5 flaws with the criminal system and how to fix them

SirGabenOfSteamia

EDIT: I'm leaving this at the top of my post so everyone new or everyone who comes back can see it easily. I'm not saying with my post that the justice system should be easy by any means. What I'm saying is that the justice system is just not worth involving yourself in unless you're looking for blueprints (which don't even need to be stolen, remember the pots in Morrowind?). With a good group, farming a veteran trial can be more profitable per hour than stealing normal green, blue and purple contraband items, which says a lot. With the justice system being the best way to make gold outside of group content or selling and buying amongst players, you'd think that you'd be able to make more than 25k a day. What I'm suggesting here is to make it more convenient to make gold with the justice system, meaning quicker and more effective, but not necessarily easier. I don't want mechanics cut from the game, I merely want them reworked so that people would have a reason to break into houses every now and again to make some quick gold.


Ok so, recently I've started getting into the whole thievery aspect of the game. Its not that I haven't before gotten into it before because in fact, I have about 510k/1mil on my crafter done for black market mogul, but rather because its extremely unprofitable in the amount of time required to gain a large sum of gold or furnishing plans. I'd like to offer a set of points I've thought up that I'd like to believe would improve the system if they were implemented into the game.

So here's 5 things that I believe should be reworked to make the criminal system 10x more profitable and worthwhile to take part in:

1: Allow Pirharri to launder on top of her fencing, and remove the loss of profits when selling to her.
This is a little bit of a personal problem of mine rather than a problem with the criminal system, but as of right now, Pirharri is a completely useless assistant. Yeah, I get it, you can always just teleport out of a house or whatever whenever you want to a place like Sentinel where there's a clear path to the Outlaw's refuge, but still. There's nothing I love more than lugging around 10k or 15k worth of greens and blues and selling it all to Pirharri for 65% percent of what its worth. You know that feeling of when something new comes out a you sell it for what you think is a good price, but then a few hours later someone finds the same item and sells it for 35% more than what you got instantly? Yeah, well its like that but all the time with this assistant. Why would I use Pirharri when I can only sell 140 items a day and I'm grinding for Mogul? I thought assistants were supposed to be helpful... whatever.

I also believe that Pirharri should be able to launder goods. There's no better feeling than carrying around a stolen blueprint worth 100k and getting caught along the way by a guard because you were seen by someone when breaking and entering that is linked telepathically with guards around all of Tamriel, and then can't get though the door to the Outlaw's Refuge because you had to flee and getting hit a single time means your brain forgets how to turn handles.


2: The bounty system is absolutely terrible.
At first, I didn't mind it, but with the addition of the Thieves' Guild's B&E system, it starts to get a little tiresome. So how it works it that, in basically any DLC or chapter zone since the release of the Thieves' Guild DLC, breaking and entering a house will mean you are trespassing. Trespassing is a nice way of saying "if anyone at all sees you, you're screwed" ---- Instant 240+ gold bounty. There's no way of getting rid of this bounty unless you pay off a guard/fence, or use an amnesty edict. You can't kill the NPC who saw you with a blade of woe to get rid of the bounty like in Skyrim, its just there until your Swiftly Forgotten gets rid of it for you.

Now, this hasn't always been a huge problem for me, but since the addition of Summerset its really been getting on my nerves. NPCs with set paths have unpredictable movements, like starting to walk in one direction and then half way through the room just pivoting 180 degrees without stopping and walking back as if they forgot where they wanted to stand; 5+ NPCs in a single household mean that you're almost bound to get caught by a single one of them eventually; 2 NPCs in the same room who have like 1 minute cycles which mean either waiting 3 minutes for them to get separated to pickpocket one of them once because you have to wait for the success percentage to turn green to even have a chance because more often than not an 80% chance at pickpocketing will get you detected either way.

Just please, get rid of the trespassing system, make it so that killing witnesses remove bounties, make it so that an NPC will have to actually report to a guard to get a bounty on you, or reduce how much gold the bounty is so that it doesn't take 10 minutes to wear off with swiftly forgotten.


