MM8BDM v5 - Weapon Tuning (Leaf Shield)

[Korby]

It's been a while.
Let's talk about Leaf Shield, shall we?

For a long time this weapon has been a problem and promised a rework, but it's never come.
I figure it's a good idea to get public opinion on what to do with it, as we're currently in a rut trying to get something good out.

Talk about potential reworks, what you think's wrong with the weapon, and anything else you can think about.
Speaking of potential reworks, here's what we're currently testing.

-Leaf Shield can now reflect every weapon in the game except fire weapons and the Mega Buster.
-Ammo is constantly draining from the weapon as you keep it up.
-Your movement speed is reduced during Leaf Shield.
-You can still die to environmental hazards as usual.

Originally we tried an iteration which didn't let you move at all during it, and increasing the projectile damage to make approaching the player to get spawn projectiles inside of them more dangerous.
This proved to be unfun for both players; it felt bad to be locked in place and it felt bad to get one shot by a Leaf Shield projectile because you looked at it funny.

[Bikdark]

Currently the most glaring problems with leaf shield are duration, and maps themselves.

  -Don't limit counters to fire weapons only, because that severely cuts what you can actually put in the map to counter leaf shield, resulting in some unfitting weapon choices. In a perfect world, maps would only have 8 unique weapons in them, and ideally 2 of them would pierce leaf shield. However, these piercing weapons should not always necessarily be the "main" weapons of the map. If metal blade is the most viable weapon on the map, leaf shield would not be a good choice to put in the map because it would be useless. On the other hand, if metal blade wasn't the most effective weapon on the map (yeah right lol) you could get away with putting in leaf over say, skull barrier.

  -simply have it consume ammo over time like skull barrier, or treat it like mirror buster and give it "charges"

  -remove the throw. I understand the throw is "canon", and a certain jelly-obsessed britannian would be very upset over its removal, but the weapon is already strong as an offensive approach for melee followup, and keeping the silly shield throw only wastes the power budget. Unless you change the throw to a reasonable level and it can be properly be used in combination with melee weapons, it's best to just get rid of it.

  -I wouldn't recommend reducing speed as it's being used, because as Korby mentioned, the player using leaf shield felt bad because they couldn't move. Similarly, the player will not feel good for using leaf shield because they're slowed, even if they ARE blocking damage.

  -remember that leaf shield should be a "stat change" of skull barrier (unless you decide to rework it). Make sure it has a similar playstyle, but give it a few quirks to give map makers options regarding how they want their map to play.

ALTERNATIVELY

-rework the fuckin' thing a little. Instead of making it a skull barrier alternative, make it a mirror buster alternative. Player puts it on, and for the next 2 seconds they have an hp buffer that grants them invulnerability for .5 seconds after being hit. It would deflect bullets back at attackers, and offer players an approach for melee weapons, but at the same time discouraging stalling and running, as it only gives the user a small burst of invulnerability. It also becomes a high skillcap weapon, creating situations where players could create binds that immediately use it, almost like a "guard" button.

-or hell, just make it deflect all projectiles.

tl;dr: keep current piercing scheme but ensure wealth of niche counters, possibly add in projectile deflection (genji style), do not limit movement, remove infinite ammo

[MusashiAA]

To begin thinking up Leaf Shield again, we have to first talk about the kind of game it's on, and the goals the player wants to achieve in them:

First and foremost, your primary goal is to rack up frags, that is, to kill the most enemies. If you don't kill, you don't rack up frags, and you won't win the game of deathmatch. You win by, well, using the weapons given to you by the game, so it is expected that a vast mayority of the weapons in this game were design to kill players in the most efficient ways possible, or that the maps give you weapons needed to kill enemies in the most efficient ways possible within the confines of itself.

