Playing with nerfed archery, missile rebalance

[Tiburon Silverflame]

In a relatively low-tech environment, too...it's not hard to see putting primitive sights on a crossbow, and even just aiming down the line is easier with a crossbow than with a regular bow. It's a lot harder to hold that arrow steady, while the bowstring is under tension, with a regular bow. A crossbow shoots like a rifle in this regard.

As far as velocity: one thing we forget is draw length. Wiki points out: the reason crossbows need a crank is because they typically have shorter draws than regular bows. Work = force * distance...force is draw strength, distance is draw length. So if you want the same power OUT of a crossbow with shorter draw, you need to have a higher draw strength...and therefore the crank.

But as we've said: the above discussion is trying to remain grounded in reality. For game purposes, we can just say that, if the xbow's going to have the same rate of fire as the bow, it should be doing comparable damage. If it's going to be notably slower, with e.g. the suggested separate (slow) action to reload...it has to be a lot higher. Or we just won't use them.

[Ycombinator]

I don't think that a crossbow would necessarily do more damage than a long bow in the hands of a skilled user (BTW, I have no RL experience with archery).

That's a typical force-velocity trade-off in mechanical systems. Because bolt is not held by human hand, crossbow allows applying *MUCH* higher tension to the string at the expense of slower recharging. Think of levers, pulleys and ratchet. Crossbow typically fires heavier projectiles at faster speed than any bow.

[buzzkill]

What would have to be the case, is that the crossbow does a LOT more damage than the bow, to make up for the grossly lower rate of fire, and being forced to pre-select your ammo.

I don't think that a crossbow would necessarily do more damage than a long bow in the hands of a skilled user (BTW, I have no RL experience with archery). I do think that a crossbow would be immensely easier (vs. a bow) use in the hands of a non-skilled user. Thus, in the interest of balance, rather than upping the damage on x-bows, I feel that non-archer classes and/or races should suffer a *significant* penalty to hit (I'm thinking like -50 for a mage, and pile some more on top of that if your a hobbit or some other unsuitable race) for conventional bow use, and thus be mostly limited to x-bows and slings. This penalty could be slowly mitigated though time with increases in clvl.

[Tiburon Silverflame]

You would be committed to firing a particular bolt....

Hadn't thought that through, but yeah, and that could be a problem. Even given the switch to adding the brand's effect, having the right round 'in the chamber' would be very important.

The comparison with guns might be fitting...depends. Are there different types of ammo that have differing impacts on monsters, or is all the ammo 'vanilla' damage? What's the ratios of "number of rounds available" versus damage per round versus what damage can I do with other ranged attacks?

What would have to be the case, is that the crossbow does a LOT more damage than the bow, to make up for the grossly lower rate of fire, and being forced to pre-select your ammo.

[miyazaki]

You could hack a "reload" action by having a separate equipment slot for the currently-loaded bolt, which would be expended when you fire, requiring you to re-wield a new bit of ammo.

On the one hand, it'd be simple from the user's perspective and would make it clear that you're committed to firing that specific bolt. On the other hand, I suspect it'd be a lousy hack, implementation-wise.

In the old Ultima games (IV and V, IIRC) you couldn't use a ranged weapon if there was an emeny adjacent to you. You got a message like "The orc interfers with your loading" or something to the effect. I think it would be a great addition to angband play and add a touch of realism, too. (And wouldn't add a keystroke...)

[Derakon]

You could hack a "reload" action by having a separate equipment slot for the currently-loaded bolt, which would be expended when you fire, requiring you to re-wield a new bit of ammo.

On the one hand, it'd be simple from the user's perspective and would make it clear that you're committed to firing that specific bolt. On the other hand, I suspect it'd be a lousy hack, implementation-wise.

[buzzkill]

The model you'd want, would be that Reload Crossbow would become its own action. In this sense, the crossbow would be similar to early firearms like the flintlock pistol. You start closing with your foe, you take your shot(s), you engage with your sword if needed. As people have pointed out, I'd never use a crossbow that forced an auto-reload (and thus took 2 or 3 rounds) when I fired it. The damage per round is not going to be good, but worse is the loss of actions.

This is SteamBand's generally methodology. It uses guns, but the principal is the same. You have to load the gun before you can fire it. It a separate action. When it's empty you have to reload it. Some guns hold as few as 1 or 2 bullets, so it's not entirely alien to the crossbow. Also, depending on the weapon, reloading may take more than one turn, which can be quite annoying if your unaware of it, because (in Steam) you don't get interrupted (you just get attacked multiple times).

EDIT: Oh, and I think it works well.

[Tiburon Silverflame]

Reality rarely makes it into gaming generally. In any game, be it tabletop or computer, the fundamental currency is actions, and the fundamental measure of effectiveness is damage per round, with occasional consideration for very useful, disabling side effects.

