Official Feedback Thread for Dark Brotherhood Skill Line

ZOS_GinaBruno

This is the official feedback thread for the Dark Brotherhood Skill Line. Specific feedback that the team is looking for includes:

• We’d love to hear your feedback on each skill, particularly the Blade of Woe.
• How did you like the execution camera?
  • What was your overall impression of the Blade of Woe killing experience?
  • Were you able to exit out of the execution camera when you wanted to?
  • Did you turn the camera off at any point, or leave it on?
• Did you like the Assassin’s style item that you received?
• Did you enjoy the visuals for each skill?
• Did you find that you were able to execute entire towns and potentially block other players’ progression?
• If you acquired the Shadowy Connections skill, did you find a Shadowy Supplier afterwards?
  • Were you able to acquire a boon from the Supplier?
  • Do you think the boon help with murder and mayhem enough to go back to the Supplier regularly?
  • Any feedback on the quantity or quality of the boons?
• If you acquired Padomaic Sprint, did you find it was exciting? Did you find any NPCs in Cyrodiil that you could use this against?
• Do you have any other general feedback?

Ra'Shtar

I would like to make a suggestion about the blade of woe, its almost addictive using this to kill NPCs but it would add a lot more to the experience if your outfit gets a bit bloody after using the blade of woe to kill a target for a few seconds.

jwboudreau1b16_ESO

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

This is the official feedback thread for the Dark Brotherhood Skill Line. Specific feedback that the team is looking for includes:

• We’d love to hear your feedback on each skill, particularly the Blade of Woe.
• How did you like the execution camera?
  • What was your overall impression of the Blade of Woe killing experience?
  • Were you able to exit out of the execution camera when you wanted to?
  • Did you turn the camera off at any point, or leave it on?
• Did you like the Assassin’s style item that you received?
• Did you enjoy the visuals for each skill?
• Did you find that you were able to execute entire towns and potentially block other players’ progression?
• If you acquired the Shadowy Connections skill, did you find a Shadowy Supplier afterwards?
  • Were you able to acquire a boon from the Supplier?
  • Do you think the boon help with murder and mayhem enough to go back to the Supplier regularly?
  • Any feedback on the quantity or quality of the boons?
• If you acquired Padomaic Sprint, did you find it was exciting? Did you find any NPCs in Cyrodiil that you could use this against?
• Do you have any other general feedback?

I absolutely love the Blade of Woe. A great callback to the series and a great new gameplay mechanic. I love the cinematic camera shots (there should be more down the road ), the variety of executions, and the brutal animations. Amazing.

My only real issue is that as a Vampire it's awkward to pull off. "X" is the feed button, so I often get one or the other and it's confusing/does not allow me to execute one or the other when I want to. It would be nice if this was mapped to another key and/or can be custom mapped (I don't believe that it currently can be).

Another cool thing would be if we could turn off the indicator. I don't like that I'm stalking someone and then I hear a ping noise followed by an onscreen prompt that says that I can perform this action. I would prefer to press the executioner key (ideally not "X", once again) and for it to just happen or not, depending on the distance between myself and an NPC.

Keep up the good work It's great to see the amount of care and detail that went into this DLC!

Mr.Hmm

Blade of Woe is really great and fun, however there is a problem with it if you are a Vampire, sometimes you feed on the target instead of assassinating the target.
Something needs to be done about this.

CasNation

Yeah, as a vampire (and I am sure a lot of other will be with dark brotherhood), being able to reliably choose whether to feed or execute will be critical, especially now that the vamp passives will be tied to vampire stages (which I like). However, it I am trying to be super sneaky with my dark stalker passive, and then suddenly get rid of it by accident when I feed instead of execute, that is not fun.

Strider_Roshin

Okay I love the assassination animation for the blade of woe. The blood needs some adjusting though. It looks too much like jelly coming out rather than blood. Can we make the blood darker, spray more, and possibly reduce the amount? It just looks kind of cheesy in its current state.

