Testing Grounds Megathread | Forums

[Honorless_]

Hello, you can call me Ryan but I am actually a very prolific fighting game player and I'd like to remain anonymous in that regard atleast.

I play Street Fighter 5 professionally and with what experience I do have, I can tell you that no good fighting game is 'Really read heavy.' Which unfortunately seems to be what you are thinking For Honor should be and I still can't understand why.

Reads are good and fine, but the problem is that in any good fighting game, reads should ALWAYS fall into one or two categories. Obviously, this isn't always the case, but this is an ideal.

1. Reads should be risk/reward based.

2. Forcing your opponent to guess should be a reward. IE. off of a knockdown in traditional fighting games or as a reward for performing something. In For Honor's case, I'd say this is parrying.

The problem with what you're doing is you're taking something that has no risk. I.E. a light attack, ramping up the difficulty to parry and creating a read based system off of an area of the game that takes no risk. This is an ATROCIOUS idea as far as competitive games go. What is going to happen is you're going to turn the game into a light spam fest because the lowest common denominator of what you can do in this game (light attacking) is borderline unreactable.

When something is unreactable, fast and easily spammable, it takes skill away from the game. READING is not the same skill base as actual reactions. Reading should be something that is done sparingly with a high risk and high reward OR as a reward for putting them in various situations. By turning the base-line of the game into 'More read heavy' you're essentially making this game a slot machine in fights and are going to find that many people are unhappy, particularly console players that already have a hard time parrying as it is. You will lose money, player base and the game will devolve.

You're taking away agency from people who practice this game and their reactions by making light attacks harder to react to. You're closing the skill-gap by making a light spamming newcomer able to compete with a veteran player. This is bad design.

You make it sound like reacting to a light is some insane feat to accomplish and there is no reward associated with it. For most heroes, parrying a light gives you a heavy that equals around the same amount as a light combo or 3 lights. You are already risking massive damage and stamina loss by throwing lights. Neutral lights are still parryable in testing grounds, and even then all you have to do is block for most of the cast to end their light combo. Saying a light attack has no risk is just wrong.

[Vakris_One]

Hello, you can call me Ryan but I am actually a very prolific fighting game player and I'd like to remain anonymous in that regard atleast.

I play Street Fighter 5 professionally and with what experience I do have, I can tell you that no good fighting game is 'Really read heavy.' Which unfortunately seems to be what you are thinking For Honor should be and I still can't understand why.

Reads are good and fine, but the problem is that in any good fighting game, reads should ALWAYS fall into one or two categories. Obviously, this isn't always the case, but this is an ideal.

1. Reads should be risk/reward based.

2. Forcing your opponent to guess should be a reward. IE. off of a knockdown in traditional fighting games or as a reward for performing something. In For Honor's case, I'd say this is parrying.

The problem with what you're doing is you're taking something that has no risk. I.E. a light attack, ramping up the difficulty to parry and creating a read based system off of an area of the game that takes no risk. This is an ATROCIOUS idea as far as competitive games go. What is going to happen is you're going to turn the game into a light spam fest because the lowest common denominator of what you can do in this game (light attacking) is borderline unreactable.

When something is unreactable, fast and easily spammable, it takes skill away from the game. READING is not the same skill base as actual reactions. Reading should be something that is done sparingly with a high risk and high reward OR as a reward for putting them in various situations. By turning the base-line of the game into 'More read heavy' you're essentially making this game a slot machine in fights and are going to find that many people are unhappy, particularly console players that already have a hard time parrying as it is. You will lose money, player base and the game will devolve.

You're taking away agency from people who practice this game and their reactions by making light attacks harder to react to. You're closing the skill-gap by making a light spamming newcomer able to compete with a veteran player. This is bad design.

You can call me Kebab. I am a prolific pro Mario Kart player that wishes to stay anonymous because I made a lot of enemies playing Mario Kart. But you can trust me, I know what I'm talking about when it comes to pushing buttons and making things on a screen move.

You couldn't be more wrong about light attacks being risk free. Light attacks carry the risk of being punished with damage that is equal to 2-3 light attacks. Or in the case of Lawbringer instant death if you have a ledge or spikes at your back. In the TG a light spamming player will get beaten by a player who understand frame advantage, every single time.

