Moral traps and ambiguities

[meh12345]

Like I said earlier ;). The choice is not always in dialogue. Knocking somebody out and bashing doors is a choice by action. And you always have one. Not always completely fair. But don't tell me you start a new game each time your character dies!

 

But you don't have that option. In that particular quest, you have no other options (none, zero), than kill or get killed. Even that could be acceptable in some cases, but not here. It is simply not logically sound that there would be no other options. It's lazy quest design.

 

And, no, using save games is not a valid solution to getting through a quest. It's not in any way equivalent to tabbing out (which even interpreted at its worst is just walking away without saying a word, a perfectly justifiable in-character solution).

 

If the world explicitly included time travel as an option, sure, that'd be valid. Saves aren't. I personally think that the few latest arguments are at best semantic BS. I'll allow that someone might genuinely not understand or care how in-character and out-of-character solutions are completely separate things, but I certainly can't make you understand and therefore won't pursue that line any further.

 

Instead, I'll turn the question around: how would it worsen your playing experience if you could, for example, just bash the door and drag the vigilant out in the case of the haunted house (in addition to having the option of killing him, or letting him kill you)? Or banging on the door until people come and help? Or, let's say, use the Wobbajack and randomly get a get out of jail free card? Or negotiate with the daedra? Or anything else in addition to the given two options?

[thompsonar]

I don't think having more options would be bad. That's not what anyone is arguing. If we could go back in time and change the development process of the game it would be great. So much could be added. More IS better. But they're not there so you find ways to work with what you have. Every option you have presented would make the game better, no one is saying they wouldn't.

 

I suppose it comes down to the way you play. It's fine if you play the game within the confines of the game engine, you only have the options that are presented to you by the game. You end up saying scripted comments, you end up in the situations the developers predetermined. If you don't like it then there really isn't anything you can do, and that sucks I agree.

 

Some play the game differently, perhaps I'm the only one I don't know (but I don't think so). I may click on the option that says "I don't have time right now" but in my mind my character is saying "Screw You, I don't like you, I don't want to help you, and leave me alone." It's the same response but it's not the same. I fully understand in-character and out-of-character, but it doesn't have to be like that. For me there is no out of character, the character is YOU the person, not the pixels. I am free to expand the story in my head, using the options presented as a foundation on which I can build any situation I want (well still loosely within the confines of the story).

 

In the case of the haunted house, if I find out I don't like the quest or the results.. bam load an earlier save and ... "I've just had a horrible premonition regarding the abandoned house in Markarth, I must avoid it at all costs." Problem solved.

 

That's the way I play, if you don't want to play that way that is fine. But just understand that I am enjoying the game quite thoroughly playing this way. It's a matter a play style and I am ok with the fact you may not agree with the way I play. To me that is the point of the game... that is how you play any way you want. Perhaps I have an overactive imagination. Every game could have been made better... every single one ever made. But you work with what you have... that's all I'm saying. Just enjoy the game, and if you don't.. don't play it.

[meh12345]

I don't think having more options would be bad. That's not what anyone is arguing. If we could go back in time and change the development process of the game it would be great. So much could be added. More IS better. But they're not there so you find ways to work with what you have. Every option you have presented would make the game better, no one is saying they wouldn't.

 

Mm. I'd say the purpose of this thread wasn't really trying to find ways to work within the existing system. I mean, yeah, obviously you can just load up a different save. I don't think that requires a long discussion. I find it more interesting to explore the questions of whether it should be that way, and/or if there's something that can be done about it.

[thompsonar]

Perhaps things got slightly off topic but it was more a response to the latter half of the thread title "Stuck on the wrong side with no way out." Just presenting a way out. So it was still kinda on topic, got wrapped up in it. Never really thought of myself as a "roleplayer" in the traditional sense, but after this thread I think I may be too much of one. Enjoyed the discussion though and we can leave it at that.

 

Technically speaking I would think a lot of that stuff is hard-coded and not able to be changed. Though I'm no modder so I cannot say for sure. If that's the case then well it should be changed, but cannot. If it can be modded I say mod away.

[SubjectProphet]

We do need more choices, that much I can agree with.

[landy8]

It is simply not logically sound that there would be no other options. It's lazy quest design.

 

Agreed. Even in the class selection question list (there was such thing in Daggerfall and Morrowind) there were THREE answers to every question (warrior, mage and thief styled). I for myself think the quest system in Skyrim is rather... raw sometimes. At least.

