Morrowind mods are a fucking jungle

[Regvard]

stuff

Those robo-dinos drop str elixirs IIRC.

 

[sea]

Those robo-dinos drop str elixirs IIRC.

It's actually a mix of various attribute-boosting potions. Most of them I saw boosted agility. I would also say it's pretty fucking terrible design to have a game that is unwinnable unless the player has compulsive looting disorder, especially right before the end of said game when the player should have no reason to pick up any more items except quest-related ones.

Also, protip, players aren't psychic and making a challenge which can only be overcome by happenstance of all things is a terrible idea. This shit is indefensible.

 

[Clockwork Knight]

Glorious.

edit: do you really need to quote the gigantic post, brah?

 

[Regvard]

Those robo-dinos drop str elixirs IIRC.

It's actually a mix of various attribute-boosting potions. Most of them I saw boosted agility. I would also say it's pretty fucking terrible design to have a game that is unwinnable unless the player has compulsive looting disorder, especially right before the end of said game when the player should have no reason to pick up any more items except quest-related ones.

Also, protip, players aren't psychic and making a challenge which can only be overcome by happenstance of all things is a terrible idea. This shit is indefensible.

Not defending it. I hated Tribunal.

I was so looking forward to Sotha Sil. Was crushed.

 

[Sceptic]

Summoning DraQ

 

[Manjuice Nutella]

i knew that would be good

 

[abnaxus]

It's all Ken Rolston's fault.

Also sea how did your shitty mage fare against Gaenor?

 

[DraQ]

Well, most of your complaints are pretty well justified, however, I'll nitpick a few points.

City divided into a handful of zones and where levitation is not allowed, check.

True, though at least in Tribunal:

-the explanation is somewhat plausible (goddess has made it so) rather than completely moronic (MG decreed so and suddenly everyone forgot how to levitate in <4years IIRC).
-the city has excuse of being surrounded by huge landmass that's not included in the expansion, lacks natural barriers and would stretch for several times the surface area of the Vvardenfell.

Fucking inane main story quests which consist almost entirely of boring dungeon crawls or fetching, but lack any of the interesting context or freedom of Morrowind, check.

People complained about lack of dungeon crawls.

Also, Barilzars mazed band was kind of cool.

Tribunal does build on the interesting lore in Morrowind and fleshes out stuff that was previously only talked about in books...

I'd consider this, improved journal and ability to complete full suit of daedric the saving grace of expansions.

Also, Helseth beeing asshole in pretty interesting ways.

The game even dangles choice and consequence in your face, only to force you to play both sides in its story anyway. Thanks for setting up multiple factions and then not giving me a choice on who to side with, jerks.

Not only that, if you try to wiggle about too much you'll break scripting.

Then there's the dungeons. Jesus fuck, the dungeons. What the fuck. So I swear I must have killed a thousand fucking copy-pasted goblins inside a thousand copy-pasted tunnels in this game. I don't mind dungeon crawling, when it is interesting and done well. In Tribunal it feels like Bethesda just churned out as many levels as possible and didn't worry about putting anything remotely worth seeing at them. Aside from being split up into pointlessly small rooms which just get confusing to navigate because they all look identical (due to copy-pasting the same room kits over and over), they often feature pointless and long paths to nowhere, and doors to areas which have nothing in them except a couple enemies to kill, not even some loot. There's the sewers. And the catacombs. And the caves. And the dwarven ruins. And the clockwork "city". It's all the same, just copy-pasted tunnels with copy-pasted monsters. In the clockwork city they even troll you by putting doors in your way that take 10 fucking seconds to open for no reason. When your game has bad combat, you do not make combat the central focus of your game. Fuck you Bethesda.

People complained about lack of dungeon crawls.


Also flooding part of the sewers was p. cool.

Okay, so the entire Dark Brotherhood attacks basically just become a dropped plot thread that's eventually hand-waved by the king and you can do nothing to really follow up on it properly

You can try to stab Helseth dead, but that will break the MQ and, with item obtained, gameplay.

It isn't entirely dropped, because Helseth does try to kill you off a few more times, it's just that you're forced to carry the idiot ball.

Robot fucking dinosaurs.

This is a real thing. They actually put robot dinosaurs in an Elder Scrolls game, and for some reason thought that these weren't fucking stupid.

