[Leo Talks] Why is Assassin's Creed so easy?
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- Опубликовано: 13 сен 2024
- Recently on the AC Subreddit I saw a thread talking about whether or not Assassin's Creed should be difficult. I say that yes, Assassin's Creed should be difficult. But before it can be difficult, it first has to become mechanically reliable, predictable, and consistent.
Here, I explain my reasoning for why Assassin's Creed is likely so easy, and what would happen if we turned up the difficulty without addressing the issues the franchise has that make keeping it easy for now, a legitimately good idea.
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There's something depressingly hilarious about me mentioning that the reason Assassin's Creed is so forgiving is primarily because of the complexity of its systems and how, in their being unreliable and prone to failure, they need to afford the player the ability to survive mistakes that aren't really their fault.
The implication was always that if Ubisoft wanted to make Assassin's Creed genuinely tougher, they'd need to make these systems more reliable and consistent so you didn't get a Unity situation where the game was hard _on top_ of movement, stealth and combat dropping your inputs, constantly failing even when you played perfectly.
Instead, they did the opposite, which was what I always feared;
Simplified everything. The systems can't crumble to dust between your fingers if they just don't exist. Just gut parkour, de-focus stealth and shift all your design toward combat, and you can even add variable difficulty modes from Easy all the way up to Nightmare, which Origins, Odyssey and Valhalla have done.
Instead of taxing your skill at movement, positioning, understanding guard layouts and, yes, sure, combat -- which does have value and always did -- they just chose to all but shear off the most iconic parts of this franchise's core gameplay and emulate the admittedly good combat of other games rather than setting interesting trends themselves.
Not happy about that, but it was always going to happen one day, knowing the direction AC kept heading in. Rough.
like and subscribe uwu
Did you know that in the earlier builds of AC1 Altaïr would die from just one sword hit.
Took me the longest time to get this, for so long I wanted AC to have more lethal combat.
Though I did find this in one AC2 playthrough with the Difficulty mod. Unfortunately my antivirus got updated next year and would not allow me to have it due to the mod being a trainer (memory editing hack) but with increased difficulty instead of cheats.
Then I realized the best difficulty for AC games: Only kill as much as you definitely need, as stealthily as you can and perform combat as fast and stylishly as possible.
Often the best reward is the intrinsic reward and the external reward was having the protagonists behave in a more consistent matter.
I do know about that. There are a lot of differences between early versions of AC1 and the retail version that got put on store shelves. As for your comments on self-imposed challenge / stylishness, I 100% agree. I generally prefer to play that way as well, for similar reasons. I have a lot of videos on Unity in particular (since, for some reason it does really well on RUclips) if you want to check that kind of stuff out. Cheers!
@@LeoKRogue Oh indeed! The lack of the crossbow being perhaps the most notable difference.
I subscribed to you a few weeks back after seeing your video on Odyssey's stealth and sure have seen them videos as I intend to revisit Unity at some point.
Thank's to you; Shadow of Mordor is also on my replay backlog.
Speaking of techniques and style; just last week I managed to find hidden parry & riposte technique in AC2 that basically lets you instantly counter kill both Leader's AND BRUTES.
Would you mind subbing to me? I'll try to make a video about tomorrow and you could also make a video about it and just link + credit me. It'd reach far more people that way, for anyone who's thinking about replaying AC2.
P.S. I did also make a ReShade for AC2 last summer that somehow makes the lighting look far better than the PS4/Xbone and reduces eyestrain (most notably having light adaptation that makes the eye-burning white Animus screens a gentle oat-milk color).
@@LeoKRogue Heya! I still haven't gotten around making that parry tutorial, but I did get some nifty creative combat footage if you'd like to take a look:
ruclips.net/video/l9BZv-3gamo/видео.html
best stealth game is splinter cell chaos theory
@@Killicon93 I remember being confused why Altair didn't have his crossbow... then I realised just how broken powerful he would be if he did.
Well this video popped up in my recommended. I highly enjoyed it and I agree with these points. I've experienced the most failure in AC3/AC4 due to the RIDICULOUS detection constraints during tailing missions due to bad controls and design. This is why I'm actually glad they just reworked high profile into one stick in Origins, now I'll have much more control over my character...these games can be so frustrating sometimes but as a major fan I just grit my teeth and move along. Now, I can see why some people really do dislike AC games
I'm glad the RUclips Algo is doing its job lmao. Definitely hype for Origins, it looks like it addresses a TON of Usability issues.
@@LeoKRogue well this aged terribly
You can basically fix the combat in all the games up to black flag by greatly reducing the counter window and adding some attacks you can't deflect
Those are basically my thoughts, yeah. It would serve to up engagement a little more which is really what you want from this kind of combat system.
@@LeoKRogue
Or by attacks you could deflect in a more complex and hard way, like say to simultaneusly evade and grab the enemy while he attacks, thus entering his close/personal space where he can no longer strike you, and then to attack him lethaly. Or like what once happened to me in the first AC, with Altair finding a Templar Guard on a rooftop, and after the Templar Striked, Altair counter-attacked, the Templar Counter-attack back, Altair tried to counter and break defence, resulting in the Templar to counter this, break Altair's defence by grabbing him, throwing him of the roof to his death. The moral is that Altair should have done the same, teaching the player to be more careful and agitated over a dangerous situation...
@@paulmayson3129 Things like that remind me that Ubisoft were actually trying to make attempt at diffculty in AC1😂
Hmm that's a good point...any time I've died in AC is because of jank. Death by jank as opposed to actual punishing challenge. If it ain't gunners killing me Unity, it's jank. Same with Black Flag. And with Odyssey, it's just by getting bored from damage sponges and losing attention.
