Polygon: "Assassin’s Creed Odyssey’s Best Feature Costs an Extra 10 Bucks"

Polygon are riding this so hard, are they mad at Ubisoft?

When everyone that's actually playing it has been saying "nope, it's totally fine".

I haven't played Odyssey, but Origins was kind of a grind but not a HUGE grind that you need to push this anti-Odyssey agenda so hard.

Their stance really makes me question if there's bad blood with Ubi.

Bricktop said:

Yep, they are just stirring up shit so their name is getting tossed around.

The funniest part is that the overwhelming majority of people who actually have played the game disagree with Polygon and the majority of people whining about this haven't touched the game, and were never going to play it in the first place. Like, let's ignore all the people who are actually playing the game and telling you Polygon is full of shit in favor of a bunch of forum posters who just bitch about the direction of the series or how Ubisoft is greedy. It's a joke.

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Nobody Ubisoft defending for putting MTX in the game but Polygon is twisting things around to make it seem like you need to rely on the mtx to level up, which is clearly not the case.

So it sounds like I'll be dealing with the shoddy combat for hours and hours until I can actually have fun being an assassin. Fun!

TheEnd said:

Guess this means that Witcher 3 is a badly designed game, too.

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Great games almost always contain some elements of bad design.

Gies has been complaining about this on Twitter too, and in his review for The Escapist (in which he gave it a 6). He even went so far as to say when he restarted the game, he bought the XP boost.

I'm Level 15 right now and see no reason to do this. Earlier, I did a fort that was one level higher than me and it added some challenge - I couldn't one-hit assassinate most guys and then the mercernary guys really complicated things. But it was a level of challenge I rose to, and now I'll try to be more prepared when I go into forts.

Weird how people are defending this. Seems like a huge double standard, or are bullshit MTs ok in games now?
Selling this for 10$ is garbage from Ubi, regardless of the quest/leveling system in the game.

We need to talk about why wood is so hard to come by.

People complain RPG games are too long. Get fucking lost...

Knight in Shining Armani said:

You know this how? Being a corporate fanboy doesn't make you an insider.

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Origins doesn't have XP boost microtransaction, and it's the exact same.

MillionIII said:

Do you do side quests when playing the story? I don't remember

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Yep.

Malaka!

red235 said:

Weird how people are defending this. Seems like a huge double standard, or are bullshit MTs ok in games now?
Selling this for 10$ is garbage from Ubi, regardless of the quest/leveling system in the game.

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MTs are a GOOD THING when they are designed to fleece the anti-smart from their monies. Good job Ubisoft.

The Last Wizard said:

We need to talk about why wood is so hard to come by.

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Looting the supplies in the enemy bases before you burn them can net a fair amount of materials.

The games "Best Feature" is something that alllows you to skip any side stuff and just get thousands of XP?

No thanks Polygon i'd rather play the game like Origins and explore the beautiful world they have created.So what if can't kill a higher level enemy?Never was a problem in Origins

Count of Monte Sawed-Off said:

Yes. They're quite good this time around. And for people who only care about leveling, side quests will show in the menu which ones get you more XP.

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To be honest I enjoyed most of the side missions in Origins. Same with the forts and outposts.

bonkasaurus said:

Looting the supplies in the enemy bases before you burn them can net a fair amount of materials.

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That and you can get a lot of wood from ships.

it's only an issue if you play this like a speed runner. So far the side quest have been decent too, they've been decently written and most often humorous. Some even have choices that impact other events in the world.

Knight in Shining Armani said:

You know this how? A corporate fanboy doesn't make you an insider.

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Because MTs are usually a late addition especially to a game like this. There are frankly, a metric fuckton of things that take priority in the design of a title like this over the recurring revenue of MTs. On top of this, Origins was designed the same way, you enter regions and alongside the main questline is tons of side content.

K' Dash said:

Wait a second, people HERE actually believe this shit?

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I didn't make this for shits and giggles:


Commoditized gamer outrage exists everywhere.

this reminds me a lot about the "FM7 is full of loot boxes !!!!!!" affair.

I never had one second the feeling that I was pushed to make side quest or been levelgated in Origins, in fact I had much more fun doing the side quests, cleaning outpost, visiting ancient Egypt and do things here and there while travelling than being pushed to do the main quest. Playing the game this way made me in fact overleveled quite fast, and I'm pretty sure I wasn't the only as they added the auto-leveling for NPC to have a bigger challenge if you wanted to. I don't plan to play Odyssey, but this looks exactly like Origins was. Much noise and outrage about nothing IMO...

If you want a 15h game with only one story line, just don't buy it. What's so difficult about that ? Why would you want a game to be changed into something it just doesn't want to be ?

