General hero balance ideas. | Forums

[Tatsu147146]

Okay then, I see that again people seem to disregard that we have literally complained about every single cinematic move this game has, but nobody seems to care and instead want less realism to combat other unrealistic moves. All the characters with cinematic moves are either under or overpowered and characters with realistic moves have been left dead in the water. Let's take the balance problem piece by piece starting at season 1.

Season 1: In season 1 balance wise people were mostly complained about PK's lights and Warden's shoulder bash, now for unrealistic moves I'm going to include fast lights dealing high damage since making a move that fast in real life basically has to be a twitch of the wrist or a flick of the arm with little strength behind it. The unrealistic moves were in fact kept to a minimum, let's count them (now cinematic moves doesn't necessarily mean impossible but a bad idea in sword fighting that would have your limbs chopped off or instakilled) Nobushi's kick, Warlord's headbutt, PK's lights, most of the Knight's bashes, and Orochi's storm rush. I didn't include the charges some of the characters have because they are much more possible and like in real life they are easily punished nor did I include situational attacks like Shugoki's headbutt or demon's embrace because they are incredibly situational and require a setup like in real life. If I am missing anything please let me know. And how many of these did we complain about or eventually got reworked pretty much all of them.

Season 2: If you haven't already guessed that I don't want cinematic fighting in this game and whether you realize it or not that you the player doesn't either then you forgot season 2. The inclusion of Centurion and Shinobi, well the list of cinematic moves went off the charts with this season and we all know it. I would have to name more than three fourths of the Centurion's move set, his entire kit was outfitted with nothing but cinematic fighting his punch (it would get your bloody arm chopped off), his kick (same reason as his punch), his pin (in a survival situation you want to keep his sword on your shoulder and go for an instakill since it's his only form of defense), and most of all his cutscene move, as for Shinobi it was mostly his kicks for the exact same reason as Centurion, and his sickle rain. And what happened here, one hell of an outcry no one could say one good thing about Centurion and who could blame them. They have since been nerfed and what was once their strength is now their weakness.

Season 3: Here we see a little deviation from cinematic fighting a little bit but nonetheless there were still some. Highlander's kick and grab were the cinematic moves we got for this season and people had little problem with these characters but are two of the weakest. The characters were kept pretty authentic but they needed reworks or are just plain bad now.

Season 4: Second outcry the introduction of Shaman and Aramusha. Shaman was another character outfitted with unrealistic moves as her kit and was also despised and Aramusha kept his moves more or less authentic but was also weak in the ever growing amount of unrealistic fighting styles. Shaman has a bash were she uses her HEAD against her enemy, her tackle that reheals without any punish for missing, more damaging light attacks, and another cutscene of her biting you when most of these characters are wearing armor. Aramusha's kicks need a setup and are therefore very situational like in real life so they aren't counted.

Season 5: The first of the reworks here is where the light attack was given high damage with too much speed and the Conqueror proved it by having the highest win rate ever, Berserker proved it as well by having his light feint cause high damage relative to the speed it was going. And begin outcry number three.

Season 6: PK got her rework that fixed a lot of issues form before but Orochi (this was hard for me because he is my main) got fast light with relatively high damage for the speed it was going. Which is funny because in the animations for the attacks the heavy could go faster and the lights look like the actor is trying his hardest to make the light attack as fast as possible but the fight team wanted to keep Orochi one hand fighting instead of using his two handed sword and made him slap everybody with it instead of fighting with it as he should.

Season 7: Well here is where everyone was the most happy, a lot of characters were playing better, there were dedicated servers and Valkyrie got reworked. To clarify unlike other light attacks that were dealing high damage relative to speed she actually could do it as she uses most of her body to give weight on the attack giving both speed and damage. Things were looking up mostly.

