Let's face it, sneak is egregiously overpowered. To make it more balanced and entertaining, do the following:

You are automatically detected if you are moving and in line of sight of a monster. As an example, say you are sneaking up on a monster from behind. He begins to turn around, so you stop. He's now looking straight at you, but because you are motionless, and assuming that you have a high enough sneak skill / perks to not get detected, he cannot see you. He turns around again, so you sneak up on him again, and backstab him.

This also means that archers will only be able to fire off sneak arrows until the monster gets close enough to find them, because if they attempt to move they are instantly detected. This prevents them from clearing out whole dungeons without ever getting spotted.

Does this sound better than what we have now?

No it does not the sneak skill is fine, if you invest in the perks you get some pretty sweet rewards,

My favorite thing to do in Skyrim is just that; slowly pick people off in a fort/dungeon with my glass bow until they are all a pile of flesh. Not even the gods knew what happened..

:spotted owl:

No.

Don't you get bored of easy-mode?



Thank you for the brilliant insight.

I would like to see settings like this in the options menu. I know this kind of idea would not suit everyone but as an optional setting we could tweak the game to play the way we want it to.

:dont abuse it!

Tada! FIXED>

Next! ?_?

Overpowerd i.e good at an ability, isnt that the point ? :facepalm:

Actually, that's ignoring it, not fixing it...

Anyway, I'm sure a mod will come along to make Stealth more interesting than just hitting the sneak button. There was an awesome thief mod for Oblivion, so I'm hopeful that we can see something like that in Skyrim, where you'll need to make use of an array of tools and timing to really do well in Stealth. It'd be quite fun, especially with missions tailored to it.

Better AI with detect life being a more reasonable spell to cast would fix a lot IMO. I don't mind its level to cast but its mana is a bit absurd, still if 20% f the intelligent enemies had the capability and used it to cast detect life when being attacked by a hidden foe it would up the challenge a bit and fit the game world.

Edit to add. Does it work on animals? At my level it does not seem to. If animals were more common and would pint you out to others that would fix a lot IMO.

"Sweet Rewards" as in hitting crouch and turning invisible if you are detected, and then sniping everyone with 0 risk? Yeah, that doesn't trivialize the entire game or anything.

Oh please.

Will everyone who has maxed out a skill to 100, the absolute maximum, representative of the ultimate in mortal achievement to which there can be no improvement.... stop complaining that its overpowered.

I mean... seriously. What do you want from the ultimate expression of mastery in a discipline.

Given the general level design, no, I think it works fine as it is.

If there were more nooks and crannies to hide in, and more viable means for alternative roots, then yes I would support a change in sneak mechanics. As it is now, if the AI were to become more aware/actually designed to investigate things like that arrow sticking out of their neck, then sneaking would become almost useless. You would sneak until spotted/first shot, and then you become a light weight fighter no different from any other fighter, except you're likely wearing lighter armour, and smaller weapons.

No, you would be really surprised on how easy it is to hide in plain sight. Add in dark areas and you have a normal everyday person who could quite easily hide with little to no training in rather plain sight.

It is fine as it is, there is nothing wrong with it.

NO. I hate the OP. Why is it OK for mages to reach epic levels, and warriors, but not rogues? I think sneak skill, with the full tree lit up, and magic that enhances it *should* be great. And slip-ups still happen.

Grrr.

This brings up a great point. Sport games have sliders. Why not an rpg?

Wat.

Destruction is practically worthless unless you have a mod that makes the spells stronger. Conjuration is a lot better, but in terms of direct damage, mages got the short stick.

Absolutely not. If I invest the time and perks to upgrade sneak, I deserve the benefits. I love picking a fort full of bandits off from a distance with my bow.

Don't find it overpowered.
In fact it's very important for my sneaky archer.
The only things I might be inclined to nerf a bit is the maximum sneak damage with daggers and maybe give high level enemies a slight advantage at spotting you.

Overall though I think it's fine the way it is.

I'd just like to point out three facts that I think are very important and relevant to this thread.

#1 I have 100 sneak and sneak is the only skill tree I bought every..single...perk..point in.
#2 I still get discovered or seen in bright light, something very different in Oblivion where you effectively became invisible no matter where you were. In fact sneaking during the day will almost always get me caught unless I make sure the target doesn't have line of sight on me.
#3 I still get discovered (full eye) by enemy #2 after killing (via dagger throat slit) enemy #1 in dim light (ie not pitch black, not bright light).

Sounds fine to me. In instances #2 and #3, I actually have to use my 100 perk ability or an invisibility potion to restealth. In this way, the 100 perk skill and invisibility potions aren't made useless by my 100 sneak, something that can't be said for a lot of other skills...*cough* blacksmithing *cough* lockpicking *cough*

In my honest opinion, not only is sneak balanced, it's one of the better balanced and planned out perk trees. Don't you dare touch it (unless you mod it which doesn't affect my game). Vanilla is fine as far as sneak. You might want to do something about other skill's perk tree first.

It's a different story when you play your character as a glass cannon. Sneak becomes my most important defense, because most things can kill me in just a few hits, snow bears being the worst.

For once, sneak actually works the way it should, and it's only powerful if you actually take the time to level the skill up and take the appropriate perks.

You do realize that skills are supposed to be like that when you get them leveled up? It'd be pointless to be maxed on sneak skill and still be detected so often.

If YOU think it's overpowered for YOU, then don't use it. You don't have to use it. Did you know that?

If anything, the biggest problem with Skyrim is that it continues the Elder Scrolls tradition of giving the player choice in how to play his character, and everyone seems to be powergaming and powerleveling so they can turn around and say this is OP that is OP.

Sneak is perfect how it is, I still sometimes get detected because I get too close or I linger too long near light sources when enemies are aware I'm near and haven't yet found me. And last I looked, my Sneak is around 85.

This isn't really constructive, but just an observation that relates to this thread. I used to think sneak was OP, and I play a stealthy archer. I had difficulty reconciling that someone was searching for me, and they were standing RIGHT in front of me and yet, they never found me. To me, that seemed ridiculously OP....until last night.

I was playing Hide and Seek with my son (remember those truly interactive games of yore??) Anyway, I hid in a closet with some clothes hanging, and it was moderately dark. I wasn't behind anything; I wasn't obscured from the line of sight from anyone standing in the closet, and there was modest ambient lighting from outside. I just stepped back against the wall. My son came in without turning on the light. I could see him just fine. When he turned toward me and stood LESS THAN ONE FOOT from me looking right at me, I was sure I was discovered. But I wasn't. He was looking right at me, didn't see me, and he left. Nothing was between us. He just couldn't see me, and he was actively searching for me.

To test the situation, I asked my wife to come into the closet with me. I was standing in the middle of the closet when she came in, and the light was off. She could see me fine. I told her exactly what I was doing and she watched me as I stepped back into the shadows. Her response: "Holy [censored]." She couldn't see me. Even after telling her to gauge if she could see me, and after having watched me move 2 feet back, she could not see me. She even got as close as my son was and told me she still couldn't see me (except for the glow in the dark hands on my watch).

I no longer think sneak is OP. I think I always just assumed, as silly as this is going to sound, if I can see them, they should be able to see me. When hiding in a game, of course one allows for the skill level so, even when you would think someone could probably see you, you accept that you are reasonably good at hiding. Before, I found it completely unbelievable that someone could be standing right in front of you and not see you. Now, I find it completely plausible. Sneak is not OP.