I despise microtransactions in single player games but I have been playing this for 3 days and personally have never felt under leveled or that I wish I was getting XP faster. The world is massive and just naturally doing shit while playing the game has kept me just fine with levels.

If you want to rush through the game then yes you will hit walls frequently. The side content is most of the content in the game, and I've enjoyed most all of it so far. I play games like this to get lost in a world for 50+ hours and take it all in.

However, I do not think Ubisoft should be selling this XP boost for $10 it should be a slider in game that you can just do if you want to since not everyone plays the same way and I know that what's a non issue for me surely is one for others.

I bought the gold edition so the expansion pass. Why isn't $40 more bucks over the initial 60 "enough" to just not sell microtransactions in your single player game? That's what pisses me off.

TL:DR I've had no problem leveling by naturally playing the game.

WAIT?! 560 PAGES?! I DON'T HAVE TIME FOR THAT! JUST GIVE ME THE CLIFF NOTES



WHAT?! I HAVE TO PAY EXTRA FOR THE CLIFF NOTES?!

GarthLordOfTheSith said:

To be honest I enjoyed most of the side missions in Origins. Same with the forts and outposts.

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If you liked Origins at all, you will love Odyssey.

It's good that Polygon is calling out MTX, but as we've seen by the replies it seems like people are fine with it, what a lovely future we will have with SP games full of MTX.

I do feel sorry for time-poor gamers - they always seem to get stung for the extra cash.

GarthLordOfTheSith said:

So if you do the side missions, as the game intends, you're fine?

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Yes. The "grind" is completely overblown.

Count of Monte Sawed-Off said:

If you liked Origins at all, you will love Odyssey.

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Like I realized they were all fetch quests, but I enjoyed the characters in the actual missions. Most standout one for me was the brothers fighting over the ring in Origins. It helps the gameplay was fun too.

Mr. Phellps said:

Have you ever played an RPG before?

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have you ever played assassin's creed before?

Such a silly nitpick of the game.

I can't believe you have to pay to not play the game.

Aokiji said:

have you ever played assassin's creed before?

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Let go of the days gone past.

Not the intended effect but now I think I'll get it.

Salty Rice said:

XP boosts and playing the game less is not a "feature".

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And not just any feature, literally the best feature. I mean, who can't remember the best part of The Witcher 3, when you finally entered the console command screen and activated God mode. Or that amazing scene in Skyrim where you give yourself a million gold. Those are the greatest moments in gaming right there.

I'm glad to see people in here that have played the game and commenting on this. Also glad to hear that Odyssey is even better than Origins.

MetalBoi said:

Let go of the days gone past.

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not being able to assassinate enemies in an *assassin's* creed game is stupid. no matter how you slice it about being "the past". change the name of the game then if it's no longer AC (which it seems has happened)

Aokiji said:

have you ever played assassin's creed before?

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All of them. Including Origins, which clearly overhauled how the entire game works and how the series will be moving forward. A year ago.

Aokiji said:

not being able to assassinate enemies in an *assassin's* creed game is stupid. no matter how you slice it about being "the past". change the name of the game then if it's no longer AC (which it seems has happened)

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You can, you just have to meet the requirements for that. Because now it's an RPG, and that's how most RPGs work.

Aokiji said:

not being able to assassinate enemies in an *assassin's* creed game is stupid. no matter how you slice it about being "the past". change the name of the game then if it's no longer AC (which it seems has happened)

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You saying it's easy to be an assassin, without proper training and... leveling up? :O

So is is better with or without the ten dollar xp booster?

MaximusPayne said:

I'm glad to see people in here that have played the game and commenting on this. Also glad to hear that Odyssey is even better than Origins.

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As always, it's best to ignore the peanut gallery.

What a joke of an article that hack job is, and he even cites his own site as an example of "the most enthusiastic critics", lol.

Look at this:

"This gating system has forced me to master the low-level abilities and has prevented me from transforming into the Goddess of Death before the end of the game's first act. And the structure of Odyssey's gargantuan world — a collection of islands and peninsulas separated by violent waves and heavily weaponized enemy ships — prevents me from rushing to where I don't belong narratively. Permanent XP Boost never feels like a cheat code. It merely feels like I get to the fun stuff sooner, and spend less time repeating the boring bits for no greater reason than increasing my stats."

This screams that he just wants to rush through it as fast as possible, and have access to the higher level bonuses early on. And what would happen then? He'd write an article complaining about how all of the rewards are gained near the start of the game and the rest of the game is a slog because there's no cool rewards.

It's sad to see posters here saying that misinformed hack job of an article whining about a non-issue is the reason they're avoiding such a good game.

