I tried to like it, I tried to get better

daemonios · July 2019

Ei8htba11 wrote: »

daemonios wrote: »

Sacraments are a pain because if you alert anyone and drop the quest, you'll retain the alert status. But heists you can practice as many times as you want simply by dropping the quest and starting again. If you pay attention and try to remember your mistakes, it's just like any other aspect in the game: practice makes perfect.

There's a 10 minute cooldown. Abandon, go do something else for 10 minutes (+mino? ), come back and the instance has reset.

Didn't know that, actually. Thanks!

Gatviper · July 2019

Yeah I did them years back when the DLCs came out, for the achievements and stuff. Never finished it. Never do them anymore. I liked the first introduction quest zone for the Thieves Guild, that one with the mansion, which kind of reminded me of the great ancient Thief games. Shame the whole rest which followed was more like trash.

Ei8htba11 · July 2019

But I'm trying to give some helpful advice, in several posts so far. My point, you don't need to be a NB, and as with all content, you CAN do it with some preparation and practice.

Seriously, group with someone who has some knowledge of the area and go through it. After a couple of runs you'll have a better handle on what to do and you'll do it. Sure, it's frustrating as hell once you start as there are very few clues in the instance on how to complete it. I hated them when I did my first one (on a NB as well). I hated City of Ash as well when I tried that my first time, and Halls and...

Familiarity with content makes it easier. Do it a few times, you'll become familiar, and it'll become easier. Maybe you won't hate it so much?

[Edit] Was in reply to Idinuse

LucyferLightbringer · July 2019

New npc spawns as well as respawns during heists/sacraments is unacceptable imho. I witnesses several times now npc appearing out of nowhere right in front of me.

MartiniDaniels · July 2019

Sacraments are ok, if you kill lanterns in couple of seconds without being seen, they don't count as alert failures.

Heists are just a trash, thanks god you can simply clean it as delve.

Idinuse · July 2019

Ei8htba11 wrote: »

But I'm trying to give some helpful advice, in several posts so far. My point, you don't need to be a NB, and as with all content, you CAN do it with some preparation and practice.

Seriously, group with someone who has some knowledge of the area and go through it. After a couple of runs you'll have a better handle on what to do and you'll do it. Sure, it's frustrating as hell once you start as there are very few clues in the instance on how to complete it. I hated them when I did my first one (on a NB as well). I hated City of Ash as well when I tried that my first time, and Halls and...

Familiarity with content makes it easier. Do it a few times, you'll become familiar, and it'll become easier. Maybe you won't hate it so much?

[Edit] Was in reply to Idinuse

And it's good of you!

However, as I pointed out in my original comment, I'm geared up, Vampire (no sneak speed penalty, using rapids that also work while sneaking), invis pots and 3pcs Night Terror (as a Vamp I don't need Night's Silence), and still come to the point where I just kill everything to get out of there as soon as possible to get the darn ticket.

Outside of this yearly event, I never touch this content, which of course doesn't make me any better at it, but that's how it is.

In fact, since every class now can heal, tank and DPS, it'd only be fair if every class can stealth like NBs too. It'd fit perfect with devs philosophy of "killing it" - in regards of any uniqueness of classes.

therift · July 2019

I must agree with OP.

There seems to be very few stealthy tactical choices in Sacraments and Heists beyond hopping in a Hiding Spot.

After finishing all the achievements, if I have to run one of these again, I'll just run through as fast as possible, triggering every trap and slaughtering every npc, just to get it done.

Completion of optional steps is pointless. Running out of time is meaningless. Incurring a bounty is a minor inconvenience.

Blue gear versus purple? So what? If I wanted the sets, I'll upgrade.

Motifs? Completion of optional steps makes no difference. In the last three TG/DB Celebrations, I received a motif page 75% of the time despite completely ignoring quest conditions. For this most recent Celebration, I missed a motif page only once. I actually wish I didn't get any motif pages at all; it takes weeks to unload them at 1k a piece... they're essentially vendor trash now.

Sacraments and Heists are overdue for an overhaul. The rewards are garbage; the conditions are pointless; there is zero reward for playing them well.

