I've always had a love-hate relationship with AoC. On one side it had the best combat system of all games I've ever played. On the other hand I was always looking for a better game that doesn't have rangers, necros, demos in pvp etc. Plenty games in the past like Rift, Tera, GW2, TESO, Black Desert and whatever else still couldn't compete with aoc's melee combat system. For me this changed last week with the the release of For Honor. Imho that combat system is just awesome and so much better than aoc.
Downside is the p2p system. It's not a 2p2 system where one player is the host and gets the advantage of zero latency. Everybody is his own host. Nevertheless for me it is still an improvement compared to aoc. A dedicated server in USA is way more worse than a p2p system in europe for my personal situation. For others it might differ. Ubisoft's forum is full of complaints and many people seem to have problems. I have (almost) zero problems at all. I find matches very fast. I have never experienced lag. Only issue there is when someone else rage quits in a match there is a small game freeze for all players when that player gets replaced by another player or a bot.
The bots in for honor are extremely good. I can beat level 1 bots reliable and level 2 bots are a real challenge for me with a 60:40% win rate in my favour but I improve. People on forum say the level 3 bot is probably better than 95% of all players. The really good players can win vs a level 3 bot, I have seen it on youtube. I have lots of fun just fighting bots to learn the combat system. I still suck at this game. Great practice before you join pvp.
Despite all the bots and a good pve storyline that lasts a few hours, For Honor is a pure pvp game. No raids, no dungeons, nothing, not even a decent chat system. In 1 vs 1 and 2 vs 2 gear is disabled. In 4 vs 4 you can use gear but a skilled player with zero gear at all still will win easily vs a maxed geared player. It's all skill based.
I do not think for honor is a competition for aoc. AoC got the pve and majority of players will stay here. For the small fraction of pvpers in aoc who love to play melee combat instead of ranged classes imho for honor is the better game, though.
For those who never heard about this game I recommend to check out twitch first. There are plenty people streaming.
For a first look here is a link to a youtube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HzSAH2vkeYI