Jump to content
The Dark Mod Forums

Crossbow?


oDDity

Recommended Posts

What would you guys think of having a choice of crossbow as well as the classic shortbow. It's very easy to inculde a crossbow choice as well.

It's a purely asthetic choice of course, you won't get any advantage or disadvantage in gameplay from choosing either.

I'd personally prefer the crossbow, I think it's much more of a utility weapon than the short bow ,and less awkward to carry around and squeeze through windows with as well.

 

crossbow3.jpg

  • Like 1

Civillisation will not attain perfection until the last stone, from the last church, falls on the last priest.

- Emil Zola

 

character models site

Link to comment
Share on other sites

If you include one that looks like the one above, then I'm all for it.

 

Very nice work, especially the wood grain on the stock ^_^

I am all for it, and a cross bow actually makes more sense from my perspective.

 

The only thing is the no penalty.

 

Well it just seems unrealistic since they take longer to reload.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

They also have less range, and are less accurate at range, but there's no reason to include a penalty, since you aren't actually recieving any physical benefit either.

Civillisation will not attain perfection until the last stone, from the last church, falls on the last priest.

- Emil Zola

 

character models site

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Wow, that is incredible work!

 

Crossbows are generally more powerful than a comparably sized bow though, one of the reasons for their development was to punch through the heavy armor plating of mounted knights.

 

A crossbow could have the power to fire a small grappling hook and rope up over a railing or rafter, a much more reasonable and believable climbing kit than a rope arrow. Or how about this, a special "clockwork" corkscrew bolt with two stages: First you fire it into a rafter or beam or whatever, it hits and sinks in pretty deep, this gives it leverage for the second stage which is triggered on impact.

 

The second stage consists of a small but powerful spring loaded mechanism that drills a razor sharp cork screw shaped head deeper into the wood. Attached to this whole setup is of course a length of light but sturdy rope and voila up goes the thief!

 

To balance such a powerful tool, the rope-bolts would have to be VERY expensive, and non-reusable, the careful work of master craftsmen. The rope could be left attached or removed and attached to the next bolt, of which the Thief could only afford maybe three at any given time. Combined with climbing gloves,( I know, I know), they would be a pretty good all around way for the Thief to get up to high places.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

To balance such a powerful tool, the rope-bolts would have to be VERY expensive, and non-reusable, the careful work of master craftsmen.  The rope could be left attached or removed and attached to the next bolt, of which the Thief could only afford maybe three at any given time.  Combined with climbing gloves,( I know, I know), they would be a pretty good all around way for the Thief to get up to high places.

 

 

Right... Or just have a rope-bolt which is reusable. What is the point in limiting rope-bolts? Or do you have rope arrows as well? Why?

Gameplay is #1, stupidly complicated un-fun things are bad.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Right... Or just have a rope-bolt which is reusable. What is the point in limiting rope-bolts? Or do you have rope arrows as well? Why?

Gameplay is #1, stupidly complicated un-fun things are bad.

 

 

One, because a rope-bolt that drills itself into 8 to 10 inches of wood is not going to be reusable by a thief who cant spare the fifteen minutes to work it back out of the wood. Two, because the spring mechanism that would drive such a bolt with enough force to penetrate wood would require some sort of leveraging device to twist it back into its armed position, I doubt the thief would carry around a work bench and the special tools necessary to crank it back into place, a task that only the craftsmen who made them would know how to do correctly anyway. Three because making them a one shot deal forces the player to use them sparingly, as does their cost. Also, they would naturally be bulkier than a standard bolt, taking up more room in the Thiefs kit and weighing him down a bit more. Also, the rope-bolts range would be reduced,as they have more mass, unless Oddity would like to construct a compound crossbow that could have different levels of tension for different tasks. :wub:

 

You apparently missed the point that rope arrows are controversial. The problem with rope arrows, as much as I loved them, was that they were wildly unrealistic, even taking the presence of magic into account. My detailed description of a rope-bolt was meant to address that issue by presenting a much more feasible mechanism for letting the Thief put a rope where he needs one. Its still fantastic, but much less so than a simple arrow that barely sticks into wood and which spurts a fifty foot rope out of its ass when it hits. And which then supports a 100 plus pound person climbing up it.

 

Good gameplay goes hand in hand with good immersion, with some exceptions of course, stupidly UNcomplicated critiques of the ideas of others, well, they really dont rate at all. :rolleyes:

Edited by Maximius
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Well, it's a good description, but it doens't really require any work, you can just imagine that you are using this corkscrew arrow, you woudn't expect to see the inner workings of it anyway.

