I haven't finished the College of Winterhold, or the Civil War storylines, but the factions that I have finished felt significantly shorter than their Oblivion counterparts, especially The Companions, that one felt extremely rushed.

I do admit that the Theives Guild questline has a decent length, when you consider that you don't have to go out and steal useless crap from people's houses to progress like in Oblivion.

The Guild questlines ARE short. But their biggest problem is the lack of any progression through ranks. When I join the Companions I wanna advance, slowly, by killing rats in someones house or hunting wolfs that attack the cattle. In Skyrim I become an Arch-Mage with almost no magic abilities. Seriously? They could have at least give the ability to promote someone else.

I do miss the parts, such as the Mage's Guild recommendation quest, which have to be done before you're even allowed inside the Mage's Guild in Oblivion. The Companions aren't much better. You basically walk in the front door, and all of a sudden, you're the "chosen one". You never have to actually work your way up the ranks before you're given the more delicate jobs.

In one particular dialogue between Farkas and Torvar, Farkas tells Torvar about how he has to train before he gets any of the good jobs. How come the pc never has to "train"?

30 seconds? hahahahaha, sorry, but that is a massive understatement.


Then the problem is player created


Then use them to fill out your time.


This is something that really annoys me about Skyrim. People come on here and complain about questlines being too short but basically openly admit to not wanting to do the radiant quests to prolong the experience. Ironically enough, it's usually the ones complaining about streamlining for casual players

I think a lot of the problems were caused by the whole radiant story fiasco. They screwed up on that whole idea, couldn't make up that time, and just rushed whatever they could to meet the 11/11/11 deadline.

Another major problem is the pacing. The guilds start out well enough, but then they jump you halfway up the chain of command in five minutes, and jump you the rest of the way in another few hours

I simply join a faction i want, do one quest and then wait

they feel short because people are simply joining and then completing in one session. You can play the way you want, but if you space it out and do other tasks, it feels more natural

i think this is as well, and because the action picks up so early it makes the guilds seem alot shorter.

The thieves' guild quest line did not feel short, but did feel kind of empty with those radiant quests being so cut-and-paste. I stopped doing them.

The mage quest line is just short.

This is something that really annoys me about some people. There are those that think quantity = quality and that there should be no restrictions. Sure Skyrim has tons of quests but a lot of them have absolutely no meaning.
I remember in Morrowind you had to train some of your skills to a certain level to gain the next rank and get new quests that will help you advance in the Guild. From killing rottens in someones basemant to fighting monsters in creepy Tombs. That how should it work. In Skyrim I started the questline and after few more hours I became the Boss... who can take some extra "radiant" quests from his subordinates.

To my mind that's how it should be after the questline has finished, the radiant quest would be filler at that point to maintain your involvement with the guild. In my view that would be fine. Instead of the radiant quests providing extras they are actually being relied upon as a substitute for proper story driven content, which after the great storylines we were treated to in Oblivion is a real shame.

No. It's not even logical. I should be at 1st forced to do the dirty work in order to progress in the Guild and then do the big, juicy missions. After being promoted to be Leader I would have recive missions from the citizens, noblemen or Jarl's and order my followers to join me in my quest. As it is now it's almost the other way around.

Bethesda has been insisting on this "radiance" nonsense for 3 games now, and in each time, trying to implement them properly eat up development time, doesn't work as intended then backpedal out of it too late and ends up downgrading the game's quality. that was apparent in oblivion's npc behaviors, FO3's lack of faction depth and other cut features, and now mostly seen in Skyrim's guilds.

It's time to drop this obsession with "radiant story" already.

Assumption =/= truth

You assume that's what I meant.


I agree that Skyrim would benefit from a similar system. Hell, it would've benefitted from the same system as Oblivion; if I remember correctly once you moved up in rank, someone else would give you a quest.

That is so true although I noticed that especially in the Dark Brotherhood. Im the Listener so why should I have to kill that person while there are two rookies sitting and doing nothing. I liked it the way it was in Oblivion where you talk to the night mother and give this information to your second-in-command.

I edited my post. I ment quantity = quality.



QFT

Then I withdraw my comment.

Edit: or at least the first part

A lot of people are talking about how Oblivion had the best system...must say I disagree. Oblivion had the exact same pitfalls, namely that you come in, got a few quests, and then all of a sudden were Archmage without casting a single spell. Sure, maybe it was a little longer, but I still saw the problem.

Morrowind, on the other hand, depended on skills. I don't think I ever managed to get in charge of a single guild there since I never had the skills for it. However, there was no overarching storyline, but you did get the 'peon' quests.

