I think the heavy crossbows are a pain and a nuisance, by competing directly with archery for ranged dmg.
In a boring lowskill coward way.
For gameplay, it is no fun, as there is little teamplay, just ppl camping in the back.. hiding/ducking while reloading.
No fun being shot at either .. as you never see it comming..
And if you actually manage to flank and get behind them.. or even find them... they are well armoured and hard to take down (harder than soft archers atleast)
Iknow realism is no good card to play.. but the heavy crossbows appeared late in the medival period..
I would love to see crossbows reduced to a novelty shortrange trinket.. that gave melee/cav with 2 spare slots a little prefight suckerpunch.
I play purely as archer, so im heavily biased ofc ..
I would love to see arrows deal realistic damage to mail and plate armour: NONE. Only bodkins pierce mail and the other arrows just get stuck in the leather padding.
On a more serious note:
Low body armour and close range and you complain about getting 1 hit killed by a masterwork arbalest?
What would have happened if he missed that shot you think? He would've had to run or pull out a 1 slot 2h or 1h weapon to fight you in melee.
With MW arbalest and MW steel bolts I couldn't 1 hit kill anything at range (only very squishy archers) and even in close range (less than 10 meters) it would take me 3 body hits to kill someone with 7 IF and ~60 body armour. Tested that in the duel server. Over longer ranges, it could take as much as 5 hits.
I couldn't 1 hit kill a clanmate with a strengthbuild and a sugerloaf helmet when I hit him in the head point blank range.
As for the arbalest mechanic: You get just 1 shot. If you survive my hit, it will take me so long to reload, aim and be able to fire again that you will allready be in my face or behind cover.
It does loads of damage, true, but has serious drawbacks in high cost (18k) and more importantly, long reload time. The speedincrease from heirlooming was allready removed, so the arbalest always has 18 speed.
Deal with it, the same way I have to deal with very fast 2h, polearm stun and archers.