Yyuuup. Historically, even the most polished Assassin's Creed games have really dumb avenues for player-failure in them that can often feel detached from personal responsibility. The reaction becomes "That was BS" instead of "I made a poor decision here."
@@LeoKRogue YUP! Kinda like how in Black Flag my ship was taking a ton of damage from some unknown source and eventually sunk. Then I had to learn that it was the shore of an island I was trying to dock because I didn't know how to dock my ship...and so crashing against the shore made my ship sink...instead of just being stopped by an invisible wall like it would for most games lol
Or ya know, just letting me dock from anywhere!
@@MorseCodeStutters Wtf, how dumb does one have to be to jam your ship into the shore and not understand it damages your ship the first time it happened... X_D
@@DravicPL apparently very stupid lol. I seriously had no clue what was happening at first, I thought I was being attacked, but couldn't see from where so I kept on trying XD
Great analysis. This should have more views.
I appreciate that greatly. These comments show me whether I'm being effective or not. On second and third re-viewings from myself, I realize that there were some things I could have said, to make it even more clear. I didn't think to include them at the time of its making, because I just assumed they were implied/common sense.
Great video and very well thought out.
Thanks Ben, much appreciated. :)
Leo, nearly 4 years later, how do you feel about this analysis and has any of this opinion changes after Origins through Valhalla?
I think this video is fine for its time. I made it years ago, and I'm always improving and learning new things.
As for Assassin's Creed's difficulty today, it faces the issue of just not knowing how to create challenge.
On low difficulties, it's an enjoyable experience, but similar to what I talk about in this video. On higher difficulties, you get enemies that hit you in ways that feel pretty unfair, and health-depletion that is either too much or too little, depending on how you stack your stats. It never feels 'right.'
Your own attacks also don't often come together in interesting ways that keep fighting enjoyable for hours. Assassin's Creed has, in one sense, moved in the right direction, but Ghost of Tsushima is actually the example of the 'perfect AC Combat System' as far as both fun-factor and challenge are concerned. On Lethal, it is hard, but you are always in control.
AC still has a lot to learn, and a lot from that game, especially.
U just get some good stuff and good skills and u easily kill everything
@Raed 928 Unity probably has the least functional stealth in the entire franchise: ruclips.net/video/0mK3xYbVvgU/видео.html
Your options in the old games were consistent as hell, varied and offered a lot of expression: ruclips.net/p/PL7tkHcerqwHFfP4LuMouYdnw-VgjlXEAs
@RU you play generic stealth games AC never needed crouching it was unique cause you was a blade in the crowd, you was hiding in plain sight. Just move onto another franchise.
Much love for using Altair outfit
I've played them, yeah. I love the Thief series, and its spiritual successor, Dishonored.
We could also invoke the meta reason that Altaïr and post-AC2 Ezio are both master assassins, and thus the game sort of "makes up" for the skill difference between them and the player with mechanics : they would probably not have a hard time in those situations. The explanation falls apart in AC2, 3 and 4 though because those 3 characters shouldn't start out as good as they are. Good video, well thought out and formulated as always.
I'll even extend by saying it could be the Animus doing the balancing in-universe.
Definitely a cool idea. I have a [Leo Talks] video coming up about Diegetics in games, and games that explain and justify themselves in-universe. Games whose HUDs actually exist (Desmond would legit be seeing the Animus HUD when Synced) or who don't have music when music wouldn't be playing (The Soulsborne games are notable for having almost no music, because realistically, the player wouldn't be hearing any during most of the gameplay.) I love that kind of stuff.
For this vid I took a very practical approach and tried to talk about the pragmatic reasons for why AC has to be the way it is, until it gets fixed.
Probably some info coming by E3 this year about AC Empire, hopefully it'll be the one.
On the topic of diegetics, Dead space probably has the best UI design I've seen so far, you should definitely check it out if you haven't played them yet.
I hope Empire is fantastic, man, I really do. So does everyone watching this channel, for sure. Because people already *know* Empire stealth is going to be uploaded here, without a doubt.
As for Dead Space, yeah, that's exactly what I'm talking about! Isaac's HP is all on his RIG, you can also see his resource gauges beside the vertical health bar, the quest-indicator actually makes sense because he [pew-pew]s and projects the little laser down onto the floor from his palm. All weapon ammo is just holograms extending from the weapon, and all the weapons themselves are mostly tools that an Engineer would know how to use, so even in *that* it makes sense and is justified in-universe. It is absolutely awesome. Dead Space 1 is definitely my favorite. Ugh now I wish I could capture footage from the game for my video.
I'm a DS2 man myself, just for the wider diversity in environments, but DS1 has the stronger atmosphere.
And yeah, the UI artists on this game were on point, our art direction/UI design teacher actually had us study Dead Space as the golden ratio of well used diegetics.
Haven't cared about being an actual stealthy assassin since the first game. RT+X for the win.
:D [SSSHINGGGGG~!]
Despite it's jank and kinda slow pace gameplay,AC1 still my favorite from all the classic AC due to it's balancing in terms of difficulty.And it less infuriates me because i mostly desync because i fucked in a combat rather than sometimes unresponsive control or getting shove by the drunk Sailors in Acre.Sadly those kind of things is mostly gone in AC2 - Unity(yeah the guards in Unity has a homing flinlock pistols for some reason),Glad that Origins kinda bring it back to some extent.
I feel the same, AC1 is still my favorite as well.
