I just finished filling out the survey and while I was more than satisfied with the survey itself I still feel the compulsion to hear myself talk with my own thread. So i'm posting one. Unlike the last one I did this covers general changes rather than hero specific ones. So i'm simply going to break down the post into 3 sections. What I liked and disliked about the changes specifically, Issues i've found while playing the TG born from the changes, And lastly some suggestions to build off the changes we've gotten with closing thoughts on my overall experience.
Likes and dislikes:
Likes:
-Recovery changes.
-Most of the stamina changes.
-Indicator changes/attack speed increases.
-The idea of lower damage values.
-Better feints.
-easier zone input.
Dislikes:
-Complete removal of of stamina loss when being parried.
-Some of the higher end damage values.
Overall the combat flow and pace feels better and closer to what I think FH is meant to be like. The direction is right but it needs polish.
Found issues:
-Revenge gain. Feels very hard to net revenge when people huck attacks into you externally now compared to live.
-Feats. In general feats have never been in a good balance position. But in my opinion the combination of live feats versus TG changes feels almost as bad as when feat stacking was absurd.
-Animation polish. I understand they specifically made things to be delayed consistently regardless of input. But some animations just feel busted now. Notable ones being warlord headbutt and Black prior's chained side heavy.
-Certain ganks feel more oppressive than on live. examples being Shaman's bleed gank, Glad ganking with literally anyone, Nuxia and cent. In the former 2 it's strictly due to damage values. In the latter it's due to a combination of centurion still having cutscene's and Nuxia being able to trap 2 sides while said trap being unreactable.
-If you go over 100 latency in a match delayed inputs will actually begin to mess with how you look to your opponent again.
-Shugoki's trading capabilities feel more absurd due to not being able to reaction parry after baiting him. And your lower damage versus his better damage and ability to heal. He still somehow manages to slow down the game even in TG.
-Jormungundr's capability to stall due to his feats, stamina drain, and stamina pausing on his opponent feels more oppressive on TG. Because lower damage universally. Because he can still do big stamina damage. Because his slam is still 50 damage.
-Bleed damage in combination with some weird attack damage buffs makes kits like shaman's straight up broken. Glad's skewer is broken. And while neither pk nor Nobushi's values are broken as bad/close as these two examples Bleed damage didn't need buffing along side their basic attack damage. PK on live already has decent enough damage. Same with Nobushi. I don't mind slightly buffing their damage values. But bleed shouldn't be buffed period.
-While I enjoy neutral based attacks being "unreactable" I still think the amount of damage most neutral combo starting lights do is a bit too much in combination with the TG changes. Berzerker is actually almost a problem due to this (and his side heavies still being absurd damage wise.)
-Reflex guard feels actually like a downside now. It's basically impossible to refresh your guard in outnumbered situations now.
Suggestions/closing thoughts:
Suggestions:
-Major rebalance of feats
-Lower the damage in outlier cases (ex glad skewer, shaman dodge attacks/soft feint/bite, LB's parries, etc)
-Lower the damage on neutral light chain starters to 8-10 damage.
-Making parrying any move cause the person parried to lose a fixed 50 stamina barring parry counters. Those keep their own unique values.
-Keep bleed damage's live values over TG values.
-Remove reflex guard or allow them to block multi hits without needing to refresh.
Closing thoughts:
Let's get one thing clear. I don't think TG changes fix the game. I don't think they were flawless. In my time spent playing with my group, watching comp/pro players discuss things, and reading general threads and comments pretty much everyone was in agreement on the damage values being very off and needing to be looked into. Most are not against lower damage. But in some cases it's not low enough. In other cases some damage was buffed for seemingly no reason. Even though these changes make basic offense much better there are still characters who need help. Absolutely no hero was 100% fixed with TG. And there are still some moves that have too much recovery for literally no reason (lookin at you Goki.) And feat imbalance is only more obvious.
That being said. Even with TG being as rough as it is in quite a bit of areas the devs set out to accomplish one major thing. Making basic tools (basic attacks and feints) more usable. To make combat flow better. And they've accomplished this. Better than I was actually expecting. TG feels like where the devs should have had us 2 years ago. Not going into year 4. With their renewed focus in the comp scene via supporting tournaments and adding spectator and now making net positive changes to base game mechanics like this I firmly believe the game can continue to last for a few more years. As long as they keep going like this that is.
