Is the problem the game or the player? | Forums

[mrmistark]

Honestly I think this is the big elephant in the room that needs to be addressed. Looking at the general discussions, it is clear many people dislike certain mechanics of the game, or certain characters and their moves they must play against. Let's start by understanding that we as a player base have only just finished our first season of for honor. We are a young player base in terms of playing this game. I feel like a big problem is that players have picked up the sticks and expected for the game to just come to them and that they would easily master it. Yes some have done this but how often do you see a high rep character that quite frankly wasn't even good? What I am getting at is I think the problem of the game is the problem with the players rather than the game itself. Don't get me wrong there are some game mechanics I don't agree with, but overall if you understand that there is an equal opposite force in everything in this game, it will help you be much better if you can fully understand this.

What do I mean by an equal opposite force? Attack to parry, guard break to guard counter, Parry to fient, light attack to stance, stance to guard break, heavy to dodge, dodge to area attack etc.

I think you get the idea. Every mechanic in the game has clear ways to overcome.

I do not mean to sound conceited as I am no master of this game, however I am still rather good and the reason? Because I PRACTICE. That's right. I test, I try new things, and I practice.

Now I know there are going to be seasoned guys here that are very good at the game, and I understand that yes there are some things that are still unbalanced about the game, but I feel that the majority of complaints are not because of actual game mechanics anymore but rather the ineffectiveness of the general player to understand how to react, or how to read the opponent.

If you truly want to master the game and being decent with each character, PRACTICE. And I mean practicing timing of dodges, parrys and the huge one FIENTING!!

Friends, the key to TRUELY being a master of your hero is to be UNPREDICTABLE. Learn EVERY move of your favorite character and practice the application of each. Stop spamming the same moves over and over again. I'm serious. I urge everyone who has a problem with a mechanic to first go in to fight against a bot, go against a lv3 and tirelessly play against it. Complete your orders and just go practice for an hour. Do it as frequently as possible until you KNOW that you have mastered yourself against a lv 3 bot. If you can't kill it twice in a row without dying, you haven't mastered it. I have yet to master my main character but am close. This will FORCE you to start becoming unpredictable, to time your moves perfectly and to read your opponent. Once and only after you have practiced and honed your skills, then retake a look at the mechanic you have qualms about. Is it still that bad? I think most players, if they did this would find things a little easier to deal with and would in general enjoy the game more. They fixed the majority of the problems so far. The game mechanics have gotten better, have you?

[Antonioj26]

Honestly I think this is the big elephant in the room that needs to be addressed. Looking at the general discussions, it is clear many people dislike certain mechanics of the game, or certain characters and their moves they must play against. Let's start by understanding that we as a player base have only just finished our first season of for honor. We are a young player base in terms of playing this game. I feel like a big problem is that players have picked up the sticks and expected for the game to just come to them and that they would easily master it. Yes some have done this but how often do you see a high rep character that quite frankly wasn't even good? What I am getting at is I think the problem of the game is the problem with the players rather than the game itself. Don't get me wrong there are some game mechanics I don't agree with, but overall if you understand that there is an equal opposite force in everything in this game, it will help you be much better if you can fully understand this.

What do I mean by an equal opposite force? Attack to parry, guard break to guard counter, Parry to fient, light attack to stance, stance to guard break, heavy to dodge, dodge to area attack etc.

I think you get the idea. Every mechanic in the game has clear ways to overcome.

I do not mean to sound conceited as I am no master of this game, however I am still rather good and the reason? Because I PRACTICE. That's right. I test, I try new things, and I practice.

Now I know there are going to be seasoned guys here that are very good at the game, and I understand that yes there are some things that are still unbalanced about the game, but I feel that the majority of complaints are not because of actual game mechanics anymore but rather the ineffectiveness of the general player to understand how to react, or how to read the opponent.

If you truly want to master the game and being decent with each character, PRACTICE. And I mean practicing timing of dodges, parrys and the huge one FIENTING!!

