Tweaking bow requirements

[Benedict]

It seems to me that a lot of people put a point into archery and survival at character generation just so that they can grind arrows until they can make a bow.

There’s a few problems with this:

1. People who want bows feel obliged to do it, because they’re so rare (and thus the likelihood that they’ll be able to find one within a useful timeframe is low)
2. The arrow crafting thing is silly. I know that skills level up unrealistically, but the fact that making arrows directly influences your ability to fire them, and craft bows, just breaks the immersion completely for me.
3. There’s no other means to get into archery - either you find a book, find a bow, or invest from the beginning. With any other crafting skill (e.g. tailoring) there are some introductory recipes to allow you to bypass this requirement.

So here’s how I think we can fix this:

1. Make a beginner’s bow craftable with no skill in archery - it should be weak but easy to find the components for.
2. Make wooden arrows craftable with no skill

OR (and I think better, although some may disagree)

1. Make a slingshot craftable with no skill in archery - perhaps a stick and some thread as components. It can use rocks as ammo.
2. It raises archery.

This way players who really want to be archers can have a bow and arrow/slingshot from very early on, but won’t get the good bows until their skill is higher, and we’ll also bypass the odd system of crafting arrows until you know how to string a longbow.

Longbows are no easier to achieve, but there’s a more realistic and appropriately progressing system for reaching them.

(Also, for the record, I never use the archery/survival skill point strategy. I don’t think it’s necessary, and I prefer to invest them in skill points, but this is clearly a popular strategy.)

[kenoxite]

While I agree to some extent, the problem is that finding common enough materials to use as bowstrings isn’t easy, if we want to keep all this under somewhat realistic parameters. Even using sinews or plant fibres for this purpose looks a bit weird, but it’s accepted for gameplay reasons. What could be use as a replacement for 3ft strings? Rags? Leather strips? Rubber hoses? There’s the problem. Maybe we could craft a toy bow but, with which materials?

Since 0.4 pre and on I’ve noticed that I’m finding more strings as random loot in almost anywhere than before. Maybe that was tweaked, or maybe the RNG is simply being nice for once. All my last characters were able to be equipped with a self-made longbow in very reasonable time spans.

As for options for leveling up archery up to one, you can disarm or trigger crossbow traps. That’s a crossbow and some bolts for free that you can use to level up a bit. This doesn’t solve the problem with the limited, as the amount of bolts is limited (if any) and you’ll lose them after firing soon enough, making this alternative it only viable if you manage to find lots of those kind of traps.

The slingshot idea, that’s something I’d like to see implemented, even without this issue with archery. The problem with these is that they’d need a rubber hose, and we’d need crossbows (again) in order to get one (by disassembling), or try our luck in hardware stores. No bueno.

I think a simple sling would fit better. All needed is a leather strip (or strings… we can’t avoid those, can we?) and some rocks. Maybe a new type of rock, a pebble, could be introduced to be used as ammo, to make it more realistic. It could be crafted by smashing two rocks, or one rock and a hammer (and similar). It would be an extremely crappy weapon in unskilled hands, but experts would be deadly (the quote from Vegetius in the link above is quite enlightening: “Soldiers, notwithstanding their defensive armour, are often more annoyed by the round stones from the sling than by all the arrows of the enemy. Stones kill without mangling the body, and the contusion is mortal without loss of blood.” - hoping for an arrow instead of a pebble says something about the power of a sling in trained hands).

[Flare]

You can use a lot of stuff for bow string, the requirements are that it doesn’t stretch much and can withstand the stress being put on it. Main issue is whether it would be all that accurate. But at a few metres where most of the shooting takes place, I don’t think it would be that much of a problem.

As for slings, we might as well include javelins too or the atlotl into the archery skill too. Though it would probably be more accurate to remane the skill at that point.

[kenoxite]

Well, if that’s the case it wouldn’t need to be accurate. This beginner bow (toy bow) would only be useful to teach you the very basics of archery (which, in game terms, I guess it’d be equivalent to: “Oh, so if I put a spiky thing in this parts and pull this other part all the way back, the spiky thing goes away flying!”).

What in-game materials could be used then? Easy to get materials, that’s it.

[Flare]

Exactly, without fletchings and a proper string, the best one could hope for is that the arrows pricks the target after a few spins in the air. Even in skilled hands it wouldn’t be of much use aside from teaching rudimentary posture and correlati g that to the general direction the arrow flies in.

Although if there is knowledge on how to make good ow string out of rags, I would imagine it would be much different.

I think the same goes for slings and atlotls as well. The measure of the sling itself, the proportion of its parts, and the parts and precision needed f9r an atlotl aren’t exactly obvious. Much testing would be needed if some9je had to start from nothing.

