Rebalancing Riot and E-Shields

[Stickymayhem]

So shields are a bit of a problem to some people. Frankly I'm okay with them but any chance to remove RNG is something I'd be happy with SO.

REBALANCE

Shields currently reflect lasers always from any direction, even the rear. This is a bit stupid realistically and kind of makes the shield essentially an overall armor buff you hold in your hand. It's unintuitive, weird to look at and requires no effort.

The alternative would be directional full protection. There would be a few mechanics at play here. First of all, the position of the shield:

X = Full protection from bullets (Full reflection of lasers for e-shields)
O = Zero protection

Right-Hand Shield:

X X X
O O X
O O O

Left-Hand Shield:

X X X
X O O
O O O

Shield on back:

O O O
O O O
X X X

This would basically make shield formations actually useful, makes the positioning of the shield strategic and puts a lot of skill into shield usage. You have to keep everyone in your safe area while they attempt to flank you. Shield walls of operatives charging through the hallways sounds pretty fucking great. As a gimmick it was fun as hell but as a legitimate strategy for deathsquads and operatives it really puts some strategy into these overpowered weapons.

Even as security, it means you can use riot shields for 100% frontal block from ballistics, tasers and melee attacks, encouraging the shield wall formation during crazy rounds like gang and revolution.

Overall clearly I'm a genius but I wouldn't know where to begin coding this.

[Miauw]

directional blocking is a completely retarded idea imo
controlling the direction your facing is finnicky and hard, which is why it's used for literally nothing else in the entire game. you can retreat under the cover of your shield in your hand by clicking in the opposite direction you're running, which is literally rng.

[Stickymayhem]

clicking anywhere in the direction you need to face isn't difficult.

I have actually done shield walls with nuke ops and it's not too hard to pull off

If you're retreating you can stick the shield on your back or just retreat slowly enough that you can keep the shield up and facing the right way.

Plus disarm hitting people with the shield could push them back.

[Tornadium]

directional blocking is a completely retarded idea imo
controlling the direction your facing is finnicky and hard, which is why it's used for literally nothing else in the entire game. you can retreat under the cover of your shield in your hand by clicking in the opposite direction you're running, which is literally rng.

I'm actually all for anything which increases the skill ceiling and reduces reliance on RNG.

[Remie Richards]

Well, given some ~secret things~ I've playtested with MrPerson that may or may not end up in the game, I'd definitely be for this.

[Stickymayhem]

hype hype

[Remie Richards]

Those playtests were a little while ago, but I'll see if MrPerson's working on it still, if not, I'll try and rekindle the flames of it, it was a really neat improvement he had.

[Saegrimr]

Please no directional combat in SS13.

[Stickymayhem]

Please no directional combat in SS13.

It's practically the only strategic combat we can possibly manage in this game that isn't reliant on RNG

[Remie Richards]

Arguments against directional combat can kind of be boiled down to a few problems
>Keeping track of where you are facing -> Some people say they can do this already, I usually change my dir just for RP rofl, so It'll probably just be a minor skill adjustment/learning thing
>Keeping track of where your ENEMY is facing -> The sprites do a decent job of telling which way someone is facing, so same as above, minor learning thing
>Having to click a 32x32 sprite rendered at 64x64 during combat -> This is present now, so will not be some new thread in the future.

So directional combat, if done -well- should be fine.

[Miauw]

directional blocking is a completely retarded idea imo
controlling the direction your facing is finnicky and hard, which is why it's used for literally nothing else in the entire game. you can retreat under the cover of your shield in your hand by clicking in the opposite direction you're running, which is literally rng.

I'm actually all for anything which increases the skill ceiling and reduces reliance on RNG.

as i said, this will make people click behind them while retreating to face the threat, making it literally rng whether they're hit by anything you shoot at them or not.
ss13 combat is already confusing enough

[Remie Richards]

directional blocking is a completely retarded idea imo
controlling the direction your facing is finnicky and hard, which is why it's used for literally nothing else in the entire game. you can retreat under the cover of your shield in your hand by clicking in the opposite direction you're running, which is literally rng.

