I too believe hide needs to be revamped. I am currently playing a rogue and doing the Act 1 solo. I have not died once or had any issues with any conflicts. I enter combat in hide, snipe enemy with bow (with advantage) and then hide again. rinse and repeat. The game shouldn't allow me to cheese through things like this I feel. But then I wonder if I am cheesing things, should a rogue be able to go into hide after hitting and enemy? looks like it is a bonus action for rogue's, but seems too easy. Maybe AI should have enemies roam around instead of just staying put when they can't find a target. Their cone would then change and maybe then detect me.
This is really baffling. Two years in early access and they still haven't fixed such a core mechanic. One that's so obviously broken. It's almost like they think it's fun and working as intended.
I tend to think of Early Access not as a beta-testing affair, but something almost entirely a promotional/fan-service affair. The exceedingly slow rate of improvements to even broken core mechanics/systems would be quite worrisome if Larian didn't have their own in-house version (or saving even these fundamental fixes as surprise aimed at EA players at launch). Then again, DOS2, was overly simplistic and all you needed to "backstab" was to place your dagger-wielder behind an enemy.
And yes, Stealth is broken beyond redemption. It really belittles combat and the game in general.