3: Getting hit by a guard should not mean losing ability to go through doors.
Its not happened to me often, but I've been caught in a tight space like the Riften Bank more than once by a guard and then have to kite him around the room hopelessly waiting for the "X to open door" prompt to appear while the guard's damage gets exponentially higher (why is that a thing?).

Just let me open door damn it! And please, please make it so that guards don't have the ability to do 30k in one hit if they're aggro'd for too long.

4: Add a number of legendary contraband items to sell/launder for gold.
As of right now, the only legendary-quality treasures are the "lore-heavy" (if they can be called that) gold lootables required for the Master Thief title and the gold treasures you get for completely vet HM trials. Would be cool if we could find golds around the world in safeboxes and wardrobes or whatever to sell for an exceedingly high amount of gold like the HM treasures. I'd love to see some lootable Daedric artifacts or relics from other games.

5: Make all contraband items have a purpose or into furnishing items.
I know this is a lot to ask for, but you have these hundreds of stolen items all with their own descriptions and some with unique inventory icons, and absolutely nothing to do with them other than sell them. Purple contraband items are ridiculously important when it comes to lore (Scute of the Mock Turtle, Piece of Volendrung's Handle, Half-shard of Sunder) and yet all we do is just sell them away as soon as we get them. I've seen several discussions brought up on these forums about a real desire to have these items become a part of our houses, as a sort of trophy. I too share this desire and would love to put up some sick lore-heavy items in my townhouse!

Thanks for reading, hope you agree on some of my points.

jedtb16_ESO

i read the whole post.

i agree with none of it.

you have chosen a life of crime..... do you think you mother is proud of you?

it is appropriate that you should suffer for that lamentable choice.

Snowy_Wyndra_Karn

I read the whole post.

I agree with all of it.

Yes, I have chosen a life of crime... but it was my mother who taught me how to steal.

Seriously though, all of your suggestions make crime more realistic. Every one of your points, I’ve often wondered about myself.

Hokiewa

1 will never ever happen

Sovjet

jedtb16_ESO wrote: »

i read the whole post.

i agree with none of it.

you have chosen a life of crime..... do you think you mother is proud of you?

it is appropriate that you should suffer for that lamentable choice.

Indeed, this one agrees with you!

ADarklore

I don't understand your issue with 'trespassing'? Countless times I have 'trespassed' with people in the house and have never received a single bounty- it's only if you are caught trying to unlock the door do you get a bounty. That is, unless you are trespassing in a 'restricted' area- THEN you receive a bounty if seen. Also, if you have such a problem, perhaps you need to equip yourself with proper stealth gear and VANISH potions... you also know you only have to avoid being hit for four seconds to unlock a door, right? Also, GIT GUD! It seems your lack of thievery skills is what has gotten you into trouble... perhaps you should pursue a different line of work!

JumpmanLane

SirGabenOfSteamia wrote: »

Ok so, recently I've started getting into the whole thievery aspect of the game. Its not that I haven't before gotten into it before because in fact, I have about 510k/1mil on my crafter done for black market mogul, but rather because its extremely unprofitable in the amount of time required to gain a large sum of gold or furnishing plans. I'd like to offer a set of points I've thought up that I'd like to believe would improve the system if they were implemented into the game.

So here's 5 things that I believe should be reworked to make the criminal system 10x more profitable and worthwhile to take part in:

1: Allow Pirharri to launder on top of her fencing, and remove the loss of profits when selling to her.
This is a little bit of a personal problem of mine rather than a problem with the criminal system, but as of right now, Pirharri is a completely useless assistant. Yeah, I get it, you can always just teleport out of a house or whatever whenever you want to a place like Sentinel where there's a clear path to the Outlaw's refuge, but still. There's nothing I love more than lugging around 10k or 15k worth of greens and blues and selling it all to Pirharri for 65% percent of what its worth. You know that feeling of when something new comes out a you sell it for what you think is a good price, but then a few hours later someone finds the same item and sells it for 35% more than what you got instantly? Yeah, well its like that but all the time with this assistant. Why would I use Pirharri when I can only sell 140 items a day and I'm grinding for Mogul? I thought assistants were supposed to be helpful... whatever.

