Okay so here's the deal: I don't see archers beyond PvP.
There are some obvious reasons for that: low defenses, we are generally a soloist server, sacrificing a shield slot leaves them prone to IGMs, ammunition is a b***h to micro-manage, and the Arcane Archer class pretty much make bows the only viable ranged weapon at level 40.
Now, I don't mind seeing archers as the best ranged characters; and I like Arcane Archers as they are, I really wouldn't change a thing about them (but if you have some brilliant idea on how to improve them, by all means, discuss it here). It would be nice to provide alternatives however, say throwing axes or darts as a secondary weapon to a sword & shield fighter.
So here's what I propose...
1) Droppable/Purchasable ammunition generators in addition to dropping stacks of ammunition. Stacks of ammunition have their place; example: Ancient Arrows; you don't want people running around with a billion shots of uber-destruction, but 1-10 shots is okay if they work for it. I think that things could be greatly improved if we had ammunition generators however. Here's how I'd make them work:
1 use/day the generator runs a script that checks itself for 3 variables, 1 is the arrow type (which arrows it will generate, default being blank arrows so you can tell something is wrong if the arrows are just arrows), 2 is the amount of stacks carried, 3 is the size of each stack.
So for this system, really good arrows could be generated in a stack of 1-2 arrows once/day; if someone wanted 99 of these that would be a lot of resting. Mid-level handaxes could be generated in 1 full stack of 50, etc.
2) A purchasable (100 GP or something cheap) ammunition remover. Unlimited Uses/day, this remover would scan through the user's inventory and get each type of ammunition they are carrying - scan it to get the appropriate generator and begin setting variables and removing the ammunition. It would store 1 additional variable on the aforementioned generator which is how many arrows of that type the user had in their inventory. When the generator is fired later, it would generate the size/stacks appropriate as normal, but it will also add the bonus arrows that were stored by the ammunition remover (and then set that bonus variable to 0!) and generate enough stacks to evenly divide the total number of arrows across (without exceeding 99).
Non-generator ammunition it would just leave alone.
If you just read that and didn't understand what I mean; here's what happens in short.
You have ammunition generators (1use/day or more), and a single ammunition remover (unlimited uses/day). Ammunition generators create a certain amount of ammunition appropriate to the individual generator. An ammunition remover gathers all the ammunition in your inventory, next time you generate arrows of that type you will get additional arrows and all the arrows you had before.
So what it all means is that we have a relatively low-lag method of managing inventory space and ammunition; you won't find yourself picking and choosing over which arrows you want to use as much because you can get a certain amount/day and not have to worry about farming an area forever and a day just to get the best arrows; you don't have to worry about switching to the wrong ammunition type during combat if only 1 or 2 types of ammunition is available for use in your inventory.
Opinions? I don't see this getting too out of hand, and it could have maximums and defaults to avoid abuse/exploitation if it's possible.
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