It was useful for FO3 because there most enemies attacked from a distance. For Skyrim it wouldn't be as needed, so having a detect life spell available is enough.

"Never take a life carelessly. It cheapens you."

No please, this is elder scrolls. I dont even want a return of the silly crowns above people.

We already have a magical compass that can hold your hand towards points of interest, do we really need a compass that tells you who to attack?

I'm all for imersion, but in games where killing a single person can destroy an entire questline or cause havok trying to get rid of a bounty is just annoying.

I agree the compass thing wouldnt work in elderscrolls but turning the crosshair red when over an enemy wouldnt hurt, As for listening to the dialog to indicate friend from foe in oblivion is always helpfull not to mention you have to be pretty close to hear them.

Like two miniutes ago i heard two guys talking about joining the fighters guild, Ofcourse i shot them anyway because the cave was full of bandits anyway so it was a judgement call, But he could of well been an important guy.

I suppose i could quicksave everytime i kill something but thats just annoying and sometimes you forget.

Hopefully not.

I got my first star! ZOMG!

I personally thought that was an absurd feature in Fallout, and removed it after I installed DarN's UI mod. Why should I know whether or not someone is friend or foe simply by looking at my compass? I should be forced to judge by their behaviour and the way that they were dressed. And as someone pointed out, having those markers makes it almost impossible to get caught by surprise and ambushed. As for the sneak bonus, most of the time it's pretty obvious who your enemies are and who might be friendly. In Fallout, I could certainly tell the difference between a Raider and a Wastelander. I'm sure the same will hold true in Skyrim. I like that idea that there might be a benefit of doubt as to whether I should attack or not. In fact, with Oblivion I created a mod that added friendly NPCs who looked exactly like Bandits so I wouldn't always be sure whether they were friend or foe.

Agreed. It was somewhat plausible in FO3 because of the Pipboy although even then I fail to see how the Pipboy's sensors could determine intent to do bodily harm.

a detect life spell that shows enemies a different colour would be better and less immersion breaking IMO

What exactly is immersion breaking? Showing enemies as "different colors" isn't "immersion breaking"?

So maybe everyone should have text floating above their heads, like player names in MMOs, saying "Target," "Quest Giver," "Friendly," and so on.

Better yet, since this is basically about not having to think, let's do away with that annoying ability to control your character since, you know, you could do something stupid, and let the game play itself. As long as we're letting it decide our targets for us anyway why not let it do the rest too? :rolleyes:

No......

I really doubt this was overlooked in Oblivion, it just doesn't make sense that you'd automatically know if the NPC is an enemy or not. (btw all you had to do was hit wait if you were REALLY curious)

I liked it the way it is, and I made my fair share of sneaky characters. Oblivion was pretty easy to figure out, I actually hope Skyrim makes it more difficult to distinguish friend from foe by not having all the AI the same...

Pointless post is pointless.

Be constructive or do your rip.

I dont want to end up killing someone and then missing out on some fun piece of content.

I actually disagree with this. In FO3, when I increased my perception to 9/10, this feature got way out of control. Enemies showed up on my bar/radar way before they were even in view/could be heard, and it took away from the experience. It felt really overpowered, since instead of percieving enemies myself (spotting a smidge of movement on the horizon or hearing a subtle footstep for instance) I had only to look at the bar to ready myself. Don't want that to happen again in Skyrim.

Maybe they could make the crosshair turn red and then make it optional so you could disable it, if you think it breaks immersion then everyones happy.

There's very little danger of screwing up a questline with Bethesda games, characters involved in them are usually considered essential and can't be killed. As for the bounty, unless you kill them with a single attack, which probably won't happen alot in Skyrim, they always give you some sort of warning so you know not to pursue the battle further. In Oblivion I quite often heard them say "I'm on your side!". Then there's always the option to yield as well, which seems to be a consistent feature in Bethesda games. So I really don't see too much chance for accidentally killing someone you shouldn't have. Not to mention that to get a bounty, someone else would have to witness you killing an innocent, and it should be pretty plain when you have two friendlies together that you shouldn't be attacking either one of them.

They've said that the killable npcs such as quest givers and merchants will be replaced by a family member if you kill them. Besides, how hard is it to judge the behavior and location of npcs to tell if they're hostile or not?

I like it not knowing if its friend or enemy. and pretty much everyone in the caves of oblivion where hostiles, just standing in caves all day, doing nothing, guarding nothing, just hanging around...

No I would hate that, red dots on some map that doesnt belong there!! :flame:

the detect life spell isnt permanently on your screen and it actually makes sense with in the game world?

How does the spell know who is an enemy?

If you want to eliminate the entire point of the Detect Life spell then go ahead and put it on the Compass.

However, a Detect Hostile Life spell I could get on board with.

Ah thats pretty awesome, and iv found friends deep inside enemy dungeons before on oblivion wasnt exactly easy to tell them from friend/foe.




It's magic? anythings possible with magic

Don't dumb the game down even more.

I'd like moments of suspense as you come across a camp not knowing whether the inhabitants are friend or foe.

im not saying its perfect, just saying it could be an added effect or a different spell all together, that way the no enemy detection in my tes thats for shooters people would be happy and the people who need to detect enemies from afar would be aswell

I gotta say in fallout it actually wasnt needed as most enemy types were readily apparent (due to being ghouls,wearing factions outfits, placement in game, super mutants,ect,...) whereas in oblivion it woulda been nice to be able to tell some how other then thru engagement at least sometimes, like with a vampire so I didnt catch disease, or try to shake hands with a necromancer, or try to offer help to robbers on the road being attacked by animals or creatures from oblivion, or just crazed worshipers at certain daedra worship sites.

I think a better solution would be to have a "call out" ability and see how the enemies respond. If you are hidden and the enemies are hostile they might say something like "show yourself, swit," or a friendly npc would say something like "hello? who's there?". I don't see any reason why we should be able to tell if someone will be friendly or hostile without alerting them first, or at least doing some thinking about what type of npc they might be.