[Mikebeenice]

Hi Ubi,
I've been playing this game for a while now and by far it is one of my favorite games out up to date. In my opinion, this game is supposed to emulate the legendary warrior. You are your Army's strongest most gifted warrior. The most satisfying part of the game is being able to Block, Counter block and dodge. These actions really make the game epic when you decide to go on the offensive. I know most people can agree that countering 4 players trying to gank you literally makes you feel like a beast. With that said, I think these new changes give the game a hack and slash feel and it sort of sucks. If a 5yr old can pick up the controller and kick your butt by spamming lights, then you have a problem. You no longer have a competitive fighting game.

[Goat_of_Vermund]

I don't understand all these lightspam complaints. I am slow, and yet I somehow was not lightspammed to death, the game is still skill-based in tg. As Vakris said, skill is no longer defined there by natural reflexes or financial capabilities (PC settings), it is defined by predicting what your opponent does. The real gap that is closed is not between bad and good players, but between bad and good heroes, which is welcomed however you see it. Lightspam can not work, blocking most lights is still possible with some reads, while your opponent will likely won't be able to do the same. I feel stronger in tg, but only because my reaction times are bad while my reading is not. Killing noobs did not become harder, they do not know a single thing about spacing, reads, mixups, recoveries etc.

[FuncK_D]

I don't like it.

Seems to me the consequences of actually going down this blanket change rabbit hole is to going necessitate wayyyyy more balancing to the cast overall than the game currently stands at. Exponentially.

And it is a light spam fest. Not even light spamming to kill people but light spam for the sake of just interrupting anything else attempted. You don't need "believable feints" if the person you're facing is light spamming with no recovery times or stam consumption, you just need to know when their potential light spam chain is finished so you can then commence to light spam them in return. And it's not "a read" at this pace it straight up spam and guessing let's be real.

Zerker is god mode in testing grounds BTW...

[PerryVaughan]

Such a terrible idea for a game that has so much talent, for those who practice and to change it into a non strategic fight with no skill required would definitely loose a massive fan base, and if this new update is implemented in, I will never recommend anyone to buy this game again.

[Frozty85]

I do not support any of these changes.

For Honor is NOT an mindless arcade hack and slash rpg game!
There is nothing wrong with current "defensive playstyle", it is 100% needed in the 4v4 modes, and 4v4 modes is what this game is all about, not the single 1v1 mode.
Whit thise changes you allso remove every single personal identity and behaviour of the fighters!!!!!

This is a game about dodging, feinting and parrying, where getting a hit depends on your skill level, not pure luck as you want it to be with these changes.

[Vakris_One]

For those that think light spam is a problem in the TG, there is indeed a problem. That problem is called not reading the patch notes and not understanding frame advantage.

The video linked below explains the gist of how frame advantage has made light spam an extinct species in the TG:

https://www.reddit.com/r/forhonor/co...t_spam_in_the/

For a more detailed and thorough explanation of the changes to frame advantage see this one:

https://www.reddit.com/r/forhonor/co...unds_actually/

If these changes go live understanding frame advantage is going to be the new skill ceiling that seperates the high level players from the rest of the pack. As apposed to the live game where the soft skill ceiling is understanding delayed attacks and the hard skill ceiling is based purely on having superior reactions. Reactions will still play a large part because obviously someone that can react to a 400ms neutral light is going to have the advantage against someone who cannot. But with the stamina penalty changes it will be somewhat less oppressive since parrying will no longer put people OOS and getting blocked does not mean you just lost a metric ton of stamina simply for using a single mixup that ended up getting blocked.

[Geist_Drachen]

The only good change here are the stamina changes. Everything else is terrible, the fact that Orochi’s heavy deflect now does as much damage as his top heavy pre testing grounds is not a good trade off. Deflects are supposed to be high risk high reward. Also because of the delay in follow up attacks I can’t properly feint my heavies when I want to. The fact that Shaman’s bite and Jorm’s hammer slam are completely unchanged is also unfair. The delay with Orochi and Nuxia’s light chains are also bad in that they also effect their heavy follow ups. If you’re going to apply light attack delays to Orochi and Nuxia, you should also apply it to the rest of the Wu Lin faction, Valkyrie, and Hitokiri as they seem throw a lot of light chains as well.

[QV14]

Highlender have to low dmg ! Fix it pls