Crossbows. The weapon dubbed "unnecessary" by devs and many fans for Oblivion. The crossbow was seen mainly as a second bow, a mostly aesthetic decision made by players for their characters. When seen this way, I fully understand the decision to not include them in the game.

However, a crossbow is not a bow. Believe it or not, the bow is much more difficult to use and actually requires more strength and training than the crossbow. An English monarch once said "If you want to train a Longbowman, start with his grandfather." To contrast, any bloke could pick up and use a crossbow. The bow could pierce armor and rain death from the sky from hundreds of paces away, while the crossbow had a much shorter range but (arguably) a much harder punch.

The crossbow was cheaper, easier to use, and all-around a very cost-effective choice for most medieval outfitters. They also had one more useful function: once the bolt was pulled back, you could leave it there and move around, aim, and fire without using the strength to keep holding a bowstring back.

bow- load,draw,aim,fire

crossbow- aim,fire,load

In gaming, for crossbows to be a viable option, these differences need to be realized. A useful weapon for warriors or rogues not proficient in the bulkier bow and arrow. This is how I want to see the crossbow.

Your thoughts?

How excactly would that work in a skill-based system?

It would use the same "Marksman" skill, but perhaps wouldn't have as many (or any) perks associated with it. A master of the bow can do many truly amazing feats, while the crossbow is much more friendly to the first-time user but the only thing to improve is your aim.

If the crossbows is to be included in Skyrim, i think Bethesda must find a way to balance this. The bow could have longer range and the crossbow could have more close up firepower. The bow is superior in speed, but the crossbow is easier to handle and use.
The corssbow is also a much heavier weapon.

Given how watered-down the skills are getting as the series progresses, what's this got to to with anything?

:thumbsup: This. While I understand the claim "in real world," wouldn't a "low-skill solution for the untrained" just translate into "massive overkill in the hands of the skilled, becoming the no-choice de facto weapon for all archer-types who want to be effective?"

It would basically be the Sniper Rifle from Fallout: New Vegas- spawning a thousand threads alternately praising and complaining about its insane overpoweredness until a patch nerfs it, then setting off a second round of forum-crippling complaints.

Not a bad idea, but since there is no cap level I can't see why you couldn't invest in both marksman and the archery perks at some point. Interesting idea , but it will be difficult to implement the whole "easy to use" concept. I think they'll be better off just making perks for crossbow as well, under the same archery skill, but make the crossbow work differently (rate of fire, range etc)

Maybe they should start with the same fundament, but as the player levels he will be able to choose perks to boost one of the weapons. Like if you want to be and archer you could add perks that add draw-strength, range and accuracy. For the crossbowmen they could add reload spead and weight options.

if implemented right, a crossbow can be a makeshift marksman weapon for characters not proficient in marksmanship, if the skill requirement for the crossbow is significantly lower than a bow. For example if you are a axe user and your marksmanship skill is only 20, you can still pick up a crossbow and shoot it effectively when you have the need for long range weapon. the drawback: you have to stand still and take a long time to reload.

Why couldn't this go into the numerous other crossbow threads?

Let's say that the Marksmanship skill (it makes no sense to call it Archery if we are gonna have crossbows) is the thing that primarily governs the goodness of character with shooting things. You could add Agility here, it doesn't matter.

So. Raw Marksmanship transforms to "bow power" at direct rate. At 10 skill you'll svck with bow. At 50 skill you will going to be really proficient, and at 90 skill you are going to rule. That's standard.

But when you are using crossbow, it doesn't works that way. Basically it works as, say, [Effective skill] = 50 + [Base Skill]/3. So at low skill levels, crossbow will rule your world, but at high... not so much. In fact, maximum effective skill for crossbow you can have is 83. And at 75 skill it matches out, so at 76 bows are better. Obviously, these numbers - 50 and 3 - should be picked more carefully, taking balance into account.