Cyborg fucking dinosaurs and scorpions.

Made/designed by a god/demigod, with too much time on his hands and fascination with technology. I had no particular problems with that.

Anyway, for some reason Almalexia orders you to retreive some special ring for her as well as to reforge an old flame-enchanted blade that was held by Nerevar in times of old. Why? None of this is ever really explained, other than it's "Almalexia's divine purpose" or whatever. Fine, I can sort of buy that, but why do I have to make a sword if I am playing a pure mage? Maybe the game designers are trying to tell me I'm fucked when the boss fight comes. And it's sure awfully convenient that all the pieces of this legendary lost sword (which was never mentioned before in game lore) just so happen to all be obtainable within a five minute walk of one another. And in a mod where custom armor forging is touted as a feature, the fact that I can't choose what shape or form the blade will take on when reforged is conspicious to say the least...

Yeah, it sucked. I never really liked the sword, because I don't like swinging huge, flaming bananas that are very slow to swing and I think Morrowind had enough fucking swords but not enough, for example, axes or spears. It also didn't make fucking sense indeed. Well, at least it made a good weaponizable torch when you played a long blade user.

Well, I have done it before... and who am I to deny the word of a god, in a world where gods can be killed and are also known to be petty, deceitful and... oh fuck it, I guess I have no choice regardless do I?

Knowing it was a ruse I refused failed to refuse.

So Almalexia magically teleports you to the "clockwork city" where Sotha Sil resides.

With Mazed Band, actually.

This name is an outright lie, because it's actually just a series of tunnels with a slightly different texture and the same old copy-pasted monsters that goes on for hours and hours, and also features similar paths to nowhere and absolutely no loot to justify your exploration, just like the other dungeons, but after you've already been doing such boring crap for the last 10 hours.

But... but dungeon crawls!

And then you get to it.

This is the Dome of Udok, better known as the Dome of the Asshole Game Designer. What is this room, you ask? You might think that it's a puzzle. And that is sort of true, if you consider a cinder block and strip of leather to be an adequate birth control method. But more reasonably, this room is a giant middle finger up your ass, to you and all your family, by whatever utter dickbag concocted it.

Basically, the "trick" in this room is that there is a door at the other end of a lava pool, and the only way through is to push a lever. The problem? The lever is "rusted" and can't be pressed unless you have 100 strength.

Yes, that's right. I'm not exaggerating. You need 100 strength, the maximum value in the game, to press this particular lever which has "rusted over". This means that quite literally 2/3 of builds available in the game, that is, mages and archers, are completely fucked and cannot complete the game unless they are capable of using a Fortify Strength spell to reach 100 points, or if they drink a potion to raise their strength that high.

What's wrong? I thought you people liked stat checks?


Anyway, putting a stat-check in the middle of critical path is fucking retarded indeed, but it isn't as crippling as you're sayingm in this particular case (derpy, but not outrageously so) - if you're a restoration caster you should probably have spell fortifying STR to 100, if you're a mystic and summoner, you might be able to summon a lot of stuff and absorb enough strength, if you're an alchemist, you should have ingredients with you to nom or make potions, otherwise, you will likely have some potions, enchantments or booze to help you (also, archers fucking need STR for moar damage). Failing all that (and IIRC you were forewarned, that you should prepare well and that you'll be stuck in CC) you should be able to slaughter several cyborg scorpions and harvest elixir they have dripping into their system, then stack it to go over 100 and pull the lever.

So it's betrayal, goddess? Well, a dumb twist, but one that I could almost, almost stomach.

It isn't really that dumb, what's dumb is that you had to play along all the time. I'd say that the theme of the MQ is generally being stuck between rock and a hard place - two political powers playing you against each other, except clumsily realized and at the point where you were already too badass for it to really work.

Almalexia is a goddess, which means she is, you know, a god, but female. This is important because gods are generally very powerful beings who are immortal and no mortal should be able to best.

Except you already have, possibly twice.
Also, even Aedra - the eight divines who are pretty much the *actual* gods, not some ascended mortals (then again, the last part is disputable) - are explicitly stated to be mortal in TES. Only daedra are explicitly immortal though they are generally weaker in Mundus and still can have their asses kicked.

