So the Crossbox is... still here, can't we fix it!?

Let's get this one point out of the way really quick.
The crossbow was a gimmick weapon released simply for making some money because it's a novelty item and has holiday special skins.

The crossbow itself is the worst sidearm both statistically, in use, and according to player information. Please don't try to debate this fact, you'll look like a moron. I understand if you enjoy it but chances are very high you'll do better with any other pistol.

Its velocity is too bad to warrant its usefulness over any other pistol even if the skill of a given player is high. It's also a little to slow to fire and is rather cumbersome and has the lowest TTK by a longshot. The explosive bolts have some minor uses but overall they are pretty worthless compared to about all the other AV options in the game. I'm not saying the explosive bolts are bad, just not THAT useful though they could probably remain in the same state. The only true merit this may be credited for having is the detect bolts, but no effective secondary is a pretty steep downside and there are already so many good detection options in the game from infiltrators who use their equipment quite often. Aside from all that, the crossbow does have a somewhat more useful place with stalkers, but this would still pretty much fall into the gimmick novelty category because most all other pistols are very likely to serve you better overall. I'm not debating that it can be fun to use, I'm debating the fact that it's effectively just a crappy gimmick/novelty item that really should not be in the game unless it's buffed to be even worth using from any performance standpoint.

What can be done to solve this!?

Well the solution is simple and requires no code, just some guy at DGC a few minutes.

Simply buff the velocity to 300, leave gravity effect the same. This would still be pretty slow but at least it's usable!
Decrease attack speed from 1 to 0.9 for a 10% improvement, this is a good fine tune for the weapon overall and will help make it more effective in general.

Why they continue to neglect this even though the facts and logic all point to a buff like this, I don't know. Surly they realize this will increase the weapon's sales too!? simply put, I hate gimmick crap like this so I figure I might as well try to do some good and help fix it for everyone who has wasted certs of money on it.

The issue is that the community needs to call for change here because the devs obviously don't pay attention to issues like this due to being so busy and need to be reminded!

Guess I'm a moron, because I think Crossbow is completely fine as it is. Exactly balanced I'd say. It does only one thing well, and it is enough:

It's almost suppressed, almost no tracer two body shot kill weapon within 35m. OHKs infiltrators on headshot, and OHK body shot after an EMP nade. Perfect weapon for concealed ambushes and stalker infiltrators in general.

Sure it sucks as a general purpose sidearm, in the same way sniper rifle sucks as a general purpose weapon. Doesn't mean it's bad.

Well yeah sure if you want to ignore the TTK, DPM, KPH, high use difficulty, and the player data showing it to be the worst.
Just because it's cool doesn't change the fact that all the other pistols quite often and almost always will do better in the same situations.

But hey, I won't deny that it's a fairly cool novelty item.

The Crossbow is far from the worst sidearm. The Fireworks Launcher styled pistols are far worse.

All holiday weapons are bad

The stock crossbow is quite good for shoot and knife attacks on unaware people
Crossbow with explosive bolts is great for killing MAXes and small vehicles
Crossbow with detect bolts lets you stalk everyone back to their Sunderer.
How is it bad again?

Its KPH is obviously going to be low, because lots of people use it for the darts, and most of the people who don't are using it as a stalker primary. Finally, when you use the crossbow, a lot of kills will be credited to the knife. Other sidearms will tend to have higher KPHs because when they're not used as a stalker primary, they're typically only out for a few seconds.

As for TTK, it's irrelevant when you kill in one hit, and a headshot will OHK anyone with so much as a scraped knee. An effective crossbow tactic is to deliberately hunt for wounded targets, or shoot at people who are already under fire.

DPM isn't a problem, since you won't even have time to empty your mag under normal circumstances.

1. Kind of hard to kill people 121m away with a MagShot. (Yes, I have done it with the Crossbow)
2. Silenced, which you can't get with the Commissioner or Underboss.
3. Paired with engi, you have unlimited. Unlimited. Motion detection. Not all players actually use their sidearms, so it's a good trade for some.

That said, I would be all for the buffs you mentioned.

Crossbow was implemented before bullet speeds were fixed, was viable, and quite honestly probably done to shut Forumside up.

