http://elanthipedia.org/w/index.php/Post:Odd_thing_I_am_noticing..._-_8/2/2009_-_15:05:19
http://elanthipedia.org/w/index.php/Post:Combat_3.0_Update_-_02/05/2012_-_16:12

While doing some research, I came across posts saying that shield hindrance doesn't affect evasion, it affects shield use, and this confuses me.

So bigger shields will make you block better (+protection) AND block worse (hindrance).

This seems... wierd.

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Weapons for Sale:
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Hunta Talna Kortok, built by Gor'Togs, for Gor'Togs
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The shield hindrance this kind of is curious. Bigger shield protects more but hinders more...so um...it negates itself? My guess the reason why shield hindrance applies to a smaller fraction would be to make that logic make sense, else why wear big shields, especially with high levels of skill?

It doesn't hinder more if you can work off the shield hindrance - which most people are doing to a large extent. We're talking a % or two here, wheras the shield size bonus is in the double digits.

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"I have no data yet. It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories instead of theories to suit facts."
- Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Sherlock Holmes

Could I ask how much skill approximately it takes to train off large shield hinderance as an armor tert?

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<<"earning too little skinning experience for a day or so isn't nearly as bad as having a spell that breaks your wings."

Yeah, as far as I can tell, medium and large shields are flatly unusable by armor terts even when you use the lightest/least hindering shields out there, which sucks. I'm baffled how the penalty is actually supposed to increase. Whatever %-based bonus there is for shield size, it absolutely is not outweighing the hinderance hit for me. Here's a re-post of something I put in Bugs the other day.


I tested various shield sizes and their effective protection with Leilond with the goal of figuring out which shield would be best to use against ranged. As a MM, going up the size ladder means a hit to hinderance, so I got the two least hindering bigger shields I could find. What we found, however, was the medium and large shields were considerably worst against thrown weapons, even with very negligible hinderance differences. All shields were in pristine condition during testing. No burden. No buffs for either side. Thrown weapon was a tyrium throwing axe.

Shield appraisals with effective hinderance on each below. Note the skirmisher shield has slightly more effective hinderance than the ceremonial shield, but it only shows up if you mix armor enough to really test the shades of hinderance--it's that close.

Lumium Ceremonial Shield (small) arm-worn:

You are certain that the shield offers poor (5/26) to better than fair (9/26) protection.

You are certain that it could do:
no (0/26) puncture damage
no (0/26) slice damage
heavy (9/26) impact damage
no (0/26) fire damage
no (0/26) cold damage
no (0/26) electric damage

You are certain that the shield is decently (6/15) balanced and is inadequately (4/15) suited to gaining extra attack power from your strength.

But considering all the armor and shields you are wearing or carrying, you are currently insignificantly (3/14) hindered and your stealth is somewhat (6/14) hindered.

Lumium Skirmisher Shield (medium), hand-held:

You are certain that the shield offers poor (5/26) to very good (13/26) protection.

You are certain that it could do:
no (0/26) puncture damage
no (0/26) slice damage
very heavy (10/26) impact damage
no (0/26) fire damage
no (0/26) cold damage
no (0/26) electric damage

You are certain that the shield is fairly (5/15) balanced and is decently (6/15) suited to gaining extra attack power from your strength.

But considering all the armor and shields you are wearing or carrying, you are currently insignificantly (3/14) hindered and your stealth is somewhat (6/14) hindered.

Lumium Kite Shield (large), hand-held:

You are certain that the shield offers dismal (3/26) to very high (15/26) protection.

You are certain that it could do:
no (0/26) puncture damage
no (0/26) slice damage
very great (12/26) impact damage
no (0/26) fire damage
no (0/26) cold damage
no (0/26) electric damage

You are certain that the shield is poorly (3/15) balanced and is reasonably (7/15) suited to gaining extra attack power from your strength.

But considering all the armor and shields you are wearing or carrying, you are currently lightly (4/14) hindered and your stealth is moderately (7/14) hindered.


Test: I stanced down until he would hit somewhat consistently against the small shield, then we did series of 10 throws to see how many would hit with each shield.