Also, while bow should have various neat mastery perks, crossbow shouldn't have any at all. It's not a specialist's weapon (don't bash me, not speaking about real life, only about this vision in gameplay), it's a layman's support weapon.

Also, crossbow could provide 1/3 of skill experience per shot compared to bow. So if you care about Marksmanship, you will use the bow. And if you don't — you won't.

I dont understand what Todd has against Crossbows and Spears. Its perfectly reasonable to have them in the game.

It would require having similar to New Vegas' skill requirements for weapons, I would say, wherein your effectiveness with a weapon decreases dramatically if you don't meet the requirements, then crossbows could have a lower skill requirement than normal bows, so a character less proficient in marksman could still use them effectively. If the game isn't going to have that, though, then yes, crossbows will probably be pretty similar to bows, not that this means they shouldn't be in the game, just that Bethesda would need to find other ways to make them worth using if they don't want their differences from bows to purely be cosmetic.

The more powerful crossbows such as the Windlass and the Goat's Foot, were so expensive that only mercenaries used them. It would have been too expensive to outfit an army with them. The less powerful, more common crossbows, which could not penetrate armour, even at close range, were redundant compared to the longbow, or more powerful warbow. :thumbsup:

That's a great idea to be honest.

IIRC, crossbow has longer range, but weaker accuracy. Like you said, using crossbow looks easier than using bow, thus is mainly used by people who don't know how to shoot, thus resulting in even worse aim. Also, reloading bolts is longer than pulling the string back; crossbow is smaller in length, but is much heavier. Also, people don't use crossbow as a secondary weapon, but the first.

Aim, shoot, miss, "damn the enemy is approaching," repeat until tossing crossbow aside in frustration.

I'm sorry but a crossbow does not have a longer range than a long bow. :thumbsup:

It's an Arbalest. Oh and it's a Dachi or Tachi, not a Dai-katana.

Hmmm... What I've seen in a lot of RPG's that feature crossbows (and which works quite well) is to have Strength as the major determining factor of crossbow proficiency. Logically, this makes sense, as in fact (and as in stated in previous posts), crossbows are bulky weapons, and much more difficult to handle than bows. However, yes, when it comes to ease of firing, the crossbow wins, but to me, a major factor in how skilled you are with a weapon depends on how well you are able to wield it.

Anyone have any thoughts on this?

OP I completely agree.

and yes crossbows are fantasy main stay weapons deal with it, they don't need reasons to include them they should be a given

Simple to do in theory, a crossbow is easier to use so damage is less dependent on skill making it better than bows for characters with low skill. However using a crossbow level marksmanship slow and they has either low damage or very slow firing rate.
Morrowind handled it very well.

And no a heavy sniper crossbow will not be a nimble weapon, you do a lot of damage but firing rate is slow and it’s among the most heavy weapons in the game.
A light crossbow is mostly suited poison enemies at range and killing pests.

Modern crossbows are light, easy to handle with their rifle-like stocks and triggers, and look cool enough, a Medieval arbalest is a big heavy lump of wood with bits of metal stuck to it, ideal for men with little training defending a position, bot imho a terrible choice of weapon for a travelling adventurer.

I like this idea, and also hope crossbows end up being in.

Well we now know the skill is called archery and that fairly much rules out thrown weapons and xbows.

no because like he said it would only be better at the begining because most of the perks would be for the bow.

@wintermane youve got a source for this claim?

I would like to see crossbow's back,if not at very least throwing knives etc.
But something as lead me to believe that crossbows won't be in. ( if this makes sense )
The archery mode they are using by default.From what i understand the bow is more powerful,but takes longer to draw back.
Also i don't think we'll be as accurate shooting while moving,by the sounds of it.
But using a crossbow would more or less bypass that,meaning more people would probably chose crossbow.
Firing a bow while moving and a crossbow while moving are different,you can be more accurate with a crossbow,because of the way its held compaired to a bow.
Hope that makes sense.But the more i think about it the more i can see crossbow's not being there...because of that mod.