Derailing the Railroads of Skyrim

[kryptopyr]

I understand why just deleting the entire quest would be appealing, but the problem I see with this is that you'd almost have to release individual mods for every single quest. Once you start deleting content from the game, I think you'll just find yourself in the situation where one person will want to do quest A but not quest B, while another person wants to do quest B but hates quest A, etc. The more quests you try to include the worse the situation becomes, since your choice of mods to delete is going to be very subjective. I think adding legitimate ways to avoid the quests is the better option.

 

With my mods, I really try not to delete any content. I actually put a significant amount of additional work into the mod to make sure I avoid actually breaking the quest. I'd rather add options or put restrictions on things than flat out delete stuff from the game. In part I do this because I feel it's more versatile and can support multiple styles of play and different approaches. For example, by putting restrictions on Brynjolf's forcegreet package, it allows people playing good characters to completely ignore him without being forced into conversation, while at the same time it adds an extra element of immersion and a bit of challenge for people playing thief characters because they have to actually do some thieving before Brynjolf will recognize their abilities and invite them to join the Guild. It also makes it possible to play a character that starts out good but turns to crime later on. I've tried to allow for the same range of options with the Barenziah stones. It also...and this is key for me...lets me switch between playing different characters without having to adjust my mod list between loading different saves.

 

The College of Winterhold is actually the next of these quests I'd like to work on. AndrewOverload519 might have hit on a great solution for this. It's been a little while since I've looked at that quest, but I know it's a bit more involved than just changing a few objectives. If I remember right, there are a series of things that need to be either disabled or enabled. think it might also require adjusting door locks and NPC packages so they will interact with you appropriately if you are not a member of the faction. I'll admit that my motivations are less about finding a way to avoid joining the college during the main quest, then for a way to sneak into the college so my thief can rob the place blind...but again, it should be possible for a single mod to accomplish both of these objectives. I haven't played Dawnguard yet, so I don't know how it would affect the quest in Dawnguard, and if a specific version for Dawnguard would be necessary or not.

[StayFrosty05]

@kryptopyr...I have seen your Brynjolf mod...yes, it caught my attention.... :happy: ...I like how you have set it up...I had run into a hiccup in wanting to use it, but that has just very recently been sorted out....I want the pick pocketing skill without being a Thief....reason: My game style tends to be devious though not criminal.... :ohdear: .... :happy: ....I am chasing the 'Reverse Pick Pocket Poisons' perk and the 'Disarm' perk...but a mod has now been made for me in which I can gain XP from base line with reverse pick pocket...not poisons still until I reach the appropriate level...but though now my Dovahkin will have plenty of Pick Pockets marked in his crime file, there will remain no stolen items....All in all I think I can now use that very awesome looking mod of yours.... :happy:

 

I can see what you are saying in your above post about not actually deleting content...that makes sense.....It could seriously mess with the mechanics of the vanilla game, that would be my main concern.

[AndrewOverload519]

Another suggestion, this time regarding the quest "A Daedra's Best Friend". Make it so that the guards should still approach the player and ask if they have seen a dog anywhere, but the quest itself won't start until Lod, the Blacksmith in Falkreath, has been spoken to about it.

[kryptopyr]

So I spent a few hours looking at a couple of these quests. The Civil War start is a simple fix. It basically takes adding a single ";" to one of the scripts, and any greetings concerning the war should no longer trigger the quest, whether you're greeted by soldiers or talk to Hadvar or Ralof, etc. You'll still hear all the dialogue and greetings, but the quest will not start and you will not get the journal entry "Join the Stormcloaks," or "Join the Imperial Legion." In fact, you can even talk to Ulfric & Tullis without getting the quest assigned to you.

 

What's interesting is that once they refer you to Rikke or Galmar, the game actually does give you a dialogue option to refuse the first mission, but the script is set to advance the quest regardless of whether you accept the quest or not. Again, this is a pretty simple fix. So with these two minor changes, the player should be able to freely walk Skyrim, talk to Tullis/Rikke or Ulfric/Galmar about joining, and even be able to listen as they explain what they want you to do, without having to begin the quest. The quest would only start once you have actually accepted the mission from them.