Ceremonial shield: 3.5 hits out of 10.
Skirmisher shield: 7 hits out of 10.
Kite shield: 8 hits out of 10.

We still need to perform in depth testing to confirm, but Gorteous convinced me of a theory that suggests that Medium/Large shield performance is largely tied to the discrepancy between Shield and Evasion skill.
i.e. If your Shield skill is close to your Evasion skill then you can make good use out of Medium shields, and if your Shield skill is greater than your Evasion skill then you can make good use out of Large shields.

The idea is basically that the more shield hinderance you have is the more your evasion defense is penalized, so if you're relying on Evasion skill more than Shield skill to defend at your level then you're probably better off using a not-so-hindering shield.

We still need to confirm with a large data set, but that is the general idea.

~ Leilond
http://i67.photobucket.com/albums/h307/ss1shadow/Leilond_Progression.jpg

<<The idea is basically that the more shield hinderance you have is the more your evasion defense is penalized, so if you're relying on Evasion skill more than Shield skill to defend at your level then you're probably better off using a not-so-hindering shield.

This has been my experience when I was testing different size shields. Evasion being 200 ranks lower, the better protects of the large shields outweigh the hindrance. Of course, it is a trade off if I am not fighting critters and am subject to DFA. My evasion is tanked even more likely making whatever evasion buff that form of attack against me gives even less of a buff. Oops.. sorry.. did not mean to derail anything. Just typing away.


~~~
True heroism is remarkably sober, very undramatic. It is not the urge to surpass all others at whatever cost, but the urge to serve others at whatever cost.

>>Rewyn: 1) The armor feats system is not out yet. When they are you will get more capabilities to customize your setup, similar to magic slots.

Has this been confirmed? Feats for other skillsets (armor, weapons, and survival) is a popular suggestion, and one that I support, but I haven't read any official posts about it.

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Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall rank!

Nothing is set in stone over any potential feats for weapon and armor skills. There will be a combo system released hopefully later today, but that will be open to everyone and offer special tie-ins for Endurance and Expertise. Its effects will focus mostly on the target, not on the user.

Honestly, I don't know how we would balance armor feats. Everyone would obviously take the feats to make Plate armor non-hindering, leaving the other armor skills to rot. We can't increase armor protection any more than we currently have with capped tyrium heavy plate, so feats of that nature are off the table. We've been unable to brainstorm anything beyond that...

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"I have no data yet. It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories instead of theories to suit facts."
- Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Sherlock Holmes

For my own part, the armor feat I'd like to see is the ability to leverage your armor (particularly plate) as your shield. Basically, instead of using a piece of metal-bound lumber, you can leverage your shield skill to use various parts of your metal armor to fend off blows. Although it would be a step more towards realism (ever see someone outside of a joust using both plate and a shield?), it would require some drawbacks, such as never protecting better than a buckler, and opening you to more impact damage than a shield.


-Ray

<<Finishing combos/endurance/expertise, alchemy/enchanting, bosses, siege combat, etc.>>

Awesome and exciting, Kodius, thanks for all the hard work. It's an amazing thing you guys have put together to this point, and you've been great dealing with our "testing"/whining.

>>DR-Kodius: Honestly, I don't know how we would balance armor feats. Everyone would obviously take the feats to make Plate armor non-hindering, leaving the other armor skills to rot. We can't increase armor protection any more than we currently have with capped tyrium heavy plate, so feats of that nature are off the table. We've been unable to brainstorm anything beyond that...

A few ideas that may appeal to people who train multiple armors:

Reduce the additional mixed armor penalty

Reduce the roundtime for switching armor

Reduce encumbrance associated with wearing or carrying armor

Switch armor setups with one command

Brawling armor that may injure people who grapple with you (I'm not sure if this is feat material, but it sounds cool.)

Armor layering (with additional hindrance penalties, of course)

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Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall rank!

Regarding stealth hinderance, I would kill for something that made LC useable in stealth a bit more for a MM. Barring that, if that's considered falling into the realm of hiding-in-plate-OP, any reduction in the shield hit to stealth hinderance, or even the hinderance on leather, would be great. That's a feat I would use.