I also believe that Pirharri should be able to launder goods. There's no better feeling than carrying around a stolen blueprint worth 100k and getting caught along the way by a guard because you were seen by someone when breaking and entering that is linked telepathically with guards around all of Tamriel, and then can't get though the door to the Outlaw's Refuge because you had to flee and getting hit a single time means your brain forgets how to turn handles.


2: The bounty system is absolutely terrible.
At first, I didn't mind it, but with the addition of the Thieves' Guild's B&E system, it starts to get a little tiresome. So how it works it that, in basically any DLC or chapter zone since the release of the Thieves' Guild DLC, breaking and entering a house will mean you are trespassing. Trespassing is a nice way of saying "if anyone at all sees you, you're screwed" ---- Instant 240+ gold bounty. There's no way of getting rid of this bounty unless you pay off a guard/fence, or use an amnesty edict. You can't kill the NPC who saw you with a blade of woe to get rid of the bounty like in Skyrim, its just there until your Swiftly Forgotten gets rid of it for you.

Now, this hasn't always been a huge problem for me, but since the addition of Summerset its really been getting on my nerves. NPCs with set paths have unpredictable movements, like starting to walk in one direction and then half way through the room just pivoting 180 degrees without stopping and walking back as if they forgot where they wanted to stand; 5+ NPCs in a single household mean that you're almost bound to get caught by a single one of them eventually; 2 NPCs in the same room who have like 1 minute cycles which mean either waiting 3 minutes for them to get separated to pickpocket one of them once because you have to wait for the success percentage to turn green to even have a chance because more often than not an 80% chance at pickpocketing will get you detected either way.

Just please, get rid of the trespassing system, make it so that killing witnesses remove bounties, make it so that an NPC will have to actually report to a guard to get a bounty on you, or reduce how much gold the bounty is so that it doesn't take 10 minutes to wear off with swiftly forgotten.


3: Getting hit by a guard should not mean losing ability to go through doors.
Its not happened to me often, but I've been caught in a tight space like the Riften Bank more than once by a guard and then have to kite him around the room hopelessly waiting for the "X to open door" prompt to appear while the guard's damage gets exponentially higher (why is that a thing?).

Just let me open door damn it! And please, please make it so that guards don't have the ability to do 30k in one hit if they're aggro'd for too long.

4: Add a number of legendary contraband items to sell/launder for gold.
As of right now, the only legendary-quality treasures are the "lore-heavy" (if they can be called that) gold lootables required for the Master Thief title and the gold treasures you get for completely vet HM trials. Would be cool if we could find golds around the world in safeboxes and wardrobes or whatever to sell for an exceedingly high amount of gold like the HM treasures. I'd love to see some lootable Daedric artifacts or relics from other games.

5: Make all contraband items have a purpose or into furnishing items.
I know this is a lot to ask for, but you have these hundreds of stolen items all with their own descriptions and some with unique inventory icons, and absolutely nothing to do with them other than sell them. Purple contraband items are ridiculously important when it comes to lore (Scute of the Mock Turtle, Piece of Volendrung's Handle, Half-shard of Sunder) and yet all we do is just sell them away as soon as we get them. I've seen several discussions brought up on these forums about a real desire to have these items become a part of our houses, as a sort of trophy. I too share this desire and would love to put up some sick lore-heavy items in my townhouse!

Thanks for reading, hope you agree on some of my points.

I read the whole post and agree with it all. I’d just add let me be able to kill the guards. Make them DLC vet dungeon boss strong and let me take my chances; but, IMMORTAL? What’s the point. Fully buffed, my MagDk can go toe to toe with them and my StamDK could probably wipe a whole NPC town. Then, suddenly one shot. It sucks.

