cRPG

cRPG => Suggestions Corner => Topic started by: Jona on January 17, 2018, 06:45:52 pm

Title: Shield Rebalancing
Post by: Jona on January 17, 2018, 06:45:52 pm

In the past few weeks (and let's be real, for all of crpg's history) there has been a lot of talk about ranged balance, and naturally their perceived counter, shields, were mentioned several times. I too am in agreement with many who say a good starting point to balancing ranged would be to re-examine shield balance, since imo shields have always been gimped. They provide no advantages other than the abiltiy to block ranged (no small advantage, mind you), however they come with many drawbacks. Here are my suggestions for how to make them more accessible to everyone, and also less of a burden for those that choose to bring them. Note: I'm not advocating all of the following suggestions should be implemented at once, but even then, I don't foresee shields being completely OP.


1. Remove a shield's effective weight (when it is carried on your back)

• One of the major drawbacks from taking a shield into battle is that even when it is not in use, it is severely hampering your movement speed. As it stands, carrying a shield into battle is like carrying an extra set of mail armor in your pocket. Now, we obviously have more ridiculous weights in the game, such as those of certain ranged weps, however that is in place for balance reasons. Are we really concerned with people running around at their maximum potential speed when their shield is unusable? Honestly, there is even an argument to be had to remove a shield's impact on movement even when it is on your arm, with only blocking slowing you down (although this admittedly may be pushing it a little).
• Carrying a shield on your back is bad enough as it is since depending on the size of the shield, they can severely hamper your vision, thus having a negative effect on your combat ability. This hindrance is not accounted for in any stat on the website or in-game, as it is merely visual. If we expect people, even 2handers and polearmers, to carry shields into battle when they have no intention of using it in melee, we shouldn't make it feel so bad to simply carry around. Having both a deduction in movement speed and field of view is honestly too much for something that you currently aren't even benefiting from, hence why dropping it is far more likely to happen. Imo, we should never be encouraged to outright drop a part of our toolkit when there are other options available. Previous devs even made a quick-drop function for shields because this was more likely than people simply sheathing them.
• Proposed Alternatives: Severely reduce the weight of shields when sheathed instead of removing their weight entirely, or severely lower shield weight across the board if it is possible to rework the crushthrough mechanic. As it stands, the heavier the shield the more resistant to crushthrough it is, but obviously that increased weight comes at a huge price (especially when having a lighter shield simply lets you outmaneuver a maul swing much easier).
• "But muh realism" counter-argument: Carrying things on your back/close to your center of gravity is the best place to put them to them in order to shrug off much of the added weight. Since sheathed shields are attached by straps across your shoulders, they realistically shouldn't be slowing you down much at all in this position.

2. Remove/severely buff shield speed

• I suppose that the initial thought behind balancing shields was that since they block all directions at once, there should be some drawback to using them (other than the less-than-obvious-to-a-filthy-casual movement penalty), so the devs made shields much slower to block with than any weapon. Assuming you could stomach the movement nerf a shield gives you, this has always been the second biggest thing that made using a shield in melee unappealing. When everything else about melee combat is smooth and fluid, shield blocking has always felt unnecessarily sluggish and gimped.
• Using a shield in melee shouldn't detract from your ability to block things, quite the opposite in fact. As it stands, the lag between hitting RMB and actually blocking is so bad with some shields that I'd prefer losing the ability to block all melee directions at once and instead manually block each direction if I could have melee-weapon-block-speed. Sure, having yet another stat to differentiate between shields is nice, I guess, but the very premise behind it is just bad. Even with a decent connection to the servers, I've had more "wtf I totally blocked that!" moments when using a shield than with any melee weapon, even the slowest ones. And that can't be helped, given that there is a "block startup time" on shields that isn't present on weapons. This problem is only exacerbated by the delay between what I see and what the servers sees (understandable), and the fact that the "blocking window" doesn't always line up with the shield-blocking animation.
• To those thinking that shields deserve to be slower at blocking because they allow you to 1 v. many with "relative ease," let me remind you that shields break, leaving you character staggering for a moment, and it's something that melee weapons never do. If people are concerned with shields becoming too similar with the removal of a speed stat, that's fair, although imo shields being selected based on their hp, armor, and shape (read: ranged-blocking effectiveness) should be enough. Let's not forget the most important factor of all when selecting a shield: its looks.
  
• Proposed Alternatives: If you aren't content with making all shields block as quickly as melee weapons, at least buff shield speed on every shield by a significant percent.
• "But muh realism" counter-argument: If you're thinking "this argument is stupid, how can I block as quickly with a big heavy steel shield as I could a tiny little 1hander?" well, you're dumb, 'nuff said. Irl, you don't drop your guard and let your shield fall to your side uselessly every time you make an attack. You can attack and block at the same time when using a shield, something that would obviously be OP and is therefore not present in the game. That said, blocking with a shield irl is in many cases faster than switching your weapon from an attacking to a blocking position, and therefore in-game it should be at least as fast.

3. Remove shield difficulty and increase shield skill effectiveness

• Apart from all the above drawbacks to bringing a shield into battle, perhaps the one that turns off the most players is that you need to dedicate points to do so. Just like you can spec your character to be a polearmer, but still carry a 1h or 2h into battle, I think the same should be true of shields. Let anyone have access to them, but let those that want to be a shield specialist stand out. This can be done by reducing shield stats across the board and simultaneously buffing shield skill, so that it would be something as effective and necessary as powerstrike is for melee builds. Sure, you physically can fight with a melee weapon with 0 PS, but it is highly inadvisable. Let that be true for shields as well... replace their shield skill requirement with a strength requirement, and make shield skill actually do something.
• If you don't remove or lower shield requirements, how are you ever going to really encourage people to "get a shield?"
  
• Proposed Alternatives: Reduce shield requirements across the board, giving people plenty of decent options with only 0-2 shield skill.
• "But muh realism" counter-argument: It doesn't really take special training to duck behind a piece of wood when you see bows pointed your way...

4. Add slots for shields to the website

• Let us know what we're getting into before we buy something and get in-game only to find out it won't work out.
• Please and thank you.

Let me know what you think about my suggestions in the comments below, and don't forget to like and subscribe to see more of my future content.

