I'm very suspicious of these dodgers in skyrim

[galdon2004]

Ok, so, at first I thought this was just bad luck; I have a stealth archer. Xbox version. I noticed that most of the time, when i'm going to shoot someone, they will just 'happen' to change course, or go from still to moving exactly as I release the button so they are no longer where the arrow is going by, then everything in a 10 mile radius knows my EXACT location and I have to fight every bandit because they see right through my stealth (regardless of if i stand still or try to move away from them as they 'search' my stealth perk is 4/5 plus armor silencing, and light armor).

I kept thinking it was bad luck until a couple very specific instances where the movement became far too unnatural to be a coincidence. For example; during a mission, a badguy runs towards one of the mission followers to attack them, I aim my bow, I'm undetected, I fire a shot lead ahead of him a bit so it will hit him when he reaches that spot; and suddenly he SLIDES backwards, with no movement animation, and avoids the arrow, then immediately continues back up the hill.

Another instance, I snuck into a room to see a person sitting in a chair from the side view; I am undetected, I fire, and he slides backwards, THROUGH THE CHAIR and stands up before the arrow reached him, and only acted like he noticed something after the arrow crossed the rest of the room and hit the wall.

The last notable instance I shot at a vampire sleeping in bed point blank, and he TELEPORTED out of the bed and to a standing position at the foot of the bed to avoid the shot.

It seems to me that the game is REALLY going out of it's way to prevent me from hitting my enemies, is this happening to anyone else?

 

[CAPTCHA]

You are not alone in this matter. It feels like the games cheating when this happens, and it happens 1 in 10 shots for me. Not just with arrows either, but Lightning bolts which are supposedly instantanious. This is on PC by the way.

 

[dead.juice]

I play on the PS3, and I've noticed something similar.
If I'm zooming in and trying to shoot somebody far away (the point where they count as "pop-up" and they have almost no texture/polygons), as soon as the arrow gets close, no matter if their alerted or not, they'll slide sideways and avoid it.
I wouldn't care if it happened when they were alerted, it just looks like it skipped the "dodge_sideways" animation.
But it doesn't make sense when your in stealth.
It only happens when they're really far away though, and they never clip through stuff.

 

[galdon2004]

i wonder if then the game might have some sort of method to make enemies 'randomly move' when fired at at a set chance to increase the difficulty for ranged attack users.

 

[krazykidd]

Omg this is halarious , haven't had this problem since i am a mage , but still funny , i think i'd want to roll a archer just to see this happen , thats halarious . Like the poster above me said , maybe it's a dodge dice roll , but still funny.

 

[Akimoto]

no problems here (PC), but the NPCs do move around alot

 

[PinkiePyro]

I was wondering this too I was sniping bandits from a tower last night and noticed the scooting behavior

 

[RGman]

Damn hax NPCs...

 

[spartan231490]

I'm on the 360, and I only notice the dodge thing rarely, and never when I'm completely undetected. i also don't get detected as easily. Try turning the difficulty down, a lot of games cheat to make the higher difficulties harder.

 

[Dastardly]

It seems to me that the game is REALLY going out of it's way to prevent me from hitting my enemies, is this happening to anyone else?

I think it's a game balancing mechanism, likely to prevent people from only putting points in Sneak, and expecting to kill at range with a bow. The expectation is probably that you'll put more points in Archery to make yourself a better archer, as Sneak will only make you better at being undetected.

Without dice rolls, a skill like Archery (when coupled with Sneak) would trivialize the game completely: If you can hold a cursor over the enemy, you win. Even in real life, an expert archer can still miss even when he/she was absolutely sure they had it.

With daggers, it's not as big a deal, since you have to Sneak in pretty close. That adds the difficulty right there, because you're exposed to surrounding enemies once you strike... but Archery? If you could snipe your way through the game from the start, it would be extremely broken.

 

[JET1971]

Welcome to gaming! if its not arrows and an NPC that doesnt know you are there its a sniper rifle. happens in quite a few games and is nothing unusual. "They just happen to change direction right when you fire" thing to make it more exciting, but in reallity makes it annoying.

 

[Joccaren]

Never happened to me. Hell, last night I was 1 meter away from an army of bandits that knew I had shot an arrow from somewhere over near where I was. They did not see me, even after I promptly shot one of them dead. Then, one stepped forward to right in my face and finally found me. I was level 45 sneak with heavy armour and no potion backup and no perks. WTF. And no, they don't dodge my arrows, they just like walking a lot. I tend to wait till they reach that position where they stand still for about 3 seconds, and will have my bow drawn back before hand, and release it the second they get there. Works almost every time.

