It has been said that the bow and arrow is far more powerful in ES V but also more rare

These changes make me think of how the Marksman skill will be implemented, and how YOU want it to work. Do you want it to be like Oblivion, where even the biggest nub can shoot a perfectly accurate arrow at huge ranges, while somehow doing pitiful damage, or do you want it to flip completely, having you accuracy be pathetic at first and increasing as your skill does?

Option 1: Just like Oblivion but with much higher damage. If it takes 12 shots to kill as a Novice, it will take 10 as Apprentice, 8 for Journeyman 6 for Expert and 4 as a master. This will mainly effect stronger enemies as enemies that only take 2-3 shots to kill would take 1 shot as master, only giving you a 1-2 shot bonus over the lowest rank

Option 2: Damage stays the same or slightly increases based on skill level. If based on the example above, it will take 8 at Novice, 7.5 at Apprentice, 7 at Journeyman, 6.5 at Expert and 6 at Master.
The bonus you get for leveling up would instead increase you accuracy as well as give you some perks.

At Novice, your shot spreads quite wildly and is relatively slow.

At Apprentice, the spread is reduced and speed increases. You also take less fatigue damage from drawing the bow.

At Journeyman the accuracy and speed is further increased and you lose no fatigue for having the bow drawn.

At Expert your accuracy and speed is increased again and a reticle appears on your screen that shows exactly where your arrow is going to hit (it moves randomly in the "spread bubble" and compensates for gravity)

At Master your accuracy is perfect, your speed is even higher and your shots have a 25% chance of knocking the enemy back if they don't block it with a shield and a 10% chance if they do

(your accuracy, speed and fatigue don't make huge jumps, but increase smoothly from one rank to the next)



Option 2 will make marksmanship more believable IMO and still make ranking up worth it, but if you don't like it, say why

I'd like option 2 but I'm expecting option 1.

I like option 2, but would rather have damage done based not only on your skill/damage modifiers but on where you hit the target.

I'm kinda considering that to be a given considering F3 and FNV had it :vaultboy:

I want the arrow spread to be a long cone in front of you. At close range it should be hard to miss, at long range at first it will be character skill determining your accuracy. Later on I'd like your character to become more accurate, but not necessarily depending on the player's skill. I'm not so good at hitting a strafing enemy, so I'd like my character's skill to make that happen.

* Armor penetration by skill. Using the textual skill, would yield something like:
Novice - You need one level higher material tip to penetrate armor. Steel vs steel, arrow loose.
Apprentice - You can penetrate armor if tip is same material or better. Steel arrow vs steel armor, arrow win.
Journeyman - You can penetrate armor one material level higher than your tip. Ebony arrow vs daedric armor, arrow win.
Expert - You can penetrate armor two material levels higher than your tip. Dwarven arro vs daedric armor, arrow win.
Master - Three material levels than you tip (so nothing "ultimate").

* Bow handling (bow type, if available, and based on weight) by skill (as in FONV you get speed and/or aiming penalties for exceeding strength requirements):
Novice - only simple bows (or steel if material based) can be handled without penalties. If you pick up a heavy daedric bow at novice, your aiming is all over the place.
...
Master - all bows can be handled without penalties.

If there is mounted combat, it's easy to expand to types of bows: Longbows require more strength/skill than a short warbow but can't be fired on the move. A recurve bow can also be fired from a mount.

Maybe it should affect aiming only, and let perks drive the rest (penetration etc)? That way you don't become a god with a bow if you maxed your skill without picking perks for it. Btw with penetration I mean it increases your chances during a dice roll chance for it, not a fixed ability. If perks, some could be multiple ranks.

Impossible to say how anything *should* work without knowing the system.

I recommend reading (skimming at least) this http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1154136-marksman-skill-a-more-realistic-take-on-accuracy/. I think it covers most of what people want in archery.

Adding damage is not an innovation. It's Balancing.
Adding accuracy could be considered an innovation, but not really. It's been done before. A long time ago. It's a shame really that it has taken so long to be considered here.
Perks... meh. But that's what we're getting.
The real innovation would be material physics. Like Hoblak said about armor penetration, but I don't think that skill should have that significant of an effect on an arrow. Skill could be said to affect energy at release within the limits of the bow, which would have a big effect on penetration. However, shoddy bows + cheap arrows prolly won't penetrate iron regardless of how many years the archer practices. That said, I vote Other: Hoblak's. Otherwise, option 2 is preferable

Option 2 is pretty much copy + paste Mount and Blade BTW.

this is what i posted in another thread

I think its bull that headshot do nothing in Oblivion, I think we can learn alot from Enclave in that its not that the target is wearing a helmet, its that his face is still exposed.

