Let me say first that I love stealth games. I've been playing them since the original Dark Project and I find there's a lot to love. I still play them regularly, I've aced Styx a bunch of times. I've come to understand what amounts to gameplay excellence, I'm genre savvy, and I brought that understanding to ESO. Now, I'm not really expecting ESO to be the second coming of Thief: Deadly Shadows (which was good, especially with player mods, unlike THI4F), but I did have certain expectations.
So this brings me to the Thieves Guild DLC and trespassing gameplay. I certainly have thoughts to offer; And as much as it saddens me to say this? The cotent itself is fairly terrible. I feel it even lessens the quality of the overall game; But please, let me explain why.
PREFACE
Abah's Landing is a beautiful city; The area is fun to explore, I love the verticality and its maze-like nature. Aesthetics and narrative are never aspects that the Zenimax creative team have had problems with, in fact, the Theives Guild exemplifies just how talented these people are.
The problem -- as is usually the case -- is in the execution of gameplay ideas.
A GOOD STEALTH GAME
There are a few pledges made between designer and player with a stealth game. These are almost a sacrament in nature, as strictured in realisation as the gun play of any first person shooter. There are certain factors which must be present in order for a stealth game to be considered as such; Let alone as a good one, and one that people would actually want to play.
So, let's look at the basics:
- Interesting environments to explore;
- Hiding spots to escape the view of prying eyes;
- Proper enemy management tools;
- And excellent sound design.
Let's look at each of these in order.
ENVIRONMENTS
Here's an area where ZOS tends to excel, this is especially true if the Covenant team isn't involved (I'm sorry, but Wrothgar and the Covenant areas aren't exactly the most compelling environments). The Thieves Guild content has fun locales to sneakily saunter around.
There are even multiple paths to approach the content; Some of which are tricks, others are to cater to people with different playstyles. I respect and admire the forethought that went into the environment design in this regard.
So ESO passes on this point.
FUN STEALING
The descriptions of the stolen items are very entertaining; And we can actually acquire clothing items that can't be found anywhere else in the game. The rewards for theft actually feel fulfilling and rewarding. In fact, I'd say that ESO does as well with this as any other thief game I've played. It's a shame that there are no fun items standing out in the world to be pilfered (I'd love to steal a painting from a frame, roll it up, and make away with it) but the lack of that is understandable. Ultimately ESO is still an MMO.
So, once again, top marks for effort.
HIDING SPOTS
Things go a little awry here but it's still okay for the most part. I think that some of the hiding spots are too hidden for what they should be offering to a player who's found themself in a bad situation. Furthermore, cover doesn't always work as it should. Guards and
especially NPCs shouldn't be able to see around corners or through a vanity screen.
Still, much of this is forgiveable because there are at least the baskets. So ESO barely scrapes by. Just barely, but it does.
ENEMY MANAGEMENT
And here's the first strike.
What's the difference between Skyrim and Thief: Deadly Shadows? The only tool you have to deal with people in Skyrim is murdering them. It's a point of shame that ESO is exactly the same. I see players going through trespassing content regularly and murdering people because they simply have no other options.
What could be done about this? I understand it's an MMO, but why is there no mechanic for stunning NPCs -- even guards? Give the player a special weapon which they have to heavy attack with; If they do it successfully it stuns the guard/NPC for a period of time. This allows for better management to give the player some amount of control over patrol routes.
As it is, though, it's absolutely abysmal that there are no tools beyond either trying to escape whilst spamming invisibility potions/dodge rolling or murder. As I've said, I see that most players just opt to murder NPCs from the outset because it's just too much trouble to leave them alive, that's saddening. That's the hallmark of a bad stealth game, one that even gets the most entry-level aspects wrong.
ESO fails, here. Badly. If your only management tool is murder, that's a fail.
SOUND DESIGN
This one's the big one.
It struck me with ESO just how good sound design is in the vast majority of games that have stealth; It actually took how awful ESO is in this regard for me to come to truly appreciate how much effort goes into other games. This is important because of
accessibility. Stealth games are surprisingly accessible to people who have visual disabilities, I'll explain why.
