Archery Update Design Plans

[MokiePrime]

Earlier tonight GM Naijin linked a Google Doc containing planned updates to archery. You can locate it here: https://bit.ly/39V3E77

Goal
The intent of this design is to make improvements to the quality of life of archery, increase the effectiveness of crossbows, slightly tune the power of archery, improve fletching, and to give a clear path of upgrades for project pieces. Additionally, we would like to add more combat options available to archery so it has more options than aiming at eyes.

Note: This design document is considered approved but changes may continue to happen up until release.

Quality of Life Improvements

The main pain points of archery are:

1. Ammo management, gathering, and generic changes.
2. Command entry, specifically for crossbows, is cumbersome.

Ammo Changes

1. The current system in place for managing ammo is not fun, it’s riddled with bundling issues (blessing, e-blades, etc), and offers no room for project pieces. We plan to fix this by:
2. Making new types of bundles that are bottomless, that is, they never need to be replenished.
3. Bundles will take temporary enhancements like 304 and 411, and can also be charged with fletched arrows for additional benefit. Charges stay with the bundle and function identical to melee weapons.
4. Fired ammo is now intended to be disposable. The GATHER system is no longer necessary.
5. Ammo bundles purchased from shops will be 0x and non-magical, but very cheap.
6. Bundles can alternatively be made into functional wearable items that make sense to store arrows and bolts in.
7. Arrows are able to lodge into their target but if they lack the force to do so they will shatter instead. There’s potential here to allow for customized player messaging for arrows shattering.
8. Bodkin arrows will be added as a new type of ammo with crush/slash damage.
9. Bundles will have a flat encumbrance of 2lbs.

Command Entry

The new system will utilize the READY system and you longer have to retrieve an arrow. Simply FIRE, and the ammo will be pulled automatically.
Crossbows will follow a similar system and become more comparable to bows. See the crossbow section below for more information.

Increase the Effectiveness of Crossbows

Crossbows are rarely used due to the speed, DS, and command advantages of bows. Crossbows will be tweaked to reduce their overall roundtime but will maintain their niche as a more accurate and more damaging weapon at the cost of overall speed and defense.

1. The new command system will be similar to archery. LOAD disappears entirely and COCK/FIRE will be rolled into fire itself with a combined RT for all actions.
2. Alternatively, you can still COCK and FIRE a crossbow separately if you choose to.
3. Crossbows will keep their reduced DS, aiming skill bonus (+5 standing, +20 kneeling), and AS bonus (+30 while kneeling) to differentiate them as a slower precision style weapon.
4. Crossbow RT will be reduced to 4 seconds for light and 5 seconds for heavy, regardless of aiming or hiding. If cock is used separately it takes 2 seconds and the remaining RT is used on fire. e.g., cock for 2 seconds, fire in 2 seconds for a light crossbow. The minimum roundtime for all bows with enough strength remains at 3 seconds (even while aiming or sniping).
5. The capped AIM chance for crossbows will be increased by 5% (from 75% to 80% for eyes, other locations vary).
6. Crossbows will receive a flat 5% bonus to remaining hidden while sniping.
7. The chance to be revealed from hiding while COCKing will be removed since it’s already handled during FIRE.

This change firmly plants crossbows as the more offensive weapon at a cost of speed and defense.

Archery Tuning

1. Ammo management is the only check (albeit a poor one) to the strength of archery. The quality of life improvements means archery needs a slight tweak to bring it more inline with the power of other forms of combat physical combat.
2. Basic arrows will be changed from 100% puncture to puncture/slash (primarily puncture).
3. Enchant will be removed from arrows.
4. Bodkin arrows will be added and will be crush/slash damage (primarily crush).

Improve Fletching

Fletching is primarily used as a customization tool for arrows, is slow

1. A bundle of 20 or more fletched arrows can be converted to a new style bottomless ammo bundle. Arrows fired from the bottomless bundle will take on the description of the fletched arrows.
2. Fletched arrows can be added to the bottomless ammo which will give an equivalent number of shots of +5 AvD. This bonus is flat at all ranks. Higher ranks of fletching will increase the speed at which you fletch arrows.
3. The time to fletch a single arrow will be drastically reduced.
4. Bodkin arrow heads will be added to the fletching stores as a way to fletch bodkin arrows.

