Elemental Shield vs. Water and Fire

So what do you all think? Give a discussion with reasoning to explain why you think should be as it is. And I don't mean posts with just "I like x shield" as the entire post.

To be honest, I think the Elemental Shield can stay, HOWEVER, I do think that it should be used in a more secretive sense. I personally find that it's overpowered, regardless of the type of field it's in whether it's match, co-op, CTF, etc.

"How is it overpowered?"

I'll start by saying how.

In the Egg Rock Zone themed CTF stage, let's say you get the elemental shield. Well of course, we all know that any shield can be taken out with just the slight hit of a ring, and anyone knows that. However, there is some small, very small part of the stage, that is supposed to damage you upon contact. However, the elemental shield protects you from such a peril. Okay, nothing seems wrong there, environment doesn't stop you. However, keep in mind that you can -still- create a fire trail, which has been known to hurt people because they won't exactly see it best.

In another example, we'll pretend that the elemental shield doesn't exist, and the water shield and fire shield were separate again. Right now, you've got the fire shield and you're currently trying to escape. In one of the match levels, Sapphire Falls, you need to make your getaway, so at first you'll create your fire shield to hopefully stop them in their tracks. Of course because of your mistake, you fall directly into a pool of water and lose your shield. Like any shield, it has it's issues too, as you just lost the shield for going into the water. However, let's put the elemental shield back into this. The same situation, however this time, the person hurts his foe with the fire trail, and gets away, all intact.

I don't see what's so fair about that.

Another argument seems to be that the shields are completely -useless- when put in the wrong area. That, however, is by no means true. In a lava themed stage for match, alone, the water shield seems useless doesn't it, because it's special ability seems to not be important. But let's not forget, for those retro gamers out there, tell me. What was the type of shield you -only- got in Sonic 1, Sonic 2, and Sonic CD? What? A regular plain old shield? Did it have any special abilities? Nope. Not at all. Does anyone remember -why- they still had shields in the game even though they had no special abilities? I do, and I hope you remembered too. It was to -protect you- from -damage-.

So what does that mean? It means exactly what I hope you obviously got to. Even though the water shield's use in a lava stage is worthless, it's still a shield regardless and it -still- -protects- you.

Same goes for Fire Shield, as it's useless in a water stage, but then again, isn't the electric shield also useless in a water stage? Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't the electric shield go out when you touch the water? Odd isn't it?

So what are your thoughts.

Do you think the Elemental Shield should stay in there, or do you think that the water and fire shield should become separate?


Okay, on a side note, if this is in the wrong topic for some reason, please move it!

Seperate. The elemental shield is waaayyy to strong.

You have totally reason, but I think if the STJr separate the elemental shield into 2, I prefer 3. Because the water shield can makes you don't get drowned and makes you enter in slime. This option don't exist but I vote in 3 shields: One for slime, one for water and one for fire(lava).

The fire shield disappears in water and slime, the water shield disappears in lava. In other words, Tidal Palace, Noxious Factory and Infernal Cavern would suddenly be flooded with shields that nobody would want to get. The monitors would not be cracked open, resulting in lack of shields.

I don't see the overpowered argument at all. The Attraction Shield gives you a huge number of rings and is extremely powerful. The Armageddon Shield can give you 200 points in one single moment. The Force Shield protects you from two hits and will reflect close shots (thus giving you additional points). The Whirlwind Shield is arguably not very powerful in Match and CTF, but never quite useless and very strong in single player. While the Elemental Shield is certainly strong, there are many moments in multiplayer where I will give it up for a shield that suits my plans better. Ergo, it's not overpowered and doesn't need to be split.

Eliwood said:

So what does that mean? It means exactly what I hope you obviously got to. Even though the water shield's use in a lava stage is worthless, it's still a shield regardless and it -still- -protects- you.

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Until you suddenly step into the lava and the shield wears off without even protecting your items.

Eliwood said:

Same goes for Fire Shield, as it's useless in a water stage, but then again, isn't the electric shield also useless in a water stage? Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't the electric shield go out when you touch the water? Odd isn't it?

