Just Played For Honor! | Forums

[MisterWillow]

I think i caught a moment in the first gameplay walkthrough that seemed like if you are locked onto a enemy and an attack comes it it automaticly changes to that enemy but that is total speculation.

I think it was in the Masterclass that they said if a second opponent comes in, all you need to do is keep your guard stance in their direction and you'll block any attack they throw. The lock-on doesn't switch, though.

There's a moment in the developer walkthrough that illustrates this (2:35).



The person the player attacks is focused on someone else, parries the player's attack, but stays focused on other person; and in the player keeps their guard 'left' to block the second player coming down the stairs while still being focused on the first opponent, then switches.

[Altair_Snake]

You mean to tell me that the defender saw an attack coming from a person he wasn't locked on to, attacked at the instant the blow was about to land to parry, then immediately re-focused on two other opponents (the one he's locked on to and another) and attacked at the instant both their attacks were about to land?

I think it makes more sense that he saw one attack coming, shifted his stance in time with the off-screen blow to parry, then shifted his stance again, since it appeared the other attacks were coming from a different direction, so he had to or get hit, and because of the rapid succession of attacks the shift in stance was in time with the second attack(s) anyway, resulting in that being parried as well.

I understand that it may seem simply a matter of a well timed stick motion... in the last momment. That hypothesis jumped in my mind, too. But there are a bunch (I'll try to find them if you want) of examples where dudes clearly parry at the last momment and still get crushed, whereas in other cases they parry in the last momment and deflect. This was the Achilles heel in the timed stick hypothesis, even though I was inclined towards it.

Pressing the attack button "solves this problem". It explains the variation we see even when the stick timing seems to be the same.

What might have happened in that gif was that the first parry was probably performed very deliberately. Note that parrying flankers only requires that you point your stance towards them regardless of their attack direction. That leaves you more work memmory to work out the timing of the attack button, to score a deflection.

As for the second (twin) deflection, he might have actually been trying to attack the first flanker, with a high attack, and got somewhat lucky that fit as a deflection to the twin attacks from the other dudes. This second deflection was a lot harder because he used the specific direction (Up). The timing might not have been particularly hard, because it was done as soon as he could move.

And if is really the attack button, I think players will be able to mash it. Why? Because if they do it early, they get hit. Devs may still restrict mashing in this case, though. I'm fine with either way.

I also suspect that this timing will feel like hitting the button right after the attack connects, kinda how the combo kills felt in AC1 - even though the whiffing logic is similar to counter attacks, which did have long timing windows - but not the point of similarity with For Honor.

As for my stance on sharp timing when latency is involved... Initially I thought the stuff would be very circumstantial. But then, largely with your help, I've simplified my hypothesis, aside from the need of an input. I was then already settled in my expectations regarding having an input involved. This input must have timing and it can't be easy. The part about which I'm happy is not that the button press must have strict timing. I merely accept that. That part that pleases me is that they figured out a way to do this that results in an early whiff but doesn't punish a late input: the attack. It also doesn't require an extra button, btw, which helps us to keep a our fingers in the sticks at all times, during fights (and doesn't require us to press L2 + L1 at the same time, which is uncomfortable for my disabled hand ).

This scheme actually mitigates the latency issue, because players can lean towards a low risk approach in which they still block if they fail to deflect. And yet, people can't go yolo with it, because early inputs get you hit. I also think that this late-friendly logic favors parrying strong attacks and makes parrying light attacks harder: there is nothing later than a strong attack, but being late to a fast attack will mean being early to a strong attack and getting hit hard. It is important that fast attacks are hard to deflect (maybe the window for deflecting them should be stricter, too). If they're easy to deflect, the spacing will lose most of its importance.

The well timed stick logic (for the Warden at least) wouldn't make fast attacks considerably harder to parry than the strong ones. And people would be able to go yolo with it, fearing neither late not early inputs.

The timed-attack logic will also be more circumstancial than it seems. In Soul Calibur V, players can perform a 1/10s precision kind of parry because of the set ups and because they can lean to a "side" (early or late) safely. I think we will see a similar metagame in For Honor.
____________

Another question to the guys who got to play it and might get another chance to play it and/or talk to the Devs:

It seems we can combine one or two fast attacks into a strong attack in actual combos, that really flow together, without returning to the stance. So, we can go fast-strong. But can we go strong-fast?

I mean (since a long time ago ) to make a thread about the flow of battle, to understand and guide when and how to attack and defend. This question is important - kinda my blind spot in the matter, right now.

[MisterWillow]

I understand that it may seem simply a matter of a well timed stick motion... in the last momment. That hypothesis jumped in my mind, too. But there are a bunch (I'll try to find them if you want) of examples where dudes clearly parry at the last momment and still get crushed, whereas in other cases they parry in the last momment and deflect. This was the Achilles heel in the timed stick hypothesis, even though I was inclined towards it.

Please find them.

Pressing the attack button "solves this problem". It explains the variation we see even when the stick timing seems to be the same.

And if is really the attack button, I think players will be able to mash it. Why? Because if they do it early, they get hit. Devs may still restrict mashing in this case, though. I'm fine with either way.

I disagree on both counts. Again this is what happens with anything other than a perfectly-timed attack (ostensible parry).



