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I'm sure you've noticed by now that you can't damage enemies that are more than 5 levels above you so you must constantly level-up and upgrade your gear at blacksmiths to be able to keep up with them.
In other words, to put it plainly you cannot escape the mandatory grind for exp (unless of course you purchase Ubisoft's "time-savers" by spending your hard earned real life money to basically skip the grind by buying xp). You are stuck having to complete a lot of those repetitive tasks (clear fort, kill alpha animal, explore tomb for stelee, dive underwater for sunken chests etc.) in order to get enough xp to level up and be able to progress in the main storyline.
This forced grind if you want to progress in your main story is one of the things that drags the whole game down hard, artificially extends the game's length via repetitive boring tasks facing the same type of enemies over and over again without any bit of story or lore to diferentiate one "?" location form another.
And it makes me laugh my behind off even harder when Odyssey fanboys have the audacity and nerve to compare this game to The Witcher 3 (which didn't feature any mandatory grind except for finding the witcher gear and even that was optional as you could complete the game with regular looted / bought gear and following the main storyline and major sidequests offered enough exp without having to explore a single "?" icon on the map).
I certainly have and I do not doubt it.. this is the only AOC game i have been able to get into at all. There is something about the style of game i just do not fully enjoy but i really am trying
Thank you for this post and information i truly appreciate the time you took here. I realize now that I guess i am not relaly missing anything and as you have said I just need to do the repetetive stuff to grind up levels and gear. I get really bored with MOST of the side tasks as they are not very immersive seeming and generally character development is weak as hell, so unlike other rpgs i am not compelled to complete them to learn more about the story etc. Regarding the cult stuff i have been struggling to finish off a arm of them and just learned that i need to actually finish a bunch of side quests before the last guy will actually show up in my game world.. which explains a lot. I was hoping this would be a more "mythical" setting as i truly love the mythology of this setting but it is a bit more historical than i expected.. although i see there are some missions later on with a few of the mythological creatures and the later expacs look really exciting to me. Almost want to skip this stuff to get to the xpacs lol.
Did you also struggle getting into this game ? The world is so stunning and beautiful but unlike witcher 3 i just do not find the motivation to go exploring.. it does not seem like there are any really exciting things out there.
THIS IS JUST MY OPINION Peeps
This is a complete lie. You don't need to grind XP, you can damage enemies 5 or even 10 levels above your. Of course you need to do sidequests, that's the point of games like this, and the main missions give you enough XP to acess the next area/mission. And yes, you need to upgrade your gear. As to OP, if you just play the game and not rush it like some speedrunner, you will won't have any problems. You are playing the game in the wrong way by just ignoring all sidequests and not clearing forts and such. Also, if you have 3-4 bounty hunters on your head, how about you stop killing random NPCs and actually fight enemies using stealth you know, like an assassin?
Not more of a struggle than the usual Ubisoft game (by that I mean games developed by Ubisoft themselves, not ones they are only publishing but are developed by 3rd party studios like in Heroes Of Might & Magic's case);
By now I've played enough of them to expect the usual "collectathon" (a map full of pointless busywork with a nonsensical and usually badly written main storyline thrown in to appease or fool people like me who play games for story and immersion rather than grinding for levels).
If the gaming industry had a few more dev studios like CDPR, Obsidian or old school Bioware then I wouldn't even bother with Ubisoft's lacklustre grindfests.
But as it is studios like the ones I mentioned that can actually write dialogue and storylines worth a damn and don't lock that storyline behind repetitive grinding are actually very rare. And there is only so many times I can play the classics in my collection (which are pretty much all better than Ubisoft's one trick pony formula).
So from time to time I swallow my pride and buy one their games just to have a fully voice acted action RPG (or FPS in Far Cry's case) to play.
And like you say, their games are estethically beautiful and they are great at recreating historical landmarks and places. I'll give them that. They also usually take the time to localize and include full voice acting in a lot of languages (even some that other devs never bother to include) so I appreciate that as well (especially since I often enjoy replaying a game using a different voiceover language after I've finished it in english).
