As others have said, the early bows have quite a lot of drop to the arrows. Think for a moment- if you're using wooden arrows, they don't even have fletching! Of course they're going to suck. As for mob archers, they don't always hit. Their arrows are easily sidestepped if you wait until they shoot.

i was hoping for the ability to pick and choose your moment for using bows and arrows, it's not really a skill to be rushed, it should take a little time, it should be perfect with sneaking around. Unfortunately when you pull the string you immediately come out of sneaking and imminently visible to everything in the immediate area although it might take your target a second or two and by the time you line up the target will be moving around unless you're far enough away.

it would have been nice if you can stay in sneak mode when using a bow, allow the inexperienced user to build up with no major fuss at closer range. The crude bow isn't exactly the most accurate device in your weapons list and at distance, even if you lined up the shot right and the trajectory, the arrow could end up landing next to the target and spooking it potentially.

I found the easiest way to kill deer is by charging at them whiole they are running to close the distance and quickly drawing and picking a moment in a split second and landing hits on them. however with all that stated, i'd rather sneak around with a flint axe in hand and killing them from behind in one hit instead as it's just a lot more easier, more reliable and the situation is completely in your hands.

As for birds, well they either take off or take off into the ground, either way they are very quick and it requires a lot more than an inexperienced hand with a crude bow, even an experienced hand might struggle because the detection range of the bird is pretty good and moves quickly. i'd rather scavenge through ruined huts around the meadows for feathers in crates than waste time on that.

Everything shoots in an arc, it's just shallow enough to ignore at some ranges and speeds. Are you looking for hitscan arrows?

Originally posted by SilverSpeedy:

I have max upgrade fine bow

I haven't the last ugrade (requires T4 workbench iirc). This bow shoots just fine. I can hit mobs at max rendition range (on first or third try). It's quite easy because the target never gets alerted by a grazing miss.

Perhaps best bows are more like rifles with sights?

Pretty much everything you said can be summed up to inexperience. Stick with it, it gets easier once you figures things out.

Originally posted by wizard_of_woz:

Pretty much everything you said can be summed up to inexperience. Stick with it, it gets easier once you figures things out.

So when you fire a arrow from a bow, does go straight or arc? This is game but shooting a bow at close range never have arc. Over distance every falls down or have arc, meaning long distance. Even Skyrim firing a bow at close range does not have arc. Does have arc at a long distance but not short. For Skyrim I usually dead on for hitting my targets unless very long range. Telling me if you are higher than your target you have to aim for there feet in order to hit them.
So when a baseball pitch throws a fast ball, it does not drop off and land on the ground in front of the player from distance after aim for the catchers glove.

I have played other games with bows....Horizon Dawn Zero on ultra hard mode. That is pure bow base game. Skyrim with normal or magical bows...other elder scroll games. Outward and Witcher series. All have bows in the game.

Each bow upgrade improves things quite a bit.

I find backing up and firing at the enemy...drawing them into a straight line pursuit with me is the best way to ensure a hit.

Check out Better Archery. Fixes this and makes bows more interesting and customizeable: https://www.nexusmods.com/valheim/mods/348

I personally don't think anything needs to be "fixed" a crude bow should shoot...crudely.

Once you're rocking a Draugr fang there is not much to complain about.

Originally posted by Gunther Ultrabolt Novacrunch:

I personally don't think anything needs to be "fixed" a crude bow should shoot...crudely.

Once you're rocking a Draugr fang there is not much to complain about.

Pretty much. I can hit ♥♥♥♥ with the draugr at the edge of visibility (compensating for drop, obviously)

I have max upgrade fine bow, have not found any sunken crypts so far. Only iron I found was from a gray ooze.

Even with 100 bow skill, and the best bow upgraded it will still shoot in a slight arc since that is exactly what happens in archery, it's not a bullet, it's working as intended.

A crude bow shoots crudely, get your skills up, upgrade your bows, and keep going, you will get the hang of things.

Shooting down at things does have a bit of an issue. The more vertical the odder it gets.

Just something to get used to. The enemies who dodge your shots you just missed. That comes with the territory of shooting a moving target with a projectile.