The Hidden Blade Assassin's Creed in Depth

I've just noticed in an AC:B video that the citizens don't make remarks when you do climbing close to them. Is that the same in ACII? I don't even remember how that works in ACII. Those games are just shadows of AC for me, really.

That reaction from the guards and citizens is kind of the heart of the stealth system. That's what makes the surroundings come alive. I'm always looking for those special spots where I can move between the streets and the roofs without drawing attention when I play AC. In ACII, and apparently in AC:B the buildings are just a diluted scenery. Not real and dense surroundings, packed with features that have actual significance for stealth in their every square inch, like in AC.

I could go on and on about how AC is much better in every way than its successors, but that's such a negative way of talking about AC. I don't really think about AC in past tense, It's still there, and it's not missing anything, so the sequels can be any way, that won't hurt the original.

I could certainly live with that, but my preference would be to get rid of the god-like fighting skills and make each and every individual enemy a big challenge. Get really good at the game and a single enemy shouldn't pose too much trouble, as long as you're paying attention and putting in some effort. Two enemies at once should be pretty tough, but not unbeatable. Three at once should be a serious challenge that you won't always overcome. Four or more should be a no-win situation.

My reasoning?

• First reason – it's more realistic. Nobody can sit there and dispatch enemies all day long with zero effort (and insta-heal medicine to boot, don't even get me started on that). Even the best martial artists and weapon fighters still have a challenge in a trained fighter. Even if they're better, a single wrong move or close miss could cost them the fight (or their life). Sure, movies are fun when we see a single guy taking down hordes of bad guys all by him/herself, but it's just not realistic.
• The second reason is that there needs to be a big level of intensity. There needs to be fear in your flight. In AC1, you're supposed to run like hell after a main assassination, but you don't need to. You can stand there and drop every single guard with next to no effort. You can chose to run and it can be entertaining, but the feeling of desperation just isn't there. You always know that at any time, you could just stop and fight off the pursuers. A real chase has a feeling of necessity to it, that if you stop or even if you screw up, it could cost you your life. I would love to see that properly implemented in an AC game!

I've been saying this since AC1 first came out. I was hoping AC2 would have improved upon it, but it took away the whole escape-after-an-assassination thing altogether. They're moving in the wrong direction with a lot of things, IMO.

^QFT

I don't know what video you saw but whenever i climb a building i allways hear nearby citizens make remarks. If your Notorious then the gaurds will be alerted aswell.

One thing i wish to see in AC3 is not so much a persisten noteriety system but i wish the gaurd AI and the civilian AI interacted more closely. I like it when civilians always scatter whenever you kill someone(or if a dead body falls off the roof) but you'd think the gaurds would react to that and they'd wanna find out what's got the people so spooked. In the game it's like they're not even aware of the civilians at all.

There was that one section in AC2 that i liked where if you stood crowed too long then the gaurds would eventually walk near that group of civilians which would force you to keep moving(it's during the carnival just before you kill Marco). Something like that would be cool aswell as having civilians actually go and alert the gaurds if they see you kill someone.

This is the reason i never understand why you get noteriety from killing a single gaurd on a roof top in high profile. If nobody's around to see that high profile kill then how does it make you Notorious.

The EXTREME gash in his neck!

So EXTREME that the entire city's populace sees it in their mind's eye?

I think all that is perfectly implemented in Assassin's Creed. If the game enforced those constraints, it couldn't be perfect: People are different, and they enjoy different levels of difficulty. The game doesn't enforce those constraints, but it sets them up for you.

For example, I consider a fight lost when Altair gets hurt. At that moment I change to escape mode: I try to get away from the fight and hide as quickly as possible. And getting away from a fight is often more difficult than staying. Also, that way memorizing the climbing routes and the locations of the hiding spots becomes really significant, which makes the whole game much more contentful. Otherwise, the location of the hiding spots would not have much significance.

Also, I expect Altair to do stylish kills, to move from place to place during fight, and I also try not to upset the citizens by killing a guard where they can see it.

And those constraints and expectations are just enough to make fighting really difficult. So difficult in fact, that I mostly only play ranks one, two and three. The rest is still too difficult for me.

I agree completely. I think that's one of the main reasons I liked Mirror's Edge so much.

My problem with it is that simply knowing that you can stay and easily lay waste to any challengers takes away any feeling of urgency in the escape attempt. Sure, a full escape can be a challenge, but it's less fun when you know that you can simply stop, turn around and fight them all off and then just casually walk away. For me, that ruins any feeling of intensity that it might otherwise have had. It's just not a rush with a safety net like that.