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The Attraction Shield can still be used to great effect as long as you avoid the water. As long as you don't touch any liquid, you can rack up tons of rings. With a water shield, you could do exactly nothing, making it undesirable to possess.

SpiritCrusher said:

I don't see the overpowered argument at all. The Attraction Shield gives you a huge number of rings and is extremely powerful. The Armageddon Shield can give you 200 points in one single moment. The Force Shield protects you from two hits and will reflect close shots (thus giving you additional points). The Whirlwind Shield is arguably not very powerful in Match and CTF, but never quite useless and very strong in single player. While the Elemental Shield is certainly strong, there are many moments in multiplayer where I will give it up for a shield that suits my plans better. Ergo, it's not overpowered and doesn't need to be split.

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I stated in the beginning of this topic, that I thought it should still stay or something?

Regardless, the fact that there are so many overpowered shields should mean that there should also be underpowered shields, once with less massive effect.

SpiritCrusher said:

Until you suddenly step into the lava and the shield wears off without even protecting your items.

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That's odd, because I always just got normally damaged from the lava like it was a regular attack that was fired at me. It didn't vanish instantly like the electric and fire shield did in the water.

SpiritCrusher said:

The Attraction Shield can still be used to great effect as long as you avoid the water. As long as you don't touch any liquid, you can rack up tons of rings. With a water shield, you could do exactly nothing, making it undesirable to possess.

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Same could be said about the fire shield. As stated before, you can easily protect yourself from enemy fire and rack up points from setting up fire traps for everyone that passes by, and you still have to avoid the water.

As for the water shield, I also said something to the effect of it being a regular shield. Also, don't forget the fact that it's a water shield gives you an advantage in secret passageways in the water.

Personally, I think the majority of arguments here are not based on power level but the objection to the concept of having a fire and water shield.

In the original design documents, SRB2 had four shields: basic, elemental, attraction, and armageddon. Essentially, in multiplayer, it was a straight upgrade path along those shields. Armageddon was better than attraction, which was better than elemental, which was strictly better than basic. This does not provide any real gameplay, and honestly these shields could have been done with a SMB1-style powerup system, where each shield box you got "upgraded" your shield to the next in line, since there was a clear progression in power level.

Back then, I personally objected to the elemental shield, as you currently are now, and suggested it get split up into a fire and water shield. This created the 1.08 shields, with liquid and inferno replacing elemental. In 1.09, basic got replaced with whirlwind.

The problem with this design is simple: lack of player choice being involved. Having a simple upgrade shield progression isn't generally interesting for most people. Anyone who has played S3K can probably immediately tell you that lightning is by far the best shield, and the only time you should ever use another shield is if you're going to lose it to water or the level happens to be Lava Reef Zone. The player never looks at a shield and has to make a decision as to what powerup he wants at the current time. There is always a clear best choice.

Our new shield designs have powers that are always useful to some extent, and potentially better than what you already have, but not necessarily. In match, I would wager that most people would probably give the shields the following values in most situations:

Whirlwind < Elemental < Force < Attraction < Armageddon

Unlike our previous designs, though, this can be changed by more than just level design. Obviously, attraction is worse in stages with water, and elemental is better in stages with water or fire. In stages with a lot of platforming, the whirlwind shield becomes a lot more useful, especially in some CTF stages. Unlike the previous designs, though, there are going to be situations where this basic tier structure completely breaks down. What if someone is super? You might want elemental to try to burn him. You might want attraction over armageddon to try to remove all the rings from the stage. If you're trying to collect all the emeralds or happen to have a lot of rings you want to protect, you may want a force shield over the more powerful options just because of the protection it gives. There is also simple play style choices, as some people will like the double jump or fire trails that the lower shields give more than the protection that the force shield gives.

