Assassin's Creed

Think I've done roughly 80% of the side missions and yet only about 30-50% of the main narrative content for fear of getting beamed back to this dreadful office setting again...

As above, I really don't like those bits but thankfully they are relatively short (even if painful).

Funnily enough the sharks (apart from the first underwater mission) never really bothered me. It was the eels that messed me up the few times I died. Really the oxygen lasts so long that you can sort of wait things out most of the time. I couldn't ever get good at the swimming underwater, I just couldn't really do any kind of controlled swimming up close to chests, etc.

wish i could suss out the ship fighting controls better though. got mortars but damned if i know how to fire em

On XBox it was left bumper and then fire with right trigger. Aim slightly in front of moving target. IMHO it is best to upgrade armour and broadside before mortar. Maybe storage because it only uses wood and you can sell more. Staying south is brilliant for looting goods for trade.

What I found really useful was to upgrade the ship as much as possible (sunken chests for elite, etc.) so I only progressed with story to as far as those being unlocked and then swam for them all. The other handy thing: Capture all forts before going too far in story. That way if you're ever being hunted just sail to them and they will take out the hunters, you collect the metal.

The other advantage is when your ship is upgraded it's much easier to take on the Man O'Wars who have c.a. 1500 Reales as well as goodies for trade so you can take the lazy way out and buy all the equipment needed for armour, etc. upgrades.

I also (being a very bad player generally) found getting Templar Armour to be a huge help but I didn't get any sense that the other armours (except Mayan) made all that much of a difference.

Treasure chests and fragments in outer sea remain unopened/uncollected - life too short in the end when there is zero benefit (I'm not online so all the multiplayer rewards don't do much).

I can't praise the very open world from the beginning highly enough. It's great to level up and be everywhere. Also the assassination contracts were a good mix - ditto the viewpoints.

Royal Convoys cost 200 Reales to find at taverns but are worth between 3000 and 5000 Reales and are simple to hit for quick money.

Forget harpooning. Lots of work for very little. Ditto hunting.

don't you need to hunt to make holsters and pouches ?

You can just buy hunting goods if you want. I prefer to hunt, myself. And rope-dart kill panthers.

The rope-dart came in too late in the game for me to really get used to but I might go back in to give it a go hunting as I never made the connection.

You can buy the hunting goods but they can be expensive therefore if you can harpoon the sea hunting goods those are actually the most expensive and with the upgrades being wood only iirc it shouldn't take long. I say this having had no patience and bought them all rather than actually put the time/effort in.

do the costumes do anything? like i can buy a new cloak or craft a shark hunter outfit but do they actively do anything to my stats?

I didn't find any difference at all which was annoying given time spent gathering the materials. Even the fancy white whale outfit seems to do nothing. I suppose some of the hunting ones might make a difference but all in all it's good for completion stats but not much else I think.

I need to come back to this. I liked the running around islands part but couldn't get the hang of the ship battles.

you're best off keeping the ship stuff to just the 'easy' islands until you upgrade a lot. spent way too many frustrating hours determined to beat a 'hard' fleet of brigs before finally giving up. hyggy, what would you say's the best order to upgrade the ship? kinda late for me as im 2/3 of the way through upgrading it all.

also, there's some kind of 'hunter's outfit' that claims to make less visible to predators. is that the only outfit that has any real use?

the templar quest with the two brothers is the only crappy mission i've played so far

Anything with stealth and following your target in this game is a total pain in the face.

I would get armour to about half first and then Broadside, Heavy Shot and finally Mortar. All to about half and then start ramping up armour as no matter how big the man o'war you'll be able to take a few hits. I never found the ram any good and fire barrels are a total waste imho.

Upgrading armour first meant I could get the forts. When I had the forts in the south I could attach bigger boats and have some firepower from the forts.

Storage when you have the wood is dead handy.

Never noticed any difference with sails so I'd sell the cloth unless you're a total completist.

I also realise that the above means I got way more invested in the grind element of the game than I realised...

i'd agree with all of that except to give mortars higher priority - if done well you can blitz an enemy from a good distance. ram and fire barrels are total meh

My take was less about what to upgrade than what you should pillage. I went hardcore for metal for a while but when I upgraded enough I needed money (to be a completist nerd and deck out my island cove) so just went after rum and sugar.

I was terrible with mortars. Even with elite it never worked (xpost).

Gukbe, I was really disappointed after all the upgrades. It didn't really add that much.

In fact in terms of empire building ACIV was a little disappointing (no upgrades on shops etc.) unless you had online. I'm not online with XBox so I don't know if this Kenway Fleet thing is worth it.

Did anyone carry out Kenway Fleet missions? Any good or as dull as the Novice training in ACIII?

