Crossbows and the Return of FPS

[Elmetiacos]

Before the patch, half the infantry carried a "crossbow sidearm" which they used with 1wpf at close range. With the faster rate of archery we had then, this resulted in the game playing out like a FPS, with a big shooting match at the start, during which infantry cowered behind walls until one side or the other had won the shooting match and then either died or mopped up. I'm sad to see things moving back in that direction. Now we have the increased cost of high wpf, players have found focussing on one weapon isn't worth it and so hybrids are commoner, which means the return of the heavy infantry + crossbow. There is more and more missile fire and once again crpg is losing its mediaeval combat flavour.

[justme]

just reduce ammount of bolts and arrows, so there would be less spam

[Tears of Destiny]

just reduce ammount of bolts and arrows, so there would be less spam

Then I shall take three quivers instead of my normal two.

[justme]

and then u will not carry melee weapon..

[Tai Feng]

Let's eliminate all weapons but 2H swords. We all know that's what medieval battlefield looked like.


Everyone else should run without weapons so that 2H guys can collect kills. You are not allowed to have any Athletics either or they will complain you're griefing them and that it's unfair.

[MrShovelFace]

seriously grow up dude. Cross bows rarely kill anyone in so much as 2 hits and cost substancially more than any melee weapon ntm the steel bolts. They had their damage reduced by 30 (all of them) and are less accurate and slower. Just because a few non - fotm people stuck with the build and repeatedly kicked your ass does not justify a nerf

and yes i have been head shotted by darkkarma more times than i have braincells to count but the dill thumper has almost 180 prof

[Kophka]

I really don't understand why people don't just stop at 3 or 4 WM, then put the rest into something like IF or PS or Ath. If you just use one weapon type, and want to specialize in it, 3 WM gives you 130+ wpf at lvl 30. There's no need to hybridize, really. If you think it's a "can't beat 'em, join 'em" thing, fast 2 handers and strong sword/boarders mop up throwers and xbowers all the time .

[Darkkarma]

seriously grow up dude. Cross bows rarely kill anyone in so much as 2 hits and cost substancially more than any melee weapon ntm the steel bolts. They had their damage reduced by 30 (all of them) and are less accurate and slower. Just because a few non - fotm people stuck with the build and repeatedly kicked your ass does not justify a nerf

and yes i have been head shotted by darkkarma more times than i have braincells to count but the dill thumper has almost 180 prof

This is going in my play book. 

[Seawied]

seriously grow up dude. Cross bows rarely kill anyone in so much as 2 hits and cost substancially more than any melee weapon ntm the steel bolts. They had their damage reduced by 30 (all of them) and are less accurate and slower. Just because a few non - fotm people stuck with the build and repeatedly kicked your ass does not justify a nerf

and yes i have been head shotted by darkkarma more times than i have braincells to count but the dill thumper has almost 180 prof

An Error Has Occurred.

Sorry, you can't repeat a karma action without waiting 24 hours.

No +30 karma points for you =(

+1 will have to suffice

[Grey]

I think a major issue is fairness> Lose a swordfight, you can only blame yourself, get shot in the back and you are much more annoyed since you had no chance to defend yourself. This Breeds hatred for that style, and then people rage about how lame it is. Although, tbh, most archers play as archers because they feel their melee skills are good enough with  0 wpf in melee to be able to fight, so why not have the ability to also kill people at long range?
Problem is, this makes everyone else do it too, and it DOES take the piss out of dedicated melee chars. But They amde their choice too.

I was going to post today anyway about crossbows maybe needing a skill, like an agility based one, "Mechanical Knowledge" or "Practised Fingers" or something, that allows crossbow usage per level, like powerdraw for bows.

