The Crossbow.

[thomas.bowyer@hotmail.co.uk 25]

Hello!

Firstly, to Rocket, This is in no way bashing on the current game design, It's just a discussion about possible improvements. so please dont be offended, I love this mod, and will put my money where my words are as soon as that option becomes available.

so! The crossbow. easily my weapon of choice, it has many upsides and downsides.

positives;

near infinite ammo*

silent

looks badass

found relatively easily compared to othe quiet weapons.

negatives;

slow reload time punishes heavily for missing, but is a core part of it

ammo takes up 1 slot per bolt.

'near infinite ammo' isnt always the case.

next to no sight picture.

Ok, so just to discuss the above, When I say infinite ammo, it is to some degree true. however, a miss (so no idea where arrow went) or a situation where you CANT retrieve it, is a LARGE ammo loss. the entire 'point' of a crossbow is the silent aspect. but lets say you are sneaking through cherno. you need to cross a street, but the Z is a little close. so you drop him with the bow. great. but you cant risk breaking cover to go get it, lest the sniper in the tower pick you off. (this is just one of the many scenarios that leads to a lost bolt.)

the obvious remedy for this, is to make each 'bolt' you pick up, be a handful, I'd say 3/4 bolts per 'bolt' would make it a worthy Z stopper. and wouldnt break immersion much, lets say you had 4 'bolts' thatd be 12-16 bolts, which is still less then most othe guns mags! so far from OP and that would STILL take up 4 slots, whereas one 15 round winchester slug mag is 1 slot.

now, the silence is its selling point, and ease of access compared to other silent weapons makes it invaluable. this is obviously countered by its slow reload time.

this brings me to my last point, and my only real gripe about crossbows (whilst I still think ammo needs a change, i can live with it.)

the sights. are HORRIBLE. it is a compound crossbow. and just for a quick example:

http://bit.ly/Kztawj

there are SOME there without scopes, but even those have a fairly prominent rear sight picture and front point. I'm not saying stick a sniper scope on it, because thats not what its for, but the crossbow has alot of things working against it in the PVP enviroment, (whilst it excells in Zed slaying) could we PLEASE get a model update, which gives it a small scope? even a 1x reddot. just something to make it a little more functional.

Overall, I love the weapon, but I think it needs work, Ive yet to meet a survivor who doesnt drop it for a winchester/enfield. if not for the sights, then for the ammo space.

I hope this will be considered constructive crit and not whining, If it is taken the wrong way, feel free to delete it.

please also share your ideas on how to improve the crossbow!

P.S this is basically Ideal. note the arrow 'mini quiver' holding multiple bolts and a small 1-2x scope?

[MR DELICIOUS 297]

Put this in the suggestions forum yo.

[thomas.bowyer@hotmail.co.uk 25]

ah, my apologies, It's early. please could a moderator move this if its applicable, its not really a suggestion. its more for feedback. so Rocket could get an idea of what people want, I wouldnt say I was qualified to comment on how he should develop it :p was just some idle talk.

also, if all you did was post.. to tell me its in the wrong place.. dont bother please :) comment on the topic at hand, dont just +1 your postcount

[MR DELICIOUS 297]

ah' date=' my apologies, It's early. please could a moderator move this if its applicable, its not really a suggestion. its more for feedback. so Rocket could get an idea of what people want, I wouldnt say I was qualified to comment on how he should develop it :p was just some idle talk.

also, if all you did was post.. to tell me its in the wrong place.. dont bother please :) comment on the topic at hand, dont just +1 your postcount

[/quote']

Fair enough, it was a bit thoughtless of me.

Essentially, I agree with you. The crossbow needs work. At the moment it's really for the role players. What someone does with a crossbow in an hour I can do in two minutes with a Winchester. Similarly, it not having any sight is a total turn off. If anything, a nice reflex sight would give it some attraction, but as it stands I think they're a waste of time. I agree with all of your suggestions and feedback and I believe rocket will get around to it when he's able to (he said this somewhere before). Precise and thoughtful feedback like this (written in English and not hate or whine) is really helpful.

[imagelesskjc 35]

I completely agree with this, I'm a huge supporter of the crossbow and would like to see it used more by players.

One of the more disappointing things I've found is that if I don't hit a player/zed in the head with a bolt, it disappears and is unretrievable. I don't know if this is intended, but I'm usually running short on ammo if a horde of zeds comes at me... I suppose that's what the sidearm is for, but I digress.

I feel like a primary weapon should be able to be used on both zeds, and players effectively. However, the former (believe it or not) is much harder to kill when outnumbered. I'm not suggesting an increase of damage or faster reload, but the ammo capacity seems to be the biggest gripe I hear about it.

[mooncabbage 2]

I agree the crossbow needs work. I think there was already one in the base game, and so it's not like it was designed to be bad by rocket. Modifying it much might require a lot of work.

The way I see it, every weapon in DayZ exists on some scale from Survivor to Bandit. Bandit weapons tend to be better at killing players, and typically have longer range, higher rates of fire, that sort of thing. Survivor weapons are quieter, shorter ranged, and have more plentiful ammo. A weapon that's useful for surviving against zombies, is going to be less effective against players.