Civillisation will not attain perfection until the last stone, from the last church, falls on the last priest.

- Emil Zola

 

character models site

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Well, it's a good description, but it doens't really require any work, you can just imagine that you are using this corkscrew arrow, you woudn't expect to see the inner workings of it anyway.

 

 

Absolutely correct, I just wanted to provide a solid description for the player to keep in the back of his/her mind. Perhaps the info could appear in a tome the Thief bumps into one night in Baron XYZs' library. The Thief would chuckle and say "Ahh, thats how these dang things work!"

 

Maybe the bolts head would look a little funny or something, the shaft would be all metal, and there might be a kinda clockwork noise as the screw part drills in. This could be another penalty, a small odd noise, similar to the original noisemaker arrows, that would attract the alert guard down the hallway. Of course I leave any such details up to you and your magnificent Muse.....

Link to comment
Share on other sites

You apparently missed the point that rope arrows are controversial.

 

They're hardly any less realistic than crystal arrows. I don't know of any controversy surrounding them, other than the fact people wanted them in T3 and they weren't there.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I may be confusing a discussion of rope arrows I read on TTLG with this list, sorry if thats the case. But it has been brought up once or twice here in the last few months I believe, in fact I think it was obscurus that brought up the point but maybe thats incorrect. And while the crystal arrows are unrealistic, the explanation that they are magical in origin goes a lot farther in explaining them than the rope arrows.

 

To my thinking, the rope arrows, again I loved em too, demand too much magic to account for them. I can believe in a magic crystal that does certain things, hell most of the imbeciles that really believe in magic wear the damn things in their ears and around their necks, but the rope arrows never had anything to explain them. The crystals were elemental crystals, brimming with magical power, but where the hell did the rope arrows come from? They were just there. At least the vine arrows made sense, a magical plant based thingy that struck and wrapped tough vines around whatever surface available. They looked like they would work if they could really exist.

 

All the other magical items in the games and FMs had some precedent in fantasy literature, magical potions, magical weapons, magical crystals, magical gems. But rope arrows? And to add to it, they didnt LOOK very sturdy when they stuck into wood, sometimes I would climb up a zillion feet to find my arrow had barely stuck into the surface of the wood. It detracted from the immersion. The rope bolt however has more going for it, crossbow bolts leave the bow with much more acceleration, therefore striking with greater force, and the clockwork screw head explains exactly why they would stay put in wood. Not that the player needs to see all that, but if he/she KNOWS it before hand it supports the immersive effect.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Ignoring the issue of magic, it is not inconceivable to make an arrow head out of glass, filled with a toxic gas that renders people unconscious in very small concentrations, such a thing is possible (we have cylinders of posonous gasses at work where one part per billion is enough to kill you - there are plenty of gasses around that could make for a very effective gas arrow). Similarly, one could make an arrow that contained gunpowder in the tip, with a simple pin mechanism to detonatie it on impact, but the resulting explosion would be quite small and would have very little effect other than noise and smoke. Perhaps if you suppose that some alchemist has developed a formula for plastic explosive, you could then plausibly have an arrow that creates a reasonalby damaging explosion on impact. Water arrows are a no go in our hypothetical magic-free setting. Maximius' crossbow bolt is plausible enough to scrape by in the field of realism, but rope arrows al la Thief are not.

 

I would prefer the crossbow over the standard bow, it is more compact, something more like what a Thief would carry if s/he were going to carry a ranged weapon at all.

 

Very nice crossbow oDDity :) Is that the in-game model, or a high poly detail model built for the normal maps? If it is the former I am very impressed!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Maximius' crossbow bolt is plausible enough to scrape by in the field of realism, but rope arrows al la Thief are not.

 

If the issue is that a rope arrow wouldn't have the strength to hold the weight of a thief, then a corkscrew bolt is no more realistic than a rope arrow.

 

As far as fantasy precedents, magical rope is quite common in a lot of magical settings, including Tolkien. I don't know for sure how a rope arrow works, just like I don't know for sure how a lightsaber works. But I have no problem accepting that--in a setting with magical tools--rope arrows have some kind of magic that makes them cling to wood and hold your weight.

 

Back to the topic at hand, I guess it comes down to whether or not a crossbow can be easily swapped with a shortbow. I can see a few areas of potential concern:

 

1. Rate of Fire. Someone already mentioned this. I don't know that a crossbow would be believable if it could be reloaded as fast as a shortbow.

