FOR HONOR (Playing the Beta)

[Dammit Carl!]

Do you get fire pots to throw? 'Cause I ain't having nothing that don't include tossable flaming objects. This is important.

Oh, and do you get a "screaming," mechanism like Chivalry where you can run around yelling? Again, this is important.

[trek]

Whew Des! Those are some pretty harsh comments on the game. No the skills tree are not power-ups although there is a short rage mode triggered sometimes (which I don't like). Skills to be acquired are numerous combo strikes and counter strikes. And no one ever said the game was going to be historical or realistic, least of all myself. As far as WOTR vs Chivalry or this game you are certainly entitled to your opinions but I personally liked Chivalry better and instead of a mouse and keyboard I preferred a gamepad, moving the sticks on a gamepad seem much more natural for controlling a sword swing than Mouse and KB for me, but again we all have our own preferences. Have you ever held and swung a real broadsword? In my younger days I did some Medieval re-enactments and Chivalry did mimic that hard and sweeping two-handed strike. Many descriptions handed down from history describe the move as "cleaving the enemy in two."  Of course I'm no authority on this subject but I think you may be taking all of this too seriously since no matter how you couch it these are just games.

As far as your derisive comment on For Honor being on the PS4 is that really the litmus test whether you think a game is worth your time? If so, then I guess you don't like Elite Dangerous (on Xbox and coming to PS4) or Verdun (on PS4 and coming to Xbox) or how about Operation Flashpoint Dragon Rising which I think was the closest to ARMA that was ever on a console? I still play that one on PC with Mods. If someone asked me to pick one game that was my favorite of all time it would be the RPG Western-Themed Red Dead Redemption. It was like being Clint Eastwood in a spaghetti western. Later this year the sequel will finally arrive and everyone is hoping it will also be on PC as the original never was.

To me the most important thing about For Honor is that it will be challenging to increase my skills and fun to play. You didn't forget that fact did you? That we play these games to be entertained and that having fun is the operative word. Now, I know you're an intelligent and good guy so climb down off the high horse and be a little more open minded, I know you can do it!

[Destraex]

Did not mean to sound harsh or negative sorry trek.
Games that come out on consoles simply ring alarm bells in my head and are a good indicator that I must watch the control schemes and the direction of the game. That is all.
Of the games you mention below. Most are exceptions to my qualification rule. It's not an  absolute rule. Verdun I was disappointed to see go console before they fixed the PC version and am now worried about direction for that game.
Operation Flashpoint... well I was playing that 20 years ago on PC so don't know when it went console or how good it is on console
Red Dead Redemption... never checked it out but my console friends seem to like it. But their tastes lay more in the action rather than wargame genre.
Elite I like but barely if at all play because it's more of a cargo hauling sim from what I have seen and I am waiting for the real deal in star citizen.

For me I like games that teach me something and are like other ancient games. Training for bigger and better things. I still want to have fun. But where possible my interest lies in seeing how things work and learning about real world mechanics. Sci-Fi is an exception because we don't know but I prefer that to be as close as possible to what we can imagine as well. Fantasy I don't mind where old legends that could have been true but embellished are around.

For honor may indeed be a lot of fun. It may involve skill. I really do sincerely hope you like it.

As for sword. Yes I have done some rudimentary sword training and I do own books on sword fighting techniques. The first thing I learnt was that massive all out attack full power swings often lead to disaster as you over reach and over balance and cannot recover easily.

Writing this as I am running out the door and wife talking to me... so anything negative take as me now being a grumpy old over 40s man :P

[trek]

No worries Des. I respect your opinions and thoughts and its' good that we can both agree to disagree. As for you in your 40's I suspect that at 69 I may be the oldest gamer on this forum. I mainly play on PC now and use a Mouse & KB on games like ARMA 3 and of course all my RTS games. Any melee type games I much prefer an XBOX 360 Controller. You probably are already watching this one but I think the upcoming Kingdom Come: Deliverance may be the game you might like possibly like better than even WOTR. Bannerlord looks good too but if I can't use a gamepad in it I'll have to pass. Never was very good in the original M&B or Warband in that respect for some reason.

I'm also looking forward to Ghost Recon: Wildlands in March as the setting and sponge-type enemies in The Division was a disappointment to me. I think the open-world play in Wildlands will feel more liberating and enjoyable for a mostly SP gamer like myself.

