Haha have fun with Odyssey! The main missions are level gated even worse than origins imo... well from the 25 hours I played (and eventually gave up on)
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Assassin's Creed - An Odyssey Through the Series
- Thread starter dex3108
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Haha have fun with Odyssey! The main missions are level gated even worse than origins imo... well from the 25 hours I played (and eventually gave up on)
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Well i couldn't stay away from Assassin's Creed for long so on January 1st i started playing Odyssey for the first time. And i can only say that i have real love-hate relationship with this game. For every good thing game does there are multiple bad ones. Whenever i get mu hopes up that something creative will happen it doesn't... I spent over 20h playing this game and reached level 21 and i more-less already saw everything that game has to offer. Quests are already repeating, game is trying to evoke some emotions with some choices but those choices men nothing to me because in most cases i even don't know who characters are, managing loot is getting more annoying...
Odyssey is antithetical to a series replay like this because unlike a lot of the others it's intended to be played for months and months.
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That is why i will never replay Origins or Odyssey. I don't have time to go through artificial gate keeping just to revisit story. But i will replay ones before them because i can and love to do it.
They aren't really meant to be replayed, RPGs in general aren't designed with replayability in mind unless they specifically include new game plus modes and that was a patch for Odyssey. And it's not really artificial gatekeeping, they're RPGs. There are very few RPGs where you can go to any point of the map at anytime and be fine, or even RPGs where you speed through the story and do nothing else.
for what it's worth writing/story arcs are a step above Origins, which IMO just kind of threw shit together. that is if you stick with it
as for 'choice' the family story line does have consequence but everything else is mostly window dressing
Funny, I was about to start a very similar thread to this!
I haven't been into AC since 4, and I had wanted to get back into it, so I started with AC3 on the Switch.
3 was always my least favorite of the ones I've played (1-4), but I wanted to give it another shot in case I was misremembering or my hype when it first came out clouded my judgement.
Unfortunately, it was about as bad as I remembered it.
The game takes like 5-6 hours before you start playing as Connor as a grown Assassin and the game fully opens up. 3-4 hours are playing as his dad, and then the rest is as young Connor.
The game also never lets up with introducing new mechanics or systems that you never have to touch again. Hunting, the caravan bartering system, buying anything at all (there wasn't a single thing I found I wanted or needed to buy other than maybe ship upgrades), the ship missions (there's like 2 you need to do and the other handful are just side content which to be fair are the best missions/levels in the game), the "summon assassin's" button feels really tacked on in this game and only really need to use it once or twice, etc.
It's like half the mechanical stuff in the game doesn't really fit this game, but since it was in past games then they had to find ways to cram it in. And the ship combat stuff is some of the best parts of the game, but it doesn't really fit with your character to make him a ship captain out of nowhere. It really feels like they rushed that in since they were already working on it for AC4 and they knew it'd be fun.
The cities really disappointed me too. Only Boston and New York as full cities, and a large wilderness zone that just becomes a pain to navigate through so I end up fast traveling past it. The cities aren't really fun Assassin's Creed cities since they have such wide roads which makes rooftop traversal much harder, if not possible at all for large stretches. The landmarks are also lacking compared to past games. Sorry colonial America, but random churches and a handful of notable wooden buildings aren't that impressive compared to what Italy has.
In my replay I was most looking forward to playing as Connor to see how his story pans out. I barely remembered any of it since I cared more about the Desmond storyline's conclusion, but in replaying it I found it as forgettable as the first time. He's got one good conversation with Samuel Adams (I think) where he argues about slavery and freeing ALL people, not just the whites from British rule, but that's about the only noteworthy one.
His whole motivation is killing Charles Lee who killed his mom, but he runs into him multiple times in the game and doesn't kill him for really stupid reasons, until the end of the game where you just finally get to do it because the game says so.
