[OBV] Lack of quest freedom...

[Sever]

Okay, so i'm gonna have another rant, this time about the lack of imagination used by the designers in relation to some of the quests. I've started my third character, a true thief (non-combat, non-MQ) and am really having trouble roleplaying him the way i think he should be played. I abandoned his "kill nothing" approach very early on when i realised that, like it or lump it, combat IS unavoidable in some parts of the game. But since then, i've been presented with numerous quests which, despite Beth's claims of total freedom etc, really have only two outcomes: Do the quest or don't do the quest.

Example 1. "Two Sides of the Coin". Probably the best example of a thief's quest outside the guild, i was looking forward to roleplaying this one after abandoning it with my first character (a goody two shoes). There's a fair bit of "back and forth" in this quest and at each turn, new opportunities are presented and, one would think, new outcomes as well. With the arrogant character i'm playing, i decided to screw both parties involved and keep the loot after discovering its whereabouts. To do this, i reasoned, all i had to do was steal Arnora's amulet (without updating her on current events), present it to her husband and both would be none the wiser. As it turns out, the amulet was locked in a chest and even though i pickpocketed the key, it wasn't activated until after i'd spoken to her! [img]graemlins/1ponder.gif[/img] A bit miffed, i continue on with the quest to discover that the hiding place is being watched by the corrupt guard. "No worries" i think, and sneak past him only to discover that the chest cannot be opened until he's dead. Why? Why can't i sneak past him, steal the stuff and disappear? If his crime is pinned on me, i just pay off the doyen. I'm trying to roleplay this the way a thief would and the quest design is restricting me to only one possible outcome!

Example 2: "Caught in the Hunt." I've completed this as a Blade (combat first, questions later. No problems there...) but was eager to test this out as a sneaky-bastard character. I had it all worked out before i'd started: Pickpocket the three keys required to activate Kurdan, pickpocket Kurdan's key and, using the Khajiiti "Eye of Fear" power, send him screaming down into his own dungeon, lock all five of them in there to starve, then head back to Bravil and give Aleron's wife a sob story. As it turns out, the second and third hunters do not even appear in the game until the first has been killed. I was forced to give the first two an easy demise (as opposed to starvation that is, there was nothing easy about killing them without any combat skills) and leave the third to comfort Kurdan after his scary experience. After closing the gate and throwing Kurdan's key into Niben Bay, i head back to Aleron's wife and discover that the quest cannot be advanced until Kurdan is dead. That may sound reasonable to most players, but consider that the player may not be the stereotypical rpg character and isn't supposed to know they're heading into a trap. In the case of my thief, the outcome i'd devised sounded perfectly reasonable to me and is not so far-fetched that i'd expect the designers not to include a similar type of ending. It's a decent sized quest with a few twists and turns and only ONE possible ending!

I don't know. Maybe i'm just being picky. Even if some of my playing styles are in the overwhelming minority, i'd still expect multiple quest endings to suit the three main playing styles (fighter, mage, thief) as well as the odd "talk my way out" option (besides "i don't want to take this quest", that is ) thrown in for good measure. For replay value, if no other reason. As it is now, it seems the quests have been designed for a player who's only going to play the game once using a stereotypical powerhouse character. In a game as big and (supposedly) as varied as Oblivion, this just isn't acceptable.

[Memnoch]

Now that I've finished the game, I suppose I can agree with you mate - the game itself was excellent, but the replayability using another character isn't great. I invested a total of 120+ hours playing this over the last month and just finished. The only disappointment I had was that with a couple of exceptions, most of the quests can only be done one way. I suppose that most games only have single quest paths as well, but after first seeing Oblivion I was hoping for a bit more.

[Thoran]

The sad thing is they have the ability to support more complex quest mechanics... they just chose to go with MORE quests instead of more flexible quests.

Personally I'd rather see more quest quality as opposed to quantity... and it wouldn't have been too difficult, there were many quests that forced you to fight where they could easily have supported stealth, charisma, thief, or other approaches. It seems like they got caught up in the 'bash em till their dead' mindset, even after building a game that let you construct characters that really aren't good bashers (thief and stealth characters).

As a stealth character, I couldn't help but compare the game to the Thief series (THE benchmark for stealth fantasy), and while their cover indicator was a lot simpler... it basically worked the same. They COULD have supported full blown stealth solutions in THE MAJORITY of their quests... but time and time again you're forced to fight. The thing that irks me especially is how they did it... in many cases they gave npc's 100% visibility to you... no matter how high your stealth they automatically saw you. That stunk.

[SpongeLikeCow]

I don't see why people expect to be able to play the game as a pacifist. I see this complaint over and over on every forum related to this game and it's mystifying. The only CRPG I can think of that you can complete as a pacifist is Fallout 2, and maybe Fallout 1.

They COULD have supported full blown stealth solutions in THE MAJORITY of their quests...

They could have done a lot of stuff, but there's a point where deadlines have to be met and a project has to be finished and start generating revenue. That goes for any game.

[Thoran]

I'm not talking about being a pacifist... I'm talking about them actaully being able to say 'wide open gaming experience' without the caveat of 'unless you're on a quest'... in which case the game is as linear as they get.

Action rollplaying games force you to fight... real roleplaying games give you options and let you choose how best to solve a puzzle. Oblivion COULD have been more than an ARPG, all the fundamentals are there. Oblivion is good, not great, and the closer you get to having something great the more you're going to hear it when you fail. People complain because they want the problem FIXED and they think it's worth letting the manufacturer know about it. It's when people don't complain that you know you've got a total dog.

[Sever]

Originally posted by SpongeLikeCow: I don't see why people expect to be able to play the game as a pacifist. I see this complaint over and over on every forum related to this game and it's mystifying.

If you don't get it, then there's not much i can say to explain it better. Some people (me) like to really create diverse characters and actually roleplay them. More than just dialogue, the roleplaying extends to every facet of the game including (or excluding, if you will) the combat. Whilst the assassin is a combat oriented stealth character, the thief (to me) is not. The Elder Scrolls games are the only RPGs i've played that actually let a thief advance without having to kill stuff to get better. It'd be nice if that trait extended to the quests.