0.7.65: Leather Material on Shields Causes Confusion

Post here if you need help getting started with Daggerfall Unity or just want to clarify a potential bug. Questions about playing or modding classic Daggerfall should be posted to Community.
BansheeXYZ
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Re: 0.7.65: Leather Material on Shields Causes Confusion

Post by BansheeXYZ »

pango wrote: Sun Mar 31, 2019 11:42 am Well, I've seen at least two streamers, having some experience with later games, being confused or mildly annoyed when being told that there's only one "chain armor" and that the "forbidden armor: plate" disadvantage they chose means they'll never be able to wear better materials than "chain".
The problem I see with replacing "chain armor" with a more explicit "steel chain armor" is that they would have waited even more for the upgrade of their chain armor... So this change on its own would only increase confusion

But I can totally imagine all this being fixed by a mod to add better materials light armors.
I see what you're saying. However, I can also see someone thinking that anyway. After all, chain/plate are metal, chain has its own "Forbidden" class, so why wouldn't anyone think that chain didn't come in plate flavors? Even if they figure it out the first time they find plain "chain", they just spent hours in char creation and progression.

If you ask me, displaying material names should be considered a fix and the option should be chain getting all the fun upgrades that plate gets. Like lanterns being useless, there is a difference between adding stuff for the sake of it and adding stuff because hordes of people are confused that it's not there. Some mods deserve the status of being inhouse.

Al-Khwarizmi
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Re: 0.7.65: Leather Material on Shields Causes Confusion

Post by Al-Khwarizmi »

BansheeXYZ wrote: Sun Mar 31, 2019 10:57 am I've researched this a bit more. Shields are always equippable in classic regardless of material restrictions. IMO, this should be considered a bug that DFU has fixed. I will add it to my list later.
Actually, if classic behaves like that, then I think the classic behavior is clearer than the DFU behavior. For a player, it's difficult to imagine that forbidding leather armor will forbid some tower shields and not others, when they are all identified as "tower shield" in game without a material prefix. I guess allowing them all prevents the confusion.

Furthermore, there are specific restrictions for shields, so it makes sense that they are disjoint (i.e., that shield is not considered armor for the purposes of restrictions). This is arguable, but in any case, I think the classic approach is less confusing so in this case I'd consider the DFU implementation to be the bug.

BansheeXYZ
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Re: 0.7.65: Leather Material on Shields Causes Confusion

Post by BansheeXYZ »

Al-Khwarizmi wrote: Sun Apr 07, 2019 9:07 amActually, if classic behaves like that, then I think the classic behavior is clearer than the DFU behavior. For a player, it's difficult to imagine that forbidding leather armor will forbid some tower shields and not others, when they are all identified as "tower shield" in game without a material prefix. I guess allowing them all prevents the confusion.
Classic spawns metal shields of all dyes, then allows characters that are forbidden from equipping those metals to equip them. A character forbidden from only daedric can still equip a red shield. A character forbidden from all metals can somehow still equip a shield that is visibly made of metal. That is confusing. It's just as confusing as spawning "leather shields" that show up as "shields" and making them forbidden leather.

What seems to have happened is that at some point they changed shields to have the same armor rating regardless of material. Probably because it was OP and complicated the "AR coverage area" idea. It's complex to assess whether low AR high coverage is better than high AR low coverage. So they just made it so that bigger shields gave higer AR and more coverage, and no buckler is ever better than a tower.

That's all well and good, but they went a step too far and hid the material prefixes to drive the point home. But they forgot to account for the "forbidden" mechanic.

FilthyCasual523
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[Latest Build] Knight class unable to use shields?

Post by FilthyCasual523 »

I downloaded the latest build tonight and started a game. I decided to make a knight, but for some reason the knight is unable to use any shields he picks up.

I could have sworn knights are supposed to be able to use shields.

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Jay_H
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Re: [Latest Build] Knight class unable to use shields?

Post by Jay_H »

Since your character is low level, I'm assuming it's the same issue as in this topic. What color are the shields?

For reference, the Knight's characteristics are:

Code: Select all

Immunity to paralysis
No leather armor
No Daedric gear
Max gain of 18 HP per level

BansheeXYZ
Posts: 555
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Re: [Latest Build] Knight class unable to use shields?

Post by BansheeXYZ »

It's the same issue. Knights can't equip leather, classic spawns leather shields for no reason, which then necessitates hiding the material type for all shields, which then necessitates exempting all shields from forbidden traits. It's just a domino effect of spawning leather and chain shields.

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Jay_H
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Re: 0.7.65: Leather Material on Shields Causes Confusion

Post by Jay_H »

Excellent, thanks for confirming. I've merged the topics.

FilthyCasual523
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Re: [Latest Build] Knight class unable to use shields?

Post by FilthyCasual523 »

Jay_H wrote: Wed Apr 10, 2019 5:03 am Since your character is low level, I'm assuming it's the same issue as in this topic. What color are the shields?

For reference, the Knight's characteristics are:

Code: Select all

Immunity to paralysis
No leather armor
No Daedric gear
Max gain of 18 HP per level
The shields are just generic-looking shields. I can't use ANY of them, I've tried.

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Jay_H
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Re: 0.7.65: Leather Material on Shields Causes Confusion

Post by Jay_H »

If you upload a save game we'll be able to see what's going on. If it's a new issue, I'll return this to Bug Reports.

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