Obtuse Character Concepts

Post » Fri Jun 01, 2012 4:18 am

Sometimes this forum leaves me speechless. We have threads complaining that you have to use more than just the Illusion school to complete certain quests in the game. We have threads complaining about the lack of hand-held good-guy options in the game. We have threads complaining about the lack of vegan cooking recipes. We have threads complaining about the game being too hard, or too easy, and the existence of fast travel. We have complaints about removed features, or that certain rock textures aren't high-res enough.

Seriously... why can't people just leave their preconceived baggage at the door? Maybe see the game for what it is? /rant

In the spirit of the whiners, I'd like to hear of character concepts that are completely silly and/or worthless within the context of Skyrim. e.e. Restaurant Critic, Insurance Salesman, or Weatherman.

My contribution to this madness is the Poultry Thief. We may not be allowed to kill a chicken without incurring the homicidal wrath of the entire city, but can we pick them up and... move them? Into our house, perhaps? A character designed specifically for the theft of all the chickens in Skyrim. Telekenesis and Invisibility are a must. Paralyze perhaps? Various Calm spells, to reassure the locals that the bird will not be harmed. Definitely Sneak. Not sure what else is needed, really...

Your turn.
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Kari Depp
 
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Post » Fri Jun 01, 2012 10:59 am

The only reason I agree that insurance salesman is worthless is...well...have you ever used a house as cover during a dragon attack?! That thing won't be knocked down!!! It was a like a godsend for the three little pigs!

It may not be 100% on topic, but I would love to meet the carpenter who built the homes in Skyrim for being able to withstand a dragon attack. The folks in Helgen should have hired him/her.
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Rachael Williams
 
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Post » Thu May 31, 2012 8:08 pm

Welcome to the Internet. A place full of radical non-conformists who upon hearing they can go to Burger King and have it "their way... right away" will march boldly inside, step up to the counter and demand a large Pepsi...

No cup.
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Sarah Edmunds
 
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Post » Thu May 31, 2012 7:41 pm

Base jumper, unfortunately the game doesn't supply parachutes so this career tends to be somewhat short lived.
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Jade Muggeridge
 
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Post » Fri Jun 01, 2012 9:17 am

Base jumper, unfortunately the game doesn't supply parachutes so this career tends to be somewhat short lived.

Ever tried the become ethereal shout? Atleast you won't die that way.
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alyssa ALYSSA
 
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Post » Fri Jun 01, 2012 4:50 am

Advice dog says: Play a paladin

Get arrested for killing a vampire who is trying to svck your blood in public and murder you using the reanimated corpse of her dead husband.
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My blood
 
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Post » Fri Jun 01, 2012 4:54 am

The only reason I agree that insurance salesman is worthless is...well...have you ever used a house as cover during a dragon attack?! That thing won't be knocked down!!! It was a like a godsend for the three little pigs!

It may not be 100% on topic, but I would love to meet the carpenter who built the homes in Skyrim for being able to withstand a dragon attack. The folks in Helgen should have hired him/her.
If anything, indestructible houses makes insurance salesman lucrative. They never have to pay out for damages! :-p

Base jumper, unfortunately the game doesn't supply parachutes so this career tends to be somewhat short lived.
I may try this with Ethereal Shout... not sure how to make it a character concept though.

Advice dog says: Play a paladin

Get arrested for killing a vampire who is trying to svck your blood in public and murder you using the reanimated corpse of her dead husband.
Welcome to Skyrim. If you're going to play a good guy, you may actually have to do it in the face of adversity. Bad guys are usually the ones that need to run in the shadows, but not here. Here, the good guys actually have to work for it. Skyrim doesn't want your morals, just your gold. Different setting, different challenges.
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Gaelle Courant
 
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Post » Thu May 31, 2012 9:10 pm

Welcome to the Internet. A place full of radical non-conformists who upon hearing they can go to Burger King and have it "their way... right away" will march boldly inside, step up to the counter and demand a large Pepsi...

No cup.

And then insult and berate the manager for not complying immediately and with absolute grace.

Followed with a rejection of the offered coffee mug because it made things "too easy."

And the mug was too plain-looking anyway.
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Taylor Thompson
 
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Post » Thu May 31, 2012 8:44 pm

Different setting, different challenges.

