Shinobi is far more difficult to deal with than a Centurion. The Cent can only attack in straight lines, which is not super difficult to exploit once you get a feel for it. Well timed dodges really ruin his day and he has a pitiful health pool. Also he has extremely short range.
The Shinobi also has a tiny health pool but is way more versatile and can hurt you from every distance. Their kick is ridiculously good, lets them win trades, flows effortlessly into their chains and puts most characters out of range to hurt them. It is also not punishable on a miss/dodge which is like, what?
Honestly, I think my big complaint right now is just how long either one can hold you down so that the rest of their 4-man team can beat the shit out of you.
Yeah there is that. The pinning move of the centurion plus the constant blindness from being punched and kicked the whole time makes him an absolute terror in 4v4 modes. God help you if they have more than one.
Outside of those modes he's much easier to handle.
I played some yesterday and kept getting wrecked by the Conq charging jump shield
Conq is another character that suffers if you dodge well. His shield bash chain is ruthless though.
Speaking of dodging, something finally clicked with the berserker today. Was having a lot of fun with her, she absolutely shits out damage. Her ability allows her to chase down shinobis pretty well too which is a big bonus in my book!
Yeah there is that. The pinning move of the centurion plus the constant blindness from being punched and kicked the whole time makes him an absolute terror in 4v4 modes. God help you if they have more than one.
Outside of those modes he's much easier to handle.
It's one of those issues in fighting games where they make a character that's just not as much fun to fight as other classes, I think, now having played for the weekend. That being said....
Speaking of dodging, something finally clicked with the berserker today. Was having a lot of fun with her, she absolutely shits out damage. Her ability allows her to chase down shinobis pretty well too which is a big bonus in my book!
....I am glad I also use Berserker aside from Warden. Berserker seems to shit on Centurion due to how linear they are and I haven't been having huge issue with Shinobi with him. My berserker, he just has been running roughshod in the 4 player modes, regularly putting up 17-1 style numbers.
Warden? I have issues with both of them, but my Zerker? He doesn't feel nearly as difficult to use against them.
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PSN: Bizazedo
CFN: Bizazedo (I don't think I suck, add me).
I got a chance to try out Absolver for a bit at E3 and there's no way I can go back to For Honor. It's everything I wanted FH to be, and I don't even care about it being hand to hand instead of weapon based. Plus you get swords occasionally so it's a nice balance.
I hope to see some of you there at the end of August, I think the game will do really well. Sorry if this is off-topic
Its like, i like the combat in for honor, now if you could somehow smash it together with soulsbourne, it would be the best thing since chocolate and peanut butter were smashed together.
I got a chance to try out Absolver for a bit at E3 and there's no way I can go back to For Honor. It's everything I wanted FH to be, and I don't even care about it being hand to hand instead of weapon based. Plus you get swords occasionally so it's a nice balance.
I hope to see some of you there at the end of August, I think the game will do really well. Sorry if this is off-topic
I've been following Absolver pretty closely since someone posted some gameplay here several months back and I'm glad to hear that the combat feels good. The trailers and demos don't do a very good job of conveying how the combat system actually feels to control, and that could just be because the UI elements and fighting effects are more subdued and less visceral than For Honor. In theory it sounds like something I could get completely lost in (especially considering how much time I dumped into GODHAND) but the demure palette and subtle presentation don't do a great job of selling the concept. Reading and hearing about all the mechanics from the deck system to the mentor/student system to the different combat and gear styles I think it's going to be right up my alley, but it's one of those things that I think I'll have to actually get my hands on before I am certain it's going to work for me.
That said and back to the topic of For Honor, I've certainly taken several steps back from my active play since Season 2 started. Shinobi and Centurion really fucked up the meta in my preferred PVP mode of Dominion, and I still play relatively often but I almost exclusively play against bots now because PVP has become a frustrating toxic mess in the 4v4 modes. The devs seem to be trying to work out the kinks, but the fact that they can't even wrap their heads around why Defense Penetration is a broken stat (one stat at secondary bonus negates three primary bonus stats spread out across three pieces of gear, there's no way that works well) or the fundamental problem with classes like Centurion being able to lock you down for long periods of time with no counterplay, I just can't help but think that the game the devs think they are making or are trying to make is fundamentally different from the game the players experience or want.
EDIT: Regarding DefPen, something I've been thinking about is how backwards they implemented it in the first place. Their rationale was that it was being added to allow lower level players to negate some of the damage reduction of the higher geared players, and in a way that has been achieved because virtually everyone is aiming to have their defense stat as close as possible to zero without going under. My thought was that it might actually be interesting to have DefPen follow a reverse curve of gains compared to other stats, and by that I mean grey gear has the current max bonus while the stat reduces in effectiveness as you climb the gear ladder. That way it would effectively become a junk stat at higher levels but would give low geared players a more even playing field and making defense stats no longer worthless. As a side note, the aforementioned penchant for keeping defense close to zero has lead to a sharp decrease in time to kill which exacerbates the issue of being stunlocked. I kinda wish the game was just back at Season 1 balance, things were skewed but at least the game was more fun in 4v4.
