Stealth in ESO: Broken or what?

[TyJW92295]

Is me, or is stealth super ♥♥♥♥♥♥ up in ESO? I can't tell if I'm just that bad, or it's normal for an NPC to just randomly see me from behind...ALL THE TIME? Is it normal for me to just randomly pop out of stealth, or for people to just randomly be alerted to my presence when I'm about 60-80 yards away? Why does stealth suck so bad in this game compared to other Elder Scrolls games? I used to be able to sneak around (and murder) NPC's from far away, sneak behind walls, barrels, and other normally not seethough objects, but for whatever reason in ESO, the NPC detection is that of an X-ray machine. What is going on? Do I just not know how to sneak in ESO, or is this mechanic so broken that it's virtually useless for ESO?

[Tykero980]

Its definately a more realistic stealth. If you make a bunch of noise drawing your weapons right behind them or jump around people notice you from a lot farther away. Its not like other mmo's like WoW where you are invisible unless you are within a certain range of the mob.

[oddbasket]

Skill points spent in stealthy talents do make a difference such as the one for Khajit and Wood Elf.

Just earlier, I was in the same thielf guild mission with a Dark Elf sorcerer on my Khajit Night Blade, and I kept having to get out of the way because the other player kept triggering the NPCs and guards.

[TyJW92295]

My main concern is not that "I can stand infront of them and they can't see me because I have level 100 stealth" or "i can spalsh in water and they can't hear me (which by the way, they apparently can't)", it's moreso about the fact that I make sure to not draw weapons, or splash in water, or do anything you wouldn't do in real life to make noise, because even taking every precaution, they somehow notice me. I can't even exist in the same room without them somehow noticing me with their back turned.

[oddbasket]

I didn't really have such issues playing through the Thieves' Guild mission (ESO+ trial), as long as I'm out side of detection range, even when I pass right in front of NPCs. The only times I was detected was bad timeing when they turned around or when an NPC was facing me when entering doors.

There is an issue with entering NPC's homes outside of quests which I've noticed when it shows you as hidden but the NPC will immediately talk as if you have been detected when you have not.

[Exilyth]

Stealth is not well implemented - while enemies have more detection on the front than on the back (which is good), they can detect you through certain walls and items (which is bad). That some enemies 'wander' around without proper patrol pathes, making them turn randomly makes matters worse. That many locations are cramped corridors and that enemies have idle animations which can lead to them being positioned leaning on a wall near a corridor junction so they can not be seen before walking into their field of detection does not help either. ESO is the worst elder scrolls title in terms of stealth gameplay.

But enough ranting, let's see what can be done to make stealth a bit less bad:
- It seems like staying in the shadows and avoiding light sources helps with avoiding detection.
- Medium armor has skills to reduce the detection radius.
- Bosmer have racial skills to reduce detection radius
- the nightblade class has shadow abillities, e.g. shadow cloak gives invisibility for 2.5 sec
- invisibility potions can be crafted via alchemy

[Wolfstorm]

Completely broken. You enter a house, undetected, and listen to the npcs saying to you to leave.

Also, the time for the bounties to expire is too big. A minor mistake already give you a $100+ bounty, and this takes 30 minutes to cool down. I think ZOS want us to play another stealth game, from the competitors, while the bounty is active.

And the justice system is the same for every province of Cyrodiil, even provinces from other alliances. That is a very lazy design.

[Keyrala]

I maxed outh stealth in one character, i can sneak about 3 metters away on front of people and they don't see me.

But every often a while it happens that everyone can see me from behind, throught walls or even people that are not even near.

It also happens that with 85% chances to steal i keep missing all the time but with a character with no stealth or anything and only 40% chances to steal it works.

The game has it times for sure

[Requimatic]

Originally posted by Keyrala:

I maxed outh stealth in one character, i can sneak about 3 metters away on front of people and they don't see me.

But every often a while it happens that everyone can see me from behind, throught walls or even people that are not even near.

It also happens that with 85% chances to steal i keep missing all the time but with a character with no stealth or anything and only 40% chances to steal it works.

The game has it times for sure

The passives for Sneak make a massive difference, believe it or not.

Try doing some Dark Brotherhood Assassinations, or Thieve's Guild Heists, without them.. you will have a bad time.

As for the pickpocket thing, though.. yeah, that's annoying. I just recently maxed out the Legerdemain pickpocket skill, and it is lovely. No longer have to wait for the *DING* for chances to reach 100% on most normal NPCs.