It also serves to make the game feel a little less polished knowing that you can go completely against the intended path and have an even easier time than playing it as intended. I wonder how many foreheads were slapped in the Ubisoft offices, because I can't imagine it was intended that you could just stay and (effortlessly) fight despite the warning bells ringing, all guards on high alert, citizens on edge and crazy urgent run-your-ass-off music blazing along. AC2 and ACB didn't have those things and it was clear that they learned from AC1 that the post-assassination escape just didn't have the oomph that they were looking for so it was left out completely. Even in the few situations where you're supposed to escape to complete the mission, it just feels so hollow compared to what they were aiming for in AC1. There's no urgency, no worry. The safety net is still fully intact.

I don't find it to be very stylish to run from the guards for a long time anyway. What I enjoy is when I know where the hiding spots are, and vanish quickly. The ringing bell phase is not just about new guards joining the fight more easily. But it's also about having to be more careful in order to stay anonymous.

Anyway, a mod that makes you desynchronize when you get hurt or when you get noticed while anonymous would be good.

Running for your life at all isn't stylish. It's not supposed to be.

You're on the right track though in saying that it sucks to run for a really long time. That's not what it was supposed to be about either. You're supposed to make a mad dash up, over and around until you're in the clear, then hide/blend until you're safe, then make your way back as quickly and quietly as possible. More chases might start during that time, and that's fine if they do.

About notoriety: I agree with you guys who say that it shouldn't go down so easily, particularly if all you've done is taken down a few posters. I think they missed an opportunity there -- if you tear down a poster, your notoriety should go down, but only for that day, or maybe until the next shift of guards shows up, and when they arrive and see that their posters have disappeared, your notoriety should go right back up. Only with the passage of a long period of time -- AC2 had several multi-year breaks in the story -- should it go back to zero.

(Vigilantes could have been worked in at this point to great effect. Hire/order them to go around removing the posters and arguing with the guards about how they've got the wrong man, etc., to take the heat off you.)

BTW, what exactly does dyeing your clothes a different color accomplish? I never noticed it to be anything other than cosmetic, whereas you'd think it would instantly eliminate your notoriety. As it was, I just treated the "Sarto" shops as Renaissance-era laundromats where I could get a new look for Ezio from time to time.

And speaking of laundromats, does Desmond ever get to change or wash his clothes? He has a shower room in AC1, but has to wear the same clothes every day, and after that it looks like he never even has a chance to bathe. Or was Abstergo supplying him with a fresh hoodie and jeans every day in AC1, and the team was gong out and fetching stuff for him on their food runs into Monteriggioni in AC2 and B?

Shouldn't it be the other way around? If a poster is torn down that day, the guards who already saw it that day won't know anything different (it's not like they'd run back and re-check the poster throughout the day). But the new shift would come along, not see any posters and think that the menace was taken care of and not be on the lookout anymore. If anything, you'd think that tearing down posters, killing officials and bribing the speakers wouldn't take effect until the next day.

Either way, though, I really don't like the concept behind the existing system in the first place. I still feel that the game's story should dictate your notoriety. A poster of a hooded man with a shaded face wouldn't be of any help to anyone.

I never said it did, I said it should : )

Speaking of guard shifts, has anyone ever experienced this yet? I get a tip saying they change shifts at dusk and dawn, yet in both AC2 and ACB I have NEVER seen this happen

I have noticed that but I never felt it was worth it to wait that long nor have I ever seen guards flat out leave their posts.

It doesn't happen within your view, but nearby guards can respawn if the shift change point passes and your camera view is facing away from their spawn points. However, this is completely useless as you can simply move far away (or do a mission or warp somewhere else and warp back) and they'll be respawned regardless of the time of day.

ACB is the only game so far to make any use of this, and it's in an annoying way. If a Borgia tower guard captain runs away and escapes, you have to wait for the shift change before he'll return, regardless of any missions or quick traveling you do. There is absolutely no way to speed up the passage of time, so you're stuck waiting.

Wrong, change uplay outfits, he respawns instantly

Ah, didn't know that.

That's an exploit, though. There's no natural way to do it other than waiting.

Well yeah exploits aside it friggn sucks. The Uplay thing helped a lot when making my borgia tower series, some of them would take an hour to do even with swapping suits because I wanted to make some perfect. In the end I just burnt them to the ground and regretted it immediately lol, cant replay it.

Im looking forward to a playthrough without destroying these, you can pretty much walk by and take out the captain whenever you please and he will be there later if you dont burn it to the ground.

