Assassin's Creed Vahalla

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Daehawk
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Re: Assassin's Creed Vahalla

Post by Daehawk »

Its ok. My video card was smothered by it though. I got to England and went to other things and deleted it . I have a better card now. When I go back Ill probably start over.
Last edited by Daehawk on Sat Jul 23, 2022 12:27 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Smoove_B
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Re: Assassin's Creed Vahalla

Post by Smoove_B »

So, I'm about 20 hour in now. I've made my alliances with two regions and just started a third. I'm guessing this is the entire game now - running around and doing things for important people in these territories to gain their support? I'm not sure I have another 40 hours of that in me.

I think my biggest issue is the character progress right now. The skill tree is absurd and I genuinely don't feel like I'm making any progress. All of my gear is the same from 20 hours ago (but upgraded) and all the fights unfold exactly the same way. I don't feel any stronger, I don't feel like I'm doing anything special or fighting any differently than I did 19 levels ago.

This is a very weird game design.
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Daehawk
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Re: Assassin's Creed Vahalla

Post by Daehawk »

Aaaaand maybe I wont go back.
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Re: Assassin's Creed Vahalla

Post by Smoove_B »

I picking things on skill trees that span 5 screens would send you into paralysis, then this game is not for you. It all feels so arbitrary and I really don't feel like any of it is making any measurable difference. I'm probably going to slap some more hours in to see if anything changes, but I'm guessing no, no it won't.

I think from a design standpoint it feels very unfocused. It's like playing an Elder Scrolls game in a AC engine. Total freedom to do what you want, but a thin veneer of content to try and motivate you forward. It's an absolutely beautiful game - the crumbling Roman architecture in England in particular. The landscapes, the underground areas - all amazing. But after I finish as session of playing, I wonder what the hell I just spent my time doing.
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jztemple2
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Re: Assassin's Creed Vahalla

Post by jztemple2 »

Smoove_B wrote: Sat Jul 23, 2022 12:41 pm I think from a design standpoint it feels very unfocused. It's like playing an Elder Scrolls game in a AC engine. Total freedom to do what you want, but a thin veneer of content to try and motivate you forward. It's an absolutely beautiful game - the crumbling Roman architecture in England in particular. The landscapes, the underground areas - all amazing. But after I finish as session of playing, I wonder what the hell I just spent my time doing.
I felt the same way about the game. It felt like a Viking simulator, which isn't necessarily a good thing. I disliked the whole upgrading the settlement feature, I'm supposed to be an assassin, not a Fallout 4 player. I'm never been all that keen on a tight story line, but Valhalla really makes the story line almost meaningless.
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Blackhawk
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Re: Assassin's Creed Vahalla

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Smoove_B wrote: Sat Jul 23, 2022 12:41 pm I picking things on skill trees that span 5 screens would send you into paralysis, then this game is not for you. It all feels so arbitrary and I really don't feel like any of it is making any measurable difference. I'm probably going to slap some more hours in to see if anything changes, but I'm guessing no, no it won't.
Ugh, that's a design philosophy that has taken off lately, and that I really dislike. It's done for the theorycrafters, the people who like to spend hours on end pouring over the math and mechanics to make the perfect optimized build that can do 20,000 points of damage per blow (despite no enemy having more than 5k health), without a single point wasted. And I get that. But for normal people it results in a convoluted mess that usually means I don't actually build my character - I go look up someone else's build and use that. Which sucks, because it takes all of the connection to the character out of it for me.

It used to be that you'd get skills that would be something like, "Hit two enemies at once", or "Do 30% extra damage with two handed swords." Or "Break enemy shields when you hit with blunt weapons."

Now it is "Every enemy you kill gives you one stack of Angry, to a maximum of ten stacks. Do 1% extra damage for every point of Angry. Angry decays after 20 seconds if you haven't made a kill", and then there are seven other skills scattered all over the tree that do 2% more armor piercing per Angry, or give you two seconds of health regen per Angry, or make Angry stack higher, or decay slower. It ends up being so convoluted that it is only clear what's going on when you start making spreadsheets and flowcharts. If you don't want to go to that extreme, nothing feels like it does anything (because you're doing 1% more damage.) And so you end up with builds where most of the skills only matter when you finish off the entire tree and have access to all of the 'parts' of the skill.

Oh, and don't forget that half of the builds are optimized to work with a single, specific weapon - that you don't find until you're 80% of the way done with the game.

