Xbows next...?

[Prpavi]

No one sane will take them anymore, anyway. You can't top the scoreboard relaying only on crossbow, they take forever to reload, if you manage to hit anyone in medium armor that just pisses them off, and there is no way you can reload before you get engaged in melee. Best case scenario, you get to fire three bolts with an arbalest per round. And sure as hell, you will not one shot anyone, unless you hit headshot, they are naked or already badly injured. And that's it.

Just try to count the number of dedicated crossbows on servers, and you will understand just how nerfed this weapon already is.

And if people are STILL not happy, just delete crossbows from the game.

yes you have no idea what you're talking about but I forgive you this time.

[karasu]

The problem is not crossbows, but arbalests. Loomed ones with loomed ammo.

With an arbalest, every shot I make either 1 hits ( not so common these days ), or simply leaves that player in such low HP that anything else will kill him in the next seconds. Then if I simply aim at those already wounded by even the slightest bump, they die. From mid round to end, almost every single shot is a kill shot.

If I use the heavy crossbow, everything changes.

As long as Arbalest is the most damaging, faster, most accurate, with best projectile speed, other 2-slot crossbows existence is but a joke. A cross-bower doesn't give a flying damn about reload speed, you'll be hiding in cover most of the time anyway.

But this will never change due to some individuals in the dev team that enjoy licking arbalest juicy penises and praise the arbalest god in their lunch hours. 

So bring at least the STR req change, so I can get the hell out of this broken class and back to melee.


xoxo <3

[Prpavi]

and by melee you mean archer? 

[Phew]

Just in the last couple patches we've seen:

1. Bolts no longer penetrate even most peasant shields (shield armor values were mostly raised to be >20).

2. Bolts lost the "extra penetration" tag, doing severely less damage to armored targets (I took an arbalest shot to the chest at pointe blank range for like 30 damage last night, 62 armor)

3. Ranged stagger was nerfed somehow (I don't really understand the details)

Those are some pretty hefty nerfs to crossbows, let's take some time to evaluate the changes before we continue the endless cries of "nerf xbow". After all, if ranged disappears entirely, be prepared for the waves of OP agility polearmers (if you think arbalests hurt, what do you think of a +3 Awlpike to the head with 8+ athletics of speed bonus behind it?).

[Gurnisson]

What do you consider medium armor? I have 51 body armor and few points IF, and I get one shot by mw arbalest all the time, no matter where it hits.

Health is more important than armour against arbalest. However, even with a 18/21 build with no IF I'd survive most arbalest bolts that hit me, even if it lobbed off most of my HP. They do a shit-ton of damage, so I'd rather hide until they shoot at someone else, and then engage the arbalester, as their reload speed is low enough to reach them from quite far before they get another shot off.

(click to show/hide)

The problem is not crossbows, but arbalests. Loomed ones with loomed ammo.

With an arbalest, every shot I make either 1 hits ( not so common these days ), or simply leaves that player in such low HP that anything else will kill him in the next seconds. Then if I simply aim at those already wounded by even the slightest bump, they die. From mid round to end, almost every single shot is a kill shot.

If I use the heavy crossbow, everything changes.

As long as Arbalest is the most damaging, faster, most accurate, with best projectile speed, other 2-slot crossbows existence is but a joke. A cross-bower doesn't give a flying damn about reload speed, you'll be hiding in cover most of the time anyway.

But this will never change due to some individuals in the dev team that enjoy licking arbalest juicy penises and praise the arbalest god in their lunch hours. 

So bring at least the STR req change, so I can get the hell out of this broken class and back to melee.


xoxo <3

I find it the other way around. Arbalest is not worth the extra reload speed for me, even though it's better at very long range because of the missile speed. From my experience with both these crossbows, they seem to mostly use 2 shots on targets, with the occasional one-hit by arbalest and 3-shot by heavy xbow. They're both one-shots on headshots except for the Butans of this mod, and that just makes the heavy xbow better for me. It's very strong at body-shots, one-shot headshots, much faster to reload than arbalest, great accuracy, good missile speed. I just feel it's the best choice compared to arbalest and crossbow which loses out in speed and range (also damage) respectively.

Then again, I always loved aiming for headshots, so I prefer ranged weapons I use to have enough missile speed to make headshots rather easy at long range, while still having the reload speed to not get pushed to easily by infantry and also having the possibility to take down high-priority targets rather quickly at the start of the round.

[Torost]

wanting to top the scoreboard... feeling cheated of kill because arbalest only takes 90% of hp... hiding so crossbower can shoot an ally instead.

The battle is a team effort, those things should not be your main focus, it is very counterproductive.

The main problems with crossbows have been laid out so many times.

They make for a duller game, as the dominant strategy is to hide and shoot for as long as possible.
Accuracy is very high, missile speed is high, dmg is high (compared to all other ranged).
The only drawback is the reload, and that is not a big problem ,since you just hide and reload. Even animation will hide you.
Crossbows are cheap, as in you make plenty of gold playing as crossbower.
Together with steel bolts, the bonus from looming is far beyond other ranged.

And since crossbowers really do not have any armor resctrictions, and sacrefice no points they are as viable melee as dedicated infantry.

Why balancers have you made of all ranged crossbows the clearly better choice?

Crossbows were troublesome back then aswell, everyone hated them because of their effectivness.
And they pretty much worked like in crpg, reloadspeed maybe abit lower

The role of crossbows in crpg should be IMO to take out or soften high value targets (high lvl tincans,cav and other ranged)
Targets that are hard to kill because of armor,speed or skill.

