Assassin's Creed Odyssey RPG-all

Didn't like the way the horse speed was limited in areas around cities... a few times I was taken down by wolves because I couldn't outrun them even though I was outside the city.

Quintin_Stone wrote:

Didn't like the way the horse speed was limited in areas around cities... a few times I was taken down by wolves because I couldn't outrun them even though I was outside the city.

So this. It's actually faster on foot near the cities..or the same...or argh. Horse, you are useless near the city.

EverythingsTentative wrote:

Well I don't like this DLC.

Spoiler:

My Kassandra was not attracted to men and now she got a damn baby. I even made the choice not to pursue a relationship with him. Thanks for taking away my agency game.

I actually hit that same point the same day.

Spoilers for the DLC:

Spoiler:

I too am disappointed. My Kassandra was the same, oddly enough, but, after all the googly eyes Natakas (man they telegraphed that), I let them get together. The following story of them settling down was nice but left me with a couple of thoughts.

1) What happens if you let him go, which I presume you did? I so, so disappointed in the answer (thanks YouTube!). It wasn't because of her sexuality, which I didn't make any declarations about during my game (I can certainly understand folks getting upset about that, though). It was because there was no choice at all. If you are going to force feed the action, I just don't understand why present the choice at all. It's meaningless and disappointing. Yes, I didn't "see" it, much like a Telltale game, oddly enough. But I suspect a lot of folks did. It was all I thought about during the cute settle down montage.

2) The ending couldn't really go much different because the way this game is structured. I guess mommy could go to work stabbing folks (or heading to Hell) but she was never going to be a good parent while I spent my time finishing the DLC. I'd like to reunited with my kid when it's all over, though. Pretty please.

fuzzyslug wrote:
EverythingsTentative wrote:

Well I don't like this DLC.

Spoiler:

My Kassandra was not attracted to men and now she got a damn baby. I even made the choice not to pursue a relationship with him. Thanks for taking away my agency game.

I actually hit that same point the same day.

Spoilers for the DLC:

Spoiler:

I too am disappointed. My Kassandra was the same, oddly enough, but, after all the googly eyes Natakas (man they telegraphed that), I let them get together. The following story of them settling down was nice but left me with a couple of thoughts.

1) What happens if you let him go, which I presume you did? I so, so disappointed in the answer (thanks YouTube!). It wasn't because of her sexuality, which I didn't make any declarations about during my game (I can certainly understand folks getting upset about that, though). It was because there was no choice at all. If you are going to force feed the action, I just don't understand why present the choice at all. It's meaningless and disappointing. Yes, I didn't "see" it, much like a Telltale game, oddly enough. But I suspect a lot of folks did. It was all I thought about during the cute settle down montage.

2) The ending couldn't really go much different because the way this game is structured. I guess mommy could go to work stabbing folks (or heading to Hell) but she was never going to be a good parent while I spent my time finishing the DLC. I'd like to reunited with my kid when it's all over, though. Pretty please.

Spoiler:

I was doing all I could to avoid the inevitable and yes they telegraphed what was happening ,but I thought if I made all the "right" decisions then I could avoid the inevitable. I should have known, because at that point I already noticed that I wasn't actually making any decisions. No matter what I said or did I would get the same outcome. There was one mission I came across early on that I thought, "My misthios would not do that even for money", so I turned down the mission. I was expecting to get a mission failed or something. Nope. The conversation just ends but the quest marker doesn't go away and if I talked to the character again they would just ask me to do the mission again.

Another one of the things that pissed about the ending was all thorough the DLC you are told how terrible of a dad this guy has been, but it ends with you shipping your baby off with him. Facepalm. They really didn't want me to care about this kid did they?

MALAKA

I think I accidentally found the easy mode build for combat. I've been putting all my upgrades into Assassination and have focused on that for my gear, as well. By coincidence, my best Assassin gear ended up being a pair of daggers in the weapon slot and a pair of arm guards that restore a percentage of adrenaline per hit. The fast attack from the daggers combos really well with the adrenaline restoration to give me a lot of adrenaline and thus a lot of Hero Strikes. So many Hero Strikes. It's such a ridiculously overpowered ability. I love it.

Adrenaline per kill is also available, eventually. That's good one.

ClockworkHouse wrote:

I think I accidentally found the easy mode build for combat. I've been putting all my upgrades into Assassination and have focused on that for my gear, as well. By coincidence, my best Assassin gear ended up being a pair of daggers in the weapon slot and a pair of arm guards that restore a percentage of adrenaline per hit. The fast attack from the daggers combos really well with the adrenaline restoration to give me a lot of adrenaline and thus a lot of Hero Strikes. So many Hero Strikes. It's such a ridiculously overpowered ability. I love it.

