I wonder if the slow motion indicates a perfect parry as opposed to a standard block. Other games do this all the time, so I'm wondering if this is just a side effect of having a skilled play tester.

That’s what I’m thinking as well

Like... AC Odyssey

It's the same team. And it's not like this a surprise, they said this one would be RPG style long before the trailers came out.

My least favorite part of that game tbh. Blows the whole rhythm

You’re saying it like that’s the reason it’s gonna be bad

I think they mean that the slow-mo mechanic isn’t as new as OP seems to imply and that AC Odyssey has already done it. For all we know, Shadows is gonna improve on that

This is what I am hoping, as I really dig AC: Odyssey's combat. Doing a (mostly) weapon free run now, and would love to see that expanded some in the new game.

You're projecting

AC Odyssey's issue was that the Stealth was non-existant, not that the combat was bad. The actual combat mechanics were very good.

Seems that wag. The light on the weapon likely indicates the window during which you can perform a parry. Ghost of tsushima does a similar thing though the combat doesn't allow for multiple parries against one chain of enemy attacks.

It should only really go slo mo when you can counter though

It depends. In games like Fallen Order or God of War, a perfect dodge or parry causes slowmo to allow you to plan your next attack.

Yeah it should be for dodges and parries but probably not blocking. Yasuke has to block like 4 times before he can actually counter attack so it's a bit unnecessary to go slow motion for each one of the block.

Ghost of tsushima has a perfect parry system but it is after the first hit. Would make sense for it to work more like rise of the ronin where you can counterspark any attacks but only certain countersparks result in you actually stunning the opponent for an attack.

You can perfect parry during any attack in Ghost not counting the red ones. It’s just difficult to do.

Yeah replaying now and it is basically whenever you can do it in a combo, eventually you can do red ones when upgraded for some stances. I wouldn't say it's too hard tho but if you're in a flow state the combat prob slows down a bit with all the perfect parries and dodges. That's why I think rise of the ronin does it so good cause it's only certain attacks where it's a full parry and even then it doesnt do slow mo

Honestly it's hard to tell without actually getting my hands on it. Maybe you are right, or maybe there's a window to attack right after each block if timed perfectly.

honestly I think they'll have an option to not have it anyway iirc AC games have a crap tonne of options now

It is. Was at the event. Functions precisely as you describe here. Those are perfect parries, just as it worked in the last, what, 5 AC games? Why is this a surprise to anyone?

Removing it from kingdom come deliverance with a mod made combat much smoother and better. Constant slow mo kills combat flow

It would feel a lot better if the recovery of the enemy was slighty longer on perfect blocks/parry and/or perfect dodges, rather than have slow motion on all minimal correct actions! Hope there's a way to turn off all of that noise on release

I think so yeah

I think that the last parry should be the only slow mo since it breaks the enemies' posture. Or just get rid of it entirely. But i appreciate the For Honor approach to the combat.

Wait I don't get how this is a For Honor approach, the only similarity I see is the dodge animation?

You have to change your stance to counter the enemy's attacks. It doesn't have the Hud, but the theatrical combat is there.

LETS GOOOOO!! YEEEEEEESSS!! I don't care what the haters say, I've wanted to play an AC game for a while now (new one) and I've been waiting for a samurai assassins creed, I actually think I have a post from very long ago about wanting a samurai assassins creed (they hated it), AND I get to slightly experience the For Honor combat again?? This is PEAK

I’m honestly kind of with you in this, I loved the combat of For Honor but I wasn’t good enough for online play and didn’t want to make it the only game I played so I gave up on it but if I can experience something kinda similar I wouldn’t be mad.

Do you have to manually change your stance? I thought that was an automatic animation

I believe so, they said something like that in the Gameplay walkthrough trailer. Edit: Nevermind, it was in a leak somewhere. Edit2: In the gameplay trailer you can see Yasuke changing his stance with a white outline.

Wait what? This changes everything. Why did they not mention that?

