I completely agree with this suggestion. I’m an archer myself, I’ve been shooting British longbow for just over a decade and American flatbow for about 5 years. Being able to sight down the arrow shaft would make archery in the game much more accessible and intuitive. As it stands, it’s reasonably realistic (the question of where medieval archers anchored to is something of a moot point - there’s evidence supporting a range of different points, chest, corner of mouth, ear, it’s important to remember that they weren’t a homogenous group and so it will have varied) and with practice archery is deadly, I’ve now got to the point where I can headshot regularly and get a perfect score at Chumps etc (I recommend reading ‘Tips and Tricks for Archers, the *sshole of the battlefield’ on Reddit) . Not to boast, I’m just saying that as the player practices and as Henry’s bow skill improves archery becomes relatively easy. That said, being able to sight down the shaft would make aiming much more intuitive, making it more accessible to people who are struggling. That’s the reason that most barebow archers draw to the face, and many draw with three fingers under the arrow, it’s all about moving the arrow close to the eye so that the archer can sight down it. If this is implemented, I think it’s be best to add it as a toggle-able option, and that way people who like the current setup won’t be losing out. Increasing player choice is rarely a bad thing!
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Dude, don’t link Lars Andersen videos if you want to prove a point about actual archery 
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The overwhelming majority of people disagree with you, and consider archery mechanics changes to be high priority. If you don’t agree, you are very much in the minority and should focus your energy elsewhere.
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Excellent point about the anchor point. It’s pretty much irrelevant, especially without a third person view. Archers all develop their own styles, whatever works best for them. And given that ultimately the player is looking through a 16:9 or 16:10 screen with limited field of view, as opposed to looking through Henry’s actual eyes with their much larger field of view, not to mention spatial awareness and sense of touch, he needs a style of archery that takes that into account to create a better ‘feeling’ archery in the game. ‘Realism’ is a complex, often counterintuitive thing. Much like translating a language, you often have to get creative in order to really capture the ‘essence’ of something. Word for word literal translations are often the worst.
I absolutely agree with you 100% when I was a kid at camp and I naturally picked up the bow and aimed it like a gun and pulled the arrow back to my cheek. I think from a game development aspect, it would cause clipping. if you brought the bow up to its face you would see through the bow. I also agree they need to rework it though.
You need to rethink that haha. A bow is held at arms length. There would be no clipping, in other words.
This is such a positive, creative and civilized thread! It’s a shame we’ll never know whether an actual developer comes across this.
I am shooting flatbows myself using a traditional, intuitive technique which requires you to aim down the shaft with both eyes open. Represented in a computer game this would be exactly what @Callaghan suggested.
Great input everyone!
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OK, I will reformulate my previous post, as well as answer some opinions presented here.
Sighting down an arrow in a game, the way you explain, is grafically undesirable. Reason is that you need the arrow to exist near the center of the screen. Which means that we basically get a circle blotting in and out of showing the feathers etc. Clipping is all you get. At least imho.
I wanted to clarify that when it comes to sighting down the shaft, I cannot imagine how it would be done without clipping issues. Which does not mean that it cannot be done. If someone could produce an image that explains the concept, I should be able to better understand it.
Though my suggestions necessitate a 3rd person camer for immersion (less hud clutter) reasons, we are unlikely to get it, since WH refuses to reenable the 3rd person camera present in the Cryengine at default… for some reason.
I am of the opinion that 3rd person camera allows for sollutions that in the end provides better immersion that the concessions of 2D hudelements that are required by a FPcamera.
Instead, let’s operationalize archery for the purpose of games. Archery have a few possible mechanics. Arrow drop off, wind impacting the arrows trajectory, draw-strength, arrow type, and draw-method.
Let’s start with the arrows. While there could and should be quality differences. There should also be a side-grade system within specific tiers.
The impacts on the side-grade is weight of the arrow; which produces more penetration, but also slower arrow speed and therefore quicker drop-off.
The impact of arrow-tip is easier. There are examples of bleeding arrows (spade formed), armor penetration (spike formed), movement impeeding (hook-formed).
The feathers is an area I have no idea for side-grades. Quality yes, but it would be nice if someone could create a gameified sidegrade system for the guide-feathers.
The arrow nock side-grade could have to do with e-nocking speed, and impact how much kinetik energy is lost, and perhaps even how wide the spread is.
The fletcher would be a crafting mechanic where you can customize your arrows to your wanted specifications, based on the above suggestions. Which would make recovering broken arrows a far more useful aspect of the game.
Then we have different methods of holding the bowstring while drawing. As far as I can tell, there is the thumb-ring style draw (with or without a ring), which could be used for quicker but less accurate archery. The tbumb-point holding the arrow-knock, which could have a positive impact on arrow-spread (stabilizing the arrow), but could have shorter stable period for aiming. The 4 finger hold with the arrow between the middle-finger and pointy finger could perhaps be the best for archery sniping, but slowest to nock and draw.
