POLICY 15: EAT COCKS

[Danical]

On July 6th, 2007 an announcement (http://www.play.net/forums/messages.asp?forum=102&category=1&topic=1&message=1517) was released stating the change of Elemental/Self-ammo Bows. It specifically states the following:

Ammo-generating crossbows are unaffected by this change.

However, crossbows were affected by this change. Specifically, the self-ammo glowbark crossbows were changed to that of a longbow in regards to RT. No longer were they to fire in a static 3 seconds as was documented.

Today, an announcement (http://www.play.net/forums/messages.asp?forum=102&category=1&topic=1&message=1545) was released about Elemental/Self-Ammo Crossbows.

No longer do they have variable RT. They are now in line with that of their normal crossbows counterparts; this includes cocking. Perhaps the fundamental reason to purchase a crossbow of this type would be to bypass the cocking mechanism. My character had 1 RT eye aimed shots with Song of Tonis up. However, because cocking is now a permanent feature, it will be impossible for me to reduce my RT to 1 RT as before unlike the self-ammo bows. The absolute best I can do now is a 2 second cocking time and a 1 second firing time.

1) There was a bug that got introduced into the system after they had explicitly said there wasn't going to be (i.e. no more static RT to crossbows).

2) They concealed the bug by not announcing the problem as they should have.

3) Then deceived (re: lied) to me about the nature of the problem.

4) They assured me the integrity of the crossbow would be returned to it's former state.

Now, I'm left with, let's face it, a weapon that isn't worth as much as before. I had asked about compensation, and of course, I was denied. I asked to at least explain why they deceived me and lied to me. I was told . . . they had no idea about the bug. However, the fact is the QC department would have ONLY HAD TO FIRE A SINGLE FUCKING SHOT to find out it wasn't working properly.

It feels worse than the unsolicited finger in the ass that was the Bow RT change because they lied to me and deceived me (while I was in the referral process) the entire time. I feel like SIMU thinks I'm just another statistic; another member of the elite organization of fellow players fucked by SIMU item nerfs.

I'd love to rally all the players fucked by SIMU item nerfs and band together to exact revenge but I think I'll just grab a bottle instead.

Lame. Lame. Lame.

/rant

[vontez]

you can give it to me if its a big bother :)

[AestheticDeath]

I am still pissed off about the self ammo RT changes.

I never did get an answer as to why they implemented the changes to the bows, even though they have been this way forever and a day.

Because of this and some other things, I keep telling myself I will leave Gemstone again and not come back. I play a lot less, but I still pay for all of my accounts.

Anyhow, someday I will be gone for good, and you can all have a party while praising the GMs for helping to get rid of me!

[Danical]

I posted again and in the interest of preserving what I typed for the possible commie post pull ... here it is.


I've had some time to think and counted to far more than 10 seconds, so here goes.

<<What's capricious about it? They were a set of overpowered items, and they're still quite powerful, all things considered. If they were to suddenly nerf Sorrow, I'd agree that it was "capricious" (unless the owner had found some way to abuse it) because it was a single unique item, but this doesn't just seem to fall into that category. --Grendeg

As I understand it, these items were released under Warden's reign as mechanics SGM.

Why the flip-flop?

Why let players set a goal of achieve an item and then blast them with a nerf?

Why not compensate players for their loss?

Why not get your rules about power and balance sorted BEFORE releasing items into the game?

Why did the BUG that initially changed my crossbow on the 6th of July EVER get past QC? All they had to do was fire A SINGLE BLOODY SHOT to find out it wasn't working as explicitly stated.

The nerf aside, this is an issue of negligence and customer care as demonstrated by the following two cases.
-----
SCENARIO 1) On July 6th SIMU either KNEW a bug manifested with the change, did NOT announce it thereby concealing the bug, rolled the change in anyway despite KNOWING there was a bug, and then had the audacity to tell me . . .

<<Send[GMXXX] . . . The second issue is because your issue of concern is awaiting a response from a specific GameMaster/set of GameMasters, which further extends the length of time towards your referral wait period.

My issue of concern was returning my crossbow to the state it was BEFORE the July 6th change, not because of the impending nerf. Naturally, I couldn't have known of the nerf so that could not have been the issue. Therefore, I've been lied to again by SIMU staff; to add insult to injury they EXPLICITLY stated crossbows were unaffected by the July 6th change.