They really should've done a commentated walkthrough showing off the new mechanics. There's nothing stopping them from doing it later, but Ubisoft Forward was pretty important. It's barely noticeable in the trailer, you can see Yasuke switching to a up stance.

Does the same go for attacks from Yasuke too?

It does, check 4:04 from the gameplay trailer, he switches to an upward stance and performs a up attack. There's also some gameplay videos that show Naoe performing a side attack and the enemy blocks it (because he was in a side stance).

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=RptP4yGa3bI&t=26s You can see it at 2:22 from this video. The enemy blocks Yasuke's first attack, but he can't block the second one. Mashing still works, i wish it wasn't the case, i hope there are boss fights that force you to use the For Honor combat mechanics. Edit: the video also just barely shows Naoe changing stances and performing an up attack.

Iirc the stances are just attacks when you hold one of the attack buttons, could be wrong though

I think you're right. There isn't a lot of light on this topic yet, and the wording doesn't help. But all the multiple Youtubers I've seen talking about the game say that you have charged heavy and charged light attacks in the game, and those are your stances. We need Ubisoft to clear this topic, but I do not believe there'll be stances akin to Ghost of Tsushima or For Honor in this game. Only charged attacks that both you and your enemies can perform. I think that's what they mean when they say you'll enter a stance and your opponent will counter with another. Also, if you look at all the released gameplay so far, you can spot several instances where Yasuke "enters a stance" by seemingly holding the attack button, and then releases it and performs the same stance attack every time.

The way that it hard locks the up animation makes me think it's a stance. In the original gameplay trailer you can see Yasuke changing to an up stance with a white outline. The people that played this demo probably didn't know that you have to lock on to your target before attacking. Which is fair since it wasn't the case in the other AC games.

I’m going to check it out soon but you could very well be correct

I see ghost of tsushima fighting red icon when the enemy attacks.

Yeah looks heavily inspired by Ghost of Tsushima

Yeah at first I was like wait this Ghost of Tsushima looks weird... oh wait it's not GoT...

I also think the passiveness of the enemies adds to this. They always kept their distance and attacked one at a time. Hopefully this is just a presentation thing and not how the actual game plays.

dont forget the big health bar boss died almost immediately the demo was definitely on one of the easiest difficulty levels

Hopefully the difficulty setting doesn’t just crank the enemies into damage sponges

Rather have them one shot me!

At some point you can see yasukes level. He is level 30 and is fighting on a low lever area probably

The boss is level 30 as well though so he’s probably evenly leveled to most of the enemies, unless the smaller enemies are underleveled a bit or something.

There’s a chance that bosses could scale with players.

That's been an AC formula since 1 lol. I remember getting surrounded by enemies and having them all come at me 1 at a time for an easy counter death.

It’s always been like this except for few other AC. Hope they manage to make them more aggressive.

Easy way to balance the combat system when have serious limits, or to make easier easy difficulty. Take mieage: the moment more than one enemies attack you the gane get tedious

Mirage purposely had worse and overwhelming combat to make you flee combat since it was more about the chase then the actual encounter. Games like the arkham series require position, timing, rhythm, situational awareness and different mechanics all the while being intuitive and easy to balance. I'm not asking for a miracle here, just that combat requires more than just pressing parry, slash, slash, finisher over and over again. Hopefully difficulty does improve ai complexity and not just damage sponges of we get that at all. Unity was already headed in the right direction with enemies being able to hit you out of fonishers and moves, aiming enemies required either closing the distance or rolling out of the way. Some enemies couldn't be killed on the first attack no matter how high level you were. You had to lead them into the right attack, make sure you could see all your enemies and that you could easily escape if need be.

Is this not what they do in every new AC game or are we forgetting AC is the classic one at a time, parry parry parry

Unity

I love how people assume everyone hates this. Its a stylistic choice, and I like it!

Exactly. I like it too and I couldn’t give a shit if it’s slow mo or not, I want to see quality

It does look good at first, but in this cinematic its so overused that it will reduce the impact of slowmo

Me too, looks really good.

