Skyrim - not so much free choice as I hoped

[fraquar]

I don't mind the whole werewolf thing TBH.

Would I willingly become a werewolf in game - nope.

 

If having to become one makes me fully understand the plight (curse) of the Companions and makes me want to do whatever it takes to remove that curse and restore the Companions to their former glory - thats really a small thing to a giant. I either am impassioned to be a Companion or I am just there to get access to a trainer and a couple of goodies.

 

It's a little different when it comes to having to join a guild you have no intention of ever joining just to be able to complete a quest you are 2/3rds through completing that otherwise has nothing whatsoever to do with that guild to begin with. i.e. the whole Forbidden Legend questline.

[yesimevil]

[Due to immense butthurt, first portion of post has been removed.] Fact is - there is absolutely no logic in the way the player gets his goodies, except one - to get them all he has to be a friend of all factions in the game. And that's a striking structural weakness of the game.

 

Fact is - there is absolutely no logic in the way the player gets his goodies, except one - to get them all he has to be a friend of all factions in the game. And that's a striking structural weakness of the game.

 

to get them all he has to be a friend of all factions in the game.

 

NO, REALLY? To get stuff from factions you actually have to work for them? To get quest rewards, you actually have to do the quest? Oh man, all those Mario fans who find out they actually have to kick Bowser's ass a few times to nail the hot blonde, or the Zelda fans, same thing, different name. You actually have to earn your stuff? Wow, that's horrible.

 

Satire aside, your viewpoint is insanely narrow. You're asking for reward without effort, something that appeals to a very very small minority. Are you next going to complain that without doing the DB questline and getting the bonus you can't get ancient shrouded armor, and that you can't get Nightingale Armor without selling your soul to become a Nightingale? The idea is to create something we like to call "replay value". Can't get something on your character as they are without breaking character? Make a new one if you want it so bad. They made it IMPOSSIBLE to get every single ending in a single game. Deliberately. The idea is to pick sides on each character. One character may be a rebel Stormcloak fighting for freedom with a vampiric invisiblity and a knife thrust to the back in their Ancient Shrouded Armor, while another might be an imperial-sympathizing elf-loving race traitor (Stormcloaks FTW) unleashing hell on the Dark Brotherhood for trying to murder the emperor in their huge werewolf forms, ripping rebels limb from limb and batting Astrid around like a toy, all while curbstomping every vampire you see with a speech about slaves and Lycans.

 

Point, TL;DR version: Just like life, Skyrim offers choices. You can't simultaneously be everything at once. You can have a number of things you can do at once. But no one can do everything in a lifetime. And sometimes things conflict. Werewolf or vampire. Rebel or Imperial. Assassin or lawman. Money or fun? Work hard now or later? Do I eat that ham sandwich now and try ti figure something else out later or do I look for something else now?

[kevkiev]

cool, I've seen thread necromancy (like, um... here) but I dunno if I've seen necro post raging before :tongue:

[Relativelybest]

One thing that bothered me a lot was that when I ran across an insane and obviously evil clown outside a farm, I couldn't kill him and take his stuff. Because apparently he's important to the Dark Brotherhood questline.

 

Oh dear. The Dark Brotherhood questline? Why, that's clearly a vital enough part of the game to warrant blatant railroading. :ermm:

 

...I never intended to join the Dark Brotherhood. But you know what? That's not even the point. Even if I did plan to do the DB questline, I should still have been allowed to murder Cicero. You know why? Because randomly killing people for flimsy reasons should have goddamned consequences.

 

Say I want to play a badass assassin and decide to test my mad killing skillz out on a random clown, thereby making the DB quest unplayable. That would be annoying, yes, but it would also be my own goddamned fault. So maybe then when I'm forced to start all over from scratch, I might actually consider that this random person I'm about to kill might actually be important, and excercise a bit of impulse control.

 

Meanwhile, the people who have no interest in assassinations can get themselves a nice jester outfit without the game dictating their choices.

 

I mean, I can understand that some characters should be essential because the main plot wouldn't make sense without them. That's acceptable, I guess. But it should be a rare thing. Anyone you don't absolutely need to complete the game should be killable.

[StayFrosty05]

[Due to immense butthurt, first portion of post has been removed.] Fact is - there is absolutely no logic in the way the player gets his goodies, except one - to get them all he has to be a friend of all factions in the game. And that's a striking structural weakness of the game.

 

Fact is - there is absolutely no logic in the way the player gets his goodies, except one - to get them all he has to be a friend of all factions in the game. And that's a striking structural weakness of the game.

 

to get them all he has to be a friend of all factions in the game.

 

NO, REALLY? To get stuff from factions you actually have to work for them? To get quest rewards, you actually have to do the quest? Oh man, all those Mario fans who find out they actually have to kick Bowser's ass a few times to nail the hot blonde, or the Zelda fans, same thing, different name. You actually have to earn your stuff? Wow, that's horrible.

 

Satire aside, your viewpoint is insanely narrow. You're asking for reward without effort, something that appeals to a very very small minority. Are you next going to complain that without doing the DB questline and getting the bonus you can't get ancient shrouded armor, and that you can't get Nightingale Armor without selling your soul to become a Nightingale? The idea is to create something we like to call "replay value". Can't get something on your character as they are without breaking character? Make a new one if you want it so bad. They made it IMPOSSIBLE to get every single ending in a single game. Deliberately. The idea is to pick sides on each character. One character may be a rebel Stormcloak fighting for freedom with a vampiric invisiblity and a knife thrust to the back in their Ancient Shrouded Armor, while another might be an imperial-sympathizing elf-loving race traitor (Stormcloaks FTW) unleashing hell on the Dark Brotherhood for trying to murder the emperor in their huge werewolf forms, ripping rebels limb from limb and batting Astrid around like a toy, all while curbstomping every vampire you see with a speech about slaves and Lycans.