-----
SCENARIO 2) SIMU was totally and completely negligent in QC (all you had to do was, you know, FIRE THE WEAPON ONCE to know it wasn't working right), rolled the change in WITHOUT testing crossbows, and EXPLICITLY stated crossbows were to be unaffected by the change.

What the hell is QC good for if you don't even check to see if the item is working properly before you issue the fix? The BESTIEST BEST part about this is even after the nerf/fix and after the news, I tested my crossbow out under the supervision of a GM and the item didn't work!

QC Guy: Oh hey, we've got your item ready but we have done absolutely nothing to see if it works or not; that's not our job, is it?

-----

So, which is it SIMU? Were you totally negligent AND liars or just straight up liars? Seriously, I'd LOVE to hear what the answer is for this. If anything, this deserves an immediate response.

[Latrinsorm]

<< Were you totally negligent AND liars or just straight up liars?

Why would that post get pulled!?!?

Also, I can't believe Grendeg is taking Simu's side!!!!

[Methais]

I feel like SIMU thinks I'm just another statistic; another member of the elite organization of fellow players fucked by SIMU item nerfs.

That's because you are. Just like everyone else =/

[RichardCranium]

Game balance is a good thing.

[AestheticDeath]

there was nothing unbalancing about those bows

and there is no way you can argue they are doing it for game balance, when there are so many other things that affect game balance, some of which they cannot or will not do anything about

if there was anything unbalancing about them, its the self ammo, not the RT

[Gelston]

Why does everything have to be "Balanced". Whats wrong with some weapons that are beyond badass?

[RichardCranium]

I was being sarcastic.

[Danical]

Also, I can't believe Grendeg is taking Simu's side!!!!

Grendeg, that piece of fucking shit, has posted in another folder since my wtfpwn of SIMU staff.

I don't think he's got any recourse against what I've said.

However, I think SIMU won't recognize it either . . . I'm just going to put that whole fucking post in my thread as my sig.

Dear SIMU,

Die, you cockmongering dickmittens.

Respectfully,

dan

[Danical]

More goodness . . .


<<Further, these weapons are still more powerful than their bow counterparts, due to the AS increase due to kneeling. I coded them so I am fairly cognizant of their abilities, and +21-+50, permablessed, and could have flares, damage weighting or poison as well, kind of crazy, very high end, plus not carrying around arrows at all.

Kneeling is +30 to AS and -50 DS. GOOD TRADE OFF, NO?

Saying +21-50 as a benefit is downright malicious as any noob can get a +50 bow/arrow combo at the drop of a hat.

Damage weighting, as my crossbow has, is laughable at best and downright insulting at worst.

So, aside from the permabless, where does that leave me?

And, of course, SIMU staff fails to recognize being called out on their horrendous business practice.

HURRAY!

and . . .


I forgot to backup the damage weighting point . . .

Your damage weighting is SOOOOOOO bad, even WARDEN said he wanted to uptweak it!

OH SNAP!

[Silvanostar]

i bet if that xbow was in tsin's hands it wouldn't have been nerfed heh

[Danical]

i bet if that xbow was in tsin's hands it wouldn't have been nerfed heh

No, no. If it was in Mike's hands, SIMU would have told him of the impending change so he could sell it at a premium THEN the change would have rolled in.

:tinfoil:

[grapedog]

how many seconds does it take from your first attack starting to being ready to fire your second attack?

[Silvanostar]

it sucks having amazing gear nerfed and all, but still if you're cocking/firing a xbow in 3 seconds total, thats still pretty awesome

[AestheticDeath]

You forget that possible 3 seconds is only because of his profession as a bard

Plenty of others wont be able to get those roundtimes.

[Stanley Burrell]

I'm not sure I understand how, exactly, it was ever fair to have a crossbow fire at below its governing base speed.

That being said, how badly does this nerf actually effect owners of these crossbows, mechanically? Is your hunting, all of a sudden, upside-down or whatever? (I'm not trying to be coy, I've just used weapons warriorishly for eleven or twelve years now.)

[AestheticDeath]

Well, when the same change happened to the bows, but not the crossbows, my RT went from 3 seconds to 6 seconds.

Which means even with haste, I can no longer get a 1 second RT.

