Never realized how effective sneak was... I decided to max it this play through along with guns as well... It's a little ridiculous... This game is suppose to be about realism and survival, but the AI seems so horrible and exploitable... When I am sneaking around a small room "Silver Rush" I take out my silenced sniper rifle... One [censored] head kill each and every NPC in the room without ever being detected... I blow a guys head clean off and the person standing next to him that gets showered in his entrails just stands there like nothing ever happened... No one even noticed as I systematicly executed everyone in the room one by one, even though they all had line of sight with one another.

Let me stop you right there. It really isn't.

That has nothing to do with the sneak skill being cheap and overpowered but it has to do with the AI being just plain stupid.

You're right that Sneak is incredibly powerful due to how poorly the AI reacts to dead bodies. It would be much more interesting and balanced if the developers could work on an AI that a) detected bodies, B) went into extended alerts when they knew an enemy (the player) was nearby, and c) would actively begin guarding themselves against cheapshots while creating hunting parties that would flush their territory in an attempt to locate the player. If a group of NPCs knows there's somebody about they shouldn't shrug their shoulders and sit down for a drink. Unfortunately AI is the one thing that usually suffers the most in videogames so seeing a change in unlikely.

It is. especially with silent running.

heh i find human opponents the easiest to take down in and around vegas like 2 varmint rifle shots to the head is enough but i'll be damned if i can take down the legion "elites" with anything less than 10-20 shots with a riot shotgun and point blank range.
cos screw you game balance.

I got a sadface moment, when i found how easy it was to kill fiends. kinda made the ncr failure to stop them a joke.

oh and the sneak attack bonus is ridiculous. useful but, like wtf how is it harder to kill a man when he doesn't expect to be shot than when he knows he's going to be shot?
does he suddenly whip out his kevlar vest when he hears gunfire?

Well, they do react in my game. I one hit killed a Glowing One in the Sealed Sewers with a silenced 10mm, all the other ghouls in the room Started looking around the area trying to find me. As i killed more ghouls their search area expanded with the new bodies. Despite waiting several minutes, they never relaxed again, even after leaving and returning to the area.

Seemed a lot like the behaviour from the "Responsive Kill Reactions" mod for Fallout 3.

think of it more as, if he KNOWS you're there and attacking, he is more aware and 'dodgy' (though the game can't really show it without looking screwy), compared to a guy who's sitting there mostly still, letting you take 3+ min to line up the perfect shot... or aim that knife for an organ-strike.

If you see someone pointing a gun at you.. are you going to just watch andl et them take their time? Or are you going to zig-zag or such to break his line of fire?

Dead Bodies? feh! They don't react to the person standing next to them having their head explode! :shakehead: You'd think they would be at least a little annoyed by sudden spray of moist brain matter on their face.

Yes, I think it's reasonable to say that Sneak is overpowered. After I played FO3 with the Chinese Stealth Suit for a while I put it away in my closet forever: I felt like I wasn't playing the same game any more. I try to limit my Stealth use to actually sneaking past people in the dark and for long-range sniping.

:huh:

:rofl:

I believe I have made my point

whats funny is it was just as overpowered in Oblivion, sneak + marksman(bows) was godlike.

To OP: you should thank God they didn't gave CSA its full glory.

I would say that sneak is maybe a little overpowered, and yes, the stupidity of the AI is partially to blame, while enemies do seem to react somewhat to seeing their friends killed (Usually if I sneak attack someone while enemies are nearby even if it kills the target instantly, the nearby NPCs start looking around and I get the caution message.) it seems that as long as they don't actually find you, it's pretty easy to becoming hidden again unless you have companions who decide to attack them (as they often seem to do in these situations.) And in conjuntion with the sneak attack criticals, when using stealth I can often kill enemies before they have a chance to fight back, which isn't really a bad thing seeing as that's how stealthy characters are supposed to kill people if they need to, but the game makes it pretty easy. And with stealthboys, even if you're sneak skill is low you can still stay hidden without problems, fortunately, they're rare enough that I only use them if I really need to stay hidden but I'm not confident I can without them, like when dealing with a quest that demands subtlety.



