It’s been brought up recently that the Age of War would be the perfect time to re-intoduce crossbows. I agree.
When thinking about that re-introduction, I thought about how they’d mesh into the sandbox. We have two attributes for weapon damage now, Agility and Strength. I know AoW is bringing Legendaries that have alternate damage scaling, but since they aren’t going to be commonplace we’ll factor those out.
Agility has bows for its primary ranged option.
Strength has… nothing. We could make an arguement for throwing axes but they’re not comparable to bows.
So, Strength should logically get crossbows.
But
The warrior in me knows Crossbows ain’t dealing anymore damage just because you’ve bigger muscles. Bows on the otherhand sorta do. Bigger muscles can draw a heavier (stiffer) Bow to a fuller length.
So we could convert Bows to Strength and have Crossbows as Agility weapons (Agility being synonymous with deftness or dexterity) with the pretense “your aim is better” as to why it hurts more.
Or
We could have each Crossbow require a minimum amount of Strength to wield (increasing as the damage/tier does), probably with minimal damage scaling but high base damage. The reasoning here is they could be too heavy to hold & aim, maybe even draw (even though crossbows were generally easy to draw, due to a lever of some variety lessening the force required to do so. So for this, no such lever could be present, at least on non legendaries).
This could be done in two ways;
Completely stopping them from being equipped
Making them horribly inaccurate, lessening as you get to the requirement.
I have a useless crossbow .Carried inventory for years not wanting to lose it. One of the admin on our private server spawned in a npc and got it will not fire any projectile but sure looks good. Would appreciate having crossbows
We were just talking about crossbows on the Discord last night.
I said the same thing that bows make more sense as strength weapons and crossbows as agility. Strength should have 0 effect on crossbow damage, and, if anything, increase reload speed.
Crossbows should average more damage and armor pen than bows, but take time to reload and have twice the projectile drop.
I don’t think its fair to not count these bows since one of the strength bows will be on rotation at Mek’s for 15 obolus and once its active for purchase you can buy as many as your heart desires.
As for how permanent Mek’s spire vendors will be, that’s unknown.
As mentioned, a few legendary bows are tentatively strength based, which is well and good.
Crossbows, this one is so sad they were removed from the admin panel.
As a weapon, they provide greater consistency and ease of use as the can be kept in a ready to loose state. They are always charge shots and the stamina is expended when loading (which would be a longer animation, such as bandaging) rather than pulling the trigger. Later Medieval crossbows were quite heavy in and of themselves. Then there were Chinese foot bows and later repeating bows…
But those are digressions from the topic.
Implementation of crossbows now, especially with the goals and intents behind the stamina rework, seems unlikely. Or at least, unlikely to be satisfying.
That said, more strength based range weapons would be nice. We have axes, why not hammers? Possibly slings? A larger atlatl based “javelin”. A caber is a bit of stretch.
But moreover, why can’t we literally throw rocks at enemies? Small rocks, big rocks, boulders, whatever.
We have the joke legendaries that are table legs and such… Why isn’t there an equally tongue in cheek thrown pot or drink stein?
Hey there @tobbiusness, it is great to see other members picking up this issue. I recently made a call for their reintroduction in the testlive feedback thread.
The Age of War would undoubtedly be the most fitting time for crossbows to make their return to Conan Exiles. The current longbows are fun, but crossbows could add some extra diversity, and their own strengths and weaknesses to the ranged combat system. Much like the differwnces between longbows and crossbows in Skyrim. Each has their own place and offers their own unique brand of fun.
I agree with this aspect of your post. Perhaps we could make longbows strength and crossbows agility. However, I politely disagree with this particular aspect of you suggestion:
Hard no from me on this one, and I also think it will make it a hard sell among the community. Consider this for a moment; if we do not need to invest invest a base number of Attribute points to use a war axe, a lance, a warhammer, or for that matter any other weapon in the game, then why should crossbows be the only weapon to bear this restriction. The idea of having to invest a base number of Attribute points to unlock a wall blocking our ability to use in game weapons detracts from the fun. Best to follow the KIS principle I feel (Keep It Simple). And I feel @Tephra has already voiced a sentiment congruent with my own.
More damage but a higher reload time. But I decided to hit ‘like’ in solidarity, because I also really, really want to see them make their return in the Age of War.
My main point of reason is that those bows can’t be crafted. Their general accessibility is thus really low. If bows had strength craftable options during leveling and at endgame this wouldn’t be the case. Bows are, by game design, an Agility weapon. Legendaries are special exceptions.
Also another point regarding accessibility. Although, I don’t see the merchants ever leaving tbh.
I’ve also been thinking, why not “rework” ranged options in general. Take for example longbows and shortbows. Longbows for Strength (for reasons already outlined) and Shortbows for Agility.
Throwing Axes for Strength, new craftableThrowing Daggers for Agility.
Keeping this line of thought, small One-Handed Crossbows for Agility and heavy two-handed Arbalest for Strength.
How about my other suggestion?
Perhaps not precisely this, but some other sort of bonus. Reload and Aiming/Ready speed for example but not because of a requirement. Just a bonus that increases with Strength instead of damage.