I'm a bloodborne multi-tournament champion. Here's what I think of i-frames.
Guys I know. It's really annoying to deal with foot shuffling. But this is a good thing in alot of ways. It provides a semi-reasonable out for players out of stamina and also adds to the flow of combat by requiring more awareness of your surroundings.
In bloodborne at high level we were reaching damage levels between 700 and 1000 and only had health bars about twice the size of ours. You could die in two or three hits. Our only real defense was parrying and dodging. Thus dodging was the main way we protected ourselves from everything.
Applying this knowledge to agressive styles in absolver allows you to react to the i frames as you wish, countering people by having a mastery of the dodge handy to slide right up into them and pressure it up. I feel it really adds something to the combat that wasn't there before. Maybe try incorporating the dodge more and seeing how different things are affected by it, you may discover things about it that are useful in a myriad of ways.
My point is, don't go on a nerf hunt just yet... It may not be so bad.
But then again I'm a bloodborne player. So this system benefits me especially.
In bloodborne at high level we were reaching damage levels between 700 and 1000 and only had health bars about twice the size of ours. You could die in two or three hits. Our only real defense was parrying and dodging. Thus dodging was the main way we protected ourselves from everything.
Applying this knowledge to agressive styles in absolver allows you to react to the i frames as you wish, countering people by having a mastery of the dodge handy to slide right up into them and pressure it up. I feel it really adds something to the combat that wasn't there before. Maybe try incorporating the dodge more and seeing how different things are affected by it, you may discover things about it that are useful in a myriad of ways.
My point is, don't go on a nerf hunt just yet... It may not be so bad.
But then again I'm a bloodborne player. So this system benefits me especially.
Comments
While I enjoy your roleplay posts and think you bring up some good points, a lot of Absolver community has it's roots in Souls games, and that's exactly the problem, we understand that. You are right, the new dodge iframes are good, but not in the context of Absolver.
As you do not get 3 shot in Absolver, but slowly whittled down, an easily accessible invincibility is not needed like in a game where you do get destroyed by every hit. The change makes it the best defensive option, thus the most used option, detracting from the use of style abilities.
You are right, it adds something, but takes out a hell of a lot more and anyone that wants Souls combat, has Souls for just that.
Its much more twitch / poke based which is fine because as you said combat can be finished in just a few hits. This applied to absolver just means matches would be very long and tedious and in my opinion not be very representative of the kung-fu movies this game is so obviously inspired by. The game played amazingly pre iframes on dodge, there were some slight imbalances to styles but these were quiet minor (parry being a clear winner).
The gold chain jab spam that was quickly called out as too strong soon faded away as people found the counters. In its current state the game feels nothing like it did. It's much slower and it's all turtling/dodge/poking now. Which I find boring and nothing like the source material I believe sloclap were trying to lovingly emulate.
Iframes on dodge was a definite miss, everything else is probably to early to tell.
Also it feels like all animations have been slowed down? Is this true? Its hard to tell but it feels like I'm underwater.
which has inadvertently made parrying even stronger, now it can be done on reaction, this tool should only be on prediction (much more interesting and balanced)
Had it right the first time sloclap please revert the changes I've referenced. I would suggest when applying balance to a fighting game you need more time for the game to breath between tweaks so people can learn the game before you can know what really does need changing.
This is a great game fundamentally, I absolutely love the concept and its originality. It made me feel like I'm playing all those old kung-fu movies I used to watch with my dad when I was only small. I really want it to succeed. This is just my opinion of course, I've been playing fighting games as long as I can remember at a semi competitive level as a bit of context. I'm certainly no pro, just saying that I would like to think I have some understanding on the more complex mechanisms at work.
Now, the new "mechanic" is to leap away from every heavy attack in a combo. So, if you enjoyed the combat before, it's not the same, at all. The gameplay has been flipped on its head. It used to be that you could trap people with an interesting combo (that you made, yourself, creating your very own custom fighter, which was the biggest draw of the game), and when they tried to move at the wrong time, they would be hit by the heavies. Now, people can hop away if they mistimed their movement or attacks, eschewing the need to use any class specials, at all. This subverts the very foundation of the game.
This game was a pretty heavy addiction for me for the last few weeks. Since "hopping like a bunny" is the new paradigm, that's not a mechanic I want to learn. I'll be checking back at the next patch, but if this stays in, RIP Absolver.
My point was in less vague words that once you are good with the dodge system the changes start to integrate well into the game. Especially environmentally.
As it is, I did put down the game. If they do not back track on the dodge, I'm not coming back. I cannot even log in and play a match or two before going to work, because it has become most likely that I won't be able to finish it, so long it takes to complete one. Not to mention I find it boring. Ironically, I am winning more with this new dodge than I was pre-patch. But I don't really want to win, I want to have fun, and as it is, I'm going back to dark souls. Because as far as I frames are concerned, Dark souls is the king
I love that in Absolver you have to dodge according to the direction of the attack, to actually get away, to dodge for real; instead of just turning into a freaking ghost, blatantly going through the attack, like SoulsBorne.
I actually didn't even know there were 2 i-frames, before the patch... and assumed that the side step worked against horizontals by actually evading the hit box. Considering with have ducking and jumping moves, to deal with horizontals... not to mention charged attacks, I really think the buff to the i-frames (for 4 frames) wasn't necessary. I wonder if they were trying to compensate for poor connectivity. But I heard that in good connectivity matches, players are kind of exploitong the dodge, because it's so easy, now. They even prefer tod efend first, instead of prefering to be on the offense, as it was supposed to be the case in Absolver.
I'm not against the old 2-frames, specially to give Khalt a chance against strings of fast horizontals, after he absorbs one (and ins't in a stance that pffers a proper defensive strike). But more than this is overkill. People should use specific defenses instead.
While I understand it may be REALLY hard to believe that someone who plays video games alot, works in video games for some weird reason (crazy right?), I don't understand the point of outing something you can't confirm.
Beyond that tiny hiccup you are right, it ended up making this game less enjoyable for what it was, and I found only people who were playing to exploit it were winning. I'm ultimately glad it was changed back.