I got a chance to try out Absolver for a bit at E3 and there's no way I can go back to For Honor. It's everything I wanted FH to be, and I don't even care about it being hand to hand instead of weapon based. Plus you get swords occasionally so it's a nice balance.
I hope to see some of you there at the end of August, I think the game will do really well. Sorry if this is off-topic
I've been following Absolver pretty closely since someone posted some gameplay here several months back and I'm glad to hear that the combat feels good. The trailers and demos don't do a very good job of conveying how the combat system actually feels to control, and that could just be because the UI elements and fighting effects are more subdued and less visceral than For Honor. In theory it sounds like something I could get completely lost in (especially considering how much time I dumped into GODHAND) but the demure palette and subtle presentation don't do a great job of selling the concept. Reading and hearing about all the mechanics from the deck system to the mentor/student system to the different combat and gear styles I think it's going to be right up my alley, but it's one of those things that I think I'll have to actually get my hands on before I am certain it's going to work for me.
The combat is hard to describe, but it felt great while playing it. There's a rhythm to it that's hard to pin down at first, but once you get used to fighting it all just clicks. Swapping moves in and out is something I can see myself spending many many hours messing around and experimenting with.
I also really enjoyed the way you learn new attacks by fighting players or NPCs. You're rewarding for blocking them, rewarded a bit more for using your parry/dodge/absorb, and you even make a little progress by straight up murdering people. So by the time you actually unlock a new move you've seen enough of it to know how it works, when to use it, and how much damage it does when it lands.
I didn't get a ton of time with it, but there didn't seem to be any dominant meta yet. Slow, powerful attacks are good, quick light attacks are good, and using a combination of the two seemed feasible and worthwhile. The learning curve is steep at first, but you start to understand what you're doing wrong and how to fix it fairly quickly. Everything seemed a lot easier to execute than in For Honor, but maximizing your effectiveness will take a long long time. In the best possible way.
The few issues I had seemed like they were just bugs, and there's plenty of time to iron stuff like that out. They just did a beta so hopefully that stuff was either fixed or is being addressed. I couldn't unlock a target, for example. So if I locked onto a PC I wasn't actually trying to fight I had to run away with a locked camera angle to get out of combat mode.
I think it's a pretty deep game, and it looks like they've learned some lessons from For Honor's early problems with stats on gear. We'll see how everything shakes out, but I'm cautiously optimistic.
I got a chance to try out Absolver for a bit at E3 and there's no way I can go back to For Honor. It's everything I wanted FH to be, and I don't even care about it being hand to hand instead of weapon based. Plus you get swords occasionally so it's a nice balance.
I hope to see some of you there at the end of August, I think the game will do really well. Sorry if this is off-topic
I've been following Absolver pretty closely since someone posted some gameplay here several months back and I'm glad to hear that the combat feels good. The trailers and demos don't do a very good job of conveying how the combat system actually feels to control, and that could just be because the UI elements and fighting effects are more subdued and less visceral than For Honor. In theory it sounds like something I could get completely lost in (especially considering how much time I dumped into GODHAND) but the demure palette and subtle presentation don't do a great job of selling the concept. Reading and hearing about all the mechanics from the deck system to the mentor/student system to the different combat and gear styles I think it's going to be right up my alley, but it's one of those things that I think I'll have to actually get my hands on before I am certain it's going to work for me.
The combat is hard to describe, but it felt great while playing it. There's a rhythm to it that's hard to pin down at first, but once you get used to fighting it all just clicks. Swapping moves in and out is something I can see myself spending many many hours messing around and experimenting with.
I also really enjoyed the way you learn new attacks by fighting players or NPCs. You're rewarding for blocking them, rewarded a bit more for using your parry/dodge/absorb, and you even make a little progress by straight up murdering people. So by the time you actually unlock a new move you've seen enough of it to know how it works, when to use it, and how much damage it does when it lands.
I didn't get a ton of time with it, but there didn't seem to be any dominant meta yet. Slow, powerful attacks are good, quick light attacks are good, and using a combination of the two seemed feasible and worthwhile. The learning curve is steep at first, but you start to understand what you're doing wrong and how to fix it fairly quickly. Everything seemed a lot easier to execute than in For Honor, but maximizing your effectiveness will take a long long time. In the best possible way.
The few issues I had seemed like they were just bugs, and there's plenty of time to iron stuff like that out. They just did a beta so hopefully that stuff was either fixed or is being addressed. I couldn't unlock a target, for example. So if I locked onto a PC I wasn't actually trying to fight I had to run away with a locked camera angle to get out of combat mode.
I think it's a pretty deep game, and it looks like they've learned some lessons from For Honor's early problems with stats on gear. We'll see how everything shakes out, but I'm cautiously optimistic.
