The Hidden Blade Assassin's Creed in Depth

I've been thinking about doing up a post like this myself. Then I can stop referring to my unwritten ideas all the time and actually link to them. Maybe I'll just keep my ideas as responses here, since you've already created a thread.

I'm interested to see what ideas other people have too.

I completely agree. The game should be playable by average gamers, but they shouldn't look like they're pros at the game unless they actually are. Putting in time and practice should pay off, instead of everybody being an ace right out of the starting gate.

However, I wouldn't include fluidity in one specific area – vertical climbing. When there are plenty of surfaces to spring between and move around/over, it should be smooth and fluid. But when scaling a building straight up or moving horizontally along a wall face (both of which typically have really small/narrow foot and handholds), it should be slower and more methodical. Not disjointed, though; it can still have a consistent pace that gives the appearance of intention and determination (not to mention skill), but we shouldn't be able to Crouching-Tiger-Hidden-Dragon our way up to the top of buildings either. Graceful fluidity has it's place, and IMO full vertical scaling is not one of them.

Those YouTube videos of that guy that scales walls like a monkey is a good example of what I'm talking about. The way Ezio (and now Desmond) can climb their way up walls like Spider-Man just isn't right.

I feel a bit hypocritical in saying this, since I was a big proponent of needing a faster, smoother climbing ability after the first AC2 gameplay demo video came out. But I admit that I was wrong. Going back to AC1, climbing was still quick enough, and felt like it had real weight to it. The Spider-Man climb in AC2 and ACB feels unnatural. It feels superhuman. I admit that I was wrong.

If it's necessary to keep a vertical climb, then IMO it should be changed to more of a rampant scramble, essentially the climbing equivalent of running for your life.

Definitely agreed. We should have to work for it. Though AC2 and ACB are not as bad as Prince of Persia 2008, there's still too much that's automated. Make us work for it. It also would keep players on street level more often, which is how it's meant to be anyhow. A ton more effort was put into the life on street level than life on the rooftops, and this is a game about social stealth, not sprinting across rooftops like a kid in a playground.

IMO, rooftop running should be risky, dangerous. Miss a long jump across a street and you should be desynchronized (where a normal person would break their legs, at the very least). Rooftop running should not be the best way to get from Point A to Point B. It should be useful at times, but not all the time. IMO, we spend far too much time on those lonely rooftops in all three games.

The more difficult it is to use rooftops effectively and the less often we are able to do it, the cooler and more thrilling the idea feels when you're walking around at street level and looking up at the rooftops.

This is probably my biggest single wish for this series. Splinter Cell: Conviction did this and once you get used to this ability, you feel like you're crippled without it. It's so simple yet so vitally important IMO. It feels so natural. That's one thing games still tend to have a problem with, dealing with objects that are shorter than your character but too tall to step over naturally. Having to run around them or climb onto them and jump off is very counter-intuitive. Conviction had the perfect solution and it was smooth as butter.

However, I wouldn't make it so that you just hold the button to vault low objects. A sense of timing should still be required, as with your suggestion for changing to a "parkour" button and requiring timing with that. You have to time your presses in Conviction to vault objects and it works well because you need to pay attention if you want to move quickly and not get caught. You can still zip around and look awesome doing it as long as you're paying attention and putting in the effort to time your presses. The timing isn't harsh, it's fairly forgiving. That's all I'm asking for in AC.

I'm not a fan of this idea. It just doesn't feel natural to me. Sprinting should take effort and intention, whereas tilting the stick a little further doesn't encapsulate that. If that's how they implemented it, then everybody would just be sprinting everywhere throughout the entire game.

I'd do it so that it was a double-tap of the analog stick. Tap a direction, then quickly tap-and-hold that same direction (or the opposite direction, 180°) to sprint. And sprinting should wear off automatically after 15 seconds or so of continuous use, and have a 'cooldown' of 20 – 30 seconds. I'd also make it so that anything that interrupts your sprint (run into a person/object, jump, climb, etc) would cancel the sprint back to a normal run, so you'd have to double-tap again to sprint again. That would give it a more natural (and less automated) feel.

The reason I feel that you should also be able to tap the opposite direction and then the intended direction for sprinting is because of feel. The animation already exists in the game if you're facing/moving in one direction and then suddenly sprint in the opposite direction. It's a dynamic and energetic animation that's always fun to see. Plus it just feels natural. If you're facing one direction and want to suddenly sprint, you'll lean forward in the direction you're facing and spin and thrust off.

Sprinting should always be preceded by a tap, showing intent to sprint. You shouldn't automatically sprint if you're simply running in one direction and then do a quick 180° change of direction. Quickly releasing the direction of movement (on the analog stick), tapping it again and then pressing and holding it would clearly indicate to the game that you want to sprint, and it can be done quickly and easily enough that it wouldn't screw anything else up. This would be very much the way the controls currently implement jumping while sprinting, but instead it would be the analog stick instead of the button.

