Junior Member
*heavy sigh* Nothing goes right around here, does it?
*grumply makes the same thread he accidentally made in the General Discussion, here* I am so sorry about that.
Hello everyone, sayi50 here. Now you might be wondering why my name is sayi51 instead of 50 and that is because the last time I made this post, I got auto-banned for spamming. Apparently my feedback was too long and stronk for the forum bots to handle.
I have been playing the Closed Beta for a while now, day in and day out like a no life person and I have a looooot of things to dump here.
First things first, I am amazed at the fact that none of these 9 characters are "broken" or "OP". Each character has SOMETHING that can counter another character and it feels lovely to be able to pick Peacekeeper, Conqueror, Orochi or Warden yet still be able to do decent as long as you know what you are up against.
What do I mean? Once you know that a Peacekeeper has two big openers like Dodge Forward Heavy and Dodge Forward Grab, all you have to do is keep your guard up the moment you see her create distance to surprise leap you and be ready for a GB Counter if it turns into a GB. You guys made a game where as long as you know how the OTHER character ticks, you will be fine. This is truly a fighting game. Kudos.
Now I will go by each character I have played and give you my thoughts on them. The text in the paranthesis is to give you an idea about how long I played a character and how much I trained with their "gimmicks".
Characters:
Warden(Level 3):
Just as the game says, pretty easy to pick up and play. The guaranteed second Light hit makes it easier for beginners to keep some damage up while still getting the hang of things. I only had a surface go with him so can't say much. If there was one thing I'd say about him is that maybe he is a bit too "ordinary" compared to others. His nasty shoulder dash is already infamous though.
Conqueror(Level 10):
Oh I LOVE how Conqueror plays. The flail hits feel so satisfying, the fact that they push the weapons away instead of just static blocking gives you that sense of "I'm a wall and you are not getting past!". Most of the time I played Conqueror as a "line holder" where I camped a zone and didn't let anyone through with my shield and stance. During 1v1 fights, the infinite flail combo feels so satisfying for punishing people who keep pressing buttons instead of respecting your attacks(Made few people ragequit after a infinite light flail, all they had to do was roll back or block). The heavy charge is a high risk high payoff attack and I love it for that. All in all, Conqueror is one of my favorite characters to play as just because of how empowering it feels to hold off your own against multiple people. Also the block into grab into heavy side or light spam is always an enjoyable punish.
Peacekeeper(Reputation 1 Level 15):
My main character that I played throughout the beta. I managed to hit Reputation 1 and have been making good progress towards Reputation 2. I love fast counter-attack/deflect characters, female characters and dual-wielding characters. Peacekeeper and I were a match made in heaven. Her approaches are fast but easy to counter since they only hit one zone(unless you mixup). Her Dodge Forward Heavy leap outranges even Nobushi when used at the right time however a good player can easily take care of that by guarding up. However she has so many mixups. She keeps her foes on their toes and severely punishes any amateur. However, I do think her Guard Break > Light > Light > Light triple gut stab is too powerful. I know that when you are fighting a Peacekeeper, you should always look out for a GB and if you are not looking out for it, your punishment is 20-40% bleed damage but I don't think that is a good enough excuse. I know that blocking individual stabs are possible but game never tells you about this.
Raider(Level 1):
Big bulky guy with a huge weapon? Not really my thing. However, I did play him few times to train with friends and as much as I dislike these kinds of characters, he was quite fun. Guard Breaking someone and then using Zone Attack was always fun just because of whatever he says during it. I feel like he is cursing the opponent's whole family tree or something. You feel angry, you feel brutish when you are playing Raider and I love that. His "personality" really shows in his attacks. He is a guy that will take no **** from anyone and he shows it. You know it when he running grabs you and carries you into a pit.
Warlord(Level 2):
Just like Conqueror, I enjoyed my time with Warlord as well. His block then counter-attack style is enjoyable however I never got to dig deep into his mechanics. Not much to say here.
Berserker(Level 1):
I only played like 2 matches with Berserker. I dislike her style. I'm not one for "a barrage of attacks".
Kensei(Level 1):
His shtick of "I have a quick 2nd light and an unblockable heavy" was quite fun. Everytime a Kensei grabbed me and stunned me, I was getting a shot of adrenaline when I heard his "Jinjou ni shoubu!" line as I spammed dodge right. While just like all the Vanguard characters, he is all around, he is not "easy" to play as he has really interesting timings and set ups with his unblockable.
