Assassin's Creed Brotherhood

Chaz wrote:

I'm working on the one that's kind of south of the island stronghold , at tommaso di viterbo, with the captain riding on horseback in a small circle. I can pretty easily get onto the wall near him, and it seems like the play is to wait for him to get close, then hop onto the wall and stab with the hidden blades. Damned if I can get the controls to let me do it though. It never seems to stay locked on him, or won't do the jumping stab thing. What am I missing?

Do you have to take down the tower to advance the main plot? If not, just do more of the main quests and come back later. These assassinations will become a lot easier once you start getting your full capabilities.

I remember the riding captain--I'd recommend trying the crossbow. The dude is a pain in the ass, because his patrol circle is wide enough that you'll lose lock on him, and there are guards f*cken everywhere, so it's tough to find a good vantage for the shot. But, patience, padawan, let them be your watchword. Along with "crossbow."

Chaz wrote:

Getting kind of frustrated with the Borgia towers.

I found some of those quite frustrating, too, but it was rewarding when I finally was able to accomplish them. I don't recall the captain riding in a circle, but the guy in the tunnels is fun if you are very sneaky about it. There's an entry in a cliff face on the opposite side of the hill from the ruins. You have to drop down to it after climbing a nearby building and the cliffs (screenshot here). Once you're on the lip of the entrance, sneak your way in. You can take out the guards one by one if you are very careful. Use a dead body to lure the captain through the archway in the wall, away from the guards that are near him, kill him silently and go out the way you came in.

Some of the more advanced weapons are quite helpful there, like the gun for taking down patrolling guards at a safe distance. I was quite proud of myself when I figured out how to get that guy in the tunnels.

SpacePPoliceman wrote:

I remember the riding captain--I'd recommend trying the crossbow. The dude is a pain in the ass, because his patrol circle is wide enough that you'll lose lock on him, and there are guards f*cken everywhere, so it's tough to find a good vantage for the shot. But, patience, padawan, let them be your watchword. Along with "crossbow."

I just came right at him and dragged him down from the horse. Then killed him in like five seconds.

I did manage to take down the guy on the horse. I wound up doing the over the wall stabby stabby thing. I think the problem before was that I was trying to control the camera to follow him after locking on, which the game reads as "target that guy over there instead'. This goes back to my pet peeve with the AC games that a good deal of the time, I feel like I'm fighting the controls. Ezio seems to have a mind of his own. It's like trying to drive an idiot. That didn't stop me from getting 100% on AC2, but I swear at the game a lot.

I can definitely get the guy in the tunnels, I just don't like that there are choke points where guards are staring straight at your approach, and the only way around them is to go back outside and come around the other way. Closest I got to killing the captain was once when I ran at two of those staring guys, dropped a smoke bomb, and started stabbing. Then their two buddies walked into the smoke to see what was going on, and also got stabbed. I now had a clear shot at the captain, and decided to try out my new crossbow. This is when I found out the captains take two shots, and I couldn't catch him. Next time, pistol or just charge him with hidden blades.

I think I forgot I was so early in the game, since it's been so long. I just finished sequence 3. I have a sickness where I try and finish all side quests available before doing story quests. Sometimes I just have to tell myself "this will be easier later", and force myself to do the storyline quests. I suck at open world games.

What are you playing on?

Typically, "lock on" works pretty well. I don't remember the PC button, but on 360 you press the left trigger to lock and it will follow your target pretty well.

Those captains are all about killing some guards either with blades or crossbow. Remain stealthy until you reach the captain -- stabby stab-stab-stab. You can always fight your way out if needed.

The hardest ones are the ones you need to lure out. I thought the guy in the tunnels was easier than the guy buried in a alcove surrounded by troops.

I'm on 360. I think the problem is partly that I keep trying to adjust the camera angle while locked on. I may want to keep an eye on this guy over there while I wait for the target to come back around, but the lock on wants to keep the camera pointing at the target, so when I automatically try and adjust the camera angle, it re-targets.

Chaz wrote:

I'm on 360. I think the problem is partly that I keep trying to adjust the camera angle while locked on. I may want to keep an eye on this guy over there while I wait for the target to come back around, but the lock on wants to keep the camera pointing at the target, so when I automatically try and adjust the camera angle, it re-targets.

Yeah, I don't lock on until I know I'm going to be in striking distance. If I need to look around I look around. Once I think I'm at my perch, or will suffer no more interference -- then I lock on and begin the stabbing.

One other thing: these get a little easier when you get the double hidden blade from Leonardo. A lot of those guards are in pairs and can be double assassinated.

Aw crap, I forgot you don't start with them. What was their reasoning for taking them away? I figured since I had all my other toys, I'd have the double blades too, and he just wasn't doing double assassinations because of some weird controls thing.

Chaz wrote:

What was their reasoning for taking them away?