The model you'd want, would be that Reload Crossbow would become its own action. In this sense, the crossbow would be similar to early firearms like the flintlock pistol. You start closing with your foe, you take your shot(s), you engage with your sword if needed. As people have pointed out, I'd never use a crossbow that forced an auto-reload (and thus took 2 or 3 rounds) when I fired it. The damage per round is not going to be good, but worse is the loss of actions.

Another aspect: when you're thinking real-world archery, what specifically are you considering? The 2 major activities that come to mind are target shooting, and bow hunting. Target shooting's an extreme case; looking this up, the shot is at a target 70 meters away, and the accuracy required is extreme. I found the scores for the ranking round from the Beijing Olympics in 2008. If you don't average 9 out of 10 (the outer gold ring)...you're in the lower 1/4 of that admittedly elite field. 10 points (out of 720) separated 17th place from *40th* place. That outer gold ring is all of about 8" in diameter...at 70 meters. SMALL. And at these ranges, outdoors...wind is a huge issue.

And in bow hunting, the challenge is much the same. You've got *1* shot; the animal you're hunting will flee if you miss. And your goal is to hit a vital shot; you do NOT want to shoot to wound.

So in both cases, you're going to take your sweet time. You can't be close, you have to be near-perfect. In combat archery, that's just not as much of an issue. Fine, you don't hit the heart, you put it into the poor sucker's gut instead. Still works. You've got margin for error, so you can shoot faster.

[Ycombinator]

Reality rarely makes its way into Angband, and although I don't see how to implement this in V without badly breaking balance, there is certain appeal in this idea.
Leaving existing crossbows alone, one can introduce a new weapon: Siege Crossbow or something like that. 30 lbs, totally freaking insane multiplier, takes 5 turns without other actions to reload.

[PowerDiver]

2. Firing an arrow should take longer than swinging with a sword. Maybe a full turn and then some.

Even with extra shots, firing takes twice as long as swinging, if you compare a high level ranger to a high level warrior. The only bad comparison is for 1-blow spellcasters, but that is done in a misguided attempt at play balance.

[kaypy]

anything that takes two or more turns to fire is completely useless.

If you can separate out shooting from reloading, then you have something more usable. So fire (1 turn), find somewhere safe, reload (1+ turns). Maybe have reloading an 'activate' action on crossbows?

Or even just have a cooldown on firing it- it doesn't take longer to shoot per-se, but you can only shoot it every n turns.

[fizzix]

anything that takes two or more turns to fire is completely useless.

Example: You fire a bolt at Ancalagon. Ancalagon summons ancient dragons, Ancalagon and 2-3 Ancient dragons breathe. You die.

[Therem Harth]

Oh and I forgot about crossbows!

A crossbow, from what I understand (which may be less than some of you folks)... Takes a lot of effort to cock. Especially a heavy one. Also a long time, if it uses a crank instead of a lever.

But a crossbow can fire bolts really really fast.

A heavy crossbow, I'd figure, should hit really really hard. If it's enchanted, and using enchanted and branded ammo, it should be able to do one shot of crazy damage...

While taking up two of your turns, and potentially giving anything in LOS the opportunity to hit you with spells, projectiles, or just run up and hit you. So, major damage, but also major risk.

Edit: as for slings, I figure they should be the only projectile weapons that allow multiple shots per turn, but I'm not really sure. What do you guys think?

[Therem Harth]

Just a random thought: IRL, aiming, pulling, and shooting with a bow takes a while. Especially if you want to hit your target somewhere that really hurts.

However, an arrow - especially a bodkin - is a narrow little thing with a lot of force behind it. Assuming dragons and such were real, it would be a lot more likely to go through a dragon's scales than, say, a swing from a sword.

Of course, being narrow and all, it wouldn't do a lot of physiological damage, especially to something huge like a dragon (unless it hits it somewhere really vital, more on that later). BUT we're not talking about real arrows. We're talking about enchanted ones, which do nice things like setting their target on fire or exploding once they're embedded.

So...

1. There should be no extra shots. Ever. Period.

2. Firing an arrow should take longer than swinging with a sword. Maybe a full turn and then some.

3. But it should do damage that scales very quickly with how enchanted the arrows are.

4. AND! A character who's really good with a bow should be able to get massive critical hits with it, e.g. shooting a monster in the throat. Ouch.

So an archer/ranger character should probably be using a sword or something for melee on weak opponents, and instead be using his/her arrows against strong ones.

[Derakon]

That doesn't make sense to me. A warrior-mage relies on being a warrior for most of his damage-dealing; otherwise there'd be no point in training his melee capabilities. He needs to be a mage for the things not related to breaking faces.