I'm glad you and so many others can enjoy Skyrim to it's fullest now

I think the guards are cheating. The guard I tested it on lost me by the time he came down the tower and ran half way over to me. Maybe if he was already on the ground level he would have the time to run to me before I was hidden. They seemed to do the same thing with it set at default. I'm not sure what difference It makes. Anyway, I don't often go around picking on poor town guards so it's not really a problem for me.

Thanks for this Azula II, the above change fixed the extreme distance issue I was having, Took out a giant at ranges I used to do in Oblivion. Now only if there were some way to fix this for our console brothers.

I think it's something to do with the range which actor fade is set to on the xbox. Maybe they didn't want people shooting farther than they can see and hitting something, and when they ported Skyrim to the PC they didn't mix the arrow range to actor fade? 

I guess they may eventually do something with this in a title update, but why even bother having a zoom perk on the Xbox based on that statement? Even though the Xbox draw distance is significantly smaller than the PC version, the zoom perk increases that distance. If I can't hit a stationary object that I can see while using Eagle Eye, then how can it not be a bug? This is clearly not expected - you don't build a scope mechanic for a weapon in a game that requires shooting enemies (using that scope) if you do not want them to be hit at a distance where they can only be seen through the scope. I saw some posters comment on this problem for the PC with FO3, but I never had trouble with my Liberty Rifle sniping through the scope on the 360. I am sure test saw this problem and Bethesda is likely already considering addressing it, along with the grab bag of other buggy/glitchy corrections that need to be made.

Since it is clearly an error on the Xbox version...which the 'port' to PC came from, how can the PC version be perfectly fine? Mixed results can be accounted for because of mixed PC hardware/software/driver combinations. Just because someone can hit one guard at Whiterun repeatably doesn't mean that the game is not bugged. All sorts of bugs occurs when some mixture of the PC components cause problems; hence the difficulty in coding PC games and subsequent attractiveness of console based game development! Developers have to account for a million variables, especially when end users can tweak so many numerous video settings for their own playthrough.

On the Xbox version (I realize this is a PC thread but I am making a point) - I can seen enemies just fine when I zoom in, I'm not even very far away from them (maybe 70 yards, hard to tell without a way to determine the GU distance) but the arrows just go right through them. This was never a problem with my skill 100 archer in Oblivion, I just cranked the aim reticle up enough and I could hit anything that I zoomed in on. (Normally accompanied by a devestating poison that would result in the poor bastich daedra dying before they could reach me!! ) Now, with Skyrim's new engine - non-agressive wild game, mammoths, giants... just can't be hit at zoom range. I haven't found too many bandit camps from a distance since I gained Eagle Eye to try and test the usefulness of the perk on those enemies. It is easy to see that shooting the bow lends an odd arc to the arrow depending on the distance of the enemy. (Even though I'm pointing straight at them, the arrow trajectory arches upwards more on release as the distance between myself and the target grows) I would much rather just turn that crap off, with a toggle for those who need it. I much prefer the realism of accounting for distance myself, especially if that is causing some odd arrow physics behavior.

I feel certain that the Navmesh .ini change will be a part of the solution towards balancing archery results against all Actors, but will be a long time coming for anyone not using a PC.

Thank you so much for posting this! This is the fix I was looking for. Finally my arrows are actually hitting my long distance targets instead of passing right through their bodies. So BUMP to the top with this thread so that all archers, rangers, thieves, assassins, etc may see this and have their faith in their bows restored.

Worked for me. Thx

I was going to post this fix myself, but it's nice to see someone else beat me to it (a while ago at that )

Here are a few screen shots showing my arrow going right through a mammoth!
http://img88.imageshack.us/img88/8782/mammothfail.jpg
http://img85.imageshack.us/img85/9571/mammothfail2.jpg
http://img442.imageshack.us/img442/348/mammothfail3.jpg

This tweak allowed me to actually hit them

Thanks!

Now that is interesting. How did you mange to get the camera in position to take the SS? Slow down time with the console maybe?

TFC 1

freezes the game and allows you to move the camera free of your character

O.O
I've been looking for this forever!!! =O
I've been wanting to take screenshots of my character and other things, but I didn't know how to freeze my character mid animation. If this does that, I'll be a happy man.

So just do this and nothing else? I want to try it. Sounds like it might be just what the doctor ordered.

Indeed it can freeze mid-animation
'TM' also turns off menus. Just make sure you close the console (you won't be able to see it) before you can take a screen shot.

That's all you need! Make sure you edit Skyrim.ini (in the documents > my games > skyrim and NOT skyrim_default.ini

Thank you. Though I like to move the camera into position before I use TM. I just move it where I want it, open the console, tm, press the various screenshot buttons, then push up arrow and enter to bring back the menu. Thanks again though, I've been wanting to get these type of screenshots forever. @_@

I hate to be the bearer of bad news (especially since I had hoped this would work, because I have the same problem everyone else is experiencing as well), but this does indeed CTD my game (and I have 8gb ram and game patched to use more than 2GB, various high settings), I assume due to there being too many "actors" present all in combat.

