Test Discussion PvP Adjustments - 01/22/2016

I can't wait to test this. Thank you .

I personally feel that the screenblocking issue has been WAY overstated. I'm not a fan of it myself, but it was never screenblocking that competitive teams took issue with. It was being able to get blue immunities from screenblocking. The tap change is completely unnecessary and is a significant change to the combat mechanics of the game.

Perfect. This works for us. Thanks.

Thank you, even if it wasn't the change we were hoping for this should at least slightly alleviate the current issue of screenblocking in our scrims.

I'll definitely be testing this out as much as possible through the weekend.

Excellent choices guys, looking forward to getting my hands on this update!

It might have helped 4v4 and 5v5, but i see this making duels and 2v2 worse, which a bulk of the community play. Never understood why all weapons coukdn't have an aoe bb

A couple of points regarding the change to tap count for counter:

1. Just as melee taps were blockable after 3 hits, ranged taps are interruptable after 3 hits. I believe this was a source of balance between the two, and it might need addressing. (Possibly by making ranged tap count go up to 5 as well before they are interruptable)

2. This change will vastly affect weapons with faster melee tap animations, or animations that change drastically as taps continue (Dovetails)
For example:
HB - first two taps are fluent, third has a very long dovetail.
2H - all taps are the same without any dovetail. (If not specced into a certain combo)
1H - all taps are the same without any dovetail. (if not specced into a certain combo)
MA - 5th tap dovetail
DP - first two taps are fluent, third has a very long dovetail.
Brawling - no dovetails
Etc..

(If anyone is wondering why this matters, it affects baiting and mind games.. which are a big part of PvP)

From a 1v1 perspective:
To me it seems like Weapons were pretty much made around the 3 tap to a counter method, most will be completely out of rhythm without it.
And if damage on all of them really will be equalized, introduced single target options and such, it would mean no one would ever choose a weapon with a dovetail.. it'll just be a big disadvantage.

These points are less about 4v4 and 5v5 scrims, where neither will be felt as strongly, I don't believe anyway..
I'll wait and see how the testing goes and do some tests myself.

Edit: Oh! and will these updates affect Legends?
Are legends going to be working under the same 5 taps to a counter method?

Thank you for all the hard work !

In my head..this plays out at being a really bad thing for people who enjoy duels/2s..We'll test it to the fullest and see how it plays out though.

Don't turtle :3

To be perfectly honest, if they are holding block that long, they should be block broken. If you don't block break them, that's your own fault.

From a more objective view, combos that take more than 3 taps are easily interrupted by crowd control.

I'm predicting a severe unbalancing and damage to the mechanics with this change to melee taps.

He's saying it takes away from the reason you should block to begin with, try and imagine the amount of space you get to work with now that you can 5 tap before a counter.

Commitment as a whole will change.
I'm not going to say this is drastic and game breaking before I test it, but it does seem like it has the potential to.

I'm looking at it as making people block on combos only. Instead of blocking repeatedly trying to get the 3 tap counter, you'll have to predict when they finish combos. The worst someone can do with this is just keep tapping melee and then just tap range when someone blocks and go back to tapping melee.

Not taking away the hard work the testers put in, but i seeva lot of changes happening when the pvp update hit live. A lot of players will enjoy most of the changes though

I think this change is big enough to warrant testing with every single weapon in a 1v1 and 2v2 situation.

Until everything is tested I'm not going to claim I know whether this is bad, good, or irrelevant..

You guys should be blocking holds for counter efficiency. If you hold block for the length of 3 taps in a non-group scenario you are bad. This doesn't imbalance the game at all. It just makes spamming block less effective with more skill requirement in regards to timing.

Either way, I'd recommend testing over thinking about it.

Well I'll be on for 1v1's all today, I'll be testing everything. I'll just be popping in once every hour to see when test server is up and then I'll prob stay on it for the rest of the night.

I'm not trying to take anything away from them either, but the fact is that competitive teams on console have been dealing with screenblocking with no aoe bb being used (HB was never a preferred weapon) for the better part of three years and it was never the issue it has been played up to be. Teams adapted and dealt with screenblock abuse. The only issue involving screenblocking has been the screenblocker getting blue immunities from the counter.