A little confused by the end of the MQ... Just a few questio : V - Skyrim

» Fri Jun 01, 2012 10:37 am

Finally ended up finishing the MQ by level 46 and it left me feeling rather... Confused...

I realize after I almost killed Alduin that he had to regain his strength in Sovengarde. What I don't get is how he can get there. I was aware it was a realm only the dead could enter, but apparently if you can fly you can get there? Then there was the matter of the Dragon Priest that opened the portal for Alduin. I thought Alduin could enter but apparently he needs the power of one of these priests to get there?! How did they get the power to open a window to the afterlife? After finally entering Sovengarde I was confused by the lack of people. Is this only a small area of the afterlife? I realize Alduin needed to trap the recently slain souls that had not made it through (even though I just walked right through without ever dispelling the fog) and eat them. In the Hall, though, there are still only a small collection of Nords. Also, why was Alduin aloud to reside there by Shord (Whoever the leader of Sovengarde is)? The warrior at the beginning of the bone bridge (Can't remember his name) said that he was told to allow Alduin to reside there... So yeh, thats what I don't get... Also, what opens up after I finish the MQ?

from what I undestand, Alduin was able to use the portal. don't know if he needed the priest's help or if he was more a doorman with a staff.

sovngarde was a bit of disappointment. but I chalked to up to "assume other heroic dead are in other parts of sovngarde the developers decided not to code"

» Fri Jun 01, 2012 2:40 am

Don't get me wrong re123. I too would have liked a much more heroic and epic final encounter. I litterally gave Alduin 3 or 4 swipes with my dual ebony swords once he was earthbound and that was that. I was like "man, you svcked". But theres naught to be done about it until the CK comes out in January and we can rewrite it ourselves. It's not just the main quest suffering from a short and shallow story line. All the guild questlines are terrible as well as far as immersion goes. They just fail to make you feel part of the guilds. In Oblivion it was no easy feat to become a guild master. You actually felt like you achieved something. In skyrim it's just "Oh hey new guy. Go do this and that and this. Done? Okay, you're the new guild master because everyone else in this guild that have been here for years before you won't care that you only started out last week and took over."

That said though, it is not impossible to still enjoy the game if you just make up your own version of what happened and carry on. It's that or insanity.

» Fri Jun 01, 2012 3:48 am

Gotta say, I hated being forced to rummage through the Blackreach and blood collecting quest. I thought it was long and pointless. The reward was almost not worth the time and hassle, and it only took me a couple of hours.

The worst quesline? Bards, quickly followed by Mages' College of Winterhold. I didn't mind the companions, but it was short. To me. Though I do think the civil war quest, at least on the imperial side, was extremely short.

I think the dragon priest was just there to slow you down so Alduin can power himself up. I thought it was also short, and yeah, I wouldn't have minded the meteor shout of badassery. I summon the heroes and they just... kind of svck against ancient dragons. Still, I feel that Alduin could reach Sovngarde because he was the eldest of Akatosh's, and that alone gave him the birthright, much like the player has birthright of eating dragon souls for lunch.

My real question is... Why didn't Alduin just bomb you to begin with at the start of the game? He starts with landing and unleashing Unrelenting Force, but not his meteor shout. He could have killed the dovahkiin right there. I think, even if the meteor shout were just displayed as an animation, it would have made me... impressed and slightly horrified, being that I'd have to fight something that had that kind of power. By the end of the game, though, I think it would have made me feel more accomplished.

Screw accomplishments. My accomplishment is in shoving my fist into enemies' throats.

» Fri Jun 01, 2012 1:52 pm

Don't get me wrong re123. I too would have liked a much more heroic and epic final encounter. I litterally gave Alduin 3 or 4 swipes with my dual ebony swords once he was earthbound and that was that. I was like "man, you svcked". But theres naught to be done about it until the CK comes out in January and we can rewrite it ourselves. It's not just the main quest suffering from a short and shallow story line. All the guild questlines are terrible as well as far as immersion goes. They just fail to make you feel part of the guilds. In Oblivion it was no easy feat to become a guild master. You actually felt like you achieved something. In skyrim it's just "Oh hey new guy. Go do this and that and this. Done? Okay, you're the new guild master because everyone else in this guild that have been here for years before you won't care that you only started out last week and took over."

That said though, it is not impossible to still enjoy the game if you just make up your own version of what happened and carry on. It's that or insanity. :wink:

I know, undoubtedly I'll end up doing just that come January. It still disgusts me though, that time again it is the playerbase that must fix for themselves, what Bethesda is too lazy or apathetic to fix, or get right the first time. I've just about resigned myself to accepting that Bethesda makes great worlds and writes interesting lore...but little else.

» Fri Jun 01, 2012 4:52 am

First, you have to realise who Alduin is/was. We are talking here about the first dragon ever. Akatosh's favourite. An immortal creature that was made from the very fabric of creation. Some misinformed people even believed Alduin to be the Nord version of Akatosh (which a young boy eloquintly disputes in 'Alduin is real'). So it stands to reason that this is a foe of immense powers and abilities.