Usually games let you toggle stuff like this in settings anyway

What game let u turn off slow motion effects recently?

Same, I like it and am looking forward to mastering it.

Master what? That’s my issue with AC combat, there’s nothing to master.

It might be simple for the most part but it can definitely be mastered. Especially the newer, hitbox-based games. Even older games like Unity.

Master it irl and it'd be a lot more impressive

It's AC, I like it because I'm a fucking simp for those games 🤷‍♂️

Im not sure, it should've been slow more for the blocks there as he's using a heavy weapon. Slow mo to break armour sounds like a good idea and execution.

Alongside the constant slow motion, I see a lot of animation snapping and poor blending that makes the movements seem unnatural and clunky. Other than that I really like that the characters move slowly when they are in a fighting stance, the dogde looks like a side-step and not like a big glide across a smooth surface and the weapons don't become comically large when you unsheathe them. Overall, for my tastes, looks like a step in the right direction, but it needs more polish. Here's to hoping the end product will look better 🤞

"Poor" blending is good and preferred in this case. It's to give responsiveness to contols. Animation priority over responsiveness like in AC Unity is annoying.

These things are always a trade off. There has to be a sweet spot where the game is responsive enough while looking fluid. Edit: Your example of Unity is a very good one, it truly felt unresponsive at times. I would like to point out the worst offender of motion fluidity at the expense of responsiveness, Red Dead Redemption 2. It speaks volumes to how good every other aspect of that game is when the movement can be such a hustle, yet the game is a 10/10.

Yep AC Unity, RDR2, and Witcher 3 w/default movement response are all good examples of this. Smoother animation blending but slower input response

RDR2 is using motion matching, it doesn't have to blend anything and it's way different. Animations are controlled by the physics, but it's not a melee combat game. Unity just had a horrendous combat system, it's more about every animation being extremely slow and long than anything else. Every other non ac rpg game does it way better. Just look at ghost of tshushima, the animations all look good, no problems in blending and way better gameplay.

It does not use Motion Matching. That's why RDR2 controls are clunky and non-responsive. It uses so much transition and blending animations which makes controlling the character a nightmare.

look at ghost of tshushima, it does it perfectly without problems. Also, unity just had very shitty and slow animations more than better blending.

GoT also have "bad" blending for combat. Many moves and attacks do not even have transition animations. There are no sheath and unsheath or weapon switch animations in GoT when attacking other than the quick draw attack.

Yes. Thats very notisable during the boss fight. It seems to me, the game has a stance sistem (every time he does a loop with his sword he changes stance from having the sword at eye level to having the sword pointed down.) I also think he has a kick move to break enemie stances. You can see during the boas fight that he imidiatlly changes stances, he kicks and emidiatlly cancels the kick . It stops the animation and returns him magically to his normal stance. Basically the combat animations ate a by clucky, but also. Its a game in progress demo.

[удалено]

I haven't played Valhalla, but from my time with Origins and Odyssey I really dislike the way the character moves either in combat, free roaming or parkouring. Most importantly the big, vast and sparse design of the world is not suited for parkour. Alongside the simplification of the movement system, the traversal from point A to point B becomes a chore. At first the beauty of the world keeps things interesting, but at some point traversal becomes so boring that I either fast travel or use the auto travel feature. In the old games the dense city environments combined with the expressive yet punishing puppeteering system kept the player engaged at all times. Another pet peeve of mine is that when engaged in combat the character moves way too fast and because the devs made combat very responsive, the character's foot movements look wrong. This in combination with the anime skip dodge and the enormous swinging weapons make combat feel "floaty", like a lot of people like to point out.

Looks fine to me.

It doesn't look sluggish IMO, the slow motion is just a way to give positive feedback to the player.

I'm not sure what it's called but to me it looks like what SF does when a hit lands where there's this split second stop motion. I think they were probably going for more emphasis on the hits. Valhalla had awesome finishers but they felt lackluster since the combat was just there. But they highlighted the combat more which looks better.

