Bugs while completing Heist Jobs Undetected

magnusthorek

Before some *** jump in saying that's a L2P issue, it's not. Of course, you need to know where each trap and chests are in the different Heists but since it's one per day and it's random (so far I did two), I'll focus on Underground Sepulcher, which I ran without success several times today (aborting when caught), analyzing terrain, escape routes, guards movements, timing and etc.

First of all, the detection area: The Red Nooks and the boss have a huge FOV. I'm a vampire, with maxed Legerdemain (with the Improved Hiding passive at level 4, of course) and wearing 5 pieces of the (new?) Night Mother set which theoretically reduces the detection area by 2m (which I didn't notice, the city guards/heist bosses blue circle have the same size). The only thing that COULD be my fault is my overall gear. Because I'm a magicka user I wear only one piece of medium armor for the Undaunted Mettle passive and thus my Improved Sneaking passive is low (5%).

Flame Traps: They fail to disarm 95% of the times. I sneak, walking step-by-step with double care because vampires move faster when sneaking, and as soon as the disarming activator appear and use it my hidden status is removed like when opening chests (which is completely wrong, since I didn't stand up) and the blue orb is added to my head.

Bear Traps and Tripping Wires: Why they don't glow while sneaking like all the others in the world or even in dungeons (ICP and Selene's Web, for example)? The whole Sepulcher is a dark place and while hidden our "shadowness" contributes to our FOV to become even darker.

Guards/Bosses animations: They took too long! 99% of the times, as soon as I start the mission and go down the stairs after entering the tunnel, the first Red Nook is coming back from the wall, facing the stairs. He stops there and there he stands for several seconds, delaying the end of the mission and favoring the next issue.

Overlapping FOVs: It was not rare to find the same Red Nook mentioned in the previous item with his FOV overlapping boss' FOV. When you're entering the tunnel the big issue is only the time wasted for the boss to move to either side (that fat *** is so slow...) but after sneaking carefully all the place, getting the caches and the treasure, when coming back the blue circle is so big that the overlapping prevents you to pass unnoticed. Even if you wait long enough for the boss to move to the other staircase, in the opposite side of where you're coming from you still cannot pass because at that time, the Red Nook moved to the staircase.

Vanishing Cache chests: It was not rare too that after several failures (and thus, restarting the mission) the hidden caches don't appear anymore in the map. It's not merely a map issue, like the blue markers or the compass markers disappearing, because I went to the exact locations where they should be, even considering that apparently the mission has two rotating patterns for them to spawn, and they just weren't there.

Sometimes, the markers are working fine, the chests are there but if I take the Treasure before getting all 3 caches, the caches disappear too. o.O

Time Limit: Last but not least the time window. Because all the long and stressing animations for classes without access to invisibility like Nightblades it's too tight to not dare to say impossible to finish.

Last things I'm going to try until these are addressed (rotfl... addresses... right...) is to kill individual Red Nooks while no other crew members are close so (didn't work, crew still alerted), theoretically, the alert would not trigger. Also, I'll try to find more Night Mother pieces but of the medium type.

starlizard70ub17_ESO

I gave up trying to beat the timer on the heists, I just go in and get the caches, then the treasure, all the while eliminating the enemies in my way. (Get some pretty good stuff on thier bodies.) Then I go turn in the quest for my exp and reward. If you don't hit the route for the guards exactly right, or if you're slowed down by one of the traps, you can forget about making it on time.

daemonios

The only heist where I struggle is the Deadhollow Halls. All the others can be easily navigated and completed with minutes left on the timer.

You're not going to do any damage there, so ditch your light armour and go full medium. Any guards that aren't holding a lantern can be evaded without using hiding spots, since your can just stay out of their line of sight. I agree that traps are working badly right now - I fail at disarming them too. But often you can just jump over or go around them.

As for the vanishing chests, only the main objective is always marked on the map (e.g. the treasure). Other objectives such as the hidden caches are placed randomly. When you do several tries in a row you typically get them in the same places a few times, but then the locations reset. I've never encountered a heist where the caches were simply not there.

efster

Definitely don't bother wearing your normal battle gear for heists. I would recommend wearing all-medium sets that give you stealth bonuses and/or stamina, and find/craft them in well-fitted so you can sprint that much faster if need be. You don't even need max level gear since you never have to fight in these heists -- just hit up your quest log and drop the quest immediately as soon as you get into a scuffle. But if you do decide to fight, these guys are hardly Valkyn Skoria; just keep your normal single-target rotation on your back bar and you'll be golden, if a little slower with DPS than usual. On the front bar, dual wield or s&b to maximise the number of armour/weapon slots for sneak-thief mode.

