MP Shock Infantry need shields

[Silen]

Disclaimer: This is not about Captain.

I thought that the recent perk overhaul was the perfect occasion to finally give shock infantry long-requested shields, however I was truly surprised when going over the list of perks and seeing that not a single class received one. After talking a bit in discord, this seems to be a design choice, one that will unlikely change, and one that I strongly disagree with.

Despite their high damage potential, shock infantry are already penalized by their low armour, and inherently by having to block manually and multiblock in groupfights, while trying to avoid hitting teammates with a longer weapon, having to mind cavalry with no defense against couches other than trying to dodge, and more often than not still being at high risk of ranged damage during a melee fight. Having no shields essentially means never getting to the fight in the first place, apart from perhaps picking off a few lone targets after respawn. Archers in Bannerlord, but in M&B in general, are very good and accurate. They're deadly enough already even when having a shield, let alone without it.

I guarantee you that once MMR is introduced, your analytic data will show that shock infantry is either never picked, or performs extremely poorly (with the odd few exceptions) at high level. I remember devs mentioning early on that they wanted to see 2h weapons becoming more viable, however this design decision goes directly against that (on top of the animation/handling influenced blocking timing). I myself love playing as 2h classes, and would love to see them becoming more present in competitive gamemodes, with this approach though it will never happen.

A small and weak shield to offer minimum protection against ranged damage would go a long way. Please, consider giving shields to every shock infantry class, lest they become totally worthless.


I would also like to quote @Charlini 's post from the Patch Notes thread as it covers very well the same issue:

"Every Class now has two different sets of perks to choose from. The first slot replaces the default equipment and the second slot grants new equipment. Some of the perks are temporary and will change down the line. (Temporary perks are marked with *) " --> I remember many players specially from competitive back in June and July and recently discussing this 2nd perk being worked on, that ALL CLASSES needed a shield, even if it's an option to pick a really weak one just to protect ourselves from couches and ranged attacks. I can see that most 2h classes don't have this option(if any do), and they're not marked by *(not subject to change right now). Does this mean that devs didn't agree and we're not gonna be able to play competitively all classes as trying to play without shield against good archers and cav will be almost impossible?. On a serious controlled 6v6 enviroment where everyone communicates, a class without shield is not playable until respawns, this affects negatively the input from those classes and I'm quite sure that taleworlds aims for the opposite thought with premade classes. Please, reconsider this and give us in every class the option to pick a shield, it doesn't mean that it's necesary in every single situation, but the amount of punish for not using one relying on their setup has to be counterable. It has to be an option for the player even if its a extremely poor quality one to just survive that early harass and potential couch from cav.

Edit: Just read on discord that devs decided NOT TO GIVE shock infantry an option for a shield. Again, read and please reconsider. I understand for design and specially AI it doesn't make sense(even if it would just for mere cover against archers), but for skirmish if you don't grant this class a poor quality shield as an option to survive against the projectiles and cav, they're completly useless against any coordinated squad that uses cavs and archers. Just watch warband competitive, noone plays without shield since many years ago because it's literally suiciding, and archers in that game are not as accurate freeshotting as in bannerlord(even if their damage is higher). This really reminds me of the reaction from taleworlds regarding Khergit faction in warband. We never got it balanced and reworked because they didn't listen until 2015, and by then community was so done with that topic and adapted that they ignored the attempt to balance(5 years it took). Please if you wanna test how it works with teams, then tell us, private servers have been tested. Acknowledging that if it's not good on it's current state you may consider a change, but to say this is not gonna change because of design reasons can be triggering towards anyone expecting to play skirmish and competitive.

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Will try out now the update in game, looks very good overall as said.

Please give it a read.

 

[axL]

Agreed. Was also hoping there would be an opportunity for everyone to get a shield, so that's a bit disappointing.

 

[Brandis.]

@Silen Shock Infantries' design is for two handed shock troops. We don't want to revert back from that design.

There won't be any two handed shock troops if they're all shot dead.

You can define shock infantry by their two-handed weapon and give them a shield. They can use their subpar shield to get into melee range, then pull out their 2h and start swinging away. If you've played Warband siege, you'll know that most top 2h players take a shield for this exact reason, even if they don't bring a 1h.

This patch introduced LOTS of projectile throwing weapons for infantry, making shock infantry even more useless because they don't have a shield. It's not possible to dodge projectiles -- bows, crossbows, or throwing -- so it's just confusing why they don't get shields.

 

[flavberg]

The only other alternative is giving them extremely powerful armor so they can withstand more projectiles. It's unlikely they'll be very used otherwise, as Brandis and Silen said. Shields are probably the most important defensive items in this game, and nothing can change that.

 

[Charlini]

Thanks for dedicating it another thread. This one more updated and related with the addition of 2nd perk tree.

Everything's pretty much covered in your post and that quote you set.

