The Hidden Blade Assassin's Creed in Depth

Yeah, it was horribly edited, and if you could hear the sound, they played the voice clips at really unsuitable times, and ended on the worst pun possible.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ii2Wi6Xnk6g

Machinima has new gameplay, with way more b-roll, and looks at underwater gameplay and harpooning.

You can also use different ships other than the Jackdaw for different situations, though that's only talked about, not shown.

Far better edited, way better commentator.

EDIT: Oh, and Harpooning actually looks pretty fun. It's not just a QTE, it's manual aiming.

The 2nd harpoon he threw looked really bad though. But I'm excited about minigames like harpooning and diving. Heck, I'm excited about every element of AC4.

Ah yeah, heres hoping they fix that animation glitch. It appeared to happen because of the speed the boat was moving. I think they fixed a similar bow glitch before AC3's launch.

EDIT: I think I'm going on a blackout regarding all info not released in official trailers for now. they've started to show off a whole lot of the game now, and I want to be a little bit surprised.

Mine critiques have only gone stronger. Considering the fact that AC3 had the second longest development time at that time (2.5 years), there shouldn't have been FAR less mishaps compared to the previous games. And considering the fact that it's the 3rd entry in the series, I HAVE to judge it compared to it's prequels and what it has to offer.

- Cities. As in urban areas populated my large amount of people. AC3 has 2 cities. If you're talking about areas, the Homestead/Frontier practically count as 1 to me as there was little distinction from each place. That counts to 3, compared to AC2's 5 cities.
- I wanted the story to be good as soon as I got Haytham from the beginning. Nine hours so I can play as the guy on the front cover of the game? Pfeh.
- I've already gone into reasons as to why Connor is a bad character/assassin: http://thehiddenblade.com/huge-spoilers-free-range-ac3-discussion?page=2...
- The economy is superficial for the exact reasons why you just described it. Clunky UI and no tutorial is just the beginning. Other than upgrading your ship, there's very little to no reason to partake in this crafting system at all. Most of the games cash can be obtained from completing main missions, and weapons/ammunition can be savaged from dead enemies. Buying other weapons have little to no effect on combat, because other than unique animations, the stat changes are barely noticeable at all!
- I was comparing the AC3 assassination missions to AC1 and AC2

Yet...despite this, it's probably one of the weirdest I've ever played. Despite all of the mishaps, they are good parts in the game. Yet sadly, the little improvements are overshadowed by the big errors.

Not sure if this is true... I played through AC3 lowest sync possible, completing all main missions but minimizing side content (and also looted very little from victims) and I finished with barely 50 £. Poorest assassin ever.

EDIT: To be fair though, you have a point about the economy system. I saved up for upgrading the Aquila and left the rest for when I finished everything else in the game. I did most crafting after the epilogue because I'm a completionist.

Replied to every one of your points, deleted it, will repeat: We can debate this all you like, but the differentiating factor is that you did not enjoy the game, and I did. I KNOW that's not an objective argument against your point of view and it is NOT intended to be. We're off topic now. If you'd like to re-summarize your feelings about AC3, you might be better served starting a dedicated thread in the section related to that game.

Well f*ck this game, then!

Yeah, everyone knows THB is notoriously anti-french! : P

*hides in rant forum*

Does anybody know how the weapon statistics are going to be displayed?
ex: stat circle like AC3, or traditional Ezio game style

From what I recall, I think the wheel didn't show actual numerical value, that's why I'm asking. Could be wrong about that though.

http://www.polygon.com/2013/7/9/4507024/assassins-creed-4-black-flag-man...

All you anime fans, rejoice!

I actually prefer the bar stats compared to the circle. Easier to read.

Oh, and Calvar. Don't worry. My definitive AC3 rant/review will soon come.

If you're talking about weapon properties, those have never been displayed in anywhere other than menus in AC games. Even Altair had weapons with stats.

So either accessible from the pause menu, or at your weapon stash/weapon vendors.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kt_PBGi3AFE#at=97

Apparently Abstergo Entertainment is in Montreal. Nice Easter Egg.