Hey Leo, good video. Your analysis on games are great. I see why you were picked for that game survey. You've got a great mind and look forward to seeing more stealth gameplay from you
Cheers, Amber
Thank you so much! I appreciate the fact that you even decided to watch one of them, immensely. I'm definitely going to be putting up more Stealth, both Lethal and Non-Lethal, and people have been enjoying these talk-y vids a lot lately so those will continue as well.
Actual Stealth Kill / Ghosting vids are in my Playlists on various games, if you'd like to pursue some of those further.
Leo K I certainly will. I enjoy the types of games you put out. Assassins Creed was always a favourite of mine and to this day, I'm still playing Dishonored. Pray tell, what did you think of Dishonored 2?
I enjoyed Dishonored 2 well enough, I just thought that some elements weren't done as well as in DH1. I sort of blame the Void Engine for this because they're things like Quick-Access Wheel being super slow, Crouching and Uncrouching no longer being instant, the whole game has this strange sense of stiffness to it that Dishonored 1 lacked; being super tight, fast and responsive. In Dishonored 2, you press a button and wait for the game to permit your intention. In Dishonored 1, you press a button and what you wanted happens immediately. It's noticeable.
I love being able to play as both Emily and Corvo, that's pretty awesome, and I also enjoy that their powersets are both different, and reflect who they are as individuals.
(Corvo has Devouring Swarm because he was Marked during the Rat Plague. He's an outsider in Dunwall, a foreigner who never really fit in with the nobility, so he has Possession so he can become anyone he wants. He comes from Karnaca which relies heavily on Wind Power, so he has Windblast. His life moved him from one place to another -- Karnaca to Dunwall -- so his signature ability is Blink.)
(Emily is an Empress whose influence reaches quite far, so she has, of course, Far Reach. One signed document can affect the lives of many people, and Domino reflects that. As royalty, she has many representatives in many lands, so Doppelganger is relevant. And as someone whose word is law across the Empire of the Isles, Mesmerize mimics the captivating speeches she would've had if she was allowed to stay Empress for a while longer.)
I find that stuff *super* cool. I think that the world of DH2 is still quite enjoyable to be in, and experience, but after starting to replay Dishonored 1 now, in some ways I think the first game was crafted better. I still like Dishonored 2 a lot though.
Leo K The mixture of abilities is what initially caught my attention and I picked Corvo as my first playthrough because I loved his character in the first game. I had a gut wrenching reaction to Corvo having a voice but after the first mission, the shock wore off and i was immersed again. They kept him mostly in character for what he would have said in the first game if he could.
I was hoping for a new antagonist in the second game, one who also has an Outsider mark since The Outsider only has so many followers. The tip of the hat to Billy and Daud but I was unsatisfied by the ending.
The end was very Dishonored, of course. With you choosing to kill Delilah or spare her, choosing to take the throne without rescuing the other, etc. But these options felt anticlimactic. You fought to get to the end and everything could have been completely perfectly with a few choice choke holds and sleeping darts. Noted, I guess that was the developers way of making you feel *powerful* at the end.
The engine was different? Cause visually I saw no changes. Aside from everything being bright and sunny, the graphics and maps appeared the same. I experienced some bugs such as audio issues. For instance, the characters were moving their lips and the weapons made noises but there were no words spoken. I figured in the end it was obs and gave up on trying to stream.
I also fell through a building when I was on a roof and glitched through the world, I managed to grab onto something as I fell and ended up in a basement I knew I shouldn't have access to yet. There were a lot of weird things like that. Couple of crashes too but overall, it was a good experience. Just not a good one to stream.
Never played the Assassin's Creed games, but I still enjoyed the explanation provided in the video.
Meh...I think in terms of stealth games I got, I'll just stick to Metal Gear Solid for now.
Your choice. There are a lot of good ones for PS4. :)
Dishonored, Dishonored 2, The Last of Us, Metal Gear Solid V
Haven't played The Last of Us in a while. I gotta re-download that on my PS4.
But I also love playing Metal Gear Solid V whenever I get the chance.
Interesting the way you explain it in this video. Assassin's Creed is very similar to the Batman Arkham games. They even have similar controls and level designs but the main difference between those two franchises is that Batman is smooth and responsive, thus can create wider challenges because you can face them with more responsive controls, while Assassin's Creed needs to be forgiving because the game system is your main, greatest foe. See combat, for example. In Batman Arkham you are faced with dozens and dozens of enemies throughout the entirety of the games because combat is so smooth and fun that it would be a crime wasting that combat system with few enemies, while in AC they have to pit you against two to three opponents because the counter window betrays you and you get five consecutive blows that drains you of health. Imagine fighting the battles and varied enemies of the Arkham series with the AC controls.... A player would die more than he wants, and it wouldn't be his fault.
The same goes with stealth and exploration. In Batman, you can perform a stealth take down with immersive ease, while AC you topple to your death before reaching that bothersome archer. Believe me, I've seen it happen!
When you think about all of this and look at the way modern Assassin's Creed has stripped down movement and stealth, it makes sense, too. The new games have Difficulty Modes, but what they _also_ have is a lack of advanced movement options. Instead of infusing the games with better tutorials and guidance, they just _removed_ the "problem" elements completely.
@@LeoKRogue I haven't played the new AC games yet, but what you say really startles me. The "problem element", as you say, is what makes the older games, and games like Thief, interesting. That is what makes the "Thief Simulator" or the "Crowd Simulator" fun because unaccounted problems is what force you to either think ahead, or improvise. The "problem element" is what opens room for "emergent gameplay". Take that away and you strip a stealth game of its heart and soul.
