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  1. #1
    SixKeys's Avatar Senior Member
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    Mentors Guild Community Discussion - Odyssey Post-launch Content

    Hi everyone,

    Community discussions are back! This time we're curious about your thoughts regarding Odyssey's post-launch content.


    MAKING SURE THE FANS ARE HEARD

    As part of a set of new Community Initiatives, we'd like to give opportunities to the community to give more direct feedback, and will now host weekly discussion on specific topics that relate the Assassin's Creed Franchise. These community discussions will take place on the AC subreddit, the Official Ubisoft Forums, and on the Mentors Guild Twitter. These discussions will be open for 1 week. The threads and responses will be shared directly with the Assassin's Creed Community Development team, who will then pass that info on to concerned parties within Ubisoft itself.

    While the Mentors get opportunities to speak directly with the creators of Assassin’s Creed and frequently communicate with the Community Development Team, this is not the case for every fan. We want to change that. We want fans to have their voices heard directly, in the same ways the Mentors do. These activities are a step towards meeting this goal. If you want Ubisoft to see what you have to say, this is the place to do it.


    THIS WEEK'S TOPIC

    Topic:
    AC Odyssey Post-release Content and Updates


    Info: Odyssey has received a number of post-release content updates, some free, and some paid. These include: Mythical Creature boss fights, weapons and rewards, Lost Tales of Greece quests, Oikos of the Olympians, Weekly and Daily Bounty challenges, New Game Plus, level increases, legendary mercenaries, legendary ships, UI Updates (such as the gear set system), Visual Customization, Photo Mode updates, new fast travel points, mastery system, new mounts, ship and crew customization items, Legacy of the First Blade DLC and The Fate of Atlantis DLC, with more to come.


    QUESTIONS TO CONSIDER:

    -What are your overall thoughts and feelings on Odyssey's post-release content?



    -What are your thoughts on the quality of Odyssey's post-release content?



    -What are your thoughts on the quantity of Odyssey's post-release content?



    -What are your thoughts on the paid DLC?



    -What are your thoughts on the paid gear packs and Oikos of the Olympians system?



    -What are your thoughts on the free mythical creature boss fights?



    -What are your thoughts on the free quests, bounties, mercenaries, and ship battles?


    -What are your thoughts on the level increases and mastery system?



    As always, feel free to add any thoughts not covered by these example questions!


    REMEMBER:

    While these discussions are meant to allow for honest and raw feedback directly from the community, the best way to ensure your voice is heard is to be constructive - be critical of the process, not the people. Be specific with your criticisms and suggest tangible solutions and improvements.
    We hope to see active participation and that this will be a successful way of getting the fans' voices truly heard.
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  2. #2
    -Overall feelings on post launch content are really good....LotFB was amazing, the story especially was spectacular. And while the LToG chapters were hit or miss they were mostly good apart from a couple.

    -Quality of post launch content was overall really high.

    -Quantity of post launch content was really good...two major storylines across six chapters with an additional 11 LToG chapters(including the upcoming two) and the inclusion of AC3/ACL Remastered in the season pass was certainly a lot.

    -The paid story DLC has been excellent so far...10/10 stuff.

    -The store packs on the other hand felt quite overpriced....$10 for an armor set, weapon, and horse skin is a bit much. Especially the horse skins and ship figureheads should have been significantly cheaper specifically because there were very few included in the base game. But the Oikos shop is solid....and average of 15-20% chance of store item drop is decent and us earning enough to open 7-8 vases per week was ok. The XP and gold boosts really did not need to exist though....mostly they just drove people away from the game....which likely cost Ubisoft in terms of season pass sales which is a shame as the season pass was excellent...easily one of the best ever in gaming.

    -The two free mythical boss fights felt uninspired to be honest...just two additional cyclops who generally felt the same as the one in the base game and without any real story tied to them or anything....those were kind of a low point of the post launch content.

    -The free quests were good if a bit repetitive....but it is nice to have new legendary sails and ship designs for the Andrestia every other week....could have done with a few ship figureheads in there though as we have a million sails and barely any figureheads.

    -The level increases and mastery levels were solid....it was definitely fun to level up to 99 and past.
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  3. #3
    Lets see...

    OVERALL THOUGHTS AND FEELINGS ABOUT ODYSSEY POST-RELEASE

    Is alright. Not too bad, not too good. I feel there's always missing possible fun items or equipment that previous games had (like hooks, throwing knives, etc.) that could make the game more fun and immersive. And on every new DLC i hope something like that would be brought, but unfortunely i seen nothing 'new' (i don't mean new quests, new events, armors, etc. I mean something different i could use besides the same item types but with new skins and abilities).