Title: Re: Shield Rebalancing
Post by: Nehvar on January 17, 2018, 07:10:08 pm

I've played a mod or two where a shield on your back will stop projectiles that connect with it** (I don't think it gets the "forcefield" while on the back but I could be wrong).  I think that adding this functionality to cRPG shields would be a nice addition to the game.


**does not affect melee attacks from the back just to be clear.

Title: Re: Shield Rebalancing
Post by: Jona on January 17, 2018, 07:20:44 pm

Quote from: Nehvar on January 17, 2018, 07:10:08 pm

I've played a mod or two where a shield on your back will stop projectiles that connect with it** (I don't think it gets the "forcefield" while on the back but I could be wrong).  I think that adding this functionality to cRPG shields would be a nice addition to the game.


**does not affect melee attacks from the back just to be clear.

I've heard rumors of there being something similar in crpg where the shield's armor value was added to your body armor, but only in a rather small area on your back (not even the entire area it covers in the case of larger shields). So in other words you'll still get hit, it just won't hurt as much. And no one really knows where exactly the on your back is considered covered. Would definitely be cool if the shield simply remained "active" against projectiles when on your back, similar to how it still blocks projectiles when you're holding it, but not blocking (although it is hella annoying how this stuns you for a brief moment).

Title: Re: Shield Rebalancing
Post by: Gravoth_iii on January 17, 2018, 08:37:24 pm

Agreed, and i think point 1 could be a global thing. Anything carried on the back could be set to 0 weight and i think it would only make for interesting playstyles.

Title: Re: Shield Rebalancing
Post by: Umbra on January 17, 2018, 09:57:33 pm

Quote from: Nehvar on January 17, 2018, 07:10:08 pm

I've played a mod or two where a shield on your back will stop projectiles that connect with it** (I don't think it gets the "forcefield" while on the back but I could be wrong).  I think that adding this functionality to cRPG shields would be a nice addition to the game.


**does not affect melee attacks from the back just to be clear.

This is currently irrelevant because a shield on your back slows you down by a lot.

Title: Re: Shield Rebalancing
Post by: Jona on January 17, 2018, 10:12:25 pm

Quote from: Gravoth_iii on January 17, 2018, 08:37:24 pm

Agreed, and i think point 1 could be a global thing. Anything carried on the back could be set to 0 weight and i think it would only make for interesting playstyles.

I don't disagree, but I also don't want to bother thinking about the possible ramifications this could have on kiting ranged. Should there be no disadvantage for carrying a crossbow into battle? Idk, maybe. But that's a topic for another day, and another thread.

Title: Re: Shield Rebalancing
Post by: PoisonedTail on January 18, 2018, 05:49:26 pm

If you are using shields to duel, you are doing it wrong. Shields should be used to block arrows and attack in group fights safely. Tito (a shielder) has been dominating the scoreboards in strat. No one can even come close to the amount of points he gets. It all depends on the player behind the shield. They are perfectly viable.

Title: Re: Shield Rebalancing
Post by: Jona on January 19, 2018, 06:20:47 pm

Quote from: PoisonedTail on January 18, 2018, 05:49:26 pm

It all depends on the player behind the shield.

Yeah, uh, duh. Same goes for every class. You could hand pick several top players and use them as an example as to why X class is balanced or OP, but you'd be wrong in doing so. Likewise, you could point at a few below-average players for the same classes and make the flawed argument that the class must be weak since they're at the bottom of the scoreboard. No point in citing one specific example in a matter like this.

Quote from: PoisonedTail on January 18, 2018, 05:49:26 pm

They are perfectly viable.

Not saying they aren't. Sure, they block projectiles, but beyond that they are pretty useless. The purpose of this post is to encourage more players to bring them along by making them more appealing to use, instead of having only one function while weakening your other combat abilities. If shields could do more than simply block ranged attacks, then we might see more people start to use them. At the very  least, they shouldn't detract so much from your other abilities, such as your running speed when they aren't even in use. The objective of this thread isn't to get shields buffed, per se, but rather to give players more of a reason to bring them along and spec their builds to do so.

Quote from: PoisonedTail on January 18, 2018, 05:49:26 pm

If you are using shields to duel, you are doing it wrong.

Agree to disagree, then. As of now shields are definitely a hindrance in duels, but there really isn't any reason why they should remain to be. It kinda hurts your argument that you point out how a player is good with shields so therefore they must be balanced, but if he sheathes his shield whenever he duels, is he really even a shielder? Or is he just a swashbuckler that hides behind a piece of wood when the arrows start raining down on him?

Title: Re: Shield Rebalancing
Post by: PoisonedTail on January 19, 2018, 10:35:10 pm

Quote from: Jona on January 19, 2018, 06:20:47 pm

Not saying they aren't. Sure, they block projectiles, but beyond that they are pretty useless. The purpose of this post is to encourage more players to bring them along by making them more appealing to use, instead of having only one function while weakening your other combat abilities. If shields could do more than simply block ranged attacks, then we might see more people start to use them. At the very  least, they shouldn't detract so much from your other abilities, such as your running speed when they aren't even in use. The objective of this thread isn't to get shields buffed, per se, but rather to give players more of a reason to bring them along and spec their builds to do so.

For the life of me I cannot understand why you think shields are useless besides blocking ranged attacks. You forget the most important part, they grant your character AUTO BLOCK. There are times I wish I were a shielder when fighting more than one player. As a 2 hander, it is very difficult to block two different directional attacks at once. Whereas a shield can absorb all the blows. Shields should not be amazing in every situation like you want them to be. They are god tier in team fights. Why should they be great in dueling as well?

Title: Re: Shield Rebalancing
Post by: Jona on January 19, 2018, 11:24:10 pm

Quote from: PoisonedTail on January 19, 2018, 10:35:10 pm

For the life of me I cannot understand why you think shields are useless besides blocking ranged attacks. You forget the most important part, they grant your character AUTO BLOCK. There are times I wish I were a shielder when fighting more than one player. As a 2 hander, it is very difficult to block two different directional attacks at once. Whereas a shield can absorb all the blows. Shields should not be amazing in every situation like you want them to be. They are god tier in team fights. Why should they be great in dueling as well?

