Crossbows overpowered?

[Hinotori]

First of all, I searched "crossbow overpowered" and even just "crossbow." I read 6 topics that didn't really answer my question, so if it has been answered, feel free to point it out. Anyways...

Sweet zombie on a bicycle, I just discovered the crossbow. I've been playing for hours and hours and I never tried one once; I've always found the longbow to be a more romantic weapon, so I trained that almost exclusively. For comparison, my level 8 character has a proficiency of roughly 150 for the bow and, while he does well, he gets mobbed from time to time. While messing around, I had a level 2 character with a crossbow skill of 19 and a 70 denar piece of junk light crossbow go out and suddenly destroy a black khergit horde on horseback single-handedly. What the crap?!

In the topics I read, people seemed to be stating that a major disadvantage of the crossbow was that it couldn't be reloaded on horseback. I didn't discover that to be the case. Was it only because I was using a light crossbow? If crossbows can indeed be used and reloaded on horseback, then it would seem to me pointless to use normal bows. After all, crossbows are much more accurate, powerful, and simple to use. The reload time is a drag, but if you're going to be an archer of any distinction, you're probably going to be on horseback on a fast horse, because if you get cornered, it doesn't matter what bow you use, you can kiss your ass goodbye (and I don't mean the donkey).

Can anyone shed some light on this?

 

[Cataphract]

While messing around, I had a level 2 character with a crossbow skill of 19 and a 70 denar piece of junk light crossbow go out and suddenly destroy a black khergit horde on horseback single-handedly. What the crap?!

Firstly, sorry for quoting only a part of your message, im only doing it to clarify stuff. The crossbow was known as a weapon of ease of use, many knights in the medieval times considered it as a weapon for cowards, as almost any man could use one without training as training archers took a long time and was costly. But what ive understood, English longbowmen were superior to crossbowmen for quite a long time, probably because of the bows being more proper for long distance shooting, dunno really. Crossbows are after all a newer weapon than a bow and its no surprise its better in its way, sure its no handgun but its usable by inexperienced people.

 

[Virsita]

Not only this, but some crossbows wires were put so tightly on that they fired a very hard and quick bolt.  This meant that it would also make it go through flesh easier, especially if it wasn't that well armoured.

Notice how reloading the crossbow is slow too, this is because another arrow has to be put in and the wire set back in place to be fired again.

Also, if you look at the damage stats at the store when your buying one, they can sometimes range to over 40.

Its indeed quite powerful.

 

[Hinotori]

The crossbow was known as a weapon of ease of use, many knights in the medieval times considered it as a weapon for cowards, as almost any man could use one without training as training archers took a long time and was costly. But what ive understood, English longbowmen were superior to crossbowmen for quite a long time, probably because of the bows being more proper for long distance shooting, dunno really. Crossbows are after all a newer weapon than a bow and its no surprise its better in its way, sure its no handgun but its usable by inexperienced people.

Thanks for the reply. I am aware of the history surrounding both the longbow and crossbow that you outlined, but I don't think it's applicable here. Yes, crossbows could be used by inexperienced people, but that still doesn't really make sense out of my being able to take out a whole relatively elite bandit raiding party by myself. On a side note, you're right about the longbow and the reason it was considered superior. The problem is that the conditions under which the longbows were superior (full scale military battle with hundreds of troops over large distances) are very different than the scale in M&B. Distance is not that much of an issue as far as I've seen in the game.

I suppose I don't mind the difference that much. I recognize the crossbow's strong points; I was just very surprised, and I was curious what the deal was with the "no-reloading-on-horseback" thing that I read about but didn't see.

 

[thesneakster]

You can reload hunting and light cross boes, but not anything better

 

[Ilex]

The AI is not clever enought to cope with certain situations effectively enough. Mounted archers/crossbow men being one.

 

[Deus Ex]

First of all, I searched "crossbow overpowered" and even just "crossbow." I read 6 topics that didn't really answer my question, so if it has been answered, feel free to point it out. Anyways...

Sweet zombie on a bicycle, I just discovered the crossbow. I've been playing for hours and hours and I never tried one once; I've always found the longbow to be a more romantic weapon, so I trained that almost exclusively. For comparison, my level 8 character has a proficiency of roughly 150 for the bow and, while he does well, he gets mobbed from time to time. While messing around, I had a level 2 character with a crossbow skill of 19 and a 70 denar piece of junk light crossbow go out and suddenly destroy a black khergit horde on horseback single-handedly. What the crap?!

In the topics I read, people seemed to be stating that a major disadvantage of the crossbow was that it couldn't be reloaded on horseback. I didn't discover that to be the case. Was it only because I was using a light crossbow? If crossbows can indeed be used and reloaded on horseback, then it would seem to me pointless to use normal bows. After all, crossbows are much more accurate, powerful, and simple to use. The reload time is a drag, but if you're going to be an archer of any distinction, you're probably going to be on horseback on a fast horse, because if you get cornered, it doesn't matter what bow you use, you can kiss your ass goodbye (and I don't mean the donkey).

Can anyone shed some light on this?

I think you might have a very good point there - however not WRT crossbows in general, but rather for light and hunting crossbows.  The added ability of being able to re-load those on horseback does indeed make them MUCH more powerful than other crossbows in the sense they do not have the limitation other crossbows have, of not being very useful on a horse. 

