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Why bows and ability to make arrows is not good idea


hrot

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So the thing is that archery is complicated and you need a large amount of training to be able to shoot properly and with some accuracy and making bows and arrows is very complicated and normal person without any knowledge can't do that or bow created by such a person will be as good as stick to fight zombies in melee. So with devs opinion that player is normal person bows and arrows shouldn't be in game.

Crossbow is another story, it's simple and basically everyone can use them without special training with good results but again making bolts is too complicated so you can only retrieve fired bolts from zombies/humans (most bolts used by crossbows are made of metal so they are quite durable and can be used for long time).

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While that's all true, one could say pretty much the same thing about pistols and rifles. An untrained person is very unlikely to hit the broad side of a barn with either one, but in the game one starts off with a bit more inherent skill than that and works up from there. Realistically, shooting anything more than about six feet away with a pistol should be effectively impossible at zero aiming skill, and even at that range it should be about a fifty-fifty proposition. But does that make for good gameplay? If a player starts out with no aiming skill, just how is he supposed to get skilled? By expending hundreds of rounds of irreplaceable ammunition on target practice? Or should weapons like that be effectively out of reach for any character who didn't start out in the right profession or with the right trait?

 

I don't know. I'm kind of of two minds about it. I'm all for realism, and anything that makes the game more challenging is something I'm likely to support. But I think there's also such a thing as making the game too realistic, to the point where it's no longer worth playing at all because everybody always dies on the first day.

 

Sorry. That turned out to be kind of rambly.

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Well i have some experience with bows also i have some knowledge about making bows and arrows. Firstly if you compare bows to pistols it's clear that shooting&aiming with pistols is very easy compared to bows. Untrained person could just hurt themselves while try to shoot a bow, with pistols you just need one click and it's all but with bow is different story. But ok, using bows don't will be so bad if implemented but making bows&arrow will definitly be terrible idea. Crossbows should be enough for game and for player it dosen't make any difference( bow or crossbow) but it do the difference when we talk about reality in game.

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Well... People can learn stuff, you know. Like how you learned how to use this forum? :D

 

Maybe the crafting and use of bows and arrows could be impossible unless you read a book / learned from NPC. Then after achieving level 1 archery/fletching you could level up like normal.

I think it is unreasonable to say that bows and arrows shouldn't be in game at all. Hate to bust your bubble, but being a talented archer isn't the rarest skill in the world. Its not like there were only two archers in the British army at Agincourt...

 

And about making bows... well, someone has to do that too. Are you saying people that make bows are abnormal??? what about people who handmake shoes? boats? heck, if we are going for pure 'normal Kentucky guy' nothing should be craftable at all, since everyone buys what they need from the store :!:

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Well need of skill book will be somehow realistic or trait like "archer" to even start using bows . Maybe just make difference beetwen crossbows and bows: bows are harder to use / harder to learn and learning how to use bow only by yourself is kinda hard and very slow process in RL.

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Well need of skill book will be somehow realistic or trait like "archer" to even start using bows . Maybe just make difference beetwen crossbows and bows: bows are harder to use / harder to learn and learning how to use bow only by yourself is kinda hard and very slow process in RL.

I concur; now you are talking.

 

Honestly there should be a trait that makes it impossible to use bows. "Fat Thumbs", "Pullback game weak" (lol)

Because I've tried and I suck. So I do agree in that respect

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While I'll agree that learning how to MAKE a bow or crossbow is something that an average person couldn't easily figure out how to do by themselves (good thing we'll soon getting instructional manuals for crafting recipes, eh?), I'm gonna have to call all kinds of bullshit on people not being able to use a bow and arrow. I've been using bows on and off since I was a kid in elementary school. Rocket science it is not. It's difficult to pick up and get any good at it, but difficult to master does not equal difficult to use.

 

I'm seeing no proper justification for why bows shouldn't be in the game. Nor am I seeing any proper reason why you'd need a special trait or skill book before you can even start trying to use a bow.

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While I'll agree that learning how to MAKE a bow or crossbow is something that an average person couldn't easily figure out how to do by themselves (good thing we'll soon getting instructional manuals for crafting recipes, eh?), I'm gonna have to call all kinds of bullshit on people not being able to use a bow and arrow. I've been using bows on and off since I was a kid in elementary school. Rocket science it is not. It's difficult to pick up and get any good at it, but difficult to master does not equal difficult to use.

 

I'm seeing no proper justification for why bows shouldn't be in the game. Nor am I seeing any proper reason why you'd need a special trait or skill book before you can even start trying to use a bow.

I agree with this. Properly crafting a usable bow is not something that would be very easy.  But that could be handled similar to other crafter items (yea how long does that crafted axe last?).  But learning to shoot a bow is absolutely not hard.  Being highly proficient with any projectile weapon against moving targets at range takes practice, but that could be rolled into skills similar to the skills we currently have for accuracy etc.

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I've said it before and i'll say it again.. the average man couldn't do about 80% of the stuff in PZ. It's not actually real...I know people want to make the game as realistic as possible but sometimes you just gotta let things go when it comes to video games.

