Personal shields

Warhammer 40,000: Darktide General Discussion
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Considering that there might be a lot more shooting in Darktide, I’d be interested to know if there’ll be personal shields in the game- specifically, rosaries, in Imperial PC cases, and possibly holo-field, if there’s going to be any aeldari PC’s.
Because the game will have a vast amount of swarming melee enemies, I don’t think duck-and-cover will be very prevalent and therefore personal shielding should be present as a first layer of health- then your actual health, then your bleeding temporary health should you get knocked down.

What do you all think? Will personal shields damage the game’s tension?

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I could see it working against ranged (Autogun, lasgun) but not against Melee or Flamers

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I think it could be a really cool idea if implemented properly!

If you mean “a literal item to prevent damage” I think it’s a cool concept that could abide by a set of rules similar to what @Heretical_Cactus mentioned above where they function against specific forms of combat, but if we’re just discussing “temp health but maybe not temporary but maybe functions like energy-shields in Halo”, I’d say we just call that “armor.”

The reason I say that is only to make it more thematic and, honestly, there’s still probably a better term for it. I think it can add to tension in a lot of ways and make it fun/exciting where it functions similarly to armor in Killing Floor. While it exists, it absorbs a large % of damage while, simultaneously, reducing that damage.

Ex:
Armor absorbs 60% of all damage taken, reduces that damage by half
100 damage vs 100 health = 100 damage dealt, dead
100 damage vs 60 health + 40 armor
60 damage goes to armor, armor reduces it by half, 30 damage dealt to armor
40 damage hoes to health, 40 damage dealt
20 health and 10 armor remaining, alive!

The amount of armor would *always go down more quickly than health (for balance reasons) and it also prevents a character from having 1000 armor and 5 HP because you still die when hit. These are, of course, made up ratios… but it does allow for a party to “heal to full” but have 0 armor and have everyone look at one another and say, “Well, if this goes pear-shaped, we might just die due to lack of armor.” It also makes healing a well-armored character super effective, sorta like healing a high DR character in Vermintide.

Maybe not an opinion others share, but I like it a lot. TL;DR: yeah, some form of defensive stat would be cool but I don’t want regenerating Halo-shields.

*Correction to above: Armor should have a lower maximum than health so you will always run out of it first OR you tweak the ratios so that armor has less DR/absorbs a larger percentage of damage.

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You’re just talking about armour. That’s not how personal shields work in 40K- they either block all of it, or they fail.
@Heretical_Cactus had a good mention that it should only work against ranged weaponry, and I agree with that. It would give players some extra seconds to deal with/dance around melee swarms while criss-crossing against both as the situation demands.
Vermintide was a game of atrition, with only health and temporary health, but it only worked because that’s how the game is built up, since it’s not a shooter/you’re not facing a lot of ranged enemies.
With Darktide however, problems will begin to arise if you face a steady number of ranged enemies.
Injuries will be inevitable without personal shields and it will only be a matter of time before you fall to unavoidable damage as you helplessly try to slash your way through to the mooks dealing actual damage to you and your allies.
You can soak up damage via mitigation through armour all you want, but ultimately, it is still damage that will trickle down and eventually fell you- I don’t want a game where you have to blindly and desperately hack down enemies for a crumb of temporary health, as if every beastmen encounter in Vermintide contained at least one group of ungor archers, except the arrows are bullets that form a straight line through the enemy and you, and the guy behind you as well.

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I mean; to a point, yeah, but that’s what I’m hoping for. No one should be able to ride out “an infinite period of time.” It all depends on how those enemies operate; if you shoot first they don’t whittle you down at all, or maybe they miss a couple times, anyways.

In either case, I’d still prefer to have the game-state be that you cannot, possibly, stay out there for long… especially against the enemies I think we’ll be fighting! I don’t want temp-health, at all, I want a repair-kit for 2 members of the team and, maybe, a stim for health. I love the idea of gritty tooth-and-nail survival w/ guns, but that is also all IMO.

I’d prefer an armor system to a “Halo Shields” system where it just comes back. If it doesn’t it’s just… health. Shields are cool, conceptually and cosmetically, but they take some bite away from gameplay knowing there’s a way to cheese things w/ pacing (unless it’s the unlimited throng of enemies constantly nipping at your heels and never let you re-shield but if that’s the case then a shield is just health, anyways).

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Might be something that comes in under a more support oriented career, for sure. There are lots of things they can do if they go the career route, so we’ll have to wait and see.

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