If we want to balance Range vs. Melee then ranged MUST require standing still

I can only comment about the archery side of ranged.
I think archery as it is only needs careful adjustments, there is no need nor room for major nerfing. Adjustments could include, but not be limited to:

• Strength. My pet peeve. Are longbows drawn using holy spirit or something? At the moment, they apparently are, judging from the minimal role of strength. Yes one can shoot a trick bow with just dexterity, but one should not be able to even draw a heavy warbow without some strength. Archers are not weaklings -- if you want to be one, you should invest in both strength and dexterity, not just dexterity. The opportunity cost should be considerable.
  
• Shooting while moving -- the subject of this thread. Already there appear to be adjustments in place, even now no archer likes to shoot while moving, if she does it is only to distract the chasing enemy. Real shots are always shot while standing still (good luck with that against a wolf pack). But yes, probably it should be even more heavily penalized. But only by adjusting, tuning, fine-tuning. More focus loss, diminished attack skill, less damage.
• Armor penalties. I think a well crafted chain mail is ok for archery, yes it is quite heavy but it does not prevent movement like a stiff plate (which is quite insane to be even allowed to be used with a bow). It appears that armor penalties have not been implemented yet in the game (there is a single placeholder entry in the Character Stats). I hope that when they do get implemented, some common sense is applied. Archers are not mages.
• Counters. Shield skills, tower shields, dodging skills, attacks reducing accuracy and movement. Covers. You name it. There will be a lot of these to come.
  
• Damage distribution. To my mind archery should not be a Steady DPS sport. It should embrace chaos and uncertainty -- low median damage, but high criticals.

I suspect part of the problem is that right now there is an over-abundance of skill points, which does not really force anyone to make hard choices regarding specialization. Add to that the fact that most of the counters are yet to be implemented, so archery may indeed seem annoyingly overpowered, or just annoying, depending on the release.

I too am looking forward to the introduction of horseback archery. Here's a nice video showing some, in addition to comparing the English longbow and the Mughal composite shortbow.

 

As a mage, I will stand there, toe to toe with you as a melee, trading blows/spells if my magic did as much damage as your melee (which it currently doesn't but will hopefully be adjusted), my cloth armor protects me as well as your plate, your abilities have a chance of fizzling and being interrupted and the focus used for both attacks and spells were on par.

Well, I don't PvP but if I did and all that was even, I would be there.

Personally, I just don't think it is reasonable to state that casters and archers have to stand and let the melee get up to them to make it fair. You have to find a way to either close the gap or slow them or something. If there aren't enough options then that may need to be adjusted by the devs but telling range players they can't play range because it isn't balanced isn't valid.

Don't get me wrong, I am fine with having some spells have cast times and forcing the caster or archer to stop for a second to cast the spell as long as the melee have to do the same thing and both types, melee and range have ways of getting away or closing the distance.

It is still pretty early and hopefully, with the changes to the use based gain on skills (which I LOVE), things can be balanced as we go.

 

In this first screenshot I'm standing still. Please note my Attack Skill and Fizzle Chance:



In this next screenshot I'm moving. Again, note my Attack Skill and Fizzle Chance:



A pretty significant hit, especially to Attack Skill. I think that ranged combat is fine as it is and further nerfs are not needed.

 

would say higher focus cost, cous you would get exhausted when you allways running and try to hit somthing.

 

Only Sith deal in absolutes...

 

I like the idea of a variant "friendly fire" that does not harm your allies (to avoid griefing) - If another player would be hit by the friendly fire, the spell fizzles or the arrow misses. People would be careful where they throw an area attack to avoid wasting focus with a fizzle, but still cannot grief others by damaging them. Also, friendly aoe heals could heal foes if they are caught in the radius. There is no reason we have to make aoe easy use material, and no reason we cannot have friends block our arrow shots if we implement such rules. More planning to coordinated efforts without the potential for griefing

 

A point of emphasis, not a point of no return I assure you.

 

I see the point for PVP.

But honestly, in PVE, many mobs close so quickly that ranged skills might as well be melee skills unless one does run.

Take away running, take away much fun of shooting at range. Fix that, and maybe ranged is fixed.

 

Moving while using ranged attacks are supposed to be giving you notable penalties, but there have been new things to come in since that was implimented, like skill-level and freehand fizzle reduction, and dexterity'sincreased affect on archery. If the penalties have become outwieghed by other benifits, then the penalties should be increasedor changed, but still allow for some ability to use ranged attacks on the move

 

some of the most fun i ever had with archery as a skill in a game was guild wars 2. because of two reasons.

first - no ammo required. i was always of the impresssion that there should be specialty ammo for specialty shots t hat do utility type things like snare, or firebombing or something like that. but the basic shots and first tier skills simply shouldn't require ammo. bringing this to sota, i think it would require a quiver that weighs between 15 and 35 pounds, and some higher-quality player created quivers could incorporate certain types of ammo, like bolo arrows, so those specialty arrows don't need to be carried either.. of course they'd weigh more, but they'd also be able to have stats on the quiver itself, like buffs based on the materials used to craft it. - as an added layer, if you do have generic ammo, i think it should just make your skills hit for more damage, and have much less of a miss chance at early levels...just don't make it required to carry. - heck, maybe a quiver is required to use tier2 skills. i could deal with that too, as long as a tailor is the one that makes the quivers, while they have to go to a smith to use X amount of arrows as an ingredient for the quiver.

second - movement. we've all seen the videos, so i won't post any here. but movement is essential for that. standing still is just dumb, unless if you are a novice at the skill because it requires so much concentration...etc. and then later on, as your skill raises you can move slowly until expert level you can full-out run with it too. - i think that goes for all skills and spells. for proper combat, movement is imperitive.