power draw and crossbows

The Mettenheim Arbalest fills that niche and you can obtain it after you meet certain requirements. If you want to have a look at its stats, download Morgh´s Editor and look at the items.

has anyone got a list of any unique xbows in 3.6? and how to obtain them... havent seen much info on this in the forums.

Bows should get more love (as they do) because they are way cooler than crossbows.

I must admit though that I think the Noldor bows should be much harder to come by and that they should exclusively be used by the Noldors.  Rogue Knights shouldn't have them, and how on earth did Seer disciples come by them?

The Strange Rune Bow should also be harder to come by, basically only by spending a gem at the mines.  This would make the basic bows more actual (as in part of reality) for much longer in the game.  When I first started playing PoP I was very impressed when I saw that longbows couldn't be used on horseback.  I felt that was a balancing touch, and immediately wondered why the makers of the original game didn't do the same.  Then I learned about the Noldor and the rune bow and a part of me was actually a little disappointed.

Well I immediately regret leveling up power draw on julia then.  Guess I better make her an archer now :/

i found the list for weapons on the pop wiki and i can see this:

Mettenheim Arbalest 100p 90 45 89 21 606 itm_arbalest

how is this obtained in the game?

Mettenheim_Heavy_Crossbow is the only unit that is equiped with this item, and the item itself is not marked as merchandise. So I guess you can loot it off  Mettenheim heavy crossbowmen, not sure though.

ms_ts_2007 said:

Mettenheim_Heavy_Crossbow is the only unit that is equiped with this item, and the item itself is not marked as merchandise. So I guess you can loot it off  Mettenheim heavy crossbowmen, not sure though.

Click to expand...

Horse archery is always going to be the strongest combat build for the player because they aren't limited by the AI. Having a fast horse is more important in this than your choice of weapon. The bow just happens to be the safest way to put out damage, but the ability to stay alive and move around the battlefield freely is what puts you above the AI troops.

I would rather see a nerf to bows rather than a buff to crossbows. Hell, instead of putting in a magical crossbow how about taking away the magical bows? Despite PD being what it is the ranged weaponry in PoP feels well balanced until you get into the "special" bows. I'd make the Noldor bow harder to get(for example, you can only loot it or get it from Elacrai) and remove the free rune bow(it always seemed odd that you get the strongest of the strange rune weapons for free). You could even remove the rune bows entirely, but that might not be necessary as the rune weapons are kind of a "cheat" anyway, being only for the PC and not affecting the game balance on a larger scale.

So now for the early-mid game you'd have at best the short composite bow. You still get the advantage of mobility, survivability and a safe way to put out damage, but you're not oneshotting dudes anymore. This puts more emphasis on player skill as headshots would be a lot more important. Later in the game you would have the Noldor bow, giving you a fighting chance against top tier units, but not letting you oneshot everything below them unless you're a headshot savant. You could still say "**** it, I'm going easy mode" and pick up a rune bow, but at least you'd have to spend the same about of gems on it as anything else.

Well, the Devs don't have to take away something so you can't use it - if you find it too strong, just stick to regular bows. Problem solved. You don't have to use better bows just because they're there.

Naasir said:

Well, the Devs don't have to take away something so you can't use it - if you find it too strong, just stick to regular bows. Problem solved. You don't have to use better bows just because they're there.

Click to expand...

You ever get the strange rune bow? A frickin' god appears to you and goes "hey dude shoot some barbarians in the face with this thing." You try not using it. Seriously though, I actually don't use the rune weapons as they make the game a bit too easy.

I wasn't seriously suggesting to remove the rune weapons, merely pointing out that the imbalance between bows and crossbows largely disappears when you take them out of the equation. Throwing in some 500dmg sniper crossbow that goes through castle walls feels like a poor way to solve it. Although if the developers go that route, they should also put in some runed javelins with infinite ammo(returns to your hand after you put it through some poor peasant).

But Duskfall looks sooooo kewl.

Anth said:

...Throwing in some 500dmg sniper crossbow that goes through castle walls feels like a poor way to solve it. Although if the developers go that route, they should also put in some runed javelins with infinite ammo(returns to your hand after you put it through some poor peasant).

Click to expand...

