How Ubisoft can "save" Assassin's Creed

[retKHAAAN]

Short version:

AC2: Totally amazing story.
AC:Brotherhood: Expanded on the story
AC:R: Nothing new, Ezio just says "eh, it's not up to me"
AC3: Threw everything of the story right out the window. If people thought the ending of Mass Effect 3 was bad, AC3 was just a joke.

And the gameplay went way down hill. Some of my favorite things was exploring the city in AC2 finding feathers, getting all the viewpoints first. In AC3, even if you get viewpoints, they dont do anything because the map is garbage. AC3 is more like AC1.

except, Desmond's story is the actual story. The assassins are just a means to get there... Sounds like someone is an Ezio groupie...

 

[ShadowSoldier]

except, Desmond's story is the actual story. The assassins are just a means to get there... Sounds like someone is an Ezio groupie...

No not at all.

I'm more of a groupie of the entire AC story, except they threw it out.

Spoiler

At first, what it was about, was The Templars, were going to use a piece of Eden, launch a satellite in space, and control mankind, and the Assassin's worked to prevent that. AC3 completely threw that story out the window, made it so that.. for some reason, there was going to be an apocalypse which came out of nowhere (I guess because they decided "you know, lets make it about the end of the world). Out of nowhere, Desmond has to sacrifice himself to save Earth, but he released a lady from the "Ones before", who is now going to control earth. And that Templars and Assassin's will now be working together? Seriously, what the hell is that? Like I said, people complained about the ending of Mass Effect 3, AC3 was completely worse and Ubisoft should be ashamed of themselves.

Not to mention after you beat AC3:

Spoiler

we learn that Desmond might not even be dead, and that he might have instead pulled a Subject 16 and put fragments of himself into the Animus...

 

[retKHAAAN]

No not at all.

I'm more of a groupie of the entire AC story, except they threw it out.

Spoiler

At first, what it was about, was The Templars, were going to use a piece of Eden, launch a satellite in space, and control mankind, and the Assassin's worked to prevent that. AC3 completely threw that story out the window, made it so that.. for some reason, there was going to be an apocalypse which came out of nowhere (I guess because they decided "you know, lets make it about the end of the world). Out of nowhere, Desmond has to sacrifice himself to save Earth, but he released a lady from the "Ones before", who is now going to control earth. And that Templars and Assassin's will now be working together? Seriously, what the hell is that? Like I said, people complained about the ending of Mass Effect 3, AC3 was completely worse and Ubisoft should be ashamed of themselves.

Not to mention after you beat AC3:

Spoiler

we learn that Desmond might not even be dead, and that he might have instead pulled a Subject 16 and put fragments of himself into the Animus...

Ummm...the apocalypse that "came out of nowhere" was alluded to in every single game, including the end of the first one... Not sure how you might have missed that... And yeah, enemies might find some common ground when it comes to save the Earth from complete and utter destruction...

 

[ShadowSoldier]

Ummm...the apocalypse that "came out of nowhere" was alluded to in every single game, including the end of the first one... Not sure how you might have missed that... And yeah, enemies might find some common ground when it comes to save the Earth from complete and utter destruction...

Except the apocalypse they spoke about was the Templars controlling mankind. That's what they were talking about. That's why the Assassin's were fighting them.

And yes, enemies might find common ground when it comes to save Earth, except... that's where the ending falls. Desmond sacrificed himself to save the Earth, but it's in trouble anyways. It seems like they just killed him off because a lot of people didn't like Desmond, but left a major plot hole opened.

 

[retKHAAAN]

Except the apocalypse they spoke about was the Templars controlling mankind. That's what they were talking about. That's why the Assassin's were fighting them.

And yes, enemies might find common ground when it comes to save Earth, except... that's where the ending falls. Desmond sacrificed himself to save the Earth, but it's in trouble anyways. It seems like they just killed him off because a lot of people didn't like Desmond, but left a major plot hole opened.

Spoiler

The scrawlings at the end of the first game allude to a celestial event... No one knew what the hell was going on because you learn it from visions and holograms over the course of the series. Therefore, anything "they spoke about" was not fully informed. It's really not the first story where two groups oppose one another based on prophecy, only to find out they don't know the whole story...

 

[Gahars]

Assassin's Creed's gameplay is a huge problem here. The series' combat is stupidly easy, and the sequels only made it even easier. It's bad when a franchise revolving around assassins makes stealth completely and utterly worthless. There's absolutely no incentive to play it sneaky when you can slaughter entire legions of guards without any effort whatsoever. There's no skill, no challenge, just a flick of the analog stick and a press of a button to start a congo line of instant murder.

It's beyond being a path of least resistance. "The path of no resistance whatsoever" is far more apt.

