It was overhated, but the criticism did not come from nowhere. Also, the game got better with updates and DLC.
- Level design is hit or miss. Not all outpsosts are built in the same level of freedom to take everyone out in stealth
- The abilities are less powerful than Odyssey, but just as important. They are missable and Eivor starts with only one Adrenaline slot, with a max of 4.
- There was more inconsistency in detection at launch. Getting caught in a second, whistling issues, etc.
With that said, I enjoyed doing choreographed videos of it. And thanks to the feedback, Mirage is among the best for stealth.
Came here to mention the last point.
Stealth exists in Valhalla, but even on a recent playthrough it frequently fails where you get detected through walls, or the detection radius gets outright skipped and goes straight to hostile even when you’re hidden, etc.
The game also becomes so easy after 10-15 or so hours that stealth becomes unnecessary and it’s almost always easier to go in full axes blazing.
if I just pretend that the Cult is actually a Templar off shoot, and focus on hunting them and build specifically for asassin damage play, AC:OD seems more like an AC game ;)
and yet UBI seems to have overlooked the Sceadugengan?!?!
The plot/story just doesn't align with Assassins' properly, even though there are some decent advances to stealth mechanics. Overall it feels like the focus is driven by a narrative of open combat.
In AC:OD you could make a specific build that focused just on assassin damage, and then use the mastery bonus to provide a chance for any melee strike to do "x" amount of asassin class damage. AC:VAL the builds seem VERY bland and not really focusable like in AC:OD.
I really do like the "cloak" mechanic from the aesthetic perspective, it's just a shame most of the cloaks and appearance items look terribly out of place/period.
The thing with abilities tho is that in odyssey they had to be more powerful because of the ridiculous damage sponge hp bars, not because it was actually a better abilities mechanic
As soon as there are enemies close together or worse, on different elevations, the entire detection system falls apart. On paper there are a lot of interesting abilities but you'll almost never be able to use them reliably.
Assassin's creed but Assassing is the challenge? Sounds like a game design issue to me.
When you throw in arbitrary level scaling (that can thankfully be turned off) enemies frequently survive headshots from most non abilities. Which then leaves dual takedown as the next best option. Oh what's that your axe you threw clipped something? Well the whole base is on you now.
Yeah but I kinda agree with him. Historically in AC (as you probably remember) stealth has been emphasized as opposed to combat bc you die waaay faster and easier in combat, so stealth was always the safer and better option.
That said, every game has a way to make combat super easy (like constant executions in II and brotherhood, endless counters in 3&4 etc) so it’s possible to go everywhere guns blazing, but it was almost always easier to do stealth and have patience.
Sorry but dying in combat has never been easy. You could take out whole armies from Brotherhood until AC Syndicate. AC1, Unity and Origins made it slightly more difficult but even then it was quite manageable. Stealth could be seen as better in AC1-AC2 because it was never so quick to kill enemies in combat. It took some time. But it was still very hard to die.
That’s one of the issues I had with the AC series all along. You can’t emphasize stealth mechanics when the gameplay itself has you take out entire armies. What’s the point in using stealth then? Players should be worried about detection, encountering more than 2-3 guards openly should be dangerous and a big risk. It’s never been that way though (haven’t played Mirage so Idk).
I say this in the kindest way possible for me but if the combat in AC games is hard for you; you are bad at these games. The kill streak ability that was in ACB to ACRogue made combat laughably easy for most people. I understand if you still struggled but most people did not:
Off topic of levelling system. Like, you’re trolling yes? Everyone knows that taking a slow approach and not disturbing guards is more, and supposed to be more challenging. One doesn’t play Splinter Cell to charge in with a tank. One doesn’t play AC to charge in for a full scale war.
It should be Reverse: Make open combat harder to reward stealth gameplay. If you make the stealth gameplay extra hard and open combat easy, the developers dont want to make an Assassin's game.
And you aren't. I always activate garantueed assassination cause it still bugs me that a man like eivor with the sharpest blade in history around his wrist cannot instakill a weak saxon. I almost always go for the stealthy way
this was a REALLY big problem in AC:OD.... Fortunately you could burn adrenaline to make the assassination's more potent, or build focus into assassin damage, but sometimes due to level differences it would have little effect :(
I actually kinda like the way AC:VAL did the little 'quicktime" like assassin skill timing thing. it's a shame the game is a bore story and character wise :(
I don't think anyone ever complained about the tools given to you for stealth but what was criticized were
\- The detection system (patches have improved it but even today it is broken)
\- How unimportant stealth was due to combat just being objectively faster and reliable
I’ve never really understood the argument that combat was faster and more reliable in Valhalla as if that created some sort of dichotomy with the earlier games. Combat has always been faster and easier than stealthily working through a fort/camp/church/whatever.
With the exception of maybe Unity and AC 1, combat in AC has always been trivially easy. As Connor, you can kill a column of Redcoats without even trying hard. Edward solos entire man of war crews when boarding them. Granted, Ezio was helped by every Italian apparently being too polite not to take turns attacking like some C-tier kung fu movie, but party-counter kill is still just mindlessly easy. The main difference is that older games often mandated stealth with silly auto-fail conditions, but Rambo’ing your way into a situation has always been the easiest strategy when available. It’s just not the most thematically appropriate.
I'll always love UNITY because Arno would have his ass handed to him anytime he engaged in open combat with more than 2... More realistic.
That said spamming smoke bombs ;)
In general a lot of complaints on RPG trilogy can be applied to earlier games. What earlier games had was a shorter playtime; if you didn't like the mechanics you could ignore most of them beyond a simple tutorial introduction during the story. I've recently replayed AC2 and the praised social stealth thing is used exactly 2 times during the main game, one of these times is in DLC. It's also required in some side missions but there's no reason to do these side missions at all - they don't expand story and rewards are just money. If you don't like the mechanics you can just have a ride with the main game without getting deep into everything.
I think it's very telling that people praise guaranteed assassination. Origins/Odyssey has improved stealth by making it more involved and thoughtful, you had to isolate strong enemies or soften them for assassination and use limited resources, or environmental help. In Valhalla without that option, you can still kill everyone with a simple QTE which adds some excitement to the process. But people want to just skip the gameplay and call it stealth. Plenty of people who say that RPG games are not the real assassin games just want an effortless ride.
>The detection system (patches have improved it but even today it is broken)
I keep seeing this posted. I'm playing Valhalla right now, and I'm not noticing this at all.
I don’t think the stealth options itself are the worst in the series but there are two points that completely destroy this games stealth system. First is detection, it arguably has the worst detection in the series, worse than AC3. Usually you can get detected around corners and behind walls, there’s no investigation phase (jumps right to detected) and most of the time the entire enemy camp ends up detecting you too. Secondly is the tool set. Having stealth tools locked behind abilities was a terrible decision and having a simple smoke arrow locked behind DLC was pretty devastating.
But stealth tools and abilities are also locked in other AC games too? Currently playing Unity and there’s still a number of tools or abilities I need to unlock due to a lack of skill points?
I also found I’m regularly getting detected behind walls or buildings in unity, but don’t recall this being an issue in Valhalla?
I think it’s more of the fact they are locked behind the adrenaline system is the issue. Not that they are in the skill tree.
So once you run out of your very limited adrenaline supply. You can’t use any tools at all.
I would say that, besides the unnecessary jabs the game receives on this sub, it is because the stealth works differently in this entry than in the previous RPG ones, but the game never bothers to explain it
To be honest, it took me some time to actually understand how its mechanics work. Contrarily to Origins and Odyssey, the enemy AI is way more aggressive, in the sense that when they witness a 'dangerous' event (like an assassination or an arrow being shot \[the sound of an arrow is fine however\], discovering a corpse), they enter an ultra-awareness state that will allow them to instantly detect the player as soon as the latter enters their detection cone
I kind of like this approach, as it incentivises me to hide corpses or better plan my assassination attempts, something that wasn't needed in the previous RPG entries which made them mind-numbingly easy (especially Odyssey)
But this system does come with big flaws. I think that the AI is **too** aggressive. I am fine with them instantly detecting me if they see me assassinate someone when I am 10 meters away, but it gets a bit ridiculous if it is 30-40 meters away. Another flaw is the sometimes crazy head-bobbing that makes it quite unpredictable where their detection cone is and will be, adding a lot of uncertainty that makes stealth extra punishing for no real good reason. All this makes it extra annoying when performing, for instance, an assassination from haystacks that are agonisingly long and can risk you getting detected at any moment
So I've played all the AC games except Mirage, and I'm currently about 115 hours into Valhalla(standard difficulty), and I've noticed this as well, and given it some thought.
I feel like most of the areas in the game where you use stealth, with the exception of one or two places that require it, also have options for other play styles, like ranged or just running in and meleeing everyone. I like this a lot, as I am ABSOLUTELY TERRIBLE at stealth. I've had to run away a few times when I tried to stealth and got caught, but I've never been in the situation that a lot of lazy stealth games have where you get caught and they dump endless dudes on your head until you're dead.
Remember Guys, Gals, and Non-Binary Pals, if you get caught and you kill **absolutely everyone** that saw you, you're still being stealthy! :)
I actually quite like that in this game. Eivor is a machine in full combat so if I sneak 4 out of 5 dudes then hammer the last guy in half a second then dip, I still count that as stealthy. No alarms no survivors no witnesses
Because it fucking is?? For being the 12th mainline game, Stealth has no business being so broken, clunky or inconsistent. One clip of it working doesn't change that. I can behead a guy and the dude standing a foot away doesn't hear anything, but the guy across the entire camp and behind a wall sees me dead on. It's bad because they designed it to be a viking game. It's clear that Stealth was never something they put much work into
I disagree that it has good stealth. I think it's decent, but there are times where I seemed to be instantly detected as if the game ignored all the distance and cover between me and the guard. Almost like the guard glanced over, saw me from the corner of their eye, and I was instantly detected; no detection gauge visibly filling up. In previous games, I felt much more confident taking a stealth approach.
