tetradite Posted June 15, 2012 Share Posted June 15, 2012 100% agree with the OP. The approach in FONV was much better. You kill an NPC who's critical for a mission and it pops up a "quest failed" message even if you haven't encountered that quest yet. It meant you could chose to act and kill whoever you liked, but when you killed someone who was related to a quest you knew about it (and understood later on when when it makes it impossible for you to advance in that quest arc). From the minute I first walked into Riften all I wanted to do was crush the Thieves Guild. I know my character will never be interested in joining, yet they are all magically immortal. There are SO many points in this game where offering a choice would have made an immeasurable difference to gameplay, immersion, role-play and replayability. How many times in Skyrim is the player really offered a choice?How many times does an action the player takes have any impact on the world? Don't get me wrong, I do like Skyrim. But I don't love it, and it really wouldn't have taken that much extra work (at development stage with access to the original voice actors etc) to have made it an infinitely better product that would have lost no appeal to the casuals but had a far greater appeal to the rest of us. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tetradite Posted June 15, 2012 Share Posted June 15, 2012 asking why do you want me to do this usually means "im thinking about about doing it" with a heavy leans towards yes rather then no. No, it depends totally on the context and tone of voice. You could quite easily say "why do you want me to do this" in a tone which clearly implied revulsion and disgust at the idea. Even if you were leaning towards accepting it you could validly want to change your mind depending on what response you got. E.g I would more likely help "because he murdered my son" than "because when he's in jail I'll be safe to rape his daughter". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sajuukkhar9000 Posted June 15, 2012 Share Posted June 15, 2012 (edited) No, it depends totally on the context and tone of voice. You could quite easily say "why do you want me to do this" in a tone which clearly implied revulsion and disgust at the idea. Even if you were leaning towards accepting it you could validly want to change your mind depending on what response you got. E.g I would more likely help "because he murdered my son" than "because when he's in jail I'll be safe to rape his daughter".If the two options you are given are "No" and "something else", it is easy to deduce your character is going to say the something else in a Yes like tone. Edited June 15, 2012 by sajuukkhar9000 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fraquar Posted June 15, 2012 Share Posted June 15, 2012 They have enough problem managing the quests as it is, let alone allowing the user to kill mission critical NPC's to boot. It's likely be enough to destroy the game from a console perspective, and possibly not even be reversible using the console on the PC. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sajuukkhar9000 Posted June 15, 2012 Share Posted June 15, 2012 They have enough problem managing the quests as it is, let alone allowing the user to kill mission critical NPC's to boot. It's likely be enough to destroy the game from a console perspective, and possibly not even be reversible using the console on the PC.You should really only be able to kill mission critical NPCs after their quests are done. It worked in Morrowind because there wasn't dragons, I could see the mass rage from tons of gamers yelling "THESE FING DRAGONS KILL ALL THESE QUESTS GIVERS BLARGH BLARGH" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tetradite Posted June 15, 2012 Share Posted June 15, 2012 No, it depends totally on the context and tone of voice. You could quite easily say "why do you want me to do this" in a tone which clearly implied revulsion and disgust at the idea. Even if you were leaning towards accepting it you could validly want to change your mind depending on what response you got. E.g I would more likely help "because he murdered my son" than "because when he's in jail I'll be safe to rape his daughter".If the two options you are given are "No" and "something else", it is easy to deduce your character is going to say the something else in a Yes like tone. It's just as easy to deduce (wrongly in this case) that when you ask someone "why?" you will then have an option to decide based on what they tell you. Otherwise it is pointless to be able to ask the question. I think it's most reasonable when faced with this dialog choice to presume that the options on offer are (a) no and (b) I MAY be interested but I want to know more. They have enough problem managing the quests as it is, let alone allowing the user to kill mission critical NPC's to boot. It's likely be enough to destroy the game from a console perspective, and possibly not even be reversible