Bow mechanics could use some updates

[Twistedsparkle]

back in the day bows used to be the best weapons for high amounts of burst damage

the exchange for that power was simple
travel time + charge up

but now with sniper rifles, kitguns, shotguns and even some assault rifles just outclassing overall dps compared to bows
theres all that effort for not much payoff
that and the overall end game has moved from level 50-60 to 80-120 all that Ehp just makes bows a bad choice compared to other weapons

I love playing with bows because of cool factor and style points but I do think they could use a powerlift

so how about rewarding that effort? I think similar bonuses that sniper rifles have would make all the difference
you know.. shot combo counter and additional crit bonuses with headshots etc?

also why not make some fun bonuses too like easing up charge time and reload times with each shot capped off of course
or possibly adding multishot? theres alot of cool things that could happen here
(dont take anything mentioned too seriously I know some of this stuff could possibly be hideously overpowered but only the devs can know that for sure, Im just throwing ideas)

just my 2 cents on the case
anyone else think bow mechanics could use some love?

thanks for reading 🙂

[Heidelgard]

I love bows, I love my Daikyu, and yes I agree that they could use some new feature by now.

But ... I'm scared of a rework. After what happened to the new melee system, I fear that bows could suffer a downgrade if they get reworked.

So I wouldn't take the risk.

[Basalto]

Agreed. Recently I took the Paris Prime on a sortie and was absolutely shocked with how what used to be my best single-target weapon wasn't even one-hitting enemies on an orange crit headshot, despite me not actually changing anything about its build in ages.

[Guest]

Agreed with you. I know this is warframe, but reallistically, it makes sense that snipers and rifles do more damage than bows. 

I think that adding some gimmicks to bows could make up for that. For example, after a specific action, like a headshot, a kill, X number of consecutive hits or any other thing, you could gain a buff, like extra ability duration/range/strength/efficiency, extra armor, healing, movement speed, etc

[(PSN)haphazardlynamed]

How about an Innate Armor Ignore Gimmick?

Cause.... arrows, armor piercing

 

obviously doesn't apply to the fake bows like the Lenz...

[Kontrollo]

I tried that a while ago:

Spoiler

 

Oddly enough, reactions were a bit mixed.

 

But they just got a Riven buff instead, guess that problem will solve itself over time, now that Rivens are being maintained actively. Of course you still need to own a Riven in the first place (or Argon Scope, for consistent crits). 🙄

Ah right, the parallax problem got finally fixed, at least.

[TheGrimCorsair]

On 2019-03-31 at 11:29 AM, Heidelgard said:

I love bows, I love my Daikyu, and yes I agree that they could use some new feature by now.

But ... I'm scared of a rework. After what happened to the new melee system, I fear that bows could suffer a downgrade if they get reworked.

So I wouldn't take the risk.

On the other hand, if what happens to bows is what's happening to the new melee system, then they'd be dramatically better than before.

[Heidelgard]

6 minutes ago, TheGrimCorsair said:

On the other hand, if what happens to bows is what's happening to the new melee system, then they'd be dramatically better than before.

Yea it's that "better" that I fear, because if we use as example the current state of the melee rework, then "It was better when it was worse".

[Teridax68]

I think there's a mix of issues here: with shotguns, for example, one of the main balance issues is simply that most of Warframe's gameplay takes place in small rooms and narrow corridors, which mitigates the more limited range of shotguns (and even then, some shotguns can shoot pretty far nonetheless). Kitguns and assault rifles, on the other hand, just have a lot of power variance, where some of them perform far, far better than most others.

When it comes to sniper rifles and bows, I'd argue that snipers have the disadvantage of requiring the player to be scoped to access their full power. and also requiring consecutive hits to do more damage, but then again I also don't want that to be the case (I think scopes really should be a fully optional alt-fire function for more range, without being tied to damage output, and I don't think hit combos make sense for "one shot one kill" weapons). Moreover, sniper rifles aren't really the strongest weapons in the game by any stretch, outside of a few niche situations (e.g. Eidolons). So when bows are almost always second-best relative to snipers... well, bows are probably not that great, apart from maybe the Lenz (which doesn't operate like any other bow).

With that in mind, I agree with the OP that I think the easiest way to buff bows could be to increase their charge rate: if all bows had their charge rate halved, and fire rate mods no longer provided double the bonuses on bows (which is itself a pretty telltale sign that bows are too slow as a baseline), fire rate mods would no longer be mandatory, and players could instead put in damage mods as with every other primary, which would increase the damage of bows.

Besides that, it could also likely help to just buff bow damage. Considering how bows by nature fire a lot slower than assault rifles or pistols, for example, they would still be fairly balanced compared to the rest even if they could one-shot much higher-level enemies (because we can already kill crowds of high-level enemies at the speed of sound). Perhaps there could also be room for giving older bows distinct effects (the Dread could render the user invisible while standing still, the Daikyu could punch through enemies on kill and carry their corpses on the arrow, etc.), but simply buffing some of their base stats to be more on par with the rest could work wonders for their viability.

