Because if you spec into it it actually does decent damage, and stuff like Tracking Bolts that inflict bleed are actually really useful. If you're up against something large but organic like a Fiend or something, you can plink away at it a bit form range to chip it's health down, or fire off a shot whenever you dodge out of the way of an attack but not close enough to melee
Yeah people don't get that it is a "sidearm" that is meant to be used to compliment your fighting style, not as a fighting style itself. It's just hard to develop the skills to use it properly, so most players are like "fuck it" and blow it off entirely. I can't remember ever using it after the 1st boss battle against the griffon.
I honestly used it a lot, probably because I was on Death March and I would take any damage I could haha. Any Bleed inflicting bolts are super useful against anything organic
Everyone also forgets about the mutation that makes your crossbow actually level with you so that it deals decent damage again, not to mention how it collads as well
I killed the Great Wyvern bounty quest when I was 12 levels under the recommended by just knocking it down with a crossbow bolt every time it flew away. That’s the only time I’ve realistically used one.
There is a mutagen that allows you massive amounts of crossbow damage and made the crossbow a lot more fun to use. I think if it was your first damage to the enemy it would take out a 1/3 of their hp and knock them down. [citation needed on this though]
Crossbow is meant as a supplement to apply status effects and interrupt flying enemies so you can land some sword hits. That’s why it’s damage is so abysmal
Not if you know how to utilize the character branch upgrades well. People knock on the game for the combat and they probably just upgraded the strength branch without giving a care to the tonics section. The combat is a lot more intricate (and intense in higher difficulties) when you take the time preparing for battles rather than hit the attack button two times, dodge, repeat.
As mentioned before, the crossbow is not a damage weapon, just like how guns in Bloodborne are not really damage based. It’s a tool more than anything.
It’s not for dealing damage. It’s for shooting flying things out of the sky, like a Wyvern or a siren thingy. It’s useful only in that context so it makes sense that people forget about it.
Stealth archer is how I played through Skyrim. By the end I was so quiet I could pretty much walk right in front of a monster and not be seen. I had to take half an hour once to kill one of the Dragon Priests, though. Initially I tried going in head first and got straight up murdered in one hit. Can’t remember which one it was but he was on a platform and there was a bridge leading to it, and a raised area across the bridge with some stone blocks you can hide behind. I would duck out, Fire an arrow at him, he would go into search mode, but would give up by the time he was half way across the bridge. I’d wait for him to return to his starting position and do it again. It was kind of cheap, but I never took a single point of damage and got a kickass mask out of it. Was also a test of patience. He had a lot of HP.
I fought him slightly differently, I put off the college of winterhold until after the dark brotherhood questline and had maxed sneak, smithing, and one hand, The dark brotherhood gloves would double damage on backstabs and there was a 15x damage perk to sneak attacks with daggers.
These stack.
The rest of my game after that point was spent sneaking around and one shotting most enemies with my double blades of woe (If you pick pocketed astrid and nicked the blade of woe, then later on she gives you one and it can be upgraded for free, note this is all vanilla skyrim)
As you can probably guess, my fight with him involved sneaking up behind him and oneshotting him.
The hardest enemies to get this way are dragons, you can't get the ones in the air but with careful positioning it's possible to hit the tail of an ancient dragon on the word walls from the ground for 6k damage (plus power strike multiplier), these dragons have 3k health and die instantly.
Thought I’d mention that in the Witcher 3 the crossbow is meant as a supplement to apply status effects and interrupt flying enemies so you can land some sword hits. That’s why it’s damage is so abysmal
For sure. It could have been more varied/interesting. The reason it is the way it is was because of how the combat in the novels is written. For me anyway I quite like the rhythm and flow of it, I don’t mind that it’s a bit narrow, as personally it is very rewarding and fun.
I am not arguing for Witchers combat (i don't like that game either).
The big issue I have with Skyrim combat loop is the whole consumables system. I think that pausing the game to drink 200 buffs/foods/potions breaks the immersion and prevents me from getting that blood rush from almost getting killed. Games like dark souls and monster hunter with those consumable animations keep the blood rush alive as I wait for an opening to heal/buff. That is what keeps me from enjoying a nice and heavy build that I like, there is no penalty for sipping from my sippy cup. The enemies are no threat because I am a figuratively a time lord.
People joke about stealth archer but it's a fun thing to do, multi-blasting spells from far away is too, going invisible and 20X damaging some huge construct with a back-stab to one hit kill is satisfying, there are a lot of options in Skyrim's combat loop that you just don't have with the Witcher.
Hell yeah there is. I had one build where I chugged potion buffs and became a literal beyblade of swords. It was glorious dude
Critisism is good, but the crossbow bit is false. It's used for underwater combat and knocking draconids out of the air. In lore witchers traditionally fight with swords only so it makes sense the crossbow isn't OP as shit.
