How to fix the turtling meta | Forums

[Mewsan]

I've lately followed the forums and the official subreddit a lot and, like many others, have come to the conclusion that defensive play in this game is too strong. Being offensive, on the other hand, is just too risky and punishable. This defensive meta is ultimately quite tedious both to play and watch.

I've found that there are three main issues:

1. Being overly defensive, or "turtling", is relatively easy to do and extremely hard to punish.
2. Parrying is too strong and makes being offensive very risky.
3. Being out of stamina is too hard to punish. I'm sure many of you have found yourselves in the situation where your opponent is out of stamina, but you just can't seem to find a way to do anything to punish him. This problem becomes really apparent with heroes who revolve around draining the opponent's stamina, e.g. Lawbringer.

I strongly believe that shifting the meta to a more aggressive style will make the gameplay a lot more interesting and also open up more variety.

Here are my ideas on how to fix the problems:
Disclaimer: I'm balancing around 1v1 and 2v2, as I think the game should be balanced around these game modes.

1. Blocking should cost as much stamina as attacking did. Parrying should cost half as much. In addition to these, blocking a heavy attack should inflict 50% of the normal damage (except to Conqueror). These changes will punish players for being too defensive and therefore promote some offensive play.
2. I think we can all agree that parrying is quite easy and getting a guaranteed GB from it (to most heroes) is a bit too strong. Therefore I suggest that you no longer get a guaranteed GB, or heavy, from parrying a light attack. Instead, you'd only get a guaranteed light attack. This will ensure that being a bit offensive with light attacks can't be punished too hard.
3. The root of this problem is that you still have all of your defensive capabilities when out of stamina. To balance this, we need to remove some of them for the duration:
   
   • Make dodges slower and cover less distance.
   • Remove the ability to parry.
   
   These changes would ensure that you'd likely get at least one hit in, which is how I think it should be. Some might argue that these changes would be too drastic, but remember that running out of stamina is a big mistake from the player and should be punished. Not being able to parry would also buff Raider, which is a good thing.

Those are all the suggestions. Feel free to share your opinions!

EDIT: I just want to point out that these changes would not make it impossible to defend against all attacks. They would only make it harder, while reducing the amount of "free" damage you get from turtling. The goal is to make offensive play less risky and more worthwhile.

[F1nish3R]

I've lately followed the forums and the official subreddit a lot and, like many others, have come to the conclusion that defensive play in this game is too strong. Being offensive, on the other hand, is just too risky and punishable. This defensive meta is ultimately quite tedious both to play and watch.

I've found that there are three main issues:

1. Being overly defensive, or "turtling", is relatively easy to do and extremely hard to punish.
2. Parrying is too strong and makes being offensive very risky.
3. Being out of stamina is too hard to punish. I'm sure many of you have found yourselves in the situation where your opponent is out of stamina, but you just can't seem to find a way to do anything to punish him. This problem becomes really apparent with heroes who revolve around draining the opponent's stamina, e.g. Lawbringer.

I strongly believe that shifting the meta to a more aggressive style will make the gameplay a lot more interesting and also open up more variety.

Here are my ideas on how to fix the problems:
Disclaimer: I'm balancing around 1v1 and 2v2, as I think the game should be balanced around these game modes.

1. Blocking should cost as much stamina as attacking did. Parrying should cost half as much. In addition to these, blocking a heavy attack should inflict 50% of the normal damage (except to Conqueror). These changes will punish players for being too defensive and therefore promote some offensive play.
2. I think we can all agree that parrying is quite easy and getting a guaranteed GB from it (to most heroes) is a bit too strong. Therefore I suggest that you no longer get a guaranteed GB, or heavy, from parrying a light attack. Instead, you'd only get a guaranteed light attack. This will ensure that being a bit offensive with light attacks can't be punished too hard.
3. The root of this problem is that you still have all of your defensive capabilities when out of stamina. To balance this, we need to remove some of them for the duration:
   
   • Make dodges slower and cover less distance. Also, you shouldn't be able to roll.
   • Remove the ability to parry.
   
   These changes would ensure that you'd likely get at least one hit in, which is how I think it should be. Some might argue that these changes would be too drastic, but remember that running out of stamina is a big mistake from the player and should be punished. Not being able to parry would also buff Raider, which is a good thing.

Those are all the suggestions. Feel free to share your opinions!

Blocking should take 4% of your life that way people can not just turtle problem solved!

[Warp_11]

1) - 50/50 don't completely agree

2) - no, parrying is not easy, but it would be better if they made parrying heavy attacks just a little bit harder while parrying light attacks a bit easier.

3) - I think that all side dodges should be nerfed. Right now they have invulnerability frames, which result in some truly stupid and outrageous moments.
Also, parrying while out of stamina is not that bad, with appropriate use of feints, you can bait the opponent into performing a heavy attack that you can parry and knock him on the ground.

