|
Alchenar posted:it's only in Origins/Odyssey/Valhalla where they've gone 'gently caress it the PC can travel vertically up literally anything but for a few specific exceptions we'll put in'. Origins and Odyssey are very smooth and you can climb anything but imo Valhalla feels more sluggish and, for some reason, added some weird poo poo where Eivor refuses to climb up into windows or down into hatches unless you've got the angle exactly right
|
#
?
Jan 2, 2021 17:33
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 3, 2024 15:46 |
|
|
Earwicker posted:if you hold down the "summon horse" button in Valhalla you will automatically mount when the horse shows up. Sweet, will definitely use that. Thanks! Just to be clear, the part I really like in that Fenyx clip is the instantaneous summon happening under you. Like a Transformer turning into car mode or like in Tron how the lightcycles form around the rider, I'd love if more games had mounts and vehicles that you could switch to using as effortlessly and quickly as switching weapons. I think it was the very first Crackdown game with its uselessly inconvenient Agency vehicles that made me think of it and I've been thinking about it in a lot of games since. Players are already fine with the hand-wave assumption that the horse is always just thirty feet away off-camera when you call it, this would just be going one step further so that when you call the horse it would actually be just ten feet off-camera and there'd be an automatic animation of mounting it.
|
|
#
?
Jan 2, 2021 18:40
|
|
|
Alchenar posted:Parkour has usually been treated as a bit of a puzzle mechanic, it's only in Origins/Odyssey/Valhalla where they've gone 'gently caress it the PC can travel vertically up literally anything but for a few specific exceptions we'll put in'. I'd probably have hated Odyssey if the climbing was treated as a puzzle. Climbing made Odyssey's world tolerable.
|
|
#
?
Jan 2, 2021 19:31
|
|
|
Lobok posted:Sweet, will definitely use that. Thanks! not the same genre but you should try "The Crew 2" if you see it free or on sale for cheap. its an open world driving/flying/boating game where you can instantly transition between a car, airplane, or boat at any time if you are in the free roam mode unfortunately that gimmick is pretty much all it has going for it and the game gets boring quickly
|
|
#
?
Jan 2, 2021 19:37
|
|
|
Earwicker posted:not the same genre but you should try "The Crew 2" if you see it free or on sale for cheap. its an open world driving/flying/boating game where you can instantly transition between a car, airplane, or boat at any time if you are in the free roam mode  
|
|
#
?
Jan 2, 2021 20:22
|
|
|
Tender Bender posted:Yea, Valhalla is my first Assassin's Creed game, and I'm surprised by how bad just moving around feels. Climbing is slow as hell, clambering around ledges and windows is clunky and fidgety, parkour stuff is finicky and results in me just leaping off to nowhere as often as it results in me going where I wanted. I thought "slick parkour climbing assassin" was one of this series' whole Things? It's actually worse in the earlier games
|
|
#
?
Jan 2, 2021 20:27
|
|
|
Rinkles posted:To me Fenyx once again highlights the importance of having fun traversal in your open world game. Would you like enhanced mobility options (super speed running, limited flying, etc.) under the pretense of Animus hacks? Or should AC remain relatively more grounded? I gotta say, BOTW's paraglider has ruined open world games that don't have them for me. So many times in Valhalla I'll be standing in a high place, looking at a thing in the distance I need to travel to, sighing wistfully as I try to find a way down the cliff without killing myself instead of just floating there like a cool person. I'm sure BOTW wasn't the first game to do this, but it did it very well and I appreciate it when games copy it
|
|
#
?
Jan 2, 2021 20:38
|
|
|
Lobok posted:Just to be clear, the part I really like in that Fenyx clip is the instantaneous summon happening under you. Like a Transformer turning into car mode or like in Tron how the lightcycles form around the rider, I'd love if more games had mounts and vehicles that you could switch to using as effortlessly and quickly as switching weapons. I think it was the very first Crackdown game with its uselessly inconvenient Agency vehicles that made me think of it and I've been thinking about it in a lot of games since. Batman: Arkham Knight had a batmobile that you jumped into immediately as it rolled up which I remember being very satisfying. There's so many open world games now I'm sure there's many more that do it even more seamlessly than this, I just can't remember them. Travelling outside of towns was one of my least favorite things in Valhalla. They dotted the landscape with mysteries and loot which mean hypothetically there's cool stuff to stumble upon, but mostly it's just spending three minutes watching a horse follow a road. Or cutting across the road yourself because the horse-GPS makes some pretty bad routing decisions. If the devs were willing to lean into the Animus a little more, there could be an "animus mount" button that glitches out Eivor for a moment and replaces them with horsey Eivor. But outside of paying for unicorn boats, they seem to want to downplay the "this is a simulation" angle in favor of immersive historical activities. I feel weirdly jealous watching that Batman clip with the amount of mobility options homeboy has for getting around compared to the extremely grounded AC games. I guess I could play Fenyx but it feels insane to start up another Ubi game so soon after the Valhalla marathon.
|
|
#
?
