Abuse Or Intended – A discussion about possible exploits.

[RusBear]

GOD wrote:

With a debuff to melee and defence skill you’d get into weird situations though, like wanting to ping pong the enemy to another merc when you’re trying to make them easier to hit. Or having to chase down the enemies you hit away when you want to exploit their weakened defences. As a result, the enemy being moved away actually becomes a disadvantage, as its the debuff that you want and the movement only makes it harder to make the most of their temporary weakness. I also personally dislike flat debuffs to stats, since they only slightly tweak an exisiting option rather than adding new ways of dealing with an enemy.

In your arguments, there is undoubtedly a grain of truth. I just thought that this debuff, lets say… per 2 rounds after a successful attack with a shield – would be quite appropriate and logical. And its value is easily adjusted in favor of balance.

[Sky]

We should not forget that this is a game, and at this point the gameplay should stay sound without to be burdened by reality. As GoD said, this would be a good buff to the perk, perhaps even make it valid. But there should’t be any overcomplication on the default skill it is already useful, balanced, and needs no rework.

Tipps for new players
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[Rap]

GOD wrote:

You’re right, that would still make it too good if you could effectively stun an opponent by keeping them drained of AP. I think a solution to that would be to lower the AP damage, like having it do 2 AP or 1 AP damage rather than 4. With 2 AP damage, it’s like you knock the unit back an extra step, without the positional advantage of actually knocking someone back by two steps. A stagger, rather than stun. With 1 AP damage, it’s more like you throw them off-balance and keep them from going all-out. I don’t have the numbers ready, but I imagine that 1 AP would mostly kick in to keep enemies from swinging big weapons or using multiple abilities, which would translate to the enemy their edge being slightly dulled without losing their lethality. By comparison, a full stun guarantees that the enemy won’t be able to do anything and under certain circumstances can slow them down in their next turn.

With 1 AP damage, there’d be very few scenarios where the perk actually makes any difference. Knocking a target towards an ally would still leave it able to attack normally with 8 AP. In most cases, a target knocked away and then closing in again would be able to make one attack afterwards – with or without a shield bash perk that drains 1 AP. The only scenario where I see this having any effect would be a target closing in again over difficult terrain or a height level difference if wielding a two-handed weapon. I doubt that this is enough to make the perk an attractive pick.

With 2 AP damage, the average target wielding a one-handed weapon would lose one attack. It could only make a single attack if knocked towards something it can attack right away, but would not be hampered at all in its ability if wielding a two-handed weapon. If closing in again after being knocked away, the target could in most cases still perform one attack with a one-handed weapon – but this is true with or without the 2 AP damage. On the other hand, it could no longer perform any attack at all with a two-handed weapon after closing in again, which in this case may make it disproportionally effective, close to a stun.

Just based on the way the whole system of Action Points works, I don’t see this working out in a balanced and even way, leaving it useful enough to make the perk an attractive pick, but not too strong against certain enemies to be easily exploitable. But, again, maybe I’m missing something?

GOD wrote:

With a debuff to melee and defence skill you’d get into weird situations though, like wanting to ping pong the enemy to another merc when you’re trying to make them easier to hit. Or having to chase down the enemies you hit away when you want to exploit their weakened defences. As a result, the enemy being moved away actually becomes a disadvantage, as its the debuff that you want and the movement only makes it harder to make the most of their temporary weakness.

Exactly. We considered this as well, but as you pointed out, knocking a target away and at the same time debuffing it are pretty much two conflicting effects.