Almalexia's plan makes no sense whatsoever. Her entire scheme to kill the Nerevarine could kind of make sense, but what is the point of doing this act inside Sotha Sil's domain, risking the Nerevarine being killed by robo-dinos on the way, or worse, getting stuck at the lava pit because he/she can't pull a lever? Almalexia can use the ring you gave her to teleport to Sotha Sil, and apparently bypass all his defenses, so why didn't she just teleport you to the end of the dungeon to skip all the deadly hazards? Why didn't she just teleport you to a cabin in the middle of nowhere, or a swamp, or old tomb, and kill you there, and then, if she wanted, bring your body to Sotha Sil's domain? It's not like there are any witnesses to the murder because you fight her in an otherwise uninhabited room.

I would guess this was actually the plan - she tried to wear you down or get you killed without her direct intervention. The part that apparently didn't make sense was the one with reforging flaming banana, but it isn't even that awesome and I don't think you actually need it for anything. Maybe Ayem wanted it for her collection (having its twin blade and being vain bitch or because it meant something to her) or needed it as a symbol?

It's previously established that gods are basically immortal, but will often choose to behave in a mortal way, including accepting death for a time. Vivec specifically tells you this in Morrowind.

It's CHIM and other members of Tribunal are not known to have it.

But if Sotha Sil was really murdered and presumably incensed at Almalexia's betrayal, why didn't he reincarnate himself and explain the situation to the Nerevarine? Almalexia even calls him a "creator" so presumably Sotha Sil can do this even more easily than the other gods out there. Does Sotha Sil just not care?

It's hinted at that he indeed didn't care - possibly having got apathetic towards his very existence or having already moved on in some way, leaving his unneeded husk behind in the tangle of wires for Almalexia to stab stupidly.

Earlier in the game Almalexia has the Nerevarine turn on a weather control device (??!?!?!) deep below Mournhold in order to "demonstrate her power" to the weak, fearful masses and presumably boost their faith in her. If that's the case, and her entire plan relied on having the Nerevarine reach Sotha Sil's domain

But did it? She only needed the rest of the Tribunal out of the picture and you as her plausible martyr (so also out of the picture), with only the second part involving the player in any way, unless you've already involved yourself in the first. Ok, you also fetched the Mazed Band, but there is absolutely no indication of anything that would prevent here from being able to do it herself, IIRC, she just seemingly couldn't be arsed.

if Almalexia was going to kill Sotha Sil herself all along, and didn't need the sword, why did she have the Nerevarine reforge it in the first place? The only purpose this act seems to even have is so that the Nerevarine can kill Almalexia.

Well, you can kill her without it and I explained possible, if unexplored reasons above.
If the sword was necessary, she legitimately owns its twin-weapon the arcing chili-pepper, so would presumably not need flaming banana for this purpose.

It's also not unthinkable that it was part of mind-games on her part. Do note that:
-flaming banana is hardly optimal weapon to use against Almalexia - it hits hard, but swings pretty slowly and Ayem has 100% fire resist - having you use it against her seems vastly preferable to her than being ran through with Ice Blade of The Monarch, for example.
-if you were not a long-blade user, then brainwashing you into believing that a long blade you possess is the only weapon capable of killing her would be doubly favourable to Almalexia.

So once your head is done reeling from the sheer fucking condensed retardation of all this, you get a long, boring and extremely hard boss fight against Almalexia. Let me remind you that you have no way of returning to town to prepare in advance for this fight, because the way home is barred. Let me also remind you that she has an absurd amount of hit points. In fact, even with a fully maxed out spellcaster with spells that hit the reasonable limit of damage output, killing her still takes dozens of tries, tons of luck, and about a billion individual attack spells that would otherwise kill most enemies in 3-4 hits (and 1-2 hits at most in the original game).

I don't remember my last fight with Ayem, but my best shot would probably involve hitting her where it hurts, maybe while swamping her with summons and/or using defensive spells. And since she carries a weapon "where it hurts" would probably mean her STR. Not being able to move around she'd only be able to hit me with magic, which can be resisted, reflected or absorbed.

 

[Turjan]

Thanks for setting up multiple factions and then not giving me a choice on who to side with, jerks.

FIFM. As there are only jerks to side with, the choice doesn't really matter much. I always asked myself why to do anything for either side.

The story isn't really that bad as you make it sound, and it makes at least some sense as a psychological piece. It's a story of a goddess that lost her power and who cannot cope with this loss. She's trying to cheat her way out of this, and she ultimately fails. It's a relatively simple plot, but serviceable.