Jan 2, 2021 20:54
|
|
|
Ainsley McTree posted:I gotta say, BOTW's paraglider has ruined open world games that don't have them for me. So many times in Valhalla I'll be standing in a high place, looking at a thing in the distance I need to travel to, sighing wistfully as I try to find a way down the cliff without killing myself instead of just floating there like a cool person. Origins/Odyssey/Valhalla could all improve by having the player be able to transform into the bird instead of having a bird as a pet advantages: -you can fly anywhere -easy way to get on a rooftop or through a window -unlockable ability: peck out peoples eyes disadvantages: -if someone kills you in bird mode with a rock or arrow or whatever, thats it you are dead -when you turn into a bird, all your armor and weapons get left behind in a big pile. you think birds can carry all that poo poo? if you want all that stuff back you'll have to go back and get it as a human. -when you turn back into a human you are naked
|
|
#
?
Jan 2, 2021 21:02
|
|
|
I thought Valhalla struck a pretty good balance between the 'effortlessly glide up down or across any surface' in the other Layla games and the 'literally every chase or tower is a mini puzzle' of the earlier games. The most frustrating one ever was in AC2 where you need an upgrade to jump sliiiightly higher that you don't get until over halfway through and there is a super prominent tower right in the middle of the map that gives zero indication that you cant fully climb it yet.
|
|
#
?
Jan 2, 2021 21:05
|
|
|
FAUXTON posted:wtf is with the old couple and their nice house in shropshire lol Its a tribute to a fan couple (the wife passed away) https://www.gamesradar.com/assassins-creed-valhalla-paolas-dream-mystery-is-a-tribute-to-a-late-fan-and-her-husband/
|
|
#
?
Jan 2, 2021 21:08
|
|
|
I think anyone complaing about the current parkour model should fire up AC1, and enjoy that bullshit. Eivor's parkour being clunky makes sense, shes built like a brick shithouse and runs like a trundling bear after all.
|
|
#
?
Jan 2, 2021 21:10
|
|
|
Valhalla running/parkour/climbing feels worse than Odyssey and Origins. It just seems clunkier. In particular I’m not sure why there is a sprint button in Valhalla where previously you could just run with the analog stick. If you jump over any object no matter how small you have to press the sprint button again. It wasn’t as annoying when I was playing through the first time but when I went back to odyssey it’s amazing how much worse it is in Valhalla.
|
|
#
?
Jan 2, 2021 21:22
|
|
|
A while back I asked about playing one of the three AC games from this generation and I decided on Origins. I just finished it. I'd say it was a mixed bag, but probably more negative than positive. I'd rank it below ACII, Brotherhood, and Black Flag, but above ACI, which are all the AC games I've experienced. Narrative wise they had a strong foundation to tell an excellent story, but then executed it poorly. Bayek and Aya were great characters, and using them to tell a story about losing and finding one's purpose in life is a great premise. Especially when you mix in how their different journeys with grief led them on different paths and the trade offs of becoming so focused on a singular vision that you lose your humanity. Unfortunately, the pacing was so jarring that it really sucked the enjoyment out of the story. Both characters needed time to breath and we needed a slower introduction of the Roman narrative into the story. I'm actually familiar with the history behind the setting and it's a shame they barely bothered to take the time to explain the Gabini, the civil war in Rome, and how that affected power dynamic with Egypt. The way it exists in the game, it sort of comes out of no where. They also showed they could not juggle the personal and historical narratives, as it almost becomes comical how every major antagonist is casually assigned responsibility for your son's death right as you begin the boss fight with them, only to then be revealed, that, no it's actually the next guy. I think the Ezio games did it correctly by having the narrative broken into distinct pieces with time jumps. It's a format that is conducive to having the players become endeared to the character themselves as they grow with them and with the overarching historical setting, because major events don't happen days apart, but do happen over the span of a lifetime. They could have easily done this in Origins with an early part focusing on the personal quest of Bayek and Aya, and then a timeskip where they introduce the