In concept, it sounds like a good idea...in practice, it's probably going to feel unfair and broken. :brokencomputer:

The only reason NPCs in Oblivion can't detect you first, is because they have an extremely short detection range. The idea seem to be so that sneak-based players can have an advantage. That can easily be tweaked, by simply making sure only high sneak skill NPCs gets extra sight range. Naturally such enemy spawns would have something that nerfs them, like a restriction in the type of weapon and armour they would use.

I much rather enemies not spawn directly behind me, because that is a place I know I already checked for enemies. It would be cheap to do that as that means there is no reason to feel safe anywhere; it would be like having enemies getting free backstabs by teleportation. Having enemies needing to deliberately go behind me is more fair, as it gives me a chance to prevent them from doing so.

For all intent and purposes there is no need to give NPCs a damage bonus for sneak. Just give them bonus damage for back-stabs is enough, or give them poisoned weapons that only work once.

Or... you know; carrying a torch with you, exploring every nook and cranny in the area as opposed to just walking through the dungeon knowing full well that every enemy in the place is unaware of your existence, swinging your weapon where you think a stealther may be hiding, firing a spell where you think a stealther may be hiding. Come on, is it really that hard to be able to get passed this? Or do you just want watered down, easy gameplay that doesn't challenge you in any way just like the previous Elder Scrolls?

What the hell have I said in this thread that makes you think I want watered down gameplay?

By not wanting enemies that can get past your defenses or actually come with a different variety of combat? Maybe "watered down" was a poor choice of words but it seems you don't want any other sort of combat other than what we've already witnessed in the past Elder Scrolls games. You act as if the only way you'd be able to detect a stealthed enemy is with detect life and anyone who doesn't have it would we screwed.

We had nightkin in new vegas, those were pretty good enemies. id love to see it in skyrim.

I know, it's too bad they only showed up in one area. Even then, they didn't really use their stealth all that wisely. They just walked around as if they weren't stealthed.

In operation anchorage they did yes.

I'd love this added to the game. I want to be on an even playing field to give combat a bit more of a challenge. Counter sneaking would be awesome and nail biting at times.

I was saying detect life would give you a huge advantage, yes, which it would. How do you get from that to anyone else is screwed? Anyone entering an area known to be a thieves' or assassins' den, in a game with sneaking/chameleoned enemies would have to be on their toes, checking every shadow, so glaringly obvious I didn't think it was worth mentioning. And detect life would obviate the need for this care and attention, making it too easy, which I was bemoaning. I am afraid you have not only put words in my mouth, but they are the opposite of what I was saying.

*Battle music starts up* "My Dovakhiin senses are tingling!"

yeah..



Sorry, but this to me just screams: "I don't want to deal with anything that can potentially kill me quickly and forces me to change/react to my environment and/or enemies!" Honestly, for the fifth time?? If you can't figure out where the enemy is after 5 tries then maybe you should just mod it out.

So that's ok? You are walking along, bang dead, game over, from an archer in the woods on sneak. That's fine, good game design? You wouldn't mind playing a game that does that, no warning. That's not a challenge, and it's not fun. And it gives you no chance to react or plan. The detect life comment was made later, in reply to Dragonbone's comment, which said stealthed enemies should only be in particular places, in which case, bring it on, enter such an area you can plan.
Tell me honestly, if you are travelling about in the wilderness, and just die instantly, on the spot, no warning, will you be glad that the designers are challenging you. And the next, random, could be anywhere, can't plan or react, place this happens, will you honestly be happy?

So you accuse me of putting words in your mouth which is fine because it's what you're doing right here so I guess we're even now. When did I ever say there should be absolutely no warning, I never did and I never said I'd be happy with it.

Take the scenario you just used for example: you're walking around in the woods at night and all the sudden an exclamation mark appears in your UI and creepy, tension filled music starts playing. This is your first warning that someone is on to you but you haven't detected them yet. Acknowledging the danger, you cast either a shield spell, detect life spell, or regenerate health.

