I think you’re missing the entire point of this game then. Every aspect was designed to make it realistic. Sure there are the bugs but the combat, archery and lock picking systems are what I’ve seen the most complaints about from people who haven’t taken the time to really pay attention to what others are saying and put it to use. Even just after a couple bow levels, archery on bandits and cumans in the wild has gotten laughably easy for me. Your character is a peasant. As said before his idea of hard work was throwing turds at a house or sometimes helping at the forge. Every single skill should be hard the first time you do it because it is a true role playing game. You are playing the role of a peasant holding a bow for the first time in his whole life with his only training being told to shoot some arrows at a Target in a competition his first time seeing a bow. But ive gotten to level 10 now and even the locks that say they are too difficult are easy and archery I always get about 2-3 head or limb shots into an enemy before he even gets to me and my bow level isn’t even very high as I haven’t hunted much yet. Even if you just go running around killing wayfarers and bandits which are slow moving easy targets, you will get your level up enough to use it accurately without having to become great at adjusting for Henry being a noob at life.
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I think just about everyone fails miserably with a longbow or self bow at first. So thankfully its not as hard as real life in that respect
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Hey B,
I actually signed up to reply to you, because some of these comments are overly aggressive but I think I can explain for you.
I’ve actually been shooting for 15 years, I have trained multiple students and honestly this game is incredibly accurate to that development…
Here’s why, first off Henry clearly as a person has never held a bow or panic fired. Biggest thing when a newbie fires a bow is their strength arm, can never hold a pull and keep true to their eye. There is sway, shaking or generally incorrect body positioning. So take a game like Skyrim, archery doesn’t take into factor arm strength, hand to eye coordination and most importantly consistency. Even myself, when I shoot a longbow a 15th century-ish one, the room for error is a mountain. So when Henry starts off, he’s fighting his own strength, coordination and stamina. So yes, it will be random and beyond hard at the beginning, but stick with it because he will get stronger, the sway will lessen and consistency will increase.
But being a simulator it will never ever be perfect.
Hope this helps a little 
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Does the sway ever get better in game? I haven’t noticed, but my level isn’t very high
you just need to get good bro. I love how hard it was at first. just practice yo
the trick is to study the enemy know where you center of screen is and then when you pull back bow release right away don’t let any stam run out
I hit running bunnys from my horse while its moving
Hey Fifavenue,
Yeah it does get considerably better come late game. But, remember if your stamina is half, then sway will begin to increase more. Because in this time, no one was ever just an archer, they used bows and then a sword/axe/spear. So I will fire for a kill attempt and then whip out my sword if I miss / don’t kill. Because, the moment you’re injury your ability to shoot well goes out the window.
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That is basically what i do. Try to get a shot or two then switch to my sword
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Best way to do it man. I sometimes can shoot legit into someone’s eye slit of their helmet. Or I will miss a wide open shot hahaha
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I think you’re missing the point of a game.
This is definitively not true. There are plenty of aspects of this game that aren’t realistic at all. Sometimes this works in our favor, plenty of other times it does not.
Again, this actually isn’t realistic. Not everything we try for the first time is difficult. And even when it is, we often aren’t sooooo terrible at it that we have no semblance of how it is done.
I’m not saying such incompetence doesn’t happen, I’m just saying that Henry seems downright and unnecessarily stupid sometimes.
Like i said, there was a better way to accomplish/show that henry struggles with things starting out without it looking like he was a drunk.
They really need to put in a on/off option of some kind for a reticle for the bow. I get that some player don’t want it but a lot of other players do. I get that they are going for realism but we can’t forget that it is a game and if the fun factor is not there for some people because they find shooting the bow down right frustrating then you need to put that option in so everyone is happy. Me personally I find the bow mechanics fun and awesome but not having a reticle or dot of some kind really really takes the fun away of using the bow. Please warhorse put the option in to turn it off and on.
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100% Agree.
And the fact that it is a game matters in a way that many of us don’t realize. It’s why we’re given a cursor when we’re not using archery. In real life, we have senses (more than 5 btw) that allow us to orient ourselves as well as things around us. Senses that we don’t have in a game. You see, a game is actually 2 dimensional. It uses techniques to seem 3 D but it isn’t.
It’s amazing and great that some people can get used to this issue and don’t need a cursor. But isn’t it fascinating that the developers realized we needed a cursor to interact with the world around us but didn’t think we needed one for something like archery? It’s not like in real life we have a cursor as long as we’re not using a firearm or something.
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Aiming becomes easier with bow skill increases, potions as well as higher str and agility. Arrow and bow type make a difference as well. It’s fairly easy once you get skills high enough and get the timing down. It is a bit aggravating early in the game. Hang in there.
Nah. I just ditched archery almost altogether… and on the rare occasions where you can’t, I turn the cursor on, lol.
But uh… yeah, everyone else, just hang in there. It will eventually get better as your archery skill goes up.
Was hoping that the starting game you can boost your archery to a good enough level that it’s playable, think that will help solve all this complants about bad archery.
That likely would have helped, but I think the cursor might be a big part of the issue as well. Who knows at this point?
It would be cool to see the cursor added as one of the perks for the bow category
The shaking and stuff I can understand, if we assume these are very heavy draw war bows well over 100#. However, if that is the case then how are we firing them from horseback? Henry is a blacksmith apprentice and should certainly have the strength from his work to hold a horse bow at draw without acting like he’s having an epileptic fit. But, okay, let’s just chalk this one up to game balance for the sake of progression.
The real problem with archery in this game isn’t any of the above since that goes away with with skill ups. The problem is the camera view they give you for archery. He should be holding the bow more center and looking down the arrow to aim. Having it so far off to the side like it does in this game throws me off wildly. Been shooting, longbows, recurve, and modern compound bows with draw weights ranging from 30# (my first bow as a kid) to 100#. If anyone knows where to get one over 100# these days let me know cause I haven’t seen them. 30 years of shooting made the offset in this game really really hard to get used to. So instead I just cheat and use my monitors cross hair function(gaming monitor lol).
I can barely get my employees to learn how to make a pizza.