high politics and Rome. I really hope they go back to generational model in the next trilogy. Gameplay wise, to put it succinctly, Origins sucks. The combat is terrible, and being open world isn't an excuse in a timeline where Horizon and Spiderman exist. Mechanically, there's no depth, as every fight involves dodging once and then wailing on the enemy, from the first encounter to the final boss. Aesthetically, it's incredibly unpleasing-- there's no weight at all to the animations, the sound design is forgettable, the kill animations are worse than ACII/Brotherhood. The parkour was serviceable, but I found myself getting stuck to the wrong wall or running up the wrong column in the few areas I needed precision. The one standout highlight of the game was the general world map and the tomb exploration. It's an incredible portrayal of Ptolemic Egypt that often left me in awe, even though I played it 4 years after it's release. The cities were filled with so many unique buildings and awesome sights. The absolute highlights of the gameplay were uncovering and exploring the pyramids, catacombs, and other large mystery areas that award a skill point. Based on my experience with this game there is no way I would touch Odyssey or Valhalla. I sincerely hope they burn the engine to the ground and go back to the chalkboard with the next trilogy. Keep the exploration the same, but focus the gameplay on being an assassin. Ditch the quantity for quality-- have fewer but more multi-part quest lines with more detailed locations. If you have less locations, then focus on having context sensitive ways to infiltrate/assassinate each one and bring the gameplay back to the original idea of using stealth and avoiding combat. If they insist on continuing with an emphasis on combat, then they should put in the effort and make a combat system that actually can rival Horizon, Spiderman, or God of War. I understand I'm probably in the minority with my ask list here and most people enjoy the new style. I'll probably just have to accept the series has moved in a direction I'm not terribly interested in. Megasabin fucked around with this message at 07:39 on Jan 3, 2021 |
|
#
?
Jan 2, 2021 21:28
|
|
|
Ainsley McTree posted:I gotta say, BOTW's paraglider has ruined open world games that don't have them for me. So many times in Valhalla I'll be standing in a high place, looking at a thing in the distance I need to travel to, sighing wistfully as I try to find a way down the cliff without killing myself instead of just floating there like a cool person. Not just the glider, but BOTW feels good to move around moment to moment, rainstorms notwithstanding. In a 100+ hour game it's pretty significant if the friction of normal walking around feels grating.
|
|
#
?
Jan 2, 2021 22:14
|
|
|
They should just say "yeah you can fly now, we patched it into the animus, the point is just to recover DNA encoded memories so the vast majority of it is a constructed simulation anyway so now you can fly around have fun" but then set the next AC game in 1993 Bosnia
|
|
#
?
Jan 2, 2021 22:26
|
|
|
Wolfsheim posted:The most frustrating one ever was in AC2 where you need an upgrade to jump sliiiightly higher that you don't get until over halfway through and there is a super prominent tower right in the middle of the map that gives zero indication that you cant fully climb it yet. Haha, I remember getting that upgrade as well as the other climbing upgrades in Brotherhood and Revelations and being blown away at the possibilities they unlocked. Looking back I'm actually pretty sad at how all the 'improvements' to the climbing getting brought forward every game has really simplified it and made it more and more of an afterthought. The climbing puzzles in the first few AC games were a cornerstone of the series, I can still remember hanging from the ceiling of the Sistine chapel and freaking out at how crazy it all was. Doing it now would take like 30 seconds and I'd be staring at a white loot container the whole time. Nephthys fucked around with this message at 22:46 on Jan 2, 2021 |
|
#
?
Jan 2, 2021 22:44
|
|
|
Huh... so that ending just sort of quietly happened, and then an hour later I realized "... oh, I guess that was the actual ending. I guess we're done here?"
|
|
#
?
Jan 3, 2021 07:28
|
|
|
Lobok posted:Sweet, will definitely use that. Thanks! Yeah, now I’m wishing more had been done with the War for Cybertron tech, thanks for that. 
|
|
#
?
Jan 3, 2021 09:26
|
|
|
War for Cybertron multiplayer was really good, it's a shame the online for that game went dead instantly.
|
|
#
?