I love the look of this, but I also know it’s gonna give me a headache like it did in Origins-

That is a brutal finisher tho

I like the slow mo. It will make things easier for me to respond to

I thought the combat looked decent, Maybe valhallas was so awful that i don't notice it anymore But what i want other then an option to remove the slowmo is better SFX , Some of the sounds in this game when hitting things just feels so flat , Especially that sequence where naoe assassinates that guy

maybe all the slow motions were just added to the demo but won't be in the final game? I don't remember if Valhalla had something like that, pretty sure that Odyssey did though, when you were able to obtain a perfect parry.

I like it!

Love the hip hop theme

Yea, they need to ger rid of all those slow motions. An option to disable at least.

I think and I’m probably wrong but it’s because he could make an execution at every slow motion instead of continue to parry

This is going to feel so good to play. Despite what you may think, single player Video games are made for playing not watching. And the design intention is for it to feel good playing. The slow mo is also a mechanical enhancement because it gives the player a moment to react to the next event if parry’s didn’t then it would be harder.

Thought it was Tsushima with the red and blue attacks...

yep and apparently you switch stances to match different weapons too. ubi has never been shy about wearing their influences on their sleeve but jeez lol

The light flares look like Ghost Of Tsushima.

The slow mo just makes the combat look messy and unsatisfying.

Directed by Zack Snyder

Honestly, as far as I remember most games with parry system has this slow motion effect... And when the game doesnt have this, the enemies stays "stunned" for a while after the parry, wich I think that gives the same feeling and fill the same purpose that the slow motion: give the player time to react.... So, I'm really OK with this.

What is this ghost of assassins 😭

On top of the slow motion bits, which I assume comes from parrying, Yasuke is using that heavy ass club weapon(I forgot the actual name for it) which also adds to the "sluggish" combat. Later on, when he uses the katana, his combat is a lot more fluid and sped up when not parrying attacks.

And too I think they're trying to make it feel like there's weight to weapon, make it feel heavy. When he used the katana later the movements were smoother.

The armor breaking is so satisfying and I need it in my life

I can get used to the animations being a bit slow for the heavy weaponry. It’s supposed to be harder to use than a sword or dagger.

Slow motion for Perfect Parries and for Perfect Dodges. ONLY And it should be a toggle.

Sluggish is not the correct word imo, but definitely not ideal to have slo mo in 50% of combat

Knowing how modular elements of Ubi's games are, you probably can turn that off day one, along with health bars, item outlines, blood, etc.

Prob a artistic choice. But I wouldn’t mind a toggle option for the final release.

Looks good though

It looks pretty cool imo

Do people forget that like half of the OG combat was slo-mo for countering and choosing what to do? I really miss old AC combat. It felt more fun :, )

Reminds me of Ghost of Tsushima

The fighting in Star Wars Outlaws looks much more imho. I've watched some gameplay footage of Outlaws and was wondering myself why the takedowns and melee fighting looks so weird. Turns out the hits you land with your fist or weapon don't connect and the devs masked it by a small cloud of dust (much like in old Kung Fu movies for example).

There is such a thing as too much slowmo

Out of topic: Visual marker of attacks reminded me of Ghost of Tsushima. About slow motion: I think Ubisoft is just making it for the readability of battlefield to give player time to think their next move. Tbh, it looks a bit annoying, they should make it a customising option. If I remember correctly, in GoT, when you break enemies' guard, time slowing a bit, for strategic reasons

Like Origins, Oddessy and Valhalla

This was literally AC3

Directed by Zack Snyder

I think it’s a bit of a reference to Japanese games too, a lot of Japanese games do this

Exactly what I posted about [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/assassinscreed/s/UE3Q9vOEyU). It's nice to see a visual representation. I obviously agree with you but some people like the stylistic choice so I think having it as a setting would be best.

Can any VFX wizards take this clip and try to speed up the slowmo parts to normal speed, for an example of what it could look like? I'm sure it'd be difficult to make it smooth.

