Hi there.

Frame of reference (NOT IMPORTANT, SKIP IF LAZY):


I got interested in For Honor because of multiple posts of 9gag. I felt it is worth a shot so I began to watch videos from CBT to learn as much about the game as I could. After spending around 4-6 hours of my life I learned about open beta and I was looking forward to it. In the past I was playing mostly PvP games (WoW vanilla up to MoP, bits of WoD, CS 1.6 like 10-12 years ago) so For Honor with it's combat system looked mint to me. I mean, skill based PvP right ?!


First thoughts after watching/reading about For Honor(NOT IMPORTANT, SKIP IF LAZY):

Simple, yet hard to master. Looks sluggish, may be boring, high skill ceiling, new highly competitive game. 1v1 looks intense, 2v2 looks quite fun, 4v4 seems ok, not fan of Dominion mode tho. Unique characters with their strengths and weaknesses, a little bit like rock/paper/scissors (popular opinion) with plenty of room left to surprise an enemy.


Thoughts and complains after playing open beta for couple of hours (16hrs total)(NOT IMPORTANT, SKIP IF LAZY):


I was scared at first, controls were counter intuitive (do not get me wrong, I loved it (motorbikers will get it, lol). I had to learn everything from scratch to grasp the controls. Next up, learning the class. I did pick Nobushi (mostly because I like polearms and I did like the looks, moveset and it was labeled as 'medium' and not 'hard' class to play, I tried to use feedback from CBT players stating that it is good to play Warden up to lvl 5-10 to learn basics and the go for other classes. It was hard at first, after some practice I did fairly well, enjoyed it and had a smile on my face.


I did not enjoy:


-cursor bug (got around it by doing weird stuff)
I beg of you, if you can not fix that, make UPlay obsolete to manage friends and party and implement it in game. It is not HUGE deal, but it is annoying (especially on multiple screens) to the point where I was blaming that crap for losing (it felt like character did not respond correctly when cursor was present, distracting to the point in which I preferred to play solo instead of playing with my friends (before finding 'ok' solution for that).


-Dominion mode
I like the gameplay mechanic (I was not playing on high level) but point gaining mechanism may use some tweaking, traits felt OP as hell (did not learn to use mine properly tho), would love option to go there without item bonuses and maybe even without traits.


-4v4
It is basically mode in which everyone is running around ressing teammates in few seconds, killing each other with silly traits after first round, buffs feel weird, item scaling is annoying.


-Latency of some players
Overall I had nice experience but I was baffled couple of times why I did not block/parry certain hits from certain players when I could to that to their teammates without a problem. I realized most of that is because those 'really good players' were often teleporting or hitting me from a far because of their latency (I feel like P2P system is favoring people with higher latency, just an opinion tho, can't explain it, but I had really hard time defeating people with lag spikes).


I did enjoy:

-'git gud'
In my opinion For Honor is really hard to master, to the point where really skilled player may lose to someone 'less skilled' after single simple mistake. On top of that, every character have strengths and weaknesses that you need to keep in mind while fighting and you need to use them to your advantage. Another nice thing is that you can catch enemy off guard by playing you character a little bit differently that it is supposed to be played, so you need to adapt to your enemy to succeed.


-community
As above. Plenty of people see problems with 'OP' classes and give constructive feedback. The truth is, that people think that X is OP because they are loosing to it. Let me tell you something. If something like that happens in a game, when there is slight balancing issue, players will tend to go for OP class to have easier time playing. Result? Community learns how to counter them. That's it. If you think X is OP, play it, try to be #1. Can't do it? Stop qqing then. Play what you like, master it and you will have great pleasure defeating 'meta' players.


-1v1
Just great, intense and rewarding. I could QQ about being thrown out of the map or on the spikes often, but then, it is my bad for not using those things for my advantage.


-2v2
Great with a friend. Sometimes you need to defeat two completely different enemies in a row. That is really rewarding.


-Matchmaking
Most of the time I was playing against people with similar skill level. Only two times I felt overwhelmed by someone, but then again, I could still beat them if I played well.


-PC port
Well Ubisoft. Great job (finally). I was playing AC's on a PC with 'recommended' hardware in the past and it was not fluent experience. Now I have a PC that meets 'minimal' system requirements and I was a little worried that I would not be able to compete with people with newer builds. I was pleasantly surpriesed when I saw my FPS above 50 FPS on medium preset. Again, nice job.


I would love to see in the future:

- More cosmetic, less stat items

-Option to play Dominion/4v4 without traits/gear stats

-More customization in terms of outfit color

-3v3 mode (like, come on, why can't I play with two of my friends when the third one is at work?)

-Faction war balance (I still did not find any information if it is possible for a game to make all players in a game same faction, if so, this is really unbalanced, even if it is 1v1. Also, playing on high level of play should give more points that beating a new player, not sure how the system works currently tho so sorry if I am mistaken).

-Dedicated servers (I had crap experience with 'revolutionary' P2P servers. I mean, if all the players in the game have good enough PC, connection
and latency to play without problems, then what the hell, abuse them, but sadly plenty of players ( just guessing, 5-20%?) do not. I do not believe it is worth it for a big company to lose such a big player base for not renting dedicated servers. It is investment not a waste of money. Personally I had little to no issues in beta playing from EU with 150Mbps connection, but it is more than enough to play multiplayer isn't it?


And last and most important thing:
The video about plans for the future of the game, new classes, new maps, new seasons, supporting the game for at least a year, season pass that gives you privileges not content seems amazing. I am really hoping that those are not only empty promises. I think that you HAVE TO deliver that without delays, problems, making excuses and changing game model. Moreover, you should do YOUR BEST to provide community with even more if you have resources, work force and time to do so.

So please, dear Ubisoft, do not fail this project. You have amazing community, team that made a amazing game, great potential. My personal opinion is that you can make people love you with this product as you did with early-to-mid AC series. Just do not try to milk For Honor too much. You deserve money for game with such a potential but I am afraid (as many people I believe) that you will somehow **** this up at some point. I beg you, show us wrong.

Knights, Vikings and Samurai are backing you up, do not fail us.

TLDR.
Me likey, me hope you no make bad. Me haz hopes. Git gud. Lag bad. Community nice people. CURSOR BUG ANNOYING. Runs nice. Give what you promised.

I enjoyed playing the beta and I am hoping for the best.

Best regards and git gud scrubs

PS I might have made some spelling/grammar/other errors, but really I do not care enough to correct them now or in the future. Peace