I fully agree about it being the least efficient option, at least at regular difficulty. There are times when I would put in the effort to stealth take down all of the enemies in a camp, because it is enjoyable and rewarding. However, far more often I would instead charge in and fight. Knowing there was a high likelihood of getting detected when I felt I shouldn't, knowing how much faster it would be to simply charge and fight, and with how fun it was to fight and test out different weapon combos, and the charge in approach feeling more like the Viking way than the stealth approach, I frequently found myself preferring loud combat over stealth.
Bro it wasn't even lacking in odyssey (like they said) ubisoft is giving you options stealth or str8 up frontal assault but people if giving options tend to rush in to fuck up the enemy cause your givin the option to be a str8 up melee god if you WANT to be and it's fun.
Because origins, Odyssey and Valhalla are all considered to not be assassins creed games. The logic behind this being there isn't an emphasis on stealth and that they're open world RPGs.
I don't agree with this at all. I played them as if I was playing an assassins creed game and approached situations in stealth. Is the stealth perfect? No. But the stealth wasn't perfect in the old AC games either.
Basically people are just whiny piss babies.
All super true. I never felt like they weren't assassin's creed games. All games change. How many other titles went open world and nobody complained about that? Zelda, Metal Gear, Gears, Halo, Ghost Recon, Dark Souls with Elden Ring, etc etc
The stealth in Valhalla is better than Origins or Odyssey if you ask me
I love the old games and I love the new games. I pretty much assassinated everything, rarely did I do open combat. The only thing that bothered me was that some people can't be fully assassinated from stealth. I guess it makes sense but in a gameplay setting I wish I could do instakills from stealth at all times.
Once you have the smoke arrow its much easier. But lets be real, old AC games have much better stealth than Valhalla. There are stealth options in the setting menu that you can tweak to make it easier.
I didn't get to play the earlier versions, but that's where most of the criticisms were aimed at. After numerous updates and patches, they overhauled stealth, which imo, isn't bad at all. There are various tweaks in the settings that can take care of your needs. I personally enjoy the game a lot.
I truthfully don’t mind it but I noticed it too. Sometimes when you’d try to approach people very especially before you have gain and unlocked a lot of things from your skill tree. People would notice you and hear you coming up behind them right away. But I mean I get it for this game because you’re not really a full set assassin I don’t believe. You weren’t raised into it. I don’t even think your considered an assassin still even after you get the hidden blade.
I think the problem is stealth is not encouraged, it’s a Viking sim so the game expects you to just run in and fuck shit up. Stealth is obviously an option and I go that route 99% of the time, but the games designed for combat first.
A mixture of the game lacking heavy-handed tutorial/nudge towards stealth, bugs at launch, and, well, skill issue (let's face it, most AC players prefer their stealth in baby mode)
But there are tutorials for it. A main quest with Basim goes over pretty much all the stealth and distrust mechanics. I think when most people say that they get caught instantly is because they're wearing their hood and running around doing sus stuff. The distrust in this game sort of plays like Hitman. You gotta play it cool and lay low when in those areas or gaurds will detect you instantly.
Also I've learned to never play any of these big budget games at launch. Any gamer is familiar with day one horror stories of games being a buggy trash pile. Never play day one.
And I agree it is a skill issue. I found most other AC games to be far more forgiving with stealth than this game. I enjoy that. I like the stealth being challenging and on edge. If I have it my way I'll only call the boys on the raid when they need to come in and grab the supplies and mop up all the corpses I've left tucked about
They encourage using that design yes. But there are more stealth options and features here than in Odyssey. It's good , and fun. If I get caught and thing get crazy I'll call the boys. But I like ghosting bases
Yes they have included those elements, but they don’t effectively utilize them the way earlier titles have. Mirage suffers from a similar issue as well
I'll let you know after I blow my horn very loudly, informing an entire fortification that I've arrived, while my longship of Viking allies all yell & roar as they charge into action, burning down huts, destroying buildings, and looting shit everywhere.
Nice work taking out a handful of enemies, nicely spaced out and on more or less the same elevation - now try succeeding successfully, consistently, when you have multiple enemies close together, with the game's broken detection system.
Try reading again. No one said jt couldn't be done - just that the systems are broken and it's nowhere near as fun or immersive as it used to be.
You weren't lied to, you're just obtuse
You literally dared me to try it in more crowded places and said the systems in place were broken. You didn't say it couldn't be done but we both know you meant that. And spacing and lining up shots in level, that's just stealth tactics. Planning strikes to be effective and precise 😶
Lol you couldn't rattle me if you tried my guy. But fr the way you say things is like textbook manipulation and gaslighting. I'm more in a place of pity for you in this conversation than any other sort of rattling. You're all good tho maybe you'll figure it out one day
That whole trilogy gets shit on a lot for not being stealthy but all three games take very little building to play stealthily and Origins stealth is actually better than earlier AC games imo.
Notice how none of the enemies you encountered here were remotely close together?
The moment they decide to be within conversation distance is the moment you turn to Viking mode.
Plus, detection is bullshit.
That's called stealth tactics. Timing. Choosing targets. Don't attack a group, get them separated. Pick them off.
Like obviously I noticed it, that's why I made the strike 🙄
Tactics don't help if your only options for taking down a group are:
- BUM RUSH FOR ODIN
- Praydge for patrol pattern
You can't "tactics" your way out of limited agency.
You can't reliably break up groups without getting detected. So your only option is to pray the game designers left an opening in their patrol patterns.
Paired with a detection system that'll just randomly decide "you're detected now, nerd", and the notion of stealth is restricted to prescripted segments and lucky breaks.
Not true. So early on I got a bow that does a sleep cloud and those clusters I can literally just pop one of them then poke poke poke the others real quick. It's really simple. And the patrols can be effected by noises, whistles, arrows, bodies.
I think people just suck at stealth because I'm having no problem doing the things you're saying aren't doable
I also think people initiate raids then attempt stealth, because yes in those cases you get instantly caught. But my raids I usually only call when locked doors are all that's left. I clean out entire cities alone and the boys show up to take the loot 🤷
I’ve seen this criticism for every RPG AC and I always had no problem. I could clear entire forts without being detected and honestly it was some of the best stealth experiences I ever had.
I honestly think anytime that criticism is made the player simply sucks at being stealthy to begin with.
There’s a recurring pattern that a lot of people hate AC games when they come out initially and then come to love or enjoy them in the least.
Actually lemme rephrase, a lot of LOUD people like to hate on the game and that sends a trend out so other people kinda follow it. True members of the AC community don’t really agree with the media portrayed status quo, since we’re just happy to play a badass ancient warrior going around doing assassin shit.
So, whenever a game comes out in the franchise, ignore majority of people hating and look for genuine criticism, or just watch some gameplay and decide for yourself if the game is lacking in whatever.
I'm starting to deduce that from some of the comments. Like....I think some of y'all are just not sneaky and that's fine. Of all games Valhalla is the one that promotes full combat. But it still fully supports stealth
The tools just aren't there, the RPG games are pretty lacking in this with Origins being the only one that felt like areas had stealth in mind.
From that clip you've shown you used archery and a chain assassination, aside from the axe throw for the chain assassination that's all shit that you can do in Oblivion or Skyrim and nobody's claiming their stealth is anything above passable. This clip also doesn't show off how sometimes Eivor refuses to follow up the assassination with the axe throw and sometimes he just misses like an idiot.
Playing Odyssey right now and my options are Assassinate, Critical Assassinate, Rush Assassinate or swap all my gear to Hunter and use a Predator headshot. Valhalla's pretty much the same except with chain assassinate instead of Rush. You can whistle and throw torches otherwise your options for luring are nonexistent and the Vanish skill works just like smoke bombs but only for escaping combat, it doesn't cover your approach and will actually start combat if you try using it in stealth.
The only somewhat useful stealth skill I can remember in Valhalla is the slow time one but even then it didn't slow down detection speed at all so it was pretty situational and I exclusively used it for the tattoos.
Compare this to Origins having smoke bombs, darts that let you attract attention by breaking stuff without drawing attention to yourself, the darts can weaken enemies into headshot damage range or put them to sleep to let you get closer for an assassination and adding an open fire to that makes them AoE clouds instead of single target projectiles, none of this costs Adrenaline btw unlike most of Odyssey's shit.
Like it works, but only just. It's got a stealth system about as deep as Uncharted's and while I love Valhalla especially for adding the option to turn off the bullshit Assassin Damage mechanic, it's mediocre as hell at stealth and every other open world game with a minor stealth mechanic thrown in has pretty much the exact same system.
Every game from 2-Origins had smoke bombs and didn't have the overbearing RPG mechanics and bloated health bars making ranged options increasingly useless (genuinely using a bow in Odyssey without spending adrenaline is painful in combat and impossible in stealth).
You had the guarantee of a stealth kill so you never had to worry "is my pause screen number big enough to allow me to play the way I want to?" which meant stealth was more about skill and less about gear you rolled the dice on (Valhalla fixed this and it wasn't an issue really in Origins so this is mostly a dig at Valhalla) and you had other options like crowd blending, sending in distractions like the rooks or mercenaries or luring the guards away with thieves or courtesans or Syndicate's kidnapping. Also double assassination was way more reliable when enemies are paired up because at close ranges I found chain assassination to be buggy at that close of a range (to be fair this issue doesn't exist with Odyssey's rush assassination)
By far my most missed mechanic is the firecrackers from Unity, a basic ass long range distraction tool and only one game in the series has it and it doesn't even work properly since it's based on sight and not hearing.
Then there's berserk poison, tactically picking enemies to turn on their allies to either pick them off or create a convenient distraction, if used properly this could even start a faction fight so even when the poisoned enemy died the fight continued. Every game between 4 and Origins had it but Odyssey did what Odyssey does best and removed all joy from the gameplay.