[MJ12]

On 2019-04-02 at 2:42 PM, Teridax68 said:

I think there's a mix of issues here: with shotguns, for example, one of the main balance issues is simply that most of Warframe's gameplay takes place in small rooms and narrow corridors, which mitigates the more limited range of shotguns (and even then, some shotguns can shoot pretty far nonetheless). Kitguns and assault rifles, on the other hand, just have a lot of power variance, where some of them perform far, far better than most others.

When it comes to sniper rifles and bows, I'd argue that snipers have the disadvantage of requiring the player to be scoped to access their full power. and also requiring consecutive hits to do more damage, but then again I also don't want that to be the case (I think scopes really should be a fully optional alt-fire function for more range, without being tied to damage output, and I don't think hit combos make sense for "one shot one kill" weapons). Moreover, sniper rifles aren't really the strongest weapons in the game by any stretch, outside of a few niche situations (e.g. Eidolons). So when bows are almost always second-best relative to snipers... well, bows are probably not that great, apart from maybe the Lenz (which doesn't operate like any other bow).

With that in mind, I agree with the OP that I think the easiest way to buff bows could be to increase their charge rate: if all bows had their charge rate halved, and fire rate mods no longer provided double the bonuses on bows (which is itself a pretty telltale sign that bows are too slow as a baseline), fire rate mods would no longer be mandatory, and players could instead put in damage mods as with every other primary, which would increase the damage of bows.

Besides that, it could also likely help to just buff bow damage. Considering how bows by nature fire a lot slower than assault rifles or pistols, for example, they would still be fairly balanced compared to the rest even if they could one-shot much higher-level enemies (because we can already kill crowds of high-level enemies at the speed of sound). Perhaps there could also be room for giving older bows distinct effects (the Dread could render the user invisible while standing still, the Daikyu could punch through enemies on kill and carry their corpses on the arrow, etc.), but simply buffing some of their base stats to be more on par with the rest could work wonders for their viability.

Also make Thunderbolt an actual interesting mod again holy crap it's such a cool concept but it's also worthless at anything but helping you commit suicide nowadays. I think Thunderbolt should be redesigned like this, given that alt-fire mods now exist and are viable:

Thunderbolt: Equipped bow gains an alternate fire mode that fires explosive, impact-fused arrows; these arrows deal 60/50/40/30% of their primary fire damage but explode on impact, dealing 30/40/50/60% of their primary fire damage to enemies within a (3.5/4/4.5/5) meter radius. Thunderbolt explosions do not deal self-damage (because self-damage in this game is generally awful and anti-fun) but they do not arm until they are more than 7.5 meters from the shooter. Thunderbolt arrows have a hard punchthrough cap of 0m so they always explode on impact, no matter the bow.

This mod would allow you to build a bow as a more flexible weapon by allowing you to make bows compete with launchers or shotguns in the similar niche of medium-range, multi-target, relatively slow-firing weapons. Thunderbolt drops from a very wide array of common enemies and thus you can get reasonably fast access to it without specifically grinding for it, so it's not locking functionality off too much.

It might make the Lenz somewhat redundant but I think the fact that it eats a mod slot is compensation for the added flexibility that exists for choosing between explosive and non-explosive arrows.

[(PSN)psycofang]

You could just add an Over Draw mechanic to bows.

 

Basically 

Full draw 1 charge circle full: normal stats and damage

Strong draw 2 charge circles full: turns reticle orange - movement is slowed- bows base stats are doubled 

Over Draw 3 full circles charged: reticle turns Red -all movement is lost except for aiming - over drawn charge can only be held for 3 seconds- bows base stats are all Tripled 

*Add x anount of punch through for each charge level

*Thunder bolt takes on the strongest element of that bow at charge level 2 and up.

So the reward for using it proper is easier Red Crits with high powered shots and status at the cost of mobility as you further charge the bow.

Itll rival snipers like Rubico/lanka because Rubico (p) /lanka does nonsense level of damage after repeat shots at not cost to mobility but instead magazine and combo resets. 

So snipers become combo tools and bows become the slower more powerful single shot option

Edited April 5, 2019 by (PS4)psycofang

[ADirtyMonk]

I really like how bows work in monster hunter world. It's really something special as opposed to being a glorified sniper rifle you have to charge and lead shots with. Its fast, mobile, super flexible, innate multishot, and outputs absolutely ridiculous amounts of DPS. If DE were to straight up copy these mechanics into warframe I would be so happy.

Warframe already has the slide animation rigged up as well as the programming for both charge stages, multishot, and "quivers/coatings". Just need to mash em all up into one weapon.

I mean. Just watch this and imagine doing that with a dread or a paris.

 

Edited April 5, 2019 by ADirtyMonk