The other thing I don't like is pacing - again I think Morrowind did it better. Even in the MQ, Caius would tell you to go off and do other things until you were a good enough level...and not tell you what was going on. I miss that chance to do other quests. Especially in Oblivion, the MQ was paced quickly. It was tough from an RP perspective to say "k, I know the emperor's only heir is in a city overrun with daedra and the only hope is to get him out, but I wanna go pick flowers now..." I especially felt that with the College questline - there's no breathing room given. And then before you know it, you're in charge of everything.

It's ok though, but I personally don't like being in charge of everything at all. If in the companions it went up to me being in the circle, and then someone else got harbinger, I'd be cool with it. I'm playing as the dragonborn, not the harbinger after all.

The only problem Oblivion had was the skill requirements. Add those, and its guilds are better than Morrowinds in most respects(the lack of competitive guilds being one of the few issues I still have with it)

Sorry, but wrong. There is a quest that requires you to cast spells with specific effects in a specific order on a pillar in order to continue. I know because this the quest that I stopped playing the mage guild on.

though they irritated me after the 13th time of doing them, things like the reccomendations for the mages guild really gave me a sense of belonging and grinding to actuall ymake a difference to the faction, in the college of winterhold i felt like i was the center of attention from the get go, which didn't sit well with me

For the main part of the TG quest? No, you don't. To completely rebuild the faction and become Guildmaster? Yeah, you totally do. In fact doing all the jobs where you steal useless crap and plant useless crap and forge useless crap is the about the only thing that makes the TG questline seem that much longer than any other.

Understatement? So you're saying these quests are even shorter?

I do Heist and Numbers Jobs all the time, and upon arriving in town I can get what I need without any danger in under half a minute (loading screens aside).


I'm sorry, but this argument doesn't hold water. It's like saying people complain about a dungeon being too quick but don't stand perfectly still for 9 hours to prolong the experience. Furthermore, aside from the Companions and the Thieves Guild, the other guilds don't have Radiant quests until after the questlines conclude. How are you supposed to "prolong the experience" if we can't even play them until after the questline is over.

The Thieves Guild and The Rift were amazing, I really enjoyed that part of the game. Thieves Guild could've been so much better but it was really good, though I hope they focus more on the characters involved next time. The College had SO much potential but Bethesda blew it, it was just another dungeon-based guild with magical artifacts in the mix. The companions were OK but their quests were all repetitive. The Dark Brotherhood was good while it lasted, it was really short and lacked any epic moments, the major murders didn't feel epic. It had really awesome twists and I still don't understand why we couldn't rebuild it and manage it in some ways. Oh and I think the ability to become an Archmage in a few hours is stupid.

The factions were lackluster in a lot of cases.

Some thoughts:

- The companions: One's quick rise in this faction could easily be explained. They don't exactly have a structure with regards to ranks. New-blood > Companion > Inner Circle/Harbinger (just as an example). Things that disappointed me about the companions were the and the companions were only ever present at Jorrvaskar except when they accompanied you on a quest or your very first encounter. I much prefer the Fighter's Guild of yore, to be honest.
- The Thieves Guild: I haven't actually finished this just yet, as I'm not the type to play a character of that archetype except on rare occasions. I'm currently at so I have a little ways to go yet. Its definitely one of the longer guilds I've played in Skyrim though, I enjoyed the story though it was missing.. something. A little more intrigue would have been nice.
- The Dark Brotherhood: If I had to pick a guild that I would consider the 'best', it would be this (and I despise the Dark Brotherhood). I much prefer it over Oblivion's Dark Brotherhood, that's for sure. My most recent characters have a tendency to wipe them from existence though. =)
- The Bards College: I found the concept of the Bards College to be interesting but in reality, I was disappointed. It felt criminally underdone and I'd hope it gets some attention in the future. I did like the payment method for completing quests though.
- Winterhold College: Probably my least favourite in all honesty. It had an interesting cameo appearance AND the story was good (to me) but being dropped into that pretty much straight off the bat? No thanks.
- Radiant Quests: I think the hope was that these would pad out the factions a little more. I actually liked them, in all honesty, granted not the greatest things ever. Them combined with longer faction quest lines would have been exceptional. They worked best (based on my experience anyway) with the Thieves Guild. In the broader implementation, it has provided some enjoyable experiences.

All the other guilds are short. Thieves guilds main questline is short, and its radiant quests are boring and repetitive as hell.