It is the dumbest thing that assassination doesn't guarantee kill, change my mind

[Microsoft Word Premium]

I have played every previous game in this franchise. I really liked the concept of the assassin, but the non-guaranteed kill of assassination is really a fun killer. Any good reason for this change?

[TonyGun]

Longish story: early AC games prevented you from assassinating your target by using the parkour system itself -- If you learn how to platform like an expert, and your reward is mashing the assassinate button when you get into point blank range. Early AC games' missions are also linear that block out areas of the map. Parkour is an evolutionary dead end, along 10 years with of games that existing players have already solved that platform puzzle. Newer AC games instead made parkour easier and added complexity to the world: enemy types requires different stealth executions, smarter AI. Newer games are also open-ended, so they used the level system to prevent you from busting the games' economy.

Short story: old AC games are mainly platform-based stealth. Newer AC games incorporates tactical stealth with emergent gameplay elements & smarter AI in an open world.

TLDR: look up elemental buildup.

[Sigvuld]

Build for stealth damage

If you hate it that much that it ruins the game for you, Valhalla has a Guaranteed Assassinations option you can turn on

[Microsoft Word Premium]

Messaggio originale di TonyGun:

Longish story: early AC games prevented you from assassinating your target by using the parkour system itself -- If you learn how to platform like an expert, and your reward is mashing the assassinate button when you get into point blank range. Early AC games' missions are also linear that block out areas of the map. Parkour is an evolutionary dead end, along 10 years with of games that existing players have already solved that platform puzzle. Newer AC games instead made parkour easier and added complexity to the world: enemy types requires different stealth executions, smarter AI. Newer games are also open-ended, so they used the level system to prevent you from busting the games' economy.

Short story: old AC games are mainly platform-based stealth. Newer AC games incorporates tactical stealth with emergent gameplay elements & smarter AI in an open world.

TLDR: look up elemental buildup.

Thanks for the answer and tips. I get the part that the designers want to add more complexity, and I certainly have seen such effort along the way. I liked it in Syndicate that you have choices to accomplish a quest (remember 1 quest back then have options to start a riot, poisoning, or take a bank teller as hostage). I hope they took that routine instead of this.

IMO, the idea of assassination is about rewarding strategical moves. To be stealth style I need to do the recon carefully, design my route, approach enemy unexpectedly and perform a clean kill without drawing attentions. But now the stealth style is: I approach enemy unexpectedly, I long pressed f, the captain still have 1/3 hp and start a fight immediately. Even with stealth build, I still don't have enough dmg in my lvl 1-35.

I honestly don't think this is the only/best way to balance the economy and level system in a single player game. I feel they didn't put any effort in this part other than changing numbers. If they want to make assassination hard, there are many other ways like patrol units, pack-of-two's, and standing locations, and maybe even traps.

[Microsoft Word Premium]

Messaggio originale di Sigvuld:

Build for stealth damage

If you hate it that much that it ruins the game for you, Valhalla has a Guaranteed Assassinations option you can turn on

even if I go full stealth damage build, there are always some mercenary/captain/general have more hp than. Plus in the early-mid games, you don't have much options for build

[TonyGun]

Messaggio originale di Microsoft Word Premium:

IMO, the idea of assassination is about rewarding strategical moves. To be stealth style I need to do the recon carefully, design my route, approach enemy unexpectedly and perform a clean kill without drawing attentions.

And what about scenarios where your target is surrounded by half a dozen guards inside a mansion full of soldiers and he never moves? When you can't find a path, or if your idealized path takes too long to unfold, you need to create one yourself. That's the best kind of stealth play. Hiding for 5 mins waiting someone to become alone is not the best stealth play.

Odyssey has the elements you're talking about, and you can use them to become fast:
https://youtu.be/OoN2SYvgM8c

Messaggio originale di Microsoft Word Premium:

But now the stealth style is: I approach enemy unexpectedly, I long pressed f, the captain still have 1/3 hp and start a fight immediately. Even with stealth build, I still don't have enough dmg in my lvl 1-35.

You started a fight because the target is still conscious when you stealth-attacked him. Make him unconscious first by getting him into fire panicking mode, and then you can whatever you want with him.