@Bubs something that seems a bit nebulous to me as far as the combat is concerned is the defensive side of things. I understand how attacks can be up to a chain of three with alternate attacks at each step, and that there are four stances and that different moves can shift stances throughout or maintain the stance they are launched from. I know there are special properties to some attacks like stagger or sweep or hyperarmor of a sort (different from the absorb power) as well as all sorts of attributes like speed, high/low, damage and the like. What I don't understand is how defense works aside from the special defensive moves like parry, dodge, and absorb. Is that the only component of defense aside from basic avoidance? It seems like there is a generic block during which you take chip damage, and but is it dependent on being in the appropriate stance to block the incoming attack? I guess the reason I'm asking is because of how brutal the defensive meta is (kinda was now with the advent of Centurion) in For Honor, and while it is fun to launch all sorts of counter attacks it's not very fun to be hesitant to make a move if the punishment for failed or blocked attacks is too severe.
@fsmith1 As far as I could tell, blocking is just holding a trigger and each blocked attack eats stamina like performing attacks does. You don't block high or low, you just block everything if you have the stamina for it. If you don't, you're guardbroken. Which concerned me a bit, because it seemed like stamina was by far the most important stat, but I didn't get a chance to see if it's capped or if other stats start to compete with it later on. Like if more powerful attacks do more chip damage and/or drain more stamina when blocked. You also regen stamina very slowly while holding block, so you have to drop your guard sometimes or you can't really counter attack.
There's a dash type of avoid in addition to each style's active avoidance. Those 3 seemed really balanced. Parry was limited but powerful, the dodge covered every direction but was hard to do and didn't open the enemy up as much, and absorb seemed like it had tighter timing to adjust for the lack of a directional requirement. None of these had a stance requirement, but with the number of possible attacks it's much harder to predict what an enemy will do than in for honor. Plus you can feint anything, at least from what I saw.
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So I haven't played this in awhile, waiting for balance changes. I've heard one potentially good thing that might get me back in, and one potentially bad thing which might keep me away. Firstly I've heard they're trying to rebalance the defense meta so it's not so oppressive anymore, but secondly I've heard that most of the playerbase has up and left and depending on who's left at this point I don't know if it's worth it to rejoin even if the balance has gotten better. Has anyone been playing it lately that could shed light on the current state of the game?
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The last tournament was won by using unlock "unlock tech". The devs have said it is not the way the game is intended to be played and they will be fixing it. The dev that handed over the trophy did not look pleased about it at all. I have no idea how they intend to fix the defensive meta, since they tried to do it twice before and failed.
The player base right now is very small, I see the same handful of people every couple matches and nobody seems to actually enjoy playing the game, myself included.
I can't in good conscious recommend coming back to the game in the state it's in currently, and I don't anticipate Ubi will be able to fix the problems any time soon given their previous track record in this and other games (looking at you, Siege).
Ubisoft did mention they are planning to add dedicated servers to help with the disconnect problems at least.
Too little too late? I dunno. There were close to 10K people watching the exhibition tourney this weekend which is a decent number.
10k isn't a whole lot for a marquee tourney when Aris streaming tekken 7 for giggles hits 4k. I want to say NLBC and WNF weeklies get close to that number also, and those are just weeklies.
It's super frustrating looking at how all this turned out. It had so much potential but it wasn't thought through.
Sev: Your gameplay is the most heavily yomi based around. Usually you look for characters that allow you to force guessing situations for big dmg. Even if the guess is mathematically nowhere near in your favor lol. You're happiest when you have either a 50/50, 33/33/33 or even a 75/25 situation to go crazy with. And you will take big risks to force those situations to come up.
Ubisoft did mention they are planning to add dedicated servers to help with the disconnect problems at least.
Too little too late? I dunno. There were close to 10K people watching the exhibition tourney this weekend which is a decent number.
10k isn't a whole lot for a marquee tourney when Aris streaming tekken 7 for giggles hits 4k. I want to say NLBC and WNF weeklies get close to that number also, and those are just weeklies.
It's super frustrating looking at how all this turned out. It had so much potential but it wasn't thought through.
Yeah, but Twitch viewership is hard to gauge. Top 8's for even bigger FGC tourneys like ComboBreaker and Summer Jam pull in less than 10K, but people are saying Injustice 2 and Tekken 7 are both super popular and doing really well as far as playerbases go.
I'm not saying For Honor is now or may ever again pulling in large numbers, I just don't think it's yet quite on level of life support people are claiming it is.
Now, would I suggest someone buy it right now? No, not without a dedicated group of friends to play with. But if someone already owns the game, I see no harm in jumping back in when Season 3 goes live to see if they enjoy it. Despite all the issues, the core game play is still super fun.
I just don't know how they managed to make it into this. I don't even know what the "core" is any more. I like group modes, and those tend to have the whole gear rigamarole, and at a certain point, I can't be assed to keep track any more. I bought the season pass, so yeah I'm gonna check it out again. But I'm honestly not expecting much any more.
Sev: Your gameplay is the most heavily yomi based around. Usually you look for characters that allow you to force guessing situations for big dmg. Even if the guess is mathematically nowhere near in your favor lol. You're happiest when you have either a 50/50, 33/33/33 or even a 75/25 situation to go crazy with. And you will take big risks to force those situations to come up.
