I want something with a couple elements from the Metal Gear Solid stealth mode

1) if an enemy sees you, they should shout for reinforcements if there are other nearby enemies of the same faction (bandits wont call for help from skeletons).
2) you can hide, but they'll realistically and systematically look for you and if you're hidden well enough they eventually go back to their posts, and then their alertness would slowly diminish
3)if someone see's their dead brethren on the ground they will call for help and start looking for the culprit. (this will make dragging bodies to move them much more useful)

any more ideas?

Mainly I want a way to have a realistic idea of how well I'm hidden, but without an all-or-nothing "they can see you/they can't see you" notification.

Thief's darkness meter, combined with behaviour animations/sounds from the NPCs would be ideal, I'd think.

Maybe have the eye icon show how well lit you are. Instead of gold being seen and white being not seen, you could have gold mean well lit and white mean unlit

I forgot it was an eye. They should animate it with how open the eye is indicating how visible you are (lighting wise). Still need the NPC reactions, though.

Just a quick note for people who play on PC, a 'darkness meter' is possible in Oblivion already with http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=34905. I have a bar that shows the current light level of my char and it helps a lot, especially when you have flickering light sources and a good amount of ambient light. But would be great if they implemented it right from the start.

And I'd definitely want a more realistic NPC behavior. People should start to search the area if they hear something suspicious and they shouldn't ignore dead bodies or arrows/magic that miss the target (there are mods for that as well by the way in Oblivion, http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=16150 and http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=18065).

man i wish bethesda would hire some of these awesome mod creators to think of these things before the game is released. we console players are missing out severely .

Sounds good to me.

Stealth Overhaul mod: just including the dynamics in that mod should do it!

I like Morrowind and Oblivion stealth, it just needs to be made harder where technically possible, i.e. you walk upstairs past a shop keeper, and suddenly he isn't aware of you hiding in his bedroom.

Other than that, we need to be realistic and say it is still a game, something like stealth must be a very difficult game development, so I am not worried about this aspect. I could actually live with the old system as it is just fine.

Other areas from Oblivion need far more attention.

First part, very cool....gotta add that when playing Oblivion again.

Second part, the biggest issue I have with mods that change NPC behaviour in regards to Stealth is that they seem mostly limited to dealing with the NPC reactions AFTER you're spotted. A feature in the core game would be better because the game can use the fact that it is constantly calculating whether an NPC can see you in order to warn you about an approaching detection. When the game calculates your stealth value against and NPCs awareness value, if you win by a fair margin then the NPC should continue to behave as before. But if you start to approach the point of being noticed, if your stealth value is only just beating the NPCs awareness value, the NPC could suddenly jerk their head in your direction like they thought they heard a sound, or stop suddenly and switch to an attentive stance while trying to listen, or stop and start scanning around in a circle. They could suddenly lean forward and start peering in your direction, or grunt or say a line like "what was that?" or similar. These would all be warnings for you to stop your movement, and maybe creep back into a darker location. But you'd have to pay attention to your environment, instead of staring at that eye...which usually told you nothing until it was too late.

At least the new system warns you when people are actively searching for you, but it does that even if the person is two floors away and you didn't even know they were there.

Please, no more "Help! I'm being attacked!"
[censored], that made Assassinations in Oblivion so silly.
And make Sneak Attacks more fatal.

I like these ideas. and all of them are seen in even the oldest metal gear solid game, but especially in 3 and 4. I think bethesda should take a couple pointers from hideo kojima about stealth as he created the best "tactical stealth action" game there is.

as far as stealth games go
Metal Gear Solid series > Theif > Splinter cell series.

and as far as all games go
TES series > MGS series > all other video games

(yes im a fan-boy i suppose)

1.Stealth animation kills.
2.Hiding bodies and NPC's that react to dead bodies.
3.NPC's that react to sound.

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^This and v

Oh, dear lord I hope they've changed the animations so that people who are sneak attack one-shot killed while sleeping don't stand up before dying.

Sneak attacks shouldn't always be one shot one kill because it wouldn't be fair that you could be a weak character who can kill a very strong NPC without actually fighting him.

mgs3 was the best in terms of stealth... chaos theory was also awesome.

I would like a stealth system as deep as splinter cell chaos theory ie hug walls, hide bodies, chokeholds/interogations...

but also the mgs3 camoflage system ie... wearing shiny elven metal in underbrush you would stand out... but replace it with a green cowl and you are hidden.

also, be able to get head shots with the bow.

Serious stealth criticals.

Playing a stealthy marksmen in Morrowind/Oblivion was a joke, and an exercise in running backwards.

Even my “under leveled” assassin with poisoned and enchanted gear had to run-n-gun or pull out a sword. How is that fun?

I would like to see that level of depth too, but I think we have to remember that the Elder Scrolls is not a stealth game, it's just a game with stealth in it. Not to say they can't improve the stealth though.

At least in Oblivion you could hide when you were spotted.

Have it more like Fallout which I think they're heading in that direction with sneaking. If an enemy detects you then the danger message should appear over the crosshairs.

I agree. But that's not what I said. When you killed someone with very low health, with a very strong weapon in Oblivion, while they were sleeping, the person would stand up in the bed and then collapse dead even when your blow killed them instantly.

I think you could make a case for it in terms of balancing different types of characters. As someone said above, you couldn't really base a character entirely around sneak/security in Oblivion if you wanted to actually do most of the quests. Your character also had to be great at fighting.

I think they'll add unique animations for Sneak Attacks with CQC weapons.

How exactly is Metal Gear's stealth better than Thief's? For the majority of the series, remaining hidden is only a matter of staying out of the enemies' (ridiculously small) cone of vision, and from part 3 on, using camouflage. Noise was only ever a "sometimes" concern. In Thief, light, cover, line of sight, and noise all have to be taken into account at all times. The AI was also much better, enemies would react more realistically once they knew damn well something was amiss; if any single person discovered a body, or even saw you, his behavior would change permanently, and he would remain on high alert for the remainder of the level. In MGS, once you get through all the various alert phases (Alert, Evasion, Caution, etc.), enemy behavior resets, and they go back to acting as though they don't know you even exist. I like the Metal Gear series and all, but its stealth doesn't really hold a candle to Thief's.

Really, "all" Skyrim needs to do to improve stealth is improve the AI, make it more reactive to "unwanted" stimuli, such as what it can interpret as strange noises, sounds of violence, bloodstains, dead bodies, and items appearing in places they really shouldn't. A system of various awareness phases is only the tip of the iceberg.

Though I guess stealth kills would be nice, too.