Zoltan_117

I just killed every NPC in Kvatch, leaving a trail of bodies everywhere and guards and NPCs are just walking on top of them and no one batted an eye or pretended to care. It feels unrealistic and unbalanced, I feel there needs to be some risk in it, the NPCs should call a local guard, and the guard should be on alert around the body, it can't be that hard to do Devs.

I also made a thread about the above topic:
http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/262538/guards-and-npcs-desperately-need-to-react-to-dead-bodies?new=1

I have more feedback and would share this in a separate post.

Zoltan_117

One issue I found with assassinations is I could not pull this off fast as I was always having to be careful not to pull off the vampire feed ability which happens to share the same hotkey and is available to use at different distances. I triggered the feed multiple times causing me to get a bounty. Also in a tight space we don't have the ability to choose between them.

x5ofspadez

I really like the Blade of Woe Ability. But just one question. Is it supposed to Insta-kill any "normal" story mob?

Tib

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

How did you like the execution camera?
What was your overall impression of the Blade of Woe killing experience?
Were you able to exit out of the execution camera when you wanted to?

It seems to work well and as the above have said, it's a really cool ability.

If you acquired the Shadowy Connections skill, did you find a Shadowy Supplier afterwards?
Were you able to acquire a boon from the Supplier?

I just unlocked this skill, but I'm not able to get any of the items from the supplier, though I can interact with them and I can see the list of choices. (They are marked with red, I guess to indicate that I can choose only one?)

Ra'Shtar

The shadowy supplier passive ability doesn't seem to be working. This is not from the skill line but it has to do with DB so ill report it here The Black Hand Robe costume is extremely bloated on the upper part chest and the Shrouded Armor costume clips on the feet of beast races.

Epona222

I also can't get anything from a shadowy supplier. I tried the NPC in the DB sanctuary, later on I spotted one in the Davon's Watch outlaw refuge, who just gave me the same dialogue options which were in red and I couldn't select any. I have the passive.

Contraptions

How did you like the execution camera?
Execution camera was a nice touch initially, gave a nice touch of cinematics to normal assassinations.

What was your overall impression of the Blade of Woe killing experience?
Was intuitive enough. The biggest draw of the Blade of Woe is that it allows for bounty-free kills (assuming you aren't spotted) but this sometimes fails due to weird NPC spot mechanics. This ability to avoid the bounty is what I like the most.

Were you able to exit out of the execution camera when you wanted to?
Wasn't aware I could do that.

Did you turn the camera off at any point, or leave it on?
I turned it off after a while. The camera bugs out if your target is next to objects like boxes/walls etc. The camera would often get stuck in the wall etc. and I decided it wasn't working well enough for me to use. Also, the slow motion would activate when I initiated combat and I would often get hit by the other mobs while I was busy assassinating the first.

Did you like the Assassin’s style item that you received?
Too rare to be useful honestly. Need to increase the drop rate significantly. In over 100 kills I only received 4 fragments. Make the style material much more common please.

Did you enjoy the visuals for each skill?
Nice enough, nothing too spectacular though.

Did you find that you were able to execute entire towns and potentially block other players’ progression?
The biggest obstacle I can forsee is the Litany of Blood quests/any quest with targets in the open world. If the NPCs aren't instanced EVERY PLAYER is going to be competing to assassinate this ONE NPC. This is rubbish. Griefers are going to camp the hell out of these special NPCs. Something has to be changed.

If you acquired the Shadowy Connections skill, did you find a Shadowy Supplier afterwards?
[*] Were you able to acquire a boon from the Supplier?
[*] Do you think the boon help with murder and mayhem enough to go back to the Supplier regularly?
[*] Any feedback on the quantity or quality of the boons?
N/A, the supplier doesn't give me anything. Could we just make it a once/twice a day mail with one item of each class please? Like everyday/every 12 hours the NPC sends you a mail with some poisons, some disguises, a weapon or armour piece (perhaps style materials?). No point running all the way back for one item. The NPC has no dialogue anyway so cutting her makes no difference either way.