Maxx7410 · July 2019

iam not NB i dont have cloack and almost always i do the missions 100% right is no so dificult, you need stealth equipment and speed in stealth that is all

Idinuse · July 2019

Maxx7410 wrote: »

iam not NB i dont have cloack and almost always i do the missions 100% right is no so dificult, you need stealth equipment and speed in stealth that is all

I do get you. It's just that the bias of it all already gives me a bad taste in my mouth but kudos to all that breeze though it! ^^b

Banana · July 2019

Just skip it. Event tickets dont get me excited.

abigfishy · July 2019

I'm not saying it is bad content. I'm sure some people love it. I'm sure the devs put a lot of effort into designing these. I just find for me these missions vary between frustrating and boring. 0 tickets for this event.

phwaap · July 2019

Went through the same process the last event. They do get easier with practice but it's still mostly a feeling of resignation, not fun. Every day it's two more tedious tickets.

Itacira · July 2019

daemonios wrote: »

I replied to you when you said the game was biased towards NB and complained that changes to rapids will make it much worse. It isn't, and it won't.

I disagree, losing speed WILL make it more difficult to those who use RM. How could it not ?

daemonios wrote: »

After that, you chose to reply to my post by stating that the game keeps taking away your alternatives. I again replied and said there are plenty of alternatives, and you don't need any specific one. Just take your pick. Again you chose to reply by complaining you can't spare 5 inventory slots.

There are indeed plenty of alternatives and the nerf to RM is taking one of those away. I don't get how you can argue against it. Also, check your definition of complaining : I merely stated I didn't want the equipment to take up inventory room. There was no value judgement in it whatsoever. I merely would rather keep those 5 slot for stolen items, especially since that'd be equipment I'd only use for these specific dailies. I enjoy my alternatives just fine

daemonios wrote: »

There is no pleasing you.

I'm actually pretty pleased with the current, pre RM nerf status quo ? Pretty proud of myself for managing the quests so well without cloak and only one or two pots here and there when I'm too impatient to wait for the right moment or mistime a move.

daemonios wrote: »

You are wrong about the game being biased towards one class, any class can do heists and sacraments without going invisible, therefore without needing to be Nightblade. In fact, going invisible probably does more bad than good because it allows you to cheese it and ignore the guards' routes, so when you run out of magicka to spam cloak or run out of invisibility and are on potion cooldown, you're more likely to mess up.

MAKE UP YOUR MIND, IS CLOAK AN ADVANTAGE OR NOT ? Because if cloak makes the quest easy enough to "cheese" it, as you say, THEN IT IS A BLOODY ADVANTAGE. The fact that it doesn't preeempt you from learning routes and timing your moves, which is the basis of these quest, doesn't mean it isn't an advantage. I don't mean NERF NB by that. I don't care, or mind, since, as I said, I DO JUST FINE ANYWAY, but it makes the learning curve a bit steeper, that's all. And saying "not it doesn't" doesn't make it untrue. Like, seriously...

daemonios wrote: »

Any class can choose one of several options that are in the game: pots, gear, skills. You choose to continue to be irritated by this. Go right ahead.

I'm annoyed by the change to RM and I'll continue being so because it affects the way I play and you can't stop me ??? have no right to attempt to ??? Who do you think you are ??? Again, just take the horse to the pasture. I am, though, very, very irritated by your obtuseness. That, though, you could put an end to, by doing this weird thing where you acknowledge you don't have to tell people how to play. An amazing and ground breaking concept, am I right ? You do you and I do me.

TheImperfect · July 2019

I rarely manage the heists but I think they are intended to be done with multiple players. It feels really good when I do manage to complete on fully in the time limit, which is what I usually fail on. Some of that is probably luck on the location of the loot.

I love the sacraments and think they are nicely challenging. There is an element of luck in that too though with the timing because your target could be right at the back of the place and you get less time to sneak out before the overseer arrives whereas if the target is near the entrance it gets a lot easier.

jaws343 · July 2019

If the only thing you are trying to do is get the event tickets, stop worrying about sneaking or doing the objectives. You can treat these like delves and just kill everything in your path. You may get a small bounty from the sacrament killings but if the mechanics annoy you, why bother with them?

