Thieves Guild DLC Feedback

AefionBloodclaw · April 2018

I'd just like to provide a bit of feedback in the hopes all future content avoids these mistakes/flaws. In the highly dubious off chance that the devs read this, here is some feedback.

I've just finished the Thieves Guild content, and found it to be some of the worst content in ESO so far. Here are a few issues I've had problems with:

* Badly designed traps that activate and hit you after you've got past them safely, or hit you while you are standing in front of them, before you've tried to get past them. Sometimes its lag, but sometimes its not, it seems very buggy.

* Piles of gold and jewels, chests and coins and treasure that you get nothing from. Nothing. Except maybe 1 lockpick. Beautiful urns and stuff sitting around that you can't interact with. Very immersion breaking, and just really stupid.

* NPCs that stand around and don't help out in fighting - I was battling a gargoyle whilst Zeira, Velsa, Walks-Softly and Quen were literally standing there with hands on hips. Seriously? How dumb and unrealistic and fake is that?

* Unrewarding Quest rewards - Baharah's Curse set which is pretty much only situational - environmental traps being a minor part of the game.

*No traversal system - there is another thread I've posted on the serious lack of climbing in the game (including the annoyance of constantly running into knee-high steps I have to jump up)

*The daily guild jobs have a bit of variety, and can be fun and very profitable but the heists are particularly poor quality. The main complaint I have with them is one of Spencer Rye's, which requires you to beat a World Boss because you can't retrieve the Spyglass without alerting the bosses around. So unless you're really good, its virtually impossible to do that daily. Although this is an MMORPG, it seems bizarre that a daily, repeatable quest should rely on the multiplayer aspect.

* Pirharri the Smuggler is basically useless and worthless: placing her in your home is comestic only, the only person who can use her services is you, and she takes 35% cut, which is quite steep - 10% wouldn't be so bad but at 35% it's not worth it. Plus she can't launder goods so you may as well just go to an Outlaw's Refuge anyway.

* I'm sick and tired of seeing bodies lining the streets... I wish they'd listen to the fans and actually do something about that, even if it means switching the body models with a sack or something for the unclaimed loot, there's no reason why they couldn't do that, they have the technology. >:(

Overall, pretty poor quality content in general, and some examples of what not to do in game design.

On the positive side:

* Abah's Landing and Hew's Bane is an amazing city and zone to look at, credit to the artists on that.

* The mansions district is definitely an amazing place to steal stuff. Every time I walk away loaded with treasure and make a massive profit. So that hits the target for a true thief's content.

* Kari's Hit List was pretty cool, I enjoyed going round and hunting down the artefacts and have them appear in the Thieves Den, it was quite satisfying

* The characters are likeable, I'm disappointed that Quen isn't being used elsewhere, I quite enjoyed her character and wouldn't mind seeing her pop up in future DLC.

jeedrzej · April 2018

Lol... thieves guild quest line was one of the best for me :P

AefionBloodclaw · April 2018

Didn't bother to address any of the actual issues mentioned?

Taleof2Cities · April 2018

World bosses generally take more than one player to beat.

If you can’t be bothered to ask for help from friends, guildies, or in zone chat ... that’s not a flaw in the game design.

AefionBloodclaw · April 2018

Taleof2Cities wrote: »

World bosses generally take more than one player to beat.

If you can’t be bothered to ask for help from friends, guildies, or in zone chat ... that’s not a flaw in the game design.

I think it is a flaw... that's my personal opinion. I noticed you didn't even bother to address any of the other issues plaguing the dlc.

AefionBloodclaw · May 2018

Doing Dark Brotherhoood dlc now and to be honest the Thieves Guild wasn't all that bad... The Dark Brotherhood dlc however is absolute garbage.

Stinkyremy · May 2018

I remember actually loosing money going through the thieves guild quest, rather than making cash, which is stupid.
My main issue, and the same issue is with the DB questline, is that you need to constantly grind the repeatable quests too many times, just to level up a rank in the skill line so you can carry on with the questline.
tbqh I can't even remember the story because of this.

AefionBloodclaw · May 2018

Stinkyremy wrote: »

I remember actually loosing money going through the thieves guild quest, rather than making cash, which is stupid.
My main issue, and the same issue is with the DB questline, is that you need to constantly grind the repeatable quests too many times, just to level up a rank in the skill line so you can carry on with the questline.
tbqh I can't even remember the story because of this.

