Character Balance and Game Mechanics Focus | Forums

[iMacGoober]

To whoever takes the time to read this post, thanks.

I have never been more competitive about a video game in my life. It is very rewarding to best your opponents utilizing ONLY your wits, reflexes, and skills. The character variety provides an in depth experience that allows diverse types of game play/fighting styles to take place. However, like any game, there are its downsides as well. In my personal opinion, there are some serious flaws when it comes down to the core game play. I know there are other issues that need to be resolved, but the focus of this rant will be on the game play and the character mechanics that should enable them.

First, I want to talk about the gaming mechanics focus in For Honor, regarding the character move set. Obviously there are strengths, weakness, and abilities that each character has in order to create a balance. When considering these features, we should ask ourselves what the intended end state of the gaming scene is supposed to be. Is it skill based? Is it based on intellect and tactics? Is it based on how fast you can react? Which character has better abilities? For me, it should all come down a combination to skill, intellect, and reflexes. I say this, because these facets are equalizers between opposing players, not the game itself, and provides a level playing field. Each player has the ability to improve on each of these factors in order to become more effective in the game. The victory is EARNED, because a player was able to use one or a combination of these aspects from their personal gaming abilities. Nothing frustrates me more than to be/feel cheated because a gaming mechanic by itself that allowed my opponent an unfair advantage. I can understand tweaking some characters to reflect certain types of fighting styles: Direct, mobile, counter-attack, ranged, fast, slow, high damage, low damage, bleed, etc. At the end of the day, these sub-factors of characters should not impede on a player’s ability to adapt and overcome their adversary. When I say an unfair advantage, this directly correlates to characters having the ability to create an advantage without the use of the aforementioned factors (skill, reflexes, and intellect). The game mechanic does all the work and the victory is almost entirely assured.

The following is a list of abilities that violate this principle of fair play, along with rationales, and possible solutions to the problem.
1. Warlord’s Headbutt:
a. Rational: The ability is unblockable, unparryable and nearly undodgeable that stuns the opponent long enough in order to get a free hit. All you have to hit two buttons at the same time. The only real consistent way to dodge this ability is to predict when the opponent will use this move, and move just prior to it being executed. It requires a lot of intellect and reflexes to avoid this, but practically nothing to employ it.
b. Solution: If you provide an earlier indicator, this will provide time for the player to identify and dodge this attack. Another answer is to remove the ability to combo immediately after the headbutt, and may just stun or drain stamina from receiving character. The player that receives the headbutt should be given an opportunity to defend themselves.

2. Warlord’s Shield Counter:
a. Rational: This ability blocks any incoming attacks and allows a clean follow up of damage to the aggressor. Again, not only is this easy to employ, but creates an opening for the warlord to attack a player while they are still recovering from deflection.
b. Solution: You can reduce the recovery time that a player needs after deflection in order to give them an opportunity to defend themselves. Another alternative is to only increase the time it takes for the warlord to attack after employing the Shield Counter.

3. Valkyrie’s Shield Crush, Tackle, and Spear Sweep:
a. Rational: These abilities only require to master a short set of button inputs, which requires little to no skill. However, they allow the Valkyrie to stun the opponent and land a free shot. You can dodge these abilities, but only if you react fast enough and have the right characters to do it. You can also feint the shield ability to do a guard break or light/heavy attack, which creates a guessing game for the opponent to use fast reflexes
b. Solution: I recommend increasing the time it takes to implement this ability. This will allow player the player to react to dodge. The ability to feint should also be removed. This removes the ability to have to create a guessing game with the attack, while the Valkyrie can respond to any of the opponent’s moves.

4. Warden’s Shoulder Bash, Zone Attack and Guardian’s Assault:
a. Rational: The Shoulder Bash is similar to the Valkyrie’s Shield Crush/Tackle, as it allows the Warden a multitude of options to attack, stun, or guard break. It becomes a guessing game for the opponent, and requires fast reflexes to counter it. The Guardian’s Assault and Zone Attack is actually faster than the normal top light attack, which puts the Warden in line or faster than the speed of some of the assassin characters. This combination of abilities provides the Warden the most and diverse amount of attacks in the game. It’s like taking abilities from multiple characters and putting them into one, degrading a focused fighting style and reducing the necessary skill needed.
b. Solution: The ability to feint out of the shoulder bash should be removed, but provide the ability to stun. The Guardian’s Assault should only be just as fast as the top light attack at the most. The Zone Attack should only be just as fast as the top light attack as well.

5. Conqueror’s Shield Bash:
a. Rational: This ability allows the Conqueror to stun their opponent and land a free hit. This doesn’t take any skill to employ, and leaves their opponent defenseless. The opponent is reliant on fast reflexes to avoid this attack.
b. Solution: The shield bash should be used to stun and/or drain stamina, but it will take more time for the conqueror to attack, giving the opponent a chance to defend themselves.