------------------------------------------------------------------

The next logical goal is, of course, don't let other people score frags, that is, either by stealing their kills or not letting them kill you. If you don't get killed or let others kill people, you won't lose since you won't let others win, but you won't win either if you don't focus on the primary goal. Given that deathmatch is pretty much a game of free for all, using weapons to keep enemies from killing other enemies is not expected...but protecting yourself from getting killed IS expected, and rewarded if you juggle the accomplishment of both goals.

Weapons that are designed to further this secondary goal are not really needed, as proficient enough offensive is much more effective as defense, which is expected as the vast mayority of weapons designed for the game are offensive rather than defensive, but they are nonetheless designed to give players options on mantaining themselves alive, and thus letting them accomplish the secondary goal. This should not mean that the game designers encourage players to not further the primary goal of the game, both towards themselves and towards enemies by use of stalling tactics, which effectively make both parties never win, and never progress the game.

With this in mind, weapons that are designed to further this secondary goal of "don't get killed" should do so without hampering the general progression of matches for other players, nor encouraging players to focus entirely on said goal and forget the primary goal of the game.

------------------------------------------------------------------

The way Leaf Shield currently is in MM8BDM v4c, it allows for stalling strategies as it stays up for as long as the user wants it to be, with no movement drawbacks. To solve this, Leaf Shield was made an imperfect shield: it cannot block not only a select number of special weapons, but the most basic projectiles of them all, Megabuster shots, of which all players have by default AND can pick up more proficient forms of, Bass Buster and Proto Buster, and have with an infinite amount of ammo. The current form of Leaf Shield has, thus, its drawbacks: you are vulnerable to the only constant factor in every player's inventory, and you are not scoring frags while it is up.

While you're busy trying to mantain your shield's ammo as filled up as possible and block people's projectiles, you are not scoring frags, and you might not even be healing yourself if you're being chased down by someone: you're already not winning. Further adding more penalties to this through movement limitations makes the weapon itself not enjoyable or useful for avoiding being killed. I'd simply suggest disallowing users to pick up anything while the shield is active: this mimics MM2's Leaf Shield, where in order to pick up enemy drops, you had to move and lose the shield. I would also suggest making its ammo usage and refilling more tight: this is a shield that deflects most projectiles in the game and allows full movement speed while at it. Another approach is to simply go the CBM way: make the shield have a timer, just like other shields in the game.

EDIT: If you decide to make Leaf Shield a more offensive weapon to justify a tradeoff for its defensive abilities, I'd go with something silly like CBM Woodman's Leaf Rain, just heavily toned down...the thing is, making Leaf Shield offensive deviates it from its identity. Different game incarnations of Leaf Shield gave it a more fleshed out offensive aspect: each leaf acts as an individual projectile, and enemies that don't die in one hit by it will be hit as many times as there are leaves rotating in the shield. Perhaps following this path might be more advisable, as it is unarguably part of Leaf Shield's identity as a weapon.

[Russel]

I think Bikdark's thing about it getting hit by projectiles would be pretty swag
just take a hit from any angle and fire a projectile out in the direction you're facing, but have it only last a short period and have a bit of a cooldown associated with it... or have the thing stop altogether after it gets hit once.

Lasts a short period of time.
Self-rooting optional.
When hit, shoot projectile, or projectiles forward.
Power scaling could be clusters of projectiles or just straight power scaling [like Mirror Buster], or it could not exist at all.
Shield dying after the hit optional, getting hit could reduce the shield's duration charge.
Shield could protect the hit or hits. Again, optional.

idunno. Just posting my thoughts.
Genji-style reflecting doesn't seem to exist in this engine natively tho
I mean there's probably a way to do it but it would be a pain in the ass to do so in the scheme I pictured.

[BiscuitSlash]

Gotta be honest, I have no feedback or suggestions for current Leaf Shield. I've never had a problem with the weapon, and it's always seemed like one of the better shield weapons in both uniqueness and usability.

Just throwin' this out there. It's odd that this one is being considered as opposed to certain other weapons.

Though I will say that it's worth checking up on what weapons are in the maps that have Leaf Shield. That's a key part of what can make the weapon balanced or not.

