Bow use and movement speed

Talk about the mods you'd like to see in Daggerfall Unity. Give mod creators some ideas!
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Jay_H
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Bow use and movement speed

Post by Jay_H »

Just a mod idea: to make archery more strategic, crouching while aiming could increase to-hit rate and/or damage. The idea of running backwards while firing arrows at hapless enemies just seems to have no proper risk/reward balance ;)
Last edited by Jay_H on Mon Nov 19, 2018 1:38 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Narf the Mouse
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Re: Crouching archery: accuracy and damage improvements

Post by Narf the Mouse »

Jay_H wrote: Sun Nov 18, 2018 6:21 am Just a mod idea: to make archery more strategic, crouching while aiming could increase to-hit rate and/or damage. The idea of running backwards while firing arrows at hapless enemies just seems to have no proper risk/reward balance ;)
I'd suggest that for shortbows; not so much longbows. Having a bow in hand, though, could reduce backward speed. Or backward speed could just be reduced.
Previous experience tells me it's very easy to misunderstand the tone, intent, or meaning of what I've posted. If you have questions, ask.

jedidia
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Re: Crouching archery: accuracy and damage improvements

Post by jedidia »

I get where you're coming from with this, but I generally dislike game mechanics that go completely contrary to reality.
Bows are best shot from a standing position, that's just the way it is. Drawing and losing a bow kneeling requires a position with suboptimal balance, because in a modern-day marksman kneel the knee tends to get in the way (even with a short bow).
Crossbows would be an entirely different matter of course, but they apparently never got invented in Tamriel anyways.

A bonus that kicks in if you stand still for a second or so would therefore be more appropriate, imho.

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mikeprichard
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Re: Crouching archery: accuracy and damage improvements

Post by mikeprichard »

Although I understand the backwards running cheese issue (for which I'd prefer Narf's solution of simply reducing backward speed), I'd also agree with jedidia here. Obviously Daggerfall isn't meant to be a reality sim, but the notion that crouching is better for bow use would be too far removed from reality for my tastes. As jedidia noted, a bonus for standing still before loosing the arrow would make much more sense. Just my two cents.

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Jay_H
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Re: Crouching archery: accuracy and damage improvements

Post by Jay_H »

These sound good! :) Anything that helps balance bow use is good in my opinion.

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Hazelnut
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Re: Bow use and movement speed

Post by Hazelnut »

Balance bows? In what direction? You think they need nerfs or..? My main playtest char is an archer, and except that it's safer because you can keep your distance I didn't really pick up on an imbalance compared to melee/magic, but that might be because I've not played much other style.
See my mod code for examples of how to change various aspects of DFU: https://github.com/ajrb/dfunity-mods

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Jay_H
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Re: Bow use and movement speed

Post by Jay_H »

Perhaps it's a classic thing, since I haven't used bows in DFU. In classic it's far too easy to kite enemies around forever. If you have a long hallway you can lure any enemy there and just run backwards to shoot until they die. I expect the same to be true in DFU since enemy movement speed still won't match player's in many cases.

Here's a representation by Grimith: https://youtu.be/N0o2hpBeKFw?list=PLp-w ... oYI&t=3379

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Hazelnut
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Re: Bow use and movement speed

Post by Hazelnut »

Hmm, wonder if this would belong in the RP realism mod that currently only has clickable beds feature. I had kinda intended Pango to take over the mod if he were interested so lets see. For now I'm working on core again.
See my mod code for examples of how to change various aspects of DFU: https://github.com/ajrb/dfunity-mods

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pango
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Re: Bow use and movement speed

Post by pango »

I'm suspect not two players will agree on what should be "realistic archery"... It's a trap :D

About difficulty, I'd say DFU is getting harder than DF as enemies AI improves; They have better path finding already, and at the very least they tend not to stay static, waiting to be shot. I killed a fire daedra in some cavern module, and had to run around quite a bit before it eventually got stuck. I suspect it's a matter of time before enemies will never stay stuck that way anymore.
So need for balancing? That's probably too early to tell.
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