I don't know why, but it seems a bit hit or miss to a large degree. As badly as I want to become the sniper I was in oblivion, I don't see Skyrim arrows as well as I did in oblivion, and sometimes, I swear I see my arrows veer off wildly.

My archery skill is at 76.

I'd like to get better, but I don't know if the game wants me to put my reticle on the target, or adjust my aim half the time.

So, any advice?

if it matters I'm on PS3.

Get the zoom perk, and both levels of the slow time perk. If the target is close enough, just aim at them and you should hit them. Be careful if you are aiming high though, the arrows jump up a little when they fire, but if you are aiming at the body, you should be fine. If the target is farther away, aim just above them, right above the head usually works for me, and if still doesn't go far enough, just aim up more.

Get slow time perk for medium and close range archery. It just takes time and experience for longer shots. Once you collected a lot of arrows, you can do a bit of practicing and experimenting with ranges so don't be afraid to waste some arrows

The slow time perk is epic in a frenzied battle with multiple enemies, I can fill a roomfull of enemies with arrows before one even gets close to me.

check the walking routine of your target, ones you know where he is going if u are too far shoot where he is going not where he is if he is constantly moving and of course the perks just mention before gluckz archer !

pd i also lower the look sensitivity on settings !

Wet your finger and see which way the wind blows. Slow time and zoom perks helped me the most.

Archery tip?

Turn off the crosshair.

use the force Luke.

Archery with no crosshair is pure win.

Moving targets are difficult to hit, and although you can do leading the game isn't as acccurate as say, Unreal 2k4 in calculating the flight path of an arrow. Naturally large targets like dragons are easy to hit if there is someone else (companion, NPC, summoned creatures) tanking, but if they are flying around I find it almost impossible to land a shot. Like what the 2 posters mentioned, slowing down time via perks or shout is a good way to secure a hit. Against humanoids you can always do the old back pedalling trick to lure them into chasing you linearly until the size of the enemy enlarges.

I'm assuming you're not sneaking, as that's the easiest way to snipe. Like most stealth games patrols' AI has a fixed pathfinding coded in, and they almost always have 2 stop points. That's your best bet to lodge an arrow right into their back.

Here is a video I made of archery, if you notice the HUD is off. Notice that I have to aim, without a reticle. Here is the trick: You want to aim a little under your target and a little to the right:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aeXoI9310JE

Notice that the further away the opponent, the farther down. For an example of this look at 2:17.

Also something that helped me a lot was standing on the rocks outside of Riften and using the hawks that fly high above as target practice. Take the HUD off , make a game save and just go out and start shooting at those moving targets. You can see me doing the target practice at the end of the video. It really helps improve your aim. Oh, and yes, archery is broken to a degree. Many, many a times I will click the mouse button to pull back the arrow to have NOTHING happen. And sometimes they will not shoot as far as they should. But it is not game breaker, although very frustrating at times. Don't forget when you nock the arrow to hold it for an extra moment for that extra punch as well.

I've found that when enemies move side to side constantly, mostly the Forsworn, it can become frustrating. I haven't done any 'no reticle' shots like the above, but you have to take into account that the arrows will take time to reach their target. Its not instant like most shooting games. Ranged enemies seem to shuffle around the most.

You can always use poisons
Frenzy potion is always useful

If shooting up, aim low.

On my PS3, I find it very difficult to be accurate but on my PC version, I'm way accurate with Keyboard/Mouse. I'm loving this skill now and I always had a problem before. I hope you're on PC.