Quests

[Cthuloot]

So I think it's pretty clear that Skyrim's got a lot of quests. Some of them more unique and amusing than others, but for the most part, a lot of quests end up involving clearing some cave, fort, or tomb in order to snag some artifact, kill some bad guy, or find out what happened to somebody. Realistically looking at what I mentioned that 9 'unique' quests, but let's be honest, they're not very unique at all. My question is what sort of quests do you think Skyrim missed or could have had? Big or small.

 

I personally thought there was a distinct lack of skeever infested cellars.

[Moraevik]

Skeever-infested cellars, huh? Sounds like a job for the Fighters Guild. Oh, we don't have a Fighters Guild in Skyrim. We have a rabid pack of Companions who will ... well, that was another thread.

 

I don't want to spend my entire career being pressured into saving the World. Heck, we get pressured into saving all the guilds from certain destruction, too. I don't need this pressure! I can be perfectly happy killing bandit leaders and rescuing kittens out of trees. Oh, we can't rescue kittens out of trees, can we? There aren't any in Skyrim. Kittens, that is. There are plenty of trees, at least in a few places.

 

It's been said that Skyrim has more quests than any other ES game. Well, duh! That's because of the Radiant Quest system, but that gets really repetitively boring in a hurry, to say nothing of the fact that it can bork some of the scripted quests if you're not careful about what you're doing. In all fairness to the developers, though, quest-saturation of Skyrim, using hand-crafted quests would have been an enormous undertaking. Even with just those quests I sort of get the impression that we have more to do in Skyrim than in Oblivion.

 

The skeevers in basements thing is a radiant option for the Companions, I bet. I quit doing Aela's quests early on in my gaming experience with Skyrim, though. They were way too repetitive. I don't ever recall skeevers, but sure got tired of wolves in people's houses. Locked houses, at that. Amazing. Wolves with teleportation spells. Only in Skyrim. Now Oblivion made this concept interesting in the first Fighters Guild quest where you had to save a woman's pet rats in her basement, because the basement had been invaded by mountain lions. Then you find out a neighbor is involved, there's a little detective work and intrigue involved, and an actual moral decision you have to make that actually effects the game. Imagine that! This is what I want to see with quests. Not the go kill this, go get that, linear, one-step sort of thing that serves as most of the questing in Skyrim right now.

 

I also am tired of having to play to the role of super-hero. It can be fun playing an ordinary person who just gets swept up in things, but still doesn't have the worries of the world on his shoulders. I generally only advance the Main Quest in Skyrim far enough to get the Horn back to the Greybeards. It would be nice being able to have Dragonrend, but I'm really fed up with having to deal with the Blade's self-righteous arrogance. Besides, finishing the Main Quest has no real repercussions in the world, anyway. Do Dragon attacks suddenly stop, now that Alduin is gone? Of course not. The game still spawns dragons. Count the burial sites. Or don't. I'll do it for you. There are 22. That's all. Now throw in Mirmulnir, who apparently wasn't one of the resurrected dragons, Paarthurnax, and Alduin, himself, and we have 25 dragons. That's it. But they respawn indefinitely. Let me kill them all except for Parth and the other friendly dragons (Why don't we ever meet friendly dragons after the end of the Main Quest? There's some more quest material for development.) and then that's the end of dragon attacks in Skyrim. Then we can get to more mundane tasks. Like rescuing kittens out of trees. Assuming Skyrim ever gets any housecats and Bethesda allows ... um ... procreation in the game.

 

Have I ever mentioned how much I hate "collectathons", as I've heard the multiple-item fetch quests called? I don't think so. I hate collectathons. We had them in Oblivion, too, with the nirnroot collectathon probably being the most nefarious of the bunch, and it's not just Bethesda that does this. One of my other favorite games, Borderlands, has its share of the damnable things. I'm sure other games do, too. I think its a cop-out, because they're easy for developers to create. I wouldn't mind them so much if each individual item I had to collect had its own little "story" connected with it -- a unique place to find it, a unique boss to guard it, that sort of thing. Instead, it's more like "Oh, while you're out and about get me a zillion of these things, would ya?" As Uncle Sheo would say ... "Booooring!"

