Which requires you to either accidentally stumble on it or know already from playing the game extensively or checking the wiki or something. If you follow the MQ as the game leads you to follow it, the game assumes you want to be a mage - that's how they've intended it to be.
It's the same with the TG - you can avoid joining them, but the game doesn't want you to. It's like Slyme said - they seem to think they have to push you towards everything.

I agree completely, and it is one of very few criticisms I have of the game.

For example:
Dustman's Cairn requires you to be in the Companions.
Saarthal requires you to join the college.
Snow Veil Sanctum requires you to be in the Thieves Guild.

I think there should be other paths that can lead you to these places (and others).

The inability to take out the Thieves Guild has always annoyed me, it makes playing as a righteous character very difficult.

Ok, the word walls in the DB sanctuaries would be a good example of this. However, RE the elder scroll, you only need to gain access to the college of winterhold, you don't have to go any further than that. And with regards to the companions, you aren't permanently a werewolf, if your character doesn't want to be one then they can resolve that issue.

On the one hand we moan about lack of consequence, but when a faction comes with the price of lycanthropy we complain how that is foisted upon us...?

Meaningful consequence. There are so many solutions here. Have the option to support one of multiple factions within the companions, one supporting lycanthropy, another repulsed by it. Have the option to report the werewolf activity to some authority. One would think the Jarl of Whiterun might be interested in knowing his neighbors are werewolves. Also, the ability to join the silver bloods and purging the companions from Skyrim. If you refuse to become a werewolf, this shouldn't be met with, "'Kay, come back if you change your mind!"

Right now, any consequences are meaningless and any choice is between doing exactly what the questlines demands or ignoring the questline altogether. These are arbitrary consequences not supported by any reasonable interpretation of the situation you find yourself in. This is what needs to change.

This so hard.

People whine about no consequence, and then when there is consequence, they whine.

Needing to aid other people in order to achieve your goals is a very real world consequence. You want information as to Esbern's location? Well, you gotta do something for the Thieves Guild. Very realistic. You need information about the Elder Scrolls? Well you're gonna have to go check out the College of Winterhold. Very realistic. You don't want to join the College? That's cool. Never seek out the person who gives you a tour of the campus, and never do anything for the College beyond getting the information you need. Problem solved. You don't have to become the Archmage - the OP even suggesting that is just asinine. "Funnel" quests that lead you to bigger quests? That's not a bad thing at all. Can't decline a quest? Yes you can. You can exit out of the conversation before accepting it. That is declining the quest. Journal entries in your journal that you can't get rid of? Sounds like Morrowind and Oblivion to me, where even if you had no intention of doing a quest, there was an entry in your journal about the quest - written in character - saying "Hey I should go do this" - that is more character breaking than anything in Skyrim.

You don't want to do everything with one character? Then don't do it! It's that simple. Nobody is forcing you to join the Companions, or the College, or the Imperial Legion, or the Stormcloaks, or become a Thane of every hold...

However, having to aid specific people, or encountering some consequence to complete your goal or as a result of your actions? Very real world consequence, and very appropriate for an Elder Scrolls game.

This is different from the previous Elder Scrolls formula how?

Because I like to do everything on one character.

Too much freedom! [censored] [censored] [censored]
Too little freedom! [censored] [censored] [censored]

Make up your damn minds and learn to use your brain to make choices in how you play.

On the contrary, I don't find that Bethesda assumes we want to do everything. That's my choice. If I want to do everything, I certainly can. If I want to do certain things with certain characters but not others, that's my choice. If I want to do absolutely nothing but pick flowers and mushrooms and watch Northern Lights (no action/no adventure, in other words), I can do this too.

All the Dragonborn [censored] had me worried before 11/11/11, but after playing this game since then, I've come to the realization that it's very easy to ignore this, and just play a "normal", average character if I choose.

I understand some people want to play a "one character does everything". That's fine with me. My problem is that Bethesda locked some unrelated quests items and word walls within some factions that you have to join to get to them. All I ask is that they remove this, then everyone is happy. Well, as happy as anyone can be in a gaming forum.

I'm all for as much freedom as they'll give me. As long as it makes sense.

So I have no problem with them letting me join any guild. I do, however, have a problem with the fact that a pure warrior (or nearly pure) can become Archmage of the College of Winterhold. Why the other mages would allow that makes no sense to me at all.