There are 3 types of assassination targets in Odyssey: A) those who can be killed with the regular stealth attack or knockout, B) those who need the Critical Assassinate ability and C) those who need have their detection disabled and think outside-the-box.

Here's an early-level character on nightmare with crap gear so he doesn't have enough assassinate damage:
https://youtu.be/sKUp_weT0EU

Messaggio originale di Microsoft Word Premium:

I honestly don't think this is the only/best way to balance the economy and level system in a single player game. I feel they didn't put any effort in this part other than changing numbers. If they want to make assassination hard, there are many other ways like patrol units, pack-of-two's, and standing locations, and maybe even traps.

Guards switch routines, coordinate and follow each other, call for help if they get suspicious, and change behavior if someone is missing. Camps and fortress frequently have patrols coming and out from the roads. There are targets with pets that act as alarms. Snakes are traps. Nation Leaders are VIPs with an entourage who jobs are to protect their boss all cost. The bounty system punishes you for being seen doing crimes. You can do non-lethal takedowns. You can recruit. Stealth approaches are different between in cities, inside houses, on the streets, in the woods, in fortresses & camps, in underground caves.

People need to stop thinking that just because they've played AC games, they've already solved all of the stealth puzzles and they've stopped experimenting and thinking. The worst stealth player is the one that comes in a game with presumptions. The best ones are those that can learn from failing. Stealth gameplay at its core IS about solving puzzles. And in Odyssey you have new puzzle pieces. It's not about having guaranteed stealth kills. The stealth kill itself is just the reward.

[zarnivop]

Messaggio originale di TonyGun:

Odyssey has the elements you're talking about, and you can use them to become fast:
https://youtu.be/OoN2SYvgM8c

Youre on level 99 here!
Totally irrelevant to OPs question.

OP is right. Assassination up to level 35 or so are too weak. Period.

Messaggio originale di TonyGun:

People need to stop thinking that just because they've played AC games, they've already solved all of the stealth puzzles and they've stopped experimenting and thinking. The worst stealth player is the one that comes in a game with presumptions. The best ones are those that can learn from failing. Stealth gameplay at its core IS about solving puzzles. And in Odyssey you have new puzzle pieces. It's not about having guaranteed stealth kills. The stealth kill itself is just the reward.

Again, not to the point *at all*. You can't kill a captain with assassination half of the game! NOTHING to do with strategy. You're off the mark.

[zarnivop]

You are right. Odyssey is very bad in balancing early game to late game.
Early game is too limiting, and you are too weak.
Late game, you are totally OP and can kill even elites with a single strike, using builds and abilities.
Both are boring. Grindy at the beginning, unchallenging at the end. Only mid-game is properly balanced.

[TonyGun]

Messaggio originale di zarnivop:

Youre on level 99 here!
Totally irrelevant to OPs question.

OP is right. Assassination up to level 35 or so are too weak. Period.

The other video I posted is when I was level 26. Why are you not commenting on that?

Messaggio originale di zarnivop:

Again, not to the point *at all*. You can't kill a captain with assassination half of the game! NOTHING to do with strategy. You're off the mark.

And below at level 16, which I've posted here before:
https://youtu.be/GwutX5oYV6A

That enemy above is MUCH higher-level than captains. What I'm doing in level 16 is tactically no different than in level 99. That's been the whole point i these footages if you bothered to actually observe what I was doing in them.

You've known me for a while dude. I deliberately make test runs to verify these things.

I generally don't like to post videos because it spoils the game. When I do, it's because I have to provide proof., but then people either ignore them or cherry pick. If you don't buy what I'm saying, then test these tactics yourself. Period.

[Microsoft Word Premium]

Messaggio originale di TonyGun:

And what about scenarios where your target is surrounded by half a dozen guards inside a mansion full of soldiers and he never moves? When you can't find a path, or if your idealized path takes too long to unfold, you need to create one yourself. That's the best kind of stealth play. Hiding for 5 mins waiting someone to become alone is not the best stealth play.

Odyssey has the elements you're talking about, and you can use them to become fast:
https://youtu.be/OoN2SYvgM8c

I totally agree with you on this part. What you have describe is the real assassination in my thoughts. You said it's about solving puzzle, agree with that too. I like the part of planing that ruling out who is in who's view cone, so I need to take this one down first; or blow a whistle to lure a pack of 5 out of a tiny room and kill them one by one.

