Unimportant Ramblings

RicAlmighty

There is nothing to see here

Ragged_Claw

I agree that the stealth element doesn't work well at all, guards often seem to get stuck and then suddenly come running at you. Once you've played through once, you know where most of the NPCs are, but I remember it being incredibly frustrating on my first playthrough. I'd say don't give up though, because the rewards are good and the story is fun. The skill line is also very useful. If you don't have the patience for the stealth elements just slaughter everything and run away from the invincible guards, there's no real penalty for being a rubbish thief other than the bounty! Also invisibility potions or cloak if you're a NB, use the baskets and the unkillable guards immediately forget you even exist

I also found it useful to do the Dark Brotherhood skill line at the same time, because they work well together and you can get some nice stealth buffs that way.

VaranisArano

I've got two bits of advice.

1. If you aren't okay with wanton murder (or you don't own the Dark Brotherhood DLC), invest in some invisibility potions. There's some cheap ones you can get from Thieves Troves or player-made ones. If you haven't already picked up stealth gear, look for sets like Darloc Brae that reduce your detection radius when sneaking.

2. If you are okay with wanton murder (and if you own the Dark Brotherhood DLC), I suggest just murdering your way through the quest line. It won't help with sentries, but it did wonders for me during non-sentry infested areas.

ZOS was like, "Oh, look, we'll scatter servants and dock workers around for you to avoid. It'll be stealthy!"

My Silencer: *stabs* "Can't report me if you're dead."

It wouldn't have been kosher for the Gray Fox's Thieves Guild to go around killing people, but Blade of Woe made my ESO Thieves Guild experience a lot better.

Stanx

Stealth does work well if you build for it, but those builds aren't overly good for anything else.

I've got a devoted thief class who can sneak under a guard's nose without being detected. I use a wood elf but khajit would be better nowadays and sets like darloc brae with CP.

Maybe with armory, this could be a bit more of a viable build to have saved on a main.

FluffWit

-You can mark an npc so you can follow where they go by holding down the crouch button on console, dunno what button it is on PC. It even let's you see through walls.
-If you're not a Nightblade you really want invisibility potions (easy to craft at any level)
-there are a few gear sets that help with sneaking a lot
-after you've done that mission where they tell you to pick pocket npcs you unlock the tip board. You kinda need to grind these jobs anyway to up the Thieves guild skill line. In addition to other loot they drop counterfeit pardon edicts you can use to remove bounties.

My first run of this dlc I was a clumsy oath that got caught all the time. My 3rd I was set up properly and i don't think i got caught once.

Much like Skyrim ESOs stealth mechanics start out fairly realistic and challenging but with the right skills and gear you can break it to make sneaking farcically easy.

Kiralyn2000

VaranisArano wrote: »

1. If you aren't okay with wanton murder (or you don't own the Dark Brotherhood DLC), invest in some invisibility potions. There's some cheap ones you can get from Thieves Troves or player-made ones. If you haven't already picked up stealth gear, look for sets like Darloc Brae that reduce your detection radius when sneaking.

Stanx wrote: »

Stealth does work well if you build for it, but those builds aren't overly good for anything else.

Yep, I went through the TG storyline back in the day, with my Wood Elf (before they got rid of the -detect radius passive), Night's Silence and Night Mother's Embrace sets. Only guard issues were the ones with the Reveals All Stealth lanterns. Which have big marked areas of effect, so you can duck into baskets. Never bothered with Invis potions or abilities.

HybridFreak

I recently completed the thieves guild storyline just a few months ago. I actually loved it but you really do need to build for stealth if you don't want to have a hard time with it.

Here are some gear sets that can help reduce your detection radius to make you more stealthy.

5 pieces night mother's embrace - reduces detection radius
4 piece darloc brae - reduces detection radius
3 piece night terrors - reduces detection radius
5 pieces nights silence - removes speed penalty from sneaking (currently bugged and not working)
5 pieces shadow dancer - removes sneak speed penalty, personally never used so not sure if it's also bugged like nights silence
Vampirism - has a passive that removes the sneak speed penalty
Khajit racial passive reduces your detection radius
Nightblade skill concealed weapon will increase sneak speed by 25% when slotted.
Invisibility potions
Medium armor skill line has improved hiding that reduces your detection radius based on the number of medium armor pieces you're wearing
Legerdemain skill line has improved sneaking that reduces stamina cost of sneaking

phaneub17_ESO

If you're having trouble seeing the guards, turn on their nameplates. It breaks immersion for some people, but I like knowing where they are at all times. Being able to see their names really stands out.

zaria

HybridFreak wrote: »

I recently completed the thieves guild storyline just a few months ago. I actually loved it but you really do need to build for stealth if you don't want to have a hard time with it.

Here are some gear sets that can help reduce your detection radius to make you more stealthy.

