AC: Odyssey is a full-fledged RPG...cool!

This game is pretty serious stuff but I just bumped into this little quest…
video
If you want to avoid spoilers - just make sure you talk to the guy in the cage on the salt beach of Lokris.

Edit: ARG!! Gorram picture for the video has a massive spoiler!! Switched to a link.
 
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Sheesh, I didn't notice the caption in the video's picture spoils the whole thing. Should'a made my own video of it.

WRT earlier chat about whether this is really an RPG or not, I can't see why it wouldn't be. You've got a whole bunch of skills to pick from, there's quests that have choices in them (I'm not real sure how impactful they are)… what's missing? I guess some folks insist that RPGs can't have any twitch factor in them?

Well, it's a spectrum. If somebody wants to insist that a game has to have every possible element to count as a "true" RPG then I haven't got an ISO standard to throw around - but it only determines whether the game goes in this sub-forum or the General a couple down.
 
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I just HATE the list of things to do at every location. A list of treasure chests to find? How many leaders there are? Why give the player a list to check off? It kills the element of discovery and exploration.
 
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Why hate? All of that is optional and unless a real quest pointed you to do something there, you don't have to do any of it. Ever.
Just like you don't have to do radiant quests and I suggested skipping that trash.
 
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I just HATE the list of things to do at every location. A list of treasure chests to find? How many leaders there are? Why give the player a list to check off? It kills the element of discovery and exploration.
So you know whether or not you're close to finishing the fort (or whatever it is). Sometimes there are other objectives in a fort. When you finish that objective, you need to decide if you want to finish up the fort and get the xp for doing so - the list helps that. Or maybe it's getting late and you need to decide if it's worth finishing off the fort before bed. If you don't like it, just don't hold down the ALT key to see it and don't scan the area with your bird.

To my earlier question about the first DLC: it shows up as a quest sometime in your low 20's, though it would be pretty hard to play it then.

Other tips - take with a small cube of salt…

Break down common equipment that you don't want. You'll need the resources.

Sell the purples, they're a fine source of cash.

For the blues, sell if you think you're short on money but break down otherwise.

Keep the epic yellows. You can put them in your ship's storage.

Wood is a very important resource used to upgrade your ship and weapons. Special arrows cost you quite a bit of wood, too. You can get wood by breaking down weapons, picking small trees, ramming other ships to death, and just flat out buying it from blacksmiths.

Skins get more important once you start getting into upgrading your armor to match your level, which you likely won't want to do much until you get some legendary stuff. Get it off dead animals, breaking down armor, and buying off of blacksmiths.

Gems and obsidian are used for enhancements, which I'm still not doing much of because new weapons/armor are always showing up.

Money is good for buying the occasional weapon/armor piece but, every time I do that, something just as good seems to show up within half an hour anyway. I probably should be saving it to buy more wood and skins.

Orichalcum can buy some special stuff - mostly legendary gear and some cosmetic things. You can find orichalcum by wandering around but those only give you one at a time. Message board quests with orichalcum as a reward are handing me 10 and some of those quests are QUITE easy. Note you probably won't find the store until you finish your first conquest battle.

Speaking of conquests, I'm not seeing much use for these. You can get one piece of good gear for defense and two if you go on offense but going on offense seems to mean you'll be facing another mercenary. Even if you beat the merc, doing so takes up valuable time. Does the overall balance between the two factions matter to us?

The tiny canyon from the movie "300" is in the game. ;)

The Λ in the title screen is actually the symbol used by the Spartans.

Pets: wolves are good for a quick distraction but that's about it. Cats are better. Bears are definitely good to have and can live through multiple battles if you take care of them.
 
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Have to comment that.

Said already don't take Bethesdoid radiant rubbish. You don't need orichalcum, you don't want orichalcum and you should show the middlefinger to Ubisoft (they track that scam's "popularity").

Don't buy weapons from traders. Ever. If you need some (to dismantle or sell), go conquests.

