I literally just want to voice my opinion. I've seen that some players don't like it, and one of my buddies feels the same way.

In short: I think progression can kill a game, but I think it's being done right in For Honor. It should be kept.

It's not CoD, it isn't Battlefield. The outcome is not decided by gear.

I enjoy being given the power to tweak my stats. A sense of progression needs to reach just a little further than my increasing skill as a player. Progression is needed to make the rewards we get even from losing a match worth something besides a shiny breastplate. It adds diversity to character builds in a way that can be tweaked to take as much time as the developers feel that it should. Levels tend to take more XP as you go, and melting items down into a single item is going to eventually take a daunting amount of resources. Diminishing returns for the win.

So, that's it. Progression is fine, outside of the odd tweak here or there.