Antaeus
Squire
People don't agree with your assessment, that's why they bring up other things.For all the people saying things like:
"The problem is not ranged units... The problem is just armor"
"The problem is the AI"
"The problem is that high tier units re useless against lower tier units"
"Armor is totally useless!!!!"
etc...
Armor is OK in melee in my view (except against these big weapons which are able to do too much damage), and the only problem with armor is that it should give more protection against ranged units.
Certainly I don't agree with your assessment. I have no problem with archers downing men in mail. I dare you to stand in front of an archer at 50 metres in lamellar or mail, and let someone fire off a few rounds at you. No you wouldn't do that, because it would be suicidal.
So I don't think the arrows are the problem - or at least the main problem.
I think our inability to target enemy formations is a problem - so cavalry can't be directed at archers, instead you issue charge orders and hope the go there - this makes them ineffective at covering ground and susceptible to archer fire. They stop and reform, or just run off in all directions to be picked off. Instead of charging in a mass. The ability to issue specific attack orders would help a lot (there are plenty of threads about this)
Secondly, we're out of balance in our time periods. Our bows and crossbows are about 300 years too early relative to the armour they face. A longbow with bodkin or renaissance era crossbow should be paired with early plate. These weapons in game do appropriate damage to the armour they face. A renaissance era crossbow is lethal to a man in mail. Weapons and armour are in a constant race, and in Bannerlord, we've jumped the weapons a few centuries ahead of armour that would aid in defending against it. Perhaps rather than nerfing bows or adjusting armour values, we just add another tier of armour above the top lamellar - like a selection of early plate armours. That way we wouldn't need to mess with any values which are appropriate relative to the types of weapons they're facing.