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Assassins Creed 4: Black Flag |OT| Not Based on a DisneyLand Ride

Carbonox

Member
Did anything happen after the credits? I watched it up to
talking to your daughter on the ship
, then the screen went black for more crediting goodness, so I went and watched something else.

There is a fast-forward cutscene where Edward is in a theatre with his daughter all grown up, watching some play. Then from behind the daughter, little Haytham appears. That's it. :lol
 
Halfway through the game (sequence-wise; almost entirely done with side missions/activities) and I gotta say, I'm really liking the modern-day stuff in IV. I've been on two full "missions" so far and that's yet to turn into anything too interesting, but the stuff you find by hacking is pretty interesting, shades of the Truth segments from 2 and Bro (though not nearly as challenging, so far at least).

The overall modern-day storyline was pretty thoroughly wrecked by III, but the world itself and all the little stories that can come out of that conflict continue to be interesting. I just read through some long text entry, Divine Somethingorother, the one from the perspective of a little girl as she grows up around family members investigating the Apple, and it's pretty damn good. Even the stuff centering around Desmond is interesting, though I'm still salty about how thoughtlessly they cast his entire thread aside.

I just installed Revelations to confirm my dislike of the post-ACIII controls, and damn, it's like night and day. They feel great compared to the unreliable crap we have in ACIII and ACIV. No random jumping and clinging on to everything in the environment, because you actually have to press a button to initiate the jump. Combat feels a ton better, too.

They should really just revert back to this.

They still have the slightly slower run speed in 3 and 4 when you hold down the trigger halfway, I wish they'd just remove free-run when you're going at that speed. It'd be the best of both worlds, simplifying the controls so you don't need a combination of two buttons to free-run while also keeping the "normal" run in the game so you can actually navigate tight spots without our hero getting distracted by shiny objects up on nearby rooftops.
 
Anyone else having issues with sending out their Naval ship battle stuff? I go in the cabin, go to the map and it says it has a u-play error. That stuff was my money maker in the game.
 

Martian

Member
I just installed Revelations to confirm my dislike of the post-ACIII controls, and damn, it's like night and day. They feel great compared to the unreliable crap we have in ACIII and ACIV. No random jumping and clinging on to everything in the environment, because you actually have to press a button to initiate the jump. Combat feels a ton better, too.

They should really just revert back to this.

Yup, the most stupid decision made in this series. Why remove the entire feature the game is built around (free-running)

Also I never understood why they keep changing the controls anyway. If I recall correctly the entire point of the AC1/2/broho control lay-out was that Triangle/Y was for head (eagle vision), Square/X was for the left arm, Circle/B for the right arm and X/A was for the feet.
 

Dawg

Member
I never am able to get online on ubi servers. Can't access the extra content store. Can't access fleet.

Looked up the problem, found a message from 4 december

It has come to our attention that some users are encountering problems with some of the online aspects of Assassin's Creed IV Black Flag when used with a Sony Entertainment Network account with more than 99 friends.

We are working to resolve this issue as soon as possible, in the meantime your access to these features will be fully restored by removing friends until you have no more than 99.

Is this still a problem? I have 100+ friends..
 
D

Deleted member 17706

Unconfirmed Member
Controls are significantly better post-AC3. The older games just have you press more buttons to do the same thing. It's nowhere as intuitive.

I really do wonder how you can feel that way. Have you tried playing the older games after ACIII? You lose so much control with the new scheme as the game decides what is best for you when it comes to where you jump and climb and which enemies you target. The problem is, the game frequently fails to match up with your intentions. This makes any frantic segment in ACIII and ACIV an effort in pure frustration, as things are bound to go wrong.

In the ACII games, you chose where you would jump. One extra button press to initiate the jump does not make it unintuitive in my book, especially when it gives you actual control over your character instead of leaving pretty much letting the game play itself as you hold the R trigger and press forward while hoping for the best.

