User blog:Abelzorus Prime/Desires and Fears for Victory

DESIRES: A story of conspiracy and intrigue (and a rapidly-thickening plot hehe). Vic London lends itself perfectly to a story like this.

A story where we care about the characters. I think the best way to do this is just too have a consistent few characters that we're with for the whole game. One of my gripes with Unity is that there are too many characters, and as a result they're underutilised (I'm looking at you Napoleon/Marqui de Sade). When you have so many characters, you end up spending less time with them, which makes them less memorable. I feel this game would have been great if you spent the whole story with Napoleon, Marqui de Sade, Elise and Mirabeau. You'd care more about the characters if you spent the whole story with these guys.

A protagonist who is unique. While Arno was definitely a likeable character, I couldn't help but feel that he is just a shadow of Ezio. He wasn't very unique and as a result is less memorable. Maybe have a protagonist where they're a middle-aged family man (or woman) who is already initiated in the Brotherhood.

Expanded game mechanics on Unity. Unity has good mechanics, but lots of space is left for these to be expanded upon. For Parkour you can add new animations and new manouvres, such as a momentum mechanic and more depth (balancing on those tight ropes would take skill). Combat could include more weapons (revolvers, daggers), more animations and more abilities, such as disarm, stun, double kill, triple kill (would be hard to pull off) etc. Stealth could utilise shadows, you can move/hide bodies, use the grappling hook to silently pull corpses to you etc.

Expand and refine customisation. Unity was great here, but didn't use it's full potential. The skill trees were good, but can easily be expanded on. Give each of the three pillars (combat, stealth, parkour) a fully realised skill tree, similar to that of WoW. They could have 15-20 different options each. Some would be passive, others active. The key thing is all gameplay customisation would come under the skill trees. These would be what differentiates you from others, in addition to weapons. The gear aspect of customisation would be purely visual, so you would choose gear based on what looks the best, not what has the best stats (because those are tied to the skill tree).

The story needs to have more focus in general. I'd rather have no new mechanics and a longer, better story than a regular story with heaps of new gimmicks. Preferably we need at least a 25hr story, maybe 30. Put more effort into the story, and less into side content, such as London stories. This brings me to my next point: Make side content less repetitive, and more varied. Instead of having 50 London Stories (which in Unity I did admittedly find enjoyable), have 5 really interesting story archs (each would have 5 missions and fully realised cutscenes). Have maybe 5 really in depth, long, elaborate murder mysteries. Have 6 really in-depth, good co-op missions. Have maybe 50 collectibles instead of 400 like in Unity. Point is, quality over quantity.

Release the game when it's ready. For me personally, I experienced nearly no bugs in Unity. What I did experience however were some performance issues (PS4) with regards to FPS. Many times I was dipping below 20, which is just straight up not fun. It also tainted Ubisoft's reputation. Unity itself is actually a very good game, and if it didn't have performance issues I believe it would have had a much better reception

No content locked behind external apps. I have seen developers trying to defend this, and their reasons are just stupid. I don't care how they try to implement it, people want to unlock stuff in-game. Forcing people to use initiates, companion app, uplay and club competition is bad enough, but when none of these are working/available, it just comes across as a giant f*ck you to the fans.

Good writing and music. I found Unity's story to be good, but not great. The actual dialogue however I thoroughly enjoyed. The vocabulary, euphemisms, humour etc I love in this franchise, and it continued in Unity. As always, the music in the game was awesome. AC has always had good music, and I hope this continues into the next game.

FEARS: Another young Assassin with a revenge story. Loads of bugs and performance issues. Short, average story Not sure what writer/composer will be used, considering this is being headed by Quebec. Hopefully good ones with some experience on the franchise. My dream is for Jesper Kyd to return, but I doubt very much that will happen (not sure why he stopped in the first place). Post your list below.