I'm with you on the traps, they need a bigger "disarm box" because a lot of the time you have to put your nose right on the trap to disarm it. I don't necessarily dislike the lack of highlighting compared to the easy mode of traps elsewhere in the game, but half the time I am tripping over a trap just as I am trying to edge close enough to interact with it.

I think part of the challenge of the heist is timing your movement, and the guards pause and stand around because of that. I main a magicka NB, and I can't just yolo through the heists in permacloak. I have to use the hiding spots, wait, watch, and move at just the right time to avoid detection. I find that a really fun part of the heists.

The lantern circles overlap so that there isn't an easy-mode path for anyone to follow. There are even spots where you have to use terrain to avoid detection -- i.e. in Deadhollow Halls there's a ridge between the wall and the path and you have to be behind that ridge ready to sprint or cloak (if a NB) out of the lantern AOE because there is no other way through that corridor. Also helps to have an invisibility pot ready there if you aren't a NB, in case the guard spots you behind the ridge (normally they shouldn't because their back should be to you when you're getting out of Dodge -- the circles don't give the guards eyes in the backs of their heads; they just pull you out of stealth).

Once I've gotten the main treasure before the bonus objectives and the objectives remained on the map for me to pick up, but if they are vanishing in another Heist type then I agree that needs to be addressed.

rfennell_ESO

So... I probably will regret mentioning this.

But you can do the heist in the time just killing everything.

It's actually easier to do it that way than the way that's intended.

daemonios

rfennell_ESO wrote: »

So... I probably will regret mentioning this.

But you can do the heist in the time just killing everything.

It's actually easier to do it that way than the way that's intended.

Which heist? You lose 1 minute or so for each kill, and in most heists you come across more guards than you have minutes on the timer.

sirrmattus

where do you go for heist?

rfennell_ESO

daemonios wrote: »

rfennell_ESO wrote: »

So... I probably will regret mentioning this.

But you can do the heist in the time just killing everything.

It's actually easier to do it that way than the way that's intended.

Which heist? You lose 1 minute or so for each kill, and in most heists you come across more guards than you have minutes on the timer.

I guess the clarity of my statement was at fault.

Obviously I don't kill everything lol. But stuff that's there to slow you down, I just kill it. You don't have to kill much to speed things up.

I've also done them just running through everything and cloaking off aggro, which can be done easily on nb with plenty of time to spare.

Turkeysammich

I keep getting caught, by no one, and the timer drops. Literally no one around. Whenever I open a chest, it takes off stealth, and once that eye opens up I get the timer drop, and there wont be an NPC around.

Volkodav

I just ignore the timers.

Flouride_Bandito

I just ran into four bugs in heists. Today, I did the Hideaway heist. I restarted around 35 times to try to get it within the timer and couldn't make it work. Over four hours, I failed again and again until finally completing a perfect run that ended with a bug. The bug failed my perfect run, and I just gave up and "completed" it anyway.

This was due to three problems:

- player skill (I screwed up a bunch)
- Impossible configuration (you can random a chest placement that is impossible to stealth)
- Bugs

It's the last two I will focus on.

Having restarted somewhere over 30 times today, I can confidently say that there are several possible chest configurations, and a randomized boss mob that can show up at the very start of the heist. One of the chests is impossible to get in stealth.

The heist involves an old cistern or well in the middle, with three possible chest locations within. One is cleverly hidden and easy to get (down in the water, past the hanging moss). One is on the lower ledge of the cistern. This second chest unfortunately exposes some of the major flaws in ESO's jumping mechanics, but I'll set those aside. The third possible chest, however, is located in front of a stationary archer. This archer is literally firing his arrows through the chest at the brightly-lit target behind. It is not possible to pick up this chest right in front of this archer.

