..Something wrong with stealth?

[MiskatonicFox]

I'm playing a Thief character and the Stealth is acting... well, funky. Has been since the beginning. Like you know the bit with the bear? I was walking as slowly as possible and it kept waking up and then going back to sleep, detecting me on each step. This is kind of continuing, I can have it selected for my character to tippy-toe and if I walk into someones house in the dead of night they'll weak up as soon as I take a step, and right now I'm sneaking around a bandit camp in the middle of the damned night and the eye has been open the whole time. :/ I have a few mods but none really related to stealth... any idea what's going on? I have the unofficial patch, skyui, some environment mods (Vivid Weathers, Flora overhaul, Lighting overhaul) and that's about it.

[Warm Fuzzies™]

vanilla stealth in this game has always been broken, both in a good and bad way.

What is your sneak level, and what armor are you wearing?

[MiskatonicFox]

Sneak is at 31, armor is light imperial

[Warm Fuzzies™]

Originally posted by PlagueDoctor:

Sneak is at 31, armor is light imperial

Well, wearing light armor still does affect you being detected. Not as much as heavy armor, but it still affects it.

Sneak doesnt really shine in this game until you have 5/5 for the first perk as far as going undetected is concerned.


You can try a few things in the mean time.

1: Remove all your gear when sneaking (unless it is enchanted), and only put it on when you can no longer sneak. Doing this will negate the armor portion of being detected.

2: Buy the spell tome Muffle from Farengar Secret-Fire in Dragonsreach. It has a base magika cost of 144. It completely removes the noise caused by worn armor when sneaking. It is insanely OP.

3: You can level up sneak fairly easily by landing an arrow near a distant enemy. During the time they "look" for you, your Sneak level will increase, and will increase again when they lose interest.

If you buy the Muffle spell, casting it then moving near an enemy that cant see you will also raise the level. You can then simply walk into a wall or tree or rock, and level it up that way.

[MiskatonicFox]

K. I'll try even lighter armour. It just seems funky, maybe my memory is garbage since I haven't really played a stealth class since at least 2012, but I don't remember it acting up like this.

[Meewec]

a lot of times it seems that companions will mess with the eye which doesn't help when trying to sneak. i didn't bother with any allies unless they're required for a quest. so much easier to sneak around by myself, don't have to worry about them starting fights, stepping on pressure pads. just me, my bow, and my enemies getting confused by their friends falling down

[Bomb Bloke]

Companions don't affect your visibility directly. They have their own "eye" - what tends to happen is that they're detected by an enemy, that enemy moves closer to investigate, and then because you're right next to your companion you get spotted too.

When your sneaking abilities get high enough, this stops happening - your companion will run off into battle leaving you undetected, allowing you to easily stick an arrow into the enemies who are now too busy fighting to look for you.

Enemies are better at detecting you if they have a high sneak skill of their own. This is why Falmer have no trouble finding you, for example, despite being 80% blind.

At one point I put a decent amount of research into the detection system - here are my notes.

[Meewec]

i'm just going off personal experience, i can have no enemies around me and get the detected eye show up. happened with that woman who needed a scroll guarded by one of the dragon priests and in the temple of mirrak with the woman from the village. also happens around shadowmere but that's different i think. none of the enemies ever detect me. but i've gotten to the point where i have enemies literally walk into me and they don't notice so it's fine, i just put it down to skyrim being skyrim