Yeah it is, the whole entire point of sneak attacks with all perks is to kill enemies instantly, otherwise they wouldnt give you the iNSANE 15 times multiplier for daggers.

You end up schooling everything in an RPG eventually, but not as fast as you can with Skyrim. I used that " God " crossbow as an example that the only way to make them OP is to " super " smith so they become powerful and if you smith normally you end up with the results in my post earlier. You have no grounds to stand on with this " crossbows are OP " argument, because they are not OP, crossbows are supposed to be stronger then bows but they are not as bad as you and some others would lead people to believe.
And I don't appreciate the attitude, so why not check that before we continue this CONVERSATION !!!!

If you're playing on master there is no way with an un upgraded crossbow and a low level character you'll be one shotting anything.
Im playing on expert with archery at 70, a circlet that gives an extra 20% and a ring that gives an extra 15% with an enchanted dwarven bow and exploding bolts and I still dont one shot everything.
Try again.

When did I ever say you could one-shot with the crossbow at early levels? The issue is that it allows me to kill melee NPCs before they even reach me, which is really boring, and that's without sneak attacks.


Yea I was feeling embattled and went a bit too far. Sorry.

Nope, the crossbow never replaced the traditional bow in warfare. The rapid fire nature of the bow compared to the crossbow kept them in battle until guns became the dominate force on the battlefield. If Skyrim was realisitc in the reload time of crossbows NO one would use them, the rate of fire was twice a minute on a medieval crossbow. The regular bow could be fired at five times that rate but it required good upper body strength and years of training the crossbow didn't. The crossbow first appeared in roman armies around the 4th or 5th century BC. But it was in the medevial era it developed its fearsome plate armor piercing capabilities. They were banned because a peasent could be handed a crossbow given a five minute lession and then he could kill an armored knight with twenty years experience. Then in the 1400's early firearms slowly replaced both the crossbow and the traditional bow in european armies. But the answer was really economics. The crossbow existed alongside the traditional bow for over a thousand years. But it was the economics of firearms that saw them both bows disappear from the battlefield.

You can do that with regular bows whats your point?

He be trollin, thats about it. lol

Not on master you can't, unless the target is 200 miles away. Maybe you're thinking of rabbits and foxes.

Well actually Dragonbone bows are equal in damage to the dwarven crossbow and with dragonbone arrows they are significantly more powerful then the crossbow even with dwarven bolts.

Oh yeah you can, where are you getting the idea a dwarven crossbow with dwarven bolts can kill things faster then a daedric longbow with daedric bolts.

I really love it when people come around talking like they are authorities and know best about how to handle balance in games.

I still use a bow. How does that fit in to your "for anyone to even consider using bows again" statement? Also, my characters don't usually get above level 35. With my new character and the Dawnguard DLC, I didn't get a crossbow until I was level 10, when the quest started for me - he was one third of the way through his career... not exactly "fresh-faced" in my book.

Of course, I could probably just sum it up like Drake did:

You can't acquire daedric bows at level 10... This is the whole issue I have with the steel crossbow. You get a much too powerful weapon much too soon. So if you love crossbows and want to use one as early as possible (ie. enjoy something you paid for, just like everyone else), you're SOL.

The reload should definately be longer.

I agree that crossbows are very powerful, but VL form is very powerful as well, and the Dawnguard side would be disproportionately weak if it weren't given something special. The assumption was that players who have owned Skryrim for six months would have exhausted the previous gameplay and be ready for some unbalanced toys. I think we can debate whether there's a lot of long-term appeal in an "I win" weapon, but I don't think that you can really deny that it's fun to fool about with.

crossbows are meant to be that powerful, you sacrifice reload speed and range for the power. whats the problem here? you could just refuse to upgrade your bow and not put points into archery if you want weak crossbows at the start of the game

So, it seems like this thread is here for you to SOLELY argue with everyone, so I'll just pop in and vanish and say the same things that have been said to you, countless times, and you probably won't listen: Don't like it, don't use it. Think you get it too early in the game, wait and use it at later levels. There is nothing here to fix, the crossbow is brought in for the Dawnguard quest which Bethesda already states is meant for HIGH LEVEL characters. If you decide to rush into at level 10, that is your choice, and they shouldn't have to fix anything because you want to complain that it comes too early. As far as Roleplaying goes, as some one who has roleplayed textually for years, without the aid of a game, saying that you can't roleplay around it is absolutely ludicrous. It's about your imagination, you want a longer load time? Wait longer to fire your next bolt and ROLEPLAY that there is a long reload time. I find nothing wrong with the crossbow, at to be honest, for me, the bow just seems to work better in most situations.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EL8e2ujXe8g

It should be longer and being attacked while loading should stop the loading process. The second part is the most important. If you are a good archer you can imagine dodging and weaving then quickly nocking an arrow and firing at an enemy at close range. It would be VERY difficult but you can imagine it being done. This is impossible for a crossbow.