    QUALITY OF POST-RELEASE CONTENT

    Is good. However limiting the choices for players on the Legacy of the First Blade was a big issue. It was expected the Misthios would continue his/her bloodline one way or another, but players were forced to do it with the daughter/son of Darius. Was lack of forethought from the theme, and perhaps the biggest issue many had. I have some smaller gripes, like the shortening of the spears when we carry them on the back, or the awkard, very theatrical movement when using them, but it is bearable.

    QUANTITY OF POST-RELEASE CONTENT

    This, is where my gripes come. Sure there are plenty of quest. Sure some are fun, some are boring (and honestly i am one of those that try to finish things in time, but want to know where it is heading). My main problem is the gear itself. Is not that there's many looks and styles of weapons and armor, or how they combine with the stats used. My major issue is that there aren't much types of weapons and gear. Would like to use an hatchet or club sometimes. Would like to ocasionaly, like npc's, pick a sweeper or a pitchfork instead of just the equiped weapons, and maybe break them in combat. Would LOVE to either have shields of my own or pick dropped shields from enemy npc's for a more brutal 1-on-1 combat without worrying with damage up front (but to balance damage behind and directly on the right would be extremely vulnerable). Would love to throw javelins like a peltast. Would love to be able to throw fire or poison bombs. Would love there would be the posibility to use the hidden blade, a so iconic weapon of the saga, through the main character (i personaly do not like the Spear of Leonidas animations at all. Even worse when forced to use it to dual-wield),
    The only thing that kept me playing was the story. And because of the lack of fun and variable equipment and different ways to truly play i hadn't done more than a playthrough nor tried NG+. As i said before i hoped the DLC's fixed that. But unfortunely, and to my frustration, no new gear types have appeared so far.

    THOUGHTS ABOUT PAID DLC

    I am a simple guy. As long as the DLC has a captivating story, doesn't lock important parts of the story behind a paywall, and isn't predatory with it with constant reminders to buy it, i am fine with it and am willing to pay.

    PAID GEAR AND OIKOS OF THE OLYMPIANS

    With all honesty, i avoided both. I personaly find there is no need to buy gear with money, considering most epics and legendary gear ingame already is pretty good. Though i am alright with paying for cosmetic-only gear. However none on the store caught my interest so far.

    FREE MYTHICAL CREATURE FIGHTS

    Challenging, sometimes tiring and frustrating, for dying so many times (i admit, i can be a bit noobish). Wish there would be some more mythology-like ways to advance on the fight, like use a mirror on Medusa to be able to aproach her safely, or stab the eye of one of the cyclops to finally beat it on the end.

    FREE BOUNTIES, QUEST, MERCENARIES AND SHIP BATTLES

    Well, bounties get repetitive at some point. Quests are alright, but perhaps should there be a more clearer way to know how it affects at long term (for instance, if saving the peasants on Kephalonia during the plague will doom the island). Mercenaries are alright, i like a good challenge. And ship battles are perfect. Don't touch them. They are on their zenith. Is where i got most fun ingame (honestly i think i have more hours on the ship than inland).

    THOUGHTS OF LEVEL INCREASE AND MASTERY

    It's alright. Tho until getting max level can be a pain on the *** to always upgrade that Oh-So-Magnificent piece of gear (or full gear) to the current level. Besides that, is alright. Would advice there would be more friendly builds for people who want to be a Jack of All Trades, master of none (like me).


    EDIT: All in all, i give it a 6 in 10. Good historical period, good origin, but kind of a rushed and bad management in some points. Plus, Spear of Leonidas is an annoying Deus Ex Machina that i hate to be forced to use (hope never use anything similar again) that willingly would use SOLELY for assassinations and nothing more (too much 'magic' ruined the game for me). Also lack of usable content, both offensive (thrown weapons, bombs, hatchets, etc) and defensive (hide on benches/haysacks/groups, shields, sleeping darts, etc).
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  4. #4
    UbiBlack_Widow9's Avatar Community Representative
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    Thanks for beginning this discussion, SixKeys.

    Looking forward to reading everyone's responses.
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  5. #5
    Disclaimer: I do end on a positive note with my final paragraph so please don’t take this as me popping on Ubisoft.

    -What are your overall thoughts and feelings on Odyssey's post-release content?