For what it's worth, I do these, following the objectives, with no issue on a mag sorc vampire running regular dps gear. They require a bit of patience, but they aren't hard.

Ei8htba11 · July 2019

Itacira wrote: »

...MAKE UP YOUR MIND, IS CLOAK AN ADVANTAGE OR NOT ?...

I'd agree, it is an advantage, BUT...

It's more of an 'Oh sh*t' moment advantage, and isn't required with patience and planning. Same goes for the time limit. Rapids/Vampire sneak passive IS helpful, but it can be done without. Persevere, unless you find it crushingly tedious (which I also did for a while, and refused to do them during that time).

Again, practice and planning win the day, nobody was a Master Thief or Executioner overnight

The content isn't going anywhere, it'll be ready when you are.

S1L3NTL4DY420 · July 2019

“There is one treasure that I don't think can be accessed without alerting an NPC: a chest opposite an archer NPC who never seems to turn around.”

You can get it; I actually tried it the other day because I’d collected everything else and had plenty of time even if I were to get caught and have my time reduced.

I placed myself behind the chest so I was facing the archer but he didn’t spot me. Thought it was kinda funny as me and a couple of friends used to run them together but we’d always avoid that chest just incase.

yodased · July 2019

Worst designed interactions in the game, both of them are tilted towards characters that would not really even be playable in anything else other than RP thief or assassin.

I would really love to see the numbers of people who complete them vs perfect completions.

Lylith · July 2019

tedious.

not fun.

you listening, zo$?

yeah, i didn't think so.

Ei8htba11 · July 2019

yodased wrote: »

Worst designed interactions in the game, both of them are tilted towards characters that would not really even be playable in anything else other than RP thief or assassin.

I would really love to see the numbers of people who complete them vs perfect completions.

Did about 4 Heists a day, and the one Sacrament. Heists all went according to plan, Most Sacraments went according to plan. One I reset after abandoning and waiting 10 minutes, 1 other I lost my sh*t and murdered everyone in the instance.

Last 2 days I didn't bother as I had full event tickets and already have a Nascent and the first berries. Saving these for the next event, just in case it's PvP (horrors).

[Edit] For reference: Most done on my Khajiit Necro Death Cult Assasin

. Hundings and Night Mothers, no pots or rapids. Vampire yes, but as it was a mixed group wasn't much of an advantage.

zaria · July 2019

Idinuse wrote: »

Don’t worry about it. Unless you are a NB and have Cloak, this content is NOT for you. It’s the NB fetish they’ve had ever since IC DLC it’s for (Cloak AND speed). And if they think invis pots with their measly duration and lol cool down or sneak sets (sneak speed, detect range etc), even with Vampire stealth speed + Rapids, do any difference, they’re not.

It’s the worst single class biased content in the game.

And if you’re not a NB and clear all of this naked in 10 seconds, good for you, you can’t clear my content for me so irrelevant really.

Rarely use cloak doing them and then only if I need to get past some npc in narrow places so not in most runs.

You want medium armor with stealth detection reduction and also move at normal speed in sneak unless vampire.
Trait and quality if gear does not matter nor does you dps so you can easy do them as an magsorc with the gear.

Found I had more success with the TG heists, probably as I farmed them two years ago while has not done the DB missions so many times.

rotaugen454 · July 2019

I just ran through them, killing everything and getting two event tickets quickly. I’d switch to another character until the bounty disappeared, or I’d leave character at a wayshrine in wilderness and take a break to burn off bounty faster from passives.

Tigerseye · July 2019

I never did Sacraments, because the whole, creepy "people like us" opening speech put me off.

I was like "I'm not like you, thanks very much..." and I wandered off.

However, I did a lot of heists.

You do get used to them, but even when you have, you can still occasionally fail, if the placing of the items and the timing of the npcs is against you and they are stupendously infuriating, when that happens.

In fact, the better you get at them, the more annoying it is when you fail.

