Yeah, I like to play fast acrobatic characters that shoots with bow and avoid close contact at all cost. Climbing is just being tactical if that's your playing style, but I don't want it to be too easy.

Imagine if http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=58dFJHJyhe4 had a bow, it would be stupid if those beasts beneath didn't run away.

Not only that, but I liked to jump over enemies while putting arrows into the tops of their heads. Apparantly we wont be able to do that anymore either. I guess people dont realise that the 'paper-rock-scissors' aspect of the game allows ranged characters advantage over melee ones. If the player in the tree comes along another ranged character or a mage/magic user, he loses his advantage.

This is an interesting topic, which theoretically has far more to debate than simply wether or not we should be able to jump on a rock and shoot stupid AI.

OT: I personally play this game like an RPG when it comes to combat. In other words, I will only "exploit" this when it makes sense. If I'm being attacked my multiple wolves, or something of the like, I will gladly climb a rock and rain archer hell upon them. In reality, a pack of hungry/angry wolves probably wouldn't run away, they would continue to growl at you and wait for you to come down. In the real world, they wouldn't run until they'd taken 2 or 3 arrows. In ES, it can sometimes take like 10 arrows to kill a wolf, which is why it SEEMS unrealistic for them to just stay there. The unrealistic aspect in ES is that it takes so many arrows to fell an enemy. It takes so many arrows for...BALANCE. So I input the realism back, by exploiting the rock. I don't do this against human/intelligent enemies, as it simply isn't realistic.

OFFTopic: If we are talking about exploits that remove realism from the game, then we should be talking about the item-dupe glitches. Obviously it's not realistic at ALL to have item-duping in the game, but due to Oblivion's levelling system, I abused the hell out of it. I LIKE being able to (eventually) completely overpower any enemy in the game. In Oblivion that was only possible by using the CE strip glitch, which was only REALLY viable by item duping. Should they remove it? IMO, nope. I would find far less enjoyment from the game if it was removed.

The reason I bring this fact up, is because it's not a multiplayer game (to our knowledge). What I do or exploit in my game should have no bearing, whatsoever, on what you do in your game. If you don't like the fact that the AI is poorly designed when it comes to rock climbing, then don't climb rocks. You can't possibly expect us to believe that it effects your immersion level THAT much. If they change it, fine, I won't complain, but if they DON'T change it, you shouldn't complain.

And the higher grounds still remain a danger-free zone... This fixes the problem how? Instead of running towards you they start to run in the opposite direction?

Situation : you engage in fight, you get low on health, you jump on the rock, npc starts to run, ????, profit!

What else do you want a melee character to do? Sit there and take the hits? Isn't that what this thread is supposed to be about, preventing that from happening? If you jump into a tree and start pelting a melee character with arrows, hes going to run away.

i cant think of anything that affects my immersion nearly as much

ive escaped death by jumping on rocks countless times and then i see an enemy below me going full [censored]. And then i think 'well i can easily kill him now because hes basically a plant now so for this game to not to feel idiotic i have to come down . . .'

yes it breaks immersion, at that point i feel like im playing a really crappy game

and yes i will complain if it stays the same because that means the AI is still bad. if i cant complain about bad AI then what the hell can i complain about?

I read that, and what I said still the same applies, being gaining higher ground or taking cover.
But Rashid has it wrong. The AI issue is not with using your environment to your advantage... the REAL issue is that the player CAN lead ANY land creature anywhere. If the player is faced with,say, a mountain lion, surely a human can't outrun a mountain lion, so the player shouldn't be able to run too long a distance to gain higher ground (or run around in circles to regain health for that matter) without being caught from behind by the mountain lion

And as a general comment on this business about the developers removing gameplay options from the game to make it "more balanced"...
if you don't want to do something in-game (like running to get higher ground and thus gaining an advantage) then don't do it. This "it is too tempting if it is there" argument is crap. If you want to fight on flat ground against everyone, you fight on flat ground against everyone. Period, end of story. Don't use the rock.