This sounds like what I ended up building as well, can confirm, badass as hell and would definitely assassin again 10/10

bUt AsSaSiNaTe IsNt OhK?!?!

(Seriously wish I had a nickel for every time I read that complaint on forums or reddit... and every time it was used as a reason why Odyssey isn't a real AC. Gamers suck. Bloggers are guilty too.)

I don't really have a dog in the "not a real Assassin's Creed game" fight, because I haven't put any real time into any of the others and don't actually care.

I don't actually mind that assassinations aren't one-hit-kill on advanced enemies like captains and polemarchs. It adds some variety to taking down an encampment and forces me to plan around where and when I'll confront an enemy that I can't immediately kill. The same thing goes for mercenaries.

What bugs me is the opposite: not that assassinations aren't lethal enough but that everything else isn't. Kassandra is this lethal badass when you do assassinations, but as soon as enemies spot you it's like they get their Star Trek deflector shields up and it takes forever to actually kill them. Even enemies that are two or three levels below you take a lot more hits than you'd expect. And on the other side of that: enemies a couple levels above you are literally impossible to hit and will wipe the floor with you.

The game is definitely tuned to push you toward stealth assassination as the fastest and most efficient way to kill enemies, but I think it might be tuned a bit too much in that direction.

ClockworkHouse wrote:

What bugs me is the opposite: not that assassinations aren't lethal enough but that everything else isn't. Kassandra is this lethal badass when you do assassinations, but as soon as enemies spot you it's like they get their Star Trek deflector shields up and it takes forever to actually kill them. Even enemies that are two or three levels below you take a lot more hits than you'd expect. And on the other side of that: enemies a couple levels above you are literally impossible to hit and will wipe the floor with you.

Yes, this! Holy lord the freaking fight that would take a blade to the face once now takes 2 to 8 blades to face with several deflects which were not hard but with the size of the game it was just tedium. I'd often save scum if it got into such a fight I could just reload quickly and get back to stealthy work.

Did anyone here go full Warrior spec? I'd be curious to know how the brawls feel, and how quickly you can slice through enemies, in comparison to Assassin. Because I did the same as clock, put everything into Assassin damage, and regular fights were basically "wait until Hero Strike is available again."

ClockworkHouse wrote:

What bugs me is the opposite: not that assassinations aren't lethal enough but that everything else isn't. Kassandra is this lethal badass when you do assassinations, but as soon as enemies spot you it's like they get their Star Trek deflector shields up and it takes forever to actually kill them. Even enemies that are two or three levels below you take a lot more hits than you'd expect. And on the other side of that: enemies a couple levels above you are literally impossible to hit and will wipe the floor with you.

It could be that you haven't delved deep enough in the Warrior tree to see it's power. Once you're above level 30ish I think, and have enough spear power to unlock all the abilities, try a respec into full warrior. It's pretty powerful, but it also means you can't assassinate worth a damn.

Same is true of specializing as an assassin. It tends to reduce your melee combat effectiveness because you need those assassin damage and gear bonuses rather than defensive and melee bonuses.

Have a look at your detailed stat bonuses from the inventory screen (click left stick, I believe) and you'll see why this is.

EDIT: I was going to show an example, but I could only find archived saves up to level 20 and then beyond level 50. D'oh.

beanman101283 wrote:

Did anyone here go full Warrior spec? I'd be curious to know how the brawls feel, and how quickly you can slice through enemies, in comparison to Assassin. Because I did the same as clock, put everything into Assassin damage, and regular fights were basically "wait until Hero Strike is available again."

By the end of the DLC I had more than enough skill points to max out all three trees, so kinda? Hero Strike is by far the strongest melee ability in the game. Overpower Attack does decent damage, but honestly the best thing about it is that it has a long animation which buys you some time while you wait for Hero Strike to come off cooldown. The rest of the Warrior abilities are pretty interchangeable, they're just another way to spend adrenaline while you wait for Hero Strike. A few have some good situational uses, like Sparta Kick for nonlethal takedowns, but none are as game-changing as Hero Strike.
Fury of the Bloodline is a great DLC ability but its damage is pretty much negligible, it's good because it recharges adrenaline and has a really long animation.

In terms of melee builds you can win any fight in the game with just Hero Strike and Overpower Attack. If you can find the weapon engraving that reduces the adrenaline cost for Overpower Attack then fights get even easier. Add in Fury of the Bloodline and you can basically just cycle those three abilities and every fight becomes completely trivial.

BadKen wrote:

It could be that you haven't delved deep enough in the Warrior tree to see it's power.

Oh, I understand why it's happening mechanically. It's also exacerbated by using the daggers instead of a beefier melee weapon.