[Celephais]

Well it effectively doubles his RT... to me the problem isn't in the nerf, because this sort of thing WAS overpowered, the problem is that it's an item that someone paid the price of as being overpowered, and they went about this all wrong. Some sort of reinbursement and/or proper QCing in the first place would have made this a lot less of an issue.

[Sean]

I'm not sure I understand how, exactly, it was ever fair to have a crossbow fire at below its governing base speed.

That being said, how badly does this nerf actually effect owners of these crossbows, mechanically? Is your hunting, all of a sudden, upside-down or whatever? (I'm not trying to be coy, I've just used weapons warriorishly for eleven or twelve years now.)

How exactly is it fair that they produced their own ammo either? It's an auction quality item it shouldn't be goverened by the same abilities/stats as your standard store bought crossbow.

[Stanley Burrell]

Because rarely, if ever, have I heard of any item actually being allowed to breakgs.script on RT values.

[Stanley Burrell]

Well it effectively doubles his RT... to me the problem isn't in the nerf, because this sort of thing WAS overpowered, the problem is that it's an item that someone paid the price of as being overpowered, and they went about this all wrong. Some sort of reinbursement and/or proper QCing in the first place would have made this a lot less of an issue.

I am certain that SIMU will be making their M.O. "It's worth whatever someone pays for it" with respect to several assists/referrals.

This goes beyond the realistic game balance mechanical arguments (and then changes) of days Auld, i.e. "Why you should be allowed to hide/maintain a Voln Fu constant/etc. in vorpal tectonic platemail."

SIMU's straight up, raw, uncut fighting system is so deeply-embedded-like-a-gallstone with respect to weapons, that creating a paradox of this in the weapon's nature in direct correlation to the most core components of GS's battle code doesn't seem to be a problem of whether or not the weapon is of grand auction quality or not.

If the bow had a self-haste component, or even a decuple-vacuum flaring bolt, it would still be governed by the foundation of combat RT, which, by even deviating from in the slightest, without either the integration of a seperate, established RT system *or* new, special RT-affect proponent(s), separates an assload of mechanics that've been put into place over the years in order to establish not just fairness/game balance, but fundamentals to GS code: I don't understand why whoever it was that created the bow didn't think about this -- Maybe they hadn't had the game balanced luxury of playing a sword'n'board warrior, who knows?

Again, I really see it as a whole lot less of an issue with respect to being "overpowered" as I do with its being very manipulative towards one of the bottom bricks underlying the combat (code) foundation, that being a principal RT per weapon.

It sucks that these were sold exorbitantly by what were mostly random passerbys to folks who finally found a use for them, but it's just too darn disruptive to the basic laws of the combat system.

2&#162;

[AestheticDeath]

Your not seeing this the way others do, to put it mildly.

For one thing, it is self ammo. That is something thats been introduced in a ton of fantasy realms etc etc. Its something they wanted to bring to Gemstone.

Now, you have a bow which basically does not use arrows. You don't have a quiver, and arrows that you have to reach over your shoulder or to your belt, find one separate arrow, pull it out, nock it to the string, etc..

All you do is pull back on the magical string and its own arrow appears. This takes out over half of the process in shooting a bow and arrow.

The same could be said for the crossbows.

If you take away half the process of shooting the thing, don't you think the time it takes to do it will decrease as well?

What exactly is over powered about letting an archer shoot a bow in the same round time it takes a caster to cast his spell?

And why exactly do you have the bow working the way it did for what ten years or more? And then all of a sudden decide, hmm lets tweak the RT on these things.

Another thing you are forgetting is you aren't realizing that the bow can actually induce a smaller RT than it used to be able to.

In the old form, you had a 5 second RT if you both aimed and sniped. You could not train away the extra two seconds of RT.
Now, IF you are the right race, and have the right spells etc.. You can still achieve a base RT of 3 seconds, which can again be taken down to 1 second of RT with a haste effect.

So in essence they screwed over a lot of professions, and races. And in the end all the did was piss off the weaker players who got screwed this way.

You could argue that they gave the short bows a reason to exist, but I honestly don't see them gaining any value over this change, and I don't think anyone gives two shits about them. The main draw to the self ammo bows was not the base, but the self ammo, and the perma-blessed ability. The flares suck, the weighting sucks. The base RT used to be nice. They would have been better off adding sighting to the bows than flares and weighting or poison. Any bow user worth a fuck is going to choose that over the flares and weighting, since they are just about useless.