SirGabenOfSteamia

ADarklore wrote: »

I don't understand your issue with 'trespassing'? Countless times I have 'trespassed' with people in the house and have never received a single bounty- it's only if you are caught trying to unlock the door do you get a bounty. That is, unless you are trespassing in a 'restricted' area- THEN you receive a bounty if seen. Also, if you have such a problem, perhaps you need to equip yourself with proper stealth gear and VANISH potions... you also know you only have to avoid being hit for four seconds to unlock a door, right? Also, GIT GUD! It seems your lack of thievery skills is what has gotten you into trouble... perhaps you should pursue a different line of work!

Yeah, i was talking about the restricted area stuff, but like every house in Summerset is restricted, and that's where the problem comes in. If you want to make good money, you want Summerset blueprints, and the best way to get them is by stealing, and the best way to steal is to break into a restricted house.

Radinyn

Stealing is bad, you hear it from a Khajiit.

jedtb16_ESO

Radinyn wrote: »

Stealing is bad, you hear it from a Khajiit.

wait, wut?

Silver_Strider

Personally, don't mind the B&E system at all. I think they should apply it to base game areas too because it's weird to pick the lock of someone's house and NOT instantly be perceived as an intruder/thief/murderer and get punished for it. Granted, this would make some houses completely impossible to break into undetectable but I don't think that's a bad thing at all.

Everything else you stated I'm fine with changing though.

Ragged_Claw

I agree with your point about Summerset, it's a terrible place to try and steal from. The NPCs can see you through walls apparently, as I had one screaming at me from upstairs 'I'm calling the guards!' over and over. Also I've noticed some of them spawn with empty pockets or only one item on them. There are houses where they never move from a particular room so you can't loot it without being seen. I wonder if its on purpose because they are snotty high elves who really dislike unwashed criminals like us? I wouldn't bother, but those Alinor furnishing plans aren't going to steal themselves...

Hoolielulu

*break into house*

"Hey, you shouldn't be in here, I'm calling the guards!"

"SNITCHES GET STITCHES." *stab stab stab*

I earn those bounties.

DenMoria

I have a solution for the entire issue. Don't be a criminal! Although, in this case, it appears that crime certainly does pay!

DanteYoda

All these Khajiits come out of the wood work to agree... Damn Thieving cats..

ADarklore

Ragged_Claw wrote: »

I agree with your point about Summerset, it's a terrible place to try and steal from. The NPCs can see you through walls apparently, as I had one screaming at me from upstairs 'I'm calling the guards!' over and over. Also I've noticed some of them spawn with empty pockets or only one item on them. There are houses where they never move from a particular room so you can't loot it without being seen. I wonder if its on purpose because they are snotty high elves who really dislike unwashed criminals like us? I wouldn't bother, but those Alinor furnishing plans aren't going to steal themselves...

You do realize that the Vanish potion works for stealing too?? I've used it to steal from boxes in plain sight before and the up-time is 11/s- so plenty of time.

idk

1. Having Pirharri reduces the risk we take which is why there is a "fee" for using her to launder. That is not a flaw. Risk is reduced because we can launder to her when we have a bounty instead of risking losing everything.

2. The bounty system is fine. Especially with the TG passive where the bounty goes down very fast the little 200 bounty is near nothing. Do not like it, do not get caught. It really is that simple.

3. Whenever we have received damage recently we cannot go through doors. Use the tools available to all of us in this situation . Invisibility potion. Oh, do not get nabbed by the guard when using this or you get pulled out.

The last two points are not worth mentioning after the first three. It does not seem OP has found flaws in the system but really just wants the small bit of resistance to be removed and have it all become meaningless.

It also seems OP is good at getting a bounty and the idea is to not get that bounty to start with.

