I have a level 30 Orc who hasn't done jack with the main quest. Hasn't touched it. Recently started doing Legion quests and realized the Legionnaires have a funny way of greeting me. "Dragonborn, huh? So was it your mother or father that was the dragon?" No shouts learned. No word walls touched. No dragons slain. Nevertheless, my Orc mercenary is apparently Dragonborn. Why? Because.

So I'm thinking "holy crap that's a disappointingly pathetic amount of effort put into making the game recognize your character," because as anyone who's completed a faction quest chain (or the main quest for that matter) knows, NPCs don't exactly seem aware of your standing. But whatever, shrug it off, keep going about my day. Then while running around, I get attacked by a group of Thalmor agents. I think "wtf??" I'd never seen the Thalmor automatically be aggressive before. These came up as giant red dots and seemed to be coming straight for me. Sure enough, a fight ensues and once I kill them all off wondering why the HELL the Thalmor are attacking a random Orc mercenary, I check their bodies and find a note declaring me to be a MASSIVE THREAT to the Thalmor Dominion that must be executed. MY CHARACTER HAS NEVER INTERACTED WITH THESE GUYS IN HIS LIFE.


Skyrim has a beautiful landscape yes.
There's plenty to do, yes.

But I think Bethesda should be absolutely ashamed of the work that's put into making the world react to your character. AND the length of the faction quests. This isn't the first time it's happened, no. "Ah, you must be the Arcane University's newest recruit" is still fresh in my memory. The thing is though, those same Battlemages also recognized you as Arch-mage. The fact that they'd call you Arch-mage AND the new guy suggested that a dev simply forgot to deactivate the first line once a certain quest stage was met. It suggested that the devs ATTEMPTED to do it right, but made a mistake. This though? With my character automatically being an enemy of the Thalmor and Dragonborn? This is like they just couldn't be flipping bothered to give that event or that line of dialog a trigger. No, clearly making sure random rocky ledge #2467 looks REALLY nice was more important than adding a simple trigger.

At least PRETEND you're trying...

I agree with this, although I still remember a woman commenting on what I'd sold her on my previous visit. That still creeps me out.

Those are bad, but the one that irks me the most is when I shoot a bandit in the face, run back while I'm still hidden in the shadows, and then after he walks like 15 feet to look for whoever just fractured his skull and pierced his brain with a projectile weapon, he says "ah, I guess it was nothing." as if he thought he heard a skeever running around or something. "Nevermind the arrow sticking out of my head, it was probably just rats!"

the AI is pretty bad.

I don't know, I had someone react when I dropped some armor on the floor. She was like, "Can I have that armor?"

They also react to my lack of clothing.

I do think there are lots of parts of the AI that could be improved, but those are nice touches.

Funny thing is: You can't even complete the Legion quests without starting the main quest. So much for open world.

I agree with what you're saying. My character is apparently still the new member of the Companions that fetches mead even though I'm the leader of them and they still make remarks about my werewolf disease even though I got that cured. The length of the guild questlines were pathetic and I can't believe I'm saying this but Oblivion did the guilds so much better then Skyrim. Oblivion's fighters guild had 19 quests compared to the Companions 6 which is just sad and the rest of the guilds in Skyrim is pretty much the same.

There are, but it's just like.....who was managing this ****?


"Ok so this week we'll be working on NPC AI. Any suggestions on what would help with immersion? Yes Jameson?"
"I've got one. How about the people of Skyrim actually recognize if you saved the world, or recognize if you're archmage? Likewise they won't treat you like you're Dragonborn or archmage if you're not actually Dragonborn or Archmage? Also, how about the Thalmor react to you differently if you're a High Elf, Orc, Nord etc?"
"Hmmmm, I suppose we could at it to the list. Not a top-priority though. Keep trying Jameson. How about you O'Bannon?"
"UHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH. How about if I like, buy an apple, an NPC might say.....'thank you for buying my apple?'"
"Genius, O'Bannon, genius!! I'm promoting you to project director! You could do this job better than I could! I want a full-team working on this feature ASAP."

This thread makes me some people just dont deserve Skyrim

You're ****ing kidding me.

Mind if I ask how exactly they force you into becoming Dragonborn? (with a spoiler tag, since this isn't spoilers forum)

Actions? Not really.

But they do have unique remarks for armor, skills, and daedric items. Therefore it was possible but apparently not worth the time/VA cost to implement it.

You can't? Cause I finished the legion before visiting the Greybeards.

I am the Arch Mage and the wizard in Dragonsreach still says, "You know, if you have the aptitude, you should consider joining the College of Winterhold". Haha...

..it's pretty clearly just a snarl in the files somewhere relating to status and greetings. Not some sort of sinister desire on the part of Bethesda to annoy you. Why do people feel the need to blow everything out of proportion?

You are 100% correct that you can't complete the legion quests without escaping Helgen.

I think he or she was referring to the Whiterun bottleneck.

Yes, how dare I complain about anything ever.

Tell me, are you married? Have a girlfriend? If your wife or girlfriend does something you don't like, do you immediately suppress your feelings and decide your lover is too amazing to be bothered by your unworthy, petty opinion? What about your friends? If you like hanging out with a friend of yours, but then he does something to you that you don't like, do you tell him not to do it again or do you think of yourself as an ungrateful worm for ever considering speaking out against him.

Get the [censored] over it. People criticize. Just because someone critizes doesn't mean they mean harm by it; hell, often they might be trying to help. And there's good reason to criticize here, too. NPCs reacted to player actions BETTER in Oblivion and Morrowind. Faction quest chains were BETTER in Oblivion and Morrowind. We've taken a step backwards. Taking a step backwards means they've shown they're capable of doing better, yet for some reason, aren't. Am I supposed to just shutup and sit down because Skyrim DID deliver amazing scenery? No, because I'm the costumer and I buy what I like. I like an RPG with factions and player actions having an impact on the world. If I voice this opinion, maybe Bethesda will listen and improve on that in the future. If I'm quiet and swear undying allegiance to Bethesda just because they delivered great scenery, then I bet we're only gonna be able to expect great scenery for TES 6.




But again, who the hell decided that "thank you for stopping Alduin" is optional whereas "Nice pants" is a must have?

At first, I purposefully avoided the main quest - I'm not sure if I got the quest to talk to the Jarl of Whiterun, though.

Lol, so true. I'm so happy that NPCs react when you run around naked, but seriously - completing the main quest has no impact on NPCs at all.

Yeah I agree

Well crap.

There goes my mercenary roleplay.


On a side note, does anyone know if the Dark Brotherhood assassins that come after you are just BS or is there actually a trigger for them? I get them on every character...

Yea the dialog scripts seem to be messed up...
It's not only with the guilds or the guards, it's almost everywhere.
Don't want to spoil with details but some examples are events that happen and npcs do not seem to be "aware" of them.
Worst part for me concerning this matter was the civil war questline.

the fact that NOBODY in the entirety of skyrim reacts to what happens at the end of the dark brotherhood quest really ruins it for me.

Are you saying it looks like it's a bug rather than just laziness and an "unfinished" product? I certainly hope so, but I haven't seen anything to suggest it being a bug, myself.

This. Forgot to say, that's absolutely the WORST case of this issue.

200 years ago, people would've been losing their [censored] if that happened. I know, because I was there.

Stealth AI is still as bad as Oblivion really..it just feels plain wrong that I can sneak past anybody who is staring right at my face, half the time with bright lighting. Even with 100 sneaking skill this should be next to impossible unless they're drunk or something.

If your character is moral good then they come after you that means not doing bad things and killing bad guys