Guild Wars 2

I don’t know why I never thought of this before now but I noticed a rather odd inconsistency in the ranged weapons presented in GW2. To this effect I noticed a rather key step in the traditional evolution of projectile based weapons is missing. What am I talking about?

Why its the humble Crossbow. Yup that’s right. We randomly went from bows of all sizes to rifling based technology with rifles and pistols. What happened to the Crossbow? We have the large ballistae in WvW but why not a hand held version?

If we didn’t have a ballista it could have been played off as “Well the Asura/Charr invented gunpowder” and thus advanced from there. However that wouldn’t cover the fact that we still use Short bows and Long bows as well.

It just seemed odd to me now, looking back on things from now to its launch, that we made such a drastic leap without a major step, at least from a historical standpoint. I’m not talking just normal “Earth” history here. Countless fantasy based worlds around that time where mechanization of things begins and you can see a crossbow amongst the ranks of projectile based weapons. From that soldier defending his castle to those sneaky type with wrist bolters the crossbow was everywhere. Just… not here.

From a 3D modeling/animation standpoint it wouldn’t be so hard to make crossbows a part of any game that already makes use of Bow like mechanics. That said the only problem I can see would be balancing the reload speed to match up and that loading some crossbows involved more body movement. Despite that it could still be doable.

I doubt this concept is unique but I haven’t seen many people talking openly about it. It would be interesting to if they get added but given that we have pistols and rifles already the lore behind “Hey look suddenly crossbows” would seem like a step back (Unless of course Cantha or Elona never connected gunpowder to projectile weapons and developed the crossbow themselves)

If they did add it you could easily classify two separate kinds as “Heavy Crossbow” and “Repeating Crossbow” to give even more options. Now I know some people out there are going to read this and be like “More ranged weapons? We don’t need ranged weapons. Melee all the way. Melee is the Meta!” but first and foremost this game likes giving options to its players. Whether or not those players follow through on those options is another story and some people just can’t be helped.

As for which classes would be able to use a crossbow would be another matter. Me personally I would like to see options available for as many classes as possible to use them however lore and thematic wise its kinda difficult to play of spell users using such weapons (Unless of course you look at such things as Outlaw Star and the like.)

If anything this isn’t so much a “suggestion thread” as it is a “food for thought” thread. If it got someone thinking then it served its purpose and that is all that matter to me. In any case to anyone who does read this whole thing thank you for your time and keep on having fun.

I’d love to see it implemented. Gimme another 2H thief weapon for ranged DPS please

It could fairly easily be implemented for a lot of classes. Ranger/thief/war easily work, as does ele (channeling through the weapon/shooting projectile magic as a lot of games do), engineer (could add a lot of depth with this one). Just really leaves out guard, necro, and mesmer (though the mesmer arguably could use it.

It got some discussion love a while back, but ANet’s yet to release any new weapons… ever, so I doubt we’ll see it any time soon. That being said, I do support the notion and would love to see more weapons/weapons expanded into other classes to freshen up gameplay and add more diversity.

If you are looking at this from a technological perspective the real questions should not be, “where’s the crossbow,” but rather, “why is anyone enough of an idiot to use a bow in a setting where automatic firearms are fairly commonplace ?”

Crossbow existed in the Guild Wars universe.

Edge of Destiny spoilers: 5 years before the start of GW2, Ebon Vanguard used Crossbow to defend themselves against the Invaders.

If ANet added crossbows, it shouldn’t be a new weapon type. It would be much easier to just replace rifles with crossbow skins. Just like the slingshot for the shortbow.

I know Anet has yet to release any new weapons but I’m hoping that the new living story content will get us some much needed new things. They also never said that they wont ever add new weapons. so there’s that as well.

Also yay someone replied to my thread.

As for the firearm comment most of the pistols and rifles look more like muskets and blunderbusses which were not automatic. The automatic nature came about due to class balancing. Would you find it fun if you had to cram powder into the barrel all the time? I don’t think so.

As for the Edge of Destiny thing I never read that. But that adds even more weight to the whole topic then. lol

Ashen.2907:

If you are looking at this from a technological perspective the real questions should not be, “where’s the crossbow,” but rather, “why is anyone enough of an idiot to use a bow in a setting where automatic firearms are fairly commonplace ?”

