Hopefully this is more engaging than the druid dlc

TL;DR Please add some sort of menu option to keep hood/cloaks on during combat, as along with one-handed swords it is the last fundamental piece of the original "assassin" fantasy that we old-school fans so badly crave from Valhalla. It's a simple thing but it would mean the world to me and so many other fans, and for me personally is the difference between paying for and enjoying Valhalla DLC or just replaying the Ezio trilogy/Black Flag.

Dear Ubisoft,

I know this topic has been raised a few times but I'm gonna make another thread just to increase the amount of volume and attention that this issue receives, as it is something very near and dear to the heart for me.

I understand the departures from the "classic" AC formula in recent games, the focus on live service-esque content delivery, microtransactions, RPG-style system, etc.. I understand the emphasis on historical immersion and the "viking" fantasy over being an "assassin", and tailoring gameplay to facilitate that fantasy (a flagrant example being that completing monastery raids via pure stealth is not an option whereas in Black Flag, the analogous activity did support this approach). I understand not putting emphasis on deepening the social stealth system (or the general stealth system) and focusing instead on combat abilities and raiding mechanics. It's not the game that I wanted Assassin's Creed to become, but I understand broadening the appeal and I can still appreciate the classic AC elements the game does offer and try to eek out a little bit of that "assassin" fantasy despite these changes.

This "assassin" fantasy is essentially that which we were given in the original Assassin's Creed trailer: this mysterious, dangerous-looking figure in a hood approaches his target, cloaked in the crowd, strikes when he least expects it, and uses parkour/social stealth to escape and regain anonymity. The feeling of being this anonymous predator, this blade in the crowd, has resonated incredibly with me and countless other players, and it's the number one thing I look for when playing not just AC games but any sort of action/stealth game that could reasonably allow for it.

AC Valhalla is a very large game, and while it very clearly was designed to facilitate the hyper-aggressive "viking" fantasy, where you raid monasteries and headbutt saxons and wrench your axe out of skulls, you developers tried to give us some of the vital pieces of that "assassin" fantasy that were stripped completely from AC Odyssey. You gave us social stealth even when it didn't really fit with the "viking" fantasy, you gave us incredible homages to the original AC (won't say more cause spoilers), you even gave us an option to toggle our hood in game! Post-launch you gave us the Basim outfit, with a hidden blade under the wrist, and you even changed the wrist-flick animation to boot! Soon you're gonna be giving us one-handed swords and with the Paris DLC you're gonna be giving us black-box missions! From the bottom of my heart, thank you for these things - because of them, I can almost play and enjoy Valhalla even though I don't care about the viking fantasy or much of the story that revolved around those elements.

Of course I have a laundry list of other "assassin" elements I would love to see added either to Valhalla or to future games, but I'm not going to ask for them, because I get that the vision for this game and likely future games diverges from my own. But by and large, I have mostly enough to enjoy a rudimentary form of that "assassin" fantasy and exist in the game without having it broken - were it not for one tiny little nitpick that sadly makes all the difference. That "fantasy", of being this anonymous predator, this wolf in sheep's clothing, is inextricably tied to the image of a hooded figure. Whether silently stalking his pray, killing guards with ruthless efficiency, or scampering across rooftops to blend back into the crowd, the hood is key to the fantasy, and every time it comes off, that immersion breaks. I get that it's silly, I get that it's pedantic, but sadly it is the reality.

This one little nitpick makes such a difference to me that, instead of playing Valhalla and completing the epilogue/DLC content, I'd rather play AC games 10 years old. Not even because I like the gameplay itself that much more (although that is also case, but that's not something you can really fix) but literally just so I can preserve that hooded image throughout the game, and with it that "assassin" fantasy that I so badly crave. If this option were to be added in, I honestly would gladly restart Valhalla and play the whole thing over with Basim's outfit and a one-handed sword I'll probably buy off the Helix store despite my disdain for the microtransaction model, JUST so I can experience the newest Assassin's Creed game and actually feel like an Assassin.

Thank you for reading this diatribe, and thank you to the devs for all your hard work - I'm sure it's no fun to work for years on something and then have it brutally torn apart by fans just because it didn't correspond exactly to an unrealistic expectation they'd been holding. However I promise that if you add this one option in, it will go a long way towards mending bridges that you might have thought burnt. And with the Paris DLC and year 2 of support coming up, the impacts will be visible in Ubisoft's bottom line as well 😊 .

I see the news that the new patch is coming out tomorrow. I'm wondering if something will be done about the mastery challenges since many people are having a rough time with them.

Reading the patch notes left me with questions on the scaling options. With the phrase "Boss encounters and game modes will not be impacted by this as they have their own intended difficulty settings," it seems that boss encounters wont be impacted by any level scaling decision, they will neither get easier, nor harder. This could also probably, i.e. hopefully, be read as the boss's base level will not be altered, but then they will scale accordingly. Any thoughts?

