Crossbow Imbalance... : V - Skyrim

» Sat Nov 17, 2012 10:41 am

I look forward to the mod that makes Orcish, Ebony and so on crossbows and puts them into normal loot lists, enemies and so on, and nerfs the steel and dwarven ones to make the higher ones better.

» Sat Nov 17, 2012 11:36 am

several factors could be added in to balance them out.

1: Crossbows benfit less fro mskill progression then bows IE bow's get bigger boost to damage via skill. crossbows stay more constent. Perhaps only gaining boost on the classic "25 point" gamesas thresholds.

2: While packing much more punch then bows of "equal" material rating are noticeable slower (bow's shoot like 2-3 arrows) for every one from a crossbow.

this way crossbows would kill enemies that could take say 1 arrow with only a little health left in one shot instead of having to load up, aim and fire off another arrow. So in the long run bow's would be "more upgradeable" then Crossbows with skill but suffer from weaker damage per bolt. Crossbow's disadvantage is skill effect them less, and they reload slowly and perhaps even suffer from reload interruption in melee as well as slow speed while reloading.

The first would be a very realistic and balance-friendly tweak.

If Crossbows, for example, had a fixed damage amount of 40-50 damage (60-70 for the dwemer version), then anyone not perking archery now has a reason to use it. For those that do perk archery, then bows come out on top at some point. This would reflect the idea that bows are objectively superior, but require far more training to master.
Some other realistic tweaks they could do might involve bows simply having more accuracy at longer ranges (if they don't already?) and simply making the reload speed gap a bit more noticeable.

» Sat Nov 17, 2012 9:25 am

Of course, if I really want to not be overpowered I do just avoid Dawnguard. But the sad fact is that even though crossbows are supposed to pack a heavier punch than bows, why does a Dwarven-quality crossbow beat a dragonbone bow? Imagine that the dragonborn was smart enough to put 2 and 2 together and made a dragonbone crossbow, it would probably one hit kill everything.

umm.. just me... but because the infernal dwemer contraption of doom (what i named my legendary fire+firey souls enhanced dwarven crossbow) ignores a signifigant chunk of the targets armor. wich ofcourse leads to a more devastating impact. magic exploding bolts are fun too! That said my archer one shots most things with a bound bow already so crossbows are really just a fun new toy for me to play with.

» Sat Nov 17, 2012 12:48 pm

Every single crossbow should have higher damage and longer range than its bow equivalent. Crossbows do. The only advantage a bow has over a crossbow is faster loosing of projectiles. That's it. It's inferior in every single other way.

And one sword hit to the head should kill my player character but this isn't a documentary.

Realistic or not the way crossbows have been put into the game kills all reason to use a longbow and makes you seriously overpowered if you start Dawnguard at level 10, which the game encourages via orc messenger. They should be nerfed in a patch, game balance matters.

» Sat Nov 17, 2012 5:58 am

And one sword hit to the head should kill my player character but this isn't a documentary.

Realistic or not the way crossbows have been put into the game kills all reason to use a longbow and makes you seriously overpowered if you start Dawnguard at level 10, which the game encourages via orc messenger. They should be nerfed in a patch, game balance matters.

People actualy use longbows in skyrim? I mean, sure the IRL eglish longbow was a peice of pure baddassery that put a crossbow to shame. But in Skyrim I'll happly toss both the crappy long bow and hunting bow into the perverbial fire infavor of the first anchient nord bow i can get my hands on.

» Sat Nov 17, 2012 7:19 am

People actualy use longbows in skyrim? I mean, sure the IRL eglish longbow was a peice of pure baddassery that put a crossbow to shame. But in Skyrim I'll happly toss both the crappy long bow and hunting bow into the perverbial fire infavor of the first anchient nord bow i can get my hands on.

I meant longbow as in class, not as in that specific item.