Shield generators

Most split poll I have ever seen....

"Should" is a loaded word. What is right and proper to some is wrong and insufferable to others.

Personal Opinion vies against Reasoned Debate, against Logical Thought, against Personal Anecdote... and due to the wording of the poll, no side is correct...

because this is a poll of Personal Values... not of Game Design.

The Poll is split... because it is a poorly worded poll that appeals to personal preference over reasoned response.

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A better poll would be:
"Are there valid gameplay reasons that we are aware of so far that necessitate the inclusion of shields?"

• "Yes (reasons within post)"
• "No (reasons within post)"

At present time EVERYONE should vote "No" to that poll, since we have no knowledge on valid gameplay reasons at the moment and will not until Uber releases the Alpha for testing.

This Poll should therefore, not have been asked at this time. A more reasoned person would have asked this during the Alpha, not before it.

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Options cost time and money people. Just coz you like shields doesn't mean Uber can't make a balanced game without them.

Not all options and opinions should be weighted equally.

It makes strong defenses. That's not a valid reason?

No, it is not currently a valid reason bmb.
Do you understand the distinction?

Those who played TA & Sup Com extensively should be able to see how the inclusion of shields, and subsequent necessary balance changes actually made defences weaker. Because shields provide a solid, impenetrable wall that prevents attrition, all weapon damage needs to be increased. This means that most things die very quickly in the absence of shields, defences included. You can't make the defences strong or able to stand on their own, or shields would make them OP.

Edit:

To be fair, this is just as misleading. This forum is meant for ideas on what the game should be, not what changes should be made after uber release the alpha (whether Uber listens is up to them). Shields (from a gameplay perspective) can't be added that late as they change too many fundamentals about the game and it's balance.

Ok so there are those who love shields and those who don't.

What about if we find some ways to reduce (but not eliminate) the usefulness of shields?

Consider....

Limitations

1.> A maximum number of shield generators per planet.
2.> A minimum (but pretty large) distance between shield generators

Side Effects

3.> Shields cause buildings within X distance of them to operate at reduced efficiency (down to say 80%) ?
4.> Shields cause units within X distance to move much slower.
5.> Shields cause Engineers within X distance to Fix or build much slower.

[Edit]
6.> Shields require so much energy that a warning sounds the moment they are operational
7.> Shields require so much energy that they show up on all forms of minimap/zoom level regardless of anti-intel units.

I for one would love to see all of these implemented as Mods, but could only see that working if the Shields themselves were already in the game.

I would vote for Shields to be included, but could be turned off at game config time.

Just my 2 cents

@Nanolathe
I do not agree with the way you put it, I could also do a poll asking "Is there a valid gameplay reason that necessitate the inclusion of aircraft carriers?"

And the answer would probably be no, you can take they out of the game without any problems.

The way I see it you don`t need shields but they can be put in the game as an extra.

People would say that if they are in the game you need a whole lot of balance for it to work, like the very powerfull artillery, if you do the SC shields I agree but this aren`t the only way, two examples:

RedAlert 2 Yuris revenge shield: Impenetrable to averything even superweapons, but could be on for just a couple of seconds, lets say 30, had a cooldow of a couple of minutes, and used ALL the energy you had, so during those seconds you lose radar and defences like towers, and in PA you lose the hability to build thing too, it was a trade off, you could stop any attack but you need to pay the price.

Star Wars battlegrounds: You had a shield generator that couldn`t stop anything, what it use to do was slowly fill up a second life bar on any unit or building in its range, so any weapon still works the same way, you just need a litle more than double the hits to kill your target.

I think you could put any of those shields in the game without the need to balance the entire game around they.

Anyway this is my opinion, and sorry for killing the english.

I just came up with something. Most players want shields because of the enemy arty. How about we let shields not only block enemy fire, but friendly fire from under the shield as well? This way you can't build impenetrable defenses but you can still shield your base from artillery fire! And to make sure you can defend against the enemy troops you have to build your turrets outside the shield, making it vulnerable to enemy fire. I always found it strange you were able to fire through your own shield but not through an enemy shield which is built exactly the same. This way you have to think carefully of where to put your shields as you can shield your defenses but it will make them quite useless. You can also shield your base but not your arty, because the shells would hit the shield.

Thoughts?

Also, @Nanolathe: As raevn said, this is discussion, not actual gameplay design decision making. Uber decides, we discuss. We're discussing theories and concepts, not the actual gameplay itself, because, as you said yourself, there is no version out yet. This is pre-game discussion, we'll have post-game discussion later.

Thoughts?.. It's been suggested before.