The choice of what shield to use when given a choice between multiple shields is no longer trivial in 2.0. Personally, I consider this to be a huge benefit to our game, as it provides a chance for players to outplay their opponents simply by making proper choices in-game, instead of simply following basic procedure. Nobody would ever want the inferno shield in Tidal Palace, but someone MIGHT want attraction if they're clever enough to time it well and get a huge boost out of it, and they'll certainly want elemental for the protection from drowning, even though the fire trails are mostly nullified with the shallow water in most of the stage, even when the water level is low. There is never a time when a shield is actively and patently useless except an attraction shield box that is completely underwater at all times, and currently that doesn't even happen in any of our stages, and you could STILL use it if you happened to have invincibility or super =P

Forcing the player to make hard decisions is the reason we merged the shields together. It also happens to go back to the original design, which is neat, IMO. It may be that we want to rename the shield along with giving it a new graphic, to better represent the flavor concept of a shield that protects from the elements, but personally I think the part people object to the most about the elemental shield is simply the concept of having the shield at all.

Mystic said:

It may be that we want to rename the shield along with giving it a new graphic, to better represent the flavor concept of a shield that protects from the elements.

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I agree with this because at first, after going from 1.09.4 I had no clue what the green shield was untill I fell in lava. Also, I think the Force shield should be a differnt color to avoid a mistake with "water shield."

Jeck said:

I agree with this because at first, after going from 1.09.4 I had no clue what the green shield was untill I fell in lava. Also, I think the Force shield should be a differnt color to avoid a mistake with "water shield."

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That confused me when I first jumped to that.

Also, I'm sure this is only because of the lack of time to worry about such minor details, but seriously, the only difference between all of the shields is just a color change. They're the same shield with a different hue.

But getting back on topic,

Why not just keep all of them then? So they give more people a defined choice?

There is a limited amount of gameplay complexity that most people are interested in learning. The more shields we add, the more things new players have to learn in order to play the game. There is already a really nasty learning curve in SRB2, especially in the multiplayer components, so adding even MORE shields creates more gameplay complexity and a higher learning curve.

Another problem is that we'd lose exactly what I just pointed out as a plus with the new system. Having only a few choices that are all good is a lot more interesting than having a ton of choices, where half of them are clearly awful. There is a reason that as the game has gone on, the shields have gotten more complex instead of getting more shields. It's simply more interesting that way. Adding the old shields on top of what we already have would just produce some choices that are clearly worse than others, which is exactly what we're trying to avoid.

Also, on the topic of graphics, the long-term plan has always been to get individual sprites for each shield, instead of the simple recolors we have now. It's just not easy to set aside development resources and time to do so. The green orb for elemental was never planned to be permanent.

I prefer it if the lava and water shield both came back, and the water shield has a little thok-like "boost", like the electrical shield had in Sonic 3 / and Knuckles. The elemental shield is overpowered in both the deep sea zone for match, and the lava zone. Not only can they breathe/ hide in both levels with this, they can also hurt unsuspecting opponents without any risk.

Mystic said:

so adding even MORE shields creates more gameplay complexity and a higher learning curve.....
Having only a few choices that are all good is a lot more interesting than having a ton of choices, where half of them are clearly awful......

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There are games millions of times more complex than SRB2. With a minimum of a week playing SRB2, players would know what is the function of each shield. And it wouldn't be difficult to know two or more shields for players already experienced.

People also forget to mention electricity damage is also protected by elemental now rather than attraction. I mean why does a magnet like shield short out in water if it has nothing to do with electricity anymore?

The only minor quirk I have with the new shields is that Attraction no longer defends from electricity, but still goes out in the water(water doesn't affect magnetism). It is probably for balance, but it might not be a bad idea to at least make it either look less electrical, or just throw electric immunities on it.

And I still don't like how you need to get yourself hit to go Super. It made sense in S3K since A, B, and C were all considered the same mainly(it's also possible that the shield ability overrided the Super transformation) , but in SRB2, we have buttons that do different actions now. A simple Super button(like Taunt) would work fine, and would prevent the awkward method of waiting for someone to hit you on purpose.

