Thieving - A rant

Vandril · March 2019

SoLooney wrote: »

Blue Betty heals? I thought it removed one negative effect and restores magicka and gives major sorcery

Sounds like thats your problem, using moves that arent heals, lol

It actually does heal, though. For just a small amount and indirectly, but for free.

The Warden Animal Companion line passive, Bond With Nature, causes you to heal for 1260 whenever one of your animal companions are killed/unsummoned and the netch from Betty Netch and its morphs counts as an animal companion. If you use Betty Netch or its morphs while the netch is already summoned, it will unsummon the old netch and summon a new one, proccing Bond With Nature for 0 Stamina/Magicka cost.

On my Warden, I use it whenever I'm at low health between fights and want to conserve resources for whatever reason. It can also be useful as a last-ditch effort to self-heal if you're out of resources; it's saved me a few times this way.

HowlKimchi · March 2019

id bring invi pots/immov pots if I were you.

Protossyder · March 2019

I don't know if I'd write a post about how I got killed by a guard while really trying not to die. First of all, npcs don't crit. Also, to avoid getting damaged and successfully escaping you simply need to run, break free if stunned and dodge roll. That should take you 5 seconds.

LadyHeloise · March 2019

FlopsyPrince wrote: »

Can guards ever come between the Wayshrine and Thieves Guild entrance in The Gold Coast starting city?

Pretty certain this is fine as I've never had a problem with porting to Anvil and nipping to the entrance - it is very close so my go to choice in this sort of situation.

Iccotak · March 2019

You can't get your money back for that same reason, either. No, no. You died, they looted you. That's it, you lose. You big LOSER.

lol

starkerealm · March 2019

LadyHeloise wrote: »

FlopsyPrince wrote: »

Can guards ever come between the Wayshrine and Thieves Guild entrance in The Gold Coast starting city?

Pretty certain this is fine as I've never had a problem with porting to Anvil and nipping to the entrance - it is very close so my go to choice in this sort of situation.

Also true for Hew's Bane, Daggerfall (if you port to the wayshrine just outside the city), Davon's Watch (though you do run past the front gate). I'm sure I'm forgetting others.

Caligamy_ESO · March 2019

https://www.google.com/search?q=do+a+barrel+roll&rlz=1C1SQJL_enUS814US814&oq=do+a+barrel+roll&aqs=chrome..69i57j0l5.6126j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

hope0burns · March 2019

Protossyder wrote: »

I don't know if I'd write a post about how I got killed by a guard while really trying not to die. First of all, npcs don't crit. Also, to avoid getting damaged and successfully escaping you simply need to run, break free if stunned and dodge roll. That should take you 5 seconds.

To answer you and all the others that say NPCs don't crit, it sure looked like that to me. Guards have NEVER hit me for 10k before. Of course I hadn't been hit by a lantern guard before, just the normal ones, but still. Never in my time of running from guards had one ever hit me twice in less than a second for 10k each.

And I wasn't stunned, rooted, or anything. I was running away, sprinting when I got the chance but it hit me. Hard. I don't know what ability it used but it happened just that quick. Less than a second, two hits, each doing 10k. I'm used to hits for around half of that from guards and the numbers on the screen when I got hit looked bigger than normal so it sure did seem like a crit.

But, apparently it was just a normal hit from something that does 10k per swing. /shrug Regardless, the point is that I didn't get rooted, stunned, or anything else. Just hit really hard pretty much instantaneously after I chose flee and got a little distance on her.

albesca · March 2019

hope0burns wrote: »

I don't know what ability it used but it happened just that quick. Less than a second, two hits, each doing 10k. I'm used to hits for around half of that from guards and the numbers on the screen when I got hit looked bigger than normal so it sure did seem like a crit.

This got me thinking: could it be that a second guard joined the first in the chase and the hits came from different NPCs?

