cRPG

cRPG => Suggestions Corner => Topic started by: San on March 18, 2014, 12:19:23 am

Title: Side blocking for shield
Post by: San on March 18, 2014, 12:19:23 am
One annoyance I have as a shielder is having to spin around back and forth to block at multiple angles against ranged. In most cases, it's really only 45 degrees on the left and right. Sometimes, you can't spin fast enough to block the projectiles you want. I learned from the shield nudge that there is an always active force field against ranged at the shield's position that gets expanded once the block is held, making me think that slightly offset shield positions could work.

I think that if you perform left+block and right+block, separate blocking positions with the shield pointed more towards the left/right should occur, with the cover centering closer to the appropriate shoulder. The shift shouldn't be so great that you can't block directly in front of you, too. You'll just have a slightly bigger gap on the opposite side of yourself. Up/down block would use the default blocking animation.

This could also help for hitting around shield on your sides a little bit at the cost of making you more open to the other side as long as it works that way against melee in the code.


1 problem outside of whether it's possible is that the right block may be a little glitchy with feinting since the weapon would have to rest at the player's side.
Title: Re: Side blocking for shield
Post by: Teeth on March 18, 2014, 12:53:42 am
I think shielders should provide a much better counter to ranged, I don't care how. I have never dared to pick any other shields than round shields because archers shoot past a shield on the side incredibly easily. Perhaps it is due to my preference for having no higher than 4 shield skill, but the one time I tried using a knightly kite, archers literally shot past my shield at about a 30 degree angle, which I think is ridiculous. 45 degree coverage should be the bare minimum in my opinion.

Then there are tons of other things that make shielders not the counter to ranged they should be. Crossbows penetrating shields, terrible mechanic. Very awkward and hard to trigger interrupt for walking into a ranged player allowing them to pull of gay ass face hug shots, should trigger much faster. Slow movement speed when blocking with a shield, shielders are unable to use their shield while trying to catch up with ranged. So much factors that make groups of ranged incredibly hard to fight even with an equal number of shielders. Sure this change might help a little, but it is probably too dev time intensive at this point.
Title: Re: Side blocking for shield
Post by: imisshotmail on March 18, 2014, 01:01:08 am
Shielders being buffed vs ranged would be fine but they need some sort of "counter" for other melee classes when they decide to play awfully like they can. It's honestly the absolute worst thing in the game when you're in a 1v1 with a shielder in battle and they s key to their team while blocking if you go after them, their shield never breaking and them hitting back once every 5-6 of your attacks, and then if you decide "fuck this it's not worth it" they just follow you and attack you from behind so you have to fight them. (worst with hoplites)

Make it so a certain number of repeated attacks against a shield by the same person, say 3-4 cause the shield to instantly drop to the ground. Thanks in advance  :arrow:.
Title: Re: Side blocking for shield
Post by: PsychoTwins on March 18, 2014, 01:06:22 am
Shielders being buffed vs ranged would be fine but they need some sort of "counter" for other melee classes when they decide to play awfully like they can. It's honestly the absolute worst thing in the game when you're in a 1v1 with a shielder in battle and they s key to their team while blocking if you go after them, their shield never breaking and them hitting back once every 5-6 of your attacks, and then if you decide "fuck this it's not worth it" they just follow you and attack you from behind so you have to fight them. (worst with hoplites)

Make it so a certain number of repeated attacks against a shield by the same person, say 3-4 cause the shield to instantly drop to the ground. Thanks in advance  :arrow:.

I think what San is proposing also adds in that counter for melee. They can use the side blocks to turn their shield to one side and cover that side a bit, but if they make a mistake they open up the wrong side and give you an opening to hit them, thus making blocking with a shield more diverse and a little more challenging.
Title: Re: Side blocking for shield
Post by: San on March 18, 2014, 01:40:35 am
^What he said.

