Response to devs statements on TG feedback | Forums

[Knight_Raime]

Today we got to hear the devs feedback on our feedback for the testing grounds. I will say that the most positive thing to note from this segment was they heard loud and clear about the lack of private matches/training being gone and will seek to add this the next time they do testing grounds. This is huge news for fairly obvious reasons. It makes testing the supposed changes a LOT easier to field test. The lack of this in their first TG attempt is probably part of the reason why their feedback on our responses wasn't as up to snuff as would be acceptable. The only other major complaint I have about the segment itself is we were given no date on the next TG. The only timeline we really got was when we might see the centurion changes be released. Which kinda means calling the TG "Phase 1" was 100% misleading. I really do hope i'm wrong here and it was poor wording on their part.


So what about the comments about each hero? As far as centurion goes it seems like they did listen for the most part. They're going to address the problems with his jab mix up and his lion's roar. And everything mechanical they changed is going to stay which is nice. But that's about as nice as I can be. They made basically no comments on how some of his kit flow feels in regards to feints or throws or inputing actions after throws. This makes centurion feel pretty damned janky at times. They also want to stick with his heavy being 400ms GB vulnerable specifically to remove an option select.

I understand the intent. I disagree with the exact method. Charge option selects are indeed a huge problem for the game but on a hero like Centurion where you're expected to hold heavy quite often this only makes him feel bad and shoves people to either parrying to start going or throwing raw lights which are not hard to defend against. Even worse is that it seems like they're not going to address low GB vulnerability heavies for other heavies of a similar value specifically because this change was aimed at dealing with an option select. This makes me angry honestly. They're looking at potentially pulling back his damage further as well (via haymaker and eagle talons) which makes zero sense considering his damage is already pretty low to average with current testing grounds numbers.

Finally they straight up didn't acknowledge his kick or his dash forward heavy. Both of which would help massively for his chase issues. He's a 1v1er. If he can't threaten to kill someone who attempts to leave then how good his mix ups are will not matter. Because someone can just leave the fight. Overall while they are at least tackling some of the core issues it really feels like they glossed over other issues. I'm not happy.


With gladiator and Warlord I just feel sad for. They want to keep reactionary GB as a punish for a 600ms bash that has no follow ups. The excuse used was "options" glad supposedly has. They decided to stick with 500ms for side lights instead of 466ms like they told us they were going for. First, why the hell would you even tell people this if you decided against it before TG launched? You already get crapped on for having poor communication. This is just ammo for that. They seemed to make an official stance about deflect VS HA.

"parry stops attacks deflect has to worry about frame advantage. that's the difference." This is a big topic for another time and if I must I can discuss it in the comments. But regardless of where you sit on this debate the response still completely misses the mark. Every other deflect (barring shins and zerks) can TRADE with the person who has HA mid chain. It's still a bad read but at least you get proper damage. Gladiator gets a whopping 2 damage and bounces off. They could very easily let the damage of the skewer be front loaded so he at least gets some decent damage in the trade. Overall it seems like the devs still don't know what to do with gladiator and that doesn't seem to be changing anytime soon.

They're going forward with Warlord's changes. Mentioned frame advantage again with his enhanced lights. Which I have a nitpick about since this game is still largely going off of 100ms increments rather than actual frames. But whatever. I think the issue here is like with Gladiator they seem "okay" with where the hero is at. Despite basically everything screaming against that. Warlord needs full block to be fixed/made better. This is literally half the reason why he's so underutilized.


Closing thoughts:

Overall there is some good that's coming from TG but it's not as much as i'd hoped it would be. Potentially things might change for me if/when we get another TG. Maybe more concise and easy to show footage will further hammer the devs over the head on important things needing to be addressed. I'm probably giving up on Centurion at this point. While they made some good changes overall and they might fix some of my problems with the updated version of him they're very clearly over nerfing him for simply giving him a workable offense. Which is nothing short of frustrating when the devs specifically "try" to avoid over nerfing a hero ever since they nuked both PK and Warlord.
I'm not surprised at all how they're behaving with Gladiator and Warlord.

If another TG does happen and centurion is again featured i'll be more than happy to hop in and give feedback once more. But the way I see it right now I'm going to be waiting until next year (they literally said after Y3 season 4) for a more healthy version of centurion for the game that's going to feel incredibly janky half the time and ultimately not as rewarding feeling as he could be. I can only hope that between now and then I find someone else that is just as fun to play. But for now I guess i'm hanging up my Roman love and moving on with my life.

Thanks for reading as always.

[EvoX.]

This was... terrible.

- Zero mention of Legion's Kick
- Zero mention of Eagle's Fury
- Zero mention of all the delays
- Zero mention of why his Jab feint-GB is slow
- Confirmed no buff for parry punishes
- Confirmed 400ms heavy vulnerability
- Implied nerf to damage (Eagle's Talons)
- Implied some sort of nerf to Jab-light

Centurion will be made even worse, holy crap. Eagle's Talons doesn't need a nerf, like how much more can you nerf his damn damage? Who even cried about this? Also, what on earth does that ''Light Jab'' point mean? He didn't expand on it, just said it's something they're looking at? God, imagine if they decide to restrict you from going into Jab from a light...