Pheefs · March 2019

Mattock_Romulus wrote: »

Neoealth wrote: »

That does sound rage inducing. I had a similar experience when I first started to steal items in the game.

Now I tend to keep some invisibility potions on me, they are a life saver! If you get into a sticky situation with a guard and you feel you might end up dying, swig a invisibility potion and it's a easy get away. Well worth the herbs to make them!

This is the solution. My character of 5 years is an assassin/thief archtype and i never leave the house without invisibility potions and plenty of skooma.

THIS!
My favorite is Invisibility + Health Regen + UNSTOPPABLE ...basically Anti-Guard Essence!

the Guard killing you and taking all your stuff happens, but it only has to happen Once.

Good Luck & Have Fun! Thief On!

Vandril · March 2019

hope0burns wrote: »

Protossyder wrote: »

I don't know if I'd write a post about how I got killed by a guard while really trying not to die. First of all, npcs don't crit. Also, to avoid getting damaged and successfully escaping you simply need to run, break free if stunned and dodge roll. That should take you 5 seconds.

To answer you and all the others that say NPCs don't crit, it sure looked like that to me. Guards have NEVER hit me for 10k before. Of course I hadn't been hit by a lantern guard before, just the normal ones, but still.

Haha, I know the feeling. But trust me, those weren't crits; lantern guards really do just hit that hard. They're supposed to be exceptionally punishing to run into. I've never come even close to dying to a normal guard (unless I was stuck in a small building with one), but I've almost died every time I've run into a lantern guard in that city, and likely would have actually died every time if I weren't an NB with invisibility.

Mix · March 2019

I think you need a little practice at jogging away from guards

Save your stamina for break free/dodge roll (no need to sprint!)

They don't like elevation changes so jump off walls or docks if you can (and swim away - some guards will use a bow lol - pretty sure the Balmora ones do).

They have a pretty short follow distance so as long you don't run face first into a second guard.

The longer they are engaged the higher their damage gets so getting away is priority still, don't try to play tag with the guard!

We've all been there and had our hard stolen loots taken away! We empathize!

Once you get used to guard behaviour you will probably look back and wonder how you ever died to one.

I still HATE the lantern guards though, but that mostly is carry over from heists when they just seem to refuse to path away to let you sneak by...

edit: it is a rare occurrence but you can get a guard that was previously engaged chasing another player start chasing you and their damage will naturally be higher because they have been engaged longer. It is possible for them to one-shot you. Very rare though.

edit 2: I feel like i need to go poke a lantern guard, for science.

Nestor · March 2019

One thing that took me a while to figure out is when a regular NPC gets aggro on you for stealing his beets let the NPC kill you. You don't lose your loot and the NPC is no longer hostile when you respawn. This stops you from getting the murder bounty and waiting out the decay of the bounty takes less time.

Of course, if your outside and near where a guard can come by, still best to get as far away from town as you need to.

hope0burns · March 2019

albesca wrote: »

hope0burns wrote: »

I don't know what ability it used but it happened just that quick. Less than a second, two hits, each doing 10k. I'm used to hits for around half of that from guards and the numbers on the screen when I got hit looked bigger than normal so it sure did seem like a crit.

This got me thinking: could it be that a second guard joined the first in the chase and the hits came from different NPCs?

It's possible. Though I've snuck through that area a few times and only recall that one lantern guard patrolling there. I was fairly close to the guild entrance in the city and just sort of rounded the corner at the wrong time in my haste without looking first. But there definitely may have been another guard.

But yeah, it was a real blitz. They didn't try to slow, stun, or anything me, just let me sprint away for about a second then hit me twice for 10k a pop. I had just started pressing the key for my heal when I was hit again so I didn't get to cast it, the second hit was that fast and I hit that key the moment I noticed the first hit, my reaction times aren't stellar, but they certainly aren't slow, either. It was nuts! Nothing had ever killed me so fast in this game before.