Yeah, something like that still existing this far into the game made any aspect of the tourney making me want to jump back in fizzle out pretty quickly.
hoo boy. i tried playing this over the weekend for the first time since release month
i think this game is... super trash now. wow.
i'm not going to give specific examples because I understand this is a "fighting game" and technically every action has an appropriate reaction, but there's some buster-ass shit in For Honor and the meta game feels pretty cancerous to me compared to launch
I don't think there's anything that can be done about this game without completely redesigning combat from the ground up. This game was regarded as pretty turtle heavy/defensive when it came out and with techs being unimaginably easy compared to launch, it feels even MORE turtly. And my impression is they try to design their way out of it with giving characters like Cent easy unblockables that lead into mixups and stuff to try and open people up... or attack cancels that advance your character forward into a mixup
and it just comes off as trying to dig yourself out of a design hole by trying to dig through the earths core to the other side
if they just toned down some of their basic combat systems, there wouldn't be any need for a class like Centurion.
I would:
Remove parrying from the game or only give it to a specific few classes
Make all forms of blocking cost stamina/more stamina, except for Tanks, who keep their current blocking dynamics
Only allow direction change on throws in certain situations (such as stun, recovery frames of unblockables, stamina depletion, etc) and restore release tech window
Make stamina depletion result in an inability to resist throws and/or limit your ability to block in SOME way
Prune unblockables/feints/cancels where appropriate
I think this would make for a way more interactive game at all levels
This coming patch is removing gb confirm after parry, which will help.
It will also make it impossible to parry while OOS, and light attacks will no longer be interrupted by a block while OOS. Dodging will delay stamina regen.
Parry
Parry is one of the best defensive options in the game with the guaranteed Guard Break which itself can guarantee heavy damage for a lot of characters, or even a kill if a hazard is nearby. Because Parry reward is so high, Players are encouraged to bait attacks and punish instead of choosing to initiate with an attack of their own. With that in mind, we’re changing the frame advantage of Parry.
Changes:
Light Parry frame advantage is reduced to be consistent with Heavy Parry
Guard Break is no longer guaranteed
Parrying too early consistently opens up your defense
We’re making the reward for Parrying Lights or Heavies consistent because at high level, Light attacks are easily punished by Parry. And since Light attacks cannot be feinted, we wanted to make them safer.
Guard Break can still connect based on range but can be countered. We still want to provide reward to Parrying but we don’t want it be so good that attacking feels too risky.
Finally, we’re fixing some safe Parry options out of Hit or Block reactions. In some match-ups, it is possible to just spam Heavy after a Hit or Block reaction and Parry the next attack safely because the reaction you’re in doesn’t allow you to attack until the next Hit strikes you. Therefore, you can Parry without risking to trigger an attack if you press too early. In the Technical Test version, Parrying too early will always open you up to be punished.
Guard Break
Guard Break is dominant in the game right now and one of the main sources of damage for any character when it is set up during a recovery. At high level it’s countered very often. At low level, it’s not the case. We’ve tried to play with how difficult it is to counter, but the problem is that it only makes it more difficult for the majority of players, while making little difference at high level play.
Furthermore, Guard Break can beat a large amount of slower attacks. This causes situations in group fight where external attackers will spam Guard Break until they interrupt the attacker’s startup. Attack startups have variable Guard Break vulnerability windows based on their duration, the longer the more vulnerable:
Startup 0-700ms - 0-100ms Guard Break vulnerability
Startup 800-1000ms - 0-400ms Guard Break vulnerability
Startup 1100-1300ms - 0-600ms Guard Break vulnerability
Startup 1400-…ms - 0-800ms Guard Break vulnerability
Change:
All attack startups - 0-100ms Guard Break vulnerability
This change makes attacks 800ms or longer safer, since they won’t lose to a Guard Break on read or reaction anymore. This also means, the Feint > Guard Break sequence will not work against a baited Parry attempt.
Stamina
Stamina is currently a resource generally spent by the attacker, while the opponent who only defends ends up ahead in the stamina race while Blocking and Dodging. Also, when your opponent is Out Of Stamina, it can be very hard to punish them. We want it to be more dangerous to be in Out Of Stamina State.
Changes:
Stamina Regen on Block and on Dodge is now paused:
Dodge left, right, and Dash forward: no stamina regen on the first 400ms
Dodge Back: no stamina regen on the first 600ms
Interrupt Block*: no stamina regen on the first 300ms
Regular Block**: no stamina regen on the first 500ms
Out of Stamina state makes players more vulnerable:
Blocking Light Attacks will not result in Interrupt but Regular Blocks, allowing your enemy to keep chaining lights
Impossible to Parry
Dodge and Dash are 200ms longer to make you more vulnerable to Guard Break
Dodge and Dash no longer have any special defensive properties such as Deflect or Superior Block
Getting hit by Melee attacks when Out of Stamina doesn’t drain stamina, it only pauses the regen
We want offense to take a more critical advantage against a target Out of Stamina. By making Out of Stamina weaker, we want players to fear it more as we put more pressure on Stamina management. Pausing the Stamina regen instead of draining it is a necessary change to make Out of Stamina escapable.
