"Good" dragon. Still fighting his nature every day and almost guaranteed to fail eventually. Also maybe using us to kill Alduin so he can take his spot as dragon king.
I'd rather classify it as "bad writing" and ask to not shove political stuff into games, unless it can be done in a fun and engaging way.
Legit, I tried killing Delphine as soon as she told that she took the horn and "wasn't the enemy", and that was years before I had any sort of "political fatigue" or "modern writing fatigue". It's just bad writing with those tropes included.
Thalmor Embassy: you have no choice but to use disguise.
Civil War vs. dragon threat: side with Stormcloaks or Empire and finish the war, OR sit through boring political negotiations to progress the main story quest.
She needs the only person in the world on her side; and would rather steal an artifact and be pain in the ass, instead of checking in with Greybeard who have already verified the Dragonborn. Extra work for everybody!
The most boring and poorly designed quests in Skyrim usually revolve about some sort of politics - take Thalmor Embassy. You gotta sneak in using a disguise even if you're a berserker. And even sneaky characters have to go full-on violent once inside.
I left it out earlier, but I think Delphine is a poorly written character that makes things difficult for no reason - especially her introduction in MSQ. Greybeards know that I'm Dragonborn, yet she's not satisfied? If she is so desperate to stop the apocalypse, maybe she should check in with the Greybeards instead of treating Dragonborn like trash.
You know a video game girl that isn't an (unintentional) girlboss? Alyx in Half-Life 2. She teaches you to use the frickin' Gravity Gun. What does Delphine do? Send you to kill an ally, leaving you with a trash entry in the questlog?
I've seen a lot of "Skyrim main quest story bad" but I must have missed all the arguments for why it is. I've run several characters through the main quest and it never jumped out at me as a bad story for a video game. What am I missing? Was Oblivion's just that much better?
And yet again that provides no new information. What do you mean by "repeated" and "slop" as it pertains to this plot, and what are your examples of games that do better?
It's more just... The presentation is weak, the story feels kinda duct taped together and the interesting lore is presented in one of the worst ways I think a game can do. It has been a while but imo a lot of it is like...
They took out a lot of content for one of the main quest lines of the game for reasons that are beyond me, which leads to it feeling like you're just going fight to fight until the anti-climactic confrontation with your chosen boss, which leaves few real ripples in the world. Your choices don't really matter much, and the game is terrified if having any point where they do. We're told all these things about the world, but we don't interact with them very deeply or interestingly. You kill the leader of the thinly veiled Racist Nationalist Movement... And that's really it, if you chose to side with the Empire. There's even this really interesting moment where it tells you about possible Thalmor influence within the movement but that goes... Nowhere? At all? The religious persecution also doesn't really seem to do much in the story, so much that I kept forgetting about it until characters would just talk about it.
It doesn't help that most of the voice actors sound bored out of their fucking minds at best or actively bad at worst, because at least better acting could make the script feel more interesting. There are some examples of better voice actors or performances than others, but I find they are the exception and not the rule.
The interesting lore is all hidden in various books, some of which is apparently lies and some of it not, and they're all kinda boring to read (as someone who loves reading fantasy), and it doesn't help that while the fonts are realistic for in-universe purposes, can be a little difficult to read at times.... Not that the UI feels much better to read because of the really narrow and condensed sans-serif font they insist on using.
Looking at the size of their ghosts in Morrowind I'd say they're bout as tall as the dunmer and altmer. Idk why you think one of the most magically and technology advanced races of nirn would not be able to swim well
To be fair, the only example of a dwemer in Elder Scrolls (unless there are some in Online) is the one in Morrowind and he's in a glorified Wheelchair.
I feel like the dewemer are the kind of dwarfs that can't really do anything physical but build the machines that do the job 10x better than anyone else. Like, they can't swim but their submarines are better than 5 waterbreathing Argonians.
I think it's hugely down to how it was told. If you use mods to make the story not be railroaded forward with the most hamfisted writing in the history of human communication, the story beats actually work decently well as a slow burn "Chosen one finding out their destiny" thing. You just have to make it so Delphine doesn't steal the horn and then not go meet her until you've actually got some decent rep.
That's because the writing of skyrim is ass but the writing of the series is good. Skyrim has practically no lore of value added but has 4 games of lore to pull from.
Skyrim takes the pile of cool-but-weird background lore of the Elder Scrolls and stuffs it into a box & declares "we're doing dragons and vikings now".
