Having finally got some playtime on this game, I’m not too sure how I feel about it. It feels very middle of the road on everything right now. On the more gamey side of it, with content like Dominion, it’s just a very poorly and sloppily designed mode that just kind of leads you running around accomplishing little of anything. It ceases to have any sort of nuance or complexity to it. The mode as a whole would do well to have more options in what you can do, and what can happen. Mook enemies are worthless, and since the opponent cannot in anyway build up a stronger force in mid by maybe acquiring actual NPC controlled generals or some such, it really is just a scramble around and capture the points while trying not to get ganked and ganking others. It’s a glorified survival mode right now.
My brother brought up this point and I tend to agree, and that’s that Dominion might’ve been or a mode in general might be something more akin to Dynasty Warriors, where there are generals, armies, and objectives which are constantly changing. Bringing players in on this as well could create a pretty interesting game where the PvP with players is great, and the side stuff actually amounts to something. You might be better off ignoring players/NPCs in one area and accomplishing a specific goal on the map first. As it is right now, the game beyond simple 1v1s is pretty… lifeless. It needs a goal. People may say the game is focused on PvP and 1v1s, but if that’s the case, why bother including a mode that really is (for lack of a better word) half-assed?
Far as the combat itself goes, I do find it pretty enjoyable, it’s about what I was expecting. It’s like a 3rd person Chivalry, that is a bit more clunky due to the lack of free control over your character. Still, I think it controls fine for what it is, but target based combat always lends itself poorly to multiple foes and fluid actions. In regards to strict 1v1s, they seem very fun, but as Froztey has posted about and as I worried about before, I think this game may well have a very abuseable and simple meta. I mostly played Conquerer, and I think within a few hours of playing, despite doing well enough, I feel like I had devised in my head exactly how I would beat every single Conquerer that I came across, which was to just wait for him to attack and react appropriately. Perhaps I am over estimating people’s reaction times, but his moves aren’t fast, and he can’t feint without burning pretty much everything. This strategy to me anyway, feels like it’s more or less the ideal in this game as a whole, most entirely due to parries being too rewarding.
Comparing it to Chivalry, a game which only defense was to parry, and to games like Bushido Blade, parrying shouldn’t really lead to guaranteed damage or at least a heavy or free guard break. If you want something akin to that, it should be a result of maybe a “perfect” parry timing which is very strict. Bushido Blade 2 had two different parries, done by pressing the same or opposite attack button as your opponent in time with their attack – while this obvious was easily abused once you knew the attacks, it was still a variance. Within the context of For Honor itself, it seems very weird to me that some characters are built to counter opponents, and have moves devoted to it, but parrying nets the same reward pretty universally. This makes me question their purpose.
Warden is a good example, where he can get a pretty huge damage parry against high attacks – I thought that was great design, it gives you a high damage counter and forces your opponent to limit themselves for fear of taking high damage.
I even question if guard breaks as a whole should lead to direct damage universally. Maybe it’s enough that slamming them into a wall leads to a heavy? Shrugs Who knows, this game has some interesting things in it, but I wonder if it’s base mechanical limitations are in the right place or not, and I hope they are willing to tinker with things. I will now proceed to list random thoughts…
- Parrying might be better suited to gaining advantage as opposed to gaining free damage. Enough time to land a perhaps unparryable (by universal means) heavy, which can lead into whatever your character’s fancy is.
- Parrying may also be better served as a stamina drain option as well.
- Are throw distances too short? Too long? Should it be easier or harder to throw people into walls / off the side?
- Are there even enough options on a per character basis or even a universal one?
- Is it good design that feints are limited to heavies only? This is contrary to Chivalry for me and had me questioning it. It would inherently make parrying more risky provided…
- The Break-Feint OS needs to be fixed 100%
- I’m surprised binding throw break to a wheel or turbo works, since in my experiences, I found mashing by hand never gave me throw breaks – I had to time it correctly, same with some chains.
- Does throw breaking someone who has their back to the wall stumble them like it does if you throw them into it? I feel like it should, if it doesn’t. (In my experience it never did)
- Holding active attacks (delay it) to mess with people who are parry greedy too broken of a concept or just what we need?
- Revenge too good? I hate comeback mechanics, but I am okay with this building by blocking, but must it be built when being hit? I think not.
- Revenge’s temp health gain is maybe a bit overkill?
- Dominion is really shallow, but this game devoted a whole loot system for it, even bothering to have modellers make new gear looks for it. So why is there not more to it?
- God I love the animation quality.
- I think the Warden might be the first video game knight to actually hold his/her sword by the blade when not using it. How properly medieval of him/her.
- Barring the stupid “waiting” message when someone leaves or lags out from a game, the game’s netcode is really nice.
- Why is this one of those games where if you drop below 60 FPS it drops you to 30FPS? I hate those. One stage had a glitched texture on it and it kept dropping me to 30 FPS when I looked at it, haha.
As a whole I do want to get more time with the game. I only got like eight hours of it, and I’m certainly interested, but I also think it could very easily go south pretty quickly if not properly maintained.
