AC

Incoming rant about what the AC franchise of games were like, what they've done wrong mostly. Note that this only contains context with reference to Black Flag and Rogue, not the later titles, so probably quite late to the party.

I've just spent the past 3 weeks playing 2 AC titles, namely Black Flag and Rogue, and I don't have very many good things to say about it apart from the fact that their storylines are good. In terms of the story, setting and research, they're really good. It's chronologically accurate, with tie-ins to real world events/people, i.e. the collapse of Lisbon in Rogue and Stede Bonnet in Black Flag.

But what they've done wrong in my opinion is the Naval campaigns. The mini-games you have to play to unlock in game shit that takes obscene amounts of time like fucking 30+h (not sure on the exact time but it was fucking obscene) to complete a mission in Black Flag so I could get that last fucking treasure map for a 100% total sync. I've just finished Rogue and I find myself at the same doorstep. I've finished the main game and is waiting for the fucking Naval campaign to finish so I can unlock all the cosmetic items it gives.

And here's another kicker, the weapons side of things are god damn poorly designed. In Rogue I was able to actually get the Officer's Shortsword (never mind the fact that it's actually a copy of the Officer's Smallswords in Black Flag) that costs 14k and is the best purchasable weapon, faster than I can do all the other challenges for the weapons they unlock. But then here's the thing, the Officer's Shortsword actually is better stats wise than most of the fucking weapons you get from the challenges. There is no other reason to use these other than cosmetics and honestly, the fact that the stats are poorer sometimes put me off from wanting to use them. Why not make them comparable or at least make the purchasable weapons weaker so there's actually an incentive for a player to want to unlock them/use them.

The next stupid thing it does is put chests and animus fragments in the middle of the fucking ocean, like sure, you put them in the city or town or whatever, that's fine. Sometimes it's fun to have to find a way to reach them. But in the middle of the fucking ocean and I have to take a minute or 2 just to sail there for fucking 300 pounds/reales? What the fuck? And it's honestly not the money I'm after but the 100% total sync and it's a fucking waste of time to go look for all of them even though they are mapped on your map.

And also the introduction of weapons like fucking at the second last sequence which is about 80% through the game. In Black Flag you got the Rope Dart last and I never used it unless I had to for the 100% total sync because the thing is, I've gone almost the entire game without needing it, I'm likely not going to need it now as well. Same goes with the grenades in Rogue, they were introduced so late, I never used them, not that I really had a reason to, because the Rope Darts, which you get at the start in Rogue, were so fucking OP. And it's god damn funny to pull gunners off their towers or ledges and watch them fall to their deaths with the worst ragdoll physics I've seen in a triple A game.

And also AC multiplayer. What the literal fuck has Ubisoft been smoking? A game where Assassins try to kill other Assassins? What the fuck? It doesn't work that way. Assassins fight Templars where Assassins get to be more stealthy and Templars better at open battle, sure, I can see that work, but the whole premise of the multiplayer is that everyone has stealth. Then who the fuck is going to die? Really terrible. No one plays it, the entire scene is dead. Which really goes to show how good it is. It's one thing to play co-op like in Unity, but it's really an entire different thing to have an online multiplayer arena style game that they were trying to do.

Have you ever heard of anyone buying an AC title to play multiplayer? No, you haven't. That's because no one does, they buy it for the single player story mode. It's like a CoD or Battlefield player buying the latest release just so they can play the single player campaign. No one does that, they buy it for the multiplayer experience. So why do you even make a multiplayer mode for a game that people only play for the story? The game doesn't need it. In the words of Mr Blanchet, who used to teach me before I switched courses, "If your game doesn't need it, don't put it in,". (Ironically he used to work at Ubisoft.)

It's like Ubisoft is making all these unnecessary, poorly made design choices so that there is an "after-game", except, there is no after-game. Why the fuck would I fire up Black Flag again if there's no missions for me or further progression in the story? Same for Rogue. The only thing I really have left to do is mindlessly killing guards or civilians. And that's pointless and devoid of fun. And really an after-game that unlocks a fucking cosmetic item? What's the point? So I can look cool killing guards?

I honestly hope that Unity, Syndicate and future titles aren't inundated with these crappy design choices. My friend said that Unity doesn't do the shit they do with weapons and outfits but honestly the game from what I heard was bugged to shit and filled with graphical errors, it completely deterred me from wanting to buy it. And honestly, also, it was $49 without discount on the Winter Sales on Steam for the base game, not even some special edition, even half price I wouldn't have got it.