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[pargonta]

Is it wrong that I love to hunt for icons? In both AC with viewpoints and Farcry 3 with towers and outposts, I get addicted to getting to all of them and completing/clearing them. I don't usually feel much satisfaction when I'm done, but I love the process. Put them back the way they were.

nah, there's just an inherent attractiveness in putting a connected group of icons/events/things out there. once you check off one, you can't stop sorta deal.

Speaking of combat, the devs mentioned you can keep kill chain going even with commanders and grenadiers. How ya do that?

i'm seeing this in a google search.. but i dont know if it's right .."You'll need to hit A first to break their defense, then X to finish. If done fluidly, this won't break the streak."

 

[Scapegoat]

And now the disappointment i had with this game all makes sense!

Speaking of combat, the devs mentioned you can keep kill chain going even with commanders and grenadiers. How ya do that?

I don't know for sure, but I think if they wince/recoil when you kill another guy you can then chain kill them.

I understand the design of not having viewpoints for the entire map, however I think it was extremely shortsighted to not make this super clear to players, or better yet, ensure that there are at least viewpoints in place so that the boundary/edges of maps will always be shown once synced.

Because of the lack of explanation of the change I assumed that once I had used all the sync points I had uncovered all of the map. This caused me to miss all of the Homestead missions past getting the first guy as the next Homestead mission was in a small section of Boston in the north east that I did not know existed. Similarly it took quite a while before I started a lot of the sidequests in the frontier for the exact same reason. This occurred for me even though I cleaned up all the sync points earlier in the game.

 

[Phanatic8390]

Holy Shit at the credits for this. I've been sitting here for 20 minutes already and it's still going.

 

[Hobbestetrician]

Twitter response I got says it's coming later for Wii U.

Phew, I don't want to miss out on any of the DLC for this (well, I don't particularly care about multiplayer stuff but I do want the King Washington stuff and these missions).

 

[Ahasverus]

Wow that interview is sad, they clearly NEEDED more time. Damn you, ubisoft, there was a masterpiece in here!

 

[TheSeks]

LMAO. I'm loving Shawn's quips in the comments/extra-blurbs and his e-mail replies. The lovable asshole.

 

[SpaceBridge]

Why am I not having fun with this entry?

 

[Choc]

do you have to finish the game to play the new dlc?

 

[TheSeks]

do you have to finish the game to play the new dlc?

If it's like the exclusive missions: No. Since the event triggers are in the sandbox itself.

 

[KevinCow]

I collected all the almanac pages and made all the inventions...

...And nothing. You get nothing for that.

Why.

 

[TheSeks]

I collected all the almanac pages and made all the inventions...

...And nothing. You get nothing for that.

Why.

Not even an achievement for it?

Welp, know what I'm not chasing around for Benjamin. Sorry, Benny.

 

[cackhyena]

Why am I not having fun with this entry?

Because the mission design for the main story is shit. You have fun plowing through side quests till you realize they don't net you anything of worth. Could learn a thing or three from the Far Cry team.

 

[Nori Chan]

I enjoyed making the inventions just to put them in the manor. I love filling that place out

 

[LightofRohan]

Is it wrong that I love to hunt for icons? In both AC with viewpoints and Farcry 3 with towers and outposts, I get addicted to getting to all of them and completing/clearing them. I don't usually feel much satisfaction when I'm done, but I love the process. Put them back the way they were.

In cities I can sort of see the hunt for icon's being fine, but I really think in the frontier being able to fully see it through viewpoints would kind of kill it a bit. Especially for hunting. It really helped when I was trying to fill my hunting map out to see where I haven't been in order to find new animals... perhaps they could of figured out a better way to appease both problems, but it wasn't a big deal in that sense.

 

[KevinCow]

I have to admit, I did like stumbling upon certain things like forts just through exploring. But on the other hand, I hate how my map isn't totally filled out.

Maybe if they just made the area of the map revealed by your character bigger, that could be a nice compromise.

