So many "actitivies" I don't like

[Dorok]

Overall I have good fun, but I can't believe the amount of activities I don't like for various reasons. That's a raging post, exhausted by some of those crap activities.

It just bores me:
- Drinking mini game, awfully repetitive, and worse, with console crap QTE. I hate some are mandatory (to hunt secret cults/orders).
- Dice mini game, tedious so annoying.
- Niflheim dreams, mini roguelite, boring I don't like most roguelite even less when heavily based on persistent elements that is just a bad design trick to increase play duration for lower budget and crappy/weak procedural generation. Ok, I could try again later for this one.
- Svartalfheim dreams, boring, very badly done, it's not because it's a dream that it can has a crap gameplay.
- Mastery challenges, I don't care learn use all abilities or specific ways to kill like turning around the target 3 times before kill it, I'm not a clown aspirant, even less an expert player aspirant, facepalm. Ok, I could try again later for this one.
- Buildings just increasing character party buff, boring, it just makes the village bigger if not too big/spread for a boring feature.
- Poetry duels, boring, I just do them for increasing the skill, save, try, reload until I win, ok most often it's first time but still, and I don't care not make a perfect win that seems add a little extra.
- Parkour speed mini games, I don't want play any parkour game, the problem is fail is on/off you fall or not and when you fall try again is ultra boring.
- Players Jomsvikings, lame unfinished feature.

It ended bores me after have tried too much:
- Hunting, annoying, could be partly because I can't aim and hit that fast before preys start flee/run.
- Fishing, definitely the worse fishing mini game I ever tried. Thankfully I could do it without the direction controls commands that can't be rebind, really?
- Fish House in Village, boring, I tried a little, too much, not worth the hassle.
- Hunt House in Village, boring for standard preys, and for Mythic Animal so pointless because of the awfully bad hints, I'll just use a guide if I ever bother with that.
- Asgard dreams, found overall boring, but for this one I could make the effort to try again later, that's a full DLC if I got it well.
- Vinland, I get they feel they had to try, but it ends be tedious, not totally awful, but a lot less good gameplay than core game.
- Avenge other players death, so badly done. I really need resit do many of them.
- Offering shrines, hunt is annoying.

Well too long post, so the raging vanished, now I feel forced quote why I still like play the game.

Activities I find good to great:
- River Raids, but missed opportunity for better with more rules as player options.
Raids but they would need some player options allowing not make them fake challenges even small.
- Zealots is a pale system but can allow do more special combats. That said I picked the choice to not be hunted by them, perhaps an error.
- Puzzling and tricks to find many chests or some other stuff.
- Follow main story and many recurrent NPC very well done.
- Combats in general, too bad core game hasn't the same quality level than Druid DLC, but with tuned difficulty options, it's very good stuff anyway.
- Character building even if sometimes you feel it's a lot of efforts for low results.
- Infiltration and stealth, fun far behind combats, but good enough and a big plus by allowing diversify more the approaches.
- Attack some forts, it's missing of opportunities, but there's some, it's far from quality of Odyssey forts but it works well enough anyway.
- Treasure maps, honestly I find most a bit average, but the effort and the small diversity compensate.

Activities i find average but good enough to fill better a play in a wide world:
- Cursed places
- Anomalies puzzles
- Cairns, a bit meh but not awful.
- Tombs of the Fallen, bad idea to have made big dungeons that are puzzles only, it's missing stories, combats, sneaking. Sure it's good tricks and puzzling, but too much only that and you are trapped in more or less (can teleport out).
- Mythic Animals, found only one, was good, but why have hide them that much, sigh. That's a missed opportunity to not have make little quests to find more clues on where find each, or even better have spread clues on each in the world, and collected those found in a small diary for each mythic animal.
- Events, they try replace side quests with a bit less hand guiding, but at end most don't end be that good side quests.
- Opal quests, they really need more diversity, but the reward even if too small, is compensating and all are quickly done.
- Fly Agaric puzzling, ok.
- Bow lite competitions.
- Attack some camps, very average and lower quality than Odyssey camps, but it's ok.
- Steal towns, oops nope there's no stealing system unlike in Odyssey.
- Shops, lame system with mostly no equipment to buy and the exact same in all shops. But at least can be useful for buying some gems, or some crafting material, and sometimes some consumables.
- Loot, weird that a game so much focused on loot can't have more fun loot.
- Collecting crafting material, it's ok because for base material you get most through chests and can compensate with buys.

