I've been playing Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag recently, and I've been having a blast with it. In the game you play as Edward Kenway, a pirate. As pirates go, Kenway is pretty fierce. He's got his own ship, his own crew, and on top of all of that, he's also an Assassin. But he can't do a thing with any of it. It took me roughly two hours of playing the game from when I started anew to get me a ship. It took even longer to discover that I could sail freely with it. Even then, when I finally got out on the open waters, it turns out they weren't all that open. I kept on getting hit with "this area is not available yet". AC IV is not the first game to do this, but it has been one of the more frustrating parts of the game.
First off, AC IV is about pirates; puckish rogues who don't play by the rules and do as they please. The fact that the player has to jump through hoops and follow the rules goes against the very nature of what the game is trying to represent. I had the money and the resources to upgrade my ship so that I could better defend myself on the seas, but couldn't because the game kept telling me that I had to progress further in the story to unlock something. I'm about 14 hours into the game now, and I'm still going through tutorials on how things work.
Granted, since I've discovered that I can go out to sea, I've been taking my time getting around to the main story. When the game takes its sweet time getting around to teaching the player the rules, it feels like an obligation to go through that rigamarole. I want to be a pirate, and I want to do what I want. The game keeps stuff locked away, and forcing players to go through the game. Besides, I'm smart enough to figure things out myself.
For example, there are forts scattered about the over world. These forts control the different areas of the map, and when defeated unlock things in the area (that kind of unlocking is fine. That kind of unlocking is EARNED). I figure that with the armaments on my boat that I'd fire back. Lo and behold, my brilliant plan to blow the ever loving snot out of the forts defenses worked. I docked my ship, ran into the fort, followed the objective markers and completed the fort. I figured it out on my own. Here I am over ten hours into the game and I find a mission that details how forts work. That is bad game design, and poor planning. The game also takes it's time with getting around to the story as well.
The game is content with introducing new characters and bits of intrigue, but still in a very slow fashion. The game is Assassin's Creed, I should be assassinating Temlars and the like. It took seven hours to find out about the Assassin's guild. Now, I like the story of Assassin's Creed. An alternative take on historical events with an interwoven conspiracist theory plot. It's all very exciting, but AC IV doesn't seem to care much about getting the ball rolling. That's about the only aspect of the game that is pirate-like.
I'll admit, though, for all of the maddening tutorials that you have to go through before the game gets going, the game is a lot of fun. All though most of the fun is had with the non essential events. My favorite part of the game is just to sail about and hear my crew sing sea shanties. That honestly contributes to a majority of the time that I spend in the game. To get shanties, the player has to collect song sheets. Played find song sheets on islands and the like, and can find them by wandering around or by synchronizing with viewpoints and then locating them on the map. When you find a song sheet, the thing will fly away like a Will o'the wisp until either caught or it just up and leaves. Song sheets are a sort of tutorial of the free running aspect of the game. I didn't play Assassin's Creed III, I didn't know of all of the different ways to tree parkour, yes that's a thing. By chasing after sea shanty sheets I learned how. That's a good way to teach a player, and it rewards them with a cool prize.
Anyhow, sailing and raiding ships are the best parts of Assassin's Creed IV. There is nothing more swashbuckling than fighting a frigate, disabling its defenses and swinging aboard when your crew has pulled it in close enough. The cool part about raiding ships, is that some will have different objectives, though most are just "kill X amount of enemy crew". That's fun. That's satisfying. Going through long and drawn out tutorials is not.
If we go back a long ways, to a time when there was only 8 bits available, we'll find The Legend of Zelda. The original Zelda game was completely formless. Indeed, there were numbered dungeons, telling the player where they stood. However, The player could go in any order. Even if it was by accident, the player could stumble upon the last dungeon. This, is pure adventure. No tutorial missions, no direction. Just adventure. There are few games that have matched this. Skyrim comes close, but still requires the player to go through a few things before getting to the good stuff. Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag suffers from this in spades.
I feel as though the main draw of the game is the pirating, open seas portion of the game. However, due to the way in which the game is structured, players can't experience this until much later on. I understand that there is a lot of new things that are introduced with each new Assassin's Creed game, however the layout is all wrong. If the game allowed players to tread into the dangerous waters, with enemy craft that is immensely superior to their own, that would be fun. The player would surely die, and have to reload, sure, but! They have learned from that experience. The player would then set out to strengthen their ship, so that they can put up a fight and maybe even beat out those bigger boats. If you want the player to go through with your story, reward them more. The missions in Assassin's Creed IV, hardly reward the player for completing them. With a little bit of cash and nary an unlock, there isn't much of a draw to completing them. Instead, players should be given a huge sum of cash, so that they may upgrade their ship, and take to the seas again. If the player needs to make a quick buck, they can take on the story, and maybe even get hooked on the plot.
Sorry for the super lengthiness of this post. I feel as though it's been a while since I just spilled out over a video game. What do you folks think? How should open world video games be designed? Should their be any structure at all? Did I talk for too long?
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