Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Tyrving]

I was playing adventure mode just now, when I came across a goblin master crossbowman in a dark tower. (Ow.) Anyway, the fight gave me an idea as to how exactly ranged weapons could be 'balanced.' It would also make the bow and the crossbow distinctly different weapons.

Crossbows: These would, ideally, be treated as a container that can hold a single bolt at a time. One turn would be spent loading it, and then it could be fired the next. As well as being more realistic, this would greatly reduce the 'machine-gunning' effect we see now. Also, if you try to load your crossbow with an enemy in melee range, said enemy should get a free counterstrike, making hammer skill a bit more important on crossbow-wielding units.

Regular bows: less powerful than crossbows, perhaps with a shorter range, as well, but these could still be 'machine-gunned'. Unlike the crossbow, trying to fire it in melee range would provoke a counterstrike.

Thoughts?

[Trorbes]

The real problem with arrows is that one hit is almost always lethal, and it's because they always pierce, and can hit any and all organs in a single body part.  The best way to balance it would be to limit the number of organs a single arrow can hit to one.  While your suggestions are definitely good (although bows should have the longer range) the main problem is that they can hit both lungs, the heart, and the spine in one hit.

[Capntastic]

Instead of clamoring for 'fixes', I'd suggest waiting until the underlying problems (namely, combat in general), are overhauled and wrought anew.   Then they can be balanced properly.

[Hague]

Okay, so make arrows do SLASH damage or reduce the damage on arrows in half.

[Torak]

quote:Originally posted by Hague:
<STRONG>Okay, so make arrows do SLASH damage or reduce the damage on arrows in half.</STRONG>

If you can explain how an arrow would do slashing damage after being shot at you, instead of piercing, alright.

[Capntastic]

quote:Originally posted by Torak:
<STRONG>

If you can explain how an arrow would do slashing damage after being shot at you, instead of piercing, alright.</STRONG>

I'm fairly certain he's suggesting it as a quick fix.

[Draco18s]

quote:Originally posted by Tyrving:
<STRONG>Regular bows: less powerful than crossbows, perhaps with a shorter range, as well, but these could still be 'machine-gunned'. Unlike the crossbow, trying to fire it in melee range would provoke a counterstrike.</STRONG>

Less powerful?  You ever tried pulling a 100 pound draw bow?
I bet not.  It's equivelant of lifting 100 pounds (with your fingers).  An arrow fired from that will devastate anything on the other end of the trajectory.

Crossbows do have draws of up to 800 pounds (!!!) however, the crossbow prod is very short compared to ordinary bows, resulting in a short draw lengths, which are less efficient at releasing energy.  Thus resulting in shorter ranges and "damage."

Most notable is the fact that longbows (particularly those of the British) had significantly longer ranges with comparable accuracy to crossbows of the time.  The advantage to crossbows over longbows is that you can teach anyone to use a crossbow effectively in a week, instead of several years on the longbow.

[Earthquake Damage]

A different damage type does not fix the problem.  In past versions I've replaced kobold bows with slings (giving sling stones bludgeoning damage rather than piercing).  Little bastards still take out all your organs in one shot.  It seems to be a hard-coded feature of projectiles at the moment.

[Grek]

I have a better idea. Make people who are sitting/crawling alot harder to hit with bolts/arrows.

[nicholasneko]

and thus as it was said, when fighting is overhauled O.o;

bows: less accurate then crossbows until user is highly trained. longer ranged. and generally more power over distance due to larger ammo and longer pullback

crossbow: more accurate at low skill levels then bow. shorter ranged and at close ranges (figure what now? 5-7 spaces?) it will go through plate armor.

another issue with bows and crossbows is range, i mean if we really want to make it accurate they are going to shoot damn far, i did 100 yards back in middle school (gods that was long ago) and you can be pretty accurate, so you can assume volley fire against lots of enemys you could hit even further as your not trying to aim it so exactingly.

another point to this is that bows tend to arc the arrows through the air to hit those further away where as crossbows are usually used as line of sight weapons, similar to how one uses a gun today. i'm not saying you couldn't arc the shot for better range, but due to the light weight of most bolts they would loose to much energy by then and be just an annoyance at best.

ok i'll shut up and go to bed now.

[Patarak]

Am I missing something?, cause I think the fighting is pretty decent...

Anyways, I think the problem is that life is unbalanced.

[Krash]

quote: Anyways, I think the problem is that life is unbalanced.

Yeah, it definately needs an overhaul too

[Zonk]

It would also be nice for us to have different ranged weapons, like:

slings: could fire "peebles"you would find near rivers, or lead bullets, making lead useful for something

stones: allowing dwarves to throw stones in fortress mode could be useful, especially if you have lots and lots of them. also, stones are pretty common.

javelins: lighter than spears, balanced for throwing

darts

throwing axes and hammers

[Draco18s]

quote:Originally posted by Torak:
<STRONG>If you can explain how an arrow would do slashing damage after being shot at you, instead of piercing, alright.</STRONG>

Very easily:

I've also seen blunt (bludgeoning) tips.  Said tip will still pierce right through smaller animals, but tend not to injure people as much (the lack of a point and the wide, round head make it considerably harder to break through clothing).  No mistake, you'll be hurting, but you won't have an arrow stuck through you.

Oh, here we go:

Been around forever, it looks like, there were some stone ones that came up in the google search, but were deteriorated enough that this shows the idea better.

There's also a JUDO point arrow head (no idea when it was developed) "designed with spring arms attached to catch in grass and leaves, preventing arrow loss; used for "stump" shooting and small game hunting."

Reusable training bolts, anyone?

[Bricktop]

The machine-gun affect certainly needs fixing, but I think the multi-organ super-damage is actually something that affects all projectiles (after all, it shouldn't be possible to cut a giant in half with a thrown worm).