Gameplay thoughts: Shields
Shields in the past had a consistent issue of being either too broken, uninteractive or simply too easy to pull off. We're approaching this item with a few thoughts planned to put Shield in a better spot for everyone to enjoy.
The adjustments:
● Shield windup time - Just like with any item, we want to introduce counterplay. Essentially our goal is to add a 0.5 second windup time before the actual shield is being used for it's effect.
● Blocking - We also want to adjust what you can block with the Shield itself. Spits, will still be allowed to get blocked by the Shield, however the Hunter's Shockwave will no longer be affected by the Shield.
● Block duration- Once the player blocks any attack/ability, the shield automatically puts itself out of the player's hand and applies the additional cooldowns (read below). The player can hold the shield up to 10 seconds before letting go of the item and applying cooldowns.
● Shield cooldown - We wanted to avoid creating durability items, taking a different approach. We want to reward the player for successfully blocking a spit, but also create a penalty if the player didn't block at the right time.
We're adding a 4 second cooldown if the player did not block any attack/ability after releasing the Shield. If the player sucessfully blocked any attack/ability, it goes on a 2 second cooldown after releasing the Shield.
● Shield equipment switch delay - We know this is a harsh feature for people that are using the shield actively and end up losing a life for it, so we've removed the extra delay to switch to other equipment (eg. UV-Flashlight).
Why did we get to these changes? We want to make the btz mode interactable for everyone, understand and create oppertunities where we should take them. It’s necessary to push and test the limits of the btz mode to find improvements.
Fear
