I’m not educated on the lore of the world of Conan, but I feel like crossbows belong here. Just a thought…
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There were crossbows once, for a short while.
They gave problems just like the ones people are complaining right now.
The mod devkit still even have them there if anyone wants to try to fix them and make them work.
All attempts that I have seen did not amused me.
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I dont really understand why they have chosen to make crossbows the way they did, but in most cases, projectile weapons in games are done in one of the two ways: object projectile or tracing. Unity folk call it “hitscan” it seems.
Already at this point someone can ask:
Ok, regardless of how they are made in theory, couldnt they do the exact same thing they do for a bow to a crossbow ?
That question has a yes or no answer, and the answer is definitely yes.
But the circumstance of it being yes is the thing I dont understand.
You can make every single projectile weapon to work under the same code, that is true.
The problem is: The code that the bow uses in Conan Exiles is not it.
The same problem with many things in conan exiles, it happens here. Things are made in a very specific way to the thing they are doing, so most of the code when it is created in the game works for that one thing that one way.
This type of development does ensure that a lot of things can be done in a short time, but it prevents things to be more generic and modular.
When most of us developers do stuff, we often do one production prototype of a thing, but it is in general bloated.
Given the track record of the game, I suspect Barkeepers are also the same thing, and future we will have the same problem with them we had since “beta” with crossbows.
Barkeepers are a prototype of thralls that can behave and operate like standing thralls we have in the game, but they can be put in workstations. Different from present workers, which are not characters, but just a mesh showing up in crafting station, the thrall item itself just lend stats to the stations and appearance to the mesh.
Barkeepers seem a good thing to do it. They were not previously in the game to break anything that existed, and they are not something that calls for all the needs of gameplay. You can play the game fine without them. So they are perfect places to start.
The players might have noticed the barkeeper has all the features a character in the game has: it can be a dialogue NPC, a vendor, a thrall you put somewhere just to be, or a thrall that has a “artisan function”.
However, when you notice how they work in the final product for now, you see that they suffer that same problem. Their code works well for a barkeeper, and it might be fine and not bother anything else.
I can make an educated guess that in the future update they put the same idea for a armorer, or a tanner, it will break not only the intended way to implement artisan, but the station of the armorer or tanner itself, even empty.
It is the pattern of all things. They make a system that works fine for a specific thing, and then anytime build up happens, everything remotely related to it breaks down.
All that is to say: I do think the game indeed could use a crossbow series, and it would be fun. But I dont know if I wish Funcom makes it happen.
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It’s not that they don’t belong so much as they can’t get them to work.
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Yes, crossbows exist in the Hyborean Age lore. Nemedia is famous for fielding crossbowmen in their armies.
From a game mechanics perspective, it’s possible that the new ballista siege weapon is a precursor to a hand-carried one. That is, spend some time winding it, then aim and shoot. It wouldn’t feel immersive if it was just a bow reskin, because crossbows are not exactly rapid fire weapons.
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I am inclined with you @UncleWillie56. Crossbows were originally part of the game back in early access, but were removed from the game due to not functioning the way they were intended to. By that I mean the following. Not only did they have a huge amount of knockback, but animation cancelling meant that players were able to bypass the reload animation making them almost rapid fire.
Now that revelation to the side, I personally would really like to see Crossbows be reworked make a return to Conan Exiles. And surely an Age of War would have been the logical time to do it. This leads me to suspect it may not happen, though I hope to be proven wrong.
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Well, to hazard a guess, they could make crossbows just like bows mechanic wise, but probably want to hold any work on it until it can be intentional and different, which avoids having to touch it again (at least in theory… yes I know, things get touched a bunch of times anyway, but one more by default would just be planning to spend more). We just got the ballista, so I’d say there’s hope!
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