 

Let us do some mentally-challenging things. The entire quest-line for the College of Winterhold is a fetchathon (to perhaps coin another word). Get these four magic items. Oh, now get me some books. And we need the Staff of Magnus. Oh ... and now you have to save the College, and maybe even the entire world, from certain destruction. Come now. We can do better than that. A college is about studying. I can get through the entire blasted quest-line without having to cast but a single spell, and that's to open up the sealed off part of Saarthal. I can even talk my way past Faralda to get into the College. Let me do some study and research. Let me learn about magic. After all, two of my colleges are researching their own spells. Why can't I? I actually loved helping out Jzargo with his project because it seemed like the kind of thing that college kids would be doing -- not running around trying to save the world from a rabid Thalmor with delusions of grandeur and an ancient magical artifact at his beck and call.

 

The Bard's College was a similar fiasco, based on the old tried-and-true, go get this thing and we'll make you a member. I wanted to join up to become a bard. Did I ever get to sing, play an instrument, compose an ode, or ... no, nothing of the kind. I found an old book and someone else really did all the rest of the work, and suddenly I'm a bard. Or at least a member of the college, with nothing "bardish" to do except go fetch three lost musical instruments. Give me some bard-related quests. If I wasn't involved in murdering poor Vittoria at her wedding, maybe I could have been the bard who was performing, there, with the possibility of making a name for myself, for better or for worse, depending upon my expertise. Maybe a bard at one of the inns suddenly turned up missing and I'm sent to fill in for him, and wind up discovering that he's been kidnapped and is being ransomed. Do I go rescue him? Or maybe I opt to spend a little cash and hire the Companions to do it?

 

Quests with Meat. That's what we need. Most of the quests we have are just skin and bones. Unless you count the Save-The-World/Guild quests, but you already know what I think of those.

Edited September 8, 2012 by Moraevik

[Cthuloot]

I was saddened by the Bard's college. As you said there was a lot they could have done there. In the same line as what you were saying. Maybe you're sent to sill in for another bard, and you're just chilling playing the lute minding your own bard business when suddenly half a dozen armed guards come in and arrest you for something the other bard did.

 

Also. Who the hell needs TWENTY nirnroot? Get bent Ingun, maybe if you weren't such an idiot you wouldn't need 20 of them, and 20 nightshade and death bell. I honestly wanted to give her the nightshade then slip some moon sugar in her purse and accuse her of being involved with the drug trade. But really 60 ingredients? NONE of which are that unique so when you're unloading your inventory you sell all 19 of you nightshade then say screw it, kill Ingun and quit the quest.

[Cthuloot]

Thinking about it now... What if the Dovhakiin attempting to sing just unleashed his thu'um. God that'd be a brilliant little discovery before being chased out of the town and expelled from the bard's college.

[Lachdonin]

The skeevers in basements thing is a radiant option for the Companions, I bet. I quit doing Aela's quests early on in my gaming experience with Skyrim, though. They were way too repetitive.

 

I have repeatedly blugeoned my way through the Companions quests jsut to complete the damn thing. Not once have i done any of the radiant quests afterwards, because, frankly, i can't stand Aela. How anyone could be ga-ga over her that she spawns hundreds of "Aela is great" mods is beyond me... But i digress.

 

I do stand by the statement that Skyrim has more quests than Oblivion or Morrowind, even without the radiant quests. That said, i agree they are rather... shall we say... generic. They almost exclusively revolve around killing... Something. Whether its clear a dungeon, vanquishing an enemy of collecting an artifact, you always have to take somethings head off.

 

Oblivion wasn't much better, though it did have some more interesting moments. Saving the Argonian's daughter in Choral (i think thats the one) was an interesting questline. Stealing an Elder Scroll was a hell of a lot better than the Theives Guild conclusion in Skyrim. Then you had Sheogorath's little "End of the World" thing.

 

What i would have like was some deeper questlines in Skyrim. Sure, there are more quests, but their almost all one offs. Go here, do this, come back. Job done. With the expceiton of the main quest, and the Guilds, and the Daedra theres almost no depth. I would have loved if, say, after finding Ysolde's note about the Sleeping Tree Sap, it started a small chain about collecting the sap, finding a buyer and uncovering where the tree was from. 3-4 mini quests, with the first being the only one involving killing anything.