[Soron]

I’m of the opinion that archery should be easier to get into than it currently is (especially since getting started on guns is pretty easy), but harder to excel at than it is currently. Adding a trainer bow, or slingshots, would make me quite happy :).

I also think that crossbows should be more viable compared to longbows (the reload time is painful on crossbows). Maybe add fletchings to wood arrows, but not wood crossbow bolts? Or maybe make a craftable type of crossbow bolt that has decent armor piercing?

[sodapop]

If you put one ‘point’ into archery in Chargen you get 2 skill ranks. Rank up again in chargen and you get 4 skill ranks for 4 chargen points. Diminishing returns, but it makes that initial chargen investment better. If you also spend one in survival you can immediately make a bow assuming you get the right materials for it, no grinding required.

Crossbows are not too rare, found in just about every trap cache you can come across, assuming you can bait something to walk into them first or disarm them yourself (Or trigger them yourself if you can take the hit).
10 steel bolts lasts you for a decent amount of time so long as you make sure to pick up the bolts afterwards, and you’ll have even more if there’s multiple crossbow traps in the trap cache. They’re pretty common in sporting goods stores as well (and you might even get a compound bow if you’re lucky!)

Archery for Kids counts as a ‘magazine/light reading’ book which means it’s in any store and pretty common in houses.

I don’t really think it’s all that difficult to get started on archery at all.

[Goober]

Combine the throwing/archery into one skill and make ppl start with javelins and wooden spears.

[Benedict]

If you put one ‘point’ into archery in Chargen you get 2 skill ranks. Rank up again in chargen and you get 4 skill ranks for 4 chargen points. Diminishing returns, but it makes that initial chargen investment better. If you also spend one in survival you can immediately make a bow assuming you get the right materials for it, no grinding required.

My bad for getting the number of skill points wrong (can you tell I never invest in skills from chargen?)

On the other hand, this is exactly what I think should be changed. No matter how many routes there are into archery (and I’m well aware of them), some players are still feeling obliged to start up like this.

Ok, maybe they’re just noobs, but I think archery could stand to have some variety introduced anyway. Toy bows, practice bows, different kinds of crossbow (please!) would all be very fun additions to the game, at no obvious cost to game balance.

[fartbutt]

The slingshot idea sounds cool. There should be a rotating crossbow and automatic mini bolt launcher craftable imo.

[DeepEnd]

If items get item quality overhaul and optimal tools overhaul eventually this problem kind of corrects itself.

You could craft bow and arrows even without archery skills - but they would be longbow[crappy] and arrows[crooked] - so you can make something you can practice with but they are not a serious weapon. Get more skills, get better tools and you can create longbow[meh] and arrows[below average] and you can ocassionally hit a wall. Better you get the more you realize what and how to do, and maybe unlock more bow types.

[sodapop]

[quote=“sodapop, post:7, topic:775”]If you put one ‘point’ into archery in Chargen you get 2 skill ranks. Rank up again in chargen and you get 4 skill ranks for 4 chargen points. Diminishing returns, but it makes that initial chargen investment better. If you also spend one in survival you can immediately make a bow assuming you get the right materials for it, no grinding required.

My bad for getting the number of skill points wrong (can you tell I never invest in skills from chargen?)

On the other hand, this is exactly what I think should be changed. No matter how many routes there are into archery (and I’m well aware of them), some players are still feeling obliged to start up like this.

Ok, maybe they’re just noobs, but I think archery could stand to have some variety introduced anyway. Toy bows, practice bows, different kinds of crossbow (please!) would all be very fun additions to the game, at no obvious cost to game balance.[/quote]

Kudos for admitting you were mistaken on the internet!
I guess I can concede the point that starting out with the 1-point chargen investment seems the way to go, but you also referenced that it’s ‘easy’ to get started on firearms if you didn’t get the skill in chargen.
There’s no book for firearms skills, guns are spawned empty so you’re not guaranteed to have ammo available, and you can never build your own gun, whereas with 2 Archery and 1 Survival you can build your own bow and nigh infinite ammunition for it.

However, I won’t argue with you on the other point. Having more options for archery type weapons would be good. A repeating crossbow, an arbalest, and an avelyn leap to mind in terms of options for crossbow type weapons (Make the latter two spawn in pawn shops and mansions to go with the broadswords and plate mail). While we’re at it, why not some modern modifications to bows? Mounting laser and optical sights to a bow is something that can be done right now, much less with futuristic technology. And why not make a bow that requires 16 strength to fire, but can send an arrow straight through a zombie’s ribcage? With futuristic super-strong materials and cybernetics, a cyborg archer could do some amazing things.