The Templar/Assassin storyline wasn't great either. The Templars don't really have much of an evil plan this game, it's just Charles Lee that went rogue and killed the Native American village. Their main goal is just stopping the revolution, then wanting to lead the revolution when they fail at that. And Connor doesn't really care much about anything that's happening, he feels like an errand boy for all these historical figures in a way I didn't feel from any other AC protagonist.
And good god that conclusion is still the WORST. An incredibly easy to fail chase mission where you eventually catch the guy, shoot him, then he takes a ship to a random bar, where you just happen to find him, and THEN you kill him.
The Desmond conclusion isn't great either, but they had to wrap it up somehow I guess. I still kinda miss Desmond as the player surrogate in the modern day times, but I guess they just ran out of stuff for him to do.
I also decided to do the Homestead missions this time which I completely skipped the first time I played it. They're fun missions and I enjoyed recruiting people and doing the little missions for everyone, but at the end it felt like none of it mattered. I was invested in a romance story between two of the characters, and I did every missions I could find between every main mission, but in the end there was no conclusion, the guy gave the lady a knife and that was it. And overall I never found any benefit or purpose to doing any of the missions, it just felt like yet another tacked on, half baked system crammed into the game.
I still had some fun playing it, but about 10 hours before the end I was definitely getting bored. The side content is definitely the best stuff in the game, like the peg leg ship missions and the homestead missions (even if the latter doesn't really go anywhere). The game just felt rushed IMO. The tree climbing was a nice addition but feels a bit clunky, and the game being so filled with systems that it does nothing to encourage you to use more than once ends up making it feel bloated.
I haven't been into AC since 4, and I had wanted to get back into it, so I started with AC3 on the Switch.
3 was always my least favorite of the ones I've played (1-4), but I wanted to give it another shot in case I was misremembering or my hype when it first came out clouded my judgement.
Unfortunately, it was about as bad as I remembered it.
The game takes like 5-6 hours before you start playing as Connor as a grown Assassin and the game fully opens up. 3-4 hours are playing as his dad, and then the rest is as young Connor.
The game also never lets up with introducing new mechanics or systems that you never have to touch again. Hunting, the caravan bartering system, buying anything at all (there wasn't a single thing I found I wanted or needed to buy other than maybe ship upgrades), the ship missions (there's like 2 you need to do and the other handful are just side content which to be fair are the best missions/levels in the game), the "summon assassin's" button feels really tacked on in this game and only really need to use it once or twice, etc.
It's like half the mechanical stuff in the game doesn't really fit this game, but since it was in past games then they had to find ways to cram it in. And the ship combat stuff is some of the best parts of the game, but it doesn't really fit with your character to make him a ship captain out of nowhere. It really feels like they rushed that in since they were already working on it for AC4 and they knew it'd be fun.
The cities really disappointed me too. Only Boston and New York as full cities, and a large wilderness zone that just becomes a pain to navigate through so I end up fast traveling past it. The cities aren't really fun Assassin's Creed cities since they have such wide roads which makes rooftop traversal much harder, if not possible at all for large stretches. The landmarks are also lacking compared to past games. Sorry colonial America, but random churches and a handful of notable wooden buildings aren't that impressive compared to what Italy has.
In my replay I was most looking forward to playing as Connor to see how his story pans out. I barely remembered any of it since I cared more about the Desmond storyline's conclusion, but in replaying it I found it as forgettable as the first time. He's got one good conversation with Samuel Adams (I think) where he argues about slavery and freeing ALL people, not just the whites from British rule, but that's about the only noteworthy one.
His whole motivation is killing Charles Lee who killed his mom, but he runs into him multiple times in the game and doesn't kill him for really stupid reasons, until the end of the game where you just finally get to do it because the game says so.
The Templar/Assassin storyline wasn't great either. The Templars don't really have much of an evil plan this game, it's just Charles Lee that went rogue and killed the Native American village. Their main goal is just stopping the revolution, then wanting to lead the revolution when they fail at that. And Connor doesn't really care much about anything that's happening, he feels like an errand boy for all these historical figures in a way I didn't feel from any other AC protagonist.
