For Honor Balancing Ideas | Forums

[YoBaked]

Hello all, I want to make this thread to actually help the game and help Ubisoft with trying to balance this game to make it more fun and or more skill based in 1v1 + 2v2. These are my own opinions on how the game can change for the better. But this being the forums all feed back is welcomed, just please if you do not know the game more in depth your opinions are less justified because of a lack of knowledge. Just keep that in mind please. /: These arnt all necessary nerfs and not all of them should be applied, part of balancing is picking the right nerfs to make the character not as strong but not significantly weakening the character.

Warlord

- Remove or reduce the length of Heavy Attack Super Armor (http://www.giantbomb.com/super-armor/3015-7322/ For reference term).
- Increase start up frames or end frames for Headbutt.
- Reduce carry distance on Guard Break.

Shugoki

- Reduce the damage - heal ratio of Onis Embrace.
- Headbutt Stamina Damage reduced (when the headbutt lands the amount of stamina it takes away from the other player).
- Shugoki is kind of the dark area for me when its comes to the characters because I havnt seen how much can be abused on the character feels free to add more ideas on his ab usable tech's.

Conqueror

- Reduce the safety frames on shield bash to reduce spam.
- This hero is hard to balance because of the fact his kit is very simple nerfing him into the ground wouldn't be very good so just nerfing his safest option would probably be self sufficient.

Warden

- Warden is very strong for the fact that he has an obvious Vortex in his kit (http://iplaywinner.com/glossary/gene...ms/vortex.html for reference) His vortex being when the opponent is on no stamina he can essentially have a safe 50/50 that he can play on reaction so you cannot get out unless the player makes a mistake. One of three things could probably resolve the issue with wardens Vortex and that being either 1. Add more end lag on shoulder bash 2. Not able to cancel shoulder bash with grab 3. More start up frames on both/ or either over head slashes and over head light.
- Reduce damage of over head light parry.

Peacekeeper

- Less stab damage from the bleed.
- This is where people will get mixed up. Peacekeeper is as strong as it is right now for the main reason of its ability to play offensive to beat the top turtles as well as being able to punish bad reaction times. Once the player base gets used the the game and the overall reaction times of the community goes up peacekeeper will be less strong.

Revenge

- Less overall damage on revenge.
- Remove 0 stamina cost on attacks to add a soft cap or limit on how many attacks get stamina cost reduction to avoid spamming.
- Remove revenge in 1v1.

Stage Hazards

- As they are part of the game they should at least get balanced regardless. Less damage on on stage hazards such as fire, geysers, etc. Fatal stage hazards should be reduced in quantity on all maps to reduce the risk of a 1 hit fatal.
- For 1v1's have less cliffs and ledges to get thrown off, there is only one 1v1 map with 0 stage hazards; being canyon. 1v1 should be more oriented for skill so 1 hits should be minimized.

Chip Damage

- A hard mechanic to balance to avoid turtles but a necessity in the current state of the game, with blocks giving you a safer blocking option compared to parry's and deflects as well as giving more revenge on your meter its becomes apparent why this game and community have gone towards more a passive safe play style and the players with good reactions but aggressive get punished by this system making is apparent why Lower tier character that have to take risks haven't had many tournament results. But this mechanic is the hardest to balance and need to be thought out well in advance to patch to avoid mass abuse.

Final Notes

- These are my personal opinions I thought id share with the forums to hopefully move the player base and Ubisoft in the right direction to make this game grow in size and grow the tournament scene to be 10 times more competitive.
- Post ideas below but I will not be answering everything, I just threw this out here and gave some examples of possible balancing ideas. Now its up to you guys to get the ideas back to ubisoft.

[Mr_Gallows]

The core needs a balance and everything else will be easier to balance.

Attacking is risky mainly because of what parry gives the defender and defending is safe because it is risk free and offers great reward.

If parry was reworked in the following way, parry would still be good, but not offer free damage and not make attacking so risky.

Parry
First there are some changes and effects for the person being parried (attacker)
1. No stagger after parry, so the person being parried can defend himself from attacks and GB
2. After being parried you cannot dodge backwards or you will fall down.
3. Stamina drain like now
4. attacking and GB disabled for a moment after being parried, so the only option is defence (including CGB)

Then there are some effects for the one doing the parry (defender)
1. The next heavy attack is faster (maybe even the next combo starting with a heavy attack coult be faster and perhaps this heavy attack could chain directly into any combo chain).
2. The next heavy attacks could have increased chip damage, but don't know if this one is needed.
3. The next heavy attack costs no stamina.
4. The next heavy attack may inflict stun if it connects,
5. No options for light attacks, I know, but heavy attacks could get a bit of love through parry.
6. Several options for rewarding parry without, disabling the other person.

With this parry system in place, we could see some quick exchanges of parry back and forth, that would keep the combat going with no pause after a parry, but instead a feeling of urgency as parries speed up the action and change timings instead of breaking up the action.


Blocking
That leaves us with the more basic part of defence - blocking.

We have two tiers of attacks - light and heavy.
To match that two tiers of block would work very well - half and full block.

Half block
Getting to half block happends instantly when you switch guard. Half block allows you to completely block light attacks. From half block you can only parry heavy attacks. Heavy attacks hitting half block may do full or reduced damage. that's balancing.

Full block
as soon as you enter half block, the direction meter begins to fill up and after a number of frames it is full and you are in full block. When in full block you can block heavy attacks. The number of frames it takes to reach full block can vary from character to character, to give more balance options. The quick characters who are good at dodging may need a few more frames to reach full block.

For this to work, heavy attacks must be balanced in terms of speed across the board. they don't have to be the same, but must land within an acceptable range for balance to feel right.


A different approach to half and full block
Each attack in the game could also be given an attack powe, balanced with the speed of the attack. When blocking characters would build up block power over the frames after entering full block. When an attack and a block collides, the block power and the attack power is compared to calculate damage. My suggestion is that there is a cut off point, so if you don't have at least half the block power relative to the attack power, the attack does full damage. After that damage is gradually reduced, until half damage. If you match the attack power, the attack will do no damage at all. Sounds complicated, but really is a simple principle. Just a second idea for how to approach blocking, that doesn't have to change the characters.