u/Saltwater_Cowboy_1

Technically I’m “getting back into it” I used to have a board and go semi-regularly, but that was in my late teens, early 20’s and I never really got that good. I know the basics in theory, like I know what I’m meant to do, and know about the ocean, waves and board etc, I just never got any good at actually doing it. Only successfully got up a handful of times. Didn’t go frequent enough to develop the skill before giving up.

I’m 36 now and live closer to the ocean though and am very keen to get back into it. For me the biggest hurdle is not my age but my fitness. I’m very out of shape and need to lose the gut. I’m working on it. But once I do, is 36 too old to get back into it enough to make it worth it or should I stick to SUP or other water activities. I’ve had my eye on a fishing kayak for example, lol.

I just love surf culture and love the waves and feel like I’d regret if I didn’t give it another crack.

Honest replies appreciated, thanks!

Normally I would always utilise fast travel if it’s available (except Spider-Man, of course, lol), to the point where I actually get annoyed when it isn’t a feature in a large open world game.

However RDR2 was the game for me where more often than not, I would find myself riding from location to location instead of ever taking the train or fast travelling from camp. I just enjoyed the scenery and the atmosphere way too much. Like when I saw the starting point to a mission was on the other side of the map I actually would get mildly excited, like the thought of going on a long ride through a map I already traverse ld extensively still got me giddy.

What game was like this for you?

So I’m finally embarking on my play through of this extremely anticipated game. Even bought the collectors edition and everything. OG BF was one of my fav AC games let alone one of my fav games period back in the day. Must have played through it several times.

Anyway I knew there were some changes and though disappointed I got my head around the combat lacking kill animation varieties, swords not feeling like proper fencing anymore, and ability to steal single swords or muskets, (I won’t talk about that in this post as it’s already been covered a lot by others) as well as the new content using the generated cutscenes and not mocap etc… but as I’m playing I’m noticing they removed a lot more things that I can’t understand why? For example/

-ambient music! No Nassau or Havana or Tavern Brawl theme music. Those themes were great and immersive to the environment. Is this a bug? Will they return it in a patch? Why remove such contextual thematic world building.

-menu screen. Similarly, I loved the blue underwater bubble main menu screen with the main theme song playing. BF had one of the best main themes of the entire franchise imo, now we never really hear it. I used to spend 10-15 seconds on the menu every time I booted up just to enjoy the atmosphere.

-no drop down from perch with rope dart? I’m AC3 and BF you used to be able to drop off the branch as you pull up an enemy to be hanged. While physically making no sense, it looked cool and meant you could vanish into thickets after hanging someone. Literally why remove this?

-No dual sword kill from above? It seems all from above kills are now the hidden blade. While not the end of the world, swinging onto a ship from the jackdaw and landing on someone with the swords felt so much cooler than the hidden blade imo.

-no crafting outfits? It was so much fun hunting animals to craft the whaler outfit or the hunter outfit etc. while I love the overhaul of the customising and building of the Cove base area and all the new features there, I miss hunting so I could craft all the unique outfits. Rogue did this even better tbf, but Bf started it. Not even sure if the fleet missions have outfit rewards like OG.

A couple other things I noticed:

-maybe I’m wrong about this one, not sure if it’s just me but the ships feel even more arcadey somehow. I’m not too proud to admit as a historical naval enthusiast I actually prefer the ship movement and combat in AC3 overall, it felt weighty and slow and the wave height and turning timing all had to be taken into account. I understand that would be impossible to pull off in an open world scenario so I overlooked it for OG BF, but it feels like ships are even faster, stop and turn quicker and it’s literally just a chaotic explosion fest with no real strategy.

-Edward’s chest pistols and shoulder armor stick out more. His outfit isn’t as smooth and blended, it’s more “in your face” and the pistols and holsters seem “bigger”. Not a major issue but I feel like his outfit just seems to be bulkier somehow I don’t know how to explain it. His face also looks less rugged and more soft.

-the “follow the sea” feature is convenient but I feel it loses the appeal of sailing the jackdaw and exploring the ocean yourself a little. I know I don’t have to use it but maybe implementing a cinematic camera could help it feel more exciting to use? This is the first entry to not have a cinematic camera in a long time. I haven’t seen many other suggest this which surprises me.

-the FOV. Everything is too damn close. It’s hard to take in the environment and the beautiful landscape when 75% of my screen is Edward’s back or the Jackdaw’s deck.

