The Hidden Blade Assassin's Creed in Depth

I am always terrible with vehicle missions. That said, my least favorite 100% was any where you had to destroy ships in a certain way and you had allies destroying them for you to fuck up your chances.

That means Battle of the Chesapeake was my least favorite 100%. I know how to destroy ships with the small guns, but by the time I set them up, my allies would destroy them too soon. So frustrating.

But I don't think this was the hardest.... just the most annoying.

I definitely hated the ship missions. It takes so bloody long to replay them, and they often complete right when you're either meeting or failing the optional objective. That means you have to replay the entire damn thing again if you fail, including unskippable cutscenes. Poor design. But like Cheese said, that's more annoying than hard.

However, I would have to say the most annoying ones for me probably don't bother most other people. When I'm in a mission that says "Don't get detected", whether it's an optional or main objective, I don't even want to see yellow SSI arrows, never mind red ones. "Don't get detected" really means "don't be seen". I'm sorry, but if a guard sees a prisoner walking around during lockdown, even from 30+ meters away, that should be instant detection. None of this SSI crap. Yet the game allows you to go all the way to the red without failing.

What's worse, and I consider to be extremely poor design, is the fact that there is absolutely no way to avoid the red arrows in some of those missions (the prison one being a great example) and you end up walking into the cell (the target objective) with one or two guards quickly approaching you with their red arrows flaring. Yet I'm supposed to believe that these guys just vanish as Connor steps into the cell and has a chat? That cell is a dead end, he'd be caught for sure.

When that amount of suspension of disbelief is required, that's just poor mission design. I'd be completely embarrassed to release a mission like that. Worst part is, the whole SSI concept in this game is broken like that...

I think what my ranting is trying to get across is the fact that nothing in the entire game is really "hard". It's just poor design or crappy mechanics forcing you to do something (or preventing you from being able to do something) that sounds simple on paper. This stuff would fly five or six years ago, but games have evolved a lot in that time and the AC series as a whole just isn't evolving enough to keep up with the competition. It lacks any real difficulty and just hampers you with lame gameplay limitations in place of true difficulty. It's like the 80's all over again...

Anyway, rant over.

I have always, and likely will always, suck at anything that involves flying in videogames. That means that da Vinci's flying mission was one of my least favorite additions (although the parachutes weren't too bad because Ezio was moving at a much slower clip).

I haven't encountered any missions thus far in AC3 that have given me incredible amounts of difficulty getting the full sync, but I have yet to complete Sequence 5, so I'd imagine there are challenges forthcoming. The one I did recently that was a bit tricky was to escort Sam Adams to the secret tunnels in Boston without having your notoriety get raised above level 1. There didn't seem to be an entry way into the courtyard where the tunnel entrance was that wasn't blocked by guards, so I ultimately had to go to one around the back that was manned by two guards; I shot one with an arrow from a rooftop and then air assassinated the other before he could realize what was going on.

I've got a somewhat related question. Does the whistle feature (from a hiding spot) disappear? It hasn't been available to me all throughout Memory Sequence 5 and it's been somewhat of a pain, since it's a very effective way to remain anonymous while working your way through a mission. I'm wondering if others have experienced this issue.

The whistle thing, as I recall, isn't available to Connor right away. You should have it from Sequence 6 onward.

Fantastic, that solves my issue then. Perhaps I ought to get to Sequence 6.

Don't worry... it makes a return. You'll love it.

Before patch, the chase with Charles Lee was impossible without glitching.

I don't have any firsthand experience pre-patch but from what I've read, it was more difficult but not impossible. These videos were published November 1 & 2 and claim to be Full Sync: video 1, video 2. Ubisoft's patch notes say Mission - "CHASING LEE'' - Adjusted difficulty on the Charles Lee chase. Which part did you feel was impossible and what glitch was exploited as a workaround?

It was kinda hard to recreate but he just ran way too fast at the beginning and the original powder blast knocked me down almost 100% of the time. I had to jump through the explosion at just the right time with the Legs button and sometimes I just went through it, other times it flat out knocked me so far away I almost auto-desynched. It was incredibly hard and it's my most replayed mission.

My Chasing Lee video was pre-patch. And I had to use the tackle move to glitch through the guards. I tried less glitchy ways but couldn't find any that didn't interfere with the other requirements. Speaking of which, I need to record more. I haven't gotten on Xbox in ages.

