Junior Member
From the moment I saw the trailer for this game at E3 2 years ago, I was instantly hooked. I have always wanted a melee focused game like this, but the market favors the same boring FPS stuff. Yeah, there's a couple decent melee focused games, but nothing that stood out to me or delivered what I wanted, but For Honor is looking to finally fulfill that. I had a ton of fun playing this Closed Alpha. I ended up playing as much as I could over the entire 4 days, getting a decent amount of play time on all the classes but ultimately sticking with mainly the Orochi. I played on the PC with my PS4 controller, and if that stats on the profile are correct, I ended with about a 70% win rate. So with that context out of the way, let's get into it.
Customization
I'll admit, when I saw the interviews of people praising the customization, I thought it was ********, but I was genuinely surprised at how unique you could make everything. There were very few times where I fought against someone who looked even remotely like me, and it was pretty enjoyable just toying with all the customization options. I would assume that for the final product, there would be a greater variety in actual armor pieces. The emblem editor was especially satisfying. Every emblem I saw was unique and awesome, so I definitely loved that. I'll admit, I would have liked to be able to remove some of the helmets and run into battle like that, with customized hair and all that, but that's just the anime fan in me talking. This isn't that type of game, and quite frankly I'm not sure it'd fit.
If I had one concern, it'd be on the stats that they provide. I say concern because it didn't have a negative effect on my experience, but it could. Personally, I built my Orochi to excel in Revenge Mode, so my Revenge damage, defense, and duration were up. This never made me feel OP, cuz I would still get murdered very easily if I'm surrounded, but it did enable me to have some awesome hero moments, so I loved that. However, I'm scared that this can lead to some kind of meta where everyone's maxing the same stats. It is also incredibly important that if your gear continues to affect in game stats, that gear purchased with real money be PURELY COSMETIC. If even a single piece of purchasable gear offers stats, it'd lessen the purity of this game. Please, please, please be careful with that. I don't think the stat altering gear is necessary at all, but if it's to remain, it needs to be monitored VERY closely, as it can make or break the game's balance.
Overall, I'm pleased with the customization. I do think that there needs to be a preview for the executions you're going to buy, but I assume that's just something that was going to be added later. I bought the backhand strike execution for my Warden, but had I been able to preview all of them, I might have gotten the decapitation one. This is the Alpha though, so I didn't expect it to be perfect. But it is definitely heading in the right direction.
Match rewards/Contracts
Simply put, everything is too expensive for how little reward we get. Getting like 5 steel at the end of every match makes saving up for random loot or new executions take forever. The daily contracts definitely help with that, but my only gripe is that in the final product, please do not have AI matches be the actual daily contract. If it's one of the selectable ones, that's fine, but bot matches are honestly kind of boring. This might change as the AI is improved, but few games get the AI to a fun point and it feels like a grind when I have to play a bot match or 2 to get enough steel to buy the thing I want. This isn't a major issue obviously, but it's still annoying.
The biggest concern here, and this is very important, is that steel should never be purchasable with real money. Same reasoning I mentioned above, the moment you allow people to buy steel, or steel boosts, or w/e with real money, it's going to become fairly pay to win. Even if you match people with better gear in higher ranks, that could throw everything off because they might not have the skills that would generally be associated with that level of gear. This has the potential to be a huge hit, and I would hate to see that ruined by greed. Please, Ubisoft, do not make this fatal mistake. I REALLY want this game to succeed.
Server and Peer to Peer
So to my understanding, this game is peer to peer. If that is the case, that absolutely can not be in the final product. I assume that it won't, and that you're having it be peer to peer for these smaller closed alphas for the sake of saving money. That I can accept cuz that's smart, but the moment this becomes open to everyone, it needs to be on a dedicated server, otherwise nobody will play it except for the REALLY dedicated fans.
The Combat System
Overall, I LOVE the combat system. It definitely takes some getting used to, but once you start to get the hang of it, it's incredibly fun. All the heroes feel unique and fun to play. Dueling other players is incredibly satisfying. Skirmishes are chaotic and exciting. Being outnumbered feels like an uphill battle, but the Revenge mechanic is a fantastic tool for evening the odds. It's not OP, but it makes fighting multiple opponents very possible and I love that. Feats are pretty cool, but if I had one complaint about them, it's that the active feats have too long of a cast time. It's kind of silly to be sprinting to help a teammate, and then needing to stop running to cast a feat or two. I'm fine with them having cast times, and I'm fine with those casts being interruptible, but at least allow us to move while casting them and speed up the animation ever so slightly.
Two of my three main issues might not actually be issues. It might be something I need to improve, but I'll list them anyway. Guard breaks are really frustrating. My understanding is that the top tier of players find it useless, so this might just be me being bad, but I always felt like guard breaks were almost impossible to react to. I would press square, but I'd still get broken and shoved, and if I'm near a pit, that's it. It was very frustrating to deal with, especially when people would spam guard break. Personally, I think it'd be nice if consecutive guard breaks were less effective, as in they stunned/push you for less. But top tier players might disagree since they think it's useless as it is, so maybe I just need to git gud.
