Locked chest ninjas

MatthewCKemp · April 2014

Can you do something about the locked box ninja's. You know the ones that stand around you, then steal the loot before you have a chance to loot the box yourself after you have just unlock it.

I know Devs don't like the word NINJA, but what else are you meant to call them? thieving griefer maybe?

Maybe make the chests bound to whoever unlocks it, or better still for the chest to auto loot once you unlock the pins in the chest.

Would normally report a player who carries out this kind of behaviour, but its really hard to know who did it when there are several people stood around you.

starkerealm · April 2014

Are they actually swiping the stuff out of it while you have the loot window open? Because that shouldn't be possible.

If you abandon the chest, and mess with your inventory before going back, that's unprotected.

Endolith · April 2014

An inventory overflow would solve the problem of going back to inventory. If someone happens to be full and didn't realize it, just send the items they loot into the overflow temporarily until they delete some things from their bag. If they don't delete within a set amount of time, put the items back.

Rhoric · April 2014

Also you can auto loot. The feature is in the Interface settings I believe. When I unlock a chest, I don't even have to hit E to open it up. It will open it up by itself and loot everything with out opening any windows.

starkerealm · April 2014

Rhoric wrote: »

Also you can auto loot. The feature is in the Interface settings I believe. When I unlock a chest, I don't even have to hit E to open it up. It will open it up by itself and loot everything with out opening any windows.

It is. It's under Settings -> Gameplay, I think.

It's not a panacea, because there's no internal mechanism to tell you what you looted, and it can make filling your inventory with crap way too easy. But, it is an option.

SirAndy · April 2014

starkerealm wrote: »

Are they actually swiping the stuff out of it while you have the loot window open? Because that shouldn't be possible.

@starkerealm
Unfortunately, this is possible and people abusing it to get free loot without having to pick any locks...

MatthewCKemp · April 2014

They are standing there and keep clicking on the chest before you get a chance to click it. so a small lag spike as you come from the screen with the lock pins back to normal view and you loss the chest.

Rhoric · April 2014

Yeah but it saves you from getting ninja looted and just check what you got afterwards and delete what you don't want.

MatthewCKemp · April 2014

Very frustrating if you manage to pick a Master chest, just to loss it to one of these players.

starkerealm · April 2014

SirAndy wrote: »

starkerealm wrote: »

Are they actually swiping the stuff out of it while you have the loot window open? Because that shouldn't be possible.

@starkerealm
Unfortunately, this is possible and people abusing it to get free loot without having to pick any locks...

I think you misunderstood. The mechanics of the game don't allow you to loot something while someone else is actually looting that container. If they are, it's an indication that they're actually running a cheat of some sort.

If you go to loot something, and then have to step back, and mess with your inventory, that's normal behavior.

EDIT: This isn't true of shared containers like trunks or wardrobes, but it is true of treasure chests.

MatthewCKemp · April 2014

I have auto loot enable it doesn't work on the chest, I still have to click on the chest once it is opened, then it auto loots

Fenbrae · April 2014

It's kind of weird that people have to click the chest a second time in order to claim the loot.
I don't use the autoloot option, but it automatically opens the loot screen for me after picking the lock.
I have had people crowded around the chest at points and i believe they never were able to nick my chest because i was in the "looting animation".

Rhoric · April 2014

That's weird cause it works for me. I will have to go in game and see if it didn't get broken as I did chests just this morning before server maintenance.

starkerealm · April 2014

Fenbrae wrote: »

It's kind of weird that people have to click the chest a second time in order to claim the loot.
I don't use the autoloot option, but it automatically opens the loot screen for me after picking the lock.
I have had people crowded around the chest at points and i believe they never were able to nick my chest because i was in the "looting animation".

This has been my experience too... I don't know what's going on here. If there's some setting that's keeping people from having control over the chest, or... what?

MatthewCKemp · April 2014

Could it be some bug maybe? seems some of you auto loot instantly, but others like myself have to click on the chest afterwards to get the loot even with auto loot enabled.

Dunhilda · April 2014

I opened a number of Master Locks that I can now open then very fast, trust me the chest loot are rubbish.

Bansheedragon · April 2014

Endolith wrote: »

An inventory overflow would solve the problem of going back to inventory. If someone happens to be full and didn't realize it, just send the items they loot into the overflow temporarily until they delete some things from their bag. If they don't delete within a set amount of time, put the items back.

I had this happen to me yesterday.
I didnt know my inventory was almost full since I always use auto loot.
I ended up being 1 inventory slot short for all items in the chest.
While I was in my inventory trying to make space for that last item, someone else ran in and swiped it.

I dont see any reason to cry about it.
It happened and I cant really do anything about it, it was only a green chest piece and though I could have used it for deconstruction or research, it was not a loss I'm gonna cry over.

But an overflow thing like you suggested would be a nice thing to have to avoid situations like this and give people time to make space for the items.

I know STO operates with something like this and I found it very useful when my inventory is full.

Also, having a chest bound to whoever unlocks it would be nice to avoid the kind of thieving ninjas mentioned by the OP.

mrwilson714_ESO · April 2014

I also have to click the chest after unlocking. I have auto loot enabled. It has never auto looted a chest for me.

SirAndy · April 2014

starkerealm wrote: »

I think you misunderstood. The mechanics of the game don't allow you to loot something while someone else is actually looting that container. If they are, it's an indication that they're actually running a cheat of some sort.

