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Archery

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A few ideas for archery. I'm still just a beginner archer so please forgive me if some of these thing are already part of the game. 

 

First: Adjust the UI so that archery parallels melee combat.

- If I have to equip the bow don't make me also activate it.

- Ranged button in the combat window turns on auto shooting.

- Ranged button reveals aimed shots (once skill allows) like melee, selectable with num pad. 

- Focus effects archery

 

Second: Bows mounts and movement. IRL short bows are short because they are easier to use while moving around.

- Mounted archery skill, used whenever shooting while moving. (On foot or mount) 

- Short bows: Can be used on mount while running or on foot while running.

- Medium bows: Can be used on mount, not moving or on foot while running.

- Long bows: Can be used on foot, not moving. 

 

Third: Some other ideas.

- Additional arrow recipe that uses feathers. Increase accuracy and/or damage dealt while taking more damage.

- Stealth SLIGHTLY increases damage. 

- Allow bows to fit into quivers.

- Rare+ arrows never or nearly never break.

- Add leather to bow recipes for handles. 

- A quiver that contains arrows will appear to contain arrows.

- ALL mods either run or charge when shot at.

- Foraging highlights arrows in the area

- String break message on screen

- Better representation at Rifts

 

Edited by bigtree
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Some positive ideas here.  Definitely a few worth considering I'd think,.  Especially equipping auto uses ranged without activating.

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Definitely some solid ideas.

Would be great if rare+ arrows were unbreakable or at least had a much greater resistance to breaking

Archery needs some love overall, honestly

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Being able to improve arrows in bundles based on your fletching skill is something I suggested a long time ago rather than one at a time

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Archery is useless outside of very limited scenarios in PvP. I'd love to see it be more useful in PvE, with animals running away from you if you attack them in melee or something. It doesn't makes sense you can run up to a deer with a shortsword and kill it.

Some QoL changes could also be nice, with arrows returning and such, or just making them easier to find.

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Maybe foraging could be used to help spot arrows (on corpse of otherwise) within a number a tiles based on skill. Add arrow heads, shafts, q1 arrows to the list of things that can be obtained through foraging. 

Edited by bigtree

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On 2/17/2021 at 6:56 AM, bigtree said:

First: Adjust the UI so that archery parallels melee combat.

- If I have to equip the bow don't make me also activate it.

- Ranged button in the combat window turns on auto shooting.

- Ranged button reveals aimed shots (once skill allows) like melee, selectable with num pad. 

- Focus effects archery

+1 for just this alone but I'm liking the other ideas too. And I still want a sound effect when the bowstring breaks.

Edited by Katrat

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Improve on visual indication when bow string breaks. 

 

It's been suggested before that an on screen message could pop up. 

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Archery at Rifts seems to be broken. My most recent Rift I checked my rift points often. I ended with 17. I was told this is a "decent" score. I watched very closely throughout the event. Here is what I determined. 

 

- I saced 10 hearts. 1 Point per heart. 

- I used long sword very little. Lets say 1-2% of the time. However I estimate getting around 5 points from melee combat. 

- That leaves 2 points from archery. I spent most of the time throwing sticks. I killed several mods on my own with just sticks (war sticks). 

 

I'm still a noob archer but my conclusion is the damage from archery is weighted much lower than melee. I'm not sure if this is a bug or by design. I can't imagen why we would discourage archery at rifts when archery is already high maintenance.

 

I love archery in games and RL! It should be a bit overpowered (with draw backs ha) or at least equal. Wurm makes it hard, very hard, and that's ok. But once all that effort is put into the skills it should be rewarded. Fletchers spend many hours making/imping arrows only to loose them, ha. I've consistently lost about half of my arrows at every rift. Arrows take damage every time you shoot them, this makes a lot of sense. Some break, this also makes sense. These setbacks take time to recover from. Melee weapon damage takes a moment or two to repair. 

