I tried to like it, I tried to get better

daemonios · July 2019

Jayman1000 wrote: »

"...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.

It might. In fact, it probably would. Not only is it tied to synergy, so they'd have to decouple THAT, but they also have a distance-based system to switch between bitey and stabby. Not to mention, the fact it is the way it is is probably because of controller mode, so they can't simply require a new button. So now we're already looking at something a bit more complex than you assumed, and that might only be fixable on keyboard+mouse but not on controller.

Not defending it, it *is* clunky, as I've stated myself on this very thread. But sometimes we assume solutions are way simpler than they turn out to be.

kylewwefan · July 2019

This year, I actually made a thieving and murder setup for my main character. Did research and stuff. Asked here on the forums what to use.

It made the quests %9000 more enjoyable. I skipped the last one a couple months ago because I hated doing them so much.

I accept the sacraments and heists for what they are. They’re supposed to be small little 10 minute or less quest you can hop on and do. Heck I got up early and did them before going to work a couple days. It was fun. Something different.

Ei8htba11 · July 2019

Vampires:

For those on PC and not averse to running AddOns, I would suggest Vampires Woe. It can be activated and deactivated by setting a keybind, and when active disables the Vampire 'Feed' synergy.

whitecrow · July 2019

The sacraments are okay; you can take as much time as you need before the hit (and remember to go for the optional target first.)

What never made sense to me is the time limit on the heists. Is the "customer" really that impatient that s/he cannot wait more than three minutes (or however long it is) for the stuff?

To help with speed I wear a set of Night's Silence, which lets you sneak at a jogging speed. But I am not sure I have even done a perfect heist yet.

AcadianPaladin · July 2019

Ei8htba11 wrote: »

They're not solo if grouped. Sacraments can be done as a 4 man, so can Heists.

Sacraments can only be done 1 per day. Group up before talking to the speaker. Everyone HAS to talk to the speaker separately, but everyone in the group AT THAT TIME will get the same sacrament.

Heists can be shared. Group up, one person takes the job from the tip board and shares. Once done, turn it in and the next person in the group checks the tip board. If there's a blue arrow, take it and share. Rinse/repeat until no-one has any available quests left.

Thanks for clarifying things by highlighting my choice of the wrong word. What I meant and should have said was like a group dungeon - only you (and your party if any). Perhaps 'discrete instance' would be a better term maybe.

Jeremy · July 2019

Neoealth wrote: »

But I just hate heists and sacraments in this game. The sacraments are marginally less annoying than the heists, but not by much. I normally love the thieves guild and dark brother hood content in TES games, but in ESO the missions are in intolerable. As someone else who made an complaint post about them recently, they used the word "lousy" and I agree wholeheartedly.

Where do I start. Lets start with sacraments. The blade of woe is really clunky, you can sneak up behind a potential victim, and the blade of woe will take forever to engage, making that stupid noise it makes and by the time it finally is ready to use, the npc will either spin 180 on their heels and spot you or those f-ing annoying lantern patrols will show up. It makes it all the more worse 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.

Those lantern patrols....there are way too many of them. And why do they still alert if you sneak behind them? Do they have eyes in the back on their head? Not only that, but their radius is huge and the cave path ways they patrol are often so narrow which means they take all the space, no room to sneak past, you have to wait while they loiter and scratch their butts. On sacraments annoying when you only have a short while to get out before the overseer arrives, and just flat out game killing for heists where every second counts.

The heists are by far the most annoying, rage inducing and non fun elements of this game. The npcs are everywhere, they all blend into the back ground colours, i'm often bumping into them without even noticing them. The traps are very much the same. The time limit is far to restrictive for the amount of patrols and traps. The penalty for being seen it way too harsh. I just hate everything about it.

I am big enough to admit that I might just not be very good at it, but the content is so frustrating, so annoying, so not fun that trying to get better at them just feels like pulling out my teeth and pouring salt into my eye balls might be a more enjoyable past time.

I'm only doing them for the event tickets, after that I'm done. I just sprint through the heists now, killing them all, every time i melt one of those patrols with my spells, i give a little manic grin. I HATE THEM *anakin skywalker moment*

Sorry for the rant, this is clearly a venting post.

If you build a Night Blade built for speed and stealth they aren't bad. Otherwise I agree with pretty much of all your criticisms. These missions are annoying (and nearly impossible to perfect) for your average character. So unless you have an actual stealth character I would just avoid doing them. Your blood pressure will thank you.

Muzzick · July 2019

Kagukan wrote: »

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.

Agree here. Especially if you don't know the maps thieves guild can feel like a maze and the timer starts from the beginning.

DB is easier because the timer doesn't start until the main objective. You can take your sweet time sneaking around and doing the optional objectives, while figuring out which escape route you will take afterwards. You can make the return path even easier by assassinating any NPCs that may get in the way. Though I didn't feel the need to do that because of the sneak gear.