Take for example the CZ. It's your entry level bandit weapon. It's ridiculously loud and very difficult to use close up, making it absolutely terrible for disposing of zombies. On the other hand, you can take out other players long before they can even see you.

The winchester is sort of in between. It has good range and accuracy, it's reasonably quiet, and the ammunition is abundant. It's not TERRIBLY effective against players, but you could defend yourself against bandits with it if you needed to.

I think the crossbow is probably the ideal Pure Survivor weapon. It's quiet vs zombies, the ammunition is recoverable, and it does a reasonable amount of damage. Coupled with a good sidearm for when SHTF, a box of matches and a hunting knife, you need never visit a town again. However your chances vs a bandit are somewhere between squat and diddly.

The point is, it's important to maintain this balance. A crossbow bolt is probably comparable in size to a magazine for some guns, if you laid the bullets end to end. Also, I don't think quivers would work with the bolt recovery mechanic. Given that it's never going to reach out and tap you at 500m though, I can see it being given a decent hunting scope, without upsetting the survivor vs bandit balance.

[thomas.bowyer@hotmail.co.uk 25]

Thanks for the input, I am aware of the sizing limitations, but there is a realism vs mechanics arguement, whilst a bolt might not be the most convinient, if you want to play the realism aspect you could stack around 50+ arrows in a fairly small pouch, whereas 50 shotgun shells? just not happening.

Its more for gameplay purposes, Im not suggesting that a quiver is implemented, that is far too much work for one weapon, Im merely saying, make it so Steel bolt is Steel bolt x4. giving us more bolts per inventory space lost.

also as the above poster said, this is a very good point, if your arrow is in the body, it goes through.. and you lose it.

so the only way to ensure you get your bolt back is a pure headshot. which is hard to do at any range without even a reflex optic.

in my dream world (not saying it would be balanced, its purely because I love it!) each bolt would represent 5 arrows. meaning 4 stacks = 20 shots. reload time would be tweaked down just a tad. I mean, if they can load a winchester/enfield with relative skill, how hard is it to nose down an Xbow, pull on the charging bars, and seat an arrow, I'd say knock maybe 20% off the current reload time (I believe this would still make it the slowest reload ingame?) - furthermore add a small scope, say 3x. with a simple dot sighting.

this would allow it to be on par with other weapons of its tier, competitive in both arenas.

keep it coming lads

[thomas.bowyer@hotmail.co.uk 25]

bump, this deserves more attention.

[poisonman 28]

hear hear

But yea definitely need to fix the bolt recovery, both for hits and misses.

If you hit a enemy the bolts need to be lootable off the corpse so you don't lose them, and if you miss they need to be more visible so you can find them and pick them back up (if you miss they seem to just disappear from the game world) haven't had any luck at retrieving missed bolts at all, at least the ones that hit have a chance (very small chance) of actually being retrievable.

That and its very hard to get hits / kills with the weapon at times, I've got multiple head shots with it before, without getting a kill.

This could definitely be made better / fixed as others suggested with better sights, a scope, or possible fix with the reticule / aiming mechanics of that particular weapon.

That and getting back to the multiple hits with no kill situation I stated above, the weapon may do well with a slight damage / range increase as well.

I'm not sure if its lag or glitchyness with the zombies or what.

or maybe if it is just the erratic nature the zombies move in at times, but its seems nearly impossible to hit a zombie on the move after they are alerted with the crossbow, or even if they are standing still / roaming (unalerted) with the "shakes" they seem to have at times. (lag / glitch?).

It can cause you to miss the zombie when your standing practically on top of it, its bad.

And of course when I'm talking about the above, most of the time I'm aiming for head shots because of the problem mentioned earlier, where most of the time if you hit the body instead of the head you lose the bolt as it disappears / is irretrievable.

[Virfortis 111]

Also, about the firing noise, that can't be how loud a normal crossbow is. It almost sounds like the old Bowshot sound from Minecraft. I picked up a crossbow and tried shooting it, but I couldn't hit a thing even at close range. The lack of sight really hampers its use, but I can't wait to see someone score an 800m bolt hit and post it on Youtube.

[tezakian 0]

The crossbow needs to be more powerful. It needs to one shot kill zombies with a chest shot, have accurate sights set to 20 metres, and have multiple crossbow bolts per slot. And when you pick up bolts, have them add to already existing 'magazines' of bolts. I believe that it may make it a viable weapon, rather than worse than a makarov.

[mooncabbage 2]

I don't think it's possible to refill clips/magazines in the arma engine. I could be wrong, but I've never seen it done, and I don't think you can. So you can't have a quiver and refill it to. It's either 1 bolt per slot, or you can't recover bolts. And when you consider the size of the bolt, I really don't think it's that unfair.

