Ubisoft’s For Honor has been out for more than a week and judging by the current state of Destiny, it’s the least aggravating thing to arrive on Valentine’s Day. The game has received praise for its visuals and the sheer tactical depth of its combat system. It’s not without its flaws, sadly, and hardcore players already have plenty of things to hate about it. Let’s take a look at five of those below.
“What the…I totally blocked that!”
Video games can be tough, especially one that’s as combat focused as For Honor. You never know where your opponent is going to feint, what combo he’s going to mercilessly spam or whether his ally is on the way to blindside you. However, one of the most common complaints in For Honor is predicting an enemy’s attack and…taking damage despite blocking. No, we’re not talking about unblockable attacks or even the game glitching out or anything like that. This is a complaint, completely legitimate mind you, where it seems like you blocked but didn’t quite. And hey, maybe it is something genuinely problematic with the game. Regardless, it’s still hated.
Matchmaking
So you’ve jumped into the multiplayer after finishing the campaign and you’re pumped. Those Vikings are pretty bad-ass and the Nobushi can do all those things and what the heck is up with that Conqueror, am I right? When you hop into multiplayer, it’s very much possible to be matched up against players with much more prestige than you. Like, literally, they’re Prestige and you still haven’t hit level 5. Where did they get that purple armour? How is this possibly fair? When you consider that the majority of For Honor’s modes emphasize duelling with a single opponent, naturally the guy with more experience and knowledge is going to beat you. Hey, pure skill can win out. We’re not saying it can’t. But why in the world are relatively new players going up against veterans so often in this game?
Ledge Cheesing
High-level opponents are usually content with chopping you to bits like you’re sashimi in For Honor. But really, they’re just going to try and cheese you off of a ledge. Like, repeatedly. There are a lot of maps in For Honor that have spaces perfect for knocking opponents off (like bridges near cliffs or paths with two big drops on the sides) and yes, a long fall is an instant death. There are characters like Valkyrie or Lawbringer that knock you around with ease. Some battles devolve into long-standing contests of who can cheese who first. This isn’t the first time a fighting game has had this – Soul Calibur is famous for its ring-outs, Dead or Alive 2 onwards had destructible environments and so on. But seriously, sometimes, it just really gets to us in For Honor. Deplete all that health, catch your opponent recovering stamina and boom, you’ve been ledged. Unacceptable.
Connection Issues
While peer-to-peer or P2P matchmaking had its benefits a decade ago, it just doesn’t measure up to dedicated servers. We’d happily take multiplayer games that have both but when you have Overwatch, Rainbow Six: Siege and more offering high quality multiplayer thanks to dedicated servers, why in the world would you go for P2P? For Honor doesn’t really answer that question but the results are pretty obvious. There have already been reports of DDOSing, horrible lag, dropped connections to matches (which results in you getting nothing by the way) and so on due to Ubisoft’s P2P servers. When the publisher clearly has dedicated servers for Rainbow Six: Siege, why not for For Honor? Furthermore, if so much stress-testing has been done via closed and open betas, why are there still so many issues?
Always Online Campaign
You could say that For Honor’s campaign lacks originality or that it’s just there to act as an extended tutorial for the multiplayer. Regardless of how you feel about it, one thing grinds our gears more than anything else: it’s always online. Imagine you’re playing on the highest difficulty and just happen to be near the final battle. Now imagine that you’re in the middle of the execution, tasting the sweet blood of victory when suddenly…you’ve lost connection to Ubisoft’s servers. Surely they’d put you right back in the same spot? Nope, you have to do all of it, all over again. Ubisoft hasn’t exactly been renowned for competent connectivity during single-player campaigns (look at Assassin’s Creed 2, for instance). But if that’s the case, why does For Honor’s campaign not have an offline option or at least something to reconnect you to that very instance in your gameplay so you don’t have to replay anything?
What do you hate most about For Honor? Let us know in the comments below!
Note: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, GamingBolt as an organization.