After launching For Honor, we received a lot of feedback from the community regarding the Gear Stats. People like the concept, however some builds were perceived as unbalanced (like the Revenge one that we addressed during Season 1) and the stats globally had too much of an impact on the outcome of matches. This, in turn, made the switch to new Heroes quite difficult (learning the Hero being already a challenge in a PvP environment) and would sometimes favor a player’s stats over their skills.
So we went back to the drawing board and decided to aim for a big revamp for Season 2. These are the objective we’ve set to ourselves for the revamp:
1. Reduce the gap between high and low level gear
- Rebalance the Stats and Builds
- Tone down builds that are too powerful
- Address stats that are not useful or dominated by other stats on the same slot
- Have more meaningful builds
2. Have more Stat bundle variety
3. Show the stats values
4. Introduce a new Epic Rarity
1 - Reduce the gap between high and low level gear
One of the biggest thing we wanted to change is to lower the gap between no gear/ low level gear and high level gear. To do so, we’ve made several changes.
First change was to add a small stats bonus directly on the default gear, to allow players trying new heroes without unlocking them while still being somehow competitive.
Second thing we’ve done is to empower the low level Gear. The Common Rarity statistics now start at higher values than before. Moreover, as you can see in the intention graphic below, the stats increases are faster for lower rarities than higher ones.
This way, players can catch up more quickly when they start playing new heroes and upgrading Gear becomes interesting again even on lower rarities.
Our third update was directly on the stats themselves. Now all penalties have been increased so that there is real commitment on the choice players are making.
Because of that, we’ve also decided to introduce a new type of stat bundle that has no penalties but only small bonuses. This way, players that don’t want to change the Hero playstyle with different Statistics values can keep their initial balance.
2 - Rebalance Builds & Stats
Another aspect that we’ve updated greatly are the stats and builds themselves.
First, we’ve decided to remove some stats:
- Block Damage Resistance and Feat Cooldown had very low pick rate and win/loss ratios.
- Throw Distance and Sprint Speed had low win/loss ratios and contributed to undesired behavior like running away or enforcing defensive meta
We also wanted to reduce the amount of statistics related to Revenge mode. So we’ve merged Revenge gain by defense and Revenge gain by injury into Revenge gain.
Another big change is the introduction of a new statistic: the Defense Penetration, to help addressing the gap between low and high level gear. The Defense Penetration decreases the opponent’s Defense Stat.
For example, if an opponent has 20% Defense, it would take 20% less damage from any hits. But with a 15% Defense Penetration stat, it would be reduced to 5% less damage from your hits.
So in the end, it’s a good counter to high level Gear without unbalancing low level attack. Also this stats, starts at a higher value to be really impactful against high level heroes from the start.
We’ve decided as well to split and spread the Attack statistic on each Weapon part and the Defense statistic on each Armor part. Thus creating more interesting builds with real trade-offs. Will you boost everywhere your Defense at the cost of your Stamina management and Revenge duration for example? Or will you prefer to have a more balanced build? Now, you have more interesting decisions to make.
This also allowed us to tweak the other paired stats into more interesting choices:
- Revenge Gained VS Revenge Mode Attack
- Revenge Mode Duration VS Revenge Mode Defense
- Defense Penetration VS Block Damage
You can see the final result in the scheme below.
3 - Show the stats values
One of the big request we’ve got from the community is to display the values of the statistics improvements. As you can see in the screenshot below, you’ll now see directly the values in the interface with the percentage of each value.
To do that, we had to remove the gauges that were pretty good at showing relative strengths and weaknesses of the gear. So to help gear choice at a glance, we’ve also added comparison arrows on the right of the each stat value.
4 - Introduce a new Epic Rarity
To bring back interest into the Gear progression, we wanted to add a new Gear rarity called “Epic”.
This new rarity is coming with 4 full Weapon visuals and 2 full Armor visuals per Hero. You can see some examples below.
To introduce this new rarity we’ve updated the Looting rules. We’ve reduced the amount of levels at which could be looted Rare and Heroic Gear. And now starting Reputation 5, you’ll have a chance to loot Epic rarity Gear.
We’ve reviewed as well the Crafting costs (Steel and Salvage) and gains (Salvage by dismantling). Now it’s easier and cheaper to craft early gear and the progression will follow a smoother curve while keeping the higher level gear a long term goal for high level players (and a good way to spend that extra Salvage you’ve earned during Season 1).
To encourage player starting new heroes or reaching that Reputation 5 for the more casuals, we’ve also decided to increase permanently the XP received in end match by 25%!
And lastly, we wanted to give all players a Head Start Pack composed of 4 Scavenger Crates, and 12 Days of Champion Status.
Because we are removing some of the Season 1 Gear Stats and replacing them with new ones, it’s possible you’ll begin Season 2 with a new build that you’re not entirely interested in. The 4 Scavenger Crates will allow those players not pleased with their new build to change it right away. Or players will be able to use those to start a new Hero and experiment the new Common statistics values. Or maybe keep them to start looting Epic gear at Reputation 5?
The 12 Days of Champion Status will help players reach faster this reputation 5 milestone for those who are not there yet. Or maybe a good reason to start a new hero? Like the Centurion or Shinobi for example?