Looking back, how rapid it was and the sheer finality of it as I pretty much just instantly faceplanted into the ground is really what struck me so hard and got me so worked up. It really was a "Just a couple more yards to freedom!" sort of moment with how close I was to getting to the point the guards stop chasing you and despite how I *thought* I had a chance it really would have been suiting if the guard (or guards) had just laughed at me as she (or they) pretty much insta-gibbed me.

Two or one, they really hurt.

0/10, would not recommend as dancing partners, the lantern guards will step all *over* your toes.

hope0burns · March 2019

Nestor wrote: »

One thing that took me a while to figure out is when a regular NPC gets aggro on you for stealing his beets let the NPC kill you. You don't lose your loot and the NPC is no longer hostile when you respawn. This stops you from getting the murder bounty and waiting out the decay of the bounty takes less time.

Of course, if your outside and near where a guard can come by, still best to get as far away from town as you need to.

That's actually really good to know. It's funny that they just attack you but don't take back their stuff.

Path · March 2019

Ogou wrote: »

The fact that you were so emotionally invested is an amazing thing to me.
You can't really have those moments of great joy when you escape if there wasn't at least some chances that things would go south.

True immersion. Players should embrace it!

Druid40 · March 2019

You need some counterfeit bounty things. Blue and purple. Keep those stocked on your thieves.

Jaraal · March 2019

My thieves wear the Shadowrend set from BC1. If a guard starts damaging you it can proc a clannfear that will tank the guard while you get away. The clannfear also applies Minor Maim, which reduces the amount of damage the guard does.

WhyMustItBe · March 2019

hope0burns wrote: »

Now, normally, I can enact some petty revenge when this happens and smash the NPC's face in after I respawn and the face of every single one of its respawns for the next hour or two if I'm feeling really REALLY petty.. but not with T-1000 lantern guard over here. NOPE. She's INVINCIBLE. Even pickpocketing her is impossible because she's Lantern Guard! Breaker of stealth, destroyer of faces, and deleter of all precious items!

Actually, your items were not deleted. The game's AI has been slowly evolving to the point it has begun to grasp primitive human concepts of identity such as ownership and exclusivity. Yes we may recognize in our postmodern enlightened society the pettiness of such ambition, and how simply accumulating for the sake of it with no accounting for the impact on the world we create by how we invest what we have affects us personally as well and is ultimately self defeating...

Still, somewhere in Tamriel, there is a little digital pocket realm where this semi-self aware AI guard subroutine hoards all your corpse-picked pixels. She retires there during server maintenance, incoherently muttering wide-eyed "my precious" and something about "balls to me to me to me to me..."

Also just an aside, crime DOES pay... EVENTUALLY. Once you level Thieves Guild to the point you get Clemency, you basically get a once-per-day get out of jail free card where you can tell the guard to go decompile herself if she does happen to shine a lantern on your depravity.

PS: I enjoyed your rant.

Jaraal · March 2019

WhyMustItBe wrote: »

Once you level Thieves Guild to the point you get Clemency, you basically get a once-per-day get out of jail free card where you can tell the guard to go decompile herself if she does happen to shine a lantern on your depravity.

And some of the things the guards say are hilarious! Well worth getting caught once a day! (Just make sure you don't have any heat, or they kill first, chat later.)

max_only · March 2019

WTH

This is 3 times now the overseer has spawned with 2 minutes left on the clock during the first attempt.

Linaleah · March 2019

in case it hasn't been suggested yet - sorry if it was. but what i do if i get caught and don't want to lose all my ill gotten gains is... eat the cost of porting to a shrine in a safe location. general - its an equivalent of a single stolen green item, so i'd rather do that and save myself the time and the heartache of losing all that I stole.

Davon's watch is a good spot (there is an entrance on the outside wall, and you can basically avoid any and all guards there). Hew's bane is great, you just need to remember to use the entrance outside of the city and stay a little to the left when riding to the refuge. and if you own sleek creek house - there is an entrance to refuge right outside the door. and no guards.

