Impressions of For Honor

This weekend there was a Beta for For Honor and since it is a game that looked pretty interesting from E3 I decided to give it a go. When I first saw For Honor I was immediately drawn to it. I mean knights, vikings ,and my personal choice samurai doing battle seems like a perfect fit for a guy who has read 3 books on Musashi. These were real books to not graphic novels so yea I am a fan of this stuff. The combat is simple enough to draw you in with attacks coming from either side or over the top and blocking being done the same way. You get an indicator of where your opponent will go for so you can defend and attack with either a light or strong attack of your own. This game has been set up non-ironically to be all about honor and the one on one duels as you capture and defend set points. When you destroy a group of enemy A.I. soldiers (which you will do very easily) and get to the enemy point and have to methodically attack and defend against another play the game is at its best. The problem is that doesn't happen as much as it should. The majority of battles were a 2 on 1 in which case see ya or if you had the advantage the enemy will run back to get a health at their point or lead you to a few of their buddies. Which in a game makes sense but it seems like the developers really expected this game to be played with honor to a point that people will look to challenge each other one on one or if there is a number advantage to wait until the duel is finished then step in to fight the victor but not to gang up on the other players. That will never happen. People are pretty awful and any time you are playing online against people there will be a nonstop group of trolls and people just looking to be dicks and this game was  full of that at least in the beta. There is a Revenge mechanic that seems to be the developers admitting that you will indeed be gang banged often (you know when a gang of vikings would bangs their swords on their shields in battle yea that's where the term comes from... fun fact to tell your friends). It is helpful but still just seems to be a way of the game to say "saw you got destroyed there so here is a chance to feel good for a few seconds. For Honor is a cool way to try a multiplayer experience but as with soo many rad ideas it seems people might just be the worst and end up ruining it. Hopefully things will be tinkered with and fixed much like how The Division had updates to help make the dark zone bearable.  I enjoyed the combat and the idea enough that I am still interested but it want be a day one buy for me. I will let it go for a bit and see how the community develops a bit before i fully jump in. For Honor releases on February 14 if you want to check it out yourself and if you haven't seen it yet here is a gameplay clip.