Bug while trespassing

Chazaquiel

I'm still rather new to the game.
I was trespassing in a house to make some gold from stolen items. I always make a note of what NPCs are around and observe their routines before moving around (habit picked up from Skyrim).
In this occurrence, one of the NPCs was lying dead on the floor, so no threat, however, after clearing a few storage areas, this NPC suddenly appeared out of nowhere, just in front of me, and attacked me. The guard rushed down and joined in (I have learned that immortal guards are actually not a bug, but part of the game "design"). Having planned my exit route before making a move in case anything happened, I promptly made my way to the door, but was unable to open it (the option to open was not greyed out, just never appeared). I tried a few other doors, all the same.
I lost a couple of blueprints in the process, so a fair bit of gold, which I am quite annoyed about.

smacx250

There is a mechanism by which doors can't be activated if you are actively being attacked. You need to dislodge yourself from your combatants for several seconds, at which point the door becomes operable. And yeah, in an MMO dead NPCs will respawn when you least want them to - you've got to watch out for that!

Chazaquiel

Okay, so the appearing out of nowhere is not a bug either. Just bad game design. It's hard to keep the role play going when there is a dead body and then the alive version suddenly appears a few feet away.

For the doors issue, how do I get out of a building if I'm being chased around by a guard I can't kill with doors I can't open ?

Thanks for the reply.

smacx250

Coming from the single player world, there are a lot of compromises that are made in MMOs to an "immersive" experience. For example, if the NPCs didn't re-spawn, then 99.999% of the players would never see an NPC, because they'd already be dead from someone else. And it's so nice when you fight your way through that delve to the boss you need for the quest, and then you wait around its dead body for it to respawn. It's just one of those things you have to realize are different when there are many players playing in the same space. In "instanced" areas (where each player or group gets their own "space"), this isn't the case. The group dungeons, trials, and some quest areas are like that. But generally that is the exception.

Regarding disengaging from the enemies long enough to get out - there are various skills and potions that can increase your movement speed (give distance), provide immunity from roots and stuns (so you aren't stuck in place), and provide invisibility (so you can hide easier). These can, in many instances (but not all), give you enough time out of active combat to either be able to get into a hiding spot, or activate the door. This is intended - it isn't supposed to be easy to escape when you get caught.