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[GOD]

Rap wrote:

With 1 AP damage, there’d be very few scenarios where the perk actually makes any difference. Knocking a target towards an ally would still leave it able to attack normally with 8 AP. In most cases, a target knocked away and then closing in again would be able to make one attack afterwards – with or without a shield bash perk that drains 1 AP. The only scenario where I see this having any effect would be a target closing in again over difficult terrain or a height level difference if wielding a two-handed weapon. I doubt that this is enough to make the perk an attractive pick.
With 2 AP damage, the average target wielding a one-handed weapon would lose one attack. It could only make a single attack if knocked towards something it can attack right away, but would not be hampered at all in its ability if wielding a two-handed weapon. If closing in again after being knocked away, the target could in most cases still perform one attack with a one-handed weapon – but this is true with or without the 2 AP damage. On the other hand, it could no longer perform any attack at all with a two-handed weapon after closing in again, which in this case may make it disproportionally effective, close to a stun.
Just based on the way the whole system of Action Points works, I don’t see this working out in a balanced and even way, leaving it useful enough to make the perk an attractive pick, but not too strong against certain enemies to be easily exploitable. But, again, maybe I’m missing something?

No, you’re not missing anything. I just goofed and misremembered two-handers having a 5 AP attack. :P I checked the AP costs and you’re also right that the 1 AP would be too situational for it to be worth taking the perk. I think I’ve figured out a way of getting AP damage to not disproportionally penalize high AP attacks, though.
Rather than having the shield bash perk do AP damage, have it increase the AP costs of abilities by 1 for a single turn (so movement cost is not increased). So it turns into a method that can be used to prevent the other unit from using two 4 AP abilities, while a two-hander would only be unable to attack when moving across difficult terrain (and not having taken the Pathfinder perk). It also enhances offensive use of shield bash as a way of dealing with an entrenched opponent taking potshots (shield up, stab or slash) by breaking the deadlock. You remove their positional advantage, take the spot and then force them to either use their shield or attack as they can longer do both, for that turn, while standing still. Or make it more useful for breaking a battle line, since people knocked out of it will have more trouble effectively joining the fight again. That way you make the perk increase the flexibility of shield bashing, while two-handers not being able to attack should be situational enough that it is not exploitable (and make pathfinder more attractive for two-handers).

I also thought of a change that is closer to what you currently have with the fatigue damage. Rather than having the shield bash perk do a flat amount of fatigue damage, make it increase the amount of fatigue that actions take in the unit its next turn by a percentage. That’s more flexible and useful than the 10 fatigue damage it does now, with a percent based increase in cost being stronger against high fatigue attacks. This could be in addition to the AP increase tweak above, in case that isn’t strong enough on its own, or as a replacement if the two-hander is still too exploitable.

[Sky]

Rap wrote:

Exactly. We considered this as well, but as you pointed out, knocking a target away and at the same time debuffing it are pretty much two conflicting effects.

Have you considered to make this perk an independent additional skill? To unbound it from the shield bash skill and instead make it give a new skill for a shield user who has this skill aswell. This way it wouldn’t be necessary to knock the target back to do some damage and debuff or whatever else you see fit, but it would still be a utility skill with a utility use and it’s strenght would be limited to shield users only.

If you wish to bound it to reality more, well there were hard shield wielding practices to make a valid member of the phalanx who could not only hold the shield covering behind but to effectively use it to attack. Same goes for the more rare spiked shield users and other specifications.

Tipps for new players
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[GOD]

I still feel like stat debuffs aren’t interesting enough to base a perk on; there’s a reason why there are currently no other perks that do it. I’d rather see more perks like Rotation or Quick Hands.

[Sky]

Agree, simple stat buff debufs are boring. And I do like the “unusual” skills aswell. I sure won’t miss the shield bash perk if it gets replaced with some active ability or nice passive. I’m sure that part of this game’s individuality comes from the current perks and even tho there could be (and should be) more stat related perks like Focus-Fatigue Commander-Resolve etc, and there is only limited skill symbiosis it still is far better than the most current skill sets out there.

Tipps for new players
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[Invictus73]

Rap wrote:

Wolves wrote:

1) SAVESCUMING – Lost a battle / mercenary? A lvlup wasn’t as good as a roll as you wanted it to be? Well, you could simply save every time before something like this could happen and reload and try again. You can ALT + DEL and just reload the autosave currently. Hire a mercenary and if the traits are bad, just load etc. etc.