5 pieces night mother's embrace - reduces detection radius
4 piece darloc brae - reduces detection radius
3 piece night terrors - reduces detection radius
5 pieces nights silence - removes speed penalty from sneaking (currently bugged and not working)
5 pieces shadow dancer - removes sneak speed penalty, personally never used so not sure if it's also bugged like nights silence
Vampirism - has a passive that removes the sneak speed penalty
Khajit racial passive reduces your detection radius
Nightblade skill concealed weapon will increase sneak speed by 25% when slotted.
Invisibility potions
Medium armor skill line has improved hiding that reduces your detection radius based on the number of medium armor pieces you're wearing
Legerdemain skill line has improved sneaking that reduces stamina cost of sneaking

You also have two stealth passive buffs in the crafting tree, one who reduce cost of sneaking and one who give an 3 meter sneak radius reduction.
Ring of the wild hunt increases your sneak speed together with other speeds, its one slot and very nice for overland anyway.
Not as fast as night silence but not so much slower.
I tried wild hunt and night silence, it was too fast for doing heist for me. Probably worked better with an controller as you can change your speed, with keyboard its stop or go.

francesinhalover

RicAlmighty wrote: »

I imagine I am the only one that feels this way but I wanted to post my thoughts as a newer player. I got the Thieves Guild DLC as I was looking forward to it having fond memories of it from the ES games.

Story wise it's been great so far, I like the characters and how it's playing out. The actual gameplay and mechanics though are some of the worst I have ever seen in gaming. The stealth mechanic in this game is simply broken, there really is no other way to put it, it isn't viable at all. I was just doing the quests around and they all are the same. In some , none of the guards had a cone of vision, they blended in with the background, and some of them just stand in the same spot for minutes at a time, nor are you given any indication at all where they may be, so you peek around a corner and one is standing right there. This results in inevitably being seen and because the guards are totally invincible (another broken mechanic) all you can do is die, use a soul gem and try again, being forced to wait and guess where the guards are going to be. Moreover, the camera in this game is awful, constantly clipping on furniture and fully obstructing your view so you can't see anything. This is not fun, it is infuriating.

I cannot understand why ZSO thought this was a great mechanic, but I guess no one else feels this way, so I will probably just stop playing the story line, which is a shame.

EDIT: Thanks for the tips everyone, looks like I need to alter my build to have a Thieves specific go to. I'll give that a try and keep going for now. I really do like the story and the new location, those parts are really well done.

i didn't have much trouble, try maxing out the stealth detection decrease on the cp tree, if you are stam it's legit op, if you are mag it's helpful.
also try to never get to close to enemies, always 1.5-2 meters away. they can feel your breathing or sum

francesinhalover

FluffWit wrote: »

-You can mark an npc so you can follow where they go by holding down the crouch button on console, dunno what button it is on PC. It even let's you see through walls.
-If you're not a Nightblade you really want invisibility potions (easy to craft at any level)
-there are a few gear sets that help with sneaking a lot
-after you've done that mission where they tell you to pick pocket npcs you unlock the tip board. You kinda need to grind these jobs anyway to up the Thieves guild skill line. In addition to other loot they drop counterfeit pardon edicts you can use to remove bounties.

My first run of this dlc I was a clumsy oath that got caught all the time. My 3rd I was set up properly and i don't think i got caught once.

Much like Skyrim ESOs stealth mechanics start out fairly realistic and challenging but with the right skills and gear you can break it to make sneaking farcically easy.

"-You can mark an npc so you can follow where they go by holding down the crouch button on console, dunno what button it is on PC. It even let's you see through walls."

omg omg omg ,i need to try this, thank youuu

WildLight

Yeah, I totally hear you, OP. Heists and DB contracts were some of the most frustrating parts of my earlier ESO experience. I wouldn't recommend to go as much as building for stealth specifically but invisibility potions will save you a lot of sanity. Either craft them or hoard some Stealth Draughts from Thieves troves.
It was enough to get me through those activities just to earn relevant achievements, then bolt out and never come back to it ever again.

ShawnLaRock

BIS:

5pce Night Mother’s Embrace
3pce Night Terror
4pce Darloc Brae

2 of the Darloc pieces should be the unique quest reward Hidden Moon Band rings that come with Swift trait already on them, so it negates the need for Wild Hunt.

Also I like to have at least 1 bar of my weapons to be Sword & Shield to utilize the extra Divines slot on your shield, should you choose to run Steed Mundus (further negating the need for Wild Hunt).

Hard To Detect > Fast

All Divines body & shield; at least 2 of 3 jewelry Swift; and I usually go with Defending back bar (bow or resto?) & 1 hand (in case things go pear-shaped & I need to high-tail it outta there while being attacked! lol).

Also - to your point about guards during TG storyline - there are convenient baskets to hide in during most quests, so even if spotted you can always hop in one of these to escape.

S.

RevJJ

For the repeatable quests, if you don’t like pickpocketing you can abandon the quest and try again to get a quest to break into a safebox instead. May take a few times but personally I’d rather break into one safebox than pickpocket 10 NPCs who sometimes still catch me when I have a 100% chance of success according to the game.