Yup... It's exactly what you're worried about.
I'm so glad someone shares my exact complaints about Unity, but can actually describe the problems
Thank you. I do like the game, but it has so many issues I would like to see fixed for a re-release.
Honestly, at the things it has in common with Unity, Ghost of Tsushima basically does _all_ of them _better._
They could legitimately just copy that.
I honestly thought brotherhood was challenging in a fun way. After really getting the hang of AC1's combat system, I found 2 too easy and burned through it in a week. But Brotherhood? I went full synch for every mission. The first few sequences were honestly fun, then I started War Machines. The tank mission, along with Sequence 8's third memory 'The Borgia' (I think that's the one where you have to escape without damage) and Young at Heart (Thieves guild) were a nightmare, but otherwise, I honestly thought the stealth was challenging and fun. Especially when you could practice the crossbow in Castello missions. I had a similar experience with revelations, but is it actually worth the challenge in subsequent titles?
Full Syncs are effectively "hard mode" in the Assassin's Creed games that have them, you're right. I really loved that about them and I'm kind of sad they're gone, honestly. Although, since new games don't have any kind of Replay Quest/Replay Memory function, it makes sense they removed Full Syncs too.
I would say Full Syncing AC3 is not worth it, it's more tedious than anything, doing it in Black Flag and Rogue is fun, and doing it in Unity is fun. I didn't enjoy the ones in Syndicate, and Origins/Odyssey/Valhalla don't have any.
good vid, your analyses are always good!
youn00ber Thank you! :D That's Encouraging, I'd love to keep doing them on anything I find interesting.
One other thing for me with AC is that I consider the whole series more of a "power fantasy" sort of game. You do all these amazing physical feats and murder hordes of guards through movement and skill. If you want a power fantasy, you can't really make the game too hard. If you think of something like Prototype or Dishonored, I feel the same way. I mean we can stop literal time in Dishonored, the game is basically devoid of all challenge, which is fine ,as long as it gives you that sick power fantasy.
Yeah, that's something that never really gets touched upon, probably for fear of backlash, but I feel the same. This is why I absolutely disagree with people who say Brotherhood's combat is too easy. Like... Yes it is, but at the same time _no, it's NOT._ It's _exactly_ easy enough to make you feel extremely lethal. I bring this up in my "My Ideal AC Game" video.
5:19 acceleration. Yes.
Incredibly satisfying.
Well spoken.
Zero-ELEC! You're still here! :D I hadn't heard from you in a while, man. I guess I haven't been uploading too much content that you're into. And, thank you!
Yeah, I'm still here. I've been watching but hadn't thought of commenting much. Thanks for the videos, and keep up the great work!
Thanks man, I'll do my best. :P
You hate Unity but like my Videos? Think i like your diverse Attitude and Point of View.. :)
When a person enjoys a game enough, that enjoyment can shine through in the footage and commentary, even if it's in another language. That's part of the reason why I like your gameplay.
Some elements of Unity are fantastic, and I liked it enough to do this;
ruclips.net/p/PLC113FCD4D46B0F4B (Unity Stealth Playlist)
and this;
ruclips.net/p/PL36oulzyfYiPAFzJTlpfvypv3Gj3hN1tU (Unity No Upgrades/Leveling Run)
(the microphone quality on this one is *terrible*, but it could interest you if you enjoy Unity a lot).
Absolutely bonkers to go back to this video and hear Leo say the words "I hated Unity"
I did! Sometimes I still do. The game's not perfect, y'know? :P
It's just very special to me now for so many reasons.
This is what happens for me I get super good at countering and no matter the opponent I will not take more than 2 damage and I become so powerful
Damn 7 year old me or some there that age completed ac2 all of em in like a month and me now is still In ac2 almost done
Because easier and fun games sell better. ( With a few exceptions)
Later they added optional objectives but then plenty of people complained about that too.Now you have what you have.
To be fair, the best-selling games in the _entire series_ for both initial-purchase and microtransactions are Odyssey and Valhalla, both of which have Difficulty Settings while these classic games didn't.
How did he know I was nodding my head..¿
;]
After replaying through the earlier AC titles again i never realised just how many bugs there were. Hits wouldnt register and neither would parries, during parkour the game would do the opposite of what i wanted it to do i could go on and on. AC makes up for this though in story. Unity is still very buggy to this day random disconnects, npcs not working properly, hits not connecting, headshots not registering, lag, freezing and just genuine performance issues overall at least from my experience
You get it. The series has never truly been polished, and it's always shied away from iterating on itself because it's preferred side-steps and side-grades over building on a fixed foundation.
@@LeoKRogue if AC didnt have the same button for 3 different options i feel that would fix some of the problems with the games
It would! Its contextual inputs are part of what give it some of its unique identity, but I feel like it's worth stepping away from that (and later games have, to their credit) in favor of a more readable, reliable control scheme wherein a button you press will always do the action you want even if something happens to walk in front of you or you're too close to a wall.
I am one of those people who plays AC games like how I think the ancestors would. Ezio with no armor, Connor tomahawk only, Altair on rooftops mostly, Edward balance of stealth and combat, and Shay with outplaying assassins. It sounds limiting since I rarely buy upgrades for these ancestors (except Jackdaw and Morrigan), but it was very satisfying when I could pull it off. I have these choices that could make these games easier, but chose not to since this is the fun I had. I make it that when I am playing the games, I am not making it boring for myself. These games has knack of being boring if you chose it to be boring.
Altair on rooftops mostly? Interesting.