Oh, and he's not coming 'till after Season 12. I dunno whether it's gonna be funny or sad if after 2 years of being bad and 3+ months of being tested on, he turns out to be overnerfed mediocre garbage, but I do know I'll just uninstall if true.

Highly disappointing, only thing left is to hope they realize all their mistakes until he launches, but it seems less and less likely.

[MrGrippz]

Waaaait so they ARENT speeding up Glads lights?! Wtf is he getting then?!

NONE of the buffs were strong enough. I swear to ALL THAT IS HOLY if Gladiator isnt improved on I am DONE with not just this game but ill never give Ubisoft another RED CENT of my money man. HE WASNT EVEN THAT STRONG IN TG!!

[MrGrippz]

Dude Jormungandr & Raider do massive damage, Jorm can heal & shield himself. Its a joke if they dont buff the old trash chars.

Glad NEEDS - improved reflex guard, fast lights, & less GB vulnerability on his side attack [bee sting].

Ive got over 16k kills on my Glad, rep 70, & i am #5 on FH tracker in player kills. I have over 111 days played on FH.

I. Will. Quit. This. Game.

[LightUpTheEyes]

Not sure about Glad, I rarely play him. With Warlord though, they should at least let him throw his stab lite after a wiffed headbutt to protect him gb attempts while taking a risk of being lite parried. Without letting him delay it so he can't throw it on a gb reaction making it so both players would have to make a read or just return back to neutral.

[Vakris_One]

What I got from this is that the purpose of Testing Grounds was primarily for bug testing and for the devs to gauge how much minimum effort they can get away with for hero reworks. They aren't prepared to go beyond superficial changes and bug fixes.

With no mention of Phase 2 Centurion looks likely to be hot janky garbage when he releases:

- The janky artificial delays stay
- The kick stays the same dead move
- The lack of a chase tool stays the same
- 400ms GB vulnerability on his heavy will remain, which is a damn joke.
- His parry punishes will remain dead.

Without addressing the above things on Centurion he is a botch job waiting for a release date.

Gladiator will apparently be released sooner than Centurion, which means they aren't prepared to spend effort working on Glad. He needs just as much work as Centurion does but the devs don't want to put that work in so R.I.P. Gladonis. See you again in 2 years time maybe.

Warlord seems to be a whatever for them. No acknowledgememt of his full block or lack of mid-chain pressure. They don't seem interested in what they could do with Warlord.

[allenhollow]

"Warlord seems to be a whatever for them. No acknowledgememt of his full block or lack of mid-chain pressure. They don't seem interested in what they could do with Warlord."
really yestarday i was choked how their attitude was toward warlord :/ it doesn't give hope for future improvements on other heros

[TOCKSYK]

i mean..warlord doesn't really have much personality and already most of the Vikings are incredibly strong DPS characters

[Knight_Raime]

This was... terrible.

- Zero mention of Legion's Kick
- Zero mention of Eagle's Fury
- Zero mention of all the delays
- Zero mention of why his Jab feint-GB is slow
- Confirmed no buff for parry punishes
- Confirmed 400ms heavy vulnerability
- Implied nerf to damage (Eagle's Talons)
- Implied some sort of nerf to Jab-light

Centurion will be made even worse, holy crap. Eagle's Talons doesn't need a nerf, like how much more can you nerf his damn damage? Who even cried about this? Also, what on earth does that ''Light Jab'' point mean? He didn't expand on it, just said it's something they're looking at? God, imagine if they decide to restrict you from going into Jab from a light...

Oh, and he's not coming 'till after Season 12. I dunno whether it's gonna be funny or sad if after 2 years of being bad and 3+ months of being tested on, he turns out to be overnerfed mediocre garbage, but I do know I'll just uninstall if true.

Highly disappointing, only thing left is to hope they realize all their mistakes until he launches, but it seems less and less likely.

To be fair they did comment on wanting to fix people rolling out of the jab mix up. So the slower feint on charged jab might be addressed.
I personally had zero problem with their parry changes.
But yeah I agree with most of what you're saying. I think the light jab is referring to the fact that jab still has the stun effect and they might remove it.
at least that's what I understood from the language being used.

Waaaait so they ARENT speeding up Glads lights?! Wtf is he getting then?!

NONE of the buffs were strong enough. I swear to ALL THAT IS HOLY if Gladiator isnt improved on I am DONE with not just this game but ill never give Ubisoft another RED CENT of my money man. HE WASNT EVEN THAT STRONG IN TG!!

His top lights were sped up to 433ms and are staying that way. They lied about speeding his side lights up to 466ms. They decided to keep them at 500ms instead.

[Knight_Raime]

Not sure about Glad, I rarely play him. With Warlord though, they should at least let him throw his stab lite after a wiffed headbutt to protect him gb attempts while taking a risk of being lite parried. Without letting him delay it so he can't throw it on a gb reaction making it so both players would have to make a read or just return back to neutral.

As i've had it explained to me his recovery on a missed headbutt plus the buff to his headbutt in the last patch means you can't dodge on early timing to get a GB anymore. And due to that plus his current recovery being 100ms faster than conq's and BP's for full block for dodging he's safer all around.