Another stealth move partly stolen from assasin's Creed. At high levels, you should get a 'death from above' move where you fall silently from an edge and sneak attack any enemy you come in contact with with critical damage!

Some older RPGers are concerned about stealth being watered down into one of those disciplines in which player skill is everything and statistics are meaningless. I think there is a happy compromise somewhere in there.

Firstly, what should stats affect, if not when and when not enemies can detect you? I think the obvious answer to this is both attributes - higher sneak = raised agility - and perk availability. I mean perks as in novice-journeyman-expert-master perks like in Oblivion. However, they should occur every ten (maybe fifteen) skill points instead of twenty five, and they should have a wider range of effects than in Oblivion. You have your staple silent running and increased sneak attack damage perks, but what about the ability to flatten our character against the wall in a tight spot to avoid patrolling guards? What about bringing skill thresholds back to TES guilds so that only character with higher sneak get access to the best stealth gear? What about being able to knock on walls and doors to create a sound distraction while we go around another way? I am no game designer and I'm sure BGS can come up with myriad ways for perks to increase sneak's usefulness.

So yeah... basically I support a system in which player skill is the main factor in successfully being stealthy, but an increased stealth stat brings higher agility and gives the player many more tools at their disposal to stay hidden.

Stealth centric missions should require some of these perks to be completed. I shouldn't be able to advance far in the Thieves Guild if I can't flatten myself against a wall for narrow corridors.

As a small side note, I hope that with the cities reintegration to the main world, like Morrowind, that they'll allow the towns/cities to be a place I can level just as easily as the outside world, instead of a 'quest hub'. I don't know if other's could detect it, but the city being taken apart from the other world made them a place that all you could do was engage in crime in. My ability to explain this svcks, but hopefully you get the point.

As a thief though, I agree that it should be a balance between skill and stats (in which the stat's mix active/passive abilities). Not active abilities like combo's, but in opening new thing's to learn, perhaps like dodging or wall climbing.

Back to a thief in a city, I think the citie's need more stealth spots. By this I mean like, how a cat will go from brushy place to the next, i'd like the city to have this option. Not make it linear like a Splinter Cell game; but just placing a bunch of object's to sneak with, added that they could be dynamic, or moving, like if someone came in through a hay cart; then you could stalk behind it, and when the guy park's it you could use it to hide behind.
(And when he looks at you suspiciously following him, he reports you to a guild, the guards, or some other posse that he trust's in (including himself).
In the city's also, MORE PEOPLE, maybe smaller houses (to accomodate more), but the city's made Tamriel feel like a really small place. Beside's, most houses carried too much pointless [censored]. Oblivion seemed to create a big world, but forgot to put thing's into it (put meaningful things into it). I don't ask for every event to be scripted.

I would like the gameplay to blend Thief and Assassin Creed's stealth, that is, a solo/night stealth and a social stealth

Back to my original point, I think if the 'wall's' were taken away from entering each zone; then the world could be created a lot more dynamically. Like the goblin's actually fighting people. And guard's looking for you outside town.
I'm fine with accepting that not every place should be stealth friendly, but stealthing didn't make sense

Not sure if they were able to do this, but integrate the lighting system with the stealth. And secondly, integrating the physics more into the system, instead of killing someone to have them fall over like a party balloon. The physics could accomodate thief character's abilities like dropping/throwing objects. It would be rewarding if I bought a steel dagger just to throw into some guy's back.
(I worry that Bethesda's problem with trying to integrate these thing's like nonscripted event's will cause more bug's, therefore turning heads from the streamlined audience)

In some part, I think making the stealth system work is more by putting the pieces of the puzzle that Bethesda already has instead of adding more.
I don't want TES 5 to add dual wielding, TES 6 to add horse combat, TES 7 to add Kratos like gameplay elements, and TES 8 to play god with an exploding poison apple cannon.

I think one of the biggest gripes I had with Oblivion was the fact that if you were in stealth and shot someone from afar.... often it seems they would forget about you after a few moments, if they couldn't detect you straight away. Also, if you're in a large group and one of your companions gets shot, I wants to see panic and hiding, or atleast ducking out the way potential arrows headed your way!

The tapping against a wall is a good idea. or atleast some way to produce a sound that the creature will investigate. You were often forced into only one solution in OB, which was to kill anything in the way. I'd like to see more choice of simply sneaking in and out without being detected.... I'd probably still just kill them on the way out, but I want the choice damnit!

Some things that annoy me with stealth is that when one enemy has spotted you, it's just "kill him or run to the world's end". It doesn't matter where you hide, somehow he knows EXACTLY where you are, and uses that sixth sense to hunt you down until you kill him or escapes that area. The only way to lose him is to literally make yourself invisible, and you can't do that until you have 50 in Illusion unless you chose the Shadow birthsign.

I think stealth are both under- and overpowered in some ways. If you have a high enough Sneak skill, you can sit in front of bandits and they can't see you. But if you are detected you cannot hide again, and are forced to escape. The enemies shouldn't be able to find you like a bloodhound, and you should be able to lose your followers and get back into sneaking.
Some balance would be good - nerf the sneaking ability but make us able to lose the followers and get back to sneaking if detected.

Lastly, I think that only daggers should yield sneak bonus. I remember having a dagger and katana of about same quality - and the katana with it's x4 sneak bonus dealt more sneak damage than the dagger with a x6 sneak bonus. How can I effectively kill someone silently with a meter-long sword!?



Good points!

There was quite an interesting article on gamespy that addressed some of these issues about what they're presuming they're going to incorporate into Skyrim.

I think I mentioned it earlier, but Splinter Cell: Conviction did this brilliantly, whereby enemies that were on alert acted differently and tried to find you, but didn't have psychic abilities.

I agree that the best stealth players should be able to run and hide even in daylight, but not something ridiculous like in the middle of a field.