The Hidden Blade Assassin's Creed in Depth

This is probably the best assassination in AC3 to be creative. I can see at least a few videos on William Johnson.
A few things I noticed.
1. If you get detected, Johnson runs, no matter where you are or how far away from him when you're detected.
2. You can't shoot him with guns, but can with the bow.

Now for ideas...
1. Point blank shot at the end of his flee route.
2. Dynamic stunt(s) from the cliff.
3. Eagle Strike (after he's done fleeing)?
4. Long shot. Due to the mechanics of AC3, you can't shoot after the target is out of targeting distance, so you'll have to do it from the greatest distance possible (possibly thirty meters, like the previous games). You might get an extra meter or two with the bow because it takes time for the arrow to reach the target.
5. Stealthy kills.

I was looking at this YESTERDAY trying to come up with ideas.

Out with a Whimper would be a good foil to Out with a Bang above. Since he just cowers there. (maybe this is where you shoot him in the face).

Since the game doesn't FORCE you to chase, kill him where he stands is not feasible. (in fact, this is just full sync, right? I mean, to stop the killing of the other guy you kill Johnson fast, right? I did it off the roof of his house anyway...)

For the long shot, could you position a powder keg close enough to kill him, then another barely close enough to that one to get the first, and on and on to get maximum distance... Actually, no... A chain of powder kegs / trip mines = Firecracker Kill.

I did this a couple times with groups of guards in the frontier... trip mines on the edge of the road, then one in the middle slightly ahead... killed quite a few of them when the guy in front hits the first trip mine, which subsequently sets off the others on both sides of the group.

I really like all of those ideas. I'm pretty sure an Eagle Strike could be possible (just have to find something nearby to grab onto and something else to leap off of properly). One I really liked is assassinating him with the Ropedart from a nearby tree (it's as if that tree was placed there specifically for this purpose, I swear.)

I will try the firecracker assassination as soon as I fire up the game again... see how far away you can actually be from him....

If your idea of a chain of powder kegs works, you could get him from very far away. Now for the setup of the various assassinations. He flees whenever you're detected, so what I would do is get to the dock area. Take out the two guards there. Strangle the first one, and tackle then ground kill the second (so you get detected without having to fight anyone). Then simply wait for the target to run there.

Now for an eagle strike. A place I would want it from is at the highest part of the cliff. There is actually a tree there for a swan dive. That looks like the ideal spot. The target doesn't run close enough to that area for the eagle strike (unless you were trying for a triple jump, or something similar), so you would have to move him with the rope dart.

So if some of us are going to make videos, we should discuss who records what.

It will work.

I used powder keg chains on a few homestead missions.

Also, chains on trip mines work... tried to set up a bunch in a path of guards, so when the first went off, they would chase me over the others. Instead, the first one set off all the other ones, including the one next to me, and I lost a lot of health.

I imagine trip mine/powder keg chains work in concert, but I've never had a chain of both. Only a chain of one or the other.

How many powder kegs are there on the docks? At least 3, I think... plus 5 trip mines... hmm... You could be pretty far away from the target (the one closest to you has to be a keg though, I don't think you can shoot a trip mine). I'll look to see if there's a vantage point somewhere where you can visibly see every one go off... I think you'd have to go up the coast toward the cliffs for that one though.

As for recording... I can't record in super high quality. I can practice staging some things (distance between mines) and make a video for someone else to model, if that would be helpful. Or someone else can just do it themselves... I just think it would be an awesome addition to any variety pack - I don't have to be the one to do it.

I've noticed that trip mines are set off by each other at pretty long range, beyond the range that they will typically hurt you. Powder kegs seem to work the same way.

If you play around with the distances, you could probably space them pretty far apart while still getting the chain you want.

I tried out the Firecracker Assassination this morning.

Good news, bad news.

Good: You can get the chain you want with both trip mines and powder kegs involved.
Bad: Only the powder kegs make the bomb sound effect when going off.
Good: You can place a long chain of them and set them off from a really long distance.
Bad: So long that some of the kegs respawn because you're out of distance from them.
Good: It looks awesome.
Bad: IT DOESN'T KILL THE TARGET!!

I've included the video below. Johnson moves from the powder kegs. Maybe if you prestage him close enough to water, you can force him into the water for a kill. But the explosion alone won't do it. (I didn't try to maximize distances, as 1-it didn't kill him anyway, and 2-they respawn on long distances). If someone DOES want to find a way to make this work, note that the powder kegs will roll down the hill if you don't set them sideways.

Also tried the Human Bait Assassination by luring a bear from across the water... I'll let you see the results of that.

I didn't edit the video except to add titles. I also wasn't concerned with resolution. The second attempt on the Firecracker, I only used 3 trip mines instead of 5 to make up for the 2 powder kegs that respawned in the first attempt.

http://youtu.be/Q-_jY5XYDnU

NICE

That predator assassination was magnificent!

Hehehehe, finally someone else saw the joy of it ^_^
Thanks for making the video man, I would've done it myself but I don't have recording tools (student w/ no job FTW).
It's awesome to see my idea on the internetz.
The Firecracker Assassination looks like it could work with some more tinkering because the set up isn't impossible (and that's how everything on THB kind of starts out).

Have you thought about making the chain go past him, for some sort of a juggle effect? What about if you put a few barrels right at his feet?

That's also something I don't really understand. Shooting a Barrel next to him with a gunshot is confirmed to work, so I'm not sure why a chain of them detonating each other wouldn't. Does anyone have any ideas as to why (maybe distance/TINS?)