 

[ShockingAlberto]

Not even an achievement for it?

Welp, know what I'm not chasing around for Benjamin. Sorry, Benny.

You get an achievement and you need them all to get the completionist one, anyway.

 

[Sephiroth503]

Right finished up Sequence 10 last night. Minor spoilers ahead (on game length not plot).

Spoiler

Is it me or are the sequences exceptionally short if you only do the main story missions? I don't remember AC2 or Brotherhood being this short. I thought the first few sequences were short enough but chalked that up to tutorial stuff but Sequences 8, 9 and 10 all feel like they've had very little main mission content. I spent more time doing side content than anything else and it feels like it's padding out the game enormously. More so than the previous entries.

I'm just about enjoying the game, have had to restart at least a dozen missions due to weird glitches, characters getting stuck. Really feels like this one needed more time in the oven.

 

[AHA-Lambda]

Why am I not having fun with this entry?

Boring story
idiot protagonist
bad ending
worthless side content
uninspired missions

 

[Noi]

I collected all the almanac pages and made all the inventions...

...And nothing. You get nothing for that.

Why.

Welcome to the ultimate reward for most of the side content.

 

[SuperSonic1305]

I collected all the almanac pages and made all the inventions...

...And nothing. You get nothing for that.

Why.

You get the invention recipes from the almanacs and the inventions are their own reward.

 

[Gemüsepizza]

Kotaku featured a member Q/A with a couple of the devs earlier today

I made a gawker account just to try and corner them into admitting some design failures. I didn't care for III much at all.

I went with the viewpoint design failure. it was a yes or no question but he squirmed out of it.

"Question: Viewpoints do not reveal the entire map as they did before. Do you recognize that as a poor design decision, or do you believe that to be a good design decision? For me as a player used to the traditional AC, it led to frustration.

Alex Hutchinson "Answer: @mothflight
We wanted people to actually explore the maps by moving around. Viewpoints still do the vast majority, but the game is also about running around and actual looking for things, not just chasing icons!"
http://kotaku.com/5965634/ask-the-creators-of-assassins-creed-iii-questions-theyre-here-to-answer-them-right-now

ofcourse, i knew why they did it, that wasn't my question. but oh wells, i tried.

That's just sad. From reading this interview, I got the impression they really think they did an outstanding job. There were valid and critical questions about Lucy, about the story and about those optional objectives and more... they just don't care. God, if I were the person responsible for this game, it would have been so much better.

 

[UrbanRats]

That's just sad. From reading this interview, I got the impression they really think they did an outstanding job. There were valid and critical questions about Lucy, about the story and about those optional objectives and more... they just don't care. God, if I were the person responsible for this game, it would have been so much better.

I wouldn't know about that.
I mean, a lot of the problems with this game seem to spawn from it being something too big to control under a unified vision, with 200 teams (and just as many focus teams, i'd imagine) going in opposite directions, it must not have been easy to handle.

In this sense, i can appreciate the cohesiveness the Housers bring to the R* games, despite being similar huge "monsters" in terms of production values, which is probably a collateral reaction to them being (going by the rumors) arrogant assholes.

 

[noomi]

so did the hidden secrets DLC come out for steam users with season pass? I did not get anything downloaded last night...

Unless these were already included? Basically just side mission stuff, right?

 

[conman]

Kotaku featured a member Q/A with a couple of the devs earlier today

I made a gawker account just to try and corner them into admitting some design failures. I didn't care for III much at all.

I went with the viewpoint design failure. it was a yes or no question but he squirmed out of it.

"Question: Viewpoints do not reveal the entire map as they did before. Do you recognize that as a poor design decision, or do you believe that to be a good design decision? For me as a player used to the traditional AC, it led to frustration.

Alex Hutchinson "Answer: @mothflight
We wanted people to actually explore the maps by moving around. Viewpoints still do the vast majority, but the game is also about running around and actual looking for things, not just chasing icons!"
http://kotaku.com/5965634/ask-the-cr...them-right-now

ofcourse, i knew why they did it, that wasn't my question. but oh wells, i tried.

