Shield Knockback Ability

[Choko5]

Shield Knockback Ability

- Evokable
- knockback
- does no damage
- short exhaustion followed(5~10 turns)
- ministun(0.5~1.0 delay, the target is not adjacent to the player next turn)

Bucklers can't do this

Large shields
- multiple targets(three adjacent target, similar to player mottled draconian breath)
or
- further knockback (2~3 cells)

Forgive me if this is another horrible idea, I couldn't figure myself.

[Sjohara]

The developers are generally opposed to adding manually activated effects to standard melee combat (all the current attempts to spice up melee have taken the form of passives), and knockback as a passive would do more harm than good for a melee combatant. It's not going to happen.

[twelwe]

Activated combat effects will not be in the game. This does not include evoking reaching, which is aiming a basic attack. It is very interesting to me that your knockbacking, stunning ability somehow inflicts no damage, but no matter. You are forgiven.

[dpeg]

What the others said: melee powers should be passive.

Also, from a design perspective: the decision is between two-hander or shield. It seems contraproductive to muddle that distinction by having shields do damage.

This is not about power: at any given time, players will believe (perhaps rightfully so), that one choice is better than the other. It is easy to change things around, so that the other one is better. If shields are supposed to be more attractive, that can be done purely within their (defensive) niche. E.g. higher chance for ego, or large shields block more things than now etc.

[Choko5]

It seems contraproductive to muddle that distinction by having shields do damage.

I believe there was a misunderstanding here. I said "no damage". It's a purely defensive option.

Also, I have things to say about "No active melee power"
As far as I know, the main reasons melee powers can't have active effect are:
1. they don't have cost - MP, piety, maybe hunger. It'll be spammed and will make things less interesting.
2. it'll make things complex and inconvenient - it's cumbersome to use such ability, and it's hard to balance.
These points are right in most cases, but I believe in some cases might not be so.

About cost. We already have many things that can be done without or significantly low cost - vampire bat form, naga/draconian breath, low level spells such as summon butterflies, blink, apportation, etc - which are always fine to use unless you spam it.
We can use them whenever needed and available, but they don't ruin the game.
Shield knockbacking won't be spammed - melee fighters gain no benefit from it unless they want to escape or they're wielding a polearm. It also has a exhaustion timer. The player will lose a turn if the attempt fails. The player won't be using the ability reliably without enough SH value or skill. Wouldn't this be interesting?

About inconvenience. Knockbacking in this proposal is not as frequent action as melee attack. If using a spell is ok, this can be ok.

About adding complexity and balancing. Having a good escape option is a big thing. But not having two-handed weapon damage is a big thing, too. The player won't have the ability without enough SH skill, it takes several turns to take off or take on a shield, this ability is not always useful - especially in the late game where many enemies are with ranged attack.

For these reasons, I thought it might worth to post the proposal, after all the fuss in the M&F thread about "No active melee attack". Please, think about it once again.

[Choko5]

Talking about shield power, I'm highly against the current shield system. If providing a more defensive build is a goal, why don't we simply give higher cap on AC/EV with armour/dodging? The trade-off between more damage and more defense can already be given with armour penalty. Just like how UC works. For casters, if they want more defense, they simply can invest XP on dodging, fighting, or defensive spells.

Shields don't add much fun, but only makes things more complex. It's very hard to find the optimal. Players will have no idea on how shields work without spoilery informations such as evp, spellcasting penalty, eliminating evp, size factor, etc. Even with these informations, comparing the invest value between SH and EV is almost impossible. How much defense does 15 SH provide? 30 SH? is it worth random 0.1~0.3 attack delay? This matters when playing the game. Surely, you can learn from experience, but why should the learning be so hard without adding any fun? Players will want to have the optimal solution of dealing & absorbing damage. Why don't we simply let players have what they want?

So, I think something should be done about shields. Removing it, reforming it, adding something, whatever possible options should be considered.

[mumra]

So, I think something should be done about shields. Removing it, reforming it, adding something, whatever possible options should be considered.

You forgot to include "do nothing", which definitely falls under the definition of "whatever possible options".

[Choko5]

No, I didn't forgot "do nothing". I think the current shield system is not perfectly good, and believe there can be ways to make it better. I know "do nothing" is a very good option until we find a better one, and some changes can be worse than none. You don't have to emphasize it.

[galehar]

Players will want to have the optimal solution of dealing & absorbing damage.

