The Elder Scrolls XIV: Good? Bad? I'm the one with the Thu'um!

[veti]

I thought that was a statement about what's in Skyrim, not the real world?

In the real world, there are short bows (used by native americans, and everybody else before the middle ages), and long bows (in europe from the middle ages onward), then variants on the longbow. In Skyrim they are all shortbows that behave more or less like longbows.

Not so, Skyrim has two very clearly different types of bow. The early game, weak bows have a significant drop in the arrow's flight. Later bows, like glass, ebony or nordic, don't. (Though dragonbone may be an exception.)

It's not a continuum. Every bow is defined as either fast or slow, and all bows of the same type apply an identical trajectory and range to their arrows. (Yes, I've actually spent time testing this.)