Crossbows Please!

[Ossir]

Hey, I'm relatively new but I've been enjoying some of the mods from here and good job guys! :thumbsup: I was going to put this in the weapons request section but I decided it was enough of an issue to start a new thread, forgive me if this has been said before.

 

The thing that probably annoys me most about DA weapons is the fact the crossbows look like toys, and there are no decent "legendary" ones. I fixed the damage scaling bug with another mod from here (Many thanks for that BTW), and I have a rune mod that I can use to create my own specials, but the fact is they still look utterly pathetic.

 

what's worse... I haven't seen a single crossbow on this site. If I'm mistaken, please point me to it.

 

I really hope someone does a crossbow or two because I think they have been thoroughly neglected and they are really cool weapons. Something big and ornate...

 

At the very least, someone please scale the existing model so it is an impressive size and re-texture it so it doesn't look like it's made of plastic.

[Chiramu]

I think this would be a good mod too. I am disappointed how the only good bows you get are longbows :/.

[RustyBlade]

The school of thought (tactical) on longbows vs. crossbows is the longbow can fire between 3x and 5x faster than the x-bow. Even though the x-bow is more powerful, it cannot lay down the rate of fire and damage that can be done with a conventional bow. They are slow, clumsy and leave one defenseless to attack while reloading. It wasn't the crossbow that ruled Agincourt, it was the longbow.

 

Not trying to burst your bubble here but the modders are going to go with the better weapon. No argument with the fact there are few if any modded x-bows in the game.

[BakaSmurf]

I wouldn't mind a few crossbow mods either, namely because a crossbow seems a lot more likely to be used when someone is wearing full plate armour than a longbow, mostly because plate armour would, if my sources are correct, severely ristrict your movement, and thus make it somewhat difficut to properly utilize a longbow, especially in a combat situation.

 

I tend to use heavier armour whenever I play through Dragon Age, just in case you hadn't determined that.

[Kaerar]

X-bow's would suit a Warrior archer much more than a Rogue archer. X-bow's shouls also have the ability to get repeater version which allow for 3 or 5 bolts before needing reloading as they existed IRL too. That would increase the damage output to be on par with the Longbow's. Another thing that's not taken into account is Armour penetration of Crossbow compared to a Longbow. Crossbow bolts are a lot heavier and transfer a ton more power to their tips than normal arrows. So technically if you are targetting a heavy armoured foe a Crossbow should be the weapon of choice. Medium and light armour would cave to a Longbow or Shortbow, and they would inflict more serious wounds too. The Crossbow has more chance of breaking bones though much harder to target.

 

So taking those factors into account a couple of legendary X-bows wouldn't be a bad idea, one possibly being a repeater and another with better armour penetration. I think that Longbows and Shortbows should get a penalty to chance to wound (hit?) for Heavy and Massive armoured enemies. Makes more sense...

[Ossir]

I'm glad to see a few other people agree.

 

@RustyBlade

 

yes you are completely right, historically crossbows were slow, clumbsy weapons designed for use by the dumb guards who didn't have time or skill to train using a longbow.

 

however, Agincourt was also not ruled by say... the mages staff, or the fireball. we are, after all, in a fantasy game.

 

in gameplay terms, the crossbow is bugged at the moment but like I said this can be fixed. The issue is variety, with a trade-off between rate of fire and damage per hit. In the game, the discrepency between the rates of fire is much smaller than in real life and can be fixed with some custom rapid aim runes.

 

Also, I don't think anybody has mentionned but crossbows have a significantly higher base crit chance, and (depending on how you mod it) a better damage scaling (similar issue to mauls vs. greatswords)

 

So, for weapons of same tier and, for sake of comparison, same specials, a "fixed" crossbow (in game) has a slightly lower rate of fire than a longbow, balanced by higher damage, higher crit chance, and higher armour penetration; oh, and longer range (for those like me who like to start battles at the edge of the field of view whenever possible) DPS against a heavily armoured target should be comparable.

 

 

On a slightly different note, you can quite easily turn a crossbow into a medieval "sniper rifle" with a lot of +damage/+crit chance/+crit damage bonuses. I imagine Arrow of Slaying could hit upwards of 300 damage but I haven't tested this yet :tongue:

[AbrasaxDrake]

I cant do anything about appearence but i have made some changes to add a bit of realism to some of the games weapons, including the crossbow.

 

Check out

 

http://www.dragonagenexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=1506

 

All comments, compliments and complaints are wecome.

[Ossir]

Thank you for your contribution

 

I like the overall idea of your mod but when I tested it it re-bugged the crossbow. It seems to override the other mod I use to make crossbow damage scale with dex. actually, what I have is a crossbow with stats that read "45 damage" but when equipped my character screen says he does 20 damage :blink:

 

I have however very quickly tried to teach myself how the GDA files work and am messing about with merging the "ItemStats" file from the two mods. I'll get back to you on how that goes.

[Ossir]

ah, it seems I have been quite successful with my meddling. I now have a crossbow that has the same base stats and equip requirements as your mod, and that has damage scaling with dexterity. I played with the aim times and at the moment a normal shot takes approximately the same amount of time as charging Arrow of Slaying. With the crossbow equipped, my character has 91 damage per hit, 14% crit chance and 20 armour penetration.

 

of course, there was nothing I could do about the aim animation, only to increase the aim delay.

 

and, while I am now quite satisfied with the performance, I am still annoyed it looks like a toy :wallbash: oh well, can't have everything!

 

If you or anybody else would like, I can upload the new tweaked file, not that I actually did THAT much work but I will credit the two mods I bashed together :thumbsup:

[AbrasaxDrake]

I like the overall idea of your mod but when I tested it it re-bugged the crossbow. It seems to override the other mod I use to make crossbow damage scale with dex. actually, what I have is a crossbow with stats that read "45 damage" but when equipped my character screen says he does 20 damage :blink:

 

Personally i don't consider the scaling a bug. Where as a higher strength (up to a point) would enable a bow to be drawn further resulting in more power and distance, A crossbow can only fire at a set power. And that is what i am aiming for in my mod.

 

Note that the Damage shown on your char screen is taking into account the attack speed. (Not sure of the exact calculations but i think its similar to dps [damage per second])

 

***

 

I'm glad you figured out the .gda to make things how you want, and would indeed like to see your work.