Comprehensive Feedback ( UI - Combat - Network) | Forums

[Aarpian]

Fantastic post - hit the nail on the head.

[DecoyAssist]

Mynban : Spot on. The rubbish that has been spouted about the virtues of the P2P matchmaking has had my colleagues in stitches whilst they vowed never to touch such a "trashcan of risk".

Dear Ubisoft, please do exactly what Mynban says.
One more thing: revenge atm is one more factor that adds to the defensive playstyle issue in non-duel game modes. It reduces the combat flow to a simple procedure: run into multiple opponents (two is more than enough, with good gear getting revenge even in 1x1 is pretty easy), make a couple of blocks, get revenge, autoparry on activation, kill knocked opponent before he can get up, repeat. I got good gear, and it works for me, although it is not much fun. The best way to counter revenge is defensive playstyle, which brings us to the original problem. The game allows it, and even encourages it. I've tried other tactics, and they do not even come close to that in terms of effectiveness.

Revenge is copping a lot of flak lately. I admit it does seem ridiculously overpowered 1v1 - it is - but when you go into Skirmish (where the worst of the worst hang out) it's absolutely necessary if you are one of the very few players who doesn't want to just 4pack gank everybody. Not that those plebs care that throwing 6 attacks per second at one target is going to power them up for revenge, they'll just keep swinging and hope that they land the final blow.

I think the inclusion of a cooldown on revenge for 1v1 and 2v1 scenarios is warranted but when a fight turns to 3-4v1 it should follow the current model.

Lose the offensive Featsin Skirmish/Elimination matches at the very least. The offensive feats are hideously over powered and have no place in a game that is designed for close quarters combat. Bows, artillery, throwing axes/knives/javelins are takinng the CQC game and turning it into just another shooter. Why is it that every studio decides that the CoD model of gameplay has to be imitated. "Do well enough for a moment (or find the 4-star boost - such a fkn joke) and we will give you the ability to crush your enemies without trying and cheapen the gameplay to unenjoyable levels. It takes literally ZERO SKILL to press down on the D-pad and incinerate the enemy and your team mates.

Team damage needs to be punished more Most of us play with strangers most of the time. I've lost count at just how many executions or takedowns have been robbed by some numpty Nobushi trying to poke that idiotic naginata past you and hitting you instead. Then they just wander off without penalty. It's great for that section of grief gamers who just like to upset other players. It's rampant.

Guard switching: Every character should have the ability to switch guards at the same speed. Currently, even above average players are still eating 1 or two hits from those cheap AF Orochi combos, PKs and Berserkers. It's not too bad PvP, but when you release some of the more steroided BOTs - you know the ones that seem to have endless stamina, perfect timing and can switch up faster than virtually any human playing on a network can hope to react - it's not an incentive to get better, it's a ridiculous joke. Getting stunlocked by a Warlord and Valkyrie combo is a good time to go and make a coffee because there is no way out of it.

Fix the FKN ROUND OPENINGS! Against AIs. By the time you get in view and control of your character it's not uncommon for the AI to already have landed 2 or 3 hits. When it's something like a berserker that has started an infinite chain, there's no coming back from that. This is something I can truly not believe is still happening. That should have been fixed in the Alpha. It's like nobody at Ubisoft even plays these games.

Add the option for all non-custom game modes to switch gear stats on or off in matchmaking. This will stop the crying about trying to level up rep 0 characters against 108GSs.

Skirmish and the Hateful 8 Lose it. It's a pointless gankfest that is ruining the game. It's so close to Dominion that it seems like you just handed in the same homework twice. Only dominion does a better job of trying to spread out the battlefield instead of focusing it on one poor schmuck. Replace it with a wave assault survival mode. You could have this purely co-op or you could have two competing teams sharing the same fortifications, competing for defensive areas (ballistas, gates etc) under attack by invading AIs - cooperate or gank - at least there is an option of cooperation, skirmish has no point to it. The Orders of get an 8 killstreak has made it unbearable and unplayable. Thankfully, most of the time your teammates lag out and leave you in peace to finish the Hateful 8.

More steel I know Ubisoft sees every game as another potential way to maintain a fleet of solid gold private jets, but you seem to be targeting the kids who use their parents' credit cards to get useless content. And yes, all of your extra content so far is useless and without substance.

