So, how does the new archery work?

Game Talk The Bunker
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Tamior, you have cause and effect confused.
If the game doesn’t accurately simulate what’s laid out in the design document, that doesn’t mean the design document is wrong or misleading, it means you’re either misinterpreting the game or the game feature needs fixing.

In this case, it’s generally possible to increase stats higher at game start than they should be able to reach. That’s a flaw in game creation. It doesn’t mean we’re wrong to say that str14 is a world class athlete, it just means the balance on strength stats is off. It is absolutely absurd to say that a str20 person is “average”, and if that’s your argument, you’re not getting anywhere. A Str20 mutant wielding a greatbow absolutely does fall under the “sci fi weapons” category, we’re talking about a spring that’s basically a siege engine powered by a mutant cyborg.

Your core premise may actually be correct - that bows shouldn’t be able to do more damage than spears - but your way of getting there is completely flawed from start to finish. Arrows are very different from spears, traveling at far higher velocity with a narrower point and a springloaded launcher concentrating slow fibre muscles into an instantaneous movement far faster than fast twitch muscles can achieve. They can penetrate steel plates and are generally exceptionally dangerous objects. The main reason they never fully replaced melee weapons, at least to the best of my understanding, is that melee weapons require almost no training by comparison, not because they’re more deadly.

Does that mean they should do more damage than a spear? I dunno. Maybe, maybe not. They administer damage in different ways, which is not presently well represented in game. There’s certainly no compelling argument in any direction being presented here though.

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82

While it is true that they can penetrate steel plates, this video has an issue that seems to be rather frequent.
Bit of a longer video, but this one is a good demonstration is a more professional way: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DBxdTkddHaE
A short version of the issue, is that so often people compare arrows going through steel plate, chainmail, or whatnot, but they have it on the wrong surface. If it was being worn by a human, the impact would be somewhat reduced by the physical reaction of that person, whereas it’d just stay still and static against a wall of some sort. It doesn’t include the bracing impact.
Arrows most certainly can penetrate steel, but in practice they very well might not. Although it’d still make at least a hefty dent and probably hurt quite a lot from the impact.

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I’m aware it’s not really a scientific video. Still, if you take a spear in the same circumstance, it is unlikely it would pierce the same metal plate. Similarly nonscientific videos seem to corroborate. I have little interest in more research since, as I said, the core premise is flawed here.

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84

True, that is for sure.
Personally, I really like this kind of thing insomuch that I’m subscribed to these guys. I’ve also subbed to another youtuber that does somewhat similar stuff called Shadiversity. Not quite the same, but he’s still pretty good.

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Just by looking at those two video’s thumbnails it’s obvious we are “comparing” armor-piercing arrowhead design with broadhead spear.
Which is meaningless. Armor-piercing arrow needs to be compared to armor-piercing side of a halberd.

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86

In ideal world, perhaps.
In reality, we have a never-ending backlog of never-fully-implemented (and often contradictory) design “visions”.
So balancing whatever already IS in the game to be consistent with itself takes clear priority for me.

Yea, no. Not buying it until this restriction has actually been implemented into the game.

That’s not the way the game works right now and has been working basically forever.
Greatbow is simply an oversized bow, no more sci-fi then a mace or Zweihänder.
Strength 20 is no more of a mutant than strength 8 or 12.

87

Well, not much point in continuing discussion if your response to “this is the expected game balance direction” is “nuh uh”.

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Since nothing has been done in this “expected game balance direction” for years (as far as stats metagame is concerned), I have little reason to believe it’s actually relevant.

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It’s an impossibly huge game with many areas that aren’t up to spec. That’s why we have a unifying design document. Fusion cannons didn’t belong in the game two years ago, and anyone familiar with the design goals could have told you so. It was only a few months ago someone took them out. That doesn’t mean they were appropriate to the setting or the design goals until that point. Likewise, everyone involved in design is aware that chargen presently doesn’t appropriately represent characters. It’s a broken system, and trying to argue that things should be balanced according to a system that all the developers feel needs to be reworked because it’s not accurately reflecting the game is idiotic, no matter how long the system has been broken for.

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90

Even if

This in no way indicates this “rework” will happen any time soon, or that the design document itself will not be refined in the meantime.

As such, I’m vehemently opposed to a hilariously overpowered weapon existing in the current meta under the pretense it will “make sense” in some distant future (when chargen is reworked and strength of 18 is no longer something any human can have).

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I had a Compound Greatbow that I edited to have only 150 dispersion, and it was still considerably less useful than a basic-ass M4 because of how long it took to aim/fire. And that was with a lot of investment in Strength. I think calling it ‘hideously overpowered’ is over-egging things.

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92

It’s hilariously overpowered among non-firearm.

