With the release of this new combat update I have found a number of pros and cons to touch upon and give my thoughts and suggestions about, as well as additional suggestions that might improve the current state of the game without totally reversing all of the work that has been done to make it what it is now. I will try to make this as organized as possible and put a general summation of how the state of the game seems to me currently. Of course while although all of this is my opinion understand that there are others who may agree with my feedback, but I must recommend that everyone who does should respond with concise well-thought-out arguments that may provide constructive feedback for our developers in order to improve the current state of the game not anger all parties involved. It should also be said that I have seen the patch notes for upcoming changes and therefore I will not mention anything regarding problems that will be rectified in the coming update

Pros:
  • Attacks hit more frequently
  • Players find themselves having to block more often than parry allowing for characters to continue their attack chains
  • Reduced damage numbers have increased a player's survivability in gank fights
  • Unless you are playing characters with light-intensive chains, stamina management has become much less of a concern
  • Light parries feel more rewarding
  • Attack buffering is non-existent
  • Highlander's defensive stance is now just as viable as his offensive stance
  • Several heroes that struggled at higher levels now are capable of going on the offensive without the fear of getting constantly parried or option-selected
  • The way the corruption also interacts with minions reduces players' reliance on minions as a form of cover and minor damage


Cons:
  • Performing light parries genuinely near-impossible on console due to the fps difference (I am fine on pc but the 30fps makes several attacks unreactable)
  • The radius of Warmonger's first and fourth abilities make it impossible to avoid in confined spaces, often times I have eliminated enemies with Warmonger unintentionally because they were backed up against one of my or their teammates and unable to back out of the encounter
  • Highlander's animations were not meant to be ran at this speed, and the result is several model errors and occasional clipping through a number of objects and characters
  • Aramusha is now several times more difficult to play as due to his increased stamina costs often running players out mid-attack chain
  • Due to Aramusha's recent attack speed changes I have no problems facing and consistently parrying Aramusha's attacks as they are too slow to enforce enough pressure on their opponents as to whether or not they will soft feint (blocking attacks from Aramusha is far from difficult now)
  • Hiding 100ms of attacks from heroes that have a far more discreet attack animation e.g. Nuxia or Zhanhu make blocking, much less parrying their lights an immense challenge that often results in an immense loss of health
  • Lawbringers light-parry punisher does significantly less damage than the majority of his attacks despite how hard it currently is to pull off (i.e. high risk-low reward)
  • Orochi even with an unblockable has very little pressure do to the ability to back dodge out of it


Suggestions:
  • All- Make stamina consumption 10 for most light openers and then have the cost of each additional light attack increase by 1 or 2 to promote chain initiations, but also reduce the likelihood of light-spam (e.g. Orochi triple light chain 10, 12, 14 or 10, 11, 12)
  • Aramusha- Normalize all heavy attack speeds and damage values (800ms would be best with damage numbers of 27-8)
  • Aramusha- Increase side heavy damage to compensate for loss of speed
  • Aramusha- Reduce heavy soft-feint into light stamina consumption
  • Characters With Discreet Animations (Nuxia, Zhanhu, Valkyrie, etc.)- Reduce attack speed by 33ms to ensure attacks are blockable
  • Highlander- Alter his light animations to make it more suitable for his current attack speed
  • Highlander- Decrease his light damage values
  • Highlander- Remove hyper-armor from his second light
  • Lawbringer- Top-heavy light-parry-punish damage value could be adjusted to 27
  • Lawbringer- Allow top-heavy light-parry-punish to flow into his other chains
  • Orochi- (After much debate I decided to include this one as well) Allow heavy attacks to be directly soft-feinted into guard break
  • Warmonger- Reduce the radius of corruption to prevent one-sided fights in confined spaces (of course if the intent was to ensure players choose carefully where they fight each other I can understand)
  • Warmonger- Reduce the damage of Corruption around allies by 3pts
  • Warmonger- Increase first feat cool down by 20-30 seconds



Overall I like the new combat update, it has quite a few wrinkles to iron out, but I'm confident that if given proper consideration and attention the game will become even better than it was pre-ccu. Unfortunately at the present, there are many imbalances on various characters that need to be taken care of as they are currently hurting either the character or or their opponents. Keep in mind that any of the suggestions given are intended to be used on their own and not coupled together. I believe that all of these changes carry enough impact on their own to shift the state of a character. The overall change suggested at the top of my suggestions list would likely be the biggest burden to take on, but would likely be well received by the community without seriously skewing the balance of the game or any particular character. I have done my best to remain as impartial as possible in suggesting these changes in hopes that some of my suggestions and/or feedback can be put to good use.

This pandemic has shaken the world and greatly hindered all of our lives. It is my hope that through the good and the bad our developer team will continue to fine-tune this game and release even more content. Know that even if the community isn't happy with the current changes, there is no other game like For Honor and that's because nothing could ever compare. Even those who leave will just end up coming back, this game is here to stay and so is a good portion of its community. Everyone know's this and that's why For Honor has lasted this long and will continue to last, because at its core it's a unique experience unlike any other.

Best Wishes,

Logical Executioner