Yeah I remember you mentioned your experience with medieval martial arts in other topic and I can understand experience you describe but I just think it's very unlikely that CDPR would implement that and that is because of most players would just pick and stick with Tech weapons and shoot trough shields.Again, as I said, that is because most game DEV do not know how to properly utilize shields in games. So yes I can see why you think this. One of the features of using a shiled most games do not apply is the lack of perception while blocking. If someone is hiding behind a shield they are much easier to maneuver around to hit them in the back. But you never see this in games. I know this can be done in games, as I have done this in the combat mods I have made for games like Oblivion and Skyrim based on my 40 years of real life medieval martial arts experience.
Player using shield then, you actually said that. SWAT operates as a team, and person using a shield always has their back covered. Also, they are commonly used in entry situations via doorway and such, narrow passages.
In CP 2077 V is alone and there are certain things in NPC combat AI that would make it work for now. See this:
NPC gunner | ||
| | ||
NPC moving to pincher (melee) | NPC with melee weapon moving to attack | | <- wall | | |
| | ||
V with a gun |
Above scenario is from game version 1.3 at normal difficulty against Tyger Claws. So gunner is blocked by their melee guy, other melee guy is not engaged yet, neither is one rushing towards V. So while there's 3 NPC's there, situation is practically 0 - vs V as V used a gun in this scenario. (I posted this months ago in other topic and gave different numbers and nobody bothered to correct that, but this is IMO important).
So now I hope they would enhance combat at CDRP is that Tyger Claws could have throwing knives or grenades, especially NPC moving to pincher would be a big threat with grenades.
Now apply shield to this scenario, it might be that V wouldn't even see that NPC coming, much less where grenade came from.
Other way around, if two Tyger Claws would had shields, V could just fire through them with Tech weapon and NPC's were limited to one handed weapons, excluding assault weapons and shotguns that might actually do damage.
So I don't know, like I wrote I think it's unlikely they implement shields in game, I have some hope that they would give some more options to NPC AI but even that remains to be seen.