New shield rework took away the shield's Identity. Here's my game dev perspective & feedback.

[Shadenmonk]

I'm a fellow game dev and I wanted to open a discussion about the the latest shield rework (I give suggested changes at the bottom of this post).

Just to give myself so merit, I've followed this game from the day it came to Early Access and have completed 25+ runs at this point (mostly on Cataclysmic) with multiple weapon combinations.

The new shield design seems to lack an "identity" now.

I tried the shield out for a single run on Cataclysmic Difficulty (5), but even using the shield for this one run left me with a huge yearning for the old design. The new shield design makes me feel vulnerable, and that is quite the opposite fantasy of what someone thinks of when they think of "shield".

The old design has a primary identity of 'tank' and a secondary identity of 'duelist/parry'. I never used the parry often at all because it is consistently unreliable. Feeling like an invincible 'tank' is the fantasy that was really captured with the old design. Running solo, you felt like you could withstand an onslaught of enemies. Running with a team, felt like you were the dedicated tank while your other teammates dishes out the damage and saves their health potions at the risk of your own.

What is the identity now of the new shield design?

Being a 'tank' is off the table now because your shield is not a shield anymore. There is a severe feeling of being vulnerable now due to how much damage you take when shielding.

There are three primary reasons the shield makes the player feel vulnerable:
- Too much damage is able to bypass the shield when you're holding it up.
- The same red vignette that pops up when taking normal damage pops up when you "mitigate" damage from blocking.
- Parry window is unreliable. There are too many enemies on screen at once to design parry windows like this is a souls-like game.

I can only assume the goal here was to make the shield less OP. It is powerful to be nearly invulnerable for majority of the run. Here are some suggestions for how to keep the identity of tank, while adding some risk factor:

# Blocking
- Each hit blocked takes a max of 5% of Maximum HP away from the player based on the damage received. This allows some damage to bypass but it's not enough to cause immediate panic. Taking damage while shielding is best to feel like a slow burn of damage over time instead of realizing you can only take 3 hits before your dead. It's too risky. Keeping damage low keeps the fantasy of being a 'tank'.
- Blocking damage with the shield needs a unique Screen Vignette that is more silver/white with a red tinge. This allows the player to know they are blocking an attack but still taking a bit of damage. The unique Screen Fill is necessary so the player doesn't think they've taken a full hit of damage.
- I would opt to remove the passive "take less damage while the shield is in your hand." Either you're blocking or you're not is a more clear black/white indicator for the player. I personally don't pay attention to what weapon is currently in my hand at any give moment, just the next action I'm going to take.
- Blocking damage continues to grant an alterattack
- Blocking continues to taunt nearby enemies

# Parrying

- parrying an attack mitigates all the damage and grants an alterattack

- Parry windows are activated on press AND on release. This allows player's to parry when raising the shield and when lowering the shield, depending on the situation they find themselves in.

I've heard around that the parry frames are only on release and only 2-4 frames. Not sure how the parrying is calculated behind the scenes, but if we're using 60fps to calculate parry frames that's a 0.06666 sec (4frames/60fps) window the player is required to hit with all the fast animations with minimal anticipation times on most enemy attacks. Any less frames than a stable 60 will make that parry window smaller. If the parry information going around is somewhat accurate, it's nearly humanly impossible to parry consistently.

- Parrying an attack interrupts enemy attacks around you in a small radius and pushes them back to give you room to breathe for a brief moment. And to have a moment to capitalize on the parry.

#Alterattack

The alterattack of the shield is still a quick, minimal damage AoE, however, it applies (2 stacks of curse * alterattack level) to nearby enemies and grants a small amount of lifesteal on your attacks for the next X seconds (or lifesteal on the AoE itself). This allows you to:
- have a consistent way to replenish the health that you're losing from blocking.
- make enemies a bit more susceptible to damage for you since you'll be using the basic attacks of your other weapon (which using your other weapon is a weak point when running shield). This also supports teamplay by making enemies more susceptible to damage from your team.

Another alterattack idea a quick, moderately damaging AoE, however, enemies are stunned for X seconds and grants lifesteal on your attacks for the next X seconds (or lifesteal on the AoE itself).

That about wraps it up. This is my first discussion post I've made on steam in the decade I've been using this program. I'm highly passionate about this games success and the shield is one of my favorite weapons. Let me know what you all think. Thanks for reading.

p.s.

it would be a huge quality of life to give the player a few frames to dodge out of instant area-of-effects that the enemies throw on the ground. Countless runs lost to the instant spawn of ground electricity AoE moves in the incubator. Feels unfair, and not fun.