I watched both of the videos, they were nice, totally. but imagine at 2:57-3:03 of the first one, your assassination didn't kill that guy. You would be in a fight with at least 4 guy including 1 elite. And I saw your captain kill at 4:21, you have to admit that even you need to get him killed fast and stealthy, otherwise you would be in trouble. I see you set that guy on fire so you can double execute him, but what if I don't have your same build? It would take 2-4 shot's to set one on fire.

Messaggio originale di TonyGun:

You started a fight because the target is still conscious when you stealth-attacked him. Make him unconscious first by getting him into fire panicking mode, and then you can whatever you want with him.

There are 3 types of assassination targets in Odyssey: A) those who can be killed with the regular stealth attack or knockout, B) those who need the Critical Assassinate ability and C) those who need have their detection disabled and think outside-the-box.

If they have such design, shouldn't they introduce it a little bit? Maybe part of their tutorial they should print:"targets are more vulnerable and unable to detect when they are fleeing/burning/poisoning"? But again, there should be options instead of training a certain behavioral pattern, especially when their selling point is "various play styles"

Messaggio originale di TonyGun:

Guards switch routines, coordinate and follow each other, call for help if they get suspicious, and change behavior if someone is missing. Camps and fortress frequently have patrols coming and out from the roads. There are targets with pets that act as alarms. Snakes are traps. Nation Leaders are VIPs with an entourage who jobs are to protect their boss all cost. The bounty system punishes you for being seen doing crimes. You can do non-lethal takedowns. You can recruit. Stealth approaches are different between in cities, inside houses, on the streets, in the woods, in fortresses & camps, in underground caves.

People need to stop thinking that just because they've played AC games, they've already solved all of the stealth puzzles and they've stopped experimenting and thinking. The worst stealth player is the one that comes in a game with presumptions. The best ones are those that can learn from failing. Stealth gameplay at its core IS about solving puzzles. And in Odyssey you have new puzzle pieces. It's not about having guaranteed stealth kills. The stealth kill itself is just the reward.

Yes, those are the good and reasonable features of they game。 I like the part in your examples. All I wish is they could dig more in that direction to adding more difficulties instead of making assassination non-guaranteed.

I can hardly call myself a hardcore player because all I want from games are just a good story and some interactions. I want to enjoy this adventure in it's original way, but I feel this original way has a flaw that cannot give me an immersive experience of being an assassin. I think it is dumb to set assassin as separate tree like warrior and archer, the game is called "ASSASSIN's creed", not "WARRIOR/ARCHER's creed", not "Malaka's Creed: An Adventure in Greek", so there is no point to try that hard to balance assassin tree with other. IMO, if they really want to give style options to player, try melee assassin vs ranger assassin (i.e current assassin tree is a must have no matter what, and player can have options between current warrior tree and archer tree)

[TonyGun]

Messaggio originale di zarnivop:

unchallenging at the end

It's because you've chosen to optimized yourself out of the game. Every one-hit-everything level 99 loadouts makes performing one thing very easy, but they're paper tigers and can't take a hit, so you're letting the loadout dictate how you play.

Try a balanced loadout that can do it all.

[TonyGun]

Messaggio originale di Microsoft Word Premium:

[
But what if I don't have your same build? It would take 2-4 shot's to set one on fire.

Each arrow counts has a hit building up the elemental mete. But spread shot can fire up to 7 arrows at once. 7 hits = 7x elemental buildup. You can have the standard amount of elemental buildup and use Spread Shot at point blank range against most enemies.

Messaggio originale di Microsoft Word Premium:

[
If they have such design, shouldn't they introduce it a little bit? Maybe part of their tutorial they should print:"targets are more vulnerable and unable to detect when they are fleeing/burning/poisoning"? But again, there should be options instead of training a certain behavioral pattern, especially when their selling point is "various play styles"

Because part of stealth gameplay is letting players discover the solutions themselves through trial and error. In the older games, they would literally tell you "Kill 5 Grenaders with a Smoke Bomb" in a mission. The idea behind missions designs back then was to tell people "if you can do it in this mission, you can do it anywhere!." It wants players to have that 'ah-ha' moment.

