Archery: Make it worth while

Just looked up on the Ultima wiki.. there were also Lucky Arrows, which had perfect accuracy.

Also Love Arrows, but people don't seem to know what they were good for.

 

Oooo.. I have a lot of fun in Skyrim.

Unfortunately the skill that slows time while you zoom in wouldn't translate into multiplayer at all. Being able to zoom in to see your target better is great.
I just don't think those skills are a good match for SotA.

If I might say so I'm a pretty good shot in Skyrim and Oblivion. There's few things I love more than to find a good position and snipe a target with a 1 hit kill at long range. They never see it coming.. never had a chance. Fun mechanics.. for single player.

Zooming in with multiplayer has limited advantages. Especially if your opponent is on to you. I guess it would be good for long range sniping but at medium to short range you don't have the time to take your time with your shot. As a long range sniping skill I would like it if feasible. That assumes though that the player's aim is important.

The thing about archery in ES III-V is that aim is entirely manual. Unless I'm mistaken (I haven't had a chance to try out combat yet let alone ranged combat) SotA uses character skill for this (aka auto-targeting) which makes zooming in meaningless.

Having said all that.. the thought occurs that long range weapons could have a manual aim feature for sniping. I can envision scenarios where auto-targeting would be unable to find the target (let alone hit one) such as partial cover at long range.. but a player aiming manually could pull off the shot.

Manual targeting might also be rather more fun for social events.. aka the archery tournament. Who gives a rip if your character's skill can hit 5 moving targets in 3 seconds.. big deal.. let's see player's do that! That would be impressive and worth bragging about.

Lucky arrows I remember.. they were pretty scarce. Love arrows I don't remember at all.

 

why not ?
grantid the european knight did not do it but the japanese samurai did ( and full samurai armor is olmost like plate mail ).
i do admit that using a bow in european heavy armor woud be a challenge but :
a crosbow is olso a ranged weapon and i see no problem whith using it while wearing plate armor .

 

You'd be surprised at just how nimble you can be in full plate. I've seen people do forward rolls and cart wheels. (Well pretty sure cart wheels it was a few years back ) among other things. For all intensive purposes reaction times are negligible. At most, depending on say.. whether or not you're wearing pauldrons or spaulders. your range of movement (specifically up/down) may be limited which could be a problem is some rare cases.

 

I didn't read every post in the thread and I know it is only pre-alpha.


But the way the game is right now I don't see a way for archery to work well unless every ranger has a pet/friend tanking.
Granted I only played a limited time in R5 which was also my first playtest but every mob I came across moved so quick they were on me before I got 2 shots of iirc, not sure how good kiting works?

 

Bows aren't obsolete in D&D/Pathfinder

The reason why is the amazing set of magic arrow types available.

Fireball arrows, acid arrows, cold arrows, it goes on.

Can't see why we can't do the same in SoTA.

 

@Bowen,

I think this subject came up before, but I've read people say plate armor in many cases was actually easier to wear than was chainmail, and was more flexible. How true is that?

But, yes, as for love arrows,

I don't remember them from the game, but I'm reading that nobody has figured out what special use they have... they just seem to hit people like normal arrows. Wonder if we can get some answers!

And, yea, zooming in seems most useful for sniping.. that's what makes it good for rogue characters, who I hope get some love And things like critical shots / critical blows would add to that as well.

 

Having to use magic in order to balance a non-magical skill is a sign a bad design in my perhaps not to humble opinion. A player should have to be forced into using magic options just to compete.

That isn't intended as an argument against enchantments.. but I caution relying on magic to balance non-magical abilities. Having to do so is a sign that magic itself is overpowered and will turn into something (if it hasn't already) that is no longer special in the world. Having an arrow that never misses and bursts into flaming infernos on impact would have no meaning cause everyone would have them all the time.

I don't want the kind of world where everyone is forced to use magic just to get by. If I have a strong bow and quality arrows that's all I should ever need to turn you into a pin cushion.

 

You must not have enjoyed R5 where the most effective spell was fireball then.

If there's going to be spells like that in the game, we'll have to have something to balance non-magical weapons against them.

You know everyone is just going to throw fireballs all the time otherwise.

 

@tradyblix,

In the release game, I'm expecting Fireball will consume reagents. Plus, hopefully it will also consume more mana/energy than whatever archery skills there are. And mages won't be able to wear heavier armor easily.

 

Oh, did they say there will be reagents ? because the current deck idea doesn't seem to go with that ?

So, archers that don't want to use magic arrows ? But yet still be balanced against mages that can summon demons ? something has got to give.

 

There will be, and its been suggested that it will be for spells and not just alchemy. Would be nice to have confirmation on that, of course.