 

I haven't had a chance to test any of these changes yet, but they are so simple and straightforward that I can't imagine they won't work as predicted.

 

I also looked a bit at the main quest, but I'm a bit more hesitant to correct this. Removing the objective to talk to Hadvar/Ralof's relative in Riverwood would be pretty easy. The quest should still progress if you sought them out on your own or if you bypassed talking with them and went straight to talk to the Jarl in Whiterun. However, for a beginning character, it's not a bad first objective. And even if I decide to ignore the main quest, it IS the main quest. Of all the quests that are forced into my journal, I kind of feel that the main quest has some right to be there. And as gsmanners said, there is already a mod (Alternate Start - Live Another Life) that allows you to avoid the main quest if you want.

 

Third, I was looking at the Forsworn Conspiracy. I'm going to make some changes to this quest as well. This one is a bit more complex, but not too bad. I think this is how I'm going to handle it... Eltrys will still run up to you and hand you the note, but reading the note will not start the quest, and you have to actually seek Eltrys out at the Shrine of Talos in order to start the quest. Further, I'm changing both the note and his AI package so that he will only be at the shrine for an hour or so at midnight. Therefore, he won't be stuck for the entire game just waiting at the shrine for the player to arrive. He will go about his life (he was actually given work & sleep packages in the vanilla game, but never uses them because the quest package overrides them). The player can visit the shrine, as well as talking to Eltrys when he's outside of the shrine, and neither of these should trigger the quest. Actually, you can even meet and talk to Eltrys at midnight and there is a dialogue option to refuse the quest (choosing this option will not trigger the quest). At any point, the player can change their mind and decide to meet him meet him at the shrine at midnight and agree to the quest, which is the only way the quest will start.

 

The only problem I can see with this fix, is that it creates a bit of an inconsistency in the dialogue. At one point during the quest Eltrys tells you, "He was one of the smelter workers. I used to have a job down there myself, casting silver ingots...." However, the package changes I made cause him to still have this job. I'm not sure if it's worth worrying about, but I may see if I can have the dialogue corrected (because these sorts of details tend to bother me...particularly when they're in my mods).

 

While it's not necessary to do for the sake of avoid the quest, I'm also thinking of putting conditions on the dialogue further along on the quest so that you can't discuss the conspiracy with him during the day, while he's out and about. You'll need to talk to him sometime during the night (which I think plays along nicely with the secretive nature of the quest).

[AnkhAscendant]

@kryptopyr

Allow me to be the first to say that your proposed changes sound great - simple, effective, and low-impact, which is about perfect. I actually really like the details you mentioned adding to Eltrys. Things like that are far too lacking... NPC's shouldn't exist for our pleasure. :/

 

If not having the "Join the Imperial Legion" quests start is so easy, I wonder why the devs felt we needed it as it is. That goes beyond hand-holding to yanking us along.

 

Is it complicated to make quests not auto-start on rumors, like you did with the DB one? I wonder, because the quest to visit Azura's shrine also starts on a rumor you can get in Riverwood, and it seems pushy to have something on the other end of the province stuck in your journal so early.

[kryptopyr]

Thank you! I'll try to have the Forsworn and the Civil War changes finished and posted by the end of the week. Mostly I just need to find the time to test them. I think I'll probably just start making all of these changes part of a single mod (at least for these simple, minimally invasive, changes).

