Faction quests feel quite dull ...don't they?

[MoonSweets]

Hello folks,

 

I just needed to know if I'm the only one to think Skyrim's faction quests are quite lame?

 

What I mean is that in Morrowind, there were plenty of quests all through Vvardenfell and though some could be less or more repetitive, there was challenge and reward. You had to deserve your rank with your skills, if you sucked in the magic there was no way you could make it up Telvanni House, and what an awesome reward to get your own stronghold/mushroom tower etc? And you had to make choices as some quests were shared by different factions...

 

In Oblivion already you could be level 13 only and at the same time Listener, Champion of Cyrodiil and Arch-mage. It didn't matter how you succeeded your quests as long as the job was done, you could be the Gogron-like assassin smashing their way in blood to their victim if you weren't sneaky enough, same for the mage using no magic. That wasn't immersive at all.

But at least there were nice quests with new features. There were flaws in the plots too but it wasn't that that bad...

 

Now in Skyrim I've the impression the quality of the quests isn't higher than those of Oblivion if not worse.

I haven't completly finished the main quest, I have to go to Sovngard and I fear to be deceived. I've completed the College of Winterhold, the Dark Brotherhood, I'm about to end the Thieves Guild and I can't believed I'm done with the Bards College in only one quest. ...We get new ones at some points, huh?

 

In case you don't get what makes me mad I'll detail my grieves a little more:

 

Bards College

One quest. WTF? There are already 3 songs only in the whole game and I can't even sing one/play an instrument! I'm a bard, it's good I know it cause I don't really feel like. DLC??

 

College of Winterhold

It begins great, I was very thrilled, seriously. A test to enter, it seems right. Exploring the ruins of Saarthal was awesome. Then a Psijiic monk! I was dancing in front of my computer there!

And then all you do is just trying to find that damn staff of Magnus and it's over. I really thought there would be something else, that the Psijiic would say something at least, I know they're Psijiics and don't interfere with Tamriel, don't use the magic as we do... But damn, suddenly I'm arch-mage and well... cool. Yup. Not as exciting as being a newbie...

 

Dark Brotherhood

The beginning was fun with the kid. Then it's so easy, if at least that old lady was nice or what, if it was morally difficult to kill her... It gets slightly better in the abandoned shack but well... And then NPCs. To me the DB members felt like "take what worked in Oblivion and adapt it to Skyrim but change few things so they don't look identical" and like the guy who made them was damn proud of what he did, "they are cool because I think so" and not "they are cool because they are just cool". I never felt like I was part of the family and the only characters I came to like a little died while that annoying Interview with the Vampire rip off had the kid amnesty.

I become Listener in no time! Okay I'm the chosen one, I don't know why but alright...

The contract for the Emperor caught me by surprise I must say, I was in shock for 2h, trying to figure out if I would dare do this, morally. But then it gets so linear! I understand it's hard to make plot twists in this kind of game but sometimes as a designer you just have to let go. In TES you are who you want to be, you do what you want... when the game wants you to do something it feels easily weird. The DB wasn't bad but it wasn't great either and I still don't like my family. I can't stand Cicero's voice either.

 

Thieves Guild

Totally WTF. So I'm a newbie and I should succeed in a mission where the most skilled member failed? I can understand that the guild is cursed and all but then ain't I cursed too? I didn't really come to like the other NPCs, I don't get why I accepted to do missions in which I couldn't really see my own interest but to just see if the story would become interesting. The scene in which I'm shot by Karliah got me excited like something was finally happening! ...But no, she's damn flat. Her father is probably an emo Breton seeing her blue eyes... I'm doing things, I don't really get why, everything sounds like plot devices everywhere to force my interest in vain... Now I have my Nightingale armor and I don't get why I had to sell my soul to a Daedra prince. And why was Nocturnal speaking so loud? A cunning whisper to hear would have been so much cooler than a haunty annoying woman voice.

 

I think I'm gonna try the Legion, my girlfriend said it was nice. Let's see...

 

So well... What's your opinion on the factions? What did you like/didn't like in Morrowind and Oblivion? What about Skyrim?

[Linsolv]

Factions are boring and stupid.

 

There's occasional hints of what could've been, especially in the first 2 quests of the Mages College, but otherwise they're awful.