I'm not thinking about this in terms of buff/nerf, since blocking and turning accomplishes the same thing. It's just that it disorients your view and you often times have to turn the other way right afterwards. The end result is a shielder that has to spin like a ballerina all the time.
Title: Re: Side blocking for shield
Post by: Kafein on March 18, 2014, 01:46:28 am
Then there are tons of other things that make shielders not the counter to ranged they should be. Crossbows penetrating shields, terrible mechanic. Very awkward and hard to trigger interrupt for walking into a ranged player allowing them to pull of gay ass face hug shots, should trigger much faster. Slow movement speed when blocking with a shield, shielders are unable to use their shield while trying to catch up with ranged. So much factors that make groups of ranged incredibly hard to fight even with an equal number of shielders. Sure this change might help a little, but it is probably too dev time intensive at this point.

Good to read I'm not a complete lunatic when I talk about that,
Title: Re: Side blocking for shield
Post by: Sniger on March 18, 2014, 10:30:07 am
I think that if you perform left+block and right+block, separate blocking positions with the shield pointed more towards the left/right should occur, with the cover centering closer to the appropriate shoulder. The shift shouldn't be so great that you can't block directly in front of you, too. You'll just have a slightly bigger gap on the opposite side of yourself. Up/down block would use the default blocking animation.

love it. would bring alot more facette to shielder gameplay. cut to the chase, shielder is easymode (just like any other class, right jarlek?  :lol: )

I think shielders should provide a much better counter to ranged, I don't care how. I have never dared to pick any other shields than round shields because archers shoot past a shield on the side incredibly easily. Perhaps it is due to my preference for having no higher than 4 shield skill, but the one time I tried using a knightly kite, archers literally shot past my shield at about a 30 degree angle, which I think is ridiculous. 45 degree coverage should be the bare minimum in my opinion.

Then there are tons of other things that make shielders not the counter to ranged they should be. Crossbows penetrating shields, terrible mechanic. Very awkward and hard to trigger interrupt for walking into a ranged player allowing them to pull of gay ass face hug shots, should trigger much faster. Slow movement speed when blocking with a shield, shielders are unable to use their shield while trying to catch up with ranged. So much factors that make groups of ranged incredibly hard to fight even with an equal number of shielders.

dis ^ good teeth. wise words. good stuff.

but 4 shield, lol, then id rather spend 4 points in IF or riding  :lol: in my head, if you gonna use shield, MINIMUM 5 shield skill regardless of what shield you use. but hey thats just me :p

Sure this change might help a little, but it is probably too dev time intensive at this point

yes, they are working on new items.  :lol:
Title: Re: Side blocking for shield
Post by: Grumbs on March 18, 2014, 11:27:07 am
There is something borked not just with anti ranged equipment but the way it is so easy to counter melee in melee range and how good ranged classes can be in melee. It is 10x easier to defend against melee in melee range than it is to defend against ranged at a distance, and melee vs melee is like rock vs rock, while ranged versus melee is rock vs paper. There is no real scissors as a melee class to counter ranged like ranged can counter melee at a distance. The real counter to ranged is more paper and very situational cav

Title: Re: Side blocking for shield
Post by: MURDERTRON on March 18, 2014, 01:52:49 pm
Just add dual wielding.




















For shields.
Title: Re: Side blocking for shield
Post by: Jarlek on March 18, 2014, 05:04:49 pm
love it. would bring alot more facette to shielder gameplay. cut to the chase, shielder is easymode (just like any other class, right jarlek?  :lol: )
Shielder is by far the hardest class to do well with. I'll go 1h no shield any time over 1h w/ shield just for the 1 extra PS or athl. Shielders are my number one target on my archer or crossbow alts because of how much easier they are to shoot. There's a reason every time I go on my shielder I rage-switch to my any of my other alts because it's just terrible.
Title: Re: Side blocking for shield
Post by: Sniger on March 19, 2014, 12:49:16 am
Shielder is by far the hardest class to do well with. I'll go 1h no shield any time over 1h w/ shield just for the 1 extra PS or athl. Shielders are my number one target on my archer or crossbow alts because of how much easier they are to shoot. There's a reason every time I go on my shielder I rage-switch to my any of my other alts because it's just terrible.

tnx for your input mate :*

couldnt agree more and love that someone else said it, haha
Title: Re: Side blocking for shield
Post by: Gurnisson on March 19, 2014, 01:13:47 am
Shielder is by far the hardest class to do well with.