Ubisoft is going to have another For Honor Beta just before release this month. Why don't you go on the Ubi site and signup, give it a try and let me and the forum know what your impressions are of it. It might make for some good discussion. Take care.

[W8taminute]

Rather than continue my thread I"ll continue the discussion I was trying to bring up here in this thread.  [Didn't see your thread trek.  Sorry about that.  Thanks for the link to here Tpek!]

From my thread...

http://grogheads.com/forums/index.php?topic=18782.0

...It seems you can't progress (gain XP, money and such) through custom matches or battles against the A.I,
and the only way to do so is via actual MP, playing against insufferably stupid kids (and MP is restricted to fighting people from
whatever Ubisoft decided is your "country group").

I noticed that you don't get any money or xp playing against bots as well.  I'm hoping this is because of the beta and not a reflection of the full game.  I also noticed that there doesn't seem to be a way to adjust the 'country group' for match making either.  I'm playing on the beta on PC. 

The group of random people I played against seemed normal and some of them seemed skilled.  It could be because kids gravitate towards the consoles whilst the adults play on PC?

I'm going to hold off for a day or two before buying this.  Let's see what the community in general is going to say.

[Destraex]

No worries Des. I respect your opinions and thoughts and its' good that we can both agree to disagree. As for you in your 40's I suspect that at 69 I may be the oldest gamer on this forum. I mainly play on PC now and use a Mouse & KB on games like ARMA 3 and of course all my RTS games. Any melee type games I much prefer an XBOX 360 Controller. You probably are already watching this one but I think the upcoming Kingdom Come: Deliverance may be the game you might like possibly like better than even WOTR. Bannerlord looks good too but if I can't use a gamepad in it I'll have to pass. Never was very good in the original M&B or Warband in that respect for some reason.

I'm also looking forward to Ghost Recon: Wildlands in March as the setting and sponge-type enemies in The Division was a disappointment to me. I think the open-world play in Wildlands will feel more liberating and enjoyable for a mostly SP gamer like myself.

Ubisoft is going to have another For Honor Beta just before release this month. Why don't you go on the Ubi site and signup, give it a try and let me and the forum know what your impressions are of it. It might make for some good discussion. Take care.

Ok as I said I would, I just downloaded and played the BETA for this "For Honor" game.
As predicted I was not personally impressed on a number of counts with my first impression:

The fighting system, first impressions:
i) Pressing CTRL to go into guard mode does not seem to allow you to manoever well. I mean I cannot turn around to face an enemy behind me while in guard mode facing another. I seem to be able to slide left and right but not look left or right easily either in this mode.
ii) In guard mode you have to target enemies you want to block. I have not seen a way to block when you are attacked by multiple enemies.
iii) Blocking is pretty much automatic with no aiming required. It's about timing your button tap as you would in street fighter rather than keeping a block up and aiming to parry or block the incoming weapon.
iv) There is a big attack in left mouse button and then an even bigger swing in right mouse button. I would have preferred if you could control and aim your swing as well. You may well be able to, but the swing seems so stylised rather than a simple and predictable chop that it is hard to imagine. The trick may be to simply aim the reticle cursor at the target point on the enemy body. But I don't really know
v) Health Bars that I am not sure related to anything in particular like your armour blocking the health bar from going down if you miss a block.
vi) Lots of skill based street fighter style moves seem to be available. I prefer pure fighting skill rather than button mashing. Special Attacks are not really my thing.
vii) With regard to block again their does not really seem to be any parry mechanism to deflect incoming stabbing moves.
viii) I am yet to work out how to block an enemy "barge or kick".
ix) No restricted view when wearing full faced helmets.

I find the default control system (I use keyboard and mouse) clunky and hard to use. Too many modes and buttons to push for things that should be simple and mainly tethered to the mouse. A lot of the button functions are over complicated and seem to be focused on making skill with the control system more of a thing that skill with tactics and technique. For instance having to target an enemy in slow mode (guard mode) in order to attack with any form of complexity and full functionality. Otherwise in non-guard mode you cannot block and just swing wildly.

It is not a horrible experience but I think it would be a frustrating one playing against humans that practised the micro and buttons to death. I would then get frustrated with the flaws because I would know what to do but just would not be able to translate it into the control system well.

Graphics:
Nothing to write home about. They clearly do not use the most up to date PC graphics. They do the job but the control system and this is where you can really tell it's a console port.
I am not a fan at all of the factions characters, they just look silly. But this is pure fantasy not the fight simulator I am looking for.

