The Shield Problem(s)

[Foz]

the_foz_4: so your proposal for now is to direct convert shield value into armor?

It sure is. Both fixes have the disadvantage of borking other aspects of the unit left/right/rear defense as I mentioned in a previous post. As dumping shield into the armour stat keeps the game's impression of the unit's defense value the same, it should end up being the fix that maintains the current functionality of auto-calc, where skill-fixing the units presumably will make auto-calc heavily favor units that have high-valued shields. This is due to the game calculating defense as Armour+Skill+Shield, arriving at a value that has 2 times the shield added into it with the skill fix. You can tell that for the purposes of figuring out balance the game uses the shield stat correctly... because when you boost the shield stat of a unit and nothing else in a 1v1 mirror match (like the DFK v DNK I've been testing), that unit will be noticeably favored in the blue and red bar at the bottom of the screen at the start of the battle.

I'm not great at testing these things so i'd like to pass on a proposal.

Can someone test (with identical units obviously, dfk and dnk seem to be the popular ones) a unit with 0/5/0 attack/shield/skill vs a unit with 5/5/5 (i think we shouldn't use 0 as it seems to be unpredictable) and then 0/0/5 vs 5/5/5 instead of doing both modifications at once....

The test results we're getting are interesting but imo in no way a fair test (as more than one variable is often changed).

If you want to test adding shield to def skill, test with just shield, then just skill, then shield + skill

I may do so tomorrow if I'm really motivated... but I sorta doubt it. I might actually want to play the game one of these days, lol. It'd be really cool if someone else could do it. If not then I'll probably get to it soonish.

As for the "add shield to skill" thing I hear everyone mention, I don't call that a fix at all. There is clearly some detriment associated with shield usage. Adding shield to skill will give the unit the defense it should already be getting from the shield, but does nothing to account for the extra detriment of the shield stat. So while it is better than vanilla, this will still leave your shield units underpowered in combat. The skill fix I've mentioned is to add TWICE the shield into the skill field, and IMO it makes the units behave how you expect based on their stats. No more of this town militia being stomped by peasants garbage, or cavalry just plowing through spear units like they're not even there. It makes things act intuitively how the stat sheet says they should, which is one main reason I am set on thinking I've assessed the situation correctly.

The other has nothing to do with testing, and everything to do with my experience writing code. The sum of that experience tells me that in cases like this, the thing that almost always is at fault is that the programmer put the wrong sign somewhere in the code or omitted one that was needed, and so something gets subtracted instead of added or vice versa. So in my estimation there is a relatively small chance that, having noticed that the shield has some sort of negative effect instead of a positive one, it would be in any amount other than the amount of the shield field.

In any case, I am satisfied enough with the various results to stick by my assessment of the situation until evidence appears to the contrary.

Also since some of you are undoubtedly wondering how the heck I found the time to mod my entire EDU file with the armour fix, I'll just say that... I didn't. I wrote a program to do so. I'll see if I can find time to get it posted sometime tomorrow in case other people would like to apply it. Should I post a fixed EDU file, or the exe that fixes the file?

[The Stranger]

i can do it... i found the problem :P... this time i shall have real results ;)

[AussieGiant]

Having just stepped back into the forum after about 2 months I have to make the following point.

Keeping in mind the 2 handed issue and now this shield issue;

Can you all imagine the delicate balancing act that has had to be done on play testing with these two issues not working correctly in the background this whole time!!??

Just think about it for the moment....assuming CA knew about both issues from the beginning...how do they compensate to get the game out on schedule, but somehow re-balance the gameplay to reduce the effect of these two "issues" so they don't become real "show stoppers"?

I pray that CA already knew about this "issue", because if they find out now by reading this post, then it wont be corrected in time for the next "update".

[Musashi]

I still want to see vanilla vs 0 shield testing exhaustive enough to prove that the shield is (Or is not) a detriment. If it's just not any help in melee, I don't care... I'm fine with it only being applied to missile fire. I'm only concerned if it actually hurts in melee, and the only way to prove that is vanilla vs 0 shield tests with identical shield bearing units. The 0 shield stats should be vanilla stats, with just the shield zeroed out, and not added into something else.

[Caesar Vastator]

Try the sheerwood archers that have 0 shield points against feudal knights and you'll see the usulessness of the shield

[Musashi]

That doesn't prove anything. They're different units.

I decided to do a truly controlled test, by copying the entry for dismounted chivalric knights, and pasting it as a new unit called "test knights". Two units with exactly the same stats, same unit entry in the modeldb file, and therefore same animation set, everything.

I got a little over halfway done with my control set (Vanilla stats with the charge bonus zeroed out) but unfortunately medieval has decided to stop working for me now.

[AussieGiant]

Musashi,

I'm not really sure I could accept shields just working for missile fire only.

That's simply not viable in my opinion.

The mere fact they could be detrimental in melee combat is laughable. I'll be interested to see how your test goes once you have the game back up and running.