Archery: Make it worth while

Discussion in 'Skills and Combat' started by Carlin the Druid Archer, Apr 27, 2014.

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  1. Bowen Bloodgood

    Bowen Bloodgood Avatar

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    Oh no.. no such universal and cheap. Such a thing did exist in Ultima but that was mostly single player with no variety of poisons. It was 1 poison, 1 cure. That would be pretty boring here. :)

    Although I would never use them, I would love to see a skilled poison user be able to use a wide range of poisons. With the wide range of affects I hope to see from foods and spells, poisons have a lot of potential.

    Actually it reminds me of a topic I posted early last year in regards to herbs and also non-magical healing. In theory you would apply just about anything to a weapon.. though I think perhaps applying a curative to your arrow heads might be a wee counter productive. :) "Here let me remove that debuff for you! Stand still so I can hit you" *thunk* "OWWWW!" :)
     
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  2. Lord-Galiwyn

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    As An Alchemist i do have an opinion. MOst poisons have counter agents, both are expensive to purchase.
    A universal counter agent should NOT be available at low cost,,i.e. 50 gold.. It should be 100 gold or more, and it would only be one dose. Selling both is good for business..
     
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  3. MalakBrightpalm

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    Don't underestimate that healing arrow... One of the D&D games I ran, after a noob joined and made a ranger and THEN found out what hellish battles I was running, the party splurged to buy him arrows of healing and he spent half the game just being the party's healer. The increased range and output from firing healing arrows beat what a normal cleric could have done hands down. If Portalarium chooses to, they could put in an invigorating shot, cleansing shot, healing shot branch on the archery tree, or allow for archery/heal combos, and the advantage would be there. Increased range over normal heals, and increased rate, so the healer is safe in the back area AND has higher output. It could be a thing.
     
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  4. Owain

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    Healing arrows? No doubt useful, but a bit cheesy to my way of thinking.

    What next? Healing grenades? I think they actually had that in Star Wars Galaxies...
     
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  5. Bowen Bloodgood

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    I have to agree there's a lot of cheese there though. While it may be effective at delivering a variety of effects, arrows are typically designed to do damage and I'm one of those who think that perhaps healing should not be instant. (Which is another topic entirely). Not to mention the damage it would do to armor.

    Back to the primary point though which is you should be able to treat arrows (and other weapons but we're talking archery here) with herbal and alchemical solutions along with a limited number of potential enchantments.
     
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  6. MalakBrightpalm

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    Indeed. I honestly think it should be a profession, perhaps a sub-branch of alchemy. Let those who are alchemists benefit both commercially, as they sell their wares, and directly, as those with the skill can apply the unguents more effectively and with less risk to themselves (maybe for those unskilled, a bottle of poison is a click to use item, but each time there is a 5-15% chance that you will also apply a dose to yourself, accidentally nicking a finger while pouring the substance onto your blade...).

    I would like to see the various professions give really in-depth bonuses to combat AND non-combat, so that being a certain profession or skill level therein dramatically changes your character.

    I know that MY profession has had a vast impact on how I live, how I get things done, and WHAT I can do as I go through life.
     
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  7. Johnny Black

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    I like the whole D&D approach to the application of poison, you should need some bit of alchemy to not murder yourself with poison.
     
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  8. Dorham Isycle

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    Its a stick with a pointy end dipped in medicine. What could go wrong.
     
  9. Samlee

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    Fire Lotus interview has Chris Spears discussing Archery (he hates us! LOL ). It starts about 14:00 into the video, but the entire thing is worth watching.



    Archery and Magic. Encouraging.

    -Sam
     
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  10. Trenyc

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    Magic + Archery = Magery!
     
  11. Karrolanth

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    Catching up on some threads after being away from my computer for a while... :)

    One of the things that drove my hubby away from playing R8 was the fact that he couldn't switch weapons in combat and go from using a bow to using melee weapons (as you can in so many other games) when an enemy got close enough to hit him, meaning he died very quickly.

    While I admit that what we currently have here is perhaps a little more realistic, as it would definitely take time to drop a bow and draw a sword or other weapon, the system of switching decks seems very clumsy and doesn't appear to make 'hybrid fighters' very viable. It seems to me, from the very limited time I got to play in R8, that unless an archer gets lucky and drops their opponent before they can close, it's going to be difficult to succeed without also using spells.

    What are your guys' thoughts on this? Should an archer be only an archer, and thus unable to use other weapons with ease? If so, how can that be made competitive with other types of builds so that a pure archer stands a chance against others? Or should it be possible to play as Lord Beaumaris mentions here, starting with ranged attacks and finishing with melee (which is my own preferred method of combat in some other games, as a ranger)? And in that case, how can it be made possible to swap weapons quickly under the current combat system?

    Having a ranged deck and a melee deck available for switching means splitting your available skill points among two different trees, so you'll never be as good at either one of them as someone who chose to specialise, but I would see that as the price you have to pay for versatility. On the other hand, as I said earlier, the current system for switching decks seems so clumsy that it just doesn't feel like a viable playstyle to me at the moment. Is there a way to make it work?
     
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  12. Owain

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    Historically, archers in an army would carry at least a dagger, if not a short sword for self defense, or for use when out of arrows. How long does I take to drop a bow and draw a sword? That said, maybe you should actually drop it, and not just swap it with a weapon from the golf bag full of weapons you tote about.
     
