Ho please lord craka enlighten us with this mystical surefire way to deal with ranged that although people have been playing this game for 4 years has remained unknown to everybody except you and some other players that don't really deal with ranged any better than everybody else but claim that they are doing it the better way.
I wasn't even talking about dealing with ranged, although I will open that can of worms. Certainly camping an enclosed area for them to shoot into (shooting fish in a barrel) or waiting for MOTF and you have to funnel out of there seems pretty fucking dumb to me.
You know how I deal with ranged? The same way as everyone else, I try not to get shot. I get behind a shield or other players. I protect an xbow'er or an archer. I flank them. I try not to put myself in a bad position. Guess what? I still get shot sometimes. But that's okay, I pick my big boy pants off the ground, and I pull them up and try again the next round.
I try not to get lanced by cavalry, doing a lot of different things to mitigate the chances of that happening. But guess what, I still get lanced sometimes. I try not to let STR build maulers get in range to crushthrough my weapon or shield. I do lots of different things to prevent this from happening, but sometimes I get crushthroughed and I die. I put on my big boy pants and I deal with it.
What I was actually referring to, had nothing to do with ranged. People have been camping the auto-loss barn since Warband beta. And it was obvious to those of us who actually pay attention to what's going on in game, that it's a terrible strategy, and 9 times out of 10, will result in the team camping it, to lose.
I agree with PTX. On most maps, whichever team has the better infantry horde will usually win. Melee is what wins battles (if they have enough variety of classes, and they are using teamwork, terrain and mob mentality to their advantage).