Let's go over all the issues that prevent us from using crossbows!
First and foremost for me is the RT. Not only is it long but so many things negatively affect it. Everything from injuries to a random factor can make the RT worse. Beyond that we have the excess commands required to even work a crossbow. Couldn't we just have them set up to COCK and then if we FIRE with a bolt in the right hand it loads it in the crossbow and fires it?
What else? What would have to change about crossbows before you would use one in place of a long bow?
Keith/Brinret/Shiun
Be nice to Wyrom or I will cut you!
KITHUS
ZHOUY1
Re: Crossbow Issues
02/19/2015 01:39 PM CST
Crossbows have been great in DragonRealms for a long time so it's odd that they are so lackluster here. A couple ideas that could be borrowed:
- The COCK/LOAD/FIRE sequence is not just verbose but runs afoul of typeahead limits. With StormFront this is not an issue because of how the client handles typeahead but it is very annoying when playing on Wizard/Avalon. DR has loading as a single action and it works fine.
- Allow crossbows to be used with shields. This would give them some situational use. One of archery's weaknesses is the low defense against ranged/bolt attacks. If this could be alleviated with crossbows, there would be more reason to use them where it is a concern, even if the weapons are otherwise slow and unwieldy.
- The COCK/LOAD/FIRE sequence is not just verbose but runs afoul of typeahead limits. With StormFront this is not an issue because of how the client handles typeahead but it is very annoying when playing on Wizard/Avalon. DR has loading as a single action and it works fine.
- Allow crossbows to be used with shields. This would give them some situational use. One of archery's weaknesses is the low defense against ranged/bolt attacks. If this could be alleviated with crossbows, there would be more reason to use them where it is a concern, even if the weapons are otherwise slow and unwieldy.
JARHEAD
Re: Crossbow Issues
02/19/2015 02:07 PM CST
| Let's go over all the issues that prevent us from using crossbows! |
| First and foremost for me is the RT. Not only is it long but so many things negatively affect it. Everything from injuries to a random factor can make the RT worse. Beyond that we have the excess commands required to even work a crossbow. Couldn't we just have them set up to COCK and then if we FIRE with a bolt in the right hand it loads it in the crossbow and fires it? |
| Keith/Brinret/Shiun |
| - The COCK/LOAD/FIRE sequence is not just verbose but runs afoul of typeahead limits. With StormFront this is not an issue because of how the client handles typeahead but it is very annoying when playing on Wizard/Avalon. DR has loading as a single action and it works fine. |
| - Allow crossbows to be used with shields. This would give them some situational use. One of archery's weaknesses is the low defense against ranged/bolt attacks. If this could be alleviated with crossbows, there would be more reason to use them where it is a concern, even if the weapons are otherwise slow and unwieldy. |
These are the problems with crossbow usage, to me:
1. Round Time. EVERYTHING takes too long, and you have the same possibilities for bolt loss, hidden bolts, etc as you do with arrows. I'm not saying crossbows should be as fast as bows because that would be ludicrous, but there are some things about them that are way too slow.
2. Lack of DS. If my memory serves, I don't think crossbows give the same DS as a comparably enchanted bow. This was always my biggest dislike of crossbow use.
3. Kneeling for an increase to AS. While I agree with this from a RL mechanics standpoint (it is a steadier shot than standing) I think that, somehow, all archers should have access to the CMAN Combat Mobility. This CMAN gives you the added protection of automatically moving you to a standing position if attacked while kneeling, even if you're in RT. Right now it's only available to Warriors, Monks, and Rogues. If this CMAN were made available to other classes I'd probably go back to crossbow use and never look back.
Those are my big three.
General Radeek Andoran
Drakes Vanguard
Defender of Wehnimer's Landing
Black Raider of the Mir'Sheq
Empires exist through conquest, they live on by exercising total control of the conquered.