 :lol: :lol: :lol:
Title: Re: Side blocking for shield
Post by: Clockworkkiller on March 19, 2014, 03:00:20 am
Shielder is by far the hardest class to do well with. I'll go 1h no shield any time over 1h w/ shield just for the 1 extra PS or athl. Shielders are my number one target on my archer or crossbow alts because of how much easier they are to shoot. There's a reason every time I go on my shielder I rage-switch to my any of my other alts because it's just terrible.


this so fucking much, quoted for truth
Title: Re: Side blocking for shield
Post by: Shemaforash on March 19, 2014, 03:23:23 am
One annoyance I have as a shielder is having to spin around back and forth to block at multiple angles against ranged. In most cases, it's really only 45 degrees on the left and right. Sometimes, you can't spin fast enough to block the projectiles you want. I learned from the shield nudge that there is an always active force field against ranged at the shield's position that gets expanded once the block is held, making me think that slightly offset shield positions could work.

I think that if you perform left+block and right+block, separate blocking positions with the shield pointed more towards the left/right should occur, with the cover centering closer to the appropriate shoulder. The shift shouldn't be so great that you can't block directly in front of you, too. You'll just have a slightly bigger gap on the opposite side of yourself. Up/down block would use the default blocking animation.

This could also help for hitting around shield on your sides a little bit at the cost of making you more open to the other side as long as it works that way against melee in the code.


1 problem outside of whether it's possible is that the right block may be a little glitchy with feinting since the weapon would have to rest at the player's side.

hmmng, the reason there's a forcefield is to compensate for real life movement that isn't possible illustrating in-game. I'm not against the change but I prefer it to stay as it is.
Title: Re: Side blocking for shield
Post by: HarunYahya on March 19, 2014, 01:25:48 pm
Shielders being buffed vs ranged would be fine but they need some sort of "counter" for other melee classes when they decide to play awfully like they can. It's honestly the absolute worst thing in the game when you're in a 1v1 with a shielder in battle and they s key to their team while blocking if you go after them, their shield never breaking and them hitting back once every 5-6 of your attacks, and then if you decide "fuck this it's not worth it" they just follow you and attack you from behind so you have to fight them. (worst with hoplites)

Make it so a certain number of repeated attacks against a shield by the same person, say 3-4 cause the shield to instantly drop to the ground. Thanks in advance  :arrow:.
Counter=Axes.

I can't say anything about the suggestion before trying it out by the way.
It may be epic and bring an end to shield blocks being useless compared to weapon blocks in melee aswell.
It may be a total mess with fail hit detection , causing more rage on already fucked up shielder class.
Title: Re: Side blocking for shield
Post by: Jarlek on March 20, 2014, 04:00:37 pm
:lol: :lol: :lol:
Let's play a game:

For every 1 mediocre player you name who does well with a shielder I can name 5 bad players who does well because of poles and 5 terrible players who does well because of 2h.

Spoiler: I'll win.
Title: Re: Side blocking for shield
Post by: San on March 20, 2014, 04:34:03 pm
Eh, all melee classes are around the same difficulty as long as you don't gimmick yourself with poor builds. I personally find other 1hers the easiest to spam, though. There's many global skills shared that works for all classes, but that's a separate topic.

I made this thread since I think it's more of a camera issue, otherwise it would be in game balance discussion. It's mostly just theorycraft, since this won't really happen, just throwing out if such an idea can work. I can go ballerina on multipler archers, but the camera control is limiting when I'm forced to divert my full view each time, especially when your character doesn't turn with the camera as smoothly as you believe.
Title: Re: Side blocking for shield
Post by: Gurnisson on March 20, 2014, 05:16:38 pm
Let's play a game:

For every 1 mediocre player you name who does well with a shielder I can name 5 bad players who does well because of poles and 5 terrible players who does well because of 2h.

Spoiler: I'll win.

