KinslayerMUD Forums

Hey everyone,

Over the course of the next few weeks I'm planning on doing some work on bows. It would be a huge help if everyone who has had some experience with them posted their thoughts about the current implementation, including what you think works, what doesn't work, whether the damage output is enough, whether they are fun to PK with or against, whether you find the skills to be useful, or anything else that might come to mind. Thanks!

I just found that before bows created a huge sense of lag if they hit you when you are fleeing. Maybe it was just me, but a multishot seemed like it canceled my flees.

I would like to suggest that the time between each multishot arrow be longer than it is currently. Its only a pulse as it is now. Maybe make it two?

I think arrows should be downed a bit :P wearing full dodge theyhit me more often than not :P

I think that bows are kinda unreliable when engaged, not sure how to fix that and keep it all balanced though.

So far I've enjoyed using them. If I went back to pulwars, I'd get 191 ob and I was hitting a dodgy about every other hit usually for a frag. With bows I can not have anything for 10 rounds and then do two multishots two rounds apart. Out of those six shots probably 2-3 will hit a full dodger. The times between hits on a multishot could be spread out, but then the time between when shots actually can be fired would have to be spread out too. A melee character who didn't have the option I do of weaving, would be seriously gimped. Critical hit effects do seem to be a bit strange. They cause the person hit to scream and that seems to cancel several things that even damage won't.

i dislike how shots can cancel bash timers.

Yeah, I think that shots that cancel bash timers should be a skill kinda like multi shot that would take more pracs to use. But if this happens the times when the shot happens should be stabilized (Maybe once every 2 rounds soiid)

The issue is arrows canceling combative skills so frequently period, I am sure someone who has used up pracs to get bash, weaves, stab, pstrike, or kick doesn't appreciate having their skill nullified so easily and so often.

Let's leave the canceling of timers to kick, that's why it's landing rate is low, has a timer and generates lag.

make bow firing no random in combat. Make it manual with a timer :P although ive never used bowsso dont listen to me :P

Not trying to slam bows but how do you balance Multishot, Critical Hit, Power Shot, and Barrage?

My idea would be to hardcode bows, power shots effectiveness should vary according to the stats of the bow just as defensive and offensive weapons bash ratings vary, a crit hit should have the same timer as bash, the same affect, and when a crit hit and bash are begun in the same pulse the code should compare the prac % and weapon weight to determine whether the power shot or bash is successful, this way abser don't get screwed over.

change multishot to a fixed amount of arrows per use and divide their dmg to what a critical shot deals and increase it by a few points, multishots should not cancel any timers and should be dependant on the weapons stats as per crit hit.

A Critical hits dmg rating should be comparable to the weapons weight and whether it has defense or not just as any other weapons ratings are taken into consideration.

Quivers are interesting but do way to many things, keep the effects of increased dmg and poison and remove the rest and more importantly lower their loads on smobs greatly. The ability to increase dmg and poison ability should be added to normal weapons to balance this.

Yeah I know my ideas make bows similar to other weapons but similarity bridges the gap between balanced and unbalanced.

Hrm. Quivers load about 1 out of 10-20 smob runs for me. They're not terribly easy to get.

Half of the fun of bows is that they just happen. I use them constantly to shoot to the next room, but the only skill that's hard coded is powershot and I don't have the str to do that. Multishot is already 3 arrows per use.

Do you think Crit hit should be a skill instead of a random % chance per arrow to do extra dmg? That would be a major change and honestly I'm not sure which way it'd go.

Interesting stuff, but honestly it would make bows too much like other weapons. I've liked that they work on a totally different system.

Evilina wrote:Not trying to slam bows but how do you balance Multishot, Critical Hit, Power Shot, and Barrage?

My idea would be to hardcode bows, power shots effectiveness should vary according to the stats of the bow just as defensive and offensive weapons bash ratings vary, a crit hit should have the same timer as bash, the same affect, and when a crit hit and bash are begun in the same pulse the code should compare the prac % and weapon weight to determine whether the power shot or bash is successful, this way abser don't get screwed over.

change multishot to a fixed amount of arrows per use and divide their dmg to what a critical shot deals and increase it by a few points, multishots should not cancel any timers and should be dependant on the weapons stats as per crit hit.

A Critical hits dmg rating should be comparable to the weapons weight and whether it has defense or not just as any other weapons ratings are taken into consideration.

Quivers are interesting but do way to many things, keep the effects of increased dmg and poison and remove the rest and more importantly lower their loads on smobs greatly. The ability to increase dmg and poison ability should be added to normal weapons to balance this.

Yeah I know my ideas make bows similar to other weapons but similarity bridges the gap between balanced and unbalanced.

Great idea.

Thanks for all the feedback. Here's a few ideas I've been thinking of that may or may not see the light of day:

• Remove passive Multishot. Increase shot damage to compensate.
• Add an active Multishot, which shoots a volley of arrows at enemies. Can hit up to X (probably 3) targets.
• Remove passive shooting completely. Replace it by allowing shots to be fired in combat with an increased timer length.
• Remove critical hits canceling timers. Unreliable, random interrupts suck. Crit rate may be increased to compensate.
• Rebalance landing rates and damage done so it's in line with other skills.
• Do *something* with Power Shot. I kind of like that it's different from Bash, but it feels unrewarding to use right now.
• Let channelers use Power Shot at a decreased success rate, similar to Bash.
• Remove quivers and rework them.

Remember, none of this is final. If any of them seem blatantly bad, do me a favor and shoot them down before any work is done.

or make quivers required to use a bow at all MUAHAHAHA

or make bows not usable by channies, problem solved!

big fan of completely removing passive shooting. this could turn bows into a legitimate setup that requires thought instead of its current throw it on a channeler and focus on channeling while allowing bows to do extra damage retardedness.

i hate the idea of another pansy setup having a stun/bash ability. absers still don't feel very powerful at the moment and i don't think having bows that do something similar to bash helps that.

i would like for bows to perhaps be weapons that are intended for use against people with high defense, capable of breaking through dodge and hurting ze full dodgers, but doing decreased damage or decreased landing or whatever on absers to the point where bows aren't very effective against absers.

if you insist that another passive setup should have a stun, please for the love of god make it not land its stun on absers a lot, absers are straight up frustrating to play as is.

fuck canceling of timers other than channeling timers.

Lamgwin wrote:i would like for bows to perhaps be weapons that are intended for use against people with high defense, capable of breaking through dodge and hurting ze full dodgers, but doing decreased damage or decreased landing or whatever on absers to the point where bows aren't very effective against absers.

I can agree that bows should be effective on dodgers but they should be effective on absers as well, least your post wasn't biased.

what isn't effective against absers? why can't absers have one thing they can beat straight up?

absers can beat absers straight up! lolerskates and roflcopters.




I'm just fucking with you lamgwin. You're still a faggot, but you're my boy.

I'm going to start working on this today, so if anything doesn't seem to be working properly, that's why. An announcement will come when nothing else is going to be changed today.

Wow thats th most simple and best solution to this problem. Remove the passive shooting totally and make it have a timer. I'm surprised nobody has thought of that before..

And that post was totally serious, I am sure someone will think it was sarcasm.

On another note, we need a new text style on this forum. A sarcasm text style that will notify others of potential sarcasm. This way nobody is confused anymore! [/sarcasm]

I think eventually all characters should play like channies and not have passive attack rounds, but different skills (like slash, stab, bash, etc) that would be like weaves but wouldn't interrupt other's timers. The changes look great though

Do we really 'need' bows?:P

I think its a cool variation for a setup.