For Honor is a third person action-fighting competitive hybrid game with a multiplayer focus, and themes centered around the atmosphere of some of the most romanticized historical melee warriors. The game centers around three factions: Knights, Vikings, and the Samurai. There is a minor campaign story, including cooperative gameplay, but this analysis will be focusing on the multiplayer and player versus player aspects.
(Author’s note: I have logged approximately 55 net hours of playtime, the main character I’ve played most is the Lawbringer, but I have played all of them at least once.)
(My Lawbringer.)
(character select screen)
Ad Honorem
It would be wise to start by discussing player input and the general control schema. The free mode controls feel like a standard third person game should: (xbone controller or PC mouse & K/B), L-stick or WSAD control movement relative to the camera orientation, R-stick or mouse movement changes camera orientation tangentially normal to the player character, A or Space Bar cause the character to roll, R1 or left click triggers a general light attack, R2 or right click triggers a general heavy attack, (holding; can be toggled) L2 or hitting control enters guard mode and alters some of the controls.
Now, guard mode is essentially a fighting stance. The bulk of player input is altered in a few key ways.
In guard mode, as the name suggests, you now have an active guard and can change the direction of your guard between left, right, and up using the right stick (or mouse movement). Also, your attacks will now change directionally based on where your guard is. Both you and your opponent can see your own and each other’s guard direction. Also in guard stance, you can perform a guard break, dodge, or even parry and riposte. Each character also has four to five sets of combo chains that can lead into an un-blockable (though not un-parryable) attack. Each action consumes stamina, which is continually recharging when not attacking; running out of stamina puts the player into an exhaustion state, which primarily penalizes attack, and as of the recent patch, movement speed and defense.
Game Rules
At its core, For Honor is a player-vs.-player game; however, you can play any of the various game modes co-operatively with other players against a team of all AI. The game modes are as follows:
Domination (4 vs. 4): In domination, the goal is to capture and hold three zones in any given map. While holding a zone, your team’s score increases with a tick rate affected by how many of the zones you control. Each of the maps have a similar zone layout: one by red team’s spawn, and one by blue team’s spawn, and one in the center that has small AI non-hero soldiers rushing and fighting from both sides in waves. Generally, the fodder troops are key to the whole match because the other two zones can just be captured by a lone player so long as no other player is in the zone to contest it, but the center zone must be cleared of all the fodder troops and enemy players to capture. The first team to reach 1000 points causes the other team to start breaking, or rather their players no longer respawn. Once the breaking team’s players are all dead, the other team wins; however, if the breaking team captures a zone they rally back from breaking status.
Elimination/Skirmish (4 vs. 4): The key difference between elimination and skirmish is respawning is allowed in skirmish and it is essentially team deathmatch. In Elimination, teams are pit against each spread across the map 1 vs 1, but that doesn’t stop someone from just sprinting to an ally as the round starts. Elimination runs for a max of five rounds, or first to win 3 rounds is victorious. In skirmish the first team to 1000 points causes the other team to break, just like domination.
Duel/Brawl (1 vs. 1, 2 vs. 2): Same as elimination, only with duel the match is 1 vs 1, and brawl is 2 vs 2.
Core Mechanics
In any of the game modes, the outcome is primarily dependent on each team’s ability and the result of many chaotic encounters, not always one versus one either. There are mechanics in place to give players a fighting chance when outnumbered, the primary one being a revenge meter that slowly fills up through any combat actions but much faster when being attacked and blocking against multiple attackers. The secondary mechanic is that, when you’re in guard mode against a player A, if a player B or C charges your left and right you can block any direction attack they make with just left or right guard (based on if they’re to your avatar’s right or left). Revenge mode refills your stamina, gives you a temporary health increase, resistance to being knocked down or thrown, and bonus attack and defense.
Within the combat there a number of different mechanics and complexities, much like a fighting game. There is a guard break mechanic, and a counter guard break, where if you use on your opponent it stuns them and lowers their guard, and if used again allows you to throw them in any direction. Hitting guard break as your opponent connects their guard break allows you to cancel their guard break, which is a counter guard break. Throwing is also a very significant mechanic, as there are a number of environmental effects where, if knocked into, cause the player to die instantly. The most infamous is the ledge, and there are quite a large number of ledges in this game. The other environmental effects include a geyser and also wall-spikes.
(You gotta pay the knight toll, if you wanna get the ledge throw)
Parrying is such a significant mechanic, as a few characters have abilities built around being a counter-attacker. A few of the characters have special attacks that can only be used after parrying an opponent, the Lawbringer, for example, has an overhead riposte that is unblockable and does significant damage. Unblockable attacks are also able to be parried. Lastly, there is a feint mechanic that allows you to stop a heavy attack before it swings, allowing you to change attack directions and get around your opponent’s guard by baiting them into trying to parry the first directional heavy attack.
