I want to ask this simple question from someone who might have an answer to give to me.

Why is it that I must become a member of the Nightingale in order to defeat Mercer Frey? Why was I given this crappy Nightingale outfit (To be honest with you I'm not overly impress by it) when I can simply go back at home in windhelm to fetch my dragon-boned armor when it comes to hardcoe battles? I am a fricken MAGE for goodness sakes; It has little value to me. If I had to wear light armor I would rather it be my arch mage robes!

Now why do I need assistant from a Daedric Princess (Nocturnal) in order to defeat this little piss ant? I have successfully defeated the world eater, and I help win the civil war. I don't need this Daedric Princess help. I wish their was an option where you can avoid all of this unnecessary bullcrap.

Vent mode:
You think you're getting the Skeleton Key back? [censored] I defeated this piss ant so it's mine! Go svck a pipe! Theirs no way you're taking my soul without a fight. Be prepared for the day that I come to kick your [censored] ass to whatever you go when you die.

Well to argue the point your subject makes "the Thieves guild is poorly written and laid out". Yes is lacks compared to Oblivions Thieves Guild, but you have to remember, it references the guild is in tatters, and has fallen from it's former glory, so I actually think the way it's written and laid out fits the story quite well, if you actually listened to the dialouge before and while you were joining, you'd know that.

And no ones forcing you to wear that Armor lol, just stash it on a mannequin and be done with it. I'm hoping some DLC will help us revive the thieves guild or dark brother hood, because both quest lines seem to be lacking, but their both supposed to feel like that, their the remnants of past glory, grasping onto the final breaths of life they have left.

Nice thing about the game, is you don't need to give the key back. Until you have perked up your lockpicking to equal what it does.

I never got the skeleton key, cuz it glitched on me and i never got to even finish the thieves guild cuz of it. I never needed it anyways, lock picks are everywhere, and even with my skills very low it only takes me a few lock picks to crack master chest's.

Everything to do with the TG is overdone bulls**t.
Every single thing.
I am grudgingly doing the barest possible minimum to get the trophies then everything to do with that character will be deleted.
As far as I can see, that f**king faction has twice as many pissant overdone, stupidly overcomplex, quests than every other faction in the game.
Someone has a seriously romantized, deluded view about thieving scumbags.

They should be the obvious option to massacre the lot of them and clean up rifton with Mjoll. But nooo, some f**king moron decided to try to force you to join the TG in as many ways as they could.
The other freaking options don't even appear for the main quest to find Esburn. Theres 3 that don't have anything to do with the freaking TG, but they don't say anything about them.
They don't even show in your log when you get them.

Yes it sounds incrediibely stupid that you need help from a deadric prince to kill one little git.

I have to agree, I thought the Thieves' Guild quest was very, VERY railroady, it starts out with having to take all kinds of lip from Mercer Frey, from whom, given that I'd already become Listener of the Dark Brotherhood, I should not have to take static. Then, the sudden by inevitable betrayal, followed by being Shanghai'd into the service of some 10th rate Draemora. Sorry, Nocturnal, but I work for an actual GOD. Hail Sithis.

In reply to the opening post:

For the armor, the fact that they gave you the armor doesn't mean you have to wear it. Go in your inventory and throw them out. This point is largely irrelevant.

The rest of it is quite accurate. Mercer can use Nocturnal's gifts when you and Karliah cannot, one must question exactly how weak Nocturnal is that she cannot cut off her own blessing to Mercer.

Regardless that Mercer has access to Nocturnal's gifts, he was easily defeated by you, who never got your Nightingale powers BEFORE you fight him anyway. So there was really no point in selling your soul. You have basically been conned by Karliah so she can use you and Brynjolf's soul to restore her own status as Nightingale.

This was most likely overlooked by Bethesda. Mercer is able to use probably most powerfull daedric artifact in TES lore, but his invisibility during fight is off the place. He should not have Nightingale powers, if others don't. I guess it can be poorly explained by pretending he's using invisibility potions instead of Shadowcloak of Nocturnal.

And yes, The Skeleton Key is most powerfull daedric artifact. Have you noticed how easily it opens doors to an Oblivion realm? Best part is, that player can use it only as unbreakable lockpick and... it can open only pickable locks. Marvelous. Oh, before I forget - player can pick perk, which has the same functionality as The Skeleton Key. Ta-Da!

As for becoming Nightingale... In one of my playthroughs I really wanted an option to kill Karliah after dealing with Mercer. She basically sells PC's soul to redeem herself in eyes of Nocturnal. PC and Brynjolf are like "no problem, here's my soul, not like I needed it for anything".

Yes. Very well put. I did the full questline on one toon (thought I normally play "good" as much as possible) and that's pretty much my feeling about the entire thing.

[Oh, I never wore the armor. I don't think anyone ever said anything about it....]

I don't really like it either. I like being able to get out of crimes though.

*shrug* Of no value to me.... other than during the questline, I don't commit crimes.

When I played the Thieve's guild, I felt like a dev was grabbing my arm and trying to show me this cool thing he'd done. If Ihadn't been actively trying to join them I'd have been very pissed off at the way you're railroaded into it. Added to half the quests in the game having GATES THAT ARE [censored] KEY ONLY LOCKS, and it seems like the whole thing was probably done in late October without much care put into it.


