Selective perception. You probably don't use a shield and as a shieldless 2h/polearm guy you feel insulted when being shot/thrown at. But cRPG is not a ranged fest. On the contrary, ranged is pretty weak here - at least compared to Native.
People forgot how strong ranged has been is past patches but because the majority of players is 2h or polearm, they want it weakened no matter what. Their hysteria is cumulative. They make up hidden ranged buffs and perceived ranged growing rates of several hundert percent. All this while the ranged kill sum hasn't been growing for month. Yes, it is an indicator for ranged performance and we are working on better ones.
Giving ranged the new armor parameters fucks it up too much. This is different to melee which has a high cadence and a couple of hits more against a heavily armored target isn't that bad in my opinion. It's better than random glances. But a longbow archers needing his whole quiver to take down a loomed kujak doesn't feel right to me while glancing with weak bows seems ok.
I understand the argument about selective perception, but there are still few things missing when talking about statistics. First of all, relation between a number of players playing certain class pure or hybrid (and I know this would be a bitch to calculate) and percentage of kills. For example, crossbows kill 3.79% and maybe half of headshots being the most accurate ranged weapon, which brings us to maybe 7%. However, if number of players playing crossbowmen is around 2%, that leads to conclusion that crossbows are overpowered. Or, if there are 20% of players playing crossbow, that would mean that this weapon is seriously underpowered. Also, if I were you, I would do my best to compare this statistic with the one showing damage, as someone already suggested.
Second, I don't think that there was ever a situation when longbowmen needed more than 3 arrows to kill person in loomed kuyak. And that is with negative bonus.
Thirdly, you should definitely take in consideration and carefully read what Jambi, Gisbert and Tenne, being among the most experienced bowmen at least on EU say about this whole issue.
I apologize for quoting from another thread, but this is practically the same discussion, taking place at two separate topics.
The Hornbow definatly needs a nerf, and so does the Tatar bow now. If these bows fire Bodkin arrows, the speed/damage ratio is just insane.
Level 30
15/24 / 18/21 Hornbow Bow
or 21/18 Tatar bow build are just way too OP.
At the end I would say that, at least to me, comparisons with Native don't mean anything. I thought you were trying (and succeeding so far) to make something much better than Native.