If there was an optimal solution, there wouldn't be any choice. All builds have pros and cons, some are better than others in a specific situation and in another situation it's the other way around. You need to adapt your tactics to harvest the benefits of your strategic choices.

So, I think something should be done about shields. Removing it, reforming it, adding something, whatever possible options should be considered.

Great analysis, very helpful, thanks.

[roctavian]

IMO a greater variety of egos would be the best thing for shields.

What if there were a passive knockback shield ego? That is to say, sometimes when an enemy hits you in melee combat and you deflect it with your shield, the enemy bounces back a square? I dislike the idea of knockback weapons, because it typically moves the target you are trying to damage out of your damaging range. If it were a passive reaction ability, it may be less annoying particularly if enemies other than the one you are focusing on are knocked back.

[JeffQyzt]

What if there were a passive knockback shield ego? That is to say, sometimes when an enemy hits you in melee combat and you deflect it with your shield, the enemy bounces back a square? I dislike the idea of knockback weapons, because it typically moves the target you are trying to damage out of your damaging range. If it were a passive reaction ability, it may be less annoying particularly if enemies other than the one you are focusing on are knocked back.

This would be great for slings/javelins/large rocks users/conjurors.

[palin]

What if there were a passive knockback shield ego? That is to say, sometimes when an enemy hits you in melee combat and you deflect it with your shield, the enemy bounces back a square? I dislike the idea of knockback weapons, because it typically moves the target you are trying to damage out of your damaging range. If it were a passive reaction ability, it may be less annoying particularly if enemies other than the one you are focusing on are knocked back.

This would be great for slings/javelins/large rocks users/conjurors.

And this is why I think it should not be done. I think shields should be helping melee more that any other form of combat. I think also that bucklers shouldn't stop projectiles of any kind for the same reason... but it's my opinion only.

[Choko5]

Players will want to have the optimal solution of dealing & absorbing damage.

If there was an optimal solution, there wouldn't be any choice. All builds have pros and cons, some are better than others in a specific situation and in another situation it's the other way around. You need to adapt your tactics to harvest the benefits of your strategic choices.

I'd like to correct 'optimal' to 'as intended'. Being optimal highly depend on situations. Players might want more aggressive or defensive build. Choosing to spend more XP on defense is fine. Choosing to have more defense power with spellcasting/attack delay penalty is fine. They can be interesting strategic choice. Deciding how much XP to be spent on shields, dodging or armour is not much so. That is to find the highest/optimal defense power. This decision, tangled with the trade-offs, instead of simply choosing the strategy considering the cost, players are forced to look for the optimal solution, no matter what strategy they choose - offensive/defensive/magical.

[gloorx]

Believe it or not, as long as Crawl is deterministic there _is_ an optimal way of playing whatever the intended playing style may be. That doesn't mean that anybody will be able to figure out the optimal way (see chess).

What the others said: melee powers should be passive.

Passive like ... finesse, berserking, heroism, hasting, agility, might, weapon branding powers, sure blade, levitation, corona, phase shift etc. pp.?

--

Ideas for improving shields from turn 0, all completely passive:

* To-Hit penalty only when using 1.5-handers or casting spells.
* Blocking stairs: Limit the number of foes that can follow you up or down stairs depending on shield size. Drawback: In the turn you emerge on the other end of the stairs you get no benefig from the shield if you're being followed.
* Blocking corridors and doors: Foes have a reduced chance to push past you through doorways and in two tile wide corridors.
* Hiding behind the shield: While resting, shields block all ranged attacks including single target spells with a chance depending on shield size (something like 20%, 50%, 90%?), independent of the shield skill. (This allows to survive packs of ranged attackers until they close into melee range).
* Shields add flat 2/4/6 points to the armour class (reasoning: blows that get past a shield may still be somewhat weaker because they need to be aimed more carefully). Maybe even add the whole base SC to the AC (3/5/8?)?
* Blocking sight: Large shields block enemies' line of sight so that e.g. blink frogs cannot blink past you in a corridor.
* Any melee range attack against a shield bearing character or monster has a chance of being slowed by a few ticks (it may take some time to get a good atack angle).
* When a monster enters line of sight of the shield bearer for the first time, the shield bearer has a chance to "get the initiative" because the monster needs to maneuver into an attacking angle: If the enemy decides to target a ranged attack at the character's tile, there is a chance based on shield size and skill that he wastes that turn instead. If the monster does something else, the initiative is gone.
* Spiked shields of all sizes that have a chance of dealing a bit of passive damage to unarmed melee range attackers (possibly including short blades?).

