Thalmor Have Walkie Talkies?...O_o

[StayFrosty05]

Whether or not you'll incur a bounty depends upon whether the NPC is a member of one of the many "crime factions". I'm not entirely certain how this works, but those factions exist "so crimes committed against created actors are registered", according to the wiki. This implies that "registering" of the crime with the NPCs crime faction is automatic. If the last witness to the crime is eliminated the crime gold will be erased, but it would seem that the crime is still registered with the relevant faction.

 

Named Thalmor are associated with the crime faction of the Hold in which they're stationed. I haven't found any information on the generic Thalmor, but I suspect they have a crime faction of their own, and this would explain the Thalmor death squads. This still doesn't explain how you can get a bounty for killing an entire band of Thalmor out in the wilderness, though -- unless the very rocks report crimes to the authorities.

 

That's what is so annoying about it...the Septims themselves aren't the bother....my Dovahkin has enough Septims to buy a number of Holds outright, the issue is there are no witnesses, so a Bounty should NOT be incurred.

[Georgiegril]

 

I love the Thalmor 'Death Squads'.... :happy: ....I wish more would come after my Dovahkin....he collects and keeps their orders as his souvenirs.

 

Someone needs to create a "paper your walls with thalmor (or dark brotherhood) death orders" mod. :biggrin:

[Perraine]

I don't understand the problem? We all know that the trees have eyes in Skyrim, it's just one of those things, and clairvoyant Guards are just something that we have to put up with, but you CAN avoid the results in this case ...

 

I've butchered literally hundreds (thousands?) of Thalmor Justicar's and Peons (soldiers), had Stormcloacks, Imperials, Hold Guards and "No-Crime" followers help me kill them, and NEVER once have I incurred a hold bounty, because I always get them to instigate the combat

[RedRavyn]

That's been mentioned already, Perraine, and it's obviously the best way to do it. However, this is a workaround for what most players are going to (rightfully) see as developer cheating. The behavior we're talking about makes no rational sense -- not even in the context of this game, since there is nothing else in-game to suggest that guards should be psychic when most everyone else in the world isn't.

 

I think this is a valid point, and was even addressed in Oblivion with several mods that curtailed the psychic abilities of guards to know every crime you ever committed, even if there were no witnesses. It's only a little better in Skyrim, since guards are only aware of crimes you commit in their holds, but the fact remains that their knowledge is often "automatic", regardless of the circumstances under which the crime was committed. This isn't even the way that Bethesda, itself, reports that crime is handled in the game, since according to their documentation a crime has to be "reported" by a "witness". I guess the game-engine itself classifies as a "witness" in this case, but this is stretching my ability to suspend disbelief pretty thinly.

[landy8]

It happens not only with Thalmor. Once I killed 3 Legioneers (I was on Stormcloaks' side), and got a bounty despite there were no witnesses.

 

The case, I think, is Tamriel being a world of magic. So recently killed Guards (Legioneers, Stormcloaks, Thalmor etc.) report to some spiritual observers of their factions before departing to Aetherius, and that observers report to the factions' seers. So the only way to escape a bounty is to make sure that the person you're killing doesn't see you also (so this person could report only "was killed by an unknown criminal").

 

Added: :biggrin:

Edited May 26, 2012 by landy8

[Perraine]

Sorry RedRavyn, I didn't mean to imply anything about anyone and my sincere apologies if I somehow gave offense ...

 

(as mentioned in my post) I totally agree that the Psychic Guards and Stool Pigeon Trees are an "EPIC FAIL" by Bethesda, but unless they do a major overhaul of the game scripting, it ain't gonna' change, so 'workarounds' and inventing our own stories/hypotheses to explain it are about all that's left to us ...

[StayFrosty05]

 

I love the Thalmor 'Death Squads'.... :happy: ....I wish more would come after my Dovahkin....he collects and keeps their orders as his souvenirs.

 

Someone needs to create a "paper your walls with thalmor (or dark brotherhood) death orders" mod. :biggrin:

 

My Dovahkin would rock with that.... :D

[RedRavyn]

No offense taken, Perraine. I was just pointing out that the conversation option with Thalmor to make them go aggro is a pretty well-known fact that I don't think a lot of Thalmor-haters in this game take advantage of. Of course, one of the reasons might be that a group of Thalmor can be devilishly difficult to take out if you're by yourself.

 

Another thing I was trying to make clear is that this is a sore point with a LOT of players of this game and has been since at least Oblivion. What do the developers do about this? Make it even worse in Skyrim. Are they really listening to us when we tell them they're doing it wrong? Of course they aren't (or they just reverse our suggestions for making it better just to spite us). I'm convinced they do things like this make the Player squirm, and that's simply meanness on their part. There are so many instances of "let's screw the Player just for the fun of it" in Skyrim that it can't only be coincidence. It has to be a major game design philosophy.

 

I'm sure that someone will eventually get around to fixing this part of the game, just like several people stepped to the plate and fixed it in Oblivion.

 

@ landy8: As I've mentioned, before, there doesn't have to be a single witness (not even the victim) to accrue problems due to a crime. My favorite example is Anise's Cabin. Kill Anise with a single shot in a sneak attack. No witness -- not even Anise, herself. You'll get no bounty for it. Now, immediately enter her cabin and steal anything. Even a single tankard. Wait. Chances are, a non-existent Moire (she doesn't even appear in the game until you start the related Daedric quest) will send a band of thugs to kill you for that theft. Explain that one away (i.e. make up an alibi for the developers doing something so incredibly stupid like this). I'd like to see it. Yeah ... I'm just being sarcastic, so don't take it to heart. One of my major pet peeves with both Oblivion and Skyrim are the ways that Bethesda totally failed to take into account the whole concept that a crime cannot be reported if there are no legitimate witnesses to the event. I don't consider horses, chickens, trees, rocks, the sky, and non-existent NPCs to be "legitimate witnesses".

 

In my opinion, a game which does this is severely breaking any vestige of "realism" that the developers intended to build upon with all the near-realistic eye-candy they've put into it. I don't buy the "magic" argument. That might be your fantasy about what's happening, but if this were the case then wouldn't the Player, through his character, know about these things, too, especially if he's actually a native of Skyrim, which many PCs are? Of course he would, since the whole "report crimes to the factions's seers" would be public knowledge. To me, an explanation for behavior like this in a game must make sense within the context of the game, itself. There's nothing that's actually within the games of Oblivion or Skyrim that even remotely addresses the mechanism by which crimes become magically known to the authorities, so, to me, that's not a valid explanation. Reporting of a crime (by valid witnesses) to the appropriate authorities, relevant to the associations of the injured party, does make sense. That wouldn't explain why the Stormcloak prisoner of an Imperial patrol would report you to the Imperial authorities for killing all the soldiers, even assuming he managed to survive -- but he'd be the only witness to the crime, wouldn't he?