Over the last few weeks, players of Ubisoft's newest third-person brawler, For Honor, have been attempting to get their voices heard regarding what they believe is the developer's complete lack of regard for the game's fanbase. This eventually led to a complete boycott of the game being planned for early April - though perhaps the new changes proposed by Ubisoft will be enough to keep the players online.
A new post on the Ubisoft blog detailed the changes that the company is making to the game starting today. First and foremost, all Steel income from matches is now increased by 25%. Furthermore, the Steel income from Daily Orders has been increased by 33% and Side Orders now give an additional 50% extra Steel. All Community Orders will also increase Steel generation in For Honor from 500-1000 to 2000.
The blog post estimates that these changes could see For Honor players raising their daily income by as much as 45% in the first two hours. The slow rate in which players gain the Steel currency has been a big part of the online complaints, as it encourages heavy use of microtransactions, and Ubisoft claims to be looking into more changes in the future.
The new Elite Outfits releases that had also been delayed are now available in the store. The developer claims that the releases were delayed to ensure that more players would have the chance to unlock the outfits before any new content is added to the game.
Fixes are also coming soon, in an update that aims to tackle For Honor's unbalanced gear stats. Many boosts received by gear are seen as far too strong, especially those tied to the game's powerful rage mechanic, and this made the game very one-sided in matchmaking. Ubisoft has announced that it will be sharing patch information next week, but that both balance and unfair matchmaking issues will be targeted in the update.
A letter from Stéphane Cardin, producer of For Honor, was included in the blog post, and offers an insight into Ubisoft's current developments. The producer claims that the development team is hard at work, stabilizing the game experience both in connectivity and much-needed hero balance. The maps that were removed will also be returning after much testing has identified the issues with desyncing. River Fort is already making its return today, after much testing.
Finally, all players will be receiving a three-day Champion Status as an apology for an outage that took place on Tuesday. Any Faction War rewards that were impacted by the down time are also being investigated.
It certainly seems like a step in the right direction for Ubisoft, but only time will tell if the changes are enough to bring back some of For Honor's dwindling playerbase. At the very least, it should be able to stop the fans from boycotting.
For Honor is out now for PC, PS4, and Xbox One.
Source: Ubisoft