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11 minutes ago, bigtree said:

Archery at Rifts seems to be broken

you only get points if you're within 4 tiles of the mob when it dies so you won't get points using archery sadly

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2 minutes ago, Oblivionnreaver said:

you only get points if you're within 4 tiles of the mob when it dies so you won't get points using archery sadly

Ah, I see. I figured there was a simple explanation. Thanks! However, lets fix it. There must be a simple way to better include archers and other contributors like healers and buffers. 

In the mean time I'll be working on my short bow. 

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+1 Better representation at Rifts

I have long wanted to participate as an archer. But I just don't get points participating

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Add sinew to butchering for sinew bow strings. They are harder for a ropemakers to make but much better than wemp bow strings (break less often).

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I'd like to see rare+ arrows have a significantly higher chance of an impaling hit, which seriously injures and slows the target.

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5 hours ago, Sheffie said:

I'd like to see rare+ arrows have a significantly higher chance of an impaling hit, which seriously injures and slows the target.

Or hits it in the knee or something  😉

 

Rare arrows (rare anything, really) should be easier to improve.

 

Edited by TheTrickster
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Fletching should be more complex.

 

Arrows should have 3 components;  the shaft, the tip and the flights (maybe even a 4th of cotton string and even a fifth of tar/wax/fixative).   Just as the shaft can be from a variety of materials (okay, all wood, but any wood - and while we are at it why not reeds or metals?  ???)  and the tip can be any metal (also, why not bone or stone?), so the flights should be able to be made from feathers (and they are made from feathers, they aren't just feathers) or from bark, or metal sheet - lighter is better but the more mass the tip has (and also the shaft) the less that matters as long as it isn't actually tail-heavy.

 

There should be two (at least) manufacturing methods for arrows (and indeed for the components) - the first being "freehand", as in everything carved, forged, assembled by hand, and the second being jig/mould /swage based.

 

That is all a bit mish mash.  I will start again. 

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Arrow shafts

  • could be carved as they are now, additionally by putting shafts in a jig.
  • freehand carving would have high variability of ql outcome, including high ql outcomes.  Would be the slower method; making one shaft per action.  Less waste.
  • jig production would use a new tool (the arrow shaft jig - or whatever name they might actually have) but still maybe use a carving knife (or maybe a carving knife goes into making the jig).  Makes multiple arrow shafts per action, of a less variable ql (but without the possibility of top ql possible from hand carved).  More wasted material.
  • a whole other method could be to forge a swage that then mounts to a large anvil (it has a slot for it and everything) to forge arrow shafts of metal.

 

Arrow heads

  • can be forged as per the current method, or made in lots using a pair of moulding swages (pottery or stone).
  • like arrow shafts, freehand forging is slower, more variable ql, higher potential ql, less wastage.
  • moulding would involve putting a glowing lump in the pair of moulds and then using a hammer on it.  Make a dozen or score of tips in one action, all of the same ql, with a reliable ql but without potential of highest ql hand forging could achieve. More material waste (but would rather see the wasted metal just gone, rather than the annoying low ql micro-lumps)
  • could also be carved from bone (goblin skull?) or chiselled from stone shards.

 

Flights

  • hand made with a carving knife on a feather or a piece of birch bark, or forged from a metal sheet.
  • 3 flights to an arrow

 

Assembling arrows

  • Fit the tip to the shaft by heating the tip first, and a bit of tar or waxed cotton string.
  • Fit the flights with (maybe tar/wax and) cotton string.
  • Hand fitting, one item per action (i.e. 3 actions to fit all 3 flights), same ql outcomes as discussed.
  • Fitting on a fletching jig - all the parts in inventory, one action to assemble.

 

Bows

  • Equipping AND activating is just persistent annoyance.  It shouldn't need activating (a weapon in the dominant hand doesn't any other time, as far as I know).
  • Selecting / deselecting ranged in the fight option gui should trigger equipping/unequipping the bow and whatever melee weapons were otherwise equipped.
  • Strung /unstrung should be PLAINLY obvious.  In the graphic AND in the description of the item.  When the string breaks - notify the player.