This could also have a special accommodation to account for the camera. Sprinting towards the camera is never ideal. If you're running forward and then want to instantly turn 180° and sprint away (think Han Solo in the Death Star), you could release the up/forward direction on the analog stick, tap down (to turn the character around) then immediately tap and hold up/forward. The character will run the opposite direction of original travel, but the camera would quickly swing around behind them to keep up with the quick change in action and allow the player to see in front of them. The camera wouldn't normally zip around that quickly, but a quick motion like that is acceptable when you're clearing intending to suddenly haul ass in the opposite direction. The player would be ready for a rapid camera transition in such a case.

I'd go a little further with this. IMO, you should need to double-tap to jump off the wall. Holding left or right and tapping once should do that little shimmy-hop thing that the characters to automatically when there's a slight gap in the horizontal handholds. I'd like to see that become manual. Climbing should take effort. Nothing we do in the game could even come close to the real life effort requirements for parkour, but if we have to at least work for it a little bit, it will feel more rewarding. As opposed to just holding down a button and looking like a superstar.

This is an interesting idea. It could definitely work. Pressing no direction does the current jump-directly-away-from-the-wall move, and holding down on the analog stick will make you push away from the wall a bit and turn and face away so that you can land in a roll and even continue running from that point if you want.

I'd keep this as well, though I'd add one thing – I'd make it so that at any time while jumping/falling, you should be able to tap to do a wall jump, ie: spring away from the wall and turn 180°. Other games do this, including some of the Prince of Persia games. I'd like to be able to climb into position, drop and part way down spring off the wall. Having to catch on and wait for the character to get back into position before springing off the wall hurts the pacing and fluidity.

Granted, this isn't terribly realistic, but it could just give the downward jump talked about above instead of a full spring off the wall, given that there will be a lot of downward momentum already. And just think of the stunts that could be done with this. Maybe if while falling we end up in range to do an air assassination, we could press and there would be a similar wall spring animation but would result in the character doing the assassination on the target.

Also regarding dropping down, I'd like to be able to run with and tap the button while approaching an edge to have the character do a sort of baseball slide off the edge, even if the drop is high enough to cause you to take damage. It's a move you have to intend to do, so we should get the choice if we want to do it. Currently the games will not allow us to run off an edge if we would take damage from the fall. Shouldn't that be our choice? I don't want to have to do an insane full jump just to not be stopped at the edge.

Further to this, if pressing and holding while running towards an edge, you will do the baseball slide but twist around and grab and hang from the ledge instead of continuing your forward momentum. Very much like the way you can currently walk up to an edge, stop, then press and the character twists around to hang from the ledge.

Also, they need to cancel the delay when catching/grabbing ledges. I want to be able to do the slide/twist/grab thing above and immediately thrust jump away from the wall with +. How cool would that look? Or hold down on the analog stick while pressing + to do the downward jump described above. Talk about a quick and stylish way to make a two-story drop without losing much speed or momentum!

I have an idea for this, but I'll save it for your combat thread.

In addition to all of the above, I have more ideas (big surprise).

On the topic of using while climbing/dropping, I'd prefer it if we had to press the button every time to do the initial catch onto a wall/beam/ledge/etc. Right now it's done automatically, and using the button to catch is only for adding a tiny bit of range to your forward jump or to grab toward either side or behind. There should be no auto-grab IMO. Make us to do the initial catch manually. If we miss, maybe even penalize us by having the character hit the wall with an awkward animation (ouch!), and then we have to try to grasp as we fall from that impact to avoid plummeting to the street and desynchronizing.

I like that we can do a diving tackle while running, but it would be nice to be able to tuck and roll forward out of it, typically with the intent of maintaining our travel in the original direction. Run along, tackle your way through a group and roll off the guy and continue running. As memory serves, we can already do this with guards who stand with their swords raised to block our path. Let us do it with any target we tackle. The tackle auto-targeting needs some serious work too, but that applies to combat as well so I'll save that for the combat thread.

When you throw all of the above stuff together, yes, parkour mechanics would be a bit more difficult. Well, not so much 'more difficult' than 'requires more effort'. And the rest of the game should be changed to reflect these mechanics. Don't make running around on rooftops necessary for most missions. Make it more startling to citizens when you display these acrobatic feats (and have applicable penalties for blowing your cover as a regular citizen). Random guards shouldn't be parkour masters – that's f'ing ridiculous. Using climbing during an escape should be difficult and very risky. But using standard parkour in a smooth and practiced way along street level should give you an advantage over your pursuers.

Lastly, and possibly the most important change of all, they need to revisit the directional controls. Particularly in terms of directional priority. Currently, the AC games have full 360° analog movement (or pretty darn close, if not). However, it seems as though the priorities are split evenly around a full circle, which is actually not the best way to do it. Key directions need to be favored. Starting with the four main directions, give them the widest sensitivity zones. Give the 8ths directions (NW, NE, SW, SE) the next largest sensitivity zones, then divide the remaining ones among the remaining space. I wouldn't worry about the 16ths having higher priority than the other remaining directions as humans will mainly focus on 8 directions and the rest is just for minor course correction touches.

