This nerf is just a complete fail by the devs to actually identify the problems and come up with simple solutions that do not have wide ranging repercussions.
The main problem with all ranged was that they could escape their natural counter - Cav - by hiding on any roof. This has now been fixed so I congratulate the Devs on that, however to me this is such a massive change to the fundamentals of cRPG, that it should have been done on its own and the repercussions fully tested before doing any further balancing
The next problem with ranged was the fact that the best bows were no longer the most expensive since the piercing change. Horn Bow + Bodkins doing 24p is better than Long Bow + Tatar Arrows doing 35c yet the Horn Bow option is cheaper. I say better because you are not only doing piercing damage instead of cut, but you are also firing faster and can carry either an extra quiver or a decent melee weapon. The simple solution to this would be to make the 1 slot bows 30% more expensive, which would place the Horn Bow at around the same price as the Rus Bow. This would remove the Horn Bow as the obvious choice for virtually all archers adding variety to the game, whilst also nerfing the number of bodkins in the game rather than their damage.
The final problem with ranged was the xbow as a side arm issue. The simple solution here would have been to make all xbows 2 slots. The only people that would complain about this are the Horse Xbowers, who should not exist imo, and the xbow sidearm users. Dedicated Arbalasters would not have been nerfed so much that they are only barely a viable class these days.
The only people that Crossbowers and Archers 1 body-shotted in the past, were low level peasants and high agility/low armour wearing ninjas. The peasants get 1 hit killed by everything so why is that unfair? and the ninjas chose their builds to sacrifice armour/HPs for speed. Hitting them when they were aware was and still is very difficult and if you miss with your Arbalest then you don't get another chance.
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