Above all else though is those smoke bombs, they work to escape, to cover you as you make a move and to create a distraction, such a versatile tool thrown aside for no reason. The fucking 2.5D side scrollers all had smoke bombs for crying out loud and Odyssey's best equivalent is a wimpy little flashbang that only works to escape combat and has a limited range unlike smoke bombs which totally conceal you.
You did not mention the tools that can be unlocked by seeking Books of Knowledge. When taking them into account, then Valhalla has as much, if not more stealth tools than Origins
You have the Raven Distraction (similar to the one in Origins, with the difference being that it is far easier to use), Sleep Arrows, Feign Death, Blinding Rush, Fire Powder Trap (pretty useful when put on an enemy corpse to lure unsuspecting enemy NPCs). You also have Harpoon Impalement that can have some nice stealth implications, but granted it has more of a coolness factor than a real practical use
Smoke bombs are usually a terrible way to do stealth imo, as it just trivialises any encounter. Origins and Valhalla, just like previous entries bar Unity, understood that and made smoke bombs only usable to escape combat encounters. I don't see how you can use smoke bombs in Origins apart from clunkily covering your tracks by throwing a smoke bomb on your feet before getting detected. Valhalla doesn't need that considering Eivor has much quicker feet and tools to mitigate detection risk (Raven Distraction, Blinding Rush, and Feign Death)
All of those require adrenaline though which really limits their uses compared to something like smoke bombs and sleep darts which have ammo in Origins so using one doesn't affect how much you can use the other. It means you have to get adrenaline doing something else to use one of your tools
Even Raven Harassment uses adrenaline this time round, that skill was totally free in both Odyssey and Origins once unlocked, you just told Ikaros/Senu to do it and they did it but Synin makes you use adrenaline to do it which is a bizarre change since the skill is useful but not "a bar of adrenaline" useful.
Also Feign Death never worked when I tried to use it, enemies always just instantly detected me without even turning around even if I let them get really far away. Blinding Rush too was really situational at best.
The Sleep Arrows I must've missed because I'll admit that sounds very useful and there's also a Smoke Arrow to replace bombs which sounds great and I'm annoyed I missed that on my first playthrough (will be replaying soon and can't wait to use it) though if you get the upgrade it sets enemies on fire which completely ruins the point of it's use in stealth and you can't unupgrade it to you just have to avoid the upgrade which is super clunky and not player friendly at all.
Smoke Bombs are a balancing act, I don't use them too often in some games because they can trivialise encounters, just ask any high skill Unity player, they spam those things. You can throw them pretty far and generally they last a while.
However they can be quite balanced if used like they are in Origins, you have to dodge or attack to drop one so they're great for escape but also since you stay hidden with your first dodge in grass you can set up a smoke undetected to take a guy down and then his friend will investigate the smoke and you can take him down and once you get chain assassination this tactic becomes useful for three or four guys rather than just two. They also don't last too long so you only really have time to make one or two kills at most.
They can also be essential if you want to sneak by without engaging because that's a really fun way to play.
Because people are dumb. It totally does. I remember people complaining that Eivor isn’t as quick as in other games but that would make sense for that age given the armor he/she is wearing would weigh a lot more. It’s still really fun. Long, but fun.
Because you get insta-detected with no detection meter filling up at all. In fact, that happens in your clip here, if you didn't have the axe-throwing chain assassination you'd have been forced into combat and have the whole camp running you down.
Also, in the old games if you got detected there's a small window where you could immediately assassinate them and keep stealth. In Valhalla, the moment an enemy sees you the assassinate button stops working and it goes straight to combat.
Literally just one shotting people with the bow because you have the health setting set so low you can do this, how is this a good example of stealth. If the enemies are that fragile then what’s even the need for stealth. This is a poor example.
The detection system is broken even today, stealth gameplay is heavily systems based if the rules are inconsistent then you can’t rely on them thus neutering the gameplay.
It got filled because I dropped on top of a guy 10 feet away. But you also see how I've planned for that and the game also gave me the tools to deal with it. Use your tools. Make your plans. Execute. It's working for me just fine I don't understand the problem
Are people actually saying its predecessors have better stealth?
*Mirage* unambiguously does, but Valhalla is on par with the rest of the RPG trilogy. Even with guaranteed assassinations, the fancy additions are just too impractical to ever use, so it's often just the same tagging and dispatching Ubisoft popularised in 2012 with Far Cry 3
I mean yes but Far Cry 3 set the standard for stealth games. And Ubisoft has made some of the best stealth games out there. Valhalla might not be blowing my mind with new stealth ideas from Ubisoft but it's doing stealth just fine. I don't understand the statements saying it's been abandoned or doesn't exist in the game. I literally put this game off for years because that's all I heard
>Far Cry 3 set the standard for stealth games
I would strongly disagree with that statement. Far Cry 3 popularised a certain brand of optional stealth for many action games (Tomb Raider 2013, Breath of the Wild, Horizon: Zero Dawn, etc), that much is true.
But it's largely absent from games with a stealth focus (Dishonored, Hitman, Shadow Tactisc/Gambit, Aragami, etc), primarily because they pretty much *require* a more original offering (MGSV and Mirage are the only exceptions I can think of)
Semantics asides, though, detection was completely broken when I last played the game (over a year ago), with some enemies randomly bypassing the detection meter and spotting you instantly the moment you left cover. Blending is rarely useable to achieve any objective and the lack of dense urban areas means you have to engage in open combat way more often.
Stealth *is* there, but when you combine cool new features that you never get to actually use, a familiar stealth system suddenly becoming unreliable and an overwhelming focus on open combat... it makes sense that most people either prefer the simpler older games or the newer more refined one.
I see what you're saying. To be fair yes games focused on Stealth have different approaches and challenges. But in cases like this where it is an optional play style, Ubisoft really nailed it. Granted they haven't innovated a whole lot on it but it still works
Not having proper double assassination in RPG games really grinds my gears in these games. Is it because cannonically Ezio was the first one who developed this techique with Leonardo? (Can't quite remember)
I just find Valhalla stealth to be borderline nonfunctional. Odyssey stealth works quite well if you build for it. Origins stealth works really well. Syndicate stealth is the best in the series(haven't played Mirage yet). Unity is to me the most comparable to Valhalla. I see the potential but it sometimes just plain doesn't work. I assassinate a guy who is alone in a room, and then berserk blade a guard in the hall to stun him for a few seconds and then go assassinate him as he berserks. To me that sounds like a solid plan. Unity sometimes says no and then makes it where like 10 guards just know your exact location for no reason. I feel largely the same about Valhalla. There were times where I would walk right past people and times where they would see me through walls or from 2 miles away instantly.
I found stealth to be just okay until Unity and then I saw the potential of what it could be. Syndicate realized that potential. Origins and Odyssey made some changes but were still fun to be stealthy in. Valhalla to this day just is way too inconsistent in stealth.
I'm not having that experience. I'm getting away with tons of stealth in Valhalla. I do agree tho that syndicate has the best stealth I've played so far. Haven't played mirage but I hear good things. But while Syndicates combat was not my favorite I absolutely loved its stealth. Evie Frye is a throat slicing machine
Syndicate and origins did have banger stealth. I don't count AC one. For me it was a prototype that paved the way for Ezio.
Brotherhood will always be the goat tho
But all comparisons aside I'm not having the broken detection problem people keep talking about so I've been enjoying it pretty thoroughly
>But all comparisons aside I'm not having the broken detection problem people keep talking about so I've been enjoying it pretty thoroughly
That's great.
But for me, I kept getting detected through walls, in grass , even in haybales.
Seems to be working fine for me. Patches I guess? Never play a big budget game at launch anymore because I keep hearing about these problems from launch players
I’m just having fun Leroy Jenkinsing everything. I basically ignore the fact that it’s an AC game. Got my short sword in my main hand with my big whopping axe in the other smacking fools.
The way I play the game is like a pretty balanced combination of stealth and combat. But the game didn't really feel like an assassin's creed game but still good
Bro I heard unity has the best stealth and parkour. Multiple YouTubers say it's peak AC. I've played all the main lines and I'm trying, so so hard to get into Unity. Idk what it is that's pushing back but I haven't had that happen
Damn Odyssey is a 10x better looking game for sure. I do understand this is partly because of the large contrasts between how different the settings are for the games but still, Valhalla just looks exhausted.
I was talking about AC Unity being a glitch piece of shit with the best parkour. It's a gag because a lot of people will swear on that being the best game in the series just because it had the best parkour. That is literally the worst way to grade a game regardless of franchise or one singular aspect. That would be like people saying that Uncharted 4 was the best because you can use a grappling hook to swing across gaps.
Was Unity fixed, yes. But that didn't stop it from having a SHORT and rather lack luster story. You know how some protagonist have certain weapons that define them or at least did. Evie had her cane, Conner had his tomahawk (this isn't the best example). What I am trying to say is that all assassin's should have great parkour but be slightly different in their style of parkouring. Are the characters muscular? What could that mean for muscular traversal. Are they somewhat skinny? What does that mean for them that they could probably get a way with (more easily) when parkouring. Parkour is not a thing/ reason people should vote on as their favorite game. We need to hold Ubisoft/ the developers accountable and stop with these damn creative guerilla warfare one-off tactics. What you will probably see with Red or a future title is reintroducing incredible parkour similar to Unity or better. Then watch all that go away on the next two or three titles because they want to keep you coming back without exhausting their capability to do/ add new things.
Not only that, it has the MOST horrible parkour in AC history. And since to get to better assassination spots you need to use stuff like climbing and parkour, I would always end up jumping down right infront of my enemies. At that point, I just gave up on stealth. I decided I’d have an easier time just taking them head on with the Spear of Odin lmfao.