I mainly think this might be positive since I am building my very very very first non hybrid. Every other char I have (and there a quite a few) has some form of ranged wpf, or shield skills. But I thought, hey lets make the pure 2h. Being a peasant and lvl 1, I decided to go level on siege mode, you get more alive time out of your time when a peon. Got shot. Many times. So I bought a crossbow, 1 wpf. Its not like Im going to snipe anyone, but I can definitly start climbing a ladder with it, spot the archer at laddertop and headshot him with my 1 wpf. Dont really think its fair on him, he probably has dedicated himself to ranged, and I just bought this crossbow to be annoying.....

[Brutal]

Well i've just started a polearm/xbox build with 110WPF in xbow. Xbow was and still his the ranged class i dislike the most, although it s fun to play and feel a little bit like cs.

But i've got to admit it's easier getting kill with throwing than xbow. I do get some kill but not consistently, if I really want some kill i just drop the damn xbow and start flanking.
Than again you don t need skillpoints for xbow versus throwing and bows so i guess it's fair. I was able to do the same build as my pure polarm for a loss of 25 or so  wpf in polearm and downgrading my 9 armor glove to 4 armor glove and traded pike for heavy crossbow and steel bolt, with throwing or bow i wouldnt be able to do that. 
But really if you re going for K/D ratio the easiest path IMO is melee. 

[MouthnHoof]

The problematic hybrids are melee/ranged - mainly xbow & throwing as the secondary. Hybrids of 1H/2H/pole do not cause any problems and are even welcomed. Dedicated xbow/archer/throwers are not a problem.

What happens is that there is absolutely no reason not to carry an xbow. Even with poor accuracy of low wpf, you get a chance at some cheap kills at little risk - so why not? The thing is that it is bad bad BAD to gameplay. Beyond a critical mass of ranges weapons, the game turns into a FPS. I played on EU1 the other day and was appalled. In every frame I sent the first two minutes idling till the throwers have spent most of their ammo and the xbow hybrid my old friends took their cheap shots and came down from the roofs to fight.

Perhaps the only solution is to make two classes (YEH YOU HEAR IT RIGHT!): ranged & melee.
* If you choose melee you cannot put points into archery/xbows AT ALL and the cost of power throw is doubled (1 PT for two skill points invested).
* if you choose ranged the cost of power-strike and shield skills are doubled

The melee/throwing hybrids this allows are either a melee toon with some basic throwing ability, or a true hybrid for a very skill point demanding build that will hurt elsewhere.
The melee/xbow hybrids this allows will have basic shield usage (arrow cover) and cannot be block crushers. They can be true melee hybrids for a very high skill point cost that will hurt elsewhere.

The "what the heck, I'll grab an xbow as well" attitude must be stopped.

[Bjarky]

just make xbow more inaccurate at low wpf, this will make it harder for xbow grabbers.
right now you only need 80 wpf in xbow to be point on accurate for mid to semi-long range.

PS. if there's gonna be less ranged people, you guys will start raging against cav ^^

[GaenaralHONK]

just got one thing to tell people that whine:

learn to play.

you can so easily strafe around, doding any arrow/throwing axe/bolt flying for you head...
manual blocking is easy when you practise enough ( go try duel servers! maybe even on native!)

you just have to train...and actually i prefer light to medium armor with high athletics to evade better than pure str+heavy armor
plus it's cheaper

[Grey]

Hey I dont want less of anything, or a major change to anything, just decrease in accuracy of crossbows with, lets say, 1 wpf? I dont think this will change MUCH, maybe make the "cant shoot for shit" zone from 1-50 wpf? Also, maybe reload times could be slowed down on xbows, and make wpf over 50 allow MUCH faster reloads, so they are realistically the same speed for guys who have at least made that small investment (50+ wpf), but a slow and fiendish contraption of the devil's work that takes your simple peasants brain very long to work out to all the guys with 1wpf.

So it represents: Im not a crossbowman, but as modern 14th century footsoldier with a positive opinion of my own survival, I've been fighting for a while now, got some cash, why not spend some gold on a crossbow, and some time to learn to shoot and reload. So, crossbow + 50 wpf and you are decent as you would be now, any less wpf and you start to take very long to reload, and cant shoot reliably, with delayed release sometimes...etc