Conquests on foot last cca 5 minutes and all you need to win is the kick skill. Run around till a leader appears, beat him then circle some more till another shows up, rince repeat. I'm saying ignore trashmobs that are not "minibosses". Grind some of these for nice amount of XP and loot - if needed. Don't waste life on repeating it as engravings you can unlock by grinding it to death are not very useful.
Conquests on sea last 785683578935634563 minutes so avoid those like a plague and do only when are a part of main/side quests or are the only way to nail some cult member.

The overall balance of factions matters not to the story. You're a mercenary, you care more for some other stuff and you can't stop the war.
 
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You definitely don't NEED Orichalcum but it's still nice to have. Sometimes you can get fun things and, given that the stuff isn't hard to get, why not? There's no need to actually buy anything. I got a nice looking* set of armor for the club points that were given away, too.

* JUST looking. The actual armor was junk. However, the game lets you change how any piece of armor looks to match any other that you've found before so, once you buy it, you can make whatever armor you're wearing look the same. The feature opens up sometime around when you get off Tutorial Island.

If you don't buy weapons from traders, what do you spend it on? It costs money to upgrade ship/weapon/armor parts but that's never been the limiting factor for me. Paying off lieutenants is crazy cheap. There's that loadout-slot thing that costs to add more slots but I've never felt the slightest need for that (though I might once the levelling starts to slow down). What else?

Conquest defenses can be won just by going after the captains. The attacks, however, always seem to result in some mercenary showing up and chasing after you - making you deal with him/her for several minutes while the rest of your army dies. The captains are still there, though - are you ignoring the merc to attack the captain!?

Some skills are turning out to be nicer than others for me.
  • The taming skill is weak at first, OK at 2nd level, and nice at 3rd - if you can find BoBo… <ahem> if there are bears around to tame.
  • The kick skill is a must. Great for taming, getting lieutenants on your boat, and for kicking big bosses off high walls for an easy victory.
  • Summon lieutenant is harder to use than it should be but, once you pop that Lt out, you can defeat strong opponents quickly.
  • Rain of Arrows isn't good at all. At least on hard difficulty, it barely hurts anyone. (Maybe if I use explosive arrows…)
  • Predator Shot is pretty good. 500% damage combined with double damage for a head shot will kill most grunts instantly.
  • Up near the top of the tree, Overpower Bow Strike is great. *IF* you can get the grunts together… BOOM!
  • Self heal is another must-have.
  • Critical assassinate becomes very handy but probably isn't needed when it first shows up. Eventually the grunts will be able to survive your assassination attempts. That's your queue to get this skill.
  • I never got the spread shot arrow skill. It doesn't do much damage and will only serve to annoy 3 enemies at once, so I can't see the point. Rapid Fire turns your bow into a semi-automatic but the lower damage makes me dubious of that one, too.
 
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fanatical has the gold version for $30 but only for a short period. I guess most readers of this thead probably already own it but seems like a sort of decent price if you want the season pass with base game.
 
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WRT earlier chat about whether this is really an RPG or not, I can't see why it wouldn't be. You've got a whole bunch of skills to pick from, there's quests that have choices in them (I'm not real sure how impactful they are)… what's missing? I guess some folks insist that RPGs can't have any twitch factor in them?

The Choices & Consequences aspect is relatively recent in the history of RPGs. Many classic RPGs didn't had it. A game doesn't need to have choices to be an RPG.

If the game has an XP system with character development, it's an RPG as far as i'm concerned. If it has twitchy gameplay, then it's an Action-RPG. For me it's simple.
 
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With the last DLC approaching, released? Ive started a complete play through.

Doing the first island. Enjoying the story and quests. Wish the game didn’t have diablo style loot though. I much prefer the rare and hard to obtain powerful weapons vs the get a better weapon every few minutes approach.

As with most action rpg’s ( not made by from software) the combat is way too easy, almost broken I’d say. Parry and dodge are way too easy to pull off. Therefore you really don’t ever get hit add the slow down mechanic on a perfectly timed dodge and its just too easy. Playing on nightmare but might just go back to hard as nightmare isn’t anymore difficult it just takes much longer to kill things. It’s still early though and the combat is still fun so i wont condemn the game based on that.

