Lets Talk About Crossbows.

[EbdanianAdmiral]

They are good right now. REALLY GOOD. I think its fair and obvious they need to be tuned down in some way. Lets put our brains together and discuss what the best way to do that would potentially be.

My Thoughts.

Ways you could nerf them.

• Direct damage debuff: I think its fair to say 95 is perhaps excessively high for a weapon that in the grand scheme of things does not take that long to draw compared to bows since the update, has essentially hitscan flight speed, infinite accuracy duration, and the best accuracy in the game. If crossbows were in the 65-75 damage range I dont think you would see that many ranged mains upset about it.
• Reload speed tweak: Like I said above, crossbows truthfully are not that long of a reload compared to the high (but still much lower) damage bows. The initial loading phase taking much longer would be a fair way to balance the insane damage potential the weapon offers.
• Audio Tweaks: This would need to be done in conjunction with one of the above changes, but the crossbow loading sound being much louder would help people in the area know that "hey, the boomstick around the corner is primed and ready to mess me up." I would like to see the initial loading click made louder and for a sound to be added for when the crossbow goes from drawn but down to ready and aiming mode.

Ways I do not think they should be nerfed.

• Accuracy Nerf: Making weapons that are designed to hit targets inherently inaccurate and RNG dependent is not fun game design. There is a reason nobody used the longbow in OG Warband Multiplayer, and even it is more accurate than many of the bows in Bannerlord. I maintain that making ranged weapon RNG dependent is not the answer.
• Changes to Parent Class: I do not think that classes should be balanced around the crossbow. I think the crossbow should be balanced around the classes. The way Taleworlds has balanced the game to this point would suggest they agree with me.
• Ammo changes: This would not accomplish anything in a 6v6, multi life setting. Giving them less ammo makes no difference when it only takes one headshot to decide a round.

Interested to hear the communities and the developers thoughts on the situation.

 

[soul_jak]

I think audio and reload speed, dmg wise I genuinely don’t think any weapon should be a one hit kill unless head hits/shots high dmg is fine for cross bows

 

[EbdanianAdmiral]

I think audio and reload speed, dmg wise I genuinely don’t think any weapon should be a one hit kill unless head hits/shots high dmg is fine for cross bows

I think having high damage is fine, but 95 is overboard. 95 damage means that a class with light armor only needs a ~5% speed modifier to the damage (so basically running towards the crossbowman) in order to be one hit killed.

 

[Surreal120]

When you say changes to parent class do you include class price? The arbalest can spawn 3 times, and you can also do 2 lives with sharpshooter and 1 with arbalest if you're at max gold. The ability to take 3 lives with the OP weapon in a row seems extreme. Of course it would be much more preferable to nerf the weapon itself rather than the price, but it is something worth considering.

 

[EbdanianAdmiral]

When you say changes to parent class do you include class price? The arbalest can spawn 3 times, and you can also do 2 lives with sharpshooter and 1 with arbalest if you're at max gold. The ability to take 3 lives with the OP weapon in a row seems extreme. Of course it would be much more preferable to nerf the weapon itself rather than the price, but it is something worth considering.

What I mean is that rather than remixing the entire class to accommodate the weapon, they make the weapons available more in line with every other class. The light archer class shouldn’t have a weapon that’s a straight upgrade to every other light archer class without some other downside apparent somewhere else.

it’s a lot simpler to just adjust the crossbow than tweak an entire faction to compensate for it.

 

[AVRC]

If they perform much better than expected the most probable change is going to be an increase in Reload Duration.

We want the Crossbows to be unique in behavior when compared to the bows, so the ease of aim, firing, and being able to hold aim are features we want on the Crossbows, balanced by the vulnerability during the time it takes to reload another shot. Crossbows will always relatively hit harder than bows.

The sound que being more evident is a neat idea, we will test it out.

We are also discussing and testing running speed of Archers in general for all game modes.

 

[soul_jak]

If they perform much better than expected the most probable change is going to be an increase in Reload Duration.

We want the Crossbow to be unique in behavior when compared to the bows, so the ease of aim, firing, and being able to hold aim are features we want on the Crossbow, balanced by the vulnerability during the time it takes to reload another shot. Crossbows will always relatively hit harder than bows.

The sound que being more evident is a neat idea, we will test it out.

We are also discussing and testing running speed of Archers in general for all game modes.

Yes I like the sound idea kinda like the hoofs for cav but not as loud obviously more subtle