I knew I saw a tweak for this somewhere. Ok, havent tested this myself, but;

Skyrim has an Almost-Auto-Aim-Assist feature. For archers, you can tweak this (no idea if it actually disables it) via the ini.

C:\Users\xxxxx\Documents\My Games\Skyrim\SkyrimPrefs.ini

Find the Combat header. At the bottom of that, paste this:

f1PArrowTiltUpAngle=0.0
f3PArrowTiltUpAngle=0.0


This will, apparently, make aiming manual.

http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1269030-tweaking-arrows-to-behave-more-like-oblivion/

PLEASE understand, that this is also a problem with ranged magic...NOT JUST ARCHERY.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kxxFqmHyy-4

I'm aware of that, but I don't know of any tweaks for the magic bolts dude. Magic bolts also seem to be affected by the auto-aim. PLEASE UNDERSTAND.

But it is not about aiming, it's about ranged attacks going through targets dealing no damage.

point in case..

Is there anyone on this forum that doesn't like to complain or insult everyone?

I can't see the video, but I assume we're talking about the range cap on arrows? If so, then yes, there is a cap and arrows will go right though a target after a certain range. Go ahead and try it on a Mammoth, so you can't complain that the player svcks at aiming or something.

As I said, this appears to be an issue stemming from the aim assist.

How can there be a range cap, when the arrow goes straight through, if there was a cap, it would have disappeared. Also, it is sometimes possible to shoot through a target and hitting a target BEHIND the intended.

It would deal with enemy clipping, not environmental clipping.

I think something that needs to be asked is what you guys have your AI distance option set to.

Ok, I see. But I find it weird that that cap is not the same in every bodies games!?!

That is the exact spot I did my testing at, and where I was first certain that there was a bug going on.

Here is a video for doubters and whatnot:
http://youtu.be/ItF0EYzzroU

It's really hard to see with the arrows in the distance, but the Firebolts landing behind the Giant are pretty darn obvious.

Unfortunately for us console users, we don't have the luxury of an ini file to adjust these types of values. If this was the case, though, it would be a big dissapointment for us, not having the effective arrow range as PC players.

Obviously he reflects them with his rock hard abs.
:rolleyes:

I've got 40 hours on my archer and have the same problem with the mammoths at "long" range. but the biggest problem Ive had is against a dragon priest where i was like five feet in front of him and only 1 out of 8 arrows actually registered as a hit and the others went clean through him

Edit: also with the mammoths it seems that aiming lower (like at the legs) actually seems to get me a hit every now and then from long range

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GII4h6UEKho

Thanks for the videos, maybe now people can stop calling us incompetent and recognize that there is an actual bug that we are dealing with.

Why are you saying this person didnt give valid input? Yours is worse

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jwy8fBLME9k

I just remembered a preview from serveral months back. Wasn't there something about there originally being two types of bows one that would draw faster with a shorter range and long bows that hard a longer range but took longer to draw? They have clearly scrapped that idea, but what if they left in arbitrary range limits while changing the visuals?

I was actually thinking that it might be something like this, that lower-quality bows might not have the range to do damage at distance but will still alert targets even if the arrow doesn't 'hit' them.

I just tried out the mammoth shot at Bleakwind Basin, and aimed will above the mammoth who was on the edge of the render distance (He took two steps away from me and disappeared), it seemed to alert them but didn't register damage as far as I could see, however my archery is only level 20 and I have zero perks in it. I would consider that extremely long-range shooting though, You can still hit targets at long range, it just seems that when they're on the edge of the render distance, they're only shells until you creep a tad bit closer.

Another note:

I'm getting constant sneak increases while testing this. As far as I know, sneak only increases when you do damage during attacks undetected, right? It would seem that some of these arrows are hitting and registering correctly as sneak attacks, but without the HUD telling me or damage being taken off...

I've had these same issues even at a mid range.

The explanation above about accuracy increasing as skill increases would make sense. As for the arrow still physically landing behind them, think Fallout 3. You could aim at their chest and still miss because the combat was base on the so called "invisible dice."