Crossbows: Are they weak, and if so, how to fix them?

[Rashad]

I'm trying to figure out what you all are talking about.

l in wallet
In a dart wallet (used) :
a sharp, well-polished baobab blowdart
a sleek, baobab blowdart
a couple of simple, sharp tipped blowdarts

early morning >
pull wallet sleek
You reach into a dart wallet and slide out a sleek, baobab blowdart.
You load a scorched, decorated mekillot bone blowgun with a sleek, baobab blowdart.

It has been that way for a decent amount of time now, like since just after archery was split into archery, crossbow use, blowgun use, etc.  The only thing I see "missing" is having sleight of hand impact how stealthy with this you are, but that may be intentional.

Doesn't work with slings.

[ShaiHulud]

It does work with slings. Pull quiver stone/bullet
Load sling stone/bullet

[Brytta Léofa]

[deleted - wrong thread!]

[Rashad]

It does work with slings. Pull quiver stone/bullet
Load sling stone/bullet

Blowguns are auto-loaded in Brokkr's snippet when you type "pull wallet sleek".
Slings are not. There is no advantage to typing "pull stone quiver; load sling stone" over "get stone quiver; load sling stone". You still need to type two commands, and you need to have nothing in your free hand.

The only time I would use that is if my inventory is full.

[ShaiHulud]

The process of pulling that special stone out of some sack, then fitting it inside the leather. positioning and swinging the sling and aiming it, is a huge amount of skill and time.
I don't think slings should be loaded any easier than now.

[Rashad]

There is still a long delay to aiming after you shoot a sling.

[Hauwke]

I personally think delay should very heavily be affected by skill. It takes a brand new user far longer to aim a bad shot than it takes a lifelong shooter to take focus and fire.

[roughneck]

Sorta funny thing. Bringing up the crossbows of old with 1000lbs draw....They were FAR FAR weaker then modern 150lbs crossbows. You can find hundreds of videos on youtube with people testing this. Yes, they had a massive draw weight, but a VERY short string travel... And so 1200lbs crossbow  with a 8 inch string travel has a much lower speed of projectile and so energy verses a modern crossbow with 18" of travel. Even my 150lbs crossbow is over 400fps.

The reason crossbows took over from other types of bows was MUCH less practice is needed to get halfway good.

Crossbows should not knock down. If you want to make crossbows match RL then give them what crossbows actually have. VERY high short to mid range accuracy and initial firing speed. IE, you have master crossbow skill and you are firing same room or 1 room away you have a VERY short aim delay and a MUCH higher chance to hit a crit zone.

I hunt several styles of bows. The bonus to say a longbow over crossbow is actually how quiet they are and so you can actually shoot safely from a slightly greater range without as much worry about the deer jumping from the sound before the arrow arrives. Crossbow is loud and they have to be closer. But it is easier to hit crit areas and You can fire from more positions. You cannot use a longbow prone and even seated you would not normally.

I didn't read the whole thread, but this nails it.

Crossbows should have drawbacks vs bows, they were and are used because they are a lower skill ranged weapon.

If they have any bonus over bows in the game, it should be that the skill increases very, very easily vs the bow skill, reflecting the fact that they are much easier to use.

I hunt with a crossbow over a bow because I don't want to invest the time in practicing, and it would be unethical to hunt with a bow given my proficiency level. With a crossbow, I make sure the sight is dialed in and I know I'm good to go with much less practice/effort.

You can also shoot a crossbow from the prone position, but that isn't really relevant in Arm.

It was also noted that not every class gets crossbows. If you're playing a scout class and using a crossbow, give your head a shake and pick a bow.

[Greve]

In all the years I've played, I don't think I've ever seen anyone fire a crossbow. Honestly.

The reloading is obviously the main issue, and I'm not sure how much can be done about that, because it pretty much was the historical drawback of crossbows. What was the advantage? It was way, way easier to hit your target with a crossbow. They were used specifically because it didn't take years of training to shoot properly. This does not appear to be reflected in the code.

Without getting into too many specifics, another issue is the fact that ranged damage in this game is very RNG. So is melee damage, granted, but you get to swing over and over every few seconds. With ranged skills, you have a chance to do double damage based on your skill level, and then damage is also further dependent on the location where you hit. Even a master archer won't do very much damage hitting someone in the leg on a non-crit roll. You can be a master archer and shoot someone in the neck for 90 damage, then for 11 in the leg on the next shot. This means that a ranged weapon that requires a long time to reload, and is usually only good for one shot, is just not dependable. If you're trying to use archery to kill somebody, you want to be able to get several shots off, hoping that one will roll double damage and hit the head/neck. This is how archery kills. You do not kill people with a non-crit shot to the arm. Well, unless it's with peraine.

