Yes, I've seen many videos of arrows vs armors tests. Some arrows can go through the armor, and most of them leave a deep mark on the armor. The power of arrows depends on many factors, the distance, what kind of arrow head, the draw weight of the bow, what kind of bow, and what kind of armor. Now imagine hundreds or thousands of arrows hitting your armor repeatedly on the battlefield because that's what happened in real life. Archers back then could draw much stronger bows. It only takes one arrow out of five hundreds of them to cause serious injure and given the medical technology at that time, you will probably die of infection later.
Archers generally carried between 30-70 arrows, circumstances depending. You can probably find exceptions, especially in accounts of Mongol archers carrying three quivers of sixty each (!) but having those split between their heavy, armor-piercing arrows, much lighter flight arrows and other specialist types. So hundreds or thousands of arrows actually hitting your (individual) armor would imply of dozens or hundreds of archers, shooting at you, specifically your person. That's patently ridiculous on it's face.
More to the point, arrows were not in limitless supply. The Battle of Carrhae was exceptional in that regard, which is part of the reason the Romans were caught out by it. Under the same circumstances, they previously relied on the horse archers eventually exhausting their supply of arrows then continued on in good order. Other armies, in other battles at other times, only had to contend with archery (and I'm not saying they were perfectly immune or that it wasn't a deeply unpleasant experience) for as long as the arrows held out. And under the most vicious arrow storm, that wouldn't be for long.
So yes, if only one arrow in five hundred caused a serious injury then I would say that armor is effective against arrows. Or even less; if you had to put a dozen arrows in someone to cause a serious injury, due to the armor, I would still say armor was effective (either that or they had God or Allah on their side).
It's funny that many people like you talk about armor can just protect against all arrows, but refuse to actually wear one and let ten people shoot at you. Because given your logic, you should be completely safe correct?
WTF? Because I don't actually live in the middle ages and what was a necessary risk for them is totally unnecessary for me. I also wore full battle-rattle and ducked on the grenade range when the odds of actually get struck by a fragment were like one in a thousand if I stood straight up.
Arrows acting like bullets in this game, are you joking? I'm not going to correct that because you should look up what bullets are.
I am completely serious: tactically, the arrows in this game act more like bullets because they can reliably cause enough casualties to make melee superfluous. That wasn't as much a thing in medieval times, short of woefully unprepared opponents. Instead archery was used to disrupt, cause morale failure, restrict freedom of action and offer one plank of a combined arms platform. But the melee was still important.
That's why the Mongols had a 2:3 ratio of lancers to horse archers, why the Battles of Poitiers, Crecy and Agincourt all ended in melees, why Parthians employed cataphracts even during the horse archer dunkfest that was Carrhae.
Those funny naked troops(ulfneder or somethings) would get destroyed by any army in real life. So I don't think it is bows that need nerfing.
You would have to look hard to find someone around here who hates the bare-chested ulfhednars more than I do. That **** is completely stupid. But they die like flies in Bannerlord.