[Silent_Willy]

How disruptive is something that there are a dozen of?

[AestheticDeath]

There are more than a dozen by now. But probably not more than three dozen.

Anyways if I were to guess, I would say a prominent player or a GM decided they wanted to rid themselves of the extra two RT for aiming and sniping and changed them.

I don't see a group of people getting together and saying, lets change the self ammo bows because the RT induced currently is way out of line. It wouldn't fly anyways because if you are a giant, half-krolvin, dwarf or something, with strength or CMAN surge, or haste you can still get a very low RT.

[Kitsun]

I hate that the crossbow is now ultra clunky usage of normal crossbows. I wouldn't touch a normal crossbow for the reason that its too damn annoying.

There's about 4 WD style elemental crossbows.
5 original elemental bows.
6 Uska ranger elemental bows.
4 WD blank composite bows.
4 WD longbow bows
5 Poison elemental bows
3 Jovn mechanical crossbows
3 Spirit glove-bows

[AestheticDeath]

damn theres 5 poison bows now?

[Kitsun]

Yeah. 3 originally from EG05 and then 2 more got released at Prem Summer Fest 07.

And my numbers for the WD bows may all need a +1. Were there 5 or 6 runs and didn't one of them not have an ebow release?

[Danical]

I hate that the crossbow is now ultra clunky usage of normal crossbows. I wouldn't touch a normal crossbow for the reason that its too damn annoying.

Ding, Ding, Ding.

The whole fucking point of me buying this crossbow was because it didn't need to be cocked.

I'm even more pissed today than yesterday.

What options do you guys think I have? Should I even attempt to write feedback?

[AestheticDeath]

I don't think you have any more options than I had. They really don't give a damn.

[Silvanostar]

any idea on the properties of the ranger bows and who has them?

[Danical]

I've crossposted in the Discussions with SIMU folder --> The Bad and The Ugly subfolder.

We'll see what kinds of hits I get.

[Deathravin]

Hang on guys... I'll call you the Waaaabulance... They'll fix your bows right back to how they were.

:whocares:

[GS4-D]

I hate that the crossbow is now ultra clunky usage of normal crossbows. I wouldn't touch a normal crossbow for the reason that its too damn annoying.

There's about 4 WD style elemental crossbows.
5 original elemental bows.
6 Uska ranger elemental bows.
4 WD blank composite bows.
4 WD longbow bows
5 Poison elemental bows
3 Jovn mechanical crossbows
3 Spirit glove-bows


There are only 2 mechanical xbows BTW.

[Danical]

Hang on guys... I'll call you the Waaaabulance... They'll fix your bows right back to how they were.

:whocares:

If you lost 100m at the drop of a hat you might think differently you fucking retard.

[Danical]

For my personal flies . . . since so many of my posts have been pulled.


<<There is no ethical lapse, and changes in the best interest of the game have been done, and will continue to be done. --GS4-Khaladon

If you understood my previous posts, it's not the change itself so much as HOW the change was implemented. Hence, me saying, "The nerf aside . . . "

<<You also conviently forget the much higher DF of a heavy crossbow vs. a composite bow in your own arguments. --GS4-Khaladon

I was so absolutely hoping you were going to bring that up. This should be fun.

This a thread to show how something as small as 15 AS can unquestionably offset the DF of a heavy crossbow with a composite bow.

Class is in session.

The following is a table of the Heavy Crossbow and Composite Bow DFs and AvDs for each armor class.

Weapon Type Soft Rigid Chain Plate
Heavy Crossbow DF .325 .375 .285 .175
Heavy Crossbow AvD 36 31 46 40
Composite Bow DF .300 .325 .275 .150
Compostie Bow AvD 35 30 42 36


Now we examine the effectiveness of both weapons. We find this by getting the effective AvD/ET difference between the two weapons. We then divide this number by the difference of weapon DFs. Example on Chain armor:

An ebow of the newish variety will fire with an ET from +20-50. The average is, we'll say, +35. A +50 Composite bow/arrow ET is +50 (only 5x bow and 4x master fletched arrows - insanely easy to achieve). The difference is 15!

Now the Heavy Crossbow has a larger AvD in all cases. We take the difference, in this case, 46 - 42 = 4. So now the Composite Bow only effectively has +11 AS on the Heavy Crossbow.

