Assassin's Creed 3 Catch-All

LobsterMobster wrote:
Tannhauser wrote:

His part of the story remains as meaningless as ever, and manage to write an easy, shallow ending while leaving stupid sequel-bait.

I'm just waiting for one of these games to end with big block letters reading, "THE END," with a question mark slowly fading in on the end.

I was listening to the 'reasonable discussions' podcast and they were saying they wished American TV shows would follow the UK model where you tell a story, end it in a reasonable time frame and then tell a different story. Endlessly spinning a story out is supposed to keep us all enthralled so we just have to buy the next game in order to find out what will happen but doing that kills any interest anyway and in the process makes the world you created look ridiculous.

Higgledy wrote:
LobsterMobster wrote:
Tannhauser wrote:

His part of the story remains as meaningless as ever, and manage to write an easy, shallow ending while leaving stupid sequel-bait.

I'm just waiting for one of these games to end with big block letters reading, "THE END," with a question mark slowly fading in on the end.

I was listening to the 'reasonable discussions' podcast and they were saying they wished American TV shows would follow the UK model where you tell a story, end it in a reasonable time frame and then tell a different story. Endlessly spinning a story out is supposed to keep us all enthralled so we just have to buy the next game in order to find out what will happen but doing that kills any interest anyway and in the process makes the world you created look ridiculous.

...where does Dr. Who fit into that? I want to watch it... but there's like... how many years of history in it now? I've been told it doesn't matter, I can just get into it... but... meh. I want to start from the beginning but I don't know that that would ever be possible at this point now.

Demosthenes wrote:
Higgledy wrote:
LobsterMobster wrote:
Tannhauser wrote:

His part of the story remains as meaningless as ever, and manage to write an easy, shallow ending while leaving stupid sequel-bait.

I'm just waiting for one of these games to end with big block letters reading, "THE END," with a question mark slowly fading in on the end.

I was listening to the 'reasonable discussions' podcast and they were saying they wished American TV shows would follow the UK model where you tell a story, end it in a reasonable time frame and then tell a different story. Endlessly spinning a story out is supposed to keep us all enthralled so we just have to buy the next game in order to find out what will happen but doing that kills any interest anyway and in the process makes the world you created look ridiculous.

...where does Dr. Who fit into that? I want to watch it... but there's like... how many years of history in it now? I've been told it doesn't matter, I can just get into it... but... meh. I want to start from the beginning but I don't know that that would ever be possible at this point now. :(

Dr Who is it's own thing. The clever thing with Dr Who is that it has constant fresh starts but they are built into the narrative. It's a bit like long running comic series. You can start anywhere and part of the fun is working out the relationships and meeting the villains for the first time. My impression is that the early Dr Who's were ok for their time but are pretty hard to watch now (sometimes the two thirds of the Iceberg below the water is better kept below the water.) I'd start with the reboot, Christopher Eccleston, and go from there but, again like Comic series, you can experience chunks from the history in any order without anything being ruined. I'm not into it.... but it scared the crap out of me as a child.

I'm currently in Sequence 7 and my initial hype has died a little bit. I'm still enjoying the game, but it feels kinda disjointed. It feels like they've stuffed a lot of things into it, but a lot of those stuffed in things aren't exactly fun. Like herding pigs into a pen, throwing a ball to get closer to other balls or pushing both sticks at once to try and get the two dudes who are fighting away from each other. Even main story missions are a bit... like.. stupid... for example:

Spoiler:

Sequence 7 has you riding on the horse with Paul Revere going from house to house doing the ol "The British are coming!" thing. Yeah ok.... sure, that's not really fun. I'm holding my controller in a direction and every now and again I press the left button to get the guy on the back to say "Yes this is the way!" over and over again. Then, you've gotta do that 3 or 4 times. Really? Like really really? I'm an assassin and you want me to ride a horse to 3 or 4 different areas and knock on doors?

Then after that you think, ok it will get better. Nope, I'm now telling troops when to fire. Which essentially boils down to pushing my stick back and forth between the blue circles and pressing A. Yeah, that's soooooooo much fun. I'm an assassin! Let me kill things. I'm really good at it. I've done it pretty damn well in the past 4 games.

