Change requests for thieves guild/dark brotherhood DLC

SixVoltCar · November 2017

Thieves Guild:
- A wayshrine inside the guild itself, the repeatable quests are mostly loading screen

Dark Brotherhood:
- Also a wayshrine inside the sanctuary, again, no one likes a loading screen and certainly not 500 loading screens.
- Erase sacrament progress on quest abandon (it is a daily, 5 minutes a day will make you good at it in about 30 years)
- Reverse DB XP gain in the repeatable quests (a single specified target is more difficult to kill than 3 anybody targets, and should be worth more)
- remove RNG element to target placement (on a magblade under best possible circumstances, I have found ones in which the timer bonus objective is simply impossible due to the tunnel-blocking and long patrol routes of the destealth NPCs)
- If you do item 2 and 4, changes to the reward process are not necessary, if you do neither, remove the "before overseer arrives" bonus to at least make it consistently possible

I say these things not to devalue the content, but rather to make it somewhat forgiving to my other characters who do not have an alternate stealth ability and do often require more than one shot at them.

Ideas welcome. Carebear complaints stemming from a desired monopoly on motif pages not welcome.

starkerealm · November 2017

SixVoltCar wrote: »

- Erase sacrament progress on quest abandon (it is a daily, 5 minutes a day will make you good at it in about 30 years)

Roll alts. Run it six or eight times a day for a couple weeks.

Though, seriously, I'm not a fan of the Sacraments and Heists. I kinda wish the dailies had been... well, different.

SixVoltCar · November 2017

To clarify-- when I say RNG element on NPC placement, I am referring to Sacrament daily quests.

SixVoltCar · November 2017

It would also make the whole situation a lot more possible if the destealth NPC's operated on an arc rather than a radius. They block entire tunnels in both Heists and Sacraments, and are on such long patrol routes that they just kill timers.

Robo_Hobo · November 2017

A tip for the guards that block tunnels and walk slowly in sacraments:

If you sneak attack them the from behind with a long range physical attack like a bow light attack or throw dagger, they get stunned for 5 seconds. If you kill them (still behind them) in that time with any attack, they don't count as a detection, or even give you a bounty.

They don't use their shield because they're stunned, so it's easy to DPS them down even in thief gear, even if you're a magblade using throw dagger.

It's helped me a lot and feels very satisfying knowing I can counter them lol.

SixVoltCar · November 2017

Robo_Hobo wrote: »

they don't count as a detection, or even give you a bounty.

They don't reduce your remaining time in heists either? And thank you, that's very informative. I still don't LIKE it, but I'll try it.

Robo_Hobo · November 2017

It doesn't work in heists sadly, only sacraments.

Edit: I do have one trick for heists though. Those ground placed detection traps can be bypassed if you keep jumping while you pass over them. If you can get through it within two jumps it doesn't catch you, as you haven't been "on the ground" long enough for it to trigger.

SpearDusk · November 2017

I also dislike the bounty you get, but thats also a different topic of discussion. Killing the last person who spots you and you will still have a bounty on your head

SixVoltCar · November 2017

SnowFury wrote: »

I also dislike the bounty you get, but thats also a different topic of discussion. Killing the last person who spots you and you will still have a bounty on your head

Not necessarily-- they're usually caves and hidden areas, it makes no sense for someone to a) indentify a cowled assassin, and b) go to the authorities they're hiding from. So even the whole "clear witnesses" problem in the rest of the justice system does not change that you really shouldn't receive them on a sacrament.

It's not what I perceive to be game-breaking, but it is a loadingscreen-level annoyance, if not more so.

Slick_007 · November 2017

SixVoltCar wrote: »

Dark Brotherhood:
- Also a wayshrine inside the sanctuary, again, no one likes a loading screen and certainly not 500 loading screens.

i dont know how you get there but its 1 for gold coast. 1 for the sanctuary. for the daily inside the guild, 1 each way. for the other daily, you goto whatever zone and then come back. and the wayshrine aint exactly far.

- Erase sacrament progress on quest abandon (it is a daily, 5 minutes a day will make you good at it in about 30 years)

why do you feel the need to abandon these? they arent hard. 5 minutes a day is all you need to be good at it in a week. though i do find some zones easier than others.

- Reverse DB XP gain in the repeatable quests (a single specified target is more difficult to kill than 3 anybody targets, and should be worth more)

examples?

- remove RNG element to target placement (on a magblade under best possible circumstances, I have found ones in which the timer bonus objective is simply impossible due to the tunnel-blocking and long patrol routes of the destealth NPCs)

your timing is poor in these cases. They are all doable if you get the timing right. and thats what its about. timing. timing your run through the room so the guard doesnt see you. timing the kill so nobody sees you. and making sure you do the objectives in the correct order to give yourself time to get out.

