"Once you successfully sneak up behind an unsuspecting victim, you can unleash a deadly blow with the dagger, an almost useless weapon in previous Elder Scrolls games that is receiving a major boost in Skyrim. “Now when you sneak up behind guys, the dagger does something like 10x damage,” Howard says. “I don’t know if we’re going to keep that, but you feel like you should be killing the guy if you’ve gotten that close and you have a dagger.”

http://www.gameinformer.com/b/features/archive/2011/01/24/skyrim-building-better-combat.aspx?PostPageIndex=3

Bethesda plz plz keep this 10x damage for stealth kills! That sounds so awesome and if it's like that in the game I would seriously not know what class to play first... which is good lol. Also the fact that enemies will not autotomatically know where you are when they hear or see something is just such a nice feature. Quote:

"Stealth basically works the same as it did in Oblivion, but Bethesda has slightly altered what happens once enemies detect your presence. Now when NPCs think they see or heard something, they go into an alert state. Characters with a higher sneak skill will have more time to duck back around the corner or find sanctuary in the shadows. This new system eliminates the sudden attacks that sometimes caught players off guard in Oblivion."

The only thing I am slightly worried about is in the trailer we see a stealth kill and the other people in the tavern are completely oblivious to it even though there's a guy getting his throat slit right in front of them. That's really not how it should be in the final game imo.

Indeed, stealth kills are awesome and make assassins much more assassin-ish, as I will no longer be sneaking up behind someone just to slash them in the butt and have them turn around and start whacking me with a warhammer.

I am also worried about the NPCs not reacting to your murder, perhaps it's a delayed reaction from the NPCs, so that they would only realise what you've done after the animation is complete. Not very realistic, but it could prevent NPCs messing up your stealth kill animations or killing you mid-stealth kill. Or maybe those two people really didn't like the guy who just got his throat slit.

So Bethesda added in features that games made during/before Oblivion era have already. :celebration:

Such as????

Or since that clip was about 2-3 seconds long it cut before they reacted. But you are probably right. They just don't react until the animation is over. :shrug:

I'm personally really happy using daggers is now a viable playstyle! :celebration:

Yeah, I shared Outlanders opinion. I think he popped up and struck'em pretty fast, so I'm guessing nobody was reacting at that moment.

So I'm curious about what they showed in the trailer. Does that mean that they will get an instant kill like it apparently showed in the trailer, or will you simply slash the enemy if the damage you do doesn't exceed their health? Or...maybe they'll do a very painful backstab animation if they don't kill them?

it wouldnt be good gameplay if ALL enemies could be killed by a backstab with a dagger. that would make enemy and dagger type and level distinctions less important. So Id like to see something like a backstab that fails to kill at least incapacitate an enemy so you have time to follow it up with more fatal blows before an alarm is raised.

x10 for daggers is not that much if daggers have a low damage to begin with, especially if long sowrds for example have a x6 damage bonus from sneak attacks. Instead, daggers could do x10, but short swords only x5 and long swords only x3. that way, daggers would be the best stealth melee weapons by far then, but not as good as the other ones in other situations. I do wonder how much sneak bonus a bow will get, they already do alot of damage, so perhaps x2 or x3 is enough to get many OHKO stealth kills?

Yeah it might be that the animation just has to finish before bystanders react. I wouldn't mind that. But I would very much so like to see how the NPCs react to a stealth kill in a gameplay video whenever Bethesda is ready to release some of those.

About stealth attacks with a dagger being overpowered if you get an instant kill every time, I would say that I don't agree. It takes alot more time and effort to succesfully sneak up on an enemy than if you just charge at them like a warrior would. And it's not like a stealth character will be able to stealth kill an entire group of enemies. But lets say you have to infiltrate a castle. If you take the time to stalk every enemy there is and wait until they are alone why is it not fair that you get to instant kill them? But okay if Bethesda makes it a perk you get when you have a certain level of stealth points that might work and I don't think I would complain about that... too much heh heh.

But having played a game like Batman: Arkham Asylum I can easily say that taking down an enemy stealthly is one of the most satisfying things I know. It would be awesome if Skyrim had something similar.

How about it's based on your Sneak skill compared to your victim's? Like if you have 10 and the victim has 100, I find little realism in being able to assassinate that person. But if it was the other way around ... that's another story. And if they're about equal (or something like that), make it damage a lot, but not enough to kill.

My only concern is if the stealth attack is always a kill. I wonder if it will work on creatures or higher level NPCs, because it would be weird if you go up to slit an NPCs throat and then they turn around to continue fighting with a gaping wound on their neck.

I also wonder if a dagger is something that you can fight with or only do stealth attacks with. Like in Two Worlds II the dagger is only used when sneaking, and you can not fight with it.

im thinking and hoping its an instant kill

That is how it would be anyway. - Because you wouldn't be able to successfully sneak up behind someone with a higher sneak skill than you.

If any skill should be used for the opponent's skill check, I think it should be Security. (Which should not be just about picking locks, IMO)

Even if the person you are trying to assassinate is very good at stealth, it doesn't mean that he is good at detecting sneaking people.

i think stealth attacks with a dagger should always kill, and to prevent higher lvl enemies from being too easy to kill just make them detect us if we come really close, higher security as people already mentioned or whatever

Even if you were using 100% Chameleon or Invisibility?


To be honest, I just threw Sneak in there, as we don't know what skills will be in the game. Maybe Security and Sneak have been merged, maybe not.