Now, the bugs:
1. If you get the final treasure before picking up all of the chests, the radar markers disappear.
2. Sometimes there will be four extra chests, plus one treasure. This happened when I picked up the treasure before the chests, but only sometimes.
3. I was seen through the floor by a lantern guard. He rose up through the floor like Cain himself and fought me.
4. Jumping down in stealth - not far enough to cause a yell, or damage, or a roll - while WELL outside of a detection ring caused me to be detected (and ultimately this was the last straw on bugs).
5. Vertical detection is broken overall. I get that this is a hard problem but right now it's random whether or not you'll be detected while standing well below an enemy (or well above, as happened to me).

Flouride_Bandito

Edit to add: the vertical detection is the worst offender, although the bugged regular ring caused me to fail my final perfect run. If you can't paint the detection ring graphic on a given environment, it _must_ not be able to be detected. I should not be seen while standing so far below a mob that his blue detection ring doesn't exist.

Flouride_Bandito

Sorry, one more bug:

6. When just starting your heist - i.e. the timed part - your quest takes a moment to "start".

After twenty-odd failures in this one heist, and knowing there was an impossible chest, I got very sensitive to the quest markers on the radar. I would restart if the archer chest came up. The instant your character crosses the entryway threshold, two things happen:

- The timer starts.
- The quest starts, placing the final objective (the "treasure") in its spot.

A moment later, which I inexpertly timed using a phone timer, the other three chests spawn in with their radar markers. In my timing, this took anywhere from under a second to 5.7 seconds. More importantly, the mobs are roving during this setup phase. Many times, I would dash out with a perfect opportunity between detection rings, making a vampire-stealth-speed beeline towards where the first chest might possibly spawn... only to have your quest "catch up" a moment later and no chest would be there.

I get that you've likely done some weird workarounds in the code to get these quest markers to show on radar but not on map, and that's probable why these chests and markers in particular are very buggy. It's not what the quests do anywhere else, after all.

Consider adding a five second grace period at the start where you load in all the chests and freeze mobs / player?

s7732425ub17_ESO

> Before some *** jump in saying that's a L2P issue, it's not.

Yea, it is. I do all of the heists on my magicka sorc, wearing julianos set + undaunted, 5 light armor (meaning, I don't use any special sneak bonuses). The only heist I struggle with is the sewer one where you must do a full rotation through the map and end up at the pipe way up top at the end, but this is solely due to a time issue.

Some "bugs" mentioned from previous posts:

> 1. If you get the final treasure before picking up all of the chests, the radar markers disappear.

Sure, but the markers still show up on the map as you get nearby, and it's very obvious where they are located.

> 2. Sometimes there will be four extra chests, plus one treasure. This happened when I picked up the treasure before the chests, but only sometimes.

There are always multiple caches (more than 3) that spawn. Also, a hidden cache is allowed to respawn in the exact same spot if you give it time. So there may be 8 caches that spawn, and you only have to pick up three.

> 4. Jumping down in stealth - not far enough to cause a yell, or damage, or a roll - while WELL outside of a detection ring caused me to be detected (and ultimately this was the last straw on bugs).

You seem to be doing something wrong.

Flouride_Bandito

s7732425ub17_ESO wrote: »

> 1. If you get the final treasure before picking up all of the chests, the radar markers disappear.

Sure, but the markers still show up on the map as you get nearby, and it's very obvious where they are located.

This is a bug. I'm not sure what you're arguing here?

> 2. Sometimes there will be four extra chests, plus one treasure. This happened when I picked up the treasure before the chests, but only sometimes.

There are always multiple caches (more than 3) that spawn. Also, a hidden cache is allowed to respawn in the exact same spot if you give it time. So there may be 8 caches that spawn, and you only have to pick up three.

I did not know that! Thank you - this is not a bug.

> 4. Jumping down in stealth - not far enough to cause a yell, or damage, or a roll - while WELL outside of a detection ring caused me to be detected (and ultimately this was the last straw on bugs).

You seem to be doing something wrong.

It's certainly possible. Can you tell me what I'm doing wrong?

I called out that I made errors - many! many, many! - which caused restarts. The final bug I saw was the #4 above, and it did happen. It's probably that it was yet another instance of #5, actually... the detection ring was NOT being drawn due to elevation, and their location prediction algorithm thought I was detected. That might have been it.

