When did the primitive bow become such crap?

[DonnieTheDoom]

I dont remember it ever being so inaccurate and the amount of spread is just mind blowing to me, i used to be able to dome shot zombies , dogs, rabbits etc from pretty decent distances but now i cant hit a zombie two meters in front of me because the arrow flies so far away. I just had a dog come at me, i was a block above it and it were stuck for a minute, both shots i made went to the far right like how... Neither of us were moving, its entire body was in the crosshair and the arrow just went woooooop. I died because i had already been jacked up from a previous encounter, was just checking on the state of the game after a handful years and damn i dont know how to feel now.

I used to use the bow nonstop, but it feels so different now

[Shurenai]

A couple versions ago it was nerfed because they added in an actual wooden bow as the second tier so that bow progression matched other equipment progression-
IE, Stone Sledgehammer->Iron Sledgehammer->Steel Sledgehammer.
Now bows go
Primitive Bow->Wooden Bow->Compound Bow.

Primitive bow, being a 'stone age' tier weapon is pretty awful, the wooden bow is around what you remember being able to do with a primitive bow earlier.

[SylenThunder]

Yeah, bow used to be a single line of travel with little deviation. Was practically like a laser. It literally did not matter if you used a sniper rifle, or a bow since the only difference was damage amounts.
Now it actually has drop mechanics based on weight, speed, and distance. There is also deviation in your aiming shot for all weapons to one degree or another, not just the bow.

The bow now is quite accurate in how it should feel for the type of weapon it is.

[Desolator]

primitive bow feels a tad underpowered to me, I think it could do with slightly less spread while keeping the dmg to make it actually usable over pretty much every other weapon in the game

[ElDudorino]

It's actually fairly accurate if you account for the drop. I tend to use it a bit in the start of the game and can generally hit whatever I'm aiming for, other than occasionally overcompensating for the arrow drop.

[Triggerhappy]

My gripe was that the 'wooden bow' requires bow parts and iron bars to make. I can understand why, lumping it with the rest of the ranged weapons in their resource tiers, but it's just a bit awkward for what it is. It will probably make more sense with how they're restructuring crafting progress though. Gonna have to wait and see.

[Sandro138]

It's not bad if you put a couple of points into sneak damage. You can 1 hit ko basic zombies pretty easy especially if you head shot even with a quality 1 bow.

[ElDudorino]

Gotta damage that steak.

[daggaz]

I always beat up my steaks pretty good before I eat them.

[...👑 JOST AMMAN 👑...]

Originally posted by Skelly:

It's not bad if you put a couple of points into steak damage. You can 1 hit ko basic zombies pretty easy especially if you head shot even with a quality 1 bow.

That's why they call it "Killing Steak".

[Blue Hasia]

I use a mod that lets me craft just bow parts because i find the bow nerf ruining my game play style

[Crashtian]

Aim slightly to the bottom right of the cross hair center and don't shoot from too close because projectile clipping is an infrequent annoyance.

[Sandro138]

Lol just noticed the typo, a freudian slip if you will. I do love me some steak.

[Mardoin69]

If I'm remembering right... the 'primitive' bow (or lowest tier bow) has always been kinda crappy... at least since A17. But, I can't remember how good or bad it was in A16. I know in A16 I usually customized my character to use bows and knives as my ranged and melee weapon so, I'm thinking it was somewhat decent even in the lowest tier. But, it didn't take me long to upgrade tiers either so... don't remember for sure.

[TheMonsterFist]

With every patch they do, they take something away. I remember getting really good with the bow on console, but now on Pc i just use my Knuckle Dusters. The bow just seems to push them back, or the arrow explodes, and I go through 8,9 for one Zombie. I miss my bow thou.

[Sandro138]

Bow is godlike for clearing POI's with sleepers if you sneak attack with the bow. Like I said you only need a couple of points into sneak damage. I don't bother with the bow outside of sneak attacks though and I will just use melee then when aggroed.

Does take some practice though to hit reliably with the primitive bow .