Shielders vs ranged

[Konrax]

I said it a bunch of times now.

Ranged can out pace shielders because of weight penatlies of shield and the heavier armour most shieders wear.

The solution is to revert the damage back to where it was before, and then add an athletics delay when aiming / firing / drawing a ranged weapon. Something like 3 second delay on/after any of these activities would be a huge balance between melee and range without the need to overnerf the damage till its not even really viable.

Range needs to choose, shoot, or run, but not both back to back which gives us the current kiting situation. 2 archers can easily kite 1 shielder to the point where they can't possible block both firing arcs while easily out pacing them and being safe from harm.

[Nagasoup]

The real problem is blocking with a shield slowing you down. Shielders aren't as good as in real life against archers because in warband if you want to block arrows, you'll never be able to catch the person shooting them at you.

In reality, whether holding a shield in front of you or holding a shield by your side, you'd still be able to run just as fast.

As a matter of fact, you'd actually be able to run FASTER holding a shield in front than by your side, because being unbalanced towards the front would force you to run faster to keep your balance, while holding a shield at your side causes you to be unbalanced to the left, and thus unable to run as fast.

In reality, the reason that shields require real effort to use, is the moment of impact.

In order to keep your balance when a force impacts against your shield, the shielder must push BACK with the equal amount of force, or risk being knocked over (Newton's third law). Without anything impacting against against your shield, holding it up is no different than holding a dumbbell in your hand and running with it - pretty easy.

So the best course of action is not to add unrealistic, gimmicky effects to archery, but to change the mechanics of shields.

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Now that we got that out of the way, my suggestion is this:

1. Buff shielders' movement speed when blocking to nearly full speed.

2. Significant movement speed decrease for a brief moment after blocking an attack. A good idea would be to make the speed decrease depend on the damage the attack would've done had it not been blocked.

OR for a more realistic but harder to implement idea:

Instead of a movement speed decrease, it would be an acceleration in the direction of the attack.

For example, if you're running directly towards an archer, and you block an incoming arrow from said archer, you would accelerate in the direction of the arrow shot (pointing behind you) and be slowed down.

However, if you're backing away from an archer, and you block an arrow from said archer, you would speed up while walking backwards (acceleration in the direction of attack).

The magnitude of acceleration would depend on the strength of the attack. This would apply for blocking both ranged and melee.

[Zerran]

Make having a bow out and ready drastically reduce speed, similar to what a second shield on your back does, and also increase weight penalty from a bow on the back (Though to a lesser extent). If an archer wants to run fast, they then put the bow away (and therefore the shielder wouldn't have to worry about blocking, and could run faster), or they drop the bow altogether (and therefore lose all ranged ability, until they pick it back up)

[San]

If you want to increase movement while shield is up, it would be nice to keep all the direction's maximum speeds the same, except increase the maximum velocity for forward movement and that's it. Shield movement to the sides and backpedaling are fast enough.

It would probably be easier to put an acceleration delay on the archers as others have described above, though.

[Nagasoup]

If you want to increase movement while shield is up, it would be nice to keep all the direction's maximum speeds the same, except increase the maximum velocity for forward movement and that's it. Shield movement to the sides and backpedaling are fast enough.

It would probably be easier to put an acceleration delay on the archers as others have described above, though.

Actually yea that's a good idea on only forward movement speed increase (which would agree with physics also), however the movement penalty on archers is just unrealistic, gimmicky, and honestly a lazy bandaid fix for a much larger problem.

[Spawny]

If you want to increase movement while shield is up, it would be nice to keep all the direction's maximum speeds the same, except increase the maximum velocity for forward movement and that's it. Shield movement to the sides and backpedaling are fast enough.

It would probably be easier to put an acceleration delay on the archers as others have described above, though.

I actually really like this idea. I'm just worried it would make archers run from you sooner. Now they start running when you are within 10m or so, this change would make them run when you get within 15-20m. The added distance would make it harder to shoot over/around shields and I guess that would balance things out.

[Herkkutatti]

make bow and arrows weight more , or 1 pd needs 4 str 

[[ptx]]

Now that we got that out of the way, my suggestion is this:

1. Buff shielders' movement speed when blocking to nearly full speed.

2. Significant movement speed decrease for a brief moment after blocking an attack. A good idea would be to make the speed decrease depend on the damage the attack would've done had it not been blocked.

OR for a more realistic but harder to implement idea:

Instead of a movement speed decrease, it would be an acceleration in the direction of the attack.

For example, if you're running directly towards an archer, and you block an incoming arrow from said archer, you would accelerate in the direction of the arrow shot (pointing behind you) and be slowed down.

However, if you're backing away from an archer, and you block an arrow from said archer, you would speed up while walking backwards (acceleration in the direction of attack).

The magnitude of acceleration would depend on the strength of the attack. This would apply for blocking both ranged and melee.

The first seems okay, the 2nd is godawful - imagine getting pushed off walls in siege by arrow spam - FFFFFFUUUUUUU

[Nagasoup]

That effect could be implemented for only slowing down shielders during movement, not acceleration to the point where it would actually move the shielder.

For example, if you move forward you'd be slowed down by backward acceleration, but would never actually start moving backwards...

[Ylca]

Not one day after a major ranged nerf and people are already rallying for more nerf. I absolutely love the CRPG community. 

Wait you mean more than one archer at once makes it hard to shield? Kind of like fighting multiple of any class requires more attention to shield? Do go on. CRPG community best community, let's keep balancing to their whims and we'll have an amazing game! 

[Kafein]

Not one day after a major ranged nerf and people are already rallying for more nerf. I absolutely love the CRPG community. 

Wait you mean more than one archer at once makes it hard to shield? Kind of like fighting multiple of any class requires more attention to shield? Do go on. CRPG community best community, let's keep balancing to their whims and we'll have an amazing game! 

Although difficult, defeating 2-3 melee people alone as shielder is totally possible and happens quite a lot. Defeating 3 archers ? If you are lucky you manage to reach the slowest one and start a block battle with him, while his friends are firing in your back. Hell, even 3 c av are easier to kill.


I say, the very minimal thing that should be done is increasing the side coverage of kite/heather shields. Currently, those two are completely gimped compared to round shields because they only protect in an extremely narrow angle in front of the shielder.

[Lorenzo_of_Iberia]

I really dont have any problem with archers as a shielder :/ I just raise that shield high and dont push into positions where they flank me :/

[Spawny]

Wait you mean more than one archer at once makes it hard to shield? Kind of like fighting multiple of any class requires more attention to shield? Do go on. CRPG community best community, let's keep balancing to their whims and we'll have an amazing game! 

1v1 against an archer: He runs, can't catch him due to the weight of my shield and armour. No armour means I get killed by 1-2 hits from just about everything and taking massive damage from being run over by a horse.

2 shielders v 1 archer: Same as above.

2 shielderds v 2 archers: Either the same as above or the archers play smart and split up, then shoot the shielders in the back.

X shielders v X archers: Pretty much the same as above.

X Shielders v Y archers where X<Y: Shielders don't have a chance.

I'm not saying I think archery is over powered or too strong in general, I just have the feeling that shielders aren't as effective vs ranged as they should be (shielders are no counter, just an annoyance like every other infantry unit).

[Lorenzo_of_Iberia]

Shielders are a defensive class and the whole mechanic works on them defending, to rush out an archer and chase him is mostly a bad idea :/

[dodnet]

I have seen several shielders who got headshotted over their raised shield from an archer in the front. I'm not sure if its an issue of too low shield skill or them using 1st person view and holding the shield to low. It still is a bit strange.