Stealth, Stealing, and guards

[Sylosis]

The stealth system in this game is starting to be frustrating for me… Maybe I just don’t get it, but there are weird things going on.

For instance, I can’t be stealthy, even on “supposedly easy occasions”. I sneak behind people, yet they always see me. Even being in sneaky stance, behind a sleeping person, and just standing there doing nothing, I’ll wake them up… And I’m not in full plate armor either. Why is this happening?

Every pickpocketing mission is therefore impossible or requires multiple reloads to finally achieve.

And, the other thing… Is it me or the Horse inventory is linked to the player’s inventory? When I steal stuff, I send it to my horse inventory, thinking guards would not see it. But, sometimes they do, sometimes they don’t… Maybe 50% of the time they’ll say they caught stolen stuff on me though it’s all on my horse. Some other times, they’ll say everything is fine.

And, some stolen items suddenly show as not stolen… is there a timer on stolen stuff. Like after some days they aren’t stolen anymore?

I just had to pay 50$ to the Gamekeeper cause he taught I was poaching while I wasn’t… but there was a stolen pelt on my horse…

So ya, I’m wondering if I’m the only dumb retard with such issues and therefore, probably doing something wrong… or if it’s a known problem?

[Fifavenue]

I think knocking out sleeping people doesnt work well. Thet always open thier eyes in rhe process. I have pickpocketed the ballif while hes sitting down. I also have silent shoes no metal armor when stealthing.

[Sylosis]

Well I switch to a complete cloth gear when I wanna stealth. And indeed I also had issues of them waking up as I try to knock them out. But, even standing still, behind them, is enough to wake them…

So I have no idea how the stealth system is designed for this game.

[spada]

@Sylosis I’ve had some issues with guards and stops as well. not so much now that i have some money, you can always just bribe them usually only 20 groschen to not search you or I read one article where if they approach you and you get the prompt to surrender if you just open your inventory and drop anything stolen before surrendering even if you do it right in front of the guard they will give you a clean pass. The only trick is if you want to pick it all up again it will still be labeled as stolen so you have to make sure no one is watching or you’ll get caught so I did try running to more of an ally first and dropping everything and it worked fine. You can also just run away for a bit and hurry to a vendor and sell all your stolen stuff before surrendering. But both those strategies seem like cheating the game a bit.

[spada]

As for alerting people, stealth depends on three of your stats that I can figure out. Noise is important and then the visibility and conspicuousness play a role too. What i’ve found is that with a noise of 0 (basically unequip everything except maybe a shirt, play around with your available clothing and see what each piece gives you) even early in the game I could sneak up to people or chests and try to lockpick or pickpocket once. However, even if you opened the chest on the first try I had to hurry and grab what i wanted then leave the room or move into a corner if i had really low visibility and hide as anyone sleeping nearby would wake up. Usually they’d just go back to bed and you can continue on; however, if you’re trying to open a chest or pickpocket a person when they are close together or when two people are close together you for sure had to split it up. You can get one, but then leave cause the person will get up and you just have to patiently wait for them to go back to sleep before going back to get more loot.
Also two specific answers about horse inventory and if stolen goods have a timer.
yes stolen goods have a timer, if you steal stuff and stash it away in a chest it goes faster and after a few days will no longer be listed as stolen. Also if you take stolen goods from one town and ride to a different town the stolen goods symbol will disappear or disappear very quickly. As for the horse inventory and keeping stolen goods there I’ve actually tried a couple experiments paying attention to stolen items I have and by total weight in my and the horse’s inventories. I put some stolen good in my horse’s inventory and then let a guard stop me and he said he found stolen items and took them from me but when I checked everything was still with the horse. The only negative is that maybe your reputation goes down a little in the town, but I tried several times and even though they stopped me and said they had confiscated stolen goods they were still in my horse’s inventory.

[spada]

the stealth still seems wonky but the main fact is to have a noise rating as low as possible, i’ve been able to sneak about a full bandit camp during the day as long as I avoided direct line of sight when I had a noise of 0 or <5

[Fifavenue]

I was sneaking through houses but had armor on and i woke people up on a different floor. Cut my noise down and same people didn’t wake up. (both times on different floor)