Correct.
I believe in Morrowind this was actually the in-game explanation of why casting invisibility in a line of sight did not work.

So what you want invisibility to do is unaggro mobs right? Like when companions get beaten down and crouch, and everything stops attacking them? And then you'd be 100% undetectable unless you attacked them or bumped into them?

And yeah, can anyone with lvl 100 illusion and dual casting invis tell us if it's any better? Maybe the mechanic is like chameleon and you need to level it up for it to be more effective or something.

Anyway can't imagine it would be too hard to mod.

Dual casting just makes it last longer. Over double the time in fact. Going by the guide. Although I have a master Illusionist and it does seem to only increase the duration, not its "effectiveness".

I think this is the 4th time I've written this:

Start the game, load last save, hit the tab key, select "skills", select "illusion" and read the description. "Illusion magic deals with manipulating the minds of the enemy". THE MINDS. not light, THE MINDS of the enemy. Manipulating light is not mentioned at all. It is not mentioned what is manipulated IN the mind. That you think the mind is manipulated by manipulating light, the game offers nothing to support that believe. Point to WHERE in Skyrim you find evidence of it.

In real life, light cannot be bent around a target to make it invisible. There is no reason at all to believe that if it could be bent, there would be a shimmer. With mirrors a talented magician/illusionist can reflect light different ways to create illusions. None of these illusions shimmer.

Many posts talking about hearing, or smelling the target being invisible, so the invisible person continues to be attacked. Those posters seem to think this is logical.

Being able to hear or smell and invisible opponent is, in no way, helpful. Fighting an invisible opponent in hand-to-hand combat put you at an OVERWHELMING disadvantage. You would be OVERWHELMED. This is not "just my opinion". Your opponent is invisible, you do not know where to strike, you can only attack a general location the sound is coming from.

And your opponent is invisible, you cannot see it attack you, You can't know where and what to defend. You can't parry a blade you can't see. If an opponent turned invisible in front of you and you continued to attack a general area, YOU WOULD DIE BECAUSE YOU CAN'T DEFEND YOURSELF. How can you stop an incoming attack that you can't see?

I can't understand why there is anything to argue about. If it's "just my opinion", then it is so, the same way that touching glowing red metal will burn me, "is just my opinion". You can't fight what you can't see. You aren't "DAREDEVIL", and 99.9% likely that, in Skyrim, you ARE NOT fighting a Blind Moth Priest.

Oblivion knew this, and invisibility worked logically. If it amounted to an "immortality" spell, and that bores you, don't use it. Making it have illogical mechanics, makes it stupid.

If the npc doesn't drop combat when you go invisible, you should be able to one-shot the opponent. Which would be even MORE "over-powered" than just simply letting him slip away.

I play the game as an interactive novel, where I get to choose the main character. I develope concepts for the characters I play. Why should a person that spends his life in a library, have to sneak, or use melee combat. Destruction magic svcks, cast a destruction magic spell and suddenly there's 10 mobs on your in melee combat, and you are dead, regardless of alteration "armor" spells. Why should I HAVE to develope melee skills and assassin/thief skills to play the game? Why should I HAVE to use a weapon and learn how to sneak? Why do I have to be a combat-god , why should I have to be a stealth-god. Wjy can't i just be a magical-god. If you think it's boring, don't play it. There are many examples of a bookish mage type prevailing against those kinds of enemies, in fantasy literature. It has a PRECEDENT.

And most importantly, Balance between character types is IRRELEVANT. No other character types exist except the one you are playing. So if one is playing a character concept that is"pft...overpowered" it doesn't matter in the least bit to how you conceive of your character and play the game. THIS IS NOT AN MMO. No one is making you do anything you don't want, forcing you to use invisibility, and there is no gamer societal pressure from other players. No one else is playing your game. Just don't do it if you don't want to.