The Heavy Crossbow does have a higher DF, but just how big a factor is it? Let's take a look! We get the difference of the two .285 (Heavy Crossbow) - .275 (Composite Bow) = .010. That sure is a small number but it is bigger.

Now, let's find out at what outcome a Heavy Crossbow would need to achieve with it's larger DF to overcome the effective AS bonus (+11 if you recall) of the Composite Bow. 11 / .010 = 1100. Now we take this number and add 100 to it as AS vs. DS thresholds require the player to get over 100 to hit. 1100 + 100 = 1200!

Naturally, this is the most extreme case but just for arguments sake I've provide the rest below.

Soft Rigid Chain Plate
660 380 1200 540


What have we learned here? It appears that a regular old 5x composite bow is much better, on average, than the random ET self-ammo crossbows in terms of raw damage unless you can get the above AS vs. DS outcomes; I think it's safe to say it's effectively impossible.

Not to mention crossbows have inherently lower DS than a bow of any type the same ET when calculating archery DS.

Moreover, one can achieve a FAR faster consecutive firing time with bows than crossbows. The examination of the numbers demonstrates this; I'll go into this in more detail if need be.

So, Khaladon, why are you misleading other readers of this thread? Is it intentional or a product of ignorance? I'm not sure which answer I'd like to hear.

Class dismissed.

[Danical]

Lame - it got pulled. Even though my math was horribly off. That's what I get for doing this shit at work.

[Deathravin]

Just grow a pair and deal with it like a man; They won't change it no matter what you or anybody else says. No matter how much sand is in your cunt.

[Danical]

Just grow a pair and deal with it like a man; They won't change it no matter what you or anybody else says. No matter how much sand is in your cunt.

I love that your idea of a man is someone who just takes shit like a bitch without fighting back or standing up for what he thinks is right.

If you don't think losing a fuckton of silver from an item nerf is a legitimate complaint then I suppose that's where we disagree.

[Khariz]

I love that your idea of a man is someone who just takes shit like a bitch without fighting back or standing up for what he thinks is right.

If you don't think losing a fuckton of silver from an item nerf is a legitimate complaint then I suppose that's where we disagree.

Hell it pissed me off when I lost like 10 mil off the wizard enchant blessable thing.

Loosing that much on an e-xbow would PISS ME THE FUCK OFF.

However...I'm curious as to why their value was so grealty diminished? I mean, I understand the RT change, but they are just as rare, and still have unlimited, awesome as fuck ammo.

So why are they no longer worth 100mil? Just curious. And what ARE they worth now?

[Kitsun]

Just grow a pair and deal with it like a man; They won't change it no matter what you or anybody else says. No matter how much sand is in your cunt.

What the fuck is your deal? It seems pretty obvious to anyone that can read that at least some people care about this change, even if it doesn't affect them directly.

This thread hasn't been a rambling epic thread of one man's lone crusade for 100 pages and 30 years. The first post was a whole two days ago.

Just because you've never decided to nut up the nerve and bitch about a change you didn't agree with doesn't mean it hasn't ever happened and hasn't had an effect.

Do you have some kind of personal agenda? Did Vulvamancer donkey punch your sister or something?

[diethx]

Did Vulvamancer donkey punch your sister or something?

I lurve you.

[Danical]

However...I'm curious as to why their value was so grealty diminished? I mean, I understand the RT change, but they are just as rare, and still have unlimited, awesome as fuck ammo.

Well, the RT change was huge. Any normal person using this crossbow will now sit through a 5 second cocking time; the crossbow fires in 2 seconds unaimed, 3 seconds aimed, and 4 if sniping and aiming.

That's a long time for the unhasted person. I can get it down to a 2 cocking time and 1 firing time but that's with -3RT tonis. The newly changed Ebows can have their RT reduced to 3 with sufficient strength. The crossbow nerf really really hurts me because it effectively triples my RT. I would never have even dreamed of using a crossbow had it the same cocking/firing as a normal crossbow.

Moreover, it's a fuck of a lot harder for me to get low RT with a bow because I have shitty strength as a gnome. Not having to worry about getting wiz strength, pheon scrolls, and strength enhancers was my main attraction to the item.

The permabless is nice but it costs how little to fletch up 4x faewood masterwork arrows and get them blessed?