 

What did I miss?

 

edit:  Oh, the bow should be able to be "equipped" to a back slot for carrying (likewise shields and two handers, with one handers in a hip scabbard).

Edited by TheTrickster
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12 hours ago, TheTrickster said:

hand made with a carving knife on a feather or a piece of birch bark, or forged from a metal sheet.

Metal flights would be fine for crossbows but for bows a more flexible flight would reduce ware on the bows as the flights often brush or scrape the bows. This may also effect the trajectory of the arrow.

 

12 hours ago, TheTrickster said:

Equipping AND activating is just persistent annoyance.  It shouldn't need activating (a weapon in the dominant hand doesn't any other time, as far as I know).

And yes this is very annoying and makes little to no sense.

Edited by Katrat

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The rift issue needs to be addressed, In the old rift setting, archers were extremely useful. Back then, a melee or mounted fighter riding into the crowd of rift mobs triggered the whole crowd (up to a max add value I believe) to pursue the intruder. Irresponsible or disruptive players abused that to pull them onto defenders. Archers allowed more cunning tactics.

 

Archers were extremely helpful to selectively aggro strong mobs like ogres (and the back then really dangerous ogre mages) to finish them one by one or at least few by one. The archer of course benefitted from those kills or at least could easily benefit.

 

The changed rift mechanics made archers widely obsolete. A mob attacked by an archer may or may not attack the rift defenders, and the chances that it dies 4 tiles frim the archer's position are dim. Rift mobs attack in waves, no matter whether shot by an archer or not.

 

What would be needed is a change in rift mechanics. A mob attacked by an archer should attack unconditionally, and move towards the attacker,. The archer then might search cover in a pack of fighters finishing that mob/s so benefitting from her/his initial attack.

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On 1/23/2022 at 8:25 AM, Katrat said:

Metal flights would be fine for crossbows but for bows

(sh, I am trying to sneak up on the topic of crossbows)

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I highly agree with the 4 points on the UI part!

Now it feels cumbersome, confusing the first time and lacking in comparison to the melee options.
I think the proposed changes would make the use of a bow more intuitive and interesting.
On this regard, i also agree with the screen message for the broken string (like so many other things do) and highlighting of arrows via foraging.


The second part, about movement while shooting i'm unsure, because i'm not sure how it can be factored. e.g. moving while timer runs, but standing when it finishes.
In either way, it would have to have a decent penalty in accuracy, just to mention the obvious. And i'm not sure if new skill would be necessary, or if it could be handle via skill requirements in respective bow-skill and additional increase of difficulty per bow-type. So firing a longbow from a mount might be near to impossible to decently execute, but a master archer and rider might be able to pull off a half decent shot.
But i think being able to move while shooting, at least with the shortbow, could give archery more validity, especially in PvE, and thus improve the archery experience.

I don't agree with the additional leather - it's no necessity for bows, a lot of bows don't even have it, and if, often for comfort or looks. And it would add another, quite difficult hurdle to bow crafting, especially for new players, as leather isn't so easy to come by.
I also feel, an bow in the quiver seems odd, and i'm not sure what it would improve. But, on that occasion i would like to mention an overall .."equip state"(?) for weapons in general. So that one has it's sword and shield not in the hand all the time, but sheated and on the back (mby). Then you should toggle fight mode, which could lead to other mechanics.

For example, the proposed increase in stealth damage is a way to factor the awareness state of an opponent. So if someone is unaware of the threat of an arrow flying to his head, he probalby will not do much to prevent the dmg. Speaking of the state, or fight mode (could be balanced with e.g. slight movement decrease), that would represent the arrow of surprise (from stealth-mode or not). So i would rather love! to see this fight mode awareness!

 

Not much to say for the other points, but the mob behaviour, which is a general AI topic and not only related to archery.

I most highly agree on the need to improve AI in general to an interesting and immersive level.

Edited by dada
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