If you look at the first page you'll find out that I'm not all for stealthy enemies spawning all over the place. I'm for the idea that if you will encounter assassin type characters if you're in a conspicuous area or you've pissed off the Dark Brotherhood; these are only two examples. Also, why do you assume every stealth attack that originates from a hostile NPC would kill you? Maybe if you enjoy walking around as a squishy mage with little to no HP then I guess you have something to worry about but it was never my intention that these sneak based attacks should outright kill you.

The trouble is they have upgraded the bow damage, specifically to enable the player character to one shot certain enemies, if you are sneaking and take the extra time to line up the shot. If an npc uses the same tactic on you, there would be a fair, from a purely objective point of view, chance to kill you instantly. Not so good from a subjective point of view. I appreciate a melee sneak would not be so terminal.

I actually agree with you on this bit, bow attacks seem to make the idea very unattractive. Perhaps taking away the damage bonus one would gain typically from a sneak attack would alleviate that concern. I'm not so concerned that enemies have the damage bonus with their sneak attack, I just want them to be able to use sneak effectively in certain situations.

I would love to discover a Dark Brotherhood member who tries to kill and send his head back to those cowards Wonder who wants me dead...(since the people of Tamriel pays the DB to assassinate people)

while playing oblivion, i was in the cathedral in chydinhal when i noticed a NPC sneaking up and stealing food from someone who was siting down and eating on one of the pews.... haha...... ha..... after they stole the food, the person stopped eating, and the thief sat down right next to them and started eating.... and then while they were eating a guard ran in and one hit killed her while she was still seated.... i don't laugh much but i cracked up when i saw this....

oh, and i love this idea of stealthy NPCs. it seems it would be really hard to do right though... are the NPC sneaking up on you? or are they just appearing out of nowhere? can we notice them 5 or 10 seconds before they strike? will they be shadowing me though dungeon waiting for a situation of vulnerability? and all i have to do is turn around and notice them? and if they are following me while invisible, i could just cast night eye and trying to spot them.... i love the idea of stealthy NPCs......

ii think it would be awesome if they had a quest where you had to make your way to a secret location without being followed.... in this kind of stealth NPC situation you wouldn't even have to worry about them feeling like they are appearing out of nowhere.... it would be all about noticing them and using some counter stealth tactics to lose them and to get to your secret destination unseen...

Well apparently in Oblivion NPC's could do what the player can do



but this did not turn out to be the case did it?


Will Skyrim be different? will NPC's sneak up on the player and deliver a crippling blow? or actively hunt them? maybe

i'd love for them to be able to sneak up behind me.
NOTHING would scare me more than someone/someTHING creeping behind me and then i turn around [censored] myself.

yeah and why not jumping?
in oblivion players mostly just had to jump und a high stone to sneak away from npcs

lots of games give enemies sniper rifles or rocket launchers that can kill you in one or two shots. you learn to keep you eyes peeled and pay attention to the environment all around you at all times. alot of skyrim is supposed to be dangerous so you should be paranoid and alert. :unsure: it also bugs me that its possible for me to go around and sneak shot npcs but rangers and assassins cant. isnt stealth and archery what they are supposedly famous for?

You should be able to die in many ways, travelling this province should no way be a walk in the park, but this isn't Operation Flashpoint. Those type of games usually have a fairly linear progression, and use cover mechanics (as in cover you can use, not necessarily snap-to or it's ilk), the exception being the recent Fallouts, but there the sniper rifles used against you are usually in a shocking state of repair. There are times when you should be scared, when you have to look over your shoulder, but does anyone really want to have to sneak from cover to cover just to get from town to town?