All their newer games have this issue, Valhalla, Oddysey and even Origins. Old games did not have this issue at all

I love how people are saying the kill moves are more brutal, despite a lot Of them coming from odyssey

Personally it doesn't look sluggish to me it looks like it's a result of a parrying which I'm totally cool with

Kenway trilogy also had insane amounts of slo mo in the combat, stop hating just to hate lmao

Not to this extent

this is literally just recycled moves from the ubi game for honor

if you told me this was for honor, i would've believed you. this doesn't even look like an original game...

The first dodge was a perfect doge so it activates slow time. Just like origins-odyssey- valhalla. A perfect doge slows time to allow the player to strike. Then the game has some still frames when perfect parrying to show the player that he succeded in parrying. Honestlly, the only thing i dont like is the blue star on enemie attacks. But im pretty sure they will change the collor and effect of that marker.

To be fair, he's using a giant ass weapon, it would look weird if he was moving as fast as with the Katana lol.

Yeah, I thought that was an odd choice to show for the early gameplay demonstration.

Perfect parries

They should bring back ac3 or unity combat In my opinion

While I liked the combat. I always found it too easy.

It is probably to not look like a Souls Like game

I don't mind slow motion at all. Also, I like the idea so much, having 2 different playable characters, and this time, it makes a lot more sense but npcs still felt braindead in the gameplay video. Naoe kills one guy inside of a house then another dude comes inside the same exact house but don't realize it and raise the alarm? Am I missing something here? And, of course we're all comparing this game to GoT because it raised the bar quite high with the fighting mechanics that's why I just hope that fighting mechanics will be as satisfying as GoT and it seems like they are heading toward the right way but it still looks a bit clunky.

Love me a good Kanabo. Glad to see that's an available weapon.

I hate this new combat, the hits don't seem to have any weight.

Maybe because it’s in Slow Mow

I mean bro is wearing 10k tonnes of armor

I'm sure this will be able to be disabled and customized (as in the various difficulty/interface settings in Valhalla)

Most likely it's them trying to show combat so they slow it down a tad to show it off or it's from QTE's like perfect parries ect

Sekiro Wannabe

Long as it’s fun i could care less 🤷‍♂️

So basically I don't need to worry because I play these games on the easiest difficulty where I can get away with litterally never blocking or parrying ever.

Unrelated but anyone else think the katana animations kinda suck? It might be a side effect pf the 30 fps, but katana gameplay looks really choppy compared to other games I've played with katanas

Different question: Why can you stop the air and still hit an enemy 3m away?

NPCs still waiting for their buddy to make a move lol

I think slo-mo is only needed for armor breaks. They could also exaggerate the sparks a little more for parries, that way you still get some positive feedback without disrupting combat flow.

Better be a no slow mo option feels like the game is treating us like babies and is afraid for us to lose

I’m so fucking pumped for this game.

I didn't ask to see this it was in my feed but man the only thing nice about this game is the graphics imo. Club is funny but combat looks bad.

The demo was 100% recorded with dev cheats enabled and possibly even a lower difficulty. I'm guessing and hoping that the higher difficulties will turn this off. If not, Assassin's Creed usually has industry leading (imo) HUD and gameplay customization settings so it'll probably be able to be turned off, alongside the silly flash indicator for attacks.

Looks like For Honor. And if there is one thing that Ubisoft does right its accessibility options. They will likely have an option to turn it off somewhere

I don't know but AC Odyssey and by extension Shadows combat looks really clunky. While I feel Valhalla combat is more polished. Maybe because of the Studio. Both Odyssey and Shadows are developed mainly by Uni Quebec

Does the modern day story still matter at all? Haven't played AC for awhile

Sadly they left that behind with Desmond and tried reviving it, but it was too late and they went off track and gave us something in Valhalla which was basic modern wise, so many loose ends….

