Ban all ranged.
Says a dedicated thrower.
Throwers don't count.
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The problem, as mentioned before, seems to be that -- at least some of the time -- you get a high confluence of archers on one team, while the other can have a drought of them. This is especially pronounced when the population is low, which leads to some people saying (and get this, it's good) that archery is
overpowered. The more archers you get on one team, without being checked by the other team's archers, the more probability these archers have of getting kills, simply from saturation. While it would be nice if teams could be balanced to the point where each team has the same, general, distribution of archers (by level and gear, leaving only skill the deciding factor), as Paul said: it's a big change, it doesn't seem like something cmp or chadz want, and who knows what anger the Warband gods will unleash if we dare touch balance any more.
Really, I'd just like to see a decent 0-skill shield that's useless -- or nearly so -- against melee strikes, but can block ranged relatively well, if you point it in the right direction. Should be heavy, to balance out the sheer effectiveness of such an implement, and make you turtle-slow, but it would give more legitimacy to the statement of 'IF you are mad, THEN get a shield.'