As I was playing Skyrim, I realized an awesome thing that could improve stealth gameplay[besides making dungeons darker]. Now many people probably will not like my system, and that's fine I accept all opinions, but here I go. I think a way to improve stealth gameplay is first of NPC awareness. Now let's say your guard died, and there was two dead bodies. Instead of going back to their post, said Alive Bandit would run into the ruin, fort, battle tower, or whatever to alert the people in the fort or whatever dungeon you're about to explore. The fort is now aware that someone inflitrated the front and will now be on high alert, more patrol. Patrol near the entrance.

I find it silly and almost ridiculous sometimes that people are in these dungeon forts, drinking and eating when people up above patrolling just got killed. I think a survivor, should try to get inside the fort before you can kill him and alert the whole dungeon to go on search. It makes stealth gameplay even more difficult because it means enemies are on high alert.

One of the best stealth missions in the DB was in Oblivion's, imo, when you had to kill that dark elf prisoner. It scared me watching that Imperial Guard walk down the pillars with torches. And you had to find a way to sneak around them without getting caught. It took a few rage quits and a lot of time, but I finally got it down. I think forts or whatever dungeon should be on this kind of alert as well, especially if a survivor reports there was an attack near the outside gaurd post.

Another thing I want implemented again is schedules. I liked how each character had a sort of schedule to their life. I had to kill this guy who owned a vendor, literally the only two things this guy did was sleep and run his vendor. They said sometimes he hunts, and I waited and waited and waited for him to go out of town, never happened. He literally just went vendor and sleep.

In Oblivion the best assassins was when you were tailing someone through the day until you caught them at the right moment. You had to learn their schedule, who they talked to, etc.

These are my opinions. Give any feedback as youlike.

I suppose i could get behind this...i am damn good at stealth in Skyrim and i would not mind this little difficulty increaser

I think these are great ideas.

Here are my opinions and other peoples opinions on the subject of stealth.

http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1377567-about-the-game-of-stealth/

i totally agree

I'm surprised. I had a debate with someone earlier, I had assumed everyone would hate for how difficult it would be. But that's what I liked about Oblivion, it was all about timing and scheduling. You had to watch the way a guard patrolled. In Skyrim they just stand around or eat or sit. Not much moving, not much alert or awareness. My brother played the game with his stealth character, he had arrowed a lady and killed her one shot. The guy sitting next to her continues eating, he didn't even really look very hard. He just sees her dead body and goes, "I'll find whoever did this" but he needs to finish his bread first. -.-

To easy to kill, to dumb to kill. It's like beating on the weak sometimes.

Well the thing is that certain things makes more sense for stealth but many things that increase difficulty that certain people suggest are outlandish and only serve to make the game more frustrating. Alerted patrols are something that would make more sense and anyone who played Metal Gear Solid will know how to deal with circumstances such as these

Yep, that's all I suggest.

And at the person who handed me the thread, I don't like the idea of there being Alert levels. I much prefer a guard out in front going:

"Holy Oblivion, there are two dead patrol men, and a third over there...we're inflitrated" And he quickly runs into the fort to alert the others. He doesn't really have to say that, but I think a survivor should have that programmed in, to have that kind of enough awareness to go tell the others they need to stop slacking off.

So pretty much after they are alerted they draw their weapons and patrol more carefully, some even doing searches

Yes. Instead of eating bread. Sorry sorry I keep bringing that up, but that seriously a pet peeve of mine.

even worse are the guys who get out of bed, find a body, and then go back to sleep...maybe they think it is a dream

That's an annoyance as well.

All though I'm a Nightblade, so sometimes I have hordes of enemies searching for me with a Fury spell attack each other instead. Pretty damn amusing to watch.

What you just said is exactly what they are going to do. How else is everyone going to know theres an enemy in their precious complex?

Um...usually they don't even acknowledge it. Many of the remaining NPCs in the entrance don't even budge they just shrug it off and go back to their post. What I'm suggesting is that there is a limit to how long they can go back to the post. If the whole entire guard post is missing it's time to go into the fort and tell everyone start patrolling double time.

I think there should be added behavior responses as well. For example:

Say you turn invisible.

The enemies would knock things down on the ground to clutter the path to make it harder for you to walk by undetected. They'd also back themselves into a corner to minimize the areas you could attack from.

Melee people would occasionally swing wildly, while mages would spam spells to try and find you.

I remember talking about the NPC dialogue for going back into non-alert mode awhile back, and that's one thing they could change easily. Saying things like "I guess it was just the wind" is not really appropriate when they clearly saw the other NPC they were standing near take an arrow to the face and die. They should probably stay in alert mode longer when they actually see someone get killed or find a dead body.

There's so much room for improvement with the AI I wouldn't know where to start, but I'm guessing/hoping(you just never know w/Bethesda since I've yet to play a Beth game with decent combat) they were aware of this and resources/time/limitations of the engine or certain platforms factored in. It would be odd and surprising if they significantly improved stealth specifically at this point when so many other aspects of the game are equally shallow. Basically you just pick the style of dispatching enemies with ease you like the theme of best in Skyrim because whether you're an archer, mage, melee or any combination, it's mainly a visual experience.

See I think that would be cool. If they couldn't find you they go "hysterical" knocking [censored] over, checking corners they rarely check corners only where the arrow came from. If dungeons were a bit darker they could start scattering light around lighting torches or candles into the areas. They would put an effort into actually finding you, while you made an effort to stay undetected and get around them.


And probably not blame it on the wind. Really a strong wind came in and threw an arrow into our buddy's face?

I really have to say in this case it's really just a limitation on the company itself. Look at games like Splinter Cell or maybe a "closer genre" Dues Ex. Enemies do their best to find you and you have to be smart to find good places to hide. Everything is about patrolling time, etc. Stealth based games, at least some, have succeeded decently enough a good aware AI. I think this is simply a limitation on Bethseda.