A shame, compared to the brilliant epic of Corvus Umbranox in Oblivion. You saw all of the hidden underbelly of Cyrodiil there, it was a completely different world.

In Riften, you get the odd stealth based mission and a ton of dungeon quests. The feuding families and criminals are laughable in the game's insistence that these people are threatening to the player.

So here we go.

It is explained (by Karliah) that Mercer's kind of a badass, and you'll need all the help you can get.

How much of this game have you played? Is every other reward from every quest useful for your characters? No? Imagine that; variety. You mentioned dragonbone armor. I refer you to the piles of threads on what happens when you upgrade to higher-level armors; it renders much of what you're going to find useless. Personally I found Nightingale enchantments superior to everything else I found; I was a hybrid stealth/warrior who doesn't smith. You're "not impressed by it" because you have subjective opinions which classifies you as a being capable of free thought and preferences.

I completed the Mage's College questline on this character just to do it; I did not think to myself MAGIC IS STUPID and WHY DID YOU GIVE ME MAGE ROBES THESE ARE USELESS.

K. Not everybody does the quests in the same order as you. The people expecting the game to adapt and personally cater to them for every conceivable character/build/gear/progression layout is silly. Also see my first response above (about Karliah).

So don't give it back?

There are alternative explanations to mine of course. Most of this thread is filled with (overly emotional) subjective opinions. I personally enjoyed the TG questline more than most others. I don't know what "simple answer" you want?

And.... I have to say that you are also spot on. I really enjoyed the TG questline in Oblivion - unlike this one, which I did over my own dead body so to speak.

I actually somewhat liked the Thieves Guild. Not compared to Oblivion of course. While I absolutely hated the fact that you had to steal "x" amount of items before you can progress, the whole story line was a masterpiece. The Epic of the Count of Anvil was like something out of a Shakespeare Novel.

However, the betrayal of Mercer Fray and Karliah's innocence still provided enough suspense. As for the fact that you have to join the Nightingales, well I do dislike that but you're forced to join Sithis in the Dark Brotherhood. Remember that Nocturnal is the Patron of all Thieves so it's expected.

Oh yes. I give the quest writers points for the "revenge" aspect, and honestly since I hadn't paid much attention to TG topics, that whole thing was a surprise to me. But overall, once was enough.

Yep it's quite annoying how railroaded the questline is. There could be a simple "No" option to Karliah when she asks you to sell your soul would be nice. After that the quest to find and kill Mercer starts.
The armor though, you can just dump it anywhere.

The funny thing is, I just joined them to get to that word wall since there is no other way to get to it without using the console.

Daedric Princes are fickle beings and so not to be trifled with Perhaps the Nocturnal couldn't admit to herself that she was wrong in chosing Mercer in the first place? But then again, maybe it was because being an immortal, she had the power of the all seeing eye. Like her sister Azura, perhaps the Noctural knew Mercer wasn't going to be a problem the moment you --the Skyrim Dovahkin--were born? So perhaps she decided to let poor Mercer run amok desecrating the TG until you came along and fixed the problem?

This. THIS! Walk into Riften and dude starts in about Maeven and the guild. Walk a littler further and Brynjolf comes up and starts to drag you into it. Main Quest will point you that way too (yes, I know you can go around it, but still...) Dark Brotherhood will have you deal with them. AND if you pick up a mysterious stone, you will also have to deal with them. Jeebus! I know you're there! STOP BUTTING INTO MY GAME!

The problem is that with my retired character the Nocturnal gifts isn't all that impressive in the first place.
What really pisses me off is that I was forced to join the thieves guild because of Delphine telling me to go talk to Brynjolf regarding to the whereabouts of Esbern that was part of the main story. I was trying to prevent from having any connections with them until Delphine told me to talk to Brynjolf.

I wish their was a way for Brynjolf and I to come up with a plan to kill Karliah and to have our souls restored.

Killing Karliah wouldn't give your soul back, you are sworn to serve Nocturnal. Mercer betrayed Nocturnal and killed Gallus, but he was still taken when he died - "Shadows take me!". Also:

"To steal from a god is most unwise." Even if it's your soul

But what if you challenge Nocturnal to a fight? If you win your soul becomes free.... and if you lose... well you become her [censored] in death. That seems like a fair deal to me.

oh and killing Karliah would give you closure for getting conned.

I wish Beth can do something like that.

Thieves guild is my favourite faction questline out of the whole series. My opinion.

I started the TG quest when I was about level 10, greatly enjoyed most of it and got lots of long lasting goodies from it (I was still wearing armour from the TG quests, save the gloves, at level 55 when I retired, and really had no reason to drop Chillrend - though I did). I can see how doing the Questline as a high level character would be less interesting, but the game cannot cater for everyone's style of play and from a RP perspective each guild is surely something to be done at an early level. Certainly trying to do everything with one character is not the way to get the best out of the game. In fact I would suggest that becoming a "qualified" thief (or Companion or Mage) is the way to set up one's character for the game.

I thought the thieves guid quests were fine if a little bit scumlike in places. My real objection is my other characters who are inclined to real heroism not being able to tell Brynjolf to drop dead and then take the guild apart with mjoll's help.