I don't trust a scrub's judgement :D

There are quite a lot of bad players doing well with every melee class from my experience. In general, the more armour and health they have, the better they do. The bigger weapons are quite noob friendly with high damage and length, I'll give you that. However, killing a bad 2h and pole is far easier than a bad shielder turtling up. One of the classes grants more survivability for the bad players, the other higher damage potential and some more skill points.

However, when you become good at the game, being a shielder is the best way to make use of it. When you get past a certain point, shielders are actually the easiest infantry class to do well with. Perfect while getting ganked (high speed, average length, blocks every direction), can take on ranged players and soak up arrows from the front and also have probably the best melee animations. Basically cost you 4-6 skill points and a bit of damage, but I feel the pros outweighs the cons by quite a distance if you're competent enough to make use of it.

Somewhat agree with you
Hardest infantry class to do well with if you're bad
Easiest infantry class to do well with if you're good
Title: Re: Side blocking for shield
Post by: HarunYahya on March 20, 2014, 05:29:07 pm
I don't trust a scrub's judgement :D

There are quite a lot of bad players doing well with every melee class from my experience. In general, the more armour and health they have, the better they do. The bigger weapons are quite noob friendly with high damage and length, I'll give you that. However, killing a bad 2h and pole is far easier than a bad shielder turtling up. One of the classes grants more survivability for the bad players, the other higher damage potential and some more skill points.

However, when you become good at the game, being a shielder is the best way to make use of it. When you get past a certain point, shielders are actually the easiest infantry class to do well with. Perfect while getting ganked (high speed, average length, blocks every direction), can take on ranged players and soak up arrows from the front and also have probably the best melee animations. Basically cost you 4-6 skill points and a bit of damage, but I feel the pros outweighs the cons by quite a distance if you're competent enough to make use of it.

Somewhat agree with you
Hardest infantry class to do well with if you're bad
Easiest infantry class to do well with if you're good

Man ,that signature mesmerizes me...didn't even understand what you wrote lol
Title: Re: Side blocking for shield
Post by: Jarlek on March 20, 2014, 06:33:06 pm
I don't trust a scrub's judgement :D

There are quite a lot of bad players doing well with every melee class from my experience. In general, the more armour and health they have, the better they do. The bigger weapons are quite noob friendly with high damage and length, I'll give you that. However, killing a bad 2h and pole is far easier than a bad shielder turtling up. One of the classes grants more survivability for the bad players, the other higher damage potential and some more skill points.

However, when you become good at the game, being a shielder is the best way to make use of it. When you get past a certain point, shielders are actually the easiest infantry class to do well with. Perfect while getting ganked (high speed, average length, blocks every direction), can take on ranged players and soak up arrows from the front and also have probably the best melee animations. Basically cost you 4-6 skill points and a bit of damage, but I feel the pros outweighs the cons by quite a distance if you're competent enough to make use of it.

Somewhat agree with you
Hardest infantry class to do well with if you're bad
Easiest infantry class to do well with if you're good
Calls me a scrub, yet I still top EU1, 2 and strat battles pretty much regardless of class :P

Although that kinda means you agree with me since this "scrub" does best when he uses a 2h and ignore things like blocking and chambering  :lol:

But yeah, I'm not saying that you can't do great with shielder, just that it's much harder than the other infantry classes. Even on higher level play. Mainly because you have to "waste" skillpoints in shield since shieldes got so many hard counters and "tricks" to beat it. Don't tell me that extra athl, PS or WM is NOT worth it. Fuck, even taking 5 riding over 5 shield is a smart choice in my view. You gain a lot more from it and there are far fewer counters to a horse than a shield.
Title: Re: Side blocking for shield
Post by: Sniger on March 21, 2014, 12:39:59 am
Calls me a scrub, yet I still top EU1, 2 and strat battles pretty much regardless of class :P

you cannot brag about topscore or valour jarlek. i thought you did that to troll.

you do know that we have banner balance right?

you do know what clan you are member of right?

you do know that the current "balance" is at its prime right now right?



play clanless and do topscore. i dare you!

