Bow/arrows usability ?

[DrEngine]

Does anybody use bow/arrows? I think its very inefficient use. It has similar attack power as longblade. Thats why I should hit the target by arrow the same times as with longblade. This makes using of bow/arrows practically impossible. The target run away or starts running around. Impossible to hit it by arrow again. Not speaking about arrows loss (few of them always break). Whats your experience ?

I wonder if one shot = instant death of target would be better. It's always the question of game play balance of course. So in such a case maybe only steel arrows would be able to kill in one shot (?). I'm not sure...

[Streetwind]

Depends entirely on the arrow you're using. The bow has a base damage of 3. Flint arrows subtract 0.5. Steel arrows add 2.5. So steel arrows do more than twice as much damage as flint arrows (5.5 versus 2.5), and also deal noticably more damage than a steel longblade (4.25). Better arrows also break less often.

Your character class also matters. Clockmaker and Malefactor get -25% bow draw strength (-> less arrow speed -> worse arcing behavior, lower max distance, and harder to aim), whereas the Hunter gets +10% ranged damage and 30% increased ranged accuracy (-> smaller crosshair radius -> less shot deviation, easier to aim). Blackguard and Commoner don't modify bow behavior.

I think the bow is generally regarded as a bit weak... but only a bit. Certainly not so weak that it would need to be made one-shotting targets, like you suggest. That would be crazy, considering the HP pools of some of the stronger monsters in the game. I'd rather wait for future updates, as there are also better bows planned than the current simple bow. Those will likely have a bit higher base damage, resulting in better damage scaling across the progression.

If you'd rather have a really high-powered single ranged attack than repeated smaller hits... well, that's what yeeting spears at things is for. I heartily endorse spears and think people generally underrate them. My typical surface drifter killing method with a bronze spear is stab-stab-throw, and it's dead. I just wish the base game would implement spears higher than bronze tier...

Edited February 8, 2021 by Streetwind

[DrEngine]

Yes, all this is clear. But with longblade I can hit quickly and I almost never miss. So I'm able to face wolf, hit it several times and finally chase him and kill him. This is impossible with bow/arrow. I can hit it with first arrow. Most probably I'm not able to hit next (unable to aim at running wolf or too slow bow usage - wolf kills me first) and if yes as soon as wolf run away I'm totally not able to kill it (to aim and hit). So all that numbers are ok but practically I'm not able to use bow/arrows to effectively kill anything. So I use longblade always. 

If you do have some hint how to effectively use bow/arrow and kill anything really and certainly, tell me please.

Spear is very good. I had used it a lot in first game phases and forgot it. I'll give a try now...

 

[l33tmaan]

Yeah, arrows need to either deal more damage or have a bleed/slow effect or something. 
Honestly I think you could halve the HP of almost everything in the game and it'd be fine.

[MaximumSpice]

I think one thing being over looked by arrows is they stack in inventory slots. Spears take up a lot of basket/backup space. Way more effective but can carry less, where one bow and 2 stacks of arrows is great.

That being said, feathers are hard part to farm, at least early game.

[RedPine]

Generally, there are 2 dangerous situations that good players encounter routinely.

1) Temporal Storm

Solution A: Nerdpole and/or pit trap, stab everything to death with a spear.  Bows not cost effective.

Solution B: Jousting+Sword, requires expensive armor to be done safely.  Bows not spammable.

2) Caving

Solution A: Run away, wait for everything to despawn, run back, put torches everywhere.

Solution B: Fall off a ledge by accident, engage in melee while the expensive armor prevents death.

Because you need to walk up to corpses with a knife to harvest them, sniping enemies then rushing for their drops isn't viable.  Worse, bodies despawn rather quickly, so you have to rush in eventually anyway.  Even if drops don't matter, preventing enemy spawns with torch spam is more important than killing stuff.

With all that said, I consider the +10% move speed trait on the Hunter class too nice to ignore... and if that trait comes packaged with a buff to bows, then I might as well use bows (and throwing spears - black bronze thrown spears have the highest DPS in the game AFAIK).  I'm not sure how resource efficient it is to kill stuff with arrows, but it can't be much worse than the occasional hit to expensive armor that you get in melee - especially on Wilderness difficulty.

Remember: most things can be dealt with by running away and digging pits.  Weapons are a luxury for special occasions, so if you want to fight go ahead and use whatever style you enjoy.

[l33tmaan]

Wait, you need armor to joust? 

[Pamela]

You can also adjust the aggressiveness of mobs in the custom settings.

[Prin]

Personally, I'd love to see the option to craft a better bow. The crude bow and basic bow are okay, but it feels a bit silly to still be using them when you've upgraded all your other weapons. Bowyers used wooden steaming boxes to help bend and shape stronger and more powerful bows - this is something that could easily be added to the game to achieve a similar upgrade, especially since the materials to do it - wood planks and bucket for water - are gated by the saw. Different woods have different degrees of flexibility, too - the English bowman's wood of choice was yew, for example, due to this.