EDIT:
I know, too long post, on base it's a raging post, the point is post it, not have it read lol.

[Umakurokoto]

All that stuff is pretty much optional across the game.

Don't like it? Don't do it.

Then again, if you don't like parkour, then maybe the series just isn't for you.

If you just don't like anything in the game, that's fine too. You don't have to like every good popular game that comes out just because a lot of other people enjoy it.

I'll just note Ubisoft pretty much fills their games with activities now and not all of them are going to feel great or entertaining for everybody. This isn't really just Ubisoft either, open world games with mini games that don't always land has always been an issue with this genre.

I didn't like the drinking games at all, QTEs are always lame, but then again some people enjoy them. I'm just glad I can pretty much ignore it and don't have to worry about it if I don't want to do it.

[Dorok]

Originally posted by Umakurokoto:

All that stuff is pretty much optional across the game.

Don't like it? Don't do it.

Right, and that's why I have fun with the game anyway, and have enough stuff fun enough for me.

That said, it's optional with one exception, clues on orders members are hidden behind winning a dice mini game and behind winning a drink mini game. There's two cases, one in Ireland, one in England, and in Ireland I failed and gave up and could not finish kill all order members.

Originally posted by Umakurokoto:

Then again, if you don't like parkour, then maybe the series just isn't for you.

that's why I don't like this series, until it started a sub series, open world RPG starting with Origins, not sure if it started with Blackflag.

Originally posted by Umakurokoto:

If you just don't like anything in the game, that's fine too. You don't have to like every good popular game that comes out just because a lot of other people enjoy it.

Nice "stating the obvious" but it's not removing my ability to quote what I don't like in a game.

And the pale arguing you was close to use, it's not a game for you so your opinion is pointless, is non sense argument, because when applied no opinion matter.

[Umakurokoto]

Originally posted by Dorok:

Originally posted by Umakurokoto:

All that stuff is pretty much optional across the game.

Don't like it? Don't do it.

Right, and that's why I have fun with the game anyway, and have enough stuff fun enough for me.

That said, it's optional with one exception, clues on orders members are hidden behind winning a dice mini game and behind winning a drink mini game. There's two cases, one in Ireland, one in England, and in Ireland I failed and gave up and could not finish kill all order members.

Originally posted by Umakurokoto:

Then again, if you don't like parkour, then maybe the series just isn't for you.

that's why I don't like this series, until it started a sub series, open world RPG starting with Origins, not sure if it started with Blackflag.

Originally posted by Umakurokoto:

If you just don't like anything in the game, that's fine too. You don't have to like every good popular game that comes out just because a lot of other people enjoy it.

Nice "stating the obvious" but it's not removing my ability to quote what I don't like in a game.

And the pale arguing you was close to use, it's not a game for you so your opinion is pointless, is non sense argument, because when applied no opinion matter.

Not sure what you mean by the last part there.

Your opinion matters to you, but if you don't like almost everything in a game, then maybe it's not the game's fault and it's just your personal taste is different. That doesn't mean you can't criticize it, but it is a chance to step back and look to see if some of the things you don't like are things critics enjoyed.

I hate dark souls games, but that's mostly because my personal taste is to not really enjoy games that aren't invested in creating a strong narrative plot through dialogue.

In any case, sounds like you enjoy the game, but maybe some of those parts you didn't enjoy just aren't your taste. I expect many of the mini games are a bit divisive that way.

[6Taylor4]

That is the longest "mmmh" I've ever seen; "I don't like it so much, so here's 975 words on why."
You just can't sell 'boring' effectively, when you go on and on; if you were bored, you'd've just left.
It's simply game style, and not worth elaborating on; I really enjoy all the things you listed as "not fun"! This game breathes. Love it. Just my style.
Now, that is not to say anything critical about you; i address only your playing style, and in a long-winded way, all you've said is something I think we all agree with: you really shouldn't play this game! Enjoy something else!