And that actually gets to something that I think this game does really, really well! The effects of your gear on your stats is really clearly communicated and really easy to understand. Loot-heavy games (even other ones by Ubisoft) have a tendency to lean heavily on confusing microadjustments to a dizzying array of stats. Which is better? +7.2% lightning damage or +200 magic (which affects lightning, fire, and ice skills)? I hate that kind of thing.

All the loot I've gotten in this game so far has had percentage-based boosts, and the first enhancement on a piece of gear has always been to one of the three main stats. Additional enhancements are to things I know and recognize (so, a boost to Crit rates instead of a boost to some Lethality stat that influences critical hit rates). It makes sorting through the fountains of gear a lot faster and easier.

But there's still a significant mismatch cognitively and narratively between just how lethal Kassandra is before and after she's been seen by an enemy. Before? She will toss a man in the air and literally pull a spear point through his skull before he falls to the ground. After? She will stab him forty-seven times with a knife to deal half damage. All stealth games suffer from this a little bit, and I understand the mechanics behind it, but I think the swing between the two is too wide for actions that seem like they'd be similar.

I guess. The way I played it, I just always attacked from stealth. Abilities can get you hidden again after you're detected.

It makes scouting forts and knowing escape routes and potential hiding spots much more important, and I like that aspect of it.

There are times, though, when you just have to do a warrior fight, and the only answer for that is to respec, or get really good at parrying and dodging until your "use assassin damage in melee" ability cooldown is up. Not super fun.

Or you can just go all hunter and kill everything with arrows through walls. Even if you can't get a one hit kill, if they can't see you they attempt to hide behind walls...that you can shoot through.

I made all hunter, warrior, and assassin builds. Hunter was the easiest, assassin was the most fun, and warrior didn't feel as powerful as I thought it should. Warrior could get high single hit DPS, but it would still struggle with crowd control

I’m hoping to come back to this but just a question. I’m assuming the play style with assassin is stealth kill everyone and when you get caught, run away until you can regain stealth and come back.

I got stuck in the big fight at the end of the first area after the tutorial (too long ago now, can’t remember names) because I kept dying and stealth is not feasible there.

Is there a different strategy? Just git gud?

Docjoe wrote:

I’m hoping to come back to this but just a question. I’m assuming the play style with assassin is stealth kill everyone and when you get caught, run away until you can regain stealth and come back.

I got stuck in the big fight at the end of the first area after the tutorial (too long ago now, can’t remember names) because I kept dying and stealth is not feasible there.

Is there a different strategy? Just git gud?

I'm assuming you're referring to the first conquest battle in Megaris. Speaking for myself (also assassin build, not too far into the game but well past the beginning), by that point you should have Hero Strike, which lets you focus your assassin buffs into something resembling competence in open battle. Against Athenians in particular, Shield-breaker (I think it's called) is quite useful even though it's a Melee ability, because as an assassin you're probably not so practiced at power attacking through shields, so it's easier to just get rid of them. Vanish might help if you're getting overwhelmed (just to stun everyone around you), but that's mainly for recovering stealth where stealth is feasible, so not so good in open warfare. Second Wind keeps you alive if you're not great at parrying/dodging. I don't keep Second Wind 'equipped' by default, but I usually switch it in instead of Rush Assassination for big unstealthy fights.

In general, even as an assassin you need to be able to handle yourself in an open fight, if only for things like conquest battles where you can't run—or to quickly end fights when you screw up so you don't have to completely abandon the vicinity to get back into 'stealth mode'. Aside from upgrading your weapons and armour, you can always engrave melee damage buffs onto most of your equipment (re-engraving is cheap), and in extremis it's also pretty cheap to temporarily respec and switch to more melee-oriented equipment.

Later on in the game it's a bit easier, because you get more points than you need to just be an assassin, so you can pick up things like overpower attacks to boost your combat effectiveness between Hero Strikes.

Also later on you get a second set of abilities you can temporarily activate by holding a button during combat, so you won't run out of ability slots.

I reinstalled this over the weekend and played it for the first time in a couple of years. I'd left off at around Level 27, about 35 hours in, when I was starting to feel a little overwhelmed. I'd tried to return to this once or twice over the intervening time, but never got past the sticking point of not remembering the the controls. This time I gave it more of a chance, and before too long remembered where my attacks and dodges and parries and specials were. My review of the game remains the same. It's good, but it's too much! I had left off right before meeting Myrrine, so I ended up completing that quest line, which included a pretty good variety of mission types--taking out a fortress, killing some random baddies, engaging in some ship combat. After another 5 hours or so in the game, though, I wound up in the same spot I'd been previously: the next steps on the main quest were just a little ahead of my level, so I would need to do some more side quests to catch up, but I stumbled into one or two frustrating side quests or fortress areas where I had to retry a couple of times, and suddenly I just felt like I was spending a lot of time doing the things I don't like in this game to enable me to do the things I do like. I still could have pushed through that, but between Watch Dogs Legion and Assassins Creed Valhalla, I'm going to have more than my fill of Ubisoft open world games in my near future, so I'm deleting this one. Maybe I will return one day!

