Bow and Arrow

[shepard1707]

Sorry to possibly necro this, but I'd really like the ability to have a Bow.

It'd mean that even if RNG decides to mess with you, you could still hunt for food or defend yourself from wolves. I would recommend, however, two things.

1) That the bow only do enough damage to wound an animal in a single hit. A wolf or a deer would run off, forcing you to track it down, much like if you'd gotten into a knife fight with the animal.

2) Arrows should either be recoverable, or you should get multiple arrows from each crafting. Arrows should, however, take a few materials to craft. Scrap metal, wood of some kind, and something to serve as the fletching. Both combined would also be nice.

[TheGaffer]

I think most of the issues have already been covered in this thread. Still I'd like to throw in my two cents (or pence, being from the UK)

Crafting a bow from scratch would be quite an undertaking. Assuming you can find a suitable piece of timber to craft a single piece bow stave from (that probably being the most likely idea a person with no bow making experience would go for). There's a handful of considerations a newbie would likely overlook when building the bow. Also the previously mentioned poor durability of a piece of hardwood under repeating stress in freezing conditions.

On top of this. Making an arrow that can fly straight without the appropriate materials is a tall ask as well. Finally with no experience of using a sightless bare bow the resulting weapon would be something along the lines of Michael J Fox doing brain surgery with a club hammer.

BUT. Finding a bow would be great. You can find a hunting rifle in your treks through the Canadian wilderness and, given the location, finding a hunting bow would make sense. Compound bows are regularly used in modern day hunting. They're designed to be easier to use and aim than conventional bows (albeit the sights would need to be recalibrated for distances more harshly than a rifle) so they would be viable for someone with no experience to learn to use quickly. It should also be mentioned that arrows aren't hugely durable, recovering them once or twice would be possible, but after being embedded into flesh and bone/trees/other hard things, the arrows are likely to become drastically warped.

So yeah I like the idea of finding some sort of bow, it'd add another interesting choice for hunting and defence. Especially if the arrows are limited and not particularly re usable then you will still have to make a serious consideration before using the precious ammunition.

[EternityTide]

TheGaffer, sights are for wusses, If you want to be a proper archer, eyeball it, no fancy apertures. The bow likely would have to be a compound, I agree, as wooden and horn bows suffer terribly in extreme cold (splitting, warping, fibre fracture, going with the string, brittleness etc etc)

[Ottomic]

I for one enjoy the fact that the ability to fight back is severely capped in TLD. I wouldn't mind finding bows, but not crafting them.

[EmperorZeb]

How feasible is it for somebody with possibly some, but by no means extensive experience, to make arrows? That to me is the real question here. Finding a compound bow in some hunter's cabin in Northern Canada is far from unrealistic, along with some ammo. But is it a way to indefinitely stay alive?

[Ottomic]

"plausible" does not mean "balanced" or "fun". We shouldn't be asking how feasible it is, but how it would affect gameplay to add another weapon and wether you can craft ammo for it. It'd be also plausible for our protagonist to catch appendicitis 40 days into a run, but just because it's plausible or possible doesn't mean it should be into the game.

[EternityTide]

I like your style ottomic, you have a good point.

[TheGaffer]

"plausible" does not mean "balanced" or "fun". We shouldn't be asking how feasible it is, but how it would affect gameplay to add another weapon and wether you can craft ammo for it. It'd be also plausible for our protagonist to catch appendicitis 40 days into a run, but just because it's plausible or possible doesn't mean it should be into the game.

Absolutely agree with you there.

Well, crafting your own clothing from dead animals has been implemented so it seems like the character is turning into quite the hardcore survivalist. I feel like finding a bow would just complete the scene. He's effectively being forced to resort to a very base existence like our ancestors.

I'll reiterate that I don't like the idea of being able to craft a bow or arrows however. Finding them would be good though.

I feel like we'll see a bow at some point in the story mode if nothing else.

[EmperorZeb]

Fair point on game balance. Then it comes down to whether or not the developers want players to achieve indefinite survival. I don't really have a stance on which is preferable, but I'll be curious to see which they choose.

