Invisibility and guards can still guess where I am

AnduinTryggva

I got caught red-handed while pickpocketin and a guard started to go after me. I immediately drank an invisibility motion and ran away around obstacles such as trees to cut line-of-sight the moment the potion loses its effects.

I repeatedly turned around during this evasion maneuvre to check out the guard and had to realize that the guy stuck to my heals like if he could actually see me.

That is not how I expect the invisibility potion to work honestly.

Kisakee

Line of sight isn't working on guards, distance to the point from where they started hunting you is the key.
It also takes a rather long time for them stopping the hunt as the coded animations are pretty long. When your potion runs out before they finished it and you're still too close to the starting point they'll aggro you again, even through walls.

katanagirl1

This happens with nightblade cloak as well. As soon as I run out of magicka and stop using it, the guard knows exactly where my character is.

Also, sometimes when I am still cloaked I see the red dots on the compass and guards and other enemies are still following me, for several seconds.

DenverRalphy

Trees don't break line of sight. You have to put walls/buildings between you and the guard.

Invis just makes you invisible to the guards that you haven't aggro'd yet. The guard/s that do have aggro require you to duck around hallway corners, buildings, etc.. to break the line of sight.

I use Invis/Health/Unstoppable pots (essence of immovability), and escape the guards every time. Except on those rare occasions where my heat is so bad that they just whip out the crossbow to one-shot drop me and be done with it.

Bammlschwamml

Some guards are special and don't care about invisibility. They just always see you, no matter what you do. Especially the guards in Cyrodiil (resources and keeps).

And sometimes it's just broken for no reason.

Kisakee

katanagirl1 wrote: »

Also, sometimes when I am still cloaked I see the red dots on the compass and guards and other enemies are still following me, for several seconds.

They'll run to your last known position, throw their Revealing Flare and start their "losing" phase right after.

DenverRalphy wrote: »

Trees don't break line of sight. You have to put walls/buildings between you and the guard.

Invis just makes you invisible to the guards that you haven't aggro'd yet. The guard/s that do have aggro require you to duck around hallway corners, buildings, etc.. to break the line of sight.

I use Invis/Health/Unstoppable pots (essence of immovability), and escape the guards every time. Except on those rare occasions where my heat is so bad that they just whip out the crossbow to one-shot drop me and be done with it.

That's not how it works. As i said line of sight means nothing to the guards, only distance to the point where they started aggroing you.

Also heat has nothing to do with their crossbow attack (Piercing Bolt). They build up some sort of ultimate over time, if you're too long in a fight with the same guard it fills up eventually and they shot it at you. You can survive it though with enough health.
As a rule of thumb: Don't fight witht the same guard for more than 12 seconds. After 14 seconds you're in immediate danger so make sure to escape in time.

Kisakee

Bammlschwamml wrote: »

Some guards are special and don't care about invisibility. They just always see you, no matter what you do. Especially the guards in Cyrodiil (resources and keeps).

And sometimes it's just broken for no reason.

The guards in PvE and PvP are quite different.

DenverRalphy

Kisakee wrote: »

katanagirl1 wrote: »

Also, sometimes when I am still cloaked I see the red dots on the compass and guards and other enemies are still following me, for several seconds.

They'll run to your last known position, throw their Revealing Flare and start their "losing" phase right after.

DenverRalphy wrote: »

Trees don't break line of sight. You have to put walls/buildings between you and the guard.

Invis just makes you invisible to the guards that you haven't aggro'd yet. The guard/s that do have aggro require you to duck around hallway corners, buildings, etc.. to break the line of sight.

I use Invis/Health/Unstoppable pots (essence of immovability), and escape the guards every time. Except on those rare occasions where my heat is so bad that they just whip out the crossbow to one-shot drop me and be done with it.

That's not how it works. As i said line of sight means nothing to the guards, only distance to the point where they started aggroing you.

Yes that is correct. But as I had said, trees don't hide you from the guards when they toss their flare. Walls and buildings do.

As for the crossbow, it's commulative. If you aggro the same guard multiple times (ie.. repeated failed attempts to pick his/her pocket) they'll just drop you instead of bothering to chase.