Give a clear path of upgrades for project pieces

Archery is the only system in the game that allows two separate pieces of gear to dictate the total enchant of the weapon. This means most archers stop upgrading their bow at 5x or 6x enchants and bows have limited upgrades available. Arrows are eventually lost and are a poor candidate for upgrades because of this.

1. Ranged weapons will be the target of project pieces and enchant will be removed from arrows. This gives a reason to push bow enchants up to 10x. Ranged weapons should take all the upgrades that melee weapons do.
2. Ranged weapons will accept ensorcell, enchant, sighting, flares, blesses, and scripts.
3. Arrow bundles are meant to be interchangeable with your hunting needs. For example, you can have a fire flaring bow and use an ice flaring bundle of arrows to hunt fire immune creatures. In the same area you could use blessed arrows to kill the undead.

Improving Archery Options

1. CMAN MFIRE will be moved to a MFIRE verb that functions similarly to MSTRIKE. MoC rank thresholds, targets, and roundtimes are the same as melee. Bows have a 7/6/5 base RT. Crossbow times are still TBD.

New Combat Maneuvers

Truehand will now function with archery and be renamed True Strike.

Skill Name: True Strike
Mnemonic: truestrike
Hostile: Yes
Stamina Cost: Base 10. Additional stamina costs are determined by the Base Weapon Speed of your attack. A stamina penalty of +1 per second of base speed is applied for each second under 5 and +2 for each second over 5. For two weapon combat, an effective Base Weapon Speed is calculated by taking the primary weapon's base speed, adding half the secondary weapon's base speed (rounded up), and adding 1 to the result. The minimum stamina cost is 10.
Other Requirements: Cannot be used from hiding.
Available to: Warriors, Rogues, Rangers, Bards, Monks, Paladins.
Prerequisites:
None
CMP Cost:
Rank 1: (Squares) 2 (Semis) 3
Rank 2: (Squares) 4 (Semis) 6
Rank 3: (Squares) 6 (Semis) 9
Rank 4: (Squares) 8 (Semis) 12
Rank 5: (Squares) 10 (Semis) 15
Description: Increases the chance to hit your target for one attack. At Rank 1, True Strike changes the standard attack d100 roll to 20 + d80 and reduces the target's chances of evading, parrying, and/or blocking your attack by 10%. Each additional rank adds 10 to your combat roll (d80, d70, d60, d50, d40) and reduces your opponent's evasion, parry, and blocking ability by a further 10%.

New Dislodge maneuver.

Skill Name: Dislodge
Mnemonic: dislodge
Hostile: Yes
Stamina Cost: Base 15 (-5 Rank 1, -3 Rank 2)
Other Requirements: An empty hand.
Available to: Warriors, Rogues, Rangers, Bards, Monks, Paladins.
Prerequisites:
None
CMP Cost:
Rank 1: (Squares) 2 (Semis) 3
Rank 2: (Squares) 4 (Semis) 6
Rank 3: (Squares) 6 (Semis) 9
Rank 4: (Squares) 8 (Semis) 12
Rank 5: (Squares) 10 (Semis) 15
Description: Attempt to violently retrieve ranged ammo or a hurled weapon that has been lodged in your target. Successful attempts will place the weapon in hand.

Archery Related Scripted Items

Affected
Compartmentalized Quiver
Mechanical Bow/Crossbow

Not affected
Wand Bow
Mechanical Quiver
Spirit Glove, not affected
Elemental Bow, not affected
Poison Bow, not affected
Duplicating Quiver
Trueshot Quiver
Witchwood Quiver
Racial Sighted Bows

[Taernath]

Digging the ammo management changes.

Not sure about the enchant changes. A lot of my bows/xbows are going from top of the line to pRoJeCt PiEcEs. Same with fletching. All that time spent for +5 AvD?

[MokiePrime]

Yeah, all fletched arrows get the +5 AvD regardless of the fletcher's skill. Also not super stoked about the enchant loss for arrows. Naijin insists that ranged AS is still viable with the missing AS, but I dunno. I worry it will disproportionately affect lower level characters. And yeah, I've actually been ranking up fletching and have made it to 497 ranks. Now I guess I don't really need to grab those last three ranks before I start making arrows for real. And I have project bow that's going to cost a small fortune to enchant up, because enhansives. Yay?