It's also a Micro-focused solution. Players would turn it off to fire a volley, and then turn it on again a moment later.

It serves no purpose but to increase Micro for those that can, and will exploit it.

Not bad - if there has to be shields, I wouldn't mind this. Not my preference though.

Edit: Maybe not, Nanolathe has a good point.

TA showed that terrain itself can fulfil this function. Didn't happen in SupCom because a) there really wasn't much terrain, and b) the arty fired high arc shells. On a spherical map (planet), the later isn't an option, and the videos already show a lot of terrain features that can block long range, relatively flat arty.

If like in supcom a shield requires a lenghty chargeup time to turn on this would then become a nonissue.

How about:
1. Shields that overlap produce no extra hit points. Additional generators only increase range. The most powerful shield generator in the extended dome sets the hit points. No shields go under the dome above (ground units that go through a shield will have no barriers stopping its damage unless you disable a generator and lower you dome size).

2. Shields consume double the supcom shield energy. (E.g. Supcom t3 UEF shield takes 500 power per second to run. PA takes 1000 per second to run).

3. Flux shield. As the damage to the shield increases, the shield will "flux" and increasingly larger amounts of damage is let through.

bmb, So remind me, Why would I bother wasting time on building these shields that actively HAMPER my defence by making me less of a porcupine... and more of an immobile pillbug?

gaynessteel, Your shields are now either prohibitively costly to run... no scratch that...
your shields are now both prohibitively costly to run and are underpowered. That's not a compromise... that's nerfing them into the dirt.

@Nanolathe

What about my examples?

Also I remembered another one, in the campaing of RedAlert 3 there was a shield generator that could be piled up one on another, was impenetrable, but the generator itself was outside the range of the forcefield (any forcefield, you couldnt protect a generator with another generator)so anything could attack it, make a shield like this but expensive and slow to build and I could see it in the game, the base would be impervious to indirect attack but if someone target the generators first the shields would go down and it would take to much time to put they back. No need to super arty.

Do you think any of the 3 types I mentioned could be used? Yes? No? Why?

Yuri's Revenge Shield; A Micro intensive unit that forces an energy crash?
Nope, out.

StarWars' slow buildup "2nd life bar shield"; Interesting, until you realise that it's more powerful for static defence than what we have already in SupCom's Bubble shield. I can imagine stacking lots of these together being insane if their effects combine... if they don't they're just rather dull. They make buildings just take twice the effort to kill?.. yay? It promotes building static point defence over mobile tanks... or keeping your mobile tanks immobile. No thanks.

RE3's Shield Generator that Can't be Shielded; What a horrible "gamey" solution to an OP unit. Why the hell CAN'T the generator be shielded? what "in universe" sci-fi technobabble do they use to justify that?

And it doesn't really stop artillery beyond what they must target first (the generator outside the shield).

Did you read the post I was replying to? Context man context.

Mine?... I'm pretty sure my name is Nanolathe while on these boards.

The more you post bmb... the more I'm convinced that you're barely even reading what is written... or that you proofread your own posts... at all. :?

@nanolathe

I'm curious what you think of my Shield Limitations...

Let's imagine that shield generators emit some kind of of exotic particle which means they get unstable and explode if there are too many or they are too close.

(SideNote: that might actually be an interesting counter-strategy... Setup additional shields in opponents base to detonate his shielding..... but I digress )

...and Side Effects...

Again let's imagine that Shield Tech emits strange particles which affect the nearby field of play in some way.

[Edit] I also quite like...

The point behind this idea being to make your shield into a big target with a neon light saying "Come get Me"


The general intention behind all of these is to make a shield more of a trade-off... you still get your shielding but at a cost.

In general, a unit should not be its own best counter, that leads to balance problems.

Sure, I'll have at it.

1, Why?
2, Why?
3, Why?..
4, Why... you know what, Yea... that's my argument. "Why?"

Your gameplay problem of shields being overpowered is being limited for entirely for "lore" reasons... invisible constraints that make no bloody sense other than you basically telling me "Roll with it"

It's the same problem I have with the RA3 'unshielded' shield generator.

You're in a war... why did you develop such crappy tech?
You can literally fly to an asteroid, build engines on it and slam it into a neighboring planet... but not make your shields too close together because... "reasons".

:?

Shields emit a particle that slows down may tanks, my nanolathing efforts, reduces the efficiency of my Metal Extractors, Factories and Energy Generators and is potentially unstable enough to EXPLODE.

Why am I using this research again? Wouldn't I be better off making more tanks and more buildings... instead of these