Depends on the range of the bows and their power, but basically I agree. Real people don't dodge that quickly. That being said, it's pre-alpha. I'm sure there is a lot of balancing yet to be done.

I highly doubt arrows will move slowly enough to be dodged reactively. Sure, someone could move in such a way as to make themselves hard to hit, but this will mean they take much longer to get to you than if they just ran straight. The range advantage of projectile weapons wil probably always be a significant threat when fighting in an open area.

Ever tried to hit a moving target with an arrow?

It is time that archery goes back to what it was, one of the more difficult combat technique.

But personal feelings aside, we know that SBS is practical and that they tend to reuse systems as much as possible, and they are starting to release information about their jousting system.

You might want to pay attention to Death's flowchart for jousting

and particularly to the part between enter combat mode and impact, switch jousting by archery ........

Successful archery required years of constant training and practice to be a valid combat technique. It tended to be used in large masses and not like in faces where is depicted as a sniper type weapon, though a skilled archer can certainly try to pick out individual targets.

The advent of crossbows (and later firearms) really reduced the skill required in providing ranged support. A crossbow can be used effectively with little training and requires less physical prowess to achieve good results.

Tech progression ftw.

As some has mentioned, archers in the battlefield were mainly used to shoot a blanket of arrows. Pretty much think of the early riflemen formation of grouping a chunk of soldiers together to fire a volley of bullets so that they can at least attempt to stop the enemy. Archers were incredibly common place and you never really expected to be promoted through your marksmanship.

Here's a brief depiction of the difference of living condition between a man-at-arms vs an archer in the field.

So yes to archers being an effective tool in the battlefield, especially if you have a lot of them. In terms of assassination, I also think they should be effective, especially with how war arrows were constructed. The heads of the arrows would only be connected to the shaft with sap so that once it's hit it's target, the enemy archers wouldn't be able to fire back with them. This would prove fatal to anyone since doctors and field surgeons would have to try to dig out the arrow head that's now lodged into someones flesh.

A little bit of physics about archery ....

as you can see

A) the trajectory of the arrow is never a straight line, NEVER

B) your aim depends of the distance of the target, so even if the target is moving in a straight line in front of you, without trying to dodge, it is difficult to hit

Dodging is not the primary anti arrow method, to protect against arrow, use a shield....

And last fastest arrows are around 270 feet per second so they will take 1/3rd of a second to hit at 30 m, which is close to the average reaction time of a human, so under and up to 30 m arrow are really hard to not dodge-able at all, from 30 to 70 m they are hard to dodge but normal to block with a shield, above 70 m arrows are dodge-able normally and easy to block with a shield.

I think it's best to wait and see what SBS comes up with. I have a feeling they'll find a way to balance all the different choices in weapons.

Posted By Abool at 05:59 AM - Tue Aug 08 2017

A few key factors to consider about the usefulness of archery:

1. Likely only PCs will be capable of dodging like that, NPC scripts will not likely provide for leaping out of the way of arrows.
2. Likely there will be some sort of stamina gauge on a character, and dodging will burn up that guage. This means a player dodging your arrows is expending his/her ability to get closer to you.
3. Bows/crossbows can be used for defense from atop a wall/palisade to attack intruders, and if they want to keep you from killing them as they bring forward siege equipment they will need to try to counter archery you.
4. To dodge efficiently most likely the player will need to sacrifice heavier armor protection, so in certain ways it balances based on play style. Dodging can be called just a more active alternative to a tower shield, which will be just as effective at preventing effective archery.

As long as we can avoid the usual magical ability for characters to slide left and right at full run speed. The lateral movement mechanics in most games are horrible. If you want to move sideways you either stop and plant a foot and push off, reducing your forward momentum to potentially zero with a dodge straight to the side, or you slowly veer left or right. None of this I can face forward and strafe left and right while running nonsense please. And no silly circle strafing at run speeds. A slow sideways shuffle at best is all it should be.

Since archery can Coup-de-grace people (from a distance) I don't think it should be the easiest thing to do, so for it to have a bit of skill is not a bad thing if you ask me.

Also strafing, as someone mentioned, will consume vitality, but more importantly, they'll need to keep an eye on you and dodge in time or lift their shield, dividing their attention from the battlefield or your friends :P

I think Archery is going to be useful as long as there's no "disappearing into thin air when the arrow reached a certain distance". Range is the best weapon one can have, and for it to not be overpowered is fine, I don't mind if they can dodge left or right, arrows aren't that visible so they'll have to guess, and then the archer will have to guess if the person is gonna dodge a certain direction too.

So I don't mind the strafing one bit. (Weapons aren't supposed to be 100% balanced, some will be better than others, but it also depends a lot on the terrain, situation etc.)

1. As some have mentioned, most archers are substandard at best, so it takes a mass of them to hit one person...so only good in most cases against a wall of incoming men.
2. Once you become skilled enough to do "called shots", meaning hitting a target you actually meant to hit at long distances most of the time, then you become dangerous....but as SBS has repeatedly said, this is a skill based game...so to become dangerous as an archer, it'll take at least a couple lifetimes of that being one of your primarily dedicated skills.
3. Actual physics being or not being implemented by SBS. As one mentioned earlier, at least in similarity, it's very difficult to dodge something moving 300 feet per second if you're within one second travel distance. It's also very difficult to know you are the target of someone 300-900 feet away...as you can't even make out their face most times at that distance. It's even hard to know the arrow is even headed at you, as most times all you see is a sliver of something headed at you if you even manage to see the small point of the arrow and sliver of the shaft at all....it's not like it's a slow moving giant ballista bolt (not a thing btw...at least not the slow moving part).
4. Tech of the bows and arrows. As the bows and arrows get better, the arrows will fly faster and longer distances, making all of the said points above increase in their difficulty to "dodge" an arrow. It's not like in the movies where you see the arrow flying at you and can dodge....most times you don't even know it's flying at you unless you see the archer aimed at you and release the arrow and have 1-2 seconds to react and move the bulk of you body out of the way.

Now of course, as mentioned before, all of this is dependent on SBS actually implementing the laws of physics in archery...so all in all...archery may never be a super amazing thing as it's so very very complicated to implement to it's perfection.

I cant wait to see how well you can combine tumbling, aerobatics, and parkour with light armor and range weapons like bows and throwing weapons in conjunction with traps. That is going to be legitly devistating especially if there is some form of sneaking, hiding, camo even if it is hiding in the bushes.

Arrow and archery were always very effective hunting weapons. When used properly. They are not medieval "machine guns," as so many games try to portray them. Neither are crossbows.

An accurate portrayal would be nice. Too many games destroy real physics for the sake of player "desires." The "make me super powerful, as fast as possible, or this game sucks" mentality, that we all know too well.

Please make the players fit the world, instead of bending the world to fit the players.

I also think dodging should be skill based. Not everybody should roll out of bed able to parkour like a matrix wannabe. Average joes just can't dodge an arrow. It should take years/lifetimes of skill to be able to do that. Even more so than being able to hit somebody with an arrow.

Keep it real SBS.

The archer will have to take wind and the like into consideration when attempting archery. If you can see the archer your chances of survival are greatly increased as you can then begin to avoid or escape. Though, if the archer is doing his job right you shouldn't even know he's there until twang. Then you're that old man who took an arrow to the knee retelling stories of glory-days past.