He was pretty good at walking among the people so I generally do a mix of both with him, since he's like the Archetypal Assassin that all other protagonists in the series branched out from, mechanically and aesthetically. Altair "defined" Assassin's Creed so I think he can kind of just do everything.
I will say that's right though; Assassin's Creed is as boring as its player makes it.
@@LeoKRogue i do walk among the crowds, but later parts of the game always makes me to always go on rooftops. Idk, I just love jumping around to avoid detection and it's just so freeee. But I agree though, Altair basically the guy that defines what assassin is, and it just so happen this is a fact in-universe and outside.
I always play stealthily in AC games because the combat is always too easy for me. I’m not trying to brag but a lot of the combat systems in ac games (looking at you AC4) tend to be simple and even later on (with unity and later) they were easier to me. So I play stealthily because to me it feels like more of a challenge to take everyone out without being noticed and to find unique ways to take out difficult enemies. With Valhalla atm im using dual knives for combat so I am giving myself more of a challenge as they don’t do as much damage as most normal weapons but they are faster. But even then, the combat ends fast in my exploration areas so I tend to gravitate towards my predator bow and hidden blade chain Assassination kills because it’s more rewarding for me as a player who has played all of the games multiple times through (except Valhalla). Your videos have also inspired me to take a more stylish approach to my stealth and think about all the tools and abilities I have at my disposal, not just the basic mechanics of the game and to practice the traversal so when I need it I can use it effectively
Pretty much same here.
It's the more enjoyable way to play, for real. Two knives in Valhalla are probably the strongest option in the game when built right because of their lockdown on each enemy and the insane DPS they deal. Hard to play but very good.
And, I'm glad I could inspire you!
@@LeoKRogue love all the content Just haven’t watched any recent ones because I’m trying to avoid Valhalla things 😅 but your tips have really helped me, especially when I replayed AC1. Your movement tips made that game so much more enjoyable than it already was
I'd argue that the ac1 combat system would stand to gain a lot by a difficulty option where altair dies in 3-4 hits. Same goes for ac2, Brotherhood and ac3 to an extent.
I think those games are fairly consistent.
To a degree, yes, but it's undeniable that there is a large degree of jank in these older games that really bothers existing players who are playing them at their _existing_ difficulty; which is very low. I'm a god at these games with tens of thousands of hours across the entire series, so it wouldn't affect me, but it'd be a negative experience for weird combat/stealth-related bugs to be even more punishing than they already are -- when most players don't know how to compensate for them / don't look up mechanics guides.
@@LeoKRogue I'd say the brotherhood combat simulations that required perfect combo were pretty bug free.
Ofcourse the game should be polished as much as possible but even with some jank, It can still work as long as the unfair deaths or fails are rare (the witcher 3 was buggy, janky and clunky but I still enjoyed the combat and its nuances).
Unity isn't that bad, I prefer it to AC2
Félix Hureau And you're totally free to hold onto that preference. :D I've enjoyed bad games in the past too because they did very specific things just right for me, so I can relate.
Some elements of Unity are fantastic, and I must have liked it just enough otherwise I wouldn't have done this;
ruclips.net/p/PLC113FCD4D46B0F4B (Unity Stealth Playlist)
and this;
ruclips.net/p/PL36oulzyfYiPAFzJTlpfvypv3Gj3hN1tU (Unity No Upgrades/Leveling Run)
(note that the mic quality on this one is pretty bad, but it could interest you if you enjoy Unity a lot).
Recommended 3 years later...
Leo's take on Unity then is not how I knew it now. When you say you hope there is a rework on controls in the next game I started having Origin parkour flash backs...
I feel the same way about Origins haha. They've never gotten it right since they moved away from the AC1-Rev system. And Unity still has a lot of problems, I can just handle its BS nowadays.
@@LeoKRogue I bought Unity like a year ago and couldn't even force myself to play it past I think sequence 3 or 4 I just couldn't get Arno to do what I wanted and kept on getting spotted and frustrated. Only when I found your videos did I get back into Unity and I'm glad I did. Recently finished the main campaign and it's pretty much thanks to you...
I'm glad to hear that, helping people enjoy a game more is definitely one of my favorite things.
So, what did you end up thinking of Origins with it's completely reworked combat and navigation?
Combat was interesting, for sure, Difficulty Modes were the real shift presented in ACO. Navigation was simpler than ever, therefore not that interesting to me.
@@LeoKRogue I agree, while Origins is one of my favourite games for it's combat and story the navigation let's it down. But I do really enjoy the stealth( just parkour is meh at best 😂) and new eagle vision mechanic.
Sure the combat might be easy on what I saw, but memorizing the pattern, where to go next, and just parkouring in general in like a fast-paced motion rocks the table in my opinion.
Yup, it _feels_ amazing. It doesn't _have_ to be hard, and in fact if it was any harder than it was without changes to the system, it would feel horrible. That's the base of what I put forth here.
Eu não consigo jogar os Assassins Creed anteriores à Unity, por causa da dificuldade fácil. Isso me chateia rapidamente. Estou feliz pelos Novos AC.
Exploring these various talks over the years. Looks like AC listened to you, but instead of smoothing out janky mechanics, they just got rid of em lmao
Unfortunate, yeah xD
"Hey, can you guys fix your game?"
"Sure!" [makes it worse in unforeseen ways]
"Fuck..."
@@LeoKRoguesyndicate in a nutshell
For me, AC Origins had a perfect balance, it wasn't very hard, but not insanely easy, and enemies weren't bullet sponges like in Odyssey, all while having almost complete control over the movement.
