indeed. only against christians though which is quite funny...

The problem with Skyrim (and particularly most Bethesda developed games) Is that weapon balance really doesn't exist. For example, a dragonbone mace will always, always, always be more powerful than any other one handed weapon on an equal playing field. This is really a sloppy way to approach balancing issues and weapon design during the dev phase, and beth always uses it. There is always a best weapon in the game, in each category of weapons. Fallout New Vegas, developed by obsidian, approaches weapon balance quite differently. In NV, most weapons have a specific niche, and therefore are useful for a good portion of the game. In New Vegas, there is no one gun that i could point out to be the best in every situation, you could argue over 20 of them based on a much deeper stats system than simply damage, like skyrim. For example, on one of my couriers, I used the silenced .22 pistol solidly for about a third of my game. It may deal the lowest base DAM of any pistol, but coupled with a crit-build, and a high sneak, it was invaluable for use in situations where I had to be quiet and precise. There is none of that in skyrim. All of the swords work the same, all of the maces work the same, etc.

Another problem becomes the accessibility of these weapons. For most of the "good" weapons in Vegas, you have to: A. Find or buy the weapon. B. Have a high enough skill to use it effectively. C. Have a high enough strength to use the weapon without massive SPRD and DPS penalty. As the OP (whom most of you decided to dog pile on with opinions you didn't derive yourself, shame) states, The crossbow is extremely easy to get, and it earlier levels it's almost unstoppable.. Along with all the other powerful weapons in skyrim. All it takes is a sufficient smithing skill, and you're ready to go. This makes getting the weapons far too easy, wherein there should be some challenge involved in aquireing a dragonbone weapon. For those of you who say "Don't use smithing" why should I have to handicap my own experience? It's not my fault that the system is so broken between the three crafting skills that the game is no challenge. That, my friends is precious bethsesda's fault for putting in a broken crafting/balance system.

These weapons need to reload much, much, MUCH slower for anyone to even consider using bows again, and they shouldn't be given to fresh-faced adventurers.

I'm sensing a theme in the responses here, and that is of balance.

Listen up. Blizzard makes a thing of balance, and because WoW is a huge game, and they have taken the same approach to Diablo, we are now getting people coming into other games such as Skyrim expecting the same.

Not all games need (or even should) be balanced. It's an irrelevant concept, and ridiculous. An MMO needs to be balanced so that players arent getting an advantage over other players in that game, where there is a pvp environment, or a pve scenario where one player could come out better than another player because of balance.
Blizzard wants to adopt the same approach to Diablo as it has it's real money auction house, which again brings the game out into an actual person versus person scenario again, and therefore might need some balance.

Skyrim isnt WoW.
Skyrim doesnt need to be balanced. It's you that plays your game. No-one else is in your game. If you think something is so obscenely powerful that it's marring your game experience, then dont use it. Simple as that.
Total waste of dev time to expect them to apply infinite tweaks and patches like it's League of Legends or something.

If you don't like the crossbow don't use it, its that simple.

It's overpowered if you made it that way. It's single player. Use a little self control if you don't like how powerful it is. It's not that difficult to balance a character in this game. But for people that want to be godlike the option is there which I honestly enjoy.

Btw my crossbow is barely more powerful than my Dragon bow and my dragon bow shoots faster. I don't see it as overpowered no matter how it's looked at.

I am so, so tired of this argument. Check the 2nd link in my sig to see the great lengths I've gone to, to make master difficulty challenging. I however love crossbows, and would like to use them asap, but how can I possibly gimp myself even more than I did in that video, so I don't trivialize the game? Run around buck naked, and permanently diseased? Oh, and people that want to be overpowered can switch to novice mode (I've presented this argument a billion times and everyone always shuts up, because deep inside they know they want to be overpowered in the highest difficulty so they think they're actually good at the game).

As for the laughable argument that 'it's a singleplayer game, not an mmo'... oh my. Clearly you people must be new to games. I've been gaming for a long, long time, and I can tell you that most old games that weren't balanced, were too hard, instead of too easy (talking singleplayer games). Even in this sad age of newbification, SP games still strive for balance, as much as possible (Dragon Age is very popular, singleplayer only, and I don't see anyone going around one and two-shotting anyone, at any point in the game.). Heaven forbid if any of you attempt playing Baldur's Gate 2.

I'm seeing a trend, especially amongst console players, and it's frankly disgusting me more than a little. I can deal with streamlining, but dumbing the game down so much that it's impossible to lose if you're not brain-damaged... that's when I throw in the towel.

Dont like it=Dont use it=Dont complain about stuff that others like just fine

So if the tutorial had a dagger with 3000 base damage, it would be OK in the game because "if you don't like it, don't use it, so stop complaining cuz I like it"?

Right...

Anyways, I do feel the huge base damage is a bit ridiculous. Granted, I have yet to test it out myself, but on paper it looks like a bad idea. Anyone saying that the low reload speed makes it balanced is most likely wrong: unequiping the weapon will most likely skip your reload animation, just like it did in fallout 3. Meaning, you'll actually shoot faster than a bow.

The problem with Skyrim (and particularly most Bethesda developed games) Is that weapon balance really doesn't exist. For example, a dragonbone mace will always, always, always be more powerful than any other one handed weapon on an equal playing field. This is really a sloppy way to approach balancing issues and weapon design during the dev phase, and beth always uses it. There is always a best weapon in the game, in each category of weapons. Fallout New Vegas, developed by obsidian, approaches weapon balance quite differently. In NV, most weapons have a specific niche, and therefore are useful for a good portion of the game. In New Vegas, there is no one gun that i could point out to be the best in every situation, you could argue over 20 of them based on a much deeper stats system than simply damage, like skyrim. For example, on one of my couriers, I used the silenced .22 pistol solidly for about a third of my game. It may deal the lowest base DAM of any pistol, but coupled with a crit-build, and a high sneak, it was invaluable for use in situations where I had to be quiet and precise. There is none of that in skyrim. All of the swords work the same, all of the maces work the same, etc.