Good try. But, yeah, these things are just fluff. They're not going to answer any hard-hitting "real" questions.

Funny part in this Q&A to me is that when it suits them, they say that they couldn't incorporate improvements to the series that were made in ACB and ACR because they started AC3 "three years ago," before those games were made. But then when it suits them in other cases, they say that they had to do things a certain way because they were done that way in ACB and ACR. Ugh.

 

[infinityBCRT]

The prompt only showed pre-patch if you moved the controller or hit a button. Post patch, it's always there, as per the notes. I think the people complaining, myself included, want the prompt to go back to how it was originally so it isn't so intrusive. The prompt doesn't need to be displayed for the entirety of each and every cutscene. It's distracting and a terribly dumb thing for them to have wasted time on 'fixing'.

So glad I finished the game before this stupid thing was patched in.

Also, Alex said the following about cutscene costume errors:

Our cut scenes in this game are all higher resolution versions of the in game models and we just couldn't fit high res versions of ALL costumes onto the disc: we literally ran out of space.

Even on the PS3 and PC versions, eh?

Also saw some interesting comments from users on how some stuff that was in the early gameplay trailers was cut like the Silas assassination. I actually was wondering where that assassination was and I'm now bummed to learn that they straight out cut that content.

 

[matrix-cat]

Jeez, this combat is killing me. Like just about everything in AC3, Ubisoft went back to the drawing board, redesigned everything and only managed to make it exactly the same as it always was. And worse, in some respects. I love that I don't have to be holding a button down for the whole fight, but why can't I dodge anymore? Why is the counter attack window so long I could take a lunch break between blocking and attacking? Why won't Ubisoft just copy Batman outright, because those games are way better than Assassin's Creed in almost every respect?

OK, so I'm fighting some guys in AC3. Maybe I start things off, but more likely I just wait for someone to attack me because they've taken out the carefully-timed button presses you used to need in the old games and now actually swinging a sword is a spongy mess. Well, Connor starts killing this guy for the next eight seconds straight, and I bide my time waiting for the moment I can play the game again. There's another guy close by, so I push the stick at him and press the button, and then I get to take another break while the animations take over. Alright, third guy, point stick and press button. Nothing. He's too far away, you see, so what can I do? I can go and fuck myself, that's what, because that's the end of my combo streak. What's Connor supposed to do, run over and kill that guy like some kind of assassin?

Oh, yeah, now that you mention it that'd be pretty cool. Maybe he could somersault over there like Batman does. Maybe I could double tap the A button to somersault over there manually, like Batman does. Maybe I could use a secondary weapon and have it not end my combo, like Batman does. Maybe the AI could take the hint that they should all crowd around and attack me more often so I would have to stay on my toes countering and dodging, like Batman does.

The only conclusions I can draw are that nobody at Ubisoft understands what makes games fun (which would explain a lot), or they know exactly how to fix Assassin's Creed but Yves Guillemot won't let them because then they'd have to think up all new things for next next year's game.

 

[MoonsaultSlayer]

Jeez, this combat is killing me. Like just about everything in AC3, Ubisoft went back to the drawing board, redesigned everything and only managed to make it exactly the same as it always was. And worse, in some respects. I love that I don't have to be holding a button down for the whole fight, but why can't I dodge anymore? Why is the counter attack window so long I could take a lunch break between blocking and attacking? Why won't Ubisoft just copy Batman outright, because those games are way better than Assassin's Creed in almost every respect?

OK, so I'm fighting some guys in AC3. Maybe I start things off, but more likely I just wait for someone to attack me because they've taken out the carefully-timed button presses you used to need in the old games and now actually swinging a sword is a spongy mess. Well, Connor starts killing this guy for the next eight seconds straight, and I bide my time waiting for the moment I can play the game again. There's another guy close by, so I push the stick at him and press the button, and then I get to take another break while the animations take over. Alright, third guy, point stick and press button. Nothing. He's too far away, you see, so what can I do? I can go and fuck myself, that's what, because that's the end of my combo streak. What's Connor supposed to do, run over and kill that guy like some kind of assassin?