 

2. Holding Aim. The shortbow animation starts to waver and is then put away after a time. Crossbows should technically be able to be aimed indefinitely.

 

3. Ammo. If a player has a crossbow and kills a crossbow wielding AI, he should reasonably expect to be able to use the ammo. But if he can't also use the arrows he finds, that's a problem.

 

These may not be big issues, but they're something to think about if we're going to give the player a choice.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I don't mind it being thrown into the toolset as an option for modders. But I personally prefer bow and arrows due to the fact that, to me, they seems more rudimentary; which I like. A crossbow is similar to a gun; you pull a trigger and it shoots a bullet of sorts. I get my fill of automatic 'pull trigger and shoot' weapons in every other FPS game out there. An automatic bolt launcher takes away some of the 'down to basics' feeling I get from using the basic bow/arrow. Takes away some of the nostalgic Thief feeling.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

i was never much for the cross bows in thief 2. stupid looking. they just held it up and it shot and they never reloaded it. if you could make it look that good. and a realy realistic reload time ( unlike thief 2 ) and animation for the reload then cool. but they cant be tiny like in thief 2. it has to be big. if you can do that. put it in.

but not for garrett. garrett has a bow. no way around it.

Edited by Slash
Link to comment
Share on other sites

If the issue is that a rope arrow wouldn't have the strength to hold the weight of a thief, then a corkscrew bolt is no more realistic than a rope arrow.

 

 

Hmm I think that depends on the materials you use. I don't know about a corkscrew arrow per se, although it does seem within the realms of plausibility if you assume certain materials are used, but certainly a grappling hook bolt is not unreasonable. In terms of rope, you can make a very strong, thin, lightweight rope out of silk that would do the job(very expensive rope though). And if you make a powerful enough crossbow, you could use a steel bolt with a movable barb at the tip that prevents the bolt from being withdrawn, and it should be able to punch through wooden beams to a depth sufficient enough that a ~60 Kg Thief could ascend the rope before it worked it's way loose. Maybe there could be a time limit imposed on how long you can spend climbing such an arrow before it snapped, so the player will be reluctant to use it just anywhere - they will need to make sure the range is climbable (you could even have it so there were coloured bands on the rope marking intervals of a yard or so, and the Thief knows that they can safely climb a distance of say 12 yards at full speed before they run the risk that the rope + barb snaps/disengages). The question there is how big the crossbow needs to be before it is sufficiently powerful enough to penetrate a wooden beam with a steel bolt, and if it would be reasonably portable to make it worthwhile.

 

 

But that aside, I don't see any major gameplay issues as long as the crossbow is handled fairly realisticly, and has the advantages and disadvantages that a real crossbow would have. And of course the FM author would need to make sure the map was balanced for the all the weapons the player will have available for the mission.

 

@ Darkness_Falls: I don't think the behaviour of a crossbow (slow reload time, shorter range, low accuracy) would make it feel anything like a pull trigger and shoot FPS, it would have a much different feel to either a Bow or a Gun. I don't think it would be out of place at all in Thief, given the anachronism prevalent in the series. But I personally favour the idea of being able to discard weapons you don't wish to use, so you could pick up or purchase a normal bow instead of a crossbow - an inventory system where the player has limited room for weapons would be a Good Thing TM IMO as it would make the player consider what sort of gear they needed for their style of play. And you could go through a mission and drop your crossbow and pick up a Blunderbuss (yes, I know Thief has no guns, but I would love to have a Blunderbuss - an almost useless weapon but i just love the look of them) or what have you.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Ignoring the issue of magic, it is not inconceivable to make an arrow head out of glass, filled with a toxic gas that renders people unconscious in very small concentrations, such a thing is possible (we have cylinders of posonous gasses at work where one part per billion is enough to kill you - there are plenty of gasses around that could make for a very effective gas arrow).

 

Acmtually it's not the gas or fire arrow, it's the water arrow that would never work.

Gerhard

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Here is what I picture the rope-bolt to be like, and why I think it could be made to work (given a lot of stretching for fantasies sake.)

 

Imagine the head of the bolt to be four prongs, like one of those gardening tools you jam into the ground and twist to tear up a plug of dirt. The prongs would be arranged so that the points would form a square if you looked at em head on, equidistant from one another. These prongs would be the anchor of the bolt. Set in the middle of the four prongs is the corkscrew head, primed. You fire it, the prongs and the tip of the corkscrew sink into the wood lets say 3 inches, not impossible with a crossbow keeping in mind they have a lot more power than a similar sized bow.