If you acquired Padomaic Sprint, did you find it was exciting? Did you find any NPCs in Cyrodiil that you could use this against?
Padomaic Sprint is quite useless honestly. I find the effect so underwhelming that gameplay is not significantly different with or without it. Needs major reworking. I suggest changing it to "Dance of Death" or something and adding "all incoming attacks will 100% miss for 3/4/5/6 seconds after using the Blade of Woe" on top of the increased speed for 6/8/10/12 seconds after a successful kill. Kill, and you have a small grace period to run from the guards or fight back. This would also solve the problem of the killcam "freezing" you in place allowing enemies to get free hits in. Perfect.

Do you have any other general feedback?

General feedback for the other skills:

Scales of Pitiless Justice: Suggest changing to any bounty received is reduced by 30/40/50/60%. Right now value is too low and too situational to be worth 4 skill points.

Padomaic Sprint: See above, again not worth 4 skill points.

Shadowy Supplier: Not worth collecting the supplies, see above. Change to mail delivery please. Less legwork involved.

Shadow Rider: Another useless passive. If I'm mounted and aggroed, I'll simply outrun the mob. It's completely useless. I fail to see how mounting has ANYTHING to do with the DB. Replace the effect with something completely different please. I suggest changing it to something like "Grasp of Sithis" that increases the range at which you can use the Blade of Woe, allowing for "throwing knife" style stealth kills from afar.

Spectral Assassin: Increase the chance to 40% or something please. 15% is again too low to be useful.

KallistaBlackheart

not sure if this has been noticed yet, but there is a sound issue some are experiencing in 64bit after using the blade of woe.

forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/262955/sound-issue

is a start to this discussion.

Gottbeard

It is not really much of a tree. I kinda wish you didn't make us waste skill points on these impotent patch specific mini - game faux skill lines. It's fine that they exist. If you don't really want to put out new skill lines that's fine. But can you like auto reward these passives by linking them to the story line so I don't have to pay for a skill reset after I experience the new content?

Garbrac

Gottbeard wrote: »

It is not really much of a tree. I kinda wish you didn't make us waste skill points on these impotent patch specific mini - game faux skill lines. It's fine that they exist. If you don't really want to put out new skill lines that's fine. But can you like auto reward these passives by linking them to the story line so I don't have to pay for a skill reset after I experience the new content?

It's not a waste of skill points because you aren't forced to get it. They are completely optional. They have no major significance that playing without them isn't that detrimental to your gameplay.

Making them auto reward would mean they can't add in any additional skyshards to the new zones. Which would be very disappointing if they release a new zone with no new skyshards. If they add more shards they need to add in a way to spend the additional shards.

Now, onto Gina's questions.

How did you like the execution camera?
Best addition to the game thus far. The best part about this feature is it's ever expanding. You can always be adding in additional execution styles and make them a surprise for the players.

What was your overall impression of the Blade of Woe killing experience?
Great! Is there a way to guarantee a specific style of kill? Aside from the knife throw which is activated from a distance.

Were you able to exit out of the execution camera when you wanted to?
The only way I found to exit the camera was through hitting ESC which brought up the side menu, which forces me to hit ESC again. So yes I was able to exit it, but I found it easier to just let it run its course.

Did you turn the camera off at any point, or leave it on?
No, why would I do that? That'd be silly.

Did you like the Assassin’s style item that you received?
I assume you're asking about the Assassin Personality? I like the concept of personalities. This one, in particular, doesn't fit my play style but the future additions of these look very promising and I am excited to see them.

Did you enjoy the visuals for each skill?

Did you find that you were able to execute entire towns and potentially block other players’ progression?
This question is incredibly hard to answer due to how low the population on the PTS is. When it goes live, however, there will be issues. If the NPCs for specifics missions is going to be a bit troublesome.

If you acquired the Shadowy Connections skill, did you find a Shadowy Supplier afterwards?
I found a shadowy supplier (and I have the Shadowy Supplier passsive) but all options he provides are red for me. What is this Shadowy Connections skill?

Do you have any other general feedback?
I would love it if you added in a new active skill that only works on NPCs, a distraction skill. There are many times when doing the Heists, or Sacraments where being able to throw a rock to distract an NPC or to entice them to move would be very beneficial.