Nobushi(Level 1):
Oh boi. The other "hated" class. Settle down guys, Nobushi is not OP. She just misunderstood. She has very good range but she is balanced by the fact that her pokes are very straightforward. I quite enjoy baiting people into overreaching and then punishing with pokes and make them bleed.
Orochi(Level 4):
The "STOP DASHING LEFT, RIGH ANDT BACK I CAN'T EVEN SEE YOU! STOOOOOOOOP!" character. His dodge follow ups are very fun to use and very painful to get hit by. His dodge back heavy is very fun to use but easy to see it coming once you understand that he has to dodge back first. I fought an amazing Orochi who kept me guessing with his attacks and even as a Conqueror, he gave me a very tough time.
All in all, I don't think any character is unbalanced right now. Everyone can beat everyone. It's all up to player skill and the time it takes to learn the counters is not long. Many people in the high-tier has already learned most of the matchups and counters. If anything that needs work, it is the triple gut stab of Peacekeeper. Maybe nerf the damage of it but overall increase Peacekeeper's damage just a little so it balances out? With the characters done, let's move onto the game modes.
Now you might be wondering "why is he not talking about x and y problems of z character?". Well, simple. I never had those problems. Whenever I lost in my match-ups, it was never "unfair" and I knew exactly what I did wrong to get killed. It was nothing overpowered about the other character, it was just me losing focus for a moment and the opponent taking advantage of it or me not knowing the proper counter to a move.
Game Modes:
1v1 Duel:
Pretty straightforward, you fight to death with another player. I like this mode the most since there is no cheap ganking or anything... Well... Aside from throwing people off the cliffs for cheap wins but hey, should've Guard Break Countered.
2v2 Brawl:
I love this mode when I go up against people who honor the battle by waiting the other "pair" to finish. The game clearly zooms in on your opponent, it clearly shows you that you are going to 1v1 but yet people still go for 2v1. I have seen prestige people playing dirty and it saddens me. Then there are battles where we respect each others' enjoyment and wait for each other to finish before the survivors go for one last 1v1.
Sure you can say "Why not go do 1v1 if you don't like dirty 2v1 fights?". Well here is the thing... I want to play with my friends. So I queue 2v2 with a premade duo however I want to keep the honor of battle. So I have to play 2v2 to play together with my friend and enjoy duel style battles. Maybe design 2v2 specific maps where each duo is seperated by doors and they only open once there is one "alive" player on each side? No one can interrupt each other that way. And keep your regular open maps for people who want to 2v1 people.
4v4 Dominion:
Welcome to For MOBA! I like the twist of side lanes being "player controlled" while the mid lane is "mob controlled". I also like the fact that A and C give out heals, making them important for smart people that doesn't want to get killed in B. The team compositions matter too. You always want an Assassin in your team to pick off that one "low HP, gonna run away" guy. For "what" it is, it is a pretty good mode. For "what" the GAME is, it is horrible. There is no "Honor" in Dominion. People gank, kill steal, corner and use every other MOBA tactic to play. They are of course correct in that since 4v4 IS a MOBA mode. Have a tooltip about 4v4 saying "There is no Honor here, only Defeat or Victory.". Some of us wanted to play the game for massive dueling orgies. Some of us wanted to play to gank 3v1. I would love to see a battlefield of 4v4 where people are actually dueling. I am not saying Dominion is bad, I like Dominion. I just dislike the fact that there is no "mass duel orgy" mode. It's just such a waste to see such great mechanics wasted on a gank mechanic that poorly tries to "balance" itself via Revenge.
Speaking of fighting mechanics...
Mechanics:
Before we do anything, let's count the things this game has.
3 Guard stances
4(5?) Attack types
5 Block types
1 Guard Break and 1 Guard Break Counter
1 Revenge
If I didn't forget anything, that's a lot of stuff. This is a fighting game so it is expected to have a nice amount of systems to keep the game interesting. With that said, let's break things down.
3 Guard stances:
There isn't much to say about this one. It is a really good way of 2D-fying a 3D fighter. Instead of blocking mid or low, we have to block left, right or up. Simplifies things but keeps it interesting. Love it.
4(5?) Attack types:
We got Light Attack which is useful in most situations. We got Heavy Attack which is lovely for feinting or when you know it will land. We got Uninterruptible attacks for when you really want to trade with that Peacekeeper doing a lunge and bash her head in. We got Unblockables when you really want to put that Conqueror to test. All in all, different attack types for different situations. Gives you enough tools to dispatch any problem.