If you go to loot something, and then have to step back, and mess with your inventory, that's normal behavior.

@starkerealm
Actually, i had this happen several times with chests (I don't use auto loot).

I unlock the chest with someone is standing around. The loot window pops up showing the contents. The other player runs away. I hit "Take all" and the loot window closes. I go to my inventory and the items aren't there. The other player is out of range by now.

I'm pretty sure there is a short window where a "ninja" player can sneak in and grab the content of the chest from under you while the server has already sent off the item list to your client.
Meaning, you get the loot display but in reality that loot was already taken by the other player.
;-)

zhevon · April 2014

Not sure whats happening - but frankly I avoid chests with one or more people near because I assume they are going picking the locks at some point.

However, there is certainly annoying chest behaviour out there and if you are not getting the loot once the loot window is up (not due to inventory overload) .... thats bad.

Wicked_Wolf · April 2014

I wouldn't even know about this since I haven't seen a chest since level 4. Seriously, I explore EVERYWHERE and the few times I actually do spot a chest, another player beats me to it.

MatthewCKemp · April 2014

Just had to laugh to myself. Now I have mentioned this on the forums, I just had my first chest auto loot. So guessing it is some UI bug which is causing this auto loot to fail.

Bansheedragon · April 2014

MatthewCKemp wrote: »

Just had to laugh to myself. Now I have mentioned this on the forums, I just had my first chest auto loot. So guessing it is some UI bug which is causing this auto loot to fail.

My experience is that its a bit hit and miss on this.
Sometimes it auto loots, other times it dont.
So it could be there is a bug in the system.

Chest bound to whoever opened it, and some kind of inventory overflow would be great to have.

WilliamTee · April 2014

i liked in other TES games where you could go over your inventory capacity with loots by a certain amount, but you just couldn't run, etc, once you had done so...

You either had to walk your way back to town, or take a potion that allowed you to carry more stuff and try to get home before it ran out... would provide a nice bit of flexibility for situations such as this.

Bansheedragon · April 2014

WilliamTee wrote: »

i liked in other TES games where you could go over your inventory capacity with loots by a certain amount, but you just couldn't run, etc, once you had done so...

You either had to walk your way back to town, or take a potion that allowed you to carry more stuff and try to get home before it ran out... would provide a nice bit of flexibility for situations such as this.

I loved that when I played Skyrim.
I would use a potion, fast travel to a town and then slow walk to a vendor and sell the stuff.

Srugzal · April 2014

starkerealm wrote: »

Rhoric wrote: »

Also you can auto loot. The feature is in the Interface settings I believe. When I unlock a chest, I don't even have to hit E to open it up. It will open it up by itself and loot everything with out opening any windows.

It is. It's under Settings -> Gameplay, I think.

It's not a panacea, because there's no internal mechanism to tell you what you looted, and it can make filling your inventory with crap way too easy. But, it is an option.

The solution to that is Loot Drop - tells you what you got. And also Wykkyd's Framework, which gives a toolbar that has, among other things, a slots used / slots available display. Both are on Minion (from Esohead.com)

Tipsy · May 2014

If you engage with mobs guarding the chest you should get the rights to the chest as long as the mobs guarding the chest do not kill you

pokebreaker · May 2014

Tipsy wrote: »

If you engage with mobs guarding the chest you should get the rights to the chest as long as the mobs guarding the chest do not kill you

When picking locked chests, after successfully picking the lock, it automatically starts looting the box, without you have to do anything else ( I know because I let it happen everytime). It may not auto-loot it straight to your inventory, but it does bring up the loot window for you to select the items. While that loot window is open for you, another player cannot loot the chest, due to it already being interacted with, similar to trying to simultaneously loot a gathering node; if one person starts, nobody else can start, UNLESS the initial looter drops from the loot window for whatever reason (inventory management, character screen, etc.)

In the case of a Lock Box, if another player finds the chest as well, then it is fair game for them to capitalize on your failures; whether it be picking the lock after you failed to, or taking the contents because you were in a rush to get there first, and didn't realize you didn't have room for the potential items. Afterall, they found the box as well. It's not like when you found it, you put out some beacon advertising that boxes' location to someone in another zone. They were in the same area, possibly going for it as well, but you happened to get to it first (probably laughing maniacally).

reggielee · May 2014

it does autoloot if you have that enabled but there is a small blip of time where it asks you to press r to loot before it autoloots, i do that anyway to prevent ninjas.

but frankly, if someone is around a chest that means you ran a race to it with them and its a competition then. if i see someone working on a chest or heading for it then i move on out of politeness. if i see someone come up to me while im picking it then i make sure to press that r immediately after picking it as i dont expect others to have manners

and yah, master and advanced havent dropped anything good for me once.

KerinKor · May 2014

starkerealm wrote: »

It's not a panacea, because there's no internal mechanism to tell you what you looted,

Yes there is .. open the inventory and sort 'new items' to the top or bottom as you want.

Juponen · May 2014

Picking the lock gives xp, so why would anyone wait for another to pick it unless out of lockpics...and how's that possible, they drop everywhere.
Guarded chests: I've seen players popping from hiding nearby and rushing to pick it while I engage the mobs. Annoying, but really no big deal.