[Brynn Bernstein]

Maybe also a compound bow too? Or different styles like recurve bow vs longbow, for specialization (recurve would reach best aim faster for faster shooting, while longbow would have higher damage). A crossbow would be a great iron/steel age option, maybe with the ability like Minecraft has to carry a loaded crossbow in the inventory to make up for a high reload time. Also a lot higher arrow durability would be great, since making the arrowheads takes forever and flint and copper ones seem to be destroyed when fired a solid half or more of the time (I've only experimented with those since you can get them from panning, which is my go-to nighttime activity). I think it might also be interesting to have oil-soaked fire arrows which have to be constructed and then soaked in a barrel, or rare arrowhead shapes that deal more damage that show up rarely when panning or when breaking a new "archery" storage vessel in ruins (which could also have special bowstrings, compound bow parts, or parts that could be combined to make sights, sound dampeners, and other additions to the bow). An arrow slit could also be an interesting block option, blocking mobs' lines of sight and protecting from attacks while being permeable only to arrows (I would absolutely use these in the early days of domesticating sheep, where they attack you, or carry them into deep caves to make an impromptu barricade against a locust spawner). They would be really useful, but balanced by not being very useful if you're in the open against drifters. This is quickly starting to sound like an update in itself, and a whole archery update wouldn't be a priority in my opinion, but I do think some simple things like increasing durability and making a couple more specialized recipes for bows and crossbows would be doable as part of a general balance tweak in an update focused on other things.

[Rufkut]

Better archery mod sounds like what you need, it boosts the bow damage, durability and reduces the chance of arrows breaking:

https://mods.vintagestory.at/show/mod/421

[Thalius]

I think bows work ok as they are given that, I think, what we have are supposed to be lower tier archery weapons anyway. That being said, I think there is room for improvement such as possibility for critical hits and/or a chance at maiming an animal in a way that prevents it from running, or at least keeping it from running for long.

I don't use bows much at the moment though because they can't really compare with spears.  Spears do more damage and have a duel functionality as a ranged weapon I can jab with if/when a baddie aggros on me after the first throw and gets close.

Bows have longer range, but given the low damage output it just makes more sense to use a spear as a ranged weapon. 

If arrows inflicted something more though- a bleeding wound or maiming dynamic and caused the animal to run away rather than aggro on the player, and slowly bleed out over certain period of time with a chance of the bleeding stopping before death occurs, bows would be more interesting and provide a different hunting style compared to spears.  This would make sense since usually the range of a bow shot and the manner in which it is made in secret leaves the target bewildered about what hit it resulting in it running out of fear, and not looking around for a person to tear into.  One could argue that throwing a spear is a lot less stealthy and the target would be more likely to detect the presence of the player in the act of making the throw, and then getting hostile when it feels the pain of the hit.

In short, as it stands now I don't really see a benefit to archery over spear use.  It is basically the same ranged weapon dynamic with different tools, and the bow and arrow are at a disadvantage, in my opinion. Give archery some status inducing effects and a stealth factor though, and it would be an interesting alternative that I'd certainly use more often for actual hunting of animals. 

I think spears and longswords will always be my go to methods for dealing with drifters though, at least with the current arsenal of weaponry at our disposal, even if archery did get a buff such as I've described.

~TH~

 

[RedPine]

Even after the 1.15 buffs, I can't think of anything a bow can do that using spears or running away can't do better.  If we had more situations that a spear couldn't handle, such as skittish animals that would be hard to sneak up on, or more threats that had to be dealt with at long range, they would see more use.

Bells are easiest dealt with from very long range, but it's even easier to just run away and come back after they despawn.  You'd need a complete overhaul of how enemies spawn and despawn, and possibly create instances or dungeons, just to make the bow useful.

[Silent Shadow]

Bows are nice for flexing your chicken ranch status. All those peasants walking around in their pleb steel plate just get so jealous seeing my fat stacks of arrows.

Edited July 17, 2021 by Silent Shadow

[Ender Riens]

14 hours ago, RedPine said:

Even after the 1.15 buffs, I can't think of anything a bow can do that using spears or running away can't do better.  If we had more situations that a spear couldn't handle, such as skittish animals that would be hard to sneak up on, or more threats that had to be dealt with at long range, they would see more use.

Bells are easiest dealt with from very long range, but it's even easier to just run away and come back after they despawn.  You'd need a complete overhaul of how enemies spawn and despawn, and possibly create instances or dungeons, just to make the bow useful.

The only real benefit it has is you can continually pelt arrows (which stack) while you can only throw a very limited amount of (non-stackable) spears that you must manually recover. Otherwise, spears or kiting are drastically better alternatives in almost every way.

On the aforementioned status effects idea, I personally think arrows should embed in enemies and slow them down.

[Ty Plum]

I think less hp for creatures could fix this problem. Everything's a tank.

[Silent Shadow]

Why then bother with expensive arrows when a slap with a sword or spear would also kill them? Bows and arrows are just harder to make than swords and spears and don't offer a great enough advantage to bother with generally.

I would say make them do more damage and be much more accurate than spears are, or at the very least make them materially advantageous (more damage per ingot invested than with spears)