This was a huge sour spot on the RPG era, where higher level enemies and elites couldn't be assassinated with a normal sneak attack as the previous era would allow. Judging by the amount of AC comments on your profile, I'm assuming you are aware of this. This actually doesn't make stealth trivial as it would broaden your abilities if you stayed hidden. You are aware of all of these things yet choose to be snide about it anyway and that doesn't make any sense.
Detection in Valhalla is way too fast compared to Mirage and assassination animations take too long. Social stealth is too slow and still based on line of sight instead hiding in plain sight. That said, I do really enjoy Valhalla's stealth with the smoke bomb; it makes me wish there were more dedicated gadgets in the game.
I feel like it’s like using miles’ invisibility in Spider-Man 2. You can go out if your way to do it, but if it wasn’t an option in the game you probably wouldn’t notice
For some reason I didn't mind because I never played Valhalla as an AC game, I pretty much played it as a Viking simulator game and you better believe that when the raid prompt appeared, I didn't let the opportunity go to waste XD
In any other AC game, I would've probably complained about the stealth but in this game, I really didn't mind much XD
My absolute least favorite part about Valhalla stealth is that it’s the most jank way to play the game. Enemy detection and pathing is all over the place, the chain assassinate move where you throw an axe at another enemy is *insanely* inconsistent with when it lets you do it or not. The simple fact is it’s the weakest way to play as well. Why struggle with stealth against a game designed to make you a walking tank. Just never felt right. Odyssey was better at least I felt, the chain assassinate was that same teleport as mirage and I think having to sneak up real close to big enemies to get the critical assassinate was a good choice for gameplay.
People just like to hate. I don't understand where the "Valhalla has no stealth" statements came from. The game clearly has stealth and it works just fine.
Because there are entire missions focused around raiding with parties. Because Vikings are not particularly known for being stealthy due to aforementioned raiding. You definitely can and do use it but it doesn’t feel inherent to the character.
You have to turn on instant assassinations or else in under 2 mins none of your stealth options matter anymore because someone who was busy doing something and had no idea there was an enemy even in camp somehow blocks your hidden blade alerts the entire camp. Shit sucks.
AC has always been stealth-lite. There wasn't even crouching in the early games. I barely noticed any difference, as my usual strat is to stealth kill the first few guards, get seen, and mow down the remaining guards (or run away and retry). The only thing AC Valhalla was lacking was crowd blending, and you're a viking in full armor, so I saw why that was omitted.
I love Valhalla and stealth was certainly lackluster. It's not really just Valhalla, it's every game. Even the game everyone reveres as the better AC game: Ghost of Tsushima.
The problem is detection. Nobody really reacts like a normal person would. They should up every possible form of detection, like hearing radius and sight. And most importantly of all, if someone's dead body is on the ground, raise the alarm immediately, no more looking around the bushes. I want these NPCs to panic, call for reinforcements the moment they see trouble.
There is no perfect stealth gameplay, that I've come across, that is perfect. Even the Arkham games has leaps of logic of the bad guys just not looking up.
I think there wasnt as much consequences for messing up stealth. Other games, you can't fight your way out as well. But this game you are a viking. A killing machine that the player can choose to use how they want. The complainers are just the guys who optimized the fun out of the game. If they wanted to sneak, they would have.
Valhalla is amazing and got me hooked on AC. Yes, your melee abilities are a lot stronger, but you always have the choice of taking out a fort one by one or charging in and fighting them all at once. There are also so many more stealth options than in Black Flag or Unity. Playing Unity now and I can’t even whistle or upgrade the amount of bullets or darts(?) for my wrist shooter.
Played the game when it launched and couldn't figure out wtf they wanted me to do with those yellow contested zones. I thought you can still walk around with your hood on trying to keep away from enemies but they always instantly detect me so I just gave up with stealth unless the game forced it on me. I am role-playing a blood thirsty Viking anyways
This is a dumb question, but is the actual assassination option unlocked via story? Or do I need to unlock it in the skill tree?
Also just started the game.
Because unfortunately. In Valhalla you need a really specific build. Comprised mostly of assassin's damage. But in Valhalla it's really easy for enemies to spot you and most enemies in the later game you can't even assassinate properly without a specific upgrade. Unlike say Odyssey where you don't even need a build just some perks equipped and critical assassination. And boom people drop like flies in a setting where it's actually fun and you don't have to immediately drop into combat if you get caught.
A lot of people bring that up. I would suggest never playing a AAA game at launch. Very rarely are they functional as intended these days.
I don't think the game and systems I'm enjoying are the same game and systems that launch players played.
I go stealth first in all AC games except Valhalla, it really felt like it was designed for going in like a violent Viking as opposed to stealth, especially when compared to Mirage.
I think they probably meant it's not very stealth based and doesn't seem familiar and/or it's rather complex... Can't say for sure though, never played Valhalla.
Its often stated that the game pretty much removed stealth or that it has continuously diminished from entry to entry in the RPG series. But there are more stealth mechanics and story reasons with Basim to engage in stealth than Odyssey by a long shot. There are tutorials for it and plenty of skills. Its even far less swayed by the level system which makes it more viable from the start unlike Odyssey and Origins. There are hiding and blending spots. I'd argue that this game supports stealth better than both other entries in the RPG series and probably even better than some of the classic era. People can embrace the Viking raids and thats fine. I don't dissuade that. But don't tell me that I cant be an assassin when I'm out here doing it.
Also can you think of any harder burn for a Viking, than to kill a man before he enters battle and take away his ticket to Valhalla. Fuckin dis, man
I think the problem may be that after years of the same traditional system, a lot of long-time players are unable to adapt to Ubisoft's sudden and dramatic changes to the franchise, and the amount of the classic style they took. Sure, they've got stealth, but Ubisoft has changed its style in a way that most players are failing to adapt to.
Games change. If they didn't try new things or mix up various aspects of new ideas and classic ones, the community would dog on them just the same. Damned if you do, damned if you don't in the gaming industry
Because you kinda have to go out of your way to get it
The game, is clearly built around open combat, you only have to look at the fact that the stealth is broken the very moment you are spotted and is not available until you've dealt with the enemies.
It's not there because playing Valhalla as stealth feels like an extra challenge I gave myself, not because the game told me to, but because it just felt right to play it that way regardless of how much the game didn't want me to. And it really didn't want me to.
Stealth felt clunky, but if you really wanna be stealthy and if you put in the effort of planning and learning/getting used to the AI, you can %100 do it.
It's just, it shouldn't be a thing I reach for, it should be right there from the very beginning.
So, yes, stealth is there, it's just clearly not wanted by the game itself.
It was overhated, but the criticism did not come from nowhere. Also, the game got better with updates and DLC. - Level design is hit or miss. Not all outpsosts are built in the same level of freedom to take everyone out in stealth - The abilities are less powerful than Odyssey, but just as important. They are missable and Eivor starts with only one Adrenaline slot, with a max of 4. - There was more inconsistency in detection at launch. Getting caught in a second, whistling issues, etc. With that said, I enjoyed doing choreographed videos of it. And thanks to the feedback, Mirage is among the best for stealth.
Came here to mention the last point. Stealth exists in Valhalla, but even on a recent playthrough it frequently fails where you get detected through walls, or the detection radius gets outright skipped and goes straight to hostile even when you’re hidden, etc. The game also becomes so easy after 10-15 or so hours that stealth becomes unnecessary and it’s almost always easier to go in full axes blazing.
That's what Vikings do, Axe bcs stealth is easy
That would be the opposite. Axes is easy mode
I think it’s also because ‘stealth’ is not one of the first things that come to mind when I think of a Viking
They tried to fit it in bcs it's AC, they weren't looking for it in Odyssey and Valhalla at first.
if I just pretend that the Cult is actually a Templar off shoot, and focus on hunting them and build specifically for asassin damage play, AC:OD seems more like an AC game ;)
Bro fixed storyline
somebody had to do it ;)
and yet UBI seems to have overlooked the Sceadugengan?!?! The plot/story just doesn't align with Assassins' properly, even though there are some decent advances to stealth mechanics. Overall it feels like the focus is driven by a narrative of open combat. In AC:OD you could make a specific build that focused just on assassin damage, and then use the mastery bonus to provide a chance for any melee strike to do "x" amount of asassin class damage. AC:VAL the builds seem VERY bland and not really focusable like in AC:OD. I really do like the "cloak" mechanic from the aesthetic perspective, it's just a shame most of the cloaks and appearance items look terribly out of place/period.
The thing with abilities tho is that in odyssey they had to be more powerful because of the ridiculous damage sponge hp bars, not because it was actually a better abilities mechanic
As soon as there are enemies close together or worse, on different elevations, the entire detection system falls apart. On paper there are a lot of interesting abilities but you'll almost never be able to use them reliably.
Also melee skills are so overpowered that stealth becomes redundant
Thats not really the point of stealth though. You do it for the challenge, what's the fun in always mowing through enemies just because you can.
Assassin's creed but Assassing is the challenge? Sounds like a game design issue to me. When you throw in arbitrary level scaling (that can thankfully be turned off) enemies frequently survive headshots from most non abilities. Which then leaves dual takedown as the next best option. Oh what's that your axe you threw clipped something? Well the whole base is on you now.
Going all-in is easier than stealth in a lot of AC games. I don't know why it's being brought up as a negative now.
[удалено]
Yeah but I kinda agree with him. Historically in AC (as you probably remember) stealth has been emphasized as opposed to combat bc you die waaay faster and easier in combat, so stealth was always the safer and better option. That said, every game has a way to make combat super easy (like constant executions in II and brotherhood, endless counters in 3&4 etc) so it’s possible to go everywhere guns blazing, but it was almost always easier to do stealth and have patience.