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Yep agreed with Kajin, there's nothing complicated in using a bow & arrows. It sure is difficult to be a master archer, but basic archery is easy.

Also, while I agree it should be hard to craft (maybe a collectible recipe for high level woodworker?), you can find bows, composite bows, or crossbows in sport-shops, gunstores and such, just like guns.

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The 'average joe' uses bows all the time. Mainly hunters because bows are quieter than guns and come with a lot of advantages. I'm from the USA and I can testify there are *a  lot* of bows and arrows around, probably more frequent than guns even. They also aren't all that hard to use either. Never used a cross bow so I don't know. But I have shot many bows in my short lifetime and I can tell you I've never had  a problem doing it aside from when I was learning which was a 5 min process.

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There's an archery store and range that's about a five or ten minute drive from my house. They had a couple hundred bows, a dozen or so crossbows (those things are EXPENSIVE let me tell you) and several hundred arrows and bolts of varying qualities. Once the zombies get done munching most of the people in my town there'd probably be enough bows and arrows to arm an entire post apocalyptic village with them.

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the Bow and Arrow ranks up there with the Pointy Stick and Heavy Rock as weapons that have been around for centuries. people always found a way to master it before, no reason they could not master it now.

 

back then, just as in a zombie apocalypse, mastery of the bow determines who survives...and who dies.

 

i fail to see why they would be hard to craft either, hunters and tribesmen have been crafting them from certain tree branches and using whatever they used to make the string for longer than we can accurately guess. you DON'T have go high tech here with the latest carbon fiber compound recurve mega bow or laser guided arrows that will seek out the perfect spot to penetrate the target.

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Realistically, shooting anything more than about six feet away with a pistol should be effectively impossible at zero aiming skill, and even at that range it should be about a fifty-fifty proposition.

Its actually so much harder than that.  The one time I have shot a pistol my wrist position jammed it every time.  Using pistols takes a lot of training.

 

Bows on the other hand, can be used at least with some efficiency after only a little practice.  I have built several bows, and the first time I shot one at a shooting range I hit the target every time.  Crafting is another matter, building a bow is extremely complex and requires a lot of precision combined with the right type of wood, looking it up several of the right types of trees grow in Kentucky, but the matter is knowing which tree can be used and what it looks like.

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You know, back when I was 10 years old I made a bow & arrows with my dad, it wasn't very durable or very effective, it was the most basic bow you could imagine but it could shoot an arrow with enough force that it would lodge into a tree bark. It's not rocket science and the only really difficult thing about bows is aiming.

And I don't think anyone is going to craft a composite bow anytime soon, those could be findable in the world but your basic bow is extremely easy to make even with minimal experience.

Also, I just find it funny that some people seem to think that "Average Joe" in PZ is the kind of guy who was born yesterday and spent his entire life in front of a TV watching "reality" shows. Sure, the game is full of those kinds of Joes, you know, all the zombies... Let's assume that survivors have on average more than half a brain.

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Well it's easy to make something that's looking similar to a bow but with that "bow" you wouldn't be able to kill zombie or human or even small animal, with such a bow you could go melee and it will be better and more effective than shooting and that's what i'm talking about - it's not easy to properly make a effective bow.

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Even that i´m a bloody Kraut :D but even as a child i build bows and arrows, certainly not effectiv once but one can learn^^

f.e. with 0 archery and 0 carpentry you could build just a training bow to learn to use it and just simple arrows which couldn´t anything

with every lvl up in both you could build better bows and arrows and also the distance you can effectly use them would get more.

And as you could combine spezial arrows by using like trapping/hunting later on with capentry. For Zed´s you need point Arrows to easy remove and penetrate, but for hunting you need arrows that don´t fall off so you need barb arrows and maybe you can use it with string to get a rope or ladder up a tree to build tree houses without a stair. And not to talk about firearrows to get some light in the distance or make a lighthouse out of an enemybase^^

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Well it's easy to make something that's looking similar to a bow but with that "bow" you wouldn't be able to kill zombie or human or even small animal, with such a bow you could go melee and it will be better and more effective than shooting and that's what i'm talking about - it's not easy to properly make a effective bow.

really? so all the generations who proved it possible for hundreds of years have been wrong?

 

ok, you're right, it's not EASY to make an effective bow. but don't sit here and try to tell us it cannot be done, or that it is not an effective weapon when history proves you wrong. if it was NOT possible, if it was NOT an effective weapon for killing large and small "animals", if it could NOT be done with trial and error....those people may not have survived.

 

try to remember, the Native Americans used to take down BUFFALO with well placed arrows.

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ok, you're right, it's not EASY to make an effective bow. but don't sit here and try to tell us it cannot be done.

 

 

I never say that it can't be done just it's hard to do by regular person without proper knowledge.

I also don't see point in remind of native americans and their bows, of course they had very good bows and they were very good archers but we talk about what regular person could do not someone who was using bow at age 5 or even earlier also this goes with making bows.

My point is that regular person can't make very effective bow and you can just try by yourself if you don't belive me.

Also this discussion is not a matter of death and life, we just talk about suggestions in a game, so chill out a bit maybe.

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