Side quests in Assassin's Creed IV choke the game to death

It is so god damn frustrating. You can't get 100% unless you conform to their stupid side objectives. They are tedious and unnecessary and all they do is make the game less flexible overall and give you less choice.

It is so annoying when you crawl your ass through one of those stupidly long missions where you can't enter combat and you get caught right at the last minute or you don't realise you were caught at all in the first place and then have to start from the beginning again.

I mean isn't the game tedious enough with the ludicrously easy difficulty, and six million chests to find that all contain low levels of cash, with no real reward?

I mean why the hell would you take one of the best parts about the first Assassin's Creed away? I used to enjoy looking for different ways of completing a mission. Now there is no point even looking because I know I won't be able to get 100% sync if I do.

My only real complaint about AC4 is that the free running is still extremely frustrating in chase scenes, where you end up running up or climbing onto a whole bunch of things you didn't mean to climb or run up. It makes catching both people and shanties very frustrating to do.

100% sync is supposed to be achieved on a second playthrough. On you first run just enjoy the game.

You mean that Full Sync bull sh!t ? Ignore it. Unless you got OCD then I sympathize with you. Anyway, what you really need is a game where the gameplay is its own reward. This Looting bullshit is just skinner box behavoir reinforcement crap, and I'm beginning to see it being implimented in quit a few games lately, namely action games turned Action-RPGs.

Just ignore the completion percentage.

I don't think it's possible to enjoy an Assassins Creed game and get 100% at the same time. The whole series is full of tedious, challenge-less, collect-a-thon bullshit.

@ Planeforger

Funny, I described Borderlands that exaxct sameway. :)

You do know you don't have to do them?

I can't enjoy a game I can't 100% the first time through. I don't have time to play all the games I want to as it is; I sure as hell don't have time to play games twice.

Agreed - although there's a big difference between something like Borderlands, where the endless repetitive item-hunting is the main focus of the game, and Assassins Creed, where the repetitive item-hunting is a finite and skippable part of the game.

Heh, well if time is such a concern for you...why waste an extra 20 hours of your time playing through the worst the game has to offer just to get 100% completion, when you could just play the fun bits, beat the story, and move on to the next game?

I don't stress over getting 100 percent. That would ruin the experience big time.

Then just don't do them mate

Side objectives were more fun than the main missions which only consisted of tailing this or that person.

What are you on about? If you dont like the sidequests then dont play it because why should the developers care a f about your insane idea that you need to get 100% in games to feel its complete?

Also from the sound of it i wonder why you even play AC? did you get it as a gift or pirate it? because if you bought it, next time perhaps watch some YT videos so you know what kind of game it is.

@Jacanuk: I know exactly what type of game it is you prick. I have all of the games except III. Obviously you have the laziness that you can simply ignore missions and objectives and just run through the game that is your problem, and yes I would call that a problem overall personally.

I like to complete things properly, in their entirety. I check ever corner and tick off every objective. What I'm saying is the side objectives in Assassin's Creed IV actually make the game less flexible, they actually RESTRICT your choices. Games should be giving you MORE choice and MORE flexibility.

@23Jarek23: Yeah the problem comes when it is "Avoid combat" AND "tail this person". Then you have to slowly make your way through the city or jungle after the person and then about ten or fifteen minutes later you get caught by a guard and fail the secondary objective, so have to end up trailing again.

Or like in one of the end objectives where it is like "air assassinate this person" and "avoid combat". You jump off of a high place and just at the last minute someone sees you and you end up assassinating them anyway. So you fail one objective but because the assassination marked the end of the mission you then have to start the mission right back from the start, so have to start the long tailing session all over again.

Like on one of the missions when it says "kill 5 guards using smoke", I failed that objective probably four times because the guards tended to snap out of the stun that the smoke put them in or my ally would kill them instead so I ended up with 4/5 kills. But then because the death of the last guard was the next checkpoint if I failed to kill 5/5 guards I had to start the mission again and that one was one of those trail this person/eavesdrop missions. It was infuriating. Not only would I never have used smoke bombs by choice myself, it makes a mission that should be smooth and enjoyable just straight up frustrating.

All the do is RESTRICT you choices. Games should be making ways of creating more choice not limiting it.

Eh? come again kid?

Why dont you stop whining like a little school girl over something you can avoid? this whining and then you try to put it up as you are forced to play the side-quests is just bad. Because what is it about sidemissions you dont understand? its there for those who like that kind, if you dont well it goes without saying doesn it?

