My obligatory "I'm done" thread | Forums

[Vakris_One]

You're not wrong, but they clearly have only listened to themselves, Reddit and the competitive players thus far.

They didn't learn from their mistakes last year, can't imagine they'll start now.

I'd cut that down to: listening to themselves 90% of the time, 6% listening to frequent meme requests from Reddit and a 4% effort towards paying lip service that they listen to competitive players a week or so before/after smacking out a half-baked rework that is either a one trick pony heavily skewed around one move (which fits nobody's idea of a "good" design) or actually lowers a character's viability at comp level while increasing their frustration factor at the casual player level.

In my opinion they are learning bits and bobs as they go along but nowhere near fast enough and not consistently enough. They also can't make up their minds about who they want to cater the game to and end up contradicting themselves from one rework to the other.

[Tundra 793]

I'd cut that down to: listening to themselves 90% of the time, 6% listening to frequent meme requests from Reddit and a 4% effort towards paying lip service that they listen to competitive players a week or so before/after smacking out a half-baked rework that is either a one trick pony heavily skewed around one move (which fits nobody's idea of a "good" design) or actually lowers a character's viability at comp level while increasing their frustration factor at the casual player level.

Sounds about right... Wh... Why are we on the forums again? What do we contribute?

In my opinion they are learning bits and bobs as they go along but nowhere near fast enough and not consistently enough. They also can't make up their minds about who they want to cater the game to and end up contradicting themselves from one rework to the other

I don't feel like they've learned anything. At all. Like not even a little bit.
They need to test more things, faster, with more people. Countless games employ test servers, or closed testing programs specifically to push out better updates, and improve quality and consistency.

I still feel like the whole game lost all direction when Jason left.

[Jazz117Volkov]

Levelling the blame for everything wrong with this game's balance squarely, and rather nebulously, at the "competitive players" is shooting far off the mark in my opinion.

On that point I agree. I feel like the quotation marks really sent you off the deep end here. Of course the devs could have known better. They didn't, which was my point, but the should have, which is your point.

You say that player intention ruined the design of this game but you're making the mistake of thinking the devs had no intentions of their own.

I'm not, actually. And those two points have nothing to do with each other. What the developers wanted to achieve with For Honor as a product in regards to eSports is far removed from how the game's core systems fail to hold up in an extremely competitive environment.

I too used to feel like player intentions and the win-at-all costs attitude was largely to blame but eventually I realised that it wasn't. There is no such thing as these "other players" that aren't us that can be pegged as the catch-all scapegoat for all the failings of the Art of Battle fight system.

I think the win-at-all cost attitude is why the Art of Battle system broke, and I think that motivation to win is part and parcel. It's why in my last post I made the point of saying when the game was received by the public and the "competitive players" it fell apart. The competitive scene is simply a magnifying glass on the problems, they didn't invent them.

I hate to be the one to break it to you but the Art of Battle fight system isn't this perfect system that was just too pure for this cruel world of ours.

I hate to be the one to break it to you, but...I never said that.

It wasn't so much tainted by the intentions of players as it was gradually exposed for the flawed system that it has always been underneath.

I agree, except I don't think it was gradual, I think it was near instant. My main point was, and is, that the developers went the wrong way about fixing the issues. They took the safest option and abandon what actually made the system unique and all the "fixes" they've implemented are straightforward nerfs or over-tuning the formerly most okay attack types. They're making superficial adjustments to correct a problem that exists at the core of the system.

[Vakris_One]

On that point I agree. I feel like the quotation marks really sent you off the deep end here. Of course the devs could have known better. They didn't, which was my point, but the should have, which is your point.

Yeah, I think I read your post as having far too much emphasis on the players being responsible for the failings of the combat system.

For the record I honestly don't think the devs could have known any better because this was their first attempt at both a completely new IP and a purely PvP game at that. What they could have done however was to be prepared to start running as soon as their feet hit the ground and be much more adroit in their approach to updating their combat system.

I'm not, actually. And those two points have nothing to do with each other. What the developers wanted to achieve with For Honor as a product in regards to eSports is far removed from how the game's core systems fail to hold up in an extremely competitive environment.

How so? Surely you need the game's core systems to hold up in a competitive environment before trying to push it as a competitively viable game?