Only the dead have seen the end of war - Plato
ZENDADA
Re: Crossbow Issues
02/19/2015 05:32 PM CST
The sheer amount of commands needed to hunt with a crossbow makes it very spammy. Personally I enjoy it. I've worked out 3 macros that group commands together so to me it is like hitting 3 keys to cycle through all the stancing, kneeling, standing, and loading. It works for me but I wonder how much a beating the server is taking with all of that going through every 3 seconds.
What would be nice is if there was a "load set" command that would set your container and ammo type. As examples..
load set container brown quiver
load set ammo light crimson bolt
Then just typing "load crossbow" could eliminate "get 1 bolt from my quiver".
Or even better, why not tie the loading into the "cock crossbow" command?
I've also thought about the possibility of creating an item that you could preload a number of bolts into then load that into your crossbow. Then you just cock crossbow and fire. When it is empty you would have to unload it, stow it, get a full one, and load it into the crossbow. It would just eliminate getting ammo and loading which incurs 0 RT anyway. Paring away those extra non-RT inducing commands seems like a way to make it much less spammy without giving it any advantage.
Chad, player of a few
What would be nice is if there was a "load set" command that would set your container and ammo type. As examples..
load set container brown quiver
load set ammo light crimson bolt
Then just typing "load crossbow" could eliminate "get 1 bolt from my quiver".
Or even better, why not tie the loading into the "cock crossbow" command?
I've also thought about the possibility of creating an item that you could preload a number of bolts into then load that into your crossbow. Then you just cock crossbow and fire. When it is empty you would have to unload it, stow it, get a full one, and load it into the crossbow. It would just eliminate getting ammo and loading which incurs 0 RT anyway. Paring away those extra non-RT inducing commands seems like a way to make it much less spammy without giving it any advantage.
Chad, player of a few
KITHUS
Re: Crossbow Issues
02/19/2015 07:20 PM CST
I think the single biggest change that needs to be made to give crossbows their own niche is to remove the stance forcing from COCK. You should be able to ready the weapon in defensive stance and then only be in offensive for the time it takes to fire. It would still be more cumbersome to handle than a longbow but at least you wouldn't be stuck in offensive for double or triple the amount of time of a longbow user.
Keith/Brinret/Shiun
Be nice to Wyrom or I will cut you!
Keith/Brinret/Shiun
Be nice to Wyrom or I will cut you!
ZENDADA
Re: Crossbow Issues
02/19/2015 07:51 PM CST
Yeah, just eliminating that forced offensive from cocking would lower the amount of commands in a cycle.
Another thought about the 'load set' command idea...
Perhaps that could also be tied to 'gather' so when the player used the 'gather' command it would automatically look for the ammo type, bundle them, and stow them in the proper container in one fell swoop.
Chad, player of a few
Another thought about the 'load set' command idea...
Perhaps that could also be tied to 'gather' so when the player used the 'gather' command it would automatically look for the ammo type, bundle them, and stow them in the proper container in one fell swoop.
Chad, player of a few
SARAH3
Re: Crossbow Issues
02/20/2015 10:03 AM CST
Personally, if it was possible to stay in hiding and kneel down or stand up (like, be standing in hiding and kneel down without coming out of hiding), I'd be way more likely to use a crossbow (though I suspect that won't happen even though it seems like it's something that would be reasonable irl).
I think everyone else already covered the other issues I discovered during my brief foray with a crossbow.
I think everyone else already covered the other issues I discovered during my brief foray with a crossbow.
SARAH3
Re: Crossbow Issues
02/20/2015 10:07 AM CST
<Perhaps that could also be tied to 'gather' so when the player used the 'gather' command it would automatically look for the ammo type, bundle them, and stow them in the proper container in one fell swoop.
tbh, I wrote a macro for that. I call it arrows. It puts me in defensive, gathers the arrows, gets me to wear my bow, gets the arrows from my quiver, bundles, puts the arrows back in my quiver and pulls out my bow again. I don't know how I hunted without it (I think it involved a lot of premature blessing loss).
tbh, I wrote a macro for that. I call it arrows. It puts me in defensive, gathers the arrows, gets me to wear my bow, gets the arrows from my quiver, bundles, puts the arrows back in my quiver and pulls out my bow again. I don't know how I hunted without it (I think it involved a lot of premature blessing loss).
