CoD kids, what? Sneak archer is hella fun. There is the challenge of getting a sneak bonus and aiming correctly, and once you get a few perks they never know what hit them. I combine it with Aura Whisper which almost makes it too easy. But even then, it takes some strategy and skill.

Also the archery skill tree does a good job making significant changes to the mechanics... making it a really fun skill to develop.

p.s. The Sheild Bash perks apply to the bow

He has gone from merely stretching it to full blown quartering it with war stallions at full gallop in four directions.

Cod was something you used to caught and bbq back when I was rolling the D20 for THAC0 to drop goblins with my ranger's +1 bow.

I have no idea how the OP managed equal bow users with call of duty players, but I take offense at that one.

Archery makes me feel that my character is more powerful than she actually is. That's the point of stealth, anyway, isn't it?

Sneaking and getting a shot (and backstabbing, too) feels like an accomplishment. I find stealth very fun and rewarding. I like thieves, that;s it.

I was once a CoD player and really, my liking of archery in RPG games is not connected to anything CoD. Nor I think is yours.

If it's anything that reminds me of fps, that is destruction magic. A ranged skill complementary to melee is a necessity in Skyrim against draons, magic users and whenever you cannot send a character safely in the open to rush one or a group of enemies. Archery in Skyrim is stat driven so NPC can continue fighting with an arrown in the head or die by an arrow in the knee.

I'm too blind and lacking in reflexes to play stuff like CoD. I've always liked bows. In Oblivion and Skyrim they're great. In addition to it being hilarious to send a guy face first into his dinner, they're also useful as tools. They were a convenient way to collect welkynd stones, shoot objects somewhere I might steal them, etc. I haven't found so many uses for them in Skyrim yet, but they're still extremely fun. In Morrowind they weren't as fun because of the simple physics and in Daggerfall they were terrible.


They don't auto-correct. They simply shoot at a set angle higher than where you aim. This causes them to hit where the crosshairs are pointing at a certain range. If you're playing on PC there's a line in one of the ini files controlling the angle. Setting that to zero causes it to behave as you could expect. Ask in one of the ini threads. If you're on console you're sadly out of luck there.

I must admit I quite like archery. It appeals because I don`t have to use all the handholds with it and feel i really am aiming myself at something. I got rid of the crosshairs and all that and simply aim by eye. now of course, I`m a warrior and archery is my secondary fallback, so I don`t hit often which is why I tend to take positions where I cannot be reached before attacking. Then I spend lots of time just aiming and firing again and again until something dies.

With patience I`ve pretty much got my aim just right. Enough to get by.

a) There is a sense of visceral fun about it. Draw arrow... wait... wait.. aim... YEAH!

b ) For mine, there's the sense of enjoyment that was SOOOOO missing in Oblivion, where I could pump 40 arrows into a minotaur and... he yawns them off.

Archery in skyrim is useful, unlike in oblivion. Arrows travel slowly, unlike the instant bullet.

IF you use parry you don't need archery to kill dragon or magic user, specially dragon are so weak to master difficult from start to "finish"

This, backstab require high sneak as you has to get close, at lower levels it's no problem getting sneak attacks with bows. Add that enemy mages and at higher levels archers do devastating ranged attacks and it's an good idea to shoot back.
Never played CoD, no idea who was the last shooter I played unless fallout counts.
Archery is very powerful if you improve your weapon and use skill enchants, solution is to turn up dificulty, however this make enemies more lethal as your armor skill is low because of lack of hits.

Ask an alcoholic why they drink, a smoker why they smoke or a druggie why they take drugs? Answer usually is "dunno!" or "i need a hit!". Well, why is archery so appealing?...."I Dunno!", but whenever i go on skyrim looking for that "hit", i'll grab my bow!!

It's an addiction and i pity any elk or deer trotting around the plains of Whiterun!!

Really... just... really? I mean... REALLY?! It's just that..... REALLY?!?!?!

Kids coming from COD? *scratches head*

It's probably the most well done combat mechanic, imo.

Although, I've always enjoyed archery in TES. It's the closest I can get to a Thief replacement (here's hoping a new Thief game comes out btw, seeing that Deus Ex was successful).

I'm a Brit too, is that law real? Dis-continued or just one of those silly little laws that never get enforced? Cos if it's the law, then I have a good reason to start learning archery.