Kisakee

DenverRalphy wrote: »

As for the crossbow, it's commulative. If you aggro the same guard multiple times (ie.. repeated failed attempts to pick his/her pocket) they'll just drop you instead of bothering to chase.

Again that's not quite right. They don't build their "ultimate" like players do but in kind of stacks. If you escape the guard those stacks will cool off over time but when they get you again before all stacks are gone they will start stacking from the point they left off thus will get to the Piercing Bolt faster.

Sleepsin

Invisibility, line of sight and sprinting is not the way to lose guards. They will track you and match your speed. The best way, is to dodge roll move at a normal run speed and dodge roll again, and repeat. A stamina potion is much more useful then an invisibility potion.

A bonus method. Guards are also afraid of heights, using a dodge roll off a platform will cause them to look for stairs instead of jumping off the platform which can cause them to double back.

Kisakee

Sleepsin wrote: »

Invisibility, line of sight and sprinting is not the way to lose guards. They will track you and match your speed. The best way, is to dodge roll move at a normal run speed and dodge roll again, and repeat. A stamina potion is much more useful then an invisibility potion.

Invisibility absolutely works, you just need to stay invisible long enough. Also sprinting is a valid method to get away from them. They may charge at you but will reset when they get a hit on you or the other way around the moment you're too far away from the aggro point.

katanagirl1

DenverRalphy wrote: »

Trees don't break line of sight. You have to put walls/buildings between you and the guard.

Invis just makes you invisible to the guards that you haven't aggro'd yet. The guard/s that do have aggro require you to duck around hallway corners, buildings, etc.. to break the line of sight.

I use Invis/Health/Unstoppable pots (essence of immovability), and escape the guards every time. Except on those rare occasions where my heat is so bad that they just whip out the crossbow to one-shot drop me and be done with it.

I can escape easily every time too, that is not the point.

The game knows exactly where your character is and just immediately lets the guard pick up on your current position, even if you have gone off in a completely different direction for more than 9-10 seconds for the 3 cloaks I spam back to back. There should be some confusion time (1-3 seconds or so) for the guard to orient on your new position.

EDIT2: actually I am not sure it works this way for guards since I am looking the other way. I usually dodge roll a few times and my movement speed eventually gets me out of range. It does work this way with other enemies in the game, though.

Kisakee

katanagirl1 wrote: »

The game knows exactly where your character is and just immediately lets the guard pick up on your current position, even if you have gone off in a completely different direction for more than 9-10 seconds for the 3 cloaks I spam back to back. There should be some confusion time (1-3 seconds or so) for the guard to orient on your new position.

The most common mistake people do is to not reactivate sneak in an escape situation after getting any invisibility.
Also there's a "feature" where you leave sneak mode after moving for several seconds while being in fight even though you use some sort of invisibility.

katanagirl1

Kisakee wrote: »

katanagirl1 wrote: »

The game knows exactly where your character is and just immediately lets the guard pick up on your current position, even if you have gone off in a completely different direction for more than 9-10 seconds for the 3 cloaks I spam back to back. There should be some confusion time (1-3 seconds or so) for the guard to orient on your new position.

The most common mistake people do is to not reactivate sneak in an escape situation after getting any invisibility.
Also there's a "feature" where you leave sneak mode after moving for several seconds while being in fight even though you use some sort of invisibility.

Yeah, my character is always in sneak but the guards can negate that. Other enemies cannot.

Kisakee

katanagirl1 wrote: »

Kisakee wrote: »

katanagirl1 wrote: »

The game knows exactly where your character is and just immediately lets the guard pick up on your current position, even if you have gone off in a completely different direction for more than 9-10 seconds for the 3 cloaks I spam back to back. There should be some confusion time (1-3 seconds or so) for the guard to orient on your new position.

The most common mistake people do is to not reactivate sneak in an escape situation after getting any invisibility.
Also there's a "feature" where you leave sneak mode after moving for several seconds while being in fight even though you use some sort of invisibility.

Yeah, my character is always in sneak but the guards can negate that. Other enemies cannot.

Actually it's true for every in fight situation, regardless of who or what you're "fighting". It's extremely annoying but as a Nightblade you're at least able to spam Shadow Cloak to get enough distance.