Why does sprinting break invisibility?

GrimMauKin · July 2014

I'm playing a Nightblade with invisibility passives increasing its duration. Being a Nightblade I often need to make a quick getaway, which is virtually impossible with ESO's absurd combat range.

Invisibility should give one a good head's start but absurdly sprinting breaks invisibility even if you're not interacting with a MOB, so it's pretty useless for escaping.

Tremulous · July 2014

You did not roll high enough on your stealth check.

Seroczynski · July 2014

Sprinting while being invisible sounds pretty OP to me.

kieso · July 2014

sounds ok to me; would just use up stamina like a mofo.

Tannakaobi · July 2014

Sprinting cancels all skills. Makes perfect sense imo. How can you be invisible if your sprinting? Just the noise would alert people.

If you need to get away then just sprint.

ebondeath · July 2014

You make a lot of noise while sprinting. Your feet hitting the ground, crashing through branches and underbrush, heavy breathing, etc. Hard to be invisible like that unless your target is deaf and half blind.

Tavore1138 · July 2014

Surely you would still be invisible just not inaudible?

GrimMauKin · July 2014

Why not sprint whilst invisible? I can cast spells with all sorts of bangs and flashes that nobody sees until it launches and I could clump around in plate armour too if I wanted to. One has to assume a certain stealth magic as far as noise goes as there are all sorts of situations where just being invisible wouldn't really hide you.

There's also an element of game mechanics too; I can be stood in in front of a MOB beating the cr@p out of it then turn invisible and it assumes I'm not there and wanders off; equally bumping into MOBs whilst invisible doesn't seem to alert them either; in this context sprinting whilst invisible does really seem that improbable.

onlinegamer1 · July 2014

I believe the OP is talking about using the NB skill Shadow Cloak, not just crouching.

And the answer is, its a flaw in the design of that ability, IMHO, but probably working as the Devs intended. It SHOULDN'T make you visible, because its a MAGICKA abillity, and its MAGICAL invisibility, and only lasts a few seconds anyway.

UnholyPerfection · July 2014

How absurdly absurd.

stumpy999 · July 2014

nah, you sprint and you break invis. Such states are for sneaking, you don't sneak whilst sprinting.

The whole point of stealth is that it's stealthy. As to invis, look at the movies, if the predator moves too fast he blurs his cammo......

ebondeath · July 2014

onlinegamer1 wrote: »

I believe the OP is talking about using the NB skill Shadow Cloak, not just crouching.

And the answer is, its a flaw in the design of that ability, IMHO, but probably working as the Devs intended. It SHOULDN'T make you visible, because its a MAGICKA abillity, and its MAGICAL invisibility, and only lasts a few seconds anyway.

This explanation makes sense. Thank you.

GrimMauKin · July 2014

and yes, it is shadow cloak, sorry - with the passives to extend duration it should give me about 3 seconds head start if I wanted to run, if it worked that way.

AlexDougherty · July 2014

Invisibility is a stealth thing, sprinting is extremely anti-stealth, what more needs to be said.

GrimMauKin · July 2014

Invisibility is a stealth thing, sprinting is extremely anti-stealth, what more needs to be said.

So why doesn't jumping break stealth/Shadow Cloak?

It's not really about what's realistically stealthy/not stealthy, after all I can cast a spell with all sorts of noise and pyrotechnics from stealth without being detected until it hits, it's about game balance and stealth/Shadow Cloak effectively gives you 1 stealth hit.

What I'm asking is why sprinting breaks Shadow Cloak (jumping doesn't) when it would be a useful, but not overpowered, slip away technique.

I think that it's also worth mentioning that Shadow Cloak grants you stealth without sneaking; sprinting and sneaking (crouching) are mutually exclusive but Shadow Cloak gives you stealth whilst standing and therefore, in theory, could give stealthed sprinting.

Samadhi · July 2014

GrimMauKin wrote: »

I'm playing a Nightblade with invisibility passives increasing its duration. Being a Nightblade I often need to make a quick getaway, which is virtually impossible with ESO's absurd combat range.

Invisibility should give one a good head's start but absurdly sprinting breaks invisibility even if you're not interacting with a MOB, so it's pretty useless for escaping.

Morph Veiled Strike to Concealed Weapon and slot it.
When you go invisible you will have nearly 25% faster move speed.
It's not sprint speed, but it helps.

Svann · July 2014

You can get pretty far invised even without sprint. With a full magicka bar you can go far enough to lose agro even.

Arsenic_Touch · July 2014

Design flaw. Cloak in general is badly designed, this just one of the many problems with it.

ciedre · July 2014

Cast path of darkness then shadow cloak.

purple-magicb16_ESO · July 2014

Can't use abilities while sprinting

Soliss · July 2014

Samadhi wrote: »

Morph Veiled Strike to Concealed Weapon and slot it.
When you go invisible you will have nearly 25% faster move speed.
It's not sprint speed, but it helps.