[shepard1707]

The ability to craft equipment, be it either superior or inferior to found equipment, is something that I personally feel is not just essential to survival in general (as scavenging can only take you so far), but also vitally essential from a game play standpoint.

This point was driven home to me in my most recent, and best, playthrough. After finding the rifle, and setting myself up in the trapper's homestead, I was able to gather enough materials to craft all three of the fur clothing items. And while this was invaluable from the standpoint of giving me clothes that could stand up to the cold, and would be repairable using completely renewable materials, the MOST value I found from the crafting was simply the fact that it gave my character something to DO when the weather was bad, and my supplies were good.

So I'd like to sum up the points that I feel make a strong case for craftable arrows (at the least, a full craftable bow would certainly be pushing it).

1) It adds an element of preparation, and a feeling of doing something, much like crafting the clothing currently does. Your supplies are good, but the weather's bad? Make some arrows, not like you have anything better to do with your time. Right now, once you have the clothes, all you can do in such a situation is just sleep, which to me feels like wasted time.

2) It adds some forgiveness. Random Number God can really screw you over in this game. If you get a gun, but only find 2 boxes of ammo in the whole game? Things can quickly move beyond the realm of the 'challenging but fun' into the realm of 'Welp, guess I'm just gonna start a new one and hope RNG likes me this time.' Craftable arrows would mitigate that considerably. With that as an option, now you could press on, hoping just a little bit longer that, hey, maybe I find a bow, or find some stuff to make some arrows. Turning what would be frustrating before into a surmountable challenge.

3) It simply adds options. Games, fundamentally, boil down to choice. And an exploration/survival game especially should be about providing as many choices as possible, as well as the consequences for those choices. Say the bow doesn't do as much damage as a gun? Well, you might be wishing you brought the extra firepower. The bow and arrow both weigh more than rifle and bullets? Well, now you can't carry as much. The Bow is harder to use. It fatigues you to use it, and burns more callories. All of these things together mean that we need to weigh our options between the two (or more, if more are added) weapons.

Ultimately, I feel that the pros far more outweigh the cons. In that the only real cons that I can see are a matter of SoD (which I don't really feel would be THAT stretched by the inclusion), and the potential to make the game 'easier' which some might feel would be against the spirit of the game.

[Ottomic]

Well, crafting your own clothing from dead animals has been implemented so it seems like the character is turning into quite the hardcore survivalist.

Yeah, but those are simply replacements for items that you can find plenty of, and that don't give you more advantage than cold reduction; *and* it doesn't guarantee food in the way a craftable (or simply added on top of the existing system) weapon would, either.

I'll reiterate that I don't like the idea of being able to craft a bow or arrows however. Finding them would be good though.

Sure, but we need to take into account that a well placed projectile is potentially 4 to 15 kgs of meat if you're savvy about it, and that arrows would probably have to be reusable to a point for the sake of consistency. Not to mention that the entire wolf angle would be even more nerfed no matter how you cut it if you add a new weapon into the mix, altering how they affect gameplay and the player unless say, it was hard as hell to repair and degraded super quick, but I still have 'nam-style flashbacks every time I exit my house irl thinking my clothes are gonna dissolve in a couple steps from the early release versions, so I'm not a huge proponent of entropy heavy mechanics or adding stuff that's not really needed and that ultimately would alter the game just for flavor's sake. Maybe making the rifle non-repairable. Maybe massively capping rifle ammo. Maybe spawning only one of the two, making them mutually exclusive. Would be nice for replayability, which is kind of a big deal for tld. But would also affect balance regarding leaderboards, something that I personally find absolutely prescindible for this game but hey, there's people who want to play "competitively".

...

I don't think you can argue balance to add new stuff in this particular case: more on the contrary, I'd say it would put it at risk more than help it; and moreover I'd say #1 and #2 have been greatly addressed in a way more planning-friendly by the recent excellent balance passes and difficulty options. Tool spawning looks really nice and balanced now, and although as a gamer I'm tempted by the tiny 'moremoremore' voice in my head, as it is the game now I'd much rather see a new area, or flavor text, or map-clue-thingy system, or evidently, the campaign mode released way more than a new weapon with an entirely different model, physics, mechanics and place in the game.

