The legates in the legion camps (and the stormcloak equivalents) are essential, which is ridiculous. I wandered into a camp earlier on and they threatened to kill me (I've started the stormcloak storyline). So I kill all the soldiers, and the legate is essential so cannot die.

Why couldn't the game just create a new legate if I a certain quest needed him? If I changed side to the empire for example.

I don't usually kill important people for no reason, this is the only time it has bothered me, but why couldn't they just have the crucial main quest people essential for the period of the main quest like fnv.

It's so stupid having most of the people involved in a side quest essential, if I kill someone I shouldn't be able to do their quest, end of. The same with quest items, to many of the items are 'quest items'. I honestly think if you lose the item you shouldn't be able to do the quest (or open up a new avenue for completing it), I can manage crap like that myself.

Yeah i agree, its not like you can't start over and do things differently. If you kill and npc with a quest, and you can't complete it, so what? IMO should no NPCs have essential even if they died from a wolf attack.

Yeah i agree...
That is kinda stupid.

I'm just mocking the legate now, you'd be surprised how easy it is to dodge enemy attacks if you concentrate.

I think they did that to prevent peolple from breaking the civil war questlines, where you have to speak to camps legates, but yeah it's kinda dull, they could've just have them respawn after a while

I understand that, but if you're going around killing legate you should be blocked from that side anyway to be honest. It would be so easy to just respawn them in a few days with a different name, bad game designing.

For the quests they could have just had an unnamed Legate NPC in each camp which was killable.

And when you started the quest the named Legate NPC could then be activated and appear in the camp and the unnamed one disabled using a simple script.

There was no reason to include the unkillable named NPCs from the start.

Aela is essential to me <3

Also why do horses only appear near you if you fast travel somewhere, this completely screws people who don't fast travel. I think they should include a whistle you can use, a reusable power that calls the horse. Such an easy solution to an irritating problem.

i hope they patch the game with a check box in the options menu turning off all essential tags. that way no one can complain about it and those who want it can have it.

I agree, obviously some people have to be essential, but a lot of people do not need to be, yet they are. It really ruins the experience.

NPCs are not essential because the player might kill them. NPCs are essential because the game might kill them.

That's right: we can go back to the Morrowind scenario where the forums are full of people complaining that: "I killed X and now I can't start/finish quest Y" posts. We already have a few of those when dragons kill people who are not flagged as essential, but are useful, but we could really do with a lot more.

I got to agree with those particular NPCs. They should just make the commanders respawn or something. T'was a bit of a WTF moment when I first tried to murder the whole camp.

God yes. I can't stand all the essential NPCs walking around.

What really bothers me though is they haven't even implemented them well at all. They just kneel for for a minute, then get back up and start hitting you. Then, later in the game it's like the whole incident never happened. What should happen if I try and kill an essential NPC is they should appear dead on the ground, completely incapacitated. Then, when I leave the area, they should spawn either in their own house or in some kind of house of healing... where they stay for several in-game days / weeks (during which time they're unavailable as a quest giver). Once they've recovered, they should return to their normal routine, and when I speak to them, they should:

A ) refuse to talk to me at first or take a hostile tone if they saw me attack them. Depending on my character's personality/charisma/speechcraft or whatever, they may eventually forgive them and give them a quest.

or if it was a stealth attack:

B ) acknowledge that they've been injured recently, without accusing the player-character... and offer the quest as normal.

there is a mod that fixes this.

Says you, I am sure you can program a better game? If killing them ended up breaking the questline or another questline indirectly you would be the first one to come here and complain that the quests are broken, and quest breaking NPC's shouldn't be killable! Either way they go they can't win. The game is so big that one or another something else would be affected.

At last, someone who has wits!

Agreed. Beth made many terrible design choices, especially all of the essentials.

Agreed, to a point. Let's say Esbern wasn't essential, and is killed by a dragon attack - the main quest will be permanently broken. But I agree with the Legates and such - I would've loved to slaughter an imperial camp on the behalf of the stormcloaks, or vice versa.

Exactly. Ocarina of Time did it.

On one side people lament that towns are empty after a few dragon attacks, on the other side people lament unkillable characters

Aside from this game bug (not being able to dispatch the officers in the legion/stormcloack camps) I think Bethesda should have balanced things in a different way because, as is, people are unhappy either way.

Morrowind had the best approach - nobody was immortal, but if you killed an essential character a message box popped up saying: "With this character's death, the thread of prophecy is severed.
Restore a saved game to restore the weave of fate". You should be allowed to lose.

Agreed, I wish I could clear out those stormcloak camps.

"Go anywhere, do anything, as long as it's like this."

Don't get me wrong, there are many points to Skyrim that gives the game the potential to soar high above the piss soaked vestiges that is left of rpg video gaming, heck I even like the game but there are WAY too many moments that Bethesda should know not to do.

Just my opinion. Take it for what it is.