The second issue is blocking. Again, I can't tell if this was me being too slow to block or if it's the game itself, but there were times where I'd tilt my guard in the right direction and I'd still get hit. And I'm not talking about those attacks that have a guaranteed follow up like Orochi's top light or the Warden's left light (or w/e it was). They were attacks that I felt should have been blocked, but weren't. This happens mostly when I'm already getting chained. I don't know if there's a delay when you get hit that prevents you from inputting a new block, but it was an issue for me. Especially against really fast attacks. Again, maybe I just need to git gud, but I figured I'd point it out anyway just in case.
The third issue is targeting multiple opponents. Fighting an outnumbered fight is hard enough, but I lost several fights due to not being able to hit the ones I wanted. Sometimes, I want to switch my target quickly to someone else to finish them off in my first burst after knocking them over with Revenge, but the targeting doesn't let me and it's infuriating. I think you should be able to toggle through targets with the R3 button. Hell, since you can't sprint while targeted anyway (to my knowledge), you could have L3 cycle to your left and R3 cycle to your right. Either way, SOMETHING needs to be done to improve it.
Overall, this is one of the most fun and refreshing combat systems I've played. There were moments where I felt like a badass and moments where I felt like a chump. When I lost, I usually felt like I got outplayed, and that's good.
Maps
Overall, I think the maps are alright. The Knight map is definitely my favorite because of how spread out it is. It makes getting 4 man ganked a lot more rare. The Viking map is a close second just because the layout is pretty decent and there's a good amount of places to have fair duels. The Samurai map, however, is easily my least favorite map. It's incredibly small, and there are so many irritating environmental hazards that it's kind of a pain in the *** sometimes. Point A is also pretty difficult to get to unless you're coming from spawn, so it's usually the most uncontested point for a while. Maybe that's intended, but eh.
Others have suggested making the Viking and Samurai maps larger. I'd also be cool with that, but assuming these 3 maps aren't the only 3 maps that will be available, I'll hold back on jumping on that train. I would hope there are more maps in the final product, and if that's the case, I'd be fine with them being of varying sizes.
Modes
Duel: Not much to say here. Very straight forward, very personal, very intense. My only complaint is the environmental hazards. In Dominion, I am okay with the environmental hazards. In Brawl, I'd prefer if they weren't there, but I can accept them there. I don't think they have any place in duel. Duel mode is supposed to be a test of skill. Cheesy kills should NOT be n the duel mode. The samurai map is especially infuriating because we're either on point C or the broken bridge. Now, what I tend to do is run to the safest area and wait for them, but if your opponent doesn't want to let you fight a fair fight, there's not much you can do. I don't like that. Put the duels in point B of these maps if anything. I don't want to be thrown off by a ****ty player. I want to actually duel.
Brawl: Again, not much to say. I played this a lot with my buddy and we had fun. We would occasionally have the same problem as in Duel where we just get cheesed off the stage, but even though I don't like it, it fits more with the idea of Brawl since it's more of a skirmish type mode rather than a test of skill 1v1 mode. There'd be players who would wait for duels to end and there'd be players who will 2v1. I'm fine with both, and I do both depending on the opponents. Overall, I like this mode.
Dominion: The bread and butter of this game. I love it. Easily my favorite mode. I've already talked about the maps when it comes to Dominion, so I won't repeat myself there, but my only minor complaint is that the auto loss thing was a bit annoying at times. I'm talking about when there's at least one player still alive, but you lose anyway. I think this is fine if it really is just one player alive and the enemy team has like 1400 points, but one match in particular, I had a teammate who revived me. Both teams were breaking. It would have been an uphill battle, but we auto lost because they had like 1400 points or something. I didn't really like that. I think we should have had the chance to kill them. It would have been an awesome comeback if we could do it. A warning to the losing team that they're about to auto lose would also be nice, because as it stands, I have no idea what actually triggers it, which isn't good. Other than this, which is a very rare occurrence, I loved it.
Heroes and Balance
As mentioned before, I really enjoyed all of the different heroes and the variety they all brought. Orochi is obviously the most controversial, but with some tweaking, I think they'll be perfect. Overall, I think every hero can be really good, especially in Dominion.
Warden: Pretty good all around class. There were times where I felt like their overhead heavy reached REALLY far when I'm on the receiving end, but I think that's on me. Their AoE attack is incredibly fast and virtually impossible to react to, but I think there's ways to work around it so I wouldn't call it OP. Just annoying. I initially thought they were kind of worthless but when I played mine a bit more, I started to see her strength. Overall, good class.
Conqueror: I suck at the Conqueror, so I won't say much. I think he's in a good place overall. I've fought against good Conquerors and it never felt impossible to deal with, but still challenging. The Heavy playstyle is just not for me though.