And good god that conclusion is still the WORST. An incredibly easy to fail chase mission where you eventually catch the guy, shoot him, then he takes a ship to a random bar, where you just happen to find him, and THEN you kill him.
The Desmond conclusion isn't great either, but they had to wrap it up somehow I guess. I still kinda miss Desmond as the player surrogate in the modern day times, but I guess they just ran out of stuff for him to do.
I also decided to do the Homestead missions this time which I completely skipped the first time I played it. They're fun missions and I enjoyed recruiting people and doing the little missions for everyone, but at the end it felt like none of it mattered. I was invested in a romance story between two of the characters, and I did every missions I could find between every main mission, but in the end there was no conclusion, the guy gave the lady a knife and that was it. And overall I never found any benefit or purpose to doing any of the missions, it just felt like yet another tacked on, half baked system crammed into the game.
I still had some fun playing it, but about 10 hours before the end I was definitely getting bored. The side content is definitely the best stuff in the game, like the peg leg ship missions and the homestead missions (even if the latter doesn't really go anywhere). The game just felt rushed IMO. The tree climbing was a nice addition but feels a bit clunky, and the game being so filled with systems that it does nothing to encourage you to use more than once ends up making it feel bloated.
Uhhhhhhh.....
I don't think you did all the homestead missions if it stopped at the knife.
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Let me be more precise. One of the biggest point of RPGs is replayability, that is the case since D&D and Pen & Paper is a thing. Before New Game + was even in anybody mind. That replayability is achieved differently through years, some RPGs offer different story paths, other offer different character build differences, some combine both... Origins and Odyssey offer non of those and as you said they are not designed to be replayed. They are designed to capture person who buys the game and keep it busy long enough in hope that they will sell MTX. There is not a single reason to replay either of those two AC games because Ubisoft gave you no reason. Then you go and compare for example Witcher 2 and what CDPR did there (that is why i still prefer W2 over W3), or look at Souls games that even with NG+ offer so much replayability because those developers gave you reason to replay it.
And to be more precise issue is not gatekeeping, issue is how it is achieved. Let's compare somewhat similar situations from Witcher 3 and Odyssey. In both games you reach point where you need information from NPC to progress the story and in both games that NPC asks something from you before they give you that information. Those quests are Family Matters (best known as Bloody Baron quest) in Witcher 3 and Xenia quest in Assassin's Creed Odyssey.
To get information you need in Witcher 3 you need to do one of the best quests in RPG game with more twists and turns than some games have, and in Odyssey you need to pay 15K drachma.
Ok let's be more fair towards Odyssey because you actually need to do some of quests to collect that money. So what we get to do in Odyssey? First "quest" to do and get decent money is to go and rob National Treasure that is in the middle of the fort and by that point you did exactly same thing at least once. Second quest you get to do are actually 2 quests connected. You need to steal map from house and by that point in the story you did exactly the same thing at least once (plant fake votes in Athens), second quest is to go and retrieve item from sunken ship and you guess it you probably did exactly the same quest on first island (you get even the same warning from quest giver about sharks in both quests). And you can do 3rd quest where you are asked to sing certain amount of ships around the island.
And then on top of that in Odyssey you have actual level gating where it is more-less impossible to do some quests if you are low level. And again that is not an issue issue is that you need to do identical side quests and activities over and over again to raise your level.
Can you now see the issue? Gatekeeping is fine, the way Ubisoft did it (doing same thing over and over again without any substantial reason) is the issue.
