An Idea for AC3

[Karma168]

After watching a documentary about the Aryan Brotherhood (basically the modern KKK in the US) I thought of a possible feature for the next AC game.

In the documentary one of the local cell leaders said that he would expect to be able to send any of his fellow members to a new city and within a few weeks/months have a new cell up and running.

this could be a feature added to the new AC game, and could make use of the recruit system.


assume there are multiple cities in the game as well as a base town

after training your recruits to full assassin level you can choose to either keep them with you to use in the same way as ACB or to send them to one of the cities to set up an assassin headquarters.

By sending your assassins to these bases you unlock new side missions and gain help in completing main story missions, have assassin recruits as NPC help in the same way courtesans/mercs/thieves are in AC2. the bases would also act as a generator of income - thus getting rid of the 'money flood' as mentioned in the ZP review.

the bases could have multiple slots for your assassins with the benefits increasing for each slot filled. this would encourage you to keep training assassins after the initial recruits have been sent away.

probably the first city would make use of a proper character as the local leader to allow a main story arc to be made around the feature but beyond that i'm not to sure if they could make the system feel like it made an impact on the overall story or not.

what do you think? good idea or needs a some work? If you have any ideas on how the feature could be improved please post it and if i agree i'll add it to the OP.

 

[Carnagath]

So basically, if I understand correctly, you are suggesting a system similar to the Motherbase of MGS: Peace Walker...? Which is just a (very) watered down version of XCom. Sure, sounds good, but whenever I see shit like that in games these days I just wish someone with half a functioning brain would make a proper XCom game...

 

[Ranchcroutons]

Well one of the things I wish they had done in Brotherhood was to have more involvement with the missions you send your Assassins on. Acquiring territory might be just the thing to make these mission feel more involved.

 

[WanderingFool]

So basically, if I understand correctly, you are suggesting a system similar to the Motherbase of MGS: Peace Walker...? Which is just a (very) watered down version of XCom. Sure, sounds good, but whenever I see shit like that in games these days I just wish someone with half a functioning brain would make a proper XCom game...

Not trying to sound snarky or anything, but why not just play XCOM?

Anyways, I like it. But there comes the question of what to do with the money after you baught everything.

 

[The Hive Mind]

I wish your recruits in AC:B had been given more personality than just a unique name...

 

[Mr. Omega]

It will all depend on where/when the next game will take place. If (as I predict) it will be in the present, there will be no place for such a system. But if the Animus is used again, and there is a bunch of cities rather than one big one, sure, I think it would be a good feature.

 

[Carnagath]

So basically, if I understand correctly, you are suggesting a system similar to the Motherbase of MGS: Peace Walker...? Which is just a (very) watered down version of XCom. Sure, sounds good, but whenever I see shit like that in games these days I just wish someone with half a functioning brain would make a proper XCom game...

Not trying to sound snarky or anything, but why not just play XCOM?

Anyways, I like it. But there comes the question of what to do with the money after you baught everything.

I do occasionally. Still, a proper revamped XCom would be pretty amazing with the technology that exists today, they could do unbelievable things with it, make it the deepest mix of strategy and tactical combat, its natural RPG elements would seem more relevant than ever, and they could make a mind blowing online mode for it to boot. But yeah, we are derailing the thread now.

 

[Danzaivar]

I wish your recruits in AC:B had been given more personality than just a unique name...

It bugged the crap out of me how you was supposed to be able to customise their look and weapons, then in the actual game you could only choose their outfit colour. Even THAT gets taken away when they reach Assassino rank, just 12 generic looking assassins...

Blegh

 

[Falseprophet]

Cool idea, OP. If you remember the Assassin chapterhouses from AC1, your idea could work like that, but there wouldn't be a chapterhouse in a given city unless you sent agents there in advance to set one up. I like it.

Well one of the things I wish they had done in Brotherhood was to have more involvement with the missions you send your Assassins on. Acquiring territory might be just the thing to make these mission feel more involved.

I would have preferred either your assassins gaining XP when you called them, or for the missions you send them on to have direct relevance to the main plot. Maybe there could have been main plot missions where you'd have less guards if you sent your assassins to stir things up on the other side of town, or maybe some of the Borgia towers or war machines couldn't be taken down without your assassins taking care of a few things for you. Or both.

Or since the only thing your assassins seem to gain with experience was better gear, why not dispense with the levelling system and just buy gear for them? That'd be another way to make money more important in the game.

Otherwise, I have to agree with the one reviewer who compared the brotherhood missions to a Facebook game. They were kind of weak.

 

[TundraWolf]

what do you think? good idea or needs a some work? If you have any ideas on how the feature could be improved please post it and if i agree i'll add it to the OP.

I think it's an interesting idea that could be implemented. The problem, however, is that I have no idea how they plan on utilizing this recruiting thing in new versions of Assassin's Creed. The only way I can see it making sense is if they either make another game featuring Ezio or if they jump straight to the modern-day/near-future part of the game.

Now, bear with me: I love the Renaissance period. It works amazingly for Assassin's Creed. I wasn't expecting Brotherhood to be as good as I find it to be. However, it's getting a little old. I'd really like a new period to play around in, one that would allow us to experience something else entirely within the realm of Assassin's Creed. There are all sorts of ideas they could use, I'd just like to see them run with one.

The recruitment thing worked as a brand-new idea for a setting already established. We know Ezio's story, we know that he's now the greatest assassin in the world because we made him that way. Him recruiting new assassin's feels like a natural progression of his leadership. If they made another Assassin's Creed with Ezio, it would be easy to expand on the recruitment gameplay and utilize your ideas or others.

However, if we were to start from scratch with a new historical character, we'd have to first be explained why this assassin is so amazing and what gives him the right to recruit new assassins. I'm sure they could do it, but you wouldn't get to the recruitment until much later in the game (hopefully) so they can set it up properly. By that time in the game, expanding on the base recruitment stuff might seem like too much busywork in the endgame scenarios.

Coversely, however, if they jumped straight to the modern-day/near-future setting that they've got going with Desmond and Lucy, it would be very easy to start recruiting new assassins. The first game established that a lot of the other assassins left had been killed, so it is necessary to rebuild the order. Honestly, I can't see them not doing this at some point. It would be incredible to recruit bystanders against Abstergo in a near-future city full of glass buildings and cars. I'm getting flashes of a Mirror's Edge-type city, only from a third-person perspective and full of people.

I just don't want them to do that yet. I want to explore more historical periods with the Animus, and I want to find more Pieces of Eden using it. Some sort of New World settler/assassin, perhaps. There's lots of periods I'd like to explore, some of which I'm not sure the recruiting would lend itself to.

Yet I digress. My own opinions of where I want the series to go are kind of irrelevant to the original topic. Let's get back on track.

Your ideas are very solid. I like them a lot, and would've actually implemented them in Brotherhood. Being able to use money to upgrade the new assassins headquarters, giving them better resources to use and money to bribe people or whatever, would be something else that I would consider adding to your idea.

As for how to make it matter to the gameplay, I like your initial idea; having another prominent character from the game going to a far-off city to set up a headquarters would be a great way to get things rolling. I also like how it unlocks side-missions: say you set up a headquarters in another city and have it running for a while. After it gets to a certain point of development, you get reports of some enemy leaders coming from that other city to your city. Your assassins couldn't get the job done before the enemy left town, so now you've got to take care of it. This could also be something that could play into the main storyline; having the leaders of the other guilds showing up for meetings and reporting on what's happening in their cities, and then using the full-fledged assassin leaders in the final assault or something.

Yeah. Hope that contributed something to your ideas!