But yeah, for my particular taste (and - from what I can gather from your post - yours as well) playing Ubisoft games is a struggle because of what I mentioned above. Sadly I don't see them changing their design philosophy anytime soon because too many people are willing to tolerate mediocrity and continue to buy their games and even praise them for things they clearly don't deserve praise for.
Since I'm currently on my second playthrough (though I only played till the first episode of the "Fate of Atlantis" DLC on my first) I stand by my statements above. There is no way to complete the main quest without grinding at least some of the "?" for exp.
Also bear in mind that some of the so called sidequests in this game (the ones with the hourglass icon on the map and the ones with the two-headed arrow) are also randomly generated and repetitive grinds that have no storyline or memorable NPC's whatsover (and on my first playtrough I failed to realize this and kept doing them even getting the same copy pasted objectives like kill the wolves/bears/ enemy captain over and over again).
Yes, technically they could be called "quests" since they are given by a (very generic) NPC and have (recycled) objectives, but you would have to be blind to not see them for what they truly are (pointless grind without any story or progression whatsoever beyond the rewards in crafting materials and exp). Same with the contracts from the monument message boards in towns.
The only sidequests worth playing (involving named NPC's and an actual effort by the devs to write the dialogues) are the ones with "!" (like the ones on the minotaur island). And while they aren't exactly few in number, they DO NOT provide enough exp by themselves to be able to meet the required levels for accessing main story missions.
I have personally encountered this problem during my first playtrough, so don't tell me bedtime stories or call me a liar. The only way to have enough exp to complete the main storyline is to grind some (not all, obviously) of those "?" locations. That's a known fact by anyone who has completed the game at least once.
And that's not even accounting for the fact that you need to grind some of those hourgalss sidequests or "?" locations to be able to keep upgrading your gear at least every two level or so or risk having your damage and damage resistance seriously hampered. You constantly need to grind for materials and exp in this game. Period.
That's obviously the point of Ubisofts "time-savers" : yes, you can complete the game via grinding without needing to buy a single one of those; but you WILL be grinding; and no, you can't skip the grinding unless you a) pay Ubisoft to do it for you via microtransactions; or b) use cheats that ignore resources when upgrading your gear and modify xp gain and skip at least some of the grinding without having to pay Ubisoft money that they don't deserve for making the game so damn grindy in the first place.
All these facts should be obvious to anyone that has actually played an RPG where the devs actually gave a damn about their sidequests. Ubisoft obviously didn't and thus failed to respect their players time and proceded to waste it with the above so called "sidequests" and so called "optional" "?" locations.
You are right. And the ovious conclussion to draw from that is the fact that it's pretty much impossible to fight multiple enemies above your level when you're attacks have the effect of a mosquito bite while theirs shaves a third of your health bar. Thus why you have to grind to be able to take on such enemies.
And while gaining levels and gear in order to take down increasingly tougher enemies is the essence of an RPG, no self respecting RPG that isn't built on grind and selling "time-savers" microtransactions would lock main story missions behind grinding copy pasted "?" locations for exp like the last two Assassin's Creed games do.
I also noticved I lvl up just a little with "killing higher lvl enemies", but when I complete 1 quest at a higher lvl area, BOOM, almost an entire lvl or more than 1 lvl in 1 single quest.
Yes, you must actually play the game. This is an open-world rpg, you are expected to explore and do side missions, that's not 'grind' that's the way the genre is designed.
This is pattently false, if you do even half of the '!' missions you will have plenty of xp to finish the game. Prior to them raising the level cap, people were regularly outleveling this game about 70% of the way through.
There are easily 100 quests marked with '!' but you may have missed some of them if you weren't looking, as many of them require that you explore a bit and discover new villages or other locations where they might be. Not every quest is immediately visible from your world map if you don't explore.
Yes, the other quests, not marked with exclamation points, are randomly generated but you don't have to do those if you don't want to - and certainly don't have to grind them. Do a few as you progress to earn some extra xp and loot but you could just as easily skip them and lose nothing.