Oh also, maybe I'm just noticing this more this time because the benefits of the Series X are on my mind, but this is a slow loading game, including making it frustrating just to switch to the map tabs or your inventory. Can't wait for next gen.

mrlogical wrote:

Oh also, maybe I'm just noticing this more this time because the benefits of the Series X are on my mind, but this is a slow loading game, including making it frustrating just to switch to the map tabs or your inventory. Can't wait for next gen.

Yes. I played it on PC and thought it was fine, but bought it again for Ps4 for my son and the load times were awful.

I started playing again back in September, hoping to knock off the last half of the game as well as the dlc before Valhalla. I’m level seventy-something now and into the Atlantis content so fingers crossed.
I haven’t noticed the load times to be that bad, but I’m also playing on a One X with the game on an external SSD.

Finally reached "the end." I guess that will stay in quotes. There's about 10-20 question marks still on the map and I might peruse the scenery a bit but, wow, that's a lot of game. 130 hours and all the DLC is now behind me. Me and my level 81 Kassandra are likely done with this one.

It might be too much of a game but I really enjoyed it. It's hard to pick between this one and Origins for my favorite Assassin's Creed but, with 100 hours+ with that one, I dig this direction of the franchise. The fighting system is better, the open world is better, and the quests are much better.

I might take a break for a bit before diving into Valhalla. I'm looking forward to it but I have other games I need to peek at, like Ghosts of Tsushima.

Finally installed this after getting it on Epic sale recently. Just a couple hours in but I like it so far. Only a couple main quests and one side cave into things but it's fun.

I struggled with the cave because 2 of the enemies I couldn't assassinate and I kept getting caught. Also couldn't track all the enemies since I was still at level 1. I couldn't take that tracking skill or the 20% boost to assassinate skull.

But I remembered one of the quick tips saying to use your bird to scout. So I loaded my save from outside and sure enough, bird can find the guys inside the cave for tracking. Finished it no problem once I could see where everyone was. Even took out one of the stronger enemies while everyone else was down the hall, moved the body, and assassinated the next guy when he came back to patrol. Felt like I was doing the name of the game.

Hopefully I'll get to keep chipping away at this one. Sounds like it could be a lot of hours from some of the later posts.

i had 130 hours in it by the time i finished the Atlantis DLC and there was STILL a ton of side quests and areas i hadn't even visited! So yeah...probably keep you going a while.

As per above, I did bail on this in favor of new AC on the Series X, but I went and read the Kotaku recap of the out-of-animus story so far to see what happened in Odyssey and, holy moly, I played all of Origins and 40+ hours of Odyssey, and I am not sure if I saw this stuff and just did not understand it or if most of the stranger out of animus stuff is just past the point that I had seen 40 hours in to Odyssey, but it seems like a wild ride!

Odyssey's stranger stuff doesn't really come to the fore until much later, but then it dives hardcore into the underlying mythos. I liked it a lot, but you have to be really invested in the overarching metastory to get the most out of it.

Oh yeah I also had a weird conflict with Steam and Dualshock 4. I usually use Steam input for the PS4 controller to play games that don't support. It seems that this game does support the controller natively in Windows. So Steam running while this was running was causing some really odd things. Right-stick was switching me back to mouse+kb controls in menus. When I got to the prologue fight, and it was trying to teach me controls, I hit RB+X and it changed the window size from 1920x1080 to the next smallest. So Steam is doing some kind of weird input mapping. Closed it, and everything is working fine with the DS4.

No need for DS4Windows or anything else. It just works, and with the correct icons. So good on the Odyssey team for that. Wish other games, especially ones that have PS4 versions, would handle it just as easily on PC. Ahem, Rocket League.

yeah the Isu stuff is very much end-game material in Odyssey. Especially with the DLC. It's back-heavy with lore stuff. I mostly followed along ok but there is a big gap between the last game i played (syndicate, which i never finished) and Odyssey so a lot of the characters were like...ok who? are you? It seems like i'm supposed to know you.

Eventually i'll go back and play the gaps, but i'll likely jump into the new one first tbh. Because sturdy viking women thwaking the heck out of the English is my jam.

pyxistyx wrote:

Eventually i'll go back and play the gaps, but i'll likely jump into the new one first tbh. Because sturdy viking women thwaking the heck out of the English is my jam.

I think I have settled on only female Eivor after playing male Eivor for a while and getting a not very ass-kicking vibe from him. He just seems too mellow in the cutscenes.