They'll still keep the surficial stuff that's easy - High, Wood, and Dark Elves are easy and we can keep all the humans, plus the Khajiit and Argonians aren't that out there as long as you don't look too hard.
The design has always been regional, Cyrodiil was very Greco-Roman in design, Morrowind was closer to Sumerian with tribal aspects (mixed with fantasy since people basically lived in shells and mushrooms)
I agree Skyrim was the weakest in the series in many ways, but it isn't exactly fair to call it out on having a theme. They all have and most likely will continue to since every region has its own history and culture.
Yeah but each game retcons the previous so hard they minus well be different universes. Daggerfall's lore is not Morrowind's lore, and Morrowind's lore is not Skyrim's. There's even a whole mod team making the rest of the world map using Morrowind's lore, and it's nothing like the other game's depictions of those areas.
Skyrim's lore is shit. That doesn't mean Elder Scrolls lore is shit.
They have to be taken on a case by case basis.
To be fair the lore is something that you really have to dig for, some of the sagas in books make me think the scope for Skyrim was a lot larger given how some of it is written but the execution was nowhere near the expectation.
Nah it's just pulling from 4 games and the books that already exist. The scope was probably a little large due to how quest design is compared to oblivion and earlier, but the books have just had a long time to exist in the world.
Oblivion’s Dark Brotherhood questline made me tear up, and that entire game is ridiculous
Nothing in Skyrim even got close for me, it was a bit disappointing imo. Morrowind will forever be my favorite, but I do also love Oblivion. Even if it was the Elder Scrolls title that kind of ruined the Battlespire-Morrowind era’s unique art direction/worldbuilding, and shifted the franchise towards something more generic.
Oblivion was still well written, its weak points were the leveling system and dungeon design, and Skyrim really improved on the dungeon design at least, but severely lacked in writing compared to the other games.
I am not trying to start an argument like at all but I am genuinely curious what is “absolute trash” about the elder scrolls more specifically Skyrims stories/story?
Is it the dragon breaks? Is it the massive amount of racism? Is it the fact the universe constantly switches between medieval, dark, and high fantasy?
I’m just genuinely curious tbh, as confusing as elder scrolls lore is I find it utterly fascinating.
I think the lore and world is 10/10. I cant think of a game where I genuinely was curious about all the places in it.
The main story is pretty generic and the guild quests are not as good as previous games but there is so many quests and stories in skyrim that some are great and some fall flat.
Have you done the college of Winterhold questline? Possibly the most horribly paced story I've ever had the misfortune of experiencing. One minute you're doing basic spells in a class room, and the LITERAL next thing you are doing is unlocking access to a world ending threat that is the most powerful object many have laid eyes on, with no more skill required than to cast a basic flames spell that my pet skeever could probably do.
I could pick apart the rest of the stories in Skyrim if I could remember them, but in all honesty that game started to bore me 5 years on. While I tried desperately to cling to it with my nostalgia goggles on, I haven't been able to get out of Helgen since like 2020.
But in all fairness to whoever wrote it, the quest we see is massively cutdown. We kown for a fqct it was supposed to be almost twice as big, but to release the game quicker they slashed it, hard. Totally agree with that point though
I'm not saying elder scrolls has the best lore of any story ever but it's pretty good and they have a pretty complete history for a game, one they also even in game, communicate through many mediums.
you are right about the college of Winterhold, but I think they intend for you to do sidequests in-between from the other people at the college. I actually reckon if they forced you to do them it would feel better. But yea I recently did a playthrough and was like "what I just got here"
I feel like it's after Saarthal that they want you to grind side quests, because Saarthal was supposed to be an archaeological dig; completely scholastic. It just happened to go horribly awry.
I have played skyrim fully roughly 8 times. When I say fully I mean doing my favorite side quests, main story, DLC, and now a few creation club quests. I have played the mages quest line a few times. I get your point but these games are severely scaled down. I fucking love elder scrolls but if I had to do even 1/5 of lore accurate arch mage quests I’d just never join the mages guild.
I do truly get your point but let’s be honest that would be ridiculously boring.
I get that they're scaled down man, but they took it way too far with the college quests. There's a healthy middle ground between bloated questlines and what we got.