Bit of an interesting trivia, but the prevalence of firearms wasn’t due to their superiority on the field. The bow and arrow had several distinct advantages that put it well above the standard musket or pistol that was used.

*Faster to reload and fire.
*More accurate for seasoned archers.
*Easier to make arrows/bullets for.
*More reliable and less likely to jam/break.
*Easier to make bows from local materials.
*Could be fired reliably from longer ranges.
*Made little to no noise.

Once, when a general asked a native american chief why he didn’t switch to guns, the chief responded with “In the time it takes you to reload, I’ll have 3 arrows in the air”. I can’t find the particular source for that quote, though.

So, you’re probably wondering why, instead of bows and arrows, we use guns now? Well, the two advantages that guns had were just too important.

*Higher lethality on impact
*Much easier to learn a gun than a bow.

And that was it. To become a skilled archer, capable of hitting a bullseye from a football field away, you’d have to have grown up and used your bow your whole life. You can get a similar performance out of a rifleman in a few weeks training. So while it takes a lifetime to make an archer, it takes a month to make a rifleman.

GW2 takes place in the bridge between technology, where rifleman and bowman stand side by side. This overlooks sonic weaponry and laser cannons, which are also in the game, though.

You gota love those pesky asurans. Always making things that are clearly out of place seem fairly normal. Still what Blood Red Arachnid said is true. And aside from a small handful of pistols and rifles they all look like early attempts. Not the rifled bore weapons that we have in today’s modern tech for sure. (aside from most of those asuran weapons which are more magi-techy)

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

Ashen.2907:

If you are looking at this from a technological perspective the real questions should not be, “where’s the crossbow,” but rather, “why is anyone enough of an idiot to use a bow in a setting where automatic firearms are fairly commonplace ?”

Bit of an interesting trivia, but the prevalence of firearms wasn’t due to their superiority on the field. The bow and arrow had several distinct advantages that put it well above the standard musket or pistol that was used.

*Faster to reload and fire.
*More accurate for seasoned archers.
*Easier to make arrows/bullets for.
*More reliable and less likely to jam/break.
*Easier to make bows from local materials.
*Could be fired reliably from longer ranges.
*Made little to no noise.

Once, when a general asked a native american chief why he didn’t switch to guns, the chief responded with “In the time it takes you to reload, I’ll have 3 arrows in the air”. I can’t find the particular source for that quote, though.

So, you’re probably wondering why, instead of bows and arrows, we use guns now? Well, the two advantages that guns had were just too important.

*Higher lethality on impact
*Much easier to learn a gun than a bow.

And that was it. To become a skilled archer, capable of hitting a bullseye from a football field away, you’d have to have grown up and used your bow your whole life. You can get a similar performance out of a rifleman in a few weeks training. So while it takes a lifetime to make an archer, it takes a month to make a rifleman.

GW2 takes place in the bridge between technology, where rifleman and bowman stand side by side. This overlooks sonic weaponry and laser cannons, which are also in the game, though.

Completely agreed, except for the part of the current state of technology in GW2. The game includeshigh cyclical ROF machine pistols, automatic rifles with rates of fire not too dissimilar from modern assault weapons, flame throwers, grenades, and so on, not as exceptions but rather as defining aspects of the setting’s tech level.

It would be cool if they also made crossbows that could be strapped to your wrist.
Idk.

Ashen.2907:

Completely agreed, except for the part of the current state of technology in GW2. The game includes high cyclical ROF machine pistols, automatic rifles with rates of fire not too dissimilar from modern assault weapons, flame throwers, grenades, and so on, not as exceptions but rather as defining aspects of the setting’s tech level.

As I stated before in my second post (edited to reply to your first post) the rate of fire is more a class balance mechanic or just class skills in general. Try using a bundle rifle weapon or one of the sniper turrets near various hearts in Ascalon. They have long cooldown times. The high cyclical rate of fire machine pistols are more class mechanics. The look of most pistols and rifles in the game have a flared muzzle. This is very similar to muskets and blunderbusses. Both of which took a very long time to load (relative to a bow/crossbow) and both were highly inaccurate. There are a few exceptions to this but for the most part the majority are based off muzzle loading weaponry.

