Crossbows have a dedicated skill but feel very neglected compared to Guns, and it seems this won't get addressed very soon, since the last devlog mentioned unique spears and another weapon type for the Guns skill. Thus I'd like to share some thoughts.
There is special ammo for crossbows, but if you look at how many special ammo types you can get with Guns (soon to be expanded further), it's not really that big of a difference.
Another big issue is that most crossbow models are not used, aside from Cyclon and Zephyr, and out of those two it's Cyclon that is truly essential. This is because Zephyr's crits fail to be useful against many enemies with high mechanical resistance, so the essential crossbow to craft for the endgame is always the Cyclon, while it's fine if your Zephyr lags behind in quality or if it's even just left behind at some point.
This makes it feel like there is just some variety lacking in crossbows, given how many models and ammo types and uniques there are for guns. The difference is a little overwhelming. So here's some ideas for improving this a little.
Concepts for making the craftable crossbows other than Cyclon more interesting:
- performing certain types of attacks with this crossbow will restore some action points
- has increased total damage output but only when firing special bolts, crits are less powerful
- attacks only incur X% mechanical resistance instead of 125%, if you attack while Focused
- get increased precision and damage output, but only when firing normal non-special bolts
Concepts for adding more interesting unique crossbows:
- a high-tech crossbow that uses a power source to heat up the bolt tips and increase the power and/or penetration of the attacks
- a mystical crossbow that grants bolts unusual properties or damage types, similar to what some sormirbaeren weapons can do
- a crossbow that synergizes with psi skills and is somewhat accurate even with lower perception stat
