Not gonna make a quote pyramid but here's the gist of it:
1st: ever fought against a few archers who survived until the end of the round?[...]
I've been on both sides, and usually, the range side get killed quickly enough. If they work together it's pretty even. The more skilled will win, regardless of class.
2nd: I repeat: usually if you can't harm an enemy he also can't harm you. [...]
The whole point of ranged combat is to effect the other player before he can affect you, and move away before he reaches you. This is fundamentally what ranged classes do. Be it on a roof, behind a barrel, tree or whatever cover they can find.
Sure, remove ladders, add barriers (which is a fucking pain in the ass I can tell you, at least a weeks work, and all village maps aint even done yet), but it wont change the fact that ranged is a stationary class, made for "camping". While you are enabling one class to effectively engage the other (melee versus ranged), your are disabling the other one from effectively doing the same (ranged versus melee in this case), this is not really a solution, just shifting the "problem" (I'm still not convinced there is a problem) somewhere else.
Hah, I foresee a lot more friendly fire from archers trying to help out in the melee line if the ladders are removed.
Do you remember the time before ladders, with the constant hill camps? I'll take roof camping over hill camping any day. You at least have cover and angles in a village.
It's a dilemma, everyone wants to play their class to the fullest, but the rock paper shotgun aspect of the game makes it more frustrating for some then others. It all depends on the situation you end up in.
I don't see this changing, at all.