For the sake of my mental health and my neighbours' eardrums (and their children's right to not hear shouted swearwords), I stopped doing them.

Especially as the price of the motifs fell through the floor, due to the various events.

Haven't bothered for this event, either, as I just don't want the Indrik enough.

The last one was worth getting, because he's like Caan and quite pretty, but I don't need an Indrik in every colour.

Linaleah · July 2019

sorry if it was mentioned already.

here's what i do. i'm lazy. on EU I cannot be bothered to level an alt to steal or craft stealth gear. my character on EU is a dunmer magsorc. she wears 2 pc heavy/5 pc light. I have no stealth modifiers as you can imagine. so... for heists I don't even bother with trying to hide or make the timer. you are guaranteed perfect reward during event even if you fail to finish within the timer. it just doubles the perfect bags if you DO manage. i don't bother. go in guns blazing, kill everything in my way, grab what I need and leave. does it go against everything that this mission is supposed to be? yes. does it work anyways? yes. does it save me of world of aggravation? HECK YES.

sacraments are trickier if you'd rather not rack up a bounty, but here is a thing... for whatever reason - you don't get a bounty every single time you are noticed. only some of the time. so.. while I do bother to stealth a little bit (and stealthing is sooooo slow when you are not a vampire or wearing gear that removes the speed penalty), I don't worry if i get noticed too much. I stab when i can, murder regularly when I cannot. especially those lantern patrols. as long as you get both your targets and leave the place before overseer arrives- you will get partial bonus objective completion and 1 blue reward bag along with one green (I haven't tested to see if you get the same reward if you do none of bonus objectives, but I would imagine that the answer is probably yes) and more often then not, that blue bag comes with fake pardon. but even if it doesn't, bounty is rarely significantly larger then gold you get for quest completion.

again, is this in a spirit of those missions? nope. does it get them done anyways, get me my tickets and save me the aggravation? yep.

to summarize and emphasize

YOU DON'T HAVE TO FINISH MISSIONS PERFECTLY TO GET A REWARD AND TICKETS! YOU JUST NEED TO FINISH THEM.

its amazing how much of the stress goes away, once you accept it and just go with it.

P.S. there are 2 reasons why you cannot BoW in heists. gameplay reason - Dark brotherhood was introduced after Thieves guild, so its not programmed to differentiate between how the npc's died inside a heist. in character reason - you are supposed to get in and get out quiet and unnoticed. presumably - even if no one is there to see you kill someone, patrols WILL stumble on a body while you are still inside, thus alerting the place and making your heist less heisty.

Vahrokh · July 2019

Idinuse wrote: »

Don’t worry about it. Unless you are a NB and have Cloak, this content is NOT for you. It’s the NB fetish they’ve had ever since IC DLC it’s for (Cloak AND speed). And if they think invis pots with their measly duration and lol cool down or sneak sets (sneak speed, detect range etc), even with Vampire stealth speed + Rapids, do any difference, they’re not.

It’s the worst single class biased content in the game.

And if you’re not a NB and clear all of this naked in 10 seconds, good for you, you can’t clear my content for me so irrelevant really.

You can roll a NB or you can learn to play. Both works.

I've all the relevant achievements since years as a mag sorc and I am TERRIBLE at gaming.
If I can do it, anyone can.

Itacira · July 2019

Ei8htba11 wrote: »

Itacira wrote: »

...MAKE UP YOUR MIND, IS CLOAK AN ADVANTAGE OR NOT ?...

I'd agree, it is an advantage, BUT...

It's more of an 'Oh sh*t' moment advantage, and isn't required with patience and planning. Same goes for the time limit. Rapids/Vampire sneak passive IS helpful, but it can be done without. Persevere, unless you find it crushingly tedious (which I also did for a while, and refused to do them during that time).

Again, practice and planning win the day, nobody was a Master Thief or Executioner overnight

The content isn't going anywhere, it'll be ready when you are.