Additionally, there could be a side-grade aspect on the bows themselves. A high strength requirement bow, such as the longbow could have a shorter stable-aim period and slower draw-speed than a more agility-focused bow (dont know if this is already in the game. My experiments have not detected any difference).
Game-mechanics could be divided into two: Either you go for faster draw and release, or you go for steady ainmed shots. Practically if you just press and hold the LMB, you do a quick-draw (arrow on the right side) and have to eyeball the shot and hope that the spread-rng is on your side. If you istead hold RMB and then LMB, you nock the arrow on the left side of the rest. Either you get a crosshair, or better yet, you get a trajectory indicator that starts diffuse and broad. The longer you keep RMB and LMB pressed, the more defined it becomes. The arrow can travel further than the trajectory indicates, which still requires player skill for those really long shots.
The sway currently in the game could be a detriment that perks and levels eventually remove. Or something. Once you figure it out, it has little impact on archery. Even IF you dont master it, allt it does is force a certain time of aiming, since all you are doing is waiting for it to return to the starting position before letting go of the arrow.
If we can specialize on archery, then we could get 3 or 4 quivers (whatever is needed). One on the back and one on the hips, each divided into two pockets. You can assign different arrows to each of the quivers, which means you can have a specific arrows for your desired effect. One long-distance, one that impeeds movement (bandits running away, animals running away etc), bleeding arrows for unarmored sections of enemies, penetrating arrows for enemies in full armor, mail or plate. What quiver you use could impact the speed of nocking a new arrow. Hip being the fastest.
When it comes to wind impacting the arrows, it does not require a true to life implementation with wind differenting every 5 meters (over emphasising here, dont hang me). Rather, it can just be a direction that get’s applied when the player releases the arrow. In FPcamera, this would require yet another 2D hud element. Which is why I repeat my sollution of having a feather or something hanging from the top of the bow. It can show wind strength and direction which the player needs to compensate for.
At least that is my suggestion. Archery perks would help focus the player on what type of archery they want to do: Hunting game, Long distance sniping, close combat LOTR style.
Same here, also I noticed I always aim too much to the left, height is ok.
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Wrong. I see allot more support for the current archery mechanics than anywhere close to the “support” you claim to have for your own idea on it. Most people in this thread dont even agree with you. The archery in this game has been praised and liked allot so far by the large majority of players in fact. Even read an article where they specifically pointed out how well the archery was done compared to other games.
Its a very nit-picky opinion you have and I dont think it makes any improvement, just wastes dev time if they are even taking this into consideration, for no net gain improvement on the game, and an even bigger potential net loss (if they change it and screw it up).
I felt they where going for the instinctive approach and it has done a good job in my opinion and I’m an archer also. It’s great to have a skill in a game which takes rigorous practice
Excellent idea. I’ve been using a cheat to create a cross hair. I’d much prefer your solution and support your idea.
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For the life of me I do not understand why third person is not an option. I love playing in third person as one gets a better view of surroundings. I play the Fallout games in third person and would not consider playing them in first person…ever.
It’s good, except for having to remember that I need to actually aim several feet to the right of where I want to shoot because intuitively my experience shooting tells me the arrow will go somewhere, but the graphics don’t match where the bow is really aimed.
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If you can’t count correctly, then I don’t think you should be talking game design. The vast majority approve here, that much is obvious. Your disapproval has been noted, at this point you are just rambling and making false statements that everyone can see are false.
I agree with the instinctive approach, only the massive horizontal offset makes it not about instinct, but about memorising where the centre of the screen is. My idea takes that gameyness away, and makes it truly instinctive.
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You can really make that offset better by changing to a wider fov. It made aiming a hell of a lot more centered and predictable. Earlier I adapted by offsetting the aim almost by an inch to the right of the target
One problem with this approach – not so much a problem as a thing that would need to be addressed – is that archery is already almost overpowered and making it easier would make it dominate the game even more.
One suggestion I’d have – in conjunction with the above change which I support – would be to improve enemy AI a bit so that it more aggressively attacks archers. I’ve stood there with my bow aimed at enemies while they stand in parry stance – why? Are they planning on parrying my arrow?
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I think the arrow penetration needs to be lowered anyway. Only the best archers firing the most powerful bows with the best piercing arrows should be able to do any damage whatsoever to good plate armour. Anything below a threshold should just bounce off.
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I agree with the position of the bow. putting it higher would greatly help aiming
i also think that NPC archers should take more time aiming when switching targets. in the first seige of the bandit town, the arches were able to switch from long targets and close targets (me) way to quickly. it seems to make the reward for successfully bum-rushing arches less.
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