All these ideas are interesting but here's my big question. It seems like people are acting like the feats in place right now, the magic feats, are free. They aren't, they cost spell slots. What exactly are these armor/weapon/etc feats going to cost? Slots granted by skills? By guild and circle? That's a pretty big thing that would need to be addressed first and the manner in which the slots are granted would be something I imagine would be hotly debated. As a magic user, you give up potential spells to gain feats. What would someone be giving up to have these non-magic feats? If nothing, then magic users are would be getting a pretty sore deal.

Discuss.

Then you are basically asking for these feats for free. You cannot avoid training those 3 skills unless you forget combat altogether, which now no guild can really do. To gain magic feats you have to give up slots that would otherwise be spells. Why would non-magic feats be basically free instead?

Caraamon's model is closer, but there is still the fact that in contention for those slots for magic feats there are other things that you would otherwise be giving up (spells). What would there be to contend with these feats? Would there just be inherently few slots to prevent you from just taking each one you want?

Treat it like stance points -- Armor Primary guilds get slots at 1 per 60 ranks, Secondary get slots at 1 per 70, and Tertiary get slots at 1 per 80 or whatever. Basically stagger the gain based on skillset placement.

Also, spell slots are just as free because they're based on circle. Spells can be considered as much a perk as a non-spell feat.

~ Leilond
http://i67.photobucket.com/albums/h307/ss1shadow/Leilond_Progression.jpg

I much prefer the parity of slots being given out by circle based off skill set placement. I realize that wont be as attractive to people that are armor tert or weapon tert, but as a supernatural tert I get this treatment currently. It would keep things comparable (a slot is a slot is a slot) and ensure that the model holds more or less with a maximum amount of feats you can get, instead of it going on to a psuedo forever (up to 1500 ranks).

Also having feats given out for ranks means at low levels you will make almost no choices, which leads to a lot of early training problems (training armors at low levels can already be problematic for many guilds based off choice). If you are getting a feat every 60 ranks that might seem fine at 1000 ranks, not so much at 30.

I like the idea of gaining feat slots when you circle.
You get 1 slot every circle.
Spells cost a bit more to offset not having to split slots between spells and feats.
Feats in your primary skill set cost 1 slot per feat, while secondary and tertiary skill set feats cost 2 slots.




An interesting feat for weapons and or armor could be unlocking the possibility of different combat messaging. For example you get the Showy Armor feat, now you can use a better message when you type in parry. It's just a copy of the alternate magical preps but it could be adapted to the most common 3 activities in each skill set. More examples would be a better message when foraging/athletic or a more showy way of drawing a weapon or some interesting way of appraising. Of course you'd have to learn the exact message somewhere in game but that's par for the course.

I also like the ideas of feats for lowering the multi-armor type penalty, decreasing the penalty when arm wearing a shield, decreasing the hindrance when wearing all the same armor type, unlocking a move that lets you stand(not attacking) and gain stamina like you were laying down(only works in combat), decrease the penalty to overlapping areas with more than one piece of armor, and a very small chance to turn a stun into armor damage instead.

Some random ideas include cantrip like abilities for each skillset(hold two weapons and juggle them; forage up a tyrium toothpick clean your teeth and toss it; use your armor to sun tan; ...), being able to learn one other language for a lore feat, and reducing the penalty to hiding while injured.
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Caution: may scream about HUGE DRAMATIC AMAZING SIGNIFICANT loss

I think its more a control and dispersion matter. If you spread things out by ranks, then you have to do so with a 1500 max in mind. That means for instance, a feat every 60 ranks. For new player that can mean weeks before their first feat depending on how much they play.

If you base it off circle, you get many more feats in those first few days/weeks and then it tappers off more gradually. I think the model spells have is a good idea in general (some guilds start with free feats (2 for primaries, one for secondaries) and primaries gain feats more rapidly initially, secondaries behind that and eventually everyone gets them as the tert rate.

Preserve certain advantages to placement, similar to harness regeneration.

In general though, the game needs lots of other things right now I imagine (outlined by Kodius).