Writing i am not sure that it is better but story is. Issue is that you don't spend enough time with any of the characters (at least so far) that you give sh*t about them. Take for example that first big decision you need to make on first island. You come to location, you get reasonable explanation of the situation and you need to make decision about people you see for the first time. Then you have people who are actually almost all the time with you and yet they still failed to make you connect with them. Obvious examples are Barnabas and Herodotus. Herodotus gets really good introduction and you get interested in character and after that nothing. He is roaming around your ship and you have no interaction with him. Imagine if you could set the point on the map, let Barnabas steer the ship and you can go and talk with Herodotus or simply listen his stories until you reach destination. And things are even worse for other characters you meet, you were supposed to care about them after short interaction or care about decisions you need to make about them.
most (maybe all?) supporting characters have vignettes or "character quests" to flesh them out throughout the game. execution is flimsy and kind of anemic but by the end you actually know who's who and kas/alexios has a rapport with them. unlike Origins where i was constantly going "who are these people??"
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Issue is again execution, most of quests boil down to doing same things without meaty narrative do cover some of those flaws.
This Ian objectively not true. Origins and ESPECIALLY Odyssey absolutely offer different character build differences. Stealth archer is way different than someone who focuses on tanking damage and using heavy weapons, not caring for stealth at all. And frankly, when I say they're not meant to be replayed, I mean in the sense that they are gargantuan games compared to what came before. Even with new game plus mode and branching choices most people don't go back to replay 100 hr long RPGs.
You are not engaging with the game on its own terms. Especially if you didn't have the money by the time that quest comes up, and no, you don't need to do identical side content. Nearly every area of the map has quests for you to do. On top of the ludicrous awards for things like the big battles.
I agree with dex3108 ... funny he mentioned that quest because that's exactly the point where I gave up. I share the same view.
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By the end of the game you have unlocked all abilities. What is there to try on different run? I already unlocked 90% of things that i consider useful in Odyssey and i am like 1/3 through the game. Critical assassination is 2/3, Assassination 3/3...
So you are telling me that i am playing RPG game wrong? And you are telling me that 90% of the quests in Odyssey aren't steal/take something from guarded area, free somebody from guarded area, kill somebody in guarded area?
New game +!
I replayed Origins that way and by doing the critical path Quest it feels much closer to classic AC games.
Just starting this thread but wanted to say thanks for sharing OP. Look forward to reading thru this :)
I was a HUGE franchise fan up until AC3 (which I legit loved), but then I sorta of just.... fell off and couldn't catch back up due to their release schedule. At this point, I still need to properly play Origin (which I've embarrassingly rebought several times) and doubt I'll ever even get to Odyssey.
I am looking forward to Ragnarok tho...
I was a HUGE franchise fan up until AC3 (which I legit loved), but then I sorta of just.... fell off and couldn't catch back up due to their release schedule. At this point, I still need to properly play Origin (which I've embarrassingly rebought several times) and doubt I'll ever even get to Odyssey.
I am looking forward to Ragnarok tho...
I replayed both Origins and The Witcher 3 a year+ after my original runs when I bought the respective DLC. Neither was particularly strong on replay.
I didn't really like Odyssey, but comparing the best part of The Witcher 3 narrative (and the only one anyone on Era appears to actually remember) to a minor, largely optional quest in Odyssey is a bit unfair. Most of TW3's quests are also mediocre.
I didn't really like Odyssey, but comparing the best part of The Witcher 3 narrative (and the only one anyone on Era appears to actually remember) to a minor, largely optional quest in Odyssey is a bit unfair. Most of TW3's quests are also mediocre.
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You can ignore story told in that quest, my point was how one company used same base idea for slowing progression and did it in different ways. One is fare superior than other one. So far in Odyssey closest thing i got to that is Symposium quest, but still not close to W3 ones. And i can't agree with that W3 comment, most quests in W3 had enough depth to cover their basic premise well enough.
So the issue is you. Since there's a lot more you can do with a stealth build.
The objectives are simple because the world is systemic . I know that AC was one of the lead series when it came to the last gen trend of "the best games emulate cinema as much as possible." But, they adapted. You describe it as incredibly simple but he amount of things that can happen lead to an incredibly varied experience. Things can go wrong and the game keeps going and that story is unique to the player. That's the reason why outside of a few members on this forum the game's reception was stellar.
Dammit, I knew there was some BS about this.