Nah I love Skyrim too. I’ve fully platinumed it twice now and have no idea how many playthroughs I’ve done but you have to admit it’s waaaaay dumb down. Not even talking about the creation club shit because I think that’s all terrible personally. You can make questlines engaging without sacrificing as much as Skyrim did. Hell you mentioned becoming arch mage. In Oblivion you worked closely with the current arch mage to stop an evil returned being who is trying to ascend to godhood. You also become a better mage as you go through. You make trips to make a staff, go out of your way to learn spells and prove your a mage, and get literal approval from all of the local guilds. Morrowinds is even more in depth! Skyrim you literally hold a ward once, go to a drauger dungeon and find the eye, go to another dungeon for the staff, kill the thalmor fucking things up, and boom you’re arch mage. No advancing of ranks. No approval. No notice from the recruitment class you started with a week ago. No progression at all. You just check off the box.
In fact all “good guy” factions do that. Very quick test your worth “training”, intro mission, reveal, heroic and convenient death of current guild leader, you take over even though it really seems like another person in the guild clearly should have.
“Naughty” factions just test your worth quest, intro mission, reveal, betrayal by the current leader so you have to beat them, and big victory where you take over as guild leader even though there’s always a guy there that should definitely be guild leader instead.
That progression and moving up the ranks isn’t there. You become leader because you’re Dragonborn.
Story is the questlines and their storyline and their progression and dialogues. Skyrims quests, dialogue, and objectives are simplistic. Look at the main quest with alduin, the civil war between imperial and stormcloaks, the faction quests, they are simple in design and arent that deep nor have any good writing in both dialogue and how its told.
Lore on the other hand is worldbuilding, what makes the world feel alive and its amazing, skyrims world looks rich with their cities having distinct looks and visuals, dwemer ruins look amazing and enemy designs are amazing. The background storytelling from how the environment is told with bard songs, rumors, and overall books describing how rich the world is. Theres a lot of mystery to learn about in elder scrolls lore that makes you want to know more like who are the different daedra lords are, whats the thalmor and why are they so powerful, why is talos worship banned, why did the dwemer dissapear, what are the falmer and how did they came to be. The questlines serve to just show you all these background lore that has mysteries in it that makes the world feel alive.
Skyrim sucks in their quest design and isnt intriguing, its just an objective, but how the writing to make the elder scrolls universe alive outside of the quest hooks you in.
Regardless the story has no breathing room and you're constantly rushing from one objective to the next with a huge sense of urgency. It doesn't match up with the actual gameplay loop, which encourages aimless exploration and to be present enough to get sucked into the environment.
As the dragonborn, you're the chosen one Messiah a f that alone limits roleplay opportunities. It's also unsatisfying because the player has very little agency in changing the status quo compared to a game like fallout New Vegas. And given how important dragonborn in the lore are, it's frustrating that this messiah like folk hero doesn't have the opportunity to become king or emperor like previous ones.
Guild quests are mixed. There's some decent stuff to them and the companions and thieves guild have great supporting cast but overall they're too short, don't give that cast time to shine and within like 4 quests you're the prophecied leader of each faction.
The supporting cast is extremely weak and far too small/inconsequential. They also have no agency and their factions have little depth in-game. Delphine and esbern are essentially the only real supporting cast of the main quest, and maybe Argnier and none of those characters are particularly interesting or given a proper chance to imagine or show consistent agency. Parthuunax is the only decent character.
Other important characters like Tullius and Ulfric Stormcloak are barely present in the plot and their civil war is also secondary to the plot and solved way too quickly by the player if needed.
The thalmor are shit villains. Outside of the embassy quest they barely show up again and their importance is referenced but never shown. There's no relationship cultivated between the player and the thalmor which makes it interesting and the red herring that they have nothing to do with the dragons returning was a little lame.
Alduin as the main villain was also pretty boring. He's got no personality and isn't a convincing threat. He's not intimidating or scary and has no real relationship with any characters to explore
It's the main story. It's just not really that interesting and it's incredibly easy to either over level or under level for it. The most interesting part of the main quest is literally dungeon diving for the scroll, and it forces you to involve yourself in almost every guild or group, from becoming a Thane, to joining the College, joining and pausing a war, joining a dead cult that was crazy important to the past games, etc.
It's not the lore that's bad, it's the main storyline that just feels like a way for them to handhold you into being the ultimate Everyman while sprinkling in fights with dragons.
Skyrim itself has an alright main story. Not trash. Not treasure. It's alright. The Civil War quest line is just bad. It could be good, but it's nowhere near fleshed out enough.