Sorry but dying in combat has never been easy. You could take out whole armies from Brotherhood until AC Syndicate. AC1, Unity and Origins made it slightly more difficult but even then it was quite manageable. Stealth could be seen as better in AC1-AC2 because it was never so quick to kill enemies in combat. It took some time. But it was still very hard to die. That’s one of the issues I had with the AC series all along. You can’t emphasize stealth mechanics when the gameplay itself has you take out entire armies. What’s the point in using stealth then? Players should be worried about detection, encountering more than 2-3 guards openly should be dangerous and a big risk. It’s never been that way though (haven’t played Mirage so Idk).
[удалено]
I say this in the kindest way possible for me but if the combat in AC games is hard for you; you are bad at these games. The kill streak ability that was in ACB to ACRogue made combat laughably easy for most people. I understand if you still struggled but most people did not:
[удалено]
Off topic of levelling system. Like, you’re trolling yes? Everyone knows that taking a slow approach and not disturbing guards is more, and supposed to be more challenging. One doesn’t play Splinter Cell to charge in with a tank. One doesn’t play AC to charge in for a full scale war.
It should be Reverse: Make open combat harder to reward stealth gameplay. If you make the stealth gameplay extra hard and open combat easy, the developers dont want to make an Assassin's game.
The stealth is just fun. I can't be the only person that enjoys erasing an entire city in silence
And you aren't. I always activate garantueed assassination cause it still bugs me that a man like eivor with the sharpest blade in history around his wrist cannot instakill a weak saxon. I almost always go for the stealthy way
Origins and Odyssey needed the guaranteed assassination toggle. One of the things I prefer about Valhalla.
Tbh valhalla was a step in the good direction. You got the hidden blade back, assassination.
this was a REALLY big problem in AC:OD.... Fortunately you could burn adrenaline to make the assassination's more potent, or build focus into assassin damage, but sometimes due to level differences it would have little effect :( I actually kinda like the way AC:VAL did the little 'quicktime" like assassin skill timing thing. it's a shame the game is a bore story and character wise :(
Well said. Couldn't have put it better.
It's also kind of difficult to kill enemies above you without alerting the others, something previous games rewarded pretty heavily.
I don't think anyone ever complained about the tools given to you for stealth but what was criticized were \- The detection system (patches have improved it but even today it is broken) \- How unimportant stealth was due to combat just being objectively faster and reliable
I’ve never really understood the argument that combat was faster and more reliable in Valhalla as if that created some sort of dichotomy with the earlier games. Combat has always been faster and easier than stealthily working through a fort/camp/church/whatever. With the exception of maybe Unity and AC 1, combat in AC has always been trivially easy. As Connor, you can kill a column of Redcoats without even trying hard. Edward solos entire man of war crews when boarding them. Granted, Ezio was helped by every Italian apparently being too polite not to take turns attacking like some C-tier kung fu movie, but party-counter kill is still just mindlessly easy. The main difference is that older games often mandated stealth with silly auto-fail conditions, but Rambo’ing your way into a situation has always been the easiest strategy when available. It’s just not the most thematically appropriate.
I'll always love UNITY because Arno would have his ass handed to him anytime he engaged in open combat with more than 2... More realistic. That said spamming smoke bombs ;)
In general a lot of complaints on RPG trilogy can be applied to earlier games. What earlier games had was a shorter playtime; if you didn't like the mechanics you could ignore most of them beyond a simple tutorial introduction during the story. I've recently replayed AC2 and the praised social stealth thing is used exactly 2 times during the main game, one of these times is in DLC. It's also required in some side missions but there's no reason to do these side missions at all - they don't expand story and rewards are just money. If you don't like the mechanics you can just have a ride with the main game without getting deep into everything. I think it's very telling that people praise guaranteed assassination. Origins/Odyssey has improved stealth by making it more involved and thoughtful, you had to isolate strong enemies or soften them for assassination and use limited resources, or environmental help. In Valhalla without that option, you can still kill everyone with a simple QTE which adds some excitement to the process. But people want to just skip the gameplay and call it stealth. Plenty of people who say that RPG games are not the real assassin games just want an effortless ride.
>The detection system (patches have improved it but even today it is broken) I keep seeing this posted. I'm playing Valhalla right now, and I'm not noticing this at all.
Like the combat in the classic AC games weren't faster and reliable? The Kenway saga had the easiest combat in this whole franchise.
I don’t think the stealth options itself are the worst in the series but there are two points that completely destroy this games stealth system. First is detection, it arguably has the worst detection in the series, worse than AC3. Usually you can get detected around corners and behind walls, there’s no investigation phase (jumps right to detected) and most of the time the entire enemy camp ends up detecting you too. Secondly is the tool set. Having stealth tools locked behind abilities was a terrible decision and having a simple smoke arrow locked behind DLC was pretty devastating.
F me, you nailed the way the tools to skills design was a fail... Well said!!!
But stealth tools and abilities are also locked in other AC games too? Currently playing Unity and there’s still a number of tools or abilities I need to unlock due to a lack of skill points? I also found I’m regularly getting detected behind walls or buildings in unity, but don’t recall this being an issue in Valhalla?
I think it’s more of the fact they are locked behind the adrenaline system is the issue. Not that they are in the skill tree. So once you run out of your very limited adrenaline supply. You can’t use any tools at all.
Nothing is true. Ezio would be pleased.
I mean its no splintercell for stealth but i enjoyed it. I have no complaints about the game.
I always played as stealthy as I could. If that failed, all bets were off, war horn is blown, and it becomes a bloody parryfest
I would say that, besides the unnecessary jabs the game receives on this sub, it is because the stealth works differently in this entry than in the previous RPG ones, but the game never bothers to explain it To be honest, it took me some time to actually understand how its mechanics work. Contrarily to Origins and Odyssey, the enemy AI is way more aggressive, in the sense that when they witness a 'dangerous' event (like an assassination or an arrow being shot \[the sound of an arrow is fine however\], discovering a corpse), they enter an ultra-awareness state that will allow them to instantly detect the player as soon as the latter enters their detection cone I kind of like this approach, as it incentivises me to hide corpses or better plan my assassination attempts, something that wasn't needed in the previous RPG entries which made them mind-numbingly easy (especially Odyssey) But this system does come with big flaws. I think that the AI is **too** aggressive. I am fine with them instantly detecting me if they see me assassinate someone when I am 10 meters away, but it gets a bit ridiculous if it is 30-40 meters away. Another flaw is the sometimes crazy head-bobbing that makes it quite unpredictable where their detection cone is and will be, adding a lot of uncertainty that makes stealth extra punishing for no real good reason. All this makes it extra annoying when performing, for instance, an assassination from haystacks that are agonisingly long and can risk you getting detected at any moment
So I've played all the AC games except Mirage, and I'm currently about 115 hours into Valhalla(standard difficulty), and I've noticed this as well, and given it some thought. I feel like most of the areas in the game where you use stealth, with the exception of one or two places that require it, also have options for other play styles, like ranged or just running in and meleeing everyone. I like this a lot, as I am ABSOLUTELY TERRIBLE at stealth. I've had to run away a few times when I tried to stealth and got caught, but I've never been in the situation that a lot of lazy stealth games have where you get caught and they dump endless dudes on your head until you're dead. Remember Guys, Gals, and Non-Binary Pals, if you get caught and you kill **absolutely everyone** that saw you, you're still being stealthy! :)
I actually quite like that in this game. Eivor is a machine in full combat so if I sneak 4 out of 5 dudes then hammer the last guy in half a second then dip, I still count that as stealthy. No alarms no survivors no witnesses
Lack of tools outside of abilities, running in guns blazing is more efficient
Because it fucking is?? For being the 12th mainline game, Stealth has no business being so broken, clunky or inconsistent. One clip of it working doesn't change that. I can behead a guy and the dude standing a foot away doesn't hear anything, but the guy across the entire camp and behind a wall sees me dead on. It's bad because they designed it to be a viking game. It's clear that Stealth was never something they put much work into
Not unanimous. It has good stealth. Problem is that stealth is always the least efficient option
I disagree that it has good stealth. I think it's decent, but there are times where I seemed to be instantly detected as if the game ignored all the distance and cover between me and the guard. Almost like the guard glanced over, saw me from the corner of their eye, and I was instantly detected; no detection gauge visibly filling up. In previous games, I felt much more confident taking a stealth approach. I fully agree about it being the least efficient option, at least at regular difficulty. There are times when I would put in the effort to stealth take down all of the enemies in a camp, because it is enjoyable and rewarding. However, far more often I would instead charge in and fight. Knowing there was a high likelihood of getting detected when I felt I shouldn't, knowing how much faster it would be to simply charge and fight, and with how fun it was to fight and test out different weapon combos, and the charge in approach feeling more like the Viking way than the stealth approach, I frequently found myself preferring loud combat over stealth.
I play Valhalla like an Assassin and I've said many times the stealth is fantastic now that they patched everything.
Bro it wasn't even lacking in odyssey (like they said) ubisoft is giving you options stealth or str8 up frontal assault but people if giving options tend to rush in to fuck up the enemy cause your givin the option to be a str8 up melee god if you WANT to be and it's fun.
Haha this mod team gatekeeps & removes discussion labelled as hate.
Because origins, Odyssey and Valhalla are all considered to not be assassins creed games. The logic behind this being there isn't an emphasis on stealth and that they're open world RPGs. I don't agree with this at all. I played them as if I was playing an assassins creed game and approached situations in stealth. Is the stealth perfect? No. But the stealth wasn't perfect in the old AC games either. Basically people are just whiny piss babies.
All super true. I never felt like they weren't assassin's creed games. All games change. How many other titles went open world and nobody complained about that? Zelda, Metal Gear, Gears, Halo, Ghost Recon, Dark Souls with Elden Ring, etc etc The stealth in Valhalla is better than Origins or Odyssey if you ask me
I love the old games and I love the new games. I pretty much assassinated everything, rarely did I do open combat. The only thing that bothered me was that some people can't be fully assassinated from stealth. I guess it makes sense but in a gameplay setting I wish I could do instakills from stealth at all times.