 

Some play the game differently, perhaps I'm the only one I don't know (but I don't think so). I may click on the option that says "I don't have time right now" but in my mind my character is saying "Screw You, I don't like you, I don't want to help you, and leave me alone." It's the same response but it's not the same. I fully understand in-character and out-of-character, but it doesn't have to be like that. For me there is no out of character, the character is YOU the person, not the pixels. I am free to expand the story in my head, using the options presented as a foundation on which I can build any situation I want (well still loosely within the confines of the story).

 

Agreed. BTW, have you never told someone "I'm terribly sorry, I can't do it right now" meaning (deep inside) "go f*** yourself, I will never do what you son-of-a-***** ask of me"? Imagine that the game engine does the same thing your social reflexes do in real.

 

Every game could have been made better... every single one ever made. But you work with what you have... that's all I'm saying. Just enjoy the game, and if you don't.. don't play it.

 

Couldn't say any better!

[RedRavyn]

Forgive the thread necromancy, here, but I just had to get this off my chest. I love Skyrim, just like I loved Oblivion. I hate Skyrim, just like I hated Oblivion. Both games have such potential, but are then spoiled by various forms of developer trickery. This issue is a true case in point.

 

Game developers should never, EVER, force a quest upon the player (except, possibly for the main quest). Bethesda is awful about this. I seldom, if ever, play a "dark" character. It just usually doesn't feel right to me. The developers have chosen to cram most of the "primary" quests down our throats by giving us no choice but to accept them. Whether or not we actually finish them is mostly up to us, of course (with a few exceptions), but this leaves our journal cluttered with entries that we don't even have an option to hide and sometimes even quest items in our inventories that we can't get rid of.

 

Let's look at some of the worst offenders.

 

"Join the Imperials" and "Join the Stormcloaks" -- you get these quests just by overhearing conversations and you're going to get one or the other that the outset, depending upon who you follow out of Helgen. Maybe I don't want to get involved in the civil war questline just now. Maybe not ever. But those quests will hang around in my journal, taking up space, forever, if I don't join one of those two factions.

 

The entire Dark Brotherhood questline is triggered similarly, by either hearing about the Aventino boy in a random conversation or by asking about rumors. I'm not interested in having this quest taking up space in my journal until/if I'm ready to do it, and then I know exactly how to trigger the quest directly. I therefore don't bother clicking on that "Heard any rumors" option in dialogs with innkeepers because I know that's one of the first rumors you'll be told about.

 

Simnilarly, I pay very close attention to books I read when I'm looting them off shelves, just so I don't accidentally read "Boethiah's Proving", thereby triggering the decidedly evil questline "Boethiah's Calling". Sorry. I'm not going to do that. I refuse to sacrifice a follower just because some developer thought it was clever to force me into accepting this quest by sneaking a book onto a shelf. On the other hand, I know that at some point after I reach level 30 I'm going to be attacked by a Boethiah fanatic and this is going to trigger the questline, anyway. This happened in my last playthough during a quest-related combat that had nothing to do with Boethiah and I had to fight off a pack of Thalmor soldiers AND that cultist at the same time (and he came out of nowhere right in the middle of the fight, completely blowing my cover -- terrible timing and awful game design, if you ask me. Or even if you didn't.

 

Riften. I've found that I can get in through the back entrance or the Black Briar Meadery (if it's unlocked) and avoid getting confronted by Brynjolf, who will, otherwise, automatically give me the quest "A Chance Arrangement", which will ultimately lead into joining the Thieve's Guild (read that "Thug's Guild" in Skyrim). The developers make it otherwise impossible to get past him without him grabbing your attention and forcing his coversation on you by locking the gates immediately to your right and left after entering the main gate, and his "contact radius" extends completely across the street so there's no way to sneak past him. They knew what they were doing, which makes it even less acceptable. On the other hand, all you have to do is pick up an "Unusual Gem" and you will find yourself having to seek out an appraiser, and the only person in all of Skyrim who can identify them is Vex. She, of course, won't even talk to you about it until you're a full member of the Thieve's Guild -- just another trick by the developers to force you into joining a faction you might not want to join. If you don't, those gems will be stuck in your inventory forever because they're flagged as quest items.

 

This isn't about reality in journal-keeping, like one person, here, said. It's about developer trickery in getting players to play through all their primary questlines. Not every player is a "completionist", and those of us who are might not be playing as such with any given character. This is not how to structure a game. All it does is annoy the players who actually role-play their characters.