In fact, I think you could use it to your advantage in some missions. Lure him to a spot near some guards in a mission then kill him, and everyone will get scared and run away

UPlay outfits, really? I never would have caught that!

Asaic, your logic is better; I was off by one shift. If you tear dow a poster during the day, the night shift should have no reason to suspect you, but then when the day shift comes back on, they should see that their posters are gone.

I also have a problem with how quickly the guards are ready to fight with you (to the death!) if you stay on a roof for more than a few seconds. I liked how in AC1 you could use ladders to climb up without being suspected. In AC2, it seems like they were screaming at you to get down the instant you reached the roof no matter how you got there. And I didn't want to kill anyone, so I didn't have the option to just kill the guards.

(Instead of the clothes-dyeing thing, how about letting Ezio wear a second outfit under his main one, letting him shed the outer one to make himself disappear sooner while running away? The guards would be looking for a Roman Onyx-clad assassin and would thus look right past a Florentine Crimson-clad man standing right near them.)

I had a few Borgia targets escape me and was stuck waiting half a day too. Fortunately AC:B has so much stuff to do that there's always something to go and do while you wait.

Regarding guard shifts:

I was about to kill one of the Borgia Captains, the one where it's the optimal location to farm Leaps of Faith for the Thief Challenge (Asaic knows the spot ).
I accidentally fell down, and he saw me, he started running for the door of the Tower, and actually made it there. I was all like "Aww, shoot!"

Two seconds later, he RESPAWNS, like literally REAPPEARS, walking away from me.
It was the perfect opportunity for a kill.
Stabguy would be proud.. somewhat..

Im going to try keep all of my negative comments in this one topic.

Im getting tired of the district setup in this game, its pathetic. For one, icons in locked districts shouldnt appear on your map. Im sick of running to a borgia tower and at the last damn second a memory wall rises out of nowhere blocking me off. I can barely see the lines seperating the districts and never even know when I unlock a new one, or which one I have unlocked. It has been set up very badly.

Also a viewpoint for one little area is unavailable until you build the aqueduct which cant be built until you destroy a borgia tower in a locked district, so you are blind in that area for a while. Same with the romulus lair

One thing I notice about ACII and Brotherhood is I HATE the map.
Sometimes when playing with HUD you feel as if you go to one mark to the next.Not to mention the map gives away 'Secret Locations' argh.

Assassin's Creed 1= a sandbox game with platforming methods... catchy dialogue with Altair "reminded me of Cole, Infamous"

Assassin's Creed 2+Brotherhood= Story really involves with Ezio and more abilities open up, new secondary missions, attracting a bigger audience.

Between the two... AC1's campaign is what I played the most. Spend 3 nights in a row playing as Altaïr ibn-La'Ahad with a horse throughout Richard's Kingdom in the Holy Land

Similar coincidence with Uncharted Drake's Fortune >Among Thieves
(amount of time spending on Singleplayer Campaign)

ACIII will eithier have to involve with Desmond or another Ancestor (possibly a mix)

Funniest parts of Assassin's Creed is just Exploring and collecting items on accident by searching.

Yea exploring is getting lamer and lamer with the new map, now even flags are added to the map, wtf is the point of having them in the game then?

Ubisoft has its ways in some aspects with ACII. Though I agree. Partially due to the fact trying to find the last two flags in Assassin's Creed Interactive Maps is how I found this forum

I prefer having them on the map in exactly the way this game does it. You need to find a flag before it shows up on the map, at which point you'll either pick it up right then or come back later, in which case it's automatically marked for you rather than you having to mark it yourself or have to re-find it later. So there's no harm there.

After you collect 25 flags or complete the game, you can buy maps for them, but buying them is optional. It doesn't count towards overall synchronization, so there's no need to purchase them at all if you want to look for them on your own.

It's better this way IMO, because it should satisfy both those who want to find them on their own and those (like myself) who don't want to spend countless hours doing random searches for them.

I like the eagle vision idea as well actually, if you are in the middle of the mission you can kind of take a note of where it is. I just dont like the buying flag thing, then again it is optional but im not very good at following self made restrictions...

That's fine, but don't blame the game for that.

This is so true! I like to be able to clear the whole map very quickly so I know where I'm going throughout the game. I also wanted to upgrade as many buildings and shops as possible at the beginning so I had plenty of income and places to shop later on. I'd see a locked shop and look around thinking, "Great, there's the relevant Borgia tower. I'll just go over here and kill the captain and burn it down and then I'll be able to - WHAT?! A GODDAMN BLUE WALL!?" So annoying