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Make shields more fun and less confusing!

In the current snapshot, shields are confusing and weird. They counter early game players but lose against late game players (as they take knockback from the higher damage weapons and cannot follow up). It seems weird that a mechanic is only useful for a certain part of the game. Surely, if shielding is a good mechanic it should be useful throughout the game.

Currently the shields main purpose is for block hitting, this is very unintuitive - I've seen newer players try to use shields to block damage and get DESTROYED because of it (as they cant follow up due to knockback). IMO shielding should counter attacks to be useful, so I recommend preventing shielding players from taking knockback, this would mean shields would always allow for follow ups when hit, meaning they counter regular attacks and would be waaay less confusing for new players.

However, this would make it impossible to counter a shield without an axe, as the only other way of countering shields would be to strafe around the shield's radius and attack, which is ineffective as the shielding player can just attack whilst shielding or unshield and attack.

This is unfair for players without axes. As such, you should not be able to attack whilst shielding, and unshielding without succesfully blocking should trigger the attack cooldown (likewise shields shouldn't be usable in attack cooldown). This would allow players who predict a shielding opponent to counter it by simply waiting and strafing without the need of an axe.

RevilingSine222 shared this idea.

• August 21, 2020 19:39
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  jijigri commented

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  • August 22, 2020 03:35
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  It's really close to what you said but I think shields could work like counters in many other games (Smash, Battlerite, etc...), where you can only block for a few ticks, and if your enemy hits your shields, he gets knocked back or gets his weapon on cooldown for a very brief time, but if your enemy doesn't hit your shields, you'll get punished by having a very brief time when you can't attack. This makes shields more fun because you'll have to time them, and would improve both PvE and PvP experience.

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  Enders Host commented

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  • August 22, 2020 04:13
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  A generic 5 damage reduction is not confusing. Any reasonable person would understand why a sheild would work against a Zombie and not against some late game mob or player.

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  RevilingSine222 commented

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  • August 23, 2020 00:01
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  That could also definitely also work. My main inspiration for this were the sort of rock paper scissors style systems found in games like smash bros, so as long as you get the sort of rock paper scissors system and the mindgames which come with it, I don't really care what the specific changes are tbh.

  Timed blocking would change pve a bit more than this, as you would have to time your blocks against mobs, which sounds like great fun to me, although I can imagine some people might not like it. Kind of reminds me of Mordhau's parry.

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  RevilingSine222 commented

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  • August 24, 2020 21:35
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  Enders that's true, but you seem to have missed the point of this suggestion.

  The point is not that the 5 damage limit on shields is confusing, it's that the knockback shields face when the damage exceeds 5, in addition to the ability to attack whilst shielding that is confusing.

  When you shield in games you expect it to act as a sort of counter to attacks, and I see newer players shielding expecting to gain some sort of advantage, only to get crit into oblivion as they can't follow up due to knockback. I don't think it's fair for players to be punished for making the (very reasonable) assumption that shields should counter attacks.

  Additionally, the fact that shields have a limited radius would seem to suggest that (if you don't have an axe) to counter shields, you should strafe around their radius and attack. But this isn't the case, as shielding players can attack whilst shielding or (if they are using right click) immediately after, preventing you from strafing. The real way of countering shields without an axe is to position yourself correctly and go for crits, which is pretty unintuitive as you would probably not expect to counter a shield by directly attacking it.