XenoAlbedo · July 2019

I have a love-hate relationship with heists and sacraments. They feel pretty different a fresh compared to other content and the game, I generally feel satisfied with completing them when they go well. That said, they have too many problems for them to go well most of the time, most of which you already mentioned.

I've been spotted without any NPCs being near me whatsoever, or when I'm in a spot in which they should not be able to see me. Patrols do not seem to be designed intuitively at all. I have had sacraments in which it was literally impossible to reach the exit without being spotted before the overseer arrived since all paths to the exit would be completely blocked by lantern NPCs multiple times over, forcing me to wait for each one.

Cerotonin · July 2019

I find the sacraments pretty easy because you’re not spending time picking locks.

I don’t like some heists though. Some guards in the hallways move SO slow or they don’t complete their rounds and don’t actually give enough room to pass. You’re forced to fall into their detection.

Sometimes if I get annoyed, I kill everyone in the map and then restart lol

FrancisCrawford · July 2019

I have a rather fully loaded sneak build:

Khajit Nightblade
Vampire
Night Terror, Darloc Brae, and Night Mother's Embrace
7 medium armor
Swift trait on the jewels

Absent a lantern or flare trap, I seem to be totally invisible when crouched, even when I literally bump into an NPC.

I also have two screens on my PC, so I can call up the UESP maps of where the sacrament hidden passages are. (Example: https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Online:Sewer_Tenement, although in that case I didn't figure out until I googled a forum post that you're supposed to take a flying leap into an ivy "wall".

With all that, my main problem is lanterns and flare traps, especially on heists. Sometimes I just don't see them. Sometimes I think a guard just happens to turn a lantern on when I get near. (If that's impossible in theory, then I'm here to tell you that in practice there's a UI glitch.)

A secondary problem is that I can take a wrong turn or fall or whatever, and have difficulties finding my way out. (UI, again.)

I definitely think that making sure you can actually see what's around you is important. It also helps to be good at at least two of:

Having the patience to use hiding places.
Squeezing through narrow areas outside a lantern's circle.
Judging when you can safely be force-destealthed, e.g. be illuminated by a lantern and still not seen, or be seen and just run away.

barney2525 · July 2019

Neoealth wrote: »

But I just hate heists and sacraments in this game. The sacraments are marginally less annoying than the heists, but not by much. I normally love the thieves guild and dark brother hood content in TES games, but in ESO the missions are in intolerable. As someone else who made an complaint post about them recently, they used the word "lousy" and I agree wholeheartedly.

Where do I start. Lets start with sacraments. The blade of woe is really clunky, you can sneak up behind a potential victim, and the blade of woe will take forever to engage, making that stupid noise it makes and by the time it finally is ready to use, the npc will either spin 180 on their heels and spot you or those f-ing annoying lantern patrols will show up. It makes it all the more worse 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.

Those lantern patrols....there are way too many of them. And why do they still alert if you sneak behind them? Do they have eyes in the back on their head? Not only that, but their radius is huge and the cave path ways they patrol are often so narrow which means they take all the space, no room to sneak past, you have to wait while they loiter and scratch their butts. On sacraments annoying when you only have a short while to get out before the overseer arrives, and just flat out game killing for heists where every second counts.

The heists are by far the most annoying, rage inducing and non fun elements of this game. The npcs are everywhere, they all blend into the back ground colours, i'm often bumping into them without even noticing them. The traps are very much the same. The time limit is far to restrictive for the amount of patrols and traps. The penalty for being seen it way too harsh. I just hate everything about it.

I am big enough to admit that I might just not be very good at it, but the content is so frustrating, so annoying, so not fun that trying to get better at them just feels like pulling out my teeth and pouring salt into my eye balls might be a more enjoyable past time.

I'm only doing them for the event tickets, after that I'm done. I just sprint through the heists now, killing them all, every time i melt one of those patrols with my spells, i give a little manic grin. I HATE THEM *anakin skywalker moment*

Sorry for the rant, this is clearly a venting post.

I would like to disagree... BUT.... I Can't.

Absolutely everything said here is correct.

I went to the extra effort to make gear so I could move at normal speed while sneaking And had extremely limited detection arcs with my Kajiit. Didn't make a tinkers darn bit of difference.

I'd like to add my issues with the complete garbage they call a location system. You pop up a map, it shows you literally Nothing. No targets for your quest. So you use the bar at the top of the GUI. While it has a black background you get a direction - UNTIL, AND FOR NO REASON - It changes to a dark green and literally shows Nothing except the 4 directions.

I was doing the heists and sacraments for tickets, and I am kind of stubborn about this type of thing. But it is such a waste of time and is so aggravating that I just quit doing them and said skrugee the tickets. This is NOT worth playing.