As for “ is it an RPG?” By might definition, of course it is.
 
It isn't that easy for me. It takes a split second after pressing q to get your weapon up to parry but, if it's done too early, it won't work. Dodging actually seems easier. I'm getting killed plenty on Hard.

The last chapter of the last DLC should be out now. I think there's one more of the free "Lost Tales" still to come but there's no way you'll complete the whole game before that shows up. For some reason, there's no sale on Steam but Humble has the game on sale for 60% off. So does Ubi's own store.

BTW, be careful mixing and matching. I've heard tales on the board of people running into trouble if the buy the base game on one store and the season pass from another.

P.S. I really don't understand why I have to be so mean to the Cult of KOS-MOS?? ;)
 
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I didn't have any problems with q or nailing trashmobs in general, then again Odyssey uses idiotic darksouls QTE2.0 combat design so… It's IMO the weakest part of the game. What saves the day is kick, stealth assassinations and explosive AoE arrow skills, sadly these are not at your disposal against certain (mini)bosses where a player is forced to suffer through the dark souls atrocities.

But as usual I don't care about combat as it's supposed to be a tool to reach an actual content, I mean I can't be impressed nor obsessed with a hammer or a saw.

That youtube link… Although I turned it off immediately, can't unsee it. :(
 
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Oh, 'q' works, it just isn't a sure thing. Especially if you get a bunch of nasties around you.

I had a rather unhappy time last night. I got a bear for a pet that was one of those alpha animals. I then went after a marble quarry, which turned out to be a horrible idea. The game doesn't seem to quite get the hugeness of the bear and the fool thing kept falling off cliffs. I must have re-loaded a dozen times. I really should have just looted the skins from it and moved on...
That youtube link… Although I turned it off immediately, can't unsee it. :(
But Joxer, the HAIR! Look at all that great, blue hair!! Plus there's a Xenogears reference.
 
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I'll get back to this at some point. I have to be careful how I spend my money these days, or I'd buy all the DLC crap here.

I really liked this game - and it's the first AC that I didn't actually get sick of within a few hours.

In fact, I think I enjoyed it for something like 50-60 hours until I got distracted.

That's a big deal, considering it's a Ubisoft blueprint game.

They're getting better at it.
 
111 hours and I'm in chapter 7 of 9.

The game just keeps going. I looked up a FAQ and there's over 110 side quests. Plus 11 Lost Tales of Greece quest lines with one more due to show up before the stop development. Hunting cultists (43 of them) can certainly take up time, too.

It has fallen into cliché mode a few times (one of the Tales of Lost Greece has you acting a part in a play - sheesh, when did I first do that in a game? Final Fantasy 7? Was there one in Baldur's Gate?) but it's mostly decent quality.
 
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It's very, very easy to just run away from enemies in this game. You can tag a few guards, run kite them and kill them, then go back for more. Seems like stealth falls apart too easily, for me at least.
 
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Stealth has worked out very nicely for me, for the most part. At the end of the tutorial and in the earliest parts of the main game, enemies have few enough HP that they always die to an assassination strike. Then stealth got tricky for a while after that as some of the guards got enough HP to survive the initial strike but got better again once I got the 'critical assassination' power that let me burn an adrenalin point to do more damage. Getting the make-assassinated-bodies-vanish power (which I think might be something that came with the DLC) made it even better as I no longer had to hide bodies.

It still doesn't work well against small camps, though. Sometimes their patterns will be such that I can get through them but not often. The druid women with all their pets are all but impossible - explosive arrows for that lot.

P.S. It seems that, once a pet is trained, it will never serve a new master. I've tried to take bears from those women a couple of times now but the option just won't appear.
 
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The druid women with all their pets are all but impossible - explosive arrows for that lot.
Make them "yours".
Note that in vanilla, if you picked the "druid master" option, druid camps clearing won't work/complete as one of tasks is to kill someone there. While you can force them hostile, the one you need to kill won't spawn if they're considered allies. I have no idea if they patched this later.
 
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