I don't think we need to worry about that. Fallout 3 added a few different modes of awareness to the AI (Hidden, Caution, Danger, flashing Danger), and allowed for those to change, so it was possible to slip away. Still not on par with Thief, but it is a sign that things have, can, and hopefully will improve from here.

* hiding in shadows means nobody sees you (neither enemies nor neutral characters). So you can fire an arrow to a guard while being hidden. If nobody saw you nobody knows who killed him;
* all characters are reactive to sounds. They hear footsteps so you will want to get off your mail boots before you sneak into a house. Once inside, if you make noises opening the doors and the chests (some should be noisier than others), the owner may hear you and come to investigate. You can hide behind objects or in the shadows. You can estinguish the lights. You can crouch. If you stay still and hidden the person will quit investigating at some point and you'll be able to continue the mission; they can however lit a torch and find you; sometimes you get caught, sometimes you escape, so you never know what will happen, that's how theft can still remain challenging after you broke into like 200 houses;
* you can climb buildings. You can use ladders. You can use ropes. You can break windows. You can look through windows and see what's inside;
* you can choose to wear a mask when you go on stealing/assassination missions. If you manage to do the steal/crime with your mask on, and run, nobody will know it was you. There is although a chance that the victim will unveil you during the fight, especially if it's a guard;
* you can sneak on animals; animals can sneak on you; npc's can sneak on you; when npc's steal they are being arrested in real time (I witnessed the fence in Bruma stealing in the inn, someone caught him, the other patrons yelled "thief", weapons drawn, and that was it, he sat down and ate like nothing happened);
* you can escape a pursuer, may it be guard, by running faster and hiding as soon as he lost eye contact; guards who see that you are faster than them will try to fetch the nearest horse to chase you;
* the sneaking stance should not be visually hilarious; someone who really wants to pickpocket in broad daylight will want to go unnoticed so will have a normal body position. You can sooner detect thieves by their looking around for guards than a ridiculous position that cries "hey, look at me how sneaky I am, may I steal your bag please?";
* if the ridiculous sneaking stance is in the game though, guards should be reactive to seeing it. If they see you sneaking they'll know you're up to something and will ask you to stop it and will keep an eye on you; people who see you approaching in sneaking stance should go away or even run away from you, so you'll have to pick your victims carefully, possibly distract their attention first so they turn around.

Stealth reached its pinnacle in the Thief series. Import some from there. Carrying the bodies outta sight, making noises to distract people, hiding behind objects, etc.

You pretty much hit it. I want "re-hiding", essentially.

In addition, I'd like it shadows matter more. I'd have times where I would be hiding in the darkest shadow possible, and an enemy would still see me.

Hiding in plain sight among crowds or in faction uniforms. But better than New Vegas's system where you can change clothes while standing in front of someone and they suddenly go berserk. Assasin's creed stuff basically. Also rope arrows and parkour which would take centrestage in acrobatics if beth didn't decide to cut it because they lack imagination.

I want to be able to craft bush armor, you know, so I can move from spot to spot in your garden. They'd never see my leafy goodness coming :ninja:

Oblivion did stealth much better then Morrowind. They should improve on it even more in Skyrim. What I would like to see are animated stealth kills,hiding bodies, and enemies reacting to sound and dead bodies. The AI should be improved also.

You drop a dead body in the middle of the street. A young boy might grab it up and rush after you, asking if you had dropped it and might like it back.

But yeah, I like the ability to 're-hide'.

no pshycic guards, all hugging, shadow blending, wall crawling, throwable weapons, backstabs, take downs, sleeping spells and more!

With the new radiant AI system it will be likely that you can lose them. The main thing that needs to be fixed about stealth is when your in the shadows, if even ambient light shines on you the NPCs should say "Huh? I know your there! Show yourself!" because they see something odd in the dark but they can't see clearly because it is only slight light cast on them instead of no one noticing you just because you stayed in the dark patch on the ground even if the ambient light from Ayleid crystals casts a pale light on you and reveals you slightly in the shadows.

Yep, Thief did stealth very well. We can compound upon that though. Since apparently we're utilizing dynamic lighting and shadows to their full potential now (that's what I heard, anyways), I think one should be careful about how they themselves cast shadows. Tracks through snow could be a problem as well. Even better, we should use magic as well as mundane ways to manipulate light and darkness. We have a light spell, but what about darkness? What if I summon a wind to blow out light sources or mask my movement?

Masks

This is for criminal stuff in general.


If you do get caught people will not be able to identify you to the gaurds but if your out in public with a mask type you wore when caught gaurds will be on to you.


Some gaurds will start asking questions on why your wearing the mask and be suspicious and follow you around even if you didn't do anything in the first place.

