My opinion on the upcoming SHIELDS 🧠

[ginabean]

What about the ability to use your shield as a sled?

[Coolpants]

Lol, look at that fierce battle-smile! That’s how I wanna go into combat.

[DKPuncherello]

I see what you’re doing… you’re trying to change the subject from compactness ;p

Well done!

I can’t wait for shields. But we need more still to make combat actually fun.

[georgegroeg]

That’s already how I go into battle. Only I’m also yelling Leroy Jenkins.

[DKPuncherello]

@georgegroeg

Reflecting ranged shots back at enemies. Some kind of aiming system for reflecting back projectiles.

This would be fun. When you “aim” the shield it reflects stuff that way.

[Azmadi]

@georgegroeg

Leroy Jenkins

After reading this, I immediately said it outloud while eating a pancake. Anytimes a good time to yell that out.

[Ovis]

Just want to spark a discussion that is creative and interesting other than people bashing and boring

“We get it, you might leave the game if you can’t make your prestige road or absorb other settlements to get viceroy… Now can we talk about shields?”

[Peyago]

What I feel like going into battle

What I currently look like going into battle

We need to make more of the first and less of the second.

[majorvex]

I have nothing to add to to this thread except to say it’s thoroughly entertaining to read Lots of great ideas + humor

-back to lurking I go…

[boundmore]

Once upon a time, when full release of Boundless was just a feeble dream, there was a topic called If you could pick just one thing.
Shields was my choice and I went for it in a lengthy post with poor images and half-decent areas.
It was April '17!! omg

Here’s the challenge - read it (and even bigger challenge: read the entire topic):

@boundmore

This can be a bit long so brace yourself.
I was thinking what would I want to see in the game and ended thinking about fighting spitters and cuttletrunks etc and that we currently have slingbow and grapple to use plus there’s lance coming soon. I’m happy out as I believe quality is better than quantity so I don’t need 100 types of weapons to chose from. I’m missing on the defense department though as we only have dodging in our arsenal as of now so I thought shields .

They shouldn’t be too big and there shouldn’t be too many types of them, so not too complicate things and keep it simple as with offensive weapons.

After some thinking that followed I came up with 3 types of them that could be introduced: lets call them basic , mechanic and energy shields.

BASIC SHIELDS Typical solid fantasy/medieval style, made of wood, copper, iron or titanium. I thought gems, gleam, silver and gold could be used for decorative upgrades on them, but whatever.
Would have durability of course, going down with each blocked damage until it reaches 0 and the shield is broken.
Would have elemental effects available for them, so in case of a direct contact between an attacker and the shield, boom!! (So if a vicious wildstock goes at you with a headbutt, you can not only block the attack and all damage but also affect the monster with fire, ice, corrosion, shock or else. Just don’t add healing effect to your shield…)

MECHANIC SHIELDS These ones would have a central piece with a mechanism inside that would enable fin-like parts to slide out to form the full shield. Crafting of such shield would require a tech fragment and maybe some spark to create a battery like load of the shield (each sliding out and retracting of the fins would use some energy and after a while the shield would have to be charged in a workbench: placing it in there would work like plugging in I imagine).
Elemental effects available as well.

ENERGY SHIELDS Would have a central piece made of iron/titanium and would create an energetic protecting field around it upon activating (so I imagine tech fragments or components to be involved in crafting process). Just like a mechanic shield would have a load of energy to be used for activating, but also for blocking damage (I imagine this working this way - every time an attack is blocked the shield energy is depleted so it needs to be recharged not just for activating but for blocking as well).
Elemental effects welcome of course.

As for pictures I have an example of a mechanic shield here (yes, you can laugh especially the lavender bicep is epic)

The red part is the central part attached to the forearm - blue parts are the fins. The vertical ones here slide out first and then smaller ones slide out to the sides. In the end the smallest fins pop-out vertically again. You reverse that order for retracting of course.
I had a few different shapes and combinations of fins but I forgot to save the image and its lost - I guess I was trying to be too fast.

Heres how it might look like on a character from Boundless - it ended too small (you would think about doubling the size of fins) but you can get the idea.

As for energy - I imagined 2 circles of the field emitted from two corners of a central piece. Below you can see how it would look like when activated in front of the arm (yes, you can laugh again ). Second picture shows it from the arm side - you can see the red central piece that would be attached to the forearm - two opposite corners of the piece are emitting the elliptic energy fields. Then you have a view from behind with an outline of an arm - you can see the red central piece and two different ways of creating the energy field. The circles might be emitted out to different distance from the central piece and work like layers, or be emitted at the same distance and merged together.

Many other shapes and configurations are possible (wont even go to the materials, colors and such). And yes, I believe talented people working on the visual side of Boundless can do amazing shields, way more inspiring and all - providing the devs would be interested in introducing shields at all.

Either way I had fun thinking and imagining all that in the game.

Thanks for your patience.
Stay