Wolfpack

[Binnatics]

I bought this game especially for the Wolfpack online play; A coop game that is based on a team of 4 human players against a bunch of pirates that are to be assassinated in up-following sequences.
Art talked me into this ( :-X :)) because he needed a teammate, and because it reminded him of our first coop experience in Bulletstorm online. It's a game where you have to think before acting, not just rushing through and kill all obstacles. Variety and creativity are the keys to big scores, and if you w@&k together as a team you can even get higher scores by helping eachother getting better multikills and such.
Same as in most online coop games, if you just join a public match, it's a big mess caused by most players just trying to get the most kills by themselves and not being aware of the ways to get higher scores, let alone being aware that there's more people on the same team that share the same goal, and aren't the ones you compete with.
The good thing is that you can choose to play private. That makes it possible to connect to your friends only and thus carefully w@&k together towards the best goals and the highest scores. No annoying kids that make proper teamplay impossible due to their juvenile (or just plain stupid) behaviour.

Anyway, I'm getting a hang of it with Art's tips and tricks and am starting to like it a lot. It was already worth the €30,- I spent on the game, just because of this Wolfpack. I haven't even tried SP campaign yet, which is completely new. Never done that in this order. Will eventually check SP out of course, but for now I'm just only looking forward to unlock these great costumes, abilities and more there is to get when you slowly level up in the game :)

[Art Blade]

nice :)

[Art Blade]

we've been very busy and it's been a lot of fun :)

Here, this is what it looks like when you're right in the middle of it. You have to pay attention to every information on the screen and keep track of it in order to get a proper score. Which is why we're "practicing" so hard  :-()

[smg id=7133 type=preview align=center caption="AC4BF coop 001"]

By comparison, here a public coop which I won with about twice as many points and even less kills than the 2nd guy.. the points count, not the kills. Most players out there think it is the other way around yet for some reason they keep losing..

By the way, next to the name the black on yellow 2 means "prestige rank 2" (see the black on white numbers, they're the normal ranks which start at 1 and end with 55, after 55 comes prestige rank 1 and normal rank 1 up to prestige rank 99, so I played 2 times through all ranks and the normal ranks are not displayed on the scoreboard any more but it's like rank 40 there for me.. soon prestige rank 3) and the funny looking hexagon symbol with a red border and a white cross represents Abstergo Rank "professional" on the online multiplayer ladder. Well.. the game is complex ;)

[smg id=7134 type=preview align=center caption="AC4BF coop 002"]

[PZ]

Very nice!  :-X

[fragger]

When I first saw this topic appear I thought it was going to be about a U-boat simulator before I noticed that it was in the AC category :-()

Have fun with it, guys :)

[Art Blade]

 :-D

By the way, this "co-op" can be played as if it was SP, you can actually play on your own. I already did  :)

[PZ]

:-D

By the way, this "co-op" can be played as if it was SP, you can actually play on your own. I already did  :)

That's really cool :-X

[Art Blade]

yes, very cool :)

Just now I had to laugh when looking at the final results of a public Wolfpack. Those guys were experienced so I wanted to see their score during the match (tap TAB to pop up the score board) which annoyed me when I saw them pull away with loads of cheap kills. The guy who finished 2nd place was in the lead for some time and kept pulling away with his points and loads of kills during the match and particularly towards the end I had to cope with some 2,000 points the gap between him and me but then.. came the finale, a synchronised kill, which doesn't show or allow anyone to see the result of that. I know I pulled all of my tricks (or, focus on scoring) to get a big score and thought it might have been JUST enough to take the lead..

So, I was curious whether I beat him with the very last kill and I did. The difference, just some 50 points, are basically the result of something many people tend to forget: "ground finish" (someone kills a guy and gets the "big" points, you see the body there for a few seconds and can perform a ground kill which usually means to stomp on it so you can grind 50 points out of their kill) and I bet he was rage-quitting after that >:D On top, I had half the kills and more points.. lol 
[smg id=7135 type=preview align=center caption="AC4BF coop 003"]

[Art Blade]

[smg id=7136 type=preview align=center caption="AC4BF coop 004"]I love this sick guy  :-() (it's "The Duellist," my favourite co-op character, and yes, I modified his looks just a tad with a few of those items you may acquire)

[PZ]

Cool pic, AB!  :-X

[Art Blade]

thanks :) It's actually taken right from the game, not pre-rendered or anything. It just looks like that when you play  :)

[PZ]

Excellent; I may need to get this pack  :-X

[Art Blade]

you already have it. It is part of the vanilla game :) All you need is game money which you unlock by levelling up and particularly by winning accolades such as being the player who was least detected by the enemy, who had the most assists, who revived the most players, who had the most multi-kills. And if that isn't enough, you may buy Abstergo credits from UBI.