Friends, the key to TRUELY being a master of your hero is to be UNPREDICTABLE. Learn EVERY move of your favorite character and practice the application of each. Stop spamming the same moves over and over again. I'm serious. I urge everyone who has a problem with a mechanic to first go in to fight against a bot, go against a lv3 and tirelessly play against it. Complete your orders and just go practice for an hour. Do it as frequently as possible until you KNOW that you have mastered yourself against a lv 3 bot. If you can't kill it twice in a row without dying, you haven't mastered it. I have yet to master my main character but am close. This will FORCE you to start becoming unpredictable, to time your moves perfectly and to read your opponent. Once and only after you have practiced and honed your skills, then retake a look at the mechanic you have qualms about. Is it still that bad? I think most players, if they did this would find things a little easier to deal with and would in general enjoy the game more. They fixed the majority of the problems so far. The game mechanics have gotten better, have you?

I agree with the majority of this post, people here often do have gripes that can be overcome with practice and just as you said there are some broken mechanics that need adjusting. While there is no game that is truly completely balanced it makes sense to try and get as close as possible. The fact of the matter is if a person with the high amount of skill uses a berserker and a person with that exact amount of skill uses warlord then that berserker will lose everytime. Honestly level 3 bots are even a joke in this game when you learn their pattern. If you get them out of stamina they will straight up take an unblockable to the face without even trying to parry. Practicing with them will only get you so far. I think ubi is doing a great job at looking at hard data and hearing from the community to solidify that data to make the necessary adjustments and I think they will continue to do so moving forward.

[mrmistark]

I actually disagree, I think the berserker has a better chance, but it also depends on the level of skill we are talking about. For instance, a low skill berserker vs the same skill warlord the warlord will in most cases win. However I think at the higher skill levels the berserker is much more likely to be victorious. I think the game goes in this order for a successful high tier player

First it is based off of straight ability to play your character, the basics of being decent

Next ability to read opposing character, the basics of become an advanced player

Predictability, start mastering

I think that is the order for honing skills and getting closer to the top tier of players. I feel the slower you are, the more predictable you are because it takes that much longer to do anything. That's why the majority of the high level players are running around with ranged or assassin characters. Just my opinion though. Anyways I'm done ranting about that.

I do commend Ubisoft for it investing time to listen to what the general player population wants and am happy to see them making changes.

I Understand fully that some things need to be changed, but when the general discussion thread is full of "nerf (insert basic game mechanic that makes the game work)" you know there are problems.

[mrmistark]

It's funny cause it's so true. I have a tad bit of that ego, but don't get mad at the game I get mad at myself. Like "what the actual f*ck I know I am way better than this, how did I miss the gotderm timing on the parry AGAIN!" hahaha everyone has those days. But yes, pride is hard to swallow for many people. For me it's just good fight bro and if we had a few duels that we stuck it to each other I send a personal Xbox message telling him I appreciated them dueling me.

[Antonioj26]

I actually disagree, I think the berserker has a better chance, but it also depends on the level of skill we are talking about. For instance, a low skill berserker vs the same skill warlord the warlord will in most cases win. However I think at the higher skill levels the berserker is much more likely to be victorious. I think the game goes in this order for a successful high tier player

Tournament results say otherwise.

[mrmistark]

That's interesting, I mained warlord for quite sometime, he actual is my highest ranking character and at the higher level I started feeling as though he was overated. I'm also not one to headbutt spam though so maybe I'm just bias, but I love the quick dodges that the berserker can provide not to mention deflecting is just awesome.

[Antonioj26]

That's interesting, I mained warlord for quite sometime, he actual is my highest ranking character and at the higher level I started feeling as though he was overated. I'm also not one to headbutt spam though so maybe I'm just bias, but I love the quick dodges that the berserker can provide not to mention deflecting is just awesome.

Even if you take a way head butt spam he still has more tools than most. UI on heavies, best throw distance, good gb range, a parry that completely depletes Stam, a fast high damaging zone, all guard, high health, fastest guard switch, and lights that come out nearly as fast as pk.

