Just another thread to hate on bows in CTF :)

Oki doki let's begin

1 - Too much damage
Bows can do about 5 hearts of damage which is about 2-3 shots to kill someone with full health. Not only that, but bows have infinite arrows. Considering this is a ranged weapon, it causes for bow-spamming to happen over large distances which only gets worse when there's multiple people and as one gets closer to try and attack the bowspammers. The removal of the Power 1 enchant from the bow would solve this issue.

2 - Bowspam
Due to the infinite arrows, there is a huge number of bow spammers on Capture The Flag especially on maps that involve bridges or good areas to bowspam from such as Clash Valley, Seclusion, Sandy Fortress and Eruption. A limitation of arrows would, depending on the amount of arrows, limit or even prevent the amount of bow-spamming that goes on because arrows would then be an important resource to conserve to use if someone takes your flag, etc, not just standing at a bridge to bowspam from. The bowspam on such maps makes the games long and frustrating and there tends to be little to no chance of evading it because the alternative paths on many maps, for example Sandy Fortress and Clash Valley, are exposed to the areas that bow spammers use and since these two paths are surrounded by lava, there's little room to be able to dodge the arrows and once one is in the lava, you're either dead or at one heart to survive the next onslaught of arrows. I'd like to quote a player that I found mentioning bowspam on Eruption as I write this thread. (This is literally just right now which is why I'm including it).
This makes for a rather boring game of shooting arrows and that said I'm not even bad at archery but the bow-spamming gets crazy.

3 - A hatred from the majority
As someone who only plays Capture The Flag on MC-Central and does it for a few hours a day because I have no life. I have learnt that bows have caused a hatred and have been despised by the majority of people, of course there's still the minority who don't care and those who enjoy bow-spamming. Certain people wish to completely get rid of bows but I think that'd ruin the fun. Maps I have enjoyed about 2-3 years ago have turned into bow-spammer havens. This point is further enforced by the threads that talk about bows in CTF:
- https://mccentral.org/community/threads/capture-the-flag-bow-spammers.65916/
- https://mccentral.org/community/threads/ctf-bow-cooldown.25114/
- https://mccentral.org/community/threads/ctf-kit-change.31909/

Bow spamming causes numerous players from the losing team to leave, because, let's be honest, where's the fun in being bow spammed to death as soon as you try to leave the spawn area. Not only is it just no fun but it also makes the losing team lose more. Overall this not just impacts the experience of the players involved where there's an absolute stalemate or mass slaughter, but it can impact their continuity to play Capture The Flag on MC-Central.


To conclude, something needs to be done about the bows in CTF. These include
- Adding sharpness to swords (personally I dislike this)
- Keeping a limited amount of arrows, removing infinity and keeping power (preferred because this means arrows will still do a lot of damage but it won't be crazy OP)
- Removing power and keeping infinity (the arrows would do less damage this way but there will still be bow spamming so personally I dislike this one as well).


Thanks!
- Lexxonist
:)

 

That's a good point but that would, as you said, result in minimal damage, which wouldn't be as effective when it comes to shooting players with the flag, etc.

Perhaps a separate defence and offence orientated kit would solve the issue and it would also encourage further teamwork?