AC Odyssey tips, hints and impressions

Tips? Tips.

Meditation and eagle are unlocked since the start. The game doesn't tell you, but:
M (hold) - to meditate and switch day/night (stealth during night is easier)
V - to play as the eagle (hold right mouse to find lootboxes nearby)

Lootables detection is now a skill. Do me a favor and unlock it on first level up (hold V to use it afterwards). This means basically, do the first main quest and grab the skill before taking Drogarati Cafe sidequest, it's full of hidden minerals and stuff.

Near the closest sync point (east from the house you start, Star Observatory) is a chunk of orichalcum ore. You want it. Don't miss it! It's not the only one on the starting island.

In the middle of the island is an unmarked lake. There are 4 (yes four!) chests inside it. Use eagle to mark em all before looting!

You can dismantle all equipment you don't use. And you get items for crafting that way. Basically, that'll be all normal and rares once you get better ones. Don't destroy epic stuff! Unless you have two of those…

Animals are easier to (catch and) kill while mounted. Once you get one (in the first main quest), hold X to call your horse and then nail all those goats and whatnot that outruns you.

The game is actually tempting me to install UPlay on my machine.

joxer said:

You can dismantle all equipment you don't use. And you get items for crafting that way. Basically, that'll be all normal and rares once you get better ones. Don't destroy epic stuff! Unless you have two of those…

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Have to add something here.
Upgrades (both equipment and ship) cost both craftables and money. Except from quests, you get $ by selling items to vendors (on the starting area you can drown excess items at blacksmith). Which means try not to dismantle everything at least earlygame. Some of it, sell for cash. Eventually it'll come down to dismantling normal items, sell rare and epic ones (those you don't want to keep).
However, don't upgrade equipment earlygame if possible. Except perhaps a weapon that seems awsome. Upgrading equipment to your level is super expensive so just use the recent higher level loot even if it's of lower quality.

At blacksmith there is something else you can do, add an additional effect on equipment. In Origins the best effect equipment could have was - lifesteal. Seems it's not possible to have it here or it's some lategame unlock, so my suggestion is to forget about the whole thing unless you're planning to play on nightmare difficulty.

Are their difficulty settings? Can't remember if I asked and if someone answered ... or I will just find out on Friday.

wolfgrimdark said:

Are their difficulty settings? Can't remember if I asked and if someone answered … or I will just find out on Friday.

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They have in AC Origins so I don't see why they won't have one in Odyssey.

The biggest annoyance I have heard about Odyssey is level scaling which was not present in Origins. Mobs could never be 2 levels below you.

In Origins, each area had level range and I prefer this system.

There are 4 difficulty settings:
- easy
- normal
- hard
- some mode noone plays, only jdr and dartagnan care about

If this is your first AC game I suggest starting on easy (you may change it at any time).


Trashmobs levelscale, yes. There is no option to disable that. So far doesn't seem horrible in my game, I mean you still outlevel some, but I'm not sure what happens later in the game.

Uggh, perhaps this is not needed to write but I feel a need to clear something.

I thought Evie is a freebie "gold" lieutenant unlock for everyone, now I see it's not so:
https://www.pcgamesn.com/assassins-creed-odyssey/assassins-creed-odyssey-evie-frye

Evie is unlocked via the Ubisoft Club, and she’s free – but you’ll need to have played a whole lot of Assassin’s Creed to get her. You’ll need to acquire the Master Assassin badge, which requires you to have 7,500 XP from across the series. Experience is earned through Uplay’s built-in achievement system – so if you’ve played previous games, the XP has accumulated automatically.

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Because I've played almost all possible AC games I had this badge, but I know for some Odyssey will be a first AC game and Evie will be not possible to grab which could sound like a crippled start as she's a legendary lieutenant.
Just as equipment, lieutenants can be common, rare, epic and legendary. You of course want legendaries as they have best skills.

Worry not! Already in the second area you'll be able to get at least 4 legendary lieutenants. In my case possibilities were 3 mercenaries and 1 spartan captain. As I played for Sparta I didn't grab their captain (doesn't mean I won't return for him later), but recruited 2 mercs. Sadly wasn't careful with the third merc and he died of his own poison. Well, choices&consequences didn't want to reload.

Why I say at least 4? Because if you're naughty and commit too many crimes, mercenaries will start chasing you and most of them are legendary lieutenant material. Even if you refuse sidejob assassinations of spies and politicians, or sinking ships, or looting chests in front of civillians - because of main story and some sidequests goals you can't avoid bounties on your head. And you shouldn't! Not only because mercenaries make a nice ship crew. More mercenaries you dispose of (by killing or recruiting) more benefits you get from the world (cheaper store prices, cheaper upgrades, etc).
One more thing. Mercenaries don't respawn nor are new generated with some silly roguelike mechanics or outdated design. There is a finite number of them. Can you abuse the system, do wrongs and recruit them all immediately? No. Some are close level to yours, but you'll spot some of level 30+ passing by, checking the job boards and doing their own chores.

EDIT:
Pic:

Does this game include 200 ft towers and piles of hay to jump into?

I don't remember seeing towers in ancient Greece ruins. In real life. So they don't exist in this game either. Piles of hay, just as in reality, do exist in the game.
This game is not Zelda from Nintendo Switch. Your sword won't break after 3 hits nor you'll be playing greek cuisine chef. AC Odyssey is a mix of Sea Dogs, AC Origins, TW3 and MGS5.

However, there are fasttravel points you need to climb in order to activate them. While Origins had plenty of those, Odyssey is not as generous. Only one or two per area. Which means you'll be riding your horse a lot.