DamenAJ

The reason you can't go through doors while hit is because the guards will not follow you through the doors. Would you rather they did? You'd probably end up with some any friends at the thieves guild.

I WOULD like that if you killed witnesses the bounty went away, but, considering how close you can be to people without being seen, how you can be standing on top of a fresh corpse and no one puts two and two together... I think the system balances itself out.

Trespassing is a crime. Deal with it.

Otherwise, meh, agree?

Edit: forgot one.

kargen27

I think it adds to the fun when you get that rare furniture recipe you have been looking for and have to make it to the thieves den to get the thing laundered. Pirharri should not be able to launder goods as that takes all the risk out of continuing to steal/pickpocket after you get the rare item.

When thieving outside I always know where the nearest body of water or cliff/ledge is in case I upset a guard. Inside I plan what I will need to jump over to get to the door as the guard runs around it. The only thing that bugs me a bit is that NPCs will not sell things to me if I have a really bad reputation. Not even the Khajiit NPCs.

SirGabenOfSteamia

idk wrote: »

1. Having Pirharri reduces the risk we take which is why there is a "fee" for using her to launder. That is not a flaw. Risk is reduced because we can launder to her when we have a bounty instead of risking losing everything.

2. The bounty system is fine. Especially with the TG passive where the bounty goes down very fast the little 200 bounty is near nothing. Do not like it, do not get caught. It really is that simple.

3. Whenever we have received damage recently we cannot go through doors. Use the tools available to all of us in this situation . Invisibility potion. Oh, do not get nabbed by the guard when using this or you get pulled out.

The last two points are not worth mentioning after the first three. It does not seem OP has found flaws in the system but really just wants the small bit of resistance to be removed and have it all become meaningless.

It also seems OP is good at getting a bounty and the idea is to not get that bounty to start with.

ZoS: "Let's add a system that's nets players about 20k every 3 non-stop hours of farming, not update it at all after a year and a half, and then make it impossibly difficult and frustrating to accomplish!"

Fanboys: "Yeah there's nothing wrong with that, I mean my friend who's farming geysers is making 50k an hour but that's his choice. I prefer the former."

Real people: making 50k an hour noises

efster

So you want thieving to be 100% easier than it is just because you asked nicely?

I do agree about Pirharri; she is useless. I understand about paying for convenience, but with port-to-friend (or home) being free, she is really not that convenient. Maybe if items sold to her had their own counter, so you can sell max (with passives) 140 to underground fences, and an extra 100 a day to Pirharri. Then she'd be somewhat useful. As it is, I don't think I've ever summoned her after the very first time I got her.

As far as bounties go, they are fine. If you maxed out all your thieving related passives (which you should have if you're going for Mogul), accidental 240G bounties don't take that long to drop off, and if you're constantly racking up larger bounties, maybe you're just not cut out for a life of crime.

The whole point of the bounty system is to make you think twice before doing crime, and you have a perfectly good counter to it - the counterfeit pardon and leniency edicts. There's literally no other use for these items except to reduce your bounty, why in the world would you resist using them? You mentioned them as an afterthought, but these items literally let you do what you want to happen -- lose your bounty instantly without consequences. Use them.

The problem here seems not to be with the bounty system, but with NPCs behaving weirdly in Summerset -- that deserves looking at. The bounty system, however, is fine. As is guard aggro. Don't want guard attention, use invisibility potions (they drop in thieves' troves, even) to escape.

The biggest flaws with the justice system in this game are that there is no PVP justice system and that I have to carry my Grand Leniency Edict around with me forever because I've never had a bounty high enough to justify using it (I did the "pay off bounty" achievement before TG was a thing).

SirGabenOfSteamia

efster wrote: »

So you want thieving to be 100% easier than it is just because you asked nicely?

I do agree about Pirharri; she is useless. I understand about paying for convenience, but with port-to-friend (or home) being free, she is really not that convenient. Maybe if items sold to her had their own counter, so you can sell max (with passives) 140 to underground fences, and an extra 100 a day to Pirharri. Then she'd be somewhat useful. As it is, I don't think I've ever summoned her after the very first time I got her.