As a non-shielder, you greatly over-estimate the efficacy of shields in group fights. I'd rather have snappy manual blocking over the laggy 'autoblocking' that shields provide, not to mention unencumbered movement that allows me to simply outmaneuver my foes rather than having to worry about blocking every single hit. Once again, you don't seem to get the point of this thread, which is to remove just one or maybe a couple of their hindrances in the hopes of encouraging more people to bring them along to combat the supposed ranged spam that the servers are full of.

Title: Re: Shield Rebalancing
Post by: Gravoth_iii on January 20, 2018, 12:10:17 am

Indeed the only reason to really use a shield in melee is to counter ranged, or possibly to counter blockstuns as a 1h. I suppose as hoplite for the animation but in general it would be better to just get a longspear or similar. It simply is too much of a burden weight wise where maneuverability is key. I'd still always bring a shield in the current game though because it negates ranged well enough, but it does have that burdening feeling that just isnt very enjoyable, and also doesnt feel needed in a game where ranged is so hated that buffing counters to it wouldnt really bother anyone.

Title: Re: Shield Rebalancing
Post by: Jona on January 22, 2018, 11:39:48 pm

Bump

Title: Re: Shield Rebalancing
Post by: gallonigher on January 22, 2018, 11:45:51 pm

I'm not voting until you come back to cRPG.

(click to show/hide)

:D

Title: Re: Shield Rebalancing
Post by: Tristan_of_Erzoth on January 23, 2018, 12:18:09 am

Quote from: Jona on January 22, 2018, 11:39:48 pm

Bump

shields got a buff in the most recent patch in terms of availability. -1 to all shield difficulties

Title: Re: Shield Rebalancing
Post by: Jona on January 23, 2018, 12:26:20 am

Quote from: Tristan_of_Erzoth on January 23, 2018, 12:18:09 am

shields got a buff in the most recent patch in terms of availability. -1 to all shield difficulties

Yep, hence why I bumped this. Need less encumbrance.  :twisted:

Quote from: gallonigher on January 22, 2018, 11:45:51 pm

I'm not voting until you come back to cRPG.

(click to show/hide)

:D

Miss you too  bb. <3

Title: Re: Shield Rebalancing
Post by: Taser on January 23, 2018, 12:47:37 am

Quote from: gallonigher on January 22, 2018, 11:45:51 pm

I'm not voting until you come back to cRPG.

(click to show/hide)

:D

This for me too. I mean Almerra got attacked.. where were you Jona? Where were you when Sargoth fell? Where were you when the Westfold fell? Where were you when our enemies closed in around us?

Title: Re: Shield Rebalancing
Post by: gallonigher on January 23, 2018, 12:53:40 am

I haven't seen a HoC banner in far too long.

Title: Re: Shield Rebalancing
Post by: Jona on January 23, 2018, 02:49:17 am

Quote from: Taser on January 23, 2018, 12:47:37 am

This for me too. I mean Almerra got attacked.. where were you Jona? Where were you when Sargoth fell? Where were you when the Westfold fell? Where were you when our enemies closed in around us?

Yeah, I literally would have reinstalled if I could have made the Almerra siege. Alas, it was on a weekend whilst I was preoccupied. A real bummer as I'm sure it woulda been fun to kick the plebs out of our courtyard again. And don't get me started on that Sargoth business. Crpg + strat are dead for months, I do my monthly routine checkup on the website and 1 of the ~3 battles that have successfully gone through in months of inactivity just so happened to be the loss of my fief. Riperoni all of HoCs strat ventures.  :evil:

Quote from: gallonigher on January 23, 2018, 12:53:40 am

I haven't seen a HoC banner in far too long.

I suppose that too is my fault, as there HAVE been a few of us playing, just under a different banner I suppose. I kinda ran out of money renewing our banner slot for over a year while not playing.  :?

Title: Re: Shield Rebalancing
Post by: Taser on January 23, 2018, 04:56:51 am

Quote from: Jona on January 23, 2018, 02:49:17 am

Yeah, I literally would have reinstalled if I could have made the Almerra siege. Alas, it was on a weekend whilst I was preoccupied. A real bummer as I'm sure it woulda been fun to kick the plebs out of our courtyard again. And don't get me started on that Sargoth business. Crpg + strat are dead for months, I do my monthly routine checkup on the website and 1 of the ~3 battles that have successfully gone through in months of inactivity just so happened to be the loss of my fief. Riperoni all of HoCs strat ventures.  :evil:


I suppose that too is my fault, as there HAVE been a few of us playing, just under a different banner I suppose. I kinda ran out of money renewing our banner slot for over a year while not playing.  :?

RIP in peace.

ANd yeah strat was dead for months. Not sure whats going to happen when it resets. Its aliveish atm because everyone has gear and money or can siege a fief that has it. Or be given the gear/money/troops.

Not sure if there's enough people to sustain a new strat with the energy to build up to good gear with the money to feed that. But yeah join in NA 1 every once in a while. Not sure why you'd ever uninstall unless it was an addiction.. ok yeah I see why.

Title: Re: Shield Rebalancing
Post by: njames89 on January 23, 2018, 03:59:32 pm

Still getting 40+ in NA 1 and up close to 80 for good strategus battles. Albeit the battles are not constant more like a few good ones a week. EU is definitely more populated and more consistent. I try to hop into their battles when I see good ones at decent times for me.

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Definitely worth hopping in for the odd fight when its convenient!

Title: Re: Shield Rebalancing
Post by: Jona on January 23, 2018, 04:35:31 pm

Quote from: Taser on January 23, 2018, 04:56:51 am

Not sure why you'd ever uninstall unless it was an addiction.. ok yeah I see why.

Well I didn't actually uninstall, but unless the downloads were fixed as far as I'm aware you had to redownload all of crpg to get it working instead of just letting it update automatically. Now that I think about it I'm sure that was fixed by now, as that was some time ago, but time flies, yah know?

Title: Re: Shield Rebalancing
Post by: njames89 on January 23, 2018, 05:33:26 pm

Yeah it should work fine with the new launcher from the cRPG website. It won't work if you have the interim launcher that horns created when he was working on the mod.

Title: Re: Shield Rebalancing
Post by: San on February 12, 2018, 06:09:43 pm

Somewhat of a bump, but do you think that there can be a point where shields are too strong? Shields are great for lower level players, but lose effectiveness at higher levels of play, instead bringing some versatility so you don't die as easily. Perhaps it will help less experienced players if shields were on the stronger side without hurting the meta too much.. Making shields more appealing and fun to use in general.