i dont thing being linear has anything to do with how combat works, just the stories and quests. only a very few archers are going to have the skill to accurately shoot at you from long distances and those would either be rangers and assassins. personally id like to see it like in fallout where if you were really good or really bad either the rangers would come after you or the assassins would be sent after your. also, as far as i can tell they havent implement locational damage. so it wont really be possible for anyone to get headshot anways. you might get killed by one arrow early on in the game but after you get some decent armor it should protect you enough so that you can either run or fight back. the way i would do it is that rangers and assassins would ignore you till you meet some qualification or complete some quest or become well known enough. this limits archers you might have to deal with to bandits and they have crappy skills and equipment so they wouldnt be able to hit you from long distances anyways.

i would also like to see the quality of the bow determine the distance that it shoots. it only makes sense since the damage goes up that must mean that its shooting the arrow faster which would also mean that it travels further. :shrug:

edit: im using rangers and assassins generically. i dont know what their counterparts will be called in skyrim.

Nothing wrong with something similar to the Rangers/Talons, rattle enough cages you will let something nasty out. But, and this is just a personal thing, my opinion and nothing more, if I was an Evil Overlord^TM, and some oik of an adventurer was spoiling my plans, Pride and arrogance would overrule common sense, and in true fiction that includes evil overlords style, I wouldn't send out the sneaky assassins, I would send out the enormous scarred Orc boys, and make sure the pipsqueak adventurer was told, in no uncertain terms, who they had upset and how, before the heavies do their work. Sometimes you just have to think in cliches.

Every single first person shooter I have ever played springs to mind and yes, it was good game design, you can't possibly argue against that, or against how fun or challenging those games can be, unless you're taking some sort of "RPGs rule, FPS are inferior and are only played by morons" kind of standpoint.

It would be good game design if the player was not the only one who did the ambushing, and if you are ambushed, you may as well be ambushed properly. Otherwise there is absolutely NO point in introducing the system.

Besides, you can always see the arrow coming, or it could miss, or you see the archer off in the distance. It makes more sense to me, because if you are in the wilderness or bandit country you actually need to be vigilant and keep your guard up. Oblivion's wilderness was, for the most part, a heck of a lot safer than the roads were, which makes absolutely no sense.

A HUGE variety of environmental clues could be given through dialog about the region and the physical environment of the region, so you have some sense of "safe" travelling areas, areas where you need to be a little more vigilant and areas that are truly wilderness or bandit country. Furthermore, an arrow hit marker isn't infinitely fast like a sniper rifles bullet hit marker. It was slow enough in Oblivion that you can dodge at the last moment or with enough practice even "catch" it before it got to you. There's no guarantee that it will hit you if you see it coming, there's no guarantee that it will hit you if you don't see it coming, so frankly, I don't see why I can't be ambushed by the bandit in the woods with a bow.



Evil Overlords are all well and good, but what about the bandits who want to raid travelers for their wives and petty cash?


Cool, got it. Be good to see if it is tweaked.


Not necessarily, it could be done really well. It HAS been done really well in the dungeons of ivellon mod. The spawn points just need to be carefully placed, so that it doesn't seem like a backstab by teleportation.

You could walk into a room, see a large closet and a chest, take the treasure and leave, only to get stabbed in the back by an enemy coming out of the closet. It should be most often done in places where you do have misgivings, rather than somewhere where it does just seem cheap. To be honest, I believe that having enemies needing to deliberately go behind me is more unfair on them, for the simple reason that unless they are a really low priority target in an area, you can easily prevent them from doing so, thus you don't get ambushed, which makes the mechanic superfluous in the first place. . Sure if it's some sort of labyrinthine dungeon where an NPC ditches off down a side passage while you're fighting his mate to end up behind you, but the typical Oblivion dungeon would be completely unsuited, as far as I can see, to that kind of AI. It would seem more like the NPC runs away from combat and comes back when he thinks you've forgotten all about the NPC that was in the room 1 minute earlier. Players aren't goldfish, they are more likely to deal with obstacles as they encounter them than forget all about the NPC just because they can't see them anymore.