This is some potentially-critical auditing for the Unofficial Dawnguard Patch.

Now, if you play Dawnguard on the Xbox 360 (and only if you play on the Xbox 360), I need you to tell me if you have had trouble getting a murder to register for the radiant vampire sidequest, "Deceiving the Herd."

I am not interested in whether or not you had trouble with the optional objectives of wearing Dawnguard armor or getting a high-profile kill, or if the quest triggered prematurely. I am only interested in knowing if you killed a person and no objective came up indicating that the kill "counted", within the following paramenters:

• you were not using the Ebony Blade to kill someone who liked you
  
• you were outside of buildings (i.e., on the streets)
  
• you (or a follower currently acting as a teammate -- sneaks when you do, draws their weapon when you do, can be ordered around, etc.) dealt the killing blow

Also, please tell me if, after you had had a kill register, you could not place the note on the body.

Please be as specific as possible with your descriptions. At minimum, tell me who you killed, what city, and whereabouts in that city was the deed done.

If you play on the PC and have mods (other than the Unofficial Patches) active, I would like you to deactivate your active mods files and try again. Tell me if the kill registers this time.

PC, no Unofficial Patch or external mods (and from your last comment I take it you want feedback from more than just Xbox 360 users?)
My very first Deceiving the Herd was for Markarth where I killed Thonar Silverblood because he was hanging around where 'Escape from Cidhna Mine' ended, and I wanted to kill him at the time but didn't. I wore the Dawnguard gear and kited him into the populated marketplace. I got the kill and was able to plant the note, but did not get the bonus objectives. All of my other kills since then have been on guards and I've achieved all bonus objectives except the 'high profile victim' - so it's working properly for me now.

It may have just been because Thonar was bugged to stand around that Deceiving the Herd didn't work properly.

It's, shall we say, a little debate between Arthmoor and myself. He says that he's got reports saying that the quest needs a dramatic restructuring to work as intended; I say that the problem stems from stray or intentional SM node edits in a user's mods. It certainly doesn't help that too many PC users immediately blame Bethesda for any errors when in fact such issues are caused by mods (in particular, Arthmoor said that problems people were reporting were dubious, un-repeatable; in one example, problems with the vampire lord form were caused by the improper uninstallation of a vampire-related mod).

The assumption is that, if an Xbox player has no problem getting the kill to register (the crux of our contention), then it must be PC-specific and therefore likely mod-caused.

I'm not terribly interested in the optional objectives, since they are, shall we call them, "icing on the cake" and are not related to that fundamental problem.

Now, in response to Thonar: he is influential story-wise but not game-wise; the quest uses a list of "priority" factions that include things like factions for merchants, ruling government, exiled government, bards, etc. Thonar is not in any of these factions and so doesn't count as high-priority.

Some people have problems with merchants not registering as high-priority even though Feran says they are. I believe that this is related to the backup merchants -- normally, the merchant faction transfers to the backup when the original merchant dies, so as far as the game is concerned, your kill was never a merchant and therefore not high-priority.

Thank you for responding. This helps my side, but it's hardly conclusive.

Well if it helps you at all, I've completed this miscellaneous objective without issue (all guards) exactly 10 times. Yes I counted. It feels like a lot more.

I've completed this quest on my Xbox 360 multiple times and never run into a problem.Unfortunately, I cannot remember all of them because I tended to kill guards so I didn't have to make my cities bare of NPCs. The most memorable was the first time I did it. The assignment was in Whiterun and I wasn't really thinking too hard about who I was going to kill. I recall it being one of the Grey-Mane's that I settled on, as my character sides with the Empire and I figured "Why not?" Did the deed out on the street in front of the Temple of Kynareth, no sneaking. Planted the letter with no problems. That is the only time I have ever met the high priority requirement for the quest, as I decided guards were the best option. That or couriers that wouldn't leave me alone. Regardless, I have never killed a target anywhere other than out on the streets and I have never had a problem planting the note.