Bow and arrows revamped?

[-AT-volfide]

Hello everyone,

I started playing Warframe somewhere around Update 14.5 and I've really enjoyed how it evolved to what it is today. I'm a huge fan of bows, although lately I haven't been using them as much for my daily Warframe farming because the most recent bows simply don't catch my interest somehow. I've been thinking on a bow that could be introduced to the game that could spice things up a bit.

IRL I'm an archer too, and this is my current bow, a Hoyt Podium Elite 40

It's a compound bow. Basically the cams (wheels on top & bottom) make the drawing a lot easier and gives the user a let-off when on full-draw. It then has stabilizers (side and middle poles) and a scope to take aim.

The stabilizers could be a bit too much in-game, but why not having a bow that:

1. Grineer-faction bow, with same mechanics as a compound bow
2. Can only fire in full-draw
3. Have a damage multiplier AND flat critical chance increase while using the scoped vision like a sniper rifle?

I'd call it Stochos... Greek for target (yay google translate?)

Picture from my previous and first bow, for inspirational purposes :) Hoyt Vectrix XL

There are also shorter stabilizers for hunting purposes. Probably more adequate to be introduced in Warframe.

 

Anywho, I'm not here just to suggest a new bow. The game itself has so much potential that could be explored by looking at the arrows.

 

Let's take a look at some of the in-game arrows from the three basic bows:

The Cernos, being an impact dedicated bow has blunt-shaped arrows.

The Paris default arrows are simply narrow sharp needles dedicated to ridicule Grineer armor.

Would you look at that, the arrow tip is a blade so I guess it slices things!

The bows however are not only distinguished by the damage type. There's also total damage, innate punch-through, crit chance, crit multiplier, draw speed, accuracy... you get the point.

I doesn't make sense to me chopping people in half with an arrow like this one.

CONCLUSION

• Arrows should have their own modifiers and should be switchable on every bow except for the default ones.
• That being said, it should matter if the arrow is blunt, sharp or honed to determine the innate punch-through it would have on full draw.
• The Dread bow for example comes with the Dread arrows that have dedicated slash damage and cannot be used on other bows.
• The Meer Arrows however, would have dedicated impact damage BUT could be equipped on any bow you have.

 

Q.: If this came to be, how could you keep each bow unique?

Spoiler

A.: Each bow, like I said would have their own base stats just like they always have: Total damage, punch-through, crit chance and crit damage, draw speed, can or cannot be shot without full-draw, scoped, etc etc etc

Q.: How would arrows modify the bow mechanics then?

Spoiler

A.: Let's go back to the Meer Arrows. The Dread has a base Physical Damage of 100, with 90% Slash, 5% Impact and 5% Puncture and an Innate Punch-Through

The Meer Arrows would change that 100 Physical Damage to 5% Slash, 90% Impact and 5% Puncture AND (following a bit of logic) would reduce the original Punch-through value by 70% (because it's a blunt projectile)

Some Puncture type arrow could instead change the damage to 5% Slash, 5% Impact and 90% Puncture AND increase the punch-through value by 30% (I'll leave the balancing to the devs ;) )

Q.: We've come this far, why not elemental arrows lol

Spoiler

A.: Yeah! 4 Elemental arrows Toxin, Cold, Heat and Electric. Then the mods would take care of the rest.

This would change ALL the base Physical damage to that element. As a balancing penalty, the bow would forfeit it's innate punch-through completely.

Maybe add splash damage on contact to compensate the lost punch-through? Oh the possibilities.

 

[EDIT] - Perhaps a single elemental arrow option could suffice. Then the base element could be chosen with the energy color just like chroma!

The Cattaril Arrow tips look like flasks of some sort. Can you imagine shoot a arrow with a tip filled with acid and just see the enemies melt around the hit zone? Oh the humanity

 

 

 

Thanks for reading guys, hope you like it!

Edited September 3, 2016 by -AT-volfide
Added content

[Ceryk]

I like the arrow idea. I've had a similar idea for an ammo system that's similar to what you're talking about for arrows since I dislike the idea of damage type being tied directly to the majority of ranged weapons (except explosives which should obviously include Blast damage and specific types of elemental weapons, like the Ignis) and I think it should be tied to ammo.

Edited August 27, 2016 by Ceryk

[Karav]

Behold, the Daikyu. A bow that can only be fired at full draw but has better damage than quite literally every other bow on the market.

http://warframe.wikia.com/wiki/Daikyu

But enough about that. I love the idea of making the type of arrow just as important as the bow type. If each arrow modified the bow's damage output... The possibilities are endless. Taking it one step further, there could be an entire upgrade section just for customizing the.

[-AT-volfide]

Added the possibility of choosing the base element for elemental arrows like chroma does