All 4 Fallout games and all 5 Elder Scroll games have the most flexible player-character builds in the history of computer gaming. Taking away one of those options because of the subjective opinion of "it's stupid" makes the game LESS flexible. Just don't play what you think is stupid.

But now I have to deal with gimped, stupid illusion spells.

Oh well, the game is still really fun. It's just all this talk of "over-powered" and "they can still hear you..." galls me.

This picture will articulate whether or not invisibility is for you.
http://i52.photobucket.com/albums/g8/Nureese/SkyrimInvisibility.jpg

Sorry, couldn't read the entire thread... too long... but I did run a search for "snow" in every post.

It seems there is a controversy as to whether enemies can see you when you're invisible or not. Some say they can always track you; others say it seems to work if you are both muffled and invisible (and stealthing?) at the same time.

What I am wondering is if there's a difference between invisibility on solid ground, and invisibility in snow... since I would expect invisibility would be completely ineffective if you're leaving clear footprints with every step.

Good point! But no, not completely ineffective. Or it shouldn't be. Just knowing where someone feet are planted, is not so great an advantage that you wouldn't lose the fight. You have to be able to see his arms, how he's swinging the weapon, what that weapon is aimed at.. And you'd need to be able to see his feet, not just the seeing the imprints change. You have to see that kick coming in, to dodge it or block it. Because the imprint would still be there, in the snow after he lifted his leg. You still wouldn't see the kick coming in.

Well, at least not without some fictional Deus Ex Machina , like the "Blind Moth Priests" in Oblivion. Or the comic book hero "Daredevil". Every little Tom, dike and & Harry, common mob,shouldn't be able defeat an invisible player.

In actual practice though, there doesn't seem to be any difference between snow, and the green grass. Or rocks even. You must be stealthed, invisible, and muffled to go undetected. Stealth must be leveled somewhat, but with invisibility and muffle it doesn't have to be anywhere near as high as a straight thief/assassin. 35-40 is more than enough with the spells. It's just that IF YOU DO get seen, you'll have to fight the mobs. Can't get out of it then.

And that is illogical. But the game is still allot of fun!

well riddle me this, I had a muffle enchant drank and invis pot was in sneak mode on the other side of a wall and had npcs start dialogue and in other instances come around the corner and attack me. at the time 60 sneak skill but no sneak tree perks.

sorry but that should not be feasable, i was able to sneak past better with out invis :facepalm:

Ahh, well good thing this in a world with magic.

Yeah, that's broken. It happened because npc's speech in a questline trump everything else. IT's been determined that you HAVE to hear their speech in order to do the quest. You must know what they have to say, so when they walk over to you and start talking, it breaks invisibility and stealth and if there are enemies around when the dialogue is initiated, they can notice you.

Mostly it's because the AI just isn't good enough to know when it's a bad time, but if the npc didn't talk, it would break further progress in the questline. Trying to make the AI smart enough, would either be impractical for memory cost, or they just don't know how to code it, or both maybe. I'm not sure why it can't be done. But you got attacked because it was a bad time for the npc to come over and start talking to you.

My response was to a quote from another post. That they can still see you now that they know you are there, because of a faint shimmer. Like the "Predator" movies. But there is no reason to think that.

And anyway, they had guns in Predator. Guns are much more powerful, you can point them i a general direction and start unloading. You can put down 100 or most bullets in an area, blanket it .

And the bullets much harder than a sword. Being able to see disturbed dust, some kind of shimmer, or just hear the creature...IF you have a sub-machine gun, would get the invisible creature killed.

But you don't have a machine gun. You have a sword, and you can't defend against his melee weapon attacks, because you can't see them coming in. It's just not the same thing. Not even for a bow/crossbow. You can't load those faster than you could swing a sword.

Being able to spray bullets, drastically cuts down the effectiveness of invisibility. But melee weapon combat drastically increases the effectiveness of invisibility.

You make such interesting, good points I hope anybody from Bethesda reads this. They need more of this way of thinking, and less marketing and gimmicks.