It's even worse in any kind of combat scenario, as you can't reliably choose which enemy you're going to attack. The lack of a lock-on really screws you over in situations where you're supposed to assassinate a specific target. I'm just remembering the optional goals of "air assassinate target" or "use rope hook to assassinate target." Yeah, good luck doing that while your target is walking around on a crowded boat. There's very little chance that the game will decide to let you attack your target when you want it to.

Yup, the most stupid decision made in this series. Why remove the entire feature the game is built around (free-running)

Also I never understood why they keep changing the controls anyway. If I recall correctly the entire point of the AC1/2/broho control lay-out was that Triangle/Y was for head (eagle vision), Square/X was for the left arm, Circle/B for the right arm and X/A was for the feet.

Yeah, that is correct. It made quite a bit of sense, in my opinion. Along with the low profile vs. high profile concepts. There was a lot more freedom and control over your character in the earlier games.

Is the Aveline DLC worth the time to play through?

How do you access this? I'm on PS4 and see nothing about it in the DLC section of PSN. I entered the code that came with the game, but I don't see anything about Aveline.
 

alterno69

Banned
So, i started playing this yesterday on PS4 and i just finished the first set of missions in Havana, now i'm stuck installing who knows what and it's taking forever, is this normal? Wasn't the game installed already?
 
D

Deleted member 17706

Unconfirmed Member
So, i started playing this yesterday on PS4 and i just finished the first set of missions in Havana, now i'm stuck installing who knows what and it's taking forever, is this normal? Wasn't the game installed already?

There was a pretty big patch (few hundred megabytes) that came after the game launched. It enables 1080p rendering resolution along with a few other changes.
 

alterno69

Banned
I think i had that e already, i finished a mission and it went to the loading screen, i'm standing in the virtual empty space and it says "install in progress" in a corner with a % moving really slow, 16% after like 10 minutes, what's that?

Edit: got it, the disc was dirty and it wasn't installed cause it couldn't be read by the console, no wonder it was making some weird nosies.
 

SJRB

Gold Member
I never am able to get online on ubi servers. Can't access the extra content store. Can't access fleet.

Looked up the problem, found a message from 4 december



Is this still a problem? I have 100+ friends..

This is indeed still the problem, it hasn't been fixed yet.
 

Carbonox

Member
5 and a half hours of online play = Level 25. This is going quicker than I thought. Level 55 and buy up the remaining abilities/ranged weapons and I'll have those multiplayer trophies done. Then I'll only have to go through the story again and 100% the missions I didn't do and bam, Platinum. Then I can comfortably go in to Freedom Cry.
 

alterno69

Banned
After 10% progress in the game i have to say, it's really good. I could never play last gens games cause i hated the horrible framerate and never gave it a chance. But this is great so far. Not many assasinations required to progress, they way new mechanics are introduced feels great, everything at a right pace. Exploring the islands is a lot of fun, i just spent a couple of hours finding treasures and the little lights around the towns, i have never done that before. But it's a lot of fun here, can't wait to get to some of the mayan ruins i saw in preview videos.
 

Dawg

Member
Had to make a sandwich through my playtime. Only thing left in the house are shrimps.

Shrimp sandwich yarrr!

Also, me mateys... I could use an extra pair of swashbuckler hands to speed up fleet missions and stuff. People with ps4 version should this add this ol' scallywag

Id: GuerrillaDawg
 
Not sure if anybody else is having the same issue as me or not, but good information anyway.

Bought AC IV on launch day (xbox one) and was able to connect to the Ubisoft servers with 0 issues, that was until a few days ago. Since then I haven't been able to access the Ubisoft servers for single player OR multiplayer through the actual game; oddly enough I could through the uplay app on the marketplace. So, got fed up today and actually called Ubisoft (yes, there is a real phone number it's awesome, you get to talk to real people with no wait time) and we spent about 2 hours trying to fix the issue. Here's what we tried:

Unlinking and relinking xbox live gt to uplay account (5 times...)
Deleting uplay app after unlinking account and signing in through game (didn't work; couldn't talk to server...)
Delete game; reinstall.
Delete game and all DLC, reinstall game.
Delete game, all DLC, disconnect internet, hard reset console, reinstall game while disconnected from Internet, delete save game, connect to Internet, download patch.

