Is it just me or is every other NPC that you run into marked as "essential" (Meaning that you can't kill them)? In my opinion, having that many essential NPCs in the game kind of ruins the "shape your own world" theme that the game was going for. I mean I can see them being labeled as such if say, part of an important quest, but most of the essential labeled NPCs aren't even a part of a major quest, or even in a quest at all. For some unknown (And probably bad) reason, Bethesda decided to make half of the people in Skyrim invincible, which really ruins it for the role players, which is let's face it, most of the people who play Skyrim. Most of us like to make up little stories about our characters and why that bum in the ally has to die, but wait. The bum is an essential....

Anyway, I'd seen some people talking about this in a few other threads and decided to make a thread about it. I'm hoping (Not holding my breath) that in a future patch that they can at least lessen the number of essential marked NPCs.

They probably did so because of the dragons. I have had dragon attacks inside cities where a number of merchants and townspeople died.

It's to protect the characters from unprovoked murder

I'm just glad you're not holding your breath.

Still, it's pure evil that Maven Black-Briar and Rolff "every night I walk the Grey Quarter" Stone-Fist are essential.

Then an NPC should be essential, unless by express action of the player character.
I really dont like any essential NPC's, I want the number of them in the game to be zero.

^ "Then an NPC should be essential, unless by express action of the player character." This.

There should be mod, if there isn't one already, that makes everyone killable. A lot of work, I know, but it doesn't have to make everyone... Lest they can and do have the quests obtainable and continuable via other, live NPCs or other circumstances.

I loved Morrowind because of this.

I hate that "Grey Quarter" guy. That's what I mean. You should be able to murder him.

If you try to role play without NPCs being essential, most of them die because of the really poor AI. The dragons make this even worse, but even without dragons the same problem occurs. It always has, really. Until we have much better AI logic in mass market games and simulations, you either need essential NPCs (to prevent deaths due to completely unreasonable actions that are just as bad for role playing as essential settings) or you have to constantly resurrect NPCs (to reverse deaths that should not have happened because the actions that caused the deaths were not actions that the NPCs would take if they had remotely decent AI).

If you really want to get rid of specific NPCs, make a mod and set them to be nonessential.

Here's what's ridiculous here. I've been playing CRPGs since Baldur's Gate, so lemme toss in a little perspective:

To complain about the AI is futile. AI is soooo much better now that it used to be. It's like complaining about your cell phone not having enough apps to someone who grew up without a phone. Stop complaining. It is what it is, and its a helluva lot better than it used to be. Some of you sound like the person waiting at the microwave oven and complaining that it takes too long. You're taking for granted how amazing gaming technology has become.

And the "essential" argument. People complain about an NPC that dies and ruins a quest. Programmers make characters essential. Gamers then complain that their game isn't realistic enough for them. Programmers design scripts that allow for the death of important NPCs. Gamers complain that too many important NPCs are getting killed. Programmers take heed and make sure that NPCs that may be of value are coded as essential. And here we are with this kind of thread. People are gonna complain about one thing or another. There's no possible way for everyone to be happy about every aspect of game as huge and complex as this. Get over it. If you feel a need to be able to kill vereyone, play a FPS. If you want to play in an open-ended, massively immersive CRPG, you have to accept certain restrictions on killing, because not everyone is concerned about not being able to kill a bum that they decided needs to die for reasons they've invented for themselves.

I dunno abt all that, river wood got attacked by a dragon ... everyone died

I don't know anything about programming, but that seems to be a reasonable, simple solution that would please everyone.

Yep. Bethesda could even add a little pop-up that warns you that you are about to kill an 'essential' NPC.


Check http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A_aY_Sdwdpc out - it's a 2 minute segment from one of Dane Cook's stand-up (with user-added animation). It's only 2 minutes, but if you skip to 1:20 you'll get to the relevant part.

I know a little about programming and I'm pretty sure 2-3 short lines of code could fix it.

cant you just go into construction set and change the npc from nonkillable to killable, i know you could in old ones.

Shoulda just made em the same as followers, vulnerability wise.

Immortal against NPCs, killable by the PC.

The thing that annoys me the most is the "essential" stormcloak/legion officers at the different camps. I mean, WHY are they essential, it makes no sense!!!

It would be awesome if they weren't essential, and that destroying these camps was a radiant quests. For example: you go to the officer at a jarl's house and ask him about the war, and he says something in lines with "our scouts have discovered an enemy camp, take them down!" You would have the option to go there alone or bring a small squad with you. The camps would be removed once the enemy is defeated, and after a few days maybe a new camp would be set up at a different location.

Just do it with the console on a case by case basis.

you could but youd miss out on the beating them up portion i think was the point, they want that hobo to die..... violently

I agree. it's totally moronic. Nearly every freaking NPC is 'essential'. When they ar'nt even in quests!
They keep people your general wants you to kill essential! Tullius says, wipe out all stormcloaks, so you do. Except the commander is 'essential', for no freaking reason.

It ruins the whole make your own story thing.

No one is essential. Everyone, including children should be killable.
There is no excuse whatsoever for any of those essential tags.
If they die, they die. Let them die. It never killed a game to have some minor npc get randomly killed.
You know who not to kill with time.
You should be able to wipe out as many people and factions as you want. Fail as many quests as you like, on purpose, by killing the entire faction.

You can't make a good character who wipes out evil properly. You can't make a evil character who wipes out towns for fun. Because of those cretinous essential tags.
You go on a rampage through towns, and the only people who die are the good ones.

It's like they thought people would want to do every quest, and no one would would want to deliberately fail them or wipe the faction out.
Killing these people would'nt damage anything!
Just make substitutes if you have to! Leave it empty, no one cares! When you drive a axe through someones head, you want one thing, them to die!

And, bethesda, if someone tries to kill a entire faction, they want them dead.
Not do the quest, not have it forced in your questlog when you want nothing to do with them.
You want them dead. You are trying to kill them. On purpose!

Let us kill who the hell we want and fail what we want!

I'm certain that if no NPC's were essential, we'd get nearly a flood of topics like "OMG BETHSDA US FAIL Y DRAGON BREAK QUESTS" or "OMG CAN'T BEAT QUEST CUZ I KILLED PERSON EARLIER AND THE GAME NEVER TOLD ME." Honestly, these topics are nothing compared to what would happen.

Yep.

...and that's why I recommend a pop-up window with a warning before you kill an 'essential' NPC.

Marking someone as essential is how you fix bad NPC AI, or haven't you heard?

Heck I just finished the Companion quest line again and if those quest followers were not essential I'd be the only person in The Circle. Those guys were taking a knee in every battle. Course hired followers wouldn't last long either.

The thing is, I personally never have a problem with this. I only attack people that attack me first or are quested to be killed, and I have yet to have one of those be essential. Well, the sole exception is the officers in the civil war camps when you are told to take them out whenever I find them after the war and I can't, so I just leave them alone.

Man that reminds me of MW. If I had a dollar for every forum thread that started "Help I killed so-n-so and now I can't do this-n-that...". It was just amazing how many people would just kill any random NPC just because they had a weapon or armor they wanted.

And how about when a dragon decimated an entire town and you had no save for a while as you didn't see that happening.

Well, fix the code as Merari and Cecilff2 mentioned. Essential to other NPCs, but killable by PCs. I added the warning pop-up.

Edited for capitalization.