[nyrue]

right now I think the safest game change to fix the defensive meta is to make chip damage 20-40% more effective than it is now, also I had this idea

what if after an attack lands successfully, the remaining attacks in that combo chain cannot be block but must be parried?

[Yssuron]

right now I think the safest game change to fix the defensive meta is to make chip damage 20-40% more effective than it is now, also I had this idea

what if after an attack lands successfully, the remaining attacks in that combo chain cannot be block but must be parried?

First choice is a bit... too much. Chip damage is fine where it is. Players with high Block Damage gear in Dominion already dominate there.

Second option, I say no, absolutely no. Some characters would be unbelievably strong with that. i.e. Peacekeepers and Orochi. And a second tier of GODness if that option was put into play. Berserkers/Conquerors. One light attack and every infinite chain attack after that is -only- parryable? Everyone would play Zerk/Conq and that would be the end of it.

[vzOdinson]

Blocking should cost as much stamina as attacking did. Parrying should cost half as much. In addition to these, blocking a heavy attack should inflict 50% of the normal damage (except to Conqueror).

Why only the Conqueror? Warlord has a big *** shield, too.

[RahnuLe]

I'll just quote myself from another thread:

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.

I think changing just one or two mechanics at a time would be a huge mistake, as it'd just shift the balance of power to another aspect of defense. It's every aspect of defense that's overpowered, not just parries, and not just guard break interrupts. We need a comprehensive overhaul to shift things decidedly in the direction of encouraging aggression to keep fights moving and force people to be proactive. No one should be standing around staring at the opponent just waiting for them to make a move.

[Mr_Gallows]

Punishment for defence is just going to create a new bad situation. Balance is the key.

Defence should be defence and attack alone should lead to damage. Currently defence is a great way to kill people and that's causing the problem.

Fix the core and the rest can easily be balanced.

Når vi om nogle år har set historien gentage sig med vores nuværende politikere har befolkningen måske gennemsnitligt lært præcis det samme - ikke en skid. De gør det fordi vi giver dem lov. Sådan ser det ud når et folk ikke begriber det demokratiske ansvar.

http://forums.ubi.com/showthread.php...2#post12367152

[Mewsan]

Many seem to be under the impression that parrying is somewhat hard. Let me assure you, it is not unusual at all to parry even warden's top light attacks, which are one of the fastest attacks. I'm not even close to being the best player, but even I can do it quite consistently. Parrying really isn't that hard and it really is that strong. As for the increased chip damage, heavy attacks are very easy to parry. Not being able to parry should punish you, as they are powerful attacks. After all, blocking is mainly passive and that's not really engaging gameplay.

Why only the Conqueror? Warlord has a big *** shield, too.

AFAIK, Conqueror is currently the only one who doesn't take chip damage at all, so that's my reasoning. But I wouldn't mind giving all shield characters some chip damage mitigation.

Punishment for defence is just going to create a new bad situation. Balance is the key.

Defence should be defence and attack alone should lead to damage. Currently defence is a great way to kill people and that's causing the problem.

Fix the core and the rest can easily be balanced.

Når vi om nogle år har set historien gentage sig med vores nuværende politikere har befolkningen måske gennemsnitligt lært præcis det samme - ikke en skid. De gør det fordi vi giver dem lov. Sådan ser det ud når et folk ikke begriber det demokratiske ansvar.

http://forums.ubi.com/showthread.php...2#post12367152

You are right that balance is the key. The problem is though that when defense is so strong that you can theoretically avoid all attacks, good players also will avoid 95% of the attacks, while simultaneously inflicting damage to the opponent as well. There is no incentive to be offensive, because defense is too strong. Hence, it needs to be nerfed.

[Mewsan]

First choice is a bit... too much. Chip damage is fine where it is. Players with high Block Damage gear in Dominion already dominate there.

High block damage gear definitely doesn't dominate. Revenge builds dominate 100%. Nonetheless, parrying/dodging isn't that hard to avoid chip damage altogether, as heavy attacks are slow.

Blocking should take 4% of your life that way people can not just turtle problem solved!

Unfortunately, blocking isn't the only problem, or even the biggest. Parrying is.

1) - 50/50 don't completely agree

2) - no, parrying is not easy, but it would be better if they made parrying heavy attacks just a little bit harder while parrying light attacks a bit easier.

3) - I think that all side dodges should be nerfed. Right now they have invulnerability frames, which result in some truly stupid and outrageous moments.
Also, parrying while out of stamina is not that bad, with appropriate use of feints, you can bait the opponent into performing a heavy attack that you can parry and knock him on the ground.

Light attacks are easy enough to parry as it is. Good opponents also won't parry your feint, but moreover the problem is that they can avoid facing you completely. Just dodge/roll away.