Perhaps its easier now as the thief guild area is not packed anymore.
I had no issues with other players, they even made it easier sometimes acting as decoys

Its an crafted set who let you sneak faster, also smart to go full medium armor to reduce detection distance.
Yes if you are an mage this reduces your magic a lot however you will not fight much anyway.

Expect to get bounty inside restricted areas, hide in baskets to have enemies loose you, killing them increase bounty.
Doing the thief guild daily quests give you clear bounty letters who is very nice but its an waste to use inside restricted areas, use them on exit or just teleport to way shrine outside of city and run to the guild.

There's also a perk which removes bounty over time. Every 10 minutes the bounty reduces until it's gone.

Thanks for the tips, guys. Sadly, none are going to be helpful to me at this time, but I may just leave the area until I can find more Skyshards to invest in medium armor. I have a ton of ingredients, but haven't started Alchemy yet. I've only recently got my craft bag.

Last night, I was assigned a heist quest. The game gave me 7 minutes to go in, and find 3 treasures. 7 freaking minutes. Needless to say, I bombed that big time. I was fine up to the third chest, but one of the guards set up a blue flame trap (which they didn't do for the two minutes I was watching), and that snared me.

I'm extremely disappointed I can't lean out to view my surroundings. The only way I can get a view is to duck into a basket, but even this is limited.

Alas, I'll chug along. The timer ended, but the quest still required completing.

At this point, I think I'll just stick to the story and bail the area. The entire design of this DLC hasn't been favorable, considering I'm a master at stealth in Dishonored.

Violynne wrote: »

Thanks for the tips, guys. Sadly, none are going to be helpful to me at this time, but I may just leave the area until I can find more Skyshards to invest in medium armor. I have a ton of ingredients, but haven't started Alchemy yet. I've only recently got my craft bag.

Last night, I was assigned a heist quest. The game gave me 7 minutes to go in, and find 3 treasures. 7 freaking minutes. Needless to say, I bombed that big time. I was fine up to the third chest, but one of the guards set up a blue flame trap (which they didn't do for the two minutes I was watching), and that snared me.

I'm extremely disappointed I can't lean out to view my surroundings. The only way I can get a view is to duck into a basket, but even this is limited.

Alas, I'll chug along. The timer ended, but the quest still required completing.

At this point, I think I'll just stick to the story and bail the area. The entire design of this DLC hasn't been favorable, considering I'm a master at stealth in Dishonored.

The solo heist mission is very hard, to do optimal at least if not nightblade, I have never managed, thinking of trying again but then with specialized gear, some cp150 medium armor in the set who let you sneak faster.
You still get xp and thief guild reputation xp for just killing your way in an out like en dvelve.
You probably still need to know the layout well.

The safe box break in are pretty easy, just look around in guilds and shops for the boxes and find one who is pretty safe to break into, fine is so low you can just pay if caught, just make sure you don't carry lots of stolen goods
Do three in an row for an large reward.

@Violynne

Note that some of the things written here you may already know, sometimes relearning an old lesson can bear more fruit.)

Have you tried looking up the Night terrors embrace build on tamrielfoundry.com (I came up with it myself.) it is super sneaky, but I'll fill you in on the details in simplicity,

Have 7 pieces of medium armour to benefit from the Reduced costs to various elements (including Stealth detection radius reduction which makes you harder for NPC's to see you.)

Maximise your thieves guild skill line (or until you procure the "Veil of Shadows" passive which reduces the detection radius of Witnesses & Guards but getting every passive in it should give you an advantage.

Take the time needed to level up your legerdemain skill line in order to benefit from passives like "kickback" which reduces your bounty cost you willingly pay to guards & fences by 40% at 4/4(making your coin purse scream a little quieter.)

Make sure you are a Khajiit Nightblade so as to benefit from certain skills & their morphs such as shadow cloak which makes you invisible for a few seconds, very useful for escape attempts.