Archery and the Marksmanship skill means a lot to me for TESV as my character is always a Ranger Type.

What I would like is similar to Option 2.
At each level I want get better and better, accuracy, and power, noticeably.
I don't want Cross-hairs at all.(kinda takes away the fun to me)
I want gravity and wind to take effect.(That would be amazing)
I think your strength should play part as well.(If my character is weak, he shouldn't be able to pull off a one shot kill at 100 yards)
These are all ideas, but I was fairly happy with the Marksmanship/Archery in Oblivion, and loved it in Morrowind.
After all, this is Bethesda. They know what their doing. Or they wouldn't be doing it.

Option 2 sounds downright fun. RE xinsanity19 on crosshairs: Make them optional, like a toggle switch somewhere. Some people are downright garbage at aiming but like bows and need them.

I would like that option.
I just like the guesswork and skill it takes to hit your target dead on without cross-hairs, or while moving.
But for people new to it, or the Series. I see the value of cross-hairs.

I think it would be good if your level decided what kind of bow you could use and what kind of accuracy you had. Similar to Mass Effect 1's sniper skill. The idea that everyone is pin-point accurate is crazy.

Instead have it be if you are a Novice you know how to pull back the string but aiming isn't great.

If you are an Apprentice then aiming still isn't that great but pulling the string isn't as tiring and your shots not have a knock-back chance.

If you are a Journeyman then aiming is easier, knock-backs are more likely and you can use bows with higher string tension, thus more power.

If you are an Expert then aiming is mostly steady, knock-back happens each shot, your arrows now pierce armor, you get access to even stronger bowstring tensions, and reloading your string is much faster.

If you are a Master then aiming is pin-point accurate, knock-back now affects elite enemies, your arrows cause bleeding damage along with piercing armor, you get top tier bowstring tensions, now when you fire from first person you go into a "focus mode" that lets you hit your enemies where you want and disable them in accordance to where they are hit or you can fire from third person and get even faster shooting and reloading, and finally you get arrow making.

With arrow making you get to chose how your arrow tips damage people, plus it allows you to not spend money on buying arrows instead giving you the option of gathering it for free.

I voted "other." I mostly like Option 2, but there are a couple of things that I don't like.

For one, no matter how good a marksman you are, holding a drawn bow should always drain stamina--getting better at archery doesn't suddenly give you superhuman strength or stamina. I think the stamina drain should decrease the better you get, but there should always be some drain. It just doesn't make sense to be able to walk around with a drawn recurve bow (or any bow that is not a compound bow) for as long as you like and never get tired.

The second thing I'm not a big fan of is knock-back. Stun, maybe, but actually, physically knocking someone back with an arrow? Not going to happen--an arrow just does not have enough energy to move something with the mass of a human or greater. And since arrows are designed as penetrating weapons, even if you somehow could impart enough energy to counteract the mass of a human target, the arrow would like pass right through that target as opposed to expending all of its energy in the target. (I said this before in another thread a while back, but even bullets, which have a much higher velocity than arrows, don't have enough energy to knock people back, even when they do expend all that energy in the target. There's no way an arrow is going to accomplish this.)

Sorry if I harped on that second point a bit too much, but seeing enemies fly across the room when hit by an arrow in Oblivion was one of my pet peeves. Even knock-back would be too much for me.

Other than that, though, I really like the idea of the Marksman skill improving accuracy. That makes a lot more sense to me than increasing damage. Damage should depend solely on your equipment (the draw weight of the bow and the mass/design of the arrow), with the obvious exception of course of shots hitting critical areas doing more harm to the target.

i like your idea very much...
and only giving the player arrow crafting at master level makes sense, because if you werent a master marksman, how would you know how to make arrows?

I must ask if you've ever been shot with an arrow. If you've been hit while wearing armor by a blunted arrow you would feel the amount of force they carry. I would say trust me but you have the means to find out for yourself, though AT INCREDIBLE PERSONAL RISK. I would advise you trust my opinion. Bullets tear through a person, due to their velocity. A bullet is a single point punching through a person at hundreds of feet a second. Now arrows travel slower so they don't go through a person, they instead transfer their kinetic energy into it's target. That's where the transfer happens. It's WHY the transfer happens. It's why arrows can stop a grown man running in his tracks. Bullets are designed to go through a person, arrows are designed to go into a person.

