Why are there not more medium shields with better punch than they carry now. As the largest shield a barb can use without a weight factor, I would think the demand for nmedium shields would be greater, or are they weeding out the medium size shield?

Agree with Samsaren entirely. Add to that the fact that medium arm worn shield have the same high end cap as small shields (mod) and you lose any real value of going bigger. It is a bit of a canundrum.

Rhadyn da Dwarb - Blood for fire!

Barbarian Guild Suggestions
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1h4L5hAxR1-VLDegDNZBIhGdo5bMgnCtm84Icm2E0utU/edit#gid=0

is the penelty for using large shields that bad? Is it just weight and hindrance?

IIRC medium shields should have a higher protection cap than small shields. What are you comparing where you see no difference?

---

"I have no data yet. It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories instead of theories to suit facts."
- Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Sherlock Holmes

This is a problem across the board. Paladins have serious discussions about how a small, 1 hindrance shield is better than a huge tower shield because of how penalizing shield hindrance is. Traders, Barbarians, and Rangers generally don't even consider medium shields to be worth anything. Everyone wants the lowest hindrance shield. Everyone wears it on the arm.

I wonder if you could solve two-birds with one stone here.

1. Greatly reduce or remove the defensive penalty for wearing shields on the arm altogether. Instead of lowering the protection stats, it lowers the hindrance of the shield. Nothing to almost nothing for small, moderate reduction for medium, great reduction for large.

2. You could then increase the penalty for 2HE/2HB/Bow to roughly match where we are today. This wouldn't be a nerf since it would be roughly on par with where it is today; however, combined, it would be a buff for every other situation, and it could make HE/HB a little more relevant.

In my opinion, combat is already a touch too slow, I don't like the idea of adding more rt.

Also, for some reason your posts aren't showing up in threads for me, Kodius. The only way I can see your posts is if I click from the "last post" option in the category section.

I don't have anything positive to say about making combat more random and slower.

Still not 1 to 2 hits. And that doesn't factor in the fun misses what we all experience. Not trying to be an ass, just we need something with more oomph, big K.

"Brace yourselves, Squanto is going to bleh blah fart fart bleh.." -the player of the character formerly known as Pureblade

> This is more a discussion for combat, but what if shields could be worked down to 0 hindrance by skillset in exchange for a chance at additional attack/cast/fire RT?

I think that would be a huge win for, well, everyone.

> % chance of adding ... RT

I think this could work, but what about giving a nod to NMUs and Paladins? Khri Hasten (SE/ME/MB only?), Wildfire, and some Paladin passive could eliminate this random chance. That's a great nod to NMUs and recognition of both armor and weapon prime guilds.

Something like this:

- Penalty RT = (hindrance / 2.5) (yes, I'm aware this doesn't align evenly with shield size, but that's intentional)
- -1 penalty RT for wildfire / hasten / paladin spell(?) (not in the chart below for thieves and paladins)
- -2 penalty RT for being paladin.
- -1 penalty RT for being trader, barbarian, or ranger.
- +1 penalty RT for attacking with a two-handed weapon and not a weapon prime or armor prime (Barbarian, Paladin, not in the chart below for barbarians)
- +1 penalty for not being at the minimum RT for the weapon (encourages growth into big heavy weapons)
- +1 penalty for having a burden

So it would look something like this (Additional RT, always on, penalty rounded down, min of 0). (Small shields = 1-5 hindrance, medium = 4-7 hindrance, large = 5-12 hindrance).

-	Armor tert	Armor Secondary*	Armor Prime
Hindrance 01	0-3	0-2	0-2
Hindrance 02	0-3	0-2	0-2
Hindrance 03	1-4	0-3	0-3
Hindrance 04	1-4	0-3	0-3
Hindrance 05	2-5	1-4	0-4
Hindrance 06	-	1-4	0-4
Hindrance 07	-	1-4	0-4
Hindrance 08	-	-	0-5
Hindrance 09	-	-	0-5
Hindrance 10	-	-	1-6
Hindrance 11	-	-	1-6
Hindrance 12	-	-	1-6

NOTE: Barbarians have a -1 on the maximum hindrance due to weapon prime placement, not represented in the above chart. Thieves and barbarians (and maybe paladins) have a -1 on the min and max hindrance (not in the chart) if they have the speed buffing spell active. This means thieves could train away the penalty for all but the heaviest small shields, barbarians could train away the penalty for everything they can wear on their arm, and paladins can train away the penalty across the board.