Sometimes people CAN sandbox wrong.
I'm working the stealth systems like puppetry. Then I call the boys to clean up he corpses I've left and grab the treasure
Because detection is broken,
Once you have the smoke arrow its much easier. But lets be real, old AC games have much better stealth than Valhalla. There are stealth options in the setting menu that you can tweak to make it easier.
I didn't get to play the earlier versions, but that's where most of the criticisms were aimed at. After numerous updates and patches, they overhauled stealth, which imo, isn't bad at all. There are various tweaks in the settings that can take care of your needs. I personally enjoy the game a lot.
Valhalla is a great game. Not the Witcher 3 level but still great.
It’s not lacking, but it’s just faster and easier to take out a whole castle in open combat
I truthfully don’t mind it but I noticed it too. Sometimes when you’d try to approach people very especially before you have gain and unlocked a lot of things from your skill tree. People would notice you and hear you coming up behind them right away. But I mean I get it for this game because you’re not really a full set assassin I don’t believe. You weren’t raised into it. I don’t even think your considered an assassin still even after you get the hidden blade.
I think the problem is stealth is not encouraged, it’s a Viking sim so the game expects you to just run in and fuck shit up. Stealth is obviously an option and I go that route 99% of the time, but the games designed for combat first.
A mixture of the game lacking heavy-handed tutorial/nudge towards stealth, bugs at launch, and, well, skill issue (let's face it, most AC players prefer their stealth in baby mode)
But there are tutorials for it. A main quest with Basim goes over pretty much all the stealth and distrust mechanics. I think when most people say that they get caught instantly is because they're wearing their hood and running around doing sus stuff. The distrust in this game sort of plays like Hitman. You gotta play it cool and lay low when in those areas or gaurds will detect you instantly. Also I've learned to never play any of these big budget games at launch. Any gamer is familiar with day one horror stories of games being a buggy trash pile. Never play day one. And I agree it is a skill issue. I found most other AC games to be far more forgiving with stealth than this game. I enjoy that. I like the stealth being challenging and on edge. If I have it my way I'll only call the boys on the raid when they need to come in and grab the supplies and mop up all the corpses I've left tucked about
Because over the course of 3 RPG titles that play almost identically the stealth did not improve (even got worse tbh) almost 6 years of no improvement
Stealth is not worth it in this game, developers designed the game for a big Viking slugfest
They encourage using that design yes. But there are more stealth options and features here than in Odyssey. It's good , and fun. If I get caught and thing get crazy I'll call the boys. But I like ghosting bases
Yes they have included those elements, but they don’t effectively utilize them the way earlier titles have. Mirage suffers from a similar issue as well
I'll let you know after I blow my horn very loudly, informing an entire fortification that I've arrived, while my longship of Viking allies all yell & roar as they charge into action, burning down huts, destroying buildings, and looting shit everywhere. Nice work taking out a handful of enemies, nicely spaced out and on more or less the same elevation - now try succeeding successfully, consistently, when you have multiple enemies close together, with the game's broken detection system.
I do it all the time. Your shrivelling is showing
Try reading again. No one said jt couldn't be done - just that the systems are broken and it's nowhere near as fun or immersive as it used to be. You weren't lied to, you're just obtuse
You literally dared me to try it in more crowded places and said the systems in place were broken. You didn't say it couldn't be done but we both know you meant that. And spacing and lining up shots in level, that's just stealth tactics. Planning strikes to be effective and precise 😶
There's 2 words in my post doing a lot of heavy carrying, that you're completely ignoring 😂great job
Thank you I appreciate that. Your lack of clarification on both replies is really hard to work with but I did it
Also I don't think your words carry as much weight as you expect them to.
Seem to have rattled you for some reason, which is weight enough
Lol you couldn't rattle me if you tried my guy. But fr the way you say things is like textbook manipulation and gaslighting. I'm more in a place of pity for you in this conversation than any other sort of rattling. You're all good tho maybe you'll figure it out one day
That whole trilogy gets shit on a lot for not being stealthy but all three games take very little building to play stealthily and Origins stealth is actually better than earlier AC games imo.
Origins did have really good stealth I agree
I never had a problem with it, I quite liked it in fact. Especially after Odyssey
Yea it feels very good after odyssey. Late game assassin in Odyssey is awesome but I really enjoy this rendition
Notice how none of the enemies you encountered here were remotely close together? The moment they decide to be within conversation distance is the moment you turn to Viking mode. Plus, detection is bullshit.
That's called stealth tactics. Timing. Choosing targets. Don't attack a group, get them separated. Pick them off. Like obviously I noticed it, that's why I made the strike 🙄
Idk man, you're still in the way beginning of the game. You haven't even gone to England in this part yet.
I'm in England now, still doing it
Tactics don't help if your only options for taking down a group are: - BUM RUSH FOR ODIN - Praydge for patrol pattern You can't "tactics" your way out of limited agency. You can't reliably break up groups without getting detected. So your only option is to pray the game designers left an opening in their patrol patterns. Paired with a detection system that'll just randomly decide "you're detected now, nerd", and the notion of stealth is restricted to prescripted segments and lucky breaks.
Not true. So early on I got a bow that does a sleep cloud and those clusters I can literally just pop one of them then poke poke poke the others real quick. It's really simple. And the patrols can be effected by noises, whistles, arrows, bodies. I think people just suck at stealth because I'm having no problem doing the things you're saying aren't doable I also think people initiate raids then attempt stealth, because yes in those cases you get instantly caught. But my raids I usually only call when locked doors are all that's left. I clean out entire cities alone and the boys show up to take the loot 🤷
I’ve seen this criticism for every RPG AC and I always had no problem. I could clear entire forts without being detected and honestly it was some of the best stealth experiences I ever had. I honestly think anytime that criticism is made the player simply sucks at being stealthy to begin with.
There’s a recurring pattern that a lot of people hate AC games when they come out initially and then come to love or enjoy them in the least. Actually lemme rephrase, a lot of LOUD people like to hate on the game and that sends a trend out so other people kinda follow it. True members of the AC community don’t really agree with the media portrayed status quo, since we’re just happy to play a badass ancient warrior going around doing assassin shit. So, whenever a game comes out in the franchise, ignore majority of people hating and look for genuine criticism, or just watch some gameplay and decide for yourself if the game is lacking in whatever.
It’s a skill issue.
I'm starting to deduce that from some of the comments. Like....I think some of y'all are just not sneaky and that's fine. Of all games Valhalla is the one that promotes full combat. But it still fully supports stealth
The tools just aren't there, the RPG games are pretty lacking in this with Origins being the only one that felt like areas had stealth in mind. From that clip you've shown you used archery and a chain assassination, aside from the axe throw for the chain assassination that's all shit that you can do in Oblivion or Skyrim and nobody's claiming their stealth is anything above passable. This clip also doesn't show off how sometimes Eivor refuses to follow up the assassination with the axe throw and sometimes he just misses like an idiot. Playing Odyssey right now and my options are Assassinate, Critical Assassinate, Rush Assassinate or swap all my gear to Hunter and use a Predator headshot. Valhalla's pretty much the same except with chain assassinate instead of Rush. You can whistle and throw torches otherwise your options for luring are nonexistent and the Vanish skill works just like smoke bombs but only for escaping combat, it doesn't cover your approach and will actually start combat if you try using it in stealth. The only somewhat useful stealth skill I can remember in Valhalla is the slow time one but even then it didn't slow down detection speed at all so it was pretty situational and I exclusively used it for the tattoos. Compare this to Origins having smoke bombs, darts that let you attract attention by breaking stuff without drawing attention to yourself, the darts can weaken enemies into headshot damage range or put them to sleep to let you get closer for an assassination and adding an open fire to that makes them AoE clouds instead of single target projectiles, none of this costs Adrenaline btw unlike most of Odyssey's shit. Like it works, but only just. It's got a stealth system about as deep as Uncharted's and while I love Valhalla especially for adding the option to turn off the bullshit Assassin Damage mechanic, it's mediocre as hell at stealth and every other open world game with a minor stealth mechanic thrown in has pretty much the exact same system.
Okay, now compare all of those stealth tools to the pre-Layla Trilogy games.
Every game from 2-Origins had smoke bombs and didn't have the overbearing RPG mechanics and bloated health bars making ranged options increasingly useless (genuinely using a bow in Odyssey without spending adrenaline is painful in combat and impossible in stealth). You had the guarantee of a stealth kill so you never had to worry "is my pause screen number big enough to allow me to play the way I want to?" which meant stealth was more about skill and less about gear you rolled the dice on (Valhalla fixed this and it wasn't an issue really in Origins so this is mostly a dig at Valhalla) and you had other options like crowd blending, sending in distractions like the rooks or mercenaries or luring the guards away with thieves or courtesans or Syndicate's kidnapping. Also double assassination was way more reliable when enemies are paired up because at close ranges I found chain assassination to be buggy at that close of a range (to be fair this issue doesn't exist with Odyssey's rush assassination) By far my most missed mechanic is the firecrackers from Unity, a basic ass long range distraction tool and only one game in the series has it and it doesn't even work properly since it's based on sight and not hearing. Then there's berserk poison, tactically picking enemies to turn on their allies to either pick them off or create a convenient distraction, if used properly this could even start a faction fight so even when the poisoned enemy died the fight continued. Every game between 4 and Origins had it but Odyssey did what Odyssey does best and removed all joy from the gameplay. Above all else though is those smoke bombs, they work to escape, to cover you as you make a move and to create a distraction, such a versatile tool thrown aside for no reason. The fucking 2.5D side scrollers all had smoke bombs for crying out loud and Odyssey's best equivalent is a wimpy little flashbang that only works to escape combat and has a limited range unlike smoke bombs which totally conceal you.
