You'll be pleased to know all that bow stuff is there, and you don't need to screw around mid-battle in your inventory screen to switch bows. It's all in your skill tree now, and you can equip up to eight skills and level those up as you level up. A couple of skills make your weapons fire and poison, I don't remember if that affects your bow too, but you'll later find bows that are permanently fire/poison anyway. The skills use your adrenaline bar which goes up as you fight.Can I ask a question of AC vets please. I think I'm about 15 hours into this. In Origins, there were bows that were effectively rapid fire machine guns. They made bows really valid options in medium range combat. So far in this I've seen nothing like that. Are the quick fire bows a thing of the past?
Also the combat feels really unsatisfying so far - hammer light until they flash, then counter. Enemies are damage sponges despite doing my best to level up. Any tips for getting the most out of combat?
For combat, tweak your level scaling and difficulty. The default scaling on Normal is -2 and Hard is -1. I prefer playing on Hard at -2, which makes regular enemies less spongey while keeping mercs and bosses a challenge. If you're on Normal maybe go to -3 or -4. Be sure to equip a secondary weapon too, as you get all the perks from it passively.