The charr are the only ones that had “machine pistols” but even then they looked very heavy steam punk with gears and what not. As far as what actual machine pistols did you can’t really call the ones we have machine pistols as almost none of them have clips to hold the ammo. Same for rifles.

The flamethrower is what it is and bombs and grenades were not to far out there for this tech period (though in most cases they were seen as magic and not science)

FenrirSlakt.3692:

It would be cool if they also made crossbows that could be strapped to your wrist.
Idk.

Yeah they are typically called wrist bolters. Which would be awesome one handed weapons.

Ashen.2907:

Completely agreed, except for the part of the current state of technology in GW2. The game includeshigh cyclical ROF machine pistols, automatic rifles with rates of fire not too dissimilar from modern assault weapons, flame throwers, grenades, and so on, not as exceptions but rather as defining aspects of the setting’s tech level.

I’m not too keen on the GW2 lore regarding firearms, but from a gameplay perspective it wouldn’t make for good design to have pistols and rifles reflect their equivalent speed. If you want to take the abilities of the classes literally, then we also have bows with homing and high explosive projectiles, and poisonous gasses.

This all exists in a universe where a stick can throw fire, the primary mode of transport between cities is wormholes, and autonomous robots are the norm. Arguing over the exact technological era of GW2 is kind of a moot point. Think of it this way: the rapid speed at which new technologies are being introduced hasn’t caused the bowman to die off yet. Rather, since bows are still prominent in the world, technology is being developed with bows, instead of against bows.

Other interesting trivia, the grenade was first invented at around 750 AD in Eastern Rome, and the flamethrower was invented (formally) in 672 AD. Yes, a lot of the techniques we have for modern warfare are the same stuff we’ve been using for over a thousand years. Other ancient weapons include biological warfare and chemical warfare.

DiazKincade.2891:

Ashen.2907:

Completely agreed, except for the part of the current state of technology in GW2. The game includes high cyclical ROF machine pistols, automatic rifles with rates of fire not too dissimilar from modern assault weapons, flame throwers, grenades, and so on, not as exceptions but rather as defining aspects of the setting’s tech level.

As I stated before in my second post (edited to reply to your first post) the rate of fire is more a class balance mechanic or just class skills in general. Try using a bundle rifle weapon or one of the sniper turrets near various hearts in Ascalon. They have long cooldown times. The high cyclical rate of fire machine pistols are more class mechanics. The look of most pistols and rifles in the game have a flared muzzle. This is very similar to muskets and blunderbusses. Both of which took a very long time to load (relative to a bow/crossbow) and both were highly inaccurate. There are a few exceptions to this but for the most part the majority are based off muzzle loading weaponry.

The charr are the only ones that had “machine pistols” but even then they looked very heavy steam punk with gears and what not. As far as what actual machine pistols did you can’t really call the ones we have machine pistols as almost none of them have clips to hold the ammo. Same for rifles.

The flamethrower is what it is and bombs and grenades were not to far out there for this tech period (though in most cases they were seen as magic and not science)

FenrirSlakt.3692:

It would be cool if they also made crossbows that could be strapped to your wrist.
Idk.

Yeah they are typically called wrist bolters. Which would be awesome one handed weapons.

Regardless of cosmetic elements such as flared muzzles weapons in GW2 have rates of fire comparable to automatic weapons. Call it class balance or class mechanics the setting includes high ROF autofire firearms as a commonplace element. Once you establish the fact that firearms are accurate and have a high ROF, bows become obsolescent.

Yes there are slow firing weapons in the setting as well. They, and bows for that matter, exist in the real world too. That doesnt mean that bows and the like are not obsolete on a modern battlefield including elements such as machineguns, mortars, artillery, grenades, flamethrowers, tanks, helicopters and so on.

Ashen.2907:

Regardless of cosmetic elements such as flared muzzles weapons in GW2 have rates of fire comparable to automatic weapons. Call it class balance or class mechanics the setting includes high ROF autofire firearms as a commonplace element. Once you establish the fact that firearms are accurate and have a high ROF, bows become obsolescent.

