Assassin’s Creed Odyssey

[Maryokutai]

3 hours ago, mfnick said:

New areas only give like 50-200xp though. When 4500xp only fills a small portion of your level gauge it’d take forever doing it that way? 

 

Well, you're not only doing that.

 

The way I played it I picked an area with my level recommendation. I ran around that area and got XP for discovering stuff, for killing enemies, for completing quests. All these things together add up. So much so that, in fact, I never had a story mission closed off because I wasn't strong enough. Until I read your post I always thought this forced grind was a myth to be honest because there's no way for me to play this game without getting enough XP to progress.

 

I guess it should not force you to grind if you only want to play the main stuff. But then again why even play sch a massive open-world game when you want a more linear story experience?

 

5 minutes ago, Nag said:

 

It also helped that the Witcher 3 content was actually interesting.

 

The sidequests were miles ahead but exploration in The Witcher can be a pain in the ass. Geralt dies when he falls two meters, he can't really climb anything and Roach could turn Ghandi into a genocidal maniac.

 

Plus, Ikaros is an actual game changer in that sense as well. I didn't realise it at first but only noticed when going back to the Witcher after Odyssey, but not having to open up the map all the time to find anything is such a quality of life feature. In practice it's the same thing: you hit a button (map or Ikaros) and look where you have to go. But the fact that everything happens in the game in Odyssey and doesn't break the immersion is just such a better way of handling navigation in a world like that. 

[one-armed dwarf]

To me it just sort of feels like there's two different types of open world RPG now. Ones which are basically offline WoW clones in a way which have level gating and loot progression and others which try and give a more streamlined take and give a bit more freedom to the player, like TES and BOTW do.

 

It's fair to say it's not always obvious what kind of open world you're going to get. Old style AC could be mainlined if you wanted. Well ACII and Brotherhood anyway

[mfnick]

13 minutes ago, Maryokutai said:

But then again why even play sch a massive open-world game when you want a more linear story experience?

I’m enjoying the main story and story missions but I don’t like all the stuff around it. I like the world but not enough to just explore and clear bandit camps and the sidequests haven’t been interesting me at all. 
Did about 3 story missions and reached another part where I’m 3 levels behind again  . I haven’t just been mainlining now either since I know it’s going to block me at parts so I have been forcing myself to do side parts and “complete” areas as I come across them but I’m still behind. Need to do a lot more. Ill plod on a bit longer though as it is just so easy to mindlessly play. 

[regemond]

It's rare I agree 100% with @DisturbedSwan on a subject, but he's got it spot on here. Even down to the examples he used.

 

I really don't think the MTX in this game are intrusive at all. They're there, but they're not necessary for progression, especially when virtually everything you do gives XP.

 

But I can also appreciate that the way AC:OD does things isn't going to be to everyone's taste. I think you need to get out of the mindset and expectations the 'old' AC games give you. You could completely ignore side stuff in the earlier titles, and it was never an issue. But this takes so many influences from other games (ie The Witcher 3) that it's virtually impossible to struggle through without doing a couple of side missions. 

 

If you're that far in it might be worth giving The Arena a blast. That grants a decent amount of XP for minimal effort.

 

Also, I'm just looking at this:

 

https://www.ign.com/wikis/assassins-creed-odyssey/How_to_Level_Up_Fast#1._Fight_at_the_Arena

 

Might be worth ignoring grey and blue Legendary Contracts and just doing the higher purple and gold ones?

[DisturbedSwan]

21 minutes ago, Nag said:

I think you probably could mainline the Witcher 3 to be fair, while doing all the hunts and side stuff i was constantly levels above the main questline targets... so much so that those barely rewarded me any XP when I completed them.

 

It also helped that the Witcher 3 content was actually interesting.

Well yeah, you were doing the hunts and side stuff which is why you were a few levels above.

 

How you know the content in this isn’t interesting? ? I didn’t think you’d played it.

[AndyKurosaki]

Jim Sterling may say it, but it’s 100% accurate. Odyssey is a grind. Especially when you’re trying to kill the legendary encounters. 
Ubisoft then cheerfully puts up a micro transaction on the store, labelled a ‘best seller’, that lets you level up and gain XP faster. There’s still a grind, but it speeds the process up. It’s a despicable, shitty business practice. Make your game grindy, then sell something that speeds the process up, solving a ‘problem’ that you put in the bloody game in the first place. 
 