I constantly checked for new Homestead missions after every story mission, and yet by the end of the prolouge there just weren't anymore to choose from.
Maybe they gated progress to the stupid feather collectibles or hunting missions or something? I was doing most of those but stopped when I bought the map for them and realized how many of the damn things there were left (and I had already collected a LOT of them).
Uh no. They aren't related to collectibles like the peg leg missions. (Also the missions there are worth it). They unlock as you progress through the story sequences.
So the game just bugged out then, that's even more irritating.
I got all the way through the story of the farmers who wanted a baby, and I think the two mill people who fight with each other (one of the missions was playing bocci ball which was super weird to stumble upon, haha).
I thought the AC3 remaster on Switch was fine for the most part, it did have pop-in, an occasionallay iffy frame rate, and the eyeballs in characters glowed like crazy. It's like they were constantly reflecting light even in dark scenes. Pretty much ruined the look of all the cutscenes.
The Peg Leg stuf was definitely worth it. Beyond having some of the best designed levels in the game and having more of the great ship combat, you do get a pretty good item at the end as a reward.
Which sequence were you in when they stopped appearing? The homestead story keeps going until the endgame events. It's not a bug.
I don't know the exact sequence number, but before I started any new sequence I would fast travel to each city, the wilderness, and the homestead to look for any new Homestead missions. They were my priority during this play through since I largely ignored them when I played it at launch.
I wouldn't even begin a new sequence if there were homestead missions left.
Last homestead missions I remember getting were the bocci ball game with the two mill friends, the farmers having their baby, getting the knife made for the guy to give to the hunter and he got a kiss on the cheek.
There definitely seemed like a lot that never appeared for me, there's the blacksmith (?) who the British were looking for, there was the priest who I recruited, but I don't think I got any full missions with him.
After I finished AC3 the other week I just got around to starting AC: Rogue.
I already played AC4 for like 40hours back when it came out so I didn't feel the need to play it again, especially since Rogue shares so much with it.
I'm only an hour or two in and I already like it a LOT more than 3. The color palette is so much more colorful and vibrant (3 was so desaturated nearly all the time, except for the ship missions, coincidence, I think not!), the port seems better (runs at a better framerate, the eyes don't glow in cutscenes so far, but the resolution can go down a little, it's dynamic in this port), and the ship stuff being the focus is so much fun.
Even just the gameplay feels so much better. It all just feels snappier, like it's more responsive, and tree climbing feels a little less janky as well.
It's also a game I haven't played yet so I'm actually excited about the story. I've always thought a Templar focused game was a great idea.
The optional objectives was to do it without being seen, and do an air kill on a large soldier. It took about 10 tries before I did the air assassination and did the first boat without being seen, but the second boat had more soliders and I was spotted almost immediately. I gave up caring about the optional objectives after that, it just pissed me off too much.
I already played AC4 for like 40hours back when it came out so I didn't feel the need to play it again, especially since Rogue shares so much with it.
I'm only an hour or two in and I already like it a LOT more than 3. The color palette is so much more colorful and vibrant (3 was so desaturated nearly all the time, except for the ship missions, coincidence, I think not!), the port seems better (runs at a better framerate, the eyes don't glow in cutscenes so far, but the resolution can go down a little, it's dynamic in this port), and the ship stuff being the focus is so much fun.
Even just the gameplay feels so much better. It all just feels snappier, like it's more responsive, and tree climbing feels a little less janky as well.
It's also a game I haven't played yet so I'm actually excited about the story. I've always thought a Templar focused game was a great idea.
Yeah, for half the game I even tried to get 100% completion on all the levels, but gave up at a mission where you need to take out two ships firing on the city. The main objective is easy as hell, just get on the boats, kill the British soldiers, then set the explosives.
The optional objectives was to do it without being seen, and do an air kill on a large soldier. It took about 10 tries before I did the air assassination and did the first boat without being seen, but the second boat had more soliders and I was spotted almost immediately. I gave up caring about the optional objectives after that, it just pissed me off too much.