[Galefury]

as long as Crawl is deterministic

...

Strictly speaking pseudorandom numbers are deterministic. For the purposes of crawl, this does not matter.

[gloorx]

Pseudorandom numbers _are_ subject to stochastics. Even if you do not know the predetermined sequence of random numbers, this allows to define an optimal strategy (or possibly multiple ones) that takes into account all available information. You can claim that the optimal strategy depends on situation as much as you like, but that's simply not true. It just means that one probably does not know the optimal strategy.

[ebarrett]

what a load of bull

[BlackSheep]

...that takes into account all available information...

Which information would that be?

[BlackSheep]

All available information.

My shoe size is 10.5.

[gloorx]

Which information would that be?

Characteristics of the distribution of the pseudorandom numbers. Pseudorandom number generators have to pass certain stochastic tests to be "good enough" for cryptography, yet with enough effort, pseudorandom numbers and realy random numbers can be distinguished stochastically. Simply speaking, for example whenever you roll a zero, the pseudorandom "chance" to roll a zero or one or two or whatever should be equeal. Extending that sequence _does_ lead to inequalities, for example if you have already rolled the sequence 1-2-3-4 the chance to roll a 5 after that may be different from the chance to roll a 6.

As the usual implementation of pseudorandom number generators spits out just 2^32 = 4294967296 numbers before the whole sequence is repeated, mo more than 2^32 different sequences of two individual number are present in the sequence of random numbers. On the other hand there are 4294967296 * 4294967296 possible sequences of the length two of 32 bit words. So you see that only a small fraction of the possible 2-sequences ever occur. The situation is not much better if random numbers are 64 bit values and the sequence of pseudorandom numbers has a length of 2^64.

It's very easy for a programmer to extract the random number sequence to a file and analyze it stochastically, if you want to. It's also easy for a programmer to find out the seed of the random number generator that a specific game of crawl uses by looking at the source code and using a debugger. From that point it's much more work to predict what the big mess that is called the Crawl source code actually _does_ with the random numbers.

Assuming that Crawl seeds the pseudorandom number generator each time the program is started, one strategy to win practically every game is to do the following whenever you get into a situation that may threaten the character's life:

1. With the game running, find out the current point in the sequence of pseudorandom numbers. It is possible to automate this given the source code of the C library and Crawl.
2. See what would happen in the game when continuing with this random number sequence given the next action you want to take by manually analyzing the source code.
3. If you do not like the result, save the game, load the game and go back to step 1.

(This attack requires debug access to the game process and can be prevented by storing the state of the random number generator in the save file.)

The only thing that can prevent people from actually _doing_ this is that the benefit it can yield may not be worth the effort. Now, before you start laughing: People _do_ take such efforts if the possible gain is big enough (e.g. espionage; to crack the encryption algorithm of your online banking protocol; etc.). If Crawl ever becomes a widespread e-sports like Starcraft is, the incentive to do that might already be doog enough.

[BlackSheep]

I don't like knockback as a player ability because it's too often something you don't want to happen. I'd prefer something more along the lines of an aux attack with a ministun effect that's effectively a low duration slow effect. That could still allow you to put distance between yourself and the target if that's what you want, or just reduce the amount of potential incoming damage if you're still planning to beat it to death.

[Lasty]

I like the idea of shields being used via 'v' to either cause knockback or some kind of stun, because it gives melee-heavy folks an extra escape option, and melee-heavy characters are more likely to be able to put the extra XP into Shields that (ideally) should be required to give it a decent chance of working against meaningful threats.

To improve Shields without adding an activatable ability, I don't think we need to add any frills or special abilities, we just need to make them better at blocking stuff, particularly ranged attacks. As it is, all 3 shield classes rapidly scale down effectiveness on additional attacks per turn*, all 3 are equally bad at blocking ranged attacks, and all 3 cannot block certain classes of important attacks. Bucklers are low-investment items, and so that seems fine for them, but the larger shields require significant investments, and they should be able to do better in all 3 of those ways.

