Firstly, I love the game and the new combat system is a ton of fun for melee. Keep up the good work!
Now for the feedback, I personally feel that archery leaves quite a bit to be desired. I have played as an archer with my friends since the initial steam early access release. I know that people were exploiting certain mechanics with bows but I don’t think nerfing archery into the ground is the answer. I enjoy playing as an archer and I’m simply not as competitive as my friends at the same level and with all my points dumped into accuracy and grit. I currently struggle to kill NPC’s in twice the time it takes for my friends who are playing a melee build. Archery used to feel fun and was a viable choice as a play style. I have a few recommendations for making archery competitive again as well as some standard of life suggestions.
Bows and Arrows need a damage buff across the board. I recommend this due to bows inherently being a slower weapon due to having to aim and time shots from a distance. Currently Melee weapon DPS destroys bows. Archers still have to maintain distance, dodge, aim, and shoot. It doesn’t make for easier combat than melee in any sense so archery dps should be similar to that of the melee weapons.
Give us the ability to choose when our heavy attack fires again. The random 3 second click-to-release mechanic takes away our ability to react to various situations properly. Quite a bit can happen in that amount of time. I want to be able to draw and release when I choose.
Increase the lock range for bows. I have to be near melee range to lock onto a target. I rarely use the lock-on as an archer main but it would be a nice standard of living buff for those who aren’t trying for head shots.
I don’t mean to sound like a complainer but I truly enjoy playing as an archer and I’m simply no longer having as much fun playing the game. I don’t want to be shoehorned into playing a melee. I enjoy playing as the archer in my group of friends and I don’t want to feel useless while I do it.
Thanks again for making the game and hopefully some of these suggestions will be considered.
Hi, I have the same issue. I love playing archer, but when I try to help my friends with a ‘boss’ croc I don’t do any damage whatsoever (it doesn’t seem to penetrate the crocodile’s armor). I also I have to shoot quite a few arrows before any normal creatures die, and most of the time when I play with my friends I can’t even get to shoot before something is already dead. I’m really sad about this.
I been talking about this since the nerf to bow… Answer was " the game is melee oriented, it make us stand out from other game"… and then the famous devs video who said " bow dont need buff, you know, you can use strength perk and encumbrance perk with bows… So yeah, you need to go 50str for berserk and the other perk and rest into grit so you can fire more then once… And yeah… you’ll die from one hit… Oh wait… you’re overencumbred, need point in encumbrance… GG.
Bow just plain suck and are useless. They were useless after the damage nerf and were made a joke when they added the aiming radius while moving. Even with 50accuracy, the arrow still shoot all the time off. So, dont bother, bows are dead for good.
Itd make sense to nerf archery to be “useless” if you didnt invest any points into accuracy but kinda sad to hear its useless anyways. I see a little of both sides but majority lean on “it sucks” even for AI.
In EA I hated how archery was pretty much only dependant on the bow and ammo and not the build. It seemed like with perks they opened the door to fix this but maybe just have to redo the accuracy perks to be much stronger at higher levels given the investment to get to 50. I think the perks should change the QoL of being an archer and have little to do with the damage, that should remain on the bow and ammo type but let accuracy help them perfect their movement and aiming and range.
Oh, and I was wondering why I felt so crappy as an archer. I blamed the Hunting Bow and the basic arrows, but I see this is simply prevalent feature. That is a shame because I also wanted to invest points into Accuracy and become a kind of nimble fighter shooting bow and fighting with daggers in close combat.
Atleast with perks the process to fix archery shouldnt be a difficult one. I for one think the damage should primarily come from the bow, secondly (very little and/or situational such as headshots) from perks and none from arrows or have the range from lower-higher tier be very little. It seems impractical to ask anyone to use a rare metal to craft ammo unless there was some unique purpose to it.
-bone for its cheap costs
-iron for its slightly more durable punch
-fire to ignite tar (orbs) (bug I believe)
-snake for poison
-razor for perhaps bleeding
-star metal for armor penetration due to weight would make more sense
-abyssal for light corruption
-hardened steel for upgraded dmg vs iron
Damage would be relatively close with hardened steel being technically the highest direct damage but star metal potentially being stronger against targets with high armor. Youd use razor or snake or its DoT (snake needs venom sac in recipe to be less accessible), combo tar and fire arrows for groups/large targets, abyssal being potentially the deadliest but impractical outside of pvp encounters and not as accessible.
Bow being your damage/range base and durability. Simply put, it wouldnt determine anything unrealistic.
Perks should effect aim while moving, mobility while aiming, reload/combo speed, distance of “lock on” (not too much, we need some challenge for archers), and maybe a small damage bonus and/or critical muliplier for being a “master archer”. For example a perk could offer 15% damage bonus overall with a 45% bonus against animals so hunters benefit greatly since running up and slicing a deer shouldnt be easy(45% bonus wouldnt work against beasts or humanoids, strictly for what you would consider hunting with the top being mammoths, rhinos or elephants not rock beasts or scorpions).