Oh, yeah, now that you mention it that'd be pretty cool. Maybe he could somersault over there like Batman does. Maybe I could double tap the A button to somersault over there manually, like Batman does. Maybe I could use a secondary weapon and have it not end my combo, like Batman does. Maybe the AI could take the hint that they should all crowd around and attack me more often so I would have to stay on my toes countering and dodging, like Batman does.

The only conclusions I can draw are that nobody at Ubisoft understands what makes games fun (which would explain a lot), or they know exactly how to fix Assassin's Creed but Yves Guillemot won't let them because then they'd have to think up all new things for next next year's game.

Wrong. You have secondary weapons. Shoot your flintlock, throw a rope dart, shoot an arrow... Etc

 

[KevinCow]

You get the invention recipes from the almanacs and the inventions are their own reward.

Wait, so do they actually do anything? Because from what I can tell, they just sit around the room in the house.

 

[DangerStepp]

I'm on Sequence 5 or 6; slowly taking it in and enjoying until...

Spoiler

The Boston Tea Party Mission

It seemed like it was really chaotic and I didn't know wtf was going on. I had allies to protect and

Spoiler

tea boxes to destroy

. All the while I'm trying to abide by the mission challenges.

Spoiler

Also, I didn't think it was too sexy how they drop the Assassin's ally stuff on you (accessible with the LB button); they don't do the greatest job teaching you how to use these things

 

[ctrayne]

Good try. But, yeah, these things are just fluff. They're not going to answer any hard-hitting "real" questions.

Funny part in this Q&A to me is that when it suits them, they say that they couldn't incorporate improvements to the series that were made in ACB and ACR because they started AC3 "three years ago," before those games were made. But then when it suits them in other cases, they say that they had to do things a certain way because they were done that way in ACB and ACR. Ugh.

Let this really sink in, everyone. This is what they think of us as consumers of their product. That we're all drooling idiots. And it's not just Ubisoft.

To me, that's a signal it's time to find a new hobby.

 

[CosmicQueso]

This is what they think of us as consumers of their product. That we're all drooling idiots.

Well, we are the ones that keep buying that thing.

 

[ctrayne]

Well, we are the ones that keep buying that thing.

But not if we stop.

 

[UrbanRats]

But not if we stop.

Lol, AC3 wasn't that bad.
I'm having a lot of fun with videogames still, i don't care if some dev wants to(or has to) be a PR puppett.

The bottom line is always: if i like your game i buy it, otherwise i don't, the rest is just noise for me.

 

[ctrayne]

Lol, AC3 wasn't that bad.
I'm having a lot of fun with videogames still, i don't care if some dev wants to(or has to) be a PR puppett.

The bottom line is always: if i like your game i buy it, otherwise i don't, the rest is just noise for me.

And that's fine, you should enjoy whatever you wish.

For me, it's about this attitude that is pervading the "industry". The utter lack of honesty with their customers is extremely off-putting, as is poor/bizarre/cheap design. It's just coming to a head with AC3.

It makes me respect the devs out there who do try a lot more, though.

 

[conman]

Let this really sink in, everyone. This is what they think of us as consumers of their product. That we're all drooling idiots. And it's not just Ubisoft.

To me, that's a signal it's time to find a new hobby.

I've become a lot more discerning in what I pay for these days. I rarely splurge on big tent-pole releases. AC3 was an exception because I am a huge fan of the series, and as a series, it's almost always treated players with respect, intelligence, and patience (especially AC1). But AC3 is the first game in the series that really feels like every other AAA console release across the industry: full of schlock, pandering, silliness, sloppiness, and over-budgeted bloat.