The attacks cancel each other out. In the first hit, the defender does take a bit of damage---nowhere near the amount for a full hit, it's chip damage at most---which is fine I guess, but in the second hit the defender (the player) takes no damage. If a timed attack is indeed the input for a parry, what it invites players to simply spam attacks at one another attempting to parry, rather than using the defensive mechanics as they were intended.

[Willaguy2010]

So I think I can put an end to this parry discussion. I just got done playing For Honor for a second time about 2 hours ago. I told the dev that this was my second time playing so he said he could teach me some of the advanced stuff, such as parrying. To parry, you need to activate a heavy attack almost as soon as your opponents attack is hitting your blade, you also have to be in the same direction as your opponent, as if you were going to block him.

The dev said it was much harder to parry light attacks, because they were faster, I could only parry a light once. I parried heavy attacks often, although it is difficult to do. Also once you parry an opponent, your sword turns blue(this may be because I was on the Defending team) and while your sword's blue and you attack an opponent but they still block you'll do more damage, you'll also take less damage while your sword is blue. Your sword turns blue after parrying for only a few seconds. Hope this helps!

Edit: The dev also showed me that there is a move list, basically combos. The combos were light attack-light attack-heavy attack, heavy attack-heavy attack, and light attack-up-plus backing up. The light attack-up-plus backing up can only be done while engaged in a dual, and your character basically pull his stomach as far away from his opponent while not moving his feet, and attacks quickly while aiming for his opponents head.

I also got interviewed, not sure what website interviewed me but the video should be up in a few days!

[MisterWillow]

Huh... Alright then.

Still think it sounds awkward, but maybe it will make more sense playing it, or I'll be able to adjust.

Thanks for getting the information.

[Willaguy2010]

Huh... Alright then.

Still think it sounds awkward, but maybe it will make more sense playing it, or I'll be able to adjust.

Thanks for getting the information.

It's not as awkward as it sounds, once you plan on trying to parry your opponent your heavy attack button stops being a heavy attack button in your mind, it becomes a time sensitive button, so your really focused on simply getting the right guard direction and timing just right to parry successfully. Once you do parry it feels so satisfying to see that parry animation, and you know that you're on the offensive now. Sometimes I would just let my opponent come at me and attack first so I could parry and turn things around, very effective especially at PAX because almost nobody knew how to parry, it's not a thing that happens accidentally!

Edit: Also, if you unsuccessfully parry, the game knows what your were trying to do so it doesn't simply do a heavy attack that doesn't land, it does an animation as if your character tries to catch his opponent's sword with his, but misses.

[MisterWillow]

It's not as awkward as it sounds, once you plan on trying to parry your opponent your heavy attack button stops being a heavy attack button in your mind, it becomes a time sensitive button, so your really focused on simply getting the right guard direction and timing just right to parry successfully.

Still skeptical, but I'll probably remain so until I get to try it out. You're selling it pretty well, though.

Edit: Also, if you unsuccessfully parry, the game knows what your were trying to do so it doesn't simply do a heavy attack that doesn't land, it does an animation as if your character tries to catch his opponent's sword with his, but misses.

That's interesting. So, what is happening in here? (specifically the last hit)



Because it doesn't look like what you're describing. Would an unsuccessful parry be triggered later than that?

Also, does an unsuccessful parry result in damage to the defender?

[Willaguy2010]

Still skeptical, but I'll probably remain so until I get to try it out. You're selling it pretty well, though.



That's interesting. So, what is happening in here? (specifically the last hit)



Because it doesn't look like what you're describing. Would an unsuccessful parry be triggered later than that?

Also, does an unsuccessful parry result in damage to the defender?

In both instances of that gif the player from the gif's perspective is way too early on the heavy attack, the animation of a missed parry happens when you're too late, which is usually what happens if you were to fail a parry at all.

An unsuccessful parry will result in the enemy's attack going through, that is if you don't dodge out of the way, which I'm not sure is possible because missing a parry is almost like a stun state for your character in that it takes control away from the player for a little bit.

[MisterWillow]

In both instances of that gif the player from the gif's perspective is way too early on the heavy attack, the animation of a missed parry happens when you're too late, which is usually what happens if you were to fail a parry at all.

Wouldn't you just block the attack? Or do you mean that the attacker's weapon came into contact with the defender's in a normal block, and then the defender presses attack?

An unsuccessful parry will result in the enemy's attack going through, that is if you don't dodge out of the way, which I'm not sure is possible because missing a parry is almost like a stun state for your character in that it takes control away from the player for a little bit.

Does the defender take damage at all, or are they just stunned for a moment?

[Willaguy2010]

Wouldn't you just block the attack? Or do you mean that the attacker's weapon came into contact with the defender's in a normal block, and then the defender presses attack?



Does the defender take damage at all, or are they just stunned for a moment?

If you're late on the parry it doesn't matter if you were blocking the direction the attack came from, you take a risk to push your sword away from your body, if you miss then your open to the attack that you just failed to parry, so you'll take damage from that attack. If the defender simply fails the parry, and somehow the attack doesn't connect on the defender, then no the defender won't take damage, he'll just be stunned for the moment. By the way, the amount of time between too early and too late(that is, the only time you can successfuly parry) is very short, maybe 1 or 2 milliseconds. So although it sounds as if your too late to parry you'd simply block, the game still reads that you tried to parry and activates the missing parry animation. It is a lot harder to describe than actually playing it, so any confusion about this is completely understandable.