I started doing that after losing a really good and at the time VERY expensive furnishing pattern to getting a little too careless.

Ilithyania · March 2019

use the secret back entrance, like real thieves

iiYuki · March 2019

Once I've done stealing from an area I go and sell, it only takes one mistake and an hours worth of loot is gone.

Jaraal · March 2019

Linaleah wrote: »

and if you own sleek creek house - there is an entrance to refuge right outside the door. and no guards.

That's something I like about my House of the Silent Magnifico in Sentinel. I can port to it for free from anywhere, and the Outlaw's Refuge is just a short distance away with no guards in the way.

kypranb14_ESO · March 2019

hope0burns wrote: »

So, last night I had spent hours going about from zone to zone thieving. I had upgraded my pickpocket and was doing really well, hardly getting caught. After four hours of doing this I had a fair bit of loot and decided to log off somewhere safe in my last target location.

I log on today, no bounty because the small bounty I had faded over night. Woo! Great, right? I finish off the thieving quest that had spurred this stealing spree in the first place with a bounty of around 1.2k that had eventually faded to like 900 something by the time I got near the sneaky-stealy guild house in Hew's and I'm nearly home free.. then.. a gosh darn lantern guard. Not just any, oh no. This is the freakin' T-1000 of lantern guards.

Naturally I choose to flee. "I'm not letting this guard take my hard earned legitimate money AND my hours of work!" I said to myself. Now, looking back, sure. I realize there's a way into the sneak-stealy guild house from outside the city. I had totally forgotten about that at the time, use one entrance so often you tend to forget any others exist.

Anyway! I start off, they stun me, I break it, they snare me, I blue-betty away! And just keep spamming that, getting heals and insta condition removal all the way.. then she crits me.. for 10k. I keep spamming blue-betty to heal and try to run away but.. then she crits me.. again.. for 10k. And I'm dead. So very... very dead.

I am... taken aback. I just got hit on by and then subsequently killed by the luckiest got dang lantern guard in the world. Like.. this game.. this game waves this cool fun looking content in front of my face. It's all "Heeeey, Hope. Come heeeere. Look at this! You've been avoiding this stuff since you started playing but doesn't it look like fun? What else do you have to do other than become a murderer? Be a thief! You'll have fun. Promise." So I go in, start doing the thing.. and it punches my face in. I get up and am all "What the heck, game?!" And it's just "Oh, sorry. Got a little too into it. Try again. I PROMISE you'll have fun." So I try again, this time being real careful, taking hours to steal a whole bunch of stuff to make up for what I lost before.. And right before I cross the finish line the game decides to crack me in the back of the head, flip me over, and beat my face in with a spiked mace, all the while laughing "YOU BELIEVED ME?! YOU FOOL!"

So I respawn at the nearest waypoint. No use in wasting one of my countless soulgems when I know that all the bounty money AND my loot is just.. gone. POOOF. Sent straight into oblivion's trash hole, never to be seen again. Oh, yes. It takes all the most fun parts of other ES games.. and then makes them terrible. You can't get your loot back, there's no "evidence" chest. You can't get your money back for that same reason, either. No, no. You died, they looted you. That's it, you lose. You big LOSER.

It never doesn't feel dirty and wrong to lose *purely* to luck. To have an npc waylay you just because they got lucky in this one singular encounter. Now, normally, I can enact some petty revenge when this happens and smash the NPC's face in after I respawn and the face of every single one of its respawns for the next hour or two if I'm feeling really REALLY petty.. but not with T-1000 lantern guard over here. NOPE. She's INVINCIBLE. Even pickpocketing her is impossible because she's Lantern Guard! Breaker of stealth, destroyer of faces, and deleter of all precious items!