To make matters worse, I bought the map which shows all the feathers and yeah... they're just everywhere. I kinda look at it and think what's the point? Do I get any benefit for doing this? If it's just an achievement, yeah, I'm good. I'll pass on that. Which brings me to the next point. In previous games, when you completed the thieves quests or fighters quests, you would get a weapon or something that was worth it. Now, nothing. Nothing at all. No reward. Just the good feeling that you did some arbitrary challenge that was set to you by a developer who wants to extend the gameplay for some reason.

I don't know. I'm still enjoying parts of the game, but at the moment, it doesn't feel like it's living up to expectations. Could have been so much more.

I think I read somewhere you get an outfit for collecting all the feathers. No idea what it might be, though.

I'm in Sequence 9 now, and I've spent a whole lot of time making my own game out of AC3. I find myself not enjoying the built in quests so much, but the free running things like taking over forts, liberating city areas and clearing guards away from chests are a lot of fun. They're fun because I get to choose my own approach.

One of my least favorite quest types is following someone throughout the city without getting detected. I wanted to cut someone when I came across a quest in this game where not only are you following a skittish NPC, but you are also escorting another NPC at the same time. Your companion can reveal you to the guy you're following, but you have little or no control over your companion (the "hold" and "follow" buttons didn't seem to be working). That was the opposite of fun, and it was required to advance one of my craftsmen.

I think this game was made by Templars. The designers don't want you to have freedom -- they want to control how you progress in the game!

BlackSabre wrote:

I'm currently in Sequence 7 and my initial hype has died a little bit. I'm still enjoying the game, but it feels kinda disjointed. It feels like they've stuffed a lot of things into it, but a lot of those stuffed in things aren't exactly fun. Like herding pigs into a pen, throwing a ball to get closer to other balls or pushing both sticks at once to try and get the two dudes who are fighting away from each other. Even main story missions are a bit... like.. stupid... for example:

Spoiler:

Sequence 7 has you riding on the horse with Paul Revere going from house to house doing the ol "The British are coming!" thing. Yeah ok.... sure, that's not really fun. I'm holding my controller in a direction and every now and again I press the left button to get the guy on the back to say "Yes this is the way!" over and over again. Then, you've gotta do that 3 or 4 times. Really? Like really really? I'm an assassin and you want me to ride a horse to 3 or 4 different areas and knock on doors?

Then after that you think, ok it will get better. Nope, I'm now telling troops when to fire. Which essentially boils down to pushing my stick back and forth between the blue circles and pressing A. Yeah, that's soooooooo much fun. I'm an assassin! Let me kill things. I'm really good at it. I've done it pretty damn well in the past 4 games.

To make matters worse, I bought the map which shows all the feathers and yeah... they're just everywhere. I kinda look at it and think what's the point? Do I get any benefit for doing this? If it's just an achievement, yeah, I'm good. I'll pass on that. Which brings me to the next point. In previous games, when you completed the thieves quests or fighters quests, you would get a weapon or something that was worth it. Now, nothing. Nothing at all. No reward. Just the good feeling that you did some arbitrary challenge that was set to you by a developer who wants to extend the gameplay for some reason.

I don't know. I'm still enjoying parts of the game, but at the moment, it doesn't feel like it's living up to expectations. Could have been so much more.

Now go back and read my posts and your reaction to them:) I put about 40 hours into the game to get the 1k, and it was easily my least favorite. They just tried to put too much in there.

Yup. I think it may have something to do with the fact that I just wasn't far enough along yet for the polish to wear thin. The beginning felt ok, but somewhere around the middle it just starts to rub off a bit.

It's kinda depressing that the gulf between the games potential and the actual experience of playing it is so enormous. I guess that's life. It was never going to go on being a near perfect series. On the upside they put a bow and Crocodiles that ambush into my Far Cry 3 :).

For every game on a down swing there is a different one that's getting better.

End of Sequence 7 is kinda redeeming. Actually had fun tonight. Infiltrated on of the forts and then finished sequence 7. Still, failing some of those optional objectives really puts a dampener on things.

BlackSabre wrote:

End of Sequence 7 is kinda redeeming. Actually had fun tonight. Infiltrated on of the forts and then finished sequence 7. Still, failing some of those optional objectives really puts a dampener on things.

Ultimately I liked the story and plot - especially the Desomnd missions - but the "optional" objectives and bugs really killed it for me.

Wolfpack was pretty fun, if you get the chance.

