For Honor (BETA)

I kind of hate For Honor. But I kept playing it all throughout its beta. I’m irritated by it. Frustrated by it. But I kept going back to it. I’m certainly not going to buy it, at least not on release. Where the hell do I start?

Okay, so let’s begin with technical issues. Yes, it was a beta so you expect a degree of technical hiccup, but considering the game is due to be released in a matter of weeks, what I saw in the beta isn’t particularly promising.

The matchmaking is completely f**ked. I spent more time in the beta fighting bots than real people because the matchmaking simply wouldn’t work half of the time. And often, even if I’d join a lobby, it would be a bugged lobby stuck in a perpetual state of loading.

Which wouldn’t be too bad if you could quit the lobby and try again, but you can’t because the developers didn’t include the option to quit a lobby in this state, so anyone unfortunate enough to connect can only hard close the game and restart the entire thing.

The game also doesn’t use dedicated servers but peer-to-peer connections and this is awful. I don’t think I played a single game that didn’t have connection issues as players dropped in and out, forcing the game to regularly pause and resync. When this happens in the middle of a duel, it’s bloody annoying.

Oh, and sometimes it doesn’t just resync if a player disconnects, but drops everyone from the match. And, in some cases, it simply crashes the game. This was a real problem in the 1v1 and 2v2 duel modes.

Yes, it’s a beta, but whoever thought using peer-to-peer for a game that involves precision melee based combat is a bloody idiot. Lag is a major problem in many matches, and the varying connection speeds of players results in awkward duels where blocking doesn’t always work and hits don’t always connect.

I’ve said before that inconsistency in a multiplayer game is a major problem. When things don’t work the way they’re supposed to work when you really need them to it’s incredibly infuriating. And it’s not just lag that’s an issue, but the controls that randomly decide not to respond. I had no end of problems with the ‘revenge’ mode refusing to activate no matter how hard or how many times I’d hammer the button.

It’s not just the technical issues that bothered me though, but certain design choices. The game has an enjoyable, if somewhat limited combat system that’s primarily designed for 1v1 duelling. But then someone decided that the 1v1 duel mode, the mode where you’d think the combat system would really shine, needed maps with lots of narrow ledges and bridges.

The majority of my 1v1 ‘duels’ were spent trying to avoid people trying to charge, bash or throw me from a height for an easy kill. Seriously, people just run about in circles avoiding combat so they can try to knock you off a ledge.

The main mode of this beta was Dominion which involves capturing three strategic points in a 4v4 battle that includes some basic solider npcs. This is the mode I was able to play the most with other people but it’s also the mode that suffered the most from connection problems.

It’s also chaotic as f**k, especially if you’re fighting around the npcs who simply get in the way of your attacks or block your escape. It becomes hard to see what the hell is going on and as a result, everyone just wades in spamming heavy attacks in the hopes of landing a hit. This is also a mode where it’s better to just stick close to your team and gang up on people.

Sure, you can try to fight a couple of people at once and that’s what the ‘revenge’ system is really used for – when it decides to trigger if at all – but if you’ve got three people bashing into you at once, you’re f**ked regardless. It’s just not worth getting stuck into any 1v1 duels in this mode because you can be sure that within seconds you’ll have another player or two getting involved.

And because it’s so easy to regenerate health within controlled zones, it’s a mode that results in a lot of silly chases around the map as players low on health flee to heal. The mode doesn’t emphasis or reward good skill at the combat system, but rather how good you are at ganging up on people, spamming heavy attacks from behind when they’re bogged down in npcs or chasing people down on low health for easy kills.

And there’s lots of other little things that irritated the shit out of me. The player lock on is buggy as f**k and would frequently jump between targets when I was trying to fight more than one player. Losing stamina makes your screen go black, white and blurry and hard to see what the f**k is going on. It’s an unnecessary effect that will just get on your tits.

If there’s not enough players in a match the slots will be filled with bots (which are actually fairly competent) but if a player does join in progress, the bot will simply vanish – even in the middle of a duel. It’s jarring and annoying and they really need to change it so the player has to wait until the bot dies and the slot becomes open. Or just until the bot isn’t actively engaged.

There’s a system for levelling your character and unlocking new abilities, but these abilities are basically magic and feel pretty cheap and silly within a game based around skilful melee combat. You can also unlock new cosmetic and stat based gear, but the stat stuff isn’t very interesting because it can’t be – otherwise you’d have a game with major balance issues.

And the cosmetic stuff isn’t great either because they clearly want to retain the basic appearance of your chosen class. As a result, no matter how many pieces of armour, weapons, colours or patterns you unlock, you’re never really going to see a noticeable difference in the game when compared to other player characters.

The entire menu and UI system is sterile and dull as f**k with multiple currencies, upgrade options, loot drops, xp and microtransaction bullshit that feels shallow and tacked on because someone realised they actually needed to make a game and not just a neat little 1v1 combat system. And that’s the real problem with For Honor. They made a neat little 1v1 combat system but that’s all they really made. The rest of the ‘game’ just feels knocked together to justify its stupidly high price.

I kind of hate For Honor. But I kept going back to it. Because the combat system, when it works, is actually pretty fun. The few times I had some proper duels with people were tense, exciting and very enjoyable even if I lost. But that’s simply not enough. The game has way too many problems both technically and by design. I shouldn’t be wanting to punch the game every other match because it continually f**ks up.

I do like the combat though. When it works. On sale? Maybe.