In my opinion the speed at which projectiles in Oblivion travel at is too slow. Although there was great improvement from Morrowind
certain projectiles, especial arrows and bolts, still seem to be traveling at a very slow speed when compared to their real life counter parts. The speed of arrows I find to be specifically unrealistic as I can often doge a flying arrow at less than 10 feet, a feat that would otherwise be completely impossible unless you started moving before the arrow was fully released from the bow. Now I still haven’t finished calculating the speeds of certain projectiles are in FPS so I cannot say with certainty that they are moving at a slower that life pace. If anyone has done the calculations already or knows that the speed of projectiles has been set to their real world counter parts then I’d be most appreciative of any posts to the fact on this thread.

In my opinion the speed is fine, the effects need a bit overhauling though. The motion blur idea is nice

I think the speed was either very slow, the the aprearance of depth in the world was not represented very well., (Z-axis depth, not immersion or story Depth) bu then again, arrows apear to float even when seen travelling from the side, and gravity was overal weak in oblivion. I would like to see this sped up a bit.

Ranged weapons need to be completely re-done. Their fire rate should be a lot slower, their accuracy should not be aided with a crosshair, they flight path should be longer, their speed should be faster and their damage should be much higher. Also, they should suffer from water and rain and should not be carried around strung for more than a day or so, depending on weather conditions and other factors. They should be devastating long-range weapons, hard to use, but highly effective. They should be able to engage targets at much higher ranges than currently possible. In melee, however (such as inside a building/dungeon), they should be near useless after the first shot.

I hate the classic fantasy concept of bows as slightly weaker weapons with slightly higher range. They are an entirely different thing.

So speed-wise: Realistic level of speed for all ranged weapons.

The speed was way too low in vanilla Oblivion. I mean, I could basically run as fast (without any potions or anything like that) as the arrow sometimes.
Increase the speed by like 30-60% and I'm happy.

I remember the first time using arrows the first time...in the tutorial dungeon? and thinking along the lines of....this is like throwing a rock! The speed and arc were just like a rock!

I got the TIE mod and that made it better.

Not sure what speed they used, but it a flatter trajectory, higher speed, and you would lose sight of it at long distance.

Really I think the easiest way of solving the problem would be to put speed values in actual units of measure such as FPS that way you aren't stuck with this ambiguous definition of something with a speed of 10 and devs could look up very easily online what the real world speed of various projectiles are.

From what I've read the average speed of an arrow shot from a hunting bow is between 200 and 300 FPS, meaning that if you are twenty feet from your attacker the attacker's arrow would reach you in about 0.1 to 0.066 of a second which is obviously undodgeable.

If you haven't already, have a look at this for new ideas on accuracy:

http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1154136-marksman-skill-a-more-realistic-take-on-accuracy/

Ah you beat me to it, I was going to post the same thing :dry: but ya I agree with your ideas on accuracy ^_^

They need to be sped up, but not so much as to break gameplay. What's the point of touch spells or swords if an arrow or target spell is almost impossible to dodge? They should be difficult but well possible to dodge at mid range.

I think a small (small) amount of light emitted by arrows and bolts would be sufficient for tracking them if it was deemed necessary, but I would prefer a system that had no tracking.

Too slow, please faster. No need for visual aid, as long as we can make out about what kind of flying angle it has.

I think the angle should also be a bit smaller, so we won't have to aim a meter above the enemies head to hit them. Max half meter at the same range as where we have to make a whole meter of extra space.

arrow speed in oblivion was a joke, arrows fly much faster and are much more deadly.

magic also is slow as hell, although I would love to see some diverse magic like in dark messiah this time around not just fire ball, ice ball, paralyzing ball, silencing ball, burden BALL, :facepalm:

all projectiles should have believable speed in my opinion, if you want to dodge bullets (arrows) matrix style go play that game, or lower the difficulty slider down so that you are unkillable, other than that get a shield/heavy armor/magic shield...etc

No visual aid.

Its like in most FPSs games where the grenades have a fume trail that helps show where the grenade is going.

I HATE IT. (Please excuse the caps)

Its unessesary clutter on my screen that gives me info I already know. Unless its invisible I see no purpose to visual aid.

About the speed of magic:

I think you should be able to make different spells that would cost more the faster the spell travels, being able to do medium strong, fast moving spells or with the same amount of magicka, a stronge spell that travels slower.

Well shock is not a BALL..

That's a pretty cool idea, maybe power and speed being in a constant ration for your level that changes. So if you are caped you can create a very power spell that would other wise move slowly move at a much faster pace and vica verca.

I would be alright with enchanted arrows emitting a small amount of light but other than that I don't want any unrealistic visual aid. Arrow speed needs to be increased from Oblivion. Selecting good terrain from which to attack or wearing better armor isn't very rewarding when I can easily dodge every arrow fired at me.

I think speed is set arbitrarily slow for balancing purposes. Lack of aiming errors are compensated by being able to dodge arrows. This gives the impression that if we "work" (strafe), that will pay off - which it does. Just too bad the AI really svck at it. And distances being arbitrary small in general to keep the view distances down for that times tech being able to deliver enough frames. Rarely do I have the luxury on using the bow at more than 30 meters.

There are bigger problems than speed. Having to use a tonne of penetrating arrows against soft bodies such as bears and goblins (due scaling). Makes it easier for me. At the same time, I don't want to be able to backtrack during aiming without being skilled. Makes it harder for me. And high level NPCs (and some beasts, but not animals) should be able to dodge incoming arrows just as effective as I do. Makes it harder for me.

Don't you think it would be better to make it realistic though with arrows traveling fast but with less accuracy?

Not sure. Wouldn't the accuracy then have to be artificially downscaled to compensate for lacking distance? Compensating for lead gets replaced with luck and skill? Is archery to portray a bowman in an adventure game, or do we want a sniper game? Should AI have an artificial bonus, simply for being AI with little sense of tactics? Should I be able to penetrate steel armor with steel arrows from any distance, or should kinetic energy be modeled?

So again, I'm not sure what is the correct way to go. I tend to be very realism oriented myself, and there is a lot more to archery (and basically everything in the game) especially wrt realism, than only dealing with projectile speeds. What are the gameplay consequences? My character skill influenced more the chance to hit than my playing skill (which is good). To compensate, damage will have to be increased. But what happens now is that I just move closer and they still can't reach me as a melee fighter. But every of my hits will now land.

Before: I can miss at great distances due slow arrows. If I move in I hit better, but arrows still makes low damage, which lowers my chances.
After: I still miss, but now due accuracy. If I move in I hit better, but now arrows makes high damage, which increases my chances.

Well ya there are a lot of problems to be worked out with ranged projectiles, however I will say that a projectile such as an arrow loses very little energy as it travels through the air, so if you were to make arrows act like they do in reality the amount of damage would be almost the same no matter how far you are from your attack and you'd only need to compensate for drop caused obviously by the gravitational force.

Look at the link I provided above. It explains a suggestion to realistically alter accuracy. Although it doesn't specifically deal with lead, it will solve the problem, and will allow for a considerable increase in damage dealt without unbalancing the skill/weapon.