How do you handle bows/ ranged weaponry?

[Aquachubolt]

And how do you differentiate them from melee based weapon types?

Balancing different melee types is generally simple. Swords for instance can be accurate but with low power, whereas something like an axe or hammer can have that extra might but be lacking in reliability, or have other drawbacks like slowing a character down. However, when it comes to bows or other types of ranged weaponry, I a bit lost on what to do with them to make them different from other weapons. One thing is disabling shield usage, but other than that I have a few ideas rolling around but none that I'd say I'm truly satisfied with.

How else can ranged weaponry be differentiated from normal weaponry?

 

[bgillisp]

I had bows gain a boost to attack speed so they would go first in most battles (except against really fast enemies), and they had a chance to inflict a state which made the target take extra physical damage that turn. So you had an incentive to fire the bow and attack the same target by someone else.

 

[Rinobi]

Initial thoughts.

You could disable shields, require ammo, a cooldown, and increase the damage significantly.
Use luck to determine damage, give it a high critical chance, and damage variance.

 

[CleanWater]

No attack penalty in back row (if you use this system), but make it underpowered (like daggers and other weak weapons) if they don't require ammo to use.

 

[Aoi Ninami]

In my game, bows at first have a much lower hit rate (75% compared to melee weapons' 95%) but 20% critical chance. (Mathematically, that means that in the long run, a bow and sword of equal strength do the same total damage, but each has situational advantages and disadvantages.) Also, bow users are less likely to be targeted (because they are further from the enemy).

Also, for each type of weapon, you can gain up to five ranks in weapon proficiency. Each type of weapon has a different stat that increases with proficiency rank -- and for bows, it's the hit rate.

 

[Aquachubolt]

Ok, so... what about this.

Bows are powerful, and have a decent hit rate. But, they also provide a universal decrease in AGI when equipped, reduce Def by varying amounts depending on the bow, and also prevent the equipping of shields.

Does that sound somewhat balanced?

 

[BadMinotaur]

If you're trying to design a bow top-down (starting from flavor of a bow), try to think of what makes a bow work in the real world, and think of what comes to mind when you think of a bow user.

- Bows (or rather, the arrows they shoot) are piercing weapons, designed to puncture through some armor and the skin. Bleeding from an arrow wound would make a lot of sense.
- Bows require the user to nock the arrow, draw the bowstring, aim, then loose the arrow. It's almost like a charge attack; that's a little hard to do with normal attacks, but it could point you to lowering the speed of the user.
- Depending on how serious your game is, the arrows could also hold a different payload than just an arrowhead. Some cool options would be a stun arrow with lower-than-normal damage for its level, or a web-grenade arrow that slows the enemy down.

So I think a good way of making them different is to grant them a Bleed DoT, and make them slower than other weapons; and if you're up for being silly, making bows a sort of "toolbox" weapon is also a great way to differentiate them from the other weapons.

 

[M.I.A.]

Because Bows tend to have a lot of penalty (No shields, Require Ammo, Two Handed, Etc.) I differentiate them from other weapons by making them very, very accurate and with a high CRIT rate.

In my current project, my marksman also has the added benefit of Leveling his "Hunting Skills" (IE Bow Use).
Bows are the only weapon capable of being leveled up. Each time a bow Levels Up, it gains an additional "Type Advantage" against enemies.

For Example, Level 1 Hunting Skills has a Type Advantage that is strong against "Beast" Type foes.
Level 2 Hunting Skills gains a Type Advantage that is strong against "Flying" Type foes.
Level 3 Hunting Skills gains a Type Advantage that is strong against "Water" Type foes.
Level 4 Hunting Skills gains a Type Advantage that is strong against "Dragon" Type foes.

These skills are cumulative, so the higher the Marksman is leveled up with his Hunting Skills, the more Type Advantages he has. Making him one of the heavier hitters in the late game.