I'm not sure if the chasing Lee mission was changed at all in the day-one patch, but I know that some other missions were. The mission where you chase Hickey was very different, as I recall. I remember it as beginning right near a market with Hickey sprinting directly towards it as the gameplay began after the cutscene. He ran through the market shoving people, who would often end up directly in your path. You could weave between tables and people or just run alongside the market, though that option was more difficult because it puts you further away from the target, giving a higher risk of desync.

After the market he turned left and ran toward a neighborhood of buildings. He quickly cut left through an alleyway and continued through several blocks of alleyways, then turned left on a street and circled back around the outside of the neighborhood until he reached the same original alleyway. He would continue that loop indefinitely. You couldn't catch up to him no matter what, so you had to cut him off. If you didn't, you'd just chase him in circles forever. He had that AI where they run faster than you when you get close, like in the scripted missions where you're not supposed to catch a target until a certain point.

I couldn't find any videos of it on YouTube. I can't be bothered to clear my 360's cache (i.e. delete all patches) and play through the game up until that point again, so unless somebody else is willing to do it I'll probably never get to see that version of the mission again. Not that I miss it.

By the time I got to the Lee chase, I had already installed the day-one patch so I have no idea if that version of the mission was any different from the non-patched version.

Furthermore, I'm waiting for the "holiday" patch to arrive for PC before completing the PC version, so I have no experience with the Thanksgiving patch changes to the Lee mission. I remember it being a bitch with only the day-one patch.

Just in case anybody is confused, the game has had three major patches so far:

• day-one
• Thanksgiving
• holiday

The console versions received all three patches. The PC version came with the day-one patch changes already included at launch, and does not yet have the holiday patch. So there has only been one patch for PC thus far.

You should play Dark Souls. 90% of the dodging in that game is invincibility frames.

Demon's Souls too.

I've actually played through all of Demon's Souls and absolutely loved it! In addition, I play a lot of fighting games so Invincibility Frames are big friends. It's just that I had never expected to make use of them in an AC game. Small world haha! I haven't had a chance to acquire Dark Souls, although I really want to.

The Giant and the Storm. And it isn't even close. This would be the naval mission where you need to destroy three ships (and there are only three, one frigate and two Man of Wars) by firing on their powder reserves. Unfortunately I upgraded the Aquila before doing the missions and it's become nigh impossible to complete this. There doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason to revealing the reserves. I've gotten the first two only to have the third ship die from something as simple as a grapeshot. I've tried ramming, chain shotting, fireballs, anything and everything plus a combination and I can't polish this one off. I'd estimate I've probably tried somewhere around seventy times now and it is the ONLY thing left for me to do in the game.

UPDATE: Literally the first attempt I made after this post I was able to get it. Go figure.

You're only stating this mission because you got lucky on the Battle of the Chesapeake your first try... they are essentially the same mission constraints, except in the Battle of the Chesapeake you also have to worry about your allies taking out the ships, meaning you also have a time constraint.

But I agree... we can lump these two missions together, in my opinion, as the hardest to complete. Any time where you have to destroy multiple ships via powder reserves - that was the hardest mission.

That I do not deny. Although I believe in the Battle of the Chesapeake the powder reserves you need to destroy are both on frigates, correct? The Giant and the Storm gives two different kinds of ships to destroy them on and you need to take out three ships that way. But yes, in the Chesapeake mission I blew up the first ship via powder reserves and my ally had kindly revealed the reserves on a second ship as it sailed past, leaving me with an easy shot. Perhaps that was Ubisoft's way of balancing out my frustration.

These aren't really missions in the game, but the board games on the Homestead can be some of the most infuriating if you're going for the Achievement/Trophy (I just got them the other day).

I gave up on that one long ago. Fanorona and Bowls weren't too hard in my opinion, but 9 men's Morris against the chubby innkeeper was too much for me. I have hated that guy ever since.
Normally I try to do every (singleplayer) achievement, but I did not have enough patience to complete this one.

I gave up onMorris and went to a game online against a kick ass CPU and used his moves as mine against the AC3 AI in order to win...

I tried it so many times! It was hard. But after 50 tries, I succseeded, and full sync, and I only wanted to get this over with.