I'm very glad you're amazing at these heists! I find them a lot of fun because they're challenging.

daemonios

Flouride_Bandito wrote: »

s7732425ub17_ESO wrote: »

> 1. If you get the final treasure before picking up all of the chests, the radar markers disappear.

Sure, but the markers still show up on the map as you get nearby, and it's very obvious where they are located.

This is a bug. I'm not sure what you're arguing here?

> 2. Sometimes there will be four extra chests, plus one treasure. This happened when I picked up the treasure before the chests, but only sometimes.

There are always multiple caches (more than 3) that spawn. Also, a hidden cache is allowed to respawn in the exact same spot if you give it time. So there may be 8 caches that spawn, and you only have to pick up three.

I did not know that! Thank you - this is not a bug.

> 4. Jumping down in stealth - not far enough to cause a yell, or damage, or a roll - while WELL outside of a detection ring caused me to be detected (and ultimately this was the last straw on bugs).

You seem to be doing something wrong.

It's certainly possible. Can you tell me what I'm doing wrong?

I called out that I made errors - many! many, many! - which caused restarts. The final bug I saw was the #4 above, and it did happen. It's probably that it was yet another instance of #5, actually... the detection ring was NOT being drawn due to elevation, and their location prediction algorithm thought I was detected. That might have been it.

I'm very glad you're amazing at these heists! I find them a lot of fun because they're challenging.

There is only a map marker for the special treasure. Caches are never marked on the map. That said, you get a white arrow pointing to them on the compass and in your game window when you're close enough. As @s7732425ub17_ESO said, there are more caches than those that are necessary to complete the heist. In many of the maps I've found ways to completely ignore half of the map and focus in doing the shortest route possible that guarantees I get to all the objectives.

The impossible chest with the archer that you mention is indeed bugged. The archer used to turn away briefly after taking a couple of shots at the target behind the chest. He doesn't do it anymore, but that doesn't make the heist impossible to complete since this is just one of the secondary objective caches (at least I've never had the special treasure chest spawn at that location) and you can always get another one at a different spot.

Sasyk

Sorry OP, but it really is a learn to play issue . I've done about 10 perfect heists so far and only had to fail once or twice on each map before I figured out how to do it perfectly.

Some things about your issues:

Detection Area: Don't try to sneak up to any of the npc's head on. If their back is turned you can sneak past them without issue if you don't get too close. You could always try wearing medium armor too. And I know you said you're a vampire, but the Night's Silence set might help you maybe as it ignores the movement speed penalty when sneaking. I don't actually use that set but when I do heists I wear full medium armor. You can also hide behind terrain/crates etc. and line of sight any npc even when not stealthed and they won't see you.

Various Traps: No, they shouldn't be glowing when in stealth. Where is the fun in that?? Just keep your eyes peeled, a lot of the traps you can walk around or jump over. Don't be impatient (I'm serious). If one path has too many traps, abort and retry the mission and take a different way. Remember the way you came and you can follow it back and all the traps will be disarmed assuming you disarmed them. At the very least you'll know where they are and can avoid them.

Guards/Bosses Animations: That's the whole point. They're guards, and sometimes their immediate presence will make you feel apprehensive and make you feel like you're gonna fail the mission. Again just be patient. Just because there's a guard at the enterance right away, doesn't mean he'll be there when you're about to leave with seconds left on the timer.

Overlapping FOVs: Again, this will happen. Sometimes you have to back track to avoid it. It's fine. I've experienced the same thing and never complained. Completing a perfect heist isn't ment to be an easy walk in the park.

Vanishing Cache Chests: The cache chests have many different spawn locations and there's multiple instances of the same map. Sometimes they're unmarked in hidden off the map passages. Just keep your eyes peeled. The fact that they can spawn in different locations every time will work in your favor quite often. It's a nice form of RNG (one of the only nice ones in this whole game). As for the vanishing caches after getting the big chest, that probably is a bug but I've never experienced it yet. Maybe just save it for last until they patch it.

Time Limit: There's plenty of time to complete it within the time limit. I do it without the nightblade shadow cloak. Sometimes if the map isn't laid out nicely, you'll finish with less than 10 seconds left. Other times I've finished with a little over a minute left.