 

@redfish

Ah yes.. I vaguely remember those now. Very vaguely. Those are probably the only 6 love arrows in the series.

Having not worn full plate myself I can't speak to the question directly.. but I find the notion of plate being 'more flexible' rather absurd since it's basically a comparison between pieces of sheet metal vs a mesh. One conforms to your body, the other doesn't. Plus plate is heavier since it's solid. I've known plenty of people who do where plate but I've never heard anyone imply that it was easier than chain. As a chain wearer myself I find it hard to believe. At lot it also depends on how well articulated the plate is.

 

@tradyblix,

Off topic, but I think the magic system would have been interesting if spells worked like recipes, and you would have to combine words of powers to make them work like with the runes in UU. You would have been able to discover new spells from combining recipes. But I guess that would have inhibited the ability to combine spells themselves, which I think they're going for and the combining of spells is going to be the equivalent of the 'recipe' system.

 

At this stage it's unreasonable to assume that anything will function as it currently does at launch. They're still just getting systems in place. ie can players use the deck system.. will it allow them to cast a fireball.. does the fireball impact a target etc.. Nothing has been through a thorough balancing act yet.

A little GDC story if I may from a few years ago. (GDC = Game Developer's Con.)

On the few occasions I've been able to attend the GDC I would always do the pre-conference workshops which usually had something focused on game design. One of the things we did was we were given a combat scenario where we had an overpowered giant robot vs 4 small tanks and a set of basic rules for how they would behave. The object for each group was to balance the robot so that it would still win but that the battle would be as 'exciting' as possible.

We were allowed to make any adjustments to the robot we liked.. including changes in behavior.. abilities etc. We were not allowed to adjust the tanks. Our group managed it so that our robot won with only 1 hit remaining. (We called him Mr. Crushy )

What they didn't tell us was that when we were done all the robots would compete with each other in a tournament. Saddly Mr. Crushie only made it to the semi-finals.. but basically we were using a set scenario with standard opponents to balance our robots with a wide variety of results.. not knowing how each our robots would perform against each other.

I suppose the whole point of the story is that game balance is a process and balancing for one scenario might give you a standard but that robot now has to go out into the world and compete against things you didn't even anticipate. At the same time you kind of need that inflexible standard.

I find it a bit interesting that the comment should be made that an archer with standard arrows is lacking vs a demon summoning mage.. as no consideration seems to be made to the idea that perhaps it's the mage that's over powered. Game balance isn't about making everything stronger. Sometimes it's about making things weaker to make that standard scenario a challenge. (Besides, my solution to the demon is to shoot to soft squishy mage cowering behind it).

The balancing challenge Portalarium faces now is to get everything to conform to the standard that is the most fun before launch.. because it is easier to increase power after launch than it is to take it away. During testing though they have free reign to do whatever needs doing.

 

Bowen Bloodgood Said;
Having to use magic in order to balance a non-magical skill is a sign a bad design in my perhaps not to humble opinion. A player should have to be forced into using magic options just to compete.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
That I agree with whole heartedly!

I have too many bad memories of how everything changed in UO to where a common human being could never compete with magic, except by using it themselves. Many bonuses are cop outs to game play when we think of enhancing anything, something else is always lost.
The Rouge and the Archer have always been cousins, yet the Knight should never match their ability with a bow. In this way of thinking about how enhancements effect other's skills, I believe that the classes of skill sets need to be a more defining determiner of enhancing combat values. from there, there is always the dipped or enhanced arrows for purchase from the Mage or Alchemist. Yet the Alchemist being a craftsman, I would rather not see the mage be able to enhance anything.
I believe that the "tip of the arrow" belongs to the blacksmith, the shaft and feather to the fletcher.
I believe that the heavy hitting arrow strike belongs to the Knight and the Archer, the distanced shot belongs to the Archer, the enchanted short range arrow to the Mage and the dipped long range arrow belongs to the Rouge.

It is my belief that by skill classes I believe we should discriminate many things...
Yet all things balanced for the common non-magical human to compete...
~Time Lord~

 

http://www.goldengatejoad.com/2012/07/how-hard-split-arrow-longbow/

 

hmm since I'm not longer able to edit my posts or use the quote button.. maybe I should proof read my own comments a little better before people start quoting my horrible typos. lol

 

....................

 

This is probably as much armor you can wear while still wielding a bow effectively. Note that the hands & fingers are bare though the back of the hands and the base of the thumb are partly protected by the wrist guard. Legs and feet are also lightly or not armored at all. If you"re an archer , you need to be mobile and encumbering your arms & hands would be a big no no.