Do you have to do it? No. But when a grind takes absolutely ages, it’s hard to argue that it’s not deliberately done to encourage people to pay for the booster. It doesn’t make the game fun, to constantly have the goal posts shifted further and further away. It’s why i eventually fucked off Far Cry New Dawn, as I was sick of the story missions constantly being locked away, until I grinded out mandatory fetch quests to gather materials, doing tediously repetitive tasks until I was allowed to continue. Only for the next one to be locked behind an even larger grind. And what a surprise, yet another Ubisoft game.

 

Some people may enjoy grinding. I find it a boring, fucking waste of time.

[regemond]

9 minutes ago, AndyKurosaki said:

Some people may enjoy grinding. I find it a boring, fucking waste of time.

 

I completely agree with this, but to me Odyssey never felt like a grind. It just didn't. Maybe I was just in a mindset where I was happy to do what it was asking of me. Maybe the world just immersed me enough that I just wanted to experience all it had. But I never once felt like I was 'grinding' to achieve higher levels. I never hit a point where I thought the game was intentionally hampering my progress.

 

Obviously that's just my opinion though. I'm not gonna tell you you're wrong if that's how you feel about Odyssey.

[mfnick]

24 minutes ago, Nag said:

Judging by what's been said and having played Origins I'm guessing a lot of it involves clearing camps and garrisons...

That, or get a sidequests which usually are fetchquests which involves going to a couple of areas in the map, get your eagle to pinpoint where exactly the items you want are, kill a few enemies that are around the item and return. 

It’s a shame they’re so dull (IMO of course), as some of the actual setups and character moments can be really quite good. Just recently I met a very disturbed little girl who had made a couple of friends as in literally made them. She did m it out of clay. And the whole short story around her, her ‘friends’ and her mother was actually great. But all I literally did was go to a cave, find 3 sparkly bits, go underwater for some other sparkly bits and go back to her. That was the quest. And the vast majority I’ve done have been like this. It is a grind for me doing them. 
 

Id totally forgotten about the XP booster thing! That was huge when this came out. Yea, I bet if I had that I wouldn’t have to bother either all this other stuff I don’t want to really do.

 

Saying this I do find myself continuing to play it. Like I said before, it’s just so easy to switch your brain off for this and keep plodding on. I definitely prefer it to the original AC games, I just didn’t get on with the actual gameplay in them at all. 
 

Thanks for the link @regemond I’ll have a look. 

[DisturbedSwan]

2 hours ago, AndyKurosaki said:

Jim Sterling may say it, but it’s 100% accurate. Odyssey is a grind. Especially when you’re trying to kill the legendary encounters. 
Ubisoft then cheerfully puts up a micro transaction on the store, labelled a ‘best seller’, that lets you level up and gain XP faster. There’s still a grind, but it speeds the process up. It’s a despicable, shitty business practice. Make your game grindy, then sell something that speeds the process up, solving a ‘problem’ that you put in the bloody game in the first place. 

Total bollocks I’m afraid. I’m glad I left the cult of Stirling many moons ago. They made a huge game with a ton of stuff to do and expect the player to do some of it, if they don’t want to do it they have a solution to that. I don’t like the MTX being in there in the first place but it’s never even needed if you play a modest amount of the side activities and quests. Imagine playing Yakuza and only mainlining the story, it wouldn’t happen. There is no grinding to be done, it’s total shite.

 

They’ve had MTX in their games for many years, they had it in AC4:BF back when I played it in 2013, Stirling just likes to piss and moan to get his viewers riled up and believing his bullshit. It’s nothing but click bait negative shite filled with lame catchphrases, people fall for it hook line and sinker ever time.

[AndyKurosaki]

To each their own. I happen to agree with his opinion, that’s just my view. You enjoy Metal Gear Survive. So you know, swings and roundabouts ?

[DisturbedSwan]

7 minutes ago, AndyKurosaki said:

To each their own. I happen to agree with his opinion, that’s just my view. You enjoy Metal Gear Survive. So you know, swings and roundabouts ?

Have you played it? If not then who’s to say you wouldn’t like it ?‍♀️ 
 

I’m sure you like some poorly reviewed game somewhere in your gaming history too man ?

[AndyKurosaki]

Nah, I can’t be arsed with it. Though I did like the newest Leisure Suit Larry, so fair does.?

 

Anyways, back on topic, Odyssey was bloody good. 100 hours on it, and I still didn’t do everything it had to offer.