Again, not against it. Would add a new way to hunt, give tracking more relevance, make hunts more dangerous because of the lack of noise. Might be an amazing substitute for the rifle half of the games. But way down the line.

TL;DR: super delicate and beautiful balance, afraid of change that might ruin it.

[Denali]

People are talking about finding bows, wouldn't a fiberglass revurve work well? Iv shot mine in -20 f, seemed to work just fine

[The_Hawk35]

While I'm not opposed to a bow and arrow as long as ammo is limited. And as for making your own arrows, neither cedar or fir are good materials for arrows.

What I would like is to be able to craft a spear to fend off wolves and drive them from kills.

Perhaps being able to make a torch would be a different means of wolf protection.

[brostoevsky]

I would like some kind of weapon besides the rifle, and I support having a bow and arrow, but for those saying it's realistic to be able to craft it - for one, this game is not about wholly uncompromising realism at the expense of gameplay, and second just because you know how to hunt doesn't mean you know how to hand craft a working, reliable bow and arrows with simple tools. Skinning and tanning animal hides for clothing is much, much easier and less skill intensive than knowing how to make a good bow.

I think a slingshot (or any kind of primitive sling, even something like an atlatl to throw homemade spears) might be nice. That would be a reasonable thing for someone to make with scavenged materials and it could be used to hunt rabbits and scare wolves.

[ErickRedfieldh]

If you'll pardon the tangent for a moment, I'm reminded of the first Silent Hill game. Harry had limited knowledge of how to fire a handgun, let alone no training. He missed more often than not when shooting at enemies. It took for-freakin-ever to reload. Even with the darn thing it was still advisable to RUN AWAY!

Take that idea here: You know the basics of crafting a very basic solid body recurve. You know the basics of crafting arrow shafts, fetching and heads. Doesn't mean you're going to be particularly good at firing it, or that it's going to be extremely accurate at that.

I would propose that the bow's quality would be based on your bow crafting skill, which would start at a low number if not zero. So your first bow will decay rather quickly and be fairly inaccurate. The next one would be a bit better, and a bit better, and so on. Quality of arrows would also depict how accurate your shot is. And finally you would have a bow firing skill (called something better) which would obviously increase your accuracy when firing the bow (factoring in condition of the bow and the arrow, of course).

Maybe you do find a good recurve (let's leave compounds out altogether......). You still have your accuracy skill to contend with. And, if it's a solid body, it would be inadvisable to repair it........

[Denali]

To those who are arguing that bows would break the balance or be overpowered, I'd argue that a recurve doesn't hurt the balance too bad. hunting with a bow is much harder than hunting with a rifle, and it doesn't take down game in one hit, usually (at least with elk) they run a good hundred meters or so before they die. on top of that, you have to get relatively close, depending on the poundage of the bow, which in this scenario probably isn't too high, since the character isn''t necessarily experienced. so, if implemented realistically, the rifle will be almost infinitely more efficient, but the bow will give you some options after there is no more ammo.

[braven25]

Personally I don't think I bow would be suitable at all in the environment, some people already pointed out that Bows are hard to use, and that is in GOOD conditions, now try add to that with freezing cold numb finger, and severe winds that would make arrow flight nearly impossible.

I think even a Pro Archer would have a lot of difficulty.

[Denali]

Personally I don't think I bow would be suitable at all in the environment, some people already pointed out that Bows are hard to use, and that is in GOOD conditions, now try add to that with freezing cold numb finger, and severe winds that would make arrow flight nearly impossible.

I think even a Pro Archer would have a lot of difficulty.

Difficult yes, impossible no. The Inuit have been doig it for hundreds of years. That being said, they did switch over to firearms because they are more efficient, so clearly the rifle is a better choice, the bow is what your left with after there is no more ammo

[braven25]

Personally I don't think I bow would be suitable at all in the environment, some people already pointed out that Bows are hard to use, and that is in GOOD conditions, now try add to that with freezing cold numb finger, and severe winds that would make arrow flight nearly impossible.

I think even a Pro Archer would have a lot of difficulty.