Most of my time these days is spent with much smaller games. AC3 reminds me why that is. And, really, if publishers and developers are truly interested in avoiding the resale market, instead of strong-arming consumers into passes and DRM, why not try making games that aren't designed to be utterly disposable? AC3 is the first $60 game in a long while that I've paid full price for, and it's the first game in a long while that I turned right back around and sold into the used market.

 

[Futurevoid]

I'm on sequence 8 and I'm just dumbfounded by the complete lack of pacing in this game. It's just all over the place. The way the game is designed to dole out content makes no sense. Now, maybe I'm a special case in that I tend to explore all points of interest on a map and "clear" them before moving the main objective but doing so presents some silly situations. Why would a Fort icon appear on my map as young connor when I've not even reached Achilles? Being the completionist type, I make my way over to eliminate the opposition, follow the goals until I finally raise the Colonial flag....

....ok.

Why the fuck am I raising a Colonial flag when I've not even talked to anyone about their cause? That seems like a silly thing to complain about but I'm just confounded as to WHY the designers of the game would even make overtaking that fort an option so early in the game? Why would I have peg leg trinkets on my map when I've not even talked to the guy about Captain Kidd? Honestly, I'd almost prefer the game followed a more linear path until grown-up Connor is introduced so that some of these bonus items/missions would make sense in the context of the narrative.

Speaking of the narrative, I didn't think it possible for a game to make some of the most amazing moments in American history this boring. Once again, there's just no ebb and flow to the mission structure. They feel chopped up into specific small segments that lack excitement or any real emotional investment from the player specifically because Connor is so poorly developed as a character. Which is impressive considering the game attempts to spend so much time with him as a youth. Therein lies the problem though. You spend time with him as a young man but the entire middle section of the game that deals with his training under Achilles is skimped over completely. You run one or two missions and you get a "6 months later" every once in awhile and then he's an adult. There's just no progression for him. It's fake development which makes his actions as an adult meaningless.

The one thing that I do greatly enjoy in the game is the naval combat. It's just plain fun with fantastic music, very simple goals and gorgeous visuals. I could play an entire game of just these missions if more effort were put into varying the level/encounter design. Good stuff.

Fundamentally, the game fell off of a cliff for me once

Spoiler

the game switched over from Haytham who is 10x the character Connor is. I felt a greater connection to him and frankly felt he was far better developed in the short time I played with him than the 15+ hours I've spent with Connor thus far.

I think it was a grand mistake by Ubisoft to open the game in such a way because they unwittingly sabotaged their main protagonist by introducing a far better option from the get-go. Plus

Spoiler

how great would it have been for the Haytham Templar twist to be the finale of this game?

I'm a huge fan of AC2 and especially Brotherhood which was the pinnacle of the series for me but this has been a major disappointment thus far. I'm already far enough in that I can't not finish it but Ubi really needs to go back to the drawing board here. If it weren't for the setting and the exploration of the wonderfully realized American Frontier, I would have quit early on.

 

[ctrayne]

I've become a lot more discerning in what I pay for these days. I rarely splurge on big tent-pole releases. AC3 was an exception because I am a huge fan of the series, and as a series, it's almost always treated players with respect, intelligence, and patience (especially AC1). But AC3 is the first game in the series that really feels like every other AAA console release across the industry: full of schlock, pandering, silliness, sloppiness, and over-budgeted bloat.

Most of my time these days is spent with much smaller games. AC3 reminds me why that is. And, really, if publishers and developers are truly interested in avoiding the resale market, instead of strong-arming consumers into passes and DRM, why not try making games that aren't designed to be utterly disposable? AC3 is the first $60 game in a long while that I've paid full price for, and it's the first game in a long while that I turned right back around and sold into the used market.

Agreed. It's a shame. Not the end of the world, but a shame.

We need more Barkley 2 in the world.