Concealed weapon doesn't affect your speed during invisibility (when using Shadow Cloak) only when you are crouch/sneaking.

My vampire nightblade moves quite a bit faster when sneaking vs cloaking.

Sylvyr · July 2014

Soliss wrote: »

Samadhi wrote: »

Morph Veiled Strike to Concealed Weapon and slot it.
When you go invisible you will have nearly 25% faster move speed.
It's not sprint speed, but it helps.

Concealed weapon doesn't affect your speed during invisibility (when using Shadow Cloak) only when you are crouch/sneaking.

My vampire nightblade moves quite a bit faster when sneaking vs cloaking.

Concealed weapon works for me when cloaking

Limitless · July 2014

Virtually impossible to get away as a Nightblade?

You must be doing something terribly wrong, I've seen Nightblades pop cloak once and never be seen again.
It breaks the Tab Lock on them and they just disappear.

MatthiasCorvinu · July 2014

Sylvyr wrote: »

Soliss wrote: »

Concealed weapon works for me when cloaking

Same. No problem with it. And with other passives, I sneak damn near my run speed.

holygraell · July 2014

Usually, when my character has to sprint away from mobs or another player, she is screaming like a 4 year old girl, complete with the hand flapping. I'd love that to be invisible, as I'm sure it'd be less humiliating. But, sadly, I think we must just accept that it won't ever be the case.

(Imho, it would be a bit OP.)

DungeonGrind · July 2014

It's a door we shouldn't open. I can't swap weapons while sprinting.

Samadhi · July 2014

Soliss wrote: »

Samadhi wrote: »

Morph Veiled Strike to Concealed Weapon and slot it.
When you go invisible you will have nearly 25% faster move speed.
It's not sprint speed, but it helps.

Concealed weapon doesn't affect your speed during invisibility (when using Shadow Cloak) only when you are crouch/sneaking.

My vampire nightblade moves quite a bit faster when sneaking vs cloaking.

Testing with stop watch and traveling between two points:

Regular walking speed: 26 seconds

Sprint speed (no medium armour equipped) : 20 seconds

Sprint speed (7 pieces medium armour equipped): 15 seconds

Shadow Cloak (repeatedly casting) with no Concealed Weapon bonus: 26 seconds

Shadow Cloak (repeatedly casting) with Concealed Weapon bonus: 21 seconds

Sneak (level 10 vampire) with no Concealed Weapon bonus: 26 seconds

Sneak (level 10 vampire) with Concealed Weapon bonus: 21 seconds

Concealed Weapon + Shadow Cloak works fine for me.

Soliss · July 2014

Sylvyr wrote: »

Soliss wrote: »

Samadhi wrote: »

Morph Veiled Strike to Concealed Weapon and slot it.
When you go invisible you will have nearly 25% faster move speed.
It's not sprint speed, but it helps.

Concealed weapon doesn't affect your speed during invisibility (when using Shadow Cloak) only when you are crouch/sneaking.

My vampire nightblade moves quite a bit faster when sneaking vs cloaking.

Concealed weapon works for me when cloaking

You might be cloaking while stealthing. Try them separately, you should notice the difference.

Arsenic_Touch · July 2014

Concealed weapon does not work with cloak. It only works with sneaking. Cloaking does not make you auto sneak. Now if you're sneaking when you hit cloak, then you'll get the bonus.

Samadhi · July 2014

Soliss wrote: »

Sylvyr wrote: »

Soliss wrote: »

Samadhi wrote: »

Morph Veiled Strike to Concealed Weapon and slot it.
When you go invisible you will have nearly 25% faster move speed.
It's not sprint speed, but it helps.

Concealed weapon doesn't affect your speed during invisibility (when using Shadow Cloak) only when you are crouch/sneaking.

My vampire nightblade moves quite a bit faster when sneaking vs cloaking.

Concealed weapon works for me when cloaking

You might be cloaking while stealthing. Try them separately, you should notice the difference.

Shadow Cloak while not sneaking: 21 seconds

Shadow Cloak while sneaking: 21 seconds

Arsenic_Touch wrote: »

Concealed weapon does not work with cloak. It only works with sneaking. Cloaking does not make you auto sneak. Now if you're sneaking when you hit cloak, then you'll get the bonus.

My initial testing was done using Shadow Cloak while not sneaking.

Samadhi · July 2014

Interestingly, I have also uncovered a bug with Concealed Weapon.

If I am already in sneak, then use Shadow Cloak and let the invisibility run out, my sneak speed loses the Concealed Weapon bonus until I leave sneak and go into sneak again.
This bug does not occur if I repeatedly cast invisibility while sneaking, it only appears after invisibility has worn off as long as I am still in sneak. If I cast invisibility 5 times in a row, the bug occurs after the 5th cast is finished.