In fact the type of crossbow pictured in the game would be VERY weak. If it can be so easily cocked with one hand while holding it then it must have a pitiful draw weight. Any decent crossbow will need to be readied by standing on it or with a hand crank. Both of which require MUCH more time and cannot be done in combat.

Actually a crossbow should probably be a bit MORE powerful but instead be unable to be reloaded while enemies are nearby, same as fast travelling.

Just a couple of points.

The crossbow was banned in RL because it gave the common man the ability to kill his betters and armies kept using them regardless of the ban.It would be like banning night vision or drones today because someone didn't like the results.

In the game,being about level 25,i can one hit kill a Vampire Fledgling in or out of sneak with an ordinary steel bolt.Other Vampires require multiple hits.This with about 4 points put into Bows.2 for damage,1 for zoom,and 1 for stagger.You get 2 or 3 together and you have a fight.

With the crossow seeming to be the best weapon against them,a lot of times you find yourself in melee,and i think it's pretty well balanced.

Crossbows, should be slower..i agree it is overpowered. Sure if you don't like it dont use it but..its the thought that remains while you play, that there is a much more powerfull item. I Pay 20 dollars for dlc, for it to be balanced, and if it somewhat feels off, then it should be looked into.

I have all the archery perks that are really relevant, and am at 100 archery, and have enchanted gear for archery & one handed, play at Master level, and I can tell you - unless I am sneaking, one-shotting enemies just ain't happenin'... Lower lever nods, yeah, but nothing that can be expected to be a tough fight goes in one shot... And... I even improved the crossbows as well.

I still prefer my bows overall. They too are buffed up and enchanted, and are more powerful actually.

The crossbows are 'cool' I guess, and may help with the armor penetration, but OP - honestly not. I hope this thread is ripe to be closed. It's been beaten to death, and IMHO, the majority of posters know how to balance their game, this is really going nowhere.

Oh.... If they make them slower they would be useless...... I use them mostly close in, and if they were slower, I'd be in a lot more trouble... Hey - I'd just use my bow!!!!

what's this, someone who actually speaks sense!? Blasphemy.

Yeah unlike bows its doesn't 'fire up' at the start and has quicker drop off past that. Saying it's easily compensated is true if your sitting around and taking aim from stealth but doing that on a moving target at good distance is a bigger pain in the ass then a bow is. On top of that with both weapons your gonna take a least at little bit of time to take aim. The xbow has a delay as it brings it up before you can fire (about half a second?) but beyond that your still going to probably hold it a bit longer to lead out on a target unless they're literally running directly at you. Add to that once you fire your stuck having to reload it. Can't really do much while its reloading, if you lack the ranger perk that part slows you down a lot (as does 'aiming') so your ultimately slower, more often, with an xbow.

I dunno, you can get them 'earlier' which makes em, at least early on, more worth it then a bow for straight damage output but I still found my elven bow/arrow (or glass when i upgraded) preferable in most fights. I also kinda get the feeling a full draw on a bow is more dmg then what you see listed. Sometimes they just seems to do a hell of a lot more dmg then listed (and I aint counting sneak/crits). Xbows more consistent in that regard i guess, it is what it is 100% of the time.

Frankly I don't think there unbalanced, maybe better at close range sneak attack but that's about it. And, frankly, a dagger still stomps the crap outa everything else when setup right for 'close range sneaking'.

Something I have found is that if you have a good bow and a good archery skill the ability to shoot arrows faster makes the bow a more versitile and deadly weapon.
The crossbow is stronge per shot, have a higher default chance of staggering and the better ones ignore quite a bit of armor. However it is very slow compared to the regular bow.
The bow is faster, but is not as powerful.

Sees like a likely division to me.

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.