However, according to your explanation, it looks like the problems you have with ranged is the mere existence of ranged weapons in the game rather than their actual strengths and potential. Even if ranged would get a blanket 50 % damage, missile- and drawspeed nerf, you would still die to it and your original problem would still remain, which is dying to something you cannot avoid as easily with your build as dying to melees that are in your plain sight. While this may be toning down the negative experiences at your side it would surely come at the severe expense of every ranged player in the game and not a fair one at all for them.
This brings me back to my original advise. Dont get me wrong Kafein. I can understand your hate but ranged inevitably IS in the game and if they would not be able to cause any harm on your side, there would be no point of playing them at all. I am a low-hp, light-armored archer which means that my primary way of attacking can only be achieved by staying stationary for about 1 second or more. You can imagine how much I had to deal with missles in every of my 16 gens as archer. Still, is nerfing ranged really the solution to your problem ? Or may it be just, and there is certainly no intention to insult you hidden in here, your numbing hate that gives you the impression that nerfing ranged would be a suitable punishment for all the suffering they brought upon you, instead of an actual act of balance ?
I do not want to nerf archers in the traditional sense, such as reducing damage or accuracy. I want to make more room for skill in dodging, and even though I do not personally care, indirectly buff archers that are good at leading targets. The problem with getting shot is not getting shot, it's that I am punished even though I played perfectly (which is not always the case). This has a lot to do with expectations about cRPG on my end. Because I love the melee combat system so much, I expect the rest of the game to be just as good, and it really isn't. If you imagine a perfect player in a melee combat, he would basically block everything and never get hit. There is no such thing with ranged combat. Actually no, you could imagine a perfect archer that would always shoot exactly in the right direction, but a perfect dodger would get shot nonetheless, even in neutral circumstances. This is not a huge problem with new players and it really wasn't when Warband first came out. Everybody was a crappy blocker and a crappy dodger, everybody died at range and in melee. With time people massively improved in skill, reaching a point the game was never designed to endure in the first place (this is evident if we consider the number of unresolved bugs such as hiltslashing). Right now most good players are getting very close to perfect blocker and perfect dodger status and for most of them the contrast between blocking correctly: never getting hit and dodging correctly: getting shot anyway is a huge problem. You can improve your dodging all you like, it won't work even half as consistently as blocking a melee weapon.
What I want is to stop the half-assed nerfs and buffs to ranged weapons and change this state of fact. It doesn't even require much effort : reduce missile speed and increase accuracy/draw speed/damage equivalently, as much as is needed to remain balanced after the missile speed nerf.
Ranged will kill people. It is not like I never play on melee alts and stf's and even I find myself yelling "FUCKING RANGED" in ts every now and then. But then I quickly remember what kind of sacrifices they have to make just to be able to use a ranged weapon properly ( well maybe not so much for xbow ).
I don't think this is a proper argument. Everybody has made choices and sacrifices with their builds, archers not more than others.
Frankly, if you taste rage on your tongue when you get shot while attacking a castle, which is probably the very circumstance in which ranged is supposed to shine, then I can wholeheartedly recommend to take a break from the game and relax a bit. Making things not too easy for archers and alike is the responsibility of map makers and proper game modes, like Joker pointed out for a bazillion times ( which I highly approve ) but it certainly is not achieved by panic reactions like blanket banning ranged mobility as we have seen it in the past IMO.
I think the quiver weight patch was a quick solution and indeed a panic move to solve the constant kiting that was plaguing battle servers. And it actually worked as in, it removed much of the kiting. But at a severe price that I am sure you have a more detailed idea than me. The clear issue here was Battle mode, as Joker put it.
The second problem with ranged is the absence of proper counters which naturally drives the population up but that's a completely different debate.
