After participating in this discussion for a while and making some reflections while playing the game more, i've realized a few things.
Since this discussion began some 2 months ago, the game has undergone constant changes and patches. and many things have not been the same. any testing done before any major patch is basically useless data since the game is still evolving.
with that said there's a few things i've noticed:
-infantry troops have had an shield overhaul. many units have upgraded shield size, level and durability
-Ai drop shield to give free shots occur much less frequently and for shorter durations
-Archer units have had bow overhaul, higher tier troops with better bows and lower tier with worse, their damage has been balanced.
-Arrows do less damage to my character in high tier6 armor, compared to 2 months ago there's a huge difference.
-Cavalry ai have been improved, they hit harder and are more accurate, their ability to stay grouped improved
after all these changes, archer's effectiveness has been hampered greatly and even if they were op before they aren't anymore.
Staying grouped doesn't really help the cavalry. Pre-1.4.1, their scattershot approach meant archers had to pick out individual targets, which hurt their accuracy quite a bit. They also spent more time in melee-mode, with swords drawn, due to one or two cavalry constantly riding by. It also means that cavalry in the second and third ranks don't have as much opportunity to land a thrust or couched lance, due to length vs. space consideration.
I can't say I've noticed much change in the shield raising behavior, but I admit I haven't been paying close attention at any point.
But with all that in mind, i'd like to briefly talk about the whole notion of "archers being op". fact is, in real life, they are OP, because Range > Melee
...
-archers in battles used volleying as a tactic allowing their range to improve upto 500m, they would be covering an area in arrows rather than aiming at anything in particular, this allowed gradual wearing down of the advancing forces from multiple battalions of archers at different angles
-the english longbow were accurate at upto 200m, even the mongol horse archers had accuracies of 50-100m while moving, guns at best had an average accuracy of 100m, but the firepower is on another level.
-heavy cavalry stopped being effective due to guns ability to penetrate even plate armor, but the unarmored light cavs still proved effective with their amazing mobility utilizing shock tactics even in the age of rifles and cannons
The above information came from years of interest in the topics of historic warfare, there shouldn't be inaccuracies but if you can site credible sources disputing my point, you are welcome to point it out.
from analysing above data, we can conclude:
projectiles has always been a concern for cavalry, hence the need for armor and it's constant upgrades and sufficient firepower will take out cavalry, even from existing in the first place since they get countered so damn hard.
1. Volley firing was probably atypical in the Middle Ages, as near as anyone can tell. What makes it stand out more prominently than sources support is that there were a few battles, fought by one kingdom, where it figured into the outcome. And those battles were/are assumed to be typical when they were anything but. Also, 500 meters is extreme range for a medieval English warbow. Current champion shooters don't get that far using specialized flight arrows.
2. Handheld firearms, past early types, were considered more accurate, longer-ranged and more lethal than bows by fighting men of the 15th and 16th centuries. That was the reason for the pike-and-shot era coming about and existing for as long as it did, while there was never really an equivalent attempt with crossbows in Europe. In China massed crossbows experienced a lot of waxes and wanes as far field battles were concerned, each time being overcome by more mobile cavalry tactics, and never reached the ascendance of pike-and-shot combined arms in the European mold.
3. Heavy cavalry as in "armored" did decline once contemporary firearms could reliably punch through something like munitions plate, but heavy cavalry as in "shock action" stayed a relevant battlefield arm for centuries after shedding most of their armor. It took several generations of innovation, both technical and tactical, before you saw up with complete firepower dominance of the battlefield, close to four hundred years after the Middle Ages.
If you look to contemporary 14th century sources such as Froissart, the impression the English made wasn't just using longbows but also their lances, afoot. When a bunch of HYW veterans started marauding all over Italy as the White Company, one of the best observations noted thusly:
Azario: They had very large lances with very long iron tips. Mostly two, sometimes three of them, handled a single lance so heavy and big that there was nothing it would not penetrate. Behind them, toward the posterior of the formation, were the archers, with great bows which they held from their head to the ground and from which they shot great and long arrows.
Essentially, the English deployed as pikemen, using lances with armor-piercing tips, and archers to the rear. This was not a new innovation either and, if you can do a little reading between the lines of Froissart, readily noticeable in prior accounts of the English tactical system. But just as it didn't start with the English (it was the Scottish schiltron being assisted by Welsh yew longbow archery), it didn't end with them either. The Swiss started hiring out cantons of trained and drilled pikemen, which led to devastating results on a battlefield where drilled professional soldiers were a scarce military resource. As the Middle Ages ended, it was pikemen who were dominant over the European battlefield -- sometimes supported by firearms, but also sometimes not. Gunpowder was fantastically expensive in that era, while bows and crossbows were increasingly ineffective against common issue armor of the day.
But everyone wanted Swiss or German mercenaries, drilled in the use of pikes, when they went to war in Europe.
All this to say that medieval combined-arms were far from "Ranged > Melee."