    I don't like it and it's diminished the specialness of the game for me. They've dragged it out too long to the point that I just want them to release the last bit so I can uninstall Odyssey from my PS4 and make room for more games.
    If you're going to do games as a service you need to go all the way like Destiny 2 and Division with entire seasons worth of content or don't do it at all.
    What we’re seeing with Odyssey is too little and too infrequent to the point that it becomes nothing more than an annoyance that keeps distracting you temporarily from other games. It got to the point where I started to wait until multiple quests were released to play them together and I still feel like I’m being pestered. The episodic nature of the big DLC story lines do not work as it’s immersion breaking and kills momentum. If Ubisoft had said we were getting no season pass content and no DLC after the main game was over I would have been fine with it. I’m really ready for this game to end and will most likely uninstall when I have all DLC trophies.

    -What are your thoughts on the quality of Odyssey's post-release content?

    The free side quests have all been amazing however I'm not convinced that these were not side quests that were simply ripped out of the main game and repackaged as free DLC to tide us over until the next big episodic title. Speaking of which, the actual episodes have been a disappointment especially when you compare them to something like Curse of the Pharaohs from last year. I was willing to give Legacy of the First Blade a shot and episode 2 was my personal fave of the three even though I’m in the minority on that opinion. It was actually episode 3 that rendered it all a waste of time and ultimately felt like bad fanfiction because it did not seem to acknowledge the events of the base game. None of the main characters ever showed up in it, a lot of Kassandra’s dialogue contradicted previous events and the whole thing felt rushed because the writers did not build up the characters enough to make us care about them. There were also a lot of lore breaking elements and the ending was quite terrible. Clearly, there was zero communication between the main dev team and whoever worked on the DLC.

    The first episode of the Atlantis DLC had a great story line but was executed badly due to its illusion of choice which can be summarised as this:

    Spoiler:  Show
    If the writers truly wanted the main goal to be the end of Persephone's reign then all choices, whether right or wrong, should solely be in service to that goal with the only differences in outcome being success and failure to win the war. That's it.
    Instead, they give you the opportunity to sympathise with Persephone, to have nice conversations, to bring her back her horse which was almost certainly stolen to make her look bad...and then afterwards Kassandra goes back to making her look bad. It makes no sense. Why would you even give the player the option of bringing her the horse if this rebellion was always going to go ahead with Kassandra's input regardless? Wouldn't it have made more sense to receive the quest to get the horse from someone else, with the two options being to give the horse to the stable boy or Adonis?

    I think maybe they were going for the "sympathetic villain" angle but they took it too far and let you do things that actively undermined the cause! This created the illusion that you could possibly stop the rebellion from happening and that's how I was trying to play it but, alas, I was deceived.
    Also, nothing happens in the realm without Persephone's knowledge. This is established many, many times, most notably when she gets angry at Adonis for doing the nasty with Kassandra. So why did Persephone remain on good terms with Kassandra, even allowing her in her palace, whilst letting her go around destroying her home all the way up until the final confrontation?


    -What are your thoughts on the quantity of Odyssey's post-release content?

    Like I said, too little and too infrequent to be anything more than a nuisance that keeps distracting you from other games rather than being something you actively want to keep playing.


    -What are your thoughts on the paid DLC?

    See above.
    In addition, Assassin’s Creed III Remastered is wonderful if you have already played the original and enjoyed it first time but the technical state it was released in was unacceptable. I do appreciate that they didn’t include the multiplayer though.


    -What are your thoughts on the paid gear packs and Oikos of the Olympians system?

    Predatory. Unethical. The one thing that continues to undermine Ubisoft’s image of being consumer friendly are microtransactions. There's just no way to defend it. A lot of those gear packs have useful gameplay perks so it's not merely cosmetics. Let me be clear: I have absolutely no problem with a developer asking for more money for extra content. Any business has the right to price their product as they see fit. However, do not then create an in-game store and pretend these items can be won at a reasonable pace because inevitably the pacing of how quickly you obtain these items need to be significantly nerfed in order to frustrate players enough to spend real world cash. For instance, ori is not limitless. You have to wait for daily quests just to obtain the currency.
    This tactic has the opposite effect on me because I’m the type of person who would happily buy the Spartan Renegade get up if not for the Oikos of the Olympians because I cannot purchase anything I know I have a chance of getting just by playing the game, even if it’s 1%. Call it pride.

    -What are your thoughts on the free mythical creature boss fights?

    What free mythical creature boss fights?

    -What are your thoughts on the free quests, bounties, mercenaries, and ship battles?

    I only do them if there is something available in the Oikos of Olympians store I would like…which is rare. They’re no different to the regular stuff in the game. As for the free quests, I’ve already said they feel like really great missions ripped out of the base and repackaged as free DLC.

    -What are your thoughts on the level increases and mastery system?

