*On Xbox 360*My character is an assassin with an emphasis on bow combat* Here's what happened to me just moments ago. I'm in the grassy tundra near Whiterun and i decided to go mammoth hunting.
I see a big one in the distance so i ready my bow and loose my arrow at the perfect possible height for it to land dead center in the beast.
Only when the arrow reaches its destination it doesn't harm the animal, the mammoth isn't even bothered in the slightest. I tried adjusting my shot 20 times getting closer each time without fail the arrow just seemed to pass through my quarry.
Only when I was 100-150 feet from the giant did my arrows hit there mark. I find myself appalled that there is such a short limit on how far you can engage enemies with your bow and arrow.
Could this be a glitch or technical bug perhaps? For if it isn't I think I will be highly disappointed in this limitation, in recent memory never has Bethesda had such a limit on ranged combat.
I hope this issue can be resolved quickly for I know i'm not the only person whom takes pride in taking extreme sniper shots in Oblivion, and had hopes of doing this in Skyrim.

Thoughts?

You on PC or console?

I'm on the Xbox 360 console should it make a difference?

It shouldn't make a difference, but on the PC you can edit the distance before your arrow disappears.

It cant be a memory issue that we console owners have for...OMG our arrows going farther than 100-150 feet lol thats ridiculous

Weird, on my Xbox as long as the target is in render distance I can hit it, try going to your settings and check out your graphical settings. Start playing around with them and see what you can do, that's my only suggestion.

nope no such setting for the Xbox

Yeah it does, the PC's draw distance is just a little bit better then ours
Anyway, there is a minor bug that occurs to me every once and a while where I can be 15 feet from my target and the arrow passes right through as if they where a ghost, I think it's caused by everything not loading into frame fast enough because if you wait a second or two you will then be able to land a shot
Also in situations like yours it could be that the NPC is in frame but out of your draw distance just enough that they aren't really there. If you want to know the upper limit to your draw distance all you need to do is find a target ( non hostile perferably ) and walk either towards them until they show up in your line of sight, or walk away from them until they just disappear without using zoom, usually around 200 feetish ( in game ) away.

What type of Xbox are you on and how much memory is left on it?

I'm disappointed if engaging a group of enemies from a distance isn't really "at a distance" it would be more effective to just rush in with a sword and beat on it like a caveman untill dies.

I have the Slim with 100 Gb left of free space.

Consoles draw distance was changed with one of the first patches that had " memory optimization " in it, it seems that it has been shortened by a bit from what I remember before the patches.

It's not that bad( unless something is wrong with your game,bug maybe ) the draw distance is around 200 feet( give or take ).

If thats true it seems to be de-optimizing the gameplay experience more than making it more memory friendly to consoles.

200 feet is not that bad if you run a Berserker type character, but for those whom rely on ranged combat almost 90-100% of the time like myself it poses a problem for long to semi long ranged engagements.

Yeah the slim is going to have a bit of trouble rendering skyrim fully, but if it does annoy you long enough (which it probably won't) you can always make a nice, cheap,mand effective gaming pc.

Same problem , same location and same mammoth, on 360 to . range svcks but cross bows will be much worse

I feel like we're getting short handed a little here, if we could only get a projectile distance option in our settings it would solve the issue entirely but i doubt anyone who has pull in this category of Bethesda will ever see this thread.

I might as well tape arrows to a sword >.<

I noticed this in one of their patches *1.3 or 1.4?* and had to stop playing on my Khajiit... It kinda ruined Archery game play for me

I have the 360 slim and I havn't had any problems with my archery. I also sneak while sniping large groups so I can hide and move around. I also use the zoom. I can't remember but maybe there is something on the skill tree you need?

you weren't shooting very far away then, height doesn't seem to factor into the limitation as much as pure horizontal distance.

I just checked and didn't see anything on the skill tree that would make a difference. Zooming is the only thing that might help.

There is a certain distance after which the arrow doesn't register hits. It just flies trough the target and hits the ground behind it. On consoles this can't be helped, PC users can change an ini setting to increase the distance.

I don't have any problems with my xbox either,if I can see a target I can hit it,so long as my aim is accurate.

What do you mean by pure horizontal distance?

Really?!?

I ran into what the OP was talking about when I tried an archer character. I was taking shots much farther that I would've on my warrior, especially shots over a river so the bear wouldn't attack me. I would love to extend that projectile range.

Would you or anyone else show me how, please?

I am usually around 200 ft away when I can. cant quite get that distance when in a dungeon. But I was picking guys off from one wall to the other lengthwise across fort greenwald without problem. Had to lead them and aim higher but like you said height isn't as major of a factor.

Add to \My Documents\My Games\Skyrim\Skyrim.ini the following:

[Actor]fVisibleNavmeshMoveDist=12288.0000

(If the [Actor] headin exist already, add the line below it.).