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

[Felis_Menari]

Yes along with this, some abilities would have to be rebalanced to take into account that the one being parried isn't staggered and unable to defend himself.

If for instance parry gave the one parrying some benefits like his next heavy attack being quicker and then disabled the one being parried from attacking and GB for a moment. That would ensure a change in initiative. I would also move parry to the feint button, so that the parry baiting goes away, because it reinforces that parry chasing mentality. If you do a parry and no attack connects because the opponent feinted, you are left open to a light attack during recovery. Using the feint button would work fine, because if you use the button when not attacking, it could initiate a parry.

If parry was fixed, that still leaves us with one issue. Blocking heavy attacks is too easy. Blocking light attacks must be more balanced at the same time. The simplest way to fix this is to take the same approach to blocking as the game has to attacking. Two tiers of attacking (light and heavy) needs two tiers of blocking (half and full).

Half and full block.
When you switch guard, you will instantly Enter half block which allows you to block light attacks. It takes a number of frames for the direction indicator to fill up and become full block, allowing you to block heavy attacks. This allows the developers to balance both heavy and light attacks perfectly, where both will be viable attacks. With parry being defensive in nature only shifting initiative, this will open up the game a lot.

Moving an important, necessarily on-demand input like parrying to a harder-to-reach-in-timevbutton is *not* an appropriate solution; difficulty of input should never be a factor. And if your half/full guard proposal were to go through, then the Berserker would need an overhaul to its left/right combo chain. As it currently stands, heavies and lights in this chain look identical (as far as I can tell) and travel at the same speed. The stagger on block from these attacks is so great that it's extremely difficult to get a parry in (part of this may be due to my LB's guard switch speed). Without an overhaul, the Berserker could become an unstoppable force with your half/full block system.

[Mr_Gallows]

Moving an important, necessarily on-demand input like parrying to a harder-to-reach-in-timevbutton is *not* an appropriate solution; difficulty of input should never be a factor. And if your half/full guard proposal were to go through, then the Berserker would need an overhaul to its left/right combo chain. As it currently stands, heavies and lights in this chain look identical (as far as I can tell) and travel at the same speed. The stagger on block from these attacks is so great that it's extremely difficult to get a parry in (part of this may be due to my LB's guard switch speed). Without an overhaul, the Berserker could become an unstoppable force with your half/full block system.

You are right, things should be balanced for this to work. Just fixing the parry would go a long way, fixing block and attack balance for both light and heavy would be great though. I find it easy enough to parry berserkers, but the slow guard of some characters mist be fixed. As for the button being hard to reach - they should just rearrange the buttons a bit. It's more important how to do it, than why it won't work.

[Maaci]

If berseker would be an issue with the half and full block, it would most likely be an easy fix.
Just putting a passive button there for berserker only "every attack he do is blocked as if the opponent was in full block". If this doesnt work then iam pretty sure something else could be put in place.

Fixing character issues so they are fair, encourage back and forth play, unique and different, and also specialised in what they do should be rather easy to do.


Would be cool if assassins could instead of feinting instead changing where their attack is gonna be.

Moving an important, necessarily on-demand input like parrying to a harder-to-reach-in-timevbutton is *not* an appropriate solution; difficulty of input should never be a factor.

Just so i understand, what do you mean with this? I agree that difficulty shouldnt be a factor but putting parry on feint button, you think it makes it to hard to do a parry cuz u cant feint it?

[GenLiu]

Moving an important, necessarily on-demand input like parrying to a harder-to-reach-in-timevbutton is *not* an appropriate solution; difficulty of input should never be a factor. And if your half/full guard proposal were to go through, then the Berserker would need an overhaul to its left/right combo chain. As it currently stands, heavies and lights in this chain look identical (as far as I can tell) and travel at the same speed. The stagger on block from these attacks is so great that it's extremely difficult to get a parry in (part of this may be due to my LB's guard switch speed). Without an overhaul, the Berserker could become an unstoppable force with your half/full block system.

I don't think it's that hard to fix, just make an exception for the Berserker's infinite strong attacks which could be blocked in half-guard like light attacks.
Other exception could be considered if necessary but it's just a matter of identifying attacks that would be too powerful with this system and make them work similarly to light attacks when haf/full-block is concerned.

[Mr_Gallows]

I don't think it's that hard to fix, just make an exception for the Berserker's infinite strong attacks which could be blocked in half-guard like light attacks.
Other exception could be considered if necessary but it's just a matter of identifying attacks that would be too powerful with this system and make them work similarly to light attacks when haf/full-block is concerned.

Yes I agree. The point with this system is they would have a new tool to balance the game. Perhaps the berserkers heavy attacks would only do some chip damage against half block. The point is, that it isn't set in Stone and can be easily tweaked. Very slow attacks could have the property of only being blocked by full block.

The important thing is, they would have a great tool for balancing the damage, speed and ability to block in relation to all attacks.

[Maaci]

Thats what i just said, i just had a misspelling of "button" instead of "passive"

[Felis_Menari]

If berseker would be an issue with the half and full block, it would most likely be an easy fix.
Just putting a passive button there for berserker only "every attack he do is blocked as if the opponent was in full block". If this doesnt work then iam pretty sure something else could be put in place.

Fixing character issues so they are fair, encourage back and forth play, unique and different, and also specialised in what they do should be rather easy to do.


Would be cool if assassins could instead of feinting instead changing where their attack is gonna be.


Just so i understand, what do you mean with this? I agree that difficulty shouldnt be a factor but putting parry on feint button, you think it makes it to hard to do a parry cuz u cant feint it?

The parry function is fine where it is; there is no need for it to be moved. That's all there is to it.

[Mr_Gallows]

The parry function is fine where it is; there is no need for it to be moved. That's all there is to it.

The need to move it arises from the fact that having it on the same button as heavy attack isn't good. It should be an easy to reach button. That all the lol there is to it 😂

But the main thing is revamping parry, so it does not stop the player to player interaktion. If instead parry made the next heavy quicker and had some other benefits, but allowed the opponent to defend, there could be some really quick exchanges mixed with parries in a constant back and forth Exchange. With slightly faster heavy attacks, light attacks, feints etc, someone will mess up and the defensive meta is pointless when parry no longer gives free damage. Parry stops the action where instead it should quickly switch initiative and speed up the action for a moment.

The reason for moving it to feint is that it could have a recovery period if you parry as feint (because no attack connects).

Anyway, moving it to feint isn't the biggest issue - it would just add a bit more for the developers to work with in terms of balance. The quick chat, could be switched around with the feint button for a more easy to reach button. Also not having it on heavy attack would remove those few lucky parries from the game.

[Felis_Menari]

Lucky parries? What? I am not sure what you mean by that. If anything, I've had unlucky parry attempts (timing seemed right, but I got hit anyways). Parrying at best can be assigned to (on a controller) to left/right thumbstick presses, left/right bumpers, and left/right triggers. Anything else decreases the ease of play. What you are proposing is to intentionally make an input more difficult (which is bonkers, IMO), since it would take slightly longer to hit on the B/Circle button as opposed to the trigger your finger naturally rests upon while playing. The other proposals would already do much to put cracks in the turtle meta. Add tighter parry timing on heavies (lights are a big maybe, in my mind. Some of the faster characters are already difficult enough to deal with as is), and that may very well be enough to balance out offense and defense.

[Maaci]

I think he mean lucky parries as in you are about to do a heavy attack to your opponent but oopsy, you just appaerantly parried one attack when that wasnt your intention one bit.