    Increasing the cap to level 70 beforehand was an absolute mistake. It caused a number of game breaking issues due to not being stressed tested and on top of that made players have to once again worry about maintaining gear. The reward for reaching level 50 was that you didn’t have to do that anymore but they moved the goal post unnecessarily.

    However, increasing the cap level to 99 for NG plus was a great idea as it gave you the chance to buff up all your perk tiers, thus significantly counteracting the massive nerf made to damage outputs a while back. So rather than moving the goalpost, they’ve just made the goal harder to score which is how it should have been all along. The new game plus feature gives players plenty of content to help hit that cap too whereas the level 70 increase didn’t really have that. I still think they game is too stingy with mastery XP though.

    As always, feel free to add any thoughts not covered by these example questions!

    Yes, whilst my post has been largely negative on the content released, the actual quality of life improvements made to the game have been excellent. Loadouts, new viewpoints, storage box on the ship, transmorg, icons to tell you what’s been engraved to name just a few are all fabulous additions. A lot of these were based on our feedback as well so thank you so much, Ubisoft, for listening to us and always trying to keep the fans happy. It is because of Ubisoft’s continued commitment to improving the game following fan feedback that, going forward, I am confident all the issues with Odyssey’s post-release content will be massively improved in future games.
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  6. #6
    What are your overall thoughts and feelings on Odyssey's post-release content?

    I'm loving the way the game evolves over time in terms of patches and DLC. If anything I'd like more, smaller DLCs with a faster release cycle. Overall I'd prefer it if the big DLC releases (like Elysium the last time) were smaller but twice as frequent.

    Also, maybe unpopular opinion but I'd prefer a longer life span overall for Odyssey with maybe season 2 and season 3 of DLC, instead of abandoning the game after completing the first roadmap with a year+ of nothing AC-related in between.


    What are your thoughts on the quality of Odyssey's post-release content?

    The narrative is by far the weakest part so far. Either DLCs need to be relatively inconsequential linear self-contained stories or they need to strictly correspond to how the main game plays.

    In other words two complaints so far:

    1. Please No forced relationship and baby - either make it optional/player choice-driven or don't do those kind stories at all.
    2. Make my choices/alignment matter - e.g. if I serve Persephone like a good little slave and try my best to ruin plans against her, don't force me to war against her in the end and still be hated by her.

    The gameplay is fine, I'm down with "more of the same" with regards to Odyssey, it plays excellently.

    Both methods of utilizing the space of the original gameworld (LOTFB) and making new space (Elysium) are fine.


    What are your thoughts on the quantity of Odyssey's post-release content?

    As said earlier I'd prefer smaller "expansions" with way more frequent releases than 6 weeks. For the blue quests the scope is fine but I'd like one of those every week, as they're incredibly quick to complete. (And I don't even play the game very much, I play max. 1hr every couple of days)


    What are your thoughts on the paid gear packs and Oikos of the Olympians system?

    I'm interested in getting some but I think they're too expensive at the moment. I'm waiting for a -33% or -50% sale on the credits which implies that would be a more reasonable price for armor etc. By the way, I say this as a "whale" who's got the ultimate edition, Kass/Alexios statues etc., spent nearly 2000€ on Hearthstone and so on, I just still don't think there's enough value in the ACOD virtual items for cost.

    Never used the Oikos system because of the extreme scarcity of Orichalcum, high price of items, and that it wasn't an inventory, but rather chance-based on what I would get, meaning I basically could never get what I wanted (e.g. a cool dagger) when I opened it.


    What are your thoughts on the free mythical creature boss fights?

    Fun for ten minutes (I play on a difficult difficultysetting too). I don't know how long it takes Ubi to make those but it's probably not worth it in terms of devtime/player enjoyment if I had to guess. Maybe it would be better if I could repeat those fights after first completion, probably not though.


    What are your thoughts on the free quests, bounties, mercenaries, and ship battles?

    I'm extremely more interested in the narrative DLCs.


    What are your thoughts on the level increases and mastery system?

    Unpopular opinion: level cap increases were fine IMHO as it allows for continued growth and scaling, and there's no downside I can see, so I'm in favor of that.

    The mastery system eats up tons of ability points but it's a nice way to specialize my character further down the path I want to take it in terms of gameplay. I just worry about new players as ranged combat and assassinations are nerfed a lot since initial release and a new player won't have the skillpoints to buff up their crit chance and stuff while still in the early-to-midgame.

    In future I hope something like the mastery system remains in the franchise but I hope there's another way besides dozens/hundreds of skillpoints (or the credit card) to adjust your character's passives.
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  7. #7
    (sorry, I don't know how to edit my post on this forum)

    Extra: Tech patches!