Oh, and these would make better colors for the shields:
Force Shield - Cyan
Elemental - Multicolor
Armageddon - Lavender

ThunderNova said:

The elemental shield is overpowered in both the deep sea zone for match, and the lava zone. Not only can they breathe/ hide in both levels with this, they can also hurt unsuspecting opponents without any risk.

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The thing is, this isn't really any different in the old system. The Liquid Shield would be extremely good in Tidal Palace, and the Inferno Shield would be extremely good in Infernal Cavern. The only difference in the new system is that the shield that's NOT aligned with the stage isn't around to be useless, as it's all placed in one shield.

No, Force shield have to stay blue, because cyan is a light color, and when you are hit, this will makes the shield be tooo transparent, praticaly invisible.

Titanium said:

The only minor quirk I have with the new shields is that Attraction no longer defends from electricity, but still goes out in the water(water doesn't affect magnetism). It is probably for balance, but it might not be a bad idea to at least make it either look less electrical, or just throw electric immunities on it.

And I still don't like how you need to get yourself hit to go Super. It made sense in S3K since A, B, and C were all considered the same mainly(it's also possible that the shield ability overrided the Super transformation) , but in SRB2, we have buttons that do different actions now. A simple Super button(like Taunt) would work fine, and would prevent the awkward method of waiting for someone to hit you on purpose.

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These are both strategically interesting properties of the shields. Attraction is insanely useful in Match, but it has the side effect of also drawing enemy fire in. Because you can short out the shield in water, getting Attraction, collecting a truckload of rings and being able to remove it without getting shot at requires SOME skill.

The fact that you can't go Super with a shield is actually a great way to rickroll someone in Match. Simply don't shoot at them and they can't do anything about it. The only way for them to let go of a shield is via a stage hazard (slime/lava/laser), or picking up a different shield which can be discarded by other means (attraction in water, armageddon by pressing spin). Seeing a player with all the emeralds running around with an Elemental Shield without anything that can hurt him is one of the funniest things I have ever witnessed in SRB2 match.

As for the shield argument itself, the only problem I have, apart from the mismatching red flames coming from a green shield, is the fact that we still have separate fire, water and electric damage. With the weird changes fire and water damage do to water blocks (solid on top; only hurts when submerged), I can understand why a level designer would pick one over the other, but nobody ever uses electrical damage because it's completely useless.

Electrical is useless cause the shield is a god shield practically. One hit protection or not.

Neo Chaotikal said:

The fact that you can't go Super with a shield is actually a great way to rickroll someone in Match. Simply don't shoot at them and they can't do anything about it. The only way for them to let go of a shield is via a stage hazard (slime/lava/laser), or picking up a different shield which can be discarded by other means (attraction in water, armageddon by pressing spin). Seeing a player with all the emeralds running around with an Elemental Shield without anything that can hurt him is one of the funniest things I have ever witnessed in SRB2 match.

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This is the main reason why I don't like the fact that you can't go Super with a shield on. Doesn't help that it may lead to your emerald collecting efforts being a waste.

What he is saying is that after getting all of them, people (in theory) won't WANT you to become super, so they won't shoot you, meanwhile you can shoot them.

Jeck said:

I agree with this because at first, after going from 1.09.4 I had no clue what the green shield was untill I fell in lava. Also, I think the Force shield should be a differnt color to avoid a mistake with "water shield."

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I've been pushing for some such changes myself, although I'm personally puzzled by the elemental shield. We're having trouble getting the time and work into to make proper designs, but rest assured that the dev team IS concerned with finding the best way to depict these powerups.

What he is saying is that after getting all of them, people (in theory) won't WANT you to become super, so they won't shoot you, meanwhile you can shoot them.

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This has always struck me as faulty logic. You're letting this guy shoot you as often as he wants and you won't shoot him because he's gonna go super. But maybe he doesn't have enough rings to take proper advantage- well, at least he didn't until he was permitted to run around the map without any chance of getting hit.