So, with no other recourse than to just... go out.. and spend hours attempting to recover what I had lost and then spend even more time attempting to actually make a profit after recovering losses or just ragequitting.. I decided to ragequit. Which the game doesn't let you do in the normal way, either. Because.. of course it doesn't. Alt+f4? Oh, no. Not gonna let you do that! So I just freed my mouse cursor and went to my task manager and ended the whole freakin' process tree out of petty spite.

But still, the rage boiled. The sheer audacity of the game to pound my face in in such a manner left me feeling bitter so I had to share it.. I had to get it off my chest. To tell the whole wide world just how upset the whole ordeal had made me. Where once i was having fun, feeling good about a game and investing time into it I was left broken, angry, and feeling betrayed, much like your cat when you sneakily put a cucumber directly behind it while it's otherwise preoccupied.

So.. I feel a little better now. It was nice to share, I NEEDED to share and NEEDED to do so to people who would actually understand what in the high heavens I was feeling and what I had done. Yes, it's true. As I had touched on earlier. If I had just gone in the sneaky-stealy backdoor instead of trying to go through the whole stupid city this would never have happened in the first got dang place. I suppose I learned a valuable lesson, to remember that shortcuts are real things and the waypoint is placed conveniently outside the city walls for a good reason.

Never in my life have I been so punished by an MMO for engaging in a whole part of said MMO that I had to pay for just to access. I can't remember the last time a MMO illicited any sort of real emotion out of me. I'd have preferred it not be total and complete silent rage, but, hey. At least it was something?

Anyway. Not looking for sympathy or to get anything back or the like. Just really needed to share my thoughts and feelings, to vent and get this off my chest and do so to people that'd actually understand what it was I had done and gone through, even if they, themselves, had never been so dumb as to go through a similar thing. If you've made it this far, thanks for reading! I doubt it was easy and you probably have already called me an idiot multiple times at this point but, hey. We all have one of "those" moments, amirite? ;p

Guards do not crit. The more time you spend in combat with a guard, the stronger they become. They can easily one-shot the tankiest of players after a while. You need to slip away from guards fast so they don't become omni-potent thief-slayers.

MartiniDaniels · March 2019

kypranb14_ESO wrote: »

hope0burns wrote: »

So, last night I had spent hours going about from zone to zone thieving. I had upgraded my pickpocket and was doing really well, hardly getting caught. After four hours of doing this I had a fair bit of loot and decided to log off somewhere safe in my last target location.

I log on today, no bounty because the small bounty I had faded over night. Woo! Great, right? I finish off the thieving quest that had spurred this stealing spree in the first place with a bounty of around 1.2k that had eventually faded to like 900 something by the time I got near the sneaky-stealy guild house in Hew's and I'm nearly home free.. then.. a gosh darn lantern guard. Not just any, oh no. This is the freakin' T-1000 of lantern guards.

Naturally I choose to flee. "I'm not letting this guard take my hard earned legitimate money AND my hours of work!" I said to myself. Now, looking back, sure. I realize there's a way into the sneak-stealy guild house from outside the city. I had totally forgotten about that at the time, use one entrance so often you tend to forget any others exist.

Anyway! I start off, they stun me, I break it, they snare me, I blue-betty away! And just keep spamming that, getting heals and insta condition removal all the way.. then she crits me.. for 10k. I keep spamming blue-betty to heal and try to run away but.. then she crits me.. again.. for 10k. And I'm dead. So very... very dead.

I am... taken aback. I just got hit on by and then subsequently killed by the luckiest got dang lantern guard in the world. Like.. this game.. this game waves this cool fun looking content in front of my face. It's all "Heeeey, Hope. Come heeeere. Look at this! You've been avoiding this stuff since you started playing but doesn't it look like fun? What else do you have to do other than become a murderer? Be a thief! You'll have fun. Promise." So I go in, start doing the thing.. and it punches my face in. I get up and am all "What the heck, game?!" And it's just "Oh, sorry. Got a little too into it. Try again. I PROMISE you'll have fun." So I try again, this time being real careful, taking hours to steal a whole bunch of stuff to make up for what I lost before.. And right before I cross the finish line the game decides to crack me in the back of the head, flip me over, and beat my face in with a spiked mace, all the while laughing "YOU BELIEVED ME?! YOU FOOL!"

