AlphaMoist

It takes far more than 30 seconds of google searching for you to get accurate results regarding these sorts of things. Historical inaccuracies plague these kinds of topics, and you have to dig deep in order to come up with real answers. 
 

Contrary to popular belief, bodkins were not the go to plate armor penetration tool for the experienced archer, @UnBaed No hard point bodkins have ever been found in order to make this possible. However through testing, it has been shown that they were rather effective at punching through mail, and, historically, bodkins points were used against lightly armored foes, so that makes sense. However, they were rarely used, if at all, against opponents in steel plate. In fact, the only reason bodkins existed in the first place was because they were cheep and designed to fly farther than standard arrows. 

Steel Plate armor worked. It was extremely difficult to tear through. It was reasonably lightweight, and the chainmail, gambeson, and everything else that came with it proved to make it rather meaningless to target the armored parts of your opponent in the first place. 

For more information regarding how the most commonplace longbow, with a draw strength of 180 pounds, using the most commonplace arrow for infantry, fared against the most commonplace steel plate armor during the time period, you can watch this video here. It’s rather informative. 

this is why we need flintlocks.

Yes I am aware that common bows cannot pierce steel armor but you gave an extremely generalized statement that is objectively wrong