[thomas.bowyer@hotmail.co.uk 25]

is that the reason for the single bolts? because that would certainly explain it from a design perspective.

thats all well and good, but in that case we return to the optics and bolt recovery.

to be honest, I'd rather LOSE bolt recovery and have more per 'bolt' in the slots, but thats just me maybe? it seems like such a tricky thing to get right (esp with losing bolts in body shots)

[SixPackAbs 13]

On the accuracy side of things, you have to realize that crossbows are very innaccurate weapons. The arrow movement is so significant that if you have your aim zeroed in for 20 m then at 25 m you would be landing 1-2 inches low, and at 15 you would be 1-2 inches high. It is also a very bad weapon for shooting at moving targets (zombies) because it is bulky. The in game sight is the rails, you "extend"them towards your target and place the target where the rails would meet from your perspective, but once again after about 20 meters it is hard to get reliable headshots.

I would like to be able to carry more bolts in one slot, or have a quiver if it is possible to implement, maybe it would take up 3 inventory spaces and could hold 5 bolts.

[Nitrous (DayZ) 0]

Some good ideas m8, making the Crossy more viable would be a good step. Especially seeing as its one of only 4 silent weapons currently in the game.

[thomas.bowyer@hotmail.co.uk 25]

On the accuracy side of things' date=' you have to realize that crossbows are very innaccurate weapons. The arrow movement is so significant that if you have your aim zeroed in for 20 m then at 25 m you would be landing 1-2 inches low, and at 15 you would be 1-2 inches high. It is also a very bad weapon for shooting at moving targets (zombies) because it is bulky. The in game sight is the rails, you "extend"them towards your target and place the target where the rails would meet from your perspective, but once again after about 20 meters it is hard to get reliable headshots.

I would like to be able to carry more bolts in one slot, or have a quiver if it is possible to implement, maybe it would take up 3 inventory spaces and could hold 5 bolts.

[/quote']

as somebody who has actually hunted with a compound xbow.. this is absolute rubbish. Ive used a reflex sight on my bow before to great effect decent rabbit sized accuracy easily @ 50m.

[undead_clown 2]

All I want is a 1x or 2x red dot scope. The bolts work the way they are, imo its worth the ammo sacrifice to be able to kill silently, plus you can find ammo for the thing all over the place.

Its just the iron sights that keep me from using this as a main weapon with a revolver/1911 back-up.

[SixPackAbs 13]

On the accuracy side of things' date=' you have to realize that crossbows are very innaccurate weapons. The arrow movement is so significant that if you have your aim zeroed in for 20 m then at 25 m you would be landing 1-2 inches low, and at 15 you would be 1-2 inches high. It is also a very bad weapon for shooting at moving targets (zombies) because it is bulky. The in game sight is the rails, you "extend"them towards your target and place the target where the rails would meet from your perspective, but once again after about 20 meters it is hard to get reliable headshots.

I would like to be able to carry more bolts in one slot, or have a quiver if it is possible to implement, maybe it would take up 3 inventory spaces and could hold 5 bolts.

[/quote']

as somebody who has actually hunted with a compound xbow.. this is absolute rubbish. Ive used a reflex sight on my bow before to great effect decent rabbit sized accuracy easily @ 50m.

I missed the part where i was talking about real life...or did you find one with a reflex sight in game? didn't think so. try hitting a rabbit aiming off rails from anything over 30 yards.

[thomas.bowyer@hotmail.co.uk 25]

from the way you spoke genius, you implied real life experience, at the very least inferred. this isnt a forum for internet trolls..

also, bumping this as its worthy. and does need attention. it essentially opens up silence/stealth play to the 'lower tiered' players

[jason.jblackman@gmail.com 3]

I think that the crossbow is fine in its current state, however the amount of slot space the bolts take is terrible. What if you picked up the bolts in groups of 6-10, and they only took up one slot in your inventory for each stack?

[Pat_the_Bunny 4]

On the accuracy side of things' date=' you have to realize that crossbows are very innaccurate weapons. The arrow movement is so significant that if you have your aim zeroed in for 20 m then at 25 m you would be landing 1-2 inches low, and at 15 you would be 1-2 inches high. It is also a very bad weapon for shooting at moving targets (zombies) because it is bulky. The in game sight is the rails, you "extend"them towards your target and place the target where the rails would meet from your perspective, but once again after about 20 meters it is hard to get reliable headshots.

[/quote']

I just gave the crossbow a test run in the armory, and although I didn't have a range finder to know for sure, I'd say it's zeroed in at about 100m. From roughly 20m away I had to aim at the zeds knees to get a head shot.

[overlow 0]

One idea that sprung up to my mind for the crossbow:

Quiver instead of backpack. There would be room for (something like) 20 bolts and nothing else, but you would be able to use the bolts straight from the quiver so you could have other items in the normal magslots.

Also better sights and/or 1hit chestkill.

[pantsumann 0]

Yeeeeeeeessssssss. atleast 4 stackeble bolts per slot and some sort of real ironsight. I love the crossbow but there are so many noisier weapons to choose before this just because of the sights.

[daedrick 90]

I agree with the OP. A reflex sight is a must and bigger stack of bolts as well. Especialy since they are so easily lost either by missing or the zombie fall on it. :S

[OneRainyNight 0]

I would love a crossbow with a flashlight attachment :D