» Fri May 27, 2011 9:12 am
Realistic speeds for animals wouldn't work if you can't deal with animals in realistic ways, i.e. making noise until they become disinterested. Their unrealistic speed is a gameplay decision to make some of them avoidable to keep the game from being overbearingly frustrating, it seems.
But perhaps realistic speeds could work if a different method for dealing with animal hostility was implemented; if every animal wasn't starving and hostile this would be appropriate. Say, instead of current systems, animals only go hostile if a certain safety zone surrounding them is breached; not automatically.
Consider this scenario: an animal notices the player. If the player remains relatively still and doesn't threaten the animal's personal zone, the animal growls facing the player. If the player remains outside of that hostility perimeter, the animal eventually becomes disinterested and leaves the area (disappearing from the game at a certain distance from the player if not pursued). If the player, on the other hand, approaches too close, while being growled at and breaches the hostile zone (or is discovered sneaking into the hostile zone), the animal attacks. This safety zone could be a wider diameter area if the animal spawn encounter includes young animals.
Perhaps even some sort of "perk" or skill mastery system was implemented where this area could be widened or ignored. (As a skill mastery system this would require a new skill probably such as outdoorsman, survival, tracking or what have you - I can't think of a skill that exists as of TESIV that would help here.) I'd really like to see some sort of perk or trait system in this game based on skill and ability pre-requisites (perhaps even level requirements); although I'm sure some purists might disagree. I think that this sort of system offers a great way to customize your character. Consider an animal tracking trait, that tells you "You see [insert animal here] tracks leading off..." and an icon appears on your compass showing the direction of the animal. Or perhaps it has to be taken twice, the first level in animal tracking gives you the warning and the second level shows their location on your compass.
Considering movement, it could be a good addition to implement some sort of terrain cost to movement. If you're walking through mucky terrain you're slower than walking on the nearby path or road, climbing an incline is slower, etc. This would give roads and paths a strategic benefit to the player and make exploration a bit more of a risk. For example, there would be a quicker route through marshy areas on the raised dry areas than the wet water filled areas. This terrain cost would obviously not affect levitating or flying creatures, making will-o-wisp marshes even more of a maze-like deathtrap, for example. Spawn zones in these dangerous areas could be foreshadowed with half buried human and animal skeletons and corpses near their perimeter.
Snow, overgrown areas, marshes, rocky terrain, waist-deep (and higher) water, inclines/declines should all affect movement rates in some way, such as forcing you to walk in certain areas or slightly affecting your speed in others. This might be initially seen as a burden, but with a hidden benefit: a clever escape could involve leading your pursuers into an area in which they are slowed down by the terrain. Other gameplay choices could be made based on this system. For example, a seldom used and dangerously bandit rich road might be a quicker path through the swamp or mountainside, but traveling off the road could be slower and in this case safer as long as you aren't spotted by flying creatures.
Only a 20-40 yard radius would be suitable for this type of scenario. I do hope this feature is brought back and revitalized with suggestions from these threads here. 