If you got this far thanks for reading a long winded rant. Before anyone gives me a hard time for being negative I wanna make clear there is a lot and I mean A LOT to love about this remake too and it’s still easily one of, if not the, best entries in a long long time. I could make a whole post praising it and focusing on the positives too and I’m sure I will later, I don’t mean to exclusively complain but I wanted to highlight some things I’ve noticed and wonder how others felt about them. Hopefully some of these things will be patched in?

Ubisoft has this habit of releasing things that are so close to being perfect if not for a small handful of really fixable issues. And each time it sucks cuz we’re not talking about major things, just small “why would you remove that” or “why would the developer make that choice” that doesn’t make sense to anyone.

I played through the OG BF about once every couple years. I also would binge watch the PotC films. Big pirate and ocean fan in general here.

With Resynced out I’m sure many of you would have felt the urge to chuck on some pirate films. Might I suggest a few maybe slightly lesser known media to wrap your hook hand around?

First is super recent. It’s called ‘The Bluff’ and is on Prime. It stars Karl Urban of Éomer and Billy Butcher fame as a dastardly but very gritty and realistic pirate who leads a raid on a small island homestead. What makes it stand out is, it’s very gritty and realistically violent. It almost has a horror or thriller aspect to it and there’s even a lot of scenes involving stealth and at least one involving climbing rooftops. Seriously went under the radar but is surprisingly close in feel to violent stealthy pirate assassins! A visual feast too with beautiful Caribbean setting.

Second is the maybe not so lesser known Black Sails. It’s a tv series that very much improves with each season as production goes up. It’s a realistic gritty take on a prequel to Treasure Island, but includes real historical characters and locations like Nassau, Charles Vane, Calico Jack, Edward Teach and more. It’s violent. bloody and dark and has a lot of fun island pirate politics. The naval scenes especially in later seasons are phenomenal. This is a must watch for any pirate fan.

Lastly I’ll throw out there that Our Flag Means Death is surprisingly good fun! The first season is a bit meh and cheap but the second season benefit a huge production budget boost and the story, settings and characters vastly improved. If you’re turned off by woke stuff you probably won’t like this due to its LGBTQ elements, but if you can get past it there’s some silly random dumb pirate fun to be had here. It follows Stede Bonnet and Blackbeard in reimagined versions of themselves as well as some other famous pirate characters, but the fight scenes and naval stuff is surprisingly fun to watch in later seasons.

Oh and Muppet Treasure Island is GOATed af.

I know I’m gonna slammed for this but ah hell, screw it.

What is up with the difficulty in this game? This may be one of the most difficult games (of this genre!) that I have played. I have had to lower it to “give me grace” so many times. And lately, I’m finding that when I’m at the berserker fights I’ve had to lower it to “give me story” and even then it takes me several goes to beat the guy. What’s going on?? I know the obvious answer is “I’m shit” and “get gud” and all that, but I’m telling you guys, I’m a seasoned gamer with many traditionally difficult games under my belt. I’m talking all 3 DS, Elden Ring, Sekiro, Returnal, Nioh, Doom, Hollow Knigjt etc.

If there’s a hard mode I usually play on that too. So why am I having so much trouble with this game? I am as fully upgraded as I possibly can be having exhausted every side quest and looted every chest that can be done up to my point so it’s not that I’m under equipped, I’ve upgraded all the skills and memorised combos, I prioritise blocking and parrying and play defensively…

I just simply suck? I just has to call it a night after failing to beat another berserker on “story mode” after 4 attempts in a row. This seems so out of the blue cause I had zero issues with GoW 1 (as well as the old school god of wars back in the day) and am so used to traditionally “difficult” games.

So yeah am I just high or what? Am I missing something?

Oh boy I’m sure I’m gonna cop shit for this but here goes…

Does anyone actually carry a zippo as their everyday lighter and if so, how do you deal with the damn constant filling up? This is something I didn’t know about these lighters as a kid I just thought they only needed filling up once in a blue moon, not every few weeks. I always forget and then when I actually do need the lighter it doesn’t light. Honestly a cheap 5$ bic lighter from the gas station is more practical. What’s even the point of these things apart from looking flashy and being weatherproof? Is there a survival version of these types of lighters that leak fluid slower so you only have to fill up occasionally? Or any tips for keeping a zippo lighter useful? Mine was a a sort of heirloom so would like to use but just keep forgetting to keep it filled and it seems a pain in the ass to do so?

Tia for not giving me too much shit.