 

[Ilikemilkshake]

Im on the PC and this happens to me all the time.
So ive taken to saving before i take my first shot in every encounter so i can reload it if the game cheats. If i genuinly fuck up and miss (Note: unlikely) then i'll live with the consequences but a target who is standing still and unaware of me, suddenly decides to moonwalk 5ft to the left because the game doesnt want me to hit it then it can fuck off and expect an instant reload.

 

[NeutralDrow]

Sounds like a bug of some kind. I play the PC version, and I've never seen that happen, even on my characters without a big focus on archery. Even my pure mage can hit reliably with a bow...assuming the target isn't moving around to begin with, then it gets dicey.

Speaking of dice, I seriously doubt there's a dice mechanic, hidden or not. I've made way too many wildly improbable sniper shots (and missed too many point-blank shots) to think so.

It seems to me that the game is REALLY going out of it's way to prevent me from hitting my enemies, is this happening to anyone else?

I think it's a game balancing mechanism, likely to prevent people from only putting points in Sneak, and expecting to kill at range with a bow. The expectation is probably that you'll put more points in Archery to make yourself a better archer, as Sneak will only make you better at being undetected.

You mean perks, right? All the Archery skill actually does on its own is increase your damage. The aiming is entirely in the player's hands.

 

[Lenvoran]

-Snip-

By the way, I fucking hate dice rolls. Unless they're explicitly a part of a game like a turn based JRPG or Baldur's Gate 2 or something along those lines, they need to get the fuck out of my RPG's. They are outdated, don't belong, ruin immersion, break games, and all around suck.

Agreed. Which is why I personally like Dark Souls so much more. Not nearly the feeling of a living world like Skyrim, but the combat is amazing.

OT: Yeah. I've had the same thing happen to me. When I'm doing a MELEE sneak attack. Chargin' up the melee-zor and then... He stepped forward and I miss. Then I use my Slow Time shout and carve him up for his shenanigans.

Irritating that a master assassin can't even get the sneak attack on some random freaking bandit.

 

[Jadak]

A completely baseless speculation on what might be happening (and I've never noticed it, myself). But having NPC's magically sidestep arrows seems like an unlikely design decision (although you never know...) What I would wonder, is if it's instead just a bug, where the character isn't actually quite in the position they're being displayed to be in, and your interaction with them (or in this case, your arrow's), is triggering it to adjust. Not that it matters, broken or stupid design, really shouldn't be happening.

For the rest regarding enemies seeing you, purely a matter of needing a higher stealth skill. I mean, you've got to pretty damn stealthy to somehow not give away your position after shooting an arrow anywhere near enemies... But at higher levels, or lower levels if you play your cards right, it's certainly possible to do just that. Once at max stealth stats you can practically just sneak anywhere and shoot away with enemies right next to you being completely clueless.

 

[Dastardly]

You mean perks, right? All the Archery skill actually does on its own is increase your damage. The aiming is entirely in the player's hands.

Yes, talking about perks here. And it's entirely possible the skill itself has some behind-the-scenes effect on accuracy. Aiming is mostly in your hands, but it's not impossible for slight "adjustments" to be made to add some uncertainty. And it's not a bad thing, either.

Our ability to keep a mouse pointer on something is in no way analogous to "steady aim" with a bow. A little artificial difficulty is nice (and it's easier to add dice rolls than to make your mouse require 30 lbs of force to "draw" or something...)

 

[galdon2004]

A completely baseless speculation on what might be happening (and I've never noticed it, myself). But having NPC's magically sidestep arrows seems like an unlikely design decision (although you never know...) What I would wonder, is if it's instead just a bug, where the character isn't actually quite in the position they're being displayed to be in, and your interaction with them (or in this case, your arrow's), is triggering it to adjust. Not that it matters, broken or stupid design, really shouldn't be happening.

For the rest regarding enemies seeing you, purely a matter of needing a higher stealth skill. I mean, you've got to pretty damn stealthy to somehow not give away your position after shooting an arrow anywhere near enemies... But at higher levels, or lower levels if you play your cards right, it's certainly possible to do just that. Once at max stealth stats you can practically just sneak anywhere and shoot away with enemies right next to you being completely clueless.

I can totally buy that it's a bug; this is afterall, a bethesda game