Anyone who does archery knows that for distant targets to aim high for the arrow to arc, in the most extreme cases I find I'm having to aim at the targets feet, any higher and the arrow passes over the top of them, another problem appears to be collision mesh not loading for some creatures/npc's, you can see this when an arrow passes clean through them, I've had my sights on a sabre tooth cat with the cat being broadside and twice the width of the aim cursor, just watched the arrow pass clean through causing the cat to become alert, for me this is not really a problem as I have high archery and don't miss with the next shot, but the shooting high and passing through happen too often to be just bad archery.

Archery is the main skill in my character and to be honest, I hope they don't touch the range or the arc atleast. It feels storng and deadly how it is now and arrows can go pretty far in real life.

Anyone ever have the problem where the arrows sort of go "flaccid" on you? Like, you fire them at max strength, but they just plop down? It fixes itself when I re-load a save, but it's still strange.

I agree and this is very noticeable — aiming with a bow is way off in numerous little ways. It's fine against close-range and medium-range targets, but any more distant than that (say a Saber Cat about the width of an American nickel on your screen), and arrows will quite often pass above, below, or occasionally even through creatures, even if they're standing motionless and the dot is right on or slightly above the target.

I've noticed that when an arrow leaves my bow while my character is crouched, the arrow arcs slightly upward as it leaves the bow, even though the bow is pointed directly perpendicular to the ground. I've shot recurve and compound bows numerous times in my life, and that's not what happens if you're firing straight ahead. The arrow travels forward and then gradually loses height as gravity acts upon it. You only get an arc if you fire at, say, a 45-degree angle.

Anyone else see the arrow arc upward in this video? I sure don't. It's traveling in a near-perfect straight line:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WzWrcpzuAp8

There's a very easy way to fix this : http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1279548-archery-magic-range-limit-fix/page__view__findpost__p__19336717

About the aim, I like it. At first it was difficult because I was used to Oblivion but now I prefer this. If like me you have trouble touching a dragon, look at this : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4FOJ7md7n9Y&feature=mfu_in_order&list=UL

I've gotten used to the archery in this game. I don't really like it but I've learned max range (due to arrows passing through targets and what not) and the arrow trajectory.

The game I think did archery the best (that is similar to Skyrim) is Gothic 3. I seriously loved the archery in that game. If you could see it, you could shoot it. If you allowed for gravity, distance, elevation, and leading if the target was moving. I intuitively picked it up because it made sense. Skyrim's archery I had to "train" myself to do stupid things like aim slightly below the deer I was shooting at uphill at high range because my arrow was going to end up above my target eye (e.g. want to hit the flank, aim at the ground below it's feet...)

Thanks for the heads up, 8192 seems optimal for me, managed 2 giants and 3 mammoths at a relative safe distance, they still came searching in my direction for me, but at least this time I was able to hit them at a reasonable distance.

Yup, snow troll in my face one more arrow till dead, one more hit from the troll to be dead, string my arrow in the nick of time to have it flop on the trolls head and bounce off of him.
last resort to use fus roh da to survives, then it cancels halfway through FUS Roh but no effect and cant shout again, TROLLBAIT damn that ttroll racial power.

There are some glitches here and there but nothing that bothered me. It's a very effective skill as it is, almost too effective. I probably already hit an unrealistic number of times considering all the factors that govern an arrow's trajectory in real life. So I look at the occasional glitch as a factor that encompasses all of those things.

Yeah I don't understand the trajectory the arrows take, but I guess I have gotten used to it. There are several times when a person is bending over though, and I aim for their head but its not included in their hit box and I somehow miss. Arrows also pass clean through targets other times. I guess its due to rendering, even though you can see the target doesn't mean the game had loaded the target and so we can't hit it. Probably why you can never hit dragons from the sky...-.-

Depending on the distance, lets say: medium distance.. I aim at the heart to hit the head. Far distance: depends on the target and angle, but if it's a bandit - around the groin region to place a headshot.

A more dull challenge I put myself to is, yep, you guessed it: Kneecaps! joy ^_^

How does aiming lower on a further target hit higher?

I noticed this aswell, although I tend to let it go since I don't use Archery that very often.

Because the arrows shoot a bit upwards, and fall down while traveling - that's what happens when I play at least.

When I aim dead-straight on the target's head, standing at a distance, the arrow drops down to his royal regions... that's pretty basic sniping gravity rule as far as I can tell.

Yeah I've had the arrows go flaccid on me too. It's really weird. The first time it happened I was actually trying to shoot a dragon while it was blasting me with breath, so I just figured the breath deflects arrows. But then it happened one time when I was about to shoot a bandit. I was like wth???

I myself like the trajectory of arrows in this game. You can shoot arrows hella far.

What I would like fixed is the collisions for things like walls and pillars. It's impossible to try and shoot an arrows past a pillar or wall you are taking cover by. Even though the graphics show your arrow has a clean unobstructed path, the arrows will either bounce right off the wall next to you or get stuck in mid air beside a pillar thats close by.

I mean how you said it. If the upwards angle of the shot is the same no matter what angle you are manually aiming at, then a target being further away would make the shot be lower, not higher.

Isn't the groin lower than the chest.....?

You know the arrows after some distance dont deal any damage? They just fly through target.

Yeah but you aimed higher on a closer target to hit the head. Then you aimed lower on a further target of the same type to hit the same spot. Wouldn't you aim higher because of the gravity pulling down?

Not trying to spazz out or anything just bored...

thats good to know. I always wondered when I missed a shot at a dragon high in the air, if my arrow would rain down and kill some important NPC far away somewhere.

It's monday... lol

That's what my post was mainly about, I can understand an arrow bouncing off a target because it's lost momentum but not passing through without damage, there is certainly something off with archery, another good example, stand next to a low wall on a tower, aim at a target below the tower, the visual shows a clear line of sight, but a pound to a penny your arrow strikes the wall.

There's an .ini fix for that, though. I forget exactly what it is, but it scales up the distance for which hitboxes are used. Apparently, on the PC version, scaling up dctor draw distance doesn't increase hitbox distance, so it's always capped at the console's draw distance. Or something.

I think it takes too long to reload, aim, and fire. I want to be able to fire arrows rapidly like Legolas. Given that this fantasy character can do it, I see no reason why a Skyrim dragonborn can't shoot arrows as fast as Legolas.



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I agree. My second role playing character ( I am fickle and like to change around often ) is a stealthy archer-conjuror and I find archery to be near perfect. Its kind of fun to figure out the trajectory needed for distance to the mob.