Yeah, Darby confirmed that on his twitter a while ago. : P

Oh, by the way, I'm 90% sure Ash is talking about the assassinations from blend spots here: https://twitter.com/AshrafAIsmail/status/365868071451246592

Remember, that part of the demo where Edward did that long animation of smashing the guy on the counter? Apparently, that was the high profile version of that kill, and you can do a quieter one.

It could always be that I'm wrong and he's talking about areas like haystacks, but we'll see when we get the game.

Assuming from the context of the question (they did specifically ask about the blend spot in the gameplay demo), it looks as if we can perform high or low profile kills from any position, even those blend spots.

Well...this fixes everything.

don't jinx it.

Wait... this isn't a new thing, right? Did I miss something? As far as I know we have always been able to do high- and low-profile assassinations from everywhere, including blend spots.

For example, in Brotherhood/Revelations, high profile from a haystack means Ezio would jump out and onto the target. Low profile from a haystack means Ezio would pull the target in, remaining hidden.

High profile from a bench means Ezio leaps at the target from the bench. Low profile from a bench means he'll stab them and put them on the bench. (not conspicuous AT ALL, but whatever)

So, what exactly is the new element here?

You may have noticed in AC3 that when you stood in specific groups of people you would actually mimic the actions of said group, like sitting on a fence if the group is leaning on it, or observing the market stall if the group is doing so.

That was cool, but if you did a low or high profile assassination from within that animation, you would always do a specific noisy assassination as long as you didn't break out of the animation first.

SOUNDS like that may be fixed. We were talking about it earlier in the thread, since you see Edward do a similar noisy assassination when he smashes his first target over the counter in that gameplay video.

I think if you just press X/Square, you'll do a subtler kill and "hide" the body (position it so that it takes your place), but if you do it in high profile, you'll just slam them into the hiding spot for a noisy, attention-getting kill. The previous games were just "jump and stab" every single time.

Well to be fair, those unique blend spot animations were only introduced in AC3.

I don't remember them in AC1, but I remember being able to leap-assassinate from AC2-on.

Yeah, but I'm not talking about leap assassinating. I'm talking about context-sensitive animation for standing in a group of people. AC2 allowed you to high or low profile assassinate from all blend spots, but AC3 added those context-sensitive blend spots and treated them as their own thing, only allowing for a loud context-sensitive kill animation from that position

Assassins Creed IV Stealth Experience Walkthrough:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oW30tQfQR4U

wish he did a real stealth kill rather then go the easy way and blow him up... =/

Was waiting for a video of underwater and urban gameplay!

Exactly. "stealth bonus +300 R"
Apparently blowing op a courtyard is considered 'stealth' now.

Also, I fucking LOVE the way the jungle looks.

Eh, it makes sense. It's more stealthy to make a loud noise but not actually be around than to tackle someone and slit their throat in the middle of a group of people. But anyways, Ashraf said the bonus was for not getting seen up until the point where you kill him. maybe getting a totally silent close range kill has its own bonus as well?

doesn't matter much to me, long as I have the choice to take im out how I want.

oh, and it appears vanilla throwing knives are back. guess that's the new silent ranged weapon. I think I'll be using those quite a bit.

The animation and visual quality of the game looks really good so far. definitely gonna get this on next-gen, even if I have to wait a week or so.

And the world definitely seems huge, and fun to just explore

I know I know, it just annoys me he was saying there was so many ways to do it and he's just like NOPE and blows him up... xD

Ah well, I wish he showed off something more creative cause this isn't gonna help 'em with their image of lacking stealth...
It just seemed like a missed opportunity, especially with the name of the video...

Well it was clear that he was doing it to bring the assassination to an end quickly so he could keep the video within the 7 min time limit. The video was another highly edited one, so I expect a longer, more in-depth version to be shown later.

Don't forget that he said there are many ways of eliminating the target. He even told the viewers to try and spot them all (which tells us that they're really pushing for an open-ended mission structure, even for side-missions).

OK, on second watch:

- Edward dynamically takes his hood off and on depending on what you're doing gameplay-wise.

