The Hidden Blade Assassin's Creed in Depth

This seems to be similar to your idea of having asymmetrical upgrade paths for Assassin gear that aren't inherently better or worse than each other - but allow you to Specialize playstyle and feel strong when you channel that playstyle - feel weak when you do not. If that's the case, hell yes, bring on the Shoe Upgrades. Especially cool would be, having the ability to switch to one or the other before a mission (maybe even have a Pre-Mission Gear Select Screen as soon as you Accept on top of the Memory Marker); which in turn makes certain paths through that mission more or less difficult.

after Unity I've decided that (in AC games) I never want to be able to teleport equipment on me through a UI screen that is not attached to a physical location in the world where said equipment is.

I do dislike the thing of having to backtrack to the same place again and again, which is where the concept of bureaus or perhaps other kinds of equipment changing stations could be helpful.

This brings up something different: what about having an actual inventory? Streamlined, not a magic bag that holds everything, represented by physical pouches or rucksacks that appear on your character and may affect their speed or whatnot.

Right, that's why I mentioned it only being available at the Memory Start point. Maybe this means Memory Start points would ALL be at Bureaus and you would select the next Mission you'd like to do from a list? Some missions are further or closer to the Bureau you're at so you can either Fast Travel from a Bureau to another, or you can just go ahead and start the mission from the list there - changing your weapons Hitman-style before you head out.

Having an actual Inventory on you would be pretty cool for certain things like Knives, Smoke Bombs etc.
It would be nice, because not all players actually use all items.

I know I don't. Most of the time, the items in my Inventory don't need to be there. Having a customizable inventory would be nice, because it would allow me to clean it up and only have what I need, only what I know I will use. Syndicate's already looks quite clean, and good on them for that. Having minor speed boosts for removing certain item pouches you carry would help streamline and optimize certain level routes for speedrunners or even just regular players who want to tailor their experience.

I don't use Stun Bombs, so I remove the Stun Bomb and move a little faster. I don't use a Sword, so I remove my Primary Weapon and keep just my Hidden Blade, so I can climb a little faster. This should be super easy to read, and it'd be really great if they used easily readable Chunks rather than a Bar.

I'm not sure that mission start points should be fixed to such specific locations, it seems like that could be a real killer for urgency. would be a pain for writers when they can't lead into the next mission without having to have someone say "meet me at the bureau for more info". Which is my only reason of thinking it should be completely decoupled from mission starts. It's essentially the game trusting you to do your homework beforehand rather than stopping the class so you can get it done. Or at least that's the metaphor that amuses me most right now

Mm, that makes sense. Well, if getting around wasn't tedious, I'd have no problem with having to go to separate locations to swap out my weapons/gear. Right now, not needing to worry about extra tedium is the one good thing AC's current inventory has got. You don't need to feel exasperated when you go to a mission start point, realize you don't have the right items, then have to go to a Bureau and switch them out - because you don't have to switch anything out at all.

I'm not sure how we could reconcile those two ideas. (Either carry all items at all times, but it doesn't feel meaningful - or have meaningful choice, but it might be tedious to have to return to a specific location each time.)

Still, if removing items did meaningful things for me (IE, if there were some kind of penalty for carrying too MUCH) then I'd rather let what I carry be under my control, and customize my inventory. At that point it'd be more or less a pleasure to return to Bureaus for it.

yeah, and I think something else that's important is making it impossible to be completely screwed based on what you take or don't take, or for any configuration to be completely opposed to any one playstyle. Should be like "oops, I forgot my heavy armor so i'll need to be a bit more careful avoiding hits", not "well I guess I can't get in any fights at all". Or "I don't have the best shoes for running so I'll need to either focus on climbing or take a more complex path through these alleys to throw them off." Modifiers to playstyles rather than absolutely essential components of playstyles.

That would be how to do it, actually. Well, there's that solved xD

Or, the assassin/informant you talk to to start the mission has access to the equipment. To make it realistic, he'll have a booth or stall where the stuff is kept. Just a thought.

