My ideas for changing defensive meta. | Forums

[buczpelego]

Hi, I would like to you share with you my thoughts on possible gameplay changes. Its my first post on Ubisoft Forum and my english is not as good as i would like it to be so appologise for language mistakes.

Im, am a casual player and have almost 200 hours played with warden (rep 7) and lawbringer (rep 2). As many other players noticed, this awesome game got few issues in gameplay mechanics that make it somehow... "defensive focused".
All my propositions described below may not be correct and many of you can disagree with them but here how i see some mechanics that can be changed.

LIGHT ATTACKS and DEFENSIVE META - Probably many of you noticed that every character in game has some attack chains. Those chains, especially those that consist of 3 hits are preatty useless because, if you fight with a man who played few hours there is no chance to hit him with 3 attack chain combo. Usually you will hit him with first attack, sometimes, rarely with the second, and there is no chance to hit him with the third attack because he will probably guard/dodge/parry it. Combos that use 2 or 3 light attacks are most useless because usually the first attack is blocked and breaks a chain and if it is parried its fully punishable. Thats why people choose to defend and fish for occasions to parry instead of dynamic attack the oponent. My first thought was to make changes in parry mechanics so light attacks will be unparryable. Parry is pretty easy to make and its very rewarding, if you force players to wisely choose what attack they can parry, you will make this mechanic still very rewarding but a lot harder to do. To do that, you can change light attack indicators so they wont glow white for parry window, this would be helpfull but the rest will lay in players hands, if he wont be sure if he can parry incoming hit, he will just block it. As i said, parry is very rewarding because its always free damage so it should be more difficult to use. The second thing i thought is change in stamina mechanics where blocking player will lose more stamina on block than attacking player on attack. This will encourage players to implement more offensive approach because they will know that, if they stay defensive and block to much they will loose stamina very fast and the enemy will have advantage over them (defensive characters like conqueror will have bigger stamina pool). They will have to find a way to counter attack. Thanks to this, being agressive will be more rewarding than it is now, BUT to avoid mindless attack spam i also suggest to put a window after every blocked light to give oportunity to, at least back dash for defender. Also to make some possibility to counter attack, there is option to make slight changes in attacks frames. For ex. every character got his quickest light attack, sometimes it is side sometimes its top. If you succesfully block light attack that landed from direction of you quickest light attack, you can instantly after block use this attack to get guaranted hit (example: Lawbringers fastest attack is his top light. Im playng Lawbringer and i blocked incoming light attack from top, after this block enemy is staggered for enough time to use my top light and make it guaranted hit. It wont be possible if i block side light attack because time to switch stance to top and than attack will be to long.) This change will force players to think what they are doing and where they attack to avoid being punished. All those changes will make Light Attacks more usable and less punishable, those attacks are fast and low damage so they should be safier. Still, using 2 or 3 light attack combo will be difficult to land but people will try to use them more and oponents who will only defend against those attacks will go out of stamina or will have to use their fast offensive moves and hopefully make mistakes and get hit. for Lawbringer, as he is a parry character, he should be able to parry heavies and lights but thanks to his slow guard swich and slow attacks he will have to do this very accurately so he wont be OP.

GUARDBREAK - Only change that i would like to implement is to make GUARDBREAK COUNTERS more rewarding. At this moment you can see that if someone randomly use GB on you, you can counter gb it and than you and the oponent are safe, however if enemy succesfully GB you, he got free dmg on you. There are some ways to use GB when enemy wont be able to counter it (for eg. while dodging) and those ways are fine but i would like to put a small window after succesfull CGB for defender to hit with light attack as a punish. This change will discurage players to GB spam because they will know that if they go wrong they will be punished.

UNBLOCKABLES - they shoudnt be parryable. The only way to avoid them shoudl be to dodge them. Those attacks are so powerfull, so slow and stamina expensive that if you decide to use them, your enemy shouldnt have 100 ways to counter and punish them. Enemy should be able to dodge your every unblockable but if he mistime his dodge or choose wrong direction he will get hit. Those attacks wont be quaranted (only if you throw enemy on a wall and maybe on a succesfull GB) but when you input them, enemy will have less options to defened agains them, this will make using those attacks more viewable and more rewarding but still quite risky.

SHOULDER/SHILED BASHES AND HEADBUTS - Those moves are very cheesy, rewarding and overused. They should cost a lot more stamina so players wont spam them and after succesfull dodge of those moves, (which shoudl be quite difficult) enemy recovery frames should be long enought to punish them with lights. (headbut shoudl be a bit slower so you can react on in not guess it, also this change and GB change that i proposed above will nerf Wardens vortex so player who succesfully guesed his move will be able to punish him, this will make wardens vortex more risky)

DAZE MECHANIC - in my opinion the daze mechanic (moment where your UI go white and indicators dissapear) should be graphically changed so when enemy got dazed it will be very difficult to guess enemies attack direction. Screen should be more blurry to put you almost in a state of guessing incoming attack.The goal is to make enemy dazed more difficult but more rewarding, at this moment if someone done singleplayer campaing on highest difficulty when you have no guard indicators, defending incoming attack while being dazed is a piece of cake.

HEAVY ATTACKS - I woudnt change more in those, they have good damage and blocking them wont cancel attack chains so they woudn't be punishible with light attacks after block, however they are still parryable. If you keep light attack changes that i posted above, it will be more difficult for enemy to guess if incoming attack is unparryable light or parryable heavy untill he will be very familiar with every chain of his oponent. When heavy is a second or third attack in chain it shoudl also be faster to make this guessing more difficult, for example if heavy is last attack in chain and previous attacs (usually lights) landed succesfully, the enemy will have enough time to switch guard in a right direction to parry or block it however if he make mistake and switch wrong guard at first (because he panicked or something) he wont be able to switch it back in right direction (still heavy attacks shoud have attack indicator glowing white on parry window).