Not sure how you lost money? You get around 2K per guild job, because you get 300 gold reward, + 400 gold for the laundered goods they give you, + you sell all the stuff you fenced whilst pickpocketing, so it ends up around over 1K gold per daily...

But I definitely agree on how annoying it is having to grind the dailies to get the required skill rank for the next story quest to drop, this is just bs.

GreenhaloX · May 2018

Hew's Bane has some of the best shoreline views in the game, though.

Troneon · May 2018

I found it too short and very unimaginative ....

Completed it with 99% achievements done within a few days...

They could of gone a lot further with it but seems like most things with zos it was only half finished.

kargen27 · May 2018

Sorry you didn't enjoy the thieves guild content but it is basically the same as the rest of the game in regard to the problems you listed.

Traps in some of the dungeons seem to have a very wide area in which they activate.

All kinds of objects across all zones that you can't interact with. That might be a good thing as I would get nowhere if I could open every object I came across.

Very few NPCs help you in a fight. None who just happen to be nearby do as far as I recall. The ones that do help are tagging along as part of the quest. Most that tag along simply cower or in some other way occupy their time while you fight.

I'm fairly certain I can use Pirharri the Smuggler in other players homes?

The bodies are a minor irritation but that isn't a part of the thieves guild really. A lot of different reasons to whomp an NPC in this game.

I enjoyed the thieves guild story and quests. What you consider to be problems really didn't bother me much at all. Sure we would like more loot but that goes across the entire game not just one DLC and I know why they don't throw out loot like Shriners tossing candy in a parade (old outdated reference I know).

AefionBloodclaw · May 2018

You definitely cannot use Pirharri the Smuggler in other players homes. She is probably the worst thing about the entire DLC. Useless and worthless.

There are not many reasons to kill NPCs... kill them and you only 1 piece of green loot. Pickpocketing trumps that, you can re-pickpocket and get 3 pieces of green loot.

The views yeah for sure, Hew's Bane is a beautiful region I would say

Stinkyremy · May 2018

AefionBloodclaw wrote: »

Stinkyremy wrote: »

I remember actually loosing money going through the thieves guild quest, rather than making cash, which is stupid.
My main issue, and the same issue is with the DB questline, is that you need to constantly grind the repeatable quests too many times, just to level up a rank in the skill line so you can carry on with the questline.
tbqh I can't even remember the story because of this.

Not sure how you lost money? You get around 2K per guild job, because you get 300 gold reward, + 400 gold for the laundered goods they give you, + you sell all the stuff you fenced whilst pickpocketing, so it ends up around over 1K gold per daily...

But I definitely agree on how annoying it is having to grind the dailies to get the required skill rank for the next story quest to drop, this is just bs.

I think it was more like I didn't have skillpoints in pickpocketing, quests asked me to run around and pickpocket certain things, I get caught, had to pay bounties ect.
I realized after a while to just abandon the quests that were pickpocketing ad just go for the safety lock box quests and grind through those ones.

Damn those two questline grinds were terrible, I don't look forward to doing them again on my nb khajit.

AefionBloodclaw · May 2018

Stinkyremy wrote: »

AefionBloodclaw wrote: »

Stinkyremy wrote: »

I remember actually loosing money going through the thieves guild quest, rather than making cash, which is stupid.
My main issue, and the same issue is with the DB questline, is that you need to constantly grind the repeatable quests too many times, just to level up a rank in the skill line so you can carry on with the questline.
tbqh I can't even remember the story because of this.

Not sure how you lost money? You get around 2K per guild job, because you get 300 gold reward, + 400 gold for the laundered goods they give you, + you sell all the stuff you fenced whilst pickpocketing, so it ends up around over 1K gold per daily...

But I definitely agree on how annoying it is having to grind the dailies to get the required skill rank for the next story quest to drop, this is just bs.

I think it was more like I didn't have skillpoints in pickpocketing, quests asked me to run around and pickpocket certain things, I get caught, had to pay bounties ect.
I realized after a while to just abandon the quests that were pickpocketing ad just go for the safety lock box quests and grind through those ones.

Damn those two questline grinds were terrible, I don't look forward to doing them again on my nb khajit.

I may do the Thieves Guild again on one of my characters, purely because he's a thief and I enjoy roleplaying, but yeah hopefully the future dlc won't have this sort of grind, I don't understand how they can think this is fun and engaging gameplay

DaveMoeDee · May 2018

Yes, traps are a mess in ESO. It only starts to matter when in stealth in TG.