Except, its message failed. Most people would do stealth actions in the mission because they've been told to, but rarely utilize stealth tactics while in freeform.

So in the newer games, they embraced the open world design philosophy: here are a bunch of tools and do you what ever you want. Look that the NPCs. They have animations, they talk. They have audio and visual cues that indicate changing behaviors.

For what it's worth, poison in Origins works similar to Odyssey's fire. In Valhalla, both poisoned and burning human enemies will have their detection disabled. They're just not as versatile as fire is in Odyssey.

Messaggio originale di Microsoft Word Premium:

[
I can hardly call myself a hardcore player because all I want from games are just a good story and some interactions. I want to enjoy this adventure in it's original way, but I feel this original way has a flaw that cannot give me an immersive experience of being an assassin. I think it is dumb to set assassin as separate tree like warrior and archer, the game is called "ASSASSIN's creed", not "WARRIOR/ARCHER's creed", not "Malaka's Creed: An Adventure in Greek", so there is no point to try that hard to balance assassin tree with other. IMO, if they really want to give style options to player, try melee assassin vs ranger assassin (i.e current assassin tree is a must have no matter what, and player can have options between current warrior tree and archer tree)

What you're talking about is a different kind of game design philosophy: it's giving players a pre-fixed route and pre-determined outcome. Deus Ex uses this design philosophy. It can often conflict with the emergent gameplay of open worlds, and its gameplay celling can only be as high as the game makers can make them. Emergent gameplay allows higher celling because it's up the players to to combine the ingredients themselves. Both have pluses and minuses.

The older AC games were very unintuitive for anyone that's not hardcore, so the missions were basically linear tutorials. All the youtube pro videos of AC perfect stealth / ghost / grim reaper runs were made to demonstrate their gameplay's full potential. But they are 10 year old games with plenty of time for them to dissect and practice. Odyssey is a recent game, and has been going through the same kind of backlash every new AC comes out.

[DonutSteel]

They did it to level gate stuff
And I get it
This actually combats the linearity and does it very well IMO
Instead of forcing a sequence of story quests on you from start to finish
The game makes you play the quests you want in-between few story quests
So you can choose which quests you want to do most of the time
Or just do other activities like fighting wars

I wish more people would see it that way but everyone just keeps parroting "xp boosters, BS not realistic" things and worse are the people who used cheats to skip levelling then complain the game is awful, not realizing they ruined it for themselves.

[Sigvuld]

Messaggio originale di Microsoft Word Premium:

Messaggio originale di Sigvuld:

Build for stealth damage

If you hate it that much that it ruins the game for you, Valhalla has a Guaranteed Assassinations option you can turn on

even if I go full stealth damage build, there are always some mercenary/captain/general have more hp than. Plus in the early-mid games, you don't have much options for build

You should have an even easier time in early game one-shotting people with the earliest obtainable, basic perks like Critical Assassinate literally doubling your stealth damage, etc.

The only way this isn't gonna work out in your favor is if you insist on going after people 10 levels above you or something

Otherwise I'm not sure how you're managing to have the polar opposite experience from me in stealth, because I basically never have this problem and I can only imagine there's SOMETHING you're missing, like not using Criticals or something

Tbph I'm not here to make you change your mind as much as I'm here to just make you aware you're doing something very wrong, I just don't know what that is, 'cause this is never a problem for me and I don't exactly play on the lowest difficulty or anything

[Sigvuld]

Messaggio originale di DonutSteel:

They did it to level gate stuff
And I get it
This actually combats the linearity and does it very well IMO
Instead of forcing a sequence of story quests on you from start to finish
The game makes you play the quests you want in-between few story quests
So you can choose which quests you want to do most of the time
Or just do other activities like fighting wars

I wish more people would see it that way but everyone just keeps parroting "xp boosters, BS not realistic" things and worse are the people who used cheats to skip levelling then complain the game is awful, not realizing they ruined it for themselves.

Yeah pretty much this, big same

[Hellspawn]

It is, you are absolutely right. If I bust my ass infiltrating your base and I slit your throat while you are sleeping. you should drown in your own ♥♥♥♥♥♥' blood. None of that RPG level ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥.