Soresu Posted December 17, 2011 Share Posted December 17, 2011 I'm paying attention to this screen lately. Trying to keep it clean. Now I noticed Assaults are almost can not be avoided in Skyrim unless you're willing to reload everytime you accidentally hit your follower or another friendly NPC in combat. Thievery can be easy to track, as I only try to steal stuff if it's necessary for a quest. But the Murders count.. I don't get it. I'm pretty sure I did not kill ANY friendly or non-hostile NPC, but this stat keeps increasing by itself. I start a joutney from X to Y on the map, along the way I enter every cave, fort whatever I see, I kill bandits, necromancers etc and then some time later I check the stats screen again and Murders gone crazy. Why ? Killing hostile bandits inside a cave counts as murder as well ? If so why not every bandit I kill doesn't count ? It makes absolutely no sense. There really should be a "heads up" for committing crimes, like it was in oblivion where you would be notified by some "your crime has been observed bla bla" kinda message. I know it's not really much important but I tend to get irritated by small details like this the more I play and spend time in a game. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Handofbane Posted December 17, 2011 Share Posted December 17, 2011 I have not gotten murder counts from them yet, but I have been seeing the same problem from Oblivion - hitting bandits first from stealth sometimes flags as an Assault. I just haven't paid enough attention to figure if it's bow shots or backstabs doing it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
csgators Posted December 17, 2011 Share Posted December 17, 2011 I have not gotten murder counts from them yet, but I have been seeing the same problem from Oblivion - hitting bandits first from stealth sometimes flags as an Assault. I just haven't paid enough attention to figure if it's bow shots or backstabs doing it. I guess both but bow shots do it for sure since I never back stab and have tons of assaults. No murders so I'm not sure how the OP is getting those. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AnzacTNF Posted December 17, 2011 Share Posted December 17, 2011 I also try to keep these stats clean, so far I only have 1 assault and 44 locks picked. Don't ask how often I reloaded to avoid more entries. :pinch: I could even solve two quests where it said I had to steal something. But until now I could always find a legal solution to solve them, no cheating of course. The assault came in one of the first quests. (I hope these descriptions don't count as spoilers, nothing really important there. ;) ) I attacked Arvel the Swift while he tried to escape with the dragon claw after I freed him. But only because I've read that he wanted to kill me later anyway. So I just made it quick. Another assault I got was in a cave called Ravenscar Hollow during a radiant quest. I freed a bandit to help me fight some Hagravens. After we killed them, he threatened to take my life too. As soon as I hit him first it would count as an assault. So, I let him strike first and then killed him. The same thing happened in the first quests where you had to kill some random giants. After a while my first sneak shots didn't count as assaults anymore. These stats really need some improvement - or at least an editor to "fix" them. Just because you hit a bad guy first or shoot an arrow to the knee of your companion who jumps into the line of fire is kind of crap. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AnArcticAnt Posted December 17, 2011 Share Posted December 17, 2011 Even if they're outlaws - and out-for your hide - killing people is still murder, no? You're going to have a hard time convincing people that killing someone, even if they're just some bandit, isn't murder, really. It is weird, however, that it only seems to increase if you're being stealthy... by the same logic as previously, it's still murder if you're upfront about it. Heck, I'd argue that's an even stronger degree of murder! :P As for the "Your crime has been observed" message in Oblivion... you realise that's a signal from the Dark Brotherhood, right? Only shows up when you kill your very first innocent, the assault count went up for bandits in that game as well, with no notification. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Soresu Posted December 17, 2011 Author Share Posted December 17, 2011 (edited) I guess sometimes (not sure what the conditions are) those random encounter attackers (Bandits, Hags, Thugs, Thalmor Agents etc) are marked as Murders. But I have no idea why. I try to travel by horse mostly, because I want to get more of those random encounters (and the landscape of Skyrim is beautiful) find places to explore and all that. So I get attacked quite often on the road and somewhere somehow I cut down some random guy who attacks me and murder in self defense. OR maybe my horse does that cause he's crazy. I mean .. really. Have you ever ride Frost as your horse ? He has serious anger issues. Once he landed a killing blow on an Elder Dragon, my jaw dropped on the floor. So my other guess is, when my horse attacks a bandit, mage whatever foe nearby, the game counts that as murder somehow ? I'm pretty sure it's not me. I don't know. Even if they're outlaws - and out-for your hide - killing people is still murder, no? You're going to have a hard time convincing people that killing someone, even if they're just some bandit, isn't murder, really. It is weird, however, that it only seems to increase if you're being stealthy... by the same logic as previously, it's still murder if you're upfront about it. Heck, I'd argue that's an even stronger degree of murder! :P Yeah I know what you mean and I agree with you, but I'm not arguing about whether killing bandits is really murder or not. I'm trying to find out why the game marks only SOME of them as victims and all others are just "meeeh just another dead guy, move along mate". As for the "Your crime has been observed" message in Oblivion... you realise that's a signal from the Dark Brotherhood, right? Only shows up when you kill your very first innocent, the assault count went up for bandits in that game as well, with no notification. I'm aware of that. But it was still a good heads up for realizing something went wrong and revert back to a save game quickly, before completing half of the game, you know what I mean. Edited December 17, 2011 by Soresu Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bpestilence Posted December 17, 2011 Share Posted December 17, 2011 You get assaults and murders because you are attacking non-hostiles. Try walking around, not on sneak, and with your weapon sheathed. There are a lot of bandits, mages and other NPC's that will say, "That is close enough!" when you walk up, affording you the oppotunity to avoid a fight. In real life, if you snuck into a random cave and knifed a guy, you would be a murderer. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Soresu Posted December 17, 2011 Author Share Posted December 17, 2011 Okay. I don't know how we always drag this into the real life definition of murder again but as I said I'm just trying to find out in which conditions the game marks killing a hostile as murder. In real life murder is murder I'm well aware of that, note that I'm trying to avoid unnecessary combat as I'm trying to roleplay a lawful good type character but as we all know it's most of the time is not avoidable. I am just wondering why the game counts some killings as crime and not the all others. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Earende Posted December 17, 2011 Share Posted December 17, 2011 Because the system is messed up? There probably is a certain group of NPCs that you must let them go hostile first, before touching them (too bad, sneak thief) or it'll be considered an assault on your part - regardless of you having to end them all the same. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
csgators Posted December 17, 2011 Share Posted December 17, 2011 (edited) I just got an Assault for sneak attacking a draugr with my bow. Do you get charged with assault IRL if you attack the undead? Edited December 17, 2011 by csgators Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts