With AC4 came a promise to make the fight more difficult, but I did not find this the case. It wasn't as brainless as something like ACB, but I did find it easier than AC3/AC1. I did not upgrade my weapons or gear a single time, and I never felt the need to either. Did anyone else have this same experience? Did some of you actually find it somewhat difficult?
What suggestions would you have to increase the difficulty of combat in the next game? Here are some ideas I had.
-If you counter in the middle of a kill animation, the kill is canceled. That way, you need to fight people more strategically, as opposed to running in and just countering whenever you need to. Otherwise, you'd just end up in a frenzy of counters.
-More strict counter window.
-Remove the hold counter/parry function.
-Enemies are more likely to attack you simultaneously.
-More enemy archetypes; allowing Brutes to block attacks is nice, but as soon as that happens, you can just spam guard-break until they're on the ground, where you can insta-kill them. Otherwise, you can pretty much kill anyone with basic counters/spamming attack. Guard-break is pretty over-powered in general.
-Rifles kill you in 1 shot, pistols kill you in 2. Make the meat-shield option have a more strict input window. If you grab an enemy too soon, make the marksmen hold fire. You would still be able to kill the person you grabbed, but then you would be left open as punishment. Perhaps you could walk with the meat shield to a point that the marksman cannot hit you? Perhaps there would be some soldiers that would shoot your meat-shield anyway, allowing you a brief moment of surprise to defend against riflemen?
Perhaps implementing all of these would be overkill, but these are just some options I considered.
1/ Reducing the counter block/parry attack to a less lethal move in its odd & setting point impacts on the foes only (Ex: foes can be hurt to a harm and still fighting)
Example counter block attack offers you 40% chance of killing your foes this way / 60% of wounding your foes.
2/ Improving AI of the foes (They actually learn you fighting pattern and can block some of you attack .
EDIT: If foes attack at the same time, make sure that player can reflex and parry the attack, and make them potentially lethal later in the game when player has progressed.
3/ Adding some more archetype of foes or better introducing a level mixed of the foes (Player does not know in advance which type of foes he is going to fight)
and Removing ability to get the best weapon in the first quarter of the game and make it progressive.
Just doing these above should resolve the problem of the game(s) being too easier & without making it much harder for casuals, it just will more challenging, but not impossible to beat.
Not sure I completely agree. I can count on one hand the amount of times I have died in combat in all previous AC games combined, however in 4 I have died A LOT in combat, at least on board ships, still have not died while on land where the combat system seems to be much more responsive. I have noticed on ships your AI partners can and do attack you if you are in their way, they also block your counters, or kill chains if they are in your way, so it might be more bugs causing my deaths rather then an increase in difficulty. I however found AC3 to be the easiest combat in any of them. I know at one point I killed over 300 enemies in one spot and never once found myself in danger, in fact I finally grew bored and simply vanished and ditched the patrols following me.
You can't please everyone. Some will find it difficult and some will find it easy (us seasoned AC players). We know how to approach a specific enemy and we know how to manipulate them so we have it easier than most people who is just playing AC3-4 for the first time. In my opinion, they did make the combat harder than it was in AC3.
First you have the gunners/snipers that have amazing vision and accuracy. So if you're in a middle of a combat and a gunner spots you, he shoots you without fail (if you don't have a human shield). Sometimes (i don't know if its a bug or not) the sniper's meter disappears so I don't know when I'm getting shot, which in my opinion added the thrill to it. You get that quick 1 second window to grab a human shield or get shot.
Second, guards now attack you a lot faster than I remembered in AC3. When you're in a middle of combat with another guard and you begin attacking where you're about to initiate a kill animation, a random guard will quickly stab a sword into you, breaking your kill animation. There are times where you can see that coming and you have that quick window again to counter that attacking guard, which means leaving the guard you were attacking to still live. But there are times when I'm on a ship about to kill a guard and some other guard just stabs me. This makes Edward not as invincible as Connor who seemed to have eyes in the back of his head.
But other than that, I feel the combat style is more or less the same as AC3 with less fluidity which makes it a bit harder. There's still the same guards style as AC3: the agiles, the captains, the brutes. And since we played AC3, we know how to approach these guys.
Look, killing enemies since the new combat system of AC3 and the killstreaks of Brotherhood made it easier to create massacres out of nowhere. My suggestion : Bring back life meters instead of these repetitive hack and slash moves that lead to insta kills and kill streaks. It seems that after 1 hit the enemy completely forgets how to fight and defend them self and therefore just stands like there like a headless chicken.
