Does anyone else think the scripted encounters in Skyrim fail ?

I mean on my first playthrough specifically I missed a couple of them due to the fact I didn't actually know they were taking place but since I was still within the area they continued. Sometimes as well you come on them from the wrong angle and something is blocking your view of the event. I just don't think they work very well in an open world like Skyrim's.

I just think there's waaaaaaay too many of them. I mean it's to the point that if you see 2+ people standing still looking at each other, you KNOW one's coming as you approach them.

I don't quite understand this change, as neither FO3 nor Oblivion featured this. For the life of me I can barely remember a single quest that was initiated with a scripted conversation in either of them....that android one in Rivet City started with one, but that was about it, and even that one could be ignored completely without a risk of you losing your grasp on wtf is going on.

Yeah I know. It's pretty annoying. I completely missed the Forsworn attack in Markarth due to the fact I first ended up in the city due to the Sanguine quest. And from the angle I approached I completely missed it. Then when I began speaking to NPC's in Markarth when I did eventually make my proper visit to the city The conversation option "There was an attack in the marketplace" kept coming up and I didn't have a clue what I was talking about...

Not too many, just that everyone will always see the same ones. There are no super rare ones you can only access based on a small percentage or based on things you chose to do in the past like in Fallout 3. Because of that they get stale very fast. I've seen dozens of afflicted brethren, those alikr warriors follow me EVERYWHERE doing the SAME DANG THING. And in place of there are no unscripted events like oblivion. Since few guards patrol the roads, and no rangers roam the wildernes, you wont see them randomly fighting bandits or anything. In neither game were there any random travellers on the road like yourself (that dont immediately want you dead). It just gets very old...very fast.

I believe what you're referring to is called "random encounters" (in the wild), what OP is referring to is the excess of quests in Skyrim that start with a scripted conversation, forcing you to pay attention and keep your ears open in town, listening to any random conversation that seems scripted or else you'll miss most of the plot of the quest.

Yes that is what I'm referring to. I enjoyed the random encounters, even if they did get a bit stale they were a good source of loot, particularly the thief attacks.

Another thing is characters talking while not in actual conversation with you, they do this quite often in quests, for example Camilla Valerius in the Golden Claw, you can miss everything she has to say about Bleak Falls Barrow if you don't follow her immediately after Lucan agrees it's ok for her to accompany you to the edge of town. I'd just prefer the conversing took place in actual conversation mode and dialogue outside it was limited to simple greetings and such.

I can't help but think that this is wrong, maybe it's just my dirty mind...

Yes they did, Fallout 3 definitely had them...

Oh yeah don't get me wrong, those are repetitive too.
I've killed more Old Orcs than I care to count, as if they all get Alzheimer's and think Skyrim is some sort of arena/retirement home.


Care to name them or just gonna make baseless claims?

The Android example I gave doesn't exactly function the same way the ones in Skyrim do as the NPC is ready to explain everything to you and treats you as if you hadn't overheard his conversation. You're free to ignore it; in Skyrim ignoring scripted convos = confusion.
The only other I can think of is the Ghouls at Tenpenny tower. That one DOES function like Skyrim's.

Now again, care to name them or are you just gonna leave your claims completely baseless?

Funnily enough I never experienced that one once in my entire 302 hour playthrough. I always seemed to get Thief/Dark Brotherhood assassin attacks and skooma dealers. Every now and then I'd get a character of random race attacking me.

I tend to get a lot of those fugitive scenarios- guy runs up to you in the wild and gives you an enchanted item of value and tells you to keep a hold of it until he gets back, you know the one...

Yknow what's EXTRA AWESOME about this one?

It can happen right when you're in battle with a platoon of Arch-mages, and the guy gets to force you into conversation.
I know from experience.

haha you filthy mudcrab!

Yep! This is very very annoying.

Lol, sorry.

Well all you have to do is change the spelling of one word, and its a completely different statement.

Does he ever come back?

yes that did sound rather ....sworded....

Yes, quite. Hehe...


Nope, not in my case(s) anyway.

Yeah, I really don't get why they don't have just random people doing their thing - it's really unimmersive the way the only 'normal travellers' are one like the farmer going to join the legion - usually heading in the wrong direction and just because he's spontaneously announced that's what he's doing, apparently he has hypnotic powers and it immediately goes in your quest log just because he said it.
Bethesda unfortunately now seem to think their players are idiots. You can't be trusted to wander the world discovering quests on your own, you have to be led by the nose. So you see the same sequence of scripted events again and again and again. Go to Riften for the first time at three in the morning and every time you have to run the gauntlet of the same scripted encounters. From boasts about radiant AI to rails. What's that about Bethesda?

LOL - he's done that to me a bunch of times. He's got my character killed.

Yeah happened to me when I was in battle with a couple of bandits at Halted Stream Camp on my first playthrough, not troubling to my health but very immersion breaking..

I can top that, he ran up and interrupted me in the middle of a battle with an Elder Dragon. I stood there unable to move, listening to him do his little spiel and watching helplessly as he stuffed his stolen goods into my pocket, while the Dragon who had just landed a few feet away breathed fire on us and my health bar kept shrinking and shrinking and shrinking...

I survived, but barely, only to have some other idiot run up and want to know if I'd seen the first guy.

My 'revenge' was to send the second guy after the first guy but without letting on that I was holding the swag. Second guy kills the first guy, I keep the loot they're fighting over. Serves 'em both right for nearly getting us all killed.