missions?
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Dec 29, 2014 22:58
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Pork Pie Hat posted:I'm trying to do all the Café Theatre missions as soon as they became available to make sure I end up with ALL THE MONEY later on. Your only options are to get gear with HP on it, or find another way to fight though the missions (like using a shitload of smoke bombs and hiding a lot). Palpek posted:Also after all those years of people whining that the combat is too easy in AC it's funny to see the same whining from the other side for the easier combat to come back. You just can't satisfy the whole fanbase. I dig this game and I'd have no major problems with it if not for the ridiculous npc/environment pop-in. I always wished that the combat would be a little more challenging, but not at the expense of fun. If the stealth was good enough and the game didn't like to force you into combat I could deal with the combat being hard and frustrating, but the stealth is just as frustrating and while the combat is hard, it's not especially good. It also feels super clunky.
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Dec 29, 2014 23:05
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Palpek posted:Also after all those years of people whining that the combat is too easy in AC it's funny to see the same whining from the other side for the easier combat to come back. You just can't satisfy the whole fanbase. I dig this game and I'd have no major problems with it if not for the ridiculous npc/environment pop-in. I don't want combat to be easier. I want it not to be crappy. For all the flaws of the old combat it at least was fast-paced and freeform. The new combat just feels, bizarrely, dated. It feels overly-simplistic, slow and plodding, and while it is harder it is harder because it is more awkward and unwieldy. It does make you try to avoid combat more which'd be fine if the game didn't like its combat. A lot of AC:U in general feels like they're trying to solve franchise-wide problems by taking a step back and reinventing the wheel, which is understandable but they didn't hit the mark. In general though AC:U really feels like it's just lagging behind other similar games on the market. Both the combat and stealth feel weaker than other stealth-action games. Add in that the subverted expectations (after 5+ games of being Assassin Superhero, it's pretty understandable people have grown used to that) and it's a poor combination. If AC:U had dumped the Assassin Superhero but brought a real high-quality game to the market people'd probably be more receptive of the changes. ImpAtom fucked around with this message at 23:55 on Dec 29, 2014 |
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Dec 29, 2014 23:49
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Pork Pie Hat posted:I'm trying to do all the Café Theatre missions as soon as they became available to make sure I end up with ALL THE MONEY later on. Level 5 mooks have pretty powerful guns, so you should probably run a ton of misdirection if you're having issues with then straight up. Phantom Blade and berserk darts will probably soften it up. You might also want to save for the Katana, it'll chew most enemies up and is a pretty good stopgap until you can get a Cinquedas.
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Dec 29, 2014 23:55
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Hannibal Smith posted:I've put about ten hours into Unity so far and I have to say I've really been having fun with it. I've enjoyed every game in the series so far, but with all of the negative impressions Unity has been getting I was a little worried. I like that it's kind of a 'back-to-the-basics' style of game by moving the setting back to a densely packed city and putting the focus of the main story on the more open assassination missions. I'm really glad they put in the option to solo co-op missions too, as I have no interest in playing multiplayer. Yeah this is my experience too. I was expecting total garbage judging from initial reactions but it's actually a pretty decent AC game which pares down all the accumulated crap leftover from previous entries. As with all Ubisoft games now I quickly figured out what I enjoyed (main story assassinations, the co-op multiplayer, the surprisingly cool outfits) and just focused on those, ignored all the other stuff I didn't like (the collections, the murder mysteries which were only fun in the historical tourism sense), and had a good experience overall. I liked that the combat was hard enough that it made me to stealth through most of it and smoke bomb escaped when I got overwhelmed. Phantom blades were sufficiently useful and ammo was sufficiently scarce that it didn't feel like a cheat. Overall I think the combat is the most balanced it's been in one of these games. The main story was fairly dull for the first half, and I was bemoaning that the French revolution was only on the periphery of the plot, but after you meet up with Elise again it picks up, and by the end I was pretty sad it didn't go on longer. I noticed after that the lead writer was Travis Stout formerly of Obsidian. After AC4 though I do wish the story wasn't another total bummer by the end. It seemed well earned by the characters and befitted the arc, but still. The new mo-cap animations in cutscenes looked very very nice. Main assassination missions were well done, they really emphasized the sandbox nature of them by always starting you on a rooftop overlooking the 'arena' that you infiltrate. I started playing on whatever the current patch is, on an Nvidia GTX 770. I had textures on ultra and everything else on medium, and I didn't have any real technical issues or crashes. Framerate was a bit choppy indoors and crowds had a bit of pop-in, but whatever, it was fine.