[Cthuloot]

What i would have like was some deeper questlines in Skyrim. Sure, there are more quests, but their almost all one offs. Go here, do this, come back. Job done. With the expceiton of the main quest, and the Guilds, and the Daedra theres almost no depth. I would have loved if, say, after finding Ysolde's note about the Sleeping Tree Sap, it started a small chain about collecting the sap, finding a buyer and uncovering where the tree was from. 3-4 mini quests, with the first being the only one involving killing anything.

 

Even some of the Deadric quests area little one faceted. Merida? You have to chance upon some rock, then click some pillars while you kill some ghosts. One could argue there's three unique elements to it, but then you could say 4 because you've gotta TALK to Merida, then 5 because you have to actually find the Shrine. Then 6 because you've gotta walk around, etc... Peryite's was only slightly better. You had to find some random junk THEN go kill some dudes. Even parts of the main quests were just glorified fetch quests and dungeon sweeps.

 

Quests that were awesome? I think the Murders in Windhelm was kind of neat and interesting. Sure it was a little underdeveloped, but you had SOME option in places. You could have gone off half cocked and just started accusing people. You could have spent your time interrogating people and looking for clue in Hjerm. Hell even in Hjerm there's a bunch of stuff to check out, yet the journal updates after your first clue. You could have missed two or three really important things if you just took off. Granted it isn't super unique mechanics, but it has a nice mix of dialogue and game play and gives you some choices here and there that kind of effect it. It was honestly one of my favorite quests.

[AnkhAscendant]

I wanted to agree that the Windhelm butcher quest was one of the better ones - pretty much anything were you have to think is nice. But no, for the most part even where there are multiple options, the stupid journal tells you about everything. Like Faendal/Sven... did the journal actually have to give you the option of going and telling the other one? But I digress.

 

There is one skeever-infested cellar bit, in the first Thieves Guild quest. ;) Of course your job isn't to clear it out, but you do have to get through it.

 

As far as killing things goes, at least Boethiah's quest made killing things interesting (although I'm pretty sure the quest doesn't fail if you're detected, I still challenged myself to restart every time I was... with a 94 in sneak or so it wasn't that challenging, but still.) I think the reason so many people like the DB is that it actually takes some skill, not just a strong sword-arm, unless you don't care about bounties. Then I think you might be playing an assassin wrong :P

[Moraevik]

Nope. You don't have to stealth your way through the Boethiah quest. Heck, just for grins I took Barbas on that one in one play-through. No stealth with him -- or pretty much any follower, for that matter.

 

Anyway, AnkhAscendant, you're right about the DB quests. If the boss lady wasn't such a douche, and if we had more information about the contractors, themselves, I might do that one more often. As it is, I generally opt for the "Destroy The Dark Brotherhood" quest. I still get some shrouded gear (arguably the best light armor in the game) and the quest-locked word wall, and those damnable random assassins quit pestering me on the road. I do miss Babette. Cute girl ... um, old lady, rather.

 

The thing about the DB quests, at least most of them, is that, as you said, avoiding a bounty can take some thinking and some real planning. Timing can be critical, and you sometimes need a Plan "B", because Plan "A" might not always work. These quests are, I think, the most challenging of the game if you're actually playing a sneak-assassin, rather than a tank-assassin. I think I've done the entire DB quest-line six times, maybe seven -- I don't remember exactly. I can't say that every mission went without a hitch, but I've never gotten into trouble with the Law because of one of them. It takes patience ... sometimes scoping out your mark for a couple of days to figure out the best place and time to strike. That's a breath of fresh air in the plethora of charge-in-kill-loot-plunder missions that make up most of Skyrim's quests.

 

Some of the Thieves Guild quests were well done, too, I think. The one that most strikes me as suitable for sneak-thieves is when you have to tail the Argonian (Gulum-Ei). That one can be a real challenge, especially if you're aiming for a "surgical strike" without being detected and with minimal bloodshed.

[gsmanners]

The quests are all about the voice acting. In that respect, I have to say that I like Sheogorath's quest the best. Marvellous! And the cheese! To die for.

