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Prosper I love archery in RPGs, here's my top 10 (sort of).

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Lilura

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10) LOLblivion -- Starting off with a joke entry, but archery on a stealth build is mildly entertaining for a few hours due to how broken it is. You have bowzoom, high RoF and couple that with high sneak and knockdown perk, you're untouchable. Expect to get 4 extra plinks at a knocked down enemy before it can get back in your face. I defeated Oblivion with a lvl1 archer. Morrowind's archery was over-balanced (read: weak) unless you fetch that daedric bow early and install the official plug-in that gives AoE arrows. Then things get interesting.

9) Dark Souls -- I love this game, the mechanics are wonderful, if I may be allowed such a term. Providing you spec right and are skilled at headshots you really shouldn't hit many speedbumps in the single-player game. Melee opponents in PvP who are killed by staggering headshots will rage hard and call you cheap. There's nothing like chaining staggers together on a tanky opponent, knowing that if the next shot fails to stagger, you're one-shotted. Enemy archers can be extremely frustrating, I cite the knights wielding dragonbows who fire SPEARS which knock you down into oblivion. This dragonbow can be used by the player later, though it's largely a gimmick short of long-range knockdown sniping in PvP. There are much better bows in DkS.

8) Deus Ex -- When I get to choose between a GEP gun and mini xbow, I choose the latter. Tranquilizing "terrists" for non-lethal silent takedowns is very satisfying and faciliates the stealth approach for which Deus Ex is famous.

7) Baldur's Gate -- Bow-wielders start off with two flat attacks per round, enemies are weak, enemies move slow, enemies get pin-cushioned. You can have max6 archers in your party, who can get several attacks per round, hasted - that's every 3 secs on 60 AI updates - firing detonation arrows which have fireball AoE/dmg. 2d6 acid arrows are also killer. Coran, Khalid and Kivan can be specced to be lordly archers. I presume forests got chopped down to supply my guys with arrows. Annoyingly, archery was nerfed in Baldur's Gate 2 but an archer prestige with Firetooth xbow (ToB) or Gesen will still tear through the field and drill down bosses to death with Greater Whirlwind, real fast.

6) Planescape: Torment -- WTF? Oh I see you forgot about Nordom! The only companion with missile weapons, means he must be mentioned with adoration. A shame he can't be recruited earlier, but he gets some use when farming XP down in Under Sigil.

5) Gothic 2 -- Just like in Dark Souls, a player who specializes in melee will still nock an arrow and make a bow sing, every now and then, because the design is thoughtful and the game logically at times calls for it's use. The only problem is that the cheesy side of my gaming brain calls for it's use a little too often...

4) Storm of Zehir -- It's the solid crafting mechanics in this underrated expansion for NWN2 that ensures bows + xbows shine. Make them out of rare materials like duskwood and zalantar, deck your low lvl slobs out with them (yep, even spellcasters), and mowdown rag-tag mobs before they even get to your meatshields.

3) Temple of Elemental Evil -- General consensus seems to be ranged weapons suck in this game, but holy axiomatic or icy-burst +3 longbow on max-INIT buffed elven archer with all the right feats = dropping behemoths like hill giants before they can even raise an eyebrow. Make two.

2) Diablo 2 -- Bowazons were a whole lot of fun, but the letdown was they were so loomingly overshadowed by lightning javs. The Median XL: Ultimative mod turns them into glass cannons, but they can clear out areas in a couple of clicks - fastest killers I ever saw in any game. But the ranged king in Ultimative is the xbow necro, boasting of a skillset mixing in sniping, SMG and shot-gun firing modes.

1) Warband -- OK, this is it! THIS IS IT! First off bows far outstrip xbows as the latter only do flat dmg. A total newb using a starter bow with bent ammo can headshot an armored vet for 80 dmg. Now, a masterwork warbow in the hands of a strongarm build with 10 power draw and +3 arrows will one-shot anyone but a king decked out in lordly fullplate. Headshots do in excess of 200 dmg. RoF at skill 400 is probably 2.5 draws per sec, causing RSI. 2nd off, Rhodok snipers using xbows can single-handedly win sieges, expect to get 50-200 kills before you even send your sergeants up the ladder, depending on fortress type. Plus they are tanks, their board shields protect them from responding hail when they reload. Third, Khergit veteran horse archers are sexy as allfuck, 200 of these guys circling and kiting an infantry force = pincushioned into oblivion. A player with 10 horse archery and 10 ride on a champion coarser is untouchable short of being fired on by top-tier archers himself. LASTLY, the Noldor rangers in the Prophecy of Pendor mod fire bows like machine guns, their arrows blot out the sky. Nothing lives. The player can earn a sapphire bow by jumping through unreasonable dev hoops, thereby even exceeding the RoF/dmg of ancient elves.

