The idea is that we all know the PC has to crouch to enter sneak mode, and perform sneak attacks etc. That is to say sneaking and ordinary moving are mutually exclusive. But this is stupid, and IMO one of the more disappointing flaws of the game's mechanism.

If in real life a person raises a knife to another person and attacks while undetected, we can expect a backstab. Whether the backstabber is standing/crouching(/crawling - even better!) atm is completely irrelevant. Same with sniping, especially sniping. as well as pickpocketing. (Actually, there's literally A LOT Beth can do with the whole pickpocket sphere to improve it, but not my focus here)

An interesting issue, if Beth does overhaul the sneak system in the future, is the completely new design of the sneak status indicator (also the sneak attack multipliers and stuff) that would be necessary. If you think about it it's really fascinating (and more so if people share their input on this.

A side note, but the Shadow Warrior should be a lesser power with a cooldown period. People should not be allowed to crouch-stand-crouch-stand-crouch to escape combat with de facto invisibility. If Beth is to introduce the Instinct element into TES this should be one of its useful applications, to say the least.

That's all I can think of right now. Again, any input on topic and specific is welcome. Yes, this is my first thread on the forums after a long period of anonymity (crawling everywhere) in which I "came across" many devoted/gifted gamers and RPers and you guys are just awesome. Kudos everyone. I don't think anything brought up in this thread is that original, least of all mine, but I haven't seen a decent discussion on this topic all this time so here I am!

Sneak should be improved, as someone said in another thread, Bandits should continue to search for you if one of their own just got an arrow through his head.

Its a game which means NOT realistic.

Yet their a still games like Dishonored or the Thief series which aren't realistic either and they still have a better stealth gameplay. Thats no excuse for not improving things

sneaking is overpowered in skyrim anyway.

Yes it is in vanilla Skyrim but thats not the point. Better doesnt equal stronger.

They should increase the detection range so you cant sneak in front of people unnoticed. If an NPC detects a dead body they will go in search mode and alert surrounding allies and they will stay that way forever or a pretty long time.

If you have a high enough skill in pickpocketing you should have a 100% chance to steal an item. Stealing clothes and armor by pickpocketing should be made impossible. At low sneak levels you should make more noise if sneak running and it should get you detected every time if you are in proximity to someone forcing you to actually walk to someone

That's why we're discussing on improving it?

Sneaking should be much more Stamina-dependent.

Also, as someone in here, and pretty much everyone else, the tracking AI for NPCs and other "Intelligent" (IE, some Daedra as well) needs to be improved by the next game. There are some measures in place that change how NPCs react, but it's not enough. I really think "Sneaking" Gameplay needs to be very slow and methodical, as opposed to "Max sneak and insta-backstab all the things" that we have now.

Probably most importantly though, level and quest design needs to factor stealth in more effectively, at least in the cities. I don't expect every random cave to have a thousand paths for a stealth oriented character to take advantage of, but cities should have really been the Thieves domain, sewers, backdoors, multi-storied buildings... For a stealth oriented character, Killing things should be a failsafe, not a "Go-to" Answer for everything. That'd probably necessitate reworking crime as well, which I have my own thoughts on as well... but that's for another time and thread.

I know that.

Surely I'm not the only one wishing for a disguise feature to be implemented next game.

We'd need to have acrobatics and non-linear dungeon design to make anything close to Dishonored's level of stealth.

How would you make Sneaking more Stamina-dependent? I hope you're not suggesting that Sneaking should work like sprinting, and crouching just continuously drains your stamina...

They should of went the TESO route to sneaking. Going sneak mode drains stamina if sneaking in skyrim drains stamina and shadow warrior took stamina to use it would be a lot more balanced.

That would be terrible. Sneaking is supposed to be slow and methodical, not something you can only for 30 seconds before you suddenly become winded.

Now, if things like climbing, holding on to ledges, and ceiling clings were implemented, I could see those continuously draining stamina, but simply crouching?

I want this too.

Yeah but how would you keep sneaking from being broke ass powerful like how it is in skyrim? Thats the only thing I can think of to balance sneaking this way stealth characters have to actually invest in stamina instead of stacking loads of hp.

Kinda... Moving while sneaking should drain stamina, standing still should regenerate it, albeit at a slower rate than standard idle. Actual values would obviously be adjusted the better you get. Reaching zero stamina while sneaking, the player takes a heavy sneak penalty, but wouldn't cancel it.

The idea is to make sneaking the "Ambush" style it's trying to emulate, instead of a constant crabwalk deathcannon.

Thats good standing still recovers it while moving drains it so you have to pick the right moments to move, rest and strike.

I think as a stealth character, you're supposed to be bouncing from shadow to shadow while silently depopulating (Or completely ignoring) the area. But when talking about The Elder Scrolls, is it ever fair to say "Supposed to" do anything?

As I play, and see everyone else play stealth characters, it's Enter Dungeon -> Activate Crouch -> play normal warrior style but with all 1 hit kills.

And let's not even talk about Stealth Archery...

Oh yeah my bosmer was a stealth archer I got bored since it was so easy. XD

The problem I have with that is unless we fix Skyrim's linear corridor festival that is its dungeons, and create multiple places the character can sneak through (crawling through tunnels, climbing the rafters and traveling that way, etc), your character is still going to be crabwalking throughout most of the dungeon anyway to avoid making sound and alerting the enemy because it's impossible to see if there's just going to be a Skeever around this corner, or fifty Draugr Deathlords.

I'd rather they do it through organic gameplay challenges like improving the AI that make the world feel more real rather than arbitrary penalties anchoring your character down because otherwise it wouldn't be balanced.