I bought the treasure chest maps and the peg leg trinket map, and those paid off for me. Seems to me like the feather maps are just a huge expenditure for almost no reward (you unlock a costume but that's it).

Meanwhile the treasure chests get you a lot of money and recipes for new equipment, and the peg leg trinkets get you an awesome Captain Kidd costume. Not to mention some of the coolest and most engaging missions in the game.

The feather's reward = Mohawk Costume. At least in the case of the 100% syncs, you get Altair's outfit (making you similar to the then practially fabled leader of the assassin's). The feathers are just so irritating and there are so many that I haven't bothered to do that yet... except as a way to pass the time when I'm sick of the unground mazes while trying to raise money for my boat to get 100% on those missions to finish the game off.

But yeah, a lot of the side missions did come off as unnecessary after a while. Breaking up the fight between the loggers using both control sticks was especially bad. My TV isn't even that big (32 inch?) But I found the interface for that to be unusable and was constantly failing due to paying too much attention to one side or the other.

Demosthenes wrote:

But yeah, a lot of the side missions did come off as unnecessary after a while. Breaking up the fight between the loggers using both control sticks was especially bad. My TV isn't even that big (32 inch?) But I found the interface for that to be unusable and was constantly failing due to paying too much attention to one side or the other.

I think this side mission exemplifies precisely what I find wrong with AC3.

It was a great use of the controls, with absolutely ZERO attempt at knowledge transfer to the player on how to succeed.

I spent 10 minutes trying to get past this point, with most of that time assuming "well, if I hold them away from each other, maybe that's the point". Every time I tried to pry them apart, one would slip, and then the other, so I thought I was doing it all wrong.

I think the bigger question is why is it even there? Like moving sticks back and forward is not fun gameplay. I have to question the developers who actually thought the player would enjoy doing that.

I would have preferred the game to be similar to the last series and not try to be innovative if this is the limitation of their innovation. But then I look at the boat sequences and they're actually really good. The side missions for Captain Kidd are really good too. Granted I've only done 1 so far, but I enjoyed it. It felt like Assassin's Creed again. Then storming that fort and going on a massive kill fest whomping all those redcoats and killing the captain felt good too.

There are moments in this game which make it so much fun. But there are other times where I'm just shaking my head thinking, "who the hell approved this? Did they even try it?"

Loaded and playing on a PC and I'm having no end of issues. It's pretty unstable for me - crashes (hard) within 10 minutes.

Anybody else have this issue? Any ideas on solving?

I'm running nVidia (580 SLI). I was running the latest WHQL drivers and tried updating to the latest Beta with no difference. I've also turned vsync off - in the .ini, WTF?

It looks really promising, but I'm already tired of rebooting.

Help?

Moggy wrote:

Loaded and playing on a PC and I'm having no end of issues. It's pretty unstable for me - crashes (hard) within 10 minutes.

Anybody else have this issue? Any ideas on solving?

...

Help?

================

I am running it on Windows 8 64-bit Enterprise Edition & single Nvidia card with no problems at all. Stable, running for hours. No single crash.

You seem to have a driver issue - does not have to be gfx-card related.

Reinstall the usual (Dotnet-framework, DirectX, VC-runtime + un/re-install audio-drivers)?

On the subject of side-quests/missions [i]

AAA games and studios have an unsolvable problem? They have to appeal to everyone?

But "not every game can be everything to everyone all the time?" Sorry, I quote myself a lot.

Ubisoft, Rockstar Games, Nintendo, and others, found this - let's call it "Baroque Style of Game Development" path - which allows them to fill their games with different type of gameplay and or 'missions', way beyond a tight and coherent story-driven experience.

I do not understand people complaining how it was "no fun" hunting for 40 hours this or that 'achievement' or 'quest', etc; nobody FORCES you to do that?

Who says, you have to?

Douglas R. Hofstadter wrote in his Gödel, Escher, Bach book, what the main difference is between a robot or program and a human being: the human being has always a chance to quit the loop.

I think, if you invest your "lifetime" (another subtle quote, see Philosopher Hans Blumenberg on "Lebenszeit vs Weltzeit" - life time vs world time) to indulge yourself into playing a video game, especially as an adult, you have to be aware of the flaws and imperfection you may most certainly stumble upon. As life long gamers, some of us learned this lesson early on in life?

