I posted this on gaf because I don't think anyone here even cares about AC3 anymore, but I'll put it here as well. Played like 3 hours last night, game was still shit. Will speedrun the rest of the main story and then I'm done with AC.
Assassin's Creed 3
Being a big fan of the Assassin's Creed series, and having played all the games in it, even to 100% completion or near it, like many others I was really hyped for AC3 being the big "7 years in development", all new engine, final epic end to the trilogy.
Then it came out, was kind of broken, boring and unfun and so I dropped it halfway.
Months go by and I'm trying to clear my active backlog (aka, games I was pretty far into so I might as well finish them) and I go back and play like 3 hours just speed running the main story last night. Did Sequence 7-9.
And while I've read numerous discussions about how bad AC3 is and seen first hand what an unfun experience it is. Doing so many main missions in a row (before I'd do a mission or two and then all the new side missions that open, repeat. 20 hours in and I was still barely anywhere in the plotline), last night gave a really clear view on the #1 problem with AC3's game design (and why I'm worried about AC4 and Watchdogs and any future Ubisoft game design): Constant barrage of negative player feedback.
Almost every single main mission has a bunch of "optional" objectives. These are listed constantly in your screen corner as your play the game. Now most of the time the game gives you little idea of how to these objectives (sometimes even the main objective is vague), no easy way to retry them when you fail them, and combined with glitchy controls that fight against you, broken stealth and random AI, on your first play through a mission you're constantly missing the optional objectives. For which the game then keeps FLASHING IN BAD EVIL RED Xs that "look, you screwed up! Look you, screwed up again!" all throughout the mission overlaying your screen while you're trying to enjoy the game.
As if being spotted and having that "you've been spotted noise/flash" and going "damn, I was trying to play this stealthy" and then you end up standing in a circle crowd doing counters for 2 mins until everyone's dead and you are drawn out of the stealth experience completely isn't bad enough, you're constantly getting these red messages telling you how much you suck and are failing.
It'd also be one thing if it was just the game being challenging or having some glitchy controls (brotherhood sorta fit in there with some of the optional stuff), at least that's less frustrating. But AC3 has the worst player messaging I've ever seen in a game. It drops you in missions half the time and tells you to do something but gives you no idea on how you are supposed to do it. But this isn't a "good! games need less hand-holding!" thing like Zelda 1 where you should explore and figure it out yourself.
The problem is that AC3 is an extremely linear scripted corridor experience but it doesn't tell you the rules or the corridor boundaries half the time. So you have to use trial & error blindly with the odds against you to fail your main mission objective or the optional objectives.
Yes, on a 2nd playthrough of the game. Or maybe if you're using a guide and you know exactly what the fail/success triggers are, it could be an enjoyable experience. But the first time through the story is just blindly failing over and over against with the game constantly giving the player negative feedback that they suck, are doing the missions wrong and are missing completion percentages.
My theory on how AC3 was designed was that this was done on purpose to make players replay a vast majority of the game missions more than once to add "replay value" and "LOOK HOW MANY HOURS OF CONTENT IS IN OUR GAME", at the expense of making the first run (and for most people, the only run) through the game an extremely negative experience.
Also it'd be good at this point to differentiate between negative player feedback and just difficult "you die" games. Games that are jerk-ish and constantly kill you like Super Meat Boy or Hotline Miami are different from AC3 because yes, you mess up a lot and those games tell you "YOU'RE DEAD" (or just flash for a second), but then they throw you back in the game almost instantly giving you another try, and then another, and you get to use these endless opportunities to learn the levels, improve your skills and get through it and then bam, satisfaction for accomplishing that. AC3 on the other hand, just keeps flashing your screen "YOU SUCK" and letting you keep going (unless you want to restart the entire mission 10 checkpoints back again while you sit through unskippable scripted events or speeches one after another) and then at the end marks you down for what a shitty player you are. Difficulty -> Accomplishment vs. Just telling you how bad you are and letting you progress feeling like you're screwing everything up. Fun vs. not fun. AC3 is, not fun.
And yeah, I make no claims that I'm the greatest gamer, nor do I believe I'm the worst. But AC3's mission design and player messaging seem like the first time through, without any guides, the only people who would truly understand what they are supposed to be doing to "play the game correctly" and hit all the objectives, are going to be the developers themselves and the people demo-ing their games at events and for youtube videos. A good example last night was after a cutscene the game throws you into a battle and says "OPTIONAL OBJECTIVE: ESCAPE BY SWAN DIVE", well, since I'm on land and not say the rooftops (oh and don't even get me started how the AC series has continually punished the players for being on rooftops as the games go on with guards setting alerts when you do, yet the games were originally meant to be rooftop runners wtf), I'm like "ok, where can I dive from?" because looking around there aren't any ledges with birds or anything that signals a swan dive area. But I am on a cliff with a lake below so I figure I can just swan dive off it. Nope, turns out there's a beach before the water so I break my neck and die and restart at the fight. Next time I try getting some high ground, climb some trees to find a swan dive spot, then the game says "YOU HAVE ESCAPED; MISSION OVER; ESCAPE BY SWAN DIVE [X] FAILED" and now my only choice is to replay a 15 minute mission full of cutscenes and events just to try to get back to that swan dive objective and have another try to figure out what the hell I'm supposed to be doing to find a swan dive spot somewhere.
Looking back and thinking about it, if the game just gave you an option to "never see the optional objectives" and just gave you a sandbox area, a main mission "follow this guy!" or "assassinate this guy!" and let you be free to do it on your own, however you like and not have flashing red signs that you're failing stuff along the way...it'd be a much better game imo (basically it'd be like AC2; the best game in the series). The constant negative feedback imposed by the game just makes the player feel frustrated and unhappy and thus not having fun and AC3 ends up being a chore and a not fun game.
In my ideal world I'd like to hope game designers would avoid making these mistakes in the future to design a game around negative player feedback, because at the end of the day, it just makes for a game no one enjoys playing.