- If you do item 2 and 4, changes to the reward process are not necessary, if you do neither, remove the "before overseer arrives" bonus to at least make it consistently possible

it is consistently possible. without an alternate stealth ability. and hell, just make some potions of invis. you can make them at lvl 1

SydneyGrey · November 2017

I hate those TG heists so much, I refuse to do them, ever. In my opinion, they're the worst and least fun quests in the entire game. The DB sacrament quests are only slightly better, but not by that much.

SixVoltCar · November 2017

Slick:

The repeatable quests (non-daily), you can have 1 at a time. 1 loading screen to leave area, 1 loading screen to get to target shrine, sometimes another loading screen to get to target (eldenroot for example) which becomes 2 to get back to shrine, another loading screen back to near hand-in, another loading screen to enter sanctuary/guild. That's 4-6 per repeatable, which is worth 5-10 points in the thieves guild/brotherhood lines. (I'd love to know why you're resisting a wholly positive suggestion)

The brotherhood repeatables (again, non-daily) are worth 5 for kills, 10 for sprees. To not receive a bounty (and people who are doing a lot of these can't afford many), it is more difficult to kill a specified target, as you need to wait them out to kill them clearly (almost all of the ones I've received have been near 2-3 other NPC's causing you to have to wait and map their patrol), whereas in a spree you can find isolated targets inside of a minute with very little if any risk of a bounty (especially in more open areas). Therefore in terms of difficulty, these 5 and 10 rewards are backwards.

As to why I abandoned the heist, I had to wait out a couple tunnel-blocking patrols, and so the timer ran out 5-10 seconds before I got to the end in this case, thus losing me a halfway decent reward for the daily. (in the heist, my progress fully reset and I was able to re-do it for a decent reward)

I did a sacrament today (I'm forgetting which one at the moment-- smugglers...?), where I tested to see if I could abandon it and try again, when I did so, the positions of the optional and the main kill (which triggers the timer) were reversed, and the main kill was as far from the door as is possible. There were ..3? blocking patrols on one side, and two on the other (I scoped before killing). I took the shorter path, and just waiting out the patrols so I could actually get by, I burned all but 15 seconds of the timer (and this was using the under-stairs shortcut, AND the basket to get by). I run at full speed + 25% in stealth, and I walk wherever I want because of my magGen NB build. Ergo, best possible circumstance, was not actually possible.
(I should add that for this sacrament, the timer having previously run out did not reset upon abandon and re-try, it auto-failed when I got to the end. I want the ability to fully retry.)

I can sense your retort "but your timing was not right!". Here's an unecessarily detailed explanation of how it couldn't have been better. 2 tunnels, 2 patrols, 1 room between. Patrol1 passable under stairs in room at end of route, patrol 2 passable in basket within tunnel past room, get to basket, let patrol 2 walk past into main room, run through tunnel kill target, run back to basket right before patrol 2's circle gets back to it, patrol 2 passes, enter main room, wait for patrol 1 to unblock the tunnel and reach end of route, loop under stairs to get by, run to exit, all at 125% speed. Time ran out completely at the mercy of the time it takes for a patrol to walk in and out of a tunnel, and the staggering thereof. Main target in far room was RNG, therefore success is RNG, I want static positioning in individual sacraments with a margin of error for people who are not nightblades (those do actually exist).

Now that does NOT account for Robo_Hobo's suggestion that you can take out a guard without consequence if you kill them inside of 5 seconds-- that I have not attempted yet. But then, that's not really timing. At all.

Jarryzzt · November 2017

SixVoltCar wrote: »

Thieves Guild:
- A wayshrine inside the guild itself, the repeatable quests are mostly loading screen

Dark Brotherhood:
- Also a wayshrine inside the sanctuary, again, no one likes a loading screen and certainly not 500 loading screens.
- Erase sacrament progress on quest abandon (it is a daily, 5 minutes a day will make you good at it in about 30 years)
- Reverse DB XP gain in the repeatable quests (a single specified target is more difficult to kill than 3 anybody targets, and should be worth more)
- remove RNG element to target placement (on a magblade under best possible circumstances, I have found ones in which the timer bonus objective is simply impossible due to the tunnel-blocking and long patrol routes of the destealth NPCs)
- If you do item 2 and 4, changes to the reward process are not necessary, if you do neither, remove the "before overseer arrives" bonus to at least make it consistently possible

I say these things not to devalue the content, but rather to make it somewhat forgiving to my other characters who do not have an alternate stealth ability and do often require more than one shot at them.

Ideas welcome. Carebear complaints stemming from a desired monopoly on motif pages not welcome.

In order:

- Wayshrines are within 20-30 seconds of riding and one loading screen. It's exactly the same as with FG/MG dailies, as a for instance. If you're having that much of an issue with loading screens, literally half the content in the game should be off limits or difficult to manage through.

- Why in Meridia's sacred right buttock would you ever abandon a sacrament?!!! You still get a significant portion of the skill line XP so long as you kill the main target, even if you fail all the optional objectives - in fact, even if you forego stealth and just storm through the level - and it's not very difficult to get at least two of the optionals (secondary target and murder weapon) as well.

