The Shield Problem(s)

**Foz** · 01-10-2007, 06:34

I figured I'd edit the first post here for the benefit of those who may be jumping in in the middle of things. Basically, what follows is a bunch of discussion and research into how shields function in M2TW. You of course can read it for yourself if you like, but for the sake of saving people's time, I'll sum up what's been found for those who are just interested in that:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read:

This has prompted me to release an interim solution that attempts to fix the problems. Those of you interested in that will find it linked in my signature.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled program: my first post indicating there might be a problem, in its entirety.

While testing Armoured Swordsmen against Dismounted Noble Knights, I discovered that the shield was not doing anything discernable in combat. Armour and Defense Skill numbers in the txt file were affecting unit performance correctly... but armoured swordsmen modified to have 22 shield and no other defense actually did a bit worse in combat than swordsmen with 3 zeros in the defense stats, a fact I initially blew off. You can read about this testing and findings here.

It apparently doesn't end there, however. In more tests trying to see if shields in general were affected, I began messing with Armoured Sergeant shield stats and pitting them against Mailed Knights. I used HRE armoured sgts which I controlled (left sit in initial formation to get charged into until one of the units routed) against English mailed knights. Here's what happened with different unit stat settings for the armoured sergeants:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read:

I began with dumping the shield points into the skill stat instead. The sgts performed admirably, sticking it to the knights with men to spare every time. IIRC this was a considerable boost over their vanilla stat performance against the same Mailed Knights.

I then set the shield to 6 to see what effect their default shield had on the unit with it's newly upped defense skill. Not only did it not give the sgts a defense bonus, but it apparently made them get hit more often in battle, taking heavier losses. With 6 more shield points, the unit lost more than half its battles (though both units were always near routing by the end) where it had not lost any at shield 0.

To test further, I went back and made shield 1. Sure enough, the values arrive between the results for shield 0 and the results for shield 6. To confirm the trend I thought I was seeing, I tested with shield pumped all the way to 26... and to my alarm, it did what I was by this point expecting: got the sgts horribly slaughtered.

Needless to say, this is not only bad, it's completely disturbing. First things first though: I'd appreciate if several people could run tests of their own to confirm this is in fact what happens. With these 2 units first to make sure I'm not going mad at the moment, but then with others too to see how widespread the problem is...

*edited to add better description*

**JCoyote** · 01-10-2007, 07:04

Actually I was thinking of asking something like this in the 2h fixes thread. Perhaps the halberds are stomping the swordsmen not because they are overpowered, but because the sword's defense is nerfed?

**hrvojej** · 01-10-2007, 11:14

Hmm, quite disturbing. It would be one thing if for example shields are only contributing to the missile defense while skill only contributes to melee defense, since we could try to rebalance things accordingly. But shields actually having a negative influence in melee means that everything we thought we knew about the stats goes out the window. I'll try to find time later today to do some tests on this.

**sapi** · 01-10-2007, 11:44

This does not sound good....

**Musashi** · 01-10-2007, 14:00

I've been saying for some time that I believed shields were only being applied against missile attack.

Granted, they make a BIG difference when you're under missile attack.