It's time for the devs to see through this problem and make a decision, hopefully they react and recognise that this lack of shield(also on archers I've just noticed), doesn't fit not only their premade classes & competitive gamemode ideas but also neglects their usefulness at all. Just imagine in the long term when players dominate areas and harassment properly while communicating.

 

[Terco_Viejo]

Undoubtedly there must be a shield perk for all units. However, being extremely precise in choosing which type of shield is assigned to each unit. For example, to the cataphract would be assigned a round one, the smallest one available; a comet would be unthinkable for it.

This patch has greatly increased the power of the projectiles, there are troops with double javelin bags...that IMO can't be.

 

[Vattghern]

What would happen to the archers in the captain’s battle? Also in this case, the meaning of heavy infantry like a sergeant is lost. They will not have a chance against any berserkers with shields. As I understand it, developers are trying to balance between game modes, and this is the problem. It’s better to balance the modes individually.
IMHO

 

[HUMMAN]

As a faction shields can fit to Vlandians, i understand it is required for balance but a berserker with a shield would look gamey. I think natural solution would be to give more hp but all units are 100 hp right?

 

[Charlini]

What would happen to the archers in the captain’s battle? Also in this case, the meaning of heavy infantry like a sergeant is lost. They will not have a chance against any berserkers with shields. As I understand it, developers are trying to balance between game modes, and this is the problem. It’s better to balance the modes individually.
IMHO

You need to understand the implementation of this shield as a worse quality one also in terms of duralibity, it shouldnt really withstand many projectile preassure and definetly go down by some blows or a straight couch. It's just initial needed cover for skirmish.

However if it helps this doubt, we just got told that we may get separate options on the perks between other gamemodes and skirmish.

 

[Kentucky 『 ＨＥＩＧＵＩ 』 James]

The only other alternative is giving them extremely powerful armor so they can withstand more projectiles.

Coupled with a reduction in shield durability, I think I like this idea best. It would be like trading those first few "free" blocks a shield gives you for enough armour to survive a few arrows.

 

[Noudelle]

Good thread. Something definitely needs to be done about this. Shock infantry is barely anything more than a meme class right now.

The only other alternative is giving them extremely powerful armor so they can withstand more projectiles. It's unlikely they'll be very used otherwise, as Brandis and Silen said. Shields are probably the most important defensive items in this game, and nothing can change that.

While I like this idea from a purely gameplay-focused standpoint, it would feel strange to see these cheaper units with heavy armor but no shields. If they can afford heavy armor, they sure as **** can afford a shield. I dare say that it would ruin my immersion.

 

[flavberg]

Good thread. Something definitely needs to be done about this. Shock infantry is barely anything more than a meme class right now.


While I like this idea from a purely gameplay-focused standpoint, it would feel strange to see these cheaper units with heavy armor but no shields. If they can afford heavy armor, they sure as **** can afford a shield. I dare say that it would ruin my immersion.

It doesn't have to be good armor. It can be cheap, rusty chainmail, looted from the battlefield and ruined by weather. Maybe I'm overthinking it.. In any case, these troops wouldn't use shields because they would be unable to do so with both hands, because of their bigger weaponry, so, it would make sense to take other precautions.

 

[sankokuworld]

Giving shock infantry survivability tools defeats the entire point of the word "shock"

 

[Davic]

While I agree that shock infantry has a hard time currently in skirmish due to all the ranged, I think giving them shields should be the last resort TW should take as a solution. They should first explore other options to make this class more viable, ones that don't muddle its identity and make it more homogeneous with other classes. There are various things they could experiment with to attempt to make shock infantry more viable:

- increasing shock troops' health and decreasing archer health (which might give SI more staying power and ranged less)
- changing their skirmish map design philosophy to benefit shieldless classes more
- raising the skill ceiling and floor for archers
- give classes traits and abilities to make them more unique (only ranged can use bows, only cavalry can mount horses, only SI can deflect projectiles)
- class limits
- varying ranged damage reductions for certain classes

I am not necessarily arguing that these ideas will work or that any of them should be implemented, and there are probably other things they could try, but ultimately Bannerlord is a new game and we don't need to fallback on Warband's metas, such as everyone needing a shield with good ranged coverage, when balancing it.

 

[Silen]

While I agree that shock infantry has a hard time currently in skirmish due to all the ranged, I think giving them shields should be the last resort TW should take as a solution. They should first explore other options to make this class more viable, ones that don't muddle its identity and make it more homogeneous with other classes. There are various things they could experiment with to attempt to make shock infantry more viable:

- increasing shock troops' health and decreasing archer health (which might give SI more staying power and ranged less)
- changing their skirmish map design philosophy to benefit shieldless classes more
- raising the skill ceiling and floor for archers
- give classes traits and abilities to make them more unique (only ranged can use bows, only cavalry can mount horses, only SI can deflect projectiles)
- class limits
- varying ranged damage reductions for certain classes

I am not necessarily arguing that these ideas will work or that any of them should be implemented, and there are probably other things they could try, but ultimately Bannerlord is a new game and we don't need to fallback on Warband's metas, such as everyone needing a shield with good ranged coverage, when balancing it.