So I respawn at the nearest waypoint. No use in wasting one of my countless soulgems when I know that all the bounty money AND my loot is just.. gone. POOOF. Sent straight into oblivion's trash hole, never to be seen again. Oh, yes. It takes all the most fun parts of other ES games.. and then makes them terrible. You can't get your loot back, there's no "evidence" chest. You can't get your money back for that same reason, either. No, no. You died, they looted you. That's it, you lose. You big LOSER.

It never doesn't feel dirty and wrong to lose *purely* to luck. To have an npc waylay you just because they got lucky in this one singular encounter. Now, normally, I can enact some petty revenge when this happens and smash the NPC's face in after I respawn and the face of every single one of its respawns for the next hour or two if I'm feeling really REALLY petty.. but not with T-1000 lantern guard over here. NOPE. She's INVINCIBLE. Even pickpocketing her is impossible because she's Lantern Guard! Breaker of stealth, destroyer of faces, and deleter of all precious items!

So, with no other recourse than to just... go out.. and spend hours attempting to recover what I had lost and then spend even more time attempting to actually make a profit after recovering losses or just ragequitting.. I decided to ragequit. Which the game doesn't let you do in the normal way, either. Because.. of course it doesn't. Alt+f4? Oh, no. Not gonna let you do that! So I just freed my mouse cursor and went to my task manager and ended the whole freakin' process tree out of petty spite.

But still, the rage boiled. The sheer audacity of the game to pound my face in in such a manner left me feeling bitter so I had to share it.. I had to get it off my chest. To tell the whole wide world just how upset the whole ordeal had made me. Where once i was having fun, feeling good about a game and investing time into it I was left broken, angry, and feeling betrayed, much like your cat when you sneakily put a cucumber directly behind it while it's otherwise preoccupied.

So.. I feel a little better now. It was nice to share, I NEEDED to share and NEEDED to do so to people who would actually understand what in the high heavens I was feeling and what I had done. Yes, it's true. As I had touched on earlier. If I had just gone in the sneaky-stealy backdoor instead of trying to go through the whole stupid city this would never have happened in the first got dang place. I suppose I learned a valuable lesson, to remember that shortcuts are real things and the waypoint is placed conveniently outside the city walls for a good reason.

Never in my life have I been so punished by an MMO for engaging in a whole part of said MMO that I had to pay for just to access. I can't remember the last time a MMO illicited any sort of real emotion out of me. I'd have preferred it not be total and complete silent rage, but, hey. At least it was something?

Anyway. Not looking for sympathy or to get anything back or the like. Just really needed to share my thoughts and feelings, to vent and get this off my chest and do so to people that'd actually understand what it was I had done and gone through, even if they, themselves, had never been so dumb as to go through a similar thing. If you've made it this far, thanks for reading! I doubt it was easy and you probably have already called me an idiot multiple times at this point but, hey. We all have one of "those" moments, amirite? ;p

Guards do not crit. The more time you spend in combat with a guard, the stronger they become. They can easily one-shot the tankiest of players after a while. You need to slip away from guards fast so they don't become omni-potent thief-slayers.

That's why this game feels like non-immersive doll-house. Immortal guards who start to one-shot you through block and reflect after 1 minute of fun.

Heists are a mess I will never play them again after event end. Sacraments are nice though.

Coatmagic · March 2019

Lost loot (not a lot) a couple times getting caught indoors...
henceforth ~> Clemency before looting spree ~> ALWAYS.

Amphithoe · March 2019

I just love doing heist and accidentally double tap "w"!

DirkRavenclaw · March 2019

Lantern Guards are the easiest, stay far away and snipe them, if you are fast enought, you dont get a Bounty and are not beeing seen. I one shot those