FOR HONOR! The interesting combat!

Hello all.

I have had the pleasure to be able to play FOR HONNNOOORRRR!!!

I was originally skeptical of this game thinking Ubisoft is biting off more than they can chew or over selling the game and it's not going to be as good as they say. So when my friend got it and said how amazing it was I knew I had to go try his copy. I sat at his place and played for 5 - 6 hours non-stop playing.

-- SEVER PROBLEM:

Now I must get this out of the way the biggest issue this game has, is it's need to be online. If you don't have a good internet connection this will not be a good game to play. Even to play the story mood you need to be connected to the internet. If you can't connect to the servers you won't be able to get past the splash screen to even play the story mode that the game comes with. Also the servers are a peer-to-peer hosted server. Meaning that one player in the match will host all the others on their connection to be able to play, which means if one player left it could shut the match down. So needless to say the servers are not very good, and the need to be online to play offline modes is something I will never agree with and there needs to be work arounds. EDIT: There were updates a while ago to fix this issue and the stability of the game has increased, I have also switched to using a LAN cable and have pretty good connection now.

-- ON TO THE COMBAAATTTT:

The combat is pretty technical and not just a button masher. While some characters are better to button mash the the quick attack than others, the game still needs timing and skill or you will be caught off guard. For the normal button masher they will get taken off guard and be killed or heavily damaged fairly easy, except some are better for button mashing and is harder to get away from.

The guarding and attacking works from 3 directions. If two players have their stance (direction) set to the same side (your left their right) then the attacks will be blocked. To land an attack you have switch your stance to any one that is different than your opponent, now this is visible to the opponent and that means they have a few decisions they can make. Move away/ dodge away, attack before you can, or switch to the same stance. The whole stance system can lead to a very intense battle with some going on for a couple minuets of dodging, blocking and the odd attack. The stance system starts to become very intricate when you are playing with different heroes that have varing combos and specialise in attacking in different directions. Some characters also do not automatically block but you have to move to analogue stick in time to block that direction, also some characters are better at dodging. All characters are different and work better at certain things. This leaves for an intense and intriguing combat. You must not just learn your character but all of them. Sun Tzu said in the art of war "If you know the enemy and know yourself you need not fear the results of a hundred battles." This raigns true in combat and in this game. Every character has different ways they play and you must learn how to interact with each one. Fighting one character will be different than fighting another, you need to know how they can strike and what they are capable of, if you do not you will be left vulnerable.

Another fun thing about the game is guard breaks and throws, some characters are different as they push or kick or even charge with or at the enemy. What makes them fun is you have to be very aware of your environment, for if you fight on a bridge or near water, spikes, fire or other players. You can throw and be thrown into these areas. Heights, water and spikes being fatal. Fire will set people on fire and burn for a while. Throwing into other players will stagger them. So sometimes its easier to just let them chase you onto a bridge and then quickly guard break and throw them off, if they don't die you can hit the attack button to jump off and drop kill them. What makes this so fun is being able to trick an enemy into an area where they are now disadvantaged, making it an easy win. When losing a battle it can all be turned around by fighting smart and taking advantage of the area and using it to win with a well timed and placed throw. Also when outnumbered the throws become a very powerful tool because they are essentially a one hit kill with a well placed throw, because of this it just feels rewarding to set it up and execute a good throw.

Now all this sounds fun and like you can exploit certain things but they have an exhaustion meter which does balance things out. If you dodge to much then you get exhausted and can't dodge roll or even sprint. Meaning your at a disadvantage. Heavy attacks and dodging will also take down exhaustion so it becomes a fight where you have to balance your actions to keep your character able to move. This exhaustion meter is also a good tool to making fights get really intense, when you battle it out for a while and then get tired it becomes very scary, and entertaining. It even becomes more intense when both of you are exhausted because it now becomes a race to who can get the advantage faster, so this can be done by running away to try to avoid damage or you can pressure the enemy in hopes you hinder their progress. To win a battle where you are both exhausted feels so rewarding, it is a hard fought battle where both players put everything they have into the fight and wore their selves out, but never giving up. Like a true warrior, never backing down.

-- THE BAD SIDE OF THE COMBAT:

Now the problem. The problem is some characters are not very well balanced. One character has an ability that makes them gain health when ever they block, meaning that this character can be practically invincible. There are characters that have basically an unblockable spam combo. They spam the same couple moves over and over which one would be unblockable, leaving you vulnerable. The character that does this the worst is the Viking Valkyrie. Now if it were real life and you had to fit for your life cool but it IS a GAME and this is a horrible thing. The game has such interesting combat with a lot of intricate mechanics, and this spam combo just breaks it and loses the fun of it. It takes the fun and depth away from combat. The games whole concept is about these hard fought battles, with parrys, blocks, and well timed attacks and combos. If none of that matters because of a unblockable and broken combo in the game it heavily impacts the fun. A Game Designer's job is to build fun experiences for the player. These broken combos go against the game and against the fun of it.

Another problem about unbalanced characters is you create a metagame. Like in Magic The Gathering when it comes down to high level competition players always play the same few decks. So in For Honor if characters are unbalanced than you get more and more people playing the same character, this takes away the variety of the matches and the combat.

Another issue is getting ganged up on a lot. If it's a one on one you stand a chance but when it starts to get to be more on one it's of course harder but in most cases near impossible. Even though you can switch stance to block enemies on right or left side if your are attacked from all sides you will not live. Also if your attacked you get staggered and are unable to change your stance so if you keep getting hit by all side you can't block any and will be killed very fast. One thing that helps is the revenge meter. When full and pulled off it gives you added attack damage and defense and if timed to when the attack it will knock them down. This is very handy and can make you win, but I find more times than not it's not enough to give you that upper hand. But it does help a lot in some cases. It would be nice to see them add more to mitigate this some how. Maybe add in the ability to change stance in a roll so you come up in that stance. Maybe if you block someone who you aren't lock on to they need a little more time to recover or get knocked back a step so you can breathe a bit more. Something to help give you a slight edge so it's not near impossible.

-- CONCLUSION:

In the end the game is quite fun. Needs more characters, maps, and modes, (IMHO). But it is definitely worth trying the game just to play the combat. The stance system is similar to action games where you get an advantage by using a certain weapon. The action games weapon in this case is equal to a character's stance in For Honor. For Honor has done a really good job at creating a battle system that is simple to use but so hard to master, it also shows more and more depth the deeper you get into it. This all leads to game that is as deep as you want it to be and in the vein of other competitive games leaves a lot of room to master. Needless to say For Honor is an interesting game, is quite fun, and a must try just to experience the depth of the combat, don't take it for face value, actually delve into it and find the true heart and soul of FOR HONOOOOORRR!

I hope you all have a wonderful day and evening!

See you next time, BYE!! :)

#Design #combat #Mechanic