In addition to the Type Advantages (which belong ONLY to the Marksman), there's also a selection of Shoot Skills:
Blind Shot - Deals triple DMG if Marksman is Blinded, but has a 50% chance to miss.
Cheap Shot - Normal attack at a target before the beginning of any other actions, can be repeated as long as Marksman has "Action Points" (which is very useful if the Marksman has AP Regen)
Target Lock - Adds "Target" state to an enemy, making that foe the only Targetable enemy in battle for 3 turns. All Allies gain 100% accuracy, however, this level of concentration requires the Marksman to take no actions for those 3 turns. Target Lock can only affect 1 foe at a time.

I hope you find this helpful!
-MIA

 

[Sir-Drass]

My favorite way I've seen bows handles is by tokyo mirage #fe, and its the way I intend to use bows in later projects. The archer character Ellie, has high speed and evasion, but low damage, but she also has a really high crit rate and scaling crit damage. it makes sense in the sense that critical hits are blows dealt to critical areas; and since bows are really good at dealing fatal blows, but otherwise deal negligible damage if they don't hit the target's vitals.

 

[fireflyege]

@Aoi Ninami approaches perfectly to the bows, and makes a lot of sense.

 

[jonthefox]

@Aoi Ninami I like that a lot. One thing comes to my mind though - this system does a good job of handling bows when used by the player, but what about for enemies who use bows? You can't lower their target rate, since, well, the player chooses who he targets. I suppose one could give them like a +20% evade chance, but this might be frustrating to the player. Curious if you, or others, have come up with any ideas for this.

 

[Tai_MT]

I think I tackled "bows" in a very weird way. See, I've always liked the way Final Fantasy 4 did them, where you needed both Bows and Arrows to work, but I didn't really want an ammo system in my game.

What I did, instead, was make bows a "defensive" item to be equipped in the Shield slot. They offer some defense. However, I only have a single character who can even use Bows, so I was able to specialize them a little more. I have a "Short Bow" that also gives a boost to the Agility stat. I have a "Long Bow" that gives a boost to the Attack stat. Arrows, themselves, give a minor boost to both stats (the total damage of a bow and arrows is split between them, so it's pointless to equip one without the other... unless you like stats that don't really help all that much). With that, I have two skills the bow user has, which one uses the Agility stat to determine damage while the other uses the Attack stat to determine damage.

So, if you equip say a Short Bow (+6 Defense, +5 Agility) and some Iron Arrows (+3 Attack, +3 Agility), you've got basic equipment that gives you +6 Defense, +8 Agility, and +3 Attack power. The Short Bow itself is useless on its own except to give you some extra defense. The arrows themselves are useless on their own because they're only slightly better than the worst weapon type in my game (Basic daggers... initial model only has +1 Attack and +3 Agility).

But, if you equip a Long Bow (+5 Defense, -2 Agility, +5 Attack) and those same Iron Arrows (+3 Attack, +3 Agility), you've got final stats that are +5 Defense, +1 Agility, and +8 Attack. Likewise, this Long Bow is fairly useless on it's own as well and even makes you move slower.

The way I handle the enemies who have bows (or ranged type attacks) is to just give them a higher critical hit rate than normal enemies. Or, give them skills that hit for a fairly decent amount of damage. I also make those enemies relatively "slower" than other enemies as well as squishier than most melee type fighters.

Maybe at some point I'll adopt some kind of "rows" or even "tactical" type of fighting for bows. One thing I wanted to do, but couldn't, was have a "radius" on the battlefield for enemies you could hit with bows. Like, say, the Short Bow could only hit enemies in the front row or up to a certain point, while the Long Bow could only hit enemies in the back row and could never hit the ones up close. I think it would've been a fun mechanic to get players to determine which type of bow to use tactically. Though, I'm not sure how you'd ever execute that in RPG Maker.

 

[jade_angel]

How I'm handling bows (and guns) in my project is that they inflict fairly low damage normally but have a fairly high critical hit rate and do more damage on crits than most melee weapons do. Also, they can target any enemy row from any row in the party, whereas melee weapons can only target the enemy's front row from your front row, and reach weapons like spears, whips or halberds can target one row away. (So, enemy front from your back, or enemy back from your front.)

