Shield failure

[ichi]

As I understand it, the probability of a shield blocking an attack is 70% for all characters irrespective of skill. I suggest this be changed to give skillful characters a higher probability of blocking.

I am prompted to make this suggestion because of the recent death of a very old character who was skilled at fighting. He was killed in a instant by two newbies who arrived unexpectedly and attacked immediately. The first newbie attacked with a crossbow... my shield failed to block it... 50 hits. The second newbie immediately attacked with a battleaxe... my shield failed to block it... DEAD.

It seems unreasonable to me that a mature character who is skilled at fighting should so easily be killed by a couple of newbies. I suggest the probability of blocking an attack should range between 60% and 90% depending on the fighting skill of the defender.

[Piscator]

If I'm not completely wrong, skillful characters are already able to block more damage, so also giving them higher block chances would be a double advantage. Making skill influence block chances instead of damage reduction, might be a good idea, but I assume this would make life for less skillful characters much more unpredictable (especially with regard to animals) and discourage players from playing awkward fighters even more.

[ichi]

If I'm not completely wrong, skillful characters are already able to block more damage

I think you are wrong. To the best of my knowledge, only the attacker's skill counts. The defender's skill counts for nothing. Chance of a miss = 20%. Chance of shield failure = 30%. Same for every defender.

[Piscator]

I just checked and the game even tells you how well you defend.

[SekoETC]

You're speaking of two different things. Yes, IF you manage to block then you're going to block more as a skillful character, but the chance of getting your shield bypassed is a constant and it doesn't rely on skills of either attacker or defender. It was probably left that way because it was like that before skills got implemented, and the system is already complicated.

[Snickie]

I know for a fact that if you are bearing damage or really tired, the chances of blocking an attack with your shield plummet dramatically. I know this to be true from IG experience, when my char had to kill another char, and as the damage grew higher, so did the damage I dealt. And this makes complete sense to me: if you're too tired to raise the shield, you'll get hit. If you're severely damaged, it is assumed that the char is in far too much pain to be able to lift a shield. As far as I know, these are the only factors affecting your chances of blocking a hit, although I would think that the strength of the weapon and the shield would have something to do with it also.

Anyways, the first hit doing so much damage is why the second hit so successfully killed your char with no regard for the shield. But now the question we all want to know: why was the shield ineffective against the crossbow? My answer is that you just had bad luck.

[ichi]

I just checked and the game even tells you how well you defend.

IF you manage to block then you're going to block more as a skillful character

So, what is the equation? Last I heard it was:

HITS = attacker's health X attacker's skill X attacker's strength X attacker's tiredness X force X weapon rating

Where in this equation does the defender's skill plug in and what are the max/min values for it?

[Piscator]

HITS = attacker's health X attacker's skill X attacker's strength X attacker's tiredness X force X weapon rating

Where in this equation does the defender's skill plug in and what are the max/min values for it?

In this equation, nowhere. The actual defense value (the number of health points that are substracted from the attack) of your shield is calculated according to a very similar formula though (there seems to be a random number generator involved, but I can't say for sure). This means that a strong and skillful person can deflect more damage with an iron shield than a weak and clumsy one. Both have the exact same chance to deflect the blow, but the second person will receive more damage than the first one.

I know for a fact that if you are bearing damage or really tired, the chances of blocking an attack with your shield plummet dramatically. I know this to be true from IG experience, when my char had to kill another char, and as the damage grew higher, so did the damage I dealt.

What you observed has nothing to do with the block chances, but with your block strength. Even if you're 99% tired and wounded your block chance is still 70%, but you wouldn't be able to block more than a few percent of damage.

[Snickie]

I know for a fact that if you are bearing damage or really tired, the chances of blocking an attack with your shield plummet dramatically. I know this to be true from IG experience, when my char had to kill another char, and as the damage grew higher, so did the damage I dealt.

What you observed has nothing to do with the block chances, but with your block strength. Even if you're 99% tired and wounded your block chance is still 70%, but you wouldn't be able to block more than a few percent of damage.