How did he manage to get to Sovngarde? From the conversation with the dragon you capture in Whiterun it can be deduced that he learned this secret aeons ago and refuses to share it with his fellow Dhove. Being able to feed on the souls of the dead gave him an edge over his kin from the start. It is clear though that he opened a portal to Sovngarde with the aid of a dragon priest. Perhaps since the dawn of time there was alway one selected to maintain this portal. Dragons can shout but they are no sorcerers. Opening portals into other dimensions would definitly require a very powerful magic user. Just because you have to resort to using lesser creatures to do your bidding does not make you weak. Heck, all evil potential world dominators resort to tricks like that.

So he gained access to Sovngarde and started eating lost souls. Why was he allowed to stay? Very simply because in Sovngarde he could be killed permanently. In the world of the living he could be beaten back and even hurt to an extend but never vanquished. He was a part of the world remember? But in the land of the dead he could be killed quite dead. So they let him come and go as he pleased in the hopes that someday a heroe with the power to kill dragons (you) would find a way to Sovengarde and take care of business. The game is patient like that. NPCs can sit around for thousands of years just waiting for you to come by. Don't ask. Why did they not kill him themselves? Because they can't. Only a living breathing dhovakiin can kill dragons so that they stay dead. It is the blood inside your veins that gives you this ability to absord the souls of dragons. Since dead people don't have any blood left not even Ysgrammor himself could touch Alduin.

Why so few people in the hall? Because to enter the hall dead Nords have to prove their bravery against the guardian of the bridge before they may enter. And of course if you had to put every dead Nord in their from the last aeon or two the game would blow up. Oh and Alduin probably had breakfast that morning before you arrived.

Why was Alduin so easy to kill? Because although you might have run off and done 100 hours of sidequests, gathering herbs or smithing daedric armor the quest waited patiently for you to get back to it. Quests are cool like that too. So while it may feel like years later to you, in actual quest time only a few days have passed since your first battle with Alduin on the throat of the world. Confusing, I know but I guess it's to keep the flow of the story right. So when you get to Sovengarde after crawling through a dungeon filled with undead minions and a few dragons you find a much weakened Alduin. He is using a large part of his reserved power to cast a mist over Sovngarde to make it easier to hunt. It also serves to protect him from interference by the locals in the hall. So you join forces with said locals and dispel the mist, thereby enabling you and your new dead friends to shout that vilest of dragons down to the ground. It's not a heroic battle. It's not a tale the bards will sing for years to come. It's just something that needs to be done. The end of a long journey. And I think this is what many people miss about this quest. It is not about the end but about the journey getting there.

So you get beamed back to Skyrim after saying your goodbyes and learning a new shout that allows your dead friends to pop in for a quick visit every now and then. And there right in front of your eyes is your reward. Not gold. Not some magical piece of armor. Nay, those are for noob adventurers. We just killed the world eater man and although victory felt hollow it was still a great deed. What better reward than looking up and realising that half the dragons in skyrim came to pay homage to a hero and to mourn a once great dragon.

So yeah, have fun at it folks. Rewards are what you make of it. And besides a cool dragon slaying sword, many shouts learned along the way and the ability to call heroes from Sovengarde you of course also get the ability to call a dragon to assist you in battle. Now tell me that's not cool.

Awesome

» Fri Jun 01, 2012 6:26 am

I nearly through my computer out the bloody window when I finished this quest line.
It so ant-climactic.
There was no sense of achievement, the 3 tanks kept him distracted, a few shouts and a couple of arrows and the big bad was dead.(Llv 43 Master difficulty)
My reward?
A shout I'm never going to use, as this was the end of the game.
Not even an acknowledgement from the game world that it's done, I've saved the world and nothing changed

.
It absolutely gutted me in it's lameness, and killed any desire to EVER replay the game.
About 10 minutes later I uninstalled it, and will probably never reinstall.

» Fri Jun 01, 2012 1:32 pm

@Akanaro
While I understand what you're saying and I can agree with most of it, I just don't think that justifies the way the Main Quest played out. Blackreach was the best part of the MQ in my opinion, and I found that to be very disappointing. Very little was explain to the player about how or why he gets to Sovngarde or why the final battle played out the way it did. Sure, we can make assumptions, but I would much rather have answers instead of being left clueless to try and draw my own conclusions. While it can be argued that killing Alduin was simply a chore to be done, why did they make it that way? I just killed the Son of Akatosh, the only Dragon with access to Sovngarde that has brought all the Dohva back from the dead. There is no reason I should be left with this empty feeling that I killed yet another dragon with the help of 3 invincible sidekicks, not to mention that they died in the mortal world trying to fight him while he was weakened. From a design standpoint, why in the world would they want the MQ and the villain of the game to feel so anti-climatic?

To me this was a failure of a MQ. The MQ should be the highlight of the game and give you a feeling of accomplishment. There is very little that they actually got right with it. It doesn't feel like a finished product. It's upsetting that the Main Story of the entire game left you with almost no answers, barely any rewards, no acknowledgement by the majority of the population, and a demi-god that explodes into confetti after a laughable fight. I really expected more, everything up to Blackreach felt as good as I should have. Everything after was poorly put together.