using the console on the PC. So why did FONV (which I played mostly on console too) work? OK it had some bugs but no worse than Skyrim does. Is something different about Skyrim that has made something that used to be possible now impossible? Seriously, is there a technical reason why Skyrim wouldn't support what an older predecessor could? FONV managed this even when there were 3 interweaving and opposed strands to the main quest (and multiple overlaps between side quests beyond that) where Skyrim's main (dragonborn) quest is utterly linear, it's secondary (civil war) quest only has 2 real outcomes not 3, and from what I've seen the side quests have less overlaps in Skyrim also. It's a newer game, which doesn't seem any more complicated in any major way, running on an (allegedly) new and improved version of the same basic engine, it should be able to do more not less, surely? Again, I do like Skyrim, and I don't want to hate on it's creators. I also have no bones about how good Skyrim is as a TES game because it's the first I've played. I'm just massively disappointed with how shallow everything feels, because Fallout has set the benchmark for me in this area, and Skyrim just does not compare. It's beautiful but it's shallow. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tetradite Posted June 15, 2012 Share Posted June 15, 2012 They have enough problem managing the quests as it is, let alone allowing the user to kill mission critical NPC's to boot. It's likely be enough to destroy the game from a console perspective, and possibly not even be reversible using the console on the PC.You should really only be able to kill mission critical NPCs after their quests are done. It worked in Morrowind because there wasn't dragons, I could see the mass rage from tons of gamers yelling "THESE FING DRAGONS KILL ALL THESE QUESTS GIVERS BLARGH BLARGH" So make them Protected, not Essential, then the player can kill them but the dragons can't. Sorted. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sajuukkhar9000 Posted June 15, 2012 Share Posted June 15, 2012 (edited) It's just as easy to deduce (wrongly in this case) that when you ask someone "why?" you will then have an option to decide based on what they tell you. Otherwise it is pointless to be able to ask the question. I think it's most reasonable when faced with this dialog choice to presume that the options on offer are (a) no and (b) I MAY be interested but I want to know more.You know, after you ask him why, you can just say that's illegal, and he leaves you alone. So make them Protected, not Essential, then the player can kill them but the dragons can't. Sorted.That entirely ignores a situation in which you attack a person in a town causing everyone else to attack you and in trying to escape you accidently kill someone whose quest you wanted to do. Edited June 15, 2012 by sajuukkhar9000 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tetradite Posted June 15, 2012 Share Posted June 15, 2012 (edited) It's just as easy to deduce (wrongly in this case) that when you ask someone "why?" you will then have an option to decide based on what they tell you. Otherwise it is pointless to be able to ask the question. I think it's most reasonable when faced with this dialog choice to presume that the options on offer are (a) no and (b) I MAY be interested but I want to know more.You know, after you ask him why, you can just say that's illegal, and he leaves you alone. On this point there is no point in us debating. The way this is handled and the journal entries etc does not bother you, it does bother me, and I'm happy to admit it's my OCD. We're just different and with no amount of explanation will one convince the other they are wrong, because it's just personal preference. The bigger issue to me is the lack of choices, not the railroading. EDIT:That entirely ignores a situation in which you attack a person in a town causing everyone else to attack you and in trying to escape you accidently kill someone whose quest you wanted to do. I'd be happier with that - that is consequences to your actions, that's not an issue, it's what I want. Edited June 15, 2012 by tetradite Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sajuukkhar9000 Posted June 15, 2012 Share Posted June 15, 2012 (edited) I'd be happier with that - that is consequences to your actions, that's not an issue, it's what I want.Well a lot of people weren't happy with that in Morrowind, it is the very reason they added it into Oblivion, and to a greater extent in Skyrim, you should not be able to kill quest givers if you have no idea they give quests, nor should they be able tod ie mid-qeust as to deny you the reward to a quest you have finished but not yet turned in. Denial of content you had no idea existed, and denial of reward for content you have already beat, is dumb. Edited June 15, 2012 by sajuukkhar9000 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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