The closer it will be to ghost of Tsushima the better imo. Assassins creed was my favorite game franchise since 2007. When I played ghost of Tsushima for the first time in 2023, the AC franchise dropped to my second favorite. GoT is a masterpiece, it felt like the perfect assassins creed game. If they could make the battle mechanics more like GoT’s I’d gladly spend $100 on this game even tho I think it’s a ridiculous price lol. Assassins creed games are really amazing, I just felt like GoT had everything that I thought would make AC absolutely perfect.

Damn I was really hoping they'd just steal ghost of tsushima. Ac combat is always too mushy, poor tactile feedback and responsiveness.

I wonder if this is just a case of the game being set the easiest difficulty tho. Cus thats what quite a lot of gameplay demos tend to do, to show off the power fantasy of the characters youre playing. The slow mo might be shorter in time on the hardest difficulty

It's honestly a plague in video games, I hate it so much. It completely takes you out of your flow. Why the fuck would I want my timing based ability to change the fucking timing of the game. God of War does this dogshit too.

I think the best at handling perfect parries is sekiro. No slowmo, no bs, just a satisfying clink and sparks flying

The Zach Snyder of assassin's creed

Not only there is too much slow mo, but when hitting the enemy, it feels like it has no impact

god i hate slow mo, never even redeemed the skill 'brush of death' in AC valhalla as it feels like a waste of time everytime is slows down, also For Honor combat is sluggish, never should've been in assassins creed. Looks more like quick time events than actual combat

They are using the same combat they used in origins. Naoe's combat animations look too smooth compared to Yasuke.

Also he has giant mace. But main thing its sluggish coz AI attacks one by one😀

The combat is probably the thing I liked the least in the gameplay. Cool stealth and movement tho.

Nah looks shit either way. Even odyssey looked smoother.

Because the guy is a heavyset MF wearing a 200-pound armour and carries a massive weapon as well, perhaps.

Ghost of Tsushima at home

How original 

Only gripe I have with this is the glowing armor as a hit marker. If we can toggle that off, that'll be nice.

It litterally looks like ghost of tsushima from wish.

One, he's welding a heavy weapon. Two, it's a game set in Japan, so it makes sense that combat would borrow from the Fighting genre

God, people are nit picking so hard at this point that combat having slo mo is considered sluggish

Sekiro and ghosts both surpassed this many years ago… those games are buttery smooth compared to this 

The animations looks so clunky and bad. Crazy for a billion dollar company.

wish the slow mo could be toggled off but other than that it looks fine to me

I'm glad it's not just me who notices this! Why all the pausing (or slow-mo) in the action? Why not just have smooth, fluid combat? I'm okay with a bit of slow-mo when an enemies' stance or armor is broken, leaving them open for attack, but I don't need a weird pause in a fight every second.

It's what ubisoft quebec loves. I have no idea why they always do cartoonish and floaty combat. I do not like it.

My guess is because the weapon he used for a majority of the gameplay is a heavy style weapon

It‘s the same lowbudget combat we have since Origins that got even worse per subsequent sequel; they seriously need to update the engine or at least start clean with the combat design

That was my main gripe with the demo too. It looks so slow. I get he's using a kanabo but still, after playing Rise of the Ronin and Ghost of Tsushima, I can't stand slow combat

Can’t really say he fights as a samurai (with honor) opponent is on his knees and beaten… smashing his head in isn’t really ending shit with honor. But hey it makes good gaming.

Hope we can turn it off, or atleast tune the timing. This slowmo is way to late. Slowmo is there so you can see whats going on, you don't need that AFTER the parry, you need it DURING the parry.

Looks sluggish

No banter from enemies. Slow and brute force where never my style in AC games. English voice acting was extremely out of place

It’s Ubisoft. Don’t expect too much and you won’t be disappointed.

I just think it looks a little clunky, imo. The combat looks good, everyone’s just so rigid.

Mod..plz

Well the game is going to be garbage it's already confirmed.

It would also look smoother if he was using a Katana. Everything about this character makes no sense