Long Bow

[Rheinhardt]

Historically longbowmen were all about high rates of fire and the long range and solid hitting power of the bow. Accuracy was a secondary consideration, with most training aiming for area targets. Crank up the draw speed so it becomes a spammer's high-powered delight.

[BlindGuy]

Historically longbowmen were all about high rates of fire and the long range and solid hitting power of the bow. Accuracy was a secondary consideration, with most training aiming for area targets. Crank up the draw speed so it becomes a spammer's high-powered delight.

This would be acceptable. Also, that the arbalest deals more dmg than longbow makes me facepalm daily: these crossbows never excisted. Crossbows were feared not because of their deadly accuracy or their power, simply because any tool could grab one and shoot, enabling anyone to get a ranged weapon, rather than having to dedicate their free time for 12-15 years to master the use of a ranged weapon. This is the point when some goons types "I saw a test on History channel with crossbow and bow..." NO! Crossbows of the middle ages were NOT high carbon-steel armed, plastic bodied engineering masterpieces, with graphite bolt shafts, mechanically exactly placed fletching, high carbon steel heads and tensile steel strung tools of today. They were bulky, badly made, prone to misfiring, innacuracy, lack of range, lack of penetrative power, everything. Also, it seems, in warband and crpg they are weightless, since you can CoD your way around with it at your shoulder as you run without your reticule getting larger and larger as the weight of a unbalanced machine pulls more and more at you.

[Gisbert_of_Thuringia]

Yes you are right. The "base accuracy" of the longbow is fine. But due to this bug there is a random chance that arrows will spread in unexplainable dircetions, just as holding the shot drawn for to long with other bows does. If this would get fixed and your arrows acutally go where you aim, Im sure then the longbow does not need an accuracy buff but as it is now, on tight shots you can never know if you going to hit the enemy or your teammate spazzing around in ruffly same location.

I've never experienced that and I only use the longbow :/

But I think what you are talking about can be fixed by more drawspeed. Longbow is like that: The moment you have drawn it you have to shoot cause your reticule starts growing immediatley because it is at its smallest point before you are able to shoot.

This would be acceptable. Also, that the arbalest deals more dmg than longbow makes me facepalm daily: these crossbows never excisted. Crossbows were feared not because of their deadly accuracy or their power, simply because any tool could grab one and shoot, enabling anyone to get a ranged weapon, rather than having to dedicate their free time for 12-15 years to master the use of a ranged weapon. This is the point when some goons types "I saw a test on History channel with crossbow and bow..." NO! Crossbows of the middle ages were NOT high carbon-steel armed, plastic bodied engineering masterpieces, with graphite bolt shafts, mechanically exactly placed fletching, high carbon steel heads and tensile steel strung tools of today. They were bulky, badly made, prone to misfiring, innacuracy, lack of range, lack of penetrative power, everything. Also, it seems, in warband and crpg they are weightless, since you can CoD your way around with it at your shoulder as you run without your reticule getting larger and larger as the weight of a unbalanced machine pulls more and more at you.

Sorry but half of what you say is crap. Not all, but about half

[Okkam]

Historically longbowmen were all about high rates of fire and the long range and solid hitting power of the bow. Accuracy was a secondary consideration, with most training aiming for area targets. Crank up the draw speed so it becomes a spammer's high-powered delight.

Any longbowman want to shoot as fast as he can (as every bowman with other bow), but longbow never was fastest bow. To be honest it also do not have enough energy to be called bow with most damage output. You need composite bow to accumulate more energy. That's why in Native Longbow never was high end bow.
And do not tell me any crap about - but cRPG has best balance in da world. Just No.

Xbow was cheap, slow, harditting (because bolt was much heavier than arrow) and inaccurate (because bolt is short, unbalanced and do not have stable trajectory) weapon. Our high end xbows is science fiction weapons, along with Flamberge, Great maul, unbreakable lances, throwing lances, any greatswords longer than 120cm. Even Fire bomb is more historically accurate than all this arsenal.

[Gurnisson]

This would be acceptable. Also, that the arbalest deals more dmg than longbow makes me facepalm daily: these crossbows never excisted. Crossbows were feared not because of their deadly accuracy or their power, simply because any tool could grab one and shoot, enabling anyone to get a ranged weapon, rather than having to dedicate their free time for 12-15 years to master the use of a ranged weapon. This is the point when some goons types "I saw a test on History channel with crossbow and bow..." NO! Crossbows of the middle ages were NOT high carbon-steel armed, plastic bodied engineering masterpieces, with graphite bolt shafts, mechanically exactly placed fletching, high carbon steel heads and tensile steel strung tools of today. They were bulky, badly made, prone to misfiring, innacuracy, lack of range, lack of penetrative power, everything. Also, it seems, in warband and crpg they are weightless, since you can CoD your way around with it at your shoulder as you run without your reticule getting larger and larger as the weight of a unbalanced machine pulls more and more at you.