Let me make it a little more simple: each piece of medium armour makes you harder to detect, khajiit are a natural at pickpocketing with the 5% pickpocket bonus on top of that in the legerdemain skill line, they naturally have a racial passive that reduces stealth detection radius by 3 meters, become a vampire to benefit from the dark stalker passive which allows you to ignore the movement speed penalty of sneaking as well as entering stealth 50% faster at night(like a nights silence set turned into a more powerful passive vampire ability.), the concealed weapon ability in the assassination skill line which lets you move 25% faster when sneaking while slotted, truly a marvel when combined with dark stalker, & to top it off, have the two armour sets called "Night Terror" & "Night Mothers Embrace" (check in deshaan & Stormhaven for them) which both effectively reduce your stealth detection radius by 2m as well as reducing the cost of moving in stealth by a massive amount, having both sets will reduce your overall stealth detection radius by 4m as well as effectively reducing the cost of moving in stealth.

In short: You will be near Untouchable in the shadows, as with your lag problem, I suggest talking about it with your current internet provider to help clarify & eventually rectify the scenario from which you speak of.

Violynne wrote: »

Trying to sneak in and walk out without a bounty is impossible with these kids running about and having guards chase them. Once I'm seen, bounty is instantly applied (though the guards don't chase me down). Still, having any type of bounty just ticks me off. Why weren't these zones marked as solo, ZoS? This way, any sights on my character belong to me exclusively, not some nutjob who doesn't know how to sneak (or their shadow spell uncloaks).

I'm actually happy there are others running around this area, it makes it easier, if the guards are chasing another player it means i can happily sprint most of the way to my destination without being pulled by the guards. Turn a negative ina positive by using it to your advantage.

Violynne wrote: »

The lag issue, I'm sure, has been debated to death, but I thought I'd mention it again. My goodness, the lag is horrible!

Sorry, can't help you there, apart from when they were having issues with the server a while back i haven't suffered from lag anywhere in game, it's all been running smooth at +70fps and under 100 ping, with no stuttering or pauses for me.

Violynne wrote: »

So my question is this: how can I play sneak quests without having everyone ruin my fun? Try as I may, so far, I'm 0% successful in escaping without a guard or person seeing me because they're chasing another character.

That is very strange because a guard will not "see" you when they're chasing another person, they are focused on that person, your hidden will change to discovered, but that doesn't actually mean you have been seen, you shouldn't get a bounty from it, you just have to wait for the hidden to come back before stealing or killing or you may get a bounty.

Violynne wrote: »

It wouldn't be so bad to keep the bounty, but leaving these areas usually puts me right in the line of sight to a guard, who halts me and takes my gold/stuff I stole, or worse, KOs me because I don't have enough gold to cover the bounty. One amount had me over 1000g! (and what's up with the stacking bounties when the same character sees you, ZoS??!!).

It is annoying at first, until you train enough in your sneaky skills it can be a little daunting, but it's a tactical game, remember, guards don't stay in one place, they move about, the whole point of it is to position yourself, wait for an opening, then seize the chance to escape, i haven't been caught by a guard for a very long time.

Violynne wrote: »

The actual DLC has been quite fun otherwise, it's just the "big quests" which are ticking me off. Now when I get a bounty of over 500g, I simply leave the game for the night because waiting around takes forever (1 drop per 3 minutes).

I just carry on as normal, or if push comes to shove i transport myself to a wayshrine where i know guards aren't gping to be, then either run around farming materials, or go assassinate/rob people in remote areas.

Violynne wrote: »

I do know edicts exist to clear my bounty, but I haven't found any with this character (my other character didn't keep them as I had no intention of being a thief with my Altmer).

You get the edicts from the reward for doing heists, when he gives you the crate you have a chance of getting one from there, so make sure you do heists as often as you can.

I used to main a vampire magicka Nightblade, and I was glad that I did when this and the DB content was released. Super easy with the cloaking and speed while hidden from the vamp. I feel like TG and DB were made for Nightblades.