Um, the fighters guild in Morrowind gave you the option to back the reasonable elements, headed by Percius Mercius, or follow the criminal element acting as Commona Tong enforcers.

More broadly, what the hell do previous Elder Scrolls games have to do with this? I expect improvements in a sequel.

That isn't consequences though - it's a game design that pushes you into whole questlines because it assumes you don't care about what sort of tasks you're doing.

The Esbern thing has nothing to do with consequences - ithough it can be bypassed, the game (that otherwise puts big arrows over everything) doesn't make this at all clear and basically gives you the impression you cannot proceed without initiating an entire questline - ok you don't have to follow it through, but it's assuming you don't care about being a thief. It's sort of telling you you have to do this to proceed. It's not giving you "consequences", it's pushing you towards doing everything because it assumes you don't care about what you're doing - it's thinking it's a quest so you'll doubtless want to do it because players don't care about whether their character is a thief or a mage or whatever. Sure, you don't have to become archmage, but the game does its best to push you in that direction. What's particularly crap is the way you can become archmage after having totally neglected magic, never use it and have no skill in it beyond your starting stats.

And why is it "realistic" to have to join the college to seek their help? Wouldn't it be more realistic to...just ask for their help? If someone contacts a renowned scholar for their expert opinion on something, do they have to sign up for a degree before they're allowed to e-mail them?

Consequences is about your actions having, well, consequences - something the game lacks in spades. Indeed, one of the ongoing big criticism is it doesn't much matter what you do because it won't really affect anything - as I said earlier, you can still become thane of Riften for apparently being some kind of people's champion even after you've extorted several members of the population. Exactly because Bethesda seem terrified of any player shutting themselves of from anything or actually experiencing consequences because of decisions they make - quite the opposite, they seem to actively want every player to do everything or come up against brick walls by not being a werewolf warrior thief assassin mage.

The point is you are (to all intents and purposes) forced to join the college to complete the MQ and you are forced to join the college to complete another quest that has nothing to do with the college and involves three other dungeons you may already have ploughed through before discovering it is impossible to progress the quest without joining. That's not 'consequences', it's railroading the player.

It's true you can click out of dialogue, but it's also true the game frequently doesn't give you dialogue choices to decline quests. Again, it assumes it's stuff to do so you'll want to do it.

You want the stone in the College without joining? You can access the college through The Midden, after which you are treated as a regular student. You haven't gone through the test to be allowed in, so they assume you were there all along. This would mean that you haven't officially joined them. Yeah, so you'll have to do the first quest in order to gain access to the Archmages quarters, but it is a means to an end. Do you really expect the most powerful mage (in actual power or just rank it doesn't matter) in the college to have an open door policy? No, you have to gain their trust.

As for the stone in the DB sanctuary, the same applies. I doubt there's an easy way into it, but then it's not exactly a hardship to join under false pretenses. Hell, one of the guys you have to kill deserves it anyway, so what's the problem?

You play a thief and a sign of a good thief is their ability to decieve, so I don't see how it would be character breaking to collect the stones as a thief.

If you want to do everything with one character that's fine. All i'm saying is it grates when the game forces that on you via unrelated quests or locks you out of wordwalls (finding those should be an end in itself) irf you don't.
If you wish to be a warrior thief assassin mage, that's fine and it's great the game supports that. I just wish it didn't assume that's what every player wants and tried to push you into it.

I didnt do two guilds questlines with the same character... wait.. i did, thieves and dark brotherhood with my vampire illusionist. The companions I'm doing with my orc and mage i did with my... mage XD

I dont like doing everything with only one character and i never felt i were supposed to do it

1/you're not going to know about the Midden until you've got well into the questline anyway. The game design basically tells you you are going to join the college, period.
2/Earning their trust is a fine idea. Why couldn't they give you a task? Why do you have to essentially sign up for school? You don't - as it is - actually have to earn their trust - you turn up, they don't know who you are or why you're really there, you cast a spell and they sign you up for schooling. Just because you want to ask them about something or gain access to a particular dungeon. It makes no sense. You can't say "actually I'm just here for..." and totally bypass magical training and that entire questline if that's what you'd prefer to do - I get the impession the guy who delivers the groceries would have to sign up for magical training just to drop off some carrots.
3/With the DB, it's really not conducive to any kind of character rolep[lay to join because you already know there's a wordwall there. I'd rather award myself the word via the console when I feel I deserve it, but i can do that as i'm on PC. or you can choose to wipe them out...which you can only do when you've assassinated someone for the flimsiest of reasons anyway. So you can only wipe out a bunch of assassins by being an assassin yourself anyway. Which makes no sense.

