Was I in a hole? I believe I was at Mt. Silver training. That aside I do hope than vanilla works in either techs or a skill/feat system that allows you to further customize how you use certain items besides just higher stats and P.R.O.C effects.
rustic in appearance, but works well enough. Hopefully there will be a variety of shields other than the usual castle age ones later on. Of course one I am thinking of is an energy shield, similar to a gungan's. Could be like what someone else mentioned too, a device held that will generate a bubble like the USCM defense robots. Either way there are plenty of ideas out there and sure many could & will come up with a few; just to add more type variation to them. Good work on the mechanic so far. It is nice to see a change or the shields being more functional, rather than being a steel wall....
Looks bad. I mean it is a shield, if it's only going to be functional for a short period of time then why bother using it. Could as well just dodge the attacks. Edit: What I'd rather want to see would be, being able to be knocked back if the incoming attack is strong enough (like a charged attack as an example), leaving the shield held down and the wielder vulnerable for around 0.5 seconds. I don't like the thought of holding a useless shield while still being able to move around, just being honest here. Edit2: The health points / hit points thing for the shield, sure I get that it's different for each tier, but I don't see much point other than the shields getting stronger as you progress in the game. And having difference between one shield and another. I don't know, I don't like the hp bar for the shield, it's too much imo. Some shields could be resistant to fire, some resistant to ice, some resistant to poison, different knock back values on a bash attack, different vulnerability cool-downs, the hp bar for the shield just seems like it would be a little unnecessary.
as an idea is it possible to show shield durability on the item bar like pickaxes so you can see how recovered your not active shields are
Any reason particle effects are rendering behind the player? That ice breath looks like it completely missed. Edit: Haven't played Starbound in a while, was it always like that?
Keep up the good work! Remember, don't get discouraged by our less palatable members. We're rooting for you!
so... will you buff the enemy damage then? as the new combat mechanics of the monsters will make them allot easier to kill
Finally, the shields will be of more use. Not sure if they will be in the public, might be an internal build thing. Looking at the config some admin commands are in the current game but turned off. Not managed to turn them on myself yet but have not really been trying and don't know how they compare to the ones omni was using.
Great work Omni, Some food for thought, perhaps there could eventually be diverse shields. Say one shield can block only melee and physical-based projectile attacks and certain others can block energy-based attacks. That would allow the player to utilize different shields for different enemies. Also this more of a challenge if teamed up against multiple enemy spawns each with different attacks that would require skill in shield switching in order to properly protect ones self. Also I might suggest types of shields that absorb a % of a specific element and return that as health.
Why bother at all? It's crystal clear now what if someone wants a Terraria sci-fi variant he should stick to Edge of Space or some other games. Btw, one can find a list of Terraria similar games here, on forum in Chat section with good descriptions. But really CF should make some changes to game description already, especially on Steam page, because right now it's really misleading. And shield mechanics itself is OK, better than previous one, but still don't blend well with fast-paced combat i like.
Even though I agree the fast-paced action is what I hope out of the game as well, I also hope that there is an aspect that allows other avenues of gameplay as well. Simply catering to one group in a game such as this would not serve the entire audience. But I think this will be addressed more thoroughly as Starbound is further fleshed out. Instanced dungeons or bosses would help realize this. I know I've read them say something of this nature before. Edit: by instanced, I mean I hope they will tie instances to their quest system. Anyway the shields are a great first step to renewing combat. That said, I hope there will be a revitalization of 2-handed weapons as in the future as well.
I'm for fast-paced combat not because i like it (i love both, a "carnage" and "tactical fight" are both OK for me) but because it suits a game like SB better. SB combat came from good ol' metroidvania games types, most of them had a limited numbers of enemies (and limited varieties) and being tactical and slow paced allows game to counter some limitations of 2-D (you can see it very well in modern games like Unepic). But Terraria was different - you fight against neverending hordes of mobs - being "tactical" with each is just tedious, so they used different mechanics to make common fight fun (mind it, there are still "tactical" fight with bosses and particular mobs). But SB right now is trying to set on 2 chairs at the same time - neverending hordes (maybe not hordes, but packs, but still) of random-generated mods, fighting each of them "in tactical way" is, well, not very fun and old-school combat based mostly around melee. Right now problem it's not very visible, because difficulty curve is broken, and you start to overpower mobs pretty fast, but when they "normalize" it, and each fight became pretty lond, it could become a serious problem.
Looks like a lot of fun, the new combat / blocking system. Why not do away with a bar completely and just have the shield flash when hit, starting white or green, going to red before its stamina is lost. Then you have both a visual indication that your shield is taking the damage and less UI clutter!
Isn't this mechanic going to make bubble boost surface exploration 10 times easier? Not like it is hard right now I know
Eeeehh... I'm really not liking a lot of the proposed changes too much. Some are inspired, but many seem like they're just plastered on there awkwardly. Adding resource systems to bloody everything isn't good. There's a good reason why older sidescrollers often gave the player a lot of things for free, or when they put limits on stuff, it was more mechanical than statistical. It also causes bad complexity or bland homogenization, possibly both at the same time (the current state of guns is a good example of both simultaneously). If that doesn't do it for you, think of it like the regenerating shields bandwagon in shooters: Sometimes it's the right mechanic, very often it's not, and either way everyone using it gets old really fast.
Looks good, but do you plan on adding more directions? Forwards and backwards is nice for flat, ground fights, but this is Starbound...flat ground? PFFT, impossible! (an exaggeration and a joke...) So it might be harder to defend with only two directions. 3 (or 5?) would be nice. Assuming you haven't already planned it. Skimmed the pages of comments already here don't think I saw anything relating to that? Also, birds are still going to be pains if we can't shield upwards. As seen in the video.
Looks good. Maybe have the shield alpha to black then have an arcade style 'defense broken!' message?
