A new archery feat

[Carnage]

I voted yes because of my beef with throw, not to make archery more powerful, which I know it is already.

When you think about it, though, throw is pretty logical and not -that- bad. You have to get pretty good with it first, and there is some dependance on STR. Second, I think the whole getting knocked down with a dagger deal is pretty much a little niche in the code. When you use a javelin or hurl an axe at someone there's always that possibility of losing your balance. I think of it like getting hit with a medicine ball but I'm off weight-wise.

Keep in mind, as well, that there needs to be something there to seperate archery and throw. Archery can do more damage and go longer distances. What can throw do, except knock you down?

Throw's knockdown is a death sentence, as people have mentioned knockdown is. It's about as powerful as an archer. And yes, I do definitely agree that other thrown items can be that powerful, but really, a dagger flying a league (Outdoors I'm speaking in terms of) and knocking these huge animals down, is nutty.  

That's why I imagine with the new weight code, throw could be tweaked to take into account the weight of the projectile as to its knockdown power. That way these half-stone knives aren't acting like Gizhat anymore.

[Stroker]

How about emoting that you are knocked down by an arrow if for instance it is a good shot that takes off quite a bit of hp.

[Lazloth]

Archery is in serious need of attention; anyone who is championing added affects to the skill has either not played an archer or not surpassed newbie stardom.

How about emoting that you are knocked down by an arrow if for instance it is a good shot that takes off quite a bit of hp.

[Stroker]

A heavy, chitin arrow flies in from the west, striking the lean, dark-eyed man in his leather-clad chest, the sheer force of the blow sends him staggering backwards and onto his knees.

Sorry, I must be stupid or something then, I don't see a problem with doing this. Explain to me what is wrong with this idea.

[Lazloth]

Kudos to you, if you find the time to drop an emote while under fire. More than likely, before or by the time you hit [return], you are a corpse.

[Delirium]

Feel free to RP that to your heart's content, but I don't particularly think it needs to be actually coded in.

[Stroker]

That's considering that the person who is shooting at you is not bothering to emote loading his weapons and stuff like that and if they are it can be pretty fair, no? And if they're not then oh well you might die, like we haven't done that before a number of times.  And yes, I've rpied wounds in a critical situation and I've survived ..... well some of the times at least.

[Callisto]

Archery is the single most powerful (non-magickal) skill, hands down.

Three room range plus... let me state that again before I continue.

THREE ROOM RANGE.

Still, for this example we'll drop it down to the average distance of two. So, you've got two room range combined with a moderate skill level that amounts to around 30 damage per shot. I know 30 damage is in the lower-average range for the skill, though my guess is that's where your average 10 day non-twink would be. I'll note the skill has less then a seconds delay at that same skill level. For the benefit of the doubt, lets bump it up to a full two seconds.

Put simple:
2 room range
30 damage per arrow
2 second delay per arrow

Now, we can factor in your average player uses Zmud, meaning they can repeat the stacked command 'pull quiver;shoot DeleraksCurrentRanger n' with a single stroke of the enter key. Again, lets assume our player base is morbidly obese and types only with thumbs - we'll leave it an even two seconds.

Put simple again:
2 room range
30 damage per arrow
2 second delay per arrow
2 delay between key-strokes

So, we assume your average PC has 90HP and the archer misses once, since one in four shots is about the average rate for good human agility in my experience. That means your average PC will be killed in 16 seconds. Its deadly powerful, but you can still type flee self or a direction in time.

NOW, lets factor in that the second arrow knocks the target down for three seconds - two for entering flee while 'sitting' and an extra one to type stand.

I'll break it down even more:
3 seconds spent registering what's going on
3 seconds spent deciding an escape plan
3 seconds to stand up from being knocked down and type flee

That leaves you:
7 seconds leeway between you and your characters death

Keep in mind that is seven seconds if you don't role-play any aspect of the scene at all and if your attacker is a little short of halfway to being a master of the skill. It is also adding in a lot of other added advantages you probably would actually get in game, such as extended delay times and such.

All in all adding the knock down factor raises response time by a couple seconds each time it kicks in, but when all you have is sixteen to start with..

Yes, upping archery is a fine idea.  :roll:

[gfair]

(Yes I know this isnt the actual text, but by saying the arrow flying straight through you would not cause you to fall or roll on the ground or atleast drop to a knee clutching the area of infliction, not very realistic? That or everyone has the ability to perform incredible feats of mind over matter.)

Well, see, getting shot with an arrow in real life usually means the same as getting shot with a bullet - getting hit with one is relatively easy to live through at certain angles, and body locations, or it can kill you in an instant.  Getting hit with anything more than one, and the chance of living diminishes quickly.

And realistically, if you think about it COG, characters in Arm are superheroes by virtue of the Arm code.  They can get hit by multiple arrows in various locations and not die.  Any alternative to make archery more realistic would be a severe alteration of the skill, one that makes it far more powerful.  Do warriors, rangers, or the Archer subclass need any more power?  I don't think so.  There is a level of realism beyond which the boundary between fiction and reality blur, and the game would be ruined.  This is the flaw with your thought that Archery needs knockdown.

[Mufasa]

skills
------------------------
parry







Doh!