Just a friendly reminder, this is the Game Balance Discussion forum, not the Realism Discussion board. I, for one, would rather have dedicated xbowmen than every infantry with an xbow strapped on his back.

[XyNox]

I've never experienced that and I only use the longbow :/

But I think what you are talking about can be fixed by more drawspeed. Longbow is like that: The moment you have drawn it you have to shoot cause your reticule starts growing immediatley because it is at its smallest point before you are able to shoot.

I can imagine you have more WM/ less PD than me. On my 8 PD 6 WM 154 WPF build the reticule already opened to a little degree before I am able to send off a missile. Some shots are dead accurate, some shots again miss the target by a few feet. I can imagine with 8 WM for example instead of 6, you can get just enough WPF so your draw time will fall below the magic mark, enabling you to draw fast enough to shoot before the reticule starts opening. The problem I see is that only the longbow suffers from this mechanic as the rusbow is more accurate even on less WPF. Im sure lowering the drawtime on the longbow would fix this but more in need IMO is to prolong the optimum reticule draw time by 0.5 - 1 seconds. This way accuracy bug-ness of the longbow on power builds would be fixed without buffing it significantly.

[Rumblood]

Make the Longbow as fast and accurate at 1 WPF as it is now at 50 WPF.
Then the cost and progression remains the same, but at higher ends it will have better accuracy and draw speed due to WPF increase because it begins slightly higher on the scale.

[XyNox]

Make the Longbow as fast and accurate at 1 WPF as it is now at 50 WPF.
Then the cost and progression remains the same, but at higher ends it will have better accuracy and draw speed due to WPF increase because it begins slightly higher on the scale.

Sounds reasonable

[Gisbert_of_Thuringia]

I can imagine you have more WM/ less PD than me. On my 8 PD 6 WM 154 WPF build the reticule already opened to a little degree before I am able to send off a missile. Some shots are dead accurate, some shots again miss the target by a few feet. I can imagine with 8 WM for example instead of 6, you can get just enough WPF so your draw time will fall below the magic mark, enabling you to draw fast enough to shoot before the reticule starts opening. The problem I see is that only the longbow suffers from this mechanic as the rusbow is more accurate even on less WPF. Im sure lowering the drawtime on the longbow would fix this but more in need IMO is to prolong the optimum reticule draw time by 0.5 - 1 seconds. This way accuracy bug-ness of the longbow on power builds would be fixed without buffing it significantly.

Sadly even with 8wm you can't get to the magic point, but you get very close to it^^ Still the arrow goes a bit too late and I don't want to imagine how it would be with 6 wm 

Best would be 1/2 more speed and something about the time you can hold your bow.

[XyNox]

So now everything has been said, everyone seems to agree that the longbow needs a buff to be worth using, a conclusion that has been expressed a long time ago and many times so far, will anything happen or will a thousand more threads like this one need to be opened till some will be changed ?

[Gisbert_of_Thuringia]

So now everything has been said, everyone seems to agree that the longbow needs a buff to be worth using, a conclusion that has been expressed a long time ago and many times so far, will anything happen or will a thousand more threads like this one need to be opened till some will be changed ?

Usually nothing happens (we had threads about longbow quite often) and the next thread will pop up directly after next patch if nothing changes. Maybe a bit earlier even^^

[Arn_Magnusson]

I think, that will make longbow bit overpowered, to compare it with rus bow. Longbow is slower and less acurate, then you'll need to find extremly build for it, but in reward you get these extra damage. I'm also just reminding, don't try to be superstars, if longbow is too hard or not in your "style" get rus or horn, both are great too. I don't like ideas about increasing speed and making it more accurate. But the solution which Rumblood said, is good I think.

[Cup1d]

ATM longbow is bad choice for any level 30 build. Even MW Longbow. You've gain +3 to damage for the price of -8 speed, and accuracy.

Just imagine this as melee weapon difference.

1. Fast sword (hornbow edition) 37 swing damage, 95 speed.
2. Sword (rus bow edition) - 40 swing damage, 92 speed.
3. Slow sword (longbow edition) 43 swing damage, 84 speed.

What weapon you'll choose?

[BlindGuy]

ATM longbow is bad choice for any level 30 build. Even MW Longbow. You've gain +3 to damage for the price of -8 speed, and accuracy.

Just imagine this as melee weapon difference.

1. Fast sword (hornbow edition) 37 swing damage, 95 speed.
2. Sword (rus bow edition) - 40 swing damage, 92 speed.
3. Slow sword (longbow edition) 43 swing damage, 84 speed.

What weapon you'll choose?

Scimitar.

[Gisbert_of_Thuringia]

ATM longbow is bad choice for any level 30 build. Even MW Longbow. You've gain +3 to damage for the price of -8 speed, and accuracy.

It's not much better even for a lvl 32 build :/  (don't know how it is with 9wm though, but I suppose not better)

It's really annoying to see that people with a hornbow or worse, with a shortbow can hold their bow for 5 3-6 seconds or maybe more and still shoot with pinpoint accuracy whereas the longbow sucks after aiming for 1 second