As added benefits, this allows for a progression path for stats and weapons, even as shields and weapons become heavier and more hindering. Everyone will want to start with small shields and work their way up as their character grows. Paladins may be able to start with medium shields for optimal experiences. You can also add in an xp bonus across the board to compensate for the slower combat initially, which may also lead into a better situation regarding spawns (again, at least initially). It further reinforces HE/HB as a defensive/offensive hybrid, and it further penalizes 2HE / 2HB with shield usage, focusing on the berserker nature of these weapons.

If all of that is too complicated keep the random chance, and give paladins/barbarians/thieves an ability to negate it (wildfire, hasten, passive?)

<<Hindrance is too 1-dimensional, and I'm looking for ways to give ourselves more knobs....>>

I kind of like the idea of making hindrance more of a trade-off between offense and defense, rather than a tradeoff between defense and...er, other defense? That goes for maneuvering hindrance of armor too, not just shields. It's always seemed a bit silly to me that choosing a bigger, more protective armor makes you get hurt more (because of the hindrance thing). Maybe the impact of hindrance on defending (and on swimming, good grief...) could be reduced (possibly by a lot), and instead it could hinder your offense somehow. Longer rountimes like you said, or a greater chance to Fumble your attacks, or something. Maybe a damage penalty? Attacks seem to inflict enormous amounts of damage when they hit anyway (referring to PvE, as I can't really speak to the PvP situation), so we could probably afford it. Or maybe the more hindering armor types (plate and, to a lesser degree, brigandine) could get a chance to nullify an attack even if you botch the defense (causes your attacker to Fumble more often?). The bizarre discontinuities in hindrance at the boundaries between armor types would be more palatable if the higher-hindrance category got some other benefit in return. Especially since they often don't get to be more protective. Of course this would have to somehow take into consideration how much of which armor they're wearing, since people tend to wear all of them at once...hrm.

Anyway, sorry to comment from the peanut gallery. As you said, maybe we should have this conversation over in Combat when the time is right.

Thanks,
-Life Weaver Karthor (not a Barbarian)

>>Definitely never in PvP.

I never said anything about PvP. PvP is an entirely different set of everything!


>> Killing stuff

Spawning circle 200 goblins, wolves, orcs, etc. It may be that at circle 200 fewer enemies naturally exist with natural armor. But not everyone is at the level cap and we routinely see folks 1-2 hitting crap in certain areas farming gold all day :( If I recall correctly, 75% of DR's enemies are below circle 100, and the majority have only natural armor at their disposal.

Backstab is also incredibly powerful due to its armor ignoring capability and first-strike bonus. But I don't believe they can use those on every attack?

---

"I have no data yet. It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories instead of theories to suit facts."
- Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Sherlock Holmes

> Backstab is also incredibly powerful due to its armor ignoring capability and first-strike bonus. But I don't believe they can use those on every attack?

Alpha strike is every 30s, and you're required to hide and go to melee before you can use it. It's also considered a DFA, so high-evasion or high-perception classes/creatures have some resistance to it. It's also limited to humanoid creatures, or at least creatures that walk on 2 feet. You're also limited in terms of weapon size (30 stones or less, SE or ME), so the huge modifiers will never be compounded with huge swords. IIRC, the alpha strike is still insanely large (8x?), but the limitations bring it back down to earth in many cases.

Haralun weapons, mistwood bows, basilisc arrows. Dual load snipe and throw(not hurl) running all the buffs I can apply. My script also counts skinning and spells both Buffs and debilitating as part of the kill time. I have joked in the past that I swear Hanryu is bugged!

~Hunter Hanryu
>You know how map makers use to be "Here be dragons"? Old DR code is like that. Except instead of dragons there are Lovecraftian horrors made out of well-intentioned psuedo-code.~Raesh

>>Reply Reply
Haralun weapons, mistwood bows, basilisc arrows. Dual load snipe and throw(not hurl) running all the buffs I can apply. My script also counts skinning and spells both Buffs and debilitating as part of the kill time. I have joked in the past that I swear Hanryu is bugged!

Hanryu wouldn't be the first buggy ranger!

Sometimes the key to happiness is not assuming it is locked in the first place- Ziggy

A journey of a thousand SMILES begins with a single step- Ziggy

>I don't know what to think! I'll try to catch you in game so we can test it in person.

I'm in! I'll bow out now so we don't keep closing the barb folders with Ranger problems.

~Hunter Hanryu
>You know how map makers use to be "Here be dragons"? Old DR code is like that. Except instead of dragons there are Lovecraftian horrors made out of well-intentioned psuedo-code.~Raesh