Yes there are slow firing weapons in the setting as well. They, and bows for that matter, exist in the real world too. That doesnt mean that bows and the like are not obsolete on a modern battlefield including elements such as machineguns, mortars, artillery, grenades, flamethrowers, tanks, helicopters and so on.

Would it shock you to realize that that high rate of fire you are experiencing is cosmetic as well? In order to appeal to the player base they made rifles and pistols “Faster” to keep up with the fast paced nature of the game.

It is through the images we see in game that tell us the level of technology present. Looking at the items in the game, items which by their own existence denote the level of technology present in the game, don’t openly show any form of high fire rate? If we were to say that their armor was equivalent to Kevlar yet the images we see distinctly state otherwise, is it true?

None of the pistols that I have seen have shown evidence of a high rate of fire, such as the most expected being an ammo clip.

DiazKincade.2891:

Why its the humble Crossbow. Yup that’s right. We randomly went from bows of all sizes to rifling based technology with rifles and pistols. What happened to the Crossbow? We have the large ballistae in WvW but why not a hand held version?

Because it takes time to develop and balance skills for the weapons. In fact, there are many weapons used in Medieval/Renaissance times that are not in the GW2 world:
Pikes, poleaxes, flails, great axes, javelins, darts, slings, quarterstaves, lances* and probably others that are slipping my mind.

*Lances were not just for mounted combat, by the way, although the underwater spears might qualify as lances.

Maybe it’s because if you have a bow that shoots rainbows, there could’ve been an advancement in the technology behind the bow.

The fact there is no crossbow is weird. Crossbow/Spear are some of the best if not over all useful weapons ever invented. Both don’t require much skill or strength to use and both are effective at stopping and useful in offensive/defensive warfare.

Ashen.2907:

If you are looking at this from a technological perspective the real questions should not be, “where’s the crossbow,” but rather, “why is anyone enough of an idiot to use a bow in a setting where automatic firearms are fairly commonplace ?”

Make that “why is anyone still using melee weapons in a setting with airships capable of dealing heavy artillery barrages, and with cannons shooting beyond visibility range”.
The answer to both is the same – because this is a fantasy, not sf setting.

It seems unlikely to me that entirely new weapons will happen in the foreseeable future (this year or next year). Outside looking in, but at the rate of which they’re balancing existing skills and introducing new ones, the resources required to add entirely new weapons, models, skills, new traits, balancing passes, etc, are pretty much impossible for arenanet right now.

Adding one existing weapon to each profession (for example, hammer for engineer) would be my highest expectation for the next 18 months. Converting one or more of the underwater weapons for land use (spears!) would be beyond my expectations.

New weapon entirely in the next 18 months? I call it impossible (though I’d be thrilled to be proven wrong).

As I said this wasn’t so much of a suggestion thread. I would rather have more options for other classes to like hammer for engineer but it was just an odd thought that came to me after messing around with Skyrim for awhile.

As for the weapons mentioned by John this was mostly about a step of technological evolution in ranged weapons that was skipped but yeah there are alot of weapons that were not added, yet some of those typically don’t stay around that long when you add more tech in. Like slings and darts. Aside from the blowguns that the Hylek use we don’t see darts anywhere else as they are more of a tribal weapon. Slings as well are more of a tribal weapon and the tech of the “Major Races” is already beyond that. Even the Grawl use bows. The only races that could potentially be using slings are Skritt, but from a game design point of view slings are very lack luster and simple. There’s only so many ways you can model a string. Darts and Blowguns are in the same boat there to a degree.

Pikes, poleaxes, flails, great axes, javelins, quarterstaves, lances all of these have been mentioned before. I only started this because I had never seen anything that brought up the crossbow, which could still be a potential weapon for the Major Races. Yes Polearms would be great and and it feels like they skipped the Great Axe when they added 2 handed weapons when designing GW2 (GW1 only had 2 handed hammers).

As for Javelins and Lances, technically the guardian uses their “spear” as a javelin (which is kind of annoying as I would have liked to see Paragon Spear skills from GW1) and Lances always tend to have the “On Horseback” connotation and they want to really stay away from mounts. And for reference The Lance has always been used mounted, you are thinking of the Pike as being on foot. Fantasy is where the lance was used on foot but that could have easily been due to a translation error.