Heists should not have any time limit whatsoever. Sacraments should not have any exit time limit whatsoever. The whole concept should be based on Stealth and Intelligence, not on 'Run, Forest, Run'.

Edit: Oh yeah, additional pet peeve on this. Despite it being an instanced situation, killing the NPCs is an irrelevant strategy. They respawn in less than a minute. So you can't just clear some out and plan your quick exit.

IMHO

barney2525 · July 2019

FrancisCrawford wrote: »

I have a rather fully loaded sneak build:
Khajit Nightblade

Vampire

Night Terror, Darloc Brae, and Night Mother's Embrace

7 medium armor

Swift trait on the jewels

Absent a lantern or flare trap, I seem to be totally invisible when crouched, even when I literally bump into an NPC.

I also have two screens on my PC, so I can call up the UESP maps of where the sacrament hidden passages are. (Example: https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Online:Sewer_Tenement, although in that case I didn't figure out until I googled a forum post that you're supposed to take a flying leap into an ivy "wall".

With all that, my main problem is lanterns and flare traps, especially on heists. Sometimes I just don't see them. Sometimes I think a guard just happens to turn a lantern on when I get near. (If that's impossible in theory, then I'm here to tell you that in practice there's a UI glitch.)

A secondary problem is that I can take a wrong turn or fall or whatever, and have difficulties finding my way out. (UI, again.)

I definitely think that making sure you can actually see what's around you is important. It also helps to be good at at least two of:
Having the patience to use hiding places.

Squeezing through narrow areas outside a lantern's circle.

Judging when you can safely be force-destealthed, e.g. be illuminated by a lantern and still not seen, or be seen and just run away.

It's hard when there is no consistency with the NPCs. I've gone into hiding, popped out and suddenly you can't see the lantern NPCs ring around them. I had to come out of crouch and immediately crouch again in order to see the ring. WTF is That all about?

Nevasca · July 2019

The laterns are such a frustating gameplay element. Seriously. It just delays you, it forces you to wait in a non-fun way. The ones that are in small corridors and force you to hide in the baskets are the worst, it is so annoying. And that's the thing, it's not hard to do that, just annoying. I honestly wish we had to be more careful about more traps instead, or maybe looking for different routes more often, instead of having to wait in the basket because someone has a lantern.

FrancisCrawford · July 2019

CeroSerotonin wrote: »

I find the sacraments pretty easy because you’re not spending time picking locks.

I don’t like some heists though. Some guards in the hallways move SO slow or they don’t complete their rounds and don’t actually give enough room to pass. You’re forced to fall into their detection.

Sometimes if I get annoyed, I kill everyone in the map and then restart lol

Locks should be bashed, not picked. Of course, you need to grind high Legerdemain to do that efficiently.

Nordic__Knights · July 2019

Completed Frist blood 6/15/2016.
Completed Silencer 6/18/2016.
Completed Flawless Sacrament 6/16/2019
3 years of doing it everyday as if it was crafting to get db 100% needing 1 named kill for kill list of quest for an year an an half at ,92%for Thieves Guild missing Master of Shadows funny im an nb main has been both magic and stam but yet something always gots to see me no matter what pots going slow hell an 🐌 faster then just to try in hopes for once maybe but nope 😢

Vizikul · July 2019

You don't have to sneak when you complete the heists. You can just rush straight through and still have the chance to gain the tier 2 rewards.

https://1drv.ms/v/s!AsWY2DMyfhkahiKGdq-mUrDtb6gJ

ThisIsAKnife · July 2019

In sacraments you can kill without alerting if it is fast enough. My main isn't NB. bow + pot + snipe (if npc back is facing you, kills almost right away); they will alert if they don't die after 2 snipes. Kill ones in your way and finish quick enough and they won't respawn in time on way back. Makes it very easy. Figured it out trying to do these when they first came out.

As for heists, when I was getting used to them, I used ravage health pots to my advantage. Hit trap + ravage health > die, re spawn past guard, rinse and repeat. Suppose can ensure no food or take off clothes if you want health lower but usually enough traps to do it. All memorized now so I don't need to but ravage health makes it very easy.

Elwendryll · July 2019

I just want to add here that I play khajiit Stamina Sorcerer. Without potions, and I have no issue completing any mission in 3-4 min max. It's practice, really. And khajiit being BiS, I know, they have to be somewhere, right? Invisibility is overkill and helps when you don't know the patterns yet. I still didn't bother to get tickets during this event.

shadyjane62 · July 2019

I did the first day and remembered I hated this part of the game with ferocity. so I just stopped going there. Have a great day.

Llaren_Uvayn · July 2019

I levelled DB and TG on one toon and vowed never to do those quests ever again on any toon so I didn't bother with the event.