Member
I cant believe that no community manager nor dev, havent even sniff this thread. Is it so huge wall of text (that drives people away) or so unrealistic?
I didn't say that ALL changes need to be done, just to take into consideration, and to take developers and balance team into somewhat better road.
There is a thread that also suggests nice changes regarding chains, take a look and read it here:
http://forums.ubi.com/showthread.php...ombat-Network)
I agree to the FULLEST on all MENU/UI and Flow of combat (defence meta) changes this guy proposed!
It would be miniscule change, but would change (IMPROVE) meta and shift it outside of defence dominant meta.
Member
Since i assume patch will come out in 28 days (end of season 1), i tweaked a bit this topic of ours.. It looks a bit better now, and includes some more changes and less changes .)
I really wish this game to live on, and not fall into stalemate.
PK starting to get banned from official tournaments, is red alarm that something indeed aint good with those attack speeds, but we (almost) all new that!
I hope this thread is at least looked upon by developers, i don't dream of all of it implemented, but any of the tiny steps that gets done, would greatly improve gaming experience!
Junior Member
I appreciate the thought and time you put into your suggestions.
In regards to Stamina, the intent seems to me less of a balance for powerful moves than a way to prevent spam. The gameplay appears to be designed to behave in a somewhat more realistic manner where fights return to a neutral state after exchanges rather than someone trying to run a 100 hit combo. Without stamina, the entire nature of this game would be different. An example: I was playing a dominion game and fighting a peacekeeper. The PK hit revenge and started spamming an infinite loop of zone attack cancels. I blocked 100% of them but lost nearly 60% of my hp to chip damage and was effectively locked down until an Orochi appeared and stabbed me from the side. While there may be some tweaking needed for balance( I wholeheartedly agree with the reduced consumption on a feint), I believe it is an important aspect of this game.
When it comes to chains, the simple fact is that is a staple of video game combat. They grant a balancing method for fighting games. If you give all characters the same combo options then the difference in attack speed and power will severely limit the field of competition. For instance, Berserker would lose it's unique infinity chain and the varying damages on hits in a chain negate heavy finish combos.
Attack speeds are a hard subject. Speed in this sense is somewhat subjective as each players reaction speeds differ. For instance, when I practice against a level 3 Valkyrie bot, I can rarely block the second hit or dodge the sweep but I can almost always block the first hit. With players however I am often blocked on the second hit. This leads to the conclusion that either the bots have an advantage when raised to higher levels or that it's too fast for me but not others. When you count attack speed in frames it is hard to say definitively what is too fast. That being said, game play analysis could provide insight. If a particular fast attack has an unusually high hit percentage among a large sample of players with different skill levels, that would be a good indicator that the attack may need some tweaking.
Guard Breaks. This is an issue that has caused me great frustration. They just feel so inconsistent. Such as getting grabbed out of a charge or when I initiate a guard break and it is interrupted by an opponents guard break instead of returning us both to neutral. I believe the big issue for a lot of players is that a success varies so greatly character to character. Assassins tend to dole out massive damage on a success where many other classes can barely land a peck (unless you happen to have a wall or cliff handy). The whole cliff toss mechanic seems a bit cheap as they for some reason decided that most levels would be littered with pitfalls making a lucky grab into an automatic victory. The concern I have is derived from interrupt conditions. Will a quick attack with the same timing interrupt the heavy in the same way a guard break would? This would be precisely why certain characters have uninterruptible heavy attacks. As long as the guard break follows the same interrupt rules as attacks, I don't see this as being a major concern. Ultimately, in theory at least, I have no issues with the guard break system. I just get extremely frustrated at how inconsistent it seems at times. I would not object to successful guard breaks having the same dazing effect that leaves your visuals impaired and your controls free(act as headbutt) but that would severely compromise certain classes, specifically weakening the assassins.
The parry. From your suggestions I believe the easiest way to achieve the risk/reward balance you seek would be to tighten the timing on it. If the timing is extremely tight then you either hit it or you get smashed for additional damage. As I mentioned earlier with guard breaks, the characters also have vastly different results from a parry. Some at best do a trivial damage, while others can punish heavily. You have a few options I think. One option is to adjust parry timing to be character specific. The more punishment a character can do out of a parry, the more strict the timing. Another viable adjustment could be, as your post suggests, to normalize the return on a parry such that regardless of character choice, parrying would only be followed by a quick hit for standardized damage.
Senior Member
Parry is still what requires the most attention I think. If parries have a tighter window, it will not really solve the issue, it will just make unblockables too powerful and make it more random if you get a parry leading to massive damage or not.
I'd like the fight to be dynamic without the pauses we see from parry and a lot of GBs.
If GB was just a grab allowing a throw, it would be better.
Parry should mainly be a way to shift initiative and increase tempo with a faster heavy after a parry. But no free attacks or GB after a parry.
For this to work feints should be rebalanced to be more smooth, so the "art of battle" becomes the center of combat. You should have some control over when you feint. If you feint early the speed to the following attack will be slightly faster and if you feint late, the speed of the following attack will not get a boost. This should be balanced to give attackers some control over the timing of attacks.
All special moves like headbutt, shove, sweep etc. should then be balanced after the following two options.
1. If a special move like headbutt is safe and easy to land the following attack should be blockable and/or parryable. How easy it is to land should determine if it can be blocked or only parried.
2. If a move is harder to land (easy do avoid), then the attack following it does not have to be blockable/ parryable.
An additional idea for heavy attacks could be to change the timing of the attack depending of how long you hold the button when doing a heavy attack. Combine this with feinting and you have a dynamic combat system where you read what your opponent is doing to prevail.
Member
I came back after half a year or so, just to see what i've wrote about months ago.
And WOW - ubisoft actually made this game a few steps closer to what i've suggested (snail-speed of course), and it already looks and feels much much better!
(kensei chains / parry into gb no no / some atk speeds fixes)..
All in all - im quite pleased where For Honor goes!
Keep up with more agressive changes to EXISTING roster, as this actually breaths life into the game! Adding new ones (broken ones ofc) kills it.
Thank you for the read, this is old thread, but i feel it deserves 2nd look now that we got some minor changes going on. It's just here for ideas.