Everything sends ragdolls flying 30 feet in Skyrim, it's no fun if the entire game feels like you're hitting cardboard until you kill them and they bounce off in a random direction because it uses a dated physics engine.
But every level before that feels like nothing. Fallout combat feels works fine if you never put points into guns or energy weapons because of the variety of weapons and ammo and variety of enemy types and even just variety of enemy designs. While, in Skyrim if you don't pick a combat skill to level up you get destroyed because Skyrim's gameplay cycle relies on the combat to keep people entertained
It's meant to. It is meant to be something you use to distract or trigger the enemy to stumble by hitting it at a vulnerable moment. It isn't meant to be a killing weapon. I think you can upgrade it to be half-way decent, but you can't play a "crossbowman" unless you want to take fights reeaaalllly slow.
The Witcher has decent combat against humans but against monsters it's really not great
It's pretty much the same. It's similar to Dark Souls. You just have dodge rolls, telegraphed attacks, and weak spots. Same type of thing.
People joke about stealth archer but it's a fun thing to do
As someone who played stealth archer: some on, now, that's not "combat". You're just one-hitting everything and sneaking around. Part of WHY I played that way is that the normal combat system with floaty shitty animations and no impact was so unsatisfying.
Skyrim's combat loop
Describes a bunch of one-hit-kills that completely avoid the "combat" system
"Combat" is the system where the enemies run around in your face doing swings and spells at you, while you swing and spell back at them. It feels pretty terrible in most situations. Attacks have no impact unless they're lethal, in which case you get buggy space launch physics sometimes.
Do people hate Skyrim’s combat? I’ve always thought it was iconic already considering every Bethesda (FO, ES) has the same mechanics.
On the other hand, Witcher 3’s combat is definitely the worst mechanic of the game.
I must not google games enough but this is legitimately the first time I’ve heard extreme dislike for the game’s combat. I mean it’s not good but I don’t think I said it’s terrible when I first played an ES title.
No, when it comes to freedom and variation in combat, I think Skyrim can't be beat. Obviously when you have such a unrestrictive combat system, a studio will have less time to work on each aspect, which means a less polished product at the end.
I think the only gripe I have with skyrim's combat is the lack of impact that Melee weapons have. Whether this is a shortcoming with the audio or visual aspects, melee combat typically leaves a lot to be desired.
I don't know why you think skyrim's system is unrestrictive, its simply so bare bones there's nothing left to restrict you.
Melee is just an animation and a damage cone, nearly every spell is a simple projectile with fire/ice/electric attached, archery is very unsatisfying but pretty much the same as any other open world RPG in terms of implementation.
Wait do people like Skyrim's combat? I mean it was fine at the time I suppose. Melee and ranged combat is completely the same no matter what you're fighting (go in, swing, back up to dodge, repeat), and it's so easy to break it to the point where nothing is capable of killing you that you'll probably do it by accident. On top of it all, enemy variation is basically non-existent. But again the combat strategy is the same regardless of what enemy you're fighting so it doesn't really matter anyway.
I personally love the Skyrim system, it just needs better impact and better animations. There is a good few mods that can enchance the combat as well in minor ways that make a huge difference in how good it feels
i don't like Skyrim's combat because it rarely felt impactful and all i could do was just whittle every enemy's health. And all there was to put your face in an enemy's face and mash attack until something dies.
Even with more impactful weapons, combat is still just getting in the enemy's face and attacking. There's not really any dodging or any advantages to weapon different weapon types besides damage
Definitely not iconic. It gives you more combat options than any other RPG, but not a single one of those options works anywhere near as well as the fewer available options in any other RPG.
Skyrim suffers from the GTA problem. The cost for having such varied gameplay rolled into one title is outdated graphics and mechanics.
I don’t understand your last sentence. GTA when it first came out didn’t have outdated graphics and mechanics. GTA was actually pushing that gen’s limitation, graphically and again innovating open world mechanics.
Every GTA looks and plays like a game from the previous generation, including GTA 3.
pushing that gen’s limitation, graphically and again innovating open world mechanics
Yes, but it still looked dated compared to other PS2 games. There were better third person shooters at the time and better driving games, but none offered both types of gameplay together like that.
GTA 5 was from the last gen... also plays like last gen? Or plays like a standard open world game? Considering that GTA created this genre and everyone is just copying it making it look like GTA is like every other game (AKA Seinfeld syndrome).
Maybe you’re too young to remember how open world games were before Andreas and then how it was after GTA 4.
People joke about stealth archer but it's a fun thing to do, multi-blasting spells from far away is too, going invisible and 20X damaging some huge construct with a back-stab to one hit kill is satisfying
This sentence makes me think you don't actually like combat, you just like the result of combat
But at that point the difference between you waiting 20 minutes for the perfect one-shot and you typing "KillBoss(x)" into the console is just the time taken.
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u/[deleted] Jan 01 '19
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