How to negate the "Never Attack First" Meta | Forums

[Pariah695]

Just a thought without the knowledge to foresee if it would be a problem, but what about back heavies also being immune.
I think every character has a back heavy like Orochi just without the step forward at the end.
I think they would need to change the back heavy so it would hit, but only guard breaks? like the guard breaks range is so short it misses the back heavy, but any other attack would connect first before the back heavy comes out.

I don't think that'd be a good idea because then you could do a backstepping hard as your parry, and that would option select against your opponent feinting into guard break.

[Nestalim]

I wanted to come back on an argument of Flatlander :

Guardbreak doesn't work.

He is currently right. While it is an abusible move at lower tiers, it falls quickly in effectiveness at higher tier.

I am very experienced in both Street Fighter IV and V, and throw tech is a big mind game here, as SF is a king of guard game. The fact is 2D fightning game has more versatility in term of beating guard, with low hit and overhead on crouching guard, the whole thing being mixed-up trought unblockable, throw and untechable throw.

In For Honor, tech throwing is really weird, as you can land it as soon the red icons happens to show up, and it's even mashable. Yes, I found experienced player who never learn the proper timer to tech throw and find that mashing it will work.

I also get a lot of issue with tech throwing, as I were totally able to guess when my opponent was gonna to GB, and simple press too early the button, as it would work any other VS game : throw into throw just cancel the effect, as it is not that clear in For Honor.

I suggest to improve GB. Untech Throw is mandatory and should be a offensive move, not a defensive one. It shouldn't be accessible to every character still. The ability to Option Select Parry/Tech Throw should be impossible too.

The rest of the game is fine. If defensive players would be more afraid about GB, they will fear a lot more feint, and would be punished by mix-up.

Also, Tie shouldn't exist. Sudden Death would be more logical.

[Fidel.Lagstro]

IMO, the change you would need to make to effectively turn the game from a predominantly skill-based defensive game into more of a skill-based offensive game is exchanging the parry mechanic for a chamber mechanic.

Instead of defensively parrying an attack, depleting your opponent's stamina, and opening him up for an un-counterable guard break shortly to turn into free damage (for simply trying to attack you to move the game along), just replace it with a chambering mechanic that allows you to initiate your own attack as your about to get hit (make the timing even smaller than parrying currently is) and give it basic block properties while also allowing it to continue it's usual attack animation. Kind of like what the Warlord can already do with his character specific light attack counters. It should be blockable, dodgeable/deflectable and re-chamberable by the person on the receiving end given they have the reflexes for it. Meaning that if both opponents have ample skill and reflexes, the two could potentially re-chamber each other in that direction for all eternity (or until they run out of stamina at least :P).

You'd also need to make it so that if someone does get chambered, they can't simply start spamming light attacks that would land before the chambered attack lands, meaning that if you do get chambered, then your only successful options should be to either block, deflect or re-chamber (you should still be able to launch an attack, but it should never be fast enough to actually land, resulting in you getting hit for trying to undermine the chamber). If you deflect or re-chamber it, you are back on the offensive and put the pressure back on your opponent immediately, and if you decide to block it, you simply block it as you normally would any attack and continue fighting as per usual.

Some attack speed re-balancing among the game's characters may be needed to make this work properly (like make peacekeepers light attacks a little slower and conquerors heavy attacks a little faster, etc). It's important that a chambered attack can't be out-sped by any other attack, the way you decide to make that work is up to you. You don't want the game to turn into a light attack spam festival either.

Chambers should be doable with both heavy AND light attacks on all characters. Imagine it. A Peacekeeper does her forward lunge move on you and instead of parrying it, you chamber it with a light overhead attack to catch her off guard and continue your chain on her if she does not react to it. If she does react to it however, she skillfully does it and doesn't get punished for initiating an engagement. You should also be able to feint right after a successful chamber as well. The second you chamber an attack (the act of blocking and immediately turning the block into an attack), you should be able to decide whether you want the attack to continue going through or feint it to start a more unexpected secondary attack.