JARHEAD
Re: Crossbow Issues
02/20/2015 10:13 AM CST
| tbh, I wrote a macro for that. I call it arrows. It puts me in defensive, gathers the arrows, gets me to wear my bow, gets the arrows from my quiver, bundles, puts the arrows back in my quiver and pulls out my bow again. I don't know how I hunted without it (I think it involved a lot of premature blessing loss). |
I might be confused about what you're doing here, and why, but you don't need to get arrows from a container to bundle them, unless there is only one of that type of arrow in the container. They will bundle automatically as long as they are the same arrow description. The command, after gathering your arrows, is put my (type of arrow, faewood, silver, whatever) arrow in (type of arrow) arrow in my (container type). My macro reads as Gather faewood arrow /rput my arrow in fae arrow in my thigh-quiver. I don't put my bow away or even change stance.
General Radeek Andoran
Drakes Vanguard
Defender of Wehnimer's Landing
Black Raider of the Mir'Sheq
Empires exist through conquest, they live on by exercising total control of the conquered.
Only the dead have seen the end of war - Plato
CMNABRIT
Re: Crossbow Issues
02/20/2015 04:43 PM CST
I really enjoyed using a crossbow, first on my bard, and even more now with my gnomish rogue.
My bard had excellent disabling setup spells like vibration chant and lullabye to make kneeling to take a shot or cock the crossbow slightly safer, but even using that tactic i still got tagged while kneeling fairly often. It was worth the risk though because I couldn't afford to fully 2x perception or train in ambush at all, and the crossbow bonus to AS and aiming while kneeling really helped keep him a viable hunter. Once I learned song of tonis the RT became pretty much a non-issue, but the commands took forever to enter by hand, then they updated the gather verb and my troubles were lessened considerably now I just cock crossbow, ready ammo, fire, then gather bolts and move off.
My gnome is even better because he has cman mobility and vanish to stand him up and hide automagically, as well as stealth maneuvers from the rogue guild, plus a bonus to cocking rt as a gnome. So he is a better mechanical choice for crossbowmen to be sure, but since he hides the rt thing does get kind of annoying to try and kneel, hide, and squeeze off an aimed shot before the target moves.
I would love it if the defensive differences between crossbows and bows were removed, I was under the impression it was to simulate ranged distance so I could never figure why they weren't always identical. I hate it cause it gets me killed often, but having to go offensive to cock a crossbow makes sense in my head since you need both hands to hold the crossbow and pull the draw into place. Maybe reduce firing time of crossbows by 1 second compared to bows, since there's no need to draw it back first and its pre-loaded. An my final complaint/request is a slight increase in the DF for crossbows, I don't know anything about the physics of bows, but it just seems like a cross bolt would have better stopping power against plate mail than what i've seen while hunting. Alternatively it could just be easier to aim crossbows and the bonus to kneeling could just be to AS, either solution works for me.
Player of
Archales and Gargamish
My bard had excellent disabling setup spells like vibration chant and lullabye to make kneeling to take a shot or cock the crossbow slightly safer, but even using that tactic i still got tagged while kneeling fairly often. It was worth the risk though because I couldn't afford to fully 2x perception or train in ambush at all, and the crossbow bonus to AS and aiming while kneeling really helped keep him a viable hunter. Once I learned song of tonis the RT became pretty much a non-issue, but the commands took forever to enter by hand, then they updated the gather verb and my troubles were lessened considerably now I just cock crossbow, ready ammo, fire, then gather bolts and move off.