I'm actually all for anything which increases the skill ceiling and reduces reliance on RNG.

as i said, this will make people click behind them while retreating to face the threat, making it literally rng whether they're hit by anything you shoot at them or not.
ss13 combat is already confusing enough

Imagine it as a dramatic turn around while holding the shield.
alternatively make combat (defining combat as running away and choosing to swap direction to the exact opposite) take a small time fraction.

[Amelius]

alternatively make combat (defining combat as running away and choosing to swap direction to the exact opposite) take a small time fraction.

That will just make the game feel laggier. Don't do that, honestly, I like the idea and clicking behind you only gives you a fairly low chance of success anyways, given how intermittent it is AND the blindspots as well as forcing you to dedicate both your hands to doing nothing for the duration.

[Wyzack]

I think this would be pretty cool, imagine a riot sheildwall as the thin red line attempts to hold back a mob of greyshits pelting them with bottles and floortiles

[Scones]

directionals dont matter anywhere else

our framerate is low and our movespeed is fairly high so this seems like a really awful idea, maybe it would be good if facing mattered anywhere else in the game

add a "fixed direction" toggle button that locks your facing direction until clicked again if you want to add things like this

[TheNightingale]

So if you have a shield in both hands and one on your back, you're immune to all damage?

[Remie Richards]

So if you have a shield in both hands and one on your back, you're immune to all damage?

I never made it clear, but if I *do* go ahead with it, I won't use sticky's patterns.
I'll use these:

X = Full protection from bullets (Full reflection of lasers for e-shields)
O = Zero protection

Right-Hand Shield:

O X X
O O O
O O O

Left-Hand Shield:

X X O
O O O
O O O

Shield on back: (Unchanged from Sticky's)

O O O
O O O
X X X

This means you're open on the sides, and from atleast 1 diagonal if you've only got one shield.

[Cheimon]

I don't like the directional idea. Clicking to choose where you face is much less practical than you think when you consider that ops and the like will always be holding some sort of ranged weapon. If you're not wanting to waste ammo, you're going to have to flick between hands (making sure if you use middle mouse button that you don't click on a black tile) and then switch.

Meanwhile, if you're moving back from something you will need to click behind you to ensure maximum protection, which will look and feel awful.

An overall armour boost that you sacrifice a hand slot for is what they are, and that's fine as far as I'm concerned. If the 'block' RNG is something that bothers you then you can make them not-RNG in other ways. Energy shields have no RNG for whether they protect you from beam weapons, and that's great. It's really powerful, and it really works (until someone batons you). Maybe give riot shields a solid boost like that, such as being immune to disarm blows or whatever.

Or, make them only 100% armour certain body parts, like the chest and head.

Anyway, plenty of armour is RNG based: teleporter, ablative, esword deflection, and to an extent your dice rolls on what body part gets hit if you're wearing chest armour. Shields are not unique and they don't need 'fixing' in this ugly and ineffective way. Why should shields be directional if no other aspect of combat is?

If the shield being omni-directional is unintuitive from the sprite, change the sprite. You can perfectly well create a kind of 'energy bubble' that the handheld energy shield makes, if you prefer. Riot shields don't necessarily block everything, which is why they don't need such a bubble sprite (and also why they're a lot less useful).

[Stickymayhem]

So if you have a shield in both hands and one on your back, you're immune to all damage?

honestly this would be ok because that means no backpack and no free hands. You'd literally have to drop a shield to fire anything back.

[Stickymayhem]

So if you have a shield in both hands and one on your back, you're immune to all damage?

