Great. Thanks a lot.

That's basically what I did, too. I put one into the core perk (1/5) and then built up enough to get to the perk towards archery and the perk towards muffle. Just the way I see my character -- overall more physical and in your face, but approaches danger stealthily before all Oblivion breaks loose.

Yesterday i tried to do an assassination quest from dark brotherhood, to avoid spoiler, i will just say the mission is in Solitude, well, the target was on a balcony, and i did get detected while moving. If i'm not moving i wasn't detected.

http://img20.imageshack.us/img20/922/sneaka.jpg

100 sneak, 3/5 in the perk, and +25% from vampire. It happen in broad daylight. And there is no guard on the wall, the one seeing me is the one on the balcony on opposite side, so it is not as broken as you say, in broad daylight at least.

I think they follow tradition, I have played Daggerfall, Morrowind, Oblivion and Skyrim.
All of them has been easy exploitable.
Daggerfall, fortify a magic school to level 110 and you can cast free spells, with spellmaking you could make spells who did serious damage. absorb health+ fire damage+ frost damage+ shock damage + magic damage 100, you might add some weakness for fun.

Morrowind had it's fortify intelligence potions who was an open loop and you could boost skills to millions, use the spell over, enchanting was also fun, miss my constant effect indivisibility and constant fire elemental rings. the weakness to fire + fire damage 100 in 30 feet ring was also nice but the fortify jump 500 was best, after a reload i added 30 seconds slowfall to it

Oblivion was boooooring, we just had an complicated magic and elemental weakness stacking, yes it was an challenge tweaking them so they was useful but compared to earlier games it was pale.

Now in Skyrim for the first time melee users are on the top of the dps scale, with a bit less dps than an mage in Oblivion going all out, and people complains about sneak, do not complain see that happened to magic and most of all destruction.
Still miss my jump ring

Don't play in a way that makes you feel overpowered. My assassin worked hard to become a master at his profession, and I'd hate for the game to be "fixed" because some people don't want anyone to have the option to play in a way they are uncomfortable with. Play the game the way you want, and let others do the same. An easily detectable assassin or thief isn't worth much, so they work to get more undetectable. Can my assassin easily kill most things? Only if he's not seen. Once detected, he's in for a fight he might not be able to win.

Too late it was my first skill to reach 100 without really trying.

I don't understand why everybody's got such tight panties about "balance" in games like this. It's not an MMO...the fact that it's overpowered doesn't hurt your character in any way. There's no NPCs taking advantage of master sneak skills to become invisible to you.

I do not have any issue with people building a character that is overpowered. The problem is, you do not go out of your way to do this. I do not have to even try to make a character that is ridiculously powerful. To me, that sense of accomplishment just does not exist in Skyrim especially since the path taken to get there is as easy as picking a certain perk or two.

I do not want them to change Stealth. I want them to give me more options to me that I can choose to make my game more challenging outside of choosing to not take certain Perks. The difficulty is all over the place and RAPIDLY declines. Challenge, to me, is what makes the game interesting. Playing a god with no risk of ever dying, no sense of progression, is just...silly. It makes me just want to skip through the game. What I am advocating, will do absolutely NOTHING to change your experience, just give players who seek a challenge and want progression to continue a means to do so.

My guess is because once a game goes out of balance, once your character is clearly superior to the NPCs, then the game loses its challenge and, for some people, once the challenge in a game is gone then the fun is gone. They don't want to keep the game interesting to themselves.

The term "balance" is just as applicable to a single-player game. For example, Magic is no where near as effective as Melee/Bows in Skyrim. Combat skills should be balanced to where the only difference should be how they control not how effective they are. We do not need to nerf everything, but Magic needs to scale better than it does and be designed a lot better than it is. Balance further can be used to describe balance in relation to content. For example, things that obviously trivialize the game just are not fun. I should have to CHEAT or EXPLOIT to achieve some of the effectiveness I can currently in the game, that isn't right.

I thought sneak was pretty powerful until I reached a level where everyone started finding me again...I'm level 50 now on that character.

Chances are, if enough people complain about sneak, we can loose that too.