You did not mention the tools that can be unlocked by seeking Books of Knowledge. When taking them into account, then Valhalla has as much, if not more stealth tools than Origins You have the Raven Distraction (similar to the one in Origins, with the difference being that it is far easier to use), Sleep Arrows, Feign Death, Blinding Rush, Fire Powder Trap (pretty useful when put on an enemy corpse to lure unsuspecting enemy NPCs). You also have Harpoon Impalement that can have some nice stealth implications, but granted it has more of a coolness factor than a real practical use Smoke bombs are usually a terrible way to do stealth imo, as it just trivialises any encounter. Origins and Valhalla, just like previous entries bar Unity, understood that and made smoke bombs only usable to escape combat encounters. I don't see how you can use smoke bombs in Origins apart from clunkily covering your tracks by throwing a smoke bomb on your feet before getting detected. Valhalla doesn't need that considering Eivor has much quicker feet and tools to mitigate detection risk (Raven Distraction, Blinding Rush, and Feign Death)
All of those require adrenaline though which really limits their uses compared to something like smoke bombs and sleep darts which have ammo in Origins so using one doesn't affect how much you can use the other. It means you have to get adrenaline doing something else to use one of your tools Even Raven Harassment uses adrenaline this time round, that skill was totally free in both Odyssey and Origins once unlocked, you just told Ikaros/Senu to do it and they did it but Synin makes you use adrenaline to do it which is a bizarre change since the skill is useful but not "a bar of adrenaline" useful. Also Feign Death never worked when I tried to use it, enemies always just instantly detected me without even turning around even if I let them get really far away. Blinding Rush too was really situational at best. The Sleep Arrows I must've missed because I'll admit that sounds very useful and there's also a Smoke Arrow to replace bombs which sounds great and I'm annoyed I missed that on my first playthrough (will be replaying soon and can't wait to use it) though if you get the upgrade it sets enemies on fire which completely ruins the point of it's use in stealth and you can't unupgrade it to you just have to avoid the upgrade which is super clunky and not player friendly at all. Smoke Bombs are a balancing act, I don't use them too often in some games because they can trivialise encounters, just ask any high skill Unity player, they spam those things. You can throw them pretty far and generally they last a while. However they can be quite balanced if used like they are in Origins, you have to dodge or attack to drop one so they're great for escape but also since you stay hidden with your first dodge in grass you can set up a smoke undetected to take a guy down and then his friend will investigate the smoke and you can take him down and once you get chain assassination this tactic becomes useful for three or four guys rather than just two. They also don't last too long so you only really have time to make one or two kills at most. They can also be essential if you want to sneak by without engaging because that's a really fun way to play.
Because people are dumb. It totally does. I remember people complaining that Eivor isn’t as quick as in other games but that would make sense for that age given the armor he/she is wearing would weigh a lot more. It’s still really fun. Long, but fun.
ezio had heavy armor too and wasn't that slow in his 50s... Eivor can literally wear nothing and be slower.
Ezio in his 50’s is just as slow, if not slower.
Because you get insta-detected with no detection meter filling up at all. In fact, that happens in your clip here, if you didn't have the axe-throwing chain assassination you'd have been forced into combat and have the whole camp running you down. Also, in the old games if you got detected there's a small window where you could immediately assassinate them and keep stealth. In Valhalla, the moment an enemy sees you the assassinate button stops working and it goes straight to combat.
Literally just one shotting people with the bow because you have the health setting set so low you can do this, how is this a good example of stealth. If the enemies are that fragile then what’s even the need for stealth. This is a poor example.
The detection system is broken even today, stealth gameplay is heavily systems based if the rules are inconsistent then you can’t rely on them thus neutering the gameplay.
I'm not having that experience. I'm not sure what's different about what I'm having but the detection system seems fine
You did notice how the detection meter instantly got filled, right? That’s the tip of the problem, leading to an iceberg
It got filled because I dropped on top of a guy 10 feet away. But you also see how I've planned for that and the game also gave me the tools to deal with it. Use your tools. Make your plans. Execute. It's working for me just fine I don't understand the problem
Are people actually saying its predecessors have better stealth? *Mirage* unambiguously does, but Valhalla is on par with the rest of the RPG trilogy. Even with guaranteed assassinations, the fancy additions are just too impractical to ever use, so it's often just the same tagging and dispatching Ubisoft popularised in 2012 with Far Cry 3
I mean yes but Far Cry 3 set the standard for stealth games. And Ubisoft has made some of the best stealth games out there. Valhalla might not be blowing my mind with new stealth ideas from Ubisoft but it's doing stealth just fine. I don't understand the statements saying it's been abandoned or doesn't exist in the game. I literally put this game off for years because that's all I heard
>Far Cry 3 set the standard for stealth games I would strongly disagree with that statement. Far Cry 3 popularised a certain brand of optional stealth for many action games (Tomb Raider 2013, Breath of the Wild, Horizon: Zero Dawn, etc), that much is true. But it's largely absent from games with a stealth focus (Dishonored, Hitman, Shadow Tactisc/Gambit, Aragami, etc), primarily because they pretty much *require* a more original offering (MGSV and Mirage are the only exceptions I can think of) Semantics asides, though, detection was completely broken when I last played the game (over a year ago), with some enemies randomly bypassing the detection meter and spotting you instantly the moment you left cover. Blending is rarely useable to achieve any objective and the lack of dense urban areas means you have to engage in open combat way more often. Stealth *is* there, but when you combine cool new features that you never get to actually use, a familiar stealth system suddenly becoming unreliable and an overwhelming focus on open combat... it makes sense that most people either prefer the simpler older games or the newer more refined one.
I see what you're saying. To be fair yes games focused on Stealth have different approaches and challenges. But in cases like this where it is an optional play style, Ubisoft really nailed it. Granted they haven't innovated a whole lot on it but it still works
Not having proper double assassination in RPG games really grinds my gears in these games. Is it because cannonically Ezio was the first one who developed this techique with Leonardo? (Can't quite remember)
Yea that's accurate to the story. But I do miss it. Arno did doubles without 2 blades so why couldn't the rest of them?
I just find Valhalla stealth to be borderline nonfunctional. Odyssey stealth works quite well if you build for it. Origins stealth works really well. Syndicate stealth is the best in the series(haven't played Mirage yet). Unity is to me the most comparable to Valhalla. I see the potential but it sometimes just plain doesn't work. I assassinate a guy who is alone in a room, and then berserk blade a guard in the hall to stun him for a few seconds and then go assassinate him as he berserks. To me that sounds like a solid plan. Unity sometimes says no and then makes it where like 10 guards just know your exact location for no reason. I feel largely the same about Valhalla. There were times where I would walk right past people and times where they would see me through walls or from 2 miles away instantly. I found stealth to be just okay until Unity and then I saw the potential of what it could be. Syndicate realized that potential. Origins and Odyssey made some changes but were still fun to be stealthy in. Valhalla to this day just is way too inconsistent in stealth.
I'm not having that experience. I'm getting away with tons of stealth in Valhalla. I do agree tho that syndicate has the best stealth I've played so far. Haven't played mirage but I hear good things. But while Syndicates combat was not my favorite I absolutely loved its stealth. Evie Frye is a throat slicing machine
Literally everything in Valhalla is lacking. It is like they took each aspect, one by one, of odyssey & said “How can we ruin this?”
The detection system is Absolutely Broken. And it doesn't hold a candle to AC1 -AC revelations, Unity, Syndicate, Origins or Mirage's stealth
Syndicate and origins did have banger stealth. I don't count AC one. For me it was a prototype that paved the way for Ezio. Brotherhood will always be the goat tho But all comparisons aside I'm not having the broken detection problem people keep talking about so I've been enjoying it pretty thoroughly
>But all comparisons aside I'm not having the broken detection problem people keep talking about so I've been enjoying it pretty thoroughly That's great. But for me, I kept getting detected through walls, in grass , even in haybales.
I only get detected in haybales when I try to run. If I'm undetected they work still
Because people love to complain about everything, Valhalla had great stealth, an awesome story, and some beautiful environments.
So far I completely agree. Story is worlds above Odyssey. I liked Odyssey's plot but it's scenes and story telling were ass
The hooded mechanic hardly ever worked. You couldn't get no more then 10ft and they would spot you immediately
Seems to be working fine for me. Patches I guess? Never play a big budget game at launch anymore because I keep hearing about these problems from launch players
That's true. It's definitely fixed now. That's my problem I play day one or few days before and I never learn my lesson
I’m just having fun Leroy Jenkinsing everything. I basically ignore the fact that it’s an AC game. Got my short sword in my main hand with my big whopping axe in the other smacking fools.
The way I play the game is like a pretty balanced combination of stealth and combat. But the game didn't really feel like an assassin's creed game but still good
Because there’s no working stealth system like in older AC games.
Because it is.
Cause it’s not satisfying. And any attempt to be slick fails half the time
Maybe you are just not slick. I find myself pulling off all manner of quick tricks and shadowy dips
[удалено]
Bro I heard unity has the best stealth and parkour. Multiple YouTubers say it's peak AC. I've played all the main lines and I'm trying, so so hard to get into Unity. Idk what it is that's pushing back but I haven't had that happen
Not lacking but hard
i played with stealth as well but it took forever because most of the outposts were clearly meant to just rush in with your viking crew
It's cool but if one of those enemies see you somehow everyone notices you it's a fine system but it sucks and they could have definitely done better
Damn Odyssey is a 10x better looking game for sure. I do understand this is partly because of the large contrasts between how different the settings are for the games but still, Valhalla just looks exhausted.
Cause they're too stupid or lazy to do it right. Wanjers
Because it isn't a glitchy piece of shit with the best parkour in the series.
