Stealth: An Old Annoyance

Gabriel_H · July 29

You've just picked the front door lock ... you sneak into the house still hidden ... the residents go absolutely nuts and threaten to call the guards!

It's a reaction and dialogue bug that has always been there, that even while hidden and able to steal at your leisure without incurring a trespass bounty or a violent reaction the residents still chat away to you as if they can see you. With the latest additions to the game I'm back to stealing for various reasons (furniture/plans/tome points) and this is as much an annoyance as it ever was.

That you can interact with the door outside without breaking stealth, but interacting with the same door from the other side pulls you out of stealth is also another major annoyance. If you can do one without breaking stealth why can't you do the other?

These are old annoyances and old bugs, but they still need fixing.

KalevaLaine · July 29

Totally agree!

The same during heists. Even if you're in sneak, sometimes you can't the the circle from the guards.

MasterSpatula · July 29

The number of things that break stealth that shouldn't are legion. Just look at the sheer number of quests that ask you to steal a specific item, but stealing that one item knocks you out of stealth. I generally don't engage with ESO's stealth/crime system because I always considered it poorly designed, and being pushed back into it, I see none of the frustrations have been addressed.

Ravenshadow6513 · July 29

Gabriel_H wrote: »

You've just picked the front door lock ... you sneak into the house still hidden ... the residents go absolutely nuts and threaten to call the guards!

It's a reaction and dialogue bug that has always been there, that even while hidden and able to steal at your leisure without incurring a trespass bounty or a violent reaction the residents still chat away to you as if they can see you. With the latest additions to the game I'm back to stealing for various reasons (furniture/plans/tome points) and this is as much an annoyance as it ever was.

That you can interact with the door outside without breaking stealth, but interacting with the same door from the other side pulls you out of stealth is also another major annoyance. If you can do one without breaking stealth why can't you do the other?

These are old annoyances and old bugs, but they still need fixing.

I've not tested it on house npcs, but the somnel powder you can get from thieve's den merchants (though oddly not from the one in Abah's Landing), works on lantern sentries. I assume it might work.

blktauna · July 29

if someone looks at you sideways you get pulled out of stealth

xencthlu · July 29

These bugs and inconsistencies are why it feels like nightblade invisibility is mandatory for stealing content, even though they clearly put more effort into the recent Thieves Guild storyline to accommodate characters without it by adding more hiding places.

Speaking of inconsistencies, in one of the Thieves Guild quests, I got caught and witnessed doing a Blade of Woe execution on an NPC in a secluded area even though I have the shadowstrike CP node equipped, which should make that impossible. That's a new bug I've never seen anywhere else in the game, and a very bad one at that. If things like *that* become routine, pardon edicts are going to start feeling mandatory, too.

Corporea · July 29

My favorite bug is when I am crouching and invisible on my blade with shadowy disguise and I see "aware" on the npc I'm trying to pickpocket. It always makes me laugh. They have eyes into atherius itself...

Arunei · July 29

I'm glad I'm not the only one who finds it annoying as heck when the NPCs yell at you even when you're Hidden and, in my case, often invisible.

And yes, not being able to Pickpocket or BoW an NPC from the side because they're "Aware" of you even when you're invisible is also annoying.

It's also annoying qhen you're Hidden and/or Invisible, get into position behind an NPC, and they inexplicably seem to just sense your presence and turn around to make exasperated gestures. Like what? If they can't detect you how are they detecting you to turn towards you?

DoofusMax · July 29

KalevaLaine wrote: »

Totally agree!

The same during heists. Even if you're in sneak, sometimes you can't the the circle from the guards.

Also add that Bear Traps fail to highlight in Sacraments (sometimes Heists, too) or that traps which glow and show as disarmed will still nail you. Variety may be the spice of life, but it's also the source of much frustration in stealth play.