The current full-360° setup makes it far too easy to accidentally change directions (where even slight changes can result in cratering into the street after a jump and poor times on VR race time trials). Changing direction, even just slightly, should require full intent. It should never happen by accident. The directional priorities should be more like this:

Man, that would solve a boatload of issues right there.

This stuff is all just off the top of my head. I'm sure I'll recall plenty of other ideas that I've had over the last couple years. As if this wasn't long enough already.

Those would be pretty game-breaking for a lot of players, Asaic. Maybe I'd have to get used to it, but that just seems like too many buttons to press even while running. Some ideas wre pretty cool, like tapping A/X to use to work for your parkour skills. I like that idea personally, but am really tired right now and don't feel like going through each of your points at the moment.

I'm sure the "Beautiful Lies" video can get some well-deserved attention from Ubisoft so we can talk to them about a game outside of the current AC series.

Nothing I suggested makes the core gameplay any more complicated than the tapping the button idea. Maybe read it all before commenting?

I agree with everything you said, Asaic. I doubt they'd go so far as to have manual grabbing for EVERY jump, but I could enjoy that. I definately agree with you about the directional controls. I have trouble running in a completely straight line in AC. About combat rolls, though, I just meant a dive-rolling type move, not specifically for combat. But I do think that implementing rolls in combat could provide a more gainly way to move from enemy to enemy during kill combos than hopping there, like in Brotherhood.

The reason I suggested moving the sprint control to the thumb stick was because It is harder to manuver while sprinting, because you cannot use the right analog stick unless you claw. And it's kinda lame to fail a chase because of camera controls. However, I just thought of something that could be better than either of our suggestions: a Call of Duty style sprinting system. Clicking in the left stick! Nothing could be simpler. For your camera turnaround idea, it would be the same, except it turns once you have clicked the stick, and assumes you mean to go in that direction for one second, so you can move the stick to be forward.

I think after I've updated the OP and we've got a few more people to weigh in, I'll do evasion and notoriety mechanics next. Probably combat after that. Maybe we could get the guy who made the "beautiful lies" video to tell Ubi we're doing this. : P

Trust me, I did. lol

You just seem to be making it harder on the player by making every tiny detail a required button to press. I think we can do stuff like that in future console generations, but this one probably isn't the best one to utilize that method for. It's too much work for new players if you change the entire layout in an already existing game series.

I'm all for the tapping button, combat rolls, and each jump from a wall, but having to tap the button EVERY time you have to grab something will just frustrate too many people. That's just me, though. lol
I'm saying that it all would be a great idea, but maybe for another AC generation.

AC1 has this feature (minus the baseball slide animation). It even uses the controls you suggested! Granjow documented it. I don't know if it works in AC2 or AC:B.

It would be far from the first time a game series has done this. Besides, if AC turns into an endless series like it's sounding like it will, they'll need to revamp the controls in one of the next several games to keep up with the competition. Sooner is better than later.

That's kind of contradictory. The extra taps of would come into play far more often than the manual ledge grab. And it's hardly 'harder', it just requires one to pay a bit more attention instead of just holding down a button the entire time. The way it is right now, you can hold up++ and look the other way and you'll still arrive at your destination. That's pretty awful IMO.

I'm all for keeping the game accessible to less skilled players, but they don't need the parkour to run on auto-pilot. You can already get through large portions of all three games without using it at all, so it's not like those players need the hand holding.

Besides, there are games out there with far more manual controls (very poorly implemented ones, at that) that are extremely popular among veterans and newcomers alike. The GTA series immediately springs to mind.

Oh, and there are quite a few games where ledge grabbing is entirely manual too.

Also keep in mind that these ideas are meant to be taken together. The current gameplay allows people to stick to rooftops 90% of the game (which takes all the fun out of it IMO). If they made the parkour mechanics require a bit more effort and added some slightly more realistic risk, it would all go hand in hand (and keep people from spending the whole game on rooftops).

If they want to make the rooftops less accessible to players so we can focus more on the social life in each game, they need to make the player feel vulnerable when on rooftops. I agree with this, though. In fact, my first playthrough of AC1 looking for investigations to complete, I literally walked and jogged around entire cities just to progress through the game. Sadly, this was because I didn't know how valuable viewpoints were back then. It took hours. XD

My thoughts on the grab button and tapping the A/X button are not contradictory, really. If you think about playing that way (mostly during anyone's first few times playing until they force themselves to remember that button) they'll be thinking, "Jump, jump, jump over gap, jump, jump, (this is easy enough!) jump, jump...heeeyyy...why didn't I make that jump? Wait, what? I have to press a button to grab something smaller than arm's reach? Isn't it a reflex to put your hands in front of you if you're about to hit a wall?!?"
It's just not realistic, to me. I'm thinking on that level, not a "you have to prove yourself just to play a game" kind of thinking. (Ugh, I sound insulting, but I'm really not trying to be, Asaic. My apologies).