[midtek]

I think faction quests are heavily influenced by Mass Effect 2: big scale with more cinematic scenes; short length of each questline. I prefer Morrowind type that several bases are located, dealing with each quarters for their own businesses. Business are low in Skyrim and always inclined to be fancy stories like Magnus & Psijic Order, bloodsucking Werewolves, Nightingale religion amongst thieves and all kind of that.

 

Bards College

The burning of King Olaf part was fun; the dungeon related was exciting. Then yeah, one quest and over?!

I hope more stories either by DLC or mod would go on.

 

Companions

Dealing with Silver Hands was boring. Not fond of werewolves so was kinda boring too. But the part of Kodlak was pleasing.

I liked the old man and how Companions repect him despite the divergence. In the end, they are brothers and sisters. I liked that.

 

College of Winterhold

I didn't enjoy the story of Magnus and Psijic thingy but gameplay parts were satisfying.

Optional quests were relatively detailed compare to other factions', satisfying too.

 

Thieves Guild

Nightingale parts were tedious and laughable in my opinion. Dwemer dungeon was fun though.

What the hell are these religional X and revenging story aparted from real thieves business?

Co-op missions with oldies like Brynojolf, Vex, Delvin could be more fun I think.

 

Imperial & Stormcloaks

Cool with it. With mods get developed, whole war will be scaled and constant fun!

 

Blades & Dark Brotherhood

The return of Blades was unexpected and I like it. Dark Brotherhood, haven't tried it (never did in former titles anyway :tongue:).

[MoonSweets]

For the Blades I would say it wasn't too unexpected as that's one of the first things they revealed when they announced the future release of the game with the first teaser. I liked this part until there was that plot twist when Esbern tells he discovered who's the leader of the Greybeards. I just quited from then, that was too twisted and totally out of place. The Blades hadn't helped me so far, they only got on my way, eventually I got a nice Akaviri sword and a blessing. But who fight Alduin by my side? Esbern was awesome until he turned into that old stubborn Imperial.

 

I don't get why the quests needed to be all so epic everywhere, it was really like the main goal was "make the player feel like a total hero, a true badass deserving to be head of their faction!". Oh, right, why not. But it shouldn't take a week to become a hero, not in these condition. Or at least not in all factions. And I still don't know why I'm like the chosen one everywhere, what makes me so special? If it's because I'm supposed to be Dragonborn then that's very deceiving. I think it feels greater to become a hero because you earned it, because it was hard and that's what makes you a hero, that's more rewarding than being a hero just because that's how you were born (and you still don't know why either).

 

If I begin in a faction as lowly scrap of student/wannabe then I just shouldn't get big epic quests. I prefer to deserve them after some hardwork.

[scottmack]

The Blades hadn't helped me so far, they had only gotten in my way, eventually I got a nice Akaviri sword and a blessing. But who fought Alduin by my side? Esbern was awesome until he turned into that old stubborn Imperial.

 

This.

 

I don't get why the quests needed to be all so epic everywhere, it was really like the main goal was "make the player feel like a total hero, a true badass deserving to be head of their faction!"

 

This.

 

If it's because I'm supposed to be Dragonborn then that's very deceiving. I think it feels greater to become a hero because you earned it, because it was hard and that's what makes you a hero, that's more rewarding than being a hero just because that's how you were born (and you still don't know why either).

 

This.

 

If I begin in a faction as lowly scrap of student/wannabe then I just shouldn't get big epic quests. I prefer to deserve them after some hardwork.

 

Also some of this.

 

Thanks MoonSweets I was feeling rather lazy. I owe you one.

Edited February 21, 2012 by scottmack

[sukeban]

My two biggest quarrels with the factions were:

 

1. Make archmage/guildmaster/harbinger in a under a week; and

2. After taking said leadership position, NPCs continue to refer to me as a milk-drinking scrub newbie (harbinger don't fetch no danged mead!)