 

Point, TL;DR version: Just like life, Skyrim offers choices. You can't simultaneously be everything at once. You can have a number of things you can do at once. But no one can do everything in a lifetime. And sometimes things conflict. Werewolf or vampire. Rebel or Imperial. Assassin or lawman. Money or fun? Work hard now or later? Do I eat that ham sandwich now and try ti figure something else out later or do I look for something else now?

 

Firstly, don't be a douche ....secondly, that's all well and good, but you should be able to complete the MAIN QUEST...you know, hunting Alduin down, etc....ie: Being the Dovahkin, which is the whole point of the game...without having to join a Guild...(Mages College).... :dry: ...to carry through the Dovahkins reason for existence quest.

[ginnyfizz]

You make a good point, StayFrosty05 and yeah, the poster you have quoted has totally missed the point. I have specifically mentioned instances where I suggest there should be alternate ways to complete quests, but NOT easier paths. Like the Companions/Circle/Werewolf thing where I suggest that if you don't want to do the dogbreath bit, you have to accomplish extra and hazardous missions instead before becoming Harbinger. What really makes me laugh is that he says Skyrim offers choices - that's exactly what it DOESN't do, your example of the being forced to join the Mages College being a prime example.

[Badmagic]

Has anyone seen any mods at all that tackle any element of the overwhelming railroading yet? I have looked myself but found nothing so wondering if others with the same issues have seen anything.

[Handofbane]

I have specifically mentioned instances where I suggest there should be alternate ways to complete quests, but NOT easier paths. Like the Companions/Circle/Werewolf thing where I suggest that if you don't want to do the dogbreath bit, you have to accomplish extra and hazardous missions instead before becoming Harbinger. What really makes me laugh is that he says Skyrim offers choices - that's exactly what it DOESN't do, your example of the being forced to join the Mages College being a prime example.

We know they are capable of allowing such options, after all, there was always the backdoor method of completing the main quest in Morrowind should you have "accidentally" killed off major characters involved, or decided that Vivec was better off serving Vvardenfell as an enchanted robe. Even more recently (given it was Obsidian, not Bethesda) New Vegas allowed for players to knock off pretty much everyone involved in the main quest lines and still had a somewhat reasonable way to finish the game with a fairly reasonable explanation on why the single character absolutely necessary would not stay dead.

 

As opposed to the lack of choice in Skyrim, where there are most certainly some characters in need of a tragic accident involving falling onto a two-handed sword 37 times, but sadly they can never die because they are required for part of the railroading of the player (I am looking at you Maven).

 

While it would be great to see some mods fixing this intentional oversight on their part, we really can't expect modders to do everything, and especially cannot let Bethesda get lazier and lazier with every newer "better selling" game.

[Hoamaii]

Well, if I want to stick safely to this thread's OP guidelines ;) , I'd say there are several instances when I thought I'd been cheated out of my "free choices":

 

- buying Windhelm's house is one, you cannot get to it unless you complete the "blood on the ice" quest and in the first game I did, one of the supposedly essential NPCs for the quest was dead before I ever entered the town. In my current game, that unbearably-voiced NPC (Viola, French-voiced in my game) is still well alive and kicking, I thought "great, I can finally buy that house!.. But no, you have to take part in the raging war between StormCloaks and Imperials to be granted the favour, and from what I have read, you even have to win the war for one or the other faction. But I don't want to join the war, I am the Dragonborn, I have to remain neutral, I am fighting dragons for the sake of all Skyrim people, I'd rather fight war itself than join any faction (though I don't like Thalmors much...). So I guess I'll never become Thane of Windhelm in the end...

 

- like you, I did not want to be a werewolf (never liked much being a vampire either), so I rushed through the companions questline just to shed that beast off me as soon as I could, at least get the well-rested perk when I'm sleeping... sigh...

 

- the Dark Brotherhood questline doesn't give you any choice either... what if I don't wanna kill that poor whatever-her-name is on her wedding day, what if I don't wanna become a regicide? (much nicer guy than the Thalmors or Ulfric, that emperor...). I wish I'd have been given the choice to dismantle the Dark Brotherhood in the end like I could do in Oblivion... At least, in Oblivion, you could investigate a little bit about your targets, and most of the time, they were real despicable villains. Here no, I'm being given a target and no explanation at all. Just "go kill!.." Come on, I AM the Dragonborn, am I likely to behave like a killdog?!..

 

- then there's the Nightingale oath, no way out either if you want to move on, and many more...

 

It's probably true that most players prefer straightforward, one-way only, "Assassins Creed"-like, questlines - but I for one became a fan of Bethesda's games precisely because they were different. And I strongly doubt that players who like to rush through a game and be done in 4 or 5 hours can ever become faithful customers of the Elders Scroll... But I guess marketers have different views than mine...

[Badmagic]

Has anyone seen any mods at all that tackle any element of the overwhelming railroading yet? I have looked myself but found nothing so wondering if others with the same issues have seen anything.

For others in the same boat, just found this:

 

http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/14157

 

Installing it now, I still maintain there is something wrong with the search features on nexus, that mod goes back to April first and I only stumbled on it looking for something that had no relation to the issue despite searching for a solution repeatedly for months.