My gnome is even better because he has cman mobility and vanish to stand him up and hide automagically, as well as stealth maneuvers from the rogue guild, plus a bonus to cocking rt as a gnome. So he is a better mechanical choice for crossbowmen to be sure, but since he hides the rt thing does get kind of annoying to try and kneel, hide, and squeeze off an aimed shot before the target moves.
I would love it if the defensive differences between crossbows and bows were removed, I was under the impression it was to simulate ranged distance so I could never figure why they weren't always identical. I hate it cause it gets me killed often, but having to go offensive to cock a crossbow makes sense in my head since you need both hands to hold the crossbow and pull the draw into place. Maybe reduce firing time of crossbows by 1 second compared to bows, since there's no need to draw it back first and its pre-loaded. An my final complaint/request is a slight increase in the DF for crossbows, I don't know anything about the physics of bows, but it just seems like a cross bolt would have better stopping power against plate mail than what i've seen while hunting. Alternatively it could just be easier to aim crossbows and the bonus to kneeling could just be to AS, either solution works for me.
Player of
Archales and Gargamish
ZENDADA
Re: Crossbow Issues
02/20/2015 10:33 PM CST
| I would love it if the defensive differences between crossbows and bows were removed, I was under the impression it was to simulate ranged distance so I could never figure why they weren't always identical. I hate it cause it gets me killed often, but having to go offensive to cock a crossbow makes sense in my head since you need both hands to hold the crossbow and pull the draw into place. |
| ARCHALES |
Cocking a crossbow bringing us into offensive does not make sense to me. We always have an open hand. Perhaps the designers of the system took Tonis into consideration. At least tie cocking a crossbow into loading it. Loading a crossbow takes no RT. Loading a crossbow just hits the server with commands.
Chad, player of a few
SARAH3
Re: Crossbow Issues
03/03/2015 03:09 PM CST
>The command, after gathering your arrows, is put my (type of arrow, faewood, silver, whatever) arrow in (type of arrow) arrow in my (container type).
Huh. I was not aware that it was possible to put arrows back into the main bundle that way.
Huh. I was not aware that it was possible to put arrows back into the main bundle that way.
JARHEAD
Re: Crossbow Issues
03/03/2015 03:50 PM CST
As long as they are the same type of arrow (ie. material/color/fletching/arrowhead, e-blade, blessed)
General Radeek Andoran
Drakes Vanguard
Defender of Wehnimer's Landing
Black Raider of the Mir'Sheq
Empires exist through conquest, they live on by exercising total control of the conquered.
Only the dead have seen the end of war - Plato
General Radeek Andoran
Drakes Vanguard
Defender of Wehnimer's Landing
Black Raider of the Mir'Sheq
Empires exist through conquest, they live on by exercising total control of the conquered.
Only the dead have seen the end of war - Plato
DAID
Re: Crossbow Issues
03/03/2015 11:13 PM CST
I just wanted to chime in that, in my limited time using a crossbow (read: after I mastered fletching for only the experience and went and shot some creatures in the eye with 1 rank of ranged + spirit strike), I did equally enjoy cocking the crossbow while blank, pointing it at someone, and firing.
This is not at all to detract from most of the very useful mechanical discussions here. But that RP feature is definitely fun and something really only crossbows can do in game. Also keeping one loaded and cocked (which I don't see any ideas here going against) is a nice keeper. Granted, if they were already easier to use, that might become more moot, which isn't 100% a good thing, but probably some other pros might outweigh this minor con of a change.
"What Kaldonis does on his off time is totally Kaldonis's business, dude." ~Scribes
This is not at all to detract from most of the very useful mechanical discussions here. But that RP feature is definitely fun and something really only crossbows can do in game. Also keeping one loaded and cocked (which I don't see any ideas here going against) is a nice keeper. Granted, if they were already easier to use, that might become more moot, which isn't 100% a good thing, but probably some other pros might outweigh this minor con of a change.
"What Kaldonis does on his off time is totally Kaldonis's business, dude." ~Scribes
