I know everything's probably been said already, but I just want to throw my opinion into the mixing pot anyway. It's cathartic if anything. Anyway, I started playing a little while back as an archer and went for several hours before getting a single kill with a bow. I might add that I'd got a fair lot with a club, and even more with a pitchfork, even though I used them a lot less. Assuming it's just one of those cases where archery only gets remotely useful when you get better gear and skills (fair enough) I figured I'd wait it out and see how it goes when I reach a higher level. Since getting a longbow, bodkins and some 140 points into archery I've concluded that in spite of comments from irate two-handed types archery really never gets good.
All in all, the damage isn't my main gripe though. Instead it's largely about the accuracy. In any encounter with melee weapons, usually the better player wins, but with archery it's all about the lucky shot. By the time you have a bow which is physically capable of killing even peasants the aiming reticule is so obsenely large that it's as good as rolling dice to see what happens. No matter how well I position myself, how accurately I target enemies, or how well I lead shots and compensate for range, it's all a huge waste of time because fundamentally any hits I get are 'lucky shots'. On the other side of the coin, doesn't it bug players on the recieving end that exactly no skill was required to put that arrow into their head? Except at close ranges dodging shots is pretty pointless too. Walking in a perfectly straight line gives the same chance of getting hit as dodging around or moving irratically. Of course, don't get me wrong, damage is always a factor, but even with damage as it is, if I could have a realistic hope in hell of headshotting someone intentionally that'd change everything.
So yeah, overall archers struggle to hit targets consistently due to the weapon's inaccuracy, are especially poor against moving targets, and are very, very bad against armour. They are good against lightly armoured, stationary targets. Therefore, they are good against peasants, evenly matched against other archers, a little bit outmatched by horse archers (unless you're in good cover, which more than evens things up), and abysmal against everything else. My question therefore is, 'what's the point at all'? If archers just fight out their own private battle and have no influence on anything else besides the occassional stagger (if you're reckless enough to fire into a melee which includes friendly troops - I'll roll some dice to see who gets hit), then why even have an archer class?
Instead wouldn't improved archery develop a situation where teamplay is encouraged between classes? By making archers better than useless it would mean that seeking shelter behind a buddy's shield until you close the gap and give them hell is sensible, shield walls would be functional and using siege shields wouldn't be a waste of slots. It would also mean that cover would become important, predicting and dodging shots would be a useful skill and overall a castle would become more than a decorative piece of level design. I've occassionally seen good stuff happen of course, like when four guys were battering at a door and I fired at them from an upper level, two immediately shielded the others which meant I couldn't do a thing to stop them. Simple, coordinated teamwork. Even though I got killed horrifically it still felt like their minor act of badassery was rewarded. I just want more stuff like that in the game, and less of everyone milling around trying to Rambo their way to the top of the leaderboard.
Dammit, I shouldn't care about this, I should really just quit whining and stop playing, but other aspects of CRPG are so good that I genuinely want it to improve.