I hope I'm making sense. Even I'm slightly confused by parts of this. lol

That's not really what I was getting at though. I want something that works while running and sprinting. Something clearly intentional and has a proper (and hopefully cool) animation. Granjow's move in AC is just the forward movement of the throw animation forcing Altair past the edge and thus falling. It's more of a glitch sort of thing.

My proposed move would also reduce the total height dropped by a meter or two, akin to hanging off said ledge and dropping, compared to just jumping off while running.

Ideally, it would have the character slide or fall along the vertical surface in this sort of position (minus the outstretched arm), allowing a simple press of to grab and hold or to spring off the wall.

The thing is, most games where you can jump and grab a ledge/wall/etc (especially older games) always required the user to press a button to grab said ledge. Tomb Raider, Prince of Persia, etc. It was normal and nobody ever complained.

It's not at all difficult and it actually feels more natural to make the attempt. In real life, reaching out and grasping something takes every bit as much effort as making the initial leap. It's the auto-grab that feels weird because the game is doing something for you (reminds me of the auto-jumping in Zelda *shudder*). When running at top speed and making a big full leap across a wide gap, it's instinctive to reach out as far as you possibly can and grasp toward whatever is within reach. It's human nature when in a similar situation in real life. Have you ever tried stuff like that on the playground as a kid? I certainly did.

When it comes to playing games like these, I try to immerse myself and feel like I'm going through everything the character is. I instinctively press and hold every time I jump in an AC game. It just feels right. It's silly that it does it automatically IMO (and sometimes I don't want it to, but I stick to the bloody walls like glue). For me, at least, the games would feel much more natural if when I jumped and knew I wasn't going to land on my feet, I would have to do something to avoid plummeting (or intentionally do nothing if I wanted to fall further).

I never played the Tomb Raider games, but I have played every console PoP game and I don't remember ever having to press a button to grab something. I remember dropping to get to a lower level or jumping to go vertically, but these games never had said "grab button". You're not really able to fall down a wall and grab it at the last second before you splatter onto the ground.

That's exactly what I'm saying. When the game "makes" you grab onto a ledge automatically, that's Desmond/Altair/Ezio instinctively doing so. Remember that these are only certain distances away. The reason behind this is for quick movement. For example, If you want to get to the topmost part of a building, you may run up the side of it or go up a ladder to get to the near-top section (with still a little bit of building left). Once you get to the top of a ladder/side of a building, you'll want to make a quick tap of the button towards the top section because it's just a few inches higher than you and you want to get there quick and fast. The amount of time to do stuff like that would make things complicated if you had to press the grab button every single time.

To me, it's more realistic if they keep it the way it is. Most things in your life, you don't even realize you're doing anything. That's because they're natural reflexes. If you're falling along the side of a building with obvious handholds, your first reaction will be to grab for something once you start falling. I'm all for keeping the series as realistic as possible. So, if it was up to me, we'd be back to Altair-style climbing. Also, you wouldn't be able to safely grab a graspable surface when you jump from the top of a friggin' cathedral.

Think further back. Those aren't the only PoP games.

It's like this in many other games as well.

Don't confuse instinct with 'lack of effort'. Just because something is instinctive, it still usually requires conscious effort and intent to complete. The grabbing thing is a perfect example. In real life, if you were running along a raised surface and you reached the edge and planned to keep going (let's say the edge of a pool), you could just keep running, but you'd instinctively jump, right? Of course you would. But that jump requires effort and intent. It is already like that in the AC games, you need to press the button to make the character jump, just as you would in real life. How is grasping not exactly like that? It's instinctual but it requires effort and intent and certainly doesn't happen by itself.

Seriously though, have you never done this as a kid? Never played on the monkey bars? Never jumped and grabbed onto something? It takes a lot of effort, every bit (if not more) than the initial leap. We're pressing a button to make the leap, it only makes sense to press a button to grasp at something with your hands on the other side (as opposed to just plummeting).

There are two other issues with your argument beyond that. First of all, you make it sound like a pain, like it's difficult or too much effort. It's seriously not. Go try it. Play some single-player and do it yourself. Manually grab at ledges when you jump towards edges and vertical surfaces that you want Ezio to catch onto with his hands. It's really not hard at all and it actually feels quite natural. It's not like you're pressing anything else once you're soaring through the air anyway, you lazy bum.

The other thing is about control versatility. What if I don't want to grab that ledge? What if I want to just fall down a bit further and land on the street, or grab a lower ledge? Currently, there is no way to do this and there should be. By automating the grab, you're both taking controls out of the player's hands and also limiting what they can do in the game. Both are bad things in the world of game design.

I'm curious. Since you believe that grasping should be automatic, are you annoyed that you have to press if you want to grasp to the side or behind the character as well? Wouldn't you prefer to just need to hold the direction you want to grasp in and have them grab automatically?