I won't call you a liar but I will say you're full of crap. I have over 400 hours in this game, I've played it through three times, and the things you're saying are false. That said, you should be checking out those '?' locations because some of them are quests and some of them are tombs, which give you free skill points.
Perhaps your build sucked, or you were skipping more than you thought, but if you play the game like you'd play any other open-world game, you will never have to grind.
Skip hour-glass missions. Only do story and ' ! ' missions, and seek out most ' ? ' areas. Those diamond light blue missions, the Tales of Greece, some are decent, others are annoying but XP is good. You can spam skip during dialog scenes as dialog choices rarely matter and save some time, but you will be going 500m here, then back, then another 500m there, then back, type of stuff. You could honestly save them for after you complete the game or just skip. Bounty board can be a good source of XP and $$$ if you stack, meaning, having multiple tasks with same or similar objectives. Plus it is always fun making a S--t talking Mercenary your B---h.
If you seek out and kill higher level Mercenaries, you will advance in tiers and unlock some decent helpful perks like 50% off upgrade costs or greater chance to find better loot. Killing Mercenaries 10 to 25 levels higher than you is doable with the right build and tactics.
Another fyi, read the tips given during fast travel, example, cleaving ships in two is an excellent source for wood.
Some Cultists only show themselves after doing ' ! ' missions, others after doing main story missions. Plus there are a few that are Naval battles or conquest battles. I randomly killed some before uncovering all the clues.
This game is not for everyone, I played AC 1 and 2 on console (a long time ago) only before this, and yes, played Withcer 3 before this, both this year. Was thinking about giving Black Flag a try as the community talks highly of it. Witcher 3 was good for the progressive XP, you didn't have to do any side quests to maintain the required level for story progression. However, you could not over level your character either.
With Odyssey, areas and enemies scale to your level so all you have to do is meet the min required level for main story.
I am not rushing it by any means - i have spent alot of time just exploring and trying to get immersed. I also never said i was ignoring all side quests and forts. I have done alot of forts and side quests, i was just conveying my opinion that after a while a fort is a fort and i just get bored of going into them. I also made the mistake of thinking with the diffrent skill trees that you could just focus on one combat style.. i tried to be a pure warrior and it is just not really a great choice in this game to run up in a fort or mission as a pure warrior - as you suggested you really need to play more as a assassin.
No reason to get upset i am not bashing the game i just wanted to get immersed into it and MY personal style of that is by getting invested in the story. I was doing that but i got to this point where the next part is level 34 quest and i was level 23 at the time. I believe this is a method of making me explore the world, which is fine but i just felt a bit lost / unmotivated.
You say stop killing random npcs and play like an assassin in the same sentence lol.. which is it man i have no relationship with any of these characters, even the cultists mean little to me story wise at this point so just about every solider, cultist etc. is a random NPC. I figured out one thing i had wrong though and did progress a bit with my cultists killings and have leveled up quite a bit, i am almost to the point where i will continue with my story quest line and hopefully soon get into some of the mythological stuff so i am excited. Also starting to get more into it. Again this is PERSONAL OPINION and if it upsets you just move on but i am just discussing it as i am having trouble staying immersed in this game and i was confused as i LOVE this mythology and culture. I know i am a minority in that regard and i was coming here to discuss because i figured i was doing something wrong or missing something. But to be honest i struggle with rpgs i find they are either to linear or almost to open world for me where i lose motivation with the story overall. It is tough to keep a good balance and i dont envy game designers. Red dead 1 and 2 and Witcher 3 were perfect for me to stay invested and wanting to keep going , while enjoying all side quests etc. I do want to try black flag again as i love pirate settings also and heard alot of good about that one
The cult hunt is one of the three main stories in the game, so you should be doing that as you traverse the world. It's also a mechanic they use to get you to explore more of the setting, as there are little stories around many of the cultists tormenting local towns and the like.
The Mythical creatures are very cool and I think I enjoyed all of them, though the Sphinx blew my mind the first time I saw it - so gorgeous!