I get that, but again, in order to use camouflage, you need to have it in the first place. And since the player character can be wearing anything at any given time, not everything is going to blend well with the surrounding environment. In other words, I don't see how a high Sneak skill = "Look, I'm so good at sneaking, I can change the color of my clothing!"

carrot-

i understand your point of view completely and agree so it's bewildering to me that beth doesn't have high level enemy lists or the optional slider, at a minimum.

better ai and combat mechanics should also be better. and, better perks/skill and so on, lol. again, i agree with you primarily.

however, when you choose your perks, i feel, you are making the conscious choice to make your character god-like. you are going out of your way since you have options and choice. it's just that when you choose certain combos of perks and skill advancement you can become unbeatable.

Wouldn't this be considered a scaling issue then? If i'm not mistaken the NPC tables really fall of at about level 50, isn't that correct? Shouldn't the mobs scale more with the higher level characters? I think more of this goes back to poor AI then sneak being "Overpowered".

Look, I do not care if the Perks make you godlike on standard settings, but we need the option of increasing the game difficulty (besides what the Master setting does) so I can progress through the Perk system without breaking the game. I do not care who you are, it is natural to make decisions in a game that are beneficial for your character. Progression, is very much an underlying mechanic of RPGs. To go AGAINST this, is unnatural. To intentionally not take Perks that benefit me is outrageous. Really and truly the reason that stuff is as broken as it is is because of how 1 dimensional the game is. Everything, is exponential. For example, your skills cap out naturally at 100. Now, you can have Perks that modify this by a %age. Then, you have enchants that Foritfy your skills FURTHER by a %. This can quite easily get out of hand. You take into account that Potions do this also, and EVERYTHING stacks with each other. What were manageable values enter into a realm of absurdity and not because anything was exploited, but just because their base system is eff'ed up majorly.

Skyrim, as many other games are lazy when it comes to difficulty, increasing HP and Damage on your enemies doesnt directly mean the game is harder, it just takes longer to kill and shorter to get killed.
There are some rare games out there were the AI gets smarter.. that is the kind of game people actually want :/

I think Halo 3 got enhanced AI during Legendary

Really and truly, you do not need to do things that make the AI smarter. For example these things will make the game more difficult:

1-Increasing spawn encounter sizes. Being able to set a rule that will set the minimum and maximize encounter size so you end up facing more enemies at once. A single dragon is a breeze, but two dragons is ifinitely more difficult.
2-Allow Elite spawns. Bandit Chiefs make Bandits look like pansies. Elite spawns allows for more difficult versions of enemies to spawn within encounters.
3-Allow ambushes. Being able to see and get the drop on your target makes the game really easy. Not having this ability (invisible enemies sometimes) changes that.
4-Deadly traps. Traps that kill you. No slight damage. Traps are way more concealed than they are currently.
5-Give enemies more spells and skills to dispatch you on higher settings. Allows enemies to use more ranged spells and abilities.
6-To the death! Enemies never give up pursuit until you or it is slain or you "break combat" (Shadow Warrior or Invis)
7-Realistic Stealth - Must use Shadows to your advantage. Extreme penalty in lit areas.
8-Better scaling - Choose the min/max level off-set of enemies and always enemies to ALWAYS scale with you. (For example setting enemies to +10 your level or at minimum -2)


These are just a few examples off the top of my head to increase the challenge that are all easily doable with game parameters that can be set (some of which can be done without the CK even).

absolutely need better ai, high level enemies, and difficulty slider for those that want that type of challenge

sneak is fine as it is. it is not overpowered.

I will make a video of me on the Emperor's ship not ever so much as touching a single enemy, walking right past hostile targets (like literally RIGHT next to) in well lit areas and opening doors right next to them without them so much as budging or saying "huh!?" I did not have to wait for pathing guards or dive room to room. I walked right out in the open past narrow corridors next to guards sitting in chairs facing me as I waved and went to go kill their precious Emperor. Sure, sneaking is fine.

Yep, it is fine. Blame the poor AI not the sneak skill

Playing as an unarmored assassin is some of the best fun you can have in this game. By no means can you take on anything. Just remember not to trigger dragons and you should be OK.

As an assassin, armor makes little if any difference considering you can still enchant it. You should not be getting hit. Offense is the best defense in Skyrim. You either kill the enemy first, or keep it locked down with Paralyze, Stagger or kite it. Standing toe-to-toe is just foolish.

This is a ridiculous post. Of course sneak is overpowered. As is two handed, as is one handed, as is enchanting, alchemy, and all the other skills. If you find it too easy bump the difficulty up.

I don't think that the problem is with sneak, I think that the problem is the AI. it is like all of the idiots in Skyrim took jobs as bandits and mercs.

I've never much cared for sneak. I like my opponents to know who sent them to Sovengard.