[lucent]

I'm not going to quote the original post, but this is why I truly believe half the achievement people wouldn't buy the game anyways.

This is kinda like Resident Evil and the Village. People saying that it's not a true RE game and demanding 3rd person. I already seen people saying this isn't an AC game because of the changes.

Developers are always going to try something different.

[=Palynzer=]

.Here your Jester...points? nah

[Dorok]

Originally posted by Umakurokoto:

Originally posted by Dorok:

...
Nice "stating the obvious" but it's not removing my ability to quote what I don't like in a game.

And the pale arguing you was close to use, it's not a game for you so your opinion is pointless, is non sense argument, because when applied no opinion matter.

Not sure what you mean by the last part there.

Your opinion matters to you, but if you don't like almost everything in a game, then maybe it's not the game's fault and it's just your personal taste is different.

Except this case is no way my OP, and I have been clear by listing what I like.

And it's going further, what I like is most stuff that are the core of the gameplay.

This dev added other activities, mini games and even small games, to an open world RPG, and some aren't even well merged and totally parallel with the pale arguing of "it's dreams", sure but lazy.

Originally posted by Umakurokoto:

I hate dark souls games, but that's mostly because my personal taste is to not really enjoy games that aren't invested in creating a strong narrative plot through dialogue.

And what?

Originally posted by Umakurokoto:

In any case, sounds like you enjoy the game, but maybe some of those parts you didn't enjoy just aren't your taste. I expect many of the mini games are a bit divisive that way.

That's the problem, it's not one game, it's a game, plus some other smaller and artificially included, and many mini games,

[Zephyr]

I know it may not be much help if your mind is set, but maybe I can propose some helpful tips to make what you don't like less annoying to you and a few notes. So here goes.

-For drinking minigames, it's all about tempo, the cheers of the crowd really help keeping the tempo intact, and you just have to have your fingers on left and right while you are pressing your space bar. Out of specific situations, and when the activity is shoehorned into quests, you don't have to do it. Although, if you are good at it, it is a very good source of money, especially early. 400 silvers in one game is nothing to sneeze in the economy system Valhalla uses.

-For Dice, analyse your opponents powers, and build your powers list accordingly. I find that direct damage, healing and dice rerolls are probably one of the best all around sets to cover everything. This will need to beat a bunch of people to get though. You only need to beat each dice person once, so once it's done, you are fine.

-The roguelite system is indeed a bit tedious, and to me the worst part is it doesn't save progression in the event of a crash, which the game is prone to do. I don't think we players should be penalised by Ubisofts shortcomings. Sorry, that's not really a tip and more of a rant. Other than that, it's repetitive, I have to agree,

-Buff can be quite nice, but I do agree that the direct impact of village building past a point seems very weak. Also, a permanent buff would be a LOT better than one you have to pay for every X units of time. Honestly we could have used a rune shop where we can convert runes we don't want into stronger runes, or different runes, and get a better choices of runes we may want. Some passive money income, or some trading missions like in previous games also would have been great.

-For parkour speed minigames, aka the pages, there is one awesome trick to cheese them if you hate them: The skill Blinding Rush. Blinding Rush stops time completely, and this means the page stops. You can use it and collect he page before it even start moving in some case. WAY better than having to chase it. Try it! I do that for every page since I discovered that trick.

-Players jormvikings would be a lot better if they gained levels and got stronger. Also they would be a lot better if they worked like old games assassins you could call for help.

-For hunting, you have tools to help you aim. At long distance, obviously, predator bows. If the animal is already moving though, you can use the slowdown when you sprint and nock an arrow, this helps a lot to kill small and fast targets, like hares, but also foxes. Failing that, blinding rush, once again can be a game changer. Activate, go right near the animal, aim for the head at point blank, shoot. This also work against all enemies to destroy their weak points.