I guess they could implement the more advanced and versatile controls into a future AC game and then keep an easy mode for people where stuff is automated, like holding the entire time and auto-grabs and whatnot. I'd never play such a mode though.

You've totally lost me... Why would you need to do a grab at all in a situation where the ground is only a few inches higher? The grab only comes into play when you're doing a full leap across a gap and catching a ledge or vertical surface with your hands on the other side. You know, where you actually have to stretch your arms out and grab something to avoid falling to a horrible death.

Only if you're panicking. If you dropped down, you probably did it intentionally, and you'd have to intend to catch back on. In this case, this is how the games already work. The character doesn't automatically grab while falling down vertically, say when hanging off a wall and dropping down. Would you prefer if it did...?

Yes, Asaic, I've done the monkey bars and such as a kid. XD I'm lazy, but not THAT lazy.
I'm just saying that little things like that are minor to us. Yes, our brain does a lot to actually make every action possible, but to us, we don't even try. It should be automated, because most of that stuff is practically automated by instinct in real life. It's just translated as an auto-grab in the games in that way.

I'm not disagreeing with you, though (not since 3 or 4 comments ago). I actually think this would be a great gameplay element they could put into the series, maybe like a different mode professional players can do. Did you ever play Spider-Man 2 (the movie game, not the comic-book inspired version)? There were 2 types of web-swinging you could use to play. There was "Easy" and "Normal" swinging types. The easy kind was exactly what it said. Tap the button to shoot a web and swing on that same thread. On the normal type, you had to hold it down as if it was you holding onto the web. If you let go, Spidey would let go. That's what it reminds me of, which is why making it a certain kind of "parkour mode" choice for players would probably be best.

Also, I wasn't saying I want all grasping to be automated. Just the quick jump across the 7 foot gaps. Any more should require you to make the Assassin reach out. In fact, I find myself a lot of times jumping off of an edge in order to grab a ledge further down so I can get closer to the ground faster. I mostly end up having to reach to the sides or behind me. Such a pain (especially in my damn fingers!!!)

Sorry about the confusion with the "ledge only a few inches high" comment. I meant higher than YOU. Not from your feet or anything. XD
You'd have to grab that after tapping the jump button. I can try to make a 5 second video to show you, since it's a little hard to explain.

I much support grasping when coming into contact with a ledge after a jump being manual. I always do it anyway, it's completely natural for me. I've played pretty much exclusively games that make you physically grab, when I played AC for the first time that was kinda jarring. Gonna update the OP, prolly start a new topic. (Keep posting, though, never too many ideas)

I'd really like other people besides us 3 to chime in. It's lonely in this forum.

You can say that again. Cmon all you lurkers! come out and talk!

Man. Anyone who doesn't appreciate Manual Grabbing NEEDS to go and play the original Tomb Raider games.

A short gap with a wall on the other side? I'm trying to picture such a location... There were probably a number of those types of spots in AC1.

Yeah, I was primarily thinking about when leaping across streets and alleyways, definitely wider than 7 feet. I always reach out during full leaps.

You mean like when you approach a wall and use + (yay, I get to use the new icons!) to run up the wall? Since it's all one continuous motion resulting in the character resting on the wall just several feet up, I wouldn't imagine using would be necessary for that.

Absolutely!

I think it's just perfect the way it is in AC1.

Tapping while in to override the default free-running behaviour is the main means to be invoved, and that differentiates between more and less skilled players, by making Altair's movement more fluid. Like when jumping over beams in a 45 degree angle. You have to tap , or Altair will just run along the beam.

But there are others. Like the + used with proper timing to step down from a higher roof (one of my favorite moves), the manual grabbing, the sidewards wall jump, flanking, and other stuff that you can see in Granjow's moves tutorials. I think you can very much differentiate between skilled and less skilled players. Just holding and doesn't look very pro at all.

When I was making a video with Altair basically just running around in Masyaf, I was playing the same routine for like a week, because I couldn't do it perfectly. In the end I had to make it in two parts, and even then there's a mistake left in the second half, a jump from too high, with a red flash. It's not too easy at all, if you're really going for perfection.

Rooftops are the safe place for an assassin. That's why the bureau entrance is on the roof. It's exactly like everything else in AC: you can play it safe, or you can play it more exciting, depending on your playing style. You can better orient yourself up on the rooftops, too. The point is that the rooftops are a kind of home terrain for the assassin.

Except that there are archers. You have to be careful, or else they will notice you, and that's a second tenet violation. Moving between rooftops and street level without drawing any attention takes a lot of attention and involvement. You can draw attention even when just leaping across a street, if you're not paying attention to the citizens.

The guards' climbing skills are set as neccessary for a properly balanced escape difficulty. If they were worse climbers than they are, it would be too easy to escape.

