The Elder Scrolls XV: This is my Thu'um Stick

[Yora]

I finally completed the Civil War story in Skyrim. It's quite spectacularly bad. I don't think writing this took more than one hour. It really makes me wonder why they even bothered? I'll be doing the Dragon story next, but I don't expect it to be much better.

[Resileaf]

I finally completed the Civil War story in Skyrim. It's quite spectacularly bad. I don't think writing this took more than one hour. It really makes me wonder why they even bothered? I'll be doing the Dragon story next, but I don't expect it to be much better.

The Civil war storyline couldn't be completed in time. The Hold battles were supposed to be bigger and more varied, but they could never make them work out without bugs. In the end, what we got was what they had time to do that would be stable enough.

[Vinyadan]

I finally completed the Civil War story in Skyrim. It's quite spectacularly bad. I don't think writing this took more than one hour. It really makes me wonder why they even bothered? I'll be doing the Dragon story next, but I don't expect it to be much better.

It's possible that they looked back at Morrowind and said, "it was cool that there were different houses at war with each other administering the territory" and rolled with it. My biggest gripe is that there are no changes after it. The High King is never elected. No idea why they got the Jagged Crown.

[Keltest]

It's possible that they looked back at Morrowind and said, "it was cool that there were different houses at war with each other administering the territory" and rolled with it. My biggest gripe is that there are no changes after it. The High King is never elected. No idea why they got the Jagged Crown.

My assumption is that going into ES6, the leader of the winning faction will be assassinated by the Thalmor and that ultimately both the Legion and the Stormcloaks will be driven from Skyrim and/or forced to combine their forces in the face of new Aldmeri aggression. History will leave it unclear which side actually militarily triumphed there.

[Triaxx]

I'm thinking more both armies ambushed by the Thalmor, leaders killed, but Thalmor army defeated, breaking the truce and ending the war by lack of necessity. IE if we're now all fighting the Thalmor, we don't need to fight each other anymore.

[Yora]

The Civil war storyline couldn't be completed in time. The Hold battles were supposed to be bigger and more varied, but they could never make them work out without bugs. In the end, what we got was what they had time to do that would be stable enough.

Which is an explanation, but no excuse.

[Keltest]

As far as it goes, "it was too buggy even by Bethesda's standards" is a sufficiently notable achievement that im willing to cut them some slack.

[Vinyadan]

I was wondering, if the next one is set in Argonia, will there be a mission where you have to collect 50 Hist Nirnroots, only to discover that they are talking, thinking, innocent Nirnroots, but you still have no other choice than to eradicate them if you want to end the quest?

[Resileaf]

It's all well and good to say "You shouldn't release an unfinished product", but you can't postpone a game indefinitely either. They decided that the civil war storyline was impossible to implement in any reasonable amount of time and cut their losses, keeping it barebones because it was the best they could do while keeping it part of the overall story.
More importantly, it's a small part of the game and doesn't affect the rest of it.

[Caelestion]

They were wedded to the 11.11.11 release date. I doubt it was anything to do with common sense about things that didn't work.

[Silverraptor]

I, too, was disappointed with the Civil War story. I don’t understand what is the point of releasing a non-finished product and dishonoring once again

I've done some game development type projects on a tight schedule, so I understand what happened behind the scenes to get us to what we received as an end result. It could be that the bugs would have destroyed the game, caused the game to crash, corrupted save files, or literally cause mammoths to go hurling through space and time (okay that last one is a bad example.) But the point is, they were told they needed to release the game at a certain date because Bethesda is a business. As much as it pains me to say this, games can't stay in limbo forever (even Starcraft Ghost) for every game that is just in the development stage and not being sold or played by consumers, that game is costing the company money. They have to pay for the wages of the people working on the code and the gameplay, they have to pay for the hardware and the software in case they need new versions or whatever as the development process goes on. Eventually the top has to decide when to cut it's losses, such as killing the game if there is not enough progress done, or setting a release date so they can get ready to sell. A lot of the top management (and I hate this myself) see software and game development as a possible money sink. If someone wants to setup an elaborate civil war mechanic, that's good, but they need to get it done, especially as new ideas keep coming up in design and changes are constantly made from these new ideas (I am all to familiar with that line of thinking. Hence why I like Scrum development, it sets up certain goals at certain times that you need done at a minimum to be done before proceeding forward with more complicated things).

So I can see the developers starting this massive civil war project, then halfway through development process realize that project is bigger then they expected, and then when the time is starting to run out and they don't have anything other than a current un-usable mess, quickly resort to plan B and scale down the ambitions as quickly as possible to make the deadline. Maybe if they finish the minimum, they can evaluate time left and add in a few extra features they cut. It's also why I don't like the argument of "If modders can do this, why can't the developers?" Well there are a few reasons: 1) The modders usually have a different life income or some such that gives them ease of mind when they are modding, essentially they are coming to the table free of monetary restrictions and, above all else, free of time restrictions and having to report to upper management. 2) Ideas for solutions just sometimes don't come to some people. I've been in a room of developers trying to figure out how to get an idea to work for hours and then some random person comes in with no knowledge in coding what-so-ever looks at what we're doing and then just blurts out some notion off the top of their head which was exactly to sort of information and inspiration that we needed to solve the problem. If that never happens in the development stage of a game, where a solution or idea is presented when, then the project is sort of stuck.

