Anyone tried that Skyrim stealth mod pack? I keep finding myself accidentally spotted and it's hilarious — this week I spent ten minutes hiding behind a barrel while an arrow sailed inches past me. What were you all up to today?

Opening thread commentary.

I've been trying that exact pack for about three days and it is genuinely one of the funniest things I have played recently because every time I think I am being stealthy and efficient like an actual assassin I end up doing something completely ridiculous, which brings me to a story from my own life where I had this incredibly similar moment at what was supposed to be a serious dinner meeting last November. So there I was in this high-end restaurant with these corporate guys who were all dressed very formally, and the lighting was dim because it is one of those places that tries to feel intimate but just ends up making everyone look like they are about to be interrogated by the mob, and my plan was to stay focused on the business agenda which was already a disaster given I had been working fourteen-hour days for two weeks straight. But then this waiter comes over with this breadbasket — not a fancy artisanal loaf, just regular French bread that has probably sat in the kitchen for three days getting stale — and he sets it down right next to my napkin and before anyone notices anything I reach out automatically because of muscle memory from being at home where everyone leaves the bread basket within seconds. And here is the thing: instead of picking up a piece of bread I accidentally grabbed this large, greasy wrapper that had been shoved inside the basket for some reason like it was trash or something and I opened it in front of four senior partners with complete confidence as if it were perfectly normal to pull out garbage at a business dinner. Everyone just paused — there was about five seconds where you could hear the air conditioning hum — and then my boss asked what I had found that was so interesting, and I had to lie through my teeth that it was a special appetizer wrapping. Now every time I see a breadbasket in any restaurant I have this physical reaction of reaching for things I should not be touching which is honestly worse than the stealth fail because at least in Skyrim there is a pause button between mistakes while in real life you

LOL that's literally my Tuesday — I kept trying to sneak through a crowded market in Riverwood and ended up running straight into a random guard while looking for cover. The physics engine just gives up sometimes. My day was basically the same brand of chaos, just with real people instead of Skyrim NPCs!

lol that's brutal — I tried that pack and it actually changed my whole playstyle because stealth became so punishing you have to think three steps ahead instead of just sneaking through everything. Just got back from work with a pretty weird day, had this coworker bring in leftover pasta salad and everyone was arguing about whether or not pineapple belonged on pizza for like twenty minutes straight while we ate it. Now

That is genuinely terrifying in a funny way — I used that pack too and one night I was trying to sneak past a guard who didn't even see me but I kept getting 'suspicious' because of some lighting mod conflict, so I just hid behind the same barrel for like five minutes. The arrow story though... you have got it.

that mod pack is actually insane — i downloaded it last weekend and spent like forty minutes trying to sneak through Riften without being noticed, which was funny because by minute fifteen I'd just given up on stealth entirely and started walking around openly with my sword drawn. there's something about the way they rebalanced detection radii that makes even basic navigation a challenge. but honestly i haven't been playing much this week because work has been overwhelming, my boss gave me an extra project at the last second on monday which was great since i had already planned to go through every dungeon in Skyrim and now my entire schedule is ruined by spreadsheets and emails about quarterly reports that nobody actually reads anyway. remember when you were a kid and your dad tried to teach you how to ride a bike? he put those training wheels on it and said you weren't ready yet but then took them off while you were riding at full speed down the driveway which was genuinely terrifying in retrospect, though i don't know why we laughed about it as children because that's essentially child endangerment. Anyway back to Skyrim — have you tried the weather mod pack too or are you just doing stealth?

oh man i'm so sorry for this rambling thread but your post about hiding behind barrels made me think of this one time when my sister was trying to learn hide and seek with her nephew who is like three years old and he just kept going straight to the spot where she always hid which was under the kitchen table because that's what i did as a kid for like a decade -- but here's the thing about skyrim stealth mods specifically -- have you tried remapping your quick melee key or are you using the default? I find myself constantly getting spotted in Rorikstead because my perk distribution is totally unbalanced towards archery and then when i need to sneak-attack someone from behind i'm panicking with the hotkeys like a total noob. Also unrelated but did you know that barrel physics in skyrim are actually tied to a specific collision mesh system that gets weird if you have any lighting overhauls installed -- my friend Kyle once told me he figured it out by rewriting the script for every prop and i think that was an insane amount of effort just to stop getting caught. Anyway sorry I'm rambling but your arrow story killed me lol