Yea you definitely missed a lot. IIRC the game doesn't have any notifications that tell you that there are more available as you're expected to explore and find them on your own.
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You keep talking about systemic world and using it as excuse for almost everything. And amount of things that can happen is also limited. You can approach fort from any angle, big deal, when there are anything unique that you can do. You either can stealthy complete fort or get into the fight. Hell Syndicate had more ways to kill enemy. And as much as you don't want to admit every fort/outpost is the same with same enemies, same tools, same opportunities. And as I said before Ubisoft could do 20 forts in entire game, make every single one of them unique and on the similar level to new Hitman levels just at smaller scale. But no it is easier to do copy paste.
Simply game is shallow and simple and no amount of "systemic" world can fix that. They are trying to put in so many things and they halfass every single of them.
It's perfectly valid as a design choice and no it's not.
Lol do you think the devs would agree with this statement?
Objectively false
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And give me example what can you do in outpost beside releasing animal or shooting jar full of oil, shooting enemy with arrow or going into the fight? That is what every single camp/outpost has, nothing unique for specific fort/outpost.
I played enough immersive sim games to know how multiple solutions to a problem look like in games designed with that in mind, Origins/Odyssey offer very little in that regard.
A lot of the forts and camps are copy/pasted though, to the point I was thinking "Ahhh yeah, I remember this one" after a while. And the gameplay options are indeed identical in each.
Personally, I don't mind that too much. For the same reason I don't mind every Nordic Ruin in Skyrim feeling familiar for example. I still think there's enough variation with types of mission/dungeon, that I don't mind too much when they feel similar within each type.
However, I do think AC would be much better off by ditching level gating, allowing players to critical path the main story and ignore the side quests, and make sure the writing and quest design for the main story missions are all unique. They can still have the huge maps and wealth of optional exploration content for those of us that love that and want to spend 100+ hours with the game. But I also think the series would be better off long term if it also returned to offering a more direct narrative approach for the fans that loved that aspect of the older games more than anything else.
Think I'm with you. I praised both Origins and Odyssey a lot but the past few months I've definitely been dancing back on some of that praise, mainly because I've went back to some of the older games and realized that a lot of what made this series truly special is outright missing from the newer games.
The systemic approach is cool, nice, but ultimately it doesn't really replace handcrafted quests made by the developers themselves. It's not just about the cinematic presentation, it's about variety too. Origins and Odyssey both suffer, as you say, from having too much of the same basic quest objectives. Yes, you have more variety in how you approach each situation on a micro scale, but on a macro scale.... not really. Because ultimately you'll just stick to one method that you find works. Forcing variety just for the sake of it is a bizarre concept in my opinion, since that task is usually relegated to the game developers - the game itself - not the player. Sure, I can respect or have multiple builds at any time - do away with my ridiculously overpowered stealth build with the pirate set and a bazillion extra % chance to crit and bazillion extra % crit damage, and start shooting everyone with an arrow from a mile or just jump in and start swordfighting everyone, but... I prefer the stealth approach and it works so efficiently, so why should I bother changing it?
Earlier entries solved this by introducing objectives, scripted sequences that force you to adapt/change. This can of course be annoying too. The irony of me complaining about freedom while also criticizing RDR 2's strict mission design isn't lost on me - I do wish that Odyssey and RDR 2 met halfway, because that'd be literal perfection.
The value of the system approach feels somewhat overstated here. The mercenary system in Origins worked exactly as it should - there were only a few of them and their movement on the map was "real", they never teleported to you or anything like that. Odyssey though... there's basically an endless supply of mercs and they WILL teleport to you if you start trouble in a town or a fort. Not the ones that are marked on your map of course - but random ones that you didn't see before. The rest? Yeah, changing ToD to alter AI routine, random animal attacks... all good, but as I said above, they don't really provide an apt replacement for the handcrafted quests.