Jan 3, 2021 09:33
|
|
|
Nephthys posted:Haha, I remember getting that upgrade as well as the other climbing upgrades in Brotherhood and Revelations and being blown away at the possibilities they unlocked. Yeah the early games had oversimplified combat and it mostly felt wrong being in an all out scuffle with guards, but good assassin-y stuff: it could be hit or miss (I am looking at you eavesdrop missions) but at least you felt like you were tailing targets, getting info, finding hidden pathways and avoiding an overwhelming amount of guards then waiting for the right moment to stab what is after all a normal dude and goes down when you shank him between the ribs. I also liked the parkour puzzles a lot, be it in the tombs or just climbing the bigger viewpoints, it felt good when you finally cracked the puzzle. The new games are the polar opposite: decently deep combat in comparison, jump around like crazy and climb literally everywhere, environmental puzzles are "shoot this door open from the back window / find the destructible to break", and most of the time you have a loud boss fight at the end, you just decide whether to get there in open combat or stealthily. I actually like both types of game so that's not disappointing, but they could've almost made two different series out of it: one where you are a grounded assassin, a historical hitman of sorts, and another where you are a fantasy hero smashing things up and living a historical saga without necessarily being an assassin with the creed and all that
|
|
#
?
Jan 3, 2021 10:22
|
|
|
Should of branched off long ago, make a Templar series that's combat heavy then keep the AssCreed as the stealth game.
|
|
#
?
Jan 3, 2021 11:50
|
|
|
Fenyx is very much a successor to Odyssey, same engine and pantheon and still very much a greek power fantasy. I do think it's a good idea to spinoff ideas from AC series into new titles instead of retaining them like dead weight. Too bad about Black Flag's standalone game. I wonder if Den Defence will shine elsewhere. The tone is somewhat strange because while it begins and ends like a Saturday Morning Cartoon it does very little to hide all the hosed up parts of the myth, like when Zeus pretended to be his own daughter to seduce a priestess. I don't know if they mention the swan incident. Oh, and Zelda hasn't let you play a woman in a canon game forever so it's got that beat.
|
|
#
?
Jan 3, 2021 16:11
|
|
|
Shockeh posted:Yeah, now I’m wishing more had been done with the War for Cybertron tech, thanks for that. Turning into a car mid-combo in Transformers Devastation was sick.
|
|
#
?
Jan 3, 2021 16:53
|
|
|
TorakFade posted:I actually like both types of game so that's not disappointing, but they could've almost made two different series out of it: one where you are a grounded assassin, a historical hitman of sorts, and another where you are a fantasy hero smashing things up and living a historical saga without necessarily being an assassin with the creed and all that The later is all I want. Give me Historical Fantasy Adventure, can keep the secret cults but don't make them just the same two cults, no annoying animus bullshit, just let me do cool stuff with myth and magic in an otherwise historical setting drat it. 
|
|
#
?
Jan 3, 2021 17:37
|
|
|
Eimi posted:The later is all I want. Give me Historical Fantasy Adventure, can keep the secret cults but don't make them just the same two cults, no annoying animus bullshit, just let me do cool stuff with myth and magic in an otherwise historical setting drat it. yeah same, i would love a game that was basically an AC game but without all the trapping of the overarching AC story and animus/isu nonsense i mean that's essentially what Ghost of Tsushima is, and its great
|
|
#
?
Jan 3, 2021 17:47
|
|
|
Is there any swashbuckling period, not covered by BF and Unity, where everyone had frilly hats and van dyke beards?
|
|
#
?
Jan 3, 2021 18:17
|
|
|
It's not swashbuckling but the 30 years war has the most fabulously dressed warriors of all time. 
|
|
#
?
Jan 3, 2021 18:21
|
|
|
Earwicker posted:yeah same, i would love a game that was basically an AC game but without all the trapping of the overarching AC story and animus/isu nonsense Are any fans even the slightest bit invested in Layla and the overarching narrative? I'm actually surprised Ubisoft hasn't done a soft reboot without all the contrived Sci Fi bullshit yet
|
|
#
?
Jan 3, 2021 18:44
|
|
|
PerilPastry posted:Are any fans even the slightest bit invested in Layla and the overarching narrative? I'm actually surprised Ubisoft hasn't done a soft reboot without all the contrived Sci Fi bullshit yet Ubisoft sure arent because they loving killed her. First there was Desmond, then Juno, now Layla. One anti-climax after another, going nowhere, accomplishing nothing.
|
|
#
?