I'd propose something like this:
+ Shields have a lower but still significant penalty than bucklers against multiple attacks. Their formula to block ranged attacks is improved. They do not block but reduce damage from rays, fireballs, and perhaps other currently-unshieldable ranged attacks (not torment, maybe hellfire), at a rate of something like 10%-40% depending on shield skill and enchantment.
+ Large shields have a much lower penalty than bucklers against multiple attacks. Their formula to block ranged attacks is greatly improved. hey do not block but reduce damage from rays, fireballs, and perhaps other currently-unshieldable ranged attacks (not torment, maybe hellfire), at a rate of something like 30%-70% depending on shield skill and enchantment.

I propose that these changes get made because both shields and especially large shields take a lot of experience to use and involve sacrificing 2-handed weapon damage. No other skill reduces your damage output when it is used, and no other skill (besides T&D) currently pays off so badly for its cost, and since we can fix that, we should.

If people are worried that spellcastering-heavy characters will become too good with effective shields, we can simply remove the shield penalty reduction that they receive by wearing no-EVP armor (why did that get added anyway?). They usually don't have enough experience floating around to pick up the heavier shields in that case until they're already near-invincible anyway.

* incidentally, is this penalty to further blocking removed at the start of each player action? Does that mean that characters with fast movement/attacks can effectively block more often than characters with slow movement/attacks?

[tasonir]

I'd propose something like this:
+ Shields have a lower but still significant penalty than bucklers against multiple attacks. Their formula to block ranged attacks is improved. They do not block but reduce damage from rays, fireballs, and perhaps other currently-unshieldable ranged attacks (not torment, maybe hellfire), at a rate of something like 10%-40% depending on shield skill and enchantment.
+ Large shields have a much lower penalty than bucklers against multiple attacks. Their formula to block ranged attacks is greatly improved. hey do not block but reduce damage from rays, fireballs, and perhaps other currently-unshieldable ranged attacks (not torment, maybe hellfire), at a rate of something like 30%-70% depending on shield skill and enchantment.

I love this idea. This, plus a small stun, would really improve shields. Knockback has too many issues, but a stun effect doesn't have any of them except for being possibly overpowered, depending on how powerful it is made.

There's really no reason to ever invest heavily in shields. I'd like to see a character build, however uncommon, who could reasonably make the decision to take shields to level 27. I'm thinking maybe a troll fighter who uses claws and a shield - can't wear meaningful (in terms of AC) armor until late game, can't dodge effectively...here's a build that should be trying to get a large shield and should be focusing on shields over armor/dodging skill. Right now that's questionable, and going over 15 shields (due to troll size) is laughable. I want a troll with 27 shields who blocks everything!

[TehDruid]

Allow trolls and ogres to tear down doors and use them as Giant Shields.

If they knock an enemy back, they can set the door between them and start door-dancing them.

[jejorda2]

Two handed shields for spellcasters that block quite well

[Sporkman]

Shields are... well, their usefulness varies. Which is a good thing mind you; there should be no perfect, optimal strategy for Crawl. And let's try to avoid making them hilariously complex; I'd say that if we want to make them better, we should just improve their stats. If that's even really needed.

I'd like to see a character build, however uncommon, who could reasonably make the decision to take shields to level 27.

Quoth the knowledge bot...

Shields can be enchanted to +3. Each enchantment increases the shielding by 1. Bucklers (5 SH, -1 EV); Shields (8 SH, -3 EV); Large Shield (13 SH, -5 EV). Every level of shield skill increases the shielding by 1/20 of the base shield value. You also get an effective SH bonus based on your str and dex (for large and regular) or dex (for bucklers)

So I'd say... it's probably an edge case, but there might be one out there. Then again, most setups don't even want to take any skill to 27 - the cost outweighs the return.

[Lasty]

The problem with simply improving the SH value is that the problem with shields is not how well they block what they block, but that they don't block enough. They are bad at blocking multiple attacks per turn, they are bad at blocking ranged attacks, and they don't even try to block most of the non-melee attacks which late-game monsters throw at you.

Increasing the shield value would just make them amazing against single melee attacks, and leave them awful at dealing with anything else. See my post above for a way to make them good at the job of blocking without adding a bunch of weird conditions and abilities.

[Davion Fuxa]

Shields need improvement, but I don't really like this idea of a Knockback ability being added in; I don't think it fits with the game as it comes off as being more of an spell-like ability. Doing it Passively, I think that might cause more annoyance for characters using Shields if they have to maneuver to get back into melee of things, or hurt balance of the game in other areas such as for those who focus on Throwing Weapons, Slings, or Polearms. That said, I'm not against improving shields by giving them debilitating effects on enemies.