Another problem becomes the accessibility of these weapons. For most of the "good" weapons in Vegas, you have to: A. Find or buy the weapon. B. Have a high enough skill to use it effectively. C. Have a high enough strength to use the weapon without massive SPRD and DPS penalty. As the OP (whom most of you decided to dog pile on with opinions you didn't derive yourself, shame) states, The crossbow is extremely easy to get, and it earlier levels it's almost unstoppable.. Along with all the other powerful weapons in skyrim. All it takes is a sufficient smithing skill, and you're ready to go. This makes getting the weapons far too easy, wherein there should be some challenge involved in aquireing a dragonbone weapon. For those of you who say "Don't use smithing" why should I have to handicap my own experience? It's not my fault that the system is so broken between the three crafting skills that the game is no challenge. That, my friends is precious bethsesda's fault for putting in a broken crafting/balance system.

So if the tutorial had a dagger with 3000 base damage, it would be OK in the game because "if you don't like it, don't use it, so stop complaining cuz I like it"?

Right...

Anyways, I do feel the huge base damage is a bit ridiculous. Granted, I have yet to test it out myself, but on paper it looks like a bad idea. Anyone saying that the low reload speed makes it balanced is most likely wrong: unequiping the weapon will most likely skip your reload animation, just like it did in fallout 3. Meaning, you'll actually shoot faster than a bow.

I am so, so tired of this argument. Check the 2nd link in my sig to see the great lengths I've gone to, to make master difficulty challenging. I however love crossbows, and would like to use them asap, but how can I possibly gimp myself even more than I did in that video, so I don't trivialize the game? Run around buck naked, and permanently diseased? Oh, and people that want to be overpowered can switch to novice mode (I've presented this argument a billion times and everyone always shuts up, because deep inside they know they want to be overpowered in the highest difficulty so they think they're actually good at the game).

As for the laughable argument that 'it's a singleplayer game, not an mmo'... oh my. Clearly you people must be new to games. I've been gaming for a long, long time, and I can tell you that most old games that weren't balanced, were too hard, instead of too easy (talking singleplayer games). Even in this sad age of newbification, SP games still strive for balance, as much as possible (Dragon Age is very popular, singleplayer only, and I don't see anyone going around one and two-shotting anyone, at any point in the game.). Heaven forbid if any of you attempt playing Baldur's Gate 2.

I'm seeing a trend, especially amongst console players, and it's frankly disgusting me more than a little. I can deal with streamlining, but dumbing the game down so much that it's impossible to lose if you're not brain-damaged... that's when I throw in the towel.

All I've got to say is.... Does the game FORCE you to use a crossbow? No. There for you DO NOT need to say that it's OP, even if you do get it at low levels it is still your choice as to weather or not to use said crossbow. If you think it's OP at lower levels then all you have to do is wait until you reach the level you feel is best for using a crossbow. But you need to keep in mind that there's going to be players out there that are going to want that powerful weapon early in their game, just like the Ogham exploit you can choose to do it right at the start of the game or you can wait and only use it as it was intended. No one is twisting your arm to use either crossbows or the Ogham exploit, but to say something needs to be done about a feature that's entirely up to you to use is just silly.

I'm going to lay this out as rigorously as I can so hopefully everyone finally understands.

1. I love crossbows. I'm playing on my neighbor's xbox but I will buy the dlc for the PC, therefore I will have paid for the software just as everyone else. The crossbow is part of said content. I wish to enjoy it, preferably as early as possible, because I want to roleplay a crossbowman (I even have his background story written). Therefore, "DON'T USE IT" is a ridiculous argument. If you bought DG for the vampire lord and it was virtually useless, would you be annoyed and ask for a buff, or would you "just stop using it"?
2. The steel crossbow, at level 10, is ridiculous (I always play on master btw). It also adds a 50% stagger chance bonus which stacks with Power Shot (seriously, what were they thinking?). The rate of fire is only slightly slower on a crossbow than a bow of similar weight, which is ridiculous seeing as heavy bows take forever to draw, and the crossbow is near instant.
3. Because I play on master, I have no recourse to make the crossbow not so egregeously OP. Yet, those who want to feel overpowered always have the option of playing on novice. Ergo, it stands to reason that having a balanced game ensures that no one gets screwed over.

So don't perk it out so much?

Yea, I already avoid all the marksmanship top tier perks, even on my longbow + iron arrows characters. I don't want to go 100% perkless, as gaining perks is part of the game's allure.

I'm currently working on an archery mod so eventually all these problems will be a thing of the past, but it would be nice if the game was even remotely balanced like the vast majority of games out there.

So you take perks which increase the effectiveness of the weapon, and then moan about the resulting effectiveness? Right. Ok.

Ok, on my crossbowman I will make sure to adventure in the nvde, with vampirism, always in the sun, put all my attribute points in magicka but never cast a single spell, avoid every single perk or any other form of character customization. Oh, what a joyous playthrough that will be!

Seriously, you don't think I already put enough effort into making the game challenging as it is? Now you're asking me to take away the only alternative attack archers have (eagle eye), when all a player that wants to feel overpowered has to do is turn down the difficulty knob? Please, get real.