With the new radiant AI system it will be likely that you can lose them. The main thing that needs to be fixed about stealth is when your in the shadows, if even ambient light shines on you the NPCs should say "Huh? I know your there! Show yourself!" because they see something odd in the dark but they can't see clearly because it is only slight light cast on them instead of no one noticing you just because you stayed in the dark patch on the ground even if the ambient light from Ayleid crystals casts a pale light on you and reveals you slightly in the shadows.

With the new AI system pieces we got in the magazine, it is more than fair to assume that http://s764.photobucket.com/albums/xx281/Soulece/?action=view¤t=PICK-UP-A-ZERO-VALUE-SPOON-NOT-ON-MY-WATCH-CRIMINAL-SCUM.jpg won't happen anymore.

Kind of like Splinter Cell? You can pick up bottles, throw them, then the guards would investigate. You can also throw the bottle at a guards noggin and knock them out.

I also want something like Splinter Cell: Conviction's stealth, where people investigate your last known position. I don't want my to see my last know position, but I want people to investigate over there, so I can sneak around a corner and attack them.

I'm surprised that no one has mentioned that Sneak should NOT scale with level, at all. Sneak scaling made it so that no matter your sneak level, you always had the same chance of being caught. Or so it seemed, anyways.

Splinter Cell was cool. I enjoyed the challenge of making it through without killing and without being spotted.
Blending sounds nice, (makes me think of Assassin's Creed 2) but it's doubtful that that would happen, as you would then need larger populations in the city to even have the opportunity to blend. Now, my only experience is with Oblivion, all glorious years since release, but even in the Imperial City; it almost felt like a veritable ghost town, more like a larger village than that of one of larger proportions.
Here's a thought:

In the last Harry Potter movie, Ron was given something by Dumbledore, which put out lights, and vice-versa. A spell for thieving....

Id be surprised if they havent added some fun to the stealth stuff.

It would be nice to slit peoples throats.

Or a gust spell that acts to blow enemies away and blow out camp fires.

What was that sudden breeze? I'll go check it out.

i actually thought that for an rpg oblivion's stealth was decent, even though the AI ruined it all.
I'm sure if they fix the AI as they say they are doing, the stealth will be fine.
I think it would be cool if they maybe had the system where you could cling to a wall in stealth mode or something.

This, or if your skill is low and you try and knock someone out you have a chance to either hit too hard and kill them or not hard enough and they cry out and recoil from you.

Well for someone that plays nothing but stealth type char's rogue/theif/assassin. i would like to see stealth and everything that as anything to do with it like pickpocketing/stealing/lockpicking/backstabing/(and i hope disarming traps) to be rewarding but also have its risks.in elderscrolls 4 buy the time u got to higher lvl's u pretty much turned into a fighter with alittle stealth thrown in but in the end i thought my assassin didnt feel or play like a assassin.I want to be rewarded for the risks i take in breaking into a house or shop after hours or the random npc i pickpocketed, or the rich npc i put a dagger in his back and loot his dead body .oh and i dont want the guards to know what i did if no one saw me do it.That about covers it for me well for now anyway.

this isn't too much about stealth, but here is an improvement for assassin's

My first character is always a thief, so I can explore everything and get a good idea where things are for my next playthrough. If there's an easy set of dwarven somewhere, I'll know where to get it for my fighter next game. I always have the most fun with stealth characters, and really hope they have a mean edge to them in the next game instead of either being Robin Hood, or working out internal issues with the brotherhood buddies.

I'm getting that backstab perk as quick as I can.

I believe the backstab perk was just a suggestion, not something confirmed. I could be mistaken tho, I haven't gotten my issue of GI even though I could DRIVE to their office in 25 minutes -.-

Anywho I had a mod for Oblivion that had a ton of armor based off of Metal Gear Solid, it was pretty sick. Nighteye and life detect eyepatch, active camo suit with a decent amount of chameleon on it, different outfits for different terrain. The terrain outfits didn't actually make me stealthier in those spots but the concept is awesome. If the engine is able to do support this I would collapse in pure joy. I'd also want to see LoS tracking on stealth. If you are chased by a guard you can run around a corner and he will go to where he last saw you. If you are still visible then the chase ensues, otherwise he searches the general area. If another NPC saw which way you went they would point it out to the guard and he could track you.

Non lethal takedowns could be in if they balance them right. Maybe you can only have your fists or a shield out, maybe it is a perk, who knows. It all depends on how the other stealth mechanics work if it will actually be useful. Oh and as a final note, what about the dragonshouts? Wasn't one supposed to slow down time? Use it and then bam, everything in someone's store is gone in what appears to NPCs to be a matter of seconds.

There is a screenshot of an NPC walking along with a dog (a guard?). I hope it isn't too far fetch for animals to have a Detect Life that can bypass stealth considerably. Or while we're at it NPCs with Night-Eyes (Khajiits) should easily detect you as well.