Currently I'm playing with a sneaky character. Sneaking around is fun, but once you reach a certain skill value the challenge is gone. NPCs are so stupid and behave so unrealistic that they never spot you. So here is what I'm looking for:

When NPCs notice something ('Huh...where are you?', 'Who's there?' etc) they don't do anything. In fact they do even less than before they noticed something. They stand around looking in exactly one direction and don't move at all. That is so stupid and boring I can hardly believe it. What would you do if you were a bandit in a world like Oblivion and heard a strange noise coming from somewhere? I would at least look around in all directions and walk around a bit to look in every dark corner next to me.

What I'm looking for is a mod that changes this behavior. If NPCs get in the 'I noticed something' detection state they should walk around looking for the source of the noise. If they don't find anything after a certain time (let's say 10 seconds) they could go back to normal. Would be cool if they would get a torch during that time as well. If you camp in a dungeon you don't run around with a torch on all day long, but you could ignite one if you heard a noise or saw something out of the corner of your eye.

I know that Thieves Arsenal has a similar feature, but afaik it only works for the items added by the mod (special arrows etc).

You can tweak the ini in http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=20303 if you want. With a bit of patience it can be done, I think.

EDIT: Typos
EDIT 2: it does not change the search AI, though. But I am absolutely sure that something you are looking for already exists

Well, Duke Patrick has the "Near Miss Magic and Arrows Alert Target", as well as "Fresh Kills Alert NPCs", which prompts NPCs to search for you, flee, or take cover. As part of Reneer's Guard Overhaul, if you attack a guard, they will run around searching for you. I think they will also search for you if they come across a dead body and arrest you if your weapon is out. Those are the only ones I can think of right now, however.

None change exactly what you're talking about though...

I use Combat Hide and it helps to some degree. Duke's mods are nice as well and fix some other unrealistic behavior of NPCs, but the real problem is that NPCs are frozen in place once they notice something. That is really weird as the opposite should be true. I even tried to make them move by setting their energy value to the maximum and calling evp on them but they don't do anything. They pick their wander package, but they don't move at all - It's as if they're paralyzed by fear as soon as they hear something suspicious. So basically you're more likely to succeed with a stealth kill if you alert the NPCs before approaching them since they will just stand there looking in one direction and will even stop to move randomly (like they do with regular behavior, pick their packages and move according to their energy level).

I always asked myself a thing: Do NPCs "get strange" if there are a lot of mods active modifing their AI?
Maybe if I have active simultaneously three or four mods which modify their behaviour in the same situation, they end up not knowing what to do.
Example: An NPC gets allerted by a fresh kill ("Fresh Kills Alert NPCs") caused by a nearby arrow ("Near Miss Magic and Arrows Alert Target"), the corpse should make the NPC suspicious ("Thieves Arsenal"), and if he has a confidence>70 he should run searching for you ("SM Combat Hide").
NPCs stuck in their place while alerted may suffer a conflict.
I am everything but an experienced modder (well... I really don't know where to put my hands on the CS actually ), but that's my 2 cents on this thing.

I currently don't have Duke's mods loaded and I'm pretty sure that I encountered the same behavior without any stealth mods loaded at all. They notice something, sometimes do the 'look left and right' animation and say their usual stuff ('Where are you?' etc). But they don't move at all until they're done with being suspicious ('Must have been the rats', 'I should cut down on the ale' etc). Afterwards they perform their regular AI packages and start walking around.

Oh.
I thought they were stuck in their position without moving at all like with bugs. So you say they act like in Vanilla when they are looking for you. As far as I know ther are (sadly) no mods which correct this behaviour.

I know there's a mod that does pretty much what you want, but I can't find it. The closest I could come (which isn't very close at all) is http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=13039 - it adds penalties for armor/weapon/shield based on your Sneak level.

I'm fairly sure there's a mod that adds huge penalties for proximity - i.e., if you're standing right next to someone, you have a pretty good chance of being spotted unless you're a master of sneak. That one came to mind when I recalled that I can stand right next to OOO's spectral warriors and remain hidden (they're practically blind).

You are talking about http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=15025. But does not modify the enemy's behaviour, only the ease with you can be spotted from them. They keep not searching for you if their buddies are murdered from a good distance.

EDIT: wording

Oh, there is this too, of course... But again, does not address the issue here.

There were a couple good AI mods in development a while back, but the author stopped developing them. I'm trying to remember if he addressed this...


I guess what we need here is a mod that:
1. Prompts NPCs to look/move around if they hear something. You could have different 'alertness' levels (lets say low, medium, and high) which will result in different responses (a NPC on low alert--someone in their own home, for example, would just meekly look around the corner and call out, and perhaps move to a room where there is another friendly NPC; while an NPC on high alert like an Imperial Palace Guard, would draw his weapon, alert another guard, and then actively search for you).

2. Prompts them to light torches (or cast light spells) and look into dark corners. Khajiit and their night-eye power, plus their Whiskers and attuned sense of hearing, probably wouldn't need torches and would be as hard as hell to sneak past...

And, just because it is related, it would be great for there to be a 'war horn' could use to alert all NPCs in the dungeon (not to come running, but to move from a low-or-medium-alert status to a high-alert status.)

It's from Phitt's Phighting Phixes, don't know if he knows about this mod ( :lmao: )
Other than that, if there is (or there will be) a mod which enhances the enemies AI like this I'd play it immediately.

Why not just set them to "stop their suspicious behaviour," so they don't think there is anything there, and then force them to look around, or move towards where the noise was? I'm not sure if there is a command for this, maybe just reset their AI?

And at the same time stop them from saying "Must have been the rats" and then looking for you xD