In short, while I too was disappointed with the Civil War in Skyrim, I understand why it ended up as it did. (Just to clarify, understand does not mean happy. But I do realize that under the probable circumstances, it just couldn't be helped.)

((Whoops, didn't mean to make this into as large a post as I did.))

[Rynjin]

Hence why I like Scrum development, it sets up certain goals at certain times that you need done at a minimum to be done before proceeding forward with more complicated things).

Bit of an aside, but it's still baffling to me that a lot of tech companies still use Waterfall when Agile/Scrum makes so much more sense in 90% of situations for the kind of work that needs to be done.

So I can see the developers starting this massive civil war project, then halfway through development process realize that project is bigger then they expected, and then when the time is starting to run out and they don't have anything other than a current un-usable mess, quickly resort to plan B and scale down the ambitions as quickly as possible to make the deadline.

It's actually worse than that form what I remember. The Civil War was initially supposed to be THE main story quest, which is why it's inextricably hooked into the game's working (futzing with the Civil War line even in minor ways is hell for modders because it borks a whole ton of seemingly unrelated stuff if you're not careful, since pretty much every NPC in the game is at least tangentially involve din it; they all have a faction preference at the very least).

It was going to be a complex story with no right answers and a ton of deep, involving back and forth battles with ongoing territorial disputes (taken cities would be retaken by the opposing faction, etc.),a nd it sounded great.

Then a higher up at Zenimax decided that this wasn't what people play Elder Scrolls games for, and demanded a "save the world" plot be added. it was, but by the time it was completed there was not time left to work on the Civil War, so it was largely scrapped, but couldn't be completely removed without basically scrapping everything and starting dev over again.

[Kareeah_Indaga]

Bit of an aside, but it's still baffling to me that a lot of tech companies still use Waterfall when Agile/Scrum makes so much more sense in 90% of situations for the kind of work that needs to be done.

+1 this. Mind, Scrum can still go badly if the people in charge don't know what they're doing...though I acknowledge that's true of most anything.

I finally completed the Civil War story in Skyrim. It's quite spectacularly bad. I don't think writing this took more than one hour. It really makes me wonder why they even bothered? I'll be doing the Dragon story next, but I don't expect it to be much better.

The main quest has a few good parts. The big upshot for you is, having completed the Civil War I believe you get to skip 'Season Unending' which is IMO the absolute worst quest in the game.

[veti]

I was wondering, if the next one is set in Argonia, will there be a mission where you have to collect 50 Hist Nirnroots, only to discover that they are talking, thinking, innocent Nirnroots, but you still have no other choice than to eradicate them if you want to end the quest?

So long as completing the quest is optional, that's fine. There are lots of things in Skyrim I've looked into, or started on, only to say "nope, not doing that" when I find out what it means.

[Yora]

As far as it goes, "it was too buggy even by Bethesda's standards" is a sufficiently notable achievement that im willing to cut them some slack.

I really wonder why we're even bothering to buy these games?

They never seem to be finished, they are always almost unplayably bugged, many of the same bugs keep appearing for the last seven games, and they always leave it to the players to finish the game through mods, combat is terrible, writing is laughable, and NPCs have zero personality.
And not only do people keep buying these games, we keep playing them! I can crap all over Skyrim all day, but I still am 80 hours into this playthrough eight years later.

With Morrowind I can fully pin it on the unique and creative setting, but Skyrim doesn't even have that. And still I enjoy it...

[factotum]

With Morrowind I can fully pin it on the unique and creative setting, but Skyrim doesn't even have that. And still I enjoy it...

That's really Bethesda's current problem. Their older games, for all their faults (and there are many, many of those!), were always enjoyable enough for you to overlook the issues. The likes of Fallout 76 shows what happens when Bethesda releases a game with their usual raft of bugs and other jank but which *isn't* enjoyable to play.

[Vinyadan]

I can't say for the MMORPGs, but Bethesda games from Morrowind to Fallout 4 have all been exceptional. There's just so much stuff and so much detail, and they look so good. They are constantly giving you different hooks, and implementing and honing different mechanics, like enchanting or manufacture.

Sure, I can gripe about them all day. Morrowind should have had dodge animations, Oblivion had repetitive gates and dungeons, Fallout 3 had a stupid ending, Skyrim emphasised grinding and tried too hard to be edgy, Fallout 4 added a cool mechanic like villages with the wrong implementation (it should have been more top-down). But, at the end of the day, they still are incredibly good generalist games (Morrowind was probably less generalist).