I left out Arcanum because I honestly haven't made an archery build, I assume it would kick ass. Bloodlines mods might also allow you to use xbow effectively now, I'm not sure. Note that this list makes no claim to being authoritative or exhaustive, it's just I've been thinking about, and it would be great if you guys could fill me in on other RPGs with entertaining or unusual ranged combat, especially anything pre-Infinity Engine.
 

SCO

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Did you try divinity 2? Bows are just broken


Also, don't forget thief. I fell in love with it when i headshoot people and monsters with their newtonian physics, where you take a shot to find the range, adjust and then fire.
 
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Lilura

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I love Thief. Huge fan. I would have mentioned it but for it not really being a RPG, dousing wall-mounted torches with water arrows was gold.
 

catfood

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You should have seen the bows in Divine Divinity. Use them together with poison weapon and you can plow through anything like there's no tomorrow.
 
Weasel
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it would be great if you guys could fill me in on other RPGs with entertaining or unusual ranged combat, especially anything pre-Infinity Engine.

Very different to the above obviously, but I still remember many years ago as a kid the first time I played a gold box game (POR) and came across enemies with composite long bows. I had been handling the combat ok but was a bit wounded and stumbled across one of the bigger battles in the game where a couple of archers with composite longbows targeted my casters. They were two or three screens away but because of the range of the bows they would fire, the view would slowly scroll across a couple of screens packed with enemies and then nail the shit out of my squishy low-level mages.

Because of how many enemies there were the turn-based battle took ages, but it was strangely compelling how fearsome these guys were even with the very clunky animations. Had to reload and come up with specific tactics to deal with them obviously. Good times.
 

Sensuki

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Codex 2014 Serpent in the Staglands Shadorwun: Hong Kong A Beautifully Desolate Campaign
Bows are absolutely ridiculous in Icewind Dale 1 on Rangers specifically because they get an extra attack per round to fake "two weapon fighting". This bonus attack also applies to Bows, so you get like 3 attacks at level 1.
 
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Lilura

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To Zorba the Hutt:

That's great, the extra long-ranged effect is something you never really saw in Infinity Engine games because of the limiting fog-of-war.

I loved the long-range shots in ToEE, the way the arrow arcs over the fullscreen. I'm pretty sure enemy fire came outside FoW, too, but I'm not entirely certain as it's been awhile.

And I just remembered, the speed of arrows was reduced in one of the BG1 patches (or ToSC). At one stage, archery was even more OP...
 

Sensuki

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Codex 2014 Serpent in the Staglands Shadorwun: Hong Kong A Beautifully Desolate Campaign
Archers are fucked in Titan Quest on Epic and Legendary modes (but not normal) due to the armor pierce. Those fucking Grandmaster Archers with Poison Arrows in Immortal Throne are the worst.
 

buzz

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I liked the archery in Gothic 3 even more, pretty much one of the few improvements that the game had over the predecessors. It feels like normal archery, without target-locking like in G2 and not majorly over-powered. Hunting stuff in the woods and slowly exploring the world the first time around is as good as the game gets.

Also, I really liked the bow in Dark Messiah, the predator stealth part in general. It felt like Thief except without the level design allowing you to ghost through the game. You even have rope arrows :D.
 

SCO

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Risen is the same. Archery was nerfed simply by removing the target lock (but that made it funner). Also it has head shots, and you can kill dangerous things underleveled if you can do it consistently. Also, it's newtonian.
 
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Kalin

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Archers are very powerful in Age of Decadence, they get several different attacks and can completely wreck even heavily armoured dudes with called shots and armour-piercing arrows. Makes them mighty tough opponents as well, and very valuable allies in group fights (except when you end up in their crossfire and they suddenly go all Ian on you). Great fun to play, can be quite intense to keep enemies from closing in.
 

LivingOne

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Enemy archers can be extremely frustrating, I cite the knights wielding dragonbows who fire SPEARS which knock you down into oblivion. This dragonbow can be used by the player later, though it's largely a gimmick short of long-range knockdown sniping in PvP.
 