All failed, and super fun fact - your xbox one saves for AC IV are on ubisofts servers...not MS, so 30+ hour save game also gone.

Then I called MS to see if it was an issue on their side (bad link between GT AND UBISOFT). I'm now waiting on a call back from MS level 3 support hopefully within the next 48 hours. I'll update if this gets fixed.
 

NBtoaster

Member
I really do wonder how you can feel that way. Have you tried playing the older games after ACIII? You lose so much control with the new scheme as the game decides what is best for you when it comes to where you jump and climb and which enemies you target. The problem is, the game frequently fails to match up with your intentions. This makes any frantic segment in ACIII and ACIV an effort in pure frustration, as things are bound to go wrong.

In the ACII games, you chose where you would jump. One extra button press to initiate the jump does not make it unintuitive in my book, especially when it gives you actual control over your character instead of leaving pretty much letting the game play itself as you hold the R trigger and press forward while hoping for the best.

It's even worse in any kind of combat scenario, as you can't reliably choose which enemy you're going to attack. The lack of a lock-on really screws you over in situations where you're supposed to assassinate a specific target. I'm just remembering the optional goals of "air assassinate target" or "use rope hook to assassinate target." Yeah, good luck doing that while your target is walking around on a crowded boat. There's very little chance that the game will decide to let you attack your target when you want it to.

I played some Brotherhood yesterday. The parkour wasn't any more precise IMO, and I found it more natural just to expect to jump without pressing A. While the lack of lock on in AC4 was sometimes a pain, especially for rope darts, it's easier to do the whole counter-kill into chain kill everyone which is what the previous games combat boiled down mostly to anyway.
 

owlbeak

Member
40 Hours in....still haven't seen a Social Chest on PS4, even though I'm connected to UPlay and have multiple friends playing this on PS4. :(

I think the social stuff may be glitched, though. I've had a blue royal convoy in the south part of the map that won't go away. It's been there for weeks and when I sail there there is no convoy.
 

James Sawyer Ford

Gold Member
So I have the digital version of AC4 on PS4 (upgraded from digital PS3 version), and I can never connect to the server to access my fleet...what is up with that?
 

Ricker

Member
Okay,Tulum memory is a pain in the ass...how the hell do I reach Kidd,in that part where there's this Sniper up near the checkpoint,it's the area with a croc roaming around in the center and a bunch of guys who have to knock-out,not kill otherwise the whole part resets...planning the route for 20 minutes and having to restart that 20 minute each time is getting frustrating...
 

explodet

Member
I just tried a multiplayer session on the PS4, and as someone who's played the Assassin's Creed multiplayer since Brotherhood on the PS3, I'd like to go on the record to say swapping the L1/L2 and R1/R2 buttons MAKES ME AN ANGRY PANDA.

It's like if they released Street Fighter 5 but they swapped MP and HP .

Why would Ubisoft do this? Is this the control scheme on the 360 or something?
 

Bebpo

Banned
What are the social sharing events (for the trophy)?

I shared a chest and a white whale. What else is there?


Also, about Legendary ships
tried my first one, the ghost ship in the bottom right corner with my ship that's upgraded up to 2nd to last on all (need elite plans for most things still). First ship battle that I couldn't just drive by and heavy shot spam to death. That's been my strategy for the whole game lol, no strategy just get near and heavy shot non-stop while shooting w/swivels during the reload wait. But this ship has too much HP for that strategy to work. Got it about 50% HP before it killed me with its version of heavy shot spam back while I was doing that.

Will try again when I max upgrade the ship, but I think I may actually need to form some ship battle strategies for these Legendary battles >_< Strategy is not my forte in a lot of games when I can just brute force with spamming the strongest attack.
 