[PZ]

I did not know that. Thanks AB!

[Binnatics]

I tried to do some hardcore Wolfpack on my own, to see what's so hardcore to it. Basically, the thing that changes the most there, is the timer. You get hardly more than half a minute for each sequence, which puts the whole concept of staying undetected and getting high points under extra pressure. The smarter, so called 'advanced' enemies will detect you on any abnormal behaviour. Don't think you can climb a wall to prepare for an acrobatic technique, they will instantly freak out. don't stand still while you prepare for whatever ability to kick in, they will see it and panic. What reminds me of a walkthrough I watched in youtube that any ability that focusses on dismantling their abilities to confuse you are useless; it's far easier to freak them out while you are already in position, by pushing them from up close. Doesn't cost you an ability ^-^

I managed to reach sequence 14 once, but most of the time I stranded around sequence 10. It is really hard and brings you to the most basic values in the game; stay unseen and act and prepare fast. I think that experience is needed to get it done on hardcore. It's really not that easy as all That's why it's called hardcore after all, lol  :-D

[Art Blade]

 :-D

yep.. use disguise or walk with a crowd to stay hidden -- that's how you can prevent them from detecting you and freaking out.

There is one ability that makes sense, though: Time Phase -- you can throw it at them, it slows them down for a few seconds that you can use to catch them "off guard" or stuff like Smoke Bomb, Fire Crackers.. that confuses them :-()

[Art Blade]

I found out that the Abstergo credits gain (what you can "win" by getting accolades) is capped at 620 after your first couple of maps. After that, it freezes, even if you finish with accolade credits being displayed while you earn them, during the end phase of a map where you also see your XP and level progress.

What I am trying to find out is when the cap is being lifted again.

[Art Blade]

Ha! I found it!

I had a suspicion and it turned out to be true: the cap is bound to every time you start the game. Once you got 620, it will get capped.

Solution: Quit the game, start again, and another 620 may be yours.. rinse and repeat  :-D

[Art Blade]

For some reason, maybe there is no reason, the game sometimes allows a lot more than 620 Abstergo credits to be earned. Apparently the amount of credits randomly freezes after spending some.

It seems to be a bug after all. Restart usually helps, if it doesn't, wait some time and it will go on again. Weird.

Only thing to do is keeping an eye out on those credits, when they freeze, quit and restart.

:knockout

[PZ]

Strange...  ???

[Art Blade]

It is indeed. Plus, sometimes even restart(s) don't help.  :D

Considering that you only get accolades if you performed well (1st=30, 2nd=20, 3rd=10 credits per accolade of which there are four per map, plus some extra credits for finishing a map at all) and that you need those credits for upgrades of every description, it is outrageous that they don't fix the bug or lift the cap.  >:((

[PZ]

It does make one wonder what kind of fools are in charge  8-X

[Art Blade]

I found an entertaining video of four guys playing, commentating, and recording, all edited so you get to hear all of them and see different angles of their Wolfpack session. Obviously newbies, they're having a good time.

Go watch it and enjoy :)

Let's Play - Assassin's Creed IV: Wolf Pack

[Art Blade]

You can solo Wolfpack, usually standard difficulty (25 sequences with enough time and easy as in non-sensitive targets) but you can also play solo on higher difficulties; there's difficult (30) and hardcore (35) with significantly less time and more sensitive if not aggressive targets. Public games are always standard (25) and there are up to four players total playing coop. Most of the time it's a mess so playing solo is a lot more rewarding.

Here's a vid showing a solo on difficult and a screenshot of the final score of the same map which I just finished. You can compare the stats; I didn't play extremely well but still there's quite a difference in kill/points and time. The main difference is "extra objectives" (watch out for the top left corner of the screen, every time you get them, they light up in white and the points in blue, like "earn a focus bonus +350") that give a higher score with higher points per kill when you meet the criteria as often as possible -- I have 34 vs 18 that guy -- so I needed less kills for a higher score and even ended up with 7000+ time bonus  ??? :)

Just so you know what it's like what I do a lot, soloing Wolfpack, here on difficult.

[smg id=7211 type=preview align=center caption="AC4BF coop 010"]

AC4 Multiplayer: Saint Pierre - Wolfpack Difficult Mode - Solo [HD]

[PZ]

Nice!  :)