DraQ

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Morrowind's archery was over-balanced (read: weak)
u wot m8

If anything everyone complained about OB's archery being nerfed.
As long as they didn't get caught on geometry (which limited their usefulness in dungeons) ranged attacks in Morrowind were deadly, especially if you managed to sneak attack, which was easy at range.

unless you fetch that daedric bow early
Or get bound bow spell/enchantment.

Of course you have to remember that bows are drawn using your muscle power, not agility.
:M

Did you try divinity 2? Bows are just broken
True, though they have annoyingly short range.

Anyway, for my recommendation, do check out Skyrim modded with Requiem. If you love archery you'll love it.

As for non-RPG recommendation - Myth 2.
:love:
 
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Lilura

RPG Codex Dragon Lady
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If anything everyone complained about OB's archery being nerfed.
As long as they didn't get caught on geometry (which limited their usefulness in dungeons) ranged attacks in Morrowind were deadly, especially if you managed to sneak attack, which was easy at range.

Oblivion marksman gets FPS-style zoom, greater RoF, ability to move at same speed with bow drawn (maybe MW, too, can't recall), run backwards and strafe faster with bow drawn, very fast crouch-sneaking with bow drawn, passive perks for 5% paralysis and 5% knockdown chance per arrow fired, knockdown especially OP due to extremely slow "get up" animation meaning you can plink the victim a few times more probably triggering knockdown and/or paralysis again, and again, and again, enchantable arrows (you can't enchant ammo in MW), base-game AoE arrows (MW needs plug-in) and probably other advantages I'm forgetting.

Moreover, Morrowind also has diceroll combat which means until your Marksman's 50+ you're gonna be ocassionally "inexplicably" missing.

So really, short of exploitative tricks of which Morrowind is full to the brim and overflowing, Oblivion's archery is gonna be far more effective, for far less effort.
 

abnaxus

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0Oe6XNP.jpg
 
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Lilura

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On Requiem, I haven't yet tried archery. I got burned out on Skyrim awhile back with Deadly Combat + TK mods (Combat, Dodge, Hitstop) and ASIS with SPERG. I then made the mistake of installing ASIS into Requiem, which meant the last part of Bleak Falls barrow (as you know, an easy dungeon in the base-game) was teeming with an undead legion of about 60 draugr. It's not a bad overhaul but I find default settings a little strict (currency weight, arrow weight, please), and it needs lots more polish to vie with Oscuro's Oblivion Overhaul and Mart's Monster Mod coupling (and Oblivion's Deadly Reflex and Unnecessary Violence).

For combat, Oblivion remains the best TES (when modded). Skyrim mods just aren't there yet, thanks to Bethesda gimping the CK.
 

SCO

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Tome4 has the most variability of gameplay from classes of any rpg i ever played. Ever. Mostly because of the different resource pools and the fact you can acquire more (blood, mana, rage etc etc etc). A good game to try for character sheet fucking.
 
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I liked the archery in Gothic 3 even more, pretty much one of the few improvements that the game had over the predecessors. It feels like normal archery, without target-locking like in G2 and not majorly over-powered. Hunting stuff in the woods and slowly exploring the world the first time around is as good as the game gets.

Also, I really liked the bow in Dark Messiah, the predator stealth part in general. It felt like Thief except without the level design allowing you to ghost through the game. You even have rope arrows :D.

Thanks for this. I never got far into Gothic 3 because of its trash melee combat. Was toying with the idea of picking it up again, and now I think I'll play an archer when I do.
 

Dorateen

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4) Storm of Zehir -- It's the solid crafting mechanics in this underrated expansion for NWN2 that ensures bows + xbows shine. Make them out of rare materials like duskwood and zalantar, deck your low lvl slobs out with them (yep, even spellcasters), and mowdown rag-tag mobs before they even get to your meatshields.

I had an Arcane Archer in our party. With crafted bows and the associated class feats, he was a walking death machine raining destruction from above upon the heads of our enemies.
 

pakoito

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Tome4 has the most variability of gameplay from classes of any rpg i ever played. Ever. Mostly because of the different resource pools and the fact you can acquire more (blood, mana, rage etc etc etc). A good game to try for character sheet fucking.
Except everything is locked right off the bat and you need cheats.
 

pakoito

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Or the source code :smug:
I don't want to do work stuff out of work. My home rig runs windows, that's how committed I am to not coding at home.

(Poe's Law)
 

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