[Ennewi]

https://web.archive.org/web/20040919...p/t-21722.html

aress
Question: For several months in the Future plans section , there was a blurb about reviewing shields:

(I pulled this from Future Plans, November 2003)

Shields and blocking

We're planning on reviewing the possibility of giving an innate chance to block when using a shield. We've been hoping to do this for a while, and it should be getting a realistic review in the near future. We'd like to increase the value of shields, and make it a worthwhile choice for players who might normally dual-wield weapons or use a two-handed weapon. We plan on balancing this against classes which use shields by default, and therefore wouldn't be making any trade-offs to equip a shield.

Can we get some kind of update on what happened with this? It just disappeared with no feedback as to if anything was done, if it's still planned, if it was scrapped, etc etc.


Answer:


Kytherea
Community Representative
Posts: 525
Registered: 04-14-2004

Server: Test

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The information I received...

"This was idea from long ago that we never really finalized. Shields do help more than most players realize - they increase your AC cap directly - but this is still a possibility. Various other game and class balance issues have and continue to take precedence over this."

Ky

~~I'm crunchy and taste good with milk~~

Jovec
TSW has some more developer comments on the effect of shields and AC caps in this thread (http://www.thesteelwarrior.org/forum...ead.php?t=7643).

From that thread:

Orginally posted by Kavhok
The cap on AC in the Velious era wasn't a soft cap; it was a hard cap that had been there from day 1. After a certain point, which differed for each class, the benefit of more AC didn't just diminish - it dropped to nothing.

The change I referred to, just before PoP, changed that from a hard cap to a soft cap. You get a percentage of the amount over that soft cap. Shields increase both your total and your soft cap, making them more effective than any other item with equal AC. Your mitigation AAs, level, and class also affect the cap and the percentage return for AC over it.

Separate from this, there are diminishing returns if your AC is much greater than the NPC's attack. This is due to the nature of the formulas that produce the probability distributions that have been well documented on this board.

Does that help?

- Kavhok, SOE

And also interesting.

Orginally posted by Kavhok
3) Yes, the mitigation AAs will not do anything for you if your AC isn't high enough. However, the median level 65 warrior is over the cap even with both Luclin and PoP mitigation AAs maxed, so you can safely assume you're getting the full benefit out of them.

- Kavhok, SOE

-Jovec