Thank you. It seems simple to me. My people used bows... a lot. And while history might not be relevant, it just something I grew up around. So I know my bows a fair bit. I'd say I'm a journeyman. ^_^

Personally I would consider that a very good thing. Mount & Blade has the best archery of any game I've played.

Other.

The damage and draw time of bows should be longer the smaller your marksman skill is. When it comes to accuracy, if marksman had any penalties on this, then magic should have it too. The draw time would be effected slightly, but the damage more greatly.
Ex:
Draw distance: Novice: 3,8 seconds Master: 2,8 seconds
Damage (shots to kill same target): Novice: 8 Master: 1

Well some speculations says developers take inspiration for archery from this mod
Duke Patricks - Combat Archery
http://tesalliance.org/forums/index.php?/files/file/514-duke-patricks-combat-archery-32/
Thats mod have features like in your option 2

I'm saying other because we all know that the bow system in Skyrim is going to be different. Maybe a percentage bonus per hit on the enemy as your skill increases (Per arrow strike, i.e 4%, etc) However I'm mainly just going to wait and see.

I like the idea a novice shouldnt be able to hit an ememy from the same maximum range as that of a master.

I have not been shot with an arrow, so I will trust you when you say that they carry a significant amount of force. And I hope, in turn, that you will trust me when I say I understand physics. Yes, the arrow does expend all its energy in the target because it travels relatively slowly, meaning that it has less momentum than, say, a bullet. (By the way, bullets are not designed to go through people. Any bullet that goes through its target is wasting energy, and most bullets are in fact designed to expend as much energy as possible in the target.)

OK, momentum is m * v. Let's say that we have an arrow weighing 400 grains (not an unreasonable amount). This is 25.9 grams, or .0259 kg. Let's say that the speed of said arrow is 100 m/s. These figures are more in line with modern bows--English longbows, for example, would shoot arrows at about half that speed, but the arrows would also probably weigh more. Anyway, these figures give us a momentum of 2.59 kg*m/s. Now let's look at a .45 caliber round. Just going by the info for various rounds on Wikipedia, we have 10.7 g at 320 m/s on the low end (momentum = 3.42 kg*m/s) and 12.0 g at 330 m/s on the high end (momentum = 4.476 kg*m/s). If a .45 caliber round shot into a person and not going through does not knock them back, it is physically impossible for an arrow to knock them back.

As for an arrow stopping a grown man running in his tracks, well, sure--people will generally stop running when they get hit with an arrow. A bullet will generally accomplish the same thing. But neither projectile has enough momentum to physically stop a running person. They will not stop as if they had just run into a brick wall. The reason that people stop when they are hit by a projectile is because they have been wounded too greatly to continue running. None of this affects momentum.

Maybe I'm misunderstanding the term "knock-back." I take it to mean "physically knocking some one back." Like what might happen if you hit someone with a baseball bat, which has a lot more momentum. If we're simply talking about stunning or staggering someone, then yeah, sure, an arrow can definitely stun or stagger a person. But it will not significantly affect that person's momentum--in other words, if they are standing still, they will not go flying, and if they are moving, they will not stop dead in their tracks.

Sorry if that was a little picky. Also, apologies in advance if further replies are delayed, as my visits to the forums aren't always regular.

im pretty sure an arrow cant knock back a grown man, but im also pretty sure a grown man would be stopped dead in his tracks if an arrow hit him in the chest and stomach area . . .

the point of knockback is to give more power to using bows, i know its not like real life but in real life 1 arrow alone would be enough to kill a person and if it was like that in the game then bows would be just too powerful

theres no point in arguing physics here, theres plenty of other stuff thats in the realm of imagination, im pretty sure a creature twice the size of a gorilla (ogre, troll . . .) would shatter your whole arm and shield to pieces if you tried blocking one of its punches

i dont have a problem suspending my knowledge of physics and believing an arrow can knockback a person, its there for the sake of gameplay

Or Surviving Dragon Fire? lol

I think that they shouldnt go flying across the room, but I think your target would most definitely stagger.
I wont throw out some Physics equations.
But If a grown man, of Strong Build, shot you with an arrow at full force and velocity.
You would stagger. At least.

Look back at the cutscene of Boromir getting riddled with arrows in LOTR.
He just didnt keep running, it was do to injury,
and to force, that caused him to slow and die.
He staggered when hit by the arrow. Due to both reasons.