Story:
As you would expect fairly basic. An excuse to fight.

AI:
Bots are not too bad and all I fought against for this impression

So trek I will play some more and perhaps things will change for me. I don't mind playing it. But I don't feel like I am in control like I did with roses where I could swing my sword and aim at a part of the enemy armour that may be weak as I swing the mouse to swing my weapon. The harder and faster I swung the mouse the harder I hit. Again very intuitive. I also swung the mouse in whatever arc I chose, swinging down or up as I moved. There were literally hundreds of possible attacks and feints with the war of the roses system. For instance their was a cheap attack at one stage where people know some suits of armour had leather shoes, so they were swinging directly down and chopping peoples toes off to kill them! The devs did disable this but it gives you an idea of the flexibility of the system in place. You could aim for arm pits as well forcing people to beware of exposing this weakness with large swings. If you missed with the head of a weapon your wooden handle would make a wood sound because you would do not damage that way. Blunt trauma weapons would cause damage without needing to pierce armour (heads of weapons like pole axes could be turned around to use the blunt end). Swinging a sword at armour in the original system which they dumbed down would not cause damage to a person wearing heavy armour unless you aimed for unarmoured parts. It was a brilliant physics system that they failed to fix the exploits in unfortunately. For instance an exploit was to swing over your head and hit an enemy behind you while being chased.... see how physics causes problems. Because it's an open system, one that people can use their imagination with.
For Honor is not this kind of game and I understand this. What I am looking for is a war of the roses replacement. So bummed that it does not look like anybody will make a better version of war of the roses.
Roses needed a few things fixed like laggy blocking and balance problems, a few of the weapons systems... once they did this which they never succeeded in doing it would have been the role model for other fighting games. Not to be unfortunately.

P.S. Does this BETA let me post screenshots? I did not see an NDA.

EDIT: Just played multiplayer and killed a a fair few enemy. I did a few time gets "strike locked" by the lighter enemy players because they were hitting me and I was perpetually stunned. I just needed to react properly.  Most people at my level are just swinging wildly.

[Grim.Reaper]

Played a little of the beta, kind of liked it for what it is......enjoyed hacking and slashing my way through.  However, I am concerned it may become repetitive.....not a first day buy for me, but I can see me buying during a future sale.

[Jarhead0331]

So? Anyone playing the retail version? Is it worth it?

It seems like it will get very repetitive very quickly...block, attack, block, attack, etc. Reviewers are saying the combat is very deep, but I just don't see it in any of the gameplay videos.

[trek]

Yes, I pre-ordered it and will be playing the game today. First off this game is not a straight port of a console title as it was being developed for PC along with the console versions much like Assassin's Creed Unity. Second, although you can play with the keyboard the fighting mechanics of the game using the twin sticks of the gamepad for many of your combat moves will make the gameplay far more enjoyable as well as giving feedback for your weapon strikes. That is a consensus not just from myself but from several friends as well as the For Honor community at large. My weapon of choice for this is the XBOX 360 controller for PC.

As far as longevity I've got to play more now that I have the full game and not just the beta, but I will tell you that as I said before you can spend a lot of time learning the in-depth skill tree and with the added bonus of practicing against bots I can see long term value in  working to make your warrior into an elite. The only downside I can see to the game so far is that earning "Steel" which is the in-game currency will involve a lot of grinding.

Speaking of currency the game has micro-transactions much like World of Warships if you want to go that route. I personally don't have a big problem with this as I've spent more than a few bucks in WOW. The big difference is that WOW was free and For Honor is $60 bucks. Lots of complaints already on this topic so the game will have to prove itself as worth it over time. Ubi has already announced more future content (again like WOW) so I think they are hoping for the same success as WOW in keeping a good player base for the long term.

I'm going to start with the Story Campaign so I will post here later with my first impressions.

[Grim.Reaper]

I'm going to start with the Story Campaign so I will post here later with my first impressions.

Very interested in this piece......look forward to your comments.

[Tpek]

For Honor starter edition is available for free from Steam for a limited time.

[jomni]

For Honor starter edition is available for free from Steam for a limited time.

I got it just for kicks and because it's free.  It's actually fun with some depth in the fighting mechanics.  Let's how the Chinese faction will pan out once released.

[jomni]

There is a fundamental flaw in matchmaking.  Since players have the option to stay in the server for rematch, getting the initial set of players takes minutes to join instead of reshuffling all players to new matches.