I love Avorion but as soon as I got shields, the difficulty dropped to nothing. Either your shields are too strong and you just sit and wait till the enemy dies, or your shields are too weak and you fly away so they can recharge. Rinse and repeat.
I want the game to be more engaging, more thrilling. Something that brings me to the brink of death but in the end I can achieve glorious victory! Then go fix my ship, of course. What I've identified as the problem is a sheer lack of... originality. Shields in this game take a very mainstream approach to its functionality. They charge out of combat, favoring not being hit as opposed to actually being there to protect you. This concept is great for some other games, but not so much for Avorion.
I spent a little over an hour just working on the context of shield combat for Avorion, and I would greatly appreciate any feedback or even some attention from the developers on this.
I made a list of core aspects that needed to be met for a new shield system.
Promote staying in combat without making you forever invulnerable.
Discourage players doing the old rinse and repeat.
Scale properly with incoming damage.
Make combat engaging and rewarding.
Make ship design oriented around combat style.
So here's my solution: Break the shield up into "chunks" or "sections".
Let's say you and an enemy ship are about evenly matched in all aspects. Weapons, armor, maneuverability and shields.
As you begin firing on each other with conventional weapons (no EMP torpedoes for context) your first line of defense kicks in, our beloved energy shields. After taking about 10% of your shields max health in damage, suddenly your shields turn off. Five seconds pass. Incoming fire chews on your armor. Then your shields are back online! The battle continues in this manner until somebody either flees or is dead.
Now let's go over how this setup works.
Ship shields are divided into 10 sections. Each section holds 10% of your shields hp. One section is online and protecting your ship at any given time. When fired upon, your shield will absorb damage until the section is drained. Overkill damage to a section is negated. When drained, the section shuts down, and a startup sequence begins for the next section. While the next section is starting you are vulnerable to incoming fire. The startup is NOT delayed by incoming fire, it will always finish after a set delay. When the startup is finished, shields are immediately back online and protecting you from enemy fire. While you have a section down, one section will begin recharging itself. If multiple sections are down, only one section is recharging at any given time. If all sections are down, shields will return when one section is finished and the fixed delay has already passed. If your shield has taken damage, it will not recharge while still in use, HOWEVER, after a longer set delay (like 25 seconds) of not taking damage then it will automatically switch to another section.
I think that covers our bases fairly well.
More shields means more protection, but not 100% invulnerability to bigger more threatening enemies like bosses.
There's no point in running unless you simply can't win.
Rinse and repeat is limited to your actual capacity to take damage via armor health, which does not regenerate.
If the enemy is weak in terms of firepower, then your shields will go down less frequently, and can't take advantage of the windows in which your armor and hull are exposed.
Likewise, if the enemy is strong, shields will go down more frequently and they will be able to better exploit these open windows.
Combat is centered around when you OR your enemies shields are about to give way. What do you do if your shields are about to give out? You can stand your ground and take the damage, or you can take evasive maneuvers until the delay passes. DO A BARREL R- no. However, you won't actually be leaving combat since the delay is so short.
Ships are now rewarded for having armor. And not just having armor... it needs to be in the right places! Lets say your ship exposed on all sides except for the underside. When your shields are about to give out, quickly tilt the ship so your armor is facing the enemy fire! It will protect you where it's needed, when it's needed.
Similarly, ships can opt to be more corvette-like and use speed to their advantage. When the shields are down it's time to hit the throttle and dodge incoming fire. Afterwards they can go back to firing on the enemy as needed.
This has some other Avorion based benefits as well! Like weapons which overheat. When an enemies shields go down, you can swap to your more powerful overheating weapons in order to dish out as much damage as possible. Then the guns will cooldown while your conventional non-heating weapons whittle the next section away. Torpedoes would work in a similar fashion, being used when the enemy is most vulnerable. An EMP Torpedo could be a special way to immediately destroy a whole section of an enemies shields, making tough enemies easier by creating more windows of opportunity.
Then there are balance concerns. How fast does the one section of shield regenerate? Is 10 really a good number of sections? How long should the delay window be? I'm not really sure. Please be sure to give your thoughts in the comments below. Thank you for your time!