[CutmanMike]

Genji-style reflecting doesn't seem to exist in this engine natively tho.

The only way to do it would be pain states. Either the player or some dummy actor spawned by leaf shield would have to take damage and enter a pain state based on the projectile's damage type that then makes the player fire a projectile (or the latter way give the player a CustomInventory that makes him call A_FireCustomMissile...). You would have to do this for every projectile damage type though and it wouldn't support custom weapons from other mods. Definitely not worth it unless it can be coded in a nicer way. ZDoom has added some new reflection flags but they aren't in Zandronum yet.

[Korby]

Well, no one's posted in six days. Figured I'd post my idea for it.

You'd throw up Leaf Shield and it would "block" one hit. I put that in quotes because it doesn't actually prevent any damage; However, after taking damage, you heal equal to a percentage of the damage you took. This way, you can still kill someone who has Leaf Shield up, but if you don't think you can finish them off with your next shot, it could be better to switch to your buster or some other weapon to pop it.

Some variations include the health gradually restoring like Plant Barrier so it's a little more fair, healing twice as much damage as you took so that you end up with a net gain, and healing an amount equal to how much you took so that it'll effectively nullify the attack assuming your opponent doesn't shoot you again.

I'd probably change the properties of the projectile if we went with this because the effect is fairly strong.

EDIT: I just noticed that I didn't say how long the shield would stay up. I'd play around with how it felt but it'd probably have a timer so you can't just leave it up forever. Maybe it'd drain ammo while it's up like Star Crash.

[BiscuitSlash]

You'd throw up Leaf Shield and it would "block" one hit. I put that in quotes because it doesn't actually prevent any damage; However, after taking damage, you heal equal to a percentage of the damage you took. This way, you can still kill someone who has Leaf Shield up, but if you don't think you can finish them off with your next shot, it could be better to switch to your buster or some other weapon to pop it.

At first this sounded similar to Plantman.EXE's Leaf Shield, where the next attack done to him would actually heal him instead of damage him. The healing being the same as how much damage it would have done if the Leaf Shield wasn't up.

Seems like a good idea to play around with but it also seems a bit too far fetched for what classic Megaman had.

[Dr. Freeman]

The healing thing sounds fascinating, but I definitely wouldn't make it heal double the damage you take. That sounds like it has the potential to be kinda busted. But some percentile that's probably less than 100 sounds interesting.

My only concern is that with it popping after one shot, its weaknesses would basically be the same as Skull Barrier, which is anything that shoots quickly. Like power weapons in theory would be the way to get the kill, but if you miscalculate the enemy's health, then they're just tanking through it while rapid fires would destroy the shield in theory.

That and this offers some weird thing where both nature based shields are healing somehow. I don't think that's a good or a bad thing, just kinda interesting.

[Gumballtoid]

I'm not big on Korby's suggestions just because they sound needlessly complicated.

I think the basis of what we have currently is well enough, but it needs some fine tuning:

• It should have Mirror Buster / Scorch Wheel / Oil Slider stamina to prevent limitless shield use
• Weapons that should pierce it include buster weapons, fire, blades, and needles
• Remove weapon reflection entirely and simply negate all damage from weapons that can't pierce it -- this is partly to prevent the infinitely-tall reflection hitbox


My other idea was some form of armor, similar to what Junk Shield has going on. On the plus side, throwing it would actually be a viable attack. On the other hand, it wouldn't deal hugging damage and it would have more counters.

I don't know, I'm just spitballing.

[8:35:08 PM] LlamaHombre: fuck shield weapons

[fortegigasgospel]

Hm, what if it acted like Bide from Pokemon? While it is active damage you take is transferred into power for the throw. It would only be up for a set amount of time like Mirror Shield and work from all directions, but doesn't actually protect you from damage, and you can throw it early to get it out before you die and lose all the stored power.

