Senior Member
Yesterday night I went through the process of creating a smurf account to see what it was like for new players. First. The skill gap between new players varies greatly. I played 3 games and 2 with shug. I only met one player who feinted his attacks. Honestly I don't blame people for not playing this game. Many of them spend most of the time running away from 2v1s. When I came across a 1v1 fight and being a shugoki would naturally faint my heavies to start they would just run away. If I parried someone they would just run away. If I counter gb they would run away. The only time I got to fight anyone is if I snuck up on another fight going on or was ganked myself. There were also moments were I over predicted the capabilities of the noobs and had to dump down my own prediction process. I probably spent more time creating the dummy account then I did playing due to guilt.
I personally dislike smurfing. I could fight AIs that would put up a better fight. And the AI's on the teams were just punching bags.
I honestly forgot how steep the learning curve is on this game. How important muscle memory is and practice. How important knowing how to fight multiple opponents is or simply relocking into another opponent in a group fight.
And worst of all is that all of this has to be learned by getting whooped over and over again in dominion. Sure you can practice with a level 3 bot but learning how to fight against ganks is really done by fire.
The issue I see is that of noobs getting their ego's banged up pretty hard during the learning process and there is no fast track way of learning how to defend against ganks without getting whooped over and over again. There should be a fast paced practice mode for this.
Senior Member
The game is designed to be a salt fest. I'm not saying that's the intention of the design (it might be, the lead designer strikes me as someone who might enjoy trolling), but there are so many aspects of the combat, particularly in 4 v 4's that make me roll my eyes and sigh. Feats are the ultimate example. Every time I die to a catapult or spear storm I just sigh.
Being environment one shotted is another. Sure, environmental awareness is key in a fight and I've argued that point many times myself when discussing environmental kills, but for a new player it's incredibly frustrating to be continually ledged or spiked because you haven't quite mastered the counter guard break yet.
For Honor is crammed with cheap *** ways to kill your opponent, without even swinging your weapon. I can think of no other fighting game that offers players a way to dispatch their opponent in one shot, from full health, without even swinging.
No point discussing balance here, plenty of threads about that already.
50/50's.
The above elements are what make me laugh every time I see somebody type the words "For Honor" and "competitive gaming scene" in the same sentence.
They are also most likely the things that put new players off.
Member
I got the game for free during E3, and I mean, during the first few matches I could only do something by ganking, 2v1s were a no-go. I had a lot of fun because there were a lot of new players that sucked as much as I did, we were all learning and sucking together. For a few days it was fun. That is, until people found out about orochi. That character that turns you into a top tier player by just pressing R1. I remember a match with 5 Orochis in it, 4 on the opposite team. It was infurating and I quit the game for a few weeks. Then I returned because there is nothing else to play right now.
I know what you are going to say, Orochi is ****, yes, after you learn how to counter him he is just one more hero. But think that most heroes take a while to master, you need to learn to faint, to do unblockables, to parry, to GB and counter GB and all that stuff. For Orochi all you have to do is press R1 to master him. That puts Orochi users at a level above everyone else. Game went free on Steam a while ago and the playerbase is back to normal again. I'd put my money that 40% of those who left did so because Orochi.