Mix

I love Blade of Woe (haven't unlocked anything else yet), but I encountered a problem with it in the Heist Daily for the Thieves Guild. Assassinating an enemy inside the Heist, while hidden and with no witnesses, causes the timer to be reduced and the "Your Crew has Been Spotted.." message to play. I was really looking forward to assassinating the npcs that are blocking my way instead of waiting for them to path away or assassinating npcs that seem to always stare directly at the chests...

PS4_ZeColmeia

You should make blade of woe take priority over vamp bite when you have the quest selected as active. It'd make it really easy to manage it that way.

ycodryn

How do I get the skill line ? I got the dlc, went to region but I don`t have any q or skill line.

Reorx_Holybeard

ycodryn wrote: »

How do I get the skill line ? I got the dlc, went to region but I don`t have any q or skill line.

You'll need to start the DB quest I believe to get the skill line and of course advance your rank in it to unlock skills. Check in any Outlaw Refuge for a quest NPC or I believe you can start the quest through the collections menu.

Saltypretzels

Spectral assassin at 15% IS too low. 15% means you can never expect it to proc so you will not behave any differently at all with it vs. without it. That makes it almost worthless.

ycodryn

Reorx_Holybeard wrote: »

ycodryn wrote: »

How do I get the skill line ? I got the dlc, went to region but I don`t have any q or skill line.

You'll need to start the DB quest I believe to get the skill line and of course advance your rank in it to unlock skills. Check in any Outlaw Refuge for a quest NPC or I believe you can start the quest through the collections menu.

Thank you.

WhiteNoiseMaker

• We’d love to hear your feedback on each skill, particularly the Blade of Woe.
• How did you like the execution camera?
  It's interesting, I do like how it's a bounty-free kill but sometimes the slow animation leaves you wide open to NPC's that come around when your kill should have occurred fast enough to not linger in place.
• What was your overall impression of the Blade of Woe killing experience?
  I like the 'ping' notification, but sometimes the distance of approach is very inconsistent. Also the tooltip about eligible targets omits that almost all guards and dialogued-townsfolk are immune to the Blade, meaning you often have to guess and approach an NPC to see if you can kill them.
• Were you able to exit out of the execution camera when you wanted to?
  I didn't even know that was an option. There should be a cue that instructs you that you can?
• Did you turn the camera off at any point, or leave it on?
  Again, I didn't know I could turn it off. >_<
• Did you like the Assassin’s style item that you received?
  If you mean the personality, I do and I have offered specific feedback on that in another thread.
• Did you enjoy the visuals for each skill?
  By and large yes, but I don't think I have seen all of them yet. I'm still early on in the quests and skill line.
• Did you find that you were able to execute entire towns and potentially block other players’ progression?
  I never even considered this as an option, and given that the DB DLC is PVE content, I would consider it griefing to have such indirect PVP tactics used in PVE content.
• Do you have any other general feedback?

I agree with one of the above suggestions that the Scales of Pitiless Justice be adjusted to any bounty. As it is right now those four skill points are better spent in the Thieves Guild line to cool off Heat/Bounty rapidly.

NocturnalGuideMe

As a Sneak Thief/ Assassin Character, Blade Of Woe is my best friend. it makes everything so much easier whether it be search and retrieve missions, solo dungeons, coming across a enemy encampment. It also makes taking on mobs of 3 way easier as a Nightblade (but im sure thats true of any class) and, with some luck, you can sneak up and assassinate the tougher of the 3 (or the healer) and then only have 2 baddies to concentrate on.

one thing i will say, it can be somewhat glitchy and the animations sometimes can be annoying.

also there should be a level-able skill line for this as a passive or something, expanding your target range. i.e. monsters, animals and daedra or other humanoid abominations.

Either way thanks guys and you should update both Theives Guild and Dark Brotherhood or expansion pack for more storyline missions! These two have always been my favorite storylines to play since Oblivion. Mostly cuz of my platy style.