Flails and Quarterstaves, well quarterstaves (or bo staves) have been asked for regularly while Flails would be difficult to animate as it requires either a cloth modifier on the mesh or an additional skeleton for it. (Technically this is not hard however it adds extra work to the whole project) Without these you would just get the whip like effects that we see the Nightmare Court using. I would rather actually see physical models than particle effects emulating that motion especially if they have ball and chains. Melee staves would be fairly easy as the models are already there they just need animations and skills.

To what Corian said, the first “Living Story” season was mostly there to help them get the foundation of their stuff in place. That foundation is now mostly ready so the fact that they have stated that season 2 is going to be Permanent I will be surprised if they don’t add new skills and new weapons to classes.

Ashen.2907:

Regardless of cosmetic elements such as flared muzzles weapons in GW2 have rates of fire comparable to automatic weapons. Call it class balance or class mechanics the setting includes high ROF autofire firearms as a commonplace element. Once you establish the fact that firearms are accurate and have a high ROF, bows become obsolescent.

Yes there are slow firing weapons in the setting as well. They, and bows for that matter, exist in the real world too. That doesnt mean that bows and the like are not obsolete on a modern battlefield including elements such as machineguns, mortars, artillery, grenades, flamethrowers, tanks, helicopters and so on.

It’s done entirely for aesthetics. If you wanna talk technicalities, so be it.
Unless you think firing your gun only four times per minute would allow for fun and fast-paced gameplay. I’ll dodge roll your attacks infinitely and just beat you to death while you stand there still for 15 seconds and not being able to do anything (since nobody can reload a musket while moving), thanks.

Not to mention how inaccurate and unreliable early firearms were. Actually, these guns were so inaccurate, and so slow to reload, that formations were created for the sole reason that because shots were so unpredictable, having a massive volley was the single only effective way to actually dispatch enemy troops. Consequently, until the invention of the bayonet, there were dedicated front-line pikemen which were used to kill off those who got too close, because an enemy getting too close due to the inaccuracy of the shots and slow fire rate was so probable.

Bows are considered obsolete today on the battlefield in almost all regards. Long range attacks are simply done better with rifles, especially since shooting prone lowers one’s profile and prevents detection, while even well-tuned auto-rifles shot by good marksmen pack accuracy the best bowmen in the world cannot beat. The crossbow is actually more widely-used today than bows, but only due to its very limited use in stealth applications due to the extremely low/no noise it generates and its capacity to be easily broken down, stored, and subsequently concealed (with a smaller footprint) with relative ease, as well as allowing for improvised and reusable ammunition. Granted, this is mostly applicable to high-tech compound crossbows which in some cases need not even be drawn via a stirrup, and definitely not a classic crank.

The rate of fire for rifles is comparable to the reason why in many games with crossbows, there is no half-minute wait period on reloading.

It all boils down to flavor. Frankly, I’m more shocked at the fact pistols are part of the game rather than hand crossbows, for accurate and remotely reliable pistols took quite a bit longer to develop than rifles.

Ashen.2907:

They, and bows for that matter, exist in the real world too. That doesnt mean that bows and the like are not obsolete on a modern battlefield including elements such as machineguns, mortars, artillery, grenades, flamethrowers, tanks, helicopters and so on.

I’m not debating your point, I just want to make you aware of this man:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Churchill

Mad Jack Churchill; confirmed kill with an English longbow in 1940 during WW2. Went into battle armed with both a longbow and a Scottish basket-hilted claymore.

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

*Higher lethality on impact
*Much easier to learn a gun than a bow.

And that was it. To become a skilled archer, capable of hitting a bullseye from a football field away, you’d have to have grown up and used your bow your whole life. You can get a similar performance out of a rifleman in a few weeks training. So while it takes a lifetime to make an archer, it takes a month to make a rifleman.

One of the reasons why crossbows were sort of mainly used for hunting than actual warfare. The bow was/is capable of firing more arrows than a crossbow.

Take 10 guys with a bow and then take 20 with crossbows give them 500 arrows each and see which side goes through those 500 arrows first. I’m 100% sure the bows will shoot all 500 first.

All assuming its your traditional crossbow.