 :lol:


PS: building your toon based on what is currently OP instead of what style you like, its fucking gay. what a stat cunt  :lol: srsly  :lol:
Title: Re: Side blocking for shield
Post by: Teeth on March 21, 2014, 01:05:41 am
What I find puzzling is that you can get a 96 speed, 117 reach, 43c, 22p Flambard and a 98 speed, 102 reach, 35c, 23p Nordic Champion Sword. I used to like playing as a 1h without shield but now I usually quit and play my 2h instead, even though I absolutely love 1h animations. There is like a dozen 2h that now just outperform 1h greatly in pretty much any aspect. Now of course a shield justifies that 1h weapons are worse, but surely this is a little much. Seems to me that giving all those 2h's speed increases should be accompanied with a similar thing to 1h swords. Greatswords weren't exactly UP in the first case. As far as shielder as a class goes I think it is a very effective class that allows you a very consistent good performance, due to the ability to fight well against ranged and ganks. With the 1h stab buff 1h has some decent cav fighting abilities as well. Perhaps other classes allow a better peak performance, but they also cause you to get roflganked or gunned down by ranged occasionally.

play clanless and do topscore. i dare you!
I can't help but think your deep burning hatred for banner balance is deluding you. First of all Byzantium has hardly been the stack to beat on EU 1 for like the past year or so, there are usually more Mercs on except occasionally during primetime. Also, we suck these days and lose all the time even on the rare occasions that we are a big stack and there is no other stack present, also it usually takes 1 or 2 rounds before our top scorers get switched. Sometimes I get switched 2 and on rare occasions even 3 times a map. Secondly, just because you wear a banner doesn't mean you perform well. Teamplay is very loose, we lose many rounds, any of our members that regularly top the scoreboard will do so without a clan banner because the banner adds very litte. Do you dare me as well? I know for sure that I can disprove this point in a jiffy, and so can Jarlek.
Title: Re: Side blocking for shield
Post by: Jarlek on March 21, 2014, 01:08:56 am
you cannot brag about topscore or valour jarlek. i thought you did that to troll.

you do know that we have banner balance right?

you do know what clan you are member of right?

you do know that the current "balance" is at its prime right now right?



play clanless and do topscore. i dare you!

 :lol:


PS: building your toon based on what is currently OP instead of what style you like, its fucking gay. what a stat cunt  :lol: srsly  :lol:
You got it wrong. I don't get victory and valour cause of my clan; my clan gets valour and victory cause of me :D
(click to show/hide)

PS: I got lots of alts and I change the class of my main every gen. Building your char after what is OP is as you said "fucking gay", but one char among many being the class that is OP is... ok still a bit douchy, I guess...
Title: Re: Side blocking for shield
Post by: Corsair831 on March 21, 2014, 01:12:28 pm
I think shielders should provide a much better counter to ranged, I don't care how. I have never dared to pick any other shields than round shields because archers shoot past a shield on the side incredibly easily. Perhaps it is due to my preference for having no higher than 4 shield skill, but the one time I tried using a knightly kite, archers literally shot past my shield at about a 30 degree angle, which I think is ridiculous. 45 degree coverage should be the bare minimum in my opinion.

Then there are tons of other things that make shielders not the counter to ranged they should be. Crossbows penetrating shields, terrible mechanic. Very awkward and hard to trigger interrupt for walking into a ranged player allowing them to pull of gay ass face hug shots, should trigger much faster. Slow movement speed when blocking with a shield, shielders are unable to use their shield while trying to catch up with ranged. So much factors that make groups of ranged incredibly hard to fight even with an equal number of shielders. Sure this change might help a little, but it is probably too dev time intensive at this point.