5 Block types:
We got regular Block, which has different properties depending on the blocker and blocked. A heavy guy's block staggers hard while a light character's block doesn't even stop combos sometimes. The "weight" of the characters fighting changes how Block works. We got All Block when really need to protect yourself against the 3v1 gank until helps comes in. All Block > Revenge > All Block is fun and saves you from getting griefed. We got Reflex Block which is a "tradeoff" for the damage dealer characters. "Oh you can deal damage, counter like crazy person but you have react for blocks instead of holding it.". Again, different tools for different types to keep everything balanced. Then we got Parry when you really want that big guy to lose his seemingly unlimited stamina. Then we got Deflect when you see that Heavy Attack coming in from a mile ago and you want to chip off some more damage because man the big guys have HEALTH and you need everything you can get.
1 Guard Break and 1 Guard Break Counter:
Ah the good old "grab". Always sucked at these ones. Never saw them coming in other fighting games. Always a good option if you can actually get close enough. Some characters have better ranges on their grabs, some even lunge forward(I'm looking at you, Dodge Back > Forward + Grab Peacekeeper). All in all, if you character has a short guard break, maybe you are supposed to break defenses in another way and if your grab has good range, well, use it.
The only problem is that grabs in this game punishes reaction. That should not be the case. If I know that my opponent is coming for a grab and I grab back the moment I see them do it, it should count as a tech. However, I do understand the logic behind this timed countering. You want to prevent mashing grab to work for countering. You want the counters to be deliberate and skill based instead of "spam grab".
1 Revenge:
So far, I have seen it work very well. It rewards defensive play while it punishes button mashing. Anyone who cries about Revenge mode kicking in 1v1 needs to stop mashing their buttons like blind fools and take their time. It helps a lot in 2v1 when you wait for one of them to attack and then Revenge Parry KD them and quickly finish the other one, turning the game back into a 1v1. Sadly on 3v1 and 4v1, it loses its power since 4 people can easily outdamage the defense of Revenge but... WHY ARE YOU NOT RUNNING AGAINST 3V1 OR 4V1? ARE YOU CRAZY? SERIOUSLY! Maybe I am just not Zone Attacking enough ofter a Revenge to balance out the high stamina cost of Zone Attack with the infinite stamina of Revenge.
With all said, my overall opinion on these is... Well... It's good. I can see the threads of balance in each matchup. In each matchup, both sides can counter and defend against each other equally, provided that they know how to play both classes. As usual with fighting games, in this game, you have to learn your opponent's moves so you can know when to counter. Many times I got stabbed in the eye by Kensei's 2nd Light Attack, which comes out really fast as foolishly dodged side to evade the first hit and then attacked, only to get hit. If I had played Kensei earlier in my game, I would've known that the stab comes out really fast and wait for the stab before I counter.
Though right now the game seems to be in the "fast" characters' favor. Not because they are op or imbalanced but because people don't know how to play yet. They don't know how to guard against Orochi's sidestep attacks, they don't know how to guard against Peacekeeper's lunge, they don't know how to block Nobushi's insta-bleed poke. However, I have seen many people, both teammates and enemies who not only guarded these attacks but PARRIED or DEFLECTED them. Do you know how amazing to see people deflecting surprise Orochi dash strikes? It's pretty amazing, I'll tell you. Do you know how amazing to see a Conqueror parry my Peacekeeper's light attacks? DAMN amazing. I wouldn't mind losing to those guys 100 times just to see that parry and that deflect. It's gud yo.
With all that said let me quickly talk about the animations and the graphics.
I love how the animations feel in this game. Props to the graphics and animation team. When I'm playing Conqueror, I am feeling the weight of my hits and my character. When I'm playing Peacekeeper, I feel the fact that I am fragile but agile and all of this is told through animations alone even before the mechanics. The moment I started up the game, started the tutorial and took ONE step with Warden, I went "oh, this game is good.". The animations themselves told me that. I didn't even have to play to know it. Just feeling the weight of the first step was enough. Again, props to the animation team.
As for colors, once again props. The orange and the blue are just bright enough to easily see but not too bright to hurt my eyes. When I get hit by a bleed hit, I immediately know that I got hit by it because it was a purple attack. When an unblockable is co-(JINJOU NI SHOUBU!)ming, I don't even have to look at the sign or learn the character. It is glowing bright enough for me to know that it is dangerous. My only problem is that uninterruptibles can sometimes be hard to understand since it is a white full body flash. No signs, just the flash. Nothing to tell me "what" it does. Of course this could be remedied if you were to sit down and watch every character's training videos from the How to Play menu. Speaking of How to Play menu...