IMO shields aren't offensively great against ranged without a ton of agi to back you up. Even with 2 and 3, the question is always about movement speed in the end, but 2 and 3 are the easiest to change, while #1 is the most effective (perhaps with the shield equipped too?).

Title: Re: Shield Rebalancing
Post by: Jona on February 12, 2018, 06:22:38 pm

Quote from: San on February 12, 2018, 06:09:43 pm

Somewhat of a bump, but do you think that there can be a point where shields are too strong?

Definitely. If shield speed gets buffed too much I can for sure see that happening, which is why I'd rather suggestion #1 be implemented somehow, as I agree it's the more preferable change as it also helps them more as an anti-ranged option. The change won't help too much in melee as you're not going to drop your block or sheathe your shield too often unless you choose to fight as a swashbuckler.

Quote from: San on February 12, 2018, 06:09:43 pm

IMO shields aren't offensively great against ranged without a ton of agi to back you up. Even with 2 and 3, the question is always about movement speed in the end, but 2 and 3 are the easiest to change, while #1 is the most effective (perhaps with the shield equipped too?).

Agreed. I wish #1 was easy to implement so we could at least try it out and see what happens... if shields are suddenly OP then revert the change or tone it down a bit. As it stands only high agi builds can even hope to close the distance between a far away ranged player and themselves. If shields didn't slow you down nearly as much it'd allow for more builds to bring them along to approach ranged in a more direct manner. Unfortunately options 2 and 3 are far easier to just tweak a little here and there, and that seems to be the dev teams current approach.

Quote from: San on February 12, 2018, 06:09:43 pm

Perhaps it will help less experienced players if shields were on the stronger side without hurting the meta too much.. Making shields more appealing and fun to use in general.

Ideally, this is the goal.

Title: Re: Shield Rebalancing
Post by: njames89 on February 12, 2018, 06:56:15 pm

IMO shields definitely need a  buff as currently using the 0 difficulty plain cav shield it doesn't even block arrows for the size of the model in game. Should at minimum be buffed so that there aren't arrows/bolts clearly going through the shield model.

Title: Re: Shield Rebalancing
Post by: Jona on February 12, 2018, 07:18:12 pm

Quote from: njames89 on February 12, 2018, 06:56:15 pm

IMO shields definitely need a  buff as currently using the 0 difficulty plain cav shield it doesn't even block arrows for the size of the model in game. Should at minimum be buffed so that there aren't arrows/bolts clearly going through the shield model.

And so the chant changes from "lul get a shield noob" to "lul get shield skill noob."

Title: Re: Shield Rebalancing
Post by: njames89 on February 12, 2018, 07:24:30 pm

I agree its not too much to put a point or two into shield. But I still think its immersion breaking to have a shield in game that doesn't actually block the area of its physical model.

I think for the added forcefield effect shield skill should be needed but not for simply blocking the actual area of the shield.

Title: Re: Shield Rebalancing
Post by: Jona on February 12, 2018, 07:46:54 pm

Might be worthwhile to do some actual testing with some different 0 skill shields. For all we know just that one is bugged and the radius used for collision detection just doesn't match up with the model while the rest all work just fine.

Title: Re: Shield Rebalancing
Post by: njames89 on February 12, 2018, 08:08:23 pm

Yeah could be I know that Prof and Xynox did test some other ones and apparently its not an issue with all of them

Title: Re: Shield Rebalancing
Post by: Jona on February 12, 2018, 08:15:46 pm

Quote from: njames89 on February 12, 2018, 08:08:23 pm

its not an issue with all of them

It's the price you pay to look good.


Also,

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:thinking:

Title: Re: Shield Rebalancing
Post by: njames89 on February 12, 2018, 08:22:26 pm

I might just throw some points into shield now that i am lvl 34 and test that out

Title: Re: Shield Rebalancing
Post by: San on February 17, 2018, 06:23:21 am

I have been thinking about this quite a bit lately, and I think there can be a stats-based approach to making things better, meeting the OP halfway on many of his points. I think shields can be buffed a fair amount and be OK since there are enough good bonus vs. shield weapons to counter them.

1. Accept shield skill is not that great and that the current 0-1 difficulty shields are still trash.

A long time ago the worst shields were significantly buffed, but that obviously isn't nearly enough to be competitive. Overbuffing them is not an option since you don't want them to just be better than the more expensive higher difficulty shields.

Solution: Lower difficulties even more.
-All current 1 difficulty shields -> 0 difficulty (accept that current 0 difficulty shields won't really be used in favor of the new 0 difficulty shields)
-Shields up to Black Leather Scottish Shield -> 1 difficulty


2. We have many durable shields that no one wants to use

The large and durable shields have incredible weight to offset the bonuses, but I think that the extremely low speed is too much of an additional disadvantage. (Subject to change), I think the minimum speed should be 85 and scale up from there. Devs may know more about the unwieldiness of low shield speed and a good minimum, worst case that it is placebo.

<= 80 speed -> 85
81-82 speed -> +5
83-85 speed -> +4
86-92 speed -> +3
93-95 speed -> +2
96-98 speed -> +1

3. Improve the scaling of shield armor values

Shields are essentially the same with slight buffs for each difficulty. It's ok, but I think that shield skill can be more valuable with noticeable improvements between difficulties. To start, I think that shield armor for 3-4 difficulty shields should approach the 30s more regularly.

+2 Armor for 2 difficulty shields
+3 Armor for 3 difficulty shields
+4 Armor for 4 difficulty shields
+2 Armor for high armor/popular shields such as huscarl


I think that these are some of the easy fixes that can be done (the tougher being adjusting shield prices and internal balance), the fast shields are good enough already. An alternative to the changes above is to somehow add mobility buffs for shields, such as removing the encumbrance when the shield is on your back or reducing the effect of the shield weight on movement in some way.

Shield skill provides damage resistance, force field, and some other small factors, but quite frankly it's not enough compared to other skills. It's similar to ironflesh where it's helpful on most characters but not that amazing, and surprisingly most buffs to the skill will make it OP.