I read that, and what I said still the same applies, being gaining higher ground or taking cover.
But Rashid has it wrong. The AI issue is not with using your environment to your advantage... the REAL issue is that the player CAN lead ANY land creature anywhere. If the player is faced with,say, a mountain lion, surely a human can't outrun a mountain lion, so the player shouldn't be able to run too long a distance to gain higher ground (or run around in circles to regain health for that matter) without being caught from behind by the mountain lion

And as a general comment on this business about the developers removing gameplay options from the game to make it "more balanced"...
if you don't want to do something in-game (like running to get higher ground and thus gaining an advantage) then don't do it. This "it is too tempting if it is there" argument is crap. If you want to fight on flat ground against everyone, you fight on flat ground against everyone. Period, end of story. Don't use the rock.

What I think many (including me) here is saying is that we want to be able to climb rocks without feeling like we are cheating. And to be honest, that's not a lot to ask for from a top-notch game like Skyrim is it?


You are missing the point, we want to use the rock, we just don't want NPCs to be so stupid. Period, end of story. We want to be able to use rocks in Skyrim without exploiting game flaws.

Depends. If you are half a meter in the air. Why not have the ability to jump instead?

I agree that if you are a skilled acrobat and climbed a 5 meter tree it makes no sense for the MELEE npc to do anything else but run!

Anyone that says "If you don't like it, don't use it" does not understand the premise of these discussions. It is the same with fast travel as well. We are talking about how to make game-play better. That means when there is an exploit that can be fix/improved, we talk about what options there could be to achieve that improvement. "Don't do it if you don't like it" is not a constructive argument to this discussion, or any discussion for that matter. By saying that you are essentially trying to get people to stop talking about how to make the game better, and that is the whole point of posting here.

Not to keep arguing, but if you were a half a meter in the air, your probably still getting hit by the melee enemy, unless your fighting a midget. I dont mind enemies jumping according to their stats, but when I jump to a vantage point, I really jump to a vantage point. I dont hop atop a small boulder.

The fast travel system is completely different because that's easy to avoid, you don't feel stupid in the same way by not using it. The climb-rock thing is forcing certain player types to make the decision: Am I gonna be really stupid or is the NPC gonna be really stupid. Completely different.

Well that was the problem in oblivion, even a half a meter rock made the AI laughable. Well maybe i exaggerated a bit but let's say "a height manageable for their stats" as you said.

As for the vantage points i agree with you, unless the AI is some skilled ninja mofo, kekeke

very well put, if the game it putting that type of choice in front of me then theres something wrong with the game

I think the point is, what if you want to take the high ground but then you have to deal with AI. For example I like playing a kind of archer bandit character, in oblivion if I was attacked I would back up to keep range and look for high ground, because as someone using ranged weapons that makes sense. Now instead of reacting the NPC is just underneath me constantly running into the wall or rock or whatever I've managed to find. I could shoot this sitting duck who won't even try and defend himself or jump down removing the advantage I've just managed to get. I do agree that there are lot of things discussed on the forum where you can take it or leave it, glitches just dont use them, fast travel just don't use it. But i think in this case not using it for certain character types doesn't make sense.

Maybe eventually. But I have been chased onto high areas by animals. They didn't just instantly run away because they can't jump and climb like me. They circled the area down below. Heck even intelligent people do the same until you prove you can hurt them from your vantage point. There is a good chance you should be able to finish off most animals once you get high ground, they don't really comprehend that you have high ground and a bow. And even bandits might not know the situation they are in until you shoot someone.

So I'll repeat what I said earlier. Most intelligent foes should pack some kind of ranged attack and should fire back at you. Intelligent types without ranged attacks should run away. Unintelligent types should get killed by you. Even intelligent monsters I probably might have the AI stick around until they take damage or at least are attacked.

But it does make sense that certain characters will not be able to do certain things or will blindly attack in a certain way even if they make themselves easy pickings. Think about it: being animal, human... there are plenty of examples in real life of this type of behavior.