I don't really buy your criticism about the stat check. At this time of the game, Morrowind chars don't have any limits anymore.

Then again, I share your complaints about too many boring dungeons and too many goblins. The Clockwork City was also a disappointment. Unlike you, I found the Sotha Sil scene very fitting. Anyway, I agree that Tribunal is as a sum somewhere between mediocre and bad. I liked the story and its background, but as a game it's quite a failure.

 

[Clockwork Knight]

I don't really buy your criticism about the stat check. At this time of the game, Morrowind chars don't have any limits anymore.

Well, his character didn't fulfill the requirement despite being perfectly able to reach that point in the game. So was sea playing the "wrong" way?

I don't like "You must be this tall to ride" barriers either. Giving you complete freedom to play however you want and then suddenly demanding a specific stat is a bad idea, smells of forced grinding to extend playtime. I think the intent was to warn the player that there'll be a hard battle ahead ("There'll be an opponent capable of taking on 100 STR characters beyond this point"), but as he noted you can't go back to get stronger so it's useless as a warning.

 

[baturinsky]

Dunno, dungeons did not felt that big for me. Probably because I barely wasted time on killing mobs - Sunder with buffed Agi and Str does wonders.

 

[sea]

-the explanation is somewhat plausible (goddess has made it so) rather than completely moronic (MG decreed so and suddenly everyone forgot how to levitate in <4years IIRC).
-the city has excuse of being surrounded by huge landmass that's not included in the expansion, lacks natural barriers and would stretch for several times the surface area of the Vvardenfell.

It's still stupid, forced and contrived. They obviously just wanted to make an expansion that focused on a city but didn't have an engine that could manage it within exterior cells. They could have made it all one outdoor area instead - put Mournhold on an island or something and just have an invisible wall saying "your business is in the city." At least that wouldn't fuck up one of the coolest spells in the game for no good reason, and would have made for a more interesting world to explore. I get the sense the only reason they split up all those districts is specifically because they wanted to make the city feel bigger than it was.

People complained about lack of dungeon crawls.

Made/designed by a god/demigod, with too much time on his hands and fascination with technology. I had no particular problems with that.

Doesn't matter if a god did it. It's still stupid.

Anyway, putting a stat-check in the middle of critical path is fucking retarded indeed, but it isn't as crippling as you're sayingm in this particular case (derpy, but not outrageously so) - if you're a restoration caster you should probably have spell fortifying STR to 100, if you're a mystic and summoner, you might be able to summon a lot of stuff and absorb enough strength, if you're an alchemist, you should have ingredients with you to nom or make potions, otherwise, you will likely have some potions, enchantments or booze to help you (also, archers fucking need STR for moar damage). Failing all that (and IIRC you were forewarned, that you should prepare well and that you'll be stuck in CC) you should be able to slaughter several cyborg scorpions and harvest elixir they have dripping into their system, then stack it to go over 100 and pull the lever

Critical path should never have a requirement that only "might" be fulfilled. It doesn't matter that there are ways around it. It's still fucking retarded. Hell, if you killed all the enemies up to that point but didn't pick up their potions, you can't even return to the previous rooms to get them.

Stat checks are fine - if there is at least one (possibly non-ideal option) to allow the player to proceed.

Except you already have, possibly twice.

Well I guess I always perceived it differently. The context of the other two gods is important.

First of all, it's arguable that Vivec lets you kill him and wants to die.

Second, Dagoth Ur wasn't anywhere near at full power. His energies were being consumed by building his own Liberty Prime, and as is established, it's not the strength of a god's avatar that's so powerful as it is the fact that gods are, by the standards of "regular people", immortal.

Almalexia has no such qualifications. She's power-mad, has nothing diminishing her (especially as post-Ghostfence she shouldn't need to spend any extra energies keeping it up), and wants to kill you as much as anyone else - her entire plan seems to revolve around it. You may have killed gods before but you'd think she'd be even more powerful than them given the circumstances.

Neither does Sotha Sil. As far as we know, Sotha Sil is a recluse who doesn't care about the outside world. While maybe he isn't that strong because he has no need to be strong, he's in the same boat as Almalexia in that his powers aren't being sapped by needing to spend so much on the Ghostfence and other stuff.