The last barrel WAS at his feet. You can see it in the video... and it forces him to move on assassination (and stand up inanimate - sort of like smoke bombs with certain targets with Ezio)... so I'm not sure why it doesn't work/kill him... maybe it will with some more tinkering and I just got unlucky on my one attempt.

Could just be they made him immune to explosions. Which would suck ass.

Maybe he's ONLY immune to explosions once he's cowering... It would be mighty impressive actually, if you could prestage the Bomb Line and fire it off chasing him as he runs down the hill only to kill him before he becomes immune... of course, this would only work if he can be killed by explosions before cowering...

I think we should change the name.

Since the game already has a Predator Move (hanging someone from a rope dart), to avoid confusion, I move that a Predator Assassination be hanging an assassination target with a rope dart.

I then move to call Assassination by Predatory Animal a Doctor Dolittle Assassination, named after the Doctor who talks to animals. I first used this term here > http://thehiddenblade.com/remaking-assassins-creed-1-ultimate-ac-game?pa...

I believe DAZ was the first to document assassination by animal so he gets to name it. He previously suggested calling it Human Bait. Unless DAZ wants to rename it or someone else can show that they documented it earlier, I suggest we stick with Human Bait.

Human Bait sounds like a great name, and if possible, I'd like to stick with that.

Fantastic... just didn't want any confusion in namings...

Wanted to ask a quick question related to the William Johnson assasination and didn't want to create a specific thread for that so.
My question is : Has anyone here managed to assassinate Johnson without being detected but not with an air assassination?
I just figured out myself how to do it and wanted to know if it was anything special

DAZ mentioned above using a ropedart from a tree but I think he meant after Johnson had fled to the docks. Other than that I can't recall anyone mentioning a non-air stealth assassination. What have you found? Perhaps someone can put it in a video and credit you for it.

Alright, here's what I did :

I made my way up to Johnson hall and made sure that I wasn't detected so that I could see after I killed Johnson that I really stayed undetected by not failing the optional objective.

When the cutscene comes, I skip it so that I spawn at the pre-determined location, it's the same location where you would spawn if you desynchronized.
Here you see 2 guards patrolling, and two redcoats, I wait till the gaurds have passed the redcoats, kill both redcoats walk up to the two remaining gaurds and kill them to (At the beginning I did this to restock on arrows/poison darts but after a while I kept it in my pattern because Johnson tends to walk around a lot and I wasn't sure if his position at some point affects my routine). Usually after doing this he will say "you still doubt" and the first objective will be failed.

After this I run behind the house to the farthest side (from the spawnpoint, so when standing on the house and facing johnson the right side of the house). I use the bow to take out two guards (Not the big one though), might take a while to get the certain distance that you will not alert the other guards but it is doable.

After these two are dead I go the other side of the house, again by foot, and approach the guards standing at the side from behind the tree that is standing there so that you won't get detection meter from other guards. I target the guard nearest to the house (again, not the big one:P) and after that I run to the other side of the house as fast as possible (Remember though not to get in line of sight of the other guards.

The weird thing in this mission is that killing the guards with the bow provokes no reaction, but if you poison someone they will all walk towards the poisoned npc.

So after you ran to the other side, as soon as you pas the corner from the side of the house to the front of the house (Where the NPC's are gathered) switch to fast walking there will be a gap in NPC's due to the two guards you killed and if all went well you can fast walk to Johnson and kill him without being detected and if I remember correct even without seeing detection meters. I've done this multiple times since I wanted to have the single high profile assassination animation, but due to other NPC's standing near him I kept multi-assassinating him.

Edit :
Did it again just to verify a few things, (this time without the spawn location guard killing part), though I did realize that timing is important. After poisoning the guard, the NPC's will gather more closely, but Johnson will not change his walking pattern so you will have to time the poison just right that when you approach Johnson through fast walk, he will be behind the NPC's.

And something else I just discovered: If you poison kill the executioner, you have unlimited time in this mission since the natives won't die and you willl not desynchronize.
This does however stop Johnson alltogether, he will stand in the same spot as when you poison the executioner and he will stop talking.

The ending of that comment is amazing. We can do a looooottt of stuff with this. Thanks Raccoon

You mention poison several times in the "Edit" section. Just to be clear, the stealth assassination described in the main body of your comment involves bow/arrows and not poison, correct?

It involves both actually, 2 bow kills on the right side NPC's to create a gap, and 1 poisoned gaurd to serve as a distraction which will make the NPC's walk toward the poisoned NPC. While this is happening I walk up to Johnson and just Hidden blade assassinate him.

Why do you ask? is the use poison distractions in hidden assassination a bit easymode?

Holy crap, yes! Immobilizing targets, FTW!

I give to you, the result of many tries and desycnhes and a lot of frustrating whistling

http://s2.postimage.org/glybb9oft/IMG_20121219_00080.jpg

http://s12.postimage.org/bqq3wr3st/IMG_20121219_00081.jpg

Sorry if pics are a bit low quality.

Edit:
So I decided I would try to use the rope dart to hang Johnson from the tree branch.
Turns out you can pull Johnson to whatever spot you want using the rope dart(After you've killed everyone else ofcourse) if you release the rope he will not aggro you and will not move back, kinda loses the challenging aspect of it all but it can still be fun

If it weren't for the fact that Johnson's body dissapeared after the death-conversation(LAME) I'd have another screen for you guys

I just wanted to make sure I understood the procedure correctly.

I plan to make a video/videos of William Johnson eventually, possibly soon, but I want people to make some videos first. There are a bunch of possible cool assassinations to go around.