I have had a few goes on bows when I was younger, but Skyrim makes me want to learn it properly. ;p

I'll have to look into buying myself a bow and some arrows from somewhere, I guess they are sold in good sports shops? (Like where they sell rifles and that)
I wonder if there is anywhere you can go to train my archery level from a trainer? (IRL just worded it Skyrimmy for lulz)

Expect a thread in about a week titled "My neighbour took an arrow in the knee!".

Good thing is, it's fairly accessible as far as practicing goes. You don't need much. Unlike a sword. There's only so many spare corpses lying around that you can test on.

Y`know when i`m holding the bow, I do keep thinking, `Shouldn`t my hand be shaking form holding this bow so long?`

And then I remember that it was the game Thief where your hand shook if you held the bow too long. I thought it was a nice touch, would`ve liked it in Skyrim.

This, very much this

I like melee fighting, but I also like archery a lot, if it's well designed. And I don't come from CoD or anything similar.

Right now I'm playing a sneaky archer, with light armour, so my tactic basically is to approach enemies without being seen and try to kill them before they get too near. That's why my Light armor skill is low, because I barely get hit with this char. And as I don't use any alchemy, smithing or enchanting, the game is still challenging and fun, because tought enemies need a good sneak / archery tactic, while I still feel the power of my skill and perks with normal enemies.

What I'm not going to do is use archery when I create a melee warrior. I will completely ignore the bow (and sneaking). It will require a different tactic and situation approach. But right now, as an archer, I'm loving it.

Why I love archery so much? Because I can sneak slowly even in open areas, watch my enemies from the distance, think about how to do the attack, check how many of them they are, where they are, and pick a good place to launch my first attack from the distance that also is good for keep hidden and continue bringing them down.

I must say that I play with the cross completely disabled, meaning that I don't have a dot telling me where the arrow is going to land, and I don't even have the "sneak eye", so I don't know if someone noticed me or not while in sneak mode. Also, I can't see the enemies on the compass, so it's all up to what I see on my screen (first person view). It's not much, but it makes it a bit more fun to play.

I shoot a recurve bow at my local archery club so it has a certain appeal to me.

I try not to fire my destruction spells at my local Magic club as it'd worry the geeks (MTG club)

Sorry but this is not the most intellectual comparison. People playing CoD has nothing to do with archery in TES V. Also the fact that it is NOT only kids playing CoD, I am 45 and I have played a few of the series along with other advlts I know.

I like archery because you can see the result of your attack. You can oneshot the enemies of you can fill em with arrows depending on their strength. If you had this sort of visual feedback for the other attack types it would.be awesome. It would be great to see the slashes and squirting blood from dagger and sword attacks and smouldering burn marks from lightning attacks, but unfortunately current gen hardware does not have the grunt to implement this. Pc only dev may have been able to pull it off but pc dev is not seen as a priority with any of the major software houses at the moment unfortunately.

Never played any of the CoD series myself, but it seems to me that, if Skyrim has a run-and-gun skill, it's got to be Destruction, not Archery.


Yes, massively so! My greatest, most memorable Skyrim moment isn't a dragon or any of the set pieces. It's not even quest-related. Just the normal bandits who hang out in the towers with the bridge over the river east of Whiterun. I was passing by on my way to wherever and saw that they'd come back since I last passed by, then sighed and pulled out my bow. The lookout on top of the tower was clearly visible, silhouetted against the sky as I dropped into a crouch and lined up my shot. It was a long-range shot - he didn't even appear as tall as the head of my arrow in my view - but I didn't bother using Eagle Eye to zoom in on him, I just aimed carefully, adjusted for distance, and let fly.

And then I watched his body fall from the roof, and fall, and fall for what seemed like a triumphant eternity before landing on the ground behind the tower.

It`s real and was enforced for a very long time. It`s why our Longbow men got the reputation around Europe they deserved.

Have you been practising your archery, young man?

Actually you don`t have to do it any more today of course.

I liek fraggnig n stuff lol!!1

Nice troll, CoD. Archery doesn't belong to a med-fan world right? Only magic, sure.
Actually, Destruction magic is by definition more appealing to kids. Keyword : destruction. You won't blow up stuff with Archery, that's for sure.

The reason to use Archery for most of players is that sneak + archery works very well, so once tried players follow the archery path. And there's also more personal reasons like the very mechanism of a bow, its history, hunting...