*Interrupt Block bounces the attacker off. It happens when Light attacks get blocked.
**Regular Block doesn’t break the flow of attack allowing you to keep chaining.
Chip Damage
Chip Damage is the portion of an attack’s damage that goes through even if you block it. In For Honor, you get Chip Damage when you Regular Block only. With values varying from 2, 5, 10% based on attack damage, Chip Damage is so low that you never fear to Block everything.
Change:
Chip Damage increased to 18% for any attack
This will make blocking less effective as a stalling tool as now there will be a more noticeable health penalty to pay. Chip Damage will however not be lethal.
Revenge
Revenge State is also getting updated. With the recent changes to Revenge earn rates, we also wanted to rework how powerful Revenge State should be.
An important aspect of the rebalancing of Revenge State is the role of Melee. Melee is currently very strong in Revenge State, but also very strong against it. It could be very difficult to deal with getting unbalanced over and over by a Warlord/Valkyrie/Conqueror who is in Revenge – and being in Revenge also seemed very weak when surrounded by Centurions who Kicked. It also created a split between characters with and without Melee attacks.
Changes:
Revenge activation can’t be interrupted by Melee attacks
Incoming Melee attacks don’t interrupt attack startups
Outgoing Melee attacks don’t Unbalance enemy
Shield is increased to 70% of your HP (from 50%)
Outgoing attacks cannot be parried
While in Revenge, we want you to have more opportunity to attack, and while attacking to be less vulnerable to Melee attacks. We expect to see group fights be less reliant on having someone to spam Headbutt/Shield Bash/Kick.
The last big change to Revenge State is that we’re making all your attacks impossible to Parry. The overarching idea is to make Out of Stamina and Revenge State consistent: if you’re in Revenge State, it’s pretty much as if your opponents are Out of Stamina with the no Interrupt Block on Light, no Parry…
Could be promising, I do hate how OoS isn't really a big deal for a lot of characters/players. I also think more could be done with weapon weights. If you block a poleaxe heavy with your puny sword/dagger, you stagger, recover hella slow, and also take a chunk of block damage. Make light vs heavy weapons feel different.
I mean, a fast char with a light weapon should be more reliant on whiff punishing as opposed to parry/block vs a heavy weapon. Of course this means that shield+weapon just became a jack of all trades kind of fighter, which actually makes sense.
Hiryu02 on
Sev: Your gameplay is the most heavily yomi based around. Usually you look for characters that allow you to force guessing situations for big dmg. Even if the guess is mathematically nowhere near in your favor lol. You're happiest when you have either a 50/50, 33/33/33 or even a 75/25 situation to go crazy with. And you will take big risks to force those situations to come up.
Did they ever fix that false attack indicator glitch? Because that right there is what single handedly killed my interest in playing.
They had a flicker bug fix in the latest public test.
It was removing the buffer for initiating a zone attack, which allowed the flicker bug. So instead of having some leeway you had to press the buttons at the exact same time. It was scheduled to be in this patch but they pushed it back.
Could be promising, I do hate how OoS isn't really a big deal for a lot of characters/players. I also think more could be done with weapon weights. If you block a poleaxe heavy with your puny sword/dagger, you stagger, recover hella slow, and also take a chunk of block damage. Make light vs heavy weapons feel different.
I mean, a fast char with a light weapon should be more reliant on whiff punishing as opposed to parry/block vs a heavy weapon. Of course this means that shield+weapon just became a jack of all trades kind of fighter, which actually makes sense.
Chip damage also went up. As the notes say, it used to be anywhere from 2-10%. Now all attacks deal 18% chip damage. A buff across the board, then there's the chip damage stap (Block damage). That goes up to something like 80%? So, and I don't know how they do the numbers, but blocking heavies could still see you talking potentially double digit damage.
Highlander seems interesting with the way they implemented a stance mechanic. I downloaded the patch yesterday and messed around with him. It is a bit weird holding a button to remain in stance. Props for trying something new though.
Sev: Your gameplay is the most heavily yomi based around. Usually you look for characters that allow you to force guessing situations for big dmg. Even if the guess is mathematically nowhere near in your favor lol. You're happiest when you have either a 50/50, 33/33/33 or even a 75/25 situation to go crazy with. And you will take big risks to force those situations to come up.
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Yeah there is that. The pinning move of the centurion plus the constant blindness from being punched and kicked the whole time makes him an absolute terror in 4v4 modes. God help you if they have more than one.
Outside of those modes he's much easier to handle.
Conq is another character that suffers if you dodge well. His shield bash chain is ruthless though.
Speaking of dodging, something finally clicked with the berserker today. Was having a lot of fun with her, she absolutely shits out damage. Her ability allows her to chase down shinobis pretty well too which is a big bonus in my book!
http://steamcommunity.com/id/pablocampy
It's one of those issues in fighting games where they make a character that's just not as much fun to fight as other classes, I think, now having played for the weekend. That being said....