* Any melee range attack against a shield bearing character or monster has a chance of being slowed by a few ticks (it may take some time to get a good atack angle).

This is a good example of a debilitating effect that would work well with Crawl as it is now. Specifically if the enemy monster had a high attack delay already, this might allow Shield Users the ability to escape from something like an Ogre. If the formula as well was tweaked also to hurt enemies with slow delays as well, it may actually make Ogres giant Marshmallows for the early Fighter or Gladiator backgrounds. What's more it would help Shields be known as a 'survivability' item which they clearly aren't now.

To improve Shields without adding an activatable ability, I don't think we need to add any frills or special abilities, we just need to make them better at blocking stuff, particularly ranged attacks. As it is, all 3 shield classes rapidly scale down effectiveness on additional attacks per turn*, all 3 are equally bad at blocking ranged attacks, and all 3 cannot block certain classes of important attacks. Bucklers are low-investment items, and so that seems fine for them, but the larger shields require significant investments, and they should be able to do better in all 3 of those ways....

I think this is also a good consideration as well. This would also be a nice survivability feature that would be a great boon for Shield Users, plus it would be an 'actual reason to play the Fighter Background'. I wouldn't necessarily though follow everything Lasty Suggested though, but it is certainly a good place to start thinking about what to do if this approach was taking. Specifically I would think since Bucklers aren't being used as weapons that they should also provide some (but minimal) ability to block ranged attacked as well.

[Lasty]

Bucklers already have the ability to block ranged attacks; they just aren't very good at it compared to melee attacks. That's probably fine. bucklers take almost no investment.

[KoboldLord]

Shield skill doesn't usually get raised to 27 because it's crazy-expensive to raise skills that high, not because it's weak. There simply isn't enough xp in a 3-Rune game for most characters to afford a maximum skill level in a non-critical secondary skill; most other support skills are front-loaded with lots of power in the cheap low levels, so running one of those support skills all the way to the maximum is simply never going to pay off. Changing this would make having that shield in your off-hand as important or more important than what you have in your weapon hand, and that's not desirable behavior at all.

I would say that on a shield-appropriate character, 25 shield skill for a large shield with a good brand starts becoming affordable somewhere between 12 and 18 Runes into the game. Unfortunately, that's really only relevant to Pan-grinding and Zig-trawling, and nobody has a reason to do either of those things more than once.

[XuaXua]

Give. Staves. SH.

Reduce something else to compensate, maybe an increasingly negative percentage increase in attack speed on a subsequent attack for each successful block on a turn.

[Roderic]

The e(v)ocable facet I think can be replaced by a "passive" wait turn, in case of having am adjacent monster, the shield has the effect.

It comes naturally: if you attack, you move towards with the movement keys, if you defend, you stand your ground with the wait key.

[jejorda2]

The e(v)ocable facet I think can be replaced by a "passive" wait turn, in case of having am adjacent monster, the shield has the effect.

It comes naturally: if you attack, you move towards with the movement keys, if you defend, you stand your ground with the wait key.

I always like the way it felt in early Zelda games to be able to use the shield by just not attacking. I like the interface, whether the effect should be in or not.

[delilah]

The argument against shields is always "Armor is better", so shouldn't the solution be balancing the incentive to train shields for defensive purposes?

Solution: Make shields soak up a lot more damage then they currently do, weighted against STR, so that this change mostly benefits melee characters. And I forget how attack delay works, but hitting a shield could slightly increase attack delay (e.g. a weapon with 130% delay would experience a +10% delay upon striking a shield)

Also,large shields could block(obstruct) cloud based attacks in hallways, so there is some incentive to get to use them. Anything that is not passive is just going to be an annoyance.

[Lasty]

Right, that's about the size of a buckler, and the kid presumably has 0 Shields skill. I wasn't advocating that bucklers get any better in any way. Assuming a large shield is genuinely somewhat large, which it should be given that small creatures can't use them, it should be possible to more or less hide completely behind one. At that point even an unskilled user can deflect most missiles from a single direction, at least. A skilled user should be able to use a large shield quite effectively to block ranged attacks -- at the very least from a 120 arc or so.

[Grimm]

Bucklers are a lot smaller than Cap's there.

[palin]

Bucklers are a lot smaller than Cap's there.

I agree, I'd call it a full-blown shield if it weren't so crazy