Detection Potions

sunandstars77 · October 15

How are people remaining undetected after I use a detection potion. Further how am I ALWAYS detected by others when they use a potion?

dogshaman · October 15

I thought it was just me, but I have also noticed that detection potions and ustoppable potions do not seem to work anymore for me.

I will be fighting a nightblade and they are right next to me when they cloak, I pop the detection potion right after they disappear and .... nothing? They stay cloaked and three seconds later strike back with a melee attack and immediately go back into cloak.

I'll also be fighting alot of sorcs with invisible potions that work exactly the same. They go invisible, I pop a detect pot and they never reappear until their next attack on me. Then when I am still under the '10 seconds of detection' from the pot, they go invisible again from them popping a pot.

As for the unstoppable pot, I'm in a fight with a dk and arcanist, I get stunned then break stun, pop the unstoppable pot but get stunned immediately again, break stun only to get stunned again, etcetra... (all while taking damage and being unable to move with all skills greyed out).

For some reason, before the last update, it worked differently for me. Someone goes invis or cloaks, then popping a pot would make them appear right away if they were in range.

The same with unstop pots, if I saw enemies run towards me to melee, I would pop the unstoppable potion and their stun skills would not affect me for at least a few seconds.

I don't have the latest Golden Weald expansion (or scribing) yet, so is this from some new potion ingredient or scribe skill maybe?

sunandstars77 · October 15

It's not just this issue though. Myself and many others have witnessed players killed then resurrecting themselves right in front of us. People with less than 25k hp on a mount hit with a 40k combo and take no damage and stay on their mount. Or people dodging with perfect timing from a cloaked heavy attack combo. Or magicka sorcs being able to kill players with attacks/combos through walls.

It happens every day and nothing is done to resolve these glaring issues. Dispite them being reported over and over again.

Elendir2am · October 16

As only thing we can do is to share stories here and get ignored by ZOS, I will share mine.

Ganker clown run around middle floor, invisible. I throw blinding flare in front of him and second next to first.
He get detected and stunned by first. Get invisible on same spot, still in first flare. Run in second flare, get detected and get invisible immediately still standing in second flare.

So yeah, I am not surprised so easily by such "miracles" any more.

Tommy_The_Gun · October 16

Well, my experience is 180° different. From my experience, detection potions are always working like some kind of nuclear counter to every form of stealth, whenever it is sneak or invisibility and are 110% reliable.

As for what OP is mentioning, I am not sure if it is true or not, but I have heard that things that reduce detection radius also do affect detection potions & skills (things like medium armor passive - Improved Sneak or Khajiit racial passive etc). So maybe just some players have their builds optimized for that ? So it would be harder to detect them or something.

L_Nici · October 16

Detect Potions work fine for me. But I noticed, that some NBs play a build, that is so fast, that they exit your detection area in a blink.

xylena_lazarow · October 17

Movement speed stacking. NB can easily push its non-sprint combat speed near the cap. So if you want to catch them, you're forced to stack speed yourself. Skills like Magelight really need a buff also, they're very bad.

Desiato · October 17

To add to the potential reasons, there's also shadow image and the fact an experienced nb will break los asap after cloaking.

sunandstars77 · October 18

So apparently. Essence of Immovability has a bug. Like everything else in this so called game. When it's used by a player the detection is active. But the symbol doesnt appear above the players head.

Sersiouly Zenimax. Don't you test your work at all? Or do you do the absolute minimum ammount and put the burden of testing on players on the PTS only to then ignore your players/customers?

Tommy_The_Gun · October 18

sunandstars77 wrote: »

So apparently. Essence of Immovability has a bug. Like everything else in this so called game. When it's used by a player the detection is active. But the symbol doesnt appear above the players head.

Sersiouly Zenimax. Don't you test your work at all? Or do you do the absolute minimum ammount and put the burden of testing on players on the PTS only to then ignore your players/customers?

There are loads of issues with detection potions that have not been addressed for years and I have a strong feeling that those issues will soon surface & get even more visible (no pun intended) especially now, after Cloak nerf.

Issue number one - Detection potions do not provide any feedback that someone is using them. That is why they are so effective. Even if detection potions had "normal" detection range, they would still be used because of that. Amongst all detection abilities, Detection potions are an anomaly & break ZOS standards they have established some time ago.

Those Potions effectively take away every form of counter-play. Detection potions simply act like a lazy "brute force" solution to every form of sneak & invisibility. Kinda like opening a safe with an Atom Bomb. Players simply do not have red eye visible for others above their head so if someone is hiding nearby, then they simply should be able to see from whom they should move away & it would at least provide some form of counter-play & reward situational awareness, but it is not the case.

Detection potions should pretty much work like detection skills with slightly greater range (since they are consumables), so that it would be still way harder to avoid being detected, but at least the "receiving end" would not fell like something bugged out or some one is outright cheating.

Issue number two - Targets "detected" by detected potions also have no feedback whatsoever that they have been spotted. Players just still have detection "eye" indicator closed as if nothing happened, till they get nuked as again - how they can know ?

Issue number three - Get this: detection potion users can remain in stealth themselves. And with all due respect, ZOS... it does not make any logical & balance sense whatsoever. Detection skills prevent you from hiding, as if you cast it while sneaking / invisible , you get revealed. So you either look for someone or hide yourself. So why not detection potions (that are btw insanely good at detecting due to range) ? I guess the philosophy was that you can drink potions while stealthed / invisible & it won't break the effect... but that is actually very wrong since detection potions should be the opposite of invisibility potions. And invisibility potions force crouch stealth & invisibility on you. So detection potions should interupt every stealth & invisibility you have yourself.

There are way more issues like for example range that can for example effectively "kill" any form of stealth in IC district (example: one player will just camp respawn tower & keep chugging potions). But I guess I have highlighted the most important ones.

Some people often use argument that apparently detection potions only work for detection potion user, but - lets be realistic. It is not Piercing Mark that works only for 3 seconds. It is a long duration huge AOE. And what always ends up happening is zerg effect (one sees you = everyone sees you). So it is irrelevant argument.

Hopefully, this will get more attention & enough forum threads will be made to get ZOS attention (as apparently ZOS still listens to feedback).