Title: Re: Shield Rebalancing
Post by: McKli_PL on February 17, 2018, 07:24:14 pm

@San
plz mate don't think much on stats, just get back to this crpg shithole and save us (only one NA balancer with brain) :!:

Title: Re: Shield Rebalancing
Post by: San on February 18, 2018, 07:36:38 pm

Due to inactivity, I don't think I should have power to change much right now due to lack of knowledge. I'd rather post here and the discord public channels for more discussion.

Other than stats that stand out to me for a class that I've played for years, I don't think that you'd want me to mess with things I know nothing about nowadays. All of it comes from personal experience since I personally disliked using the clunky slow shields (know a few who did though..).

Title: Re: Shield Rebalancing
Post by: Jona on February 20, 2018, 06:24:13 pm

Quote from: San on February 18, 2018, 07:36:38 pm

All of it comes from personal experience since I personally disliked using the clunky slow shields (know a few who did though..).

Yeah, I only ever used the heavy round shield on my main since it fit my clan's theming and looked dope to boot. I've always been one to play how I want without too much regard for actual stats, and that includes looking as good as possible. That said, when I specced my alt to be a pure 1h/shield build I only used the elite cav shield, as it didn't feel too different from manual blocking, even without the MWed speed buff. Using a slower shield and caring about your performance can be quite frustrating, as it is just far too clunky to keep up in melee combat. Imo, just having less of an affect on your movement speed should make the lightweight shields more appealing than heavier ones. Add in the fact that they're also able to block much faster and it becomes a no-brainer when looking to pick the competitive option. Also, if it were possible to buff the effectiveness of the heavier shields against crushthrough (but not the lighter ones) that'd at least give a little more incentive to use them.

Title: Re: Shield Rebalancing
Post by: Gravoth_iii on February 20, 2018, 06:30:58 pm

So 0 skill shields are actually terrible even with skillpoints, it makes you dodge less and just get shot in the feet. Definitely needs some overall buffs for coverage. Get a shield argument still works, only needs 2-3 points for a solid board, but i think game could be more lenient towards duel builds just cause they are apparently what cRPG is supposed to be balanced around.

Title: Re: Shield Rebalancing
Post by: Silveredge on February 21, 2018, 04:48:04 am

I could probably get behind some shield buff changes.  More shielders always shifted the views on what ranged means for the game.  I would be very careful with these changes though, or else you'll see a bunch of crossbow/everyone users with weightless shields on their back, because... why not?  I don't feel like shields are "useless".  Jona, are you sure you're not just a tiny bit bias'd with your obvious Avatar?  =P  I seem to remember you busting shields in 2 swings, if that...  Maybe it's, "if you have an axe it seems really bad"?

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I always found it funny when the last ones alive were a non-shielder vs. multiple ranged characters, and the melee is basically going...  The arrows are incoming, and there's 10 pieces of wood at my feet to protect me... But it's too hard... I don't know what a shield is or how to use it...

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Having a shield on your back as a melee shielder, skillfully finishing the last enemy melee while the shield on your back blocks an incoming arrow (shot from a cross eyed ranged mebbe, amirite?) does sound pretty cool.

Title: Re: Shield Rebalancing
Post by: Jona on February 21, 2018, 07:22:28 pm

Quote from: Silveredge on February 21, 2018, 04:48:04 am

(click to show/hide)

I could probably get behind some shield buff changes.  More shielders always shifted the views on what ranged means for the game.  I would be very careful with these changes though, or else you'll see a bunch of crossbow/everyone users with weightless shields on their back, because... why not?  I don't feel like shields are "useless".  Jona, are you sure you're not just a tiny bit bias'd with your obvious Avatar?  =P  I seem to remember you busting shields in 2 swings, if that...  Maybe it's, "if you have an axe it seems really bad"?

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I always found it funny when the last ones alive were a non-shielder vs. multiple ranged characters, and the melee is basically going...  The arrows are incoming, and there's 10 pieces of wood at my feet to protect me... But it's too hard... I don't know what a shield is or how to use it...

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Having a shield on your back as a melee shielder, skillfully finishing the last enemy melee while the shield on your back blocks an incoming arrow (shot from a cross eyed ranged mebbe, amirite?) does sound pretty cool.

If I'm biased in any way it's due to my use of shields, not because I find myself shattering them too often (and to be fair, that hardly sounds like a problem :twisted:). And I seem to recall the last time I saw you on the battlefield you shot me in the back of my head even while I was using my shield as a hoplite and when I proceeded to call you a coward you said you were merely taking the opportunity to put down a key player, or whatever it was that you tell yourself so you can sleep at night. :P

Tbh the durability of shields isn't even close to the top of the list of their problems (I have 5 shield skill and use a MW heavy round, so it's pretty tanky), it's mostly the fact that shields are the supposed counter to ranged, and yet carrying any decent shield with you makes you move just about as slowly as they do... only archers can shoot you while running away and you can't do anything but block and chase, with little, if any hope of catching up.

Quote from: Silveredge on February 21, 2018, 04:48:04 am

Having a shield on your back as a melee shielder, skillfully finishing the last enemy melee while the shield on your back blocks an incoming arrow (shot from a cross eyed ranged mebbe, amirite?) does sound pretty cool.

Indeed it does, and currently your shield can block projectiles even if you're simply running with it at your side, or holding an attack, however it backfires almost all the time because oftentimes something blocked by your shield when you're holding an attack isn't likely to hit you anyways, and when it hits your shield you get put into stun for some odd reason, similar to if you blocked a projectile with your shield in a blocking position. Needless to say it can be just as bad as actually getting hit by the projectile if you're in the middle of a fight, take your chance and throw out an attack, only to have it interrupted and canceled mid-swing by an arrow harmlessly hitting your shield.

