Easy to learn - hard to master?
Make body shots the same minor damage as limb hits and boost head damage even further.
Range is a plague on EU1 atm and the numbers seem to be rising by the day. And don't tell me to play "smart" or "dodge". Dodging was nice when there were a reasonable number of ranged. Now? As soon as you step out of cover you get targeted by 4 ranged from 3 different angles. That's not "dodgeable" anymore.
I play a crossbow myself. First off, I always did but I actually would like to put it away. Just, melee is way too frustrating atm with all those dozens of ranged and cav around, so I decided to pew pew myself in order to at least have a bit of fun during a round.
I have no idea how to fix the numbers tbh, I just know that everything is connected to loompoints selling and upkeep. And I know that the still increasing number of ranged and cav is spoiling the fun for me. /QQ-off
If you have just recently started playing as an archer, standing in line with other archers and accomplishing a common goal seem to be something realisticly obtainable if you ask me. That way, there is always a place for you to be effective for your team, you do not have to be an hardcore/top noch archer that jumps out of the way of cav while headshotting them to be effective for your team.
The one thing I can think of on how to make it more easy to learn - hard to master is to improve the hitboxes. A plate wearer should have very good protection from arrows that is not specifically designed to bring him down. It should take skilled or lucky shooting to hit the weaknesses of his armor and take him down.
Easy to learn: Being an average archer with average shooting skills, being able to kill enemies wearing low or medium armor, and staying back in the archer ranks firing volleys.
Hard to master: Having the ability to shoot and wound/kill any enemy and also being effective on your own outside the Volley zone.
Also, if there were a certain stationary zone for the archers to get the benefits, I doubt that the melee fighters that wish to engage in melee with the enemies melee units will have the same interference of ranged into their duels/fights since there wont be as many stray arrows flying from every directions.