I've just started using the bows in skyrim (hunting animals for pelts) and it seems like after a certain distance I can't hit any of my targets, no matter how many times I adjust the height of my shot. I was wondering if anyone else was experiencing this as well. Is there some sort of range cap on the bow's or is it just a glitch? Before anyone tries to say I just svck with the bow's, i've been trying to hit a mammoth from less than 75 yards away and it just seems like all my shots are going straight through him.

Could possibly be a glitch but i don't know i haven't used bows much

You've got a glitch or you're doing it wrong. Bows have no range restrictions that I can tell. I've killed enemies from so far away that the aim cursor was bigger than they were.

Woah.

I experienced a similiar thing with a giant but the thought of bows having range cap never even crossed my mind.I just thought I was the one missing.
But now you meantion it,I wouldn't be surprised if Bethesda actually did such a thing.

I think mods can fix it if that's the case though...I hope.

They don't seem to arc much... Mammoths have a ton of HP. I managed to take one down at lv 7 on Master Difficulty.
It took forever. I ended up climbing up a stair case in front of the fort outside of Whiterun to avoid it while firing spell and arrows at it. Then I got flanked by some bandits that came out of nowhere. I had to finish them and keep track of the mammoth. I frenzied one of the bandits and it went after the mammoth that quickly felled him.

Anyway, good match. All that was to say, mammoths have a ton of health and you might not be able to see the hp damage.

See my post above. There is NO range limitation. If you can see the enemy (i,e, it is rendering) then you can shoot and kill it. I have sniped bandits from the tops of mountains where they were nothing more than specks. If not for the "Sneak Attack Critical" message I wouldn't have even be able to see if I hit them.

Did you have to compensate for the range. (Did the arrow follow a parabolic path?)

I had trouble with this when I first started the game so I gave up on bow's thinking I was just [censored]e at it. But now that i've started using them I started noticing that most of the time no matter how far a target is away I usually hit them within the first 3 shots, but occasionally i'll find a target that no matter how many times I adjust my shot I cant get a hit. Sometimes after getting closer I notice that every single one of my arrows is in the ground in almost the exact area where my target was. Its almost like the game isn't fully loading npc's past a certain range, like their model is loading, but not all the collision detection as well. It's really strange, and pretty damn annoying.

Im on PC by the way.

Arrows will hit where the cursor is when you fire. DO NOT manually adjust for drop like you had to do in Oblivion.

However, you do have to compensate for range by leading the target. Arrows take time to reach the spot you fired at, so you want to make sure the cursor is where the enemy WILL be when you fire. The greater the distance the more time it takes the arrow to reach that spot, and thus the greater chance of the enemy moving and the arrow missing.

Seriously, no parabolic flight. Beth, I know this was designed for x box but...

Don't compensate for distance with height?! Idk what version of Skyrim your playing but in mine if im on level ground and shoot straight my arrow's most definitely start to drop after about 50 feet, and that's a fact. I just aimed straight at an elk, crosshair on its chest, and my arrow landed 3 feet away from him.

I don't think so OP - there is even a perk that allows you to zoom in with the bow. What would be the point if your arrows don't do damage?

Actually Skyrim suffers from the same problem as Oblivion in that sometimes the arrow flies through the target, especially if you are in sneak mode. Happened to me last night, fired one arrow at bandits head and went straight through. At first I thought I had missed but then the next two arrows did the same thing, it wasn't until the bandit moved that the arrows started to hit him. It's annoying, but it does happen.

Being able to zoom in doesn't really negate the chance of their being a range cap, most likely in the case of the CPU not being able to keep up with distant renders, not so much due to the DEV team creating one themselves.

I have had to adjust for shots before so I'm not so sure about that i'll have to go and try and pay attention, and don't start that [censored] steepled.

I am fairly certain that bows do have a range drop on the PC-version of the game. I had to adjust my aim on several occasions.

How 'bout we bottle that attitude, shall we?
It was a joke. You need to relax.

arrows in this game are strange, the game inself kind of compensates for arrow drop. stand back a bunch and fire a bunch of arrows into a wood house from a while away, you'll notice they all land pretty much where you aimed.

Oh god your right... Bethesda... What have you done!

Its nice to know that instead of being a hunter, im playing Duty of Skyrim: Black Hand Ops.

This. The game animates the parabolic drop of the arrow, but the arrow will hit where you aimed the cursor. It's a little weird, but I missed most of my shots until I just trusted the cursor and put it where I wanted the arrow to go. (Crazy, huh?) Shooting a bow like in Oblivion gave me constant misses.

Yes, they do have one. I was kinda disappointed when I discovered this.

In my PC version I have to compensate for the "arrow drop". I have noticed that every bow has it's own range. For example I tested a dwarven bow(22 dmg) with a hunting bow(22 dmg upgraded). The dwarven bow had longer range. By range it means that after a certain distance depending on the bow's range, the arrows start dropping rapidly. Different types of arrows gives you only damage.

As for the OP problem, I think too it's a glitch. Sometimes arrow hits don't register.

I agree, i've been testing bow distance with my ebony bow. Seems as if when you aim directly at an animal/enemy and your arrow falls short it doesn't matter where above them you aim the arrows just go through them, which makes it seem like there is either a cap for some bow's or at lower skill levels you cant hit targets that are too far away. It also seems that when your in stealth mode arrows glitch a lot for some reason and just pass through enemies, I have no idea whats causing this.

I have noticed that when an enemy is too far from me my arrows dont hit it. Like they just go through it. I'm pretty sure that the enemy is out of render distance and just because I can see it, it is not actually there yet. It svcks. I could shoot people farther away in Oblivion.

If you're standing 100 feet from even a Mammoth, the arrows will go right through the thing.