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Best MARKSMANSHIP on RPG's

Cryomancer

Arcane
Glory to Ukraine
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Following my old thread discussing the best necromancies on RPG's ( https://rpgcodex.net/forums/index.php?threads/best-necromancy-on-rpgs.130867/ ), i wanna discuss now what makes archery in some RPG's that great? What makes a game having good archery imo?
  • Long range combat (not 13~15m range for bows from dos2 and hellgate London)
  • High lethality - No bullet sponge enemies/players
  • Many weapon types and AMMO types working differently mechanic wise

Some games that have good archery IMO :
  • Mount & Blade franchise
  • Deus ex
  • Thief
  • Elder Scrolls Morrowind and Skyrim (skyrim is a awful rpg but has good archery)
  • Gothic 3 (is inferior on story, quest design, etc than G1/2 BUT has decent archery)
  • Dragon's Dogma
  • Thief
  • Fallout New Vegas
Talking about each one individually.

Since Mount & Blade tries to be more realistic, wall of Rhodok Sharpshooters can be a implacable force. I defended a citadel from 800 soldiers using only 200 crossbowmans. Deus Ex is another game with amazing marksmanship. And many ways to solve the same mission.

Skyrim despite being very shallow as a rpg, allowing you to kill the Emperor and join in the Imperial Legion consequence free and having almost no character customization, has a interesting archery with many arrow types to choose, you can magically enchant your arrow, can use explosive bolts from crossbow and the range is pretty impressive


Morrowind also has a satisfying archery gameplay but Oblivion has a awful archery gameplay due the ludicrous bullet spongee nature of high level oblivion play. Even with 3x sneak attack you will gonna spend dozens of arrows to kill a Xivilai at higher level. I have heard about mods who make you deal and take 6x more damage on Oblivion, maybe with this mods, the bullet spongee nature of the game can be changed.

Dragon's Dogma, has probably the best archery among modern games.You can snipe with shortbows(available to assassins and striders) but the longbows are the medieval eqquivalent of anti materiel rifles. Common arrow is unlimited but special arrow, like poison, sleeping, petrificated, explosive, not only is expensive but also weights. That means that you can't bring unlimited amount of explosive arrows, but blast arrows + tenfold is the highest DPS thing in the game. There are even a special arrow who allows you to OHK drakes including the non DLC final boss that only one can be obtained and costs 300k gold

And the armor mechanics in the game is epic made. A armored cyclops can take ZERO damage if you hit on plate armor, some damage if you hit on the unarmored part of the body and TOTAL damage if you hit then in the eye.



Fallout New Vegas has a epic gun play too with a lot of cool weapons to choose from. You start the game with a bolt action pipe 556 rifle but later can find .45-70 brush guns, fully automatic 12 gauge shotguns and slugs or dragon breath rounds, making the shotgun into a flame thrower, can find anti materiel rifle with explosive rounds



Many people consider FL4 a decline only as a RPG, but even as a shooter, FL4 is a decline.

Armor instead of absorving the damage by percentage, on FL4 has a DT and a 9mm SMG will outdps even the anti materiel rifle vs unarmored enemies BUT vs strong armored enemies, you wanna use at least 338 armor piercing rounds. Would be cool to see something similar in a medieval game where you use bodkin is better vs armor and broadhead vs soft targets.
 
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Modron

Arcane
Joined
May 5, 2012
Messages
10,040
I remember enjoying the archery in Risen 1 a lot but I don't recall anything particularly special about it beyond that it was satisfying.
 

lukaszek

the determinator
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deterministic system > RNG
 
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Trashos

Arcane
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Dec 28, 2015
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3,413
One of the best things about New Vegas' shooting is the fact that guns do not shoot exactly where the crosshair is. Even at 100% Guns skill, each gun's crosshair is slightly off in a determined fashion. Gradually, you get used to your baby and know where to aim, which makes you feel real badass and expert, and it is like a sacred bond with your gun.

This feature was not well received by some, and there are plenty of mods that get rid of this feature completely. But hey, their loss.
 

octavius

Arcane
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Bjørgvin
Gold Box games.
Get a Fine Longbow on an Enlarged (or wearing a Girdle of Giant Strength) and Hasted character and do like 100 points of damage per round. Only a backstabber or hasted Ranger vs giant can match that much damage in melee, but only the archer can dish out that much damage at lvl 1; the others need to be lvl 15+.
 
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lukaszek

the determinator
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deterministic system > RNG
 
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laclongquan

Arcane
Joined
Jan 10, 2007
Messages
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Searching for my kidnapped sister
He doesnt mean char skill or player skill, but the real graphical design that make each gun slightly different with their iron crosshair. The waving gun around at low skill doesnt make it apparent, but at 100+ each show their personality.
OP forget one thing: Fallout New Vegas has that holorifle that behave JUST LIKE a shotgun. A much more satisfying experience than shooting all kind of shotguns in that game.
 

Silly Germans

Guest
You can play Crysis 3 as a stealth focused archer if you also consider games that aren't rpg's.
 

deuxhero

Arcane
Joined
Jul 30, 2007
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Flowery Land
New Vegas's long range gun game dramaticly improves if you change the INI to allow actors to be drawn further away. The FPS hit is surprisingly light, but it enables a lot of things that should have been doable in the base game.
 

Desiderius

Found your egg, Robinett, you sneaky bastard
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Insert Title Here Pathfinder: Wrath
You can get some pretty big range in D:OS II with Far Out Man and enough height.
 

Desiderius

Found your egg, Robinett, you sneaky bastard
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Insert Title Here Pathfinder: Wrath
It's longer than that. Try top of stairs for Alexander fight or Teleporting Zaleskar off the cliff then pelting him.
 

Darth Canoli

Arcane
Joined
Jun 8, 2018
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Perched on a tree
Wizardry 8 has very satisfying archery mechanism, lots of different bows and ammos and the critical ranged both from the Ranger and some special bows, not even talking about the gadgeteer's omnigun.
 

Reality

Learned
Joined
Dec 6, 2019
Messages
339
Wizardry 8 criticals make me sad because 4% maximum before weapon bonuses cannot compare to the 40% from the Wiz1, or the 20% before bonuses in 6-7.
 

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