Arrow Making

[Bebop]

Arrow Making can be a nifty skill and has the potential to save you hundreds.  But the time it takes to craft arrows - is it really worth the money?

First you have to find shards.
Find wood.
Kill birds and hopefully skin their feathers off of them.
Narrow down the shaft
And finally put the arrow to together.

It could take a RL day to make 15 arrows, which isn't even a full quiver.  It takes an ungodly a mount of time.  And while you're gathering those things you could be off making the money to just buy the arrows and still have money left over!

My suggestion - take out shaft making.  And cut the amount of lag time while making arrows.  If someone is trying to make 60 arrows and it takes a minute of lag on each one that's over a RL hour of emoting and crafting not including gathering.  And that's not including shaft making!  Not to mention you won't suceed everytime grr!

So my suggestion is to please take out shaft making, gather the branches, feathers and shards - that already takes enough time, and put the arrow together.  Also cut down the lag on how long it takes to make a single arrow.  Please.

[grog]

I think the reason it takes so long is OOC more then IC.  Ranged weapons are powerful.

[picklehead]

I don't think a minute of lag time is unreasonable. If you don't want to spend a full hour pumping out 60 arrows, then don't. Take a break. Make 15 arrows and go do something else. Your fingers/hands could probably use the rest anyhow after an hour and a half (game time) of working arrows.

[Dalmeth]

Maybe for someone who is going out to only make arrows it takes an entire day, but for someone who is practiced and constantly hunts, you'll generally pick up all you need for arrows along the way.

The only real problem I see is getting the shards, since you have a much greater chance of getting something you can't use from foraging.

Also, there are other animals that give feathers aside from birds.  I once had a decent hunter who never got anything but feathers from one particular animal, and it eventually came to be quite a few feathers with each go.

[moab]

Also - if you need more than a handful of arrows at any one time, you should just go to the armory where they'll assign you some.

A hunter really needs only one or two arrows at a time - a good one, anyway.

:-D

[Pantoufle]

Also - if you need more than a handful of arrows at any one time, you should just go to the armory where they'll assign you some.

A hunter really needs only one or two arrows at a time - a good one, anyway.

What armory?  Who is they?

You're basically contradicting yourself because the only way anyone can get so good with archery that they only need one or two arrows, as you put it, is to spend several IC years pumping out a countless supply of arrows for practice in the first place!

Archery SHOULD be a difficult skill to excel in and, as such, arrows shouldn't be easily had.  But despite that I agree that fletchery is not far off from being a useless skill: if we're assuming we have any hope of using the skill to make an entire quiver full of arrows.  If you just want it for piecing together 1 or 2 arrows now and again then, sure, it's a great skill, but I don't know anyone interested in the skill for that reason.

[moab]

No contradiction.

If you want to have an easy supply of arrows join a group that already has them or can get them for you.  You can also get training at these places.

A hunter out in the woods (in RL) gets one bowshot at an animal (typically) and if you miss (and even if you hit, actually) it runs off.

In RL, I've never had use for more than two or three arrows while hunting.  Then again, I had a better chance of finding my used ones.

If we stopped arrows from "being used up" it would ease things a bit, I think.
This is a bit of unrealism that is for "balancing" whatever that means.

In any case, you don't need a quiver full of arrows - you only need enough to get the job done. Therefore you can make a few (say five) at a time and keep the raw supplies handy.

I haven't played an archer in a long time - so many I should shut up and try it.  :-D

[Nao]

Arrows are a a pain in the ass to make RL, and that is with screw-on tips and nice strips to glue the feathers on, but then again, so is every other thing you make.

The number of arrows you lose is ridiculously high, so maybe that could be tweaked a bit. Sure, some arrows would break if you hit that chitin shell, considering how crudely they would be made, but still. A missing arrow would be easy to find in most desert environments and have a minimal chance of breaking, the underground isnt usually hard rock, right?

And yes, I agree that arrowmaking is extremely hard and that some tweaking might help.

[Bebop]

No contradiction.

If you want to have an easy supply of arrows join a group that already has them or can get them for you.  You can also get training at these places.

A hunter out in the woods (in RL) gets one bowshot at an animal (typically) and if you miss (and even if you hit, actually) it runs off.

In RL, I've never had use for more than two or three arrows while hunting.  Then again, I had a better chance of finding my used ones.

If we stopped arrows from "being used up" it would ease things a bit, I think.
This is a bit of unrealism that is for "balancing" whatever that means.

In any case, you don't need a quiver full of arrows - you only need enough to get the job done. Therefore you can make a few (say five) at a time and keep the raw supplies handy.

I haven't played an archer in a long time - so many I should shut up and try it.  :-D

The thing is - this is a game.  And it can take a full quiver just to kill like something that is really small.  You will have to shoot hundreds of arrows IG before you are able to take down something in one or two shots.

As far as if you want to have an easy supply of arrows.  The closest thing you can get is a discount.  If you want free arrows the crafter of the House is still going to make them.  You're saying if you want a good supply of arrows just join a house then why does the skills arrow making even exist?  You're not talking about the issue of making arrows, you're just basically ignoring it and saying do something else.  But what about someone who picks archer or hunter as their subguild and depends arrow making, that's not a solution.  That's just basically saying don't use the skill you picked.

As far as you just need enough to get a job done, I don't know if you've never played someone IG that uses a bow and arrows but to take down a kill it can take a quiver full in the beginning.

I understand IRL it would be hard to make arrows.  But it would not take weeks and weeks to gather everything for them, and then make a quiver full.  Why even bother when while you're fussing with those arrows you could be making the money it takes to just by some.  Therefore canceling out fletchery's usefulness.  Even if you get good and don't break the shaft's any more there's still the process of gathering, the lag of shaft making and then the lag of arrow making.  Like I said, an ungodly amount of time.   Anything else craftable IG you go out, forage the stones or whatever and then make the item.  For fletchery you have to forage three items and craft it twice.  And fletchery is something that you -have- to do multiple times to make it worth while.  The outcome?  Spending RL hours sitting around typing

craft wood into a wooden arrowshaft
lag
craft item item item into a something arrow
lag
craft wood into a wooden arrowshaft
lag
craft item item item into a something arrow

X_X Not cool.

[Desertman (not logged in)]

Yeah I have to agree with Bebop on this one. I have played only rangers for pretty much the entire duration of my time here on ARM and fletchery really is a relatively useless skill as it stands. In the amount of time it takes you to gather materials and then craft those materials into a quiver of arrows you could have made enough coins to just go ahead and buy three full quivers of arrows. (And this is if your fletchery is perfect and you dont break any of your materials).

As it stands now, fletchery is only a skill you practice and get good at because you like the idea of sitting around making your own arrows. Its not so much a useful skill as it is a "neat" skill to have.

I could see it stay as it is or get changed a bit to make it an actual useful skill...I dont think either would have a huge impact on the overall game world or my gameplay.

[Yokunama]

Bebop, there are ways you can manage to make a bundle of arrows in a short period of time.

Sorry, thats all I can say.

[-Bebop]

Bebop, there are ways you can manage to make a bundle of arrows in a short period of time.

Sorry, thats all I can say.

I am aware of that, but even still the item it takes to make a bundle is not readily available as are branches.  It requires a skill to even craft the item you need to make a bulk of arrowshafts.  Not exactly convenient, and thusly doesn't cut down on time.