I may have misworded. The most damage I ever did was twenty percent, with each hit after the man had been brought down to approximately sixty percent damage. This is with my char's fighting skill at efficient and weapon a composite-recurve bow, and the defender's skill at skillful, his shield a wooden shield. They were obviously not very strong either, as my char with much above average strength was able to drag him easily.

Although that does explain why, when I gave my bow to another person in the location with the same fighting skill and strength as my char, the char we were killing had eighty-three percent damage, and the other char's hit brought him down to ninety-eight percent damage, which is fifteen percent damage versus the twenty percent my char had been doing. This does clarify some things, thanks.

[ichi]

This means that a strong and skillful person can deflect more damage with an iron shield than a weak and clumsy one. Both have the exact same chance to deflect the blow, but the second person will receive more damage than the first one.

That is not what I experienced. My character was much stronger than average, 100% healthy and skillful at fighting. He took 50 hits from a single blow, which is close to the maximum damage possible (the absolute maximum is 63 hits from a crossbow with maximum strength and maximum fighting skill). Unless the newbie who attacked my character was born with maximum strength and maximum skill, 50 hits was all he was capable of. My character received zero benefit from his strength/health/skill.

A couple of years ago, we were given the equation for attack damage by someone who knew how the game is coded. Unless this has been changed, the defender's characteristics have no effect on the damage from an attack.

[Snickie]

Remember that the blocking statistics are 70% of successfully blocking an attack. This means that there is a 30% chance of you not blocking the attack. It sounds as if you were just plain unlucky enough to be thrown into that 30%. It happens. It's unfortunate it happened to you, and with such a horrible ending, too. Get over it. I'm sorry I'm a bit blunt, but that's all there really is to it. *shrugs*

[Piscator]

Exactly, you can of course only absorb more damage with a strong and healthy char if you absorb damage at all.

[ichi]

Remember that the blocking statistics are 70% of successfully blocking an attack. This means that there is a 30% chance of you not blocking the attack. It sounds as if you were just plain unlucky enough to be thrown into that 30%.

I was plain unlucky to be thrown into that 30% *twice*, one immediately following the other. That's why my character is dead. The reason that attacks are only permitted once a day is to enable attacked characters to wake up, heal themselves, run away, counterattack, hide in a building, whatever. Because I was "plain unlucky" I had no such opportunity. A very strong, healthy, skillful, mature character with an iron shield was instantly killed by two newbies.

This is what prompted my suggestion. A strong, healthy, skillful character should have better odds of blocking an attack than a weak, sick, clumsy character. I suggested a scale from 60% to 90%, instead of the one-size-fits-all 70%. Is this unreasonable?

[gejyspa]

Remember that the blocking statistics are 70% of successfully blocking an attack. This means that there is a 30% chance of you not blocking the attack. It sounds as if you were just plain unlucky enough to be thrown into that 30%.

I was plain unlucky to be thrown into that 30% *twice*, one immediately following the other. That's why my character is dead. The reason that attacks are only permitted once a day is to enable attacked characters to wake up, heal themselves, run away, counterattack, hide in a building, whatever. Because I was "plain unlucky" I had no such opportunity. A very strong, healthy, skillful, mature character with an iron shield was instantly killed by two newbies.

This is what prompted my suggestion. A strong, healthy, skillful character should have better odds of blocking an attack than a weak, sick, clumsy character. I suggested a scale from 60% to 90%, instead of the one-size-fits-all 70%. Is this unreasonable?

Ahh, but you forget... you were playing a "strong, healthy, skillful" asleep char. That stuff happens in RL, too. The odds are millions to one that someone hits the lottery.. and yet, oftentimes, someone does...Just because odds are slim of something happening, and yeah, it sucks to be the one it happens to, doesn't mean things are inherently broken.

[Piscator]

I suggested a scale from 60% to 90%, instead of the one-size-fits-all 70%. Is this unreasonable?

I'm tempted to say yes. It wouldn't really make much of a difference actually. Yes, if you happen to have a good fighter, the chance for a critical double hit would be severly reduced, but it wouldn't be impossible. The problem wouldn't be solved, it would just become more unlikely - if you have a good fighter. For all the people who don't immediately kill off a char when he's awkward at fighting, the chance of such an occurence would even be higher.