....I am glad I also use Berserker aside from Warden. Berserker seems to shit on Centurion due to how linear they are and I haven't been having huge issue with Shinobi with him. My berserker, he just has been running roughshod in the 4 player modes, regularly putting up 17-1 style numbers.
Warden? I have issues with both of them, but my Zerker? He doesn't feel nearly as difficult to use against them.
PSN: Bizazedo
CFN: Bizazedo (I don't think I suck, add me).
I hope to see some of you there at the end of August, I think the game will do really well. Sorry if this is off-topic
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I've been following Absolver pretty closely since someone posted some gameplay here several months back and I'm glad to hear that the combat feels good. The trailers and demos don't do a very good job of conveying how the combat system actually feels to control, and that could just be because the UI elements and fighting effects are more subdued and less visceral than For Honor. In theory it sounds like something I could get completely lost in (especially considering how much time I dumped into GODHAND) but the demure palette and subtle presentation don't do a great job of selling the concept. Reading and hearing about all the mechanics from the deck system to the mentor/student system to the different combat and gear styles I think it's going to be right up my alley, but it's one of those things that I think I'll have to actually get my hands on before I am certain it's going to work for me.
That said and back to the topic of For Honor, I've certainly taken several steps back from my active play since Season 2 started. Shinobi and Centurion really fucked up the meta in my preferred PVP mode of Dominion, and I still play relatively often but I almost exclusively play against bots now because PVP has become a frustrating toxic mess in the 4v4 modes. The devs seem to be trying to work out the kinks, but the fact that they can't even wrap their heads around why Defense Penetration is a broken stat (one stat at secondary bonus negates three primary bonus stats spread out across three pieces of gear, there's no way that works well) or the fundamental problem with classes like Centurion being able to lock you down for long periods of time with no counterplay, I just can't help but think that the game the devs think they are making or are trying to make is fundamentally different from the game the players experience or want.
EDIT: Regarding DefPen, something I've been thinking about is how backwards they implemented it in the first place. Their rationale was that it was being added to allow lower level players to negate some of the damage reduction of the higher geared players, and in a way that has been achieved because virtually everyone is aiming to have their defense stat as close as possible to zero without going under. My thought was that it might actually be interesting to have DefPen follow a reverse curve of gains compared to other stats, and by that I mean grey gear has the current max bonus while the stat reduces in effectiveness as you climb the gear ladder. That way it would effectively become a junk stat at higher levels but would give low geared players a more even playing field and making defense stats no longer worthless. As a side note, the aforementioned penchant for keeping defense close to zero has lead to a sharp decrease in time to kill which exacerbates the issue of being stunlocked. I kinda wish the game was just back at Season 1 balance, things were skewed but at least the game was more fun in 4v4.
The combat is hard to describe, but it felt great while playing it. There's a rhythm to it that's hard to pin down at first, but once you get used to fighting it all just clicks. Swapping moves in and out is something I can see myself spending many many hours messing around and experimenting with.
I also really enjoyed the way you learn new attacks by fighting players or NPCs. You're rewarding for blocking them, rewarded a bit more for using your parry/dodge/absorb, and you even make a little progress by straight up murdering people. So by the time you actually unlock a new move you've seen enough of it to know how it works, when to use it, and how much damage it does when it lands.
I didn't get a ton of time with it, but there didn't seem to be any dominant meta yet. Slow, powerful attacks are good, quick light attacks are good, and using a combination of the two seemed feasible and worthwhile. The learning curve is steep at first, but you start to understand what you're doing wrong and how to fix it fairly quickly. Everything seemed a lot easier to execute than in For Honor, but maximizing your effectiveness will take a long long time. In the best possible way.
The few issues I had seemed like they were just bugs, and there's plenty of time to iron stuff like that out. They just did a beta so hopefully that stuff was either fixed or is being addressed. I couldn't unlock a target, for example. So if I locked onto a PC I wasn't actually trying to fight I had to run away with a locked camera angle to get out of combat mode.
I think it's a pretty deep game, and it looks like they've learned some lessons from For Honor's early problems with stats on gear. We'll see how everything shakes out, but I'm cautiously optimistic.
@Bubs something that seems a bit nebulous to me as far as the combat is concerned is the defensive side of things. I understand how attacks can be up to a chain of three with alternate attacks at each step, and that there are four stances and that different moves can shift stances throughout or maintain the stance they are launched from. I know there are special properties to some attacks like stagger or sweep or hyperarmor of a sort (different from the absorb power) as well as all sorts of attributes like speed, high/low, damage and the like. What I don't understand is how defense works aside from the special defensive moves like parry, dodge, and absorb. Is that the only component of defense aside from basic avoidance? It seems like there is a generic block during which you take chip damage, and but is it dependent on being in the appropriate stance to block the incoming attack? I guess the reason I'm asking is because of how brutal the defensive meta is (kinda was now with the advent of Centurion) in For Honor, and while it is fun to launch all sorts of counter attacks it's not very fun to be hesitant to make a move if the punishment for failed or blocked attacks is too severe.