 

Aside from that, I liked Three-Dog as the mentor assassin in the DB. Brilliant casting there. Honestly, there isn't much else I like about the quests other than the performances handed in by these VAs.

[Cthuloot]

Honestly though a good VA isn't enough. I personally enjoyed Merida's VA but was disappointed with the quest. I think Skyrim is at a sort of 'uncanny valley', for those not familiar with the term, it's a random point where the data or value being measured is much lower than expected, often a sudden drop before going back up.

 

By this I mean Skyrim did a good job making human characters, however the point they landed at wasn't far enough to escape this valley. So we're messing around with people that say things we might expect and preform and do actions we would expect as well (Going to taverns, chopping wood, etc.) but there are still some points where they act odd that really puts most people off. Look at Serana from Dawnguard. She almost broke the valley I think. Her combat AI was pretty nice, she had some interesting things to say every now and again, and in the time I played with her I only heard a few lines repeated. She would interact according to the environment (Dancing in taverns, drinking in taverns, sharpening a sword while you crafted new armor or weapons). She would even raise or lower her hood depending on the time of day and location and they included an animation for it. However there were still some points where you had to think "What is she doing?" Of course I was able to justify it in a few places, like when she was smithing during a funeral, I assumed that she didn't care or have respect for the man and wanted to just get on with things. Of course there was no voice acting or comments letting me know this, so I had to improv that. Same with the player character.

 

In Markarth when the guy hands you a note you dropped, my first reaction was "Dude, this isn't my note" And sure enough it was an option. First play though ever when Bryjolf decided I wanted in on the little plan, I was allowed to tell him he was crazy for thinking I'd break the law. With Merida, I was allowed to tell her that I wasn't going to spread her light or be her champion.

 

Of course, these options didn't have any real effect. Mostly because I feel like Skyrim in a way had a lot of "Hey guys, look at these cool quests we made, go do them! Now!" from the devs, which is just a little unfortunate. I'd like to see in a Future TES game Bethesda say "Okay, we'll be done with everything we want to do in 2014, let's spent 3 months with one or two thousand people play testing and getting their feed back on quests and such, then another 9 months trying to integrate what the play testers say and release in 2015" Even if they don't fix most of the bugs in the game, it would be nice for them to get some experience and input from people outside their team about other possible options for quests. I think the reason we get stiff armed into only a few options for these quests is one, money, and two, a sort of group think. The whole team says "Okay here are the 3 options we came up with, can anybody think of any more?" and since they don't really go outside the group that originally decided what the options would be, of course, they can't think of other options. Granted there's also a limit to what they can do, but I think at the moment Bethesda isn't really strapped for cash, and if they used a little less resource on their other "flop" titles, they could end up creating games that become really iconic and memorable for years and even decades after they are released. Imagine if the teams working on Dishonored (Bethesda's next game) were combined with the guys who are more than likely working on TES6. You'd probably have at the very least a 50% increase in man power, as well as ideas and such.

 

I'd also like to see some more things like custom journal entries for the player. Even if this game at the price of little to no journal otherwise. Maybe your journal says something like "Investigate the dragon near Riften" which is little help. However if you're the kind who pays more attention you can jot down that the guard said it's in so-and-so cave. As Ankh said, the journal was kind of a cheat sheet through the entire game. Never once did I say to myself "Oh crap I wish I remembered what he said before I left." Often times the journal either gave you the solution, the NPC came with you and told you what to do, or you found a piece of paper or book that told you what to do 3 minutes before you had to do it. Sometimes, all three happened in one dungeon. This very much added to to blandness and ease of many quests.

 

TL;DR:

Good voice actors aren't enough to make a quest good. Morrowind's an example of this.

Skyrim's characters, and by extension the player, were almost human with human reactions to things, but fell short in a few places that puts many of us off.

Bethesda doesn't seem to extensively bug test or play test things. This is apparent by many of the black and white answers to gray questions. IN the future they should spend more time on this, rather than new combat and models.

Quests that were already ridiculously simple were made easier by your journal walk through, your NPC tag-along-tutor, and convenient journals or papers that held the solution to the puzzle that the inhabitants "just figured out and will check tomorrow" literally steps away from the actual puzzle.