Assassin's Creed Series, Where Parkour Meets Murderhobos Options

[SubRosa]

So I started playing Assassin's Creed Odyssey a few nights ago. It has been a love/hate relationship. For starters the beginning of this game is insanely difficult, even on Easy. Once past the sort of tutorial with King Leonidas, the game gave me two thugs to kill. That was no problem. So I thought ok, I can do this.

Then I was out walking admiring the scenery and a wolf attacked me. Ok, no big deal. Pretty much RPG 101 is fighting either rats, or wolves. The next thing I knew I was dead. The wolf hit me once, and I lost 90% of my health. I hit it about 4-5 times, which took it down to about 60% of its health. Then it hit me again, and it was over. I reloaded, thinking maybe it was a fluke. It was not. I tried it about 6 times, and died in two hits every time.

*sigh*

So I went back to an older save, and avoided that area with that particular wolf. I killed some bandits, no sweat. A few hours later I almost paniced when I ran into several wolves. But I killed them all. So I figured, ok, this is getting better.

Then the game says a bounty hunter is after me, named Talos (maybe he was looking for his Stormcrown?). I ran into him shortly after, and it was the same story. He hits me twice and I am dead. I hit him a dozen times, and it barely moves his health bar. So I reloaded from an older save, and avoided him. Hours later I try attacking him again, and again, I die about a dozen times. Hours later I figured out that I was doing a lot more damage with a bow. So I tried that against him, and died about a dozen times. So reload to earlier again, and hours later tried for a fourth series of times. After about the 4th time I was able to kill him using just the bow. My guess is that he had about 30 - 40 times my health.

*sigh*

I have no idea if this is indicative of the entire game or not. What makes it more difficult is that there is no command console, and no mods aside from reshades and graphics tweaks. Ubisoft - the game company - is one of those rabid microtransaction lovers. They want you to spend tons of money in their game store to avoid grinding your toon. So they cut off any way of them losing money by making modding or using the console impossible.

Normally this would be a no-brainer for me. I would just delete the game and forget it. But the truth is the game world is just beautiful. I love just walking around and looking at things. I am also deeply impressed with the lengths they went to in order to accurately depict Ancient Greece. This is the real deal. Statues and temples are not pristine white edifices. They are painted in bright colors. People wear the right outfits, down to the wide brim hats. The homes, the lamps, the amphorae, it is all right.

So I am plodding along, hoping these weird lopsided combats are not common. I have had a lot of fights that worked out just fine. Others not so. The sharks in a sunken temple were another insanely frustrating experience. But enough about that.

Edit: After playing a few days, I can definitely say that the game gets a lot easier once you get past Talos, and reach 5th level or so. You can take on packs of enemies the same level as you and defeat them so long as you are paying attention and use some tactics, like keep moving so they cannot all gang up on you at once.

Greeking out

A view from up high (atop a statue of Zeus)

Let's go boating!

There are giants beneath the waves

Uh oh, found the edge of the Truman Show