The For Honor that was once fun is no more. | Forums

[MrBdur]

While it's true, the overall communication and transparency were far better in the old days (Pope, Roman, and others, dang Michael even disappeared) and every Warrior's Den was something bigger than just a blank and dead-faced announcement from the paper.

I must say I enjoy UbiInsulin and UbiYubble. (Sorry guys, I know you two better as your forum aliases than your actual names xD)

Those two are bringing the den back to life, not gonna lie. They are funny and most importantly, GENUINE.

They have fun with the warrior's den and it really shows but they don't sacrifice the topic or pace of the show at all. They keep things moving and they keep things interesting.

I find myself tuning in just to see what they have to say. Even if the den is lackluster I still find myself enjoying their bits.

If Pope and Kieken (and Roman, Duchaine, etc.) are secretly working on a sequel, I hope Insulin and Yubble make it to their team.

Maybe the current Warrior's Dens are just being used as auditions for the sequel team and if so, I'd have to guess those two were already chosen.

[MrBdur]

I can understand where everyone is coming from. However, I think that a possible reason that quite a few find the game better is that certain, now popular, characters are extremely viable. I definitely love the upgrades to old characters but the sheer amount of hyperarmor that many characters excluding assassins have is stagnating. Take Raider, Shugo, Hito, and so on. I've found that hyperarmor is the new form of parrying as about 20 games against rep 250ish players has shown me that rather than parrying some quite easy to parry attacks they'd rather trade. It feels like playing pokemon with the amount of trading this game encourages. Assassins who have a high risk high reward deflect move now have a high risk no reward mechanic in a majority of circumstances as hyperarmor sometimes completely ignores the damage done by the deflect and still can continue the chain. And that still brings me to the unreliability of the blocking and parrying, where I can time perfectly and still get hit despite doing everything correctly. And wouldn't you agree that trying to rep a new character you never played is almost impossible. You get stomped to the point where you either stay stomped or play the meta. And the training room doesn't do anything against players with poor connection, spammers, or those who use the safest options if spammed, always. The training grounds prepare you for a reactionary playstyle instead of a read based playstyle and thus further sabotages any incentive of learning a new character. You either have to stick to 2-3 characters and never stray from them even if your bored or explore the characters and get absolutely demolished every game cause you are still trying to learn the character. While in theory I shouldn't have a problem losing to improve I can't improve at all when my ability to play is often lost to a rep 200 rep 70 who will absolutely destroy me every time. All of this brings me back to my point, the game has slowly become what League Of Legends is now, a once fun game that has abandoned its original appeal and player base in pursuit of an E-Sport that never was to be. I should clarify my ire is at the console version but this does extend to PC.

I understand your frustration. I have felt this as well.

The thing is that option selects are pretty well mucking the entire game up and once they get addressed we may see a big shift in metas.

[Red_Sun777]

And its not the buffs that really ruin the characters, its a lack of healty limitations. And this goes back to the original appeal, you knew heavies weren't going to outpace you in combos but could easily destroy you for a careless mistake, assassins were fast and has a decent kit of combos and feints, but they had some healthy defense limitations and could take less hits, Vanguard were a nice mix of defense and offense with some leaning into either more defense or offense, and hybrids were a unique blend of those classes that pull from kits to add something both balanced but unique. But since Year 4 and so on these healthy limitations have all but disappeared. Heavies are now assassins that simply run slower and still have their hearty defense and offense. Assassins without a solid bash or reliable mechanic are almost useless in a group fight and at some disadvantages in duels as while the peacekeeper update was a good addition it could have used a bit more. And vanguards depending on who you pick feel like an annoying ballerina (Tiandi), Conq bash 2.0 (Warden), or a Swole Berserker (Raider). With the only exception being Kenseth who I find still holds onto a solid vanguard role while still being viable. And the Hybrids are either God tier or just can't keep up. (Whens the last time you saw a Valk or Nobu in a match on console?) This departure from the original roles also accompanies the more magical fantasy theme they have gone with instead of the more grounded realistic feel. Now don't get me wrong, I know the team is doing their best during covid and can't be making the executions and emotes we were used to. But some of the executions and emotes are nonsensical, like the miniatures. I would love for the team to stop for maybe a season or two and look at what needs improvement fixing instead of having to pump out effects, emotes, and executions that are the clear result of an exhaustion of inspiration. But to my overall point, right now the game and its characters have lost their personality and tone and are hindered by often inconsistent mechanics and game rules. I think The Ubisoft team needs to take a season or two to reevaluate the personality and uniqueness of each of their characters and take a closer look at the console community as well when it comes to quality of life. And while some may bemoan a season or two of no new executions or things of that nature I think once they step back in what they'll produce will be well worth the temporary lack of new content.