Jan 3, 2021 18:48
|
|
|
PerilPastry posted:Are any fans even the slightest bit invested in Layla and the overarching narrative? I came to the series with Odyssey and felt the Layla stuff was an annoying break from the real game. Then I played Origins, which I did not enjoy as much, so the Layla stuff was merely extremely forgettable. Since I love Valhalla I again found the Layla and mythology stuff annoying on my first playthrough. But now I'm replaying, knowing the ending and everything, I've actually warmed to it a bit. I like there being a trickster at loose in the world, it's cool that Layla was set up, and I like the way the ending is going to let them undo events in previous games. As long as it remains a relatively small part of future games I'm happier with it being there than I was before.
|
|
#
?
Jan 3, 2021 19:30
|
|
|
Inspector Gesicht posted:Fenyx is very much a successor to Odyssey, same engine and pantheon and still very much a greek power fantasy. I do think it's a good idea to spinoff ideas from AC series into new titles instead of retaining them like dead weight. Too bad about Black Flag's standalone game. I wonder if Den Defence will shine elsewhere. Unfortunately Fenyx is crashing every 45 minutes for me, which makes it difficult to play, and I have found no reason as to why
|
|
#
?
Jan 3, 2021 19:32
|
|
|
PerilPastry posted:Are any fans even the slightest bit invested in Layla and the overarching narrative? I'm actually surprised Ubisoft hasn't done a soft reboot without all the contrived Sci Fi bullshit yet there used to be, way back in the beginning of this thread someone told me that i "hate the series" because i suggested getting rid of the modern day poo poo. but that was back in origin days and i think people who came in with odyssey or valhalla have less of a stake in that stuff. personally i couldnt stand it even back in the desmond days and i feel that every game in the series could be improved by being just about the historic period itself without any animus poo poo at all
|
|
#
?
Jan 3, 2021 19:48
|
|
|
Inspector Gesicht posted:Is there any swashbuckling period, not covered by BF and Unity, where everyone had frilly hats and van dyke beards? 17th century France, i.e. the setting of the Three Muskateers, is a pretty classic swashbuckling scene and could work pretty well for AC also late medieval England around the time of the Robin Hood story, the reign of John Lackland etc. but that would be way too similar to Valhalla the various wars involving Cossacks in Poland/Ukraine/Russia from the 16th to 19th centuries would also be great Earwicker fucked around with this message at 19:55 on Jan 3, 2021 |
|
#
?
Jan 3, 2021 19:53
|
|
|
People have been saying 'drop the modern day poo poo' since game 1 and they're right. At best the modern day sequences have been good narrative tools to jump the historical story ahead a few months/years without it feeling weird but that's redundant in the current games.
|
|
#
?
Jan 3, 2021 20:18
|
|
|
I feel like Ubisoft is afraid to not give stakeholders reboots or sequels with recurring characters and storylines. It's kinda already a quite bold enterprise to make games so independent. But then again Far Cry games are all standalone?.. I don't know. I also don't like that they don't even really stick to the theme. Like Unity and Syndicate DLCs seemed to drop all the Animus pretense and had no connection to modern day plot at all. Haven't played Origins DLCs yet, maybe it's the same there.
|
|
#
?
Jan 3, 2021 20:49
|
|
|
Yeah I think the main thing is that even if they're the minority, there are some people who really care about the series lore, and will buy both every game and supplemental products like books and comics to get it, so killing off the metaplot would cost them money. And trying to replace it with a new metaplot with new cults risks both alienating the people who really liked the old one and having the new one suck rear end in its own right and being the worst of both worlds.
|
|
#
?
Jan 3, 2021 21:21
|
|
|
It's kind of a catch-22 situation, because everyone who hates the modern day plot might also just start mashing the skip button through anything new they try and being mad that it's there at all (but not enough to not buy/play the games anymore obviously) and to basically retcon the entire thing would also mainly irritate the type of person to buy $200 collector's editions and tie-in novels. As weak as AC3's ending is I think having a few little miniature modern day set pieces like when he scales the skyscraper or does the thing in that basketball stadium would at least kind of justify their existence? I dunno, that to me at least feels better than pretending it basically doesn't exist like in Syndicate.
|
|
#
?
Jan 3, 2021 21:35
|
|
|
As I close in on the end now, I think my Valhalla review is ‘They made a great 4 hour game; Then ruined it by copy pasting it with terrain variations two hundred times.’
|
|
#
?
Jan 3, 2021 22:05
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 3, 2024 15:46 |
|
|
I think the other issue with the metaplot is that they seem to always have two titles in development at once, so coherence between them for anything substantial plot wise would be a nightmare.
|
|
#
?
Jan 3, 2021 22:25
|
|