 

The proper way to do this is to offer the player a choice to decline accepting a quest. It never gets logged into the journal and the player never has to worry about it, again. I should not have to deal with that Boethiah cultist AT ALL. When I approach Falkreath and the guard, there, forces me into a conversation which ends with a quest to talk to Lod, I should be able to refuse it. Maybe I want to talk to Lod, but I'm not interested in anything but buying some smithing supplies from him. The topic of the wandering dog (Barbas) shouldn't be forced upon me when I do. And once I do accept that quest, maybe I'm not ready to face a nest of vampires, even with Barbas as an ally, and, yet, the quest proceeds under the assumption that's what I'm going to do, once I come upon Barbas. My only option is not to use that entrance to Falkreath and steer clear of the road where I know he spawns if I'm in the general vicinity. Yes, I know. I can tell Barbas that I don't have time for it. To be honest, I've never tried that to see what will happen, since this is one of Daedric quests I like to do. Still, the point is that at least parts of this quest are forced upon the player, with NO opportunity at all to back out of them. The more I play Skyrim the more I'm convinced you have to do with wiki in hand (and not just to avoid all the bugs that will inevitably crop up in your game if you don't).

 

Skyrim is the worst of the two games about this (Oblivion being the only other ES game I've played), but Oblivion had its share, too, just like getting accosted by the refugee from Kvatch if you get near that city, thus triggering a quest that you might not be ready to do (or even ever want to do). Bethesda prided themselves (I think) on creating an open game in Skyrim, where the player is free to do whatever he wants to do, but then locks us into questlines without our permission, or sometimes even our knowledge, until it's too late to back out). You do it one way or the other. Hold our hands exclusively like in Half-Life (in which case I say "goodby" to your games) or let us pick and choose freely. Mixing the two options just does not work for me. Bottom Line -- Do not presume to tell me how to play MY game. When I start a new character I already know what questlines I want to do, and I have a pretty good idea what order I want to do them. I like a clean, uncluttered journal. I don't like having quest objects stuck in my inventory for long periods of time. It's my game ... not the developer's game. Let me play it how I see fit.

[modder3434]

Forgive the thread necromancy, here, but I just had to get this off my chest. I love Skyrim, just like I loved Oblivion. I hate Skyrim, just like I hated Oblivion. Both games have such potential, but are then spoiled by various forms of developer trickery. This issue is a true case in point.

 

Game developers should never, EVER, force a quest upon the player (except, possibly for the main quest). Bethesda is awful about this. I seldom, if ever, play a "dark" character. It just usually doesn't feel right to me. The developers have chosen to cram most of the "primary" quests down our throats by giving us no choice but to accept them. Whether or not we actually finish them is mostly up to us, of course (with a few exceptions), but this leaves our journal cluttered with entries that we don't even have an option to hide and sometimes even quest items in our inventories that we can't get rid of.

 

Let's look at some of the worst offenders.

 

"Join the Imperials" and "Join the Stormcloaks" -- you get these quests just by overhearing conversations and you're going to get one or the other that the outset, depending upon who you follow out of Helgen. Maybe I don't want to get involved in the civil war questline just now. Maybe not ever. But those quests will hang around in my journal, taking up space, forever, if I don't join one of those two factions.

 

The entire Dark Brotherhood questline is triggered similarly, by either hearing about the Aventino boy in a random conversation or by asking about rumors. I'm not interested in having this quest taking up space in my journal until/if I'm ready to do it, and then I know exactly how to trigger the quest directly. I therefore don't bother clicking on that "Heard any rumors" option in dialogs with innkeepers because I know that's one of the first rumors you'll be told about.

 

Simnilarly, I pay very close attention to books I read when I'm looting them off shelves, just so I don't accidentally read "Boethiah's Proving", thereby triggering the decidedly evil questline "Boethiah's Calling". Sorry. I'm not going to do that. I refuse to sacrifice a follower just because some developer thought it was clever to force me into accepting this quest by sneaking a book onto a shelf. On the other hand, I know that at some point after I reach level 30 I'm going to be attacked by a Boethiah fanatic and this is going to trigger the questline, anyway. This happened in my last playthough during a quest-related combat that had nothing to do with Boethiah and I had to fight off a pack of Thalmor soldiers AND that cultist at the same time (and he came out of nowhere right in the middle of the fight, completely blowing my cover -- terrible timing and awful game design, if you ask me. Or even if you didn't.

