The weapon is in a much better place than before especially since now the “archer fantasy” is achieved . But After playing with the bow for a while and doing my own testing, I’ve come to the conclusion that there’s still a lot to be desired to properly integrate this weapon into the game.
In short: In my opinion the bows should do less damage based on the distance and should have more interesting/balanced runes
Balance & Feel
Bows are definitely among the strongest weapons in the game right now, and if used alone without a primary weapon, this is not a problem in vacuum but there are some rough edges:
How enemies interact with the range
Enemies sight distance is Often less than the bow’s range, some enemies have no ranged combat responses, no dashes, no ranged attacks, no shields, sometimes even when they have them they don’t use them. The most problematic thing is that: Almost all enemies can be easily eliminated by staying in a place they can’t reach or attacking them with a charged attack before they can see you.
The targeting system
When attacking with the bow you tend to move away from the enemies, this makes The targeting system think you want to change target or makes you lose the target completely
Sometimes arrows are missing in melee range
Charging the bow to max should be rewarded but there is too big a damage difference between charging to max damage or charging to 80%-99%
I find it counterintuitive that a light weapon like the bow has stamina costs and damage similar to a heavy weapon, for now it’s fine but when the heavy bow is introduced I think it’s time to reduce the stamina costs, damage and wind up times to get closer to a fast weapon
My solution is to make the arrows (which consume stamina and not the ones that consume focus) do less damage based on the distance for example 100% damage at the range where the uncharged arrows drop 80% reaches 150% of that distance, then drop drastically to 15% once they go beyond the range of the enemies’ sight or when enemies can’t reach you.
A more Drastic Solution is that the enemies even if they are hit by an arrow if they can’t reach you or you are too far away they are “missed”
Runes
The bows do not have enough runes and some the runes are no longer suitable for the new bows. All runes do little damage compared to normal arrows and it is always better to use the focus for melee weapon’s Runes instead of the bow’s Runes.
for this point I have some specific suggestions: Multi Shot: Similarly to Frost Stream holding down one consumes focus over time instead of a single use of 100 focus, (damage should be similar in dps to normal bow or more) Cone shot: (this rune has been changed and now the arrows actually go in a cone instead of all hitting one target, but the damage is very low and completely useless.)
the arrows should do the damage of a 75% charged arrow and should go through enemies but enemies hit by multiple arrows do not take any more damage Fire/Ice/Lightning/Pestilent Arrow: become Fire/Ice/Lightning/Pestilent variations of Multi Shot (if you want to know just one arrow just click the rune once instead of holding it down) Knockout Shot: a bit More damage or a bit less cost Evasive Shot: Make it less rare or Make it extractable
New Rune “Explosive Shot”: 150 Focus, Similar to Eruption but raged and less damging, you Jump and shoot an arrow that explodes in an area in front of you New Rune “Piercing Shot”: 50 Focus, shoots a strong arrow that goes through enemies (should do the damage of a 75% charged arrow)
Other details
Since “Short bow” and “Yew Longbow” are practically the same weapon “Yew Longbow” could scale with Dex/Str (at least as an intermediate change before the “Job System”)
What do you think?
I like your Ideas
I like Some of your Ideas (pls comment)
I don’t share your Ideas (pls comment)
I don’t share your Ideas but I would like some changes for the bow (pls comment)
The basic Arrows already have an arc to them. If the enemy is too far away, the arrow falls short. The longer you charge the shot, the farther the distance the arc forms to. At max charge, the shot is powerful enough to fly straight and cover long distances.
Agreed. The 100-Focus runes are a bit under-powered compared to just a basic charged shot. Or even a Charged shot from the 15-focus arrows. The damage to Focus ratio on them needs tweaking. Or Their cost needs adjusting, like to 50-75 Focus.
I know, they “miss” in the sense that they do 0 damage and you gain no focus ONLY IF enemies can’t reach you or if you’re very far away and they don’t see you.
This is more of a general problem with the camera distance and automatic movements. Pretty difficult to fix in my opinion. We have the same problem on the other side with ennemies already shooting at you as they are outside of your screen. First step would be to give the player the option to have a fixed camera distance with no automatic Zoom in / Zoom out.
Are you talking about the huge “push back” from releasing the rope after every shot ? I agree. This one doesn’t even make sense in the first place.
As you already know I do not like this charging system because this is not how a bow works IRL.
How about this system : You always shoot with the same range / damage 0,5 sec after you press the shoot button. However ! If you hold the shoot button for 3 sec, you get a 100% headshot on the target which is just a critical hit let’s say.
That’s it for now. As you said, let’s wait for the new bow weapons as well as the new crossbow !