[Maryokutai]

Also how is the Legendary Beast quest a grind? It's deliberately designed to accompany you along the ride and whenever you notice you're strong enough to fight the next one, you do. You're not supposed to be able to teleport across the map as soon as you get the quest (which IIRC is about ten to fifteen hours in). I think I killed the last beast when I had played the game for 90 hours or so. That doesn't mean I grinded for 90 hours, that just means I played the game normally without every really thinking too much about my level and went to kill the last beast when I noticed I was strong enough.

 

There are quests like these in tons of RPG. The collect 'em all Gwent card quest in Witcher 3 probably takes about the same amount of time to complete, simply because it demands that you explore and visit everything the world has to offer because the cards are hidden in the tiniest corners.

 

Honestly I think if you feel like Odyssey ask you to grind, then the game just isn't for you. Because it pretty much means you're not engaging with it on the level you're supposed to. Just wander off a bit, it's a pretty world they built and lots of interesting stuff to see.

[DisturbedSwan]

52 minutes ago, Nag said:

I was starting to think maybe I'd give Valhalla a go after having a few years away from the franchise again... after reading this lot my mind seems to be changing.?

You liked Origins though right?

[AndyKurosaki]

Odyssey is genuinely one of the best games of this generation. Seriously. If Valhalla was just “more of the same”, I’d be fine with that. I’ll definitely be getting it day one. 

[DisturbedSwan]

That’s fair enough @Nag, I got burnt out on Odyssey towards the end of my time

with it and couldn’t bring myself to 100% it.

 

I never did play the DLC for either Origins or Odyssey despite buying the Gold/Ultimate Editions either ? not gonna bother for Valhalla.

 

At first they said Valhalla was as big as Origins and then they’ve since said it’s bigger than Odyssey so who knows ? I’m not 100% on this but I’m sure I read that the Valhalla Director said you explore the whole of Britain and a huge swathe of Norway which sounds ridiculously big. 

[AndyKurosaki]

It’s a bit of a double edged sword. Size is one thing, but if it’s not filled with variety, it becomes a bad thing. “Here’s this massive map!”

”Great, what is there to do in it?”

”Erm....not much”.

 

There will no doubt be repetition, as you can’t have a huge map without copy and pasting content to fill the gaps. 
 

I’d rather have a smaller map with more variety, than a huge map with  not much to do. 
 

Still, I didn’t get bored of Odyssey. So I’m optimistic.

[mfnick]

1 minute ago, AndyKurosaki said:

It’s a bit of a double edged sword. Size is one thing, but if it’s not filled with variety, it becomes a bad thing. “Here’s this massive map!”

”Great, what is there to do in it?”

”Erm....not much”.

 

There will no doubt be repetition, as you can’t have a huge map without copy and pasting content to fill the gaps. 
 

I’d rather have a smaller map with more variety, than a huge map with  not much to do. 
 

Still, I didn’t get bored of Odyssey. So I’m optimistic.

This is the exact issue I’m having with Odyssey. I’m just finding it not got much interesting to do in it’s huge world - creating my issue with it not letting me mainline. And apart from a few towns, most of the islands basically look and feel the same. 
 

I definitely prefer smaller, denser maps. 

[AndyKurosaki]

I really enjoyed the story of Odyssey, and I liked Kassandra as a character. So I didn’t find myself bored. Having said that, there was a few occasions when I had to sail from one place to another, and it felt quite a long time to get there. 
 

I definitely feel the Yakuza series has the right balance. It doesn’t appear to be a massive map, but it’s crammed with interesting, varied things to do. One of the reasons I got sick of the Assassins Creed series, is I’d open up the map, see a huge area, with a bazillion icons on it. And go “What’s the fucking point? It’ll only

end up asking me to do it all over again with next year’s game”.

 

Odyssey genuinely gripped me, in a way the series hadn’t for years. But it does walk the line between being big for bigs sake. It didn’t bother me. But I get why it would some people.

[mfnick]

Now sold. I gave it a good go, got about 20  hours in. I can see why some people get really into these games if it gets its hooks into you but it’s not for me. 
 

There’s some really nice ideas here. I liked the gear system, I started getting interested in the story and liked the whole hunting the cult stuff. It controlled well and looked pretty decent. 
 

But it was just too repetitive and mindless for me and the side content - which you have to do - is really, really dull IMO.