Title: Re: Shield Rebalancing
Post by: Silveredge on February 22, 2018, 05:41:37 am

Quote from: Jona on February 21, 2018, 07:22:28 pm

I seem to recall the last time I saw you on the battlefield you shot me in the back of my head even while I was using my shield as a hoplite and when I proceeded to call you a coward you said you were merely taking the opportunity to put down a key player, or whatever it was that you tell yourself so you can sleep at night. :P

Just because experienced ranged know exactly to what extent those huge invisible shield barriers protect shielders, doesn't mean they aren't supposed to exploit that knowledge.  :P  If a shielder isn't pointing their shield at me, I should absolutely be able to hit them.  Anything else is just ridiculous.  Now, with good shield skill, the windows to hit them are tighter than you think, if they are facing exactly 90 degrees away from me, I have to either time the shot with them moving to block an ally, at a different angle, or aim at the back 1/2 of their head or more when they have higher shield skill, since anything else will impact the shield, even though the bolt clearly hit them.  It's just so common that players don't put that many points into shield skill.  This was through personal experience and many talks with various shielders over time.  Any players that only meet the requirements of the shield pretty much fall into the category of barely able to protect themselves, with clean straight on defensive angles.  This is why you see me take so many shots at the very top of player's heads with any sort of elevated angle.  Or even just shoot the top of their head from straight on.  One, most players just don't have the shield skill, where it makes it possible to overcome it.  It strains the shield skill effect against that invisible bubble.  With good shield skill, unless you're aiming at 1/3rd of the body behind the shield, it will be pulled into the shield's invisible dome. 

If they're pointing the shield beyond 90 degrees away from me, then I should definitely be able to just hit any part of the exposed player.  The better shielders, like Manowar, didn't wear much armor in comparison to others.  I mean a mail hauberk...(Dat Q-cumberance, amirite?  Oh god, that joke is ancient...) he depended more on his shield and shield skill.  Not only this, but what tiny fraction of cRPG shielders still care about the mechanic of proper directional blocks with a shield, cause it to get not as destroyed so fast?  I feel like this was way more extreme in the original intent of the M&B creators.  I can hit a shield for a silly long time with a sword before it will break, way longer against proper blocks.  Should this be taken into account in balancing, does the general community even think about this when weighing in if shields are balanced?

Quote

it's mostly the fact that shields are the supposed counter to ranged, and yet carrying any decent shield with you makes you move just about as slowly as they do... only archers can shoot you while running away and you can't do anything but block and chase, with little, if any hope of catching up.

Yeah, I would say it's hard to approach this in an effective, non-heavy handed manner.  On one side, a good game doesn't contain absolute final hard counters, only better-to-very good ways of dealing with a problem.  If you tell someone, well this afk player has a shield, so you just immediately die if you shoot an arrow even remotely close to him...  doesn't sound like fun.  You have a melee oriented player who only thinks melee players should have fun, and non-melee should be happy to keel over dead when they turn to gaze on the ranged scum.  Then you just have two players reconnecting with whatever alt auto-wins against the other player, infinitely.  Might as well just play rock-paper-scissors at that point.  Now, obviously that's not what you meant, but there are the two extreme sides of the coin, and somewhere in between is the illusive happy medium.  I tend to think the game is balanced around team play, so shielders, in my mind, are the anchor that the team plays around.  Do we balance for 1v1, or team based scenarios?  If a shielder isn't pointing their shield at me, I should be able to hit them.  I probably have a lot of feel for the shield bubble from figuring out what kind of angles I could kill anywhere from your basic fake shielder, to Manowar/KevinD/that full plate french canadian with the metal shield?/Matey, to those naked dudes with 13 shield skill(invulnerable at the time).  So considering the current state of the game, I do think shielders should receive a buff, but not an overall wide sweeping buff that would threaten to immediately throw things out of balance.

Quote

currently your shield can block projectiles even if you're simply running with it at your side, or holding an attack, however it backfires almost all the time because oftentimes something blocked by your shield when you're holding an attack isn't likely to hit you anyways, and when it hits your shield you get put into stun for some odd reason, similar to if you blocked a projectile with your shield in a blocking position. Needless to say it can be just as bad as actually getting hit by the projectile if you're in the middle of a fight, take your chance and throw out an attack, only to have it interrupted and canceled mid-swing by an arrow harmlessly hitting your shield.

I think all archers are very familiar with that aggravating feeling of connecting with the shield just moving around, when the enemy is engaged with your teammate(another reason to aim for the head).  I would agree that it shouldn't stun you.

[My Suggestion]
My opinion is that a good change would be adjusting the effective arc of benefit to the invisible bubble from shield skill.  Make lesser shield skill increase the invisible bubble sooner, but don't let extreme unbreakable shield levels back into the game(complete separation of absorption/armor/speed benefit[not sure if possible]), from shield skill.  I remember the times when this was actually being put into place, and I can recall not even being able to hit someone 2 people over from a single shielder in a group melee.  It literally hit the shield of the shielder that was just blocking, two people over!  This was absolutely infuriating, and the only time this should happen is in a full shield wall(which I don't think and hope, ever reached that same level).  This would be a separate change from just dropping the requirements of shields, which honestly has nothing to do with shield effectiveness against ranged and this change may end up hurting more than helping since lower shield skill in general means you're getting hit by even more ranged!  In the end, either your arrow/bolt hits THEM or the SHIELD.  People don't remotely care as much about anything else.  Arrows do next to nothing to a shield, and bolts do a little more than that.  I don't see how getting access to a shield that has more armor and health will change the fact that you're getting hit by ranged, since you would be rewarded for having even less shield skill, which is what really matters if you want to NOT get hit by ranged.  Past a certain point, shield health and armor only matter in melee.

I would say important factors are shield skill, and decent speed of the shield (which is very small compared to the shield skill [talking about invisible bubble here]).  This may have been a part of the update that wasn't given enough love to the extent it needed, when the levels were re-adjusted.  With lower levels all around, all players had to make decisions on what to give up, but this probably needs to get underlined with the current state of our ranged problem.

So maybe the combination of the highly suggested reduction of shield requirements and strengthening/adjusting the arc of the benefit to the invisible barrier from shield skill is what needs to happen.  Because I do not see shielders with the difficulty to hit in the days of old anymore.  Only the back pixels of their helmet were hittable from the side.  That was the extreme version, but it's that choice of adjusting for common skill levels of the community vs. new comers that we're faced with now.