Tutorials:
Now this is where I have a huge beef with the game. Your tutorials are lacking, very badly. I'm not blaming you because almost every fighting game has bad tutorials but non-fighting community users will not understand that and **** on you for their lack of knowledge and ability. While the basic tutorial is well, good at giving the basics. No one thinks to go for How to Play afterwards to check more because the game fools you into thinking "Oh I finished Tutorial, I know this game now".
I'm a curious person and a gamer for years so I always look for more info on a game's mechanics hence going to How to Play to check if there was anything else was my first action to this game but not all players are like that.
Make. Sure. You. Point. The. Fact. That. There. Are. Advanced. Practice. And. Character. Videos. That. Tell. You. How. To. Play. A. Character.
Sorry, had to punctuate for emphasis to make sure you guys got the point. You know, the way you failed to make US get the point. Bother the players. Have a variable that checks if the player completed the Advanced Practice or not. Every time they die, have a tooltip say "Having trouble? Look for advanced techniques in the How to Play menu with Advanced Practice!" Have another variable for each character's basic and advanced video.
advancedPracticeClear == false
"Having trouble? Look for advanced techniques in the How to Play menu with Advanced Practice!"
advancedPracticeClear == true && peacekeeperBasicClear == false
"Having trouble with Peacekeeper? Check out her tricks in the Peacekeeper Basic video under How to Play > Hero Fight Videos!"
advancedPracticeClear == true && peacekeeperBasicClear == true && peacekeeperAdvancedClear == false
"Want to up your game even more? Check out her advanced tricks, traps and tactics in the Peacekeeper Advanced video under How to Play > Hero Fight Videos!"
If all true, show nothing.
Remind the people that this game has a lot of things to take in. Remind them that they need practice. You are NOT informing your players enough. You can't use "well we want them to discover these themselves" excuse. They will quit the game in frustration. Some of the people who pre-ordered the game canceled their pre-orders during beta just because of that. Because they thought the game was broken. Because they thought you ****ed up in mechanics. You didn't. You just failed at telling them that. Hell, you are missing Deflect Practice. Just "text" is not enough. This is a fighting game, we need PRACTICE. Just videos are not enough. We need PRACTICE. I shouldn't be forced to invite a friend into a Custom Match duel so I can practice deflects. I should have the option to have a practice room set and have a bot only do a certain attack so I can train. Speaking of that...
Practice room:
Seriously, where is it? You have a "dueling" game but I can't practice my attacks unless it is PvAI 1v1 Duel? I can't even choose which attacks the bot is using. For a beginner player, having to deal with the random nature of bot attacks(They are not that random btw. They do the same string most of the time.) is too much of a stress for a non-fighting game community player. And you KNOW that non-FGC people are buying this game. Hell even FGC people would appreciate a practice room with an idle bot where they get to practice their combos. Practice room is too important to use the "this is just the beta" excuse. We can't test the balance of the game if we can't even practice our own attacks.
Also to showcase some of my duels:
Now that's all out of the way, I will reserve the next post for Suggestions to fill out in a more readable manner. Let's hope that I don't get banned this time for "spamming". Jesus Ubi, there are bots out there spamming ads and not banned with their threads intact and I get banned for providing feedback in a readable/sectioned/multiple-post manner?
Junior Member
- Peacekeeper's grab stab should do less damage. About the same damage of what you'd get from two light slashes since both of them are the basic "I guessed right, this is my reward" punishments.
- A 2v2 mode where we are forced to 1v1 each other and then the remaining two fight each other if they are enemies. Some of us want to actually "brawl" and some of us want to have "4 people having duels with the remaining people fighting to death on the round point". Let us have options. Name them something like "For Glory" and "For Honor". Glory being the no holds barred and Honor being the duels one.
- Dedicated servers, I dislike when I see the opponent block my attack and then get hit out of nowhere because of latency issues. They blocked the attack, they earned that counter.
- King of the Room mode where the winner of a 1v1 has to fight the next player and so on and so forth. If the player loses, the winner is the new "King" or "Queen" of the room.