I already mention the secret isu bow, but there seem to be more such items still hidden for us to find.
i for one would like to know what else is out there.

This guy has gathered some more clues, or rather he combined all current clues in a video:

I was hoping it would be something like Bloody Palace from Devil May Cry. Maybe i didn't watch the trailer properly, so my bad. But what i hate the most is when developers adds conditions to the gameplay. Like "you need to kill all enemies, but must use only this or must not do that". Which is exactly what this mode does. You may say it's not obligation to complete the challenge, but it is obligation if you want the gold medal. So for example, instead of fighting properly, i am trying to position myself to throw enemy into fire or from the ledge, resulting the whole fight looking stupid. Why? I don't see a challenge in this. Put some hard enemy in front of me and let me do whatever i want to survive and beat him. That is challenge. If you add rules, it also reduces immersion. In the game world it feels unnatural. There are rules made by whom? A developer god, i guess. This mode is just boring frustration. Sorry.

Hi im here to share some idea, to official, for new helix pack, idea, i think a loki armour with a horn helmet, and some godly thing on armour be awesome, with a small shield and a spear, with a skill lord of mischief that give a confused buff, that make enemy rage and attack other enemy. Im here just to share some of my idea, thanks ubisoft.

and i do share a bit about knight of round pack, and when its out i really happy, maybe a team already did about it before i sharing my idea, but i really like that pack when come out, thanks ubisoft.

I'm doing the Lelingestone Bandit Camp mastery challenge and I'm having trouble on my parries. Sometimes I do get a successful parry and other times I don't. I just need to know when the enemy does the light attack and turns yellow how long after he turns yellow should I parry

I know myself and a few other would like a feature that allows you to wear hood during combat. If enough people request a feature to control your hood when ever you want we might able to get it like we requested to have swords . My idea is to add a new icon in the wheel and seamlessly control your hood like the cloak but unlike the cloak the hood its just for appearance or add a new head gear besides helmets we can gets some hoods. I didn't like how ac syndicate only wear a hood was crouch and this game only for stealth. I know its a small thing and probably some don't care but it would be nice to have and hopefully we can get this in the future and maybe Ubisoft is working on it already. But just in case lets spread the word please and ask ubisoft to add a controllable hood!

I think the mastery challenges are way too difficult. First of all the enemies do way too much damage. Second the conditions of some of them are insane. They are just not doable. I tried many times and can't do it.

On next gen consoles, PS5 and Xbox Series X, sorry they just do. - talking the Performance or Beauty switch.

Please just stop. Stop making these a standard. It’s terrible UX, lazy UX. “We can’t decide, let’s foist this on the users”.

Everyone I know hates them, with good reason. Why should we have to chose between compromised visuals but decent playability or compromised playability but decent visuals? Its a losers choice either way.

I’m sick and tired of developers putting this in there. Consoles have the same hardware, theh don’t need those kinds of options you get on PC to try and tune your experience to the hardware on offer.

Dear game devs - make your games target 60fps and then fine tune your graphics to what you can achieve at that frame rate. End of discussion. If theres PVP then target 120fps. Squeeze what you can out of that target, dont force me to have to decide what to sacrifice. If theres some mandate to use raytracing then use a temporal solution that can resolve up for things like contact shadows (much more important than reflections) etc. Make it look as good as it can at those frame rates. Resolution is also less improtant than frame rate. Playability is king, its a game, everything else is sugar.

So now that Unisoft have confirmed the next game will be AC Infinity with multiple eras and will be a “games as service” title, what do you all think?

I'm playing one the Xbox One and I can't do the challenges of the wolf and bear. I'm at the second shrine and I just can't do them. I can do the raven myself because that is the least troublesome challenge for me. My gamertag is Metroid Meister. I will play someone to do this for me.

Hi i was just wondering if some time soon can u possibly add scorpion and or subzeros outfits to ac Valhalla

Missed out on the Skadi's blade challenge, is there another way to get it?

Where are news about the next title update? The 5 weeks are over today and we heard not a single word about any updates. Even on the PS5 Database is nothing to be found. Ubisoft are able to go back to the every-2-weeks-release-cycle for microtransaction gear packs but made us wait a whole week longer for updates. No they are even silent about them and silently make 6 weeks just because a story DLC (just for buyers) was released in between?

I still do not care about the DLC because i still want a polished main game first. Release updates a little bit faster and tell us more about them earlier. This is just terrible handling of updates for a broken game.

Seeing as having numerous issues with the general game play, can't fish, can't give Roman artefacts and now can't complete a quest as the person trying to kill is just rolling around on the ground and can't be killed....
Is it worth uninstalling the game and reinstalling? Will game saves be affected?

TIA

KBL

My raven is not working since your new recent update devs can this be fixed on the next update?