^ agree with all of this, especially the bumping of ranged with a shield when they have their weapon ready to shoot

in native this works perfectly, you bump an archer who's too close, and hit him, in crpg i dont know what you did to change it (reduced the range of bump perhaps?), but it's absolutely useless. if you even try it someone shoots around your shield and into your head.
Title: Re: Side blocking for shield
Post by: Phew on March 21, 2014, 02:59:08 pm
This suggestion would address several of my gripes from playing as a shielder for the past 2 yrs:
-Melee lateral coverage is sh!t (I STILL haven't figured out if I need to face my shield at the player or the tip of their weapon; the swing goes around my block either way)
-Ranged lateral coverage is sh!t for anything but the Huscarl/RS/HRS. There may have been a lateral forcefield against ranged at one time, but it's gone now. Sauce one-shot me with a throwing lance last night, and it was literally 1cm outside the graphical coverage of my shield (and I have 7 shield skill)
-The coupling of block coverage with camera angles makes shield gameplay very one-dimensional compared to other classes

Skilled 2h and pole players take advantage of the fact that they can block swings 180+ deg off to the side to do all kinds of crazy tricks in melee. Shielders are stuck having to play like bots all the time (face enemy, block, swing).

I'm sure this suggestion requires WSE2, cmp is too busy to do it, etc. etc.

P.S. I've yet to see the passive projectile block occur during the nudge animation. Every time I go to nudge an archer that's holding a shot, I take an arrow to the face (right through my shield).
Title: Re: Side blocking for shield
Post by: Camaris on March 21, 2014, 03:21:48 pm
This suggestion would address several of my gripes from playing as a shielder for the past 2 yrs:
-Melee lateral coverage is sh!t (I STILL haven't figured out if I need to face my shield at the player or the tip of their weapon; the swing goes around my block either way)
-Ranged lateral coverage is sh!t for anything but the Huscarl/RS/HRS. There may have been a lateral forcefield against ranged at one time, but it's gone now. Sauce one-shot me with a throwing lance last night, and it was literally 1cm outside the graphical coverage of my shield (and I have 7 shield skill)
-The coupling of block coverage with camera angles makes shield gameplay very one-dimensional compared to other classes

Skilled 2h and pole players take advantage of the fact that they can block swings 180+ deg off to the side to do all kinds of crazy tricks in melee. Shielders are stuck having to play like bots all the time (face enemy, block, swing).

I'm sure this suggestion requires WSE2, cmp is too busy to do it, etc. etc.

P.S. I've yet to see the passive projectile block occur during the nudge animation. Every time I go to nudge an archer that's holding a shot, I take an arrow to the face (right through my shield).
Skilled shielders make use of blocking all directions at once too.

I really really hate the attitude to just tell how other classes shine and why this is so awesome that you instantly have to buff another class.
Espescially shielders are doing this for some years now and still think they are soso fucking hard to play and they are gorgeous players cause they get kills with that gimped class.
Shielders DO top scoreboards at least at siege like every other melee class. There are players that shine with that style like there are 2h and poles.
Stop trying to tell everybody how up shield is. Its a viable class and got enough buffs to be a good choice for most players.
You probably could add some speed 93-94 1h-swords with 36-38 damage loomed. Wouldnt hurt.

Internal related at shields i do agree that its a bad choice not to take a round shield or similar formed shields.
So i also think that some of those shields could get a buff but for sure a huscarl is strong enough for example.
Title: Re: Side blocking for shield
Post by: Phew on March 21, 2014, 03:34:41 pm
Skilled shielders make use of blocking all directions at once too.

I really really hate the attitude to just tell how other classes shine and why this is so awesome that you instantly have to buff another class.

San's suggestion isn't a buff, as he clearly stated. It's just a decoupling of the camera angle and the block coverage, just like manual blocking has. The sh!tty coverage of shields would remain, you'd just be able to "steer" the narrow cone of coverage independently from your forward vector. In fact, it would make most shielders worse, since they'd be constantly aiming their shield in the wrong direction.

Title: Re: Side blocking for shield
Post by: Camaris on March 21, 2014, 03:38:47 pm
San's suggestion isn't a buff, as he clearly stated. It's just a decoupling of the camera angle and the block coverage, just like manual blocking has. The sh!tty coverage of shields would remain, you'd just be able to "steer" the narrow cone of coverage independently form your forward vector. In fact, it would make most shielders worse, since they'd be constantly aiming their shield in the wrong direction.

Im not against some kind of directional blocking for shielders like san suggested.
But that thread was again used to say how inferior shielders are by some people.
I probably picked the wrong quote then if that wasnt your intention.