[Gaser.]

These ”healthy limitations” you are talking about only really made one thing happen and that is that half of the cast was useless.

[Red_Sun777]

You keep skipping the rest of my points. I can only assume that's because the current state of the game directly benefits you and your favorite characters. And trends keep boosting your abilities up through changes to combat rules. Now many characters had definite issues then and quite a few of the changes have helped them. But the universalization of characters kits and moves basically gives us reskined versions of maybe 2 characters but are more or less extremely viable or too weak to use. There's no satisfaction in landing a heavy as Shugo cause it feels the same as landing a heavy as pk before her buff and vice versa. But to counter your useless comment, what about the current state of the following characters? (Valk, Orochi, Shinobu, Ara, LB, Shaman, Nuxia, Nobushi is unsure as I don't play her nor have I encountered her since her tweaks, and Present day Jorm) Are we going to ignore them in your complaint? I agree that some of the cast was useless for periods of time but from what I've seen the only difference is what characters are now useless compared to earlier.

[Goat_of_Vermund]

You keep skipping the rest of my points. I can only assume that's because the current state of the game directly benefits you and your favorite characters. And trends keep boosting your abilities up through changes to combat rules. Now many characters had definite issues then and quite a few of the changes have helped them. But the universalization of characters kits and moves basically gives us reskined versions of maybe 2 characters but are more or less extremely viable or too weak to use. There's no satisfaction in landing a heavy as Shugo cause it feels the same as landing a heavy as pk before her buff and vice versa. But to counter your useless comment, what about the current state of the following characters? (Valk, Orochi, Shinobu, Ara, LB, Shaman, Nuxia, Nobushi is unsure as I don't play her nor have I encountered her since her tweaks, and Present day Jorm) Are we going to ignore them in your complaint? I agree that some of the cast was useless for periods of time but from what I've seen the only difference is what characters are now useless compared to earlier.

Shaman and LB are absolutely A tier duelists, and Nobushi was picked by the Dominion tournament finals by one of the teams, as well as many other ones. The others need some attention, but they are very far from being as weak as, let's say, original Kensei or original Berserker. The characters are changed for the better. Also, I don't get this "satisfaction" thing from Shugoki, you don't land it too often if you are playing against competent players, he is not useful on high levels, only irritating.

You just have to make attacks ripping with a certain speed. Old heavies had 600ms lights, which were basically free parries, and assassins could just back away whenever they liked because they had like 5 meters backdodge range with next to no recovery, so they could escape any mixups. Fine, they did not because the players behind them were far inferior to the current players who understand how the game works, but let's be honest, it was extremely unfair.

[Red_Sun777]

Goat, face it, you and the maybe 200ish people who still play this game religiously are becoming all that's left. Before I had this account I followed and agreed with you and Gasers arguments and saw you two change. Hell, I created an account to share my opinions like you two. But since the CCU and even before then you two are the first to defend horrible changes as they seemed to cater to your specific critiques. You've gone from this "Everyone needs a chance to play" to "Suck it up or get out of my game" . Where are the veterans who used to be here you've forgotten about? What about new players that never come? A lack of new players means that rep 0s are facing rep 200-400s and the trainings grounds and leave the game. Which is a cycle that stagnated the game. And veterans left because of the same reasons I did because of horrible choices when it comes to new characters and rules of combat. Have you even touched console? Try playing a dominion match or 2v2 you'll fight the same people for the rest of the night cause that's all that's left! A lot of the newer players that do stay are from PC wishing to try a worse version of the game! Heck, I'm pretty sure if I swapped to PC I'd get to rep 20 within 2-3 weeks with the sheer drop in difficulty. The "Current" players who understood the game were the same people who struggled before the CCU and suddenly tunes change. Has the game become more competitive? Yes. Is this overwhelming competitiveness killing the future of the game? Its absolutely slaughtering it! Most of my arguments tie into the general feel and average experience of the average console player. Something that seems absolutely alien to you two! My opinions may not be perfect or even fully accurate to the high tier player. But it's the view of the average player that has been cut away from the community of the game we supported. But in favor of catering to the few on PC Ubisoft has sacrificed the future of the game and quite possibly the trust of the old community in any sequel that comes from it. If there is a sequel. And I know I sound upset cause I kinda am! You two used to be just like the average player, and since then you and Gaser have kinda left us for the upper crust of the community. I mean Gaser couldn't even come up with a decent counter to any of my arguments in a meaningful way and you just made it clear that you no longer identify with the average player here. After all, we're "Inferior" to you and your clubhouse. And I know you didn't cause these changes directly or knowingly, but you refuse to stop and look.

