My E3 Interview with Damien Kieken (AC3 Multiplayer Director) | Forums

[luckyto]

In some ways, they DO listen to players. But their solutions often create more problems. And seems like they only listen to what they want to hear. I mean, Ambush bonus in a great idea and kudos to them for adding. Upping the smoke cooldown is another great idea that they incorporated.

But by responding to the "stun prompt" issue, they have now created this cascade effect of problems. Ground Finish Priority. Not being able to get rid of bad contracts. Etc. When they should just remove the button altogether and go with something to indicate which player you are aiming at or locking. We are not 7-year olds, we can learn which button does what.

Plus, the mentality of "making it easier for new players" is the same mentality that is taking skill out of the game. It's turning it into COD.....i don't have the heart to go on. Anyways, we will see -

[obliviondoll]

Get rid of bad contracts: at least partly resolved by having the third ability slot as a dedicated ranged ability function.

Ground finish priority: How do we know they even HAVE this in AC3? I hope they don't, and if they do, I hope it has minimum priority and you have to lock the grounded target to kill.

Of course, I also hope they make lock actually work again.

[luckyto]

They said they fixed it in ACR patch. But that game either stuns/kills NPCs you don't mean to or does a ground finish when it's not supposed to ... hell, sometimes it even taunts when you are trying to kill and that's a completely separate button.

Any time in any game when you take player choice out and replace it with artificial decision making... it creates infuriating rage-inducing scenarios. Any game. I've seen it happen to many franchises as they try to stack on abilities and free up buttons and I've seen them screw up their control system over and over and over.

[logarithm64]

The changes they made do look very promising but I can't help but think they're the wrong kind of changes to make. One of my major problems with ACR is that it relies so much on ability wars (see: [offensive] smoke bombs, mute and charge). It looks like they're trying to fight fire with fire, which does actually work but at the end of the day you're still going to be left with fire everywhere. I don't mind ability wars to an extent but when they're the entire focus of the game you lose what makes the cat-and-mouse game fun, i.e. hiding from your pursuers and the occasional chase.

[luckyto]

^This.

You understand what makes the game special even more so than the developers. Or they have sacrificed it on the altar of mainstream acceptability.

[Collinwood01]

Believe me, I love the stealth aspect of the MP but its only one aspect. Some people prefer to run. Some people prefer to roof. Some people prefer to do a little of everything and dont commit to one particular aspect of the MP. In the end they have to create a game that caters to as many people as possible. By not catering to one particular aspect of the game they end up catering to more because they want everyone to try different things and choose whats best for themselves. It just so happens that in ACR everyone, and I mean everyone, figured out really quickly that smoke was by far the best ability. Now that there will be a counter to smoke, I think everyone will now start trying to use something different to get to their targets. im imagining but dont know of course, that this shield will have a weakness in that it will only protect you from head on attacks, so, youll still be vulnerable from behind. Bottom line is that smoke wont be the "Be all end all" anymore. So everyone that says that the devs dont listen to us on the forums, they do. If you want a perfect game made then I think youre gonna have to wait until you get to your own personal heaven. Its not gonna happen down here!

[stingray10]

Unfortunately, i think there is going to be lots of problem, abilities are becoming far too influential, i think i will create a thread about one problem i have.

[CerealAssassin]

Agree with the post above. Hopefully the abilities are balanced and its not an ability war against each other.
In saying that there are some positives from that video thanks alot loomer

[CitizenWar]

Loomer, thanks a lot for the video and thanks for posting it here. It will definitely be a different multiplayer game than ACB or ACR, even though it looks the same. Thanks to Damien Kicken for giving you some time (over 20 minutes, more than he gave Gametrailers ). I like the direction that his team is taking the multiplayer based on this interview. It sounds like AC:R had a short development time and they did a decent job with that time.

More ranged weapons means less hidden gun. Why? Because people will use the other abilities instead.

Like this quote from Damien: "[On roof running, free running] ...but it's also a part of Assassin's Creed... it's not something that is bad... [in certain modes] players can play the way they want and they won't disturb other players." Great response.

Also really nice responses about the stun prompt and the problems that it caused in AC:R. Glad that he knew that it was a big problem and very glad that it is going away!

Great explanation regarding the problems with AC:B and AC:R. AC:B had bugs and AC:R was single player friendly, not team friendly.

"We will do a matchmaking based on playing with friends. ...in this case we will leave you in the same team... we will wait for more players to join... we will really try to keep you in the same team." - YES!!!! The game will try to keep everybody on the same team. Sounds like teams will face teams.

[UrbanSaint]

Thanks for posting the vid. Most of the changes look very promising. As far as abilities are concerned, I think having a dedicated range ability button was necessary just to deter people from constant roofing/running. Also I think if they want to keep the game from turning into who can spam the most abilities, they should get rid of boost cooldown, reset cooldown, and overall cooldown