Nothing in Odyssey comes even close to the highs of the older style games. I have completed hundreds of quests in Odyssey and I'd say that 95% of them practically just blend together into one enjoyable, but really repetative blob. Meanwhile I can easily name dozens of cool missions from each Ezio game or Unity/Syndicate. At least Origins had several "key" quests which were far more linear/scripted than others, and were actually quite good.
and then there's The narrative... oh boy. Don't even wanna get started on that. But Odyssey's treatment of the overarching story, the lore has been fucking horrendous and ubisoft has once again shown -as they have with how they sidelined Juno to the comics- that they simply don't have a big picture plan. And that fucking kills me, because I used to be such a big fan of this franchise and its lore.
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As i said before i would have way less issues with current formula if it was done properly. But it isn't, everything is shallow. But that is Ubisoft, they will never make something deep because that is not their way. I would love that they prove me wrong and make game 3 times smaller than Odyssey but with handcrafted and unique quests, immersive sim level of interaction with the world and acting and writing on the same level as Witcher 3 or RDR2.
I had less issues with origin , because AC took a break for a bit and Bayek + world of Ancient Egypt felt far better realized . The negative space helped a lot to sell the world and make every new location with population exciting .
Odyssey i dropped 40h in, idk , i just felt like nothing mattered in that game , be it how you traverse the world or what side content you do, ,a lot of stuff just blurred together and having a disctraction every 10 sec did not help one bit . It just felt excessive in all the wrong ways.
I am still looking forward to new AC, I just hope to god theres much less enemy outposts and camps and more one off side missions with unique areas and npcs . I wanna feel like side content matters
Odyssey i dropped 40h in, idk , i just felt like nothing mattered in that game , be it how you traverse the world or what side content you do, ,a lot of stuff just blurred together and having a disctraction every 10 sec did not help one bit . It just felt excessive in all the wrong ways.
I am still looking forward to new AC, I just hope to god theres much less enemy outposts and camps and more one off side missions with unique areas and npcs . I wanna feel like side content matters
Whether RPGs are designed with replayability in mind, they are designed in such a way that favors replayability more than about any other genre precisely because it emphasizes player choice with all the different types of player builds, the different choices in dialogue that can lead to completely different consequences. I do think one of the flaws of AC Odyssey is that it allows you to basically respec your build at will so you never have to commit to a build, though that's probably a decent compromise given how big AC Odyssey is. I think it would have been a bit more preferable, as much as I did like the game, for it to be shorter but also force you to commit to a specific playstyle.
Size of the game world is mosrly irrelevant. That's the wrong thing to focus on, but a lot of people blame world size for repetition and poor writing.
Ultimately there would be nothing wrong with doubling the world size of Odyssey, and even keeping the same level of repetition for free form content, since a lot of players love that. So long as the main story is well written, has a lot of unique gameplay, and level gating is removed so you only have to pursue free form content if you want to.
That's how the older AC games worked, which still suffered from an insane amount of repetition, even blander and more pointless than Odyssey's (go collect half a million animus fragments because reasons), but by keeping it truly optional it didn't generate as much hate from people who were playing for the story. You'll see an equal number of people defending Odyssey's approach though, because for the completionists among us the forts, camps, hunts and side quests are all infinitely more interesting exploration content than chests and animus fragments.
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Bigger game is more time and resources they need to spend to fill that world. That is the issue. They are spending time on filling that world instead of expanding variety and improve narrative and writing.
Nope, different teams. Environment artists wouldn't be working on the narrative. Odyssey's issue isn't a lack of narrative work. It's the quality of the core narrative, and the level gating blocking progression through it on a critical path. A smaller world with fewer environment artists doesn't solve that issue. The two are not linked.
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And who is talking about environmental artists? If something is done right in all AC games that is art and environment. Issue is that they need more content to fill that world so instead of having decently sized level design team focused on variety of smaller number of "levels" they need to push out tons of content to fill that map. Same goes with writing, instead of 100 well written and designed quests we got 400 mediocre to bad ones because world had to be filled with them. And because everything had to be done on same budget they reused as much as possible that is why main quests can get similar to side quests.