The story's also a complete mess. The Desmond stuff was fine as a framing device, a mere setup for actually interesting settings and characters. Unfortunately, it seems someone at Ubisoft made the horrible mistake of thinking that it should take more and more prominence with each passing game. (Game Dev Pro-Tip: If your main character's distinguishing feature is that they are voiced by Nolan North, go back to the drawing board and try again.) If the writer's intended for that from the get-go, then they executed the transition in the worst manner possible.

It's a shame, too, because the games made use of some great, unique settings (places and time periods normally ignored by most other games) only to trip over itself to deliver an inane, uninteresting "end of the world" plotline. Just a whole lot of wasted effort all around.

Ubisoft kind of drove the series into the ground and wore my interest in it down. Still, I'd like it if the developers gave the series a little breather and returned to it once they had some new ideas for the combat and storyline. I think there's still potential for great things in the franchise, but it's just being squandered as of now. This won't happen, of course, but a man can dream, damn it.

 

[ShadowSoldier]

Assassin's Creed's gameplay is a huge problem here. The series' combat is stupidly easy, and the sequels only made it even easier. It's bad when a franchise revolving around assassins makes stealth completely and utterly worthless. There's absolutely no incentive to play it sneaky when you can slaughter entire legions of guards without any effort whatsoever. There's no skill, no challenge, just a flick of the analog stick and a press of a button to start a congo line of instant murder.

It's beyond being a path of least resistance. "The path of no resistance whatsoever" is far more apt.

The story's also a complete mess. The Desmond stuff was fine as a framing device, a mere setup for actually interesting settings and characters. Unfortunately, it seems someone at Ubisoft made the horrible mistake of thinking that it should take more and more prominence with each passing game. (Game Dev Pro-Tip: If your main character's distinguishing feature is that they are voiced by Nolan North, go back to the drawing board and try again.) If the writer's intended for that from the get-go, then they executed the transition in the worst manner possible.

It's a shame, too, because the games made use of some great, unique settings (places and time periods normally ignored by most other games) only to trip over itself to deliver an inane, uninteresting "end of the world" plotline. Just a whole lot of wasted effort all around.

Ubisoft kind of drove the series into the ground and wore my interest in it down. Still, I'd like mind if the developers gave the series a little breather and returned to it once they had some new ideas for the combat and storyline. I think there's still potential for great things in the franchise, but it's just being squandered as of now. This won't happen, of course, but a man can dream, damn it.

I don't know, for some reason, I just get the feeling that Patrice had a much bigger story for Desmond, but after he left after Brotherhood, we'll never know. I mean in AC2 he had a bigger role, in ACR he had a much bigger role. But after he left, it's like Ubisoft just said to kill him off.

 

[Guild McCommunist]

Desmond was just a fucking terrible design decision from the beginning. The games themselves are decent standalone stories that get the big fat dick of Desmond inserted into them to just fuck everything up. Assassin's Creed II was a good story of revenge until fucking aliens got involved.

They should've ditched the Animus to begin with and just realized "Hey we can make games that are hundreds of years apart but still connected without a lousy framing device." But that'd require good writing so I guess not.

Also they could've made the next Assassin's Creed interesting like feudal Japan or the future or a World War but fucking pirates is pants-on-head retarded.

 

[Satangel]

They need to let it breathe for a few years, add new elements, completely overhaul the combat system, make Animus (if it's still there)-parts way shorter and it's enough for me. I've really enjoyed 2 and Brotherhood, now I'm playing AC3, and not that impressed so far. It's all so slow, no pace atm (I'm not far in though, what I've seen so far), the video scenes bit too long, the missions boring.

I remain a big fan of the series though, Black Flag I'm going to play for sure, hopefully they learned something from AC3 ....

 

[Taleweaver]

Assassin's Creed's gameplay is a huge problem here. The series' combat is stupidly easy, and the sequels only made it even easier. It's bad when a franchise revolving around assassins makes stealth completely and utterly worthless. There's absolutely no incentive to play it sneaky when you can slaughter entire legions of guards without any effort whatsoever. There's no skill, no challenge, just a flick of the analog stick and a press of a button to start a congo line of instant murder.

It's beyond being a path of least resistance. "The path of no resistance whatsoever" is far more apt.

The story's also a complete mess. The Desmond stuff was fine as a framing device, a mere setup for actually interesting settings and characters. Unfortunately, it seems someone at Ubisoft made the horrible mistake of thinking that it should take more and more prominence with each passing game. (Game Dev Pro-Tip: If your main character's distinguishing feature is that they are voiced by Nolan North, go back to the drawing board and try again.) If the writer's intended for that from the get-go, then they executed the transition in the worst manner possible.