As far as bounties go, they are fine. If you maxed out all your thieving related passives (which you should have if you're going for Mogul), accidental 240G bounties don't take that long to drop off, and if you're constantly racking up larger bounties, maybe you're just not cut out for a life of crime.

The whole point of the bounty system is to make you think twice before doing crime, and you have a perfectly good counter to it - the counterfeit pardon and leniency edicts. There's literally no other use for these items except to reduce your bounty, why in the world would you resist using them? You mentioned them as an afterthought, but these items literally let you do what you want to happen -- lose your bounty instantly without consequences. Use them.

The problem here seems not to be with the bounty system, but with NPCs behaving weirdly in Summerset -- that deserves looking at. The bounty system, however, is fine. As is guard aggro. Don't want guard attention, use invisibility potions (they drop in thieves' troves, even) to escape.

The biggest flaws with the justice system in this game are that there is no PVP justice system and that I have to carry my Grand Leniency Edict around with me forever because I've never had a bounty high enough to justify using it (I did the "pay off bounty" achievement before TG was a thing).

Its not that I want it to be easier, its that I want it to be worthwhile. As of right now, there's absolutely no point to thievery unless you're looking for diagrams which, by all standards, have an exceedingly low drop rate. Making gold with the justice system is just NOT EASY and that's the biggest problem with it. I understand that inflation rates and such are brought on by the community, but farming new areas for motifs or jewelry with the launch of Summerset is at least 5x as profitable per hour.

I shouldn't need to carry around potions. I'm a thief, not a magician. Imagine how easy it would have been for Quen to have stolen the Reliquary Skull if she had just popped a couple of invis pots?

There should be easier ways to get rid of bounty once you get one other than amnesty/leniency edicts outside of fences/guards. The witness system in Skyrim was the biggest differentiation in the thievery system from Oblivion, and it was well received. It was immersive and made sense, unlike telepathically-connected high elves and guards. I don't know much about scripting or anything, but I'm sure it can be done in ESO just as well as it was in Skyrim. As far as amnesty/leniency edicts go, they're rare and hard to get. Would be cool if we could buy then for like 1.5x the price. Trust me, I've already used as many as I've had.

DamenAJ

SirGabenOfSteamia wrote: »

efster wrote: »

So you want thieving to be 100% easier than it is just because you asked nicely?

I do agree about Pirharri; she is useless. I understand about paying for convenience, but with port-to-friend (or home) being free, she is really not that convenient. Maybe if items sold to her had their own counter, so you can sell max (with passives) 140 to underground fences, and an extra 100 a day to Pirharri. Then she'd be somewhat useful. As it is, I don't think I've ever summoned her after the very first time I got her.

As far as bounties go, they are fine. If you maxed out all your thieving related passives (which you should have if you're going for Mogul), accidental 240G bounties don't take that long to drop off, and if you're constantly racking up larger bounties, maybe you're just not cut out for a life of crime.

The whole point of the bounty system is to make you think twice before doing crime, and you have a perfectly good counter to it - the counterfeit pardon and leniency edicts. There's literally no other use for these items except to reduce your bounty, why in the world would you resist using them? You mentioned them as an afterthought, but these items literally let you do what you want to happen -- lose your bounty instantly without consequences. Use them.

The problem here seems not to be with the bounty system, but with NPCs behaving weirdly in Summerset -- that deserves looking at. The bounty system, however, is fine. As is guard aggro. Don't want guard attention, use invisibility potions (they drop in thieves' troves, even) to escape.

The biggest flaws with the justice system in this game are that there is no PVP justice system and that I have to carry my Grand Leniency Edict around with me forever because I've never had a bounty high enough to justify using it (I did the "pay off bounty" achievement before TG was a thing).