There's a dash type of avoid in addition to each style's active avoidance. Those 3 seemed really balanced. Parry was limited but powerful, the dodge covered every direction but was hard to do and didn't open the enemy up as much, and absorb seemed like it had tighter timing to adjust for the lack of a directional requirement. None of these had a stance requirement, but with the number of possible attacks it's much harder to predict what an enemy will do than in for honor. Plus you can feint anything, at least from what I saw.
The player base right now is very small, I see the same handful of people every couple matches and nobody seems to actually enjoy playing the game, myself included.
I can't in good conscious recommend coming back to the game in the state it's in currently, and I don't anticipate Ubi will be able to fix the problems any time soon given their previous track record in this and other games (looking at you, Siege).
Too little too late? I dunno. There were close to 10K people watching the exhibition tourney this weekend which is a decent number.
XBL: InvaderJims
Bnet: Pudgestomp#11153
10k isn't a whole lot for a marquee tourney when Aris streaming tekken 7 for giggles hits 4k. I want to say NLBC and WNF weeklies get close to that number also, and those are just weeklies.
It's super frustrating looking at how all this turned out. It had so much potential but it wasn't thought through.
Yeah, but Twitch viewership is hard to gauge. Top 8's for even bigger FGC tourneys like ComboBreaker and Summer Jam pull in less than 10K, but people are saying Injustice 2 and Tekken 7 are both super popular and doing really well as far as playerbases go.
I'm not saying For Honor is now or may ever again pulling in large numbers, I just don't think it's yet quite on level of life support people are claiming it is.
Now, would I suggest someone buy it right now? No, not without a dedicated group of friends to play with. But if someone already owns the game, I see no harm in jumping back in when Season 3 goes live to see if they enjoy it. Despite all the issues, the core game play is still super fun.
XBL: InvaderJims
Bnet: Pudgestomp#11153
https://compete.kotaku.com/for-honor-player-wins-official-tournament-10-000-usin-1797819358
I just don't know how they managed to make it into this. I don't even know what the "core" is any more. I like group modes, and those tend to have the whole gear rigamarole, and at a certain point, I can't be assed to keep track any more. I bought the season pass, so yeah I'm gonna check it out again. But I'm honestly not expecting much any more.
i think this game is... super trash now. wow.
i'm not going to give specific examples because I understand this is a "fighting game" and technically every action has an appropriate reaction, but there's some buster-ass shit in For Honor and the meta game feels pretty cancerous to me compared to launch
I don't think there's anything that can be done about this game without completely redesigning combat from the ground up. This game was regarded as pretty turtle heavy/defensive when it came out and with techs being unimaginably easy compared to launch, it feels even MORE turtly. And my impression is they try to design their way out of it with giving characters like Cent easy unblockables that lead into mixups and stuff to try and open people up... or attack cancels that advance your character forward into a mixup
and it just comes off as trying to dig yourself out of a design hole by trying to dig through the earths core to the other side
if they just toned down some of their basic combat systems, there wouldn't be any need for a class like Centurion.
I would:
Make all forms of blocking cost stamina/more stamina, except for Tanks, who keep their current blocking dynamics
Only allow direction change on throws in certain situations (such as stun, recovery frames of unblockables, stamina depletion, etc) and restore release tech window
Make stamina depletion result in an inability to resist throws and/or limit your ability to block in SOME way
Prune unblockables/feints/cancels where appropriate
I think this would make for a way more interactive game at all levels
It will also make it impossible to parry while OOS, and light attacks will no longer be interrupted by a block while OOS. Dodging will delay stamina regen.
Parry is one of the best defensive options in the game with the guaranteed Guard Break which itself can guarantee heavy damage for a lot of characters, or even a kill if a hazard is nearby. Because Parry reward is so high, Players are encouraged to bait attacks and punish instead of choosing to initiate with an attack of their own. With that in mind, we’re changing the frame advantage of Parry.
Changes:
Light Parry frame advantage is reduced to be consistent with Heavy Parry
Guard Break is no longer guaranteed
Parrying too early consistently opens up your defense
We’re making the reward for Parrying Lights or Heavies consistent because at high level, Light attacks are easily punished by Parry. And since Light attacks cannot be feinted, we wanted to make them safer.
Guard Break can still connect based on range but can be countered. We still want to provide reward to Parrying but we don’t want it be so good that attacking feels too risky.
Finally, we’re fixing some safe Parry options out of Hit or Block reactions. In some match-ups, it is possible to just spam Heavy after a Hit or Block reaction and Parry the next attack safely because the reaction you’re in doesn’t allow you to attack until the next Hit strikes you. Therefore, you can Parry without risking to trigger an attack if you press too early. In the Technical Test version, Parrying too early will always open you up to be punished.
Guard Break
Guard Break is dominant in the game right now and one of the main sources of damage for any character when it is set up during a recovery. At high level it’s countered very often. At low level, it’s not the case. We’ve tried to play with how difficult it is to counter, but the problem is that it only makes it more difficult for the majority of players, while making little difference at high level play.
