Since Oblivion "sneaking" bugs me a lot (never were sneaking in Arena, Daggerfall, Morrowind, dont even know if it was possible or how it worked). In Oblivion it still worked "somehow" but in Skyrim they use the "code" for Fallout/FNV and thats quite bad.

Examples:
I draw the swords, enter a bandit lair... attack, kill some bandits, alarm the whole lair and flee. I use sprint to get away and few yards later I sneak... and hear from the distance "what was that? uh nothing"... and the five bandits (inclusive chief) who just were chasing me, turn around and forget I just killed few of them...

I sneak around a corner, sneak-attack a bandit chief, do only 20% damage, its like stiring up a hornets nest... the chief runs rampage, a coumple of other bandits as well. The chief runs with an arrow through his throat... "what was that? anyone here?"... I perform some silent rolls and 5s later im safe, as if I never shot the chief...

Or I kill a bandit, another bandit (patrol) comes across the dead body... "what happened? who was that? I will find you".... sure, the bandit have the attention span of a newborn... 5s later the bandit continues the patrol, when he returns, comes across the dead again "what hapened? who was that?..." ... ridiculous.

Right now "sneaking" is too overpowered, or at least the way how the AI reacts to it. I mean... you go into sneaking in the FRONT of a shopkeeper, move behind and steal or murder, noone notices (in Oblivion the npc turned his head and was watching you closely all the time)...

I think something have to be done

Agreed, but I don't know how to fix it.

Blind, deaf, memory of a goldfish sums up the sneak AI to me.

*Sneaks in to a bandit camp and wipes out an entire hoard of bandits*
*Random bandit comes running, sees the pile of bodies* "Who goes there?"
*Random bandit can't find me, while I'm inches away from him* "Hm, must be my imagination!"

:facepalm:

Name a game that the AI handle sneaking differently and then we can start from there.

I agree with OP, overall I love the game; but I stopped playing my assassin until the CK is out and I can get a good stealth mod. Having much more fun with my mage (level 56 now). Stealth felt to overpowered. If someone has just taken an arrow to the knee it should take them in game hours to calm back down.

It depends on your sneak skill, doesn't it? I didn't have much luck sneaking when I started the game, but now that my sneak is at 100 I can do all kinds of stuff. But.... I earned that ability. As a tradeoff, my magic svcks

Metal Gear Solid... and of course Assassin's Creed

It is not overpowered it is just plain failed with 3 major issues :

- When the eye is wide open the NPCs know you are here and where you are even if you are hidding. For exemple you run ahead, find a hidden spot out of sight without any NPC in the room (but still in the their agro range) : the NPC sill come straight at you, not matter what, without even searching the room.
- Like you said, even badly hurt NPCs will just forget you when you get out of their agro range and pretend they heard a noise ...
- Corpses, NPCs just spout a stupid dialogue line like "i'll find who did this !" and nothing else, doesn't trigger alarm/actively looking for intruder behaviour. Also, of course, no possibility (no point in fact) to hide corpses (bar 1 Dark Brotherhood mission).

Among recent games, even if not perfect, the Deus Ex : HR sneaking was one of the best i've seen : ability to hide corpses, normal/alarmed/combat behaviour for guards, a real line of sight (ie : no eye in the back) etc etc.

Thief, Hitman.

They could learn a lot from metal gear solid when it comes to sneaking

I think sneak is fine but the aggro system certainty needs tweaking.

Splinter Cell series, Ghost Recon etc.

If you want a sandbox game like TES then Crysis 1(not Crysis 2), it does all the tech stuff beautifully, AI and graphics. People usually only remember its superb graphics, but forget its unmatched AI.

If you want a RPG then Deus Ex Human Revolution.

When you talk about in dungeons or interior cells it's more like Deus Ex Human Revolution. So excuses like Skyrim is too huge/whatever just won't work.

And forget Assassin's Creed, it's AI is dumber than Skyrim.

Easiest thing in the world to fix.

Change the script to "Aargh, you'll have to come out sooner or later!" instead of "Oh it must have been nothing".

Problem is.. what is it you actually want? Sneak would be next to useless if you could only use it once in a fight and thats it, everyone knows you're there. It would compromise the entire thief/assassin build.

In DDO, they will 1st go to the area they last saw you or heard a noise and randomly swing their weapon around the area.

They then begin to randomly search out from that spot, and continue searching randomly, forever.

I like that system.

Have it so that the enemies who gets sneaked attack but doesn't die in one hit or see their ally die should stay in a 'cautionary' state until they find you or they die themselves, remove that 'being able to hide' again crap. I mean, they know your out there, there's no logical reason that they should stop looking and assume that it was just the wind. :shrug:

Depends. If they only think they saw you, I'm fine with going back to safe mode. But if you killed one of them and they know it, it should stay in caution mode for like 5-10 minutes or so - nobody is that persistent in exploiting the system.

I enjoy stealth, but yeah I find it a bit over the top at times. Still, way way better than Oblivion.

Thief, Hitman, MGS, Arkham and Arkham City

lol

I use whirlwind sprint shout normally instead of sprint, but I have no points in stamina since I am more of a wizard.

*Equips Longbow (Epic), snipes le bandit* BOOOMHEADSHOT
*Bandit still lives. Kicks le player in ze balls while passing by him. "You're dead!"
FfFFfFFFFUUUfuUFUUUu
"It must have been my imagination!" *Bandit relaxes before final headshot*

eh so? the whole point about thief/assassin is: noone notices you EVER.
as assassin... you should wait till everyone is asleep or just one there, kill and dispose the corpse. then move on to the next guy, when a patrol guy comes around the corner and sees the blood, ok now he wonder, but the assassins just kills and goes on again. the same applies to a thief, but instead of killing he steals.

what I talk about is when you already blow your cover. when the assassin attacks and DO NOT kill... shall the victim forget about the attack just few seconds later? no. Its ridiculous... the "bandits" see their dead comrade, they see the arrow in the neck, the lots of blood and they just go "ah poor bob, he always were sucidal"... yes you should be able to go into hiding again when you just were "too loud"... but its completely different when a lot of blood is the proof of your presence.

I disagree with the OP. Epic stealth is supposed to be epic. The top power is vanish in plain sight. If an epic wizard can summon daedera lords, an epic rogue ought to be able to lose you by breaking line of sight.

Perfect, if you ask me.

Metro 2033 did stealth quite well as well. And once guards know you are there, they are pretty persistent in finding you.

what annoys me the most with the f*cked up sneaking AI is that once you shot an arrow at an ennemy and he doesn't die immediately, he comes running towards you (NO MATTER HOW WELL HIDDEN YOU ARE, even invisble 100 sneak behind a wall 100 meters away ) and stops at the EXACT spot you shot your arrow from. Now isn't that a little odd ... -_-

If they had at least made the clueless about to be attacked ennemies enter some sort of "caution mode" right after .... taking an arrow to the knee... and make them search for the attacker in various places it would've been more believeable than this. I just don't get it.

Even the few stealth parts in uncharted 2 and 3 are more enjoyable than the whole sneaking in Skyrim. And I'm saying this as a 100 % thief/assassin

Vanish in plain sight doesn't mean you vanish from their memories as well.

When you are exposed and the NPCs saw you or noticed you due to a fail/non-fatal attack, you can still stay hidden, but that doesn't mean the NPCs should forget about this entirely 5secs later.

There's a huge difference between "they tried to find you but couldn't find you" and "they don't even bother to find the assailant when there's a dead body/an arrow stuck on their chest".