Outside of having to be stealthy or fail a mission, I don’t recall much that you had to do a certain way to get the 100% in AC2. On the other hand, in Brotherhood, you had to complete the tank mission without getting hit once. That’s just stupid and pointless. Now, no, I didn’t go back and keep trying that mission until I was able to get through it without getting hit once (which, FTR, I was never able to do. I think I got through once getting hit once only at the end, but that’s the closest I got), but the fact that something like that prevented me seeing those bars all at 100% bothered me. Not enough to not appreciate the game, but it bothered the completionist in me.
The mandatory stealth (which the AC games have never handled well IMO) was a big thing that became considerably (though not completely) more optional once they introduced sync percentage. But also stuff like timed sequences. Hated those in the tombs or whatever in AC2, could mostly ignore the timer in the similar sequences in Brotherhood. Huge improvement. I liked the idea, after all, but the controls were too unreliable to do them consistently under time pressure and that made it hugely frustrating.
I mean, I would obviously prefer they either make the controls and mechanics robust and fully supportive of the more complex objectives or stick to what they can pull off to a proper degree of quality, but making the janky bullshit optional is still miles better.
The ‘stealth’ in AC2 was kind of a joke. That became a much bigger PITA is later games. I remember in being quite terrible in AC4. I do remember the timer missions, but either they were timed mechanically (some of the tombs) or were the flag races, and I always thought the timers were fairly generous. Now, the timers for the races were fairly stupid. There’s no ‘realistic’ (so to speak) reason to have to collect things in a given amount of time. But the mechanical ‘timers’ for the tombs actually worked well - and again, were pretty generous.
These ‘optional’ ways to complete the missions were fine in and of themselves - just don’t tie it to 100%. Get extra reward money for it or something. Again, Syndicate and Origins certainly didn’t suffer for the removal of this concept.
I think giving an actual reward would be much worse. As it is, it’s purely a meaningless number going up, completely ignorable unless you have a compulsive need to 100% everything you play. If you got something for it, that’s much more incentive for someone like me to get frustrated trying it. It’s still conceivable that it wouldn’t be worth it (I wasn’t ever going to do 200 pigeons in GTA IV for whatever tiny reward you get from #200), but it’s much harder to skip.
Yeah, I’m on the same wavelength. I’m glad they make it more ignorable.
And I’m also never going to do 200 pigeons in GTA IV, despite loving that game. I did, however, do the 50 jumps in the game, or however many there were. Because finding and implementing the jumps was fun on its own. The scavenger hunts for cars was fun on its own, because I got to explore the city in more detail.
And that’s the problem, and what you don’t seem to get. It’s not a meaningless number to some of us. That you can ignore it is great of you. I end up ignoring it as well, but it bothers the absolute hell out of me. There’s no reason both kinds of gamers can’t be happy.
For example, Origins doesn’t seem to give a crap how you complete a mission. Want to stealth it? Cool. Go in swords swinging? Also cool. Mix it up? Sure. Just complete the objectives however you see fit.
Also, the reward for 200 pigeons in GTA4 was a free gunship on top of one of the buildings.
Right, making dumb or broken objectives optional solves the problem for some people, but the rest of us would prefer they solve the actual problem with the objectives themselves and not just tell us “oh well it’s optional”. And that’s where I’m prone to hyperbole like, “yeah, this entire franchise is optional, so maybe don’t start me thinking in that direction”.
Ahhh, don’t remind me! I’d forgotten that tank mission. I did complete it eventually, but that was probably the worst mission in any AC game I’ve played so far.
Well, sure, so would I, as I’ve said. But they apparently can’t or won’t, so making it completely optional is much better than making it mandatory or “optional” with a game-relevant reward. I’m sorry for those of you who find a percentage going up compelling, but I think you constitute a much smaller percentage of the gaming public than those who would suffer through the same bullshit for an actual reward or in order to complete the game at all.
Why? It’s deeply fulfilling, like watching your gas gauge climb after putting gas in the car, or defragging your hard drive.
A) they did eventually fix the situation. See what I said about Syndicate or Origins.
2) Giving an extra 2% gold, for example, is far better than gimping a percentage. Especially when other side missions even existing are dependent upon your completion percentage.
iii) I’m sorry that you apparently feel the lure of an extra 2% gold in reward is so compelling that you’d feel the need to do all that optional stuff where I wouldn’t. See, it works that way too.
Neither of those things are deeply fulfilling. Also defragging a hard drive? Is this 2008? :D
Good point about varying rewards as an alternative. AC4 actually did this a little bit, the assassin contracts were usually 1000 reales for completion, with a 500 r bonus for being undetected. I liked that!
And thanks for the info on syndicate/origins.
It’s one of the most satisfying things you can do with a computer. All right, second most satisfying thing.
A) Sounds promising, I hope I agree with you in 2032 when I finally get to those games in my tiny fallout shelter in the ruins of the world to come.
B) I disagree. (Although I would consider game content a reward so maybe there is one after all? Ugh.)
C) see above re how I think people generally find finishing a game or in-game rewards more compelling than percentage completion. Not least because most people aren’t going to be able or willing to overall 100% most games so a sync percentage that only affects that is just one potential obstacle in that process.
Some people find finishing a game more compelling that percentage completion. Not everyone. Just because you feel that way doesn’t make you more right. Doesn’t even mean most people agree with you. Not saying they don’t - I don’t know. But our opinion isn’t any less valid than yours.
I’m not saying it is. I am saying that when a developer is making a decision about who to cater to, assuming they can’t please everyone, they are better off catering to the larger part of their playerbase. (At least, for games you purchase once.) And I think the way the optional sync objectives work in these games is doing that.
I’m saying I don’t agree with the assumption that that is the larger part of the base. I think the largest don’t care. But I don’t think there’s a lot of difference between those who want optional goals to affect completion percentage and those who just want a slightly better reward. In fact, if anything, I think the latter group is bigger. I mean, look at Far Cry 3 - 5. You get more cash if you take a base undetected, and a little more (but not as much) if you don’t set off the alarm. That seems far more common than gimping a percent completion score.
I’m kind of confused as to what you’re trying to argue there but whatever. These games make the optional objectives count towards completion percentage and that’s not gonna change. I prefer that to tangible rewards (because they’re bad and unfun objectives , to be clear) , you don’t, and I don’t see either of us being argued into feeling differently. So I’m just going to leave it at that.
At least in Black flag 100% got you the skeleton crew.
I love this game, only As Creed I’ve played twice. All the priate stuff is just great.
It also has the greatest bug ever. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9pQ_ZozZIio