Thief / Assasin Game Play Discussion

[Nycidian]

I am starting this thread as a place to discuss stealth issues and their possible solutions so as to create a resource for modders who wish to address thief and assassin type styles of play.

 

Disclaimer: I do not know if any off these possible solutions are possible to mod.

 

Immersion Issues

 

To immerse oneself in a game you need to be able to suspend your disbelief. This on the face of it would seem to be either easy or impossible in a fantasy game. Attributing everything to magic is an easy fix but often has little internal logic and requires massive amounts of explanation and effects. While asking everything to be super realistic in a fantasy game is not possible. The best solution in my opinion is to create an in game logic system that is consistent within itself, obvious or explained in a fashion that does not break immersion and that uses magic as a tool not as an excuse.

 

 

AI Assassination Reactions – While mindless undead not reacting to their fellow undead collapsing seems reasonable, for any other NPC the lack of reaction in most cases seems beyond any reasonable amount of suspension of disbelief.

 

• 
   
  
• Add body presence manipulation as an aspect of the game
  
• Change most AI behavior to react to the presence of dead friendly bodies, placing them into a state of caution. Preferable making it so if a fellow NPC dies in sight they go into instant search mode and don't stop for a reasonable amount of time. If a paroling NPC comes across a body they should pause temporarily to look at the body and then go into a search mode
  
• Make moving bodies less than improbable, at the moment moving some bodies is very hard as they barely move.
  
• Add spells, enchants, and/or alchemy to disintegrate bodies. A possible spell mechanic would be like soul stealing where if you kill in x seconds the body disintegrates on death.
  
• Add Illusion Spells that disable NPC reactions to Dead Bodies. To make their application more interesting limit the spells ability to work unless it is applied to the NPC before they see a body. Sleep spells?
  

 

 

Stealth Noise - While in stealth, the noises you make are ridiculously loud, that alone breaks immersion. Even in a dark dungeon where a body collapsing 10 feet from another NPC not being discovered is not unreasonable, the jarring noise of your grunt and the weapon sound as you attack makes it impossible to believe.

 

• 
   
  
• Change weapon and attack sounds while crouching to whisper levels.
  

 

Stealth Visibility – being able to stealth in broad daylight breaks immersion when in 3rd person view as its quite obvious your visible.

 

Possible Fix A:

• 
   
  
• Change the stealth skill to add innately a invisibility type animation where it becomes visibly obvious why you are hard to see.
  

 

Possible Fix B:

• 
   
  
• Reduce all stealth ability by a factor of 4 but multiply all darkness multipliers by 4 making it much harder to stealth in light.
  
• Add an Illusion spell that is channeled and gives you a massive stealth multiplier in light (x4) and has a visible effect making it believable.
  
• Camouflage Gear: Add Light armor that gives you stealth bonuses in light in certain types of terrain.
  

 

Storyline & Reactions – In the Winterhold College story line it is possible to finish it with a character that has zero magic investment. And while it is not unreasonable for a character with no investment in magic stats or skills or perks to enter the college, to advance this character to Mage levels and even worse to finish the quest and become the Archmage seems utterly improbable.

 

• 
   
  
• Add dialogue reactions and options within the game that are more varied and take into account non standard styles of play.
  
• Add the ability to assassinate as a supported option for some quests. Example, in the stormcloak quest line to take Whiterun, give an option to assassinate the Jarl skipping the attack.
   
  

 

Enemies Flagged as Essential (Scklyic) - Immortal NPC's obviously present immersion issues as an assassin.

 

• 
   
  
• For some NPC's, such as legion commanders, just having pool of NPC's that will replace that NPC after some set time, with everything the same except for name and appearance so that you can kill the first one would not be unreasonable being that if a commander was killed he would likely be replaced.
  
• ???
  

 

Lack of Content Issues

 

In some areas of this game there is a lack of content that characters focused on stealth can access.

 

Lack of Dragon whispers – Only two dragon shouts are usable in stealth.

 

• 
   
  
• Add more dragon whispers.
  
• Change appropriate shouts to whispers. Kyne's Peace “The Voice soothes wild beasts, who lose their desire to fight or flee “ from the description this shout seems more appropriate to be in whisper form, as a shout does not seem soothing.
  

 

Please add any issues dealing with stealth or stealth related aspects of the game you have experienced or can imagine. Please, If you post an issue try to also post a possible solutions as well,

Thank you.

 

Game Play Issues

 

Issues dealing with game mechanics behaving correctly but in such a way as to make stealth based play too easy or too hard.

 

Arrows allow free dragon whisper, Throw Voice - NPC's will go look where you shot your arrow and works exactly like Throw Voice but with no cool down, almost no cost and able to be used from the beginning of the game. Using arrows to do this makes the Dragon shout almost useless.

 

• Script it so when an intelligent NPCs find your arrow they then go to exactly where you were when you shot your arrow as they now have an arrow showing them where it was shot from.
  