[Stroker]

Let us remember that arrows are blockable and the person using a bow is at a high disadvantage, being that when he is firing he is not using any other weapons and can be easily struck down with even a weakling weapons user. Next, I think introducing the bow knockdown skill is bad, I am not arguing for it. Further, a good fighter will be able to take down a few arrows as he makes his way across towards the bow wielder - as soon as he is within the same space - he uses bash (if he feels it is needed), then wack away and in a few hits the fight is over.  Yes it may seem as I am bias and obviously exaggerating, but so is Callisto. A very skilled power-gamer will do this - but a very good rpier will not. What are you afraid of someone dying? A very good warrior meets you in the desert wastes - he turns out to be a raider and kills you in less than a hit. What is archery and who can master it? Mostly rangers and the like. And who are rangers? Even the best of them could not handle a weak warrior.  Yes occasionally you will meet an amazing warrior archer or something along those lines, but I doubt many warriors can learn to be as good as rangers at archery. Do not introduce this new archery effect to the game. I think rping can take the place of it, as it did in many other cases. But do not make it seem that archery is the most powerfull skill in the game.  Of course, yes it is if you place an aged archer against a newbie warrior, but so is with any class. But if you place an aged warrior against an aged archer, the fight can go either direction.

[Lazloth]

I would like to add that parrying arrows is inane.  I know this underwent some modification of late, but I imagine the core of the code has been retained.

That said, Dirr, one situation perhaps you're not taking into account is a duo, trio or band of archers.  Three archers with above-average abilities will kill you in ~4 seconds, barring super Zorro-like reflexes on your part.  If you're a 30-day warrior victim, maybe bump that figure to 6 to 9 secs.  With arrow weight dropped to close to nothing, you have the real possibility of walking machine guns in the sands.

[Callisto]

You aren't going to be knocking many arrows out of the air - that's a freak thing and shouldn't be taken into account when you're talking balance issues, in my opinion.

Even with a shield you aren't going to block enough arrows to survive long, maybe you block one in four arrows, which again is about average for a human with a moderate shield use skill. We again factor in that one misses, so it bumps the leeway up to about nine seconds, as opposed to seven. That's again assuming the victim is lucky enough to score that block with their shield.

Any way you slice is, archery is already immensely powerful and does not need to add knock down effects as well.

[Stroker]

First - I am neutral on the subject of addint a knockdown effect to the archery skill.
Second - Sorry - I don't see how a good archer is any better than a good warrior. I mean I could make the same example a 30 day archer surrounded by 3 or 4 warriors. Yes you will die. You are making it seem like archery is superpowerfull by giving me an example of four versus one? One versus one is what I'm talking about .... if anyone is jumped by four raiders, archers or otherwise they are screwed.

[Anonymous]

Second - Sorry - I don't see how a good archer is any better than a good warrior. I mean I could make the same example a 30 day archer surrounded by 3 or 4 warriors. Yes you will die. You are making it seem like archery is superpowerfull by giving me an example of four versus one? One versus one is what I'm talking about .... if anyone is jumped by four raiders, archers or otherwise they are screwed.

But those raiders have to go through the hassle of being in the same room with you.

`shoot loser east` is much harder to get away from codewise than `kill loser`.

I had a great PC shot to hell by an elf that was good to the bow.  The elf would have probably eaten sand if he was in the same room with me.

Archery can also do a tremendous amount of damage if someone gets lucky.

I can't speak for Callisto but I think that her point is that archery is fine enough on its own, it doesn't need any more uberness.  From a balance standpoint this would throw things out of whack.  This is not to say that the original idea is bad, just perhaps out of balance.

Its kinda like adding a chance of insta-subdue to bash.

[Stroker]

No, I'm proposing the idea that a well-armored and shielded warrior - standing at the same level of strength and skill as an archer will be at par with each other. Of course a sudden attack by an archer could easily kill a surprised fighter, but so is a surprise attack by a warrior. Yes archery gets a bonus of shooting a person from afar and doing the SAME damage as someone with a sword or any other weapon - but the reason for this is because they cannot defend themselves in close combat.


Again, I am NOT arguing for or against the implementation of the knockdown effect to archery.

[Callisto]

The difference between a ranged attack and a melee attack is, is that a melee attack is easily escaped from, surprise attack or not. This is a simple and accepted fact; melee combat is easily escaped from unless you're in a locked room. This is why templars drag you to prison before ordering a half dozen NPC soldiers to kill you - even when attacked by three or four melee fighters, fleeing is still an effective option.

When you're being torn apart from arrows and attempt to flee, the person just needs to keep within eye sight to keep punching arrows into you, no matter how armored you are.

The main reason for the archers sheer advantage? Consistency. When a warrior engages in a melee, there is no sense of consistency. Attacks are parried and dodged and the battle can take a while to lead to a kill. The damage can be 30 damage each and every successful strike, but on average warriors get a lot of nicks and grazes with the odd hard hit thrown in, unless the victim is unarmed or vastly inferior.

An archers arrow will strike and do a consistent amount of damage based on sheer skill level and the hit location. It might waver three to five points, but the damage is consistent each and every successful strike. Each strike can be delivered within two or three seconds, where as melee requires you to make much more difficult and complex rolls then ranged.

Don't misunderstand Dirr; every skill is powerful in the right situation, the general point is that when it comes to advantage and sheer killing power, nothing compares to a high archery skill.

[Hot_Dancer]

I don't think archery should have a knockdown affect. A skilled archer can take out numerous people before melee range is gained if they're not properly prepared (have shields).

A complete newbie with a shield can expect to have half to 3/4ths of the arrows hit his/her shield. A skilled warrior can expect this as well with the added benefit of also being able to attempt parrying the arrow out of the air.

A 30 day warrior will always beat a 30 day ranger if he's intelligent enough to use a shield barring special circumstances.

Hot_Dancer