[Izzy]

Digging the ammo management changes.

Not sure about the enchant changes. A lot of my bows/xbows are going from top of the line to pRoJeCt PiEcEs. Same with fletching. All that time spent for +5 AvD?

The +5 AvD effectively increases the cap to 11x with a 10x bow. Pretty nice IMO. Also I think the enchant changes are reasonable, I've never struggled with AS as a ranger, and I don't even have ambush trained. Plus, my bow is already 7x for the DS bonus and for greater ease of use of ebladed arrows. That said, I wouldn't mind some +ranged AS adjustments in the ranger spell circle somewhere

[Winter]

Naijin is one of the best things ever to happen to GS, he along with Tillmen and whoever hosts these boards all deserve a thoroughly decent person award.

[Fryinhades]

I think this change will definitely hamper mutant archer types. Especially in the sense of the enchant and loss of true strike as well. I find it very difficult seeing these types of people to be able to hunt easily. My mage currently at almost 66 trains shoots a longbow at 393 AS with heroism and bravery running as well as all other spells available to him and col signs. He has both a 6x and 7x bow available to him, so the loss of 15-20 AS might be rough. We will have to see and test. At this point my ranger seems to be almost on par with my mage in self spelled as/ds and hes 35 levels lower. At this point I could take my ranger to hunt red forest vipers and boars with him and he should do absolutely fine.

No ammo management would make it easier for group hunting and sniping from shadows since they wont have to wait for you to gather. Time will tell. Putting a sigil script on my bow or some other type of script could be interesting but time will tell

[drumpel]

Sure, fix ranged.....but where's the love for thrown?

I don't use either, but I've learned from SJW asshats that regardless of the good things that are happening, you still need to bitch about the things that aren't getting fixed. Especially when those things that aren't getting fixed have zero impact on your life.

[Donquix]

I think this change will definitely hamper mutant archer types. Especially in the sense of the enchant and loss of true strike as well. I find it very difficult seeing these types of people to be able to hunt easily. My mage currently at almost 66 trains shoots a longbow at 393 AS with heroism and bravery running as well as all other spells available to him and col signs. He has both a 6x and 7x bow available to him, so the loss of 15-20 AS might be rough. We will have to see and test. At this point my ranger seems to be almost on par with my mage in self spelled as/ds and hes 35 levels lower. At this point I could take my ranger to hunt red forest vipers and boars with him and he should do absolutely fine.

No ammo management would make it easier for group hunting and sniping from shadows since they wont have to wait for you to gather. Time will tell. Putting a sigil script on my bow or some other type of script could be interesting but time will tell

10-15 AS as you'll get the AvD bonus from fletching, which is going to effectively be like 5 raw damage or less against anything not in cloth. It sucks losing AS but i think most people would trade 10-15 AS for a self-ammo 7x bow these days so....you'll live.

Sure, fix ranged.....but where's the love for thrown?

I don't use either.

Thrown is slated for similar changes. Bundles of "throwing hammer", "throwing axes", etc.as weapons, ability to mstrike, all that jazz.

[Archigeek]

Thrown needs it worse than ranged. Basically thrown is burdensome unless you have a returner.

[Orthin]

I think this change will definitely hamper mutant archer types. Especially in the sense of the enchant and loss of true strike as well. I find it very difficult seeing these types of people to be able to hunt easily. My mage currently at almost 66 trains shoots a longbow at 393 AS with heroism and bravery running as well as all other spells available to him and col signs. He has both a 6x and 7x bow available to him, so the loss of 15-20 AS might be rough. We will have to see and test. At this point my ranger seems to be almost on par with my mage in self spelled as/ds and hes 35 levels lower. At this point I could take my ranger to hunt red forest vipers and boars with him and he should do absolutely fine.

No ammo management would make it easier for group hunting and sniping from shadows since they wont have to wait for you to gather. Time will tell. Putting a sigil script on my bow or some other type of script could be interesting but time will tell

Assuming 411 will still work so there should be no gap lost for you AS wise