Another hint. Two in fact.
1. Hold T on the keyboard to lite torch. The game does tell you this, but still.
2. To switch arrows you'll shoot (but first you need to have them in inventory), from normal to stunning, later to fire and poison, hit G (don't hold). The game does not tell you this.

Note that you can turn normal arrows into fire arrows by just holding them near lit braziers. If brazier is "dead", just come close to it with a torch.
Yea, there are moments this is useful but… No spoilers!

The game unlocks today for regular version so a few more.

About recruiting lieutenants, you need to KO them and not kill if you want them. There is a kick skill to help you do that, but… Sometimes it'll fail if they fall into abyss or something. The solution? Unequip weapon - that way you can't kill anyone.

On the third area with oracle there is a sidequest to kill a certain animal. This animal escaped from Dark Souls - it's a "bulletsponge" and the strategy is dodge, hit a few times, dodge, hit a few, dodge, rince repeat. However, it hits like a train, summons "minions" and you won't be able to dodge everything so before taking on it, improve armor you're using to your level. IMO it's the "hardest" fight in all 3 starting areas, but it's not hard really, there is no strategy there, it's just "hard" because of the beast's tons of health and regeneration ability if you don't hit it for 10 seconds or so.
While very annoyed seeing Dark Souls idiocy, do me favor and kill the boar from hell. Rewards are double - *deleted* (heavy spoilers).

Speaking about legendary equipment, there is a certain cult all over Greece, hostile towards you regardless of faction you want to support. Why is that so you'll learn through the main story, but offing major cultists will net you legendary items one of which is a part of a set that has the lifesteal trait! I'm still not sure if this trait is impossible to engrave on other stuff - there are puzzles when solved unlock different engravements, I've solved 5 so far and no dice on this particular skill.

A bit about ship upgrades. I do suggest not to engage naval battles for a while (unless main quest needs it) as you don't want too many mercs on your trail, but nailing a ship or two here and there is fun. Invest into hull and arrows (arcs) first. Okay? Ignore the rest of upgrades till you max these two which are musthaves - hull levels except better ship's HP allows you to add another lieutenant to active crew while arrows shorten cooldowns and add more "group shots" you need to nail another ship.

Trying to play but Ubisoft servers are getting hammered so my steam version cannot be activated

I got in pretty quick although taking me time to learn the keys, style, etc. as never played a game like this before. Graphics are pretty sweet and like Alexios a lot. Not a fan of the combat at all so put it on easy and going more for the story, exploration, and that stuff.

... and I just returned it for a full refund before my 2 hours were up. Totally not my style of game (run and jump action) but was hoping there would be other elements to help out. But as I was getting more frustrated I did some reading and found out the character is extremely pre-defined and I had hoped they would be more open. So I know I won't enjoy it on most levels other than visuals ... and that isn't enough to hold me.

But there are. Sadly, 2 hours is simply not enough to see and taste everything. I'm over 20 hours in and still didn't find a way to enter the "parallel" world on a certain early island for example. Ah well...

The AC games aren't for everyone. I've never found them compelling, and I dislike the Animus back-story. The gameplay also tends to be very repetitive.

That said, I still plan on giving Odyssey a shot, but not until it's on sale.

We need a new subforum for Cyberpunk and Ubisoft. Let's face it oldtimers, winds of rpgs, are changin' here.

JDR13 said:

The AC games aren't for everyone. I've never found them compelling, and I dislike the Animus back-story. The gameplay also tends to be very repetitive.

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I can't think of open world, or rpg in general, that can't be considered repetitive.
Origins and Odyssey, are quite a bit better than most, on that front: you can see Far Cry influence of open level design, that lets you be more creative/make your own fun.
It's all in how you decide to approach it, young master JDR.

It is also all a matter of taste and opinion young master Bobo.

At the very least what one person finds boring and repetitive another might find entertaining and repetitive.

BoboTheMighty said:

We need a new subforum for Cyberpunk and Ubisoft. Let's face it oldtimers, winds of rpgs, are changin' here.

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They've been doing that for about 40 years now!

BoboTheMighty said:

We need a new subforum for Cyberpunk and Ubisoft. Let's face it oldtimers, winds of rpgs, are changin' here.

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No.

BoboTheMighty said:

I can't think of open world, or rpg in general, that can't be considered repetitive.
Origins and Odyssey, are quite a bit better than most, on that front: you can see Far Cry influence of open level design, that lets you be more creative/make your own fun.
It's all in how you decide to approach it, young master JDR.

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Again - no. FarCry3 was awsome but then Ubi thought let's add more grind, remove story and turned FC4 and FC5 into avoidware. I mean, they did nothing wrong, just listened the silly console owners "gameplay" matters. Sheesh.

wolfgrimdark said:

It is also all a matter of taste and opinion young master Bobo.

At the very least what one person finds boring and repetitive another might find entertaining and repetitive.

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I believe too much of Skyrim took it's toll.
But once I unlock taming animal I'll post tons of screenshots with pet (big) cats and dogs. Not sure can I befriend a bear though…

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A buuuuuuuuuuuug!
If you drop it for too many times, the torch stops workin'. To enable it back, kill something during night that holds a torch (even if it means failing radiant quest) then pick it up by the corpse that was carrying it, and then press T to unequip it (put back in inventory). Seems torches are not unlimited and you can't see how many you have.
Even if you didn't stumble upon this one, to be on a safe side, just pick up any torch from hostiles you can (with E) and stack it in your inventory (with T).
Yea… There are a few reports on this already, but I didn't see anyone finding the solution so you're reading it first here.