Misc Notes: There are times when you can just straight up haul it out of stealth if you know no npc's are going to be around. Just watch for that tell tale blue glow coming around the corner and duck into stealth or a hiding place if one is available. It'll save you a lot of time. Use generic stamina pots if stam is an issue when stealthing but it shouldn't be in full medium armor.

Edit: I forgot to mention. Another way to save time is to put a couple points into the locksmith passive in Legerdemain and just force the chests opened. It works more often than not when you have 50% chance or higher, and even if the lockpick breaks you only have to wait about 5 seconds to try again.


I really hope ZoS doesn't nerf heists ever. They're actually incredibly fun and pretty exciting (imo) since nothing else in this game really gives you that sense of urgency without the stress. I kinda wish you could do more than one heist a day honestly. It's really refreshing and unique content.

daemonios

@Sasyk not much point in replying to OP since the thread was created 3 months ago and a lot was fixed about heists since then

UltimaJoe777

Heists I stopped doing: Underground Sepulcher, The Hideaway, pretty much the ones that have you loot chests. I might still do Deadhollow Halls though considering how much I've dealt with that one to get it down pat. I'll be SO glad when I'm done with these entirely though.

UrQuan

It's worth noting to anyone replying to this thread that the date of the OP is months ago, and some of the bugs mentioned in that post no longer exist. Specifically the fire traps virtually always exploding when you try to disarm them - this used to happen all the time, but it seems to be fixed now as they disarm just fine. Also, just after TG launched a couple of times I had a bug where the caches would simply disappear after you grabbed the main treasure - they simply wouldn't appear anywhere. This doesn't happen anymore either.

Flouride_Bandito wrote: »

The heist involves an old cistern or well in the middle, with three possible chest locations within. One is cleverly hidden and easy to get (down in the water, past the hanging moss). One is on the lower ledge of the cistern. This second chest unfortunately exposes some of the major flaws in ESO's jumping mechanics, but I'll set those aside. The third possible chest, however, is located in front of a stationary archer. This archer is literally firing his arrows through the chest at the brightly-lit target behind. It is not possible to pick up this chest right in front of this archer.

As others have mentioned, more caches will spawn than are needed to complete the heist, so you can ignore that one that's impossible to get in stealth, and just grab a different one elsewhere. Yes, I still think it's dumb that there's one you can't get without alerting that archer, but at least you can ignore it.

The one you mention that's difficult to get with the jumping mechanics... If it's the one I'm thinking of (in the middle level of the cistern), you can get it without jumping - you can hug the central pillar and walk around it on the tiny tiny ledge to get to and from that cache.

Flouride_Bandito wrote: »

3. I was seen through the floor by a lantern guard. He rose up through the floor like Cain himself and fought me.
4. Jumping down in stealth - not far enough to cause a yell, or damage, or a roll - while WELL outside of a detection ring caused me to be detected (and ultimately this was the last straw on bugs).
5. Vertical detection is broken overall. I get that this is a hard problem but right now it's random whether or not you'll be detected while standing well below an enemy (or well above, as happened to me).

Whoa, a guard actually came up through the floor? I've never had that happen

I've also noticed that vertical detection is a bit buggy. Sometimes when you're above/below an enemy it's impossible for them to detect you, and sometimes they can detect you no problem - even in the exact same location on multiple occasions you can get different results.

Has anyone else been having issues since the DB patch with the anti-stealth aura of guards not always showing up? Sometimes I can fix it by popping out of stealth and then popping back into stealth (at which point the aura will appear), and sometimes that has no effect and the aura won't appear no matter what I do. I can usually estimate how far the anti-stealth extends pretty well, but it has caught me once when it wasn't visible.

UltimaJoe777

UrQuan wrote: »

It's worth noting to anyone replying to this thread that the date of the OP is months ago, and some of the bugs mentioned in that post no longer exist. Specifically the fire traps virtually always exploding when you try to disarm them - this used to happen all the time, but it seems to be fixed now as they disarm just fine. Also, just after TG launched a couple of times I had a bug where the caches would simply disappear after you grabbed the main treasure - they simply wouldn't appear anywhere. This doesn't happen anymore either.

Flouride_Bandito wrote: »

The heist involves an old cistern or well in the middle, with three possible chest locations within. One is cleverly hidden and easy to get (down in the water, past the hanging moss). One is on the lower ledge of the cistern. This second chest unfortunately exposes some of the major flaws in ESO's jumping mechanics, but I'll set those aside. The third possible chest, however, is located in front of a stationary archer. This archer is literally firing his arrows through the chest at the brightly-lit target behind. It is not possible to pick up this chest right in front of this archer.