EDIT: Also trouble with ranged character shooting at you (like in Unity) was solved in this game by having a shield that you can use to block incoming arrows
Origins had it right, happy to see Valhalla taking cues from it.
The parkours changed so much. They're too superhuman. I personally preferred the slowness of Assassins Creed (1)
I think AC1-Rev movement is just fine, anything beyond that point is just ridiculous.
Some real people can climb quite quickly, roughly as fast as Altair and Ezio can, and these _are_ super agile people with a lifetime of training, so I have no issue with it.
@@LeoKRogue yes, maybe till ac2 i find it acceptable. But not only u also have to take into consideration that they're fully clothed (uncomfortableclothes for parkour) , loaded with weapons, but most noticeably, the character never gets tired. Maybe that would be too relatistc, but in ac1 u feel every step the character takes to climb a building, and like when the climbing aspect becomes so artifical like in the new games, imo, i think it actually takes the fun away... edit: a little bit
How come your opinions about Unity seem to vary so much from video to video? I've heard you praise it heavily in a lot of videos, but in this one you say you hate it. Is it a sort of love/hate relationship?
Different points in my life, and yes, it's a love-hate relationship.
I would say that, Unity is NOT a good videogame.
However... It is the _best_ 'modern' Assassin's Creed game, by virtue of it _TRYING_ to BE an Assassin's Creed game, at all.
Origins, for example, is a MUCH better videogame than AC Unity ever will be. Unfortunately, Origins barely tries to be an Assassin's Creed game, while Unity tries its damn hardest.
As such, I have this... begrudging respect and adoration for Unity because it remembers what series it's in, while Origins, Odyssey and Valhalla, to varying degrees, Do Not. I hope that makes sense. :)
"Assassin's Creed is easy!"
Assassin's Creed rogue: Uhhh *Slowly hides snow fortress*
One ship in one game in a series that's largely super optimizable does not a challenging franchise make.
Also, interestingly, the way they finally felt comfortable upping the challenge and even giving us difficulty-settings was by simplifying the game's systems enough for them to be more polished. (Starting with Origins.) Go figure, they did exactly what I predicted. x__x
Lol now I’m in lockdown, I gotta make do with the jankiness and lack of control since Assassins Creed is the only thing keeping me entertained (along with a couple of other games)
Yuppp hahaha
4:56 Aged like milk
Origins was fine! As a prototype for a 'next-gen' Assassin's Creed game, it did exactly what it was supposed to do. It just needed to re-add advanced parkour and social stealth. So they did _the first half_ of what I asked for and then just gave up lmaooo, we know how Odyssey and Valhalla ended up.
ive heard Leo is still waiting for that perfect game
Probably until I die. Charlie (TheGamingBritShow) got his with Devil May Cry V. Maybe I will too, some day. :P
This video probably came out before unity
This video came out after Unity, and it briefly pokes fun at it right at the end haha. Unity is an example of what happens when you do make an Assassin's Creed game adequately challenging; it exposes and highlights all the holes, jank, lack of polish, and broken pieces of this franchise's game design because when it's difficult enough, those elements become so much more noticeable. Not hating of course, AC is my favorite game series ever created, but we have to be realistic. Whitelight, a high-quality analyst of games on RUclips essentially says as much in his AC Rogue Critique.
100% SYNC!!?!??!! IS IT POSSIBLE TO LEARN THIS POWER??!?!!
Yeah, why not? :P
honestly i agree. its genuinely boring nowadays
Newer Assassin's Creed games have _some_ answers to the lack of difficulty, but they sort of just grabbed all the issues and pushed them under a carpet nearby. We now have difficulty-options for Combat, but Parkour and Stealth are unbelievably simplified and lacking most of the mechanics they used to have associated with them. It's made the series feel like 1/3rd of itself, instead of the full picture.
Stealth is cool but this is the reason we avoid it instead of the stealth just go and fight
It's also because being detected is quite easy in Assassin's Creed, so stealth is often unrewarding unless you grind lots of practice at it.
The only difficulty acceptable for me is the naval difficulty in Kenway saga, other than that, meh.
Understandable.
4:55 How do you think that wish turned out?
Origins _functions_ way better than, say, Unity does, and its encounter design and combat design is magnitudes greater. It's able to be challenging while being responsive and fluid, so on that front, it turned out well. In terms of overall game design at its lowest point though (Odyssey) garbage, absolute garbage. Heartbreaking.
Ultimately, however, that the Risk taken at a chance for Improvement might lead to worsening is always a good Risk to take, because the flipside is, it leads to something stronger, and in game design that was as stagnant and barely-functional as the newer Assassin's Creed games, that'd be a valuable wager every single time. +EV, as poker players would say. We just happened to get profoundly unlucky this time but it was still worth a shot.
Now, over at Sucker Punch, _Ghost of Tsushima_ is pretty great, as a Creedlike with a control scheme totally different but which is essentially a _spiritual successor_ to Assassin's Creed, it turned out fucking fantastic and I couldn't be more grateful.
@@LeoKRogue Hahah yeah personally I kinda enjoyed Odyssey at times, however I think it's really sad to see some "harder" enemies just having more health points and not being hard at all just boring to fight.
Missing out on Ghost since I don't have a ps4:(
But yeah that risk now leads to Valhalla which I have high hopes for and I hope that they will make it at a harder difficulty since "Nightmare" in Origins was too easy imo.
Hello i am back.....when this video first came out i was 17 and i while i get what i was trying to say originally i don't think i ever really did a good job.