I think this is the mechanical change you would really need to change this game from a predominantly defensive game into a more fluidly offensive one.

If there are any competitive M&B: Warband players out there, you should know what I am talking about. You want to reward smart offensive play, but you don't want to reward spamming fast attacks or playing overly defensive.

[Pariah695]

I really don't like the idea of a counter move being able to be countered back and forth over and over. Even if the timing is tight, that's so much work just for one attack if it keeps going back and forth. Then it's not really a game about offence, it's a game about timing. Instead of being unbeatable because of reflexes, you're now unbeatable because of timing. It's still forcing the game to revolve around a basic skill.

There's nothing wrong with free damage from parries. They just need to implement ways to discourage attempting a parry.

[Timjan]

Havent tried the game but followed forums and watched quite alot.

Why not just implement a registration system, if it register you blocking, parrying more then 5, 10, 15 times in a row without an offensive move you loose the red marker for where attacks coming from until you made an offensive move.

So someone standing blocking, parrying, will not recieve the indicator after a short time, forcing them to perform atleast 1 offensive move, that CONNECTS, either is parried, blocked or hit, or they are themself hit and take damage, before the indicator is made available again.

Personally I think after 5 blocks or parries this should happen. Still possible to block or parry but they have to really watch the other characters moves.

Just an idea from someone never played the game or other fighting games.

Cant be too hard to implement.

Or/

[Knight_Raime]

I'm deff not amazing at this game. and i'm not really versed in top tier fighting games in general. so bare with me. But I initially came across this by viewing parries as being too strong because it guarentes you a GB which just gives free damage. Anyway these would be my suggestions. someone who's super good at this game or fighting games can tell me how good/bad these suggestions might be:

~Make it so you can stop a throw by pressing the GB button if they attempt to throw you.

~Let GB's be stopped by fast attacks.

~let back dashes be immune to GB.

~or alternatively don't let the GB's be stopped by fast attacks. But they would be slower.

~fix what happens when both hit eachother with GB. it should bounce people off eachother instead of randomly giving one side the GB.

Those changes should allow GB to be counterable. and should deter from being able to do what people do now which is just react tech.

~feints happen faster.

~feints can be done on more things besides heavies for all heros.

~prevent the use of being able to feint immediately on a whiffed parry attempt. (not sure how to make this happen in game mechanically.)

~Feints cost less stamina.

This makes feinting less predictable, adds some commitment to parrying, and makes it a more available option. At best right now you can feint maybe 2-3 times. too little.

~Parrying someone has less stagger frames in general.

~the amount of stagger frames is dependent on the type of attack you parried. (ex a parrying a light would result in fewer stagger frames and parrying heavies/certain special attacks would grant more stagger frames.) Obviously this would have to be tweaked really precisely. But I think only a few attacks should be able to be parried and give the current amount of stagger frames. maybe parrying zone attacks or attacks that followed a feint.

~Parrying takes up slightly more stamina for the person parrying and the person being parried.

This should tone back how powerful/easy parrying can be. while still making it worth while. and also add a decision process instead of if can parry=parry like it is now.

here are some general things that I think might help the game combat.

~increase the speed of nearly all attacks in the game.

~tighten the window for GB's, parries, and deflects by some.

~repeated attacks of the same direction* should result in doing less damage or more stamina usage.

~Give everyone some kind of quick 1 hit basic attack that can't be seen via the indicator. can only be seen through the stance of the character. Move should be different for each warrior. it shouldn't be parryable or deflectable. But it would be slow enough to be able to reasonably react block to IF you recognize the stance of the character.

I think that is all of my ideas. Thanks in advance for anyone who gives feedback.

*= (not sure exactly how i'd do this. but if you are familiar with super smash bros you might understand what i'm getting at. They have a system where landing the same hit will weaken the damage and knock effect from the attack. I'm not sure how for honor would add this in. But I think it would be beneficial for the game to do so.)