Give back what you took away Until you have a stable network for your players to use, you should be awarding champ status on a weekly basis. Particularly for those of us whom have purchased it and watched it tick away because it takes 7 hours to complete 5 matches.

Don't matchmake restricted NATs.Period. Put a PSA in the game like you did for the error codes advising people that restricted NAT players can either learn how to portforward properly, or play custom matches. If you want to maintain any type of player base overt he coming months, you MUST FIX THE MATCHMAKING. Given you can't do this without a serious rethink (it's obvious to everybody except Ubisoft at this point), then you need to cull the dead weight in the player base. If they want to play, they will learn how to set up their routers properly.

Depth. Add some.Focus on maybe adding a second weapon choice and moveset for the existing characters rather than reskinning and calling it a new character. I might be wrong and your new heroes may be all new from the ground up, but something tells me like everything else so far, it'll only be skin deep.

Events. Are we going to have any? The Dominion debacle aside, it would be nice to have some incentive other than "Play X matches with a hero you don't want to play with". The Faction War is a resounding failure. If you tied it to completing contracts - it'd save having to navigate through, as previously stated, perhaps the worst UI in recent history.

Other than that, I absolutely love the game. Love it to bits. Of course, I have wanted a technical based sword combat game since Moonstone (again, HINT HINT - You should totally make that next - but you know, make it work), and whilst For Honor is far from perfect, it's as close as I can get at this point. But, any clone of it that is released before the above issues are addressed and fixed, will get my money and time because this has gone from frustrating to heartbreaking in a very short time.

[DrExtrem]

@ decoyassist

It is good, that you mentioned the bots. While I am critical towards radical changes of the combat system, I am open for change - as long, as it is well done and thought out.

PvAI is an important factor in this game and changing the games rules, without adjusting the bots, would kill PvAI, because fighting bots is based on punishing their attacks. You can not "outspeed" them, because they adjust their guard based on your controller input. Their guard is nearly perfect and @ lever2+, they counter almost every guard break. The only way to deal damage to them, is to either parry them (followed by a GB or light/heavy) or the use an attack, that is faster than their attack and hope for the best. Fainting only works, if it is done well and let's be honest, it is nothing a beginner can do.

[Mia.Nora]

Thanks for all the support and other great ideas guys, I hope this somehow reaches dev team.

On a note about lvl3 AI, I think it reveals a serious problem with game mechanics; because that high lvl bot behavior is very similar to very high lvl competitive player behaviour. They Block/Parry with near perfection, that's why everyone refuses to attack.

But my interpretation of this situation is not 'parry is mandatory against opponents you can not open up', but more 'opening highly defensive opponents is missing when it comes to game mechanics, making turtling a foolproof safe method that works %100 after a certain skill lvl'

Devs should consider implementing the means of opening up a turtle, by either reworking existing defense mechanics in some way (many suggestion in this thread alone), or implementing new tools that counter that behavior so that Rock>Paper>Scissors>Lizard>Spock is maintained

[DrExtrem]

The problem is, that if we change parrying and blocking too radically (what is needed in high level play), people become defenseless.

I think we need to change the game on a different plane. Defense needs to stay the same, because punishing reckless behaviour (like using heavy strikes without thinking about it) is an important and needed tool.

Defense should get less effective if you don't attack. Every block or parry, that is not followed by an counter attack, should increase the amount of chipping damage - even done by light attacks. It foes not need to be high. We could also increase the time it takes to change guard, if you only defend and not attack.

This would not impact low and mid level play, as well as botmatches.

Dodging however, needs to be reworked. Free, limitless dodging is a problem.

[Aarpian]

The problem is, that if we change parrying and blocking too radically (what is needed in high level play), people become defenseless.

I think we need to change the game on a different plane. Defense needs to stay the same, because punishing reckless behaviour (like using heavy strikes without thinking about it) is an important and needed tool.

Defense should get less effective if you don't attack. Every block or parry, that is not followed by an counter attack, should increase the amount of chipping damage - even done by light attacks. It foes not need to be high. We could also increase the time it takes to change guard, if you only defend and not attack.

This would not impact low and mid level play, as well as botmatches.