You forgot to mention splithead heat-seeking bolts with poison gas in case you miss.
And yeah, crossbows rule. I would never sacrifice hitting power and ability to hold aim as a foot soloder. And i could realy derail any knight eiter by killing him or by killing the horse. You just snipe few of them and then take out a weapon you like to do the cleaning. Again in seiges crossbows rock as you can run while aiming as long as you wish, and hit right through the sheilds. As well if you carry a sheild on your back you become a turtle every time you recharge - means defenders aren't able to hit you. Just bring a big sheild with you.

Still i do think that crossbows need a little boost to accuracy or reload times, since as far as i get it WP doesn't affect CB's much.

Marleyvich said:

Anth said:

...Throwing in some 500dmg sniper crossbow that goes through castle walls feels like a poor way to solve it. Although if the developers go that route, they should also put in some runed javelins with infinite ammo(returns to your hand after you put it through some poor peasant).

Click to expand...

You forgot to mention splithead heat-seeking bolts with poison gas in case you miss.
And yeah, crossbows rule. I would never sacrifice hitting power and ability to hold aim as a foot soloder. And i could realy derail any knight eiter by killing him or by killing the horse. You just snipe few of them and then take out a weapon you like to do the cleaning. Again in seiges crossbows rock as you can run while aiming as long as you wish, and hit right through the sheilds. As well if you carry a sheild on your back you become a turtle every time you recharge - means defenders aren't able to hit you. Just bring a big sheild with you.

Still i do think that crossbows need a little boost to accuracy or reload times, since as far as i get it WP doesn't affect CB's much.

Click to expand...

Try a masterwork Maiden crossbow with 500 WPF oo my the reload speed and damage. one shots anything with a headshot during sieges and reloads as fast as a bow almost and i dont have to spend 10 points in power draw ;D

Not everyone is Detritus the Troll.

Mb power draw should give a little bost too crosbows reload time.

noosers said:

Not everyone is Detritus the Troll.

Click to expand...

We do have static models for siege crossbows in some scenes, don't we? Know I've seen such a thing somewhere.

MB Power draw should give nothing but a little accuracy and weapon speed bonus to bows. The greatest failure of Taleworlds ever was not to nerf down accuracy of bows and to add that dreaded damage bonus to powerdraw.

That´s totally screwed and against the elemental laws of physics. No matter how fast you draw a bow or crossbow the energy stored in it´s arms is always the same.

BUT the stronger you are, the faster you can draw a bow and the longer you can sustain to fire it before you start to feel exhaustion. If it wasn´t for that damned damage bonus everything was fine and well.

@Pode:

Well, da Piecemaker is one of the more forward jokes of Pratchett. And perfect for a rumor.

I always assumed that higher power draw just allowed you to draw the bow a little further, storing more energy there than a weaker archer would be able to. Granted, I know almost nothing of Archery, so, this is probably just bul****.

Yeah, there's a difference between drawing a bow enough to fire it effectively and drawing it as far as it can physically withstand. There's also a limit to the travel of the human arm even for bows so flexible it doesn't take all your strength to draw them that far. That's what TW was trying to model with PD. It takes a certain amount of strength to effectively draw the bow (base PD req). Stiffer, stronger bows require more strength for that base level of effectiveness. Drawing beyond that increases how much energy (damage) is stored in the bow, but only to the point the bow breaks or you run out of arm travel (PD+4 limit). Thrown weapons don't have this limitation, the stronger you are and more skilled in throwing, the more damage you do, full stop. That's why PD gives a higher bonus than PT. Crossbows it's all done in the mechanism, so no STR related bonus. Practice determines how fast you can operate the mechanism, that's all.
So IMO the basic mechanisms are correct and balanced vs each other as far as damage goes. Crossbows end up weak due to incorrectly low projectile speed and accuracy, where bows are FAR too accurate. Headshotting someone from across the map just shouldn't be possible without a top end crossbow in the hands of an experienced crossbowman.

Well, projectile speed wasn´t part of the consideration when the big item balancing was done as noone really knew how it affected damage output.

If one knew how it was affecting the damage calculation one could mend the inappropiate damage scaling - which is the big problem regarding bows vs crossbows.

But I reckon it speaks in favour of PoP´s item balancing if people object about such things as that´s pretty much down to fine tuning.

On the other hand, people usually compare exceptional weapons (Runed and Noldor Bows) to bulkware items like the Siege Crossbow. So one would have to consider you´re comparing two different classes of weapons - a reward for dedicated archers and a little motivation to dally along getting Qualis Gems.