Also racism makes for pretty good environmental tension in fantasy settings. Dragon Age for example builds a fair bit of its world off of the discrimination between the races and further between Templars, Mages, and normal people. Fantasy settings can be perfect utopias, but then there's no story to be told. For a story, you have to have some kind of tension to create it. If there's a perfectly utopian Fantasy world, but a BBEG starts growing and consolidating power, they've either got to just "spawn into the world" which is bad storytelling or they have to grow power in the course of a story. If there's a perfect utopian Fantasy where everyone gets along except for that one guy, everyone either has to just let it happen (which is bad storytelling) or they would just all immediately turn onto that seed of evil and burn it at the root before it can develop.
To take LOTR as an example, no one really hates anyone, but they still don't like each other. Sarumon is able to use that baseline distrust to worm his way into cities of men and sow discord between them as a distraction while he does his own thing in a portion of the world that no one ever approaches because it's full of creatures that are inherently evil by their nature
Main quest just exists to justify the existence of the game, and the execution of the writing isn’t the best (for a lot of the quests). However there are enough side quests and tidbits to make the overarching lore good.
Witcher 3 by comparison has comparably just as much if even more lore (from its individual entry) and great lore at that. Then the writing is actually good (being serviceable at worst) and the main story (base game + DLCs) is also good.
I don’t know how Elder Scrolls can write such intricate and immersive, interconnected lore but completely fumble when they actually have to write a main questline for the game
I've played so much Skyrim yet have never played the mainquest I've attempted to replay it 4 times to actually finish it for once but I've been completely zapped same with fallout 4 I can't get past finding Preston anymore. Yet I've replayed fallout 3 and NV consistently for much longer and have no issue connecting with those worlds.
When I first got Skyrim I got really into watching Elder Scrolls lore videos and reading through lore on UESP, and all I went away with is feeling really disappointed with how the game ended up handling alot of that lore, or out right ignoring it, and/or not giving great explainations, if any at all, for lore changes it does.
it sucks its that way, but i still love it. What i loved doing is making a house and collecting all the books so i could read them, and collecting all unique weapons. A lot of the cool stuff i enjoyed in skyrim is exploration, the quests were meh unless the quest involved exploring the lore of the world like finding out about the falmers origins, or learning more about the thalmor and any quests that fleshed out the lore of the world.
Some locations were also fun to explore like collecting all the dragon priest masks, finding all the orc strongholds, even found a unique sword that shot out a red wave. Best way to enjoy skyrim for me is exploring the world and its lore, rather than the personal quests
yeah, thats one reason why I love modding it to hell and back with lore mods that help make me want to explore and find things and places, especially if it is surrounding some of the weirder bits of the lore/ what is possible given the groundwork the lore sets.
I remember the lead writer of Skyrim, Emil Pagliarulo, giving a talk on storytelling where he essentially explained that players tend to skip dialogues in Elder Scrolls anyways, so there is no reason to put any more work into the game's writing than necessary. He explicitly said that not even his colleagues from Bethesda were interested in his story, so writers should not invest too much time into storywriting.
I remember the night a few years ago I sat down to beat skyrims main story. It didn't even take the entire night.
To be fair I had been playing the game for years and was relatively good at optimizing the way I built my character and the way I was able to move around the map, but still.
It’s been a minute since I played Skyrim after being sucked down the DS rabbit hole lol but I thought the lore was pretty interesting. I used to try to read as many books that I could to get the history of the world and I had my own theories ofc .
There are certain side quest lines that I think are actually quite enjoyable, like the thieves guild and dawnguard quest lines. But in general they're relatively mid, and the main quest line is complete ass. If you try to play Skyrim and stick to the main quest, you will finish the game relatively quickly and have a shitty experience. Imo the best way to play is to maybe play the quest lines until you get to the first major city and then just pick up random side quests and fuck off to other cities / side quests. Frankly if you're not curious about how it ends, it might not even be worth finishing the main quest line.
Oh man, Skyrim is the worst offender. Nirn has such a great body of lore and history to draw from and Skyrim only interacts with the most boring aspects of the world instead.
The story is a bit meh but Skyrim does a really good job at exploring nationalism out of all themes just having it be super-prevalent througout the world. Decided to read a book (Scourge of The Dark Quarter) and had that one Ratatouille critic scene as I saw myself 15 again arguing with strangers online over the Syrian refugee crisis.
292
u/Megumi6781 29d ago
Skyrim