Difficult yes, impossible no. The Inuit have been doig it for hundreds of years. That being said, they did switch over to firearms because they are more efficient, so clearly the rifle is a better choice, the bow is what your left with after there is no more ammo

your refering to professionals who lived with it their whole life, if a pro would find it hard in extreme weather conditions, and random civilised person off a plane won't stand a chance no matter how talented they are, hence why a bow wouldn't really have a place in The Long Dark.

If it was any other survival game where weather is not the main enemy, then I would be all for bows.

[sig]

Welcome! What I would like to discuss here is what I feel could be a major contribution to The Long Dark. One of the simplest weapons (aside from the atlatl) is the bow and arrow! Of course even the simplest weapons require lots of crafting, but you could do it like this. Two to three hours for the arrow shaft, two to three for arrows made out of loose obsidian rock or bones. One to two hours for the fletching. Four to six hours for the bow, two to three for the string (could be made of sinew, which is acquired from bone) and then you put it all together in around six to eight hours. The damage would be minimal, but the system would be great considering it would be quiet, and rather reusable. This could lead to an in depth injury system, one to two arrows make a wolf limp, three or four and it is down. And as always, the more you use a bow the more your skill levels up. Any ideas?

-Razznak

I think it would be neat if they added like, survival guides from tourists who went up there to meet their 'inner wild' and were there during the bombardment, and reading these would raise your skill levels a bit or even teach you tricks. Like getting blisters while using the "rubbing two sticks" method of starting fire could be resisted by holding things as padding or even a better technique, or even just raising the skill integer. One of these could be to make bows and arrows, which the higher the crafting level the better they would be.

tl';dr, fallout 3 bobbleheads but in book form

[ErickRedfieldh]

your refering to professionals who lived with it their whole life, if a pro would find it hard in extreme weather conditions, and random civilised person off a plane won't stand a chance no matter how talented they are, hence why a bow wouldn't really have a place in The Long Dark.

If it was any other survival game where weather is not the main enemy, then I would be all for bows.

Currently we've very little information on our survivor. To just offhand state he is some random guy is make an assumption without enough background. He can, after all, survive in weather most people would die in within a few days. He also has more repair knowledge than your average random person, being able to repair a rifle with scrap, can openers with scrap, etc.

I think we're all over thinking this a bit too much here.

The main argument against bows is that the cold weather would cause the bow to break more easily? Okay fine. In addition to deterioration from usage, add on deterioration from being in the cold. Give it the same rate as clothing, which practically rot off our bodies as is. Problem solved. Now the bow isn't OP from a durability standpoint.

As for OP from a hunting/skill standpoint, see my previous post in this thread. I thought it was relatively well thought out, though did have some things that needed work.

[TheMig]

I'm personally in favor of adding the bow and arrow. It makes long-term sandbox adventures viable, given that rifle ammo is such a limited resource in most playthroughs.

Realistically, it's more than likely that most bows "found" in the game would be of carbon-fiber construction and far less limited by the influence of cold.

Not to mention that the Inuit developed a cable backed bow that helped to preserve even driftwood-based bows used in winter hunting.

Long and the short of it, I think the bow is a critical implement for sandbox mode and can be made to work without completely destroying the game's balance.

[Lux]

... that most bows "found" in the game would be of carbon-fiber construction and far less limited by the influence of cold.

Um....wha? So you're saying that most bows found in the Canadian wilderness would be made of carbon fiber? ...um...yeah...that's realistic. :shock:

I think we're talking about crafting a bow from materials found in the wilderness. Not finding a bow which would probably either be wooden or fiberglass. Carbon fiber is a fairly exotic material. More common place these days but that's around civilization. Not likely at all in the Canadian wilderness. This isn't DayZ with NVGs and thermal scopes.

[pikkue]

I quit reading this thread within the first to pages, now taking a glimpse to the latest arguments... wtf guys, carbon fiber and influence of cold on the material???

Shouldn't the bow be a simple and more breakable alternative to the gun basically?

[John Dow]

So if adding a bow then reducing the ammo for the rifle ??

I seriously don't get it. Why a bow when we have a rifle. If the developers would want us to use more long distance weapons, they just add more ammo.

Why we need a spear to fend off wolves if we have a prybar ?

I don't get it folks...