1:i think you should be able to sneak whilst standing up- why do i magicaly get a 6x bonus for shooting a guy with an arrow while crouching yet no bonus for sniping someone standing up? i also find it a lot easier to stay quiet standing then i do crouching. crouching should only aid in sneaking by giving you a low profile. also- boots shouldent be the only thing that holds up stealth- wearing heavy Armour should make noises as you move.

2: do we need a hidden (seen,caution,danger) icon? isnt it more terrifying to pickpocket that guy who will decimate you if you dont have a hidden/seen thing completely breaking immersion?


3: npcs realy shouldent talk to themselves like they have schizophrenia every time they hear something. i would prefer it greatly if they only talked to their comrades and you while trying to find you.

stage 0: unaware
stage 2: unsure.
stage 3: suspicious - may talk to friend , may become fidgety (if its a non hostile npc and you are seen, they might ask what you are doing)
stage 4: alert: shouts to friends, tells you to come out (or makes animal noises like barking). may cast spells like detect life or light, might draw a torch if its dark. adopts a defensive stance
optional stage 4- scared of the unseen force. might run away.
optional stage 4- if they saw you cloak/ think you are invisible they should try to swing with their weapons in the air to where they think you might be


then after that they become aggressive. (with more stages concerning moral and anger, but that has nothing to do with stealth)


4: add new spells

dark- snufs out lights
sound- creates a sound to distract opponents
summon scamp runt- a tiny scamp runs away as a distraction
no sound- a spell to stop communication, and to quieting footsteps
a lock spell, so you can lock the door behind you
WALLWALKING

also edit...
light to have high magnitudes turn into a blinding flare spell
chameleon needs a cap- and it should not stop sound
invisibility should not stop sound


5: LOCKPICKING (cause i have to ruin this with opinions)
lockpicking should have the different quality picks back. but the pciks should snap rather than disappearing after a certain amount of uses. this way novices will want to be carefull of using a highly desirable grandmaster pick.
skeleton key should not be ingame. or at least be nerfed
i want the option to break doors and chests that i cant unlock. like in deus ex (infact- dues ex, for those people who have not played it had a fantastic lock system- you could find the key,lockpick the door,hack the panel,blow up everything or find the code. although some doors had restriction on how to bypass them)
lockpicking should be in real time- the lockpicker should have the ability to look behind them as they pick and hear footsteps and voices. (i want one of those scary moments when you are unlocking the chest and a vampire sneaks up on you and whispers in your ear)
lockpicking should not be limeted by 25,50,75 or 100. locks should have any random number, like 69.
i liked "find the angle" so much better than "do the tumblers" - but i am hoping for more than one lockpick minigame
it would be insane if a lockpicking overlay DIDN'T pop up on screen and the player instead found the lock on the object, went down to it and started lock picking on the model

About lockpicking; have you seen Two Worlds II lockpicking system? I would dare say it's perfect.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w6qBapqp62Q

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7yul6Ae0lIs

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=22jpO7eQRS0

As the difficulty of locks increase it adds another tier that you have to crack through. You can still try to open a high level lock when your skill is low, and I emphasize "try" because it's near impossible to do.

Double post. :whistling:

^That's just a quicktime event.^

FO3/NV did it well IMO.

Personally I'd just rip-off Thief 3's system.


EDIT
1. Agree.

2. All stealth games have a system to notify the player how well hidden he is. I'd prefer something like Splinter Cell or Thief though rather than you having a 6th sense knowing exactly when they saw you. Audio cues like "There's somebody over there!" etc. can work better than Hidden/Caution/Danger IMO.

3. Variation of the above audio cues can do that. Stuff like "Someone there?" or "Come out and face me!" etc. No need to remove them just make them varied.

4. No! Use your wits, not gadgets or spells, that's what fun stealth gameplay really is IMO

5. Already answered in the first part of the post.

Agreed except for the Thief LP system because I haven't seen it yet. The Two World system is so much easier than OB's version. Just wait wait wait click, wait wait click. At least in Oblivion it would have variations of how fast the pick went up so you could accidentally jump the gun more often than in Two Worlds

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ga-flyVMgo0

5:30 describes it
6:20 shows the actual lockpicking

Watch it in HD after reading the description (the one from the 5:30 mark) and pay attention to the lower-right corner of the screen. The closer the tip of the tool is to the sweet spot the more it moves. When you think you found it you can click to advance to the next stage.

A system like that in SK where you have to click to get to the next stage could work IMO. Miscalculate and you break the lockpick (break it and you'll have to start over from 0); higher skill level increases the surface of the sweet spot; high level locks have a small area as a sweet spot and more stages. So for example each lock has lock level/10 stages, lvl 100 locks have 10 stages, lvl 10 locks have 1 stage.

In addition to that you can also implement an extra lockpick breaking mechanic similar to MW: lockpicking requires a gentle touch and nimble fingers. A character with a a low level lockpick skill will break his lockpick after a certain number of stages (since he forces it a lot more than a skilled character). This has two benefits: a bigger incentive to invest in lockpicking and avoids having players with a lot of patience unlocking high-level locks. So a master thief can use a lockpick for many stages but someone with no lock picking skills will break the lock pick after only a few stages (this makes it impossible for low-level character to have access to goodies in chests with a high lock level). The only thing special about the skeleton key is that it would never break. It doesn't give you any +X to lockpick.