I find it kinda amusing that character concepts like "Paladin" which are RPG staples count as obtuse concepts in Skyrim ;p (How dare you do something unquestionably good, but difficult to file in the paperwork. i mean, do you know how many forms you have to fill in for "Evil vampire living in our city who killed 3 of our residents, avoided detection, gets killed in plain sight with the corpse of her husband after trying to murder a visitor to the town?" - I'm just gonna put "Paladin murdered everyone" on the form and call it done. Now put down the sword and come peacefully")


I'm gonna role a chaotic evil, daedra worshipping fire mage next. Then i can follow any story arc in the game AND just melt the face off whatever so much as looks at me funny... until I run into an army of fire atronachs.
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Olga Xx
 
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Post » Fri Jun 01, 2012 3:44 am

You know what I'd love to see? A Mime Guild attempting to fight a dragon.
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Victoria Vasileva
 
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Post » Fri Jun 01, 2012 6:47 am

A fireman
When dragons come to town, you and your companion/fire chief assistant, can pick up buckets, drag water into them and throw them on the smoldering burns that plague the city.
Pick up restoration perks, and you can even act as an emergency paramedic on top of your volunteer fireman job!
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zoe
 
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Post » Fri Jun 01, 2012 9:27 am

I find it kinda amusing that character concepts like "Paladin" which are RPG staples count as obtuse concepts in Skyrim ;p (How dare you do something unquestionably good, but difficult to file in the paperwork. i mean, do you know how many forms you have to fill in for "Evil vampire living in our city who killed 3 of our residents, avoided detection, gets killed in plain sight with the corpse of her husband after trying to murder a visitor to the town?" - I'm just gonna put "Paladin murdered everyone" on the form and call it done. Now put down the sword and come peacefully")

I'm gonna role a chaotic evil, daedra worshipping fire mage next. Then i can follow any story arc in the game AND just melt the face off whatever so much as looks at me funny...
I didn't say it was sane. ;-) I did suggest that it is coherent with the wilderness frontier feel of the setting.

And yes, I eventually had to do much the same. 5th character is pure Chaotic Neutral. My Paladin made it to level 40-something before he got tired of trying to save people who didn't want to be saved, and just went back to Cyrodiil.

Another character idea. Orc Wannabe. You can't actually BE an Orc, but you obsessive over the strongholds, use only Orc equipment, follow Malacath and Orc customs. Not sure how to flesh the idea out though...

A fireman
When dragons come to town, you and your companion/fire chief assistant, can pick up buckets, drag water into them and throw them on the smoldering burns that plague the city.
Pick up restoration perks, and you can even act as an emergency paramedic on top of your volunteer fireman job!
I really like this idea. Restoration and Flames/Frostbite spells. You never kill the dragon, you just keep the guards alive, and put out the flames/frost. Gotta take care of those indestructible buildings. :-p
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Bloomer
 
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Post » Fri Jun 01, 2012 11:15 am

Ever tried the become ethereal shout? Atleast you won't die that way.

This ^ is super fun off the tower that the Grey Beards practice shouting from on the top of the throat of the world. A good 4 to 5 seconds of freefall before you start to touch again... Fair warning though, sometimes you don't touch before Ethereal wears off....

To the OP, just for giggles I tried to be Sheriff of Whiterun. Found a couple of kids fighting, tried to break it up, and ended up killing half of the Whiterun Gaurd. I'm thinking an actual Sheriff might be fun, though.
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Vicki Gunn
 
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Post » Fri Jun 01, 2012 12:33 am

I really like this idea. Restoration and Flames/Frostbite spells. You never kill the dragon, you just keep the guards alive, and put out the flames/frost. Gotta take care of those indestructible buildings. :-p

It's a shame we can't cast oakflesh-type spells on our allies.

In oblivion there was the daedric invasion mod which added actual dremora armies, and also imperial units to defend against them and one character I played was actually a dedicated field medic/support character speced into healing/shielding/buffing the unit; no actual combat skills, and would travel with the units, and eventually, went on lead a unit - I wonder if something similar could be achieved here?


*goes off to create a summoner/healer*
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Eliza Potter
 
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Post » Fri Jun 01, 2012 4:57 am

It's a shame we can't cast oakflesh-type spells on our allies.

In oblivion there was the daedric invasion mod which added actual dremora armies, and also imperial units to defend against them and one character I played was actually a dedicated field medic/support character speced into healing/shielding/buffing the unit; no actual combat skills, and would travel with the units, and eventually, went on lead a unit - I wonder if something similar could be achieved here?


*goes off to create a summoner/healer*
Call To Arms (Master level Courage spell) improves weapon skills, health, and stamina... but not armor. Sad.

Still, Calm + Rally + Heal Other can make a rather effective combo.

I took one of my Artificer builds.. the one that uses the Alchemy Enchanting Smithing synergy?.. and used it to make stupid silly good gear, with all sorts of fun and complimentary enchants... then put it on my follower, and only wore my crafting gear into combat. Wish I'd had popcorn for that...
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keri seymour
 
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Post » Fri Jun 01, 2012 5:20 am

Sometimes this forum leaves me speechless. We have threads complaining that you have to use more than just the Illusion school to complete certain quests in the game. We have threads complaining about the lack of hand-held good-guy options in the game. We have threads complaining about the lack of vegan cooking recipes. We have threads complaining about the game being too hard, or too easy, and the existence of fast travel. We have complaints about removed features, or that certain rock textures aren't high-res enough.