[Russel]

Was talking stuff over Skype, here's another idea we came up with:

- No longer blasts projectiles away.
- Using Leaf Shield doesn't cost ammo immediately.
- Ammo drains while active.
- While the shield is up, the weapon's ammo becomes an extension to your health.
- You cannot pick up items while active.
- Environmental hazards will still kill you.

[Mendez]

I think FGG is really onto something with his "bide" idea because it helps distinguish Leaf Shield from most other shield weapons while also introducing an arguably fun risk/reward minigame for players to think about. For players using leaf shield, they have to consider how much damage they're willing to take before dishing out the pain in return. Just the same, enemies have to consider whether or not they can kill the player before the player gets a chance to dish damage back. I would honestly beg the dev team to at least create a prototype of FGG's idea and play around with it before throwing the idea away because it's honestly better than just turning it into a restrictive and uninteractive shield. Honestly, the current ideas being used on Leaf Shield make it sound like it's just a stall weapon and nothing more, especially when the user can't pick up items and has to deal with ammo constraints. If I wanted an extension of my health bar, you know what I'd get? Plant Barrier. At least Plant Barrier lets you continue to pick up items while you're using it.
Edit 3: Probably my last one, but I just wanted to note that there's also Junk Shield for mitigating damage, so if we want to go in the direction of damage reduction with Leaf Shield, then we also have to consider how Junk Shield can maintain a distinct identity

[MusashiAA]

At this point of the discussion, what you guys want is a different weapon altogether instead of redesigning "Leaf Shield". So there's no point in me coming back to my old argument of tuning down the current Leaf Shield. Counter attacks, healing, revenge damage, reskinning Junk Shield...

I'm stll on the side of tuning down Leaf Shield instead of coming up with a triple slam jam and hat trick silly gimmick to make Leaf Shield "interesting" and "not broken".

Also

[8:35:08 PM] LlamaHombre: fuck shield weapons

I could go on in length about how I think this game should not be making shield weapons but instead shields, but that probably won't lead anywhere as I'm confident the mayority, if not the entire team, would be against my conception.

[Hallan Parva]

[8:35:49 PM] Korby: one of my original ideas for leaf shield was

-locked in place
-constantly sucking people in
-RADIUS DAMAAAAAAAGE

[8:36:05 PM] Gumballtoid: L O L
[8:36:09 PM] Freeman: so black hole bomb
[8:36:13 PM] Freeman: but you're the bomb
[8:36:15 PM] Korby: yes
[8:36:46 PM] Korby: and that's one of the reasons it won't be done
[8:36:46 PM] Korby: that and being locked in place feels suck




Excuse me sir, but that sounds like a challenge.


LEAF LOCK II: MOURNING WOOD: THE ROOTS OF EVIL

Putting up the shield visually appears to spawn four leaves, one at a time, around the user in a circle. (Similar to Leaf Shield in Super Smash Bros.) The user's speed slows down while the leaves are spawning, reaching minimum speed once all four leaves are up and the shield begins to "spin". At this point, the user gains a flat percentage of damage reduction (maybe like 30%) and a charge meter builds up over time (similar to Scorch Wheel or Oil Slider). Releasing the shield blasts away nearby projectiles (like current Leaf Shield or Centaur Flash, but only once when the shield is dropped) and pushes enemy players away as well, dealing damage. The force of the blast and the amount of damage scales based on how long Leaf Shield was charged up before releasing it.

The idea behind this is to grant a sort of "area clear" effect, allowing a user to break an enemy's attempts at camping by pushing away traps such as Hyper Bomb, Danger Wrap, and the new Hornet Chaser. The blast effect also helps to repel an enemy at melee range who might be trying to capitalize on the reduced movement speed of the user. The original idea for Leaf Lock I posted ages ago (which Lego reminded me of fairly recently) had the user stand completely still and just sort of soak damage while they charged their repulsion blast, but I feel a slow and a moderate defense boost would both feel more satisfying to the user and be easier to counter by opponents than a complete stop and a huge defense boost.