I think stealth will be fine,my biggest issue with it was enemies sometimes knew where you where when you shot them.
This seems to have been rectified from what i've read. It also sounds like we can have stealth kills ( which is great ),they seemed to have worked on daggers more.
I would like a bit more improvement in stealth,but not too much as some have stated...it would make the game too easy.
Whether it's fallout or the elder scrolls,sniper/assassin builds are always very effective,some would say overpowered.
Traps would be nice,and also smoke bombs ,or rather smoke potions you make with alchemy.

Thief: The Dark Project was released in 1998...I'm pretty sure that 13 years later BGS could implement at least *some* of the features in that incredible, grounbreaking game. Hiding bodies, distracting guards, extinguishing lights and most importantly, a proper guard AI to start with.

I have played many stealth assassin games in my life, even those have many flaws when it come to AI and their reactions, I doubt Skyrim will get it right, nor adding any more special stealth features than the basic.

What I predict will happen in Skyrim:
Player kills Guard 1
Guard 2 is nearby and saw the body
Alert status raised
Guard 2 call for Guard 3
10 seconds later, alert status is lowered
10 seconds later, "Move along, nothing to see here."

Yes, but those didn't claim anything like Radiant AI. If the Radiant AI would work properly this time, the Guards 2 and 3 reactions would be different in different situations. One time Guard 2 may start searching alone in a 100 feet radius leaving the dead body and the objective they were guarding unprotected, alowing you to sneak in, another time Guard 2 calls for Guard 3 and tells him to watch the body/entrance and then starts searching, so your attempt of distraction failed. That's what I'd love to see, variation from one situation to another. What if when Guard 2 comes searching, I silently kill him too? Will Guard 3 become alert after some time? That would be so interesting.

I still have nightmares about Alpha Protocol's stealth system. :cold:


I've got arrows that jingle, jangle jingle...

Sneaky rats, always hiding in the shadows XD

As of now we've got armored rats and deadly sword-wielding wind

I don't think it's too much to hope for extinguishable lights. After all these were modded into Oblivion twice. Having ambient lighting modded out helped a lot too. And if you have extinguishable lights then water arrows come in very useful.

Of course guard patrols and well placed shadows are the very core of stealth, if Beth can get these right along with more complex ai then that's pretty good. It's just a nice extra if you can utilize your surroundings to help with stealth. Thief did this so perfectly.

Yep, guards were hands down the most annoying thing in Oblivion's stealth as they know, hear, see everything.


Thief Deadly Shadows much? :yes:

So far I'm happy with what they said about stealth (and combat in general TBH). The "hasn't changed much from OB" remark made in the GI article doesn't worry me TBH as long as the AI is better. You don't need gimmicks like water arrows and stuff like that to have fun, guards with a "scum detection aura" and dumb AI like the "it was just the wind" example someone else mentioned are the things that made stealth uninteresting.

Honestly I hope they keep daggers as the weapon of choice for us stealthy assassin types, let us one hit kill with daggers (except the truly strong enemies) and increase sneaking difficulty to balance it out (enemies call for backup if they believe there is danger, they patrol, they don't bump into you in the darkness and shrug it off etc.). I rarely used water arrows (Thief) or shot out lights (Splinter Cell), I enjoyed the added difficulty as long as my enemies reacted naturally.

Even though I'm going on about extinguishable lights and water arrows I actually use them rarely as well, preferring to "ghost" as much as possible. It's just nice to be able to interact with the environment more when needed. While extinguishable lights were modded into Oblivion if was a huge challenge and there were problems and incompatablities. At this stage in development Beth could probably add this feature in without too much hassle and it will save modders a lot of work later. The fact that the lighting will be dynamic sounds hopeful, just so long as they can resist the temptation to put in lots of ambient lights all over the place as well.

Bethesda! Definately keep the dagger sneak bonus you spoke of in the GI article! I also vote for cripling like in Fallout 3! Immersion über alles!