Seriously... why can't people just leave their preconceived baggage at the door? Maybe see the game for what it is? /rant

In the spirit of the whiners, I'd like to hear of character concepts that are completely silly and/or worthless within the context of Skyrim. e.e. Restaurant Critic, Insurance Salesman, or Weatherman.

My contribution to this madness is the Poultry Thief. We may not be allowed to kill a chicken without incurring the homicidal wrath of the entire city, but can we pick them up and... move them? Into our house, perhaps? A character designed specifically for the theft of all the chickens in Skyrim. Telekenesis and Invisibility are a must. Paralyze perhaps? Various Calm spells, to reassure the locals that the bird will not be harmed. Definitely Sneak. Not sure what else is needed, really...

Your turn.

People leave thier preconceived baggage at the door? If anyone needs to leave preconcieved ideas behind it bethesda to move away from archaic ideas of design that have been proved to be flawed time and time again, and people like you to stop worshipping everything a business puts out like thier excrement is made of diamond studded gold. It's really not the phrase "Well polished turd" fits perfectly here as the graphics are lovely, being up a mountain and seeing all the lands below even some vague structues off in the distance is amazing, but they you turn round and watch 8 random events happen at once breaking them all followed by a dragon to eat them all and the 9th that may have actually finished it's script properly, but even if it does finish the script you get the Hunter (of fugitives) turn round and say nothing more then I've been hunting and fishing in these parts for years, after you just gave him back the stolen item which you had a dragon breathing fire on you because he doesn't think that maybe now isn't a good time to "lock" someone into a conversation and it's clearly not meant to be his regular hunting ground and at best it's questionable if he's even meant to be that sort of hunter. Which leads nicely on to hand held good choices? like there being good has all the downsides including breaking immersion and not making a bit of sense, theres a difference between hand holding and a viable option actually existing, be it actually truthfully saying you haven't stolen anything and what you where is yours or being able to remove the evils currently happening, and not doing it is not a valid choice it's obsurd people will try to claim that, we'll all just end up with a tes VI with no actually ending because they don't need to put in options for it to be meaningful or valid way of completing a story.

If anyone needs to open thier eyes it's whiners like you who will attack anyone willing to point out a flaw, offer ideas to change it and want and expect a better functioning game for the money they paid, to at least not include bugs all thier other games had and they patched them out. It's a joke for you to call them whiners when at least they want a change for the better, you just want to let things slide. How about you see the game for what it really is and realise theres a long list of games even from indie developers and single programmers in 2 months that have done all of it's features better. the the scale of skyrim isn't unique, theres a list that come near or match it but still get lots of fleshed out functioning features.

And maybe the complaints about the game being too easy and too hard it's a completely broken difficultly slider, humanion enemies level/stat scaling and generally getting into situations far worse then oblivions bandits in glass armor where leveling doesn't feel like your growing in power due to a common bandit in iron can do insane damage and you can do very little to them, which considering they don't have access to the better tiers of armor and weapons or the ability to improve an item to legendary makes far less sense then it ever did. At best the idea of difficulty is repetitive actions, lots of games make that mistake go to any FF optional boss that takes an hour to kill but doing the same thing over and over, it's not hard, just really really dull, but a few can pull off a challenge where you may only use one potion and strike a few times but geniunely feel hard to pull off, that gives a far better feeling too then taking down an enemy with 500 sword swings and 20 potions or none depending on if the enemy has low attack but high defense. It's more rewarding taking down that frost troll at level 5 not being hit once because it'd kill you then that dragon you can just stand in its flame breath as you chip away its hp. Just like it's more rewarding being given a quest to save townspeople and have to actually opputunity to do so regardless of your level or what level you entered the cell at and not have them dead by the time you can visually see them let alone being preloaded as you approach. And where you can't save them in a fight have them be grateful you managed to calm the person and allowed them to go free and not act like you traded them for books.

In the spirit of the thread and the real whiner that has nothing to add but try bully those that want to complain and see improvements, because they'd like to still believe in the company and it isn't beyond dealing with anymore. I suggest a character that when you reach riverwood, you give up, all of nirn is in turmoil dragons are back, there is no true good guy, daedric lords seem to be up to a lot more then ever on this world beyond being a disimbodied voices, high elves are looting to become ayelieds mark 2 again, the empire is in ruins and not looking after the people it should be so you just sit down on a bench, theres no point in trying to improve anything, it's all pointless and its silly to want to change it, till one day you walk into the river near by and drown letting the mudcrab on the otherside eat, at least you done something then and let the straving mudcrab feed, it's the least you could do after giving him your money.

