Another Sheild Problem~:(

[Jambo]

Two-handed swords (2HS) should probably have been ap anyway. A 2HS was a feared weapon on the battlefield during medieval times and the sheer size and weight of the weapon would enable the bearer to inflict damage to all types of armoured foe (assuming they had the strength to wield one).

[Carl]

I agree Jambo. That and to actually make them competetive with JHI and the Fixed 2-Hander you had to give them so much attack and defence, (if you didn't give them AP), that it tottaly screws up Auto-Calc. The real problem is that the 2-handed sword animation is just ever so slightly worse than the Halberd_Militia animation and that means other 2-handers with the same stats will be slightly better than they are.

[Slaists]

IMHO, CA should jump on this ASAP and issue a hot-fix patch... The shield bug is game breaking. With it present, the tactical dimension of the game is lost and what we have is just an application with pretty soldier animations running around and doing random stuff in eye-candy environmental settings...

[Musashi]

I still think AP should apply to shields, and I will be quite cross if they change it in a patch.

[Carl]

@Musashi: You have to remeber though that Sheild units WHERE intended to be resistant to even AP missile fire. if the sheild was effected by it they would have to have a defence so high that it would tottaly bork non-ap attacks and Auto-Calc.

[Musashi]

I don't really care what the devs intended. AP missile troops should apply the AP to shield bonus. I really don't care to see them nerfed any further, missile troops should be very deadly.

[Carl]

Let me first say that if your a historical accurracy prefer, then you can safely ignore me, i'm talking about balance points only.

Now then, yes Archers should be deadly to units. HOWEVER, from a balance point of veiw it seems it was allways intended that this WOULD NOT be the case vs. sheild units. Missile units where bassicly meant to be balanced along the lines of:

Good vs. 2-Handers and cav without sheilds, (i.e. late high power cav mostly).

Weak vs. Sheild and Cav with sheilds, (i.e. most early cav).

Their was never any intention of Bows being own everything units. What they where meant to do, (IMHO), is whittile 2-handers/late cav down enough that your spear and sword units can beat them.

[danfda]

IMHO, CA should jump on this ASAP and issue a hot-fix patch... The shield bug is game breaking. With it present, the tactical dimension of the game is lost and what we have is just an application with pretty soldier animations running around and doing random stuff in eye-candy environmental settings...

It's not game-breaking. Look how long it took the community to figure this out--and there are some rather intelligent people here. We played it before we knew of this, we'll play it afterwards. Does this issue need to be fixed? Yep. Does it need to be rushed in a hot-fix patch that breaks other stuff? Nope. This bug simply, for the moment, explains why a lot of goofy things went on regarding unit stats and fighting ability, and in due time it will be fixed. Relax, don't do it...(forget the next line of lyrics)...

[Carl]

@Danfda: is IS game breaking though. people might not have figured out what was wrong until recently. But they DID know somthing was wrong, and it tottaly destroys every unit in the game with sheilds as they are far less resistant to both missile and melee attack (both Ap and non-AP), than they should be. They also fight less effectivly and don't brace which kills spearmen vs. cav. The entire balance of these units against everything else in the game is broken because of it. Since sheild equipped units make up over half the units out their it tottaly breaks things for over half the units out their.

[Slaists]

It's not game-breaking. Look how long it took the community to figure this out--and there are some rather intelligent people here. We played it before we knew of this, we'll play it afterwards. Does this issue need to be fixed? Yep. Does it need to be rushed in a hot-fix patch that breaks other stuff? Nope. This bug simply, for the moment, explains why a lot of goofy things went on regarding unit stats and fighting ability, and in due time it will be fixed. Relax, don't do it...(forget the next line of lyrics)...

I fail to see how this issue IS NOT game breaking. I, personally, liked the older (Shogun, MTW I) TW series for their battlefield tactical finesse, which is currently lost in MTW 2 due to bugs and the shield bug in particular.

One of the tactical aspects of the game is to try flanking and attacking from the unshielded sides of the unit (right side and the rear). Attacks to the left side and front should be much less effective. This tactical detail is negated by the shield bug. Actually, if the negative of the shield value is applied to defense, attacks from front and the left side should be MORE effective now...

Also, unshielded unit should be less effective versus a unit with a shield, given all other stats are the same; the reverse is true in the game now. To me - this IS game breaking.

In the current version of the game, unfortunately, I find the most effective tactic to be stacking several units on top of each other and running them trough the enemy... works like a charm. But can it even be called "tactic"?

[Musashi]

Carl: Missile units were always meant to own even shield bearing units from the flanks. Enfilade and rear missile fire is meant to be devastating.

And shields provide some benefit even vs. armor piercing missiles, just not the full value.

[Carl]

@MUsahsi: Take a look though at how it's supposed to work, (not how it does currently work), and listen to the adviser. The adviser even says that sheild equiped units are very resistant to missile fire.

Plus as noted, the way it's supposed to work is that AP arows don't get any benefit from being AP against the sheild value. That clearly says they where meant to be very resisitant to missiles (not to mention them having some of the best armour values in the game on top.

You keep going on about enfidle fire, but with foot archers thats not going to be easy to get. Sure it's powerful if you can pull it off and the AI probably is dumb enough to let you do it. But I get the general impreshion that Sword and Sheild units where meant to be partly balanced vs. 2-handers because of their sheilds immunity to AP effects. Also remeber that HA units typicly have lower Attack and no A on their missile weapons, so the defence they present to HA in their rear is genrally as great as what they present to the front with a wroking sheild.

Honestly, I'm not intrested (in this thread anyway), in what people, (not just you), think SHOULD happen, (no offence intended BTW). Just in what should happen and in pointing out that it differs from this and possibly why. What we think should happen, and what is actually intended are 2 diffrent things here. All the avalibile evidance points to CA intending Sheild equiped units to be very resistant to missile fire. In starting this thread, i mearly wished to point out that this wasn't happening, and when you mentioned you thought AP should effect sheilds, I decided to point out what I thought had prompted this decision by CA. Namely they wanted them to be resistant to archers and if the sheild was effected by AP this wouldn't really be true against AP Archers.

EDIT: I'm not having a go at you with that last pharagraph. Just Poininting out that weather sheikld equipped units really should be resistant to AP archers falls outside the scope of this thread's purpose.

[Ulstan]

then he attacked the thing with a saxon style 2 handed axe (or at least some type of big war axe, it was a few years ago when i watched it) and i'm pretty sure i remember the shield being completely smashed into splinters. i wouldn't have wanted to have my arm behind that shield at the moment of its demise.

You'd sure rather your shield was smashed into splinters than your arm.

Anyway, such a test ignores the fact that the shield was not infact, completely stationary so he could hit it dead on. The guy using the shield would be swinging it around, turning it, defelcting your blows with it, etc, doing what he could to prevent you from getting a good solid dead on center smashing hit.

If shields were so awful, the roman legions wouldn't have used such honking big ones for so many years with such success.