Please Revert to Previous Changes
First of all, thank you SloClap for listening to the community, that being said there are serious issues with the latest patch. Even outside of the bugs, your balance changes fundamentally changed this game for the worst. I'd like to think I'm fairly experienced in the game (roughly 100 hrs, combat trials level at 61), but again this is just my 2 cents
1) The poke and dodge meta is insanely unfun to play as or against. Nobody wants to start engagements and fights turn into players literally standing still and waiting for their opponent to attack. On top of that, there isn't a good way to punish players for making a successful ability check against opponent moves, as they can just universal dodge away thanks to I-frames.
2) I'm not sure if this is a bug or balance change, but moves in general feel much slower. The speed before was appropriate, most players now have enough reaction time to universal dodge away from any and all counter-attacks.
Basically, the game prior to this patch focused more on your combat deck and ability checks, this new meta is a game of waiting for your opponent to fuck up and attack before you do. I'm frustrated that I don't get to use the full capabilities of my combat deck in my fights, as every fight is poke with a 2-3 hit combo then dodge away. Please please please at least consider reverting the game back.
1) The poke and dodge meta is insanely unfun to play as or against. Nobody wants to start engagements and fights turn into players literally standing still and waiting for their opponent to attack. On top of that, there isn't a good way to punish players for making a successful ability check against opponent moves, as they can just universal dodge away thanks to I-frames.
2) I'm not sure if this is a bug or balance change, but moves in general feel much slower. The speed before was appropriate, most players now have enough reaction time to universal dodge away from any and all counter-attacks.
Basically, the game prior to this patch focused more on your combat deck and ability checks, this new meta is a game of waiting for your opponent to fuck up and attack before you do. I'm frustrated that I don't get to use the full capabilities of my combat deck in my fights, as every fight is poke with a 2-3 hit combo then dodge away. Please please please at least consider reverting the game back.
Comments
2-3 hit combos are realistic, when have you ever seen a real match where an opponent spams off 25 consecutive hits without being countered or dodged? This new system requires players to use more tools like feints and alternates, making players harder to hit encourages fighters to be more deceptive/crafty.
I guess what I'm saying is, I'd rather fight players than decks.
It's great to hear that you're enjoying the progress that's being made with each update, and I really appreciate you taking the time to share what could do with further changes or investigation. I can't guarantee a direct response from the team, but I'll make sure your feedback on i-frames and movement feeling slower than before gets to them.
Thank you again!
Small footwork changes and short steps to change distance. Under pressure, there's small steps back to stay at distance, but a long range attack can fill that gap. The giant dodge back, taking the person completely out of the range of combat in one motion will never happen in reality.
In my experience it most definitely does NOT encourage more feints or alternate attacks. The previous version encouraged feints/alternates as experienced players could predict the next movement in the chain and use an ability check to counter the move, the best way to get around this was to bait a parry/dodge/absorb fail by feinting or throwing an alternate to mess up their timing. Instead of this we have this ultra defensive game of footsie where players have a get out of jail free card once a combo starts with the "better" universal dodge. It's absurd, there was nothing wrong with the combat to begin with, up until 1.06 drooped the only major gripes I had with this game were technical (as in I lost 3 of my saves and had periodic lag). I don't even think the gold-linking "spam" everyone seems to have gripes with was even that problematic, as you could always parry/windfall out of a move eventually. Or hell, push back with shockwave and try again. Or earthquake, or ANY of the power abilities. The only ability that seemed under powered was absorb, which makes sense as its (at least in theory) the lowest skilled ability.
On top of that, players combat decks ARE the combat and a reflection of the players skill. A player that incorporates alternating left and right attacks with hay makers and sweeps is objectively better than a player that spams forward punches. So when you say you play to fight players and not decks, frankly I think you fundamentally miss the point of this game and what it's trying to do. If I wanted to have combat focusing on spacing and 2-3 hit combos I'd go back to dark souls. That's not what Absolver was, that's not what it was trying to be, and in my opinion that's not what it should try to be.
You have your right to an opinion, but as of right now this is NOT the game I bought.
But I will also say I have not had much problem with the new changes made. Often times those who are constantly dodging away always do it at the same time so its not to hard to predict and parry etc them when they go for the counter.
As I said in my previous post, I agree that the iframes are problematic; I think any amount of invincibility is unnecessary and detracts from the realism of the combat. But what ALSO distracts from the realism is the idea that smashing through a dynamic deck makes a player "objectively better". Anybody with a few hours of experience can hand-pick all the OP moves and trudge them with mindless efficiency, but that's boring and hardly makes them "better". If it were really just a battle of decks, then it might as well be a card game.
What in your opinion are OP moves? In my experience, every move in the game can already be countered with existing options, the one exception maybe being kahlt. The combat decks are what makes the combat unique, if you get strung along for long combos then you are failing to execute a parry/avoid successfully