[Triaxx]

I think part of it is the freedom they provide. Most games you get in, they tell you: This is who you are, and this is the story of you. And push/pull you along. And it's fine. A lot of those games are good. Bethesda games, for the most part, ask: Who are you? What is your story?

Although to listen to most people who play Skyrim the answer is 'Doesn't matter, stealth archer.' But mostly you can do just about anything. Battlemage, heavy armored warrior, swashbuckling thief, dashing swordsman. The world is there to play in, but the story is yours to write.

[factotum]

Although to listen to most people who play Skyrim the answer is 'Doesn't matter, stealth archer.'

Stealth archer is probably the most powerful setup, but definitely not the most fun. I found stealth dagger-user to be far more entertaining, because you actually have to sneak up really close to an enemy to one-hit-kill them, and that's surprisingly tense even with the fairly broken stealth mechanics in Skyrim.

[Rodin]

Stealth archer is probably the most powerful setup, but definitely not the most fun. I found stealth dagger-user to be far more entertaining, because you actually have to sneak up really close to an enemy to one-hit-kill them, and that's surprisingly tense even with the fairly broken stealth mechanics in Skyrim.

The hardest part of my first playthrough was as a stealth melee dude. I had to sneak up behind a Draugr and kill it in a single strike, otherwise the other Draugr in the area would aggro and I couldn't win the fight. The problem was that the Draugr was positioned such that getting the sneak attack required practically hugging it as I squeezed around behind. Very tough, very tense.

[DigoDragon]

I will have to try a stealth mage with bound weapons someday.

[Cygnia]

I did stealth w/bound bow -- but I fully admit I like not getting hurt ;)

[factotum]

I did stealth w/bound bow -- but I fully admit I like not getting hurt ;)

If you're going mage anyway you might as well put some points into Illusion--that way you get both Quiet Casting and Invisibility, which is the mage's get-out-of-jail free card against anything with eyes.

[Cygnia]

If you're going mage anyway you might as well put some points into Illusion--that way you get both Quiet Casting and Invisibility, which is the mage's get-out-of-jail free card against anything with eyes.

Believe me, Muffle as well was a good spell for me to use (and bump up Illusion in the early levels).

[LibraryOgre]

Believe me, Muffle as well was a good spell for me to use (and bump up Illusion in the early levels).

Illusion is the workhorse of levelling for me. I can cast Muffle even with limited Illusion and Magicka, and just keep spamming it as I walk around Whiterun.

[Spore]

Illusion is the workhorse of levelling for me. I can cast Muffle even with limited Illusion and Magicka, and just keep spamming it as I walk around Whiterun.

Take caution. I've ended up with characters not even being intended to be illusionists with Illusion 60+, powering up your level to 20+ (making radiant enemies stronger). the problem is you can't actually spend it on perks you'd want for your build. Not more than your 2/5 or 3/5 in a basic weapon, armor or auxiliary perk.

I've had three characters that went like "Welcome to Lv 25, you have a rusty dagger, leather armor and 15 unspent perk points. Now to go kill that Draugr Deathlord. At least if you accidentally overlevel with Pickpocketing, you might have enough gold to at least buy dwemer/elven level gear.

[LibraryOgre]

Take caution. I've ended up with characters not even being intended to be illusionists with Illusion 60+, powering up your level to 20+ (making radiant enemies stronger). the problem is you can't actually spend it on perks you'd want for your build. Not more than your 2/5 or 3/5 in a basic weapon, armor or auxiliary perk.

I've had three characters that went like "Welcome to Lv 25, you have a rusty dagger, leather armor and 15 unspent perk points. Now to go kill that Draugr Deathlord. At least if you accidentally overlevel with Pickpocketing, you might have enough gold to at least buy dwemer/elven level gear.

Oh, I've done it. The nice part about illusion is that you might be able to SNEAK your way to some of that valuable stuff... and Invisibility + Muffle means you can run for a long time.

[Vinyadan]

Take caution. I've ended up with characters not even being intended to be illusionists with Illusion 60+, powering up your level to 20+ (making radiant enemies stronger). the problem is you can't actually spend it on perks you'd want for your build. Not more than your 2/5 or 3/5 in a basic weapon, armor or auxiliary perk.

I've had three characters that went like "Welcome to Lv 25, you have a rusty dagger, leather armor and 15 unspent perk points. Now to go kill that Draugr Deathlord. At least if you accidentally overlevel with Pickpocketing, you might have enough gold to at least buy dwemer/elven level gear.

You probably have already seen this, but...

[DigoDragon]

A mod like AFT is also great so you can modify your follower to also be decently stealthy and not a clanging washing machine going through the dungeon and giving away your position. :3

[Alabenson]

A mod like AFT is also great so you can modify your follower to also be decently stealthy and not a clanging washing machine going through the dungeon and giving away your position. :3

That issue is part of the reason I've specced into both archery and two handed fighting in my current build. Although in most cases it usually amounts to "follower rushes ahead while I slowly try to keep up whilst dragging several thousand pounds of loot"