My whole issue with the video really boiled down to the comparison to dark souls.....it seemed like a bad excuse to explain why the game just opted to be so incredibly forgiving,
as though it being inconcistent with its gameplay elements were an reasonable explanation for Massive health bars the ability to heal and enemies that just dident have it in them to kill you.
Dark souls difficulty for the most part is pretty arbitrary.....its based on the stats and the developers just kind of being assholes with the game design....of course beating said challenge is enjoyable but its in no way comparable as Assassin's Creed is in the opposite category where it seems like they don't want you to die at all....ever since the series added combo kills and the like...the difficulty just evaporated....in by the time AC3 came out practically any protagonist would just be able to slaughter enemies unimpeded.....there aren't really any tricks the a.i has counter or even slow any of your attacks......aside from some enemies like officers or heavy's just automatically stopping you.....i think it probably had something to do with the class system.
it might not seem obvious but diffrent classes in enemies is allot more detrimental to Game Difficulty than it may seem....it changes the playstyle from How do i defeat these guys to- how do i kill them at the right time.....fast guys are weak to counter attacks or heavy attacks.....spear guys are useless if you get close....heavy dudes can be circled around and killed....AC 1 despite being pretty easy on its own.....atleast had an unpredictablity where you wouldent know what was going to happen the enemies were distinguished in Rank.....and were all capable of many diffrent actions that just made them last longer against you.....untill unity came out it just seemed like they watered down the challange needlessly and its kind of sad because it makes replaying them at age 21.....very difficult........because this Dident age Well...
Much time has passed, and I don't feel any different. In fact, I feel everything I said in this video even _more_ than I used to, with the new knowledge I have now and my many hours in both Elden Ring as well as modern Assassin's Creed, which is frankly a shadow of the series I used to love so much -- but it literally did everything I say in this video;
They made the games _simpler,_ took away meaningful stealth and parkour, and now only focus on combat. And hey, look at that, Origins, Odyssey and Valhalla have Difficulty Modes that go all the way up to Nightmare! Ubisoft attempted to approach some level of challenge, but they did it in exactly the way I was always afraid of; by making their systems so simple that they couldn't get in the player's way anymore.
And FROMSOFT games aren't just the developers being "assholes" with game-design; Souls, Bloodborne and Elden Ring are all very fair and have many ways of overcoming the challenges within that don't _always_ have to do with stats. In fact, if anything, modern Assassin's Creed has _MORE_ stat-requirements than FROMSOFTWARE games do.
I don't know man. Nothing changed; everything I said has come true even more than back then.
How the hell are you Altaïr in brotherhood? Please tell me
Uplay/Ubi Club unlockable for 20 Points.
Leo K [Rogue] thank you so much for telling me
I love Assassin's Creed because it's so easy. LoL. It's a relaxing and enjoyable experience. For example, I tried playing Resident Evil 7. And the shit was too intense for me. I was like "this game isn't fun." Back to good old easy Assassin's Creed. hahahaha. 🤣
Heh, yeah, different games can offer different experiences, and I think old Ubisoft were cognizant of how much could go wrong in the classic games, so their level of challenge was tuned appropriately.
Unity is actually challenging and insensitivises stealth.
Very true.
Wouldn't this be ... the equivalent of a pro saying a certain game they're amazing at to say "This game is way too easy..." vs someone who has never played is struggling with it because it's all new to them? ...
It feels a bit like you're stroking your own ego by saying that...
I do Ultimate content in FFXIV ... I don't say "FFXIV is so easy..." because it's not ... there's a learning curve. Sure I could do all of the story content without dying that's in the game right now ... does that make it 'too easy'? No it doesn't.
I'd originally liked your content on Unity, your playthrough of AC 1 ... showing off tips, guides for different things... and then I stumble upon This video and another one where you mention that "And all of the upcoming missions are about nuns .... but hey .... nuns can be hot" ... Suddenly we went from Professional looking videos to ... 12-year old boy who lusts after every girl.
Disappointment is the least of my feelings on who you really are vs the persona of 'AC Pro'. 😞
I wasn't the one who came up with this opinion on AC, this video was a RESPONSE to what people's common perception of the series was -- not an assertion I pulled out of thin air.
For a really long time, people looked down on Assassin's Creed online and would parrot that statement about its ease but very few would actually examine _Why._ This video was me trying to do just that, and take a look at the underlying reasons behind why most people felt that way at the time. Nothing is actually easy when we're new to it, I think that much is obvious.
So with that said, how can you tell anything of who I "really" am when what you're referencing are more comedic, over-the-top videos where I'm putting on much more of a persona? Are you happy just ignoring everything else I've done and seeing me only through one lens? I can't really do much for you if that's the case.
On the note of whether my assessment of AC's difficulty is sensible; again, I have to stress this wasn't something I came up with or even agreed with most times.
There's no ego going on here, I had to put up with people tearing down something I loved for years and years and years because THEY thought it was too easy but would rarely inspect those assertions. I never thought making a video that discussed those claims would get misinterpreted this way years down the line, but I was also inexperienced at what I was doing back then. I made this before I even had 500 subs.
I would never dream of claiming something wasn't challenging without a good reason since again, we all begin as beginners, right?
Ask yourself why I've made so many guides on the series that were so appreciated, I wouldn't do that if I thought they were unnecessary! ^_^
This sentiment on AC being easy was public, commonly held opinion at the time and it was the most prevalent, easiest statement you would find if you looked around at any forums, the rest of RUclips and any average gaming spaces. I even disagreed with some parts of it because it was visibly obvious to me that many players struggled to actually play AC well, so I moved to help by creating guides and teaching useful mindsets.