DeceiverX.8361:

It’s done entirely for aesthetics. If you wanna talk technicalities, so be it.
Unless you think firing your gun only four times per minute would allow for fun and fast-paced gameplay. I’ll dodge roll your attacks infinitely and just beat you to death while you stand there still for 15 seconds and not being able to do anything (since nobody can reload a musket while moving), thanks.

Not to mention how inaccurate and unreliable early firearms were. Actually, these guns were so inaccurate, and so slow to reload, that formations were created for the sole reason that because shots were so unpredictable, having a massive volley was the single only effective way to actually dispatch enemy troops. Consequently, until the invention of the bayonet, there were dedicated front-line pikemen which were used to kill off those who got too close, because an enemy getting too close due to the inaccuracy of the shots and slow fire rate was so probable.

Bows are considered obsolete today on the battlefield in almost all regards. Long range attacks are simply done better with rifles, especially since shooting prone lowers one’s profile and prevents detection, while even well-tuned auto-rifles shot by good marksmen pack accuracy the best bowmen in the world cannot beat. The crossbow is actually more widely-used today than bows, but only due to its very limited use in stealth applications due to the extremely low/no noise it generates and its capacity to be easily broken down, stored, and subsequently concealed (with a smaller footprint) with relative ease, as well as allowing for improvised and reusable ammunition. Granted, this is mostly applicable to high-tech compound crossbows which in some cases need not even be drawn via a stirrup, and definitely not a classic crank.

The rate of fire for rifles is comparable to the reason why in many games with crossbows, there is no half-minute wait period on reloading.

It all boils down to flavor. Frankly, I’m more shocked at the fact pistols are part of the game rather than hand crossbows, for accurate and remotely reliable pistols took quite a bit longer to develop than rifles.

Thank you for pointing this out.

The skills in this game don’t account for a reload time. Game mechanics do not give a representation of the tech in a game. The images we see are what we can go off of.

Travis the Terrible.4739:

One of the reasons why crossbows were sort of mainly used for hunting than actual warfare. The bow was/is capable of firing more arrows than a crossbow.

Take 10 guys with a bow and then take 20 with crossbows give them 500 arrows each and see which side goes through those 500 arrows first. I’m 100% sure the bows will shoot all 500 first.

Crossbows were often used in sieges because they were easier to fire in close quarters combat. They were also instant to fire once it was loaded where a bowman has to draw the bow then take aim. Crossbowman just aims and fire’s then ducks behind cover to reload. In a siege fire rate doesn’t mean as much.

On a side note, Repeating Crossbows would out pace normal bowman in burst fire rate. So there’s that as well.

DiazKincade.2891:

Crossbows were often used in sieges because they were easier to fire in close quarters combat. They were also instant to fire once it was loaded where a bowman has to draw the bow then take aim. Crossbowman just aims and fire’s then ducks behind cover to reload. In a siege fire rate doesn’t mean as much.

If you’re sieging aka attacking something than yes. If you’re defending against a siege bows were far superior because of the refire rate of which was capable. Especially when you’re firing at an arc over a wall. Now granted both had their place in warfare but bows were the superior option if you had men who could use them efficiently over a crossbow.

Travis the Terrible.4739:

DiazKincade.2891:

Crossbows were often used in sieges because they were easier to fire in close quarters combat. They were also instant to fire once it was loaded where a bowman has to draw the bow then take aim. Crossbowman just aims and fire’s then ducks behind cover to reload. In a siege fire rate doesn’t mean as much.

If you’re sieging aka attacking something than yes. If you’re defending against a siege bows were far superior because of the refire rate of which was capable. Especially when you’re firing at an arc over a wall. Now granted both had their place in warfare but bows were the superior option if you had men who could use them efficiently over a crossbow.

Yes but Crossbows had a similar effect as rifles. Just not as large of an impact. They were easy to teach.

Ballistae are also large crossbows that were used to defend castles.

Another interesting note was this from the wiki page on ballista-Though the weapon continued to be used in the Middle Ages, it faded from popular use with the advent of the trebuchet and mangonel in siege warfare. The crossbow supplanted it as a sniper weapon. They all were simpler to make, easier to maintain (no anointment) and much cheaper.