[Goat_of_Vermund]

I do not have any clubhouse, I don't even play with premades (did it like ten times since day 1), and I am not really different from any avarage players in anyway. I did not change at all, I just find the game more and more acceptable with the changes. I did not say that I do not care about avarage players, I said that the avarage players (like me) would beat the holy hell out of year 1 Spliced or year 1 Havok, and not because they were bad, but because the avarage players are quite different from the past's avarage players. What looked fun back then would have absolutely killed the game now if the avarage players could get a hand on it, like Peacekeeper with 400ms zone optionselect, Shugoki with unbalancing Demon's embrace, assassin backddoge range, Nobushi unlock attacks, and so forth. By changing the game, the developers are eliminating the hidden bs that some players used to exploit the system, like jerking the controller hard enough to create an unbeatable fullblock that made everything to be autoblocked. CCU actually made the game more equal, it eliminated a barrier what separated people who could reaction parry 500ms lights from the others who had to guess- now, far more players have to guess. Also, while feats are a bit atrocious now, they always had been, just remember how every year 1 dominion match went- it was basically about who gets catapulted first. The game is absolutely, objectively better, and I would say it is even a far better time for a new player to join.

It's not the changes that are killing the game. There are multiple things that do that (though quite slowly), here is a list:

1. Lost profit for Ubisoft. They can squeeze less and less from this game, because new players come in smaller numbers (understandable, considering everyone heard of it, and everyone interested got it already, safe for a very small minority), buying steel gets you nothing really significant (like, why should I buy ten executions for a character if I can only equip four at a time? the really lovely ones are not too hard to farm out, though there were obviously none last year), and the season pass is a bad joke (though there is some potential with the team emotes). I won't even go into that stupid single player game mode I am too lazy to google up, nobody cared about that. Lost profit means less attention and support for the devs, less personnel to work with, less financial investments poured in, and it directly leads into less content, which escalates this further. This is not a For Honor only thing, every game dies eventually, though it's certainly not handled well.

2. Extremely, and I mean EXTREMELY **** story. Holy fking ****, what the hell happened in the writers head when they wrote it? It was extremely terrible- no challenge, no real atmosphere, blank stupid faceless characters wiothout real names, bad straightforward storyline, halfassed lore, and some extremely laughable things (like why the hell the minions are this weak and small? Are they conscripted children? Killing a musquito is bigger effort, and it even deals more damage). I get it, it is a fighter, but that is the first thing your avarage new player will jump on, and it is extremely lackluster, many passionate gamers gave up on finishing it altogether during the knight campaign, which get a 2 out of 10 from me (and it is by far the most well written). I know a few people I tried to invite, they immediately lost interest during the first story mode level, and I understand, if this is the story mode, you can only bet how is the rest of the game.

3. Zero support from Ubisoft to build communities. There were many passionate people who did it for them, but excuse me if I don't want to go to a discord channel or Uplay during a game to find other players. An ingame clan system was an absolute must, something that would have created little communities with easy in game communication, it was really a no brainer, it was already done in multiple succesful MMOs. Instead, they forced people to do it on the forum, or under youtube videos, which ultimately made it lose new players, who could have been a part of the community. I think it would have helped with toxicity, toxic people would have been ostracized from the start, and if you would meet someone weaker, you would try to recruit them to the clan instead of emote spamming the corpse like how it happens these days (and from year 1). I played many MMOs, there were toxic people everywhere, and I am sure there would have been a lot more if there would be no guilds/clans. You may underestimate this part, but people like to belong somewhere, but they might not like to spend time outside their gaming hours on doing something like this.

4. Zero, and I mean, zero education from the game. In the old videos, there were stupid bs like "take advantage from your stuns with Lawbringer by surprising them with a Longarm". Yeah, they were surprised in the first four second when you initiated the move, then used the remaining six to dodge it and guardbreak you. If you check the game today, it is basically the same, you are not taught about mixups, optionselects, max punishes, recoveries, guardbreak vulnerabilities, hitboxes and spacing, you are not really taught about how to not be the person who throws the 4v4 game for your team by pushing the ram or feeding in an enemy zone. You absolutely must follow a youtuber/reddit/whatever to get these informations, and many don't like to do that. It is extremely shameful, because new players naviely go to pvp, and are completely destroyed without having a clue why. It takes a few hopeless defeats only with a couple "EZ", "Thanks! Thanks! Thanks!" to make a player decide that they had enough of this.

5. Balance is still horrible. Not day 1 Peacekeeper vs day 1 Valkyrie horrible, but still Conqueror vs Jörmungandr horrible. It would need constant, quick attention, something it will never receive because of point 1. Also, the guys in charge are quite incompetent with some things, like they did not really fix pk and nobu, they just made them passable in specific game modes.