Isn't the bow a tad bit useless?

[The_Squarecrow]

I'm currently 7 hours in and I've killed a good dozen of beasts, boars and wolves alike. I've found that crafting arrows is a tedious affair, since half of the time, getting feathers is a no-go. As the crows usually are perched high enough, once scared, the feathers will generally drop on top of high structures, making them impossible to reach.

And once you've got an arrow or two crafted, you need like what, three to kill one wolf? That is, if you don't miss. If only you could recover your arrows or something, because right now, crafting spear traps is much more cost efficient.

[Masah]

Agreed. Bow is useless and underpowered right now.
Arrows expensive compared to spear traps.
And aiming takes too loooong.
It's laughable: I'm refusing to use a weapon because it's actually more dangerous to use it.

I get the fact that the devs want realism, but what's the point if no one's using it?

Solution ideas:

1) More arrow dmg or less ressources needed.
2) Faster aiming
3) less aggressive KI: If you are triggering aggro of a wolve, he will follow you and try to kill you till the end of the world/raft zone (even camping).
Devs, if you want realism, then let me tell you: Even in nature animals will give up on their prey if it's too fast.

PS: I still love your game, devs. Great job! F*cking love the atmosphere.

[Toph]

If you could retrieve arrows from corpses, or at least had a chance of retrieving them, I think that would help.

[Masah]

Nice idea. A chance or maybe even a durability mechanic like with other items.

[Tupscal]

Wait, so the bears can also be killed by the spear traps? I thought they were the only purpose of the bow :O

[Toph]

Yeah you can definitely kill them with the spear traps, but it seems to take more spear traps than arrows if you have a choice between the two.

[Anelyn]

2 arrows for a wild boar, 3 for a wolf and 4 for a bear.

I only agree with the part of having a chance to recover arrows from corpses, after playing for ~50 days (in game time) with the bow I find the damage to be point on. If it would be more, the arrows would highly overshadow the spear trap which has only 1 use, since the bow lasts quite for a while.

The only costly point of the arrows is the flint. You can never have too much flint and you need it for so many things. Sapplings are way more common and feathers are abundant.

I think you should look at the bow as a side tool rather than the main go to for food aquisition, and combo it with snakes for maximum efficiency.

[trainee]

Maybe they could do slowmo when aiming the bow at the enemies.

[Ghin]

Save your arrows for bears. The bow uses less saplings than spear traps for killing bears.

[Rhedd]

I've heard so many bad things about the bow I'm afraid to even build one. I'd honestly rather run from a wolf than end up dying by standing my ground and trying out an unfamiliar bow for the first time.

I'd call it a fail if it's in the game and I'm not even willing to try to use it.

[Tupscal]

Weird, during my campaign run, I was always full of flint and could never have enough saplings.

[Salestax1]

The bow is great and really efficient for killing rabbits and really useful for scaring off the elder wolf if you run into him. You really should be able to get the arrows back.

[Anelyn]

You can also kill snakes with the bow if they are sitting next to an item you want to loot and you don't have / can't craft any torches.

It's not hard to kill boars or single wolves with the bow. Just don't run ahead like a headless chicken, advance slowly and pan the camera ahead, the range on the bow is 1 screen so you don't need to hug the target to shoot it :) Also the closer the target is, less time spent aiming is needed.

[Rhedd]

Well, I finally built and tried out my first bow.

It worked GREAT on the Boar King (took one spike trap and 5 arrows!!), but against a wolf, it's just pathetic. I consider myself pretty good at lining up a dotted line with an immobile target, and I still missed 50% of the time. Wolves have skinny, incomprehensible hitboxes. I won't be wasting half-a-dozen saplings again for such poor odds.

WE NEED TO BE ABLE TO REUSE ARROWS!! Seriously, we do.

[DrArchon]

I never used the bow for anything other than killing rabits fast. The aiming is just so slow that if I were to ever use it against a wolf or a boar they'd kick my ass before I could get a shot off. And you can't kill them with one shot, so using it to get the jump on them is still a liability.

Being able to aim while moving, aiming faster, or slowing everything down while aiming would be a huge help. Maybe make it so arrows that hit unsuspecting enemies dealt double damage or something, you know, like how actual hunters sneak up on their prey. Just a thought.

[listless]

I don't use the bow that much either - just for bears really, but I like it.

It's pretty devastating when used with the gas bomb. I haven't tried it on the rare wolves, but that combo would probably keep them from getting away on those occasions when they immediately run into a snake and decide to flee.