 

[matrix-cat]

Wrong. You have secondary weapons. Shoot your flintlock, throw a rope dart, shoot an arrow... Etc

They all bring your kill streak to a grinding halt. The point is that Rocksteady's developers came across the issue of Batman needing to keep a combo going when enemies were no longer within arm's reach, so they gave the player a number of abilities to help with this (freeflow mode, manually triggerable dodge, secondary weapons that don't end the combo, etc). Ubisoft's devs obviously came across the same issue, and addressed it by ignoring it completely. Maintaining a kill streak in AC3 is a matter of hoping all the enemies will stay bunched up long enough for you to kill them all.

It's a functional combat system but, when you consider that Ubisoft basically threw up their hands and decided to copy Batman directly with Brotherhood, it's amazing that they're still so far behind. There's no reason Assassin's Creed couldn't have a fantastic combat system, especially now that they've dropped all pretence of the semi-realistic swordfighting from the early games. Now it's all hacking and chopping and dropkicks 24/7, but most of that is just a bunch of animations playing out while you get to press a button or two every few seconds.

 

[Deleted member 80556]

From the Kotaku article

To be honest, we probably should have tried to answer less questions and left those for potential future games, but we wanted to clear the deck a little and try and finish off a bunch of storylines for long term fans.

Fuck. That was the biggest problem of all, they tried to put everything into a single fucking game. God dammit. I wish they could do the game again.

 

[Noi]

Wait, so do they actually do anything? Because from what I can tell, they just sit around the room in the house.

Sitting in the house is all they do. You don't even get to talk to Ben Franklin about recovering his almanacs, you just make his useless inventions and that's it.

 

[Midou]

Because the mission design for the main story is shit. You have fun plowing through side quests till you realize they don't net you anything of worth. Could learn a thing or three from the Far Cry team.

It's funny cause Far Cry 3 and Assassin's Creed 3 use quite a few similar concepts, except just about every type of side-quest is fun and isn't frustrating or too long in FC3. The crafting is still a bit lame in FC3 and it could be faster or have a better interface, but it's 100x better than that garbage AC3 used. FC3 also made it obvious that crafting gets you cool shit, AC3 had some cool shit in crafting, but the system was such a hassle to use.

 

[Futurevoid]

but the system was such a hassle to use.

Mainly due to the horribly designed interface. The interface in general for most of the things you do in the game is poor.

 

[chickdigger802]

wait you can use the bow in combo chains?

 

[iNvid02]

wait you can use the bow in combo chains?

i think you hold y or triangle

 

[Lesath]

Wait, people are actually complaining about choice limitations due to full sync? I don't recall any particularly restrictive requirements (except for that one naval mission). People really need to replay AC2; the game was pathetically easy, and ACB would have been just as easy without them. If it weren't for AC2's brilliant story (until the end), the game would have been inferior to Revelations.

Also, for those who think Haytham is a better character (in-game), a summary of his personality wouldn't exceed two sentences. He's not the better character; he's just more likeable.

 

[Anatoli Bacharach]

To me, that's a signal it's time to find a new hobby.

Haha, what an extreme thing to say. I'm with you on the outrage part, but quitting all video games?

Fuck. That was the biggest problem of all, they tried to put everything into a single fucking game. God dammit. I wish they could do the game again.

Me too. ACIII could have been one of the best games of the generation. It's a real shame that it turned out this way.

 

[iNvid02]

one thing they nailed is the atmosphere, i've just been wandering around watching the world, its engrossing.

couldnt appreciate it fully when playing on PS3 with all the technical problems, PC version still needs tweaking but its so much better

 

[nel e nel]

Aren't those just a collection of pre-order bonusses from the different retailers?

That is exactly what those are. :/ I got the Ghost of War ones with my Best Buy pre-order, and it was literally 2 naval missions that lasted about 5 minutes each. I didn't even realize that they were my bonus content at the time.

Glad I didn't get the season pass on this one.

 

[MoonsaultSlayer]

Would any of you buy a director's cut version of the game down the road? A new version of the game with better pacing, added controls (crouch), expanded tutorial, new missions (New York fire?), alternate/fleshed out ending and ironed out glitches...

I want it.

 

[Futurevoid]

a summary of his personality wouldn't exceed two sentences.

One more sentence than Connor.