He loses one of the blades in the fall of Monteriggioni (I can't believe I remembered the spelling offhand).

"Look at all these neat toys you have! YOINK!" -- every Assassin's Creed game, ever.

Spoiler:

You left all your equipment on the table while you were -- preoccupied. When the cannonballs start falling I think the only thing Ezio grabs is the single blade.

Leonardo has three things to sell you -- the double blade, the climbing glove and -- something I don't remember.

I thought me and Leo were bros! Couldn't he mail me my second blade? Dude's charging me to get back stuff I already had? Super lame. If only I was a hardened killer...

Chaz wrote:

I thought me and Leo were bros! Couldn't he mail me my second blade? Dude's charging me to get back stuff I already had? Super lame. If only I was a hardened killer... ;)

He needs materials man. Do you know how much "hookers n' blow" is needed to come up with this sh*t?!

If you haven't run into him yet -- you will. He will explain.

Also, if you haven't run into him there are towers you can't even get to yet.

LilCodger wrote:

Leonardo has three things to sell you -- the double blade, the climbing glove and -- something I don't remember.

His heart dumbass!

IMAGE(http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m107nmasPz1r0zu4to1_500.gif)

I guess I was lucky with the captain on horseback. I thought it was kind of hilarious that he was in the middle of giving a speech about how I could be anywhere, and I was able to go over the wall, assassinate him on horseback, and immediately take off before anybody could even react.

The guy in the catacombs, though, I did the hard way-- with a failure or two-- before I discovered that back entrance.

AC has its hooks back into me. I've been playing a few hours a night all week, just like I did back with AC2.

I've gotten past where they let you start recruiting minions, and they help a lot with the towers. Muffed the approach, and now the captain's running away? LB will solve all your problems! Had to use that when I went back to get the tunnel captain. I think I used the wrong side entrance, and came up to the pit with the ladder, and there are two guys down there with no good way down. Captain came out to investigate the noise (which was his men being perforated by crossbow bolts), then ran. I got hung up on guards, but my Girl-o-Death sure didn't.

There sure are a metric ton of shops to renovate. I'll wind up getting them all, but it's going to take some wandering.

I was disappointed to see that there are a bunch of MP-only achievements. Since I let my gold subscription lapse, and there's apparently nobody playing MP anyway, I'll never be able to 1000 point this one like I did with AC2. Because of that, I don't feel any need to do all the flags or 100% sync all the missions. That makes me kind of sad. Also wish I could hide the icon for the Romulus treasure, since it'll be a while before I get the other three keys.

If you've been waiting to get Assassin's Creed Revelations, you can get it for $10 from Best Buy right now. Pretty sweet deal!

It's already on its way. Once it's here, I might re-up for a month of XBL just to try out the MP. I should've gotten it on the PS3 to try the multi for free, but man, do I dislike the PS3 controller.

Chaz wrote:

It's already on its way. Once it's here, I might re-up for a month of XBL just to try out the MP. I should've gotten it on the PS3 to try the multi for free, but man, do I dislike the PS3 controller.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...

I'm working my way through AssBro (again) on the 360 right now. Eventually I'll be looking to fire up MP.

Some of the other guys might still need to finish MP too. Maybe we can make a night of it.

beeporama wrote:
Chaz wrote:

It's already on its way. Once it's here, I might re-up for a month of XBL just to try out the MP. I should've gotten it on the PS3 to try the multi for free, but man, do I dislike the PS3 controller.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...

Tempting. Dunno if I can justify getting another controller though...

And here I was a bit worried about thread resurrection.

So my week and, yes, my Saturday, have been dedicated to this game. Normally I don't care much for side quests in a game, but the way I've been playing Brotherhood you'd think the main story missions are the side quests. I'm in sequence 7 and I've completely rebuilt Rome and have one more Glyph (at the Vatican) and Lair of Romulus to find (and any Courtesan, Thief and Agent missions that crop up).

I've come to view Assassin's Creed as a collection of "hardcore" mini-games that are loosely tied together with a setting and story. And in that sense, Brotherhood really is nothing more than an excuse to jump in and play more, because the story really isn't there. The characters have been developing somewhat, but the only thing that's really grabbed me so far is, surprisingly enough, outside of the Animus.

Spoiler:

Not really story important, but I discovered you can go outside. Lucy will direct you to a watch and earpiece and you'll have ten minutes to explore in the modern time. I didn't check to see what happened if time ran out, but if you play around until 1 minute is up and then go back, Desmond and Lucy have a small moment of discussion. It's nothing big, but it was just surprising that they included that sort of thing in there for no other reason than to be there. There was no item to grab or other sort of reward. Just go out, climb rooftops, parkour, and come back and get a bit of a character moment.