To summarise, i know that those ideas may not be perfect and there can be some issues that i havent found yet but those are just propossition and MAIN IDEAS how devs can deal with defensive meta. The goal is to make offensive play more rewarding and deffensive play still very important but more difficult.

For some specific characters i have played with or agains them:

PEACEKEEPER LIGHT SPAM: In my opinion i see nothing wrong in fact that peacekeeper have very overwhelming light attacks. They can be a bit slower maybe but not that much, however what i noticed is the fact that after hitting with his 2 light attack combo, PK recovers really fast and can attack again. The solution to this that i was thinking about is to give some more recovery frames after second light attack and possibility to cancel those frames into back dash. As you porbably know, 2 light attack chain in PK arsenal ends with a heavy attack. This heavy is very damaging but also slower and easier to defend. TO avoid light attack spam you can increase recovery frames after second light so the enemy will have oportunity to hit you with his fast attack or even GB. However to make this combo safe for PK, after second light he will be able to instatly back dash or finish combo with a heavy, PK can cancel every heavy into a stab so he will be able to avoid being parried if he mix up well. This will avoid PK using light attacks spam but still this combo will be very damaging and rewarding. In final result players that struggles with this combo will see it less overwhelming because after every 2 light attack combo PK will have 3 options: 1. back dash and return to neutral state (while dashing enemy can free GB it as punish if he reacts fast), 2. finish with heavy/stab cancel (can be parried or blocked and punish), 3. stay and wait to recover and get punish .

WARDEN VORTEX: With my GB changes proposed above you can punish him with light attacks if you succesfully guess and CGB him, however i would add some more rcovery frames for his shoulder bash if he misses with it so after succesfull dodge you will be able to guaranted light attack him. In every fighting game i played, the vortex or 50/50 mechanics means that if your enemy guess wrong your attack he will be damaged however if he guess right he will not only be safe but also he will have oportunity to punish you. ATM while dealing with wardens vortex, if you guess wrong you will be damaged and if you guess right you will be safe and back to neutral state but you wont be able to punish him. i think that this should be changed.

CONQUEROR GUARANTED LIGHT AFTER SHIELD BASH: In my opinion conquerors light attacs should be faster but shoud not be guaranted after shield bash, there shoudl be slight window to defend but defender will have to react very fast and correct to avoid being hit. Shield bash is very strong, its hard to dodge and deplets enemies stamina, giving guaranted damage after it, is a bit strong in my opinion. It would be cool if after shieldbash conquerors will be able to make both heavy and light attacks but animation and timing of those attacks will be very simmilar. Defender will have to react fast and if he want to parry he will have to guess if incoming attack is light or heavy.

At this moment those are all my ideas. Pls tell me what do you think about those propositions .

[Simi_Xiamara_]

Ok I actually like how you think but I'd like to give my 2 cents on some of these

*counter guardbreak punish I love the idea but instead of a free light attack I would prefer if the damage was auto (have the animation of character punching other guy in face or crushing his hand)

*unblockables not parry able? I hate this idea not just cuz I like being able to parry them but people cancel their unblockables into a guardbreak or a parry

*the pk changes makes you more of a buzzing fly and not every pk is dodge happy (I almost never dodge unless I need to)

*your conq ideas sound pretty good but I'm not a Conq so idk if it's actually good

*Warden's vortex is already punished by a single light attack

[Netcode_err_404]

giving free damage on GBC will jst bring us moar turtles, no ty.

Rest of the suggestions, are pretty much the same all already gave, and basically 100% of them are beeing ignored.

[Simi_Xiamara_]

giving free damage on GBC will jst bring us moar turtles, no ty.

Rest of the suggestions, are pretty much the same all already gave, and basically 100% of them are beeing ignored.

Oh ya didon't think of that. Well damn then you can't rly fix the defensive meta without taking out parry. And I like parry >.>. Also i personally don't have a problem with turtles

[Gojema]

Oh ya didon't think of that. Well damn then you can't rly fix the defensive meta without taking out parry. And I like parry >.>. Also i personally don't have a problem with turtles

Well, there would be another option: make guardbreak no longer counterable at all, make it slower and feintable with a low priority that loses to attacks. So if you see the opponent start a guard break, make a light attack to interrupt him, but he might have feinted it and parry the light.
This way every class would have an action that forces an action from the opponent into mindgames. And as gb has usually a very short range the zoning would become much more important.

Of course this would need a lot of additional balancing and it might not enough for a good overall gameplay (i.e. if bashed still beat it every time). But at least the "2 guys staring at each other" would be fixed for all classes.

[Simi_Xiamara_]

Well, there would be another option: make guardbreak no longer counterable at all, make it slower and feintable with a low priority that loses to attacks. So if you see the opponent start a guard break, make a light attack to interrupt him, but he might have feinted it and parry the light.
This way every class would have an action that forces an action from the opponent into mindgames. And as gb has usually a very short range the zoning would become much more important.

Of course this would need a lot of additional balancing and it might not enough for a good overall gameplay (i.e. if bashed still beat it every time). But at least the "2 guys staring at each other" would be fixed for all classes.

That sounds like hell. Ya you removed turtle meta but now people are going spam zone attacks and Sholder bashes into safe attacks

[gringojay]

I skipped over most of it, mainly just read the conq part and.... you realise every character has some form of guaranteed hit?
Sorry, I hate to be this guy, but did you ever think to just GIT GUD


+ conq is one of the weakest/if not the weakest light attacks in the game..
all I'm getting from your post is you want all the best moves taken out of the game, if you don't like the game then don't play it? or create a different game, cos that's what you're proposing.

[IesooMI]

Just add chip damage. Solved.