The tale of it is actually rather interesting, and very much not uneventful (Or if you want, skip to the end). I was crouched near The Lover's Stone ready to put an arrow to the back of a stone-possessive necromancer, just then an Imperial soldier ran right past me and the mage (actually, just as my arrow missed when the necromancer walked suddenly out of the way, and put up a ward). So I decided to huff it and follow the oblivious soldier and see what he's up to. Turns out he's a courier (and the message was not to me? What?). Just as we set off, we ran right past an Ice Wizard and Fire Wizard dueling it out (I have never even encounter either, let alone knowing they'd be on opposite sides, although it makes sense) and firing some kind of ice whirlwind and fireballs at each other. Further on we ran past a bear...and just a bit further another one! (And Discovery tell us they're solitary animals, pff) I got annoyed with their pursuit and the feebleness of my arrows (because I didn't want to stop to pull out my swords and lose the courier) so I blew them back with Unrelenting Force shout, and then we kept running. A little bit more running and we came upon a farming town, where two necromancers also happened to be in the vicinity of. They, being evil mages, of course set upon us, but we kept going (me being the shield). It is at this point that the previously mentioned bears now caught up to us, and the town guards (Riften) also decided to begin firing on the courier for some reason (and not the mages, OR the bears).

Then my game crashed. 3 times (I saved seconds before all this running), precisely at the same spot, same scenario, being pursued by more or less the same npcs/creatures (maybe minus or plus one bear or wizard). I then removed the line from the ini and this didn't happen (tested only once, it was enough of a proof to me, just once). Put the lines back in and same scenario as previous again - crash. I'd like to say that this is also while the setting is on 8191, and not the 12k. I can only imagine it would be much worse on 12k.

Edit: Can someone try replicating this by causing a large scale battle (probably go crazy in the city), maybe involving mages as well as melee combatants?

I have had a CTD when following a NPC who was running along the road too. One was part of a quest and we stopped to kill anything attacking us along the way. I think, I had the same problem before I found and started to use this fix. It would need to be tested to be sure if it is related. Preferably more then once, on more then one save point, and following more then one NPC; but, hey, that's not your job and I wouldn't force anyone to spend their free time doing testing.

If the CTD when following "NPC runners" is being caused by the fix, you just have to weigh up what is the bigger problem. I'm still going to use the fix.

It's alright, I understand what you were trying to say You were right though, I did test it one more time with the lines cut out, just for the sake of having more than 1 test and seeing if it'll crash, and it did. That one instance where I didn't crash must have been a fluke. I wonder why it crashes when following NPC though. I followed the Blade all the way the first time and nothing happened, admittedly that was early in the game.

Oh well, at least I can be happy and use this fix again Sorry about previously incomplete account of the testing.

Would you happen to have various graphical enhancing config/ini modding in place, Azula II? For example the famous ugridload one?

As you can see by the front page of the thread I have been using this fix since OP revealed it and I haven't had a single CTD in that time. I don't know why some other people are having that problem but obviously it's not something that inherently comes with this fix.

I think that's what I said before your post, after ruling out my own false positive, isn't it?

It is a bit of a strange bug, probably not worth worrying about it as you can easily avoid it or just F5 a lot if you must find out where some NPC runs off to

I have changed only a few config lines (see below). I am also using ENBSeries to fix the freezing bug with dual core / WinXP.

Turning up uGridsToLoad would be a bit hard on my old PC. In fact, my motherboard is about to fail, it has been slowly dieing for about a year now. I just started getting graphical artifacts and lockups after booting into Windows today. Tried another video card with no luck, but changing colour quality to 16 bit seems to have stopped it locking up for now. I am looking at new hardware to buy.

[General]uExterior Cell Buffer=128[Papyrus]iMinMemoryPageSize=100000iMaxMemoryPageSize=5000000iMaxAllocatedMemoryBytes=1800000000 [Actor]fVisibleNavmeshMoveDist=16384.0000

i was thinking the more you raise your archery skill and perks , the character could hit a target further away. otherwise maybe it's part of the balance. perhaps raising this figure is like cheating in a way.

Aw, sorry to hear that. So it's a bug that's present even in relatively unmodified game to then I know I could just skip over it or not follow any NPC, but it's just one of those things, being unable to do something that's perfectly fine within the confines of the mechanics of the game.

This is soooo awesome thank you a million

I found an awesome method to test the exact distance - cast magelight see how far it goes.

I have gotten longer game startup after making the change is only thing I noticed when loading after changing, nothing big.

Is there a way to make NPCs detect you at longer distances? I've been using this tweak since the days after release and it's just awesome. But when firing from far enough away, nobody can detect me even if not sneaking. They just run around confused and eventually return to their routine like nothing happened.

I use a range of 8192, it seems optimal, you can hit distant targets and they also know your basic direction even when you are sneaking, they won't find you if you maintain sneak, but certainly will if you are standing.

EDIT - Eh, nevermind. Not going to bother feeding a troll.

This fix seems great though, thanks for posting.