Furthermore, crossbow bolts are bizarrely expensive. If you've run out and you really need more and you go to the bazaar to check, you'll be hard pressed to find any for less than 150 sid. If you've been around the block, you know where you can get unlimited arrows for like 15 sid each. Even if you have to deign to buy them from Salarr's in the bazaar, you can often get them for 50ish. Crossbow bolts cost so much that it's downright comical.

Now let's look at which classes might use a crossbow.

Enforcer: starts with crossbow (potential: master), has to branch master throw, doesn't get archery at all. A prime candidate, right? But this class also gets master sap/backstab. Under what possible circumstances would you prefer to shoot a crossbow? If you're only gonna get one shot, why not go all in on sap/backstab?

Raider: starts with archery (potential: master), has to branch crossbows. From archery. If you've already got high archery, why would you then switch to crossbows? By the time you branch the skills, you're already deadly with a bow, and raiders get the highest archery skill possible, so you're not branching crossbows until your archery skill says "master."

Fighter: starts with crossbows (master) and it branches into archery. Who has ever played a character that intends to use ranged combat extensively and chosen this class? Fighter is for Byn/Militia sergeants. If your ambition is to ride around the desert shooting people from a distance, you do not choose fighter. It would make no sense.

Soldier: starts with crossbows (master), it branches into archery. This is probably the class that's most likely to actually use crossbows, but have you ever seen it? Ever witnessed someone with class_soldier fire a crossbow? How do they even raise the skill? I mean, that brings us back to a discussion that should have taken place before: how do you raise crossbow in a manner that isn't nonsensical when crossbow bolts cost half the monthly wages of an AoD soldier, each? Yeah...

Scout: starts with archery (master) and it branches into crossbows. Same deal as the raider: once you've raised archery that high, there's really no reason to switch to crossbows, train the skill up from scratch, and arrive at a result that doesn't even seem as good.

Stalker: starts with archery and crossbows (advanced) which, yet again, why don't you just use a bow which can shoot much faster and does not appear to do significantly less damage? And you can ride to the [self-redacted place we all know about] to buy unlimited arrows for pocket change?

Long story short, crossbows would need to do like two or three times as much damage as archery before it was genuinely worth considering. I'll admit that I have no idea if it does, but the fact that I have legitimately never witnessed a player character use a crossbow kind of suggests to me that it doesn't do that. It simply appears to be a dead skill.

Maybe double the chance to hit with crossbows, and the chance to land a critical hit for double damage, to reflect the fact that crossbows were historically used because they required little training compared to bows. That'd be an idea. On the other hand, that would make it much harder to actually raise the skill, and as we all know, the worth of many skills is based on the difficulty of raising them due to arbitrary code quirks. A tale as old as Armageddon.

[mansa]

Just to clarify how the game handles crossbows:

Pro:
Crossbows are a ranged attack.
Crossbow bolts can be poisoned.
Once it fires, there is no delay.  You can immediately run away, attempt to hide, drop the crossbow, pull a weapon, etc.

Con:
You need to load the crossbow, and there's a long delay before completely loading it.
When you shoot something, there's a delay before shooting, as you 'aim'.


There has been relatively new additions to the game, where you can find crossbow bolts for ~30 coins each in both major cities.  You may need to go to a shady area of town, but it exists.

Every class can eventually get the crossbow skill.

[Greve]

Once it fires, there is no delay.  You can immediately run away, attempt to hide, drop the crossbow, pull a weapon, etc.

This begs the question of why it's not the case for other ranged weapons. While I'm not an avid archer or knife-thrower IRL, it frankly seems to me that I could drop a bow as easily as I could drop a crossbow after shooting. This is not the case in-game, and yet noone really uses crossbows. Theoretically, the lack of a delay after shooting should be the main advantage of the weapon class, but it has not proven to compel people to use it. What's the reason for that?

I'd say it's probably the cost of bolts and the fact that most "archery classes" branch crossbows from archery. If these two issues were remedied, I would at least try it. We can't all waltz into the rinth and buy crooked, plastic-tipped crossbow bolts for cheap in order to train up the skill. Most characters have to make do with the local market where they cost an absolutely comical amount of money, if they're even available at all.