 

I think the developers tried to make it easy for players to find the quests, particularly the "main" quests. They were probably less concerned with players who might want to avoid quests, then with helping people find the quests they might be interested in. I don't blame them for this. When you are creating a sandbox world as large as Skyrim, it does probably help a lot of people to be pointed toward the quests they might otherwise not stumble upon until much later. I think this is particularly justified in the case of the Main and Civil War quests (I actually see the Civil War quest as sort of a second 'main' quest rather than just a random quest). I understand them doing this for Factions too since I suspect that there are many players who start the game and head almost directly for one faction or another. Of course the problem with this, is that you then have to basically put up billboards to point players in all these various directions. "Go here if you want to join the Stormcloaks!" "Go here if you want to be an assassin!" "Go here if you want to be a mage!" Is it hand-holding? Yes, definitely. But then again, have you seen just how many questions there are on various boards that run along the lines of "I can't find so n'so..." or "I can't figure out where I need to go..." And I don't mean to knock the intelligence of these other players...there are certainly a few times when I've found myself puzzling over what I should be doing next or looking up something online because it wasn't clear. Of course these issues could be addressed in other ways (having more options to ask various NPCs for directions or information), which would be awesome, but extremely time intensive to actually implement on a broader scale. And the developers have to deal with both time and budget constraints.

 

Anyway, back to your actual question... I can't speak for all of them, but the quests that I've looked at that start based on a greeting or rumor have been pretty simple...typically just removing the line that sets the objective to be displayed. I find that the most time consuming part is often chasing down all the different threads that tie into the quest (in order to make sure that the solution is really as simple as it seems and you aren't going to break something if you change it). I wouldn't think Azura's star would be that bad, though. I'll add it to the list of quests to look at.

 

I'm also going to try to remove the Dark Brotherhood rumors from anyone who is not in Riften or Windhelm. Currently, the mod I made still allows you to hear these rumors; they just don't activate the quest. However, I just really can't imagine that sort of rumor spreading very far beyond the walls of the cities whose inhabitants it concerns. I know that you can get this rumor from other innkeepers, but Moraevik indicates that you can hear it from guards (not just Windhelm guards). Can anyone confirm this? I haven't been able to locate those particular dialogue files in the CK.

[AnkhAscendant]

Re: DB rumor, I'm about 95% certain I can confirm hearing it from Whiterun guards, which I guess is only -almost- confirmation. I just started a new character though and I was pretty certain I'd already heard it as a greeting. You're right, it does seem strange that something that's supposed to be as secret as summoning the Dark Brotherhood has spread across the width and breadth of the province, especially when it's just some random orphan kid doing it.

 

I see what you're saying, why the quests were made so obvious. I was thinking about that, and I suppose the first time I played I was really lost and these were all very helpful. By the time you come upon whiterun you know exactly where to go if you want to be a mage, a warrior, or an assassin, and you can find out about the thieves from books in the city (thank goodness those don't start quests), as well as having heard about the Bard College and knowing where to go to sign up for the civil war on either side. After 300ish hours of gameplay I think it just got old having my hand held.

 

>That reminded me that you're given a "talk to the leader of the Companions" quest after you talk to the companions outside Whiterun, too, and there are the "investigate the bard college" quests I don't remember if were already mentioned or not. I had forgotten there was that much stuff going on so early.

 

 

 

As rather an aside, is this an appropriate place to mention all of the places in the world you can't get into without being on a quest already, for no good in-world reason, or would that be hijacking? I think it ties in with the railroading (and definitely needs fixed).

[gsmanners]

Is it hand-holding? Yes, definitely. But then again, have you seen just how many questions there are on various boards that run along the lines of "I can't find so n'so..." or "I can't figure out where I need to go..."

 

Excuses. It's a game. It's supposed to be puzzling. What part of this don't those developers understand?

[kryptopyr]

Excuses. It's a game. It's supposed to be puzzling. What part of this don't those developers understand?

 

Actually, I rather disagree. Just because it's a game doesn't mean it's suppose to be puzzling. There are all types of games, and they don't all involve problem solving. In all honesty, I don't feel that there is much about the Elder Scrolls (at least Skyrim & Oblivion...I haven't played the earlier games) that indicate they were intended in any way to be puzzle-solving games. There is really nothing in the way the dialogue is scripted or the way the quests are structured that would indicate the game was intended to be geared toward solving puzzles. I don't think this is accidental or negligent, but rather, for better or worse, I feel that it was a conscious choice made by the game designers. I would describe the style as participatory story-telling rather than problem-solving. Which, of course, isn't to say that I don't whole-heartedly approve of any mods that try to bring more deduction and problem-solving to the game, but those mods are catering to a preference that I don't think was intended in the original game design.