Title: Re: Shield Rebalancing
Post by: Jona on February 22, 2018, 05:52:55 pm

Quote from: Silveredge on February 22, 2018, 05:41:37 am

(click to show/hide)

Just because experienced ranged know exactly to what extent those huge invisible shield barriers protect shielders, doesn't mean they aren't supposed to exploit that knowledge.  :P  If a shielder isn't pointing their shield at me, I should absolutely be able to hit them.  Anything else is just ridiculous.  Now, with good shield skill, the windows to hit them are tighter than you think, if they are facing exactly 90 degrees away from me, I have to either time the shot with them moving to block an ally, at a different angle, or aim at the back 1/2 of their head or more when they have higher shield skill, since anything else will impact the shield, even though the bolt clearly hit them.  It's just so common that players don't put that many points into shield skill.  This was through personal experience and many talks with various shielders over time.  Any players that only meet the requirements of the shield pretty much fall into the category of barely able to protect themselves, with clean straight on defensive angles.  This is why you see me take so many shots at the very top of player's heads with any sort of elevated angle.  Or even just shoot the top of their head from straight on.  One, most players just don't have the shield skill, where it makes it possible to overcome it.  It strains the shield skill effect against that invisible bubble.  With good shield skill, unless you're aiming at 1/3rd of the body behind the shield, it will be pulled into the shield's invisible dome. 

If they're pointing the shield beyond 90 degrees away from me, then I should definitely be able to just hit any part of the exposed player.  The better shielders, like Manowar, didn't wear much armor in comparison to others.  I mean a mail hauberk...(Dat Q-cumberance, amirite?  Oh god, that joke is ancient...) he depended more on his shield and shield skill.  Not only this, but what tiny fraction of cRPG shielders still care about the mechanic of proper directional blocks with a shield, cause it to get not as destroyed so fast?  I feel like this was way more extreme in the original intent of the M&B creators.  I can hit a shield for a silly long time with a sword before it will break, way longer against proper blocks.  Should this be taken into account in balancing, does the general community even think about this when weighing in if shields are balanced?

Lol well damn, that was far more insightful than necessary... I was just saying that I indeed was using a shield when we last met, and that you, being the crafty lil ranged player that you are, took full advantage of an obvious disadvantage of shields, being that they leave you open on most sides (unless you had one of those 13 shield skill builds).

Quote from: Silveredge on February 22, 2018, 05:41:37 am

(click to show/hide)

Yeah, I would say it's hard to approach this in an effective, non-heavy handed manner.  On one side, a good game doesn't contain absolute final hard counters, only better-to-very good ways of dealing with a problem.  If you tell someone, well this afk player has a shield, so you just immediately die if you shoot an arrow even remotely close to him...  doesn't sound like fun.  You have a melee oriented player who only thinks melee players should have fun, and non-melee should be happy to keel over dead when they turn to gaze on the ranged scum.  Then you just have two players reconnecting with whatever alt auto-wins against the other player, infinitely.  Might as well just play rock-paper-scissors at that point.  Now, obviously that's not what you meant, but there are the two extreme sides of the coin, and somewhere in between is the illusive happy medium.  I tend to think the game is balanced around team play, so shielders, in my mind, are the anchor that the team plays around.  Do we balance for 1v1, or team based scenarios?  If a shielder isn't pointing their shield at me, I should be able to hit them.  I probably have a lot of feel for the shield bubble from figuring out what kind of angles I could kill anywhere from your basic fake shielder, to Manowar/KevinD/that full plate french canadian with the metal shield?/Matey, to those naked dudes with 13 shield skill(invulnerable at the time).  So considering the current state of the game, I do think shielders should receive a buff, but not an overall wide sweeping buff that would threaten to immediately throw things out of balance.

Yeah, in no world should shielders get a guaranteed free kill on ranged, just like ranged shouldn't get a guaranteed free kill on all un-shielded infantry *cough cough.*  :wink:  Just the general mentality of the mod "get a shield lul" tends to lead people to "believe" shielders should automatically solve the ranged problem, but as I've said before:

Quote from: Jona on February 05, 2018, 04:22:19 pm

People really need to dispel the notion that shields are a counter to ranged. At best, they're a coping mechanism.

Which  begs the question, what is the best "soft counter" (since really crpg doesn't have any rock paper scissors-style hard counters) against ranged? Many would say cavalry, if not shielders. But many cav players would argue that it is quite the contrary, as their horses fall apart like paper mache in the rain when getting hit with arrows. Really, as you said, the proper counter is teamplay, but unfortunately that is far too uncommon nowadays with clanstacks and large groups of people communicating outside of the game being smaller than ever. And with a lack of even a modicum of strategic gameplay, it really just leaves ranged players to counter other ranged players... which of course leaves the mod in a rather precarious state of balance where there is little incentive (other than the main draw: fun) to play a non-ranged class. Couple that with the fact that there is no guarantee both teams will have an even number of ranged, or even remotely equal amounts of skill among their ranged players, and you get plenty of [insert gif of leonidas getting shot by 10,000 arrows here] type of rounds.

Quote from: Silveredge on February 22, 2018, 05:41:37 am

(click to show/hide)

[My Suggestion]
My opinion is that a good change would be adjusting the effective arc of benefit to the invisible bubble from shield skill.  Make lesser shield skill increase the invisible bubble sooner, but don't let extreme unbreakable shield levels back into the game(complete separation of absorption/armor/speed benefit[not sure if possible]), from shield skill.  I remember the times when this was actually being put into place, and I can recall not even being able to hit someone 2 people over from a single shielder in a group melee.  It literally hit the shield of the shielder that was just blocking, two people over!  This was absolutely infuriating, and the only time this should happen is in a full shield wall(which I don't think and hope, ever reached that same level).  This would be a separate change from just dropping the requirements of shields, which honestly has nothing to do with shield effectiveness against ranged and this change may end up hurting more than helping since lower shield skill in general means you're getting hit by even more ranged!  In the end, either your arrow/bolt hits THEM or the SHIELD.  People don't remotely care as much about anything else.  Arrows do next to nothing to a shield, and bolts do a little more than that.  I don't see how getting access to a shield that has more armor and health will change the fact that you're getting hit by ranged, since you would be rewarded for having even less shield skill, which is what really matters if you want to NOT get hit by ranged.  Past a certain point, shield health and armor only matter in melee.

I would say important factors are shield skill, and decent speed of the shield (which is very small compared to the shield skill [talking about invisible bubble here]).  This may have been a part of the update that wasn't given enough love to the extent it needed, when the levels were re-adjusted.  With lower levels all around, all players had to make decisions on what to give up, but this probably needs to get underlined with the current state of our ranged problem.