And no the side missions and collectibles doesnt make the game less of anything, particular not restricting in any choice, as i said if you don't like it, stop whining and don't play it. How hard can it be?

lol, yea i found it annoying but it didnt detract from the fun i had with the game

Yeah I felt the same way, unless you have a LOT of time, and are young enough to waste that time, you would 100 percent this game. I was just talking about this with my co-workers the other day, that this game must have had hundreds of programmers, and level designers for there to be soooo much to do. This was not the work of a little team at all.

Ciao

Think you got this reversed but nice try with the co-workers and everything. The only age-group that cares that much about a 100% and are achievement whores are the 8-25age group, most adults meaning 25+ are rarely like that and they also know that developers, that put so much into the game like AC, count on not everyone doing it 100%

Jacanuk, actually I am 33 and my coworkers I was discussing AC4 with are 35 and 45, who like you mentioned are not the achievement whores. The main point I was making was that for a map to be so big, so intricate, would have to have been a huge development team, and when you beat the game, (or just look it up), this was in fact a huge team. Do they care about us covering 100% probably not, but I was actually making the point you made, only young-uns would have time to even consider the satisfaction of a 100% in a game this big, I don't even care anymore of Final Fantasy percentages like I used to, or silent hill or RE for that matter

Ahh sorry i misunderstood you, i thought you said something else.

But ya you are right that a map this big have a pretty big development team, i know GTA V online with their map had almost 2.000 people who at one point or another have worked on GTA V and Tomb Raider which didn´t even seem that big had 500-1000.

@Jacanuk: np

I 100%ed all of the AC games except Revelations before IV, and I didn't even try with this one. You're right, there's just too much.

But it didn't bother me. I did the stuff that seemed fun to me and didn't stress if I couldn't do the 100% sync objectives in each mission, though I always tried. At a certain point, I had played enough and just wanted to get to the end, so I mainlined for a few hours and finished it.

At least they didn't gate a secret ending or something behind a 100% completion. All of that extra stuff is only there for people who never get tired of hunting for things or having a slightly structured assassination mission.

My thoughts exactly. OCD (in its various degrees) can make any game a chore to play. We all have a wee bit of it, unfortunately some more than others.

What do you think 100% means? I'm not an achievement chase so I dunno. But I would imagine you would have to do everything in a game to get a 100% achievement, including stupid side quests

In AC2 the a lot of the optional stuff actually added to the story and lore...but as the series went on it just more and more became like busy-work to extend the length of the game. As it stands now, I don't even bother with it...because it's just not fun or interesting in any way. Instead I focus entirely on the main story and power through. Did the same with Farcry 3 and will probably do the same with Watchdogs if I play it. Imo, ignoring all the extraneous nonsense is the only way to enjoy an Ubisoft open world game. They have the worst open world model right now, and they're using it in all their open world games.

@ Black_Knight_00

I don't have OCD, I just want to be perfect. But I'm working to fix that, like When I play DiRT, I don't restart the race anymore if just sxratch the car alil bit, Even when I spin off the track, I keep going until. I've also started playing it on the Highest difficult and don't mind if I don't finnish 1st anymore.

I'm getting Better at Losing ! :p

@Jacanuk: Well yeah but that is the point I'm not a lazy ass like you seem to be. I don't just skip through games. I do actually need to complete everything. I do need to look in every corner and under ever rock (if you can) because if you don't look how do you know there isn't something interesting there?

I like to complete Assassin's Creed 100% because if you leave everything in Assassin's Creed to the end and then attempt to collect everything you do end up collecting hundreds of objectives and chests and fragments and chanties. All in a long linear line. And the chances of me finishing that process due to bordom is slim. So I do it as I go along. But with side objectives they make the game flow less. I could put up with the chests and collectables. This is after all a pirate game, if you couldn't go searching for treasure it would be pretty shit. But they actually restrict the flow of their own main story line.

Unless like yourself you are of a such a mind where things like that won't annoy the crap out of you. You must suck to have to work with. I bet you are the sort of person who does a half arsed job and then fucks off home thinking job well done, when you've only done half of what was needed. And then get all pissy with your boss when they call you on it.

Ok, so I'm not the only one who thinks this about Ubisoft games

i love the game, already destroyed them 4 legendary ships. best AC game for me

Because the achievement's there, so I want to get it if I can. It's why I wish games were much shorter, so playing a second time wouldn't be such a chore.

What are you talking about? lazy because i am saying that the extra is well extra and if you really hate it, then dont do it. How hard at seeing text are you?

Also nice idea that a game is a job and all games have to be completed at 100% but when you grow up and become a adult you will start to realize that games are ENTERTAINMENT and not a job and if something isn't ENTERTAINING you, well then why the hell do it?

So go back to AC and get your "job" done and stop coming onto a forum and whine like a little 4 year old.