-Underwater looks great. Love the idea of it being a pathway to environments which require you to go in with no weapons

-interesting that it appears you'll know what weapons a guard will have on them based on their archetype. with the agile, it appeared like Edward gained that consumable throwing knife just by killing him, with no need to manually loot. If looting is only for money and supplies, and you get stuff like darts and knives just through killing, that's going to be great for the flow, especially in the endgame

-tagging and marking with eagle vision looks wonderful. This really makes Eagle vision an important thing in stealth other than just for reminding you which character is your target or a guard. now you can use it to track patrols and know which way your pursuers are approaching before they get there. Yes, it's a feature for people who aren't skilled enough to remember where every guard is, and I know a lot of THB people definitely can do that, but what that does is it enables them to potentially make more complex guard setups and know that players will be able to deal with it, which is good for anyone who wants a challenging no-eagle-vision run.

-throughout the video, there are quite a few explosive barrels lying around. I have a theory about that: the barrels are there to guide inexperienced players through the initial content. As the game progresses and/or you find tougher and tougher content, the barrels will start to be less frequent or require more strategy to use effectively. As it is, it provides players who are having trouble with a section an easy-to-figure-out solution to completing it. People who want to be more stylish and subtle can ignore them and thus the game starts off more challenging that it would have otherwise been, but also accessible. If that's the thinking they have with the explosives, then I'm totally down for that, and I consider it pretty intelligent design. I've asked Ashraf on twitter for clarification about how common barrels are.

- The graphics are looking a lot closer to Watch Dogs level than I expected. Havana is beautiful.

- The assassination contract notes the constraints for getting full reward from killing the target, which is a smart evolution of full sync, only you actually get a substantive reward for it. The Templar's bio actually notes that he deals in explosives, which kinda justifies the way they took him out, and is sort of ironic. It also gives me hope that most targets won't have that many explosives around them.

- Map looks gorgeous, and Havanah looks dense and packed. The jungle also looks beautiful.

-new hide spot looks stylish. Always love cosmetic variety.

-like the stealth setup to the ship, even if much of it was skipped through.

-I can see ways that the on-ship stuff could have been done without going loud with guns with a little shimmying, patience, and free-running, but for what it's worth, the open-conflict style seemed very slick and well done. Those pistol animations don't seem as jerky or disconnected as before, they blend together. And the free-aiming looks smooth and responsive.

- Tagging is something that's good. Wonder if there's gonna be a limit as to how many guards you can tag.
- Environments look good, but that's too be expected. Hopefully it'll come
- Like free-aiming. Gives the game a good balance of power.
- Love the risk underwater imposes on Edward, as he has no weapons equipped.

- X-ray vision. Hm. Not sure why this is absolutely necessary. Quite condescending if you ask me. Don't tell me that people are THAT terrible at stealth (probably from all of that COD) and wouldn't know how to use the SSI and a map that reveals the ENTIRE POSITION OF ENEMIES!
- Havanna looks gorgeous, but it seems a tad big too tiny. Like maybe around the same size of Florence. Hopefully the level design of the city will compensate.

Sure, blowing up things from a distance and departing quickly is technically and more realistically stealthier and quieter, but where's the challenge? Let's hope that there's an extra bonus that rewards players who get up personal with their hiddenblade. Let's also hope that they'll be good side-missions. One's that don't involve beating up husbands.

And I expect a more in-depth walk-through in the near future.

It looks exactly like Far Cry 3's tagging system, and I don't remember ever having an enemy limit. It depended on how many you manually tagged, though. So make it harder and only tag the main target (if it's still manual).

I'm not very happy with that statement, because it indicates there is a fixed number of developer-intended ways to take out the target. I mean, it's a step in the right direction from the linear bullshit we had previously, but it's still not emergent gameplay.

Maybe I'm just overthinking though. We'll see.

Hm. On watching the gameplay again, I noticed how the shark and the 4 guards in the cavern DON'T appear on the map. Quite odd, considering that the enemies in Havanna actually do.

Oh, and Haytham's kill animation with the sword around 2:07 is kinda weird. You see him jab with his left arm (which I can only assume to be his hiddenblade). Bit of an inconsistent animation. Oh well.

Hopefully the "stealth = more money" bonus can extend towards the cavern as well.

What level design in AC means is making sure there are hiding spots to potentially kill a target from, maybe a barrel to explode when the target is near enough, possibly ensuring that the target's path leads him underneath a place where you could air assassinate...