-For fishing, unless it's required to use the hook, I would say don't. I shoot my fishes with arrows, because I absolutely hate wasting my time. My raven brings me back both fish and arrow, which makes the whole process great. Try explosive arrows too against pods of fishes, although the ones killed by the explosions will need manual collection. Only problem with bow fishing is it scares the others fishes, but if you are just passing by and aren't actively looking for a certain fish, it's great.

-Both hunting and fishing huts offer very bad rewards for the time involved. It's especially bad as some animals are relatively rare. Dog fangs are only dropped by guard dogs which are a very rare breed. Reindeers are in Norway, or in zones where it takes a long time to have the power to get to. Same for bears. As for fishes, identifying them from one an other is very hard, and it's even worse than hunting, yes. Game developers need to realise than fishing minigames are one of the worst things in videogames, and that if you absolutely insist to have some, you should make them as easy and comfy as possible so people can be done with them fast.

-Vinland was a mixed bag. The "no gear, and you have to buy some with limited ressources in camp" is a colossal bad idea. Especially as if it's intended to be a challenge, it's completely forgetting players have skills they can use to insta-kill everything if they so want. On the other hand, I loved the tie with previous games, as this section explained a lot. Big thumb down for not providing translation for the indian dialect. I REALLY would have loved to understand what they were saying. Yes, I know not understanding is part of the whole experience, but the animus should provide translation for the PLAYER. We can totally have Eivor not understanding, and us players understand everything. The game is just breaking the rules it plays by by doing that, and breaks its own lore.

-Zealots are honestly not nearly as good as the mercenaries were in Odyssey. They are only hard at the start, and barely a speedbump afterward. Also making them impossible to assassinate/stealth attack is cheap as hell.

-I personnally dislike wasting my time, so having the barred doors and blocked passage to blow up annoys me. Treasure hunting is a bit in the same vein. I don't see the point of those when internet exists and you can find everything you may need. To be fair, those are the hardest at the beginning when you don't the "codes" so to speak the game use. After a while, you learn they use the same tricks for all the barred doors or passages to blow, and you get explosive arrows to speed up the process. I miss old ACs where you just had chests laying there in the open and you just had to reach them and open them. Sure, that made little sense, but you could just pass by, open them and be on your way.

[Dorok]

Your post makes sense, some comment:

Drinking:
- The timing is constantly changing so it's no pure timing you learn and repeat as in combat it can be. Of if it is it's a a much higher difficulty level with time elapse constantly changing.
- It's not timing my problem, but the QTE can't get used to and don't want get used to.
- It's not changing it's an awfully repetitive mini game.

Dice:
I can agree, the problem is you need play more to get more God Favors, but it bores me.

Hunting:
- I don't see what is this time slowdown.
- Predator bow didn't but I feel this bow aiming total crap and uncomfortable as much that it is comfortable in Odyssey.

Fishing:
Ok I retain the idea of explosive to avoid fishing, but only for some quick food refill, this will hardly allow achieve the shop fish goals.

Zealots:
- Ok not as well done than Mercenaries, despite Mercenaries had a lot of work of improvement to be done.
- Still better than nothing, and by tuning difficulty options for me, they are no ways easy kills.

Wasting time:
- If play is wasting time, don't play.
- Wasting time means nothing, it's only about, is it fun for you when you do it or not. The "when" isn't a detail because variations in types of activities is ultra important even in RL, and your current mood can matter a lot in the fun level of an activity, at proper time or not.

[OptimalButthole]

I dunno, just don't do the other activities. I just ignore them except for the story.

[6Taylor4]

Originally posted by Zephyr:

I know it may not be much help if your mind is set, but maybe I can propose some helpful tips to make what you don't like less annoying to you and a few notes. So here goes.

-For drinking minigames, it's all about tempo, the cheers of the crowd really help keeping the tempo intact, and you just have to have your fingers on left and right while you are pressing your space bar. Out of specific situations, and when the activity is shoehorned into quests, you don't have to do it. Although, if you are good at it, it is a very good source of money, especially early. 400 silvers in one game is nothing to sneeze in the economy system Valhalla uses.

-For Dice, analyse your opponents powers, and build your powers list accordingly. I find that direct damage, healing and dice rerolls are probably one of the best all around sets to cover everything. This will need to beat a bunch of people to get though. You only need to beat each dice person once, so once it's done, you are fine.

