Under-Powered Sneak in Skyrim

[Tipatap]

I apologize for another Skyrim thread, but this has been gnawing on me for a few days now. Is it strange that a thief with 100 points in Sneak, and literally every perk to the maximum level in its constellation can be caught by bandits and Hagravens? I'm playing on Expert, if that has anything to do with it. I stick to the shadows, have boots of muffling, and use light armor.
//confusion and irritation
The point of this thread, is there something wrong, or do I just suck? grin And of course, I'd like to hear of your grievances, as I'm sure your fellow Escapists would.

 

[hazabaza1]

Everyone I've spoken to seems to say that Sneak is really overpowered, and in the making of my first sneak character, it seems that way too.
I think you may just suck at sneaking. especially when the AI is like this

 

[Instant K4rma]

I have an assassin like character, and they can be incredibly overpowered. I have a pair of gloves that double my backstab damage. Couple this with the sneak perk that allows sneak dagger attacks to do 15x damage, and you've got 30x sneak attack damage with daggers. Now double that with a dagger in each hand. A sneaking scissor attack allows for what amounts to a 60x sneak attack. With this, I've one shot killed Giants, Dwarven Centurions, Bandit Chiefs, etc.

Sneaking, in my opinion, is easily the most over powered tactic in the game.

 

[The_Blue_Rider]

(Finds something to drink, then spit takes)

Sneak is not underpowered at all, thanks to the A.I. it potentially becomes one of the most broken mechanics in the game. (Note that by broken I mean FUN AS GODDAMN HELL).

Its only drawback is that if you specialize in sneak you may be slightly useless in a full on fight

 

[Rednog]

Sneak is under powered when the game just refuses to believe you are in stealth. Like I've had times where I'm literally sneaking in front of people in broad daylight and running circles around them and they don't react. Then there are other times when enemies will just spot me a mile away when I'm in complete darkness even though I'm wearing a ring, necklace, and boots that give +stealth and I'm at 100 stealth with all the perks. It is just a problem of the game/engine.
Overall I find it to be strong, there are just cases where the game intentionally and unintentionally just screws you over.

 

[RedEyesBlackGamer]

Sneak is insanely overpowered. I've become the god of death. I'm dishing out one hit kills like candy and I'm almost never detected. Even if I am, I just slow down time and attack or run away to sneak again.

 

[Trippy Turtle]

I just get so unlucky about when they turn around at the wrong time. It always happens.
There was also one time when I was going to sneak attack a giant but a dragon decided that wasn't going to happen.

 

[Ruwrak]

I'm 89 sneaking, wear the 25% better sneak hat, muffled boots, +25% one handed dmg ring, +14% dmg glass legendary guantlets and a glass legendary chestpiece. Hrm...

I wonder why they still see me Oh that's right because they have eyes in the back of their head. There are 3 guys in a line walking, you'd assume that by putting your hand over their mouth their voice would be muffled when you slit their throats. But yet they immediatly turn around like some radarimplented heatseaking android.

't is my biggest woe. For the rest, peeps be dying like flies when stuff goes right. Distract them with an arrow to one side of the room, either sneak by or plant two daggers in their back (yeah I play legit assassin with 2 glass legendary daggers x3 Swords are so clumsy )

 

[Ilikemilkshake]

I only have the sneak perks that get me to 3x bow damage, so 20% better sneak, 6x 1 hand damage and 3x bow damage... and i can sneak all day pretty much INFRONT of someone.. infact half the time bandits and the like will run up literally a few inches infront of me, stand there and declare its just their imagination...

I dont mean to sound patronising here.. but are you actually using sneak mode? I had a friend back in the time of oblivion who didnt know that you had to be crouching to sneak =')

 

[Insanity72]

How do you actually do the stealth assassination kills we saw in the trailers??? i've tried everything i can think of, but can't achieve it.

 

[SonicWaffle]

Sneak is insanely overpowered. I've become the god of death. I'm dishing out one hit kills like candy and I'm almost never detected. Even if I am, I just slow down time and attack or run away to sneak again.

I find that, while sneaking is very powerful, it tends to be too risky for my tastes. Much of the time when you get discovered you're in for a world of hurt, especially considering that most sneaky types only wear light armour. I rolled a new character with heavy armour, a sword and a shield, and I steamroll things where as a stealth character I'd find myself being discovered and killed.

Then again, I'm much more of a "race through the dungeon, pause to loot, hit objective and continue the storyline" type of player in these games. My favourite parts are the quests and missions that ask me to do something other than clearing out yet another dungeon/fort/cave.

 

[SonicWaffle]

Doublepost, bah :-(

 

[Zhukov]

Be aware that sneaking works differently in the overworld than it does in dungeons. Outside, enemies will often see you just by looking in the right direction, regardless of whether or not you're crouched. Inside, sneaking makes you nigh invisible.

...

How do you actually do the stealth assassination kills we saw in the trailers??? i've tried everything i can think of, but can't achieve it.

Attack a human (or human shaped) target from behind while in stealth mode using a sword or dagger in your right hand. You need to inflict enough damage to kill them in one hit for the 'assassination' animation to trigger.

 

[Pat8u]

As I hate dungeons I prefer to get through as quickly as I can so I play an assaisian with a dagger who can dissapear and shoot arrows when needed

 

[Tipatap]

To clarify; killing people is not the problem. Gods, no. Four 15x strikes dual-wielding daggers with Ancient Shrouded Gloves? It's monstrous and beautiful. My issue is being detected. Though that may be because I suck at sneaking.

 

[RedEyesBlackGamer]

Sneak is insanely overpowered. I've become the god of death. I'm dishing out one hit kills like candy and I'm almost never detected. Even if I am, I just slow down time and attack or run away to sneak again.

I find that, while sneaking is very powerful, it tends to be too risky for my tastes. Much of the time when you get discovered you're in for a world of hurt, especially considering that most sneaky types only wear light armour. I rolled a new character with heavy armour, a sword and a shield, and I steamroll things where as a stealth character I'd find myself being discovered and killed.

Then again, I'm much more of a "race through the dungeon, pause to loot, hit objective and continue the storyline" type of player in these games. My favourite parts are the quests and missions that ask me to do something other than clearing out yet another dungeon/fort/cave.

The times that I get killed for screwing up are fun, though. Like a game of cat and mouse that reverses sometimes when I'm discovered. Yeah, I'm a cautious guy who inches my way through a dungeon. I study enemy patrol routes, fire arrows into corners to get enemies to move, etc.

 

[ZenoX969]

If you think stealth in this game is underpowered, then you're doing it wrong.

I took a break from my main character, which is a battlemage, to start over with a thief/assassin type. And it was incredibly easy for me. Specialized in Sneak and Illusion mostley. Once you get the Calm spells, you can basicly just stop any enemy dead in his tracks and then proceed to slit his throat when he's just standing around like an idiot. Gets a bit trickier when there's more enemies though. Then you have to mix it up a bit with either Fury spells or Fear spells.

But yeah, it's really easy to be a stealthy character, you just need to have the right tools to deal with any given situation, like if you do get detected and have a bunch of bandits swarming you from all sides.

After playing this I invested some time in Illusion for my battlemage so that I could get the Quiet Casting perk and the Invisibility spell. So now my battlemage is equipped to deal with any situation, be it sneaking, ranged or up close combat.

 

[TheCruxis]

I have a character with 72 in sneaking atm and I think it's pretty neat, though I wouldn't say its overpowered.

Destruction spells on the other hand, now there we have something overpowered.