It's like retreating to your cabin to play a crappy economy/annoyingly simple tactical combat simulator on a C64 to earn some peanuts while you could use your valuable playtime to blast forts, ride rogue waves and kill white sharks with your bare hands instead in real (simulated) life.

Maybe it appeals to pirate otaku idk

It doesn't sound worth the effort to get set up online for!

The sailing in this is fantastic. I was watching a Zero Punctuation review last week of it and he was pretty OTM where it did feel like you were being dragged back to land to perform missions.

Is there much interest in the new one at all?

Bring on AC WW1. That would be interesting: Modernish weapons but static fortifications to climb all over, shellholes to hide in, trenches to stealth through...

Anyone know if the Freedom Cry dlc is worth the dl.

what's the deal with ac: rogue and ac: unity? both released on the same day, former not on windows. is one a glorified dlc or are they really releasing two major games on the *same* day?

early/mid nov for both

Unity is PS4/Xbox One, Rogue is PS3, Xbox 360.

also rogue is a new pirate game

unity on the other hand is back to traditional AC style, in the french revolution era this time.

So Unity only comes out on next gen consoles? that sucks

I was looking forward to Unity until I played Shadow of Mordor. If Unity ends up being just a better-looking upgrade of the AC formula I think it'll look pretty flat next to the freeform emergent madness of Shadow of Mordor.

Also: no pirate stuff in Unity boo hiss

So Unity only comes out on next gen consoles? that sucks

aw, yeah, that's not cool. I was looking forward to roaming the streets and roofs of my city... but not sure I'm ready to upgrade the console just for that...

Think of it as the cheap game you pick up when you do decide to upgrade. Finish off the Kenway family story and hope it doesn't suck.

Well that is a bit crap. There's more chance of people having the older systems after upgrading so they get both.

Still, by the time I manage to upgrade this game will be about a fiver and we'll be on PS7.

I don't know if I care about non-piratey games after all the fun of the buccaneering.

It's like retreating to your cabin to play a crappy economy/annoyingly simple tactical combat simulator on a C64 to earn some peanuts while you could use your valuable playtime to blast forts, ride rogue waves and kill white sharks with your bare hands instead in real (simulated) life.

― the european nikon is here (grauschleier), Wednesday, September 10, 2014 5:35 PM

ahaha yes. i got back into iv, it finally clicked that letting your notoriety level rise is the way to get the bigger ships w/ metal etc. i like the fort attacks too, i just wish they didn't have the exact same layout. can't complain too much though. i was feeling that the stormy weather i'd seen was too brief and the game decided to give me a pretty bad storm with a huge waterspout and giant wave. i also like pulling up to a ship to board and just nailing guys with the side cannon without having to leave the deck

i like the fleet stuff actually, it just doesn't seem to pay that well considering you have to wait up to 10 hrs for some of them to complete

just seen that rogue is being released for windows in 2015 as well. thought it was weird that the next-gen one (unity) was being released for pcs but the 360/ps3 one wasn't.

enthusiasm has kinda waned for 4 at the moment. about 2/3 way through and it's ok but feel like i've seen everything i'm gona see. those first few days of playing though, up there with the absolute best

so apparently Unity is a shitshow, and the embargo on reviews until noon on release day shows they knew it

http://kotaku.com/assassins-creed-unity-has-the-best-glitches-1657939797

dying @ the characters with disembodied eyes and mouths

terrifying!!

Has anyone tried the game? Also wouldn't it be great if there was a mod available where that could be default?

lmao

http://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/s--yz7qRVtQ--/c_fit,fl_progressive,q_80,w_636/n18tgsjmf9vwk2gjdj2m.gif

http://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/s--WeVls9FT--/c_fit%2Cfl_progressive%2Cq_80%2Cw_636/gnto3t1ziw4ljpx6zivg.jpg
http://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/s--aSGSHPeE--/c_fit%2Cfl_progressive%2Cq_80%2Cw_636/cocb1i6ma8mxjtizevra.jpg

is unity really so bad?

Sounds more like a pc platform specific issue.. far cry 4 is having similar issues and the review versions werent even sent before release

haven't played ac4 in an age but feel ngh about jumping straight to unity without finishing it. hope it's just graphic glitches and not actual gameplay that's ropey

i wanna play unity but can't bring myself to buy it while major issues are still unpatched

'cenobites w/ collapsing bodies in paris' could be fun in its own right i guess

hear Rogue kind of sucks.

unity is dope so far

lol ubi have announced the next instalment already: http://www.kotaku.co.uk/2014/12/02/next-years-big-assassins-creed-set-victorian-london

how long until the world war 2 entry

Weimar republic would be cool

I think there's some ww2 action in unity isn't there?

So I just read the synopsis of Unity, and small spoiler, perhaps, but is the plot of the game that the assasins try to prevent the revolution?