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Dec 30, 2014 01:43
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Finished Rogue's main story and I'm watching the credits stutter up my screen. Can't wait to crack open Unity. 
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Dec 30, 2014 06:15
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My thoughts on Unity: it is a good game. Although since I didn't suffer through the mass of bugs at release I might be biased, but the game ran like a dream on my XBone. Only slight frame rate drops here and there. I thought the story was eh for the most part; Arno and Elise's relationship was really well done, and flipping the Assassins into the antiquated preservers of a dying structure was interesting and refreshing. Gameplay wise I really enjoyed the additions of a dedicated sneak button. The cover system probably deserves a touch up but honestly was needed in the series. Combat was somewhat disappointing given that I couldn't be a one man army but otherwise was acceptable. I truly disliked the freemium additions that were added. Unnecessary but they're probably mainstays from here on out. Overall, Paris was a fantastic city to explore and I didn't really take issue with the radical overhauls of everything (again) but that's probably because the AC franchise has me by the clutches. 
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Dec 30, 2014 06:33
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Carlosologist posted:My thoughts on Unity: it is a good game. As someone who suffered from bugs and still is it's a real shame as it does seem like it could be the best AC yet if it ran well.
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Dec 30, 2014 13:23
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I've enjoyed the actual gameplay part of it enough that I'm looking forward to next year's release, which will hopefully have fewer technical issues.
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Dec 30, 2014 14:09
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It'll probably never happen, but I'd love to sometime find out the details of what is causing some of the less comprehensible bugs.
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Dec 30, 2014 19:30
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My favorite thing about AC besides the multiplayer were the 'build an Assassin Brotherhood and use them' mechanics that I wish would come back.
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Dec 30, 2014 19:59
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Quick Question: Just done the second main assassination misson - I loved the first, particularly the fact it had a unique finisher that I had to unlock. So the second made me worry when at the beginning there was no mention of a unique kill - I did lots of the optional stuff, starting a riot and filling the tunnels with smoke, but at the end it still forced me in combat. After the 'sandbox' style of the assassinations the game makers have been boasting about I found this a little worrying. Is this just a one off, or do the 'sandbox' missions continue to force you into situations regardless of how you play?
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Dec 30, 2014 20:52
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Hallowed posted:Quick Question: The latter, unless i missed them too. Most of the "optional" stuff simply seemed to be ways to create openings to let you sneak by guards or there was an optional environmental object you could interact with to kill the target rather than shanking them.
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Dec 30, 2014 20:54
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hiddenriverninja posted:My favorite thing about AC besides the multiplayer were the 'build an Assassin Brotherhood and use them' mechanics that I wish would come back. It seemed a little weird to me that you couldn't like recruit a pirate crew that you could use in a similar fashion to the Brotherhood stuff, but I can certainly see why they'd want to shake things up and avoid feature creep.
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Dec 30, 2014 20:54
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Hallowed posted:Quick Question: They don't really 'force' you to do anything, but you have to complete all the side objectives if you want a chance at the special assassinations. I think there are two or three of them?
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Dec 30, 2014 21:08
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None of the unique assassinations are as unique as the first one, with the whole confessional booth. It's just "if you do this you'll get an easy way to get at your target and then you stab them like normal", unless I did something really wrong for the whole game.
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Dec 31, 2014 01:22
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Finally got around to starting Unity this evening. For the record: It took me less than 10 minutes to make it crash on my PS4. All I did was push the touchpad when indicated to load up the database entry on Jacques De Molay. Instead the UI disappeared and all the controls became unresponsive. I had to force quit the game and restart it. And this is after Ubisoft has issued 4 patches for the drat thing.
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Dec 31, 2014 03:43
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