Pew pew pew pew pew

[fan]

I would love to play an archer, but I have yet to find a cRPG that makes long-range combat sufficiently "meaty".

 

What do I mean?

 

Impact of missiles should mean more than HP damage. I'm thinking as a minimum bracing animations, the regaining of balance by taking a step back.

 

After a couple of hits, the target should look like a pincushion. I dislike vanishing arrows!

 

I also dislike moderate damage dealing, rapid firing archers. That's boring. Arrows should be lethal to unarmored targets, but next to useless against plate armor and shields (that's what crossbows are for). At the same time, archers are dead meat in melee combat.

 

To sum up, having an archer in the party should not feel like a permanent AoE DoT spell.

[Thraxen]

I'd like to see bows that have some impact, but it seems like having archers be useless up close AND have no effect on plate is a bit harsh. With a sufficiently strong bow, plate could still be pierced and if you had a more compact bow, it should be easier to use it up close. In that respect, I suppose you'd have to choose whether you wanted to go for maximum ranged efficiency, or whether you wanted a chance to not get sliced apart in melee.

[Cantousent]

A good English Longbowman scoffs at crossbow, and rightfullfully so. Tell the French at Crecy and Agincourt about how the English Longbow fared against armored foes. I know I know. The History channel et al have all done exposes recently downplaying the value of the longbow, but the fact remains that the Longbowmen shredded the assaults. Just sayin' there's plenty of use for a good Longbowman. After that debate, we can bring up Mongol horse archers. :Cant's lubricated grin icon:

[fan]

ok, ok... I get it, longbows are the ****...

[LadyCrimson]

I also dislike moderate damage dealing, rapid firing archers. That's boring. Arrows should be lethal to unarmored targets, but next to useless against plate armor and shields (that's what crossbows are for).

What if the arrows are enchanted with shock damage?

 

I understand what you mean tho....I recall in BG1 that at some point I started using almost nothing but ranged in the party, in one game, with half their inventory stuffed with arrow stacks. Fighters, archers, and even the mages would often be slinging their slingshots instead of casting spells (simply because I couldn't "rest"). Then add enchanted arrows all the time and most combat became very very easy. It seems pretty difficult to balance ranged combat vs melee combat in terms of the player in many games, even when ranged characters are weak against melee.

 

So first up, I suppose, is to not have enchanted arrows, except maybe for a slow DoT poison effect. Enemies with shields should have a high chance of blocking arrow damage altogether until the shield breaks (or something). But I don't want them to be any weaker against melee than they tend to be already. Other than that ... I have no idea how to keep archers from feeling overpowered in a game setting, while still being viable enough (eg, not dying every 10 seconds to melee) that people want to use them in their party.

[Thraxen]

A good English Longbowman scoffs at crossbow, and rightfullfully so. Tell the French at Crecy and Agincourt about how the English Longbow fared against armored foes. I know I know. The History channel et al have all done exposes recently downplaying the value of the longbow, but the fact remains that the Longbowmen shredded the assaults. Just sayin' there's plenty of use for a good Longbowman. After that debate, we can bring up Mongol horse archers. :Cant's lubricated grin icon:

ok, ok... I get it, longbows are the ****...

 

Well, not really. You need to be pretty close to get through plate armour with a longbow, but considering that we probably won't be doing many fights at any kind of huge range, it'd make sense that you could be pretty effective against plate with one.