While yes, it's a bit annoying that things like the Gauldur Amulet quest are stuck behind a "Must be on Mage Guild questline" door (grumble, grumble)...


...I didn't find any problems with this on my first, "good" character. Run into a Daedric quest that says "do bad thing"? Say "no", and move on. Khajit in the streets of Solitude says "Hey, sabotage the lighthouse for me!" Uh, NO. Pretty simple.

Yeah, there's quests that ask you to do bad things. That's why I didn't do them.

(Actually, most characters I ever play are "good". I've never done the Thieves' or DB questlines in Oblivion, for example.)


So no... I don't think that "Bethesda assumes you want to do everything." Allow you to? Sure. Assume you do/will? Nah.





Honestly, though, it is a bit odd that there isn't any kind of "No, just visiting. I'm on a quest for the Greybeards and beg the assistance of the Guild." If the only way you can get in is to join, what about that Thalmor ambassador? How do people make deliveries, or come with requests, etc. Still, wasn't that big a deal. On my non-mage character who wasn't going to do the guild, just did the little I had to do to walk in the door, and then ignored them.

So you're going to go into a place filled with people that could quite easily kill you with a flick of the wrist without "casing the joint"? As a thief, you would not only need a silver tongue, you would also need to be able to find alternative ways of gaining access. It's never going to be as easy as walking in. The problem with this particular quest isn't the locations of the stones, but rather the players inability to think for themselves. Read any information on famous heists and it doesn't take a genius to know that they did their homework, they reconned the place before the job.


Overlooking your example of reductio ad absurdum, you are correct to a point. You don't have to play any of their quests as a mage. Besides, you only need to do the first quest, think of yourself as an inside man (yet another example of thief-like tactics)


Having not played the MQ this far, I can't be sure, but I've heard people saying that there is an option to say that you're the Dragonborn and they will just let you in.

I have a friend who has played Oblivion, FO3, and Skyrim, with a single character in each game. She does not roleplay. To her the game is little different from Doom, Half Life, or any other shooter. Kill bad guy, take its stuff, get stronger, repeat. She sees no reason why her character should not be the head of every guild and do every quest. She is also much more used to playing linear games like the Mass Effect series, where you do everything the developer puts in the game. So she takes that attitude to ES games. If the developer made a quest, she should do it. Otherwise she cannot 'beat' the game.

I think Todd Howard (or someone else at Bethesda) is the same kind of gamer, because I do get the impression that the devs expect everyone to play that way. It is true you do not have to, and I certainly do not, but I do feel that is the mind set Bethesda has when it comes to their main quest lines.

As I recall, what they do is they let you JOIN because you are the Dragonborn. After all, surely there is a lot they can learn from you. And you from them.

You can say that you're the Dragonborn as the reason for why they should accept you as a student.

So... you're angry because you aren't forced to make multiple characters to do everything in the game?

You want less freedom?

Yeah - that's why i scanned every inch of Whiterun for a hidden entrance before walking through the door to Dragonsreach.
It's a college full of generally benign wizardy types - not fort knox
My current character is a pure warrior. they walk around with a two handed sword and if anyone gives them any trouble they hit them with it. They are going to themelves surprised to learn they can't just approach a college and politely say "could i ask someone about something?" without signing up to study something they have zero interest and no talent in.
I'm not talking about any "heist". My gripe is being forced to join to advance a entirely unrelated quest and to progress the MQ. I don't care about the stones, if that means those collectible gems - i've never been bothered about them with any of my characters. To get all them you really do need to be Mr or Mrs everything.


That makes it worse. you'd think the mage's guild questline would be all about magic and stuff. but you can hack and slash your way through it and still end up as an archmage who's crap at magic. At least the TG involves some activities that really need a bit of the relevant skill set.


Can't remember if that's the case. Even if so, the game still treats you like you're joining. i think it would be much better if you could apply to join as a separate thing to going there to ask them about stuff or get let into a dungeon and then have to do somethoing a bit more magical than cast a single spell. like some sort of application quest that necessitates some magic use to complete it.

No I'm irritated because characters are forced or heavily pushed to do things that are out of character simply by following the main quest, wanting to find word walls or doing a generic quest.

Sheesh. It's amazing how many people seem to turn a really simple concept upside down.

i think that's it exactly.