@Paul: sure he missed, he is firing a warbow with over 200 pound draw, and despite the hype hes given by the show, hes pretty scrawny: Hes lucky he hit it at all with that bow. A bow of 200 pound draw, at under 100 yards, is 1shotkill anything in the way: Plate armour might not be penetrated by flatheads but the force of the blow will still render the receiver out of action. So unless you gonna give archers knockdown, dont use real life as a basis for any balance discussion. Cause if you did, you would also need to implement: Hornbow needs MASSIVE nerf or unusable on horseback tag, since it can oneshot anyone up to 20 armour/10 STR with right arrows, walking thru a river with a bow or crossbow INSTANTLY makes them despawn (to represent how they instantly become unusable), crossbows need a random chance that when they are fired the crossbow malfunctions and is despawned, archers need to occasianally "fluff" their draws and need to re-knock, any armour over weight, say, 10, causes running/swinging/blocking speed to drop over the course of the round, so plate wearers are barely moving by round end, since they sprint everywhere all the time. Hmmm what else....O yeah when someone with a 6foot greatsword "feints", the bones in their wrist pop out of joint from the massive torque they recieve, taking 2 javelins into your shield makes it despawn since the ENTIRE purpose of jarids was to make opponents shield too unbalanced to use...hmmm, horses take dmg when bumping armoured opponents, and they slow as they take dmg.....hmm, what else what else....give bows block, but make their bow take dmg like a shield does, so they can block if they like, but they risk the bow....
Or you guys could concentrate on making the game fun again by giving choices: currently, to be effective, realistically the vast majority of players need: German GS/Hornbow/Warbow/Poleaxe/Hafted Blade/Scimitar/GL axe or similar: WHY are there so many weapon on the market if only a few are gonna be effective...
Also, polestun: a mechanic so native spearmen can occasianally kill an archer, doesnt need to be here. Why should being thwacked with a staff stun me more than being sideswiped by a morningstar? I reckon opposite is true...so many more things but its 6.30 am and I got to be up at 8....o dear forum why you make me no sleep?!
EDIT: one more: reloading a heavy crossbow or arbalest on dirt or earth when its raining: instant despawn as the winch is full of mud and unusable. Crossbows were really delicate and very unreliable, and their accuracy is greatly overstated in this game.
Oh and btw: I can hit stationary target with a handgun at 200 yards 9/10, with my 90" longbow I can shoot a 6foot group at 100 yards: ppl in real life cannot instantly change direction while wearing armour like they can in crpg: archery is LESS effective than real life when it comes to dmg and accuracy, but even with the animations now, you cannot simulate the drawing of a bow: sometimes you can fly arrows out, accurately, every 5 seconds, sometimes everything is going wrong and you get only 3 out in a minute.