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your opposition has been noted, citizen.

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94

Well, considering that archery was the natural progression from clubs to spears and swords to bows to guns, yeah… Kinda makes sense that they’re right behind them.

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5 posts were split to a new topic: Agincourt derail

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You wrote

Yet people still use melee weapons in modern day time while we have freaking guns. There’s also the fact that bayonets are effectively melee weapons put into a gun and exist for a reason.

But the point is exactly that people DO NOT use knives or bayonets on today battlefield to any meaningful extent. That they exist and are used sparingly is irrelevant to the original point that was made. It never was about a total, complete physical disappearance of melee weapons but about them being replaced by bows (as main weapon of choice). Of curse hypothetically. Same as automatic weapons replaced all other individual weapons as a weapon of choice. Melee weapons (even cross/bows !) exist today - in tertiary (melee) and niche (cross/bows) roles. Doesn’t mean that that those weapons weren’t replaced by automatics in all the important roles.
Yours is probably a case of misunderstanding the original point. So no it does not disproves the point made.

Fake edit: This argument really isn’t that important. It doesn’t help much in answering the main questions.

  1. Are some bows well represented from realism standpoint
  2. Are bows well represented from gameplay/balance standpoint.

I really don’t have a horse in this race, both “sides” in general made good points.

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Hmm, you are correct that this argument isn’t important, so I vote that we both shut up about it.

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For those unaware I was removed from development for reasons I don’t particularly agree with, but I’m not going into it here.

My intent for bows/crossbows was always that they would be inferior to guns in terms of DPS and accuracy (because realism) but that they would still be usable, especially in a stealth/longterm survival role. Compared to guns bows and crossbows are vastly quieter, and high quality models with the right fittings can be functionally silent. The main issue in this case is that bows (especially modern models with expanding broadheads) SHOULD be more than capable of doing raw single-shot damage comparable or greater than smaller rifle rounds. For reference, within the hunting fandom high-poundage bows are acceptable for hunting pretty much anything, meaning they’re trusted to reliably kill things like elephants and rhinos nearly instantly with a clean shot. Something like 5.56mm rifle rounds are for deer and nothing too much bigger, depending on the gun and specific cartridge in use.

Quite frankly, the game isn’t set up in such a way that realistic guns and bows can be properly modeled. Arrows and bullets work in different ways, and kill in different ways. The fact that the main enemy is a zombie which doesn’t work exactly like a human being makes that even worse, and things like the stamina and strain from firing a bow, or the wild inaccuracy of an unskilled archer aren’t there to make bows more reasonable.

I’ll happily say that an M4 is an all-around superior killing machine to pretty much any bow or crossbow in the real world, but killing ability is not the only concern when it comes to C:DDA. Rifles are loud, take a lot of maintenance, and require difficult-to-produce bullets and parts to continue working. Comparatively, simple arrows can literally be made with a stick and a rock by a fairly unskilled craftsman, and will still ‘work’ on a high-quality bow, while a rifle without its specific type of ammunition, springs, and oil is essentially a club. Without the proper supply lines that modern militaries enjoy, the bow becomes far more viable in the long term to a survivor. Even more so if things like gun maintenance, barrel degradation, and archery muscle strain were properly modeled.

That all said, part of the reason I had such a difficult time with my work on archery ingame was that current standards for things like strength, crafting difficulty, dispersion, range, and starting stats are basically arbitrary and have varying impact from game mechanic to game mechanic. Expectations being what they are from other devs and the players, it’s really not possible to properly balance archery around realism, so the only other choice is a degree of gaminess, which isn’t allowed.

Edit: In terms of bows vs crossbows the simple fact is that they do pretty much the same thing in the same way. A lot of European medieval crossbows were largely inferior because they made use of low-quality spring steel for the limbs, which actually makes a terrible spring compared to wood. This made them small and durable, but vastly less efficient than a normal bow. Medieval materials, techniques, and practices made bows vastly superior because they were easier to make at a higher quality, while modern crossbows are essentially a vastly more powerful bow that is more accurate and requires no energy to hold ready. On top of that there are a number of relatively simple mechanisms that can be constructed to reload them rapidly, compared to the slow medieval windlasses.
The only real difference between the two is that bows use a smaller poundage over a long draw, while crossbows use a high poundage and short draw with mechanical advantage. There are kits available to basically turn a bow into a crossbow, and nothing is stopping anyone from using a crossbow as a bow. At the end of the day the functional differences are minute and given that both can really be made in any poundage, it can’t be said whether one or the other is superior.

Also, I’ve felt for a long time that melee damage doesn’t scale with strength as it should, and that should probably be fixed. That would allow for more realistic higher-poundage bows without it conflicting with current balance.

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