6. Shugoki’s Charge of the Oni and Raider’s Stampede Charge:
a. Rational: These charge abilities are easy use, and be feinted out to guard break an enemy that attempt to charge. The issue is that the opponent has to play a guessing game, using fast reflexes to avoid these abilities.
b. Solution: Removing the ability to feint will create a high risk, high reward scenario that will still allow these characters to tempt fate.

These are the minimum changes I recommend to the listed abilities. If you have a difference of opinion, or would like to add, please contribute. Thanks.

[Mr_Gallows]

A very good post.

I'll add to it that parry in general is an issue because it leads to free damage, making is great to turtle. Parry should be purely defensive to avoid unblockables and chip damage from heavy attacks. It should also break any combos and make your next heavy attack slightly faster and perhaps a slight damage bonus. But no free damage directly as a result of defence.

If parry only had its current effect when parrying a light attack, then it would be more balanced, although some classes are a lot easier to parry which makes a whole bunch of issues with the current parry -> damage system.

[SethUnleashed]

1) warlords headbutt:
increase stamina cost or put a CD on it, no need to remove the light-attack he gets from it, as its only a light...
the problem isnt the free damage, the problem is the ability to spam it WAY too often in a row

2) warlords shield counter:
i think this is fine as it is.
the problem here isnt this ability, but the defense-meta itself. if there would be chip-damage and/or blocked light attacks wouldnt stagger the attacker, this would fix itself

3) valkyries shield crush, tackle and spear sweep:
first off, valk is a harasser and controll class, her damage is pretty low and most of her tools are predictable AND she has a long recovery time if she misses anything.
shield crush:
this ability by itself is fine in my opinion as it can only guarantee a single light attack, and as mentioned above, her dmg in general is low.
shield tackle:
this ability is no problem at all because A) you need to dodge BACK to activate it, so its actually useless for the valk because to activate all-block you basically already dodge out of range and B) it is one of the most predictable moves there is and if you cant dodge it, you are just either bad or blindly attacking her. also, a fully charged shield-tackle will result in a knockdown but with the target being out of range to guarantee a heavy, so she has to move forward to do a normal attack OR do a forward-dodge attack (which is a light attack). so the punish for the enemies stupidity of not avoiding one of the easiest moves to avoid is only a light attack or a pouncing thrust (a bit over a light attack)
sweep:
you can dodge ANY sweep but one (she can guarantee a sweep after she knocked you down when you are exhausted, so its your fault to let that happen anyway AND she still can only do about 2 bars of damage total where other classes can hit you for the same or more, with way less stamina cost)
most people say the sweep is unpredictable when there are only 2 times it can come out:
A) after a shield-crush (and only if that shield-crush was feinted out of a heavy)
B) every 3rd attack she makes
so, be ready to dodge after shield-crushes and count her attacks -> problem solved

as for cooldowns or stamina costs on valk control-skills. IF they get either, her damage needs to be buffed because currently her time to kill is low due to her having lots of tools (which are already rather easy to avoid AND have long recovery times)

4) wardens shoulder bash
wardens can cancel their charge into a guardbreak (valks cant do that... even though the moveset lists this possibility, it has been bugged since alpha)
the wardens charge is the ONLY real vortex in this game as you CANNOT counter it on reaction. you have to guess and either dodge OR guardbreak-counter and hope that you predicted the wardens action.
the problem here isnt the vortex itself but the ability to spam it WAY too often in a row. same as most charge attacks, this needs a cooldown or higher stamina cost.
zone attack:
not a warden-exclusive problem and in my opinion ALL zone attacks should be either equally slow or do just a single point of damage. why? because they are meant for ZONING and killing minions, not for doing almost impossible to avoid damage due to their speed.

5) conquerers shield bash:
same as warlords headbutt ... ability to spam is the problem, not the move itself

6) shugoki charge of oni and raiders charge:
both are perfectly fine and can be avoided EASILY ... see a shugo/raider sprinting at you? well get ready to dodge

for shugoki i think that his demons embrace one-shot mechanic should be changed though as rewarding bad play is not good gamedesign.

[MeArney]

Good post, but I have to say that Valkyrie does not need a nerf. She is a disabler with the healthpool of a piece of paper and the damage output of a wet noodle. Her recovery time is also slow. The spear-sweep is basically the only moveset she has apart from poking and trying to land a shoulderpin (which is one of the hardest moves in this game to land). It´s extremely easy to dodge and very predictable. If you block one of the two light attacks, she can´t execute the move either. The full guard is also easy to see, (If a Valk jumps backwards, MOVE!) so pretty predictable as well.
As a conclusion I say that the fact that not many people played her before the patch (because she was horrible to use) so not many players are used to counter her or knows her move-set.

The rest is good, apart from many needed buffs for character like LB and Raider (UI quickness) and a few more things with Nobushi (her zone attack can be cancelled after the first sweep, which causes her to keep the ridiculous range) and the bleed is a bit too much. Also I would like to say say that 90% of the PKs I´ve seen since the patch don´t do anything else tha spam lights and dodge since she´s simply too fast for a slow-*** LB like me (C-GB is too damn easy right now).