Environment artists tend to handle most caves/forts etc too. Yes, that can lead to more repetition on a larger map, but so long as the core story content is all unique it doesn't matter. The players that want to critical path and ignore the side content can. That's the issue with the Origins/Odyssey model - you can't critical path like you could with AC3 and 4, both of which also had colossal amounts of side content, but less than Odyssey and still more boring. The side content itself doesn't affect the core narrative quality. They just need to up the quality of the core narrative and mission structure, and remove level gating, to fix that issue.
I'm not saying I'm against more variety in side content! Just saying that reducing side content and map size doesn't free up manpower for the core narrative team. All that does is lead to redundant environment/dungeon designers.
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Again more people working on something bigger chance that it will be worse. Smaller teams can execute things better because they can communicate faster and exchange ideas faster. And again they can focus on crafting less but more meaningful content instead of thinking how to fill that map. They simply need to put quality over quantity.
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Well that is not true, there are few exceptions, for example Symposium quest.
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I played a bit more of the game and this time i will talk about moments in game that are supposed to be emotional or shocking , about twists and so on. In short every single of those moments falls flat, either because it doesn't feel earned or because of the line delivery there is always something. You spend way too little time with characters to feel attached to them. And even those who you see multiple times you have short conversations. One of the first decisions you have to make is on the first island and you need to decide fate of random people. You are presented with logical choice and you absolutely have no reason to pick other choice you have. And that is more-less repeated through the game just like everything else. Around the middle of the game you get big moment and again 0 emotions. I cared more for my horse in RDR2 than i care for any of the characters in Odyssey to be honest.
That was quite honestly bullshit. But at the same time when it happened I was like, oh ok, my decisions have consequences. Good to know.
However Barnabas mentions to go back to the first island, a plague has struck and to talk to him if I want to help So I went back, and expected a mission of sorts.
Nothing! Why was this even a thing?
Annoyed me a lot!
Sometimes I really want to go back to this game, after having giving up. But then I remember a lot of stuff I disliked and dont.
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Its not even about consequences. That quest has two choices and any sane person who doesn't know those people would pick same choice. Now if you were more involved with those people or there was option to find secret 3rd choice or something like that i would be fine with outcome and no quests later.
Oh yeh agreed. It literally made no sense.
In fact it made me appreciate the Witcher 3 even more! Bloody baron, Werewolf, Forest spirit...
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There is no build up to any of those major decisions or moments that were supposed to be emotional or shocking. It really is sad.
I think I'm about 3/4 of the way through AC: Rouge on the Switch and I'm still really enjoying it.
It's a much better port than the AC3, in addition to being much more technically impressive as well. New York from AC3 is in this game, but it feels like a much more lively and colorful city. At times I'm genuinely impressed at the character count of civilians on screen while still having a fairly solid framerate. Still has pop-in at times like that, but forgivable IMO.
I don't think they had this in AC4, but I like how they kinda mixed in the Assassin hunt multiplayer mode with the single player game. It's not actual multiplayer, but they basically have gangs that have their own assassin's that sneak up on you and attack you. It can be a little annoying occasionally, but it also keeps you on your toes and it's fun to find them hiding and take them down yourself.
It's a much better port than the AC3, in addition to being much more technically impressive as well. New York from AC3 is in this game, but it feels like a much more lively and colorful city. At times I'm genuinely impressed at the character count of civilians on screen while still having a fairly solid framerate. Still has pop-in at times like that, but forgivable IMO.
I don't think they had this in AC4, but I like how they kinda mixed in the Assassin hunt multiplayer mode with the single player game. It's not actual multiplayer, but they basically have gangs that have their own assassin's that sneak up on you and attack you. It can be a little annoying occasionally, but it also keeps you on your toes and it's fun to find them hiding and take them down yourself.