The self-ammo is nice too so you don't have to keep fletching up arrows but any one worth their salt can script that nonsense.

My crossbow doesn't have flares; it has damage weighting. Damage weighting is retarded in GS4 and even worse on arrows since archers generally crit-kill everything.

So, really, my ammo is nothing spectacular to me. Some people really hate gathering ammo but I used a background lich script to pick them up when I used a normal bow.

I just didn't really think this crossbow really deserved the nerf because now there's absolutely no way for me to reduce my firing and cocking times aside from Tonis.

In the end, I would say this isn't worth more than 50m.



Do you have some kind of personal agenda? Did Vulvamancer donkey punch your sister or something?

:lolwave:

[AestheticDeath]

In the end, I would say this isn't worth more than 50m.

While I agree it sucks, and I have all the same feelings you seem to have. I got over my own discontent, and realized that although its not worth as much to me anymore, as my RT also doubled or tripled depending on who I was using it with, other people can actually use it to a greater degree of efficiency than what was previously available.

So while I am pissed off I spent a lot on a weapon, that I now have pretty much no desire to use, I realize the value should not have tanked as much as what I thought to begin with. If at all.

You just have a smaller pool of people who are going to want one of these now.

Thats the only reason I stopped bitching on the officials when this happened to the bows.

So I use mine on my wizard now, who can get it down to 2 seconds, unaimed in the open. Trying to advance in voln far enough that he can use voln fu. Then I will actively try and get rid of the bow I think.

[Danical]

I suppose you're right. I just have to find a buyer.

[TheEschaton]

Moreover, it's a fuck of a lot harder for me to get low RT with a bow because I have shitty strength as a gnome. Not having to worry about getting wiz strength, pheon scrolls, and strength enhancers was my main attraction to the item.

God forbid gnomes should be restricted from doing things which require lots of strength.

-TheE-

[AestheticDeath]

cept this is a magic xbow? and they have them with cranks which reduce RT...

still not sure why they changed the RT for these things

[Danical]

God forbid gnomes should be restricted from doing things which require lots of strength.

-TheE-


Moreover, it's a fuck of a lot harder for me to get low RT with a bow because I have shitty strength as a gnome. Not having to worry about getting wiz strength, pheon scrolls, and strength enhancers was my main attraction to the item.

Auction Quality Item?

[Sean]

God forbid gnomes should be restricted from doing things which require lots of strength.

-TheE-

Then again he purchased an item that he carries with him most likely all the time and then one day hes just like wow this is gonna take me 3 seconds longer to do for the rest of my life? Thats pretty ridiculous. I don't see how given the number of xbows in the game that they were that unbalancing.

[Silent_Willy]

God forbid gnomes should be restricted from doing things which require lots of strength.

-TheE-

Well, yea, he kind of did forbid it. He made you small and useless. Midgets don't play in the NBA, gnomes shouldn't exist. No pity there.

[TheEschaton]

Obviously you didn't understand the meaning of my post. I support the idea that gnomes should have a hell of a time pulling a bowstring on a long bow or cocking a heavy crossbow.

And it still IS auction quality. Face it though, man, nothing is gonna be "auction quality" like things were "auction quality" back in the day, when the way things worked just didn't make sense.

[Danical]

And it still IS auction quality. Face it though, man, nothing is gonna be "auction quality" like things were "auction quality" back in the day, when the way things worked just didn't make sense.

My crossbow was created when Warden was the Mechanics SGM. He approved it then and yet it was his decision to change the crossbow and Khal poorly implemented it.

Warden is a FLIP-FLOPPER!

[thefarmer]

I still think it's a nice weapon, even if you can't fire it at 1sec anymore.

[Joe]

So they stole 2 seconds of your life from now 'til the time you stop playing... ask 'em for compensation!

[Deathravin]

My point was and still is you have sand in your vagina about a FIX to a weapon that was so clearly unbalanced. It was indeed a fix, and a true fix. If you are too retarded to think they wouldn't have fixed such a clearly broken item, you were and still are diluting yourself.

You're basically saying, "HEY, I paid 1700 dollars for the ability to kill anything I want faster than anybody else, why can't I keep it" and I'm trying tell you it's because it's BROKEN, live with it, suck up your losses.