That's pretty nice. I'd be cool with that.

again, that limits the contexts with which missions can be set up. And it's going to seem odd that there's always a stall around. I don't think you can really split the difference, there are basically three ways this can go:

- equipment switching is available in designated areas you visit on your own time, which makes the world feel less explicitly tailored to your every need.

-equipment switching is available from designated areas, all of which make up the entirety of the mission starting points in the game, which is most convenient and simple for the player, but narrows the possibilities for mission starting points.

-equipment switching is available in designated areas, and also at every mission starting point, which is always represented by a person with a case of supplies. This might impress upon some the wide reach and resources of the assassin brotherhood, but it could also come off as a little too omnipresent, and cause a disconnect with how you're expected to believe they operate.

I can see the appeal of the second and third options, but after Unity went so hard in the direction of putting everything at your fingertips, giving you a person to kill or chase every five seconds, letting you buy and equip things from the tops of buildings and mid-mission, I've realized that I like most about open world games and assassins creed is the moments when they expect me to be responsible on my own, rather than funneling me right through the things I need.

Murder Mysteries were so appealing because of exactly that, the way they were so tied to honest navigation and information gathering: if all the evidence had been presented up front with a simple interface to choose the accused, it wouldn't be anywhere near as interesting. It made me go out and talk to people and decide what was a red herring and physically go up to the person I thought was guilty and accuse them.

I feel like the whole point of an open world should be that navigation always means something, and that there's as little cheating with that as possible. Plenty of linear games have equipment select screens before each mission, why try to simulate that in a world that offers the ability to walk down the street and enter a store? It's easy to forget the simple joys of an interconnected world. If hide-outs/bureaus are plentiful and clearly marked, then I think people can be trusted to set their own schedule for visits.

I do find an irrepressible attraction toward this approach, I must be honest. Watch_Dogs was pretty cool about this, being able to literally walk into a store. The only thing that undermined how interesting that was in Watch_Dogs was the fact that the player is given too many resources, and never truly needs to visit a store this way. I'd definitely like to see Assassin's Creed try this approach. The one great thing about having so many of these games is that they can always try new things, as long as they have enough faith that they won't lose them buyers in the next installment. I think many people would appreciate this one if it was executed in a way that felt good.

Also, you did say that every mission should be Completable without needing to have specific items. You're never screwed out of finishing a mission, you just open up different options depending on how you're kitted out. That would be cool, and have the only genuinely Limiting Factor be Ammunition. In terms of Equipment and Loadout, that could provide some replay value. I know I'd straight-away be going DEEP Hidden Blade only with very soft robes that didn't reveal me much nor protect me much, to see what it's like. In Unity they professed that you'd be able to Express your own playstyle, but it never felt that way - everything felt same-y without being particularly challenging if you chose a different playstyle. If an AC game really did allow me to Express my own playstyle the way something like Dishonored did, that would be nice - even if it was constrained to what the Character would plausibly do, a la Thief.

the main playstyle changer was the one belt that let you hold a bunch of poison bombs, which made my playstyle "everyone instantly silently dies".

^THIS. Like, it's funny, but it's no joke! It was so damn good xD That and more Smoke Bombs.

Agreed, although when replaying certain missions it's so convenient to change equipment with no hassle. So maybe there could be a compromise where the mission start NPC has the equipment if the memory would require them (mostly assassinations and other combat/stealth memories).

Well again, there's that thing I mentioned about not wanting equipment to totally dictate playstyle even if it is meaningful. The way I see it is we should always be using shades of assassiny gear: even if it's better at some things than others it shouldn't be useless for any activity. The important thing for meaningful differences in gear is not that it unlocks options that were impossible before, it's that it influences your proficiency at options in interesting ways. And ideally that the differences are simple and defined enough that there's no need for you to ever read a percentage graph like in Unity.

Rephrasing it. "So maybe there could be a compromise where the mission start NPC has the equipment if they prove useful for said mission (mostly assassinations and other combat/stealth memories)."

Like you said, equipment shouldn't be a requirement. At the same time, different gear are better suited for different playstyles, and many players won't like the hassle of always having to find a shop.

EDIT: I know, equipment shouldn't have a complete impact on playstyle, but that's how it happens.

And not only equipment, but also ammo. Before replaying missions in Unity, I had to refill at shops, which was small hassle.