No!!!!!!! :(

[Gabbek]

Regarding shield bash perk – I think it’s not so bad, actually. Especially early game when you have no Rally The Troops perk. The strenght of it lies in reduced cost of fatigue as well as increasing fatigue for enemies. It is very effective when combined with bludgeon weapons to cause fatigue damage to enemies. Reduced fatigue makes it very useful if you fail the first one and want to use knock back once again to get additional chance to knock back someone (if it’s very important). Usually the “problem” about Shield Bash perk is not it’s weak bonuses, which to me are quite useful and I will sometimes pick it. I think increased chance to hit (10%) on perk would actually suit it more than dealing damage as you increase the value of your shield bash in a way that it becomes more reliable if you’ve chosen the perk. Maybe improved version could ignore shieldwall bonus instead? It’s just a suggestion, as I don’t really find this perk all that troublesome and I’ll sometimes use it.

Regarding AP idea on shield bash perk – I think it would become too much like stun, stun is unique because of how it works, it wouldn’t be a good perk design for lots of people, I think. Mostly because if something works entirely different based on weapon of your opponent – it is usually very hurtful for new players.

[Zinistar]

Replace it with the following Perk

Shield Master
Grants “Beat Back” Skill
Fatigue Cost: 20
Type: Activate then Reactive
Activate this skill to attempt to deflect an attacker engaging you (moving into a hex adjacent to you) or missing you with an attack.
Hit foes are knocked back 1 space, suffer 10 fatigue and lose 1 AP.
This skill remains active until the start of your next turn, or until you are knocked back or stunned.

This skill could have some synergy with riposte and spear-wall.

Of course orcs would have this to ruin your day as well.

[Danubian]

Rap wrote:

Wolves wrote:

1) SAVESCUMING – Lost a battle / mercenary? A lvlup wasn’t as good as a roll as you wanted it to be? Well, you could simply save every time before something like this could happen and reload and try again. You can ALT + DEL and just reload the autosave currently. Hire a mercenary and if the traits are bad, just load etc. etc.

We’re going to change the way stats for levelup are determined. I think we underestimated the compulsion that some players feel to reload until they’re satisfied with the numbers, even if doing this for minutes on end may ultimately be detrimental to their experience playing the game. Not that the game is balanced particularly well at present, but it’s also not meant to be balanced for characters well beyond the statistical average as a result of reloading on levelup on a regular basis. Changing this around isn’t all that much work, but unfortunately it would break compatibility with older save games. For this reason we’ll wait with doing any changes until the first bigger update comes along that will break compatibility anyway.
As for save scumming in general, there is a limit to what we can do without making things inconvenient for all the players. At some point we’ll just have to accept that this is the way that some players apparently want to play the game and that it is their choice to make.

Wolves wrote:

2) LURING – Just lure enemy battlegroups into the castle / city / villages / towers and using the milita / landsknechts to fight, tank and die for you. You get all the loot btw.

At least the loot distribution is going to change.

Im one of those players. I used to restart new game like 50 times before i got optimal setup (traits etc). Why? Because i would sink 10s of hours into a game playing a particular group, there is no way in hell id take some debilitating (imo) trait for that long, if i dont have to. Simple as that. You want to make the game difficult, i want to have fun. For me getting a character with a huge morale penalty, -10 hp, fatigue problems and so on just isnt fun.

[thorismund]

i feel in most games its not so important to make it impossible to cheat but to not make you want to use it.
in the end most of us are adults and dont need someone else to hold our hand.

and finaly there is always the ultimate “cheat”:

create a .txt file and copy/paste this in:
~~~~~~~~~~~^^^^~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~Congratulations~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~You Win!~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~~\\\///~~~~~~~~~~~

[Wargasm]

I actually think Shield Bash is a very good perk – just not quite as very good as many of the other Utility ones.

The Knock Back skill already has a +25% chance to hit (the best odds of any attack) but doesn’t do any damage and is highly fatiguing. With the perk, the absolute fatigue is reduced considerably and the relative fatigue vs the enemy more or less overturned. Also, any hit does damage, not much, but the high hit chance means that it can be done regularly while wearing the enemy down, diminishing their morale, putting them into hazardous positions from where they can be attacked with more lethal weapons etc.

[Author]

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