In a good stealth game, you can expect the following:
- Guards muttering to themselves;
- Guards talking to other guards;
- Sounds to indicate that it's safe to pass.
The last one might be difficult to understand, but in a thief game an NPC will be making environment interaction sounds so you know they're distracted. Guards will snore (they'll be asleep) if it's safe to pass them and they're not being too attentive. If a guard is moving they'll make heavily-armoured footstep sounds, their armour will rustle and jangle thanks to its heavy leather and metallic parts. It's incredibly invlved and the effort really informs the player.
Furthermore, NPCs will stop to be social and converse; This includes the guards. Guards will inform other guards that their route is clear, NPCs will stop to chitchat with one another. All of these aspects provide the player with audio cues to explain what's going on in the environment creating a very three-dimensional soundscape that the thief benefits from. I rely on sound so heavily in stealth games that I sometimes feel like Matt Murdock (Daredevil of Marvel comics) in how I traverse the environment, I travel more by my ears than my eyes.
ESO has none of this.
You'll be lucky if the NPCs stop to say anything. The guards are quieter than ghosts. It all adds up to not only an extremely disappointing, unsatisfying stealth experience but also one that's inaccessible to people who're partially sighted. My poor sight is why I prefer stealth games over action games; They're more oriented around listening to the environment and paying attention to sound cues than they are, say, about quick reflexes or precision based upon visual factors.
A three-dimensional soundscape is absolutely paramount to a good stealth game. And ESO doesn't even have one, at all, let alone a bad one. The guards should make so much more noise than they do; They should mutter, check in, and make footstep sounds but they're just so eerily silent. It's like they're not even there right up until they spot you.
A BAD STEALTH GAME
I think it's fair to say that ESO qualifies as a bad stealth game; It's actually worse than Skyrim because even though Skyrim might not have tools to manage one's foes whilst out and about, it does at least have above-average sound design. Damning, faint praise, certainly, but Skyrim barely qualifies as an average stealth game, there's nothing about it that I could say is
good in particular.
If you can't even muster Skyrim's sub par standards, you're doing something profoundly wrong. As we can see from this treatise, it's at least a couple of very particular somethings that the ESO devs sorely need to address.
And as much as it pains me, the bad news doesn't end there.
HELL IS OTHER PEOPLE
I'm mad, Zenimax, about how you have instancing (Haven proves this) but you don't use it for trespassing. Whyever not??
Thanks to how your aggro mechanics work, if someone else who isn't even on my party antagonises a guard, that guard can then turn around and spot me even if I've not personally made any mistakes. That's simply
unacceptable in a stealth game. It's a cardinal sin to punish the player for something outside of their control (trespassing zones should be instanced, Haven-style).
In fact, stealth games should never do anything to the player that's beyond their control. This is why THI4F was considered to be such an awful thief game; Sure, the open world thievery was really fun (I'll give it that, they nailed that), but the missions would have you falling through rooftops beyond your control and thus generating lots of noise. That stressed me out no end. Assassin's Creed has some of the same shortcomings, but I wouldn't call Assassin's Creed a stealth game any more. It stopped being that after the very first game. I'd say its focus now is spectacle, specifically of a parkour nature, but I digress.
The thing is? ESO's trespassing content
could be good. it has potential, and a lot of promise. As it is, it's bad. If this were a stealth game it would be one of the worst I've ever played.
I cannot stress how important it is to have good audio design in a stealth game. There's nothing more important than that; From both a gameplay perspective and an accessibility one. And the lack of tools to manage enemies without murder on top of that (especially since the Thieves Guild is very anti-murder) is abominable. I really hope that Zenimax will do a second pass on this content, because it really deserves better.
I can see how with a proper soundscape and decent enemy management the thieving content could be incredibly fun; Instead of the annoying, frustrating, and poorly designed chore that it is now.
Thanks for reading. (
@ZOS_RichLambert,
@ZOS_GinaBruno)