Climbing up a wall is also something that takes involvement to be fluid. If you don't pay attention to the position of the handholds, you will get stuck. When I climbed the tower of the gate between the poor and middle districts of Acre for a video, I had to try five times. Because it's not automatic. I gut stuck, and the fluidity of Altair's movement was broken.

I was thinking that we should try to make rooftops dangerous because manuvering is risky and the guards with ranged weapons have high damage, and the ground is risky because of close quarters guards and also the ranged guards providing sniper fire from roofs if they see you.

And I do think it's too easy to freerun adequately. I know that extremely good people look so amazing, but at the average level of AC gamer, there is no real differientation between those of limited and better-than-usual free-running skills. They can both get to the same places with minimal effort. I think that automating less of the system will not only make things more involved and difficult, but allow the pro's to have even more precision, since the character will do nothing that they didn't ask it to do.

That's not exactly advanced though. Everybody knows they can do that, and they don't really have to. It only comes into place in a couple specific situations, none of which are near ground level. What we're talking about is designing future AC games so that being more involved is required everywhere.

I disagree. Pros can notice the difference between a newer player and a more advanced one, but for those new to the game, everybody looks like a superstar to them. And therein lies the main problem. It shouldn't be like that at all. Only a pro should look like a pro, no matter who is observing.

The animations for all the automated stuff are pretty sophisticated with lots of situational and transitional interpolation. It's quite impressive. But when you start interrupting stuff with jumps or grabs or whatnot, it looks more disjointed and less smooth in the transitions. That results in the more advanced techniques looking more like game mechanics exploits to newcomers than anything else. I've had two separate friends ask me similar questions while watching me play.

And I guaranteed you that only the most advanced players would even notice the amount of effort you actually put in.

Ian and Stab's AC2 feather-gathering videos are a great example. It looks pretty standard to the layman, but they put a lot of time and planning into making those videos. No one short of a veteran would be able to appreciate the amount of effort it took to make those.

Our suggestions would totally change that. A pro would look good like that, but a lesser skilled player wouldn't look anywhere near as good. The game makes you look pretty awesome even when you play it for the first time. It's just way too easy to parkour with grace and fluidity.

I disagree with this as well. The goal of Assassin's Creed isn't to be Batman and observe unseen from above, moving from rafter to rafter, only coming down to pick guys off. It's to hide in plain sight and blend with the crowd. Observe the people directly, interact when necessary. Listen to their worries and fears and protect them from oppression. Ever notice how not a single cutscene in the entire game has Altair watching from above? He's always in the crowd, hiding in plain sight.

In AC1, the rooftops pretty much were a safe haven. Just hop up there, then it's total cruise control all around town. That's a terrible game mechanic, especially when they put so much effort into life at street level and you can simply whip up top and bypass it all like it doesn't even exist. What a waste!

It was so easy to get all over town via rooftop running in AC1, resulting in the streets being ignored most of the game by most players. At least in AC2 and ACB, moving along rooftops was more difficult with wider streets and angled rooftops. But it's still too easy to get around up there. There's simply no risk. There should be no safe place for an assassin. The entire idea is to hide in plain sight and be aware of your surroundings and mindful of your own actions. But when you can just scramble up to a rooftop and you're 100% safe, there is no sense of challenge. It's essentially the same as toggling a god mode. Just climb up here and you're safe. You can put the controller down and go for lunch and nothing will happen.

There are archers on rooftops, but they were never any real risk or challenge in any of the games. Easily dispatched and it takes forever before they decide to start shooting at you. The crossbowmen and gunmen of ACB made things a little more challenging, but still nowhere near what it should be.

There's really no risk up there, and therein lies the root of our complaints. The navigation should be slower and more difficult, and much riskier. Falling more than two stories should mean you can no longer grab for handholds (since you're moving too fast to realistically stop your fall with grabbing power alone). Falling more than two stories and hitting the ground should also desynchronize you, since it would realistically break your legs.

Not only would the added challenge be fun, but players would be far less likely to spend the majority of the game on rooftops since it won't really get them anywhere faster. There will still be reasons to go up there, but it certainly won't be for god-mode cruise control across town.

This is true, and our main problem with that is that there is absolutely no penalty for doing so. Most players don't care that some citizens make open remarks at their actions. Al Mualim and Altair's dialogues make it clear that such things aren't acceptable, yet the game does nothing to penalize you for breaking a tenet of the very thing for which the game is named.

Not if getting up there yourself was more difficult as well. The guards could also remain proactive on ground level, attempting to follow you as they see you making big leaps across streets. They could shoot arrows, throw stones and otherwise continue to cut you off from your ground-level destinations. And in a realistic environment, you simply wouldn't be able to cross an entire city on rooftops – you'd have to hit ground level to cross larger streets and open squares and marketplaces, etc. A properly designed city wouldn't allow you to run forever on rooftops; at best, you'd make it a block and then have to find a way down and a place to hide. This would be thrilling, challenging, and best of all, realistic.