 

I'm about 95% certain I can confirm hearing it from Whiterun guards

 

Thanks. I'll keep looking for it, then. On the other hand, I'm really interested in trying out this mod, so I may hold off on adjusting the guard dialogue in order to avoid any potential conflicts.

 

I've been making a list of the quests people have mentioned (both in this post and comments I've gotten from my other mods), and I think the Companions and Bards College are on it. If not, I'll add them. I'm not making any promises that I'll get around to correcting all of these, but it's nice to have a list of quests to look at for those times when I have a few free hours. If anyone else is interested in tackling some of these quests, please let me know and maybe we can coordinate our efforts.

Edited September 5, 2012 by kryptopyr

[Moraevik]

Hey, guys! I'm still here -- just took a bit of a hiatus over the holiday, came back and installed a mod and it bugged my save game, so I've been trying to resolve that.

 

It looks like kryptopyr is much more qualified than I am to do the things we've been discussing, but I'll be digging into the CK and quests over the next couple months to see what I can add. Perhaps at some point we can bring together all the various anti-railroading mods that exist and make it into a single package.

 

I agree with kryptopyr and gsmanners that a lot of the problems we've been discussing are related to hand-holding, but it's way overboard in this game. It's Bethesda catering to the lowest common denominator, which isn't a bad thing, really. The problem with that is that Skyrim is rated for mature audiences, but the game seems to be designed for people who need help tying their own shoes every morning. Isn't it enough to be told that to learn more about magic you should visit the College of Winterhold? Can't find Winterhold? Well, ask the guy who runs the carriage service to take you there? Can't find the College once you're there? You shouldn't be playing Skyrim.

 

Some things need to have quests and quest markers, but I think a lot of these need to be left to player resourcefulness. What's wrong with expecting people to keep notes on what they hear if they're interested in it? I think a very nice addition to an anti-railroading mod would be a private journal that allows players to do just that, but within the game and not on a notepad kept alongside the computer.

 

kryptopyr, your Thieves Guild mod doesn't work for me. I'm going to try a clean start and go straight to Riften to see if it might be some mod-related problem. Brynjolf still force-greets me and I'm still forced to disable him with the console so that I can do normal stuff in the market area or in the Bee and Barb, when he's hanging around in there. I think one of the issues might be my stealth-related skills (which includes only lock-picking), too. Brynjolf can't know about these. Heck, the guards shouldn't know about them, but we all know about Bethesda's love-affair with the whole "psychic guard" thing. A better approach to your mod, I think, is to eliminate the forced greeting. You won't hear his spiel until you choose to enter into conversation with him. When you find out what he wants then you can tell him you'll do it or tell him to take a hike. If the former, then it initiates the quest. If the latter, then it doesn't, but you still have the option to speak to him again later on to get it, but there will be no journal entry to listen to his scheme. Leave it up to the player to remember you have to talk to him. It's pretty obvious, after all.

 

Related to this, Maul's forced greet should also be disabled. It's just irritating to have to listen to him rant when you first enter Riften. Furthermore, I just completed the Civil War quest-line (sided with the Imperials), so Maven is Jarl and Maul is sitting in there with her at the table and he still has to annoy me with his "I don't know you ..." routine. Maven likes me. She wants me to be her Thane. Just about everyone in Skyrim knows I helped the Imperials win the war, and the only reason Maul is in the palace is because of that. He doesn't know me? Give me a break! I suppose "quest clean-up" is a different issue than "forced questing", though. Frankly, if I were actually the guildmaster of the Thieves Guild I'd have Maul drawn and quartered and fed to the skeevers for insubordination because of his "I don't care if you ARE one of us ..." diatribes. I just hate the guy -- even more than Brynjolf. If that was Bethesda's intention then they sure did a great of job of it, and I'm not being sarcastic with that remark.