So, playing as a thief, wearing all light armor and almost always using the bow is my style.

Only problem is, I can't tell friend from foe.

I discover a new area and see people standing as usual. I don't want to kill any innocents as they may be important to the story. Half the time though, their hostile, and my play style is thrown right out the window.

Is their a way to know if the enemy is good or bad from a far? Anyone else feeling the same way here?

Very impressed with the game, but I've died several times this way and its really cramping my style. Plus, some bandits just killed my horse in Mistwatch ... damn bandits, they'll pay!

Perhaps some stronger visual cues would've been nice, but I think you can usually tell bandits from friends. And most of the enemies I encounter are standing on fort walls and such - with giant targets on their forehead.

Went to fort and thought I would be safe but all of a sudden I was attacked. I guess bandtis took over the fort. Nice surprise!

if you get close enough i think a red dot will appear on the compass if theyre hostile and if theyre non-hostile nothing willl come up

That's the thing though, I just discovered a new fort looking place and some guy is standing outside. I'm approaching him and he's not saying anything. I get off my horse and he gets medival on my ass; totally defeating the purpose of bow/stealth play style. I'm thinking, "What if this is a friendly fort, with merchants and what not. I don't want to kill a guard."

It would be nice if I was able to aim my bow at an enemy and see it turn red or show the enemy's health, just to give me an indication that yes, this is a bad guy.

I know what you mean, another thing cramping my archer character is that when I'm shooting from a really far distance (even when compensating for arrow drop) my arrows just don't seem to hit, I think the arrows are getting out of drawing range before they reach their targets and then the enemy is alerted to my position, anyone else have this problem?

In most cases I look at the clothes. I too follow a more stealth gameplay metric. Once you get a few bandits and other hostiles under you belt, pay attention to the types of clothes they wear. Others wearing similar clothing generally are hostile (although not all).

BTW, because of the radiant Story system, if you kill a later important NPC, the Radiant Story system will just "find" a replacement NPC to handle the quest. Don't worry too much about killing the "questee's".

I always play the safe route as I am a good alignment player, that is, if uncertain, consider them friendly until proven otherwise. Evil-aligned people prefer the "kill now, ask questions later" approach to uncertain aligned NPCs.

At the end of the day it's all about perceptiveness and looking at whats in front of you.

I guess this makes it more realistic in a sense..

I actually like that they don't all have a flashing "I'm Evil™" sign above their heads .

I thought of this argument, but of all things to make realistic -- waiting in the same spot for 12 hours, my horse climbing the steepest mountains or getting caught pickpocketing a merchant and him being friendly to me shortly after being released from prison (even though he tried killing me with his whack ass dagger) -- this is one of those things they could of made more friendly for the gamer.

On a side note, none of the things I just mentioned bother me one bit. This really is my only quipe so far, it just happens to be one that affects this type of gameplay, IMO.

Thanks for the tip on the clothes, I'll be sure to look out for that once I can start zooming in with my bow. I guess that's a start =)

do what i do... see someone suspicious? Quicksave... now sprint up to it... did it attack you? Yes? Then quickload... now shoot arrows up its [censored]

What do you hope is patched?

Some sort of indication for bow/stealth players to know if an enemy is hostile. It sounds reasonable to me. And I doubt the fine folks at Bethesda wanted us to quick save and play stealth through trial and error.

I have been coming on these forums occasionally all year but felt the need to register after seeing this thread.
I'm also trying to play the game with this style, I'm absolutely loving it but my only problem is the exact same as yours. There was a rather menacing looking guy camping on a riverbank, I put an arrow through his head, turns out he was a trader...shame, could have done with some salmon!
I know that enemies come up as red dots on the compass, but this only seems to happen once you have already been seen. On the Fallout games there was perception, allowing you differentiate between friend and foe from a distance but that doesn't seem to be present here, which is partly good, because being able to see everything on compass would be lame, but having nothing does create this problem.
Having the subjects name/health bar appear if they are hostile when you are close enough and move your cursor over them is a pretty simple and perfect solution.
Bethesda, please consider!

And people like me would praise them for not indicating, as it helps with immersion.

The detect life spell shows friend or for doesn't it?

Perfect. That's what you get for shooting first and asking questions later.

The line between bandits and traders is very thin, and they DO look basically the same. The world isn't black or white. Until someone pulls a sword on you, they're not hostile.

Why not sneak up and take a closer look at your target, then backtrack if it's hostile? Recon the bandit camp, then attack. Don't just shoot everything that moves.

It's an RPG not MW3. Your actions have consequences.

Sneaking up on someone and discovering wether or not they are hostile before making your move would ruin your Skyrim experience?

Each to their own I guess, but surely having the compass there in the first place should ruin your immersion if we're going down that route. It already shows you potential spots of danger/places of interest at any given time. The only thing the purposed idea would do is make stealth more immersive by actually making it a more viable way of playing every situation.

If Detect Life does show that then awesome, ill make use of that.

quicksave.

Seriously, its easy to tell baddies from goodies. Hunters are always alone. Bandits are together and look like crap.

Guards? unless your at an imperial fort, a 'guard' is a marauder.

It's fair to say it's still a very new game, and over time I know I will learn who/what is going to fight me, just wouldn't mind seeing it added.

@knwd "until someone pulls a sword on you there not hostile"

Well that's useful when I'm trying to play stealth, the whole idea is to avoid contact completely and either move on if they are not hostile or attack and loot if they are.
You make massive assumptions on my example which was light hearted to begin with, then jump on the 'MW3 is for dummies, you must play it' card.

Basically you're a complete tool, just saying.

context
I play a stealthy mage character and whenever I'm out in the wild I just try to keep an eye on my surroundings
is there a structure or camp nearby, go into sneak mode and check it out
get spotted, well it is what it is I am out in the open expecting to go unnoticed the entire time would be silly and unrealistic
sometimes I manage to sneak up to some1 sometimes I don't

however when I enter a dungeon or other building that could possibly hold any baddies it's sneak mode all the way
simply put you can't expect to be able to sneak up to every single enemy in the game