It is understandable to complain about certain flaws and ones frustration with certain game design specific decisions, but it is also understandable, how hunderts of employees in half a dozen studios around the world, working on this single game, had to live with compromises, had to achieve certain goals, failed to achieve certain goals?

You cannot accuse them easily of 'making' bad decisions. Deliberately 'forcing' you to play something 'bad'(ly designed). Instead, see the quests, side-missions, feather-hunting etc as a proposal, an offer, a bargain you may or may not want to invest time in?

I do not play the game to unlock a costume at the end of a tedious hunt for points on a map. I enjoy running around, hunting, walking, running, jumping through a 3D environment ... for a certain amount of time - and then I quit the game, to do something else. There are benefits to the "executive style" of playing video games? Small chunks of fun, at times, of complete immersion - like, when reading a good book - and you're out of it, like you jump out of the Matrix (not just the "Animus").

Maybe people might have more fun, playing it less ambitious? Less driven, by closure and (narrative) endings? Video games are more about mechanics anyway?

Ubisoft survey. Looks like they are feeling their way for the next AC game. I really hope they don't go down the 'cinematic experience' route.

Higgledy wrote:

Ubisoft survey. Looks like they are feeling their way for the next AC game. I really hope they don't go down the 'cinematic experience' route.

QFMFT

I've already got my fill of "well, lets just do a quick time event" sequences in AC3 as it is.

Let me try to sword fight the damn wolf, not press B, then X, then B, then Y.

I rolled the credits yesterday and finished the Epilogue quests... then promptly started a 2nd playthrough.

This game has its issues, but I can't stop playing because the fundamental gameplay is just so fun. I finished the main quest and wanted more. Not more main quest, but more sneaking, assassinating, trapping, hunting, trading and fort-busting. So now I know the places in the main quest where I can stop and do that, and I'll have even more more fun with it!

It does seem that game after Assassin's Creed game, the series turns more into a guided, scripted experience, and more and more leaves the sneaking and stabbing as extras. I hope that trend doesn't continue, though I am not optimistic. If they do continue getting more cinematic, I just hope they leave the stuff that's fun for me in there, even if it's only side missions.

If they want to make a movie so badly, they should make a damn movie.

Anyway, I'm still playing, and debating whether I should try multiplayer. I'm really not interested in deathmatch, but wolf pack mode sounds promising.

Which sequence is that, by the way, where you should stop if you want to keep trading/hunting/exploring? I'm at 7 or 8 right now.

You keep getting upgrades right up to Sequence 11. At that point in my first playthrough I just wanted to see the main quest through. I don't recall if anything in Sequence 12 is skippable, but my best advice if you want to finish all the side missions before the end is

Spoiler:

do them in Sequence 11 after Desmond goes to Abstergo, when you get back in the Animus. Either before or after you start the naval mission Battle of the Chesapeake should work.

The way I plan on doing it is to do as much as I can as early as I can. Whenever homestead missions are available to me, I'll do them. As soon as I can attack the forts, I'll take them. That gives you the best options for trading and for training your assassins, and for using your assassins as you pick up them and their abilities throughout the game.

Alex. wrote:
Moggy wrote:

Loaded and playing on a PC and I'm having no end of issues. It's pretty unstable for me - crashes (hard) within 10 minutes.

Anybody else have this issue? Any ideas on solving?

...

Help?

================

I am running it on Windows 8 64-bit Enterprise Edition & single Nvidia card with no problems at all. Stable, running for hours. No single crash.

You seem to have a driver issue - does not have to be gfx-card related.

Reinstall the usual (Dotnet-framework, DirectX, VC-runtime + un/re-install audio-drivers)?

It looks like a graphic card/driver issue. So I'm rolling back to 306.97 (the latest production version). We'll see...

Moggy wrote:

It looks like a graphic card/driver issue. So I'm rolling back to 306.97 (the latest production version). We'll see...

It's definitely a graphics card issue - I'm getting a "video hardware error" with a 117 stop code. Basically, the video card is going into la-la land for more than 2 seconds.

No driver version did the job.

I did read on nVidia's site here

With regards to the issues you've experienced in games such as Battlefield 3 and Assassin's Creed III, we are actively working to fix them and hope to get most resolved for our upcoming WHQL driver.

I guess the problem is known and I'm waiting for the solution. I hope Far Cry 3 doesn't have similar issues...