Okay,Tulum memory is a pain in the ass...how the hell do I reach Kidd,in that part where there's this Sniper up near the checkpoint,it's the area with a croc roaming around in the center and a bunch of guys who have to knock-out,not kill otherwise the whole part resets...planning the route for 20 minutes and having to restart that 20 minute each time is getting frustrating...

I think you can pass the area pretty easily, if you just run from bush to bush and take out any guards that come near your hiding places. Taking the snipers out would be too risky.

Or do it like this guy does: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0BfYm2pUYBk
 

Quote

Member
I'm a little past the Kidd
reveal
(~40% in). Man, I'd love to play some DLC as that character. I hope their arc is not over.
 
Sequence 5, memory 3, where you start from the windmill and head to the mansion. The first time I played some guards appeared right around and front of me, out of thin air, somewhere near halfway point from the windmill and the gate. And after I died (got swarmed by the brutes), I replayed and the same guards made the same trick again. This time I was hidden, so they didn't see me. I haven't noticed the game doing that, at least not this blatantly anywhere else. It's almost like they did it on purpose here....
 
D

Deleted member 17706

Unconfirmed Member
I played some Brotherhood yesterday. The parkour wasn't any more precise IMO, and I found it more natural just to expect to jump without pressing A. While the lack of lock on in AC4 was sometimes a pain, especially for rope darts, it's easier to do the whole counter-kill into chain kill everyone which is what the previous games combat boiled down mostly to anyway.

I guess we just disagree, then. I played some more Revelations tonight and continued to be pleased with how much more control it offers. Not constantly clinging onto the random bits of the environment and only jumping when I mean to.

One thing I will give ACIII and ACIV, though, they have much, much better animation, which really makes the whole thing look a lot better.
 

Carbonox

Member
Social chests are the rarest of the events I found. In-fact I only ever got one social chest in my entire run. Plenty of White Whales and Royal Convoys though.
 
Anyhow, I was also thinking about all the OCD collection items in ACIV which is one of its few issues and I think it stems from the developers spending all this time crafting these 3-4 dozen unique locations and you spend like...15 mins in some of them so the collectibles are the way to get players to actually explore and get to know these areas the designers worked hard to make. Thinking about it, I would've rather have 10 locations that were really fleshed out and you spent at least a few hours in story-wise each and got to know then the "biggest map in an AC!" with all dozens of locations that are mainly tiny and same-y that we got. I remember AC:B and how well you really got to know every nook and cranny of Rome and how you really got to know Venice and Florence in ACII because you spent so much of the story in each of them.

In ACIV you have this big city of Havana, which is cool, and you spend like an hour and then you never see it again. The areas after that you spend even less time, with a single mission or optional mission at each usually. Like 15-30 mins total. I kind of hope ACV doesn't try to top ACIV with an even larger map if it's going to be as cut & paste and filled with collectibles because you never really get to know any of the areas. I'd like to see an AC like Brotherhood again with one or two great big areas that you unlock piece by piece that are very fleshed out and interesting.

I was thinking the exact same thing yesterday when I was playing this. You really don't get a chance to get to know the cities here as characters in their own right. AC3 had the same problem, and that's really a shame, because as you say, the cities in the Ezio games were a highlight and I really miss that sense of exploration and connection with the environment. But here they introduce the place, give you two or three missions, and then whisk you away. And the two-minute assassination contracts and collect-a-thons don't really make up for it. It seems wasteful and honestly not great game design. I would have much preferred less areas, with more nooks and crannies to explore, characters to meet and ways to interact with each city. The cities are beautiful, but mostly feel kind of pointless.

I still like this game a lot but the more you play it the more you realise little things that are off, like someone else mentioned the utter pointlessness of your pirate base and the money you spend upgrading it.

In a way, I think this is a modern weakness of AAA game design. There are so many people at work creating these things, that it's almost inevitable that there will be bad ideas and poorly thought out ideas just like there will be good ideas. AC3 was, again, very guilty of this as well.
 