[shanbazall]

A couple of suggestions popped into mind. All numbers can be adjusted for balance. These ideas don't have to be exact and for sure they won't be balanced if they are all added to the game. Take it just as some food for thought.


- If you hold down guard break for X milliseconds, it becomes uncounterable in the traditional way. Your character then charges a short distance forward until it hits an enemy. You can cancel the charge mid animation. Obvious counter to this would be to side dodge or light attack.

- Give every character a second guard break that only works on an active guard ( top, left or right individually ) and can't be countered.

- Blocking only negates 90% of the damage you recieve

- Give us more unblockable (but dodgeable and parryable) moves.

- Make it so that when a heavy attack hits a guard (top, left or right individually), it drains a portion of the guard on that side, making the white disappear until it is all black. And when it is all black you can't guard from that side for a couple of seconds. dealing damage to an enemy replenishes your guard alittle.

- Make it so that guarding heavy attacks that hit a guard drains the defender's stamina. At zero stamina you start taking some damage trough even if you guard the hit

- Make it so that when the timer runs out the player with less hp percentage loses the game.

- Make it so that you can parry a parry resulting in neutral state for both players. This should be very rare and difficult to pull off.

- Make it so that you can dodge back if deflected resulting in neutral state for both players. This should be very rare and difficult to pull off.


I feel that some of these ideas encourage the use of parrying and dodging more which in turn encourages more feinting. From this we get to:

- every character should have a fast and reliable way to interrupt a side dodge.

- make dodging cost stamina.

/Brainstorm

[Timjan]

Havent tried the game but followed forums and watched quite alot.

Why not just implement a registration system, if it register you blocking, parrying more then 5, 10, 15 times in a row without an offensive move you loose the red marker for where attacks coming from until you made an offensive move.

So someone standing blocking, parrying, will not recieve the indicator after a short time, forcing them to perform atleast 1 offensive move, that CONNECTS, either is parried, blocked or hit, or they are themself hit and take damage, before the indicator is made available again.

Personally I think after 5 blocks or parries this should happen. Still possible to block or parry but they have to really watch the other characters moves.

Just an idea from someone never played the game or other fighting games.

Cant be too hard to implement.

Or/

Another example would be that after you have blocked or parried 5 or 10 consecutive attacks you are unable to break guard break.

Stuff like this is simple to implement and wont cause any imbalances or meta changes.

It would punish defensive play, but reward the mix of defensive, offensive game play. Will become a larger mind game where you know your oppoent just blocked 4 attacks and after another block, parry they need to react or are in danger of a guardbreak.

Just trying to come up with ideas as I can definately see even mediocre players like me, going for heavy defensive playstyle and really waiting for perfect opportunity, making the game a little boring at mid, high level.

[Timjan]

Sorry for the 3rd message from someone unexperienced and thinking completely out of the box.
You all have experience with fighting games but keep thinking within that narrow cirkle.

This is my solution and idea, how to implement it is up to Ubisoft;

1: After 5 consecutive blocks, parries you no longer see the indicator from what direction attacks are coming from

2: After 10 consecutive blocks, parries you are unable to counter guard break (this is to counter top level players able to block, parry based on pure experience)

In order to reset, you need to have an offensive move do damage, be parried or is blocked.
Being dodged does NOT count (would also be hard to register I think)

This makes dodging a more interesting mechanic to force opponents to recieve the penalties above, which means you must be offensive unless you want to recieve free damage, or loose the parry, block assistance thats built in.

Since some blocks dont require the indicator as far as I understand, making it 10 and then vulnerable to a guard break.

This is a small software, visual change apart from the guard break change which will require quite some work I believe.
But the parry indicator must go after a set amount (small amount) of parries and blocks,

Simple solution until others can be found, not sure another solution even is needed.

Thats it from me.

Peace

[Baxtyr]

So, remove the reason to parry? If someone is trying to parry you, feint and then punish their parry attempt.

Do that against anyone good any they will just react to your feint and feint their missed parry, this can often go back and forth until both players are nearly out of stamina from feinting. Parrying is silly and game breaking.