A long time ago we, the players of Forumside, realized 10 meters in game was nowhere near 10 meters IRL, from that, we Infiltrators determined that real life arrows could travel faster than most bullets were traveling in game at that time, and due to the sheer size of the round, would likely be more effective than a sniper rifle. There were whole debates that lasted weeks comparing bullets to arrows in the PS2 universe.

They think we've forgotten, but no, Ohh no, I've never forgotten, and never will!

This is all malarky now that bullet velocities are fixed, of course, but it got us a crossbow, and it was a step above a real life crossbow at the time (it's now equivalent).

I keep the text that used to link to the debate thread in my signature just for lols.

I entered this thread to find out what a crossbox was.

I never used the recon darts.

It's not a bad idea, I often use engineer, so a little extra detection Xp from the bolts will be a nice addition to my standard loadout.

And the radar should help auraxium the black NS PDW that I'm trying to finish and put away.

I despise that gun. After the stock version white version, and the MKV variant, I'm really tired of that poo gun.

I would be happier being made to use the Hailstorm 3 different times to auraxium.

I don't think the Crossbow is great either.. but Iridar does make a good point. You can't always just look at stats when balancing weapons. That's putting them into a vacuum and you can't balance PS2 stuff in a vacuum.

So with that said, any changes that are made should be small and not drastic. But even then, it doesn't have to be done till people switch from their Magshot/Repeater/Beamer/Commissioner since it fills a niche role.

It's a crossbow in a gun fight, of coarse it sucks. But that should not mean it should stay that way, at least not in the abysmal state it's in now.

Well, iridar, i agree with you that its a good weapon. Hell i decided to dust off my pretty pink heartstring today to get sweetheart (55 kills to sweetheart when i pulled it, got it in 45 minutes, thanks AOD armor users not darklighting the terminal!)

but i couldnt help but think that using an underboss, commisioner, beamer, or spiker wouldve done me better. The underboss is just a spiker with less ammo, commie does OHK infiltrators to the head and is a 2HK headshot/3HK bodyshot fairly quick, beamer is just fun, and the spiker is an underboss with more ammo.

the crossbow cant hurt from a mild buff.

im practice a commie would support you better in almost all circumstances

something interesting that MIGHT work ok is leave everything the same except one thing

make the damage increase over distance to at say 35+m, it OHKs everything to the head except an overshielded heavy. maybe 60m. this makes it more worthwhile to take for stalkers, still has bad velocity and drop rate, and cant be used as a cqc chump action.

I don't remember.. Does the crossbow mitigate Nanoweave?

Ehh.. the niche doesn't have to be with Stalkers. Sure it released in the same patch, but that was by coincidence, not design. I like the idea of a LA with a crossbow and shooting from unknown vantage points. That's just a thought though.

Something the Crossbow needs is more situations for its use. Not change it to fit the situations. Do that and stalkers will have a good use for it. In other words lets have situations match the stats, not stats match the situations.

Anyone who starts a debate with (paraphrased) 'here are the stats, don't debate them you'll make yourself look like a moron' is making themselves look like a moron.

You're using an ancient Greek weapon against post-modern firearms, and you're complaining that it sucks?

Pardon me, but I hate crossbows enough already in modern FPS, and they make absolutely zero sense in a 30th century setting. If anything they're not sucking enough.

For such a slow-firing, high damaging weapon TTK stats are meaningless. You will want to carefully aim all shots anyway, so no "spamming" at maximum ROF. Not sure why DPM is of complaint. 2 shots = kill within 35m, 4 shots total. Which is similar to commissioner's 3 shots = kill, 6 total within 14m.

No other sidearm can sustain it's shots-to-kill for such a long distance. Dare I say, at 20m+, crossbow will have higher damage per mag than any other sidearm.

Crossbow has the power no other sidearm possesses: body shot kill potential. Even the upcoming "sniper revolver" Blackhand requires headshots. And unlike ALL other sidearms, crossbow is not countered by nanoweave.

And doing so much damage all at once is also an advantage. It's much easier to react to a continuous stream of bullets rather than to plink, (pause - where the shot came from!?), plink, dead.

I'm no player data guru, I don't know how to read it correctly, and I don't trust you to read it correctly either.