Hmm, I find archer spam on siege far less irritating, but thats probably due to objects and stuff to hide behind, as you said.
And because surviving is not your main objective & you have more lives.
I just hate, that EU 1 is either waiting half the round for your team's archers to kill the ones in the enemy team or die charging. Battle's become boring
Those are the main problems if u ask me:
1) Most of the Archers are able to outrun Infantry, or are just camping roofs, hills, towers.
2) There's just too many Archers - and most of the time even UNbalanced to one team, while the other team gets cav.
3) Archery is way too easy - that's no offense vs. our Archerpro's - hitting heads etc. IS hard - and always will be, but the pinpoint acc. makes this class quite alluring to new players. Maybe they won't kill everyone, but they can ineed stun / interrupt players - because hitting the body isn't really hard - even on high distance.
4) High Lvl Archers don't need to "specialize" - the hybrid builds are far to viable.
5) Archery doesn't have any true counterpart - shields, yes - but they become useless quite fast as soon as there's 4 archers / 1 shielder - which is just the case atm.
6) The Flag system forces Players to leave their cover - which is nothing else than a forced death.
Possible Solution:
1) Remove all highground - excluding hills. Archers shouldn't be able to stand on a steep rock slope, shooting arrows at everyone and everything. Same goes for towers / roofs WITHOUT a ladder - and i mean those big siege ladders, not the small slowmotionclimbing ones / walls, carts etc.
2) Adjust the Balance - include classbalance into the bannerbalance system - which gives both teams a fair chance, by giving them a similar class-set.
3) Adjust (decrease) the time for accurate shots to a minimum - while increasing the accuracy during that moment - and at the same time massively decrease the accuracy before and after the "sweetspot". That would require some personal player skill, without touching the damage potential. Would also decrease the effectivity of new archers - regardless of their strength, build etc. (would be a similar approach to the melee system, where Player skill always will be more important than the build.
4) PS and PD are connected - More PS/PD resolves in less effective PD/PS - (statwise, not touching the requirements for bows) - More Melee damage, less ranged damage - more ranged damage, less melee damage. Specialized archers are rewarded with more damage however are weakened in melee situations, while hybrid archers have to weigh up their build more carefully.
5) Resurrect Heavy Cav. / Disable requirements for shields with less than / or 2 shieldskill.
6) Either Remove the Flag system completely, or fix the positions. Let flags only spawn in places where cover is available - OR just add some obstacles to the flagposts. Also: Flagposts should spawn at the beginning of the round (inactive) - just so ppl know where it will be and maybe can prepare, get siege shields, clear the area of archers BEFORE it's to late, place their own archers there. This might change the headless chicken rapetrains too - because now you kind of have an objective.