I often reference Tenchu Z when making comparisons to stealth and discovery in AC, and this is another one of those perfect examples where it has better mechanics. Most guards in Tenchu Z won't follow you up onto rooftops, but that doesn't matter. Getting up there isn't always the easiest thing, and once you're up there, you have to be very mindful of your movements in order to lose the heat. If you go leaping across buildings, that will easily be seen and they will stay on you at street level. They can shoot arrows and throw things, and there is also the odd guard on the rooftops here and there who will either see you or be alerted by the ground-level guards' shouts. Some guards can actually make their way up to you as well, though not without some difficulty.

It has a fantastic feel of balance and challenge. You're penalized every time you're discovered and it compounds. Once you're discovered, the guards on the ground are avidly watching rooftops as well, and they will spot you from a great distance even if it's just your head peeking up. You have to be very mindful of your actions, more so than in the AC games. Tenchu Z's system has a very natural feel to it and it's challenging. AC doesn't capture that at all, in comparison.

As I said, I prefer not to see fluidity in straight vertical climbing. It doesn't happen in real life either. Even the best climbers (like that monkey guy in those YouTube videos) have a lot of quick stop-and-go's to their pacing. You can still move at a good steady pace overall, but it shouldn't be anything like in AC2 or ACB where you can just Spider-Man climb your way up like nothing.

The climbing in AC1 actually seemed to have more opportunities where you could just climb straight up. I find that I have to be a bit more mindful of my climbs in AC2 and ACB if I want to be able to go straight up and not have to go left or right. AC1 had a lot more areas where you didn't need to go left or right, with the exception of most of the viewpoint climbs (which were intentionally designed to be more complicated).

Whatever the case, it's just too quick and easy in all three games IMO. I'd like to see it take more time and effort and never be a viable quick-escape option. It should have its uses, but we shouldn't be Spider-Man, using it all the time. Scaling buildings should take some planning and require you to look around. You might only be able to go up a couple meters before you notice that there's nothing to grab onto. But if you scan around, you'll notice that you can thrust off and catch a building behind you that you can climb around and then up from there. Then perhaps you can find a nearby chimney and climb up onto it, which gives you the height necessary to jump over to the roof of the original building. Fun, challenging and realistic.

Any given path from street level to rooftops should be anything but straight forward and obvious. Only ladders should be a quick and easy way up, and they shouldn't be lying around in quantities anywhere near what we see in all three games. I think it would be cool to see guards slash them down if you're trying to climb up one while they're after you. They could respawn the same way scaffolds currently do.

And that right there should always be the top priority when designing the gameplay for any video game.

I've always hated how every building in the games has a way to the tip-top. A lot of buildings just don't have handholds of any kind on 90% of it's structure. I think another realistic aspect would be to have certain buildings that just don't allow a player to climb. They can maybe get halfway up somehow, but if there is a 12-foot gap between two ledges, then that's where you stop. I really want to see Ubi deal with this if they did any present day gameplay in major cities (i.e. New York, San Francisco, etc.).

There are a few that you can't climb, like that one in the bonfire of the vanities section of florence, or saint peter's basilica. But those are because of cheap jutting ledges at the top or un-grippable hand-holds.

Maybe in regards to how the crowd reacts to you, the notoriety system could be moved to being crowd-only, and if any crowd members are looking at you, you will be notified, similarly to AC1's guard notifier. And full notoriety should be really easy to get to, and the crowd will call guards on you if you're at it and do something high profile in their sight.

I've been thinking about the feel of AC freerunning, and I've come to two realizations: Buildings need to look less conveniently climbable, and our character needs to be able to climb them fast anyway, through more sophisticated animations that convey the skill of a modern gymnast rather than the simple, boring way Ezio and Altair climb (through using handholds, and pulling themselves up with their arms and legs. This could also be accomplished by giving the player character special gloves and shoes, which can anchor them to walls for a very short period of time, the benefit of this being the ability to manuver more gracefully on walls, and cover greater distances.

One of the major things that can make this style of climbing look better, however, is the removal of impossible backwards leaps (If you are underneath a beam of wood, Ezio will jump backwards the length of it and manage to grab onto the end even though his momentum should rip his hands right off of it. (altair simply does nothing, but that's incredibly irritating)

Instead, the idea that while climbing, you must remain in an upright position at all times, must be done away with. When you come to the same beam, the player character will use the gloves (I don't know wether it's a special powder or miniature spikes in them, doesn't matter right now) to anchor on the wall, and then push off with one hand and twist their entire body around, hooking their legs over the beam, planting their feet on top of it, and standing straight up to use the momentum to bring the rest of the body up.

Another more advanced-looking manuver could be a flip in the air, with the feet landing on the side of the wall, and the body rotating to get the hands to come up and grab on, effectively increasing the heights you can reach with a jump.

You get what I'm saying though, right? I want to make it look more ninja, and mechanically be more ninja, so that they don't have to stack blocks of interchangeable objects for us to ramp up, and can design the cities to look more natural.