[Supercool5150]

In my opinion we are playing two separate games. A lot of the complaining about heroes being OP, needing nerfs, buffs etc.. come from the duel / brawl crowd. Don't get me wrong I get it but I play strictly dominion so I don't notice or care about weaknesses / strengths that those players do because in a gank fest none of that really matters. I just know who I can whoop and who I have problems with. In my opinion no hero is unbeatable. A lot of this game is skill. A good example is I played a game on my friends account. I didn't want to load my account up and I didn't want to play with his Warden. So I took a non recruited Orochi into battle. I beat not once but twice a 10 rep Orochi quite easily with a 0 Weapon / Armor (on my hero) score because the other players skill was weak at best. He spammed WOW like I was cheating. We were the same hero so OP couldn't be the excuse. His skills were just bad. The game does have technical issues that affect us all as far as disconnects but personally I like everything the way it is now.

On another note: How hard would it be to separate Rep 3's and above from the rest of the players. You have a beginners (for lack of a better term) group of match making and an experts group. You can't enter experts without having a Rep 3 or above already locked in as your hero. Just wondering.

[Prophit618]

It's always a combination of both -- except it's not an elephant, nor anything even mildly surprising at all. In reality, it's 80% the player, and 20% the game. I've been playing PvP games for 20 years, since fom the days when they didn't even have the term "PvP" invented yet, and they used to call it something like "PK (player-killing)" or something. What I've learned during those two decades, is that it's almost always the player, because a PvP game inherently connects to your ego by design. And unlike in real life, we play against people whom we have know idea who they are, nor what they look like, nor do we care of, nor do we have any real respect of.


Hence, multiplayer PvP games make it very easy to dehumanize and berate, belittle the person on the other side of the screen -- and when you lose against that unknown person, your ego tends to throw a shi*fit. This is especially evident in games that are primarily based on PvE, but also feature PvP game mode -- such as most MMORPGs do. When you play against AI in PvE, you're the hero, and all the mobs and NPCs are fodder. You're the one with shiny, awesome loot and gear, you're the one leading the charge against hordes of minions and hacking them down in heroic fashion, raiding bosses and defeating demons. After a while you really get the impression that you've become a powerful, important somebody in the game, and you think to yourself that while you may not be the best player, you're still pretty good and powerful one.


And then, the moment you step in to PvP with that mindset it shatters every. single point of your pride in an utterly brutal, brutal fashion. You thought you were a great, powerful hero. You figured even if you were inexperienced, you'd still be able to put up good fight. But then PvP happens, and you're literally manhandled like a plaything.


So, what do you think that ego, pride, self-consciousness does when your fantasy is utterly shattered? -- It finds a way to protect itself by shifting the blame, with a warped thought process that goes something like...

(a) I'm not the best player, but I'm experienced, well-geared, and pretty decent all around
(b) therefore, while I may not win all the PvP fights, I expect my win:loss would be... at the least 50:50. Probably more like 60:40.
(c) but when I play this game, I lose way too much.
(d) since it's not me who is the problem, it's gotta be the game's fault.


The above is a thought process everyone goes through. Everyone starts out from there. Most people who fall under that mind-state fail to realize that from the very start, "(a)" is wrong. The fact of the matter is they aren't even average level players. In most cases they are just really, really bad.


When they finally stop thinking like that, and admit they actually, really DO suck bad, that's usually the point when people start getting better. They drop the bias, begin to re-learn the game, and if motivated enough with plenty of practice, image-training and thought experiments, trail-and-error, they really do become a good player. (... and then, they visit the forums again, look back on their old, whiney posts about how something or someone was broken and OP and all that shi*... and start to feel really, really embarrassed....)


Those that never get out of that mind state, become what is known as "residential whiners".


Their entire purpose of playing the game changes from enjoying it, to slandering and bashing the game and its developers, raging on those who don't think the game is bad, and get everyone to agree with him that the game is the suckiest, most broken game ever, the developers are stupid, anyone who thinks the game is good are corporate suck-ups or hidden employees. They need people around to agree with him that it's not their fault they suck, and can't enjoy the game. It's the game's fault.