AC1's first real assassination was a great, simplistic example of just that. The target walks around to different areas, opening himself up to a different form of attack each time.

Ashraf didn't say "there are 10 ways to complete this", he said "find all the ways to complete this, I know for a fact that there are a lot because I've helped make the game and playtested it and seen it playtested."

the more money bonus only applies to assassination contracts from what we know. the cavern stuff seems to mainly be about stealing fixed amounts of treasure, bonuses wouldn't make sense.

Yeah, it was an animation that assumes he has his blade, but it was so subtle that it looked like it could just be a kidney punch

Oh, and about the "X-Ray Vision", that only shows up when you tag people with eagle vision. You can't see through walls without having first seen the guy.

It's undeniably helpful to keep track of your target, especially when it comes to what direction they're facing and making sure they haven't stopped to investigate something. Yeah I know, dots on the map, but it's far easier to track stuff like that when it's shown in the physical game world, and as I said, increased accessibly means they can trust every player with being able to navigate more and more complex setups.

EDIT:

Oh, and I found this cool little callback to the AC1 boxart. It's an official promo thing.

^Gorgeous. Stunning. Sublime.

While the AC4 team are boasting about the next-gen, they seem to forget the basic stuff.

Sure the environment looks gorgeous, but there's still some flaws. Hair seems static with no wetness and flow towards them. Same goes for his chest. And the biggest offense: clipping. Clipping on the sword/sash/tailcoats; ect. Understandably this is more of the animation's department, but still.

TL;DR at bottom
You are complaining about things that are infinitely harder to fix than you think they are.

Is there clipping? Yup, because it's a bunch of immensely complicated models with upwards of 2,000 animations that all have to blend together and run in a massive open world with various objects with immense levels of variety and detail.

There is no simple algorithm to completely remove clipping in a situation like that. Even in a linear game with low detail models and environments, it would be a difficult (maybe even impossible) and not-cost-effective undertaking, especially since it will only please a small subset of people and not enhance the actual experience in any way.

Same goes for hair physics and realistic levels of wetness on skin.

I understand people building up massive levels of hype for next gen and everything, but seriously, it's not magic. It's a technology upgrade. There's always going to be more that technology can do, more potential to be gained from upgrading, and the very best possible results are not going to present themselves right away, because humans don't learn everything at once, even huge teams of humans that know far more about the technology that they're using than you do.

Sometime in the future, these things will become far easier to do, but even then, someone will probably have to work their ass off to implement it, and barely anyone will truly appreciate it.

TL;DR:
Just look at how casually you dismissed high environmental detail in an open world. that's a culmination of decades of people working on video games, but because we HAVE it, we don't value it. when clipping is gone, that's what it will become. That doesn't mean they shouldn't try to reduce it, but that also means that it still shouldn't be their biggest priority when there are plenty of more visible ways to make a game look and feel good. It's totally fine if clipping bothers you, but thinking that it's super easy to get rid of it, or even that removing it is a viable option at this point considering the scale of their game, the cost, the amount of people working on it, and the tools they have to work with... that's just incorrect.

The biggest issue about clipping I have is from AC3's Assassin robes. Whenever Connor leaps to a climbable wall and he stops for that half-second, his coat tails clip in a weird way, and it always took me out of the game. Same goes for any time Connor jumped onto a ladder; the animation would "stick" and he'd climb up/down facing the direction he jumped from. It took away the immersion.

Clipping is bound to happen, but they should work on those things a little bit more. They're minor gripes, but a lot of gamers nowadays are pretty detail-oriented and spot that stuff easier. It looks like they mostly fixed these issues in AC4, seeing the 7 minute walkthrough we were just speaking of.

I'm sure next-gen will have less problems with this.

As I said, I have no problem with it bothering you. If you're looking for it, it can be obvious, and I'm of course not saying that they can't fix ANY of those problems, (as AC4 footage has already shown, a bunch of them are fixed) but that the tech and ways to combat clipping and provide micro levels of detail are still in their infancy. Video games are a really new medium. If they were compared to books, they wouldn't have invented the quill yet, and would still be on stone tablets and charcoal.