Artim_X

Tab targetting a npc will let you see them through walls. Even works on other players in PvP. This will make life easier when planning your approach while hidden.

Bekkael

I feel your pain, OP. I despised the Thieves Guild quests, and only did it for the summonable fence...which turned out to take such a high percentage of my coin that it wasn't worth having her to summon anyway! I did Thieves and Dark Brotherhood on 1 character only, and NEVER again.

In my opinion, the "evil" or lawbreaking quests/mechanics in this game are a dumpster fire, which is why I have only "good" characters. It's just not worth the hassle of dealing with unkillable guards and ridiculously high bounties, and quite frankly, I also find it boring. Singleplayer TES games are fun to have a thief or DB character, but IMO it just didn't translate well to ESO. YMMV.

Vevvev

Someone recommended vampire for the sneak speed buff, but vampire also has the stage 4 passive that makes sprinting cost 50% less and after sprinting for 3 seconds you turn invisible. That sprint invisibility is incredibly useful in both the Thieves Guild and Dark Brotherhood storylines. Almost feels like cheating sometimes.

Brrrofski

You just need to build for it properly.

Have a look online. There's plenty of builds that let you sneak forever, at high speed and right next to NPCs without getting spotted

Sidonius

I did dark brotherhood and thieves guild dlc on my lowbie (at the time) night blade, tried doing it on my main templar but it was to expensive getting caught. I hope sometime in the near future, they give some love to these doc's.

Sidonius

Sidonius wrote: »

I hope sometime in the near future, they give some love to these dlc's.

Hurbster

I do find it amusing to see wardens and sorcerers sneaking about with a bloody great pet in tow.

Anifaas

I'm new and had a blast doing the Thieves guild last week.

I combined:

• Dark Brotherhood/Blade of Woe
• Vampire Stage 1
• Nightblade
• Khajit

I've made a lot of gold from the quests, levelled up quite a bit and became addicted to fencing. Also my legerdemain seemed to level itself during the journey.

Parasaurolophus

I love TG and DB. Although I really regret that I completed the DB on my main and now it is forever ruined.
This is not vet. overland, but it's great that in order to complete missions and quests, it requires us to do at least something, and not just move from one marker to another. Stealth is a unique non-combat mechanic for this game. But ZoS doesn't even use this much, depriving the game of any gameplay
OP, use invisibility potions, make a stealth build for yourself from special sets. The first time I completed these dlc on my stamsorc and did not experience any major problems..

Celephantsylvius_Bornasfinmo

Hi OP,

I did Dark Brother hood on my Templar main (not being caught etc)
To do so though I had to indeed use 'speed' and those 'invisibility/speed' pots.
It did make a big difference for me.

If you aren't a nightblade; well it's hard.

markulrich1966

the key really are the 3 sets listed above (4xDarloc, 5xNight Mother, 3xNight terror, all from guild traders).
And for pickpocketing to level up ledgerdemain to increase the chance.
Swift jewelry trait to increase speed. On a stamina character, I used these sets even in worldboss fights, just to solo them I switch to damage sets.

I use these sets too for dark brotherhood daily endeavours (blade of woe), and can kill the npcs around rimmen wayshrine without getting a bounty.

Batgirl

Sneaky elements, that i dislike and just slaughtered everything on the way aside, oh boy, what a great dlc it was!

One of the most beautiful zones in game, new skilline, nice story that is not about saving the world, and last but least, trial that was very challenging at the time, with interesting mechanics and cool visual design 💕

As for the OP's question, as others suggested, there are many ways to make sneaking much easier.

VaranisArano

Parasaurolophus wrote: »

I love TG and DB. Although I really regret that I completed the DB on my main and now it is forever ruined.
This is not vet. overland, but it's great that in order to complete missions and quests, it requires us to do at least something, and not just move from one marker to another. Stealth is a unique non-combat mechanic for this game. But ZoS doesn't even use this much, depriving the game of any gameplay
OP, use invisibility potions, make a stealth build for yourself from special sets. The first time I completed these dlc on my stamsorc and did not experience any major problems..

ZOS does sometimes throw in a random stealth-based mission. On my Silencer, it's no big deal.

On Varanis Arano, my fairly heroic but decidedly non-stealthly MagDK tank, it's a whole different story.

Naryu Virian: "I need info from this manor in the swamp. Don't kill anyone, okay? The Morag Tong doesn't kill anyone without a writ!"

*Varanis promptly gets caught sneaking across the lawn and gets stuck in a running battle with the Redoran Guard through the whole house*

Naryu: "I said don't kill...nevermind."


Or in Murkmire, suddenly we emerged into the camp of a technically legal mercenary company.

"Try not to kill anyone!"

Varanis: "Look, if I'd known, I would've bought invisibility pots."

She made judicious use of conveniently placed baskets - not exactly thrilling gameplay, IMO, but certainly memorable in the sense that I was like "Oh, sudden stealth mission."