Suggestion
Olexphyre
I love Avorion but as soon as I got shields, the difficulty dropped to nothing. Either your shields are too strong and you just sit and wait till the enemy dies, or your shields are too weak and you fly away so they can recharge. Rinse and repeat.
I want the game to be more engaging, more thrilling. Something that brings me to the brink of death but in the end I can achieve glorious victory! Then go fix my ship, of course. What I've identified as the problem is a sheer lack of... originality. Shields in this game take a very mainstream approach to its functionality. They charge out of combat, favoring not being hit as opposed to actually being there to protect you. This concept is great for some other games, but not so much for Avorion.
I spent a little over an hour just working on the context of shield combat for Avorion, and I would greatly appreciate any feedback or even some attention from the developers on this.
I made a list of core aspects that needed to be met for a new shield system.
Promote staying in combat without making you forever invulnerable.
Discourage players doing the old rinse and repeat.
Scale properly with incoming damage.
Make combat engaging and rewarding.
Make ship design oriented around combat style.
So here's my solution: Break the shield up into "chunks" or "sections".
Let's say you and an enemy ship are about evenly matched in all aspects. Weapons, armor, maneuverability and shields.
As you begin firing on each other with conventional weapons (no EMP torpedoes for context) your first line of defense kicks in, our beloved energy shields. After taking about 10% of your shields max health in damage, suddenly your shields turn off. Five seconds pass. Incoming fire chews on your armor. Then your shields are back online! The battle continues in this manner until somebody either flees or is dead.
Now let's go over how this setup works.
Ship shields are divided into 10 sections. Each section holds 10% of your shields hp. One section is online and protecting your ship at any given time. When fired upon, your shield will absorb damage until the section is drained. Overkill damage to a section is negated. When drained, the section shuts down, and a startup sequence begins for the next section. While the next section is starting you are vulnerable to incoming fire. The startup is NOT delayed by incoming fire, it will always finish after a set delay. When the startup is finished, shields are immediately back online and protecting you from enemy fire. While you have a section down, one section will begin recharging itself. If multiple sections are down, only one section is recharging at any given time. If all sections are down, shields will return when one section is finished and the fixed delay has already passed. If your shield has taken damage, it will not recharge while still in use, HOWEVER, after a longer set delay (like 25 seconds) of not taking damage then it will automatically switch to another section.
I think that covers our bases fairly well.
More shields means more protection, but not 100% invulnerability to bigger more threatening enemies like bosses.
There's no point in running unless you simply can't win.
Rinse and repeat is limited to your actual capacity to take damage via armor health, which does not regenerate.
If the enemy is weak in terms of firepower, then your shields will go down less frequently, and can't take advantage of the windows in which your armor and hull are exposed.
Likewise, if the enemy is strong, shields will go down more frequently and they will be able to better exploit these open windows.
Combat is centered around when you OR your enemies shields are about to give way. What do you do if your shields are about to give out? You can stand your ground and take the damage, or you can take evasive maneuvers until the delay passes. DO A BARREL R- no. However, you won't actually be leaving combat since the delay is so short.
Ships are now rewarded for having armor. And not just having armor... it needs to be in the right places! Lets say your ship exposed on all sides except for the underside. When your shields are about to give out, quickly tilt the ship so your armor is facing the enemy fire! It will protect you where it's needed, when it's needed.
Similarly, ships can opt to be more corvette-like and use speed to their advantage. When the shields are down it's time to hit the throttle and dodge incoming fire. Afterwards they can go back to firing on the enemy as needed.
This has some other Avorion based benefits as well! Like weapons which overheat. When an enemies shields go down, you can swap to your more powerful overheating weapons in order to dish out as much damage as possible. Then the guns will cooldown while your conventional non-heating weapons whittle the next section away. Torpedoes would work in a similar fashion, being used when the enemy is most vulnerable. An EMP Torpedo could be a special way to immediately destroy a whole section of an enemies shields, making tough enemies easier by creating more windows of opportunity.
Then there are balance concerns. How fast does the one section of shield regenerate? Is 10 really a good number of sections? How long should the delay window be? I'm not really sure. Please be sure to give your thoughts in the comments below. Thank you for your time!
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