- Objective based Assault mode like in the old Unreal Tournament games where a team guards an objective or two while the attackers try to break through. For example "Breach the castle gates!" for the first section and then "Take the strategic zones and hold them for x amount of minutes" for the second objective to get a "footing" in the castle defenses. And then "block reserves" where you blow up the barracks or food reserves or something very important to force the opponent into the "Sudden Death" and for the last objective "Kill the remaining stragglers" to take over the castle for good. Then switch Attackers and Defenders for round two. The new attackers have to beat the other team's time to win.
- Increased Guard Break Counter window. Not much. Just 1-3 frames. You are supposed to predict a GB coming in the first place anyways but it sucks when we predict correctly however act too quick and miss the timing. Admittedly, this one is just me whining about how fast I am instead of having self-control to wait for the timing.
- Bleed should not fill Revenge. Many times in 1v1, my opponent GAINED Revenge as I pulled away so their Revenge bar would empty but the bleed tick was feeding them Revenge. The attack causing the bleed can cause Revenge but the bleed ticks should not.
- More forced tutorials. Especially about important mechanics like Revenge and Guard Break Counter. They should not be hidden away.
- Hero Practice instead of just Hero Videos explaining things. Use the videos to show them what they are supposed to do and then let them practice it.
- Practice Room where we can customize a bot to do certain things like "only light attack" "only left attack" to make it so that the bot can only do "left light attacks", letting us train against attacks. Let us be able to choose the bot's Hero as well. Also let us choose 1v1, 1v2, 1v3, 1v4 and any other combination. I want to be able to pick Conqueror and Peacekeeper for my side and see if Peacekeeper grab can be followed up by a Conqueror attack in different situations. Also let us choose other things like "Block only" or "Parry only" or "Deflect only" for the bot to practice our frame disadvantages and disengage options.
- For console players, put guard breaking on R3 instead of a face button. It is an issue to move your finger from stick to buttons as a reaction so just "pressing the stick" should be fast enough.
Junior Member
Freaking stellar thread. I agree with most if not all of your points. Especially about practice, I checked it out early on and I completely shat on other players. Ubi, you'll sell more copies if you make it obvious to check it out. Hell, make it a dialog box when players start their first match, "You are about to enter an online match with real players. Would you like to practice your favorite hero against a level 2 bot first?" If yes, then transition into custom match-like practice (where you can pick the difficulty). Then people will realize this is a battlefield not made for flower picking (and thus decrease ragequitting).
But yeah, please Ubisoft, don't listen to the kids complaining about every single thing. At least not yet. Nobody knows what's going on as of now.
Also, please add more visual customization, it will really help the longevity IMO if I can keep unlocking and changing different parts on my char. It would be really cool if my warden or PK looks completely different than another one. You can also make money on top of this, just keep it cosmetics only.
Finally, both gender for every hero? A bit sad to see PK female only, my assassin's creed cosplay is not completealthough I still salute the turn towards female character, but gender equality is equality right?
Junior Member
Member
Awesome ideas. You're right. All you need is a good practice board where you pick your AI "dummy" to be either defensive or aggressive. Then you can work on some moves. Infinite health on both sides obviously. Just put a dummy there and have him block half the time. Then another mode where he attacks in small bursts and pauses when you disengage.
Junior Member
Added another suggestion about Guard Breaking on consoles with a gamepad or on PC using a gamepad. Moving your finger from the stick to the face buttons is hard under pressure and you have to react fast. Have the Guard Break on R3 so people can press down on the stick to Guard Break Counter on reaction.
Have the R3 to be the default GB. It's weird since not many games use it but in this case, I find it necessary.
Community Manager
Junior Member
Thank you so much on that. I forgot the leave a "delete this thread please" on the other thread's edit. Hope you have a good day.Originally Posted by UbiJurassic Go to original postThanks for leaving such detailed and constructive feedback, sayi51! I've gone ahead and closed your other thread that you accidentally put in the General Discussion.
Junior Member
All good suggestions (hi there I'm back). I second especially the Assault mode. This game really needs an immersive mode so that the game's combat and visuals can truely do it justice.Originally Posted by sayi51 Go to original post
In addition, it would be the perfect mode to add for those people wanting a real war of factions out there. Perhaps a specific game mode enabled when a keep is exposed during War of the Factions rounds?
Lastly not sure I would agree for the guardbreak counter, but perhaps this is something to look at for console users? I heard Xbox one players were having problems guardbreaking... I haven't tried it myself, but perhaps the lower frames may make it harder on consoles. On my part on PC I think it is fine, I already see some streamers tech out 90% of the time, which means some other sweaty guys are already never missing one. I myself am doing already maybe 50-70% and I'm not godlike.