I believe that going into combat should not reward you with these killstreaks (even though they look visually amazing) that lead to massacres they should provide Edward with a challenge.
- Add a health meter to enemies and they should die when low on life.
- Counters should rarely kill anybody in one hit, only after an enemy has lost the majority of their life. The standard archetype soldier could only be killed after 2 counters each of them being a critical hit.
- At certain points in the life meter, make it so enemies fight more aggressively and unpredictably harder for Edward to counter these enemies.
- Add more enemy archetypes. The agile guards and seekers were removed in AC3. The more archetypes the better the variety.
- There should not be combos to weaken harder enemies. For instance, countering a Jager in AC3 and then disarming them lead to hack and slash gameplay and was easy to master after about 10 minutes. Make them like the Jannasaries in Revelations who were actually good fighters and resisted most of Ezio's attacks and required strategy to kill them.
Those are some suggestions off the top of my head.
You could make it more timing-dependent, but ultimately it's pointless.
With the design, you have to make it absolutely clear how and when the player is going to get their posterior handed to them. At the moment, the design says, "You're the pinnacle of everything. You're supernatural. Nothing can harm you." So what's going to happen if they simply make it harder? Lots of customers will have a hissy fit.
Look at the Batman games. Nobody gets upset about the toughness of the predator encounters, because they know they're a physical puzzle, and there's a solution. But lots of people have complained about the Deathstroke boss fight. Many of those declared it impossible, and stopped playing entirely. All they did was make the combat less forgiving of pressing the wrong button at the wrong time, but the fans thought they knew how boss fights worked in these games and they expected to win simply by hitting buttons hard and fast. I think that's a good illustration of the problems in Assassin's Creed. Batman players get confused when they don't feel superhuman in a boss fight, because it's just one man/woman/creature, and they expect him to beat his individual enemies because of the comics, but they're okay with the idea that their hero can lose against a well-armed group. AC fans don't think there's any limit to their heroes' ballet of violence, so there's no point in making it incrementally harder or they'll just hit their limit like those quitters who faced Deathstroke. It needs to be a firm rule that your guy is mortal, and he/she needs to approach a mass conflict like chess.
What you wrote is pretty much what I said above. so we agree! I am not really a partisan on the health bat above the foes, but the same result can be implanted without that bar.Originally Posted by JoeJoe275 Go to original post
I believe they are 2 types of players since AC3, the ones that want to go on easy rampage and the ones that prefer a combat system more challenging.
Now I do not know which one the Ubisoft is going for? - But that for sure for of us (players) that started playing the series 7 years ago, it will have been some changes in the combat system and its philosophy and some of us may wonder in looking at the 2 last AC entries, if finally, the series is still addressed to us or not (?).
I'm torn. I like tough combat, if it's done in the right way.
When they re-did a lot in Assassin's Creed III, I liked they finally improved the controls - also for combat. However, then there's the Parry system which was completely horrible in III (worst system I have ever experienced), along with the weapon-select which wasn't fine-tuned in my opinion. Assassin's Creed III was difficult because it was poorly implemented, not because the enemies were tougher.
Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag - while it's not difficult (especially when you get the gun), I enjoy the combat is FAR more than in III.
So, I would like them to use the system for IV, but try to improve the AI. Some slighty faster, agile, etc. As you have a long reaction time to counter in my opinion. I don't feel the gun is game-breaking even if it makes combat easier, as it does have a significant reload-time, I just hope in the next AC that they stick to that - and don't just make it faster.
So, yeah.. If they actually make the combat tougher in a nice way; improve AI, rely on faster reactiontime, etc.. Sure. If they just break the combat like in III; no.
I actually do like it that you can get in the way of your allies (esp in the boarding ship fights) and vice versa. Better that than swing right through them like they aren't there at all.
I think if you tighten up the timing of the counters/etc it may start to creep into the annoyingly hard category. Dunno, I'd have to playtest to see.
I do agree that rifle hits from the ranged sharpshooters should do more damage than currently, like maybe take 2/3 health with full armor? However, they do not hit you every time, as long as you do a dodge move when their firing meter maxes out. As long as you're paying attention while fighting hand-to-hand enemies, you can make the gunners miss.