The problem is that nearly all the enemies have skulls. Its like every quest has me going to some area with dudes with skulls near the objective.
I think I have noticed this too. There was a quest I tried as a lower level, the recovery of the factory parts quest. Everything was a skull there, and even getting on a perch, I was wasting arrows. Now they don’t have skulls and my ranged attacks actually do decent damage. I am still using the same weapon as before.