I think you've landed on a very uncharitable view of me based on _six year old_ videos or longer, in some cases. Respectfully, that's not the most effective way to get an idea of Who someone really is. You don't know me. I don't know you. I'm sorry if you feel "disappointed" in some way but hopefully you reconsider your perspective and approach me in a slightly healthier and less parasocial manner.
Dark souls 1 is pretty janky
Very true. In comparison to most AC games, it's practically Nintendo polished. I have thousands of hours in the AC series once being a content creator for them and you have no choice but to notice all the little cracks once you play them that much hehe
Main problem is the game tells you everything there's no creativity map shows us everything go here do this do that it's totally worthless
Would definitely disagree there's no creativity, there are plenty of amazing videos showcasing things people didn't even know you could do in these games with crazy area-wipes/stealth and combat clears.
I do agree that Assassin's Creed has a problem with incentive. None of these games push you into their systems in a way to make you discover all the cool possibilities, which is a shame.
He really said "Assassin's Creed systems are complex" LMAO
Oh God, no wonder you cited Souls as "le hurd gaem XD"
They objectively are, you just didn't understand what that means or are bringing in your own interpretation. Complexity player-side =/= complexity game-side.
All the jank, all the lack of polish in old AC games is there as a result of how much they have going on "under the hood," even if that's not necessarily surfaced to the player. Part of the reason most people are so terrible at these games despite how piss-easy they are is because of that lack of transparency, in fact.
Compare/Contrast to modern AC which instead of educating players, just decided to drastically simplify most systems, made most player-actions less context-sensitive (which is admittedly good) gutted parkour, gutted combat actions, put everything on cooldowns, gutted stealth. (All of which are bad.)
End Result? Less 'jank,' sure, absolutely, and less player complaints that the game "disobeys" them in turn. But it also leads to a simpler, more braindead and less engaging experience.
Souls were also definitively more challenging than most games by contrast six years ago when this video was published, I don't see why you take issue with this considering the timeframe it was released in. They're obviously not as tough as something like a Ninja Gaiden or even your average Shmup but as far as the average AAA (and even indie) at the time were concerned, yeah. Nothing I said back then was false.
Of course, nowadays things are a little different, but that's the nature of time flowing forward.
Thanks for the algo-boost on a six-year old video.
@@LeoKRogueThere is no such thing as game complexity as opposed to player complexity. Your gameplay can only be as complex as the game's systems allow it to be. Pressing a button and a complex animated sequence playing is not the game being complex "under the hood". Assassin's Creed is THE most auto piloted gaming series in existence. It is devoid of complexity and is indeed responsible for the crippling if not straight up killing of several core gaming concepts in the mainstream, such as platforming.
Saying ASScreed's jank is the result of it being made of invisible ground up unicorn horn as opposed to the result of it being the fast food of video games, hammered and spit glued together to be churned out on a yearly basis is some serious delusion.
Your argument for Souls games being this paradigm of "fair" game design also tells me your experience does not extend very far if at all from the mainstream AAA circle. It's been 15 years and getting stabbed through walls, ground and ceiling is not only still a thing in those games, it's only gotten worse; just to name one example.
I'd like to know how long have you been playing video games because what do you mean now vs 6 years ago? Are you actually implying video games have gotten harder or more complex? Surely you can't be serious? I'm not trying to be condescending but you must not know much outside of Assassin's Creed and Souls.
By the way, do you know how this whole Souls is le hurd gaem XD meme started? It started with """""""""""""journalists"""""""""""" being flabbergasted that Demon's Souls was not following the trends Assassin's Creed set. Death not being an inconvenience you can measure in seconds, combat and movement not being downright automated, enemies having a seemingly independent AI instead of standing in line for their time to receive sentience, enemies doing actual damage when they attacked, etc. These are the things that blew their minds even though none of them were new. This is what gave birth to the meme. Not the games having some complex and demanding combat systems, go play Dark Souls 1 and see how many enemies you automatically beat by just locking on and holding the analog stick in one direction.
Souls games are very simplistic games combat and encounter wise, they are just now implementing mechanics and concepts that were a staple of actions games a decade before Souls was even around.
I supposed the world owes a debt of gratitude to Souls games for not allowing combat to be dragged down to hell the same way platforming was when it comes to mainstream, instead it just dragged it down to purgatory. Not to say those games didn't have other real merits. The setting and visual design were a fresh novelty before they started copy pasting it like it's spat straight out of an AI, they offer the best role play experience in regards to gameplay (easily their best quality). They wouldn't be so bad if their fanbase wasn't numerous levels further beneath it. Demon's Souls is a very original and good game and so is Sekiro (though it's an action game), those two deserve all the praise they got.
Actually let me correct myself: Sekiro is not original in the least bit, like at all, practically everything it dos is taken from somewhere else. It is a great game though and I'd say the best thing FromSoft ever done or probably will do.
I think you're being pretty disingenuous and I made my points clear -- you're obviously just here to pick a fight and don't want to listen to polite communication, so I'll probably just bid you a good evening. Thanks for chatting, play again next time.
@@LeoKRogueWell that was easy lol. Not used to having walls of text bounce back?
You suck at Unity if you can't play it stealthy 😃
Oh, I know. I'm just commenting on Unity's jank. Apart from StealthGamerBR and Swifty, I practically INVENTED Unity Stealth gameplay on RUclips. (And taught an ENTIRE community how to do it, too.)
Also yes, players _do_ suck at Unity if they can't play it stealthy because combat is _awful_ in that game and is a deeply suboptimal (slow) way to clear content.