    If Odyssey is to have such a long term DLC plan and "live service" model, I'd recommend to consider tech upgrades too during the lifetime of the game.

    For example, to introduce tech features that didn't make it in at release time, like multi-gpu support. Also new tech like RTX features for reflections or global illumination, and why not also additional high-end quality slider levels like longer view distance and wave render distance etc.
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  8. #8
    Dtheawesome9010's Avatar Senior Member
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    Animus said what I wanted to say but there are few things.1. STOP NERFING CRAP GET IT RIGHT THE FIRST FRIGGING TIME.2.STRESS TEST YOUR DAMN GAMES I'VE HAD TO DEAL WITH A STUPID BUG SINCE JANUARY AND IM APPARENTLY THE ONLY MF WITH THIS DAMN PROBLEM! 3. Add options like a proper enemy scaling system like a set area level and a scale that allows you to set your own levels or have them scale with you or X above or below and for godsake add the option for shield for time periods like Rome or Viking Norway and of course 4. Keep us updated regularly for future events and updates be more communicative with the fans and when you **** up come out and say something LoTFB 3 you did that but not for the other mistakes you made like AC3RM you were silent and we didn't apperciate that 5. Needs more balance between fantasy and realism
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  9. #9
    After 500 hours I am frankly burned out playing AC Odyssey and the game is still not fully released.

    I don't like the episodic releases of DLC and I suppose I don't like the concept of life services.
    So for me, I don't think I will be buying at release editions with seasons passes in it because I'm not sure if I will ever get around of playing the second DLC after DLC finally is fully released!!

    I already moved on to other games. Frankly, I bought Recon Ghost Wildlands when that game was fully done = no waiting just game at your pace until you are finished and that suits me way better.
    I mean, the whole never-ending story of "life service" has no other purpose than ramming MTX thru your throat for the longest possible time.

    I am seriously thinking of buying games when fully finished. Cheaper for one and you know what you are getting.
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  10. #10
    fishbone76's Avatar Member
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    First I want to say that I love the main game and have already over 500 hours played. I'm on my 4th playthrough (3 x Kass, 1 x Alexios) and I'm not tired of it yet. It's my favorite AC game and I'll be pouting forever if Kasslexios doesn't show up in future AC games.



    -What are your overall thoughts and feelings on Odyssey's post-release content?
    It's good but not satisfying for someone who plays a lot of RPG's if you go to end post content soon.



    -What are your thoughts on the quality of Odyssey's post-release content?
    Could and should be improved if you want to keep people playing this game for longer.

    So far I enjoyed every single of the Lost Tales Of Greece episodes and I'd like to see more of them in the future.



    -What are your thoughts on the quantity of Odyssey's post-release content?
    I want more DLC! A Kasslexios through the time DLC maybe?


    -What are your thoughts on the paid DLC?
    LOTB was just bad. Bad writing, bad execution, bad characters and personality, missing chemistry for the romance, out of character behaviour of kasslexios if you go for the non romance route, no correct 2nd path if you choose the non romance route. After the so called DLC fix I feel even more ripped of after I had preordered the Gold edition. The only good thing about this DLC is Darius outfit.

    I havn't started Atlantis yet, I'll wait until all three episodes are out, but from what i saw and heard I'm excited about it.
    BUT
    Episodic release is meh.



    -What are your thoughts on the paid gear packs and Oikos of the Olympians system?
    I bought a lot of them, before the LOTB DLC came out but I'm a dissapointed player and stopped spending money on the store and just use the ingame oikos to get what i want. I have been lucky so far


    -What are your thoughts on the free mythical creature boss fights?
    Steropes was easy, Arges was more fun. I'd like to have some more challenging fights like having several phases of the boss battle where you have to find out a tactic. Maybe bosses are immune to damage mostly and require you to expose the weak spot?

    I want more mythical creatures, maybe even some on Sea?



    -What are your thoughts on the free quests, bounties, mercenaries, and ship battles?
    Ship battles are way to easy, I miss the Legendary ships from Black Flag, those made me wet my pants in fear.
    Mercenaries usually die with a couple arrow shots but hey as long as I get some ori for that i'm fine. It would be cool if we could get their outfit to wear after defeating them.



    -What are your thoughts on the level increases and mastery system?
    Good. Tho I have 5 different armor sets/builds and it did cost me a ****load of Leather to get them all to Lev 99 XD


    - additiona thoughts
    People have asked for armor/chiton dye options, photomode improvements regarding poses, facial expressions, options to hide gear and change daytime. The photomode from Horizon zero dawn is a very good example.

    !!!!!!!Also please for the love of the gods bring the Trial of the gods to AC Odyssey!!!!!!!!!!
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