So the honeymoon period has worn off and I am now seeing the flaws of the current game design from my experiences with more experienced players.
Defense right now is WAY out of whack relative to offense. Between parries, dodges, deflects, regular blocking, guard break interrupts, and even revenge mode, there are simply too many effective ways to defend and not enough ways to open up an opponent. There's a whole thread on the official forums dedicated
to pointing out this exact problem.
Frankly, I think every defensive option should see some kind of nerf. Sitting around waiting for an opportunity to parry or deflect an attack should not be something that's encouraged. It should not be possible for someone to turtle so well that they are 100% invulnerable to everything you can throw at them. The game's already becoming quite stale at higher level play just because of how much you have to try to force the opponent to do
something that you can work on, and even then, if the opponent just doesn't take the bait, there is literally nothing you can do to make them vulnerable.
Game clearly needs work on a basic and fundamental level. I hope Ubisoft is willing to put in the work to fix these issues well before they introduce a ranked mode or whatever. I've enjoyed the time I put in, but if all I have to look forward to is more and more turtling, my logged time is just going to keep on shrinking.