Its not that I want it to be easier, its that I want it to be worthwhile. As of right now, there's absolutely no point to thievery unless you're looking for diagrams which, by all standards, have an exceedingly low drop rate. Making gold with the justice system is just NOT EASY and that's the biggest problem with it. I understand that inflation rates and such are brought on by the community, but farming new areas for motifs or jewelry with the launch of Summerset is at least 5x as profitable per hour.

I shouldn't need to carry around potions. I'm a thief, not a magician. Imagine how easy it would have been for Quen to have stolen the Reliquary Skull if she had just popped a couple of invis pots?

There should be easier ways to get rid of bounty once you get one other than amnesty/leniency edicts outside of fences/guards. The witness system in Skyrim was the biggest differentiation in the thievery system from Oblivion, and it was well received. It was immersive and made sense, unlike telepathically-connected high elves and guards. I don't know much about scripting or anything, but I'm sure it can be done in ESO just as well as it was in Skyrim. As far as amnesty/leniency edicts go, they're rare and hard to get. Would be cool if we could buy then for like 1.5x the price. Trust me, I've already used as many as I've had.

I make 20-30k a day just from fencing crap(I only sell green+). I'm trying to get that 1mill fencing achievement. It's a little time consuming, usually taking me 2~ hours if I'm grinding it all at once, but I tend to spread it out and just do it as I'm questing and what-not. I also get blueprints, but use 'em, so ~('-')~ about the profitability of those.

You can be a nightblade; the sneaky thief class, use invisibility potions, or be patient. Those are your stealth options. Can't do that? bounty. Get used to it.

Tyralbin

A timer on the bounty "clock" would be nice to.

kind_hero

My suggestions:

- ability to distract NPCs or use some illusion spell
- ability to knock out NPCs without killing them
- more loot that can be used as furnishings
- bounty should not be shared across regions/factions
- no god mode guards

Chaos2088

I read the whole post.

I agree that I need a sandwich

You have chosen a life of writing on the fourms..... do you think you will make me a sandwich?

It is appropriate that I should also get a chocolate pudding.

IwakuraLain42

Leniency edicts are extremely easy to get, just the the repeatable quests from Kari's board in the thieves dens (just the the chest ones). Each hand in gives you an edict.

But the erratic movement was added a few months back, this is not a Summerset "feature". Having NPC's seeing through walls also happened before, there is a ship in Devon's Watch where the inhabitants complain if the you enter the hold below their cabin :-)

Seri

SirGabenOfSteamia wrote: »

1: Allow Pirharri to launder on top of her fencing, and remove the loss of profits when selling to her.

I agree with your reasoning on this. Whether or not there should be a 'fee' for the service is another question. Being in the middle of a thief-rich area to 'magically' summon a fence, and then offload all loot for the 'fence' value then dismiss them and continue-on has no deterrent to stealing risks. Similarly for laundering, 'I'm afraid to run around with this expensive plan, let me just launder it for the same value as if it safely made it to a thieves guild'. You get the footpad escape passive in towns (but not inside buildings), ability to claim clemency if your bounty/heat isn't too high, and doing TG dailies or picking up the thieves troves that can contain the edicts. Edicts also work (last I checked) while you were actively being pursued, as long as you had 1-2s to actually finish the animation.

2: The bounty system is absolutely terrible.
At first, I didn't mind it, but with the addition of the Thieves' Guild's B&E system, it starts to get a little tiresome. So how it works it that, in basically any DLC or chapter zone since the release of the Thieves' Guild DLC, breaking and entering a house will mean you are trespassing.

Actually, I want to disagree with this one. Trespassing zones were introduced with TG, but I'm pretty sure they were very rarely done for home dwellings until Morrowind. And even then, all the base zone homes still did not have the trespass flag. I haven't checked in Summerset yet but if the base zone houses still aren't flagged as trespassing and you're grinding out the mogul achievement, perhaps target a different zone instead?

3: Getting hit by a guard should not mean losing ability to go through doors.