Furthermore, Guard Break can beat a large amount of slower attacks. This causes situations in group fight where external attackers will spam Guard Break until they interrupt the attacker’s startup. Attack startups have variable Guard Break vulnerability windows based on their duration, the longer the more vulnerable:
Startup 0-700ms - 0-100ms Guard Break vulnerability
Startup 800-1000ms - 0-400ms Guard Break vulnerability
Startup 1100-1300ms - 0-600ms Guard Break vulnerability
Startup 1400-…ms - 0-800ms Guard Break vulnerability
Change:
All attack startups - 0-100ms Guard Break vulnerability
This change makes attacks 800ms or longer safer, since they won’t lose to a Guard Break on read or reaction anymore. This also means, the Feint > Guard Break sequence will not work against a baited Parry attempt.
Stamina
Stamina is currently a resource generally spent by the attacker, while the opponent who only defends ends up ahead in the stamina race while Blocking and Dodging. Also, when your opponent is Out Of Stamina, it can be very hard to punish them. We want it to be more dangerous to be in Out Of Stamina State.
Changes:
Stamina Regen on Block and on Dodge is now paused:
Dodge left, right, and Dash forward: no stamina regen on the first 400ms
Dodge Back: no stamina regen on the first 600ms
Interrupt Block*: no stamina regen on the first 300ms
Regular Block**: no stamina regen on the first 500ms
Out of Stamina state makes players more vulnerable:
Blocking Light Attacks will not result in Interrupt but Regular Blocks, allowing your enemy to keep chaining lights
Impossible to Parry
Dodge and Dash are 200ms longer to make you more vulnerable to Guard Break
Dodge and Dash no longer have any special defensive properties such as Deflect or Superior Block
Getting hit by Melee attacks when Out of Stamina doesn’t drain stamina, it only pauses the regen
We want offense to take a more critical advantage against a target Out of Stamina. By making Out of Stamina weaker, we want players to fear it more as we put more pressure on Stamina management. Pausing the Stamina regen instead of draining it is a necessary change to make Out of Stamina escapable.
*Interrupt Block bounces the attacker off. It happens when Light attacks get blocked.
**Regular Block doesn’t break the flow of attack allowing you to keep chaining.
Chip Damage
Chip Damage is the portion of an attack’s damage that goes through even if you block it. In For Honor, you get Chip Damage when you Regular Block only. With values varying from 2, 5, 10% based on attack damage, Chip Damage is so low that you never fear to Block everything.
Change:
Chip Damage increased to 18% for any attack
This will make blocking less effective as a stalling tool as now there will be a more noticeable health penalty to pay. Chip Damage will however not be lethal.
Revenge
Revenge State is also getting updated. With the recent changes to Revenge earn rates, we also wanted to rework how powerful Revenge State should be.
An important aspect of the rebalancing of Revenge State is the role of Melee. Melee is currently very strong in Revenge State, but also very strong against it. It could be very difficult to deal with getting unbalanced over and over by a Warlord/Valkyrie/Conqueror who is in Revenge – and being in Revenge also seemed very weak when surrounded by Centurions who Kicked. It also created a split between characters with and without Melee attacks.
Changes:
Revenge activation can’t be interrupted by Melee attacks
Incoming Melee attacks don’t interrupt attack startups
Outgoing Melee attacks don’t Unbalance enemy
Shield is increased to 70% of your HP (from 50%)
Outgoing attacks cannot be parried
While in Revenge, we want you to have more opportunity to attack, and while attacking to be less vulnerable to Melee attacks. We expect to see group fights be less reliant on having someone to spam Headbutt/Shield Bash/Kick.
The last big change to Revenge State is that we’re making all your attacks impossible to Parry. The overarching idea is to make Out of Stamina and Revenge State consistent: if you’re in Revenge State, it’s pretty much as if your opponents are Out of Stamina with the no Interrupt Block on Light, no Parry…
They also delayed a flicker exploit flick.
I mean, a fast char with a light weapon should be more reliant on whiff punishing as opposed to parry/block vs a heavy weapon. Of course this means that shield+weapon just became a jack of all trades kind of fighter, which actually makes sense.
Armchair: 4098-3704-2012
They had a flicker bug fix in the latest public test.
It was removing the buffer for initiating a zone attack, which allowed the flicker bug. So instead of having some leeway you had to press the buttons at the exact same time. It was scheduled to be in this patch but they pushed it back.
Chip damage also went up. As the notes say, it used to be anywhere from 2-10%. Now all attacks deal 18% chip damage. A buff across the board, then there's the chip damage stap (Block damage). That goes up to something like 80%? So, and I don't know how they do the numbers, but blocking heavies could still see you talking potentially double digit damage.
https://forhonor.ubisoft.com/game/en-us/news-community/152-298289-16/for-honor-v111-patch-notes
Having said that, Gladiator is a lot of fun.
https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/213446/we-fight-for-honor-season-3-out-highlander-and-gladiator-ea-week