 

So now the prongs are set and the screw point is too. The second stage is triggered. A powerful spring mechanism, contained within the shaft (whichis why I recommended they should be made outta metal) is released and begins to unwind, driving the screw head into the wood. The four prongs are now acting as anchors to give the mechanism counter screw leverage against which to push, keeping the screw headdriving forward instead of it pushing itself out of the wood. So now we have four anchors 3 inches deep into the wood and the corkscrew mechanism driving lets say an additional 6 inches in. Considering that the Thief is a smaller sized dude, thats a lot of anchoring. Hell, rock climbers tap pitons into cracks a LOT less deep than. Finally, a small but sturdy ring holds the rope attached to the prong part of the head.

 

As oddity pointed out, the player need see none of this but I wanted to describe it specifically to make it believable. Obviously, such a tool would be way expensive, this isnt the work of the local blacksmith I assure you, maybe gnomes or some mechanically inclined breed. The mechanism would not be retrievable though the rope could be, thus limiting them.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I mean who actually wants to be limited in rope arrow usage, it would just be frustrating. So you would not bother to use them. Its bad enough sometimes when you miss or something, or you were sure something was arrowable but wasn't, and you forgot to use a broadhead first to check....

But even if you use a broad head you often save & reload as the noise alerts guards. I wouldn't mind a choice between crossbow and bow but so far no-one has really explained what Meaningful choice and differences there would be, and what the point is.

Maybe RopeBolts which go into metal or tile could be used, uber rope arrows....

 

The one point I do like a lot is the blunderbusses, like on T2x (except less crashy when you pick them up: I picked up a body, but instead got the gun, and couldn't drop it/ change item! Reload) and crossbows on the enemy, and then a system whereby you could swap maybe your sword (big item) for a blunderbuss (big item). That would be fun.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I forwarded a motion to give a few select guards matchlock rifles, they were in use as early as the 14th century FFS, so they fit the setting perfectly in my view, but it was rejected. Most of the team here are VERY conservative when it comes to change, yet will happily include anything that was in Thief without questioning it, such as landmines

Apparently landmines fit the setting yet matchlock rifes don't :/

I'm not suggesting the player should uae one, it would a a useless item for a thief to carry.

We have an inventors guild, which would likely be responsible for making fancy corkscrew arrows etc.

The matchlock rifles would just entering the equation and are still realatively useless in the setting, they'd be a status symbol more than anything practical, which is why only elite guards would have them.

THe elite guards are mercenaries who've fought many foreign battles and could have picked the rifles up from enemies as trophies.

 

It is more fun to have less limitations.

 

Limitations are the main way to introduce difficulty to the game. If the player has no limitations, can do anything, can use any amount of the best equipment, then where's the challenge.

Civillisation will not attain perfection until the last stone, from the last church, falls on the last priest.

- Emil Zola

 

character models site

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yes sure, give the AI super abilies to balance out the players unlimted abilites, give them all unlimted uber weapons and gadgets to counter each other and you have a fun game, but this ins't Unreal Tournament we're making.

Balancing the game in a realistic way means limiteing the player's equipment and abilites.

Civillisation will not attain perfection until the last stone, from the last church, falls on the last priest.

- Emil Zola

 

character models site

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest
This topic is now closed to further replies.

  • Recent Status Updates

    • Petike the Taffer

      I've finally managed to log in to The Dark Mod Wiki. I'm back in the saddle and before the holidays start in full, I'll be adding a few new FM articles and doing other updates. Written in Stone is already done.
      · 1 reply
    • nbohr1more

      TDM 15th Anniversary Contest is now active! Please declare your participation: https://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?/topic/22413-the-dark-mod-15th-anniversary-contest-entry-thread/
       
      · 0 replies
    • JackFarmer

      @TheUnbeholden
      You cannot receive PMs. Could you please be so kind and check your mailbox if it is full (or maybe you switched off the function)?
      · 1 reply
    • OrbWeaver

      I like the new frob highlight but it would nice if it was less "flickery" while moving over objects (especially barred metal doors).
      · 4 replies
    • nbohr1more

      Please vote in the 15th Anniversary Contest Theme Poll
       
      · 0 replies
×
×
  • Create New...