This doesn't effectively model things like longbows having much better range than shortbows or crossbows, or rifles having better range than muskets which in turn have better range than pistols, but it's a start. I haven't decided if I want to incorporate an ammo system or not - it's an annoying element to track and it's also tricky to balance. If ammo is too easy to get, there's no point in tracking it, and if it's too hard to get, there's no point in using weapons that need it.

However, unlike Final Fantasy, etc, I've made most of the bow and gun users effective fighters, rather than having such things as token, "better than a wooden stick" weapons for wizards. Wizards have the option to use wands which are ranged too, but those don't crit, and have a higher than usual hit rate (to compensate for their fairly low damage).

 

[bgillisp]

@Tai_MT : I've gotta say, that is the BEST way I've ever seen to handle bows so far. Now if you equip just the arrows, you can poke the enemy with them, but if you equip them with the bow, then you can use them as intended.

 

[Basileus]

Handling bows and other ranged weapons really depends on your overall combat system. It's hard to look at just one element of a complex system in a vacuum. It'd be a lot easier to work out how to treat a specific weapon in the context of the system it will be a part of. I'm assuming that you're talking about a standard JRPG menu-based combat system, but I'd say there are 3 styles to consider:

Action Combat Systems: When combat is done in real time on the map there is a much stronger element of positioning than other types of battle systems. Ranged weapons like bows can fire projectiles which allows the player to deal damage safely from a range where the enemy can't retaliate. In exchange, this usually means that the projectile must travel in a straight line, can be blocked by obstacles like rocks so enemies have some semblance of cover, and the rate of attack is usually low to make each shot important (instead of machine-gunning until everything dies). There can even be a stamina or ammo system to limit players even further. Since position on the map actually matters, the player has a huge incentive to go for ranged weapons whenever possible due to how safe they are, so there needs to be a lot more downsides than in other systems.

Tactical Battle Systems: In a turn-based system where position on the map affects which options are available to playable units each turn there are still strong elements of range and safety, but also more vulnerability since the player cannot dodge in real time to avoid enemy attacks. This type of system allows ranged weapons to hit individual tiles without using physical projectiles, so ranged weapons like bows can be used to hit enemies placed on the other side of a wall by arcing over it and striking from above. This gives them a major tactical use while also opening up new weaknesses - a common one used is to make bows unable to attack adjacent tiles (since there is no projectile, there is no need for the attack to have to pass through squares directly next to the unit in order to function). Having key weaknesses like this allows bows to be very strong since the units are very vulnerable if left unprotected.

Traditional Turn-Based Combat Systems: Your classic Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy battle systems where all units are generally able to be targeted by all other units. Positioning is rarely important - there might be a "Row" system in place but the effects vary. If back-row units cannot be targeted, then there is usually a need to reduce their damage or they become overpowered. If back-row units can be targeted, then there needs to be both a bonus to encourage actually using the back row and a penalty to keep it from being too powerful. If your ranged attackers function the same as other units then there often isn't a need to treat them too differently. There is no need to slap on unnecessary mechanics unless there is an actual risk of weapons like bows becoming overpowered - and in a game like Final Fantasy there is no risk of that since there is no real positioning element so "range" effectively does not even exist.

If you do have a front-row/back-row system, then a very simple but effective strategy is to simply make bows the only weapons that deal full damage from the back-row (to encourage the player to place bow users there) and limit defensive options such as only letting bow users use weaker armor since they will be in the back-row and thus be targeted less and/or take reduced damage. This lets them function as the physical attack version of squishy magic users.

The rest highly depends on the other system use have in place. If you use a TP or stamina system then you need to take that into account. If all of your weapons have special properties then you need to figure out how bows actually differ from your other weapons to understand what you can and can't get away with. Just make sure you consider your ranged weapons in the context of the entire combat system, rather than treating ranged weapons like something special outside the system.

 

[sirgames]

First ideas that comes in mind:
-make Bow with an attack element called "Ranged" so you can make some enemies weak/strong against it
-You change the mechanics making the damage done with bows be calculated with AGI and the "variance" of the damage calculated with STR/LUK
-Give bows a passive state that applies a mark with a % to a random enemy that will increase next damage done with the bow
-bows could do Less damage than a sword but more actions per turn