Senior Member
@Ubisoft
What are you guys doing back there? Look, this isn't a rant, these are issues that are killing the game for me. And I'm a big fan of the game, it's not like I just walked in and started complaining; I've been here since launch, often defending the game. I've put over 450 hours into it. I know what I'm talking about.
Dead Modes. (Dead game) Everything but Dominion is dead in my region. Always low activity; I haven't been in a skirmish against players since (I think) June. Duels are turtle competitions; not really fun anymore. But the real stink here is I haven't been able to have a game of Tribute against players. I let the matchmaking run for nearly twenty minutes the other day: nothing. I don't have much longer than that to play this game a lot of the time. So you tell me, what are my options? Don't say play with bots, I'm about to write a whole section on that.
I've never been able to match make a tournament, and now it's been here for a while it's permanently low activity. I don't think I'm ever going to see any tournament loot. Nice going, you've installed something (else) into the game that I can't use. A game that already suffers from a lack of content. Salt in the wound much.
AI. Friendly AI: absolutely horrendous. Constantly I'm interrupted by friendly fire; if there's a friendly bot nearby, 99% guaranteed they'll interrupt my parries and guard breaks. (If you need a guide to understand how infuriating that is, I'll be happy to oblige.) Enemy AI: For the most part, these guys are pretty good (I like that lvl3 bots are common now). However, they often turtle up and refuse to attack--I think you already know how much of a problem that is with this game--you can't escape the turtle meta even with bots. They also run away with low health. You've taken the worst player habits and programmed them into parry machines. Please remember games are suppose to be fun. Fun. Fun is not trying to deal with something that refuses to play. Classic scenario: I spent 2/3 of my stamina forcing a response from one of these bots only to have some friendly fcuk-wit bot spam my back with lights soon as the enemy's guard opens up. Fix. This. Sh!t. Please. Thank you.
No skill based progression. This one isn't breaking the game for me, but I know why it's like it, and it's kind of disgusting. Everything is obtainable via Steel because microtransactions. Instead of rewarding dedicated players who put in the time to actually get good at the game, you put everything in Loot Crates, or simply let it out the door for $$$. And don't think I didn't notice the sh!t you pulled on Halloween; those prices, and the delayed release of the exclusive, that was some hot garbage. But hey, enjoy it while it lasts, this crap might be illegal soon.
Pretending to have new content. We all know the armour, weapons, and most of the emotes that were released post launch were in fact in the game pre launch. You guys talk about how you have 100s of professionals working on the game all the time, but all we see is ugly rehashes of old gear, and lazy designs with names like "Elegant Jade Hilt". Come on. But I'm getting off track here. I will add though that Shaman's You Better Run! execution is really jarring. Forcing a cowardly action onto the victim is uncool. Could you please read Game Design For Dummies and not do nonsense like that?
But that's it, really. If I was in a constructive mood I'd have a plethora of solutions, but for the most part I think it's pretty obvious what needs to happen. Sometimes I think putting Romans in the Knight faction is indicative of this game's problems, but I'll stop now before I actually do start ranting and turn into (more of) a sarcastic pr!ck.
Senior Member
I posted way back on XP rewards and I think that may be the key for putting people into other game modes.
The reasoning behind these numbers are:
Any mode that puts you in 1vs1 encounters more readily should give more XP. Many people avoid them because they don't like losing and finding out they aren't as good as they think they are. By getting players into these game modes, they will get better at the game and enjoy it more.
Duel tournament is in dire need of population.
INCREASE OF XP SUGGESTION
PVP
Duel tournament +100%
Duel + 50%
Brawl + 25%
Elimination +25%
Dominion +0%
Skirmish +0%
Tribute +0%
Senior Member
Gotta say, you've hit the nail on the head. I agree with your post, but it's an absolute shame that it'll most likely go unnoticed.
I feel really strongly about the armour designs for this season, and the fact that we haven't even had an acknowledgement from Ubi (of there was, I haven't seen it) about it makes the issue a whole lot worse. We where promised new armour for Season 4, brand new armour, and we didn't get it.
The AI are shocking. I saw a friendly Warden bot run into the oppositions base on Tribute while they had 2 Tributes there, instead of running over and picking it up, the bot decided to do an emote instead. But on the other hand they can parry 400ms attacks that are switched onto them from another player. I like the challenge of level 3 bots, but as you said they play in the worst way possible.
Senior Member
I try to steer away from accusing the devs of lying, because things are never as simple as they seem. We don't know what they're dealing with behind the scenes. Could these things be avoided? Maybe, but they weren't, and that's the reality.