 

Beth should have retained certain level or skill thresholds before allowing admittance and advancement in factions. For example, one should have to be 100 in at least two schools of magic before ever taking on the final College mission. Ditto for Thieves, with any two of the Thief Stone skills. Same for Companions. That would have the side-benefit of rendering it much more difficult to enter into or to lead all of the guilds. With the exception of the Bard's College, whose brevity is rather absurd, there are probably enough quests for the guilds to feel substantial if these "skill checks" had been implemented. Having to actually use the skills that your guild specializes in in order to advance makes sense from a role-playing perspective, but also strikes me as good game design. I nearly cried when, upon making archmage with my first character, I realized that I had only the two basic "flames" and "frost" spells (for the dwarven observatory) in my magical repertoire. That situation should never have been possible.

 

Then, for the love of talos, please record five more guard comments praising my guild-related accomplishments. For all of the effort expended toward trying to make you feel epic, the nonchalant attitudes of nearly everyone in Skyrim toward my deeds was rather jarring.

[Brennan]

Compared to the quality, length and number of the Morrowind quests, I find The Skyrim questlines completely sucked. They were uninteresting, short, and had no point. I really did not get the feeling of immersion I did in Morrowind. Heck, Even Oblivion was better...this just felt like Oblivion-lite. I haven't even completed my first run through of the game and It bores me.

[Ferlith]

Personally, I thought the main problem with the faction questlines wasn't that they were too short, but that the pacing was terrible. With the Companions, Thieves Guild, and Mages College (haven't done the Dark Brotherhood yet), there are a wide variety of small sidequests you can do for them; the Mages College has mostly unique ones and the Companions and Thieves Guild have mostly radiant repeatable ones. Those all add some interest and variety, but there's no incentive for you to do them before completing the main faction questline--in fact, in the Thieves Guild and Mages College questlines, you're discouraged from any kind of dilly-dallying between quests! The Companions were slightly better about it, but it was still "do one radiant mission and get inducted, do one more and become an elite member, do two more and become next in line as Harbinger" and it got on my nerves. It would have been a lot nicer if they didn't try to rush you through the main faction quests and let you (or even forced you to) spend time doing the minor day-to-day things that would actually wind up making you really impressive before you become the leader of the group and should really be above that kind of thing.

 

I think that's actually what annoyed me most about the game in general. There's a huge number of sidequests and miscellaneous objectives for you to do, but if I'm trying to role-play there are really very few times when someone hasn't just impressed on me the urgency of whatever it is I have to do next, so I keep feeling like I have to save the world before I can start on all these fun side things or even just go exploring, despite the fact that there isn't any actual urgency from a gameplay perspective. I'm not sure if that was intentional or not on Bethesda's part, but I don't like it.

 

Also, agreed on the snarky comments from guards and other members. You'd think Bethesda could have made a trigger for when you stop being a newbie so that guards won't keep asking if the Harbinger fetches the mead, Vekel the Man won't keep disparaging the new Guildmaster, and Farengar Secret-Fire won't keep suggesting the Arch-Mage join the College of Winterhold. Personally, I pretend they're all aware of your status and just keep making terrible jokes about it based on how fast you rose through the ranks, but it's still a bit of an immersion-killer.

[midtek]

Personally, I thought the main problem with the faction questlines wasn't that they were too short, but that the pacing was terrible. With the Companions, Thieves Guild, and Mages College (haven't done the Dark Brotherhood yet), there are a wide variety of small sidequests you can do for them; the Mages College has mostly unique ones and the Companions and Thieves Guild have mostly radiant repeatable ones. Those all add some interest and variety, but there's no incentive for you to do them before completing the main faction questline--in fact, in the Thieves Guild and Mages College questlines, you're discouraged from any kind of dilly-dallying between quests! The Companions were slightly better about it, but it was still "do one radiant mission and get inducted, do one more and become an elite member, do two more and become next in line as Harbinger" and it got on my nerves. It would have been a lot nicer if they didn't try to rush you through the main faction quests and let you (or even forced you to) spend time doing the minor day-to-day things that would actually wind up making you really impressive before you become the leader of the group and should really be above that kind of thing.

 

I think this gives the clue how early faction mods should work like.

1) Add more quests even radiant ones between the intervals

2) Lengthen each radiant quests at least to dungeon scale (not just visit-a-house, kill-a-bear which Aela gives)

3) Provide handy rewards for that (powerful version of Sparks would be huge better than 100 Golds spamming)

Edited February 22, 2012 by midtek

[yota71]

I hope that bathesda staff will read and learn from reading this, maybe the next expansion and elderscrolls game will be better