The zerg-rushing guards of gaming have gotten stale to be frank. They aren't very effective and have no sense of survival. I purpose a fix to it.

1. Guards will evaluate how many of their own have been killed by you and where you are in the city (if your position is known).

2. Guards will take defensive positions if you prove to be a serious threat (ie kill 2-4 guards)



3. Prior to becoming a threat (significantly wounding/killing a guard), guards will attempt to subdue you with attacks that drain fatigue/knock you down. So they can arrest you.

4. Lighter guards will be used to sneak up on you if you enter a city with a large bounty that includes numerous guard deaths. These men will attempt to hit you with poisoned weapons that cause paralysis.

That is all I have for now, please comment/vote

Nice. Of course i agree. some of this stuff was prevalent in the GTA series, and it worked out great and pretty realistically.

This would be a significantly better system than what they had in Oblivion!

Haha @ the options by the way.

Too much Futurama for me...

Back on topic...

Sounds good. It always bothered me how guards behaved in Oblivion. If you had killed a ton of guards they'd still keep running at you like idiots and got killed.

The guards weren't ever organized, and that fact subtracted from the immersion of being a criminal. The guards would just bum rush you endlessly.

yeah, the guards havent really advanced that much since Daggerfall. something like this is seriously needed/over-due in Skyrim,

Sounds good to me.

Sounds pretty good, only thing I don't like are the stealth guards. They just don't seem to fit in there.

I think this will add a lot to immersion and would make more sense than the suisidal guards from OB and MW.

How not?

I think when the guards notice that you are a bounty your current appearance should be a variable. If your wearing a different cowl/hood/helmet they shouldn't recognize you unless you bring a lot of attention to yourself. something similar to Assassin's Creed "social stealth" should be implemented IMO.

and if someone notices who you are, and you're just a lesser criminal with a relatively small bounty they might just come up to try to arrest you directly (in addition to what you said about the more hardened/infamous criminals in the OP)

Good ideas. I really hope this time the AI has better tactics than the most simple one even I know how to program - find fastest route to target, close in, engage and fight to the death.

Every organized group should use better tactics and do teamwork to be more believable. And every character should do proper threat assessment and not just run to a certain death like a mindless idiot. Especially anyone who comes with you to quests needs to be more intelligent.

I like the ideas you have, for the most part anyway. I think with the changes in AI behavior and updates, combat sequences such as guard battles will be better.

Much better than in Oblivion ... awesome if we get that ...

I like this idea. Though I doubt a system like this will be implemented =(

True. If a band of mercenaries comes to kill you in the wilderness, the archer should take the high-ground, the warrior should come straight at you, the mage should stay back and maybe set some magic-traps, then get behind (flank) you and hurl shock/ice/fireballs or something. if they have a designated healer (s)he should try to stay alive by staying away or paralyzing you.

A rouge/illusionist/healer would be such a [censored]. sneaking around in the dark in chameleon... healing his friends.

I think the whole point is Oblivion didn't have a system other than the common NPC AI and a "Guard" faction allocation.

You gonna code this for them?

Depends, are they gonna pay him for it?

Some of those sound a bit silly, building road blocks for example, lol'd But overall better AI and the added feature to lose to a guard would mean you end up in jail, not re-loading the game.

a few guards could block a city exit by standing in a row and using their shield, attacking anything that comes close (<--pretty common tactic). That's basically a roadblock.

Well that sounds reasonable, I was thinking about a wall in the middle of the town lol.

Thats isn't hard to be implemented by devs, since modders can do thats why devs cannot, besides thats great improvement will be.
Reneers Guard Overhaul
http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=5977
Clothing matters
http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=22653
For first there is must be regional style bounty with levels and reduction overtime,
so if stole an apple in small village guards in large city will don't know about thats, but if you kill some one famed or important or stole something very valuable and your bounty will be significantly large you will be known in other cities also, %PCname can be recognized on sight but if he has training in Sneak skill there can be preformed check so stealth can be used in public places also and certain items can work like disguise by improving chance of not be detected on sight, wearing of stolen items at sight of previous owner can increase chance to be detected so value of stolen item and thieves guild fences will be much more important but all items will not have stolen mark assignment.
For second there is must be alert state,
If %PCname become recognized by NPC, NPC go into alert state and try say guards about player player can kill NPC and alert will be removed, if %PCname bounty is large there is can be used bells thats will alert guards in larger arena.
For reduction of bounty there can different ways not only prison.
By time low level bounty can reduced to zero afters few days
By bribe of guard or guards captain, membership in thieves guild can reduce such costs or provide removing of larger bounty level
By doing quests for factions thats rule in thats area
By stealing evidence from local court


Dynamic spawn points in secured areas (guild quarters, rich shops and banks, palaces and halls of nobles, city doors and city walls area for preventing of escape from city, there can be stealth entrances to cities for shady characters) thats will spawn leveled guards from a list accordingly to amount of bounty of %PCname and %PCname class specialization (Radiant Story take in account such features).
Such spawn points can be placed around doors so guards will not materialize from air but will create illusion of come from such entrance, leveling can adjuct number of spawned guards their equipment their class skills and abilities accordingly to player level, bounty, and level of area so high skilled guards with powerful equipment will not spawned in small villages if %PCname with high bounty will enter,


Well some door can be closed by NPC if area in alert state now, thats can be scripted and isn't hard


Thats can be done with shield bash and blunt weapon for reducing of player fatigue, mages and cover ops special squads like rangers can use paralyze spells and poisons, when player will fall, then he force equip Wrist Irons thats enchanted with drain speed and stunned magicka\silence


Yes guards must arrest not kill on sight, NPC also can be affected by this thats will reduce City Wars from one stolen apple like thats was in oblivion.


Well better left patrolling guards thats travel by some route