I can't check whether I have these achievements or not but if I don't I'm definitely not far. I do remember some achievements popping up after yet another heist/sacrament. So I'm not necessarily arguing for myself : I only got back to doing these for the event, will probably do one or two here and there but definitely not daily now that the event is done. What I'm saying by that is : achievements aren't an issue to me, and managing the quests aren't either (though RM nerf will definitely be troublesome to adapt to, no matter how doable the quests are without it). I'm thinking about the gameplay itself as a whole.

That being said, I agree : it's sheer repetition that has made these quests easier, especially now that I know some of the NPCs' paths and the maps' shortcuts. The issue I have is that this learning curve is tedious. It can be done, sure ! But a game is supposed to be entertaining. I don't mind difficulty, actually, have always refused to lower it in the games I play because I HAVE HONOR GDI, but it's not about that. And again, I say that even though I'm past the worst of the learning curve. I want this to be very clear before some funny person accuses me of merely not wanting to git gud.

I do understand what you mean about the cloak : it's simply an alternative to the invisibility pot. The ability of being able to conceal oneself makes mistakes more forgiving. When you're a beginner, though, with little ingredients and low alchemy, having or not access to this solution definitely makes a difference. Before you learn. The problem is, the game doesn't give true incentive to learn because it is, as you very accurately described, so crushingly tedious. Which is the absolute opposite of what a game should strive for.

Ei8htba11 · July 2019

Itacira wrote: »

...That being said, I agree : it's sheer repetition that has made these quests easier, especially now that I know some of the NPCs' paths and the maps' shortcuts. The issue I have is that this learning curve is tedious. It can be done, sure ! But a game is supposed to be entertaining. I don't mind difficulty, actually, have always refused to lower it in the games I play because I HAVE HONOR GDI, but it's not about that. And again, I say that even though I'm past the worst of the learning curve. I want this to be very clear before some funny person accuses me of merely not wanting to git gud...

I think that's an issue for the game as a whole, and as such larger than the scope of this discussion. There are several gameplay elements that are just rinse/repeat until you know the mechanics. I still know less than half I'm sure.

That said, imagine how much harder the TG and DB quests might be if the instance denizens actually had a dynamic reaction to your presence? Increased patrols at last know location, everyone on higher alert/watchfulness. Completely random patrol routes or surprise/last minute changes. What if they actively hunted for you? It might be more fun but I can guarantee there would be a higher instance of rage quits though (me also).

In some ways the predictability works for it, at least you can predict and prepare. However, I agree, until you know the routines the dailies can be a pain.

Idinuse · July 2019

Vahrokh wrote: »

Idinuse wrote: »

Don’t worry about it. Unless you are a NB and have Cloak, this content is NOT for you. It’s the NB fetish they’ve had ever since IC DLC it’s for (Cloak AND speed). And if they think invis pots with their measly duration and lol cool down or sneak sets (sneak speed, detect range etc), even with Vampire stealth speed + Rapids, do any difference, they’re not.

It’s the worst single class biased content in the game.

And if you’re not a NB and clear all of this naked in 10 seconds, good for you, you can’t clear my content for me so irrelevant really.

You can roll a NB or you can learn to play. Both works.

I've all the relevant achievements since years as a mag sorc and I am TERRIBLE at gaming.
If I can do it, anyone can.

Are you telling me I can learn to like this content or I need to learn to play? Rolling a class specifically for 2 DLCs? How insolent are you really? I bet you'd love solo content that had a one shot mechanic unless you're on a dedicated Trial Tank build, mid quest, or a mechanic that demands 2-3 pets active.

Kagukan · July 2019

I hated them at first also. With time you learn the maps and patrol areas making things a little easier. I don't mind doing them now.
A couple of things from a mag sorc perspective.
Some missions are far easier than others.
Dark Brotherhood missions are generally easier than Thieves Guild missions.

Jayman1000 · July 2019

"...if you are a vampire, you can end up biting the victim instead of killing with the blade of woe. The engine of this game does not seem to be able to support this style of game play.".

This is just incredibly bad and lazy design. This fix is so easy for them to make: just seperate the keybind for vamp bite and blade of woe. Dont tell me making a seperate keybind for the two would take more than 5-10 min of a programmers time.