As others have mentioned, more caches will spawn than are needed to complete the heist, so you can ignore that one that's impossible to get in stealth, and just grab a different one elsewhere. Yes, I still think it's dumb that there's one you can't get without alerting that archer, but at least you can ignore it.

The one you mention that's difficult to get with the jumping mechanics... If it's the one I'm thinking of (in the middle level of the cistern), you can get it without jumping - you can hug the central pillar and walk around it on the tiny tiny ledge to get to and from that cache.

Flouride_Bandito wrote: »

3. I was seen through the floor by a lantern guard. He rose up through the floor like Cain himself and fought me.
4. Jumping down in stealth - not far enough to cause a yell, or damage, or a roll - while WELL outside of a detection ring caused me to be detected (and ultimately this was the last straw on bugs).
5. Vertical detection is broken overall. I get that this is a hard problem but right now it's random whether or not you'll be detected while standing well below an enemy (or well above, as happened to me).

Whoa, a guard actually came up through the floor? I've never had that happen

I've also noticed that vertical detection is a bit buggy. Sometimes when you're above/below an enemy it's impossible for them to detect you, and sometimes they can detect you no problem - even in the exact same location on multiple occasions you can get different results.

Has anyone else been having issues since the DB patch with the anti-stealth aura of guards not always showing up? Sometimes I can fix it by popping out of stealth and then popping back into stealth (at which point the aura will appear), and sometimes that has no effect and the aura won't appear no matter what I do. I can usually estimate how far the anti-stealth extends pretty well, but it has caught me once when it wasn't visible.

Yeah my comment was based singularly on how annoying those heist locations are lol

daemonios

UltimaJoe777 wrote: »

Heists I stopped doing: Underground Sepulcher, The Hideaway, pretty much the ones that have you loot chests. I might still do Deadhollow Halls though considering how much I've dealt with that one to get it down pat. I'll be SO glad when I'm done with these entirely though.

All heists are really really easy on any class if you're willing to craft a Night's Silence set or equivalent, have 4/4 in the force lock passive and a source of major expedition. Mind you, these are not absolutely necessary, they just make heists dead easy. Some maps - I think it's Underground Sepulchre and Secluded Sewers - allow you to skip large parts of the map while still getting enough caches to complete the secondary objective.

Now, trying to pull off a flawless sacrament... THAT's hard

UltimaJoe777

daemonios wrote: »

UltimaJoe777 wrote: »

Heists I stopped doing: Underground Sepulcher, The Hideaway, pretty much the ones that have you loot chests. I might still do Deadhollow Halls though considering how much I've dealt with that one to get it down pat. I'll be SO glad when I'm done with these entirely though.

All heists are really really easy on any class if you're willing to craft a Night's Silence set or equivalent, have 4/4 in the force lock passive and a source of major expedition. Mind you, these are not absolutely necessary, they just make heists dead easy. Some maps - I think it's Underground Sepulchre and Secluded Sewers - allow you to skip large parts of the map while still getting enough caches to complete the secondary objective.

Now, trying to pull off a flawless sacrament... THAT's hard

I don't force locks. I'm a professional

UrQuan

daemonios wrote: »

UltimaJoe777 wrote: »

Heists I stopped doing: Underground Sepulcher, The Hideaway, pretty much the ones that have you loot chests. I might still do Deadhollow Halls though considering how much I've dealt with that one to get it down pat. I'll be SO glad when I'm done with these entirely though.

All heists are really really easy on any class if you're willing to craft a Night's Silence set or equivalent, have 4/4 in the force lock passive and a source of major expedition. Mind you, these are not absolutely necessary, they just make heists dead easy. Some maps - I think it's Underground Sepulchre and Secluded Sewers - allow you to skip large parts of the map while still getting enough caches to complete the secondary objective.

