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I disagree with this entire topic for two reasons:
1/ I truly don't think that defending is that strong in For honor. It's totally possible to win by attacking due to a lot of tools to your disposal (feints, dashes, GB...) which are completely reliable if you use them properly.
2/ Because I think it's kinda fresh to finally have a game that reward defense to a reasonable degree when almost the entire fighting game panorama is filled with games that highly encourage aggressive play (KoF series, Blazblue, Soul calibur, Tekken...). Not that I don't like game that are more attack oriented but it's just cool to play something different for once.
It's also funny to see people arguing that defense is too strong because of parries when For Honor is one of the game that have the less punishing parries in pretty much any game that featured this mechanic before...
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Define worst? For that matter, define best.Originally Posted by Munktor Go to original post
The problem is that feints, dashes, and GB are NOT in any way reliable against good players. But that's really not a HUGE problem. They don't need to be 100% reliable. If they were 100% reliable, defense would be worthless. Which I don't think anyone wants.Originally Posted by GenLiu Go to original post
The problem people have with Parry right now is that it's NOT rewarded to a reasonable degree. Punishes from Parry are easily the most damaging things in the game for the majority of classes. Meaning, your best option to damage your opponent is to parry an attack and punish them - not to try to attack them. If you want to play 'smart' - you don't attack.
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Defending isn't a 1OO% reliable tactic either, I fought against some really good players who used feints and mix ups at a ridiculous degree, making defending a really hard task.Originally Posted by Xanthus730 Go to original post
Besides attack and defense are both all relative as it depends on the character you're playing (a Warlord doesn't have the same defensive/offensive tools than a Warden for example).
Or you be careful on how and when you use your attack. It's funny how people think that top players are basically robots capable of parrying every incoming attack no matter what. It's completely possible to bait even the best player in the world if you have enough skill.Originally Posted by Xanthus730 Go to original post
Also, parry are the most damaging option....provided you do it close enough to land a GB. If you play clever and get parried far enough your opponent will just get a light to punish you, at most.
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i do not think feints help AT ALL. you can only feint VERY early into the actual attack. there is really NO reason for the opponent to fall for a feint by trying top parry.Originally Posted by Brave_Thunder Go to original post
i explained above why i think feints are nearly worthless. idk why you think dashes are in ANY way suitable to break someone's defense. they are not. and guard breaks are literally useless against someone who is playing defensive because the window to counter guard break is so long its almost impossible to fail. your last sentence also is just false.Originally Posted by GenLiu Go to original post
i encourage everyone to watch this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c4wu...youtu.be&t=936
those are all veterans in fighting games and they agree that defense is WAY too strong.
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Junior Member
I agree with the general consensus here that defense is currently essentially impenetrable at high level play. The supposed solutions to turtling are:
- Mixing up attack directions (good players can block fast attacks 100% on reaction)
- Feinting heavy attacks (good players can either block or feint attempted parries, 100% on reaction)
- Guard break fully defensive people (good players can be counter-guard break 100% on reaction)
Especially egregious is Guard Break being used solely as punishment following a parry because it's infinitely counterable, alongside the ability to parry light attacks, which rewards perfect defense over perfect offense.
I think the best mechanic for dealing with this is integrating with stamina. If countering GBs cost more stamina than GB itself, GB would serve a function to eventually open the opponent up to attacks. Light attacks could also be made impossible to parry or feint-able. Add a stamina cost to dodging (possibly more costly to go backwards than forwards) so that characters can't simply safely run away and wait for stamina recovery. Then you just have to make it so someone that's exhausted is unable to 100% defend. Perhaps make exhausted players take chip damage from heavies, not build revenge, and/or whatever conditions make them much more vulnerable but not automatically dead.
Altogether, full defense is no longer safe, guard break is no longer useless, and at its core it doesn't require particularly difficult changes to the game, mostly a couple of stamina cost tweaks.
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Dashes are helpful for offensive strategy because they allows you to create a reaction from your opponent and also give you the ability to surprise them. If you stand at mid range and then dash forward>attack/GB you can trick your opponent, for example. Besides, it allows you to work on your positioning and push your opponent in tricky parts of the environment (which is quiet easy if your opponent is turteling) and that's also part of the offensive strategy.Originally Posted by G0BackT0G0 Go to original post
Also, no offense to anyone but Ultradavid and James Chen are not what I consider "top players". I'm not saying that their opinion doesn't count and I'm not saying that defense isn't very strong in the game. I just say that it's entirely possible to build up a strong offensive strategy in this game and I'm pretty sure some "real" top player can go through any defense if they work their character.
