I'm pretty sure anyone that's played an archer will think the same, and find it really infuriating when an enemy dodges your arrow at light speed by strafing to the sides (did i mention they move SUPER fast when they do it?). I wouldn't have a problem with it if they didn't do it with arrows, i mean geez... it's not like arrows are hard to see coming at you or anything.

The funniest part of all this is how they don't bother to dodge magic much, i tested it and about the majority of magic spells, the enemy dosn't even care to dodge, a completely visible fireball, ice spear, coming at you and you don't dodge, but an arrow that really thin, in the middle of the dark you can dodge...

Another funny thing i noticed is that... they don't care what circustance it is to dodge it... Your still hidden? Dodge it. They're fighting someone? Dodge your arrow still. Going to get a backshot while they are looking for the one that's shoting at then? Acquire a sixth sense and dodge it... I really hope they take a look into this because it's just freaking annoying, not to mention most of the time it dosn't even make sense for then to know it's coming. Please tell there's at least a mod that removes this feature...

Yeah, I quickly learned that playable ranged characters were not for me. On the other side of it: I find it pretty easy to avoid NPCs arrows, but I guess that doesn't help you.

Strafing normally is no problem really, what bugs the hell out of me is when they acquire a boost of speed and dodge to the sides.

It seems like higher level vampires do the light speed strafe. I haven't noticed mages and necromancers doing it quite as often.

I've never noticed the high-speed side-stepping, but I don't use Archery very much.

I was thinking about this today. Bandits do it a LOT. Seems to happen when you really need to land the shot. Frustrating. I found that enemies would often dodge my fireballs as a mage as well.

If only there were explosive arrows...

This happened to me last night at Fort Greenwall. The darn bandits were dodging every arrow I shot. It didn't help, of course, that it was at night and I couldn't see them as well, but I used almost 15 ebony arrows on one bandit! To make matters worse, I could only recover 2 of the arrows. *sigh**

And heat-seeking arrows ...

I guess all the call of duty i played is paying off, cuz i got very little problem with it. I don't even use a hud either.
There is the occasional dodge, but i flip into slow-mo zoom when ever i can't get them.

Yeah this annoys me a lot as an archer. I once had a wispmother who dodged like 6 shots when I was 15 feet from her. I just gave up and went to bash her with my sword. I consider myself a pretty good shot too, I can pretty easily nail most moving targets at extreme ranges. But in close with the flash-speed demon strafing it's a whole other ball game.

To add insult to injury, we can't do that.

While it always annoys me when it happens, the ones who do so while facing me are not as big a deal, since they can at least see it coming. The ones who do so when I'm way behind them and they're in the middle a fight with someone/thing else, on the other hand, really piss me off because there is no way they could possibly know they're being shot at.

Sometimes it happens even when the NPC is fully alerted but he's not facing the player, "blind fury" style . How can they do that?!?

They dodge occasionally but that's part of the fun and part of the combat.
If you hit them every time and they just stood there Oblivion-style you'd be complaining as well so...

I don't mind them dodging when they can see me. I mind when they dodge when they are facing away, and I'm hidden.

I believe there is an INI setting for this - I specifically saw the word "strafe" in a particular switchm, and the full text in the string made it pretty obvious(once you are aware of this behavior) that this setting was for the weird auto-strafe thing the NPC's do.

I wouldn't have a problem with it if it wasn't broken - NPC's FAR out of detection range will do the electric slide right out of the way of your arrow, without even changing their detection state(until the arrow hits something and they go into search mode)

It's not so much they side-strafe, it's that they do it WHILE THEY HAVEN'T EVEN DETECTED ME yet. Nor the source of the arrows that are being flung towards them.

If they strafed while we were arrow'ing each other, or if they were charging me... Then sure, yea. I can buy that because they know where they're coming from and arrows aren't exactly bullets. But when I'm sneaking? It's really, really annoying.

That's the only problem I have with it. I don't mind them dodging, especially when I can also dodge. But dodging a sneak attack should never happen. I guess they just didn't write that into the formula.

It's also not a normal dodge at all - it's like a half sidestep, half teleport and looks very unnatural. It's like their AI doesn't have the sense to dodge normally using regular movement, so this weird solution was added in that seems to be related to the player or actor's level(higher level = higher dodge chance). I would much prefer that they moved normally, and had the sense to get out of the way of a spell/arrow, rather than this random chance.

They're usually dead after the sneak attack. If they aren't, try walking backwards, making them follow, and aim just in front of where they are about to walk. For some reason, when they are moving already, the don't dodge. When standing still, they do. I make them chase me.

Right. And the PC can dodge, too, if you're quick, so all's fair in war.

And I've never seen anyone dodge a sneak attack. I would interpret that as the PC missing her shot. Again, fair is fair. Stealth archery is so overpowered that it's hardly anything to complain about.

Stealth archery is defenitly over powered if you abuse it. I cant make myself sit in the shadows and pluck someone to death, I have to stop myself cause it breaks the immersion. Get a few hits in and run.

I personally like the arrow dodge, I dont think i've noticed it when im completely hidden, but I def have when they are on alert. Only happens on high leveled npcs I think.

I wouldn't have missed, had the NPC not teleported to the side.

You probably haven't seen it happen if you consider that the PC missed as an explanation. They move so quickly it's like when another character de-syncs on an online game and teleports several feet laterally to the direction of the arrow.

NPCs already have the ability to move laterally and sometimes do in ranged fights, though it could be argued that they do this less than they should. If it is found that enemies are too easy in ranged situations, then their AI script should be updated to have them move around more, rather than implementing a random chance to teleport out of the way of an incoming arrow.

Even if stealth archery is op it's still a bs mechanic when they have no idea where I'm at but slide out of the way at warp speed. Dodging arrows during the day even if I am hidden I can buy, it's the dodging arrows at night while I'm hidden where there's no possible way they could see it coming annoys me. Frustrating as hell but I fear it's something archers are just going to have to deal with.