Like i said above i also think that some shields are not worth it. Those could be buffed.

Title: Re: Side blocking for shield
Post by: SugarHoe on March 22, 2014, 01:16:05 pm
Shielders being buffed vs ranged would be fine but they need some sort of "counter" for other melee classes when they decide to play awfully like they can. It's honestly the absolute worst thing in the game when you're in a 1v1 with a shielder in battle and they s key to their team while blocking if you go after them, their shield never breaking and them hitting back once every 5-6 of your attacks, and then if you decide "fuck this it's not worth it" they just follow you and attack you from behind so you have to fight them. (worst with hoplites)

Make it so a certain number of repeated attacks against a shield by the same person, say 3-4 cause the shield to instantly drop to the ground. Thanks in advance  :arrow:.
yes holy shit this is what acre shielders do and every other noob shielder it's so fucking annoying
Title: Re: Side blocking for shield
Post by: Silveredge on March 22, 2014, 09:23:21 pm
I agree that this would be a good change.  However i think it's ignorant to say that shielders are easier to shoot then other classes.  Shielders are my last choice to shoot at, however I do shoot at them when i have the chance since they are the very first ones to feel they are safe and start to be careless.  The few players that are aware of their surroundings and have a shield are incredibly difficult to hit.  They can only be hit if they are engaged with another player or knocked to the ground by cav(and sometimes the passive shield still blocks it from the other side).  Shielders get so annoyed when shot by ranged because they've invested points to counter this specifically.  But it doesn't mean it's a hard counter in all situations and when you're not using it correctly. 

The whole reason ranged shoot shielders when they can is because the fact that the shield is so hard to shoot around and you do not want to have a shielder in the mix when fighting multiple people in melee.  Bolts used to go through shields at about a 30% rate.  And shielders felt like it was a 50% chance.  Currently it happens once in a blue moon, I would say 2-5%(and that's really rare when the average crossbowman doesn't get that many shots off).  When the player looks the other way or is dumb enough to try and attack BEFORE the melee interrupt happens, they get shot(and EVERYONE does this lol).  Sometimes I shoot at shielders heads at long range because they are looking everywhere, and the bolt hits right when they look behind themselves.  DONT LOOK AROUND IN A SHIELDWALL, use Freelook.  Wait, no carry on so I can keep shooting you and making you think that your shield is so useless.  Believe me when I say a player without a shield is far more screwed then a player with a shield vs ranged.

I've played a shielder, I've been there.  And it's not a hard class.  Almost every person that has started playing the game that I know of switches to shielder because they cant block to save their lives.  This gives them the ability to last more then one attack in combat, which is a good thing.  I would venture to say, in general, that shielders are the worst manual blockers when looking at the overall population.  You always have the exceptions like San and other good players who are shielders.  But really, how quickly does the average shielder die once their shield breaks?  It is incredibly frustrating to me that you can take a "bad" player in crpg and he can just hold block and s key to his hearts content vs a "great" player in crpg.  There is no other tool in the game that completely shuts out another player's attempts to damage them with only holding 1 button.

As stated this change would be a counter unto itself because of players that are not aware of what their shield is doing will get counter directional slashed/shot around their shield even more vs players who have played long enough to register visual queues.  You may be frustrating newer players more with this change since they hardly know whats happening to begin with.  But I think the overall change would be a very good one for the game.  It would be a good thing for competent shielders.  Giving them more of a tool vs ranged at higher levels of play, and at the same time balance how much of a hard crutch the shield is to players.  As it is with 1h you must block far more then your opponent, even back to back to back before you even get to attack once vs polearms especially.  But there is a reason to why the player has a 1h weapon, and a reason this is balanced out by the benefits from it.  Whether it's because they get to use a shield or a ranged weapon.  Angles, footwork, and weapon length play such a huge part in this game that they blur the lines of balance.  So much so that only very experienced players can see that the game is actually pretty balanced.

If you are not pressing right click at that moment, or looking within a 89 degree angle at your target, your forcefield is not there.  It's as simple as that.