Ps. If home where indestructable an insurance sales man would go under, no one would claim so premiums wouldn't go up, the cost would be insanely low anyway and who would buy it when thier kettle exploded but even the logs in the fire remained unharmed?
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LittleMiss
 
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Post » Thu May 31, 2012 10:19 pm

You guys want a real challenge? Specialize in Restoration and use Restoration spells only.
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Lily
 
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Post » Thu May 31, 2012 8:51 pm

If anyone needs to leave preconcieved ideas behind it bethesda to move away from archaic ideas of design that have been proved to be flawed time and time again
$650 Million known revenue from a flawed game, and more unpublished numbers due to digital sales. They must be doing something right.

...people like you to stop worshipping everything a business puts out like thier excrement is made of diamond studded gold...
Not once did I speak to the quality of the game; just the people offering complaints without useful suggestions on their resolution. Also, I would suggest you find another source for your parroted insults.

If anyone needs to open thier eyes it's whiners like you who will attack anyone willing to point out a flaw, offer ideas to change it and want and expect a better functioning game for the money they paid, to at least not include bugs all thier other games had and they patched them out. It's a joke for you to call them whiners when at least they want a change for the better, you just want to let things slide.
I have no trouble with people offering useful dialog, critical or otherwise. You will find no examples of me criticizing a post that is constructive, even if it's negative.

How about you see the game for what it really is and realise theres a long list of games even from indie developers and single programmers in 2 months that have done all of it's features better. the the scale of skyrim isn't unique, theres a list that come near or match it but still get lots of fleshed out functioning features.
There are no games like The Elder Scrolls. There are plenty of entertaining games with huge feature sets, but that does not make them the same. If there were other games like Elder Scrolls, they would have sold 10 million copies in the last month, just like Skyrim did.

... miscellaneous game balance complaints ...
This section was almost useful. Please try to make it a legible and coherent discussion, and we can continue it in a new thread. I still believe that a 'dark' setting doesn't make the morality choices invalid... they are just made in a different context.

I suggest a character that when you reach riverwood, you give up...
I appreciate your attempt at levity, but quitting the game isn't a character build.

If anything, your post reinforces my opening premise. Instead of approaching the game with an open mind, and trying to explore the developers intent, a vocal majority of the forum feels the game is wrong if it doesn't fit their ideas. Yes, there are bugs. Yes, there are more bugs in Bethesda games than in most other games. No, there is no excuse for that. It doesn't make the game trash.

Thanks for taking the time to post.
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Farrah Barry
 
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Post » Thu May 31, 2012 10:46 pm

The cheese wheel collector. Collects every cheese wheel in existence. All to one day, roll down from a mountain top, the 2500 cheese wheels you have collected over the years.
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Gaelle Courant
 
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Post » Fri Jun 01, 2012 1:20 am

Rabbit hunter: Only kills rabbits, with the dream of getting the highest "Rabbits Killed" statistic in Skyrim history. Upon encountering wolves or other nasty wilderness beasties, you must run away and/or hide. If you come upon another hunter in the wilderness, you are duty-bound to try to kill the hunter whilst screaming "THERE CAN BE ONLY ONE!"

-Loth
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CHARLODDE
 
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Post » Fri Jun 01, 2012 7:05 am

The nudie-er. Collects every single piece of clothing on every single named NPC in every single town/city until one day, Skyrim becomes a nudie paradise.
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Natalie Harvey
 
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Post » Fri Jun 01, 2012 1:20 am

The failure. Failures EVERY single quest possible, from never completing the quest, killing off the quest giver, killling the quest target to throwing artifacts off a cliff. You are the shiny example of a non-hero with a journal full of red crosses. (may require non-essential and unmark quest tags)
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Katie Pollard
 
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Post » Fri Jun 01, 2012 7:21 am

The psychopath. Kills anyone who gives you lip. "Another wander here to lick my father's boots, good job"? Killed. "I don't care if you are best friends with the guild master, make trouble here ..." killed. "Milk drink..." killed. Oh you aren't talking about me? Sorry then, I wouldn't loot your corpse, so we are even ok?
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FITTAS
 
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Post » Thu May 31, 2012 11:25 pm

Mudcrab Farmer: I hear their meat is tasty...
Knee-injury specialist: Someone has to treat all those former adventurers/new guards
Librarian: Be quiet in the library... OR ELSE
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Yvonne Gruening
 
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Post » Fri Jun 01, 2012 4:30 am

Rabbit hunter: Only kills rabbits, with the dream of getting the highest "Rabbits Killed" statistic in Skyrim history. Upon encountering wolves or other nasty wilderness beasties, you must run away and/or hide. If you come upon another hunter in the wilderness, you are duty-bound to try to kill the hunter whilst screaming "THERE CAN BE ONLY ONE!"

-Loth

Now I wish the Highlander theme played every time a dragon showed up.
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CHangohh BOyy
 
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