Dodging however, needs to be reworked. Free, limitless dodging is a problem.

That sounds unnecessarily complex, non-transparent and exploitable

[DrExtrem]

That sounds unnecessarily complex, non-transparent and exploitable

Because the cause for the problem is complex as well.

Complex problems, that are present on single layers, can not be solved by easy solutions, effecting all layers. If the new system fixes turtling but crashes the rest of the gameplay, the game is dead. Not wounded, not injured - dead. Dead, as dead can be.

I at least tried to bring new ideas into the discussion. Ideas that go beyond:" Make parrying harder." A change, good players will get used to after a day or two, while the rest of the (remaining) players can quit.

[AKDagriZ]

As a avid dueling / arena / brawl / fighting games fan, after dozens of hours I believe I have some valid feedback that will both point out current issues in For Honor needs addressing, and some suggestions along with it.

MENU / UI

As a designer with UX and UI, I have to say you have one of the worst menu UI implementations I have ever seen in any games. There is not even any consistency in the location of buttons, but I will only address most crucial ones here.

Forced wait times for animations all over the place: This is a newbie mistake designers do when they are first given autonomy on their project. I can not believe anyone in testing didnt think the novelty of forced wait times on various menus would wear off real fast only leaving frustration on players spamming buttons to move on to the next menu.

Solution:

1. Just remove the timer wait on the loot menu, and turn it into a toggle option in OPTIONS > INTERFACE where people may keep as a novelty.
2. Remove Faction war result change animation from start, and make it viewable by clicking on the current state of faction war (Knight 20 / Samurai 17 / Vikings 21 display on top right
3. Currently spamming button to move to next menu selects the looted item, change it to next match button as default.

Do not forget, purpose of Menu UI is not to make your designers happy with what they think is *cool* being implemented, but to ensure high quality flow of gameplay transition and user experience.

Queue waiting screen where player CAN'T do anything but stare: This is wrong on so many fundamental levels; boring for player which is bad for your customer, emphasizes the wait times making it feel longer than it is which bad for your perceived service, not to mention a huge wasted opportunity for doing something game relevant.

Solution:

1. Give access to Emblem Editor and Hero Customization Menu while waiting in queue

Apparently you guys have no business analysts on your team, so let me tell you a 101 level story; an old office building with over populated employees and old fashion limited number of elevators caused serious issues between management and employees. People had to wait several minutes for elevators to come and let to general aggressive and negative attitude in all departments. They called for a business analysts to invest how to improve elevator shafts. After spending 5 minutes in building he said "Put full size mirrors on the walls where people wait for elevator" and solved the problem.


LONG QUEUE WAIT TIMES

This is already an issue and will only get worse as your playerbase dwindles even further which is inevitable the way things are going so far. You have to address this, but connectivity issues are limiting your hand in the opposite direction instead where matchmaking has to be more selective making wait longer.

Being limited to queueing for a single game at a time: Have a look at how other multiplayer only games handle this;

1. MOBAs limit their available game modes to bare minimum even when they have multiple modes developed. They simply cycle their extra mods through year so that playerbase is not spread too thin for any one mode.
2. MMOs handle this in a different way, since they can not turn off Battlefields/Dungeons/Raids/Arena Modes. What they do is allowing people to queue for several modes at once. And player gets into the first game that is ready among the ones they queued.

Solution:

1. First of all look at suggestion above for Queue waiting screen where player CAN'T do anything but stare. Simple fixes makes wonders in complex systems.
2. Just do the same thing MMOs do; Put all modes as a list on same page with checkboxes for 'vs Player'and 'vs AI' where player can check multiple mods and queue for all at the same time. Then joins the first one ready.

Here is a 2 minute paint version on a laptop:


NETWORK ARCHITECTURE

Connectivity issues, you know them, I know them, everyone knows them. You are forced to claim that Dedicated servers is not the answer. Because that is what your upper management tell you to say. Arena duelers, MOBAs, MMO arenas have been running on dedicated servers more than a decade without issues and if you tell us Blade & Soul arena system is too unreactive with its dedicated servers, or in League Legends when a Ryze flashes to Rune Prison Fiora and Fiora Riposte that CC to stun Ryze instead (all happening under 0.5 seconds) is not a reactive scenario; then it means either your team is way outdated in terms of industry standards to make meaningful decisions or straightforward incompetent or liars. Pick your poison there.