Decision Making
The combat can be broken down as a large series of micro-decisions starting from the initial opening move. Here is a very simplified, basic combat example:
This would repeat until someone dies, runs, or has an ally/enemy join in the fray.
Play Balancing
The game has surprisingly been pretty balanced since initial launch mid-February, 2017. Each of the characters has strengths and weaknesses to an equal number of characters each, and player experience or skill is a much more significant factor than character choice alone. In fact, if there are any imbalances, they’re too insignificant to notice. There is somewhat of a divide between experienced players and beginners however, partly due to the learning curve but also attribute modifying gear. The way gear works is by augmenting core attributes by a percentile, each gear slot corresponds to three different attributes and the gear you put in will be increasing one modifier, and decreasing another modifier. For example, if using an advanced weapon head or blade, the attack might increase (showing only a bar, numerical values require some digging) but either defense or stamina cost reduction might decrease (causing attacks to cost more stamina). This does further wedge a gap between experienced players and novices, but seems simplistic enough to adjust by the developers.
Feedback Loops
There are a significant number of feedback loops in For Honor. Gear is a major feedback loop, with the intent on keeping players interested in progressing their character’s development. There is also Steel, the in-game currency, used to purchase gear boxes full of random equipment. Steel is also used to purchase Champion Status, which confers a 1.25% experience point modifier, and also a small amount of steel is used to unlock each character for customization (though they’re all still playable without unlocking them).
The leveling system has been divided into 20 levels and 30 reputation levels. The way it works is, every 20 levels you attain your reputation increases by 1 and your level resets to 1. This seems to have no purpose other than to disguise the fact that you need to level up 600 times to unlock everything for that specific character. It’s much less intimidating to think you only need reputation 7 for golden armor aesthetics as opposed to 140 progressively slower levels.
There is also an ostensibly significant territorial conquest always going on in the multiplayer hub. The way it works is, after every match you get some resources and can either put them toward a specific front for your faction, or just let them default to being equally distributed over all of your factions disputed territories. Every season there are five rounds, and the more rounds your faction wins the better the rewards at the end of each season. It should also be said that your faction choice is independent of what characters you are able to play as.
Learning Curve
The learning curve to For Honor is very long, and very shallow. The average gamer might find the controls easy enough to pick up, but learning how to parry, properly counter guard break, and learn the combos of a character and the nuances of their abilities can take a significant amount of time in comparison to other games. After that there is a very long window where the player tries to get used to using all of the techniques regularly in a match, then effectively against different hero classes.
Impact of Randomness vs. Skill
There is no randomness in For Honor, the abilities have set damage values and defense has set mitigation values. Skill is the dominating factor, but this isn’t necessarily a good thing. Because of the learning curve, those with significant skill can very easily shut out novices. There is no question that, between the learning curve and attribute modifying equipment, many beginners are put off and the game itself is becoming very niche.
Match Flow
Matches seem to follow a predictable trajectory, and are generally deterministic depending on the results of matchmaking. The only mechanic in place to alter the trajectory of a match is only relevant when the match is close; if a team is breaking and are about to lose, then are able to rally and get enough points to cause the opposing team to break, very often there is a sudden death scenario.
Rules of Fun
Looking at the game with the Lazzaro’s Theory of fun in mind, without a doubt, For Honor is a game centered around Hard fun, and people fun. The game is hard to master, and each victory feels so satisfying and exhilarating. With the Bartle Taxonomy of Players, this is a game for Killers. Despite the title, more often than not you will find yourself fighting without honor whether it’s charging someone and throwing them off a nearby cliff, or jumping into an ally’s aid and turning the enemy into a piñata, For Honor definitely encourages a lack thereof.
(On that day, the law was brought.)
The target audience for this game is definitely fans of fighting games, I suspect they expected to try and push into a more mainstream multiplayer experience, but fighting games are known for their complexity. They definitely attempted to be inclusive and draw in as many different types of players as possible by avoiding tropes like over-sexualized female characters, or overly exaggerated amounts of gore.
For Honor is a game that hard to learn, and even harder to master. Despite that fact, it is intensely satisfying and hard to stop playing. The game may not have been initially intended for a niche audience, but nature seems to be taking its course according to steam reviews. Without the shadow of a doubt, For Honor carves its own mark on the stone being one of the first non-party fighting games to have more than 1 vs. 1 multiplayer.
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