Junior Member
Been playing since launch off and on. I main the berserker, have done since launch. got rep 70 with the berserker and i think 140ish overall.
I'm gold II in ranked duels. Probably about where I belong.
I'm alright at the game. Maybe mediocre. Probably quite a bit worse than average for the hours I've logged. I have some pretty good days and I go on serious losing streaks. I've seen some pretty annoying behavior and some annoying play styles. I've struggled against specific heroes for long periods of time.
Obviously the games balance isn't perfect. I can't imagine how it possibly could be. The moves and mechanics are so varied, and subtle changes can very unpredictably make different annoying tactics viable.
I just wanted to raise two points: Second, balance probably not a very big deal to most player unless a mechanic is TRUELY broken. First, as an individual player, you can easily be wrong about weather or not a mechanic is broken. The the fact that you found people, even lots of people who agree with you on this forum does nessesarily not mean you are right. People don't come here to say the game is fine, please don't change anything.
When the game launched I was sure the valkyrie's trip attack was broken, untill I figured out how to avoid it. I lost against every kensai I fought for a brief period until I figured out I was just not used to the rhythm of their attacks. I have struggled against specific heroes more than others off and on most of the time and they only occasionaly corresponded to what most people agreed were the high tier heroes.
The only hero I'm even a little confident was actually op when I thought they were is the early centurion, and as bad as the cent was, it's way less fun to fight against now. You just slowly and carefully open up their defense and chip away at them and back off while you avoid their kicks and whatnot. Or you mess up and they punish you for roughly 15 minutes(bringing it down from the original half hour of punish was a good call, thanks). It's a more fair fight, but it's just ends up being a really long game of who can play the most boringly for longest. I liked op cent better. I think. Maybe I just still haven't figured out the right way to do it.
Between differing skill levels of player, the fact that you may just have a hard time against some play styles for some reason, and probaly a ton of other factors I haven't noticed there are a huge number of reasons you could be repeatedly losing to a specific hero, or mechanic, or move.
I'm still struggling agianst Hitokiri, but I know it can be done. I've been pulling it off more and more.
I'm gonna focus on the berserker and hyper armor because I know it best, but this applies to orochi light spams, lawbringer, bashes, whatever is supposed to be unfair about the warden these days, all of it.
Like I said I main the berserker, so I have a horse in this race. people frequently ask to have the berserkers hyper armor removed or start later. I'm not gonna say everyone is wrong, it's balanced, it's fine, because I have no ideal and I suspect that neither do most people. I will say it's most of what we've got, and it's difficult to sustain against anyone who's moderately good at defense, we can keep it going loinger by feinting every heavy, but we run out of stamina crazy fast that way and at least half the attacks we initiate have to be heavies so were either tading a lot of stamina for damage or risking a lot of parry punishes if hyper is all we use. I played when the zerk only became uninteruptlable on the 4th attack and had no unblockables. Taking on a a turtle, or a tankier hero, or really even just someone particularly good at parrying back then was daunting.
Which brings me to my second point: Who cares? Seriously if you're not at the very peak of competitive pleal does it really affect you? I win and lose matches at roughly the same rate as when my main was objectively worse. Matchmaking(when it's working well) thinks I'm better so it matches me up against maybe way stronger players with weaker heroes or weaker players even stronger heroes and we have fun challenging matches and I win some and I lose some. Sure maybe the player who beat me is objectively less skilled than I at the game. Maybe I beat a player objectively more skilled. It's not a point of pride for me to be objectively better or worse than someone at this game. Is it a point of pride for you? Do you really want an objective test of who is the more skillful player? I prefer fun and varied characters and mechanics and I dont mind sacrificing the first for the last.
I really hope the devs focus on fun gameplay. New and interesting ways to de-instentivise ball of death tactics in the battles and so on. Thats where the fun could really be improved. Only worry about balance when it affects the fun.
For what its worth I honelstly believe the game is more fun with hyper than without even when I'm using a hero without it and someone uses it to beat me, if the gameplay can really be made more fun by replacing the mechanic then by all means go ahead.
PS I miss ledging in ranked. I really think the format lost more than it gained with that change, but i'm still having fun so if everyone is really sure this is how they like it, I'm fine with it.
Member
I main Shugoki. The game has broken heroes regardless on whose perspective it is. Like I said I main Shugoki.
Hitokiri is one of the most broken ones with infinite heavy chain HA and 18 damage lights. I'm 33 rep on Shugoki.
Hitokiri's kick guarantees a heavy which is insane. But his leg sweep is only guaranteed a light. Even has a 1 hit kill feat that recharges too fast for what it does and has Fear Itself as a heavy.
So me, a humble, rare, mid-tier rep Shugoki main (like anyone cares), say Hitokiri can have damage AND defense.
