[LE] Die, courier, die!

[sylenthyll]

So, I play Skyrim SE on PS4. There are some things that annoy me, sure, but there are mostly mods for those. I absolutely love Skyrim; I've played dozens of RPGs over the years, and I rank it as #1. From a long-time RPGer, that's probably quite a compliment to the devs, considering the incredible number of RPGs out there. Devs, thank you. You're awesome. But I have a question.

 

Can someone please make a mod for SSE PS4 that gets rid of (or at least delays) that stupid courier?!

 

Here are my thoughts:

1. You escape Helgen and it somehow gets back to the Empire. You're now a fugitive, technically speaking; sure, they have more important things to worry about and there's probably no official bounty on your head, but General Tullius figures it out pretty much as soon as you show up - so if you aren't joining the Imperial Army, realistically, you'd still technically be a fugitive, regardless of the reason your head was literally put on the chopping block. So, you lie low until things blow over, right? So how does the courier know who you are on sight if you're so new to Skyrim, and why is he looking for you? Of course the first thing you're gonna do is either run or kill him and then run.

 

2. Lessay you mostly stay out in the wilderness. You rarely come into towns, never go into cities, and you leave people alone so they'll leave you alone. You level up to 10, sure, but that's from doing normal things in the wilderness like practicing alchemy, sneaking and archery for hunting and smithing, etc. So how in Oblivion does the Jarl of Falkreath know your name if you have no renown to speak of?

 

3. So you're fighting a bunch of idiots who decided you look like a rich target. Or you steal something (accidentally or not - target windows for item acquisition are horribly precise sometimes and horribly inaccurate other times, and it can occasionally be difficult to pick up or access something instead of stealing something else) and now you have mercs after you. Why is the courier stupid enough to walk up to you in the middle of a fight and deliver mail to you?! Or is he really just a pacifistic assassin who thinks this is the best way to get you dead and collect the bounty on you? Is he secretly a servant of some daedra lord who thinks it's funny to annoy you, or who just really hates you? What is with this moron? Seriously.

 

In some cases, yeah, it makes sense. The courier is looking for you and can recognize you because he has a knack for faces and names, and you're someone of importance. But sometimes it just makes zero sense. Like the Dawnstar museum? Okay, fine, he's handing that out to everyone, but why make him specifically look for you to give you the ad when the guy running it clearly doesn't know you? And why am I getting letters of inheritance regarding people I've never met and/or that have no connection to me?

 

So, a bit long-winded, but I'm wondering if someone can make a mod for this. My ideas (don't have to use these if you come up with something you think might be better, but I think these are good ones):

1. In order to receive the letter from the Jarl of Falkreath, you have to complete at least one Falkreath quest - either the dog one or maybe that werewolf one. Or maybe you have to clear out Pinewatch or help Valdr. Something like that. Something that gets the attention of the Jarl, however indirectly. Have to be level 10 on top of that, just to suit the vanilla requirement, but that way it makes some kind of sense.

 

2. No "I've been looking for you" when delivering the Dawnstar museum ad. There are plenty of dialogue snippets the courier uses, and that one makes no sense without some form of prerequisite to that particular quest. Or, perhaps you have to complete the Vaermina quest at Nightcaller Temple before you get the ad. Either way. Or both ways.

 

3. No letters of inheritance unless it's about your spouse, housecarl, an NPC you've had as a companion at least once (and is alive prior to getting the letter), or someone you've completed a quest for. That establishes a connection to that NPC, so it might make sense to get a letter of inheritance on their death, as you clearly had a positive enough impression on them at some point to warrant it.

 

4. You have to approach the courier, not the other way around.

 

5. If all else fails, make the courier killable with an option to respawn the next time you go into a city, or at least limit his interactions to certain locations and his movement to a certain space within those locations. So say if you approach the town square near the Temple of Kynareth in Whiterun, for example, he might approach you there. Or maybe the food stalls in or docks near Solitude, or the market district or docks of Windhelm, etc.

 

Like I said, these are just some ideas I have. While it might seem like a minor annoyance, half the time I just end up "murdering" the courier over and over to avoid dealing with him. That gets old fast. So can someone please deal with him in SSE for PS4 for me? Please and much thanks.

Edited December 15, 2022 by sylenthyll

[showler]

Arthmoor's Provincial Courier Service has an option to have mail delivered to your house instead of to you.

[InDarkestNight]

The letters of inheritance are a glitch. They're supposed to only trigger under the circumstances you mentioned. The issue is, the game is rather loose with what it considers to be the player's 'friend'. For instance, calm spells work by bumping up an npc's relationship with you, which means that while they're under the effect the game considers them a 'friend' and thus you'll get a letter of inheritance from them. Of course, I've also gotten these from hostile npcs when I'm playing a character that hasn't used a single illusion spell in their entire life, so that can't be the only cause (though it is far rarer). I think I even received a letter from MYSELF once.

 

I think the unofficial patch may fix some of these, but I'm not sure.

 

Otherwise though, I do agree he needs to be fixed really badly. There's provincial courier service, but that's it. At the very least we could get some epic quest mod for an end-game character where you go on a god-of-war-esque quest to kill the courier. At least that way we could take vengeance on him.

 

On the other hand, I sorta think that maybe the reason he's so annoying is because he's such a common encounter. There was no courier in Oblivion for instance. You did have force greets of course, and most of these were just delivering messages like the courier, but they were far rare and it wasn't just one npc doing it. Also, the only ones I can remember would only approach you within city limits (aka, within a walled interior space), so no couriers coming over and stun-locking you with an unskippable and repetitive conversation right before you ticked off a dragon (or in my case a wolf). In Skyrim this is only made worse by the fact that a lot of mod authors chose to use him to progress quests for you, making encounters with him even more common than they are in vanilla.

 

He's probably the most overlooked character in the entirety of Skyrim modding. I mean, even Nazeem has more mods affecting him. He really needs to get more hate love. He's by far the most annoying aspect of the game, heck maybe in the entirety of gaming history. Its about time someone tried to do SOMETHING to make him less annoying. Maybe at least remove his force-greet. Make him spawn in town and tell you he has a letter, but letting you start the conversation on your own terms rather than the game's. That alone would fix so much, and would also avoid breaking other mods that use him. Provincial courier is nice, but it doesn't notify you when you get mail, so I often forget to go check in with him. I don't even use the mail box feature much since my residence often changes at least two or three times throughout my playthrough. Also, I mostly live in mod houses, so no mailbox anywhere nearby.

[twistedmetal23]

Sometimes i make a mini game out of it, how long can i avoid being approached by the courier, the dawnstar recruiter and the guard's (if you commited a crime).

But seriously the courier seems to be the most annoying npc in all of the ES games. In Oblivion we had the adorable fan and he at least had "some" personality and was killable.

Most of the time i just use console commands to get rid of him for good. As far as i know all the quests the courier gives to you can be started by speaking to the quest giver directly.

[InDarkestNight]

This isn't true with a lot of quest mods, such as undeath. I think even the vanilla game needs him, such as starting the dark brotherhood questline. I think its also a requirement for that one quest on Solstheim that requires him to visit you like three times. Amusingly, by the end even he claims he doesn't want to do it anymore (mostly to avoid the npc who's delivering the letters).

[showler]

I think we all failed to notice that the OP plays on PS4 and probably none of these options are actually viable.