But I will focus on something else here.

P2P revealing **UNMASKED** full WAN-IP of all players in game session to each other: This is an unacceptable security and privacy breach. There are streamers who refused to play For Honor, as it would reveal their personal IP to whole internet. More so it causes below consequences as is;

1. DDoS attacks on opponent to drop them from the game in high ranking games or as payback for beating them.
2. Host removing specific players from game session via a simple 3rd party tool
3. The concern that there may be 3rd party groups using For Honor as a platform to collect IP addresses of people who have specific ports open (*as suggested by Ubisoft*)
4. Unchecked data package exchange, where no central authority exists to authenticate. If a miracle happens and playerbase and game's popularity somehow makes a comeback; exploits and hacks will follow them. And your current system has absolutely no means of preventing any.

Solution:

1. Mask IP addresses. No excuses, no buts or 'lets see's. This has to be done. /period
2. Dedicated servers. Otherwise you wont be able to prevent people exploiting lack of a central system observing data package exchange.

Right now you are running a restaurant that has no dishwasher or dish hands. All you have is a stupid sign saying 'Please wash and rinse your dishes after use, Thank you'. As mess started to pile up in the sink, you removed grease meals from menu to fix the issue. Right now it is only causing frustration to your customers, but you are just waiting for serious health and safety issues and poisoning/sicknesses to be bred by that sink. You have to address that sink before someone gets poisoned and hospitalized!!

FLOW OF COMBAT / DEFENSE META

Both as a fighting game fan, and a martial arts fan married to a black belt martial artist; your flow of combat and extremely delicate/easily broken momentum of attack does not make any sense. Neither in terms of realism, nor in terms of gameplay experience.

Combos and Chains pointless, interrupted at the sneeze of a fly: Look at any fighting game where one player pressures the other. Blocking only mitigates the damage, not make the attacker stop. Now lets look at any REAL WORLD fight scenario, armed or unarmed. Covering behind a block only stalls for time to catch an opening, never stops the momentum of attack offense is building. If anything attacker gets more momentum and eventually breaks the defender.

But here offense loses stamina, defense doesnt lose any; and first block interrupts the momentum of attack. In a game where continuous offense is already heavily limited due to Stamina stat, why does momentum of offense is so vulnerable and delicate?

Solution:

1. Make it so, blocks drain stamina.
2. Make it so, blocks do NOT interrupt chains.
3. Make it so, parry DO interrupt chains. But parry DOES NOT grant free GB.

PS: (Edit) Just realized I forgot to explain why free GB should be removed from parry.

Here is the thing, the classes that rely on successful defensive maneuvers to create opening/counter attack already have such attacks built in their kits. However none of these attacks are as strong as a heavy coming with that free GB after parry since those counter-attacks are balanced in terms of their value. Sadly we never see them, as all players proceed to GB+Heavy.

That free GB after parry, simply turns the scales of risk vs rewards very heavily in favor of defense, in a way clearly developers did not intend to do so (otherwise those built in skills would be as strong too). By removing that free GB along with other 2 points suggested above, meta will shift towards below;

When a player wants to hurt the opponent, they need to be aggressive. By being defensive they have the means of catching that window of opportunity they may start their aggression, but still successful defense does equate heavy damage. Any meaningful damage will be coming from chains and aggressive play. Defense options will be the means of protecting yourself and trying to open a window to initiate your own chains.
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This concludes my feedback. At this point I feel like sending you guys an invoice, but this one is on the house. Enjoy!

But you still need some reward from a successful parry isnt it ? Otherwise why player would take the risk a parry over a safe block.What do you suggest ? a drain out of stamina ? an opening for a light attack/combo

[Mr_Gallows]

Yes you do need to be rewarded for a parry, but without disabling your opponent. If parry were to change the pace of combat momentarily, the fight would become more dynamic.

As for blocking I think it should exist in a place where blocking light attacks is reasonably difficult, but not as difficult as the quickest lights currently in the game. Blocking a heavy should still be easy most of the time, if you're not feinted and take the bait.

That's why I suggest boosting the next heavy attack after a parry, but to remove the stagger.