It's a shame, too, because the games made use of some great, unique settings (places and time periods normally ignored by most other games) only to trip over itself to deliver an inane, uninteresting "end of the world" plotline. Just a whole lot of wasted effort all around.

Ubisoft kind of drove the series into the ground and wore my interest in it down. Still, I'd like mind if the developers gave the series a little breather and returned to it once they had some new ideas for the combat and storyline. I think there's still potential for great things in the franchise, but it's just being squandered as of now. This won't happen, of course, but a man can dream, damn it.

I couldn't +1 this more. There's something really wrong that when Shadowsoldier wrote that "stealth has taken a backseat (in AC3)", my first reaction was "since when is AC about stealth?"*


The story wouldn't be bad at all if that whole Animus thing wasn't involved. Now you've got one story that's okay with nice setting and reasonable character building (Connor and his father)...and another that has something to do with an animus, the world coming to an end, an evil company and stuff that has to be sorted out. And that has nothing to do with the other story...
...I'll probably get corrected by fanboys who make remarks to boring half-assed cutscènes or previous games, but I reply to them: how the fuck am I playing any of that? There's no involvement on my part. I'm playing either as a raging Indian** or a twat. And I have no idea why I should be doing anything playing as the latter (okay, more precisely: to get back to where the fuck I was busy PLAYING THE ACTUAL FUCKING GAME).








*AC3 was the first one I've played.
**that 'native American' thing wasn't invented at that time, right?

 

[gamewitch]

I liked the first one for all of about 30 minutes and then it just got so repetitive it was ridiculous, the latter games in the series do not add anything game play wise, other than making combat even easier.

 

[shakirmoledina]

u want to save the assassins? the assassins are here to save you!

 

[FireGrey]

Assassin's Creed needs less Desmond, or anyone remotely similar to Desmond.

 

[ShadowSoldier]

"since when is AC about stealth?"*
*AC3 was the first one I've played.

That's your problem. The other AC games, had you blend in with the people around you so you can get around. AC3 had none of that. But like I said, an Assassin, as the series tells us, is all about stealth. And that's where I think it doesn't make sense to walk around with all of this armor and equipment on and a hood. You don't blend in at all. And when you get noticed, you can just run down the street and around the corner and you're safe.

 

[trumpet-205]

The only AC game that greatly emphasize stealth is AC1. AC2 and onward stealth becomes "optional" for the most part.

 

[lukinoz]

Also another thing, that could Ubisoft do is to let Jesper Kyd to compose AC soundtrack again. His music was is awesone, it is actually a thing that I have enjoyed the most in the series. Lorne Balfe's music was a big disappointment for me.

 

[Taleweaver]

That's your problem. The other AC games, had you blend in with the people around you so you can get around. AC3 had none of that. But like I said, an Assassin, as the series tells us, is all about stealth. And that's where I think it doesn't make sense to walk around with all of this armor and equipment on and a hood. You don't blend in at all. And when you get noticed, you can just run down the street and around the corner and you're safe.

I don't want to sound smug, but I'd say it's not my problem but the game's. The story nor the tutorials do anything to convince you to do anything sneaky (rather the contrary: playing an Indian in a world that's otherwise pretty much 100% white? Yeah...good luck blending in there, mate). There's pretty much zero emphasis on it either (I recall one mission where you absolutely had to do it, and it sucked). And worst of all: it doesn't reward players for being unseen, let alone that it punishes the Rambo-style ones like me.

I mean...I conquered all the castles in the game just bashing into the front gates, picking down or distracting some guards, then running away when the screen starts to get shaky. Repeat until everyone and their mother inside is dead. It's not that I don't like stealth games. I absolutely loved Commando's, and more recently Stealth Bastard deluxe. But AC3 simply doesn't have proper tools for even the basic tasks for that sort of gameplay (whereas in AC1, it shows this already in the tutorials).

 

[ShadowSoldier]

I don't want to sound smug, but I'd say it's not my problem but the game's. The story nor the tutorials do anything to convince you to do anything sneaky (rather the contrary: playing an Indian in a world that's otherwise pretty much 100% white? Yeah...good luck blending in there, mate). There's pretty much zero emphasis on it either (I recall one mission where you absolutely had to do it, and it sucked). And worst of all: it doesn't reward players for being unseen, let alone that it punishes the Rambo-style ones like me.

I mean...I conquered all the castles in the game just bashing into the front gates, picking down or distracting some guards, then running away when the screen starts to get shaky. Repeat until everyone and their mother inside is dead. It's not that I don't like stealth games. I absolutely loved Commando's, and more recently Stealth Bastard deluxe. But AC3 simply doesn't have proper tools for even the basic tasks for that sort of gameplay (whereas in AC1, it shows this already in the tutorials).

That's what I'm saying, they need to fix that. It's an Assassin.