 

Kill Animation Interference (throttlekitty) - if not interrupted by a kill animation you can possibly kill two NPC's as you have 1-2 seconds before the second target goes from unaware to fully seeing you allowing a stealth attack. This is difficult but doable and very rewarding to try, until you randomly get a "wonderful" kill animation that at best makes your fight messy and at worst causes your death.

 

Possible Fix A: (throttlekitty)

• 
   
  
• Remove Kill animations.
   
  

 

Possible Fix B:(throttlekitty)

• 
   
  
• Do not allow kill animations from stealth that break stealth.
  

 

Possible Fix C:

• 
   
  
• Decrease immediate NPC's ability to detect stealth immensely for a few seconds when a kill animation is triggered, thus allowing another few seconds to stealth attack.
  

Edited December 24, 2011 by Nycidian

[SkjoldBjorn]

I've been thinking about this myself, mostly im ok with all things except one and thats how npc's react to dead bodies. Sneaking in broad daylight is ok if you come from behind, but i can't say i have ever been able to sneak past anyone facing me when the sun is up, i always wait for dawn before i strike or midnight. The mages college is something i also can relate too, i became a Archmage with restoration at 60 or something, and all other magic skills at avrage, that is bad...i even felt abit bad for taking the title so i decided to go out there and wreak som havoc with magic so the title would be more fitting.

 

Stealth Visibility: you meantion an illusion spell to to increase stealth multiplier, can't we just use invisibility for this?

[Nycidian]

Stealth Visibility: you meantion an illusion spell to to increase stealth multiplier, can't we just use invisibility for this?

 

I've used invisibility on occasion as a potion and it just seems too powerful I think if it wasn't quite as effective or it lasted a much shorter duration, i.e. potions lasting seconds instead of 10's of seconds and the invisibility spell being channeled at high mana cost. As it is now with decent stealth perks invisibility is an instant win button vs almost everything. If the duration was much, much shorter at least you would have to rush to get into position to attack.

 

Another option would to make it so all NPC became invisible if you were invisible and impossible to attack while you were invisible, making it a useful tool to get past NPC's or to escape but not an instant win button for attacking from stealth.

 

But the reason I mentioned it was to suggest adding a visibility modifying spell that would make you visibly harder to detect this would explain stealth while not in shadows, as it is now you can sneak by enemies in even while in light, although there are times that this seems impossible in bright daylight, but at other times it seems like I can pass close to enemies that should see me, breaking immersion.

Edited December 22, 2011 by Nycidian

[runicNomad]

the immersion of being a sneak thief does need work

the AI has its limitation but once we master stealth it is possible to avoid even being detected outright even while piling bodies up.

 

All of your suggestions would be great to see implemented

[throttlekitty]

Removal of kill animations would be nice, or at least maintain the sneak state when performing them.

 

Two bandits very close by, I could sneak-stab both of them no problem. But sometimes my character decides to flourish the first kill, and the second bandit is already attacking me before the animation finishes playing, also alerting others nearby.

[Nycidian]

... sometimes my character decides to flourish the first kill, and the second bandit is already attacking me before the animation finishes playing, also alerting others nearby.

 

If you could give a bit more information, I would appreciate it. I've never seen this, but all my kill from stealth animations have been throat slitting with a dagger. Are you, by chance, using non daggers? Or is this occurring with daggers? It just might help if someone decides to tackle the issue to know as much as they can about when this is happening. Definitely sounds like an issue in need of resolution, however.

[Xouthpaw]

With 100 sneak & wearing high level sneak clothes you can literally sneak past peoples eyes in the daylight.. at night too, They need to have a field of view that if you enter it you will be detected. Though this would make sneaking too hard in area were the NPCs don't patrol, but stay put.

 

You also mentioned the war, Isn't really related but I never liked that your leader asks you to kill any Imperals/Stormcloaks you see, but you can't because the camp leaders are invincible.

Edited December 23, 2011 by Scklyic

[Nycidian]

With 100 sneak & wearing high level sneak clothes you can literally sneak past peoples eyes in the daylight.. at night too

 

I personally agree with the daylight part, but I don't think its unreasonable for someone with super high stealth to sneak in front of someone in the dark.

 

In my original post I brought up some possible solutions for this type of problem do you have any suggestions?

 

And thank you for bringing up the essential flag problem.

[throttlekitty]

... sometimes my character decides to flourish the first kill, and the second bandit is already attacking me before the animation finishes playing, also alerting others nearby.

 

If you could give a bit more information, I would appreciate it. I've never seen this, but all my kill from stealth animations have been throat slitting with a dagger. Are you, by chance, using non daggers? Or is this occurring with daggers? It just might help if someone decides to tackle the issue to know as much as they can about when this is happening. Definitely sounds like an issue in need of resolution, however.

I use a single dagger and shield, and the throat slit animation has certainly done it in several occasions.

As far as testing for it, All I can suggest is to find a spot with two very close NPCs and make a quicksave. Keep loading until it happens?

The only place I can think of offhand was the cave that led up to Hags End.