So maybe the combination of the highly suggested reduction of shield requirements and strengthening/adjusting the arc of the benefit to the invisible barrier from shield skill is what needs to happen.  Because I do not see shielders with the difficulty to hit in the days of old anymore.  Only the back pixels of their helmet were hittable from the side.  That was the extreme version, but it's that choice of adjusting for common skill levels of the community vs. new comers that we're faced with now.

Ideally we could get some form of tiered rewards for shield skill, imo. For instance if you invest 1 - 3 points you get a rather significant increase in the forcefield of the shield, but barely any increase in shield speed or durability, leaving you with a slow, weak shield which is primarily going to be useful against ranged only. Then when you're investing your 4th - 6th points you get minimal return on investment for the invisible bubble against ranged, but now you get substantial increases in speed and durability, since you're really only investing this many points if you want to be using the shield in melee. Finally for your 7th+ skill invested you just get a small increase in all stats of the shield, speed, durability and forcefield, with diminishing returns so it never gets too out of hand, giving you full-body coverage against ranged or an unbreakable shield. Obviously this would take some coding know-how, if it's even at all possible, but It'd be a decent way to go about giving people what they want out of their shield skill, imo. Let those bringing it along just to counter ranged have a decent shield+forcefield to hide behind, and let those bringing it into the melee with them have a useful tool to assist them, not hinder them.

That, and #LetUsRunFastWithShields

Title: Re: Shield Rebalancing
Post by: Silveredge on February 22, 2018, 08:29:53 pm

Quote from: Jona on February 22, 2018, 05:52:55 pm

Ideally we could get some form of tiered rewards for shield skill, imo. For instance if you invest 1 - 3 points you get a rather significant increase in the forcefield of the shield, but barely any increase in shield speed or durability, leaving you with a slow, weak shield which is primarily going to be useful against ranged only. Then when you're investing your 4th - 6th points you get minimal return on investment for the invisible bubble against ranged, but now you get substantial increases in speed and durability, since you're really only investing this many points if you want to be using the shield in melee. Finally for your 7th+ skill invested you just get a small increase in all stats of the shield, speed, durability and forcefield, with diminishing returns so it never gets too out of hand, giving you full-body coverage against ranged or an unbreakable shield. Obviously this would take some coding know-how, if it's even at all possible, but It'd be a decent way to go about giving people what they want out of their shield skill, imo. Let those bringing it along just to counter ranged have a decent shield+forcefield to hide behind, and let those bringing it into the melee with them have a useful tool to assist them, not hinder them.

That, and #LetUsRunFastWithShields

Having high shield skill would make you really familiar with your shield, making it apart of you and not a hinderance.  That would make sense to me.  If only one day I could learn how to not treat a crossbow and bolts like it weighed 15 metric tons...  :wink:

Title: Re: Shield Rebalancing
Post by: San on February 23, 2018, 03:55:03 am

I am not sure how much shield internals can be changed in the game, perhaps some WSE magic?

One large issue is that decreasing difficulty lessens the effect of shield skill since that's their biggest point beyond incrementally increasing the forcefield. At the same time, no one in their right mind is going to devote 8+ points in shield skill. I think that shield skill giving access to a wider variety of shields is one of its best traits.

So I was thinking, why not double both the effects of shield skill as well as the requirements? Shield skill becomes like HA, a support skill that is AGI * 6 per point with double the potency. Decrease shield requirements by another point (there are only like 8 1-difficulty shields right now..).

Shielders will need to devote some shield skill to give small shields more of a force field or slow shields more speed without centralizing their entire build around acquiring absurdly high shield skill values. At that point, shield durabilities may see some nerfs afterwards depending on the effects on the meta (doubt it will be needed). At a glance, it looks like a huge buff, but at the same time I think shield skill needs to be that potent to be closer to Ironflesh, Riding, etc.


The biggest issue is that such a change requires a respec. Shielders may also become too strong if they can acquire both high shield skill and other stats too easily.

Title: Re: Shield Rebalancing
Post by: Jona on February 23, 2018, 05:26:04 pm

Quote from: San on February 23, 2018, 03:55:03 am

(click to show/hide)

I am not sure how much shield internals can be changed in the game, perhaps some WSE magic?

One large issue is that decreasing difficulty lessens the effect of shield skill since that's their biggest point beyond incrementally increasing the forcefield. At the same time, no one in their right mind is going to devote 8+ points in shield skill. I think that shield skill giving access to a wider variety of shields is one of its best traits.

So I was thinking, why not double both the effects of shield skill as well as the requirements? Shield skill becomes like HA, a support skill that is AGI * 6 per point with double the potency. Decrease shield requirements by another point (there are only like 8 1-difficulty shields right now..).

Shielders will need to devote some shield skill to give small shields more of a force field or slow shields more speed without centralizing their entire build around acquiring absurdly high shield skill values. At that point, shield durabilities may see some nerfs afterwards depending on the effects on the meta (doubt it will be needed). At a glance, it looks like a huge buff, but at the same time I think shield skill needs to be that potent to be closer to Ironflesh, Riding, etc.


The biggest issue is that such a change requires a respec. Shielders may also become too strong if they can acquire both high shield skill and other stats too easily.

Not a bad place to start, since we at least know that this type of change is actually possible.

Title: Re: Shield Rebalancing
Post by: San on September 12, 2018, 04:37:40 am

Since the new patch, part of #1 has been done along with #3. Shields now slow you down much less when worn on your back, scaling with shield skill. 1 shield skill also helps with picking up other shields off the ground.

Title: Re: Shield Rebalancing
Post by: Jona on September 12, 2018, 04:49:47 pm

Quote from: San on September 12, 2018, 04:37:40 am

Since the new patch, part of #1 has been done along with #3. Shields now slow you down much less when worn on your back, scaling with shield skill. 1 shield skill also helps with picking up other shields off the ground.

Smh we still haven't included the most important change, #4.

Title: Re: Shield Rebalancing
Post by: Nickleback on September 13, 2018, 08:15:49 am

Lol my end-term exam essay wasn't this long,you must be an aristocrat or smt to write this much detailed info regarding changing shields,1 sounds best as i haven't read the rest.

Title: Re: Shield Rebalancing
Post by: Kadeth on September 13, 2018, 08:24:26 am

yuhmaz,youve never did an exam in you`re life,u idiot,