As an Archer I am a little sad

In the past I never used Heavy Attacks at all and played primarily as an Archer well based on my setup.

As a NON-WASD user it worked out well.

Now recently I am testing all the new stuff and it seems Archery was nerfed. Is that true?
Also, you have to use Heavy Attack to aim and it Auto-releases the Arrow.

It’s a mess I have to relearn bindings ect with new Combat.

Should I just go Melee? If I go Archery I will not use the Heavy Attack and the Light Attack does not let me Aim the bow anymore as I used to be able to.

Uugh

I want to “Main” as an Archer but the Keybindings with the new Combat seem very wonky.

If Light Attack without Aiming is viable i may stick to Archer. If not, I’ll learn Melee i suppose.

And I can’t reassign the Loot All Key which is F or Q in the options either. HELP

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The short answer on Archey is it got nerfed. But that’s an over-simplification.

So here’s what happened:

Accuracy got a major boon on its own. It used to increase damage by 1pt per point spent. Compared to Strength which was 1.5 dmg. Now both increase their respective damage by 2% per point. In addition every 10 points gives a perk. For Accuracy this means 10% more damage, 50% more damage on headshots, and heavier cripples.

Ranged weapons cripple on leg hits. This is bows, javelins and throwing axes.

So what got the nerf bat to make these awesome things an overall nerf?

First off ranged weapons got this weird auto aim to them. If the target is less than 25-30m away, and the aiming dot is right on them, it will automatically adjust the arc for you. Miss this by a pixel and it reverts to whatever is behind the target.

Also it doesn’t take into account leading the target. So any target not moving directly to you or away, requires unintutive compensation to hit.

Couple this with a Cone of Fire if you are moving while the projectile fires. You can mitigate this by stopping just as it fires off. This was done to prevent too much kiting in PVP.

But the major issue that hit Archey was the nerf to bow and arrow damage. A Hunting bow and Flint Arrow does a combined damage of 8. Bows and Arrows’ damage does not nearly keep up with the damage of similar tier’d melee.

Throwing weapons however do. But they do not stack meaning you can only have one in each hotbar slot, making them ungainly to use a ranged weapon.

So the fixes needed for ranged weapons are as follows:

  1. Do away with the arc compensation for ranged weapons. Let the arc be the same with each shot with elevation being adjusted by the user (as before).

  2. Increase bow damage by 50%

  3. Allow Javelins and Throwing Axes to stack (maybe even allow them to craft in sets of 5 as well).

These simple changes would bring the Accuracy attribute back in line with the other attributes.

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Thank you Taemien.

I would also suggest to get rid of the Auto-Aim and Compensation “Window”. I used to be able to Aim with my Right mouse and Shoot with the left mouse button, with the Light Attack. i never played with the Heavy attack at all.
I may just go Melee for now it looks like.

It appears Sword and Shield would fare well. :slight_smile:

I’m not sure what the heavy attack is supposed to do.

Before it was a heavy attack that you could hold. They changed it to not be a hold, and I think they mentioned in a stream that it could maybe return to how it was.

Right now its awkward to use. I only use it as a first alpha strike style hit. You’re not hitting with it after the first attack now.

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That does seem a little crazy though.
While I would (maybe?) second that for early and mid game, the same for endgame seems a bit overwhelming. Though I would be fine with the devs taking that headshot perk in exchange. Then it would be completely fine, already putting bows on par with melee through the whole game.

Currently with damage oriented stats (i.e. 40 str, 50 accu) the damage… well it’s not perfectly well, but I think it’s decent at least for pve.
The problem lies in reaching those stats.

But the bigger issue lies in early and midgame.
There, true archers get demotivated by this low damage, while fakearchery almost gets encouraged.
I think the 50th accuracy perk is to blame for that. In combination with exploiting bad AI being a thing.
Btw…
By true archers I mean those who like(d) bows for how they were working and have been running around with bows being their main weapon - and some melee weapon for emergencies.
Fake archers being those who only get their bows out when killing things by exploiting bad AI.

If there were more early on perks with damage multipliers that could be balanced though…
Like becoming a turret/rockgiant when overencumbered.

Encumbrance 10th perk has been said to affect ranged damage as well, despite its description? (devstream on april 20th.)
Maybe that could be buffed up to 30%?
I mean… We cannot really move anyway and will loose a huge ton of stamina when shooting during that - and even the beloved melees will be fangless prey as they cant really reach their attackers, so when they hit, they should hit like an overloaded truck. It’s hammertime! :joy:

Another idea for early on damage multiplier would be like 10th or 20th agility:
i.e. +30% dmg on each attack from crouching. But if that would be implemented, crouching would have to be 50% slower. Else its too strong - eighter for melee to use it in combat or archers using it to kill in pvp. It still takes not much time to run up to archers.

Also every heavy attack should hit like a truck.
I think most melee weapons hit multiple times with one heavy attack, which makes up for that tiny heavy-damage-multiplier. But doing heavy attacks with a bow is nerfing oneself. (It is roughly a 30% damage increase if only using first two light combo shots compared to time consumption of heavy shots.)
I guess this is one of a very few general weaknesses with new combat.