- Single targets harder to kill vs. sprees? Highly subjective. Plenty of single targets are very easy to kill provided one is willing to wait 20 seconds for them to walk off out of sight range of other NPCs. [Or, in some cases, to take an extra minute to assassinate would-be witnesses first, and only then the target.] In fact, I would peg the incidence rate of a target that always stays in public view at something like one out of eight*, and even when you have to do a public murder you just take the 200-300 gold bounty, go do some wilderness quests/delves/dungeons for 30 minutes and it's all back to upstanding (assuming a couple of skill points in the reduce bounty/heat passives).

- The majority of the time target placement in sacraments is not a problem so long as you do the main target last. Once in a while they'll be placed in the back of the dungeon, but even then two minutes is not impossible (even with wasting 30 seconds of such waiting for a torch bearer to pass), especially if one limits the alerts going in which makes it possible to just sprint past the last couple of guards and still complete the optional objective.

It's even easier for magicka NBs (cloak spam and just walk to the exit), or stam-medium armour vampires (sneak at run speed), but eminently doable by any character.

* - I've gotten the "100+" serial murderer achievement on two characters (plus part of the way there on a couple more), so that's probably 20-25 assassination missions each (not to mention the dailies), so enough to form at least some impression about target placement.

----

TLDR - the OP reads like someone asking an easy button. Which this content does not really need, as most of it is already highly manageable (daily heists are the only annoyance, really, due to the forced timer). And...warning other people against making carebear complaints? Does the OP even understand the term?

Feanor · November 2017

I’d rather change that you get Sithis Gloves in reinforced for a perfect sacrament if RNG decides to screw you. Should be a guaranteed motif drop like it was during the anniversary event.

SixVoltCar · November 2017

Jarryzzt wrote: »

SixVoltCar wrote: »

Thieves Guild:
- A wayshrine inside the guild itself, the repeatable quests are mostly loading screen

Dark Brotherhood:
- Also a wayshrine inside the sanctuary, again, no one likes a loading screen and certainly not 500 loading screens.
- Erase sacrament progress on quest abandon (it is a daily, 5 minutes a day will make you good at it in about 30 years)
- Reverse DB XP gain in the repeatable quests (a single specified target is more difficult to kill than 3 anybody targets, and should be worth more)
- remove RNG element to target placement (on a magblade under best possible circumstances, I have found ones in which the timer bonus objective is simply impossible due to the tunnel-blocking and long patrol routes of the destealth NPCs)
- If you do item 2 and 4, changes to the reward process are not necessary, if you do neither, remove the "before overseer arrives" bonus to at least make it consistently possible

I say these things not to devalue the content, but rather to make it somewhat forgiving to my other characters who do not have an alternate stealth ability and do often require more than one shot at them.

Ideas welcome. Carebear complaints stemming from a desired monopoly on motif pages not welcome.

In order:

- Wayshrines are within 20-30 seconds of riding and one loading screen. It's exactly the same as with FG/MG dailies, as a for instance. If you're having that much of an issue with loading screens, literally half the content in the game should be off limits or difficult to manage through.

- Why in Meridia's sacred right buttock would you ever abandon a sacrament?!!! You still get a significant portion of the skill line XP so long as you kill the main target, even if you fail all the optional objectives - in fact, even if you forego stealth and just storm through the level - and it's not very difficult to get at least two of the optionals (secondary target and murder weapon) as well.

- Single targets harder to kill vs. sprees? Highly subjective. Plenty of single targets are very easy to kill provided one is willing to wait 20 seconds for them to walk off out of sight range of other NPCs. [Or, in some cases, to take an extra minute to assassinate would-be witnesses first, and only then the target.] In fact, I would peg the incidence rate of a target that always stays in public view at something like one out of eight*, and even when you have to do a public murder you just take the 200-300 gold bounty, go do some wilderness quests/delves/dungeons for 30 minutes and it's all back to upstanding (assuming a couple of skill points in the reduce bounty/heat passives).

- The majority of the time target placement in sacraments is not a problem so long as you do the main target last. Once in a while they'll be placed in the back of the dungeon, but even then two minutes is not impossible (even with wasting 30 seconds of such waiting for a torch bearer to pass), especially if one limits the alerts going in which makes it possible to just sprint past the last couple of guards and still complete the optional objective.

It's even easier for magicka NBs (cloak spam and just walk to the exit), or stam-medium armour vampires (sneak at run speed), but eminently doable by any character.

* - I've gotten the "100+" serial murderer achievement on two characters (plus part of the way there on a couple more), so that's probably 20-25 assassination missions each (not to mention the dailies), so enough to form at least some impression about target placement.

TLDR- "I'm heavily invested and I want you to suffer because I did"

Also I wanted actual discussion as OPPOSED to people crying "carebear". I can see how you overlooked my meaning in your sheer outrage at my relatively mild requests.