Anyone interested in joining me for some Wolf Pack? I'm really interested in playing it, but don't have anyone to play with. I'm on xbox, gamer tag Jefferson Q.

I finished it tonight. I have to say I enjoyed it, while nodding along to almost every single complaint I've read in this thread. Like BadKen says, I find the underlying gameplay fun enough for some reason that a lot of the stuff that should make me grit my teeth didn't bother me. Then again, I'm the guy who played through ACRev without getting at all tired of this, so I'm probably not the best bellweather.

Random thoughts:

I didn't find Connor bland so much as I found him kind of stupid. Not like badly conceived stupid, as in he didn't seem very smart. Ezio was also pretty bland in AC2, but I feel like they had a little more to work with when they made the later games. They were able to turn him into this World's Most Interesting Man type as he aged. I don't see them being able to pull that off with Connor.

The missions felt super simple. I don't think Assassin's Creed has ever been that hard, but there were still fights where you could get desynced if you did something wrong. The only time I got into any trouble in AC3 was when I didn't know what I was supposed to be doing. In retrospect, I made a lot of the missions harder than their design by taking the stealthiest approach that I possibly could. But there was nothing preventing me from wandering into a group of 50 soldiers and slaughtering them all, so getting detected was more of a problem for the poor bastards in red coats than for me.

I really hope they look for a new setting with the sequel. I don't see them being able to draw out this early US history stuff. Connor's still got about 30 years until the war of 1812, and everything in between that is kind of unglamorous. There's an interesting conversation between Lafayette and Connor in Valley Forge where Lafayette says he wants Connor to come back to France with him and see Paris. Hell yes. Assassin's Creed -The French Revolution would be far more interesting than whatever else we're looking at here. The Whiskey Rebellion, or the slow death of the Great Lakes Tribes with western expansion. There's nothing preventing them from doing the Napoleonic Wars or the Thirty Years War, or a whole bunch of other scenarios. I only hope that they're not married to the US from here on out just because gamers are idiots. If we ever get to Assassin's Creed: Normandy, I'm probably out.

I'm pretty sure there was originally a Deus Ex:HR style decision at the end. I'm pretty glad they took that out of your hands. Wouldn't have added anything at all.

I'll be the one to say that I was relatively meh about the naval combat. It was fine but, I don't think you could have gotten a full game out of it.

Spoiler:

The George Washington killed my family bit was a little bit insane. He went apesh*t for like twenty years when he thought his dad had his village burned, even if it was burned against his orders. But when he finally meets the guy who did order the deaths of all his friends and family he's all, "Whatevs, I still hate you dad. Gawd!"

Put a few more hours into it and yeah, the gameplay is fun when they let you out of the shackles. I'm not really enjoying the Connor story that much, but the Desmond missions are actually pretty cool. I'm glad I just went with the standard edition, but with the amount of fun I'm having with Far Cry 3, to be honest, I could have easily waited for this to come on sale. Lesson learned.

Still fun and I'll definitely finish it, it just doesn't have it's hooks into me like the others did.

I'm in the same camp as Badken: I see the issues that have been talked about so far (but nothing on the level talked about by Justin and Sean on the CC), but overall I'm really having a lot of fun. I don't think the game is bad, I just think it's lacking the same level of polish as previous entries. Surprising considering all the accolades that Far Cry 3 is getting, especially in light of some of the similar sounding mechanics in both (radio towers = Borgia Towers/Forts, hunting for skins for equipment upgrades).

The forts and hunting in AC3 are really good. The only thing that is annoying to me in AC3 is the boring/simplistic nature of the story and missions. When they let you do things your way, the game is a lot of fun and really enjoyable.

Also, hunting in Far Cry 3 beats AC3. Crafting gear is also better in FC3. It's a lot more obvious and intuitive.

They really got the Last of the Mohicans/The Patriot "fight a dozen British soldiers with your tomahawk" thing down pat. The fighting is just fun to sit back and watch. Too bad the crafting and trading are largely pointless.

And on the PC the menus are atrocious. I only just found the Assassin Mission assignment map in Sequence 9. "Hold T and click the left mouse button." Ok? Nothing happens. I guess it's not important. Oh, you actually mean "click the little icon on the left hand side of the screen that doesn't light up or anything."

I'm sure this has all been discussed already, sorry. I'm just now half way through the game.