I agree with you that Bannerlord is a new game and when possible I approach some issues with a different perspective, however often falling back to Warband is necessary because it offers the best solution. It was the case with force fields, and I think it will be the case with shields for shock inf as well.

I don't think increasing their hp/armour would work. You could increase it far enough that it could maybe tank 1-2 arrows more, that's it, it's not even comparable to the protection that even a weak and small shield would offer, and even then it would come with the side effect of giving shock inf armour that is on par with heavy inf. I think low armour goes to balance their high dmg potential in melee, so this would both not be very effective to solve the issue of being extremely vulnerable to ranged, and it would needlessly buff them in melee. Obviously you could make armour/hp so high that they could tank a lot more arrows but then they'd be insanely op.

No doubt that playing archer is easy right now, but unless you introduce rng anyone without a shield will always be extremely vulnerable and I don't think that will change. Modifying maps can only do so much, it might mitigate the issue slightly, but even on close quarters maps the problem persists. I don't think class limits or restricting weapons to classes will help either, just one archer is enough to make it an issue. Lastly, reducing ranged dmg specifically for shock inf is probably the most reasonable out of those, but to be effective it would need to be ramped up so high that the dmg received would be almost negligible, making shock inf strong in situations where they should be vulnerable, imho.

 

[Habut]

Yea the trick here is buffing them against ranged while not buffing them against others.

something like a usable short duration buff to reduce incoming ranged damage. This way shock inf still needs to be careful with their positioning since they can't just activate the ability and run long distances chasing archers. However if they use it wisely in short distances they can punish out of position archers.

 

[Kentucky 『 ＨＥＩＧＵＩ 』 James]

If anyone else remembers that "deflect missiles with your sword" perk, I think they must have come across this issue years back and tried to solve it with an ability like you described. I don't think that kind of one-dimensional mechanic really fits mount and blade though.

 

[Habut]

If anyone else remembers that "deflect missiles with your sword" perk, I think they must have come across this issue years back and tried to solve it with an ability like you described. I don't think that kind of one-dimensional mechanic really fits mount and blade though.

I agree its not the best. I also thought about that perk as well however it felt a bit too much because it would make shock infantry too strong imo. Unless it would be 1 or 2 use only.

 

[Davic]

I agree with you that Bannerlord is a new game and when possible I approach some issues with a different perspective, however often falling back to Warband is necessary because it offers the best solution. It was the case with force fields, and I think it will be the case with shields for shock inf as well.

I don't think increasing their hp/armour would work. You could increase it far enough that it could maybe tank 1-2 arrows more, that's it, it's not even comparable to the protection that even a weak and small shield would offer, and even then it would come with the side effect of giving shock inf armour that is on par with heavy inf. I think low armour goes to balance their high dmg potential in melee, so this would both not be very effective to solve the issue of being extremely vulnerable to ranged, and it would needlessly buff them in melee. Obviously you could make armour/hp so high that they could tank a lot more arrows but then they'd be insanely op.

No doubt that playing archer is easy right now, but unless you introduce rng anyone without a shield will always be extremely vulnerable and I don't think that will change. Modifying maps can only do so much, it might mitigate the issue slightly, but even on close quarters maps the problem persists. I don't think class limits or restricting weapons to classes will help either, just one archer is enough to make it an issue. Lastly, reducing ranged dmg specifically for shock inf is probably the most reasonable out of those, but to be effective it would need to be ramped up so high that the dmg received would be almost negligible, making shock inf strong in situations where they should be vulnerable, imho.

I think it is difficult to know exactly how any changes would effect the viability of SI without trying them out in actual matches. I'm not even sure if giving SI shields would actually make them viable in high level skirmishes, since reaching your enemy is only half the battle, and you'll still be a massive target for ranged once you're engaged in combat.

The solutions I offered weren't necessarily suppose to be a simple fix for this class, but just to show there are multiple routes TW could take when balancing SI, and I'm sure their MP team can come up with better ideas than my 10-minutes of brainstorming.

Personally, TW would ideally make SI viable in the process of overhauling ranged in general. Archery has always been fairly simple in this series, and Bannerlord hasn't changed that (in fact I think the opposite could be said) despite making melee noticeably more complicated. There are ways to do this without introducing much randomness. Draw speed could be much slower, the time in which you can hold a shot could be shortened, a predictable sway pattern when drawing could be introduced, etc. Of course, this would require a re-balancing of SP and pretty much every MP gamemode, so it might not be realistic even if I believe it would be better long-term.

 

[Kreu2009]

Isn't ranged supposed to counter shock troops? I just started playing the captain mode yesterday so i might lack experience.
But so far i have seen quite a few occasions where Aserai Guard where used very effectively.
Often you can hide behind friendly troops or terrain to avoid getting shot to pieces. Today i had a match on Druimmor Forest and i was able to destroy a seargents troop even after loosing three guys to crossbow fire.
But of course i might be wrong.