I dont know what a medieval warbow feels like in real life but in terms of game balance, I dont think RNG really belongs in this game. All the core game mechanics rely on skill based player inputs in order to attack somebody or defend from those attacks, whether be it by dodging, blocking, avoiding, positioning or general awareness. That concept even holds true for random occursions like knockdowns; while the chance of being knocked down on hit is entirely based on a random chance, the applied effect can be mostly negated by a roll via the right player input or could have been even blocked in the first place/dodged by footwork.
If my bow though decides to miss the enemy by a meter to the right, I could have in no way compensated for that, even if my aim would have been spot on when releasing that arrow. RNG does simply not fit this game in my opinion. Lastly, realism tends to balances it self. If there would have been bows in medieval war times that were so inaccurate to use for a certain purpose, I assume people would have simply stopped using these bows and craft more accurate ones.
As for the the athletics, kiting in fact is bad, we have been there some years ago. If you play melee and your enemy can a) outrun you WHILE b) being able to damage you from afar, you obviously have no way ever to defeat this opponent. This is the reason why Horse Archers deal almost no damage, to compensate for them having access to both these traits ( Although their horses die within seconds these days anyways ). Its not fun on the melee side and its cheap on the ranged side, neither wins in terms of gameplay. If you are talking about extreme low ath builds like 45/6 etc. then I can agree. With 2 or 3 ath only and heavy armor you should not expect anything but being outrun by pretty much everybody on the battlefield.
In Rl i shoot bows aswell,it isnt true that u are not that accurate with strong bows,but u just cant hold em long enough to follow for example a meele player with ur aim if he is walking left and right and left and right ...
also,stronger bows have less "bulletdrop" because of the power which the bow gives to the arrows.
I think archery was fine as it was in the beginning,with the old arrow fly models and stuff.
Instead of changing archery again and i need to fix my build again after i loomed some bows already with the current situation,just buff armor stats.
To hit throu a plate armor is very hard,even with an english longbow and bodkin arrows,these wont go much deeper then maybe 3-5 cm in fact = less dmg.
Increase armor stats so u get a real bonus for using this heavy stuff,lett archers run away,i mean what else should they do?or increase their ability to fight in meele,because u need like min. 170 wpf for archery to hit anything over midrange...
