Is there an existing mod, or is it even possible to make NPCs and creatures suffer from lowered light levels if they don't have a light source or night-eye/detect life on? I very much like the mods that reduce lighting down to realistically pitch dark levels (Let There Be Darkness, All natural with Real Lights and night time darkness INI tweak). However, it is really irritating it that though I can't see anything and every other actor can find me and attack me just as easily as if these light values weren't modified at all. It makes sense if undead, vampires, and Khajiit can do this... but not so much for other actors.

I thought of one idea.... is it possible to activate the same bonuses attributed to being in sneak mode without being in sneak mode (walking upright and normal) when light on the character is below a threshold? I heard of another mod that makes it easier to recover your hidden status by sneaking again even when in a battle, so coupled with this, a hostile actor that doesn't have a torch or something would constantly be switching between the "Where are you?" mode and knowing where you are/coming at you mode if it were very dark. Can't recall the name of the mod that lets you "re-sneak" either though...

http://tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=35099 by wrinklyninja is your friend here. It darkens dungeons and sets a level playing field between you and the npcs. So it's good for sneaky characters. Of course I just charge in torch in hand, dump on the floor and hack away but that's my character's style. Also with the use of Wrye Bash it can support a lot of popular quest and dungeon mods, more than is supported by Let there be Darkness.

Artorius.

Thank you for the reply. From the readme, I'm not sure how this mod affects NPCs? It looks like it does basically the same thing as Let There Be Darkness, but actually just slightly less dark. What does it do to put the player and NPCs on a level field that it doesn't say in the readme?

While it doesn't explicitly say in the readme, you will find that as long as you aren't carrying a torch or some sort of light source and are not standing near a light source enemies can't see you, and the same applies in reverse you can't see enemies if they are in darkness. Plenty of opportunites for ambush on both sides hence the level playing field (unless you have night-eye of course, but even then Khajits can still see you with their natural night-eye ability).

Artorius.

Thanks for pointing that out. I had downloaded Cava Obscura a while back but was hesitant to install it since I already have Real Lights and caves are quite dark. Even though I enjoy things that way I was slightly worried it would make caves a little bit too dark, but understanding it actually affects gameplay I'm going to try it out next time I play. Especially having found a http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=7327 I really like (invert2!), though I am partial to torches.

I'm wondering if I did something wrong... I installed Cava Obscura, it does make things darker (but not pitch dark, so I had to turn my contrast and brightness down until it was, and floor switches seem to still show up with as faint gray instead of being invisible in the dark). That's not what I wonder about doing wrong though, I expected it to not cauise "total" darkness from what the readme said. But you claimed that it would also make NPCs be at a disadvantage in the dark, but there was no difference between this mod, Let There Be Darkness, and Vanilla other than for "initial" detection. The darkness makes it harder for the NPC to detect you, but once the NPC detectes the PC, they still are able to be glued to the PCs location 100% with that "beacon" they have on me, even if the PC returns to the complete dark and attempts to sneak again... I was hoping for something that would cause the hostile to exit combat mode and enter "heightened awareness" mode at this point.

I'm pretty sure that's just the way the AI works, and to change it you'd have to install some kind of AI overhaul. I'm hearing Metal Gear Solid music in my head right now, anyway, but I don't know if there are any AI overhauls for Oblivion that do what you want. I'd think there would be, maybe TIE does something like that, I don't know. Seems like it'd be a highly desired feature, though.

Actually, when cheating the test PCs sneak stat up really high, sometimes what I'm talking about does happen, but I don't think its a purposeful implementation of the AI like you suggested. I think its some kind of bug that sometimes the NPC can't find you correctly on initial detection and then the "problem" persists throughout the rest of the fight if there is one of these darkness mods installed. I tired a number of battles and in the great majority of them, the NPC or creature does get that "beacon" on the PC, but in a few cases, somehow they have trouble locating the PC so long as it is in sneak mode and has a high sneak.

Unfortunately, now that these bugged encounters have let me see what it would be like if it did this in all cases, it would actually be too unbalancing if NPCs simply lost sight of you every time you were in the dark because the other portions of their AI are too stupid, and it would become too easy for you to get into a situation where you can just sneak attack them repeatedly to death and they just stand there. That's no good... I guess to get the best out of this mod what I should do is simply refrain from ever using Night Eye and Detect Life. Besides, what is the use of setting the beautiful darkness to make a Chiaroscuro painting out of the dungeons if I am going to fill it with blue night vision or pink clouds. If I don't ever use those on myself, that should balance the power of the darkness making sneaking easier where initial detection is concerned.

Thanks for your help. It would be very interesting to have a fantasy game that involved more realistic AI with regards to light levels, sound, and the NPCs attempting to "guess" where you are in the dark, losing sight of you, finding you again, getting scared of you, etc. But I guess I was expecting waaaay too much out of a game that wasn't intended to do such a thing.

No doubt Oblivion's sneaking system could be more robust, but thinking about what I've experienced so far I have to say that it's been pretty enjoyable doing quests that require me to get somewhere without being spotted. Of course I'm taking the position of "it could be worse" in some ways, but I didn't find it too easy or too hard to sneak around during those particular quests, so on that level it's doing at least the minimum of what you'd call a good job, and this is without installing anything that would affect any of the systems. I just finished a couple quests that required me to stay hidden and I was pleasantly surprised that they were a little challenging rather than being a joke, or having the AI spot me while I'm standing still behind a pillar or something.

And actually I wonder how realistic and "aggressive" you'd want an AI to be without making it impossible to sneak by anyone. Sometimes I think AIs end up being so "dumb" because if they were smarter the game would be too hard. I imagine that's an ongoing issue regarding AI development in games.

http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=20303 helps to mitigate the issue, though it doesn't solve it.