There may be a very good case that could be made for reducing the damage from horseback or some other way of "balancing" the use of those two from horseback. 

One idea might be to make it so you can reload from horseback, but the horse must be stopped completely still or something.

I think you have raised a very interesting aspect that might need to be addresed.

DE

 

[Momaw]

I think the real problem here is mounted archers, not crossbows. Using a crossbow from horesback is just a shortcut to bypass the lengthy training period a mounted handbow archer would need to invest (granted the handbow archer will become vastly more powerful given time). You can't really argue whether a mounted crossbow is overpowered or not,  until you have a balanced alternative to compare it to.

 

[Stonewall382]

(granted the handbow archer will become vastly more powerful given time)

That's what I was going to say--a dedicated bowman (horse-archer especially) will defeat a crossbowman, mounted or not, because of power draw and strength (strength doesn't affect crossbows does it?), but if you're training for another kind of fighting, the crossbow is almost definitely superior.

 

[Ingolifs]

The crossbow is a very newbie friendly weapon. You don't need any skills in order to wield them, and they're able to do massive damage.

However, given time, a bowman will develop his bow skill far beyond what a crossbowman can manage. Crossbows are just useful for when you've got better things to spend your skillpoints on, rather than power draw and all.

 

[Sir Saladin]

Right. If you are having trouble with the river pirates you can ride your poor saddle horse to a safe distance and wait for two or three of them to run up to you and when they get close you can kill one with the light crossbow and reload while running off to the next hill. Later on you will want to do more damage.

 

[Hinotori]

Right. If you are having trouble with the river pirates you can ride your poor saddle horse to a safe distance and wait for two or three of them to run up to you and when they get close you can kill one with the light crossbow and reload while running off to the next hill. Later on you will want to do more damage.

I don't find this too convincing. Damage is great, but only up to a certain point. With the added accuracy of a crossbow (almost perfect when firing from a standstill), head shots are kind of a piece of cake. With the piercing, brutal damage, a head shot already does hundreds of damage. How much more damage can power draw, strength, and archery skills really lend to a normal bow? And if the one shot is almost always a kill already, is that damage even really significant?

 

[Janus]

The biggest bonus for regular bows is reload time. The crossbow reload time is the same no matter your skill level, slow. The higher your skill with a bow, the faster you can shoot. If you have a high skill you can shoot 3 or more times while a crossbow would still be reloading.

Bows also have a larger supply of ammunition to go with them.

This has been discussed before, but it mainly comes down to crossbows being better at the start of the game, with bows being much better if you spend some time learning to use them. Compares pretty well to real life, I think.

 

[Sir Saladin]

river pirates are practically naked, dark knights and sea raiders laugh at light crossbows.

 

[Hinotori]

river pirates are practically naked, dark knights and sea raiders laugh at light crossbows.

I don't think the "HURAGHH" noise that sea raider made was a laugh when I shot him in the face... As I said before, the crossbow is accurate enough to make head shots pretty easily. It worked well enough for me against the sea raiders. I only have limited experience with Dark Knights though, and not with a crossbow.

 

[Deus Ex]

The biggest bonus for regular bows is reload time. The crossbow reload time is the same no matter your skill level, slow. The higher your skill with a bow, the faster you can shoot. If you have a high skill you can shoot 3 or more times while a crossbow would still be reloading.

Bows also have a larger supply of ammunition to go with them.

This has been discussed before, but it mainly comes down to crossbows being better at the start of the game, with bows being much better if you spend some time learning to use them. Compares pretty well to real life, I think.

Yeah - good point.  It really is only an advantage in the early game.

But quite an advantage, and one that any NON-archer should utilize.

DE

 

[Mage246]

Too bad you can't use a crossbow in the arena.... which means the only way to increase your skill is to risk the wilds. It really sucks when I spawn in the arena with a bow, which is completely worthless to me with my 200 crossbow skill

 

[Chaoz]

How much more damage can power draw, strength, and archery skills really lend to a normal bow? And if the one shot is almost always a kill already, is that damage even really significant?

See but your standing still as apossed to a horse archer that has near perfect head shots and is riding around, with enough skills bows are far better.

 

[Aqtai]

Historically crossbows were very powerful, for example they were far more capable of penetrating armour than longbows or composite bows, it's been theorised that plate armour was developed during the 14th century in response to the threat caused by crossbows. The downside of crossbows, apart from their slow loading times, which was even slower with more powerful crossbows, was that they were they were very labour intensive to make (compared to a longbow) and thus very expensive weapons.

Check this out for more info.

 

[Lord Odin]

the only reason you could beat the black khergits is because they depend on malee combat if you run away like a coward they are actualy quite easy to defeat.

i myself prefer the bow because f the quick reload time and my character is realy good at malee combat.

i managed to fine a gun in the game it was in the chest and the village were start the game im not sure if its in the native game i was using a mod at the time i didnt keep it though because it had really bad accuracy and some times missed at point blank range and the reload time was worse than a crossbow it did a fair bit of damage but i still didnt like it but there might be a trick to it i missed so i suggest getting it (if you can find it) and having a go.