If you think cocking a crossbow that has self-ammo is unfair, I would point you to your own logic of things that 'make sense IRL'. It makes sense you would still have to cock the thing. It makes sense it would take about the same amount of time to fire it as a normal crossbow. You had something that was over-powered in 3 ways: You didn't have to cock a crossbow - something every other crossbow user has to do. You didn't have to obtain bolts for it - something every other crossbow user has to do. and you had an unreasonably short RT - something no other crossbow user has.

They cut out two of those. Having 1 thing that is over-powered seems much more fair and balanced than 3.



And if you actually think bitching to Simu is going to work, you haven't been playing the game for very long. They made the right call, and if you could get over your own greed over the money you're out, you would see that too.

[Kitsun]

From a whole "reality" standpoint, the crossbow actually did get cocked when it was fired. It just did it in one RT.

[Danical]

You're basically saying, "HEY, I paid 1700 dollars for the ability to kill anything I want faster than anybody else, why can't I keep it" and I'm trying tell you it's because it's BROKEN, live with it, suck up your losses.


I could fire a longbow given sufficient strength enhancers in the same time; it's only fast because I use Tonis. Why aren't you getting this? I was firing in the same time.



You had something that was over-powered in 3 ways: You didn't have to cock a crossbow - something every other crossbow user has to do.

See Kitsun.


You didn't have to obtain bolts for it - something every other crossbow user has to do.

I'm not sure why you think this is overpowered; how much do you think I'm saving by not using normal bolts? They are permablessed but it's easy to fletch up 5x blessed arrow/bolts coupled with a 5x weapon to achieve a higher AS by an average of 15 on every shot. It does to something no other crossbow does but the result is less effective compared to it's normal counterpart. So, what's your point?


and you had an unreasonably short RT - something no other crossbow user has.

I think this is really the linchpin of the issue. It's ONLY shorter if you add the new cocking time in which I figured was the benefit of an Auction Quality Item. While I agree it circumvented the normal crossbow mechanics, I don't agree it needed the "reality" nerf for one important reason.

My crossbow was released while Warden was Mechanics SGM; if he approved it then why would I ever think it would get changed? His approval of the item is supposed to instill a sense of security. If he had the foresight to create the crossbow with the same mechanics as now then I would have bought an E-bow instead of the crossbow. Indeed, how could the item be "broken" if the one GM responsible for more nerfs in the history of the game approved it in the first place?



And if you actually think bitching to Simu is going to work, you haven't been playing the game for very long. They made the right call, and if you could get over your own greed over the money you're out, you would see that too.

See 1040 changes. While not dramatic, they still changed the spell given enough players bitching and of course I was out in front fighting and arguing against what I thought was bullshit. Are you obtuse or is it deliberate? Or maybe you're just a coward and would rather accept shit slung your way.


It would be much cheaper for me to go out and get the +5 strength enhancer badge. I already have 2 606 scrolls infused and 2 Wiz Strength scrolls fully infused with 101 ranks of AS. Additionally there is an abundance of wizards and sorcerers on Teras to spellup/infuse. I could also get a 5x bow and 5x arrow/bolts. These aren't hard to get with the Avd Guild and sorcerer infusing scrolls. I would pay far less than what I paid for the crossbow for nearly the same effect in all respects.

I guess we'll have to agree to disagree on this.

[Kitsun]

I guess we'll have to agree to disagree on this.

Or you could tell him what a dirty slut his sister is and how much fun you had riding out that donkey punch!

His evasion of my comment is clearly indicative of guilt.

I obviously have nothing else constructive to add right now.

[Stretch]

Heh. I'd say the OP has a pretty reasonable beef with Simu on this one. Five seconds to cock/load the damn crossbow and two more to fire it? That's insane.

Granted, I am a firm believer that archery is way overpowered (slightly less so with the much needed nerf to Surge), something that gets blown out to the extreme when you introduce RT reduction in the picture. I was going through 90-110 Ithzir per 15 minute hunt when I was using the Haste slasher a year or so ago.

I do think this whole thing was badly handled. If nothing else, the fact that it took two months to address the x-bow bug (nerf aside) is unacceptable from a customer service perspective. Two months? Yikes.

I'd say that this sucks a whole lot more than the 202/303/120 nerfs, because those were just asking for fixing. An extra 40 DS for an hour for like 10 mana?

Really does make you question why things take so long to make it through QC.