World bosses are exactly that. If you don't want to group, do different dailies. That isn't a flaw because this is an MMO and there needs to be group content.

NPCs not taking part in fights is the norm in ESO. Those that take part are the exceptions.

The smuggler is there for emergencies when you need to clear inventory. 65% us better than destroying.

Silver_Strider · May 2018

1)Traps are easily avoidable for the most part, only the exploding traps seem to have a larger blast radius then their trap implies. You can hop over or simply disable the trip wire and bear traps but the explosion traps, even if you attempt to disable them, always explode and CC you, it's very annoying.

2) That applies everywhere in the game.

3) Same as 2

4) Dark Brotherhood has worse rewards in Sithis. At least Bahrahra's Curse has some use for Tanks.

5) Nothing to do with Thieves Guild.

6) Grab the thing and run? You don't HAVE to kill the World Boss. You can grab the gem or whatever it is for the quest long before the boss attacks you to prevent it from occurring, I've done it countless times on all my characters during the Anniversary event. My complain is more along the line of Heist where even using the Blade of Woe will reduce your time in them and despite being in an area that you're supposedly stealing from, there is nothing to actually steal in the containers as it's all flagged as clean items to take.

7) Pirharri is useless, 100% agree. If they'd reduce her cut so that it could be essentially negated by the Thieves Guild Passive, I'd be totally fine with her but as she is, it's not worth it, especially since the only items I'd ever want to save from guards would be motifs for my crafter but since she can't launder, she's useless for that too.

8) Same as 5

3 legitimate complaints out of 8. That's a fail.

AefionBloodclaw · May 2018

Actually in hindsight the Pickpocketing can be quite humorous... I'm still doing them, because its massively profitable, and its interesting what you can get, and listening to the dialogue when you empty their pockets after the third pickpocket.

"Oh gods, its lost!"

Checking to see what she lost, which I pickpocketed: [Poorly Groomed False Teeth] lololol

Same thing again, but with [Stuffed Rat Carcass] LOL!

Aesthier · May 2018

AefionBloodclaw wrote: »

* Badly designed traps that activate and hit you after you've got past them safely, or hit you while you are standing in front of them, before you've tried to get past them. Sometimes its lag, but sometimes its not, it seems very buggy.

* Piles of gold and jewels, chests and coins and treasure that you get nothing from. Nothing. Except maybe 1 lockpick. Beautiful urns and stuff sitting around that you can't interact with. Very immersion breaking, and just really stupid.

* Unrewarding Quest rewards - Baharah's Curse set which is pretty much only situational - environmental traps being a minor part of the game.

*No traversal system - there is another thread I've posted on the serious lack of climbing in the game (including the annoyance of constantly running into knee-high steps I have to jump up)

On the positive side, Abah's Landing and Hew's Bane is an amazing city and zone to look at, credit to the artists on that.

I completely agree with those you have listed above especially the traversal system, lack of climbing and having to jump up stuff that is any higher than my big toe. (which is sad because I am a bosmer and have small toes). Also not being able to loot the giant piles of gold that are just littering the heist jobs.

AefionBloodclaw wrote: »

* NPCs that stand around and don't help out in fighting - I was battling a gargoyle whilst Zeira, Velsa, Walks-Softly and Quen were literally standing there with hands on hips. Seriously? How dumb and unrealistic and fake is that?

* I'm sick and tired of seeing bodies lining the streets... I wish they'd listen to the fans and actually do something about that, even if it means switching the body models with a sack or something for the unclaimed loot, there's no reason why they couldn't do that, they have the technology. >:(

*The daily guild jobs have a bit of variety, and can be fun and very profitable but the heists are particularly poor quality. The main complaint I have with them is one of Spencer Rye's, which requires you to beat a World Boss because you can't retrieve the Spyglass without alerting the bosses around. So unless you're really good, its virtually impossible to do that daily. Although this is an MMORPG, it seems bizarre that a daily, repeatable quest should rely on the multiplayer aspect.

These I wasn't as bothered by but I understand that bodies lying all over the place "especially multiple bodies of the same person" can be immersion breaking for some so as I posted someplace else I would really like the ability to "clean up" by moving a body to hid or dispose of it. Perhaps if you don't loot it all it forces you to dispose of it so your crime will not be found out. Otherwise if you loot everything it just disapears as normal.