Usually these are the types that hang around even after they just rage-quit the game. I dunno why they do that. People with ego-issues are just strange that way... and I'm pretty sure the description above rings more than a couple of bells for a lot of us in this very forum. *winks*

I just gotta say this is arguably the best thought out post on where the whiners are coming from. Normally when I see a good post I like to say something sarcastic, but this just deserves straight up props.

I am not naturally very good at this type of game, and in fact, I don't even generally enjoy this type of game. I started playing the Beta so a friend of mine would have someone to play with. I ended up getting hooked, and the whole while knowing I was coming at a disadvantage led me to try harder, and to pay closer attention to what people were doing against me so I could learn.

I don't want to sound arrogant, but this coming from a place of assuming I'm terrible (and while I accept now that I'm better than I have given myself credit for, I'm certainly no pro still) has made me a better player, and I credit it with being able to look at things more objectively than a lot of the people on the forums seem to. Present company obviously excluded, as you're consistently a well thought out poster, as well as a few others I see around here regularly.

Good analysis, and to the OP, I agree to pretty much the same extent Kweassa does.

[pure_energist]

Honestly I think this is the big elephant in the room that needs to be addressed. Looking at the general discussions, it is clear many people dislike certain mechanics of the game, or certain characters and their moves they must play against. Let's start by understanding that we as a player base have only just finished our first season of for honor. We are a young player base in terms of playing this game. I feel like a big problem is that players have picked up the sticks and expected for the game to just come to them and that they would easily master it. Yes some have done this but how often do you see a high rep character that quite frankly wasn't even good? What I am getting at is I think the problem of the game is the problem with the players rather than the game itself. Don't get me wrong there are some game mechanics I don't agree with, but overall if you understand that there is an equal opposite force in everything in this game, it will help you be much better if you can fully understand this.

What do I mean by an equal opposite force? Attack to parry, guard break to guard counter, Parry to fient, light attack to stance, stance to guard break, heavy to dodge, dodge to area attack etc.

I think you get the idea. Every mechanic in the game has clear ways to overcome.

I do not mean to sound conceited as I am no master of this game, however I am still rather good and the reason? Because I PRACTICE. That's right. I test, I try new things, and I practice.

Now I know there are going to be seasoned guys here that are very good at the game, and I understand that yes there are some things that are still unbalanced about the game, but I feel that the majority of complaints are not because of actual game mechanics anymore but rather the ineffectiveness of the general player to understand how to react, or how to read the opponent.

If you truly want to master the game and being decent with each character, PRACTICE. And I mean practicing timing of dodges, parrys and the huge one FIENTING!!

Friends, the key to TRUELY being a master of your hero is to be UNPREDICTABLE. Learn EVERY move of your favorite character and practice the application of each. Stop spamming the same moves over and over again. I'm serious. I urge everyone who has a problem with a mechanic to first go in to fight against a bot, go against a lv3 and tirelessly play against it. Complete your orders and just go practice for an hour. Do it as frequently as possible until you KNOW that you have mastered yourself against a lv 3 bot. If you can't kill it twice in a row without dying, you haven't mastered it. I have yet to master my main character but am close. This will FORCE you to start becoming unpredictable, to time your moves perfectly and to read your opponent. Once and only after you have practiced and honed your skills, then retake a look at the mechanic you have qualms about. Is it still that bad? I think most players, if they did this would find things a little easier to deal with and would in general enjoy the game more. They fixed the majority of the problems so far. The game mechanics have gotten better, have you?

Playing on PS4 I havn't encountered any characters I felt couldn't be bested... I've only played 3 characters; Valk, Raider, and currently Beserker. Each one I had strategies in place for the type of opponent I was facing.... With the new nerfs to Revenge I havn't touched an A.I game since leveling up my beserker and I find myself within the top 3 scores of matches with gear score of 18 when facing 108 opponents..even though revenge is still annoying with its ability to knock you down you just have to play smarter to avoid those knockdowns and not give the opponent easy opportunity... Playing against inexperienced players with revenge is fairly easy since they think they are god and just spam heavy attacks (parry, deflect, Thank You!) for me on PS4 I'm enjoying the gameplay more then ever when the servers let us play..