Raider: I love playing this guy in Dominion and just brute forcing my way through the team. Definitely lives up to that fantasy. I wasn't very good with him, but he was a hell of a lot of fun. Good raiders ACTUALLY felt like these huge monsters that were a struggle to take down. I loved that. Also, this is the only hero I ever successfully won a 1v3 with.
Berserker: I had the least playtime on this guy, but from what I played, he's pretty fun. Playing against him, however, is very annoying in the same way that the Orochi is annoying. One deflect sets you up for a situation where you can't defend yourself. With the Berserker, it's a guard break, which can be combo'd into a throw or anything he wants. I think deflects in general need a bit of a rework. I think they should be more of an active ability with more risk, maybe even a cooldown to avoid the spam.
Kensei: He's pretty good. Playing around his 3 hit combo was interesting, since he has so many options to getting to the third hit. Very long range as well. He's not my favorite, but I don't think he's bad by any means. Just not my cup of tea.
Orochi: Easily my most played and most fun. I love his playstyle and his moveset, I just think that deflect needs a rework, as mentioned above with the Berserker. If deflect doesn't get a rework, then the 3 assassin heroes will likely be the most hated and most played in duels. I do think that there's a lot of **********ing around the Orochi hate and that they're not nearly as impossible to deal with as people claim they are, but they're definitely frustrating as hell, especially good Orochis. They can get a lot of damage on you very quickly if you're not careful.
I look forward to trying out the other 6 heroes.
Miscellaneous
-- Ladders are annoying. I'd like to have to press a button to climb a ladder so I don't accidentally screw myself over. I'd also like ladder combat to be less stupid. Currently, if you're below the guy, there's nothing you can do that I know of to protect yourself from him sliding down and knocking you off. Getting killed like that isn't fun.
-- There were times where my own animations threw me into pits. Getting up as an Orochi with his backflip thing flipped me into a pit once. There was also a time where an attack (icr what is was) that I did threw me into a pit. That's not cool.
-- I'm sure this has been mentioned, but occasionally, I couldn't actually exit to desktop or alt f4. I would have to close the game with the task manager.
-- Getting thrown into the middle of a match is alright in the casual mode, but at least let us be at spawn, not wherever the bot was. It's incredibly disorienting to be put in the middle of 3 enemies and get killed instantly.
-- It's been mentioned before but I think it would be cool to have some kind of visual indicator when someone is on a killing spree. Just to feel a bit more badass. It's not necessary, but if it's doable, that'd be nice.
Closing Thoughts
Overall, this is one of the best gaming experiences I've had in a while. This game was incredibly fun and exceeded my expectations. I look forward to the next time I'll get to play it. I've already preordered the Gold edition since before this Alpha, and I don't think I'll regret it. The main things that I think need to look out for are:
1. Peer to Peer NEEDS to be replaced with a dedicated server for the final product.
2. Anything purchased with real money must be 100% PURELY COSMETIC and offer ABSOLUTELY NO IN-GAME STATS WHATSOEVER.
3. In-game currency CAN NOT be purchased with real money.
The dedicated server is kind of self explanatory but seriously, if this game is even remotely pay to win, it would ruin the game. I'll be honest, a lot of people are already skeptical about this game because it's by Ubisoft. They're waiting for you to screw it up and ruin it. They're waiting to see the Day 1 complaints about bugs. I dropped the Assassin's Creed series after the poor launch of Unity. I don't want to see that happen to this game. For Honor has an insane amount of potential. It can be a MASSIVE hit, but it needs to be done right. I'm not trying to sound harsh or anything, but this is a game that you REALLY need to get right at launch, or people might be turned away from it. A poor launch can ruin a game.
As much as I would hate to see it gets delayed, if there are a bunch of bugs yet to be fixed coming up on the launch, please delay it. "A delayed game is eventually good, a bad game is bad forever". I really want you to keep that in mind. Unity as a game was pretty alright, but my memory of the game is ruined by all the bugs I encountered that destroyed my experience. I don't want to see that happen to For Honor. I don't want to see people saying that this game is pay to win because you offered stat altering gear for real money. Even if the stats aren't OP or anything, it wouldn't matter. It'd be considered pay to win.
If there were ever new heroes added down the line, they need to be free DLC. You can never have a class be exclusive to people who buy them with real money. That's what Evolve did initially, and it was the main reason I didn't touch it. Please don't do that. You WILL make money off of this game if it's done right. You don't need to go for cheap cash grabs. Have faith in this game. It really is fantastic, and I know I'm not alone in thinking this.
I want to see this game being played 5 years from now with a thriving eSports scene and actually consistent support, like League of Legends and Overwatch. I want to see new maps, new heroes, maybe even new factions be added periodically, for everyone to enjoy. I really want to see this game succeed. Good luck, and I look forward to my next battle.
#TeamSamurai
Junior Member