The fabric physics in AC3 simply don't bother me as much because they've actually improved a ton from the last time there were fabric physics in an AC game, and clipping with Ezio's static robes was far more egregious, plus Ezio had far fewer context sensitive poses than Connor, which meant he clipped a heck of a lot more.

Again, it's a legitimate gripe to have, but it's also a very difficult problem to solve on the actual game dev end, and the fact that they've consistently shown progress in these minor cosmetic areas proves that they do care about such things.

In AC3 the tech that they implemented for standing on uneven terrain or even an irregular object is amazing. it doesn't work perfectly, but few games have anything like that at all, and it successfully nullifies a huge amount of foot clipping.

Something I noticed about the gameplay trailer is that when enemies investigate, they get orange circles over their head that slowly drain out. Presumably this represents the amount of time that they're going to be in "investigation mode". It's great to see a visual representation of such an important behavior, and it'll make it a lot more clear when an enemy is going to be more aggressive in detecting you.

I really like what Ashraf said about trying to make the detection rules very clear to players. That's just another way that they're freed up to make things more difficult and complex without alienating less skilled players who want to try to be stylish and stealthy, and guide Edward like he knows what he's doing, which is always how I try to play AC games.

The way things like the two darts work really does give me the feeling that I'm creating subtle social disturbances, which makes it clear that they really do remember what the original premise of the series was.

Another observation is that the movement looks like it's controlling very smoothly, even more than AC3, which I thought was a great improvement. I posted a link to a GDC video of Devs explaining why AC3 feels different than the previous games, which is to do with improved animation blending and a slight strafe before the character completely begins turning, which makes it feel a lot more like you're really turning with two legs rather than following a smooth arc like a bicycle.

but yeah, the way Edward moves indicates to me some of the bugs from the AC3 movement system being worked out. As a side note have you seen Watch Dogs' vaulting and climbing and such? It's clear they benefited from comparing notes with the AC team, even if Aidan has a rougher, less agile style of movement.

The loading screens when accessing something like the assassination contract or a merchant (you know, that flash of white or black from previous games?) seem greatly reduced. it's a very quick flash now, rather than a half-second delay before the UI shows up again as we saw in most of the older ones.

Beware though, parts of this video are heavily edited and that could be the case here.

Edward's feet adjust to a really slight incline when he's looking out at his target's ship. that tech is still being used, and if I dare say to greater/more polished effect?

And looking closer at that assassination mission, it appears there was a pretty lengthy area with guards patrolling before you even reach that village. I like the idea of feeling like you infiltrated deep into the heart of your target's operation : )

You know what's fun? Watch the AC3 gameplay trailer (like the one in Boston) and spot the differences with the actual game. This could give you a bit of an idea of what to expect from AC4.

I have a lot of admiration and respect for the environment designers, and I also understand that there just small things compared to mission structure, environ./level design, gameplay mechanics; ect.

I'm just pointing out something that frustrated no just me, but many others as well. There's no harm in pointing out something that can be improved. I remember when playing AC3, when I first mounted a horse, Haytham's coat still clipped on the back of the horse. Definitely breaks immersion, when the previous times I've seen him moving about his cape hasn't clipped much anything at all.

Considering the development time towards these yearly sequels, and how many people are employed at Ubisoft, you'd think there'd be a "Anti-clipping" team by now. Still, it's there choice on what part of the game they have to focus on.

And if that bright annoying white flash in AC3 has been fixed...then that means they're doin' something right.

There's nothing wrong with being bummed out that it's there, but you continually fail to hear me when I tell you about all the ways that they ARE fixing clipping issues, through dynamic animations on uneven ground, and the general improvements in each game in the series. I guarantee you that someone actually tried to get fabric physics to work on horses but failed to get it to look right before launch, or maybe never even got it close to working. Because that's a far more complex thing than just making Haytham work normally, it's accounting for a completely different hitbox affecting the fabric in a way that will change while the horse is standing still, galloping, rearing, trotting, or running.

Once again, I don't doubt that you have respect for the developers.

Oh, and the white screen stuff wasn't a glitch. flashing to a screen that's just the animus' color scheme for short loads has been in the game since AC2. I'm just saying it's a much shorter load now.