Season 8: Holy hell this is where we get four new cinematic fighters and everyone hates them they will either say they are overpowered or underpowered I personally find them OP but that's unimportant. They brought a crap ton of cinematic moves from weapons moving to fast relative to their weight to moves that would get your limbs chopped off. Lets count, Tiandi's kick, palm strike, incredibly fast dodge attacks, and light attacks too fast for his weapon, JJ's Sifu's poise, way too fast and damaging lights, way too fast and powerful zone attack, and his ankle kick, Shaolin's triple light (who's problem really is that it requires no setup), and his kicks, Nuxia actually is more realistic (with the exceptions of her light attack speed to damage ratio) and is underpowered compared to the rest of the Wu Lin.

I didn't include unblockable attacks since some attacks in real life are too strong and need to be parried nor did I include hyper armor since most of the characters using it have enough armor to withstand the attack and press on or are in a drugged induced state that allows to continue that attack (e.g. Berserker). We have complained about all the cinematic moves either because they are too strong or too weak. To summarize we really never wanted cinematic move sets in the first place yet we decided to ignore it saying it's just a game but it seems that day after day people are beginning to lose the fun of the game and want things to change without addressing what the problem is, and simply shout balance.

[The_B0G_]

@Tatsu, We can talk about making the game feel more authentic, but FH is not really a sim.

@The_B0G_, wouldn't these changes incentivize very careful play so you don't risk getting caught missing a weighty attack? Basically, defend until your opponent makes a mistake?

Doing this wouldn't change the move sets or timing for anyone, everyone would still have their full kits and fast lights, it would just give an actual payoff for using slower/risky attacks. You're suggesting that this would bring us back to the turtle meta, it would bring us into that direction, but I think we need to go a little back in that direction, the current spam meta is mentally exhausting, and just as unfun as the turtle meta in my opinion.

For a lot of the slow characters, the game is already like this (sitting back defending and waiting), you sit and wait because their kits are garbage, they usually have one semi fast light of about 500ms and slow heavy attacks that do mediocre damage, so the route this game is taking is only good for assassin's and fast spammy play style in the first place, now that stamina builds are gone, all you can do is sit and wait with the big slow guys because a couple feints and your stamina is gone.

Like I said in the post, HA, unblockables, stamina drain and stun can be put on to moves to give variation between fighters and make the heavy's harder to deal with.

It wouldn't completely change the way people fight, the quick easy openers just wouldn't do enough damage to be a viable move to over use, fast attacks would be used to open people up but spamming these fast attacks non stop wouldn't pay off if you get hit with a meaty heavy.

I'm just looking for something in between the two metas, the turtle meta wasn't fun at all, but it's getting to the point now that the constant too fast to defend against attacks are killing the fun in the game, it doesn't feel like anyone reacts to each other while fighting anymore, people just hammer through their characters hardest mixup to defend against over and over again, hoping their HA eats any hits that get through while they do it and if you have the faster character you have the initiative every time.

Doesn't it make sense that slower, harder to land attacks should do much more damage than attacks that can barely be reacted to, and 400 ms attacks that are meant to be unreactable?

It just feels like everyone hammers out all their fastest attacks constantly, only using heavy attacks to feint before going right back to those fast lights.

Even JJ feels more like an assassin than a heavy. With this new route it feels like no one besides a fast character is viable, the slow guys are useless, there doesn't even seem to be classes anymore when you look at all the new and reworked heroes, they all play the same, style wise.

[SpaceJim12]

@The_B0G_, wouldn't these changes incentivize very careful play so you don't risk getting caught missing a weighty attack? Basically, defend until your opponent makes a mistake?

But we already have this problem. Even on average level of play people are very good in defending. Skilled players know almost everything about characters' kits. Do you know how many people I meet this days, who bited to Warden's UB top heavy feint? None of them.=) Right after rework it was a good tool, but couple months passed and everyone don't care. The best tactic when you almost dead is defend until revenge come. And if some skilled player decided to turtle, you'll never do anything to him. The defence in For honor are too easy to do. Unfortunatly.

@The_B0G_
It's a really good suggestion. I'm very doubt, that devs will do something like this, but it really could change game for better. Feint spam and light spam probably will be dead, if we'll get this changes.