[Benedict]

Well there is a firearms book (Guns and Ammo), and (like the low-level bows we’re discussing) there are a couple of low-level firearms like the nailgun or the BB-gun, which people can use to level firearms, handguns, and rifles.

It’s true that you don’t always find ammo, but there are stores specifically dedicated to guns, and they spawn from enemy drops, and in house loot, too, where there is only one way to find a bow without crafting it, that I know of - in a sporting goods store (although I think they can be a super rare drop in barns).

Part of this is obviously for balance purposes - bows are silent and ranged, with more power than throwing, and you can understand that giving players easy access to the best bows would be somewhat cheap - but yeah, I think pretty much everyone seems to be in favour of some practice bows.

Maybe we could offset that by making longbow crafting a higher-level skill (archery 4?)

[KA101]

Uh, there’s a fairly wide range of pipe-based firearms available for crafting (I think it requires a few points in Mechanics, though). I wouldn’t want to use any of them, but they exist.

How about a shortbow? Those predate the longbow, would be weaker/shorter-ranged, and easier to draw.

[Nopkar]

I think an increase to the crafting system concerning bows would make this much better

for Archery/Survival 0:
1x 3ft string
1x Heavy Stick

nets you a Crude Stiff Bow. Little to no damage potential

at A/S 1:
20x Sinew
1x Supple Stick (Crafted by using water and a heavy stick near a fire, simulating making the wood more bendable?)

etc etc, increasing all the way to a composite Longbow at say A/S 4-5 that require a slew of materials ranging from glue, sinew, bone, laminate etc etc?

This would give an easier entrance into archery without the conventional skill buy to begin with.

Arrows could be made with just further refining a wood spear, making sharp pointy sticks that fit with the crude bow, all the way up to straight, tipped arrows that could act like armor piercing rounds.

Balancing could be resolved with increasing material requirements like with the composite bow, laminate being rare in all but hardware stores?

[Sirian]

What’s wrong with using crossbows from traps to learn the first few levels of archery ? That’s what I do.

Although I agree that nerfing the longbow and having a higher tier recurve composite bow would be a good idea. But compound bows should be the best bows in my opinion.

[sodapop]

That’s because compound bows are currently the best we’ve got, in terms of the amount of strength you need versus the amount of force the bow can exert on the arrow. But there COULD be something better since Cataclysm is set in the future, what with futuristic materials and whatnot.

Longbow is probably the best type of recurve I can think of. It made the medieval Welsh pretty badass. Building yourself a composite bow or finding a manufactured one might be a step in between the two though.

[Grackle]

For handcrafted bows it should go:
Self bow -> Recurved bow -> Composite bow.
And you should need a fairly high skill to craft the later types.

In stores you should find:
Fiberglass bow: a cheap recurved bow for kids.
American Flatbow: the most common type of wood bow in the US.
& Compound bows: these should be split up by draw weights. 30lbs. to 100lbs.

[Nopkar]

Short bow > Longbow > RECURVE bow (think Huns and mongols here guys) > Compound bows > Tachyon Concussion Bow (TAC Bow) (just throwing out a futuristic idea or something, I dunno.)

But i agree that the best bow could only be found in sporting good stores or something because you’d need specialized tools to make the compound bows and whatnot.

[Sirian]

Longbow is probably the best type of recurve I can think of. It made the medieval Welsh pretty badass. Building yourself a composite bow or finding a manufactured one might be a step in between the two though.

A longbow is actually a self bow, not a recurve, and self bows are the most primitive types of bows. Maybe the welsh were able to make them very well from high quality wood, and had many well trained archers, but in cataclysm we make them from a stick and a string.
Quoting wikipedia here :

Longbows as used by English Archers in the Middle Ages at such battles as Crecy and Agincourt were straight limb bows. Usually made of yew, these bows were used to great effect by many archers shooting together in massed volleys

[quote=“Grackle, post:18, topic:775”]For handcrafted bows it should go:
Self bow -> Recurved bow -> Composite bow.
And you should need a fairly high skill to craft the later types.

In stores you should find:
Fiberglass bow: a cheap recurved bow for kids.
American Flatbow: the most common type of wood bow in the US.
& Compound bows: these should be split up by draw weights. 30lbs. to 100lbs.[/quote]

Recurved is a shape, composite is about materials, and I think that most recurved bow are composite. Fiberglass -among other synthetic materials- is used in modern composite recurve bows but I wouldn’t dismiss it as cheap and for kids. In fact, Olympic archers use such bows (and here you can see what they look like). I’ve seen, however, a cheap bow for kids made of plastic - at least on the outside- despite not being a toy.