I don't mind the idea of improving the animations, but I'd personally prefer less flips and "show-off" moves. I mean, an Assassin won't be trying to impress the people shooting at him, they'll be getting the hell out of there as fast and efficiently as possible, with the occasional jump-roll or slide over a mid-sized obstacle (such as a box about 3/4 the height of the Assassin). I just love the realism the series tends to have. It's believable.

Of course if it's a straightforward climbing wall type deal, with lots of ledges and everything, then you won't do fancy stuff. I'm not talking about showing off for the fun of it, but about that being the ONLY way that you could possibly scale the wall, because it's not tailor built to be climbed. And I'm talking about increasing the number of buildings that are like this so that the game world feels less "designed". I DEFINATELY don't want unrealistic stuff, It's just a lot of the time Ezio and Altair don't move very smoothly, and try to power up every wall using the same tactics of "ledge jump to the side", or "find a handhold above" Even when there are interesting fixtures int eh surface that they could use to climb in a more inventive way. Climbing up a plain wall isn't very hard (and shouldn't be) , but it's boring. And if you made the walls more vaired and less formulaic and used the same climbing animations, it would be harder to climb and look less realistic. I'm talking about increasing the gymnastictic knowledge of the Assassins so that they can climb buildings that are laid out realisticly. Not giving them superpowers or increasing their actual strength beyond realistically attainable levels.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CPZeaWNMFoY
This video gives some idea of the kind of more active and twisting and rolling freerunning I was talking about. Of course I'd want our assassin to be better than this, but these guys give you an idea of how it is on things that are not built for this.

Here's what the parkour mechanics should look like:

That is a much better representation of what I was talking about. Our previous assassins never vault over a wall that is small enough for them to do so, they always wall-run, and pull themselves up slowly, wasting time. And 4:24 shows exactly the kind of dodge-roll move I'd like to be able to use. If AC 3 were able to show a truly realistic/fluid version of parkour, but allow the character doing it to be as incredibly strong as Ezio or Altair to allow for crazy stuff (within the realm of possibility), then I would love it to death. I want the leap to be as big as web swinging in spider-man 3 (normal stick out your hand, jump, stick out, jump) to webswinging in spider-man: web of shadows (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4qQZ9tQXKjc) with the amount of visual appeal its got. And mechanics wise, sprint should not be tied to free-running. If sprint is on the left stick, and freerun is A, then sprint + high profile A could be used for actual jumping, while just holding A in high profile would do actual parkour (if you hit a wall while doing, you vault it and flip around and drop down. Doing stuff like that should draw less attention from npcs and also give you control over wether you actually want to quickly jump to the side of that wall or just get down to the ground. Plus it'll look sick.

(I apoligize for my terrible grammar and such, I'm lazy when I make walls of text.

Remember the trailer at e3 for AC2? Where ezio just walks off the building and lands in a crouch without hurting himself? Let us do that, Ubi. From a reasonable height.

In the trailer that wasn't a reasonable height. But, yeah, it would be cool to have something like that. AC1's high profile grab can be used to do that, but it doesn't really fit.

The main thing that annoys me is that Thieves can do it, albeit with a little hop. So they have the mechanic, we just can't input it.

It's possible depending on the hieght to just drop off, but I assume you just mean high up? Like TLS mentioned it can be done with a grab in AC1 and also in AC2 but it's a bit more complicated (you have to go to the edge, do a quick 180 degree turn then turn back to the edge then grab).

But yeah an actual move would be nice.

For AC3 I'd like to see a complete revamp of the free running mechanics (devs should take note of the videos TLS posted).

And I would agree with this as well, especially the last part. I always thought it was weird seeing guards easily pull off all the same moves the assassins did.

Have the more complex climbing controls included in Normal mode, have the AC1/2/B/R controls in the Easy mode.
Problem solved.

Also, as an amateur practitioner of parkour in real life, I agree with all the ideas in this thread. I would play Normal/Hard mode of course. I liked Calvar's suggestions about not being able to do a backwards jump grab, instead having to swing your legs around the obstacle above you. If they implemented parkour with the fluidity of the video Parkour; Literally, that would be amazing.

Another thing I would like to see is being able to run up walls at a corner.
Like in that "AC recruits" vid or whatever, at certain points, they're inside a corner and run up the wall in front, but grab the wall on the left. Let us partially control our wallrun direction. If you want to be uber hardcore, press the jump/parkour button again after a certain point to continue the wallrun, otherwise you just fall off. I don't think that's too necessary though. But hey, inFAMOUS did it.

So did one of the recent Prince of Persias. It made the gameplay more exciting, I thought.

I've updated the OP to account for some new info.

The new controls will be interesting for our first times. Holding one button now? I hope accidentally holding the right trigger/R1 button while just sprinting won't affect our movements negatively.

I just hope the animations flow seamlessly together.

The smoothness of the animations is something most of the press has been gushing about, so my hopes are high. I'm certainly not expecting them to be worse if they're putting money into a total overhaul of the animation system.