^This. Honestly, refilling Ammo in Unity had SO much more impact on my gameplay than any actual armor I happened to be wearing. I know it wasn't meant to be cosmetic, but after a certain point of just saying "dude, just !@#% it," it was effectively cosmetic, inconsequential to my experience with the game. Ammo was really the crux of how I'd go through a mission - and as Aurel rightly claims, that got very old, very fast. Still - part of that could have been the contrast between how easy it was to change something that didn't make a huge difference (armor), and how inconvenient it was reaching a Shop to buy something that made a MASSIVE difference (ammo).

Back on Track with Shoes.

In my experience, I've seen the following when it comes to deciding how Stealthy shoes are. There's a good way to do it, and a bad way to do it. The bad way to do it involves reducing the Shoes' Noise Generation a certain amount while standing and running. This makes it very difficult to understand the effect your shoes are having. At what distance will enemies be able to hear you? Is this even worth buying and equipping if it's not easily understood? The good way to do it involves saying, look, when you're Crouched, you're absolutely Silent anyway unless you step on glass shards or whatever. So instead of playing with back-end-y numbers, we instead tweak movement with those Shoes while Crouched to be much faster than usual. This is easier to understand, is visible instantly, and is more reliable/consistent.

The only thing you should really note about this is most games that do this tend to be played from the First Person Perspective. I don't see why increasing Max. Crouched Movement Speed would be difficult to do in a Third Person Stealth/Action game, but it's worth saying anyway.

it's probably because third person games allow the player to see their character at all times, which means super sped-up movement animations stick out like a sore thumb. In an FPS you can cheat by having the viewmodel look like it's moving at a reasonable speed, even though it doesn't really match the actual speed. in a third person game if you do that it looks like the character is floating along the ground.

Mm, right. That's a good point.
How do we get around that, then?
Because having more or less noise generation is probably the worst way to do it overall - since it becomes very unclear and hard to read at a glance. That is, unless it's already a game where each footstep also brings out Visual feedback (Mark of the Ninja, AC Chronicles).

If you want to see how much noise your (and others) footsteps are making, they could incorporate the visual feedback into eagle vision (a la The Last of Us).

Yeah, that's the first thing I thought of. It's still pretty flow-breaking to turn Eagle Vision on or off constantly just to see that, and it detracts in a subtle way from the enjoyment of the game to keep it on Permanently. Still, that's better than nothing if they do decide to go that route. I still wouldn't prefer a more complex model like that, both as a player and a designer. It's harder to design well for something so variable and vague rather than something Clear and Simple, especially in a game with so little control over how fast you're moving. Games like Thief 1 and Thief 2 can easily go that route without even needing any alternate vision mode - because they gave the player like, four different move-speeds that all made different amounts of sound on different surfaces. That's a level of Simulation I don't ever see Assassin's Creed committing to.

In my opinion the solution is for there to be no gradation in the the properties of equipment. It's either quiet shoes or loud shoes. quiet shoes have one animation while sneaking, loud ones have another, and you don't need to speed up or slow down either animation since they're purpose-built for what they are.

fast shoes have the "fast run" animation, slow shoes have the "slower run" animation, ect.

So instead of items being differentiated by how advanced they are on a scale of effectiveness, they're differentiated by which properties they have and don't have. one shoe has A1, B2, C2 and D2, another one has A2, B1, C1, D1 another has A2, B2, C2, D2. (the letters represent a property/effect, numbers represent which state, positive or negative)

Notice how many variations are possible even though all these items are just different combinations of four sets of either-or states. Plus it's simple to communicate and understand: just state which affirmative properties the equipment has, and the player immediately understands what they're getting into if they equip it. No need for vague bars of "stealthiness" and detailed percentages.

Perfect logic. I agree with that. It's simple on both developers and players. With this kind of mechanical clarity, depth of play and strategy can be invoked through the Level Design itself - which helps reinforce what we've wanted all along. If everything is purpose-built, that does away with much of the tweaking needed purely to make something function. So, more time tweaking can be allocated to making things feel responsive. (IE, things that can only be attended to once the mechanics are already running.)