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Re: Assassin's Creed Vahalla

Post by coopasonic »

I was going to reinstall to validate my feels but it looks like I played it on Ubisoft+ and it's selling for full price right now so I'll pass on that. I looked it up and it's more of a skill web and has 3 different sections (melee, ranged, stealth/assassin), each with 13 skills. Most of the skills are giving you some new capability. There are a few skill synergies, but nothing crazy.
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ChuckB
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Re: Assassin's Creed Vahalla

Post by ChuckB »

It looks like I'm about to finish the main story (meaning I worked through all the territories in England) and I have (very) mixed feelings about the game.

For background: I finished the original AC and AC2 and liked both a lot. I played some Brotherhood and AC3 and quite a bit of Black Flag, I started Unity and I finished Syndicate (which I liked a lot) - the London setting was really cool. I picked up Origin on sale and really didn't like the first 2-5hrs and then it really clicked for me and I absolutely loved it (probably my favorite game of the series, hard to judge the old ones after so many years). I played a bit of Odyssey and liked that in the beginning and then stopped playing. Picked up Valhalla and will finish that soon.

So, the series is clearly for me (I'm not a big game finisher but I finished a lot fo AC games for my standard).

I'm playing Valhalla on a PS5 attached to a good OLED TV with great HDR implementation and it looks really great. I'm also a history buff and seeing the world they created is (still) amazing to me, especially the half-decayed Roman layer underneath everything. That was the same for me with Origin: I just loved to see the world and walking through Alexandria or in between the Egyptian buildings is so enjoyable for me. These are games that even after 80+ hrs in, I still take screenshots and like to look at them.

Valhalla has certainly some weird elements that makes it (for me) worse than Origin (many mentioned here): The skilltree is bonkers and ultimately feels irrelevant; there is way too many things to do (good thing I'm fine with skipping a lot and there are things I have not even touched a bit, such as the contracts), there is way too much melee (which can be ok to good depending on the weapon) but is often awkward and not enough stealth for me; for large parts of the game, there seems to be no progress on gear at all (I probably played for 20hrs with the same armor and weapons). I'm looking forward to finishing it (I still have the Ireland and France DLCs, which I have not even installed) but part of that is just to check it off (when the Ragnarok expansion came out, I was happy to see that it was NOT included in my version and I do NOT have to play it :D )

But I still enjoy the gameplay loop enough to get me back to it and that, together with the visuals and the world is good enough, FOR ME.

Oh, I actually liked the Isle of Skye storyline and I recently played the Vinland one, which I REALLY enjoyed, mainly because it takes away all your gear and your're back to stealth in a very beautiful setting - loved that one.
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Re: Assassin's Creed Vahalla

Post by jztemple2 »

I didn't know where to post this, since it is about a possible future AC game, but this is as good a thread as any. This is not official, but the guy YouTuber j0nathan has been pretty accurate about his inside Ubisoft information.

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naednek
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Re: Assassin's Creed Vahalla

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Loved Origins, never finished Odyssey, been playing Valhalla off and on since 2020. It says I'm 80% complete. I just finished the Isle part and found the artifact. Been trying to finish the older games that's been sitting around. Next up is either horizon (the first and the expansion) or the samurai game that I can't remember the name of.
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Re: Assassin's Creed Vahalla

Post by jztemple2 »

naednek wrote: Tue Aug 30, 2022 6:26 pm Loved Origins, never finished Odyssey, been playing Valhalla off and on since 2020. It says I'm 80% complete. I just finished the Isle part and found the artifact. Been trying to finish the older games that's been sitting around. Next up is either horizon (the first and the expansion) or the samurai game that I can't remember the name of.
I'm sort of the same way, but I'm not familiar with Horizon, or is that not an AC game?
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Daehawk
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Re: Assassin's Creed Vahalla

Post by Daehawk »

Horizon Zero Dawn and its expansion Into the West.
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naednek
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Re: Assassin's Creed Vahalla

Post by naednek »

Well I think I finished the game. I saw an ending with Odin and felt there was resolution with a key character. But it just keeps putting up more quests. Now there's masteries which is basically mini games, then there's season events which I've skipped, and the raids. Guides don't really list the levels in order. So after 98 hours of gametime, I think I'm ready to move on. I have no idea how to the last person in the Order tree. It just says look for clues. Online it says as your progress in the story it would open up another clue. Maybe I need to finish the mastery mini games?

If so, I don't have any interest.

I just reinstalled Horizon Zero Dawn for 3rd time. hoping to finish that and the expansion. I then have to play the sequel that I bought off skinnypuppy :) Oh and then there's that samurai game.
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Re: Assassin's Creed Vahalla

Post by Suitably Ironic Moniker »

Daehawk wrote: Tue Aug 30, 2022 6:43 pm Horizon Zero Dawn and its expansion Into the West.
Frozen Wilds is the expansion. Forbidden West is the sequel.
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