I've largely stopped playing the game myself. Haven't put nearly as much time into the game as i'd have liked to back when i moved to PC. And while I can't tell you if these changes would make FH a regular game for me again I can tell you one thing. TG is the most fun i've had with the game since season 5's big boy changes. I actually enjoyed my experience when playing. I didn't feel the need to "sweat" and feel discouraged when I make bad mistakes. It gave me something i've not experienced in pvp since I was a kid. I enjoyed playing just because I was playing.
I can also tell you this. If these changes do not go live I don't ever see myself really coming back to FH as a regular game again. I suppose it's possible they could make other changes that give the same good flow effect. But I don't wish to hang my hopes on something I can't see myself. So there you have it. My extended feedback. Regardless of you agreeing or disagreeing with me or how any of you may feel about me I thank you for your time to read one of my rambles.
I pretty much agree generally with what you said, and it is a well thought out post. The biggest problems generally if the changes would go live are just dmg balancing being way off for some heroes and maneuvers, and feats being still as janky and unbalanced as ever.
That being said I think dmg changes could have been handled a lot more gracefully. Very random amounts were taken off some heroes. I feel like the dmg should have been a more percent wise decrease across the board. and I still don't know how aramusha (my main, that is still my core reason for not playing the game (regularily or activey) until he is changed) will end up. I do really LOVE how zhanzhu feels now tho and am excited to see how he balances out.
I hope this doesn't seem like im trying to over focus ara in light of these changes, but he is still my core issue with the game
It feels like aramusha's BB maneuvers after the change are just even less worth it with still all the same regular downsides. so that distresses me. Lowering his dmg was good, maybe the amount was too powerful a nerf to come all at once, but his numbers were definitely overtuned and were definitely inflating his win rates. I still want his original Identity as a dodge specialist brought back in some manner regardless of the fact that lights are now a decent opener, lack of opener was not my main issue with whats happened to him, it was that his kit is basically non existent.
So I like this system, I like the changes generally. I like the lower dmg and stamina loss making fights a bit longer, at least in terms of moves:kill ratio. But there are still some serious balancing issues, and the characters I love are still not fun to play.
But lets end on Hope. Cause honestly this big drastic change does give me a great optimism for the future.
Yes the balancing of the damage is seriously weird. I don't know what algorithem they used to do the numbers but it fudged up. I absolutely cannot see them going around and picking each number individually.Originally Posted by Vendelkin Go to original post
As far as Aramusha goes I tend to find myself in agreement with you. I don't like how his deadly lights still do 20 damage. And it's weird that he lost his damage on ring the bell. But it somehow feels a bit more effective than it used to. But yes his BB still needs looking into. With lower damage values I think his top heavy input should be guaranteed now. With the side UB being his mix up with an UB and the light input being just basic attack mix up. Not sure how i'd address his kick. I know you can use it for splatting to get a side heavy. But idk if that's enough. Maybe his kick should also be accessible outside of BB.
I've played Zhanhu a fair amount with TG. He seems to be better. But not enough that' i'd consider him decent now. I think it's still a bit too easy to react to his UB mix up and zone. Though I will give credit. The deflect blind does seem to actually help his mix up a bit now. I don't know. Him and bushi deffinitely benefitted from the changes. But I still feel like both need a fair bit more work.
-While I enjoy neutral based attacks being "unreactable" I still think the amount of damage most neutral combo starting lights do is a bit too much in combination with the TG changes. Berzerker is actually almost a problem due to this (and his side heavies still being absurd damage wise.)-Feats. In general feats have never been in a good balance position. But in my opinion the combination of live feats versus TG changes feels almost as bad as when feat stacking was absurd.Let's get one thing clear. I don't think TG changes fix the game. I don't think they were flawless. In my time spent playing with my group, watching comp/pro players discuss things, and reading general threads and comments pretty much everyone was in agreement on the damage values being very off and needing to be looked into. Most are not against lower damage. But in some cases it's not low enough. In other cases some damage was buffed for seemingly no reason. Even though these changes make basic offense much better there are still characters who need help. Absolutely no hero was 100% fixed with TG. And there are still some moves that have too much recovery for literally no reason (lookin at you Goki.) And feat imbalance is only more obvious
I am glad to see you're bringing up those issues. I hope they will look at each hero on individual basis and make changes.
And the feats... they are one of the reasons I dislike dominion and prefer duels. It's especially frustrating, when teams are breaking and it is 1v2 or 2v2, then one uses lvl4 feat and you're stuck in your animation and you know you lost the game not due to your mistake, but just some one shotting feat. In my opinion, they shouldn't even exist. Instead, should be something that buffs damage, heals, gives shield, etc. Something fairer.