Now, trying to pull off a flawless sacrament... THAT's hard

Not if you know the layout and plan properly. It took me a few times to realize that for sacraments you always always always want to do get the secondary target first, because otherwise you simply won't have time to get the primary target and get out before the overseer arrives. You also want to scout out the route you'll be taking back from the primary target to the exit before you take him/her out, and in some cases it's worth eliminating a few of the people along that route prior to eliminating your target. Remember: you can have an alert status as high as 4/5 and still get the maximum reward - although it sure is more satisfying to do it with an alert status of 0/5.

daemonios

UrQuan wrote: »

daemonios wrote: »

UltimaJoe777 wrote: »

Heists I stopped doing: Underground Sepulcher, The Hideaway, pretty much the ones that have you loot chests. I might still do Deadhollow Halls though considering how much I've dealt with that one to get it down pat. I'll be SO glad when I'm done with these entirely though.

All heists are really really easy on any class if you're willing to craft a Night's Silence set or equivalent, have 4/4 in the force lock passive and a source of major expedition. Mind you, these are not absolutely necessary, they just make heists dead easy. Some maps - I think it's Underground Sepulchre and Secluded Sewers - allow you to skip large parts of the map while still getting enough caches to complete the secondary objective.

Now, trying to pull off a flawless sacrament... THAT's hard

Not if you know the layout and plan properly. It took me a few times to realize that for sacraments you always always always want to do get the secondary target first, because otherwise you simply won't have time to get the primary target and get out before the overseer arrives. You also want to scout out the route you'll be taking back from the primary target to the exit before you take him/her out, and in some cases it's worth eliminating a few of the people along that route prior to eliminating your target. Remember: you can have an alert status as high as 4/5 and still get the maximum reward - although it sure is more satisfying to do it with an alert status of 0/5.

Oh, I know. I've got the flawless sacrament and the 15x highest reward sacrament achievements (just waiting for the right victims to spawn for blackest sacrament or whatever it's called). I just meant the learning curve there is steeper than in heists, and they're less forgiving if you make mistakes.

Galbrant

I really do not care for stealth in this game. The lantern holding guards breaking stealth and invisibility potion just made invisibility potions even more useless. Been trying to do heists for awhile and this game stealth mechanics is insipid. I am not a fan of it. Even killing people with the blade of woe makes you lose time. And I really despise the Blade of Woe being the only real way of not incurring a bounty. At this point once Skyrim remaster drops I'm leaving to that to get the Thief/Assassin playthrough I crave. ESO Thieves Guild/ Dark Brotherhood just makes me want to throw my controller against the wall. Worst two DLCs so far and these two should have been in the game day one.

UrQuan

daemonios wrote: »

UrQuan wrote: »

daemonios wrote: »

UltimaJoe777 wrote: »

Heists I stopped doing: Underground Sepulcher, The Hideaway, pretty much the ones that have you loot chests. I might still do Deadhollow Halls though considering how much I've dealt with that one to get it down pat. I'll be SO glad when I'm done with these entirely though.

All heists are really really easy on any class if you're willing to craft a Night's Silence set or equivalent, have 4/4 in the force lock passive and a source of major expedition. Mind you, these are not absolutely necessary, they just make heists dead easy. Some maps - I think it's Underground Sepulchre and Secluded Sewers - allow you to skip large parts of the map while still getting enough caches to complete the secondary objective.

Now, trying to pull off a flawless sacrament... THAT's hard

Not if you know the layout and plan properly. It took me a few times to realize that for sacraments you always always always want to do get the secondary target first, because otherwise you simply won't have time to get the primary target and get out before the overseer arrives. You also want to scout out the route you'll be taking back from the primary target to the exit before you take him/her out, and in some cases it's worth eliminating a few of the people along that route prior to eliminating your target. Remember: you can have an alert status as high as 4/5 and still get the maximum reward - although it sure is more satisfying to do it with an alert status of 0/5.

Oh, I know. I've got the flawless sacrament and the 15x highest reward sacrament achievements (just waiting for the right victims to spawn for blackest sacrament or whatever it's called). I just meant the learning curve there is steeper than in heists, and they're less forgiving if you make mistakes.

Definitely agreed. Actually, I think part of the reason why I was able to relatively quickly learn to do the sacraments while hitting all optional objectives (and about half the time with an alert level of 0/5) is because I spent a bunch of time doing heists, and what I learned from heists I applied to sacraments. I totally agree about it being a steeper learning curve than heists though.

magnusthorek

daemonios wrote: »

@Sasyk not much point in replying to OP since the thread was created 3 months ago and a lot was fixed about heists since then

Exactly! The topic has been resurrected and I've got the perfect run very long time ago XD

I'll have to do it again with my "new main", but I'll finish DB DLC first. It's MUCH better tha TG.