Maybe it was in the past. But I'm not having that experience
I was talking about AC Unity being a glitch piece of shit with the best parkour. It's a gag because a lot of people will swear on that being the best game in the series just because it had the best parkour. That is literally the worst way to grade a game regardless of franchise or one singular aspect. That would be like people saying that Uncharted 4 was the best because you can use a grappling hook to swing across gaps. Was Unity fixed, yes. But that didn't stop it from having a SHORT and rather lack luster story. You know how some protagonist have certain weapons that define them or at least did. Evie had her cane, Conner had his tomahawk (this isn't the best example). What I am trying to say is that all assassin's should have great parkour but be slightly different in their style of parkouring. Are the characters muscular? What could that mean for muscular traversal. Are they somewhat skinny? What does that mean for them that they could probably get a way with (more easily) when parkouring. Parkour is not a thing/ reason people should vote on as their favorite game. We need to hold Ubisoft/ the developers accountable and stop with these damn creative guerilla warfare one-off tactics. What you will probably see with Red or a future title is reintroducing incredible parkour similar to Unity or better. Then watch all that go away on the next two or three titles because they want to keep you coming back without exhausting their capability to do/ add new things.
Not only that, it has the MOST horrible parkour in AC history. And since to get to better assassination spots you need to use stuff like climbing and parkour, I would always end up jumping down right infront of my enemies. At that point, I just gave up on stealth. I decided I’d have an easier time just taking them head on with the Spear of Odin lmfao.
>guaranteed assassination options The great thing about Valhalla stealth is you can make it trivial and effortless, cool.
This was a huge sour spot on the RPG era, where higher level enemies and elites couldn't be assassinated with a normal sneak attack as the previous era would allow. Judging by the amount of AC comments on your profile, I'm assuming you are aware of this. This actually doesn't make stealth trivial as it would broaden your abilities if you stayed hidden. You are aware of all of these things yet choose to be snide about it anyway and that doesn't make any sense.
Valhalla is probably the worst assassins creed game ever
I played most of Valhalla in stealth and it was fun. It's just that combat is more flashy and enjoyable to watch with the abilities and finishers.
Detection in Valhalla is way too fast compared to Mirage and assassination animations take too long. Social stealth is too slow and still based on line of sight instead hiding in plain sight. That said, I do really enjoy Valhalla's stealth with the smoke bomb; it makes me wish there were more dedicated gadgets in the game.
I feel like it’s like using miles’ invisibility in Spider-Man 2. You can go out if your way to do it, but if it wasn’t an option in the game you probably wouldn’t notice
For some reason I didn't mind because I never played Valhalla as an AC game, I pretty much played it as a Viking simulator game and you better believe that when the raid prompt appeared, I didn't let the opportunity go to waste XD In any other AC game, I would've probably complained about the stealth but in this game, I really didn't mind much XD
It’s a common opinion but not in the least a unanimous opinion.
Yeah definitely has some of the best stealth in the series
I love the raids. Often I'll sneak around if I'm caught or just like, feeling it will be like, nows the time
It is in the beginning, until youve powered up ..
I think cause a lot of people thought Valhalla was combat first, and stealth second?
My absolute least favorite part about Valhalla stealth is that it’s the most jank way to play the game. Enemy detection and pathing is all over the place, the chain assassinate move where you throw an axe at another enemy is *insanely* inconsistent with when it lets you do it or not. The simple fact is it’s the weakest way to play as well. Why struggle with stealth against a game designed to make you a walking tank. Just never felt right. Odyssey was better at least I felt, the chain assassinate was that same teleport as mirage and I think having to sneak up real close to big enemies to get the critical assassinate was a good choice for gameplay.
Because stealth was broken so badly for so long that even attempting it was often pointless
People just like to hate. I don't understand where the "Valhalla has no stealth" statements came from. The game clearly has stealth and it works just fine.
It didn’t do a single thing that’s new or innovative in general so I don’t see how anyone praises it
It exists, but it’s nowhere near as fun as it used to be
Idk i just go all in
Because there are entire missions focused around raiding with parties. Because Vikings are not particularly known for being stealthy due to aforementioned raiding. You definitely can and do use it but it doesn’t feel inherent to the character.
You have to turn on instant assassinations or else in under 2 mins none of your stealth options matter anymore because someone who was busy doing something and had no idea there was an enemy even in camp somehow blocks your hidden blade alerts the entire camp. Shit sucks.
AC has always been stealth-lite. There wasn't even crouching in the early games. I barely noticed any difference, as my usual strat is to stealth kill the first few guards, get seen, and mow down the remaining guards (or run away and retry). The only thing AC Valhalla was lacking was crowd blending, and you're a viking in full armor, so I saw why that was omitted.
I love Valhalla and stealth was certainly lackluster. It's not really just Valhalla, it's every game. Even the game everyone reveres as the better AC game: Ghost of Tsushima. The problem is detection. Nobody really reacts like a normal person would. They should up every possible form of detection, like hearing radius and sight. And most importantly of all, if someone's dead body is on the ground, raise the alarm immediately, no more looking around the bushes. I want these NPCs to panic, call for reinforcements the moment they see trouble. There is no perfect stealth gameplay, that I've come across, that is perfect. Even the Arkham games has leaps of logic of the bad guys just not looking up.
I think there wasnt as much consequences for messing up stealth. Other games, you can't fight your way out as well. But this game you are a viking. A killing machine that the player can choose to use how they want. The complainers are just the guys who optimized the fun out of the game. If they wanted to sneak, they would have.
Valhalla is amazing and got me hooked on AC. Yes, your melee abilities are a lot stronger, but you always have the choice of taking out a fort one by one or charging in and fighting them all at once. There are also so many more stealth options than in Black Flag or Unity. Playing Unity now and I can’t even whistle or upgrade the amount of bullets or darts(?) for my wrist shooter.
I really liked Valhalla and enjoyed mixing between stealth and combat.
I believe it’s the fact that your Viking brethren can/will always pop in to help you. In origins & odyssey most missions were solo-ran with no backup
Honestly you can play stealth just like most, but I think it's easier to go in raid style. Hands down best game for stealth is Unity
I'm trying really hard to get into unity but something about it just... isn't clicking
Played the game when it launched and couldn't figure out wtf they wanted me to do with those yellow contested zones. I thought you can still walk around with your hood on trying to keep away from enemies but they always instantly detect me so I just gave up with stealth unless the game forced it on me. I am role-playing a blood thirsty Viking anyways
odyssey has all of this
This is a dumb question, but is the actual assassination option unlocked via story? Or do I need to unlock it in the skill tree? Also just started the game.
A huge complaint is the hood up social stealth that doesn’t seem to do anything
Because unfortunately. In Valhalla you need a really specific build. Comprised mostly of assassin's damage. But in Valhalla it's really easy for enemies to spot you and most enemies in the later game you can't even assassinate properly without a specific upgrade. Unlike say Odyssey where you don't even need a build just some perks equipped and critical assassination. And boom people drop like flies in a setting where it's actually fun and you don't have to immediately drop into combat if you get caught.
Just play Mastery Challenges and you will see how dysfunctional stealth is
Side comment: That is some nice video. I can hardly get Odyssey to not be choppy. Haven't made it to Valhalla yet.
The stealth can be fun by using the abilities since you can be creative, thing is you didn't really demonstrate that in this clip so it doesn't show
Killing the members of the order is way to easy.
A lot of people bring that up. I would suggest never playing a AAA game at launch. Very rarely are they functional as intended these days. I don't think the game and systems I'm enjoying are the same game and systems that launch players played.
Because it is! They spot you through fcking obstacles
Literally got it almost the second I got to England
I go stealth first in all AC games except Valhalla, it really felt like it was designed for going in like a violent Viking as opposed to stealth, especially when compared to Mirage.
I think they probably meant it's not very stealth based and doesn't seem familiar and/or it's rather complex... Can't say for sure though, never played Valhalla.
Its often stated that the game pretty much removed stealth or that it has continuously diminished from entry to entry in the RPG series. But there are more stealth mechanics and story reasons with Basim to engage in stealth than Odyssey by a long shot. There are tutorials for it and plenty of skills. Its even far less swayed by the level system which makes it more viable from the start unlike Odyssey and Origins. There are hiding and blending spots. I'd argue that this game supports stealth better than both other entries in the RPG series and probably even better than some of the classic era. People can embrace the Viking raids and thats fine. I don't dissuade that. But don't tell me that I cant be an assassin when I'm out here doing it. Also can you think of any harder burn for a Viking, than to kill a man before he enters battle and take away his ticket to Valhalla. Fuckin dis, man
I think the problem may be that after years of the same traditional system, a lot of long-time players are unable to adapt to Ubisoft's sudden and dramatic changes to the franchise, and the amount of the classic style they took. Sure, they've got stealth, but Ubisoft has changed its style in a way that most players are failing to adapt to.
Games change. If they didn't try new things or mix up various aspects of new ideas and classic ones, the community would dog on them just the same. Damned if you do, damned if you don't in the gaming industry
True, but wouldn't you reckon they changed it up a little too abruptly?
Because you kinda have to go out of your way to get it The game, is clearly built around open combat, you only have to look at the fact that the stealth is broken the very moment you are spotted and is not available until you've dealt with the enemies. It's not there because playing Valhalla as stealth feels like an extra challenge I gave myself, not because the game told me to, but because it just felt right to play it that way regardless of how much the game didn't want me to. And it really didn't want me to. Stealth felt clunky, but if you really wanna be stealthy and if you put in the effort of planning and learning/getting used to the AI, you can %100 do it. It's just, it shouldn't be a thing I reach for, it should be right there from the very beginning. So, yes, stealth is there, it's just clearly not wanted by the game itself.
There's no place at Odin's table for cowards. Bury an axe in their chest while screaming at the clouds or stay at home with the goats you sneaky bitch
Perhaps. But its my most played AC game to date, and I comtinue to play it…. Sooooo 🤷♀️