GarthLordOfTheSith said:

So if you do the side missions, as the game intends, you're fine?

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It plays exactly like Origins. The only people who are going to run into issues with levels are people who are skipping everything. And that doesn't mean you have to be a completionist, it just means you have to do SOME of the side content as well as the main mission stuff.

Basically, if you don't play it like a reviewer trying to speed run your way through the game so you can make a hot take article for clicks you'll be fine.

Crayon said:

So is is better with or without the ten dollar xp booster?

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If you want to clear the game as quickly as humanly possible without doing any side missions, with.

If you want to enjoy the game that you paid for and play it as it was intended, without.

Crayon said:

So is is better with or without the ten dollar xp booster?

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totally unnecessary in my experience. 20 hours in so far and am looking forward to crushing the weekend playing it

MetalBoi said:

You saying it's easy to be an assassin, without proper training and... leveling up? :O

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I think he's saying a blade to the neck to should be a pretty definitive argument-ender no matter how many push-ups your opponent has done that morning (to paraphrase Yahtzee Croshaw).

I'm not a big fan of Polygon's stuff, but I'm glad they are calling out this anti-consumer bullshit.

bloodyroarx said:

As someone who wasn't quite sure about picking up Odessey, this is the nail in the coffin for me.

I can't support this crap

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This is not correct. There is ZERO need to buy anything in AC. THis article is them being mad that they have to actually do side content to level. The game is fine and this should in no way influence a purchase decision.

Whether the default XP curve is satisfactory is very much a YMMV thing. I'm level 13 and have yet to venture beyond the Occupied Forest of Tripodiskos.

Saint-14 said:

It's good that Polygon is calling out MTX, but as we've seen by the replies it seems like people are fine with it, what a lovely future we will have with SP games full of MTX.

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Yup, MTX are good and should be even more aggressive and intrusive in all SP games.

I think it is pretty hard to strike an XP balance in these open world games. If you are the type to do all side quests you can find yourself over-leveled for most of the main content. If you skip all side quests you can find yourself under-leveled. It can't be perfect both ways.

RunesmithCaryll said:

I think he's saying a blade to the neck to should be a pretty definitive argument-ender no matter how many push-ups your opponent has done that morning (to paraphrase Yahtzee Croshaw).

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Not if said neck has higher leveled muscles that require high leveled arm strength to cut through. :P In that case, get to levelin'.

Sheepinator said:

What a joke of an article that hack job is, and he even cites his own site as an example of "the most enthusiastic critics", lol.

Look at this:

"This gating system has forced me to master the low-level abilities and has prevented me from transforming into the Goddess of Death before the end of the game's first act. And the structure of Odyssey's gargantuan world — a collection of islands and peninsulas separated by violent waves and heavily weaponized enemy ships — prevents me from rushing to where I don't belong narratively. Permanent XP Boost never feels like a cheat code. It merely feels like I get to the fun stuff sooner, and spend less time repeating the boring bits for no greater reason than increasing my stats."

This screams that he just wants to rush through it as fast as possible, and have access to the higher level bonuses early on. And what would happen then? He'd write an article complaining about how all of the rewards are gained near the start of the game and the rest of the game is a slog because there's no cool rewards.

It's sad to see posters here saying that misinformed hack job of an article whining about a non-issue is the reason they're avoiding such a good game.

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"Forced me to master low-level abilities."

Lmfao. How dare they want you to use your full kit! I bet he hates any game that isn't just power fantasy simulator from the get-go.

It sounds like just plain doesn't like the game. Which is fine, but admitting as much is easier than trying to find 82747 reasons why.

Aokiji said:

not being able to assassinate enemies in an *assassin's* creed game is stupid. no matter how you slice it about being "the past". change the name of the game then if it's no longer AC (which it seems has happened)

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What are you even talking about? I was assassinating enemies at level 1, and I've been doing it non-stop ever since.

This is why you don't comment on shit based on a Polygon article, you're literally getting worked up and spewing nonsense about something that isn't reality.

Regardless of whether this is necessary or not - I've not played the game, so literally have no idea - the very fact that they include it, and under the name of "timesaver" at that, isn't necessarily a good look. Regardless of the reality, it's an immediate suggestion that the game has the kind of time sink I have little patience for these days.

That being said, I'm generally of the opinion that ever increasing XP numbers as a way of gating narrative and character progression in specifically this kind of game is an increasingly outmoded way of handling things. There's better ways to force pace on progression and reward people who want to do side content whilst not penalising folks who want to mainline stuff at their own pace, and no end of "but it's an RPG" is going to convince me that there isn't a solution that'd provide a better experience for everyone that isn't charging people $10 to actually see less content.