While not necessarily realistic, I'd say it's a good idea from the perspective of gameplay because it encourages players to try to take out their enemies stealthily if they're playing that sort of character, in particular, it makes it so there's actually a point in trying to be a sniper, without it, there's really no reason why stealth characters, if they want someone dead, shouldn't just whip out a minigun and blast away. I guess maybe that would be too noisy if you don't want to alert nearby people, but that's not a problem if there's no one around to hear it. Not everything in games needs to reflect real life, if it did, we'd need to actually use our skills to get better at them rather than be able to point points into any skill upon reaching an arbitrary level of experience needed to level up, whether you used it or not.

And yes, I would hardly say the game is supposed to be about realism and survival, because really, it's far from realistic, granted, if you play in hardcoe mode, you need to drink, eat, and sleep, but it takes more than that for a game to be able to rightly advertise itself as "about realism and survival", and I'd say the game doesn't offer that.

Actually, there's plenty of large game hunters who'll agree that a surprise shot is more likely to drop a beast than one that has it's adrenaline pumping and is intent on killing you. Having actually taken a round myself, as well as a couple of knife wounds over the years, if your blood is up and the adrenaline is high, and you are intent on surving the combat (meaning taking out the bad guy), you are unlikely to feel the pain...you feel the hit (at least with a bullet), you feel numb, and in my case your left leg no longer works, but you are still functioning until you are no longer threatened and you can do something about it...then shock kicks in and you realise you are in a world of hurt.

However, I've also heart shot a stag and had him disappear into the trees and go three quarters of a kilometer before he dropped. That boy was running on empty and fueled by pure survival instinct.

Hmmm, entrails from a head shot?

Sorry, had to be said :disguise:

It was probably a Wanamingo, there's not much else to them besides the head full of sharp nasty teeth.

Way back in Oblivion, I created the spell/potion that made me 100% invisible - it was fun for about 5 minutes, then it just became stupid-easy. The Chinese Stealth Suit fell into the same category for me. Ever since then, I avoid anything that makes me perfectly invisible and rarely max out sneak. Yet my gameplay is very sneak oriented as I like to sneak around in places that I shouldn't be yet, where the enemies will make mince-meat of my not-well-armored self.

This.

And, we know the AI is pretty bad, but that just makes it more hilarious.

The fact that sneak attack criticals ignore DT also adds to the strength of the skill. I ran across the legendary deathclaw today, got myself psyched-up for an epic and potentially deadly battle, and proceeded to kill it with two head shots from a sniper rifle. Something of an anti-climix really.

The damage from a sneak attack critical out of a high powered weapon is so massive the fact it ignores DT isn't really that relevant especially on headshots.
In addition many have reported sneak atttacks DON'T ignore DT, try shooting a giant radscorpion from hidden with a 10mm using hallow points.

Sneak is powerful for sure, but be glad it's not like in Oblivion where once you took a shot with a bow at someone, you couldn't remain hidden AT ALL unless you killed everyone that was alerted. It didn't matter if you were in the darkest corner with no light behind a stack of crates, they knew where you were at and would just come kill you. Thankfully someone made a mod for that with varying levels of difficulty to help make it a bit more realistic, as well as increased bow damage & sneak attack bonus. In vanilla, bows were for the most part ridiculously weak even taking into account the sneak attack bonus.

Yup, the Stealth Overhaul mod saved my assassin's tail. Literally :hehe:

What are you playing on?

I remember when I was doing killing the NCR guys in Forlorn Hope.


Perfectly hidden in the hills far above, with a Hunting Rifle.

But as I hit the first man, every single NPC in the camp had suddenly turned and aimed their guns right at my hidden position in the rocks, and everyone began firing simultaneously.

They knew my position the instant the man hit the ground.



I don't know about you, but I find NPCs extremely perceptive once the first shot has been fired.

Even with Stealthboy, they saw me all the way up there and chased me down while I crouched away, making sneaking essentially useless and I just had to run.

It was the sound of your rifle that gave you away. Had you used a silenced weapon they would have just run in circles.


For those who think sneak is over powered. Don't use it or don't train the skill so high.

This is a video game. Let it go. If you want to mod Sneak, then fine. I personally find even a sneak of 100 to be slightly unsatisfying. I wish a sneak of 100 would let you get right up to someone so you could pick pocket them, even at high noon.

So basically, I want sneak to be better, you want it to be worse. Lets compromise and leave it alone.

One cool thing about this game on the PC is that mods really let you change the game up however you like. And that's simply cool.

+1