This type of threads are always the same, someone thinking an aspect of the game makes combat "easy", and they want it removed, and I really do not get why the sentiment. It is a role-playing game after all, and the idea is to have as many options to play the game in different ways, and let the player decide how he/she wants to play it.

It's like salt on a restaurant table. 99% of restaurants have salt on the table, the idea being a patron would add salt to the meal should the patron desire to do so. If you don't like salt, do you complain to the manager of every restaurant you go into and demand salt be removed from every table?

I don't see why NPC's shouldn't just jump or be able to climb small ledges and stuff. Lots of first person shooters have NPC's climb onto boxes and ledges and whatnot.

This is perfect. As long as when an animal runs and can't get up onto your ledge it should stop a few feet in front of it and growl or make warning sounds, not just run at the thing you are on lol.

Gawd, people are still on this subject. It should have been buried after page 2. Your all just repeating what others have said. Get over it, please.

This stems from enemy AI being terrible in TES games. You can't pull crap like this in Halo, because enemies can JUMP!

I don't think it's too much to ask for them to incorporate some semblance of problem solving into the AI. Have them at least look like they're trying to outsmart you in combat and react accordingly when you are beyond their reach. If you're up on a ledge or large boulder picking members of a group off I think it would be great to see them all just take cover behind trees or rocks and just try to out wait you, so long as they don't have ranged weapons. You'd get awfully bored just sitting there forever.Maybe have one of them run for help while the others just surround your area while remaining behind cover. When facing a single human opponent they could take cover or flee when they realize what you're doing, by then maybe you've crippled they're legs or something though, leaving them at your mercy. In that situation it might be interesting to see them employ some sort of desperation tactic like throwing their sword at you, though I really don't expect to see this implemented..

I, like i'm sure some others posting here, occasionally just enjoy massacring an entire town. Getting up on the roofs of buildings and taking out a few of the inhabitants and guards with my spells and bow is always a good time. But how cool would it be to see some sort of town alarm be sounded once the guards realize that there is a murderer at large. Maybe civilians all start fleeing from the streets into buildings, as the guards try to shoot you down. If you're up there for long enough maybe some of the braver civilians, perhaps led by one who already dislikes you for one reason or another, form a mob and attempt to slay you by throwing rocks, shooting arrows at you, or spells from the mages present in the mob.

Perhaps a morale system could be implemented. Sit up on a rock and kill a couple of bandits and perhaps the other two start fleeing after that. A pack of wolves wouldn't flee until you'd slain at least three or four of them. I don't think a troll would ever run away from you, just scream at you in frustrated futility just before you pinned him to the ground with arrows. Maybe some creatures have some climbing ability, though I don't want to see assassin's creed, this is the Elder Scrolls. Any climbing ability should be fairly minor, though some mad agility and jumping skill by some of the appropriate creatures would be cool.

There should definitely be advantage to taking the high ground in combat and for increasing your acrobatics, there's no doubt about that, but when it makes you near invincible it just becomes silly. All i'd want is to see the AI react to this in any better way than just running headfirst into a rock or a wall, everything else I posted would just be a bonus for me. Anyone who thinks that watching the AI running on a treadmill stupidly beneath you while you mindlessly fire on it over and over is good gameplay just need to give their head a shake. I'd love to see even just the specter of tactical decision making from the AI in this situation.

Rocks arn't as much a problem as people abusing the rooftops of houses. Unless the AI is thought to do complex actions like climb ladders while another person is providing cover the other thing you can do is fill up the world with invisble walls to prevent players from exploiting terrain. This of course comes with the fundamental problem of limiting player freedom which is something people will dislike especially in an Elder Scrolls RPG.

Truth is the proper solution of smart AI is an expensive one and we are not sure if it is already implemented. Any other workaround seems poise to guarantee complaints but then againa you can't keep everyone happy and bottom line is its single player so no one is being affected.

Good way but hard to be done
Allow levitation for enemy mages and climbing for enemy warriors and thieves

Bad way but simple
Disallow player reach high places

Since acrobatics skill was deleted there ins no evidence for jump or levitation spells, developers already take they way to fix thats problem.