Archer Thralls shooting blanks - major issue found

Game mode: [Online | Official Server]
Problem: Bug
Region: US


As you are very much aware we spend a lot of time obtaining and placing thralls to protect our bases and ourselves. Many of us upgrade their gear and weaponry. After numerous tests on both private and official servers I have learned the following:
If you replace the Thralls bow with any other bow, they look like their shooting in combat but no arrows are being shot and no damage is being dealt. Any different Bow or even attempting to upgrade their bow with a kit creates this effect. They essentially become useless.

Every other time of thrall seems to be operating correctly. I have upgraded fighters with various weapon types and even weapons with kit and they work perfectly. The archers seem to have a serious issue. Further more we also need a way once this is fixed is to upgrade their arrows. We should be able to place specific arrows in their inventory slots for them to use those in order to increase their damage as would the better bow.


Steps on how to reproduce issue:
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Yea you can put any arrows in there inventory and they will use them…u need arrows if you change the bow that they start with…just equip them like you do your arrows…put arrows in their inventory then drag and drop them on their bow.

You should test it. So far I tried giving them an exceptional bow, a frost bow and a couple others and when you take them on a test run it looks like they are shooting but no arrows are flying anywhere, also no damamge is being done as well. Then I tested again by adding arrows to them and still same effect.

I have …only difference is I kept the same bow but used different arrows,works fine…I’ll try a different bow

I didn’t use them in “Follow Mode” yet, but the ones positioned in my base do fire their assigned arrows and do deal damage.
They kill wild animals that approach my “border” on a regular basis and took down a White Tiger, which I pulled into my base, the other day.

Bow used: Hardened Steel Bow
Arrows used: Snake and Obsidian Arrows
Server: Official PvE

It wont happen for everyone:
I have thralls up for defense on pve-c and they work fine with dragon bow+dragon arrows.

As I mentioned guys, after numerous tests it seems to be related to the bow itself. Some bows cause this effect and others don’t. It gets even worse when you add kits to even the working ones. The entire archer and their bows simply needs a revisit in coding to confirm using a baseline of what actually does work. Each bow needs to be tested with each arrow type as well as every type of kit for the devs to determine the root cause of the damage. Thanks for the related updates and followups guys.

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Make sure they have free inventory slots… filling thralls inventory to prevent them from unequiping weapon will break them! They wont attack anything anymore (even if they have their weapons in hand)

Its a annoying bug, but they will draw their weapons again if something approaches. Filling their inventory will cause more harm than good

@asteria What you are referring to isn’t a big, its simply by design and is in no way related the bug I am referring too but it is a valid point.

I am having this same issue on Xbox. I have upgrade thralls bows and modded them in the past and they fired without having to give them arrows but now they are shooting blanks. I gave half of my archer thralls flawless star metal bows with the damage mod on them and they still fired arrows correctly but after I finished giving them all modded bows they all started firing blanks. Even after switching to another bow they still don’t fire arrows. Has anyone found a good work around for this?

did you place a single arrow onto the bow to arm the bow with said arrow? You only need one arrow but you have to place it on the bow