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  13. Trenyc

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    Firing a bow should have a similar merchanic to magery's "fizzle". You draw a shot, which is similar to a cast time on a spell. If you're hit while drawing, your shot timer might be reset. Then, the Archery school has a number of abilities that help you offset this penalty. Quick Draw is a passive that increases your draw speed across the board. Snap Shot is an instant cast shot with reduced chance to hit but a chance to stun which varies with the target's distance from the archer (with a closer distance netting a higher chance). Martial Art is a passive ability which grants you the ability to use your bow as a melee weapon (by actually hitting enemies with the bow, like Legolas in the Lord of the Rings movies), with each rank above 1 giving improved damage to melee. Pin is a ranged attack that has a change to root that varies with the target's distance from the archer (with a farther distance netting a higher chance). And so on.
     
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  14. Sweetmcpwnsauce

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    I would like to see healing arrows it would obviously be a blunt looking arrow with a small needle sticking out of it so it wouldn't penetrate a player but prick them and insert the healing plant without causing a significant damage to the player. <];D
     
  15. Trenyc

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    If someone shoots you with a blunt arrow with a needle on the end, it sure as heck isn't going to help. :p
     
  16. Sweetmcpwnsauce

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    Lol, I know but wouldn't it be better than a sharp "original" arrow that could penetrate and kill. <];D
     
  17. Karrolanth

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    One of the rangers I played in DDO was spec'ed for archery as completely as possible, and she was pretty damned good - as long as she could kill her opponent before they reached her. But, she carried something like 25 different bows in her pack for different types of enemy. And, because DDO rangers get both archery and melee skills automatically, she also carried a large number of sets of blades for different occasions, to swap to if she was unsuccessful with the bow. It really was ridiculous to be carrying so many weapons in one backpack, Bag of Holding or not! (Along with a minimum of 10,000 arrows of different types at all times, before she was switched to an Arcane Archer and could create her own magical arrows...)

    I don't really want to see that sort of thing in SotA, even though I did find it useful in DDO. ;) I would rather see a better encumbrance system and some limits on how many things can be carried (lugging around ten suits of armour is a bit silly, and if things are designed well in the game then hopefully that kind of thing wouldn't be necessary anyway). But being able to carry a melee weapon for defence seems to me to be very sensible, and I hope there would be some way to accomplish that within the planned combat system in a way that isn't ridiculously unwieldy. I'd find it acceptable to have to actually drop a bow on the ground and recover it after the fight is over, for example, if it meant I could quickly swap to a melee weapon.
     
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  18. MalakBrightpalm

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    I think the idea that having a bow (or anything else at ALL) in your hands would make it impossible to switch weapons in an emergency is ridiculous. My gear is already going to be relatively cheap. Player made, replaced regularly, NOT some epic enchanted super bow of uber-godliness that I got from a dragon-demon-elemental's horde on my 715th run through a raid. So if I've got an angry swordsman running at me with three arrows sticking out of him, I TOSS THE BOW IN HIS FACE as I step back and draw my sword.

    He's gonna have to spend a second or so dealing with the bow, he was gonna swing at me anyways, the bow in my hand wasn't going to protect me from that swing NO MATTER WHAT, so I lose nothing from discarding my bow at him. Meanwhile, it MIGHT cause him to delay, might even cause a significant delay if he really wasn't ready for that, and even if it causes no delay at all, it HAS emptied my hands so I can dodge and draw my OWN melee weapons. So at worst I'm dealing with a situation identical to being ambushed with my sword sheathed, but with the opponent already damaged and me not really "surprised". At best, I negate his early charge and am ready with melee weapons when he first swings.

    The "traditional" archer weapons are dagger and paired short sword, but whatever you use I would expect you to be good at, and that includes drawing it. So I really dislike the image that gets painted of the archer "struggling" to draw his sword. What is he, a trainee short sword user? Are there skill points invested in the sword tree or not?

    Now, IDEALLY, the archer will learn to judge the right time to begin switching weapons, and not HAVE to toss the bow at his opponent, but simply discard it off to one side, or even sling it back across his shoulder, draw his sword, and be set to receive the enemy's charge. If I shoot you at 80 feet, and then again as you start running towards me at, say, 60 feet, and again at 40 feet, I should be able to draw a sword and dispose of my bow before you cover that last 40 feet. If three shots kills you, great. If not, we melee. This shouldn't even be an issue, unless the player CHOOSES to design an archer with no backup skills whatsoever. If you make a fire and fade bow sniper, with NO melee skills, then hope that you've killed your target before they close. If you're like me, you will have points in a melee strategy, and personally, I want to be able to switch smoothly TO that melee strat, and not find that the UI doesn't let me. If switching out my bow resets my skill tiles, fine. If it clears my focus, sure, whatever. If it causes wear and tear on my bow to account for my discarding it onto the ground (the wet, muddy ground, where the string gets messed up and the laminated wood gets scuffed...) FINE, I'd rather replace the bow than my head. But being told that I cannot get rid of my bow in time to draw my sword, this says bad conceptualization to me. Someone needs to go back and really look at what they've programmed if this is happening. The bow is not stuck to my hand.
     
  19. Samlee

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    I'm in total agreement with Karrolanth, her very knowledgeable and experienced husband, and Malak Brightpalm. I see no reason for the current cumbersome system for changing between ranged and melee decks. That really needs a fix to allow for the swap as described so clearly by them. Surely there can be a hotkey "fix" provided without major programing hassles?

    -Sam
     
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