No, I’m referring to “kiting”: the fact that when you have the advantage of distance usually you walk in the opposite direction to the enemies While you aim at them to get away from them as they approach, sometimes when you do that, the automatic targeting gets fucked up, and decides to change target or you lose the target completely and point the bow in the direction you are walking instead of the enemies.
The recoil is fine for me even if it doesn’t make sense from a realism point of view, every now and then with that little backwards dash I managed to use it to dodge an attack, even though it made me fall off a platform every now and then.
Paradoxically the wand has no recoil despite the gun-style animation xD
First of all, Wow, some people, if they are not capable of using a bow safely, they should not own one (Assuming it was a mistake).
Adding realistic details is nice and makes Games more immersive, but it doesn’t take priority over gameplay.
My suggestions are a way to prevent the player from straying from the action, and kill enemies without interacting with them, because if such a thing is possible, the best way to use the bow becomes this. This is a problem because games are based on interaction, and the lack of direction makes them boring. If the most effective way to use the bow is to charge the shot from a place where enemies can’t even reach you, that will eventually become the strategy that the player uses, because it is the most efficient thing and it comes naturally to do so, and at the beginning the player feels strong (due to the fantasy of power) but then due to the lack of interaction, he will start to find bows boring and to use them very little until he no longer uses them and changes build. This is a natural process that occurs based on the given conditions, even if a player is aware of this process it is difficult to avoid it.
The difference is that it’s more interactive. You don’t have to be seen or heard by enemies who are moving, and they often come in groups. You have to stay out of everyone’s sight, otherwise they’ll all turn toward you. Then, after you kill the first one, everyone notices, and you find yourself surrounded by enemies, This is the obviously if it is done well and the enemies are placed in interesting ways. Sekiro uses these mechanics very well, and it’s fun to interact with stealth, NRFTW doesn’t always do it very well.
The fact that with the Bow you only have to control whether the enemy can reach you or not, and often you don’t even have to stay on an isolated platform, as long as you stay far enough away and the enemy isn’t too fast, you charge the first shot and the enemy gets stunned, you charge the second and he’s dead and you just have to press a button twice while remaining still, it’s not very interactive, and eventually it becomes boring and you change weapon.
All stealth mechanics have a rinse and repeat aspect. Stealth, kill, stealth kill. It’s the same thing.
The only problem bows have is that stamina management doesn’t apply to them which takes away your ability to efficiently build for close up encounters, although I have seen builds that do overcome this aspect as well. Other than that, they actually did a great job with the rework from someone who’s played with bows for over a 100 hours now.
Not every play style has to suit every player’s expectation. Sometimes you should take the tools available to you and make it work.
That’s true, but I think you’re missing the point.
I suggested reducing damage if the enemy is too far away or can’t reach you because it leads to degenerate gameplay.
As I said here:
I’m not saying to change the bow to a completely different weapon with a different gameplay style.
It’s not the same, and it’s easy to verify empirically.
The first thing is that with the bow you’re not hidden; you’re just far away. So we’re not talking about stealth, but simply about a range advantage, and therefore they are two different mechanics, even if in both cases you attack first. Enemies don’t notice you because they weren’t designed to react at that distance (also because if they did, it would break the game), not because you’re stealthy.
The difference in interactivity is present because you have to think about different things: in the first case, you have to think about being stealthy (and pay attention to the behavior of enemies), and in the second, you just have to stay safe (find a place to camp).
The risk is different: if you miss a stealthy attack, the enemy can punish you, and there are several ways to miss a stealthy attack (making noise, being seen, or misjudging your timing).
While with the bow if you make a mistake there is no risk since you can always move away before the enemies can punish you.
And what difference does that make? You’ll take 2 shots to kill the enemy instead of 1.
Being hidden in plain sight, or being hidden because of line of sight or range of sight, the effect is practically the same. You just perceive one to be more interactive than the other because it serves your argument not because they are functionally that different. This is a difference of degree, not of kind and one that is miniscule at best. There are plenty of runes that have ranges that outrange enemy engagement domain, ie Fireblast.
No, if you read carefully my post it is clearly explained that damage falls dramatically if the enemy is so small that it cannot interact with you:
You literally have to think about different things because you are in a different situation! I also explained it:
These are not things I invented, they are based on experience, I used the bows, I liked them but I found some flaws.
I am aware of this and wanted to include it in the post, but then I realized that since the player still has to get the focus by fighting, it would be unfair to minimize the damage of an act that consumes this “limited” resource.
If I answer you it is not to make you angry, but to have a discussion, I can understand that we have different views, this does not mean that I cannot enrich my opinions with your posts and vice versa.