Other NPCs still have a higher chance to detect you, though, like guards.. but they've got some good stuff in their pockets.. usually.

I do feel like the Justice System needs another once-over, though.. it feels stale at this point and could use a rework.

A Fame/Infamy system would be fantastic.. where if you performed too many infamous acts, you could have a bounty taken out on your head and have "famed" characters chasing you around trying to kill you. The bad part about a system like that would be you pretty much couldn't go in to any city, as the guards would immediately destroy you. Perhaps such a system would bring about the "no more immortal guard" change a lot of folks want.

Then again, there's a lot more wrong with the game (bug/performance-wise) that I'd rather see fixed than any more content at all, no matter how neat it is.

I'd give up a year's worth of content for them to fix bugs that have existed since the beta, and optimize the game including DX12 API support.

Oh, how wonderful that would be..

Also, dedicated servers. At least a couple more. This "megaserver" garbage has got to go.

[oddbasket]

Originally posted by Requimatic:

Originally posted by Keyrala:

I maxed outh stealth in one character, i can sneak about 3 metters away on front of people and they don't see me.

But every often a while it happens that everyone can see me from behind, throught walls or even people that are not even near.

It also happens that with 85% chances to steal i keep missing all the time but with a character with no stealth or anything and only 40% chances to steal it works.

The game has it times for sure

The passives for Sneak make a massive difference, believe it or not.

Try doing some Dark Brotherhood Assassinations, or Thieve's Guild Heists, without them.. you will have a bad time.

This. I did the thieves guild dark brotherhood starter quests on my characters to unlock the skill lines, and it's so easy to get detect.

However my lvl 50 khajiit night blade can sneak in front past NPCs undetected much easier, making the missions easy.

The passive talents so make a significant difference. Don't expect stealth to work as well without investing in it.

[oddbasket]

I'd just did the the 1st assassinate mission for Dark Brotherhood on a breton templar. Racked over 3k bounty. Not from being caught while sneaking, but from using blade of woe.

Without stealth passive, when I use blade of woe, halfway through the kill animation I would go from hidden to detected because the proximity was too close.

In short, successful blade of woe kills are sometimes failures giving you bounties instead without stealth passives. This one is more unreasonable.

[Keyrala]

When you use blade of WOE you lose stealth, and people in around a 20 metters radious can detect you, you're supposed to only use it when nobody is around.

I don't even bother with heists they see me throught walls even when i maxed my stealth skills, also you can't use blade of WoE in heists either they will reduce your timer even if there is noone around.

In heists i just run around killing literally everything i don't really care it's a lot waste of time waiting forl ike 1 minute for those guys with the blue aura to move away just for another one take their place in less than 5 seconds. Some of the chests are placed right on top of those AFK blue aura guys and they give you less than 5 seconds to lockpick and steal everything before someone else walks near, even if you get a perfect forced lock the animatino and such takes way longer than 5 seconds to take the stuff from them.

Plus many many planks that i clip throught or they just randomly pushes my character away as if they had some sort of hidden spring (not talking about traps but weird physics glitches on planks in heists)

[oddbasket]

Originally posted by Keyrala:

When you use blade of WOE you lose stealth, and people in around a 20 metters radious can detect you, you're supposed to only use it when nobody is around.

That's not what I'm talking about. It's against single targets, basically, the person I'm killing in the animation is the one that detected me and gave me a bounty before I go back into hiding after his death.

Since it was a mission in a restricted area, it would have been different if I was detected by a nearby enemy since combat will ensue.

It doesn't happen on my lvl 50 Khajiit nightblade.

[Keyrala]

It never happened me before, the only place where i get bounty for woeing a lonely enemy is in heists...

I even do it with my clumsy mage wich has no stealth skills, i kill everybody with woe even NPCs in cities because i calculate the distance and i never get detected

You probably had a random bug as once i had this bug where anyone could detect me from behind lol

[oddbasket]

Originally posted by Keyrala:

You probably had a random bug as once i had this bug where anyone could detect me from behind lol

Yeah, it seems so, just about every kill triggered a bounty, it must have bugged out. I just did the same mission again on a lvl 12 Warden, and every kill was smooth.

[Keyrala]

When this happens again try to remember what you did to trigger this issue and if it can be reproduced multiple times then they will fix it quickly with those details