I don't miss the stamina loss on parries, but I agree with everything else.
I would drop my own hero specific concerns: I am really afraid that now that they overtuned Peacekeeper again, they will be so fearful of the outrage that her damage will be completely nerfed.
The right step would obviously just getting the original damage values, clipping off 30% from everything, then balancing out the problematic things, like Aramusha and Lawbringer.
My computer can't handle 4v4 right now, so I don't have firsthand experience, but since second wind is irritating in every game mode if you don't have it yourself, I imagine it's even more irritating now. No quickfix for feats, the whole feat system is such a mess a whole season could be spent on hammering the problems out.
In previous exchanges, you and I didn't see eye to eye on a lot of things but I do agree with many of the things you've said here from lowering light damage and damage general to removing reflex guard.Originally Posted by Knight_Raime Go to original post
I also have a similar take on the animations. If the game needs to be faster, the animations need to be redone and not cut. Speeding them by 100ms might work but if Raider is anything to go by then perhaps not. In general and by principle, what you see animation-wise should be the same as your opponent unless stun attacks and feats dictate otherwise. For now, they should just settle for delaying the attack indicators until they can tweak the animations and make them smoother.
However, I feel that the complete removal of stamina penalties should remain until stamina costs are also reduced globally.
Overall, TG didn't feel that much different for me to complain a lot about anything. It did feel nice for attacks to land more against the better players. My main issues were the animations and the inconsistency in damages values and them not being low enough in certain areas, mainly lights. So yes, TG is a step in the right direction but needs a lot of polish.
I also used to dislike 4's due to feats in general. But after playing a lot of people in 4's for a decent amount of time I find my issue is less about feats existence and more so how the devs make feats and how the feat system is. But that's another ramble for another time.Originally Posted by No0ne_- Go to original post
I personally don't have an issue with stamina being removed from most instances when it comes to duels. It perfectly fits the pace of them and generally if someone is getting parried constantly they tend to stop spamming the same thing after a few tries. The stamina returning on parries is mainly a thing in 4's. This is because people are far more likely to continue to throw things out until it works since another player can potentially just cover them if they get parried or something. That and the lower damage values means basic attacks are not giving as much revenge. Forcing you to pretty much have to parry in an outnumbered situation in order to get revenge to stall long enough for help. It just doesn't feel good compared to bash offense where that still gives normal revenge. By doing a fixed amount of stamina damage you automatically discourage people playing too haphazardly and increase survivability. And yes. Second wind is absolutely dumb. Already dumb on live. But actually infuriating on TG.Originally Posted by Goat_of_Vermund Go to original post
I do agree that even with the stamina removal costs on some people are still a bit much. I have to wonder if the reason they took this route first and maybe only this route is due to it being an easier global change then having to rebalance stamina costs entirely. (though I don't think this is needed for everyone. a handful of heros at most.) I understand your position though. I'd advise you to look at my reply to Goat to get a better understanding on why i'm asking for such a change. So I don't have to retype it d:Originally Posted by Soldier_of_Dawn Go to original post
I agree with pretty much everything said here.
I do want to add/ask that maybe since we are going to be switching to read based offense with the attacks that maybe we should look at not guaranteeing damage after a neutral bash. Maybe all neutral bashes should be normalized to how glads works. Meaning it stuns you, but you don't get anything guaranteed off it.
Just food for thought. Since bashes won't be needed to open turtles anymore.
This is super cool.Originally Posted by Knight_Raime Go to original post
Just a few responses (can't address everything but this is a terrific thorough post, as usual):
- Some of the out-of-whack damage values are being changed in today's patch as I'm sure you've seen
- I've brought up feedback from various places about Feat balance in TG.
- Re: reflex guard, I have brought it up again in the context of Testing Grounds improving offense.
Originally Posted by Baggin_ Go to original post
Eh. I'm already dealing with people who can reliably block attacks. Parrying no. But blocking yeah.
I think bashes are fine. We could talk about reducing damage on lights though since most bashes net neutral lights my ask to nerf neutral light damage would effect them.
Yes i've seen. I have some minor gripes with the damage numbers. But i'll likely make a seperate thread that's much shorter than this in a day or two after trying the changes. Not just because of the damage changes but because some of my opinions have changed since this post (mainly regarding to stamina damage returning to parries.)Originally Posted by UbiInsulin Go to original post
I appreciate those last two points though.