I think the win-at-all cost attitude is why the Art of Battle system broke, and I think that motivation to win is part and parcel. It's why in my last post I made the point of saying when the game was received by the public and the "competitive players" it fell apart. The competitive scene is simply a magnifying glass on the problems, they didn't invent them.

"The competitive scene is simply a magnifying glass on the problems, they didn't invent them."

^ That would be the key statement which was missing from your original post. If you had included that sentence originally I would have agreed with you and left it there. You didn't make it clear that is what you meant until now.

I hate to be the one to break it to you, but...I never said that.

By the way you phrased it, it sure seemed like you thought the Art of Battle system was broken by the players rather than being fundamentally flawed from the ground up. But your clarification in the previous quote has just now cleared that up.

I agree, except I don't think it was gradual, I think it was near instant. My main point was, and is, that the developers went the wrong way about fixing the issues. They took the safest option and abandon what actually made the system unique and all the "fixes" they've implemented are straightforward nerfs or over-tuning the formerly most okay attack types. They're making superficial adjustments to correct a problem that exists at the core of the system.

I largely agree.

[Estillon]

I’m done with trying to hone my skills, I’m done thinking about max punishes and optimal strats. I’m done with trying my best in this game. I’m done trying to “git gud” in a game that rewards cheesing and exploiting this much. And I refuse to play this game as if it was a chore. People have been complaining about this since launch, it’s obviously not going to get fixed.
What am I going to do? I’m going to stop trying to win everything. I’ve been going into this game, clenched butt cheeks, sweating and trying hard for so long. It’s time I tried to relax and have fun instead.
I am going to lose a lot of matches, but that has been going on for a long time now. I am going to ruin my KDR, but that has been happening for a year. I am going to piss off my team mates, but when was that news? I’m going to lean back into my comfy chair and keep my head rested on my pillow as I play.
I am going to put For Honor’s matchmaking to the test. It hasn’t happened for a year, but let’s see how long it takes for this game to drop me down to a skill bracket where I can actually handle the people I’m put up against. Is it even possible?
Either way, I’m done tryharding. I’m going casual.

A lot of the frustrations I read about would go away with a good MatchMaking system.

I hit a skill-wall around 6-7 months after release. Since then, my skills have not really improved and most players have passed me by.

However, I know that there are people of my skills out there. I know because I play against them every once in a while. And I really enjoy these matches! It's not about min/maxing numbers. It's all about bashing heads in!

Unfortunately, these matches are few and far between...

I'm on my second extended FH break but I keep up with the forums and reddit in hopes of one day reading about a fix to the matchmaking system.

[Jazz117Volkov]

Yeah, I think I read your post as having far too much emphasis on the players being responsible for the failings of the combat system.

All good, my dude. I seem to always be thinking I'm long-winded, so I attempt to keep things brief. My attempts sometimes result in scrambled details.

For the record I honestly don't think the devs could have known any better because this was their first attempt at both a completely new IP and a purely PvP game at that. What they could have done however was to be prepared to start running as soon as their feet hit the ground and be much more adroit in their approach to updating their combat system.

Yeah, this is true. And the point that this is PvP is a big deal, I think, because with sociable AI, the system would be almost flawless, because ideally the AI want you to beat them, their code is your entertainment service. Other human beings want the opposite.

Surely you need the game's core systems to hold up in a competitive environment before trying to push it as a competitively viable game?

In the big picture I suppose you could say the developers wanted the game to be a success on the competitive scene therefore they must also have wanted the players to play competitively. But that's too much of an abstract to be useful. And it is exactly what Ubisoft overlooked. Competition, by virtue of its definition alone discloses the culprit player intentions that sunk the ship, as it were, so I don't think they investigated their target on a real level. I think maybe they only looked at it from that abstract level.

By the way you phrased it, it sure seemed like you thought the Art of Battle system was broken by the players rather than being fundamentally flawed from the ground up. But your clarification in the previous quote has just now cleared that up.

Yes, in my mind it was never in doubt because players don't have access to the code, therefore they couldn't have possibly broken anything. But having said that, in light of how people sometimes communicate, and indeed the things that they communicate, I think your concern was warranted, just not applicable in this instance.