I actually really like the heist quests and much prefer them to the pickpocketing. But then I enjoy sneaking and stealing more than I enjoy keeping my nose up an NPC's but trying to loot his back pockets. If I am a master thief I should be able to bump into him from a facing position unstealthed and wipe his pockets clean. To me thats a pcikpocket not somone who is hunkered down behind you sniffing your butt....honestly which do you think would draw more attention? All in all its just a different playstyle and I will not bemoan anyone pickpocketing or suggest changes to it just because I may not enjoy its current method because somone else might really like it. I will take my heists and try to stay content.

As far as the spyglass thing... I never had an issue with it but then I only completed it twice as I just found it to tedious to deal with on a daily basis. Decent as a single quest but not as a daily in my mind so I will side with you on that one.

AefionBloodclaw wrote: »

* Pirharri the Smuggler is basically useless and worthless: placing her in your home is comestic only, the only person who can use her services is you, and she takes 35% cut, which is quite steep - 10% wouldn't be so bad but at 35% it's not worth it. Plus she can't launder goods so you may as well just go to an Outlaw's Refuge anyway.

* Overall, pretty poor quality content and an example of what not to do in game design.

I love Pirharri personnaly and I find her increased fee quite acceptable as is the increase in ledgerman from nomral fences along with the ability to pop her out "anywhere even while I am stealthed". I find the claim that others cannot use her odd as my friend uses her in my home or when we are questing together quite a bit. I will research more on this later and get to the bottom of it, perhaps she is glitched or perhaps he is just getting me to pull her out as a joke as he may be doing so. As far as giving her the ability to launder that I absolutely agree with you that it would make her much more valuable.

One thing I really did enjoy which you did not mention above was the Kari's Hit List which I thouroughly enjoyed other than the fact those were items to place in The Guild Hall and no copies for my own home.

So while I can agree that some of the theives guild is of poor quality and I would also love to see more imporvement (increased variance in the dailies provided deffinately needed) I did not find it to be as bothersome as you did and certainly would not call it an example of what not to do in game design.

That being said I also understand that individuals have different playstyles and believe you are right in expressing your concern about areas in which it could be improved.

I wish you the best in your endeavours!

AefionBloodclaw · May 2018

Aesthier wrote: »

AefionBloodclaw wrote: »

* Badly designed traps that activate and hit you after you've got past them safely, or hit you while you are standing in front of them, before you've tried to get past them. Sometimes its lag, but sometimes its not, it seems very buggy.

* Piles of gold and jewels, chests and coins and treasure that you get nothing from. Nothing. Except maybe 1 lockpick. Beautiful urns and stuff sitting around that you can't interact with. Very immersion breaking, and just really stupid.

* Unrewarding Quest rewards - Baharah's Curse set which is pretty much only situational - environmental traps being a minor part of the game.

*No traversal system - there is another thread I've posted on the serious lack of climbing in the game (including the annoyance of constantly running into knee-high steps I have to jump up)

On the positive side, Abah's Landing and Hew's Bane is an amazing city and zone to look at, credit to the artists on that.

I completely agree with those you have listed above especially the traversal system, lack of climbing and having to jump up stuff that is any higher than my big toe. (which is sad because I am a bosmer and have small toes). Also not being able to loot the giant piles of gold that are just littering the heist jobs.

AefionBloodclaw wrote: »

* NPCs that stand around and don't help out in fighting - I was battling a gargoyle whilst Zeira, Velsa, Walks-Softly and Quen were literally standing there with hands on hips. Seriously? How dumb and unrealistic and fake is that?

* I'm sick and tired of seeing bodies lining the streets... I wish they'd listen to the fans and actually do something about that, even if it means switching the body models with a sack or something for the unclaimed loot, there's no reason why they couldn't do that, they have the technology. >:(

*The daily guild jobs have a bit of variety, and can be fun and very profitable but the heists are particularly poor quality. The main complaint I have with them is one of Spencer Rye's, which requires you to beat a World Boss because you can't retrieve the Spyglass without alerting the bosses around. So unless you're really good, its virtually impossible to do that daily. Although this is an MMORPG, it seems bizarre that a daily, repeatable quest should rely on the multiplayer aspect.

