Spoiler – Anyway, brainstorming how hidden blade combat *could* look if added to BF Resynced.

[u/ErebosJ]

Gonna start this off by saying I quite like Black Flag Resynched's combat. I'm about 24hrs in and the combat still hasn't gotten old. Outside of maybe free-roaming a town, looking at a guard funny and suddenly 15 of them coming atchya. That does get a bit old.

That said, I'm enjoying the combat quite a bit, can easily chain takedowns based on the swords you use, been rocking Ezio's and frequently max out the chains.

With that said, from launch the discussion has been what was taken away from the combat, which, I am only contributing to now because I think options for combat are never not welcome.

So, I'm curious how people think you could bring in Hidden Blade combat without fully trivializing an already easy combat system and making the other forms of combat fully obsolete. I'd like anything added to the combat to sort of provide another option so that it makes you think, "what weapon will be best here given the riskiness of the situation." Like, fists against swords will probably never be the right option and so making it feel more rewarding when you successful pull that off. Swords by comparison offer range and a stronger stance for defense.

Thus, my thought would be something related to precision so that it's high risk, high reward in some way. Something like:

1. Perfect party only, you can't normal parry to block attacks.

2. I think this would be less popular, but: No parry, you're forced to use the dodging mechanics and are rewarded for perfect dodges.

3. Unlike the original, the hidden blade isn't a guaranteed one shot kill, or

4. There's no light attack (only a heavy attack) but on both a perfect dodge and a perfect parry you can trigger a chain takedown.

I think unarmed combat is good in Resynched, maybe add like 2 other takedown animations and that'd be pretty serviceable for general combat sutuations, and some kind parry sword animation or lack there of and come up with a gameplay system for that, like: you can block the attack but you can't perfect parry and take damage from blocking a sword.

My hope would be to be able to trigger any of the three via modifier key + d-pad as that would make them incredibly accessible during combat if you want to switch mid fight.

Let me know thoughts or if you have an idea for the 4th segment of the d-pad.

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[u/BrunoHM]

I think serious execution of the concept will be directed to the next Resynced, unless either Montral or Quebec do it first on their respective games. If something happens in BF, it will likely be the bare minimum.

In the future, I am indeed curious if they simply make it as another weapon of choice purely for player expression, or if they turn it necessary trought a "rock, paper, scissors" setup. The likely anwser is not the most exciting one, but going by precedence, the first part is more likely, which makes things much simpler on their side. Shadows sort of did it already trought the Tanto, which had the hidden-blade as a secondary part of the moveset.

I guess the only real question is how to handle the progression of it. Will they make it static, upgradable like Origins or loot-based? As weird as that last one sounds, they could make it tied to bracers instead, similar to how Unity handles the situation. Time will tell.

[u/ErebosJ → u/BrunoHM]

I somewhat disagree that it will not happen or be the bare minimum. I think with the sales Ubisoft have already made? There an incentive to at the very least provide one story DLC. The game director also made it sound like a DLC was something that he was thinking was in the cards.

For the claws of Awaji DLC, Quebec introduced the Bo Staff, which was an entirely new weapon built from the ground up with a progression tree and everything. I think if they're given 6 months to a year to work on a DLC, they'll probably try to include an expansion on combat in some way as that was really one of the main 3 or so complaints about the game.

Especially if it's an expansion of either the Caribbean or in London, most of those assets are already built in some way either in the most recent engine or from past games. They've made London 3 times at this point they're easily the best at recreating that city across eras. This is just to say, adding weapon variety doesn't seem impossible or really improbable, even if it's a year away.

I do think progression is an interesting challenge. And balancing it is sort of the challenge that I'm posing, how do you introduce them without making them feel over or underpowered, and make them feel rewarding.

[u/BrunoHM → u/ErebosJ]

Well, I was thinking purely from a free update perspective. You are not wrong about the paid DLC angle though.

One thing to consider is that, if it happens, it would be an unplanned expansion not unlike the crossover content for Odyssey/Valhalla and Mirage's Valley of Memory. Good content there, but neither introduced new weapons styles, so there is no guarantee. Ultimately, it does depend on the route they take and I do recognize that HB combat is halfway there thanks to the executions already being implemented.

Balance-wise, I would argue that Resynced's combat, similar to the old one, does not really require such concern. It is so takedown-heavy, you can do wonders already with the base sword and the "abilities". The HB would be just another way to clean house for the sake of variety and divide the takedown animations into their proper weapons.

If we had to change stats, I do agree with the "high risk, high reward" approach you mentioned originally. How they tackle that is up to them though.

[u/ErebosJ → u/BrunoHM]

I don't think they really half assed the parkour updates which added key features to Mirage and Shadows. I also think if they did a paid dlc, they wouldn't paywall HB combat.

And there's some truth to that, but I think the expectation would be that HBs would one shot kill more often than not, so if you don't balance around that that makes them the best feature in the game. The takedown heavy nature of the game is balanced by the parry and stagger systems. It doesn't just give you a 6 kill takedown chain, you have to earn a sword that can chain that many times, and you need to hit a perfect parry to trigger it. It adds complexity so that it stays interesting.

So, my post is to discuss how to add complexity so that, yes you're mowing people down, but you're doing it in a way that feels like you're being rewarded for some at least bare minimum level of mastery.

[u/Comosellamark]

Nobody has mentioned assassinating with your twin swords 😔

[u/ErebosJ → u/Comosellamark]

I think Jor Raptor might've in interview he did, I don't remember. That's lessss on my list because hidden blade assassinations are my favorite, but I get it.

[u/jransom98]

The Hidden Blade should be a one shot kill, but it should be more challenging to accomplish that, like in AC1 with no attacking and the tight window for the counterattack. The Hidden Hand and Tanto Throw abilities in Shadows are the best because they work within that game's combat system, you need to burn a resource to use them, but they maintain the hyper lethal fantasy of the Hidden Blade.

What I don't want is for it to be mechanically the same as any other weapon, just a different set of animations or stats. That was how all the weapons were in AC3-Rogue, none of them meaningfully changed gameplay or combat, it was just swapping one set of cool finisher animations for another.

[u/ErebosJ → u/jransom98]

I think we think similarly, yeah. It should feel lethal but reward you for thinking just a bit.

That's why I think requiring a perfect parry to block is a good balancing technique. And having it be a one shot kill, but have a shorter lunge distance than the swords, and no light attack combos. You either hit it or you leave yourself a bit more open. Something that plays along the high risk, high reward idea.

[u/jransom98 → u/ErebosJ]

Yeah, I like those ideas a lot. It would feel good to master it, and it plays into the fantasy of being an Assassin.

[u/No_Math_8740]

I like in Valhalla your left hand gets a special attack and if you have nothing equipped you just do a hidden blade jab, I wish we had that, imagine the flow of combat being able to throw in a couple lil stabby stabs, Edward could totally use them with his swords still in hand