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Needs a full overhaul, even throwing weapons. I find no extra damage when i get a head shot, and heavy attacks seem to do the same damage as light attacks, along with the delay time its pointless to use. but i did not know about that aim assist thing. would explain why its so hard to lock down a pathing.

I’d also like to see even when the person has a shield out you can still shoot them in the feet. right now a shield is a full 100% block or at least get some armor piercing arrows. which can be done easily with how many diff types we have yet almost all are useless. i use only snake and obsidian. and when testing out damage with maxing out everything i can with just pure damage was like 40 damage. per shot unlike where i can get hit for like 120+ with melee weapons.

Throwing axes are just plain weird where i have to use Left CTRL to throw them yet can;t use them to swing regular attacks or use mouse2 to throw it like the javelin .

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I specifically said bow and not arrow. It would put them in line with similar tier melee weapons and still do less damage over all.

Ideally I think bows should form most of the damage, while arrows give higher armor pen or other effects. I wouldn’t even mind taking arrows out of the tier system entirely for that purpose.

Then you could have high armor pen arrows (that actually reduce damage slightly), high damage arrows with no armor pen, arrows that cause bleed or poison, and so forth. Its a bit beyond the topic of the thread though.

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Just made a post on this and found yours. I made a few suggestions on how to make it better. Excuse the grammar I typed it out of frustration. haha

Weigh in with your 2 cents or make more suggests how to make it better. Hopefully the devs take a look.
ARCHERY: are you ever going to make it good?

I can do nothing but second this.
If arrows get nerfed and bows become the greater part in that, I can only agree… Though those set arrows might cause some frustration yet again. (Poison…)

There have been quite a few archery topics popping up recently.
I really thought I was part of some tiny minority…

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I would think the majority would desire accuracy to be worth point to point to that of other stats. Right now it isn’t.

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Go daggers and spear MissJessika.

spear yes, daggers no.

I don’t like the new archery at all to be honest. I kinda get that they adapted it to be in line with the new combat system, but a bow is also a hunting tool and not being able to hold a shot while aiming really feels bad for me. Also the combo attacks and staying in third person for shooting. Yeah, I could change to first person during fights but it’s not really working well because it’s not designed for that anymore and also wouldn’t enable me to hold shots for aiming as well.

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The way archery works now… hunting is impossible. Hit a antelope with an arrow and not only does it not drop, but runs zig zaggedly until it is out of range.

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Well, I was in the process of a rather large post to add to this thread, but popped back into the game for something, got sidetracked for awhile then several tangents later, returned here and realized I’d forgotten to like several of the posts in this thead, so I went about that before I forgot again and managed to lose my post in the process.

I may take another crack at it later, but it was mostly an essay of personal thoughts and experience and added very little or nothing to the thread. Taemien and Nuria have that covered quite well already.

I’ll quickly add that I was originally livid over the changes to archery. Now, I am simply disheartened and very much understand the title and sentiment of this thread.

But I am doing my best to keep my faith in the developers and maintain hope that the voices of players other than PVPers that just want to brainlessly Hulk Smash with pure melee will be heard; people like us; the Archers; the Hunters, the Rangers, the Scouts; the Hyborean Age Survivalists that with cunning and finesse, practice and dedication, rely upon and trust in their skill with a bow above all else to provide for and protect.

The derogatory mention of PVP and melee above was mostly added to the point for drama and flavor, but also in reference to the belief that PVP played a part in the decision to nerf bows. I’ve actually always loved light, quick melee such as daggers and short spears in addition to bows in my play and role play. I am not into public PVP really and if not for caring about the overall success and longevity of Conan Exiles, I’d care as little about PVP as many vocal PVPers seem to care about archery.

Lastly, I don’t believe the “bows are meant to be secondary, like a sidearm” statement. I think it is a “CYA” to accompany the easy out of nerfing bows with the new combat system.

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I Pre-ordered this game long ago because of the Archery aspect. I don’t like things getting too close. It’s my playstyle. I Love being a Ranged Player.

Archery was fine before the overhaul. It had Aiming, “Bullet” drop mechanics, Damage was decent, not too great, not too weak.

Since the new changes, Archery is a complete Joke. I have over 150+ hrs in this and have no clue how to play Melee. I tried last night and failed so bad. So awkward.

Kinda disappointed that the game I backed and supported is finally releasing in 8 days and they throw this Archery Nerf in to ruin it all for me. :frowning:

Well, they have 9 days to fix it. No idea what I will do if Archery stays as is.

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Bows are effective for their intended purpose. The arrows could use a bit of a damage boost without having to put so many points in strength. Even without that buff archery is pretty sweet, I can one shot a thrall with the right build, some players also.

It’s a learning curve.

Yeah, I’m having a difficult time with archery now, before it was my weapon of choice.

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The arrows could use a bit of a damage boost. However, making it so you can one-two shot players from a great distance would be a bad thing IMO. Archery should be a support piece, not the main attraction.

The Melee Weapons could use a bit of a damage boost. However, making it so you can one-two shot players from Melee range would be a bad thing IMO. Melee Weapons should be a support piece, not the main attraction.

See what I did there?

I understand the concern, but Archery is MY Main Attraction. To me…Melee is Support.

They need to balance all of it, not favor neither.

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