This is purely from the 'in combat' state. Same reason you get stuck at doors in dungeons because some add way back at the beginning is still aggro'd on to you.

And please, please make it so that guards don't have the ability to do 30k in one hit if they're aggro'd for too long.

The expectation here is that people just can't go around tanking guards all day.

4: Add a number of legendary contraband items to sell/launder for gold.
[...] I'd love to see some lootable Daedric artifacts or relics from other games.

Obviously worth less than you're prefer, but many of the purple items do have daedric/lore origins. IMO legendary items would have to be 1/10th to 1/20th as common as purples if they were to be of 10k gold value.

5: Make all contraband items have a purpose or into furnishing items.

Would love to see some of these happen, even if just for the purple trophies.

AuldWolf

Yeah, this is definitely the weakest part of the game. I made a post lamenting it a long time ago, grousing about how whomever was responsible really hasn't played many stealth games. No non-lethal ways to deal with NPCs forcing players to kill them (tsk tsk), a total lack of a soundscape so it's almost impossible to follow NPCs without watching them all the time, et cetera. It's up to ZOS whether they do anything about it but it's especially galling because the area design, plot, narrative, and character writing of the Thieves Guild are SO GOOD. The Thieves Guild is the only piece of DLC I've played where I love all of the characters for actually handling their respective roles so well.

Even Nicolas, who's an obvious sociopath, plays up to his villainy really well by trying to manipulate you until the very end. The Iron Wheel turns out to be not so bad after all, it's just that they were manipulated by a pro (which is so often the case in reality as well). And just... everything about it! The main quests, the character quests, everything! The city, the delves, and just how bloody beautiful the area is in general. Abah's Landing feels like a large own (one of the very few places in ESO that actually does), the surrounding zone is astounding in how beauteous it is with all of its little scenes and views. It's a breathtaking zone.

And it's let down by the bloody stealth gameplay. It's galling to me. It's just... It's disappointing, I guess. Still, it's really ZOS's choice what they do with it. It's not great, though. But yeah, some quality of life improvements would make things better for everyone.
 

kind_hero

AuldWolf wrote: »

Yeah, this is definitely the weakest part of the game. I made a post lamenting it a long time ago, grousing about how whomever was responsible really hasn't played many stealth games. No non-lethal ways to deal with NPCs forcing players to kill them (tsk tsk), a total lack of a soundscape so it's almost impossible to follow NPCs without watching them all the time, et cetera. It's up to ZOS whether they do anything about it but it's especially galling because the area design, plot, narrative, and character writing of the Thieves Guild are SO GOOD. The Thieves Guild is the only piece of DLC I've played where I love all of the characters for actually handling their respective roles so well.

Even Nicolas, who's an obvious sociopath, plays up to his villainy really well by trying to manipulate you until the very end. The Iron Wheel turns out to be not so bad after all, it's just that they were manipulated by a pro (which is so often the case in reality as well). And just... everything about it! The main quests, the character quests, everything! The city, the delves, and just how bloody beautiful the area is in general. Abah's Landing feels like a large own (one of the very few places in ESO that actually does), the surrounding zone is astounding in how beauteous it is with all of its little scenes and views. It's a breathtaking zone.

And it's let down by the bloody stealth gameplay. It's galling to me. It's just... It's disappointing, I guess. Still, it's really ZOS's choice what they do with it. It's not great, though. But yeah, some quality of life improvements would make things better for everyone.
 

I fully agree with you!

It would be great to have more diversity in the thief/stealth game play! The Abah's Landing area is made for games like Thief or DeusEx, but here you can't climb, grab ledges, make use of secret passages and so on. Also you can't distract NPCs or use non lethal force to bypass some NPCs/guards. I would love to be able to fool the guards or NPCs, play tricks on them and play the "good" thief, that never use lethal force.

Rexy18

For #4, you can loot a legendary-quality Shivering Cheese, but I'd like to see more items