[ShaiHulud]

I'd be interested in hearing thoughts from others who have actually mastered crossbow use, and seen what they can do. I suspect they are equally, deadly efficient, as the others, with advantages to explore and find.

[hyzhenhok]

Fighter: starts with crossbows (master) and it branches into archery. Who has ever played a character that intends to use ranged combat extensively and chosen this class? Fighter is for Byn/Militia sergeants. If your ambition is to ride around the desert shooting people from a distance, you do not choose fighter. It would make no sense.

Soldier: starts with crossbows (master), it branches into archery. This is probably the class that's most likely to actually use crossbows, but have you ever seen it? Ever witnessed someone with class_soldier fire a crossbow? How do they even raise the skill? I mean, that brings us back to a discussion that should have taken place before: how do you raise crossbow in a manner that isn't nonsensical when crossbow bolts cost half the monthly wages of an AoD soldier, each? Yeah...

You don't even need this logic. Show me a PC who has branched archery on either of these classes, and I'll show you a PC that has tossed their crossbow in the trash and has switched to bows.

Anyway, there's a clear design choice that has to be made here. Some people are assuming that crossbows need to be equal to the other forms of range weapons. Others prefer realism, in which case it's clear that crossbows don't have any real advantage over bows assuming one has mastered both.

"Crossbows are an option but kinda suck" is true to the D&D source material so IMO the latter is fine.

[Dar]

Once it fires, there is no delay.  You can immediately run away, attempt to hide, drop the crossbow, pull a weapon, etc.

That's actually pretty big. Get a trio of elves with dwarf loaded crossbows shoot in unison and insta climb up the wall/hide and we've got a trio of barely trained elves offing templars.

[Narf]

Once it fires, there is no delay.  You can immediately run away, attempt to hide, drop the crossbow, pull a weapon, etc.

That's actually pretty big. Get a trio of elves with dwarf loaded crossbows shoot in unison and insta climb up the wall/hide and we've got a trio of barely trained elves offing templars.

A trio of coordinated people could do enormous damage with a variety of strategies. Fortunately the logistics of cooperation in Arm seem to keep these strategies rare to nonexistent for whatever reason.

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

Remember, you can travel with a loaded crossbow, so you can draw, aim, shoot, sheath, draw melee tool, attack. The only real delay there is the aiming.

I'm pretty cool with that being the crossbow's role. Add in shooting it while sitting down, or even resting, and I'd think it's nearly perfect in utilization.

City Guards do make you unload a crossbow when you enter a city. They recognize that threat.

[Dresan]

My understanding is that crossbows aren't that great on elves unlike with bows.

The only real value of crossbow is on criminal classes who may for some reason want to launch an attack high above, I think crossbows fire quicker then throwing.

Why you would want to do this, not sure, but with the right poison it can be viable i guess.

Less damage than bows is fine but more knockdown chance would make this a great weapon to learn for certain situations.

Also I've always felt that throw should be city use only since the spaces between wilderness room are much larger, giving both throw and crossbows more situational uses even if you have archery but I think this would annoy people so meh.

[X-D]

What is it with people thinking crossbows should knock down. No...just NO.

Crossbows should be Stupidly accurate at close range. Crossbows should let you keep hide/invis during aim.

That is it. They do not have these IG, far as I know. But they should.

As to knockdown.

Look, I have a Ravin R29X, this is a silly powerful MODERN crossbow, it chronies over 430fps with a 400grain bolt. To put this in perspective, that is still half the power of a .45 ACP at 180 grain 900fps.

Almost two years ago I took a shot at a 12 point that was a bit long range, roughly 28 yards. The bow noise allowed the buck to jump just before the bolt got there so the hit was 2 inches off target hitting shoulder blade. There was a nice solid thunk noise as the deer ran off, not being moved to the side at all by impact. Took me two hours to find him and even then it took a second shot to put him down.

And some of you want a crossbow that at best is half as powerful to knock down?

[Dresan]

Stuff.

And some of you want a crossbow that at best is half as powerful to knock down?

Yes. 

[roughneck]

I have a Ravin R29X

Fancy boy, I figured you'd be an Excalibur guy.

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

I think anything that you throw that isn't a spear or a boomerang like weapon should only be city use, sure. At most it should only have one room of use in the wilds.

[X-D]

Roughneck:

I am, I have a sniper elite, but passed that on to the woman a few years back. And a bearx hanging on the wall.

[roughneck]

Roughneck:

I am, I have a sniper elite, but passed that on to the woman a few years back. And a bearx hanging on the wall.

Fuckin legend.