First of all, my opinion on the franchise: It's dead. Ubisoft doesn't care about the franchise like they used to. Before, even when the games would sell, they still put care into it, made it fun, told a great story. AC3 took everything wrong with the franchise and multiplied it. Dull AI, very repetitive missions, pointless additions (frontier), incredibly broken missions (like the ending one), crap story that threw out the original story, boring characters, buggy/broken as hell.
And for AC4:
They say that without "next-gen" they couldn't do this. But games like the Last of Us, still has more life to it. Grass moves when you rustle in it. The lighting is phenomenal. And overall, the game still looks very static and dull.
So as a long time AC fan, with the franchise going downhill ever since Patrice left the studio, how can Ubisoft change things up and save the franchise?
Gameplay:
this is an easy fix. AC is notorious for having crap combat mechanics. Everything is counter and you win. Make it so you can't counter everything. Make it so enemies don't have just one or two fighting animations and you get easy kills.
Design it so there's a bunch of random generated animations so it prevents you knowing when to exactly counter. Fix it so when you're fighting one or two enemies, the rest don't just stand around, they actually interfere so fights aren't as easy. This is an Assassin. They're supposed to kill only when they need to.
Stealth:
one of my biggest complaints about the recent titles, is that stealth has taken a backseat. If enemies see you? So what, just kill them, problem solved. Design it so they come after you, so they call for backup via blowing a whistle/horn/yelling. This prevents you from entering a danger area, being spotted, killing the guy, and all is dandy.
Another thing they need to do, is make it so when you go into a town, you need to find shops where you can buy clothes that matches the towns clothes and their colors. That way you aren't just wearing your Assassin clothes all the time. And if you are, give the player the option to take the hood off which will relieve suspicion of your character.
Add RPG-ish elements:
This I think could completely reboot the series. In all the AC games, because of the counter mechanic which breaks the combat, you don't need to worry about armor at all. For the franchise, I think Ubisoft should make it so if you buy strong armor, you move slower, arouse more suspicion to your character, but you can take a beating.
If you decrease your armor, you move faster, more unnoticeable (especially involving buying clothes like in my previous point), but if you get into a fight with too many guys, you take a lot more damage, thus forcing you to run away and lose them.
Weapons:
It's no secret that most of the weapons in the franchise are useless. You could easily finish all the fights with just your hidden blades. They should make it that you need to repair your items. For example, if I use my hidden blades all the time, it makes no sense that they can deflect swords and not take damage. Design it so that when they become dull, or just break entirely, I have to go repair them at a shop. But don't make it so it's instant. Make it so I have to work with other weapons in the mean time. Perhaps add a real-time mechanic to repairing?
tl;dr AC is crap now.
And for AC4:
They say that without "next-gen" they couldn't do this. But games like the Last of Us, still has more life to it. Grass moves when you rustle in it. The lighting is phenomenal. And overall, the game still looks very static and dull.
So as a long time AC fan, with the franchise going downhill ever since Patrice left the studio, how can Ubisoft change things up and save the franchise?
Gameplay:
this is an easy fix. AC is notorious for having crap combat mechanics. Everything is counter and you win. Make it so you can't counter everything. Make it so enemies don't have just one or two fighting animations and you get easy kills.
Design it so there's a bunch of random generated animations so it prevents you knowing when to exactly counter. Fix it so when you're fighting one or two enemies, the rest don't just stand around, they actually interfere so fights aren't as easy. This is an Assassin. They're supposed to kill only when they need to.
Stealth:
one of my biggest complaints about the recent titles, is that stealth has taken a backseat. If enemies see you? So what, just kill them, problem solved. Design it so they come after you, so they call for backup via blowing a whistle/horn/yelling. This prevents you from entering a danger area, being spotted, killing the guy, and all is dandy.
Another thing they need to do, is make it so when you go into a town, you need to find shops where you can buy clothes that matches the towns clothes and their colors. That way you aren't just wearing your Assassin clothes all the time. And if you are, give the player the option to take the hood off which will relieve suspicion of your character.
Add RPG-ish elements:
This I think could completely reboot the series. In all the AC games, because of the counter mechanic which breaks the combat, you don't need to worry about armor at all. For the franchise, I think Ubisoft should make it so if you buy strong armor, you move slower, arouse more suspicion to your character, but you can take a beating.
If you decrease your armor, you move faster, more unnoticeable (especially involving buying clothes like in my previous point), but if you get into a fight with too many guys, you take a lot more damage, thus forcing you to run away and lose them.
Weapons:
It's no secret that most of the weapons in the franchise are useless. You could easily finish all the fights with just your hidden blades. They should make it that you need to repair your items. For example, if I use my hidden blades all the time, it makes no sense that they can deflect swords and not take damage. Design it so that when they become dull, or just break entirely, I have to go repair them at a shop. But don't make it so it's instant. Make it so I have to work with other weapons in the mean time. Perhaps add a real-time mechanic to repairing?
tl;dr AC is crap now.