If crpg was played seriously, all players would be crossbowinfantry.

[Rico]

If you think a crossbow nerf is necessary, feel free to play around with reload speed, projectile speed and damage, or implement that governing skill thingy.

Just do not touch accuracy, or hitting the enemy will be based on luck rather than skill, which will make me cry...

(click to show/hide)

... and respec to shielder to leech valor every round until I am level 1000000, and then I respec to archer because *pew* is a state of mind, not just a stupid class you can choose.

[Macbeth3]

What some of you seem to forget is, that since Xbow does not have a skill governed like PD (wich gives 14% extra damage per point, for up to +4 above the bow requirement), that eventually, archers do more damage in the end anyway.

at 6 pd with a Longbow and bodkins, an archer does 65P damage. Archers then ofcourse can fire roughly 3 or more arrows before an arbalest has shot and been reloaded, I see no reason why we should change xbows in any way.

Now concidering this info, what do you prefer? 3x 65p (mw Longbow + Bodkins) or 1x 100p(mw arba + mw sb).

It's true, that the arba will do more damage versus an archer with 6 PD and longbow. But the archer has WAY more mobility and can shoot way faster.
Ontop of that there's quite a few archers that go up to 7, 8 or even up to 10pd.  Concidering 8 pd with Bodkins, they'd do 75p damage total. (Remember these damage values are BEFORE armor)

If the Xbow user misses his shot, he's fucked and has to STAND STILL to reload (most likely in cover). But then again, cover can be used by ANY class.


TL:DR
- Archers Have rate of fire and mobility while still beeing able to shoot slightly weaker then a Heavy Xbow.
- Xbows have pure raw power but lack speed and mobility, and without cover you're a sitting duck.

I like how they are different. If people would need to invest into skillpoints for Xbow, then I see no reason why people would go Xbow over archer.

[San]

Can't compare raw damages that way. That single xbow shot could very well deal many times more damage as far as final damage is concerned. Xbow also has indefinite holding and slightly better mobility. I wouldn't say xbow would be inferior than archery even with a governing skill.

[BlindGuy]

Lets not forget:

Sure you can have nice raw dmg with 10 PD and a longbow+bodkins: you have 30 str and maybe... 15 agility MAX?
normal-ish bowman, 18/18, 18/21...

vs crossbowman: 12 or 15 STR (arbalest) and close to 30 agility.

who REALLY has the mobility??

[CrazyCracka420]

Macbeth (*meow*) the problem is that without a governing skill, there's no skill point investment needed for crossbows, which makes them a stronger "hybrid" class than they otherwise would be.  They are "too strong" in melee compared to archer/melee hybrids, throwing/melee hybrids, or cavalry/infantry hybrids. 

See Rhaelys...some people are saying there's no need for a governing skill. 

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[Phew]

I still think most of the xbow whining is coming from 2h/pole heroes that run around with 2 free slots then complain when they get shot. With only 1-2 point investment in shield skill, you can get a round shield that will stop 2-4 bolts, or make bolts that hit the shield on your back do practically no damage (shield armor+your armor+10=shield on back armor against projectiles).

The armor increase for the lower-tier shields was a serious buff for protection against ranged, yet it seems like no one really takes advantage of it.

[Kafein]

I still think most of the xbow whining is coming from 2h/pole heroes that run around with 2 free slots then complain when they get shot. With only 1-2 point investment in shield skill, you can get a round shield that will stop 2-4 bolts, or make bolts that hit the shield on your back do practically no damage (shield armor+your armor+10=shield on back armor against projectiles).

The armor increase for the lower-tier shields was a serious buff for protection against ranged, yet it seems like no one really takes advantage of it.

No one really takes advantage of it because there's really no advantage to be taken. A shield is a cumbersome, debilitating, flimsy and unreliable defense mechanism against ranged. It's the best ranged defense though bar not needing to go in the open at all, but melee is not compatible with that at all.

Is this sorry defense worth all the problems it brings? No, really not.

[Phew]

No one really takes advantage of it because there's really no advantage to be taken. A shield is a cumbersome, debilitating, flimsy and unreliable defense mechanism against ranged. It's the best ranged defense though bar not needing to go in the open at all, but melee is not compatible with that at all.

Is this sorry defense worth all the problems it brings? No, really not.

A +3 Nordic Shield has 263 HP, 21 Armor, and weighs only 3.5kg, i.e. the same as heavy boots. And almost everyone wears boots, despite the fact that people get hit in the legs less often than they get hit by ranged overall.

Equip shield when approaching ranged, put it on your back when engaged in melee. This approach will probably reduce your overall damage taken by range by at least 75% (considering that the mere presence of your shield makes you a less desirable target, combined with active/passive blocks and shield on back mitigation). How is that not worth 1-2 skill points and 3ish kg?

[Rhaelys]

Macbeth (*meow*) the problem is that without a governing skill, there's no skill point investment needed for crossbows, which makes them a stronger "hybrid" class than they otherwise would be.  They are "too strong" in melee compared to archer/melee hybrids, throwing/melee hybrids, or cavalry/infantry hybrids. 

See Rhaelys...some people are saying there's no need for a governing skill. 

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Nobody was saying that when I made that post.

Anyway I'm lobbying for a governing skill change because that necessitates a free respec for everyone.