-The roguelite system is indeed a bit tedious, and to me the worst part is it doesn't save progression in the event of a crash, which the game is prone to do. I don't think we players should be penalised by Ubisofts shortcomings. Sorry, that's not really a tip and more of a rant. Other than that, it's repetitive, I have to agree,

-Buff can be quite nice, but I do agree that the direct impact of village building past a point seems very weak. Also, a permanent buff would be a LOT better than one you have to pay for every X units of time. Honestly we could have used a rune shop where we can convert runes we don't want into stronger runes, or different runes, and get a better choices of runes we may want. Some passive money income, or some trading missions like in previous games also would have been great.

-For parkour speed minigames, aka the pages, there is one awesome trick to cheese them if you hate them: The skill Blinding Rush. Blinding Rush stops time completely, and this means the page stops. You can use it and collect he page before it even start moving in some case. WAY better than having to chase it. Try it! I do that for every page since I discovered that trick.

-Players jormvikings would be a lot better if they gained levels and got stronger. Also they would be a lot better if they worked like old games assassins you could call for help.

-For hunting, you have tools to help you aim. At long distance, obviously, predator bows. If the animal is already moving though, you can use the slowdown when you sprint and nock an arrow, this helps a lot to kill small and fast targets, like hares, but also foxes. Failing that, blinding rush, once again can be a game changer. Activate, go right near the animal, aim for the head at point blank, shoot. This also work against all enemies to destroy their weak points.

-For fishing, unless it's required to use the hook, I would say don't. I shoot my fishes with arrows, because I absolutely hate wasting my time. My raven brings me back both fish and arrow, which makes the whole process great. Try explosive arrows too against pods of fishes, although the ones killed by the explosions will need manual collection. Only problem with bow fishing is it scares the others fishes, but if you are just passing by and aren't actively looking for a certain fish, it's great.

-Both hunting and fishing huts offer very bad rewards for the time involved. It's especially bad as some animals are relatively rare. Dog fangs are only dropped by guard dogs which are a very rare breed. Reindeers are in Norway, or in zones where it takes a long time to have the power to get to. Same for bears. As for fishes, identifying them from one an other is very hard, and it's even worse than hunting, yes. Game developers need to realise than fishing minigames are one of the worst things in videogames, and that if you absolutely insist to have some, you should make them as easy and comfy as possible so people can be done with them fast.

-Vinland was a mixed bag. The "no gear, and you have to buy some with limited ressources in camp" is a colossal bad idea. Especially as if it's intended to be a challenge, it's completely forgetting players have skills they can use to insta-kill everything if they so want. On the other hand, I loved the tie with previous games, as this section explained a lot. Big thumb down for not providing translation for the indian dialect. I REALLY would have loved to understand what they were saying. Yes, I know not understanding is part of the whole experience, but the animus should provide translation for the PLAYER. We can totally have Eivor not understanding, and us players understand everything. The game is just breaking the rules it plays by by doing that, and breaks its own lore.

-Zealots are honestly not nearly as good as the mercenaries were in Odyssey. They are only hard at the start, and barely a speedbump afterward. Also making them impossible to assassinate/stealth attack is cheap as hell.

-I personnally dislike wasting my time, so having the barred doors and blocked passage to blow up annoys me. Treasure hunting is a bit in the same vein. I don't see the point of those when internet exists and you can find everything you may need. To be fair, those are the hardest at the beginning when you don't the "codes" so to speak the game use. After a while, you learn they use the same tricks for all the barred doors or passages to blow, and you get explosive arrows to speed up the process. I miss old ACs where you just had chests laying there in the open and you just had to reach them and open them. Sure, that made little sense, but you could just pass by, open them and be on your way.

Just wanted to say your post was epic! The thread should just close and have your post marked "SOLUTION" !

[Dorok]

Totally disagree, one exempla, I tried the explosive fishing, it's not working or it's a joke, the half second you see a fish you need aim shoot and hit and perhaps the explosive trigger, lol, seriously. Looks more like a big joke.

[DerRitter]

Dice game isn't too bad