But having said that, I'd appreciate a bit more transparency. The lack of content is the big one for me right now. There's much of game going untouched by players which effectively makes the game even smaller, and I'm coming to accept that the tournament content is something I will never see. Why not allow friends to create private tournaments?
Are any of these issues being talked about? I'm an honest paying customer; is my investment really worth this little?
Member
The amount of XP per match is a minor issue, steel is the one that needs increased. However, it is a small attempt to get players to buy steel so they make more money (the microtransactions of what populates video games now). PVP already gives more XP than AI matches. Players don't play certain modes because of the cheesy way to spam moves to kill people. I don't think a bigger XP increase will change that.
Member
Good post man. Agree with all of it. The Halloween rip off, that was something that I actually posted on at the time. I was pretty furious.
The game populations was something I also posted on recently. They need to redo their monetization scheme; its old and unfriendly; and they need to have their team rethink player recruitement. Or its time to eliminate some of the game types, or put all NON duel and brawl based combat into ONE category and have selectable through the map selection post match... much like you can do in Elim and Skirmish now.
Because 90 percent of this game is DEAD DEAD DEAD. I wanted to do tribute against players last week, my matchfinder ran for 40 minutes. I tried to wait for an elim match vs players last night, I let it run for 25 minutes.
All I ever get to do is play against bots, and if you look on my twitch feed, I have started filming bot players for bans because it has gotten so prolific in AI play, that I actually lose matches due to bot feeding.
There is a massive amount of corrections that need to take place in For Honor to make it actually fun and less about playing alone. Because that's pretty much all this game is now. I would be willing to guess there there is less than 2000 players on each night probably after 10pm PST.
Which is sad. Ubi dropped the ball so hard at launch, and everyone gave up.
now this beautiful game is pretty much F*ckd with out some severe hand holding and love. And tis the best fighting game I have ever seen. Since closed beta we tried to help guide the process, and we thought they were listening; but when they released the game, it was apparent IMMEDIATELY that they had no clue what the players had asked for. Or didn't care; which ever is worse I don't know.
Senior Member
Very good post. I agree with everything. I have just seen this and I'm glad I'm not too late in reading through.
The XP system, the ridiculous Steel gain, the complete RNG on loot, the rehashed gear, the inflated prices on purchasables, the connection issues, the gap in bot difficulties, no real skill-based progression, just accumulating XP, leveling up to unlock engravings, and buying costly cosmetics with Steel. The broken salvage thing. The useless loot we get from crates. The over-expensive Change Look for every piece of gear, which also doesn't work cross-tier. The addition of new heroes that spread rage and chaos among the community. I could go on.
I also agree about Shaman's new execution, and same for Lawbringer's new execution and Kensei's new execution. They make the victim look too silly and too weak. Sure they're worth a laugh, but after enough times, they turn into annoying to watch.
Allow me to add something here: I had made a list of the purchasables I still have to buy for my Warden. I'm a Warden main. I'm on PS4. I have started For Honor early November. I already bought a few things, and have yet 193,000 worth of Steel left to purchase. 193,000. Just for my Warden.
That's without counting my plan for unlocking Champion Status, which is still undetermined. Because I'm already getting robbed doing Change Look often, scrapping most of the loot I get, barely earning good Steel gain, and buying emotes, executions, and ornaments. I also bought two basic outfits. Every time the game screams at me, "go spend more money on Steel Packs! Unlock all the cool stuff!"
No but really, they should seriously revise and redo all this system. On top of connectivity issues, dead game modes, cheesy players for the most part, new unbalanced heroes, old heroes that need reworks, no dedicated servers..... on top of it all, everything's over-inflated and it'll take you maybe 8-9 months to unlock all the things you want, and that's just for one character.
Senior Member
Sadly I think you have a point. 1v1 will almost always go to the player who refuses to attack and defends with spam.Originally Posted by xDarkMACx Go to original post
And it's a shame too, because For Honor was initially really appealing because of how much slower and methodical it was. Now, almost all the new characters are built around spam and unreactable mix-ups. Potential flushed.
Yeah, I don't want to believe that that is the case, but the evidence isn't pleasant, and as always, you'll find more transparency in a wall of lead.Originally Posted by Eidetik Go to original post
There's a gem of a game getting slowly more buried. It's heartbreaking in a way.
It's part of the reason why I brought up that execution of Shaman's. There's so much potential in the lore of this game, and so much effort has been put into defining each of the heroes, but now I have to watch it get smothered with relentless attempts to appeal to juvenile appetites. I mean, almost everything has an awkward laugh track shoved over it. It's painfully low-brow, and says to me that Ubisoft's greatest ambition at the moment is to disrespect their own creation.
