I have seen many people on this forum complain about how frustrating it is to see that 'Miss' every time they roll bad, even though they stand right in front of an enemy in heavy armour who is additionally wearing a shield. Wouldn't you agree that it would be a lot less frustrating if it would say something different if your attack doesn't hit, depending on the armour type the enemy is wearing?

For enemies in light armour it could say 'Dodged' or even continue to say 'Miss'.
For medium armour it could say 'Dodged'.
And if they are using a shield and/or heavy armour, it could say 'Blocked'.

Imo, this would both make more sense and be less frustrating, bc of course can I live with the enemy blocking things with a shield. But I CAN'T live with my attacks missing even though I'm hitting right at them with a mace.

Thoughts?

Totally agree and the animations should reflect that too. Weird seeing tanky enemies dodging attacks.

Agreed, instead of attacks just somehow missing as if my characters are drunk off their ass and swinging blindly, seeing it say the enemy dodged would feel a bit better and also make more sense for the animation where they physically sidestep. I literally just watched them move out of the way, I didn't miss they just dodged. And adding a block animation and text would help with variation and make it feel more grounded that the giant ogre or the person in heavy armor with a shield simply blocked my attack or it deflected off their armor/hide, rather than somehow missing an enemy the size of a barn.

Another thing: it would make wearing heavy armour/shield as a PC also more rewarding, imo. When I see that i blocked something, it feels more like I have succeeded and my choice of armour has an impact, and less like I was just lucky that the enemy missed.

Even better: turn misses in a variety of visually different outcomes.
Once it's a miss on your side cause you fumbled your attack (i.e. for critical misses), another time it's the opponent swiftly dodging, another one is weapon parry, a glancing blow against an heavy armor or shield block and so on.

it's mostly a cosmetic and mechanically inconsequential thing, really, but it would make a certain difference in terms of presentation.

It seems more and more that cosmetic and mechanically inconsequential things are actually the things that make a game feel fun. Just seeing the same sidestep animation with the word "miss" or, even worse, giant red text saying "critical miss" gets old and boring, especially when it's literally the only thing that happens when I miss. Replace that with a block or parry, complete with some small animations and text to go with it for flavor, and it feels a lot more fun and like the enemies are actually participating in combat instead of just making a suicide run at me and anything that doesn't hit them is just because my aim was a little off.

I feel like the miss stuff is fine - it's just an abstraction anyway.

I'd rather have the team create animations for new enemy types than animate block animations for existing enemies/players.

Nobody said they have to drop every other animation to make a block animation, just that it would be nice to have in the finished game. If they decide to add block/parry animations they can simply add it to the list of animations to work on for enemies, and as they create animations for enemies they're still working on they can just slip that in with them as well, and then go back and slip it into the already completed ones after they finish animating the others.

True, but the amount of block animations is much larger than it actually seems, considering the enemy and weapon variety.

So don't make a block for every weapon, if they have a shield or maybe a 2 handed weapon like a staff or great sword make it a "block", if they don't and it falls into the block category make it a "deflection" where your attack is simply stopped by their armor. Just implement a sound effect and a "deflected" text or something along those lines.

All I am really asking for is a change of the text that pops up when I don't hit an enemy. That is definitely doable, even if animations were not.

Well now, THAT sounds fairly pointless. In a game relying so heavily on its visual appeal what use would serve to have "block" and "parry" text popping above the character when the animation clearly shows the enemy dodging the blow?

really just that I would be less frustrated that way.

Lol, One way to simplify it would be to rename the "miss" to "failed to damage" or "useless strike", That way it doesn't matter what animation the enemy use but it still clear that the attack connected to the target.

This is the best suggestion I've seen to solve the problem:

Make animations based on this.

+1

Tanks really need to feel like tanks instead of evasive Rogues. I hate that Lae'Zel is shown as more evasive than Astarion when in fact it's her half plate tanking the damage.

+1 from me too. Excellent idea, but still misses spell effects like that cleric lvl 1 shield spell that adds to AC. Since I imagine magic is like shield over your body and armor I would put magic effects between dodging (dex save) and armor/shield AC.

This is a nice-to-have feature, not critical.


But I like this suggestion:

+1

Bumping this thread because these are awesome ideas. +1

Agree, it actually kills a lot of immersion that a Shield only raises the "miss chance".
Larian even could fake it and give 50% of cases a "blocked" animation and it would be huge benefit and motivation for wearing a shield.

I agree about the animations but '' miss '' is just an all-encompassing term in DnD that can mean anything.
I don't think that's the issue, but the animations are.

Please do not create Alt accounts simply to agree with your original post and to bump your own threads.

I think the simplest way to deal with this would just be this:

- When an attack misses you it says "Dodged" and shows you dodging, like currently.
- When an attack misses you and you have a shield equipped it says "Blocked" and shows you blocking with your shield.
- When an attack misses and you're wearing heavy armor but no shield it says "Glanced" and shows the attack connecting but glancing off.
- When an attack critically misses it says "Missed" and the attack veers off and hits nothing.

This would make it at least feel like your defensive bonuses are from different things in combat.