Now, speaking of which and as I said, talking about defense and offense is all relative because it also depend on the character you're playing. For example I truly think that a good Warden or a Berserker can kill even a very defensive player with their offensive options. Sure if you're talking about the Orochi or the Lawbringer for example, you'd better stay on defense but it depends on your character and saying that basically defense is OP and offense is useless sound very off to me.
What sentence is false? That For honor has one of the less punishing parry among any game that uses this mechanic? What game are you refering to to back up your argue then? Because every single game that come in my mind (SF3.3, Souls Calibur 5, Samurai shodown series...) can close up a game out of one successful parry. This is definitely not the case with For honor, unless you take it at close range.
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It really would be easy to fix. Here's some simple mechanical changes they could make to change things up:
1. Make guard breaks almost impossible to interrupt. Basically, you should have to anticipate when they do it and hit it at the same time they do (within, say, a 1/6th second window - 5 frames at 30 FPS or 10 frames at 60 FPS). Otherwise, the safer way to interrupt should be to attack.
2. Make environmental kills impossible unless the target is exhausted. Bam, suddenly being exhausted is actually really scary, matches aren't decided on a single button press, AND guard breaks are not totally OP now that they're almost impossible to interrupt without attacking.
3. Make parries no longer grant a free guard break, have a window of activation about as small as guard break interrupts are as noted above, and cannot be performed against unblockables. Parries are thus more useful as tools to create spacing and reset the match than to reverse offense entirely, and unblockables can actually be used to pressure opponents and mix them up. (They still need charge time changes, but that's a character-specific balance issue that needs to be addressed on its own.)
4. Make blocking use up stamina and cost more stamina for heavy attacks. Make chip damage more effective (even at max block damage the current damage is completely ignorable). Again, parries (and dodges) are then useful for preventing you from having to eat chip and stamina damage. Also, the light attacks of heavier weapons shouldn't be deflected if blocked unless they hit a shield. As light attacks for slower weapons are really rather weak right now, this would give them something to help even them up against the peacekeepers and berserkers of the world. It also means you can actually pressure an opponent with your light chains, as opposed to having them interrupted with ease every time.
5. Make dodging use stamina and the i-frames limited to the very beginning of the dodge (half a second, or 15 frames at 30 FPS/30 frames at 60 FPS), allowing players to catch dodge-spamming players out with properly timed light attacks or heavies. Dodging should require at least some level of skill instead of being as braindead as it is now. In addition, dodge attacks (for assassins and the kensei) should lose their i-frames as soon as the attack starts up and should still be vulnerable to guard breaks. The whole function of dodging should be to avoid predictable attacks and counter attack, not to be bloody invincible the whole time.
With these changes, suddenly deflects are now really important for an assassin player to properly maintain their offense, as parries no longer guarantee huge offense and dodging alone can be risky. Heavies can no longer turtle so reliably because they can't 100% interrupt all guard breaks and they'll run out of stamina eventually anyway.
There's a whole list of class-specific balance changes that would need to be made, but that's true no matter what the underlying mechanics are. I'd love to address them after they perform an overhaul of the base mechanics, but not until then. They really need to do it if they want this game to have any future at all.
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Esto se podria solucionar facil para que ambas partes tengan la posibilidad de hacer algo y que la meta no sea solo esperar al que el otro ataque, como ? en el momento que se recibe el ataque y se produce el parry que produce que el defensor saque ventaja de eso, se podria sacar el parry actual para que entre en modo de disputa por ambas partes como seria esto? dejo una unica imagen que encontre que lo representa claramente:
Entonces en este momento las dos partes tendria que volver apretar por ejemplo romper guardia, entonces seria cuestion de velocidad para que ambos tengan las mismas oportunidades y no solo sea ventaja para el que defiende.
Pienso que el parry es algo bueno pero solo tendria que aplicarse a los ataques rapidos que son mas dificil, que los ataques pesados entonces quedaria el parry actual con los ataques ligeros y los ataques pesados con el parry que acabo de proponer, creo que esto haria que los duelos dejen de ser tan pasivos y defensivos.
PD: por favor si alguien que habla español entiende mi idea, que la traduzca claramente jajaja