Thus far, though, the only thing I've really gotten out of this game is the enjoyment of having the Brotherhood there. It's actually pretty fun sending them off on missions for some odd reason, and then when you're surrounded by guards summoning some folks to help you out. In fact, they were valuable in a mission where I had to keep two Mercenaries above 50% health to get full sync. First time one of the guys died. So the second time I summoned some Assassins and man, guards were dropping everywhere (not the arrow ability, either. They physically jumped in and helped out. It was awesome).

I appreciate having maps for feathers and flags this time.

ccesarano wrote:

I've come to view Assassin's Creed as a collection of "hardcore" mini-games that are loosely tied together with a setting and story. And in that sense, Brotherhood really is nothing more than an excuse to jump in and play more, because the story really isn't there. The characters have been developing somewhat, but the only thing that's really grabbed me so far is, surprisingly enough, outside of the Animus.

That's one thing I really noticed as a big difference between AC2 and pretty much all the others. Ubisoft really are getting to be masters of reuse and stringing out playtime from what's there, and I guess they need to be with the cost of making them. I've nothing really against it, but I don't like the feeling I get while playing those games that they're drawn out with filler content. It makes me second guess the games and makes me feel that I should just hold back on a whole series and then pick the best one game out of them and youtube the rest of the story.

nm

When I saw the top of this page I noted that people felt like an idiot for missing how to assign multiple assassins to a single mission. I chuckled, and actually thought back to how I didn't have a manual for FFTactics and thought the first fight was impossible because I didn't know I could add in other characters to the battle.

Here's a word to anyone else late to the party.

At the end of the Subject 16 Glyph Puzzles where there is a circle and a beep? Yeah, move that circle around. Don't be like me, thinking you must be at the end of some weird thing you can't activate until all the puzzles have been solved and thus exit out.

f*ck those puzzles, man. f*ck 'em.

So, I started playing Assassin's Creed Revolutions recently after finally figuring out how to get Nvidia Surround working on my 3 monitors. It's seriously a pain in the ass due to driver issues and whatnot. Anyways, I've always been frustrated that I hadn't got the 75% Sync to do the last Christina mission. So, I just did a bunch of Courtesan missions and finally got my 75% sync and finished the Christina chapter. I finally feel like I'm done with the game. I don't know why they made that part of Ezio's story that difficult to get to. It seems to be an important part of the character. I'm now fully ready to play Revolutions. Before, I was always nagged by not fully completing Brotherhood.

Yay!

Man, my love/hate relationship with PC gaming continues. I finally booted up Brotherhood on the PC, and after swearing vociferously at uPlay for several minutes, I got into the game and found myself horribly distracted by an awful gray fog that filled the screen in shadowy areas:

IMAGE(http://cloud-2.steampowered.com/ugc/558714681148423767/8B3A523B7A5EF08EA04DD94498146E3AE1D7C947/)

I looked online and apparently this was a "feature" on all platforms. Depending on one's display and platform, it could be very noticable. After some tweaking with uMod and GIMP, I was able to fix it!

IMAGE(http://cloud.steampowered.com/ugc/558714681148431584/E62FBA2AF5535E5351DBF61F40F9351C763ECAB0/)

Yeah, that gray fog was in all versions. Particularly noticeable in dark areas. I don't know who thought that was a good idea. I wish they had patched that out.

Could you explain how you did that as if you were talking to a five year old?

Also the haze effect they put up looking into sunlight, which is just a yellowy gradient at the top of the screen if I remember.

BadKen wrote:

Yeah, that gray fog was in all versions. Particularly noticeable in dark areas. I don't know who thought that was a good idea. I wish they had patched that out.

Could you explain how you did that as if you were talking to a five year old?

There's a program called uMod that lets you individually modify textures, found here:
http://code.google.com/p/texmod/wiki...

It's kind of hairy to use with AC:B because of the lovely uPlay launcher as well as the inability of the game to run in a window.

Basically what this program does is create a "hook" into the executable that reads out texture data. You boot up uMod, add the game executable to its list, then boot up the game. At this point uMod will start reading all the textures as they are being loaded in for that executable.

The best option is to check off "Save single Texture" and define key commands to cycle next, back and to save the texture. You need to alt-tab back and forth since the game is full screen only.

Once you are using key commands to select textures in-game, though, whatever texture you have selected will turn bright green.

In this case I looked for the texture that 1. filled the whole screen and 2. turned lighter as I looked up. You can then save the texture to the path you defined in uMod.
At that point you can edit it, though you need GIMP and the .dds plugin for GIMP or some other program that can edit .dds files.
I changed it to a flat gray square by setting the foreground color to R/G/B 128/128/128,selecting all on the image then using the menu optiion Fill with FG color.
You then save the texture as .dds with the exact same name.

The annoying thing is that when I want to play I need to open uMod, start the game, then alt-tab to uMod and load in the texture I created... but it's so much nicer without that effect it is worth it. There is also a slight performance hit since everything has to pass through uMod, but on my PC with it's not noticable.