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

[Felis_Menari]

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.

I've never had that happen o.O

[Cyb3rR4ptor]

IDK if you guys saw the first warrior's den video the devs made. One thing they mentioned was that GB after a parry was not intentional. They plan on doing a fix on that.

Now on the topic.
I believe there are 2 ways to tackle the issue. One track is by changing some of the games general mechanics and the other doing proper buff/nerfs on the cast.
On the general sense something they could do is decrease the the stun time of the parry, Making it that you can land a light attack but not a heavy, or a GB. (already mentioned this was not intentional)
-On characters that have an ALL BLOCK, these characters can't CG, or CGB while doing an ALL BLOCK. And that's their crack on their defense. They would be forced to leave said state in order to react properly. And when I say "leave said state" i mean properly leave the all block not just let go and react. it should have some sort of delay.
-Make the guard stance change speed of all characters the same. This way characters with high attack speed keep their advantage but still players with good reaction can manage.

I prefer buffs over nerfs but way i see it, buffing the rest of the cast could be a lot more risky than nerfing the "TOP TIERS" and it involves a lot more work. But it could be done.

The only characters that can adequately compete against the HYPER DEFENSE meta are warden and PK, since these characters are basically have the best tool set to dealing with hyper defense characters (outside of themselves). The rest have a hard time against shield users since they can only attack and gb. They could go for the feints but feints do not guarantee a reaction from the opponent. Sure they all have unblockables or uninterruptibles but they are easier to react or don't have much damage to capitalize like the "TOP TIERS"
An easy fix on warden is to remove the ability to GB from shoulder bash. That way he's commited to the move just like Raider's grab, Valk's shield bash, Nob's kicks. or grant them the ability to cancel those to GB as well. Evening the grounds.
I already mentioned what to do against characters with an ALL BLOCK

I have only played with Nobushi and Valk since those are my faves. And I'd say they do relatively well against all classes except Warlord and Conq. Maybe Valk has more chance than Nob due to her bash and sweep but those are slow and easy to react.

[naisuguydesu]

Wow I just went trough the whole thread to see if Ubi answered... they didn't even bother to !

It looks like they really don't want to say anything on that matter. That is the biggest flaw of the game and I am soon going to leave it if nothing is done to change it, just like many players I believe...

Pity, I love this game.

[Mr_Gallows]

In situations where you press heavy attack as someone uses a light attack you can get a lucky parry. It has happened a lot, especially in xv1 where I often get unintentional parries.

But even so, keeping parry on the heavy attack button isn't the biggest concern really.

Making parry something that does not cause a break in the action, but rather speeds it up right after a parry is what we need. That can work just fine with parry on the heavy attack.

[Mr_Gallows]

Wow I just went trough the whole thread to see if Ubi answered... they didn't even bother to !

It looks like they really don't want to say anything on that matter. That is the biggest flaw of the game and I am soon going to leave it if nothing is done to change it, just like many players I believe...

Pity, I love this game.

I think you should just expect a slower response. It's a big company and I do believe they read the forums. This game is a bit complex, and takes time to fine tune. I do believe they intend to make the game the best it can be, I just hope their approach to this goal is good

[GregoryMcFlint]

Wow I just went trough the whole thread to see if Ubi answered... they didn't even bother to !

It looks like they really don't want to say anything on that matter. That is the biggest flaw of the game and I am soon going to leave it if nothing is done to change it, just like many players I believe...

Pity, I love this game.

2003soft strikes again!

[Mr_Gallows]

Just a repost of a more organized writeup of my ideas:

Attacking is risky mainly because of what parry gives the defender and defending is safe because it is risk free and offers great reward.

If parry was reworked in the following way, parry would still be good, but not offer free damage and not make attacking so risky.

Parry
First there are some changes and effects for the person being parried (attacker)
1. No stagger after parry, so the person being parried can defend himself from attacks and GB
2. After being parried you cannot dodge backwards or you will fall down.
3. Stamina drain like now
4. attacking and GB disabled for a moment after being parried, so the only option is defence (including CGB)

Then there are some effects for the one doing the parry (defender)
1. The next heavy attack is faster (maybe even the next combo starting with a heavy attack coult be faster and perhaps this heavy attack could chain directly into any combo chain).
2. The next heavy attacks could have increased chip damage, but don't know if this one is needed.
3. The next heavy attack costs no stamina.
4. The next heavy attack may inflict stun if it connects,
5. No options for light attacks, I know, but heavy attacks could get a bit of love through parry.
6. Several options for rewarding parry without, disabling the other person.

With this parry system in place, we could see some quick exchanges of parry back and forth, that would keep the combat going with no pause after a parry, but instead a feeling of urgency as parries speed up the action and change timings instead of breaking up the action.


Blocking
That leaves us with the more basic part of defence - blocking.

We have two tiers of attacks - light and heavy.
To match that two tiers of block would work very well - half and full block.

Half block
Getting to half block happends instantly when you switch guard. Half block allows you to completely block light attacks. From half block you can only parry heavy attacks. Heavy attacks hitting half block may do full or reduced damage. that's balancing.

Full block
as soon as you enter half block, the direction meter begins to fill up and after a number of frames it is full and you are in full block. When in full block you can block heavy attacks. The number of frames it takes to reach full block can vary from character to character, to give more balance options. The quick characters who are good at dodging may need a few more frames to reach full block.

For this to work, heavy attacks must be balanced in terms of speed across the board. they don't have to be the same, but must land within an acceptable range for balance to feel right.


A different approach to half and full block
Each attack in the game could also be given an attack powe, balanced with the speed of the attack. When blocking characters would build up block power over the frames after entering full block. When an attack and a block collides, the block power and the attack power is compared to calculate damage. My suggestion is that there is a cut off point, so if you don't have at least half the block power relative to the attack power, the attack does full damage. After that damage is gradually reduced, until half damage. If you match the attack power, the attack will do no damage at all. Sounds complicated, but really is a simple principle. Just a second idea for how to approach blocking, that doesn't have to change the characters.

[naisuguydesu]

I think you should just expect a slower response. It's a big company and I do believe they read the forums. This game is a bit complex, and takes time to fine tune. I do believe they intend to make the game the best it can be, I just hope their approach to this goal is good

The turtle meta lasts for more than a month now!
I think they had plenty of time to think about that problem that is killing the game.

I'm just asking for a reaction, a word from the devs. Just to know if they even consider changing anything.

It can't stay as it is right now, and it's just going to get worst.

Soon all the fights will just be 2 Wardens facing each others for days without doing anything...

[Mr_Gallows]

The turtle meta lasts for more than a month now!
I think they had plenty of time to think about that problem that is killing the game.

I'm just asking for a reaction, a word from the devs. Just to know if they even consider changing anything.

It can't stay as it is right now, and it's just going to get worst.

Soon all the fights will just be 2 Wardens facing each others for days without doing anything...

They reacted last week by mentioning that they did not intend defence to be this strong. Watch their livestream tomorrow - more details may pop up during the show.

[Xanthus730]

Yes, there's been 2 livestreams and a dev interview on another site, where this was mentioned in pretty much each one. They've mentioned that they are aware of the problem and working on fixing it. They've also addressed several other of the community's favorite concerns, as well. I believe the streams are even linked in the announcements subforum.