These I wasn't as bothered by but I understand that bodies lying all over the place "especially multiple bodies of the same person" can be immersion breaking for some so as I posted someplace else I would really like the ability to "clean up" by moving a body to hid or dispose of it. Perhaps if you don't loot it all it forces you to dispose of it so your crime will not be found out. Otherwise if you loot everything it just disapears as normal.

I actually really like the heist quests and much prefer them to the pickpocketing. But then I enjoy sneaking and stealing more than I enjoy keeping my nose up an NPC's but trying to loot his back pockets. If I am a master thief I should be able to bump into him from a facing position unstealthed and wipe his pockets clean. To me thats a pcikpocket not somone who is hunkered down behind you sniffing your butt....honestly which do you think would draw more attention? All in all its just a different playstyle and I will not bemoan anyone pickpocketing or suggest changes to it just because I may not enjoy its current method because somone else might really like it. I will take my heists and try to stay content.

As far as the spyglass thing... I never had an issue with it but then I only completed it twice as I just found it to tedious to deal with on a daily basis. Decent as a single quest but not as a daily in my mind so I will side with you on that one.

AefionBloodclaw wrote: »

* Pirharri the Smuggler is basically useless and worthless: placing her in your home is comestic only, the only person who can use her services is you, and she takes 35% cut, which is quite steep - 10% wouldn't be so bad but at 35% it's not worth it. Plus she can't launder goods so you may as well just go to an Outlaw's Refuge anyway.

* Overall, pretty poor quality content and an example of what not to do in game design.

I love Pirharri personnaly and I find her increased fee quite acceptable as is the increase in ledgerman from nomral fences along with the ability to pop her out "anywhere even while I am stealthed". I find the claim that others cannot use her odd as my friend uses her in my home or when we are questing together quite a bit. I will research more on this later and get to the bottom of it, perhaps she is glitched or perhaps he is just getting me to pull her out as a joke as he may be doing so. As far as giving her the ability to launder that I absolutely agree with you that it would make her much more valuable.

One thing I really did enjoy which you did not mention above was the Kari's Hit List which I thouroughly enjoyed other than the fact those were items to place in The Guild Hall and no copies for my own home.

So while I can agree that some of the theives guild is of poor quality and I would also love to see more imporvement (increased variance in the dailies provided deffinately needed) I did not find it to be as bothersome as you did and certainly would not call it an example of what not to do in game design.

That being said I also understand that individuals have different playstyles and believe you are right in expressing your concern about areas in which it could be improved.

I wish you the best in your endeavours!

[edited to remove baiting comment] In hindsight I actually think I sound too critical saying its an example what not to do, I might actually go back and edit it to 'some things not to do.'

As for Kari's Hit List, I forgot to mention that, it was actually awesome, especially how they appear in the Den after you find them. Similar to how in Skyrim if you get a certain number of ships, goblets etc, they appear in the Thieves' Guild HQ.

Pirharri definitely does not allow other players to use her services, I've tried it numerous times and it even says so in the description. If your friend summons her in your home, that would be right because he can use her, but you shouldn't be able to. Only the owning player should be able to use her services. If for some reason you're able to use someone else's Pirharri, that is lucky and must be glitched or something! lol

Juju_beans · May 2018

I loved doing the TG stuff. One of my favorite DLC's.

Slick_007 · May 2018

Silver_Strider wrote: »

the explosion traps, even if you attempt to disable them, always explode and CC you, it's very annoying.

you're doing it wrong. how do i know? because i dont have that problem

ZOS_JesC · May 2018

Greetings! We've removed a few baiting comments. Please remember to keep comments on topic with the thread and avoid personal insults or calling others a "troll" when making your points. Thank you.

Silver_Strider · May 2018

Slick_007 wrote: »

Silver_Strider wrote: »

the explosion traps, even if you attempt to disable them, always explode and CC you, it's very annoying.

you're doing it wrong. how do i know? because i dont have that problem

Must be from a trick to it cause every time I try, it just explodes. Think I've only gotten it NOT to explode like twice ever.

Amphithoe · February 2019

The first playthrough of the Thieves Guild DLC made me quit ESO for six months. I was really looking forward to it but found it a poorly designed mess. Especially the heists, lantern guards, nearly invisible traps and broken stealth mechanics made it almost obligatory to be a nightblade. I really wished ZOS would rework some of these mechanics. The Thieves Guild has always been my favorite guild, this DLC does not do them justice.