--------------------------------------------

Gerund, I don't think we'll see as much difference as with the AC3 demos, mainly because the AC3 demos were, respectively, an alternate version of a story assassination retrofitted into a fort, and a linear slice of gameplay in boston that didn't really seem like it was actually dynamic content, but more of a staged example of a homestead mission, and then some fights and running away and blending and shooting.

What we've been seeing with black flag is a variety of content, and the traversal to and from said content. there's a straight up assassination contract, a diving mission, and a shop, all in the same trailer. We NEVER saw this much of the game in those AC3 gameplays, which is because those were vertical slices of content, meaning not much else was ready to show by the time of E3.

Now with Black Flag, it appears that they were a lot ahead of schedule, since they can show free-roaming with no fear of running into a wall of "incomplete". I know for a fact that a lot of things had to be cut and moved from AC3 to black flag or other games being worked on, which makes me think that AC3's development suffered because of how difficult it was for devs to adapt to the new engine, or maybe they were just plain overambitious.

So basically, I trust these Black Flag gameplay videos a lot more because they're showing Ashraf just exploring a functioning world and doing distinct activities that have visible mission start points and icons, rather than showing off features in one environment at a time. Filming these videos probably helped as part of playtesting the gameplay loop and making sure that it was possible to seamlessly do all these things without the game messing up. That's the most efficient way to do things, to be honest. Lots of vertical slices just take actual work time away from devs.

I'm already aware that they fixed the foot posture on uneven terrain, giving free-running and combat a much more realistic and fluid feel. And the countless hours into animation/movement/clipping that are subsequently being improved with each new game.

Never said it that the white flash was a glitch. Just saying that they fixed it.

OK, sorry if I sounded like a dick. I just hear a lot of people whine about devs being lazy without really considering what they do.

And, alright. I get it. But I'm just saying, the only reason the flash isn't white is because this animus' color scheme is darker, like in Revelations. If you're solely talking about the length of the flash, then yup, fixed! : D

http://puu.sh/43coE.jpg

I can see/speculate the following icons on/from this map;
- Weapon Shops (Sword/Pistol icon)
- Sea Shanties (Collectible, Musical Note icon)
- Treasure Chests (Collectible, Chest icon)
- Assassination Contract (Side Mission, Skull Icon)
- Viewpoints (Completion/Map Revelation, Eagle Icon)
- Fast Travel/Underground? (Tunnel Icon/Circle with Arrow Down)
- Animus Fragment? (Geometric shape icon)
- Manuscript (scroll-looking icon)
- Major Treasure Map/Map To Blueprint? (map icon w/ red X marks the spot)
- Blacksmith? Event of some kind? (Hammer next to R [currency] icon)
- Safe House/House of some kind? (House icon at the middle right)
- Edward Kenway (Hooded Assassin icon)
- Main Memory (! Icon)

Please discuss :3 <3

EDIT: Minor Treasure Map changed to Manuscript. Reasoning; At an earlier point in the demo, Edward opens one of these icons' chests and it reveals a Manuscript as well as about 100R.

Awesome! That's a lot of great stuff! I'm glad they made the map colorful. it makes it a lot easier to look at than the AC3 "EVERYTHING IS BLUE" map

Additionally, restricted areas seem to be scattered about in Black Flag as well.
http://puu.sh/43feX.jpg

In particular, the Red area at the top right seems to be a Fort.

EDITING this post with this image, because I didn't want to spam out another one;
http://puu.sh/43fy5.jpg

Here, we're shown a Weapon and its stats. In Assassin's Creed III, we had the trinity of Damage, Combo and Speed.
In Black Flag, guns seem to have gone through a similar treatment.

Damage is pretty straight-forward.
Range is also pretty straight-forward, probably also factoring into the new Free-Aim mechanic.
But Stun intrigues me. Differing weapons delivering differing amounts of hitstun seems pretty useful. Will there be enemies that are more beneficial to stun for longer periods of time, rather than straight-up damage?

I think stun could be useful if you want to go for body shots with the free-aim system, so you remain non-lethal. I bet there's also at least one enemy with protection from headshots.

Here's hoping these stats matter more than the ones in AC3