Sasyk

Haha ya I failed to check the date on the original post. You win this time thread necromancer .

Flouride_Bandito

Sasyk wrote: »

Haha ya I failed to check the date on the original post. You win this time thread necromancer .

Hah, yeah, I don't like opening new threads if there's a topic already. I suppose I should have, though!

Thank you to all the kind replies. I really, really love this part of the game - I think heists are awesome fun. I need to get better at them, of course, but that's why I enjoy 'em. I just wanted to call out the several bugs I found while restarting... a lot... today. Heck, I never force locks, because I love the lockpicking minigame. I love the vampire stealth speed. I love the heists.

So, it seems we have confirmed bugs:

1. The radar markers for the chests DO disappear after you loot the main treasure.
2. There is a (sometimes large) slowdown between timer start and chests appearing.
3. Vertical detection is bugged.
4. That archer chest is not currently possible.

Things that ain't bugs:

1. I'm not very good at these yet! I failed and deserved to fail quite a bit.
2. More chests will spawn than are necessary. This. Is. Awesome! This means I can pick and choose. I like.

Again, thank you to everyone replying. I've learned a ton about heists and I wish I could do another one immediately. I wish they would let me do, like, practice heists

UrQuan

Flouride_Bandito wrote: »

Sasyk wrote: »

Haha ya I failed to check the date on the original post. You win this time thread necromancer .

Hah, yeah, I don't like opening new threads if there's a topic already. I suppose I should have, though!

Thank you to all the kind replies. I really, really love this part of the game - I think heists are awesome fun. I need to get better at them, of course, but that's why I enjoy 'em. I just wanted to call out the several bugs I found while restarting... a lot... today. Heck, I never force locks, because I love the lockpicking minigame. I love the vampire stealth speed. I love the heists.

So, it seems we have confirmed bugs:

1. The radar markers for the chests DO disappear after you loot the main treasure.
2. There is a (sometimes large) slowdown between timer start and chests appearing.
3. Vertical detection is bugged.
4. That archer chest is not currently possible.

Things that ain't bugs:

1. I'm not very good at these yet! I failed and deserved to fail quite a bit.
2. More chests will spawn than are necessary. This. Is. Awesome! This means I can pick and choose. I like.

Again, thank you to everyone replying. I've learned a ton about heists and I wish I could do another one immediately. I wish they would let me do, like, practice heists

If you plan on doing a lot of heists (I've been doing a ton lately to get the complete TG motif) I highly recommend investing in a set of stealth gear if you haven't already.

If your sneak speed is already enhanced in one way or another (such as being a vampire, or being a nightblade with concealed weapon slotted) then I'd put a priority on gear that reduces your detection radius (note that this has no effect on the anti-stealth radius of guards with lanterns, but it's great for making it easy to sneak past the regular joes). If not, then I'd put a priority on gear that lets you sneak with no movement penalty.

Gear that reduces your detection radius:
Nightshade: dropped medium armour set, the 3-piece bonus reduces your detection radius
Night Mother's Embrace: dropped heavy armour set, the 5-piece bonus reduces your detection radius

Gear that lets you sneak with no movement penalty:
Night's Silence: crafted set, the 5-piece bonus lets you sneak with no movement penalty

Ideally, if you can get bonuses from 2 of the above 3 sets that would be best. Don't worry if the gear pieces you get are lower level than what you can wear - you're not planning on getting into combat while wearing this stuff!

Skills that are helpful to slot (but never necessary) are any of the cloak morphs if you're a nightblade, and rapid maneuvers to get a speed boost when needed. Also, naturally you'll want to be taking advantage of the medium armour passive that reduces your detection radius for each piece of medium armour you're wearing.

Having a setup like this, and knowing the layout of the heist locations (which just takes doing them a few times) will make it very easy to complete heists within the allotted time.

Also, you actually can do more than one heist per day per character - you just need someone who picked up a different heist to group with you and share the quest. You don't have to do the heist together if you don't want, you can group up, share the quest, and then ungroup and both go and do the heist solo.