Ricochet arrows and cripple with leg shots should be standard. If they ever get around to returning the ability to hold and fire freely then I think archery would make sense and be of great use both pve and pvp.
Even if you went with 50point into accuracy, the damage output is very low, plus the aiming radius doesn’t getbetter the more point you put into accuracy ( which was suspose to be the case, but isn’t working atm, welp, for me atleast) . Maybe if you had 100point int accuracy, it could help… but that’s impossible. lol
Bow has so much more risk then any melee weapon ( maybe beside dagger) … Point is arrow are easily dodgable, hard to aim, has a cheap trajectorie and the bow + arrow damage is low subpar damage equalizing iron atm, at best, steel, compared to melee damage version.
If you fight someone in silent legion, forget that, you will never ever kill him unless you have 5000 snake arrow on you and never miss so he can’t heal. (Which never missing is impossible lol)
Bow damage should be a % modifier instead of pure damage. Kind of how asheron’s call did it. The best bows will have higher modifier, so the damage depend on which arrow you use,if you use arrow with higher damage, you will deal more damage.
I also believe there should be more arrow kind, some which pierce armor, some which travel faster, some which are light weight, other that are heavy but inflict cripple, hook arrow that stick the enemy to you and if you fire arrow, place the end of the line to the tree/structure aimed.
But in the end… I still believe stat need a reworking overhaul completely.
I say link the bow damage to strength. Like the stronger you are, the farther back you can draw. That means arrows can fly faster and longer distance. Accuracy should be a Critical modifier for bows and melee.
I’ve talked to a lot of people online that are thinking of quitting or have already given up because they wanted to be an archer and can’t do any damage. This isn’t just a QoL issue, it effectively kills the entire game for anyone that likes the ranged playstyle.
Yes. I find it hilarious that the target lock is found at malee range. No one wants to post up to shoot against someone with a malee weapon and shoot light hits. The damage is horrible, and it takes way too long for a heavy attack. If a archer has to post up, it should be much more damage. Or, make it so we can aim ourselves on the run. Why is it when something is “OP” you clearly over think it and completely nerf it till its useless?
first of all bows SHOULDNOT have free will.
not at all… that arrow must fly when we archers let go the string… not some random 3second after clicking that right click by mistake…
and yes damage is crazy low… it should be at least 50x better.
I think we do not need a special/heavy attack on the bow… logically it doesnt exist. what we do need, is to revert how the bow is used, i dont really care for the damage. i enjoyed using bows to kill elephants. what i do need is aim with right click and fire with left click. this will improve accuracy A LOT!!!
i dont mind if archery is not “mainstream” combat style for Conan.I always go for Bow build in every game, single, multi, MMo… what ever. Issue in Conan is the Bow heavy attack and lack of options from perks and stats
I too gravitate towards a ranged build, I played through skyrim 8 times 2000 hours, and everytime I told myself I would try a melee or a mage, and everytime I wound up a stealth archer.
I have 2140 hours in Conan, But I haven’t been able to play more than a few minutes at a time, since the change to archery. I mostly log in to my SP to take screenshots to help people with issues on the forum.
Here is the ironic part, when I first complained about the changes, people said “archery was OP” because you could kill NPCs without them getting agro. Now it’s the only way to kill NPCs because if they agro, you can’t hit them. you can’t lead the target, and damage is so low you’ll never kill them before needing to switch to melee. I don’t want to play like that.
edit: to make the previous statement perfectly clear, I don’t want to kill NPCs from beyond agro, I want to stand on the same level as them and be able to survive and hit them during their charge to me, like I could with the old system.
I could half fast PVP with a bow before the change, now I might as well just drop all my gear and pop the bracelet because it’s the same result.
I’m at the point where I’m looking for something else to do besides play this game, that’s not something that should happen in a time sink game.
I absolutely agree. I do that exact same thing in Skyrim (always wind up stealth archer --ranger–) and have right around 2k hours in it as well. Even stranger is that I’ve 2172 hours in CE, so nearly the same there as well heh.
Hardly anyone but you mentions the no longer being able to lead shots and it is a pretty huge deal. I used to love the thrill of becoming exceptional with aiming and timing. I think most who got to play before the archery nerf miss it, but that it just gets temporarily forgotten in favor of the forced heavy shot and stupid low damage and effectively useless accuracy stat.
I have spouted off in several threads about how I work hard to remain positive and have faith and trust in the developers, but there are definitely some darker times where I feel as though someone important in development really has it in for archery. I was reminded of another seemingly minor thing last night and maybe it is skewed perception on my behalf, but I could swear that mobs have some anti archery AI by design as well. Often they seem to be capable of miraculously and instantaneously changing direction right at the last moment to avoid a perfect shot.
The last couple of days, I’ve been playing using an arrow mod that increases their damage and penetration as well as lowering their weight in addition to giving myself free accuracy points with the Pippi mod and focusing my actual combat training on strength (to get the 30 and 40 point perks) and it, of course, makes archery feel better, but still not quite the same as back when, for me, “it was working” before the nerf.
I’ve actually been considering taking a breather from CE and doing another Skyrim play through to have some real archery and stealth fun.