I never made it clear, but if I *do* go ahead with it, I won't use sticky's patterns.
I'll use these:

X = Full protection from bullets (Full reflection of lasers for e-shields)
O = Zero protection

Right-Hand Shield:

O X X
O O O
O O O

Left-Hand Shield:

X X O
O O O
O O O

Shield on back: (Unchanged from Sticky's)

O O O
O O O
X X X

This means you're open on the sides, and from atleast 1 diagonal if you've only got one shield.

The pattern you propose makes shield walls not actually effective though which is a shame.

Maybe

X X O
X O O
O O O

and

O X X
O O X
O O O

would be better because they could stand side by side and defend eachother from all frontal angles, provided they coordinate well which would slow them down a huge amount.

[Remie Richards]

So if you have a shield in both hands and one on your back, you're immune to all damage?

I never made it clear, but if I *do* go ahead with it, I won't use sticky's patterns.
I'll use these:

X = Full protection from bullets (Full reflection of lasers for e-shields)
O = Zero protection

Right-Hand Shield:

O X X
O O O
O O O

Left-Hand Shield:

X X O
O O O
O O O

Shield on back: (Unchanged from Sticky's)

O O O
O O O
X X X

This means you're open on the sides, and from atleast 1 diagonal if you've only got one shield.

The pattern you propose makes shield walls not actually effective though which is a shame.

Maybe

X X O
X O O
O O O

and

O X X
O O X
O O O

would be better because they could stand side by side and defend eachother from all frontal angles, provided they coordinate well which would slow them down a huge amount.

WHAT. you have just recreated the issue! two shields+backshield = immunity.
Mine makes shield walls fail if you only have one shield, which is identical to your (second) patterns.

[Stickymayhem]

I don't think the immunity is a problem though. It sounds hilarious to me.

Remember riot shields would deflect lasers, so someone with three of them can still be disabled or lasered.

IF you can get three eshields then you fucking deserve immunity but you'll still be utterly useless. Maybe eshields don't need melee protection.

Riot shields would have ballistic and melee protection
Eshields would have ballistic and beam/laser protection/reflection.

[Scones]

Someone should really address the issues I brought up earlier in the thread instead of completely disregarding them

[Stickymayhem]

Facing people isn't terribly hard.

The strafe idea is nice I never mentioned it because too lifeweb.

[JJRcop]

If this could be done with low performance impact, it would be interesting if you just automatically faced where the mouse was, then strafing would be part of the game.

[lumipharon]

This is bad in the same way direction vision or flashlights are bad.

This is a top down, 2d sprite gam. Direction is not relevent anywhere else in the game what so ever.

If you're charging some guy who has a e-shield/double sword down the corridor, instead of just LOS'ing them around a corner, completely nullifying their advantage, then that's your issue.

[J_Madison]

what do

[Stickymayhem]

what do

Shoot with laser/disabler in back

Or baton/any melee weapon them in the front and sides

Also shieldman can't fight back and it's hard to get multiple eshields. the best he can do is use a belt and armor slot for guns and then he literally has to drop a shield in the middle of combat to pull out a gun or interact with anything.

Seems fine to me.

[TechnoAlchemist]

I think this particular directional idea is a good idea.

[PKPenguin321]

im all for nerfing shields but this is kinda shitty simply because having to care about what direction you face/what direction to attack in would be so janky
not to mention you guys keep making these 3x3 things
X X X
X X X
X X X
when in reality there aren't really diagonals from what i can tell (and if there are, the interface is too unintuitive to be able to use them without relying entirely on luck), so
O X X
O O O
O O O
would really look like
...X
O O O
...O

this is a good idea entirely is concept but doesn't work in action just because of the shit interface
if we ever get an SS13 remake that's not shit and runs on a half-decent engine it might work

[MisterPerson]

We have diagonals, we just don't have directionals to face diagonally. But if nothing else your click can def be at a target diagonal to you.

[Danowar]

As much as I would love directional-based combat, I feel like it would eventually turn into this:

[Stickymayhem]

Still better than RNG