Logistic

Member
I'm probably a little over 44% complete with the game. I've pretty much done everything on the upper half of the map. I've been actively ignoring the main story quests as I didn't find them that interesting. I was hooked on the collectibles for most of my playtime (clearing islands, doing assassinations). I've also put many hours into Kenway's fleet on ipad to get money and eventually fully upgraded my "base".

After over a week away from this game, I'm unsure if I want to come back and finish it. I feel like it's the same 5-6 activities repeated for 30 hours. I think I might be on memory 4 or 5 - do the final memories offer anything more than eavesdropping and assassinations?

Does the latter half of the game outweigh a $40 trade-in value? The dlc trailer looked exactly like the same game, same missions, new person.
 

Dawg

Member
Holy shit, white whale was an adrenaline fight.

Guess I should have picked an easier fight as harpoon "tutorial" :p

Got him though! With like 2% boat hp left... can you even dodge him when he suddenly comes out of the water near the boat?
 

Carbonox

Member
Holy shit, white whale was an adrenaline fight.

Guess I should have picked an easier fight as harpoon "tutorial" :p

Got him though! With like 2% boat hp left... can you even dodge him when he suddenly comes out of the water near the boat?

If you throw harpoons at his stomach as he rises up, you'll stop him from flattening you.

The only times I ever received damage from the sealife is when they charge at my boat cos I was too retarded with judging the aim and distance. :lol
 

SJRB

Gold Member
I'm probably a little over 44% complete with the game. I've pretty much done everything on the upper half of the map. I've been actively ignoring the main story quests as I didn't find them that interesting. I was hooked on the collectibles for most of my playtime (clearing islands, doing assassinations). I've also put many hours into Kenway's fleet on ipad to get money and eventually fully upgraded my "base".

After over a week away from this game, I'm unsure if I want to come back and finish it. I feel like it's the same 5-6 activities repeated for 30 hours. I think I might be on memory 4 or 5 - do the final memories offer anything more than eavesdropping and assassinations?

Does the latter half of the game outweigh a $40 trade-in value? The dlc trailer looked exactly like the same game, same missions, new person.

The game takes no drastic departure in the later parts, in fact it carbon-copies the same mission structures throughout the game [follow/eavesdrop, sneak into location, kill someone]. If you're tired of the mission structure and the story isn't engaging for you, it won't change if you continue playing.
 

Logistic

Member
The game takes no drastic departure in the later parts, in fact it carbon-copies the same mission structures throughout the game [follow/eavesdrop, sneak into location, kill someone]. If you're tired of the mission structure and the story isn't engaging for you, it won't change if you continue playing.

Thanks for the reply.

This was my first AC game ever, and while I had a good time for a few hours, I ultimately tired of the gameplay.

I'd definitely give another one a shot.
 

-Amon-

Member
Bought this a week ago on Ps4, i'm at 35% sync and i'm having a blast. The naval part and the economy connected to it are great fun to me. When you're on foot my biggest gripe is how the game controls, i don't remember having so many problems in the past AC games, ACIII included.

Apart from that i'm liking everything else, the locations and story too.

I'm probably rating AC Black Flag too much, i like the historical setting of the series and this one in particular.

Only thing i'm not understanding is what are the upgrades at the base for.
 

Dawg

Member
I think the story in AC IV is AC II quality. I usually play AC because, well, I just like playing them each year. But AC III for example did not really satisfy me with its story. On the contrary, there are still a lot of parts in there that make me go 'what the fuck was ubisoft thinking'.

This one is really good though. The only thing annoying me is the huge load of tail/eavesdrop missions. There's a fuckload of them. I'd rather fight an extra ship or two. On that regard, I wish we could fight more unique ships. There's legendary ships, yes, but I want more!

Assassin's Creed is an historical game though, so I understand they can't go full out on the crazy ship designs etc. That's actually why I hope they do make a seperate branch. A full pirate game where they are not 100% limited to historical designs.

I want more customization, more ship designs... maybe even rogue pirate factions that want to battle me.

ps: Anyone mind sharing their PS4 ID? I really could use more people on my list :p
 
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