 

Riften. I've found that I can get in through the back entrance or the Black Briar Meadery (if it's unlocked) and avoid getting confronted by Brynjolf, who will, otherwise, automatically give me the quest "A Chance Arrangement", which will ultimately lead into joining the Thieve's Guild (read that "Thug's Guild" in Skyrim). The developers make it otherwise impossible to get past him without him grabbing your attention and forcing his coversation on you by locking the gates immediately to your right and left after entering the main gate, and his "contact radius" extends completely across the street so there's no way to sneak past him. They knew what they were doing, which makes it even less acceptable. On the other hand, all you have to do is pick up an "Unusual Gem" and you will find yourself having to seek out an appraiser, and the only person in all of Skyrim who can identify them is Vex. She, of course, won't even talk to you about it until you're a full member of the Thieve's Guild -- just another trick by the developers to force you into joining a faction you might not want to join. If you don't, those gems will be stuck in your inventory forever because they're flagged as quest items.

 

This isn't about reality in journal-keeping, like one person, here, said. It's about developer trickery in getting players to play through all their primary questlines. Not every player is a "completionist", and those of us who are might not be playing as such with any given character. This is not how to structure a game. All it does is annoy the players who actually role-play their characters.

 

The proper way to do this is to offer the player a choice to decline accepting a quest. It never gets logged into the journal and the player never has to worry about it, again. I should not have to deal with that Boethiah cultist AT ALL. When I approach Falkreath and the guard, there, forces me into a conversation which ends with a quest to talk to Lod, I should be able to refuse it. Maybe I want to talk to Lod, but I'm not interested in anything but buying some smithing supplies from him. The topic of the wandering dog (Barbas) shouldn't be forced upon me when I do. And once I do accept that quest, maybe I'm not ready to face a nest of vampires, even with Barbas as an ally, and, yet, the quest proceeds under the assumption that's what I'm going to do, once I come upon Barbas. My only option is not to use that entrance to Falkreath and steer clear of the road where I know he spawns if I'm in the general vicinity. Yes, I know. I can tell Barbas that I don't have time for it. To be honest, I've never tried that to see what will happen, since this is one of Daedric quests I like to do. Still, the point is that at least parts of this quest are forced upon the player, with NO opportunity at all to back out of them. The more I play Skyrim the more I'm convinced you have to do with wiki in hand (and not just to avoid all the bugs that will inevitably crop up in your game if you don't).

 

Skyrim is the worst of the two games about this (Oblivion being the only other ES game I've played), but Oblivion had its share, too, just like getting accosted by the refugee from Kvatch if you get near that city, thus triggering a quest that you might not be ready to do (or even ever want to do). Bethesda prided themselves (I think) on creating an open game in Skyrim, where the player is free to do whatever he wants to do, but then locks us into questlines without our permission, or sometimes even our knowledge, until it's too late to back out). You do it one way or the other. Hold our hands exclusively like in Half-Life (in which case I say "goodby" to your games) or let us pick and choose freely. Mixing the two options just does not work for me. Bottom Line -- Do not presume to tell me how to play MY game. When I start a new character I already know what questlines I want to do, and I have a pretty good idea what order I want to do them. I like a clean, uncluttered journal. I don't like having quest objects stuck in my inventory for long periods of time. It's my game ... not the developer's game. Let me play it how I see fit.

 

you could have summed this up in one sentence.... " i don't like the game design of putting quests in my journal that i don't want and the fact that the game shoves joining certain guilds in my face."

[thompsonar]

I think all the arguments on either side of this have been thoroughly covered in this thread and that it's to the point of just reiterating them over and over again.

 

Many people are unhappy about a few of the quests and options presented in the game. That's the way the game was made (by the developers who own the game). They're not going to remake the game because a few people complain. Luckily there is the CK, use it (then it will be "your" game).

[Semtex]

landy8 - Players in any computer game have one extraordinary ability - Memories of the Future. The player can remember, what yet isn't happen in current game.

So - all players are dragon-born. :thumbsup:

 

In the game is more cases, on which I would like to choose a different approach or solution, but the game doesn't allow me to make another selection. But Riften based thieves guild is the worst-made quest line in Skyrim. There is no longer "honorable theft", based on your skills and planning, but racket, blackmail, sabotage and other sleaze.

What's worse, it can not be solved in a similar manner as the Dark brotherhood - Just kill them all.

And the worst is that this line blocking access at least to one wall of words.