I guess what also just bugs me is that with Dagoth Ur, there is a huge build up to the event. Vivec even tells you "hey, you don't have to do this, and it'll be really, really fucking hard." Killing a god is a task that is treated with about as much import as you can possibly give it, and realistically speaking, getting leveled and acquiring items that let you beat the game will probably take you a good 10-20 hours. Yet with Almalexia there is literally no build-up. She just tells you "oh, yeah, Sotha Sil was behind it all, go bop him over the head a few times for me". The entire expansion should have been a lead-up to that event, with you amassing the necessary power to undertake such a monumental task.

Also, even Aedra - the eight divines who are pretty much the *actual* gods, not some ascended mortals (then again, the last part is disputable) - are explicitly stated to be mortal in TES. Only daedra are explicitly immortal though they are generally weaker in Mundus and still can have their asses kicked.

Fair enough. You're the loremaster, you know it better than I do.

I would guess this was actually the plan - she tried to wear you down or get you killed without her direct intervention. The part that apparently didn't make sense was the one with reforging flaming banana, but it isn't even that awesome and I don't think you actually need it for anything. Maybe Ayem wanted it for her collection (having its twin blade and being vain bitch or because it meant something to her) or needed it as a symbol?

You know what would have worn the Nerevarine down? If she let the Nerevarine fight Sotha Sil and then she cleaned up afterwards.

But did it? She only needed the rest of the Tribunal out of the picture and you as her plausible martyr (so also out of the picture), with only the second part involving the player in any way, unless you've already involved yourself in the first. Ok, you also fetched the Mazed Band, but there is absolutely no indication of anything that would prevent here from being able to do it herself, IIRC, she just seemingly couldn't be arsed.

So your argument is that she had no real plan, and that she was just winging it? While it's possible, that doesn't exactly make for a good story and just comes across as really lazy and a way to justify shitty writing rather than being interesting or clever in itself.

Well, you can kill her without it and I explained possible, if unexplored reasons above.
If the sword was necessary, she legitimately owns its twin-weapon the arcing chili-pepper, so would presumably not need flaming banana for this purpose.

If she wanted it, she would have asked the Nerevarine to give it to her so she could strike the Nerevarine down with it, just like she did with the other artifacts she asked him/her to collect.

-flaming banana is hardly optimal weapon to use against Almalexia - it hits hard, but swings pretty slowly and Ayem has 100% fire resist - having you use it against her seems vastly preferable to her than being ran through with Ice Blade of The Monarch, for example.
-if you were not a long-blade user, then brainwashing you into believing that a long blade you possess is the only weapon capable of killing her would be doubly favourable to Almalexia.

I can sorta buy the second point, but again - there is a fine line between "brilliant plan" and "what the fuck am I reading", and if the writer cannot make the distinction then that's just bad writing.

You know what I just realized.

So Almalexia's plan is to get rid of the Nerevarine. Right?

She sends the Nerevarine to Sotha Sil's city using the Mazed Band, which she keeps for herself. In this place, Mark and Recall spells are blocked. There is no way out except for using the Mazed Band. Sotha Sil is dead, and the place is full of monsters.

WHY DIDN'T SHE JUST LEAVE THE NEREVARINE THERE FOREVER?!

I mean, the Nerevarine has to eat. There's nothing in the clockwork city to eat. So the Nerevarine would last what, like, 2-3 weeks at most? And then lying on the ground, starving to death, Almalexia could go stab the Nerevarine through the chest if she really wanted to make it personal. Or, just, like, don't ever return ever, for like a hundred billion years.

Yep, this game is still retarded.

 

[Manjuice Nutella]

Okay, so the entire Dark Brotherhood attacks basically just become a dropped plot thread that's eventually hand-waved by the king and you can do nothing to really follow up on it properly

You can try to stab Helseth dead, but that will break the MQ and, with item obtained, gameplay.

It isn't entirely dropped, because Helseth does try to kill you off a few more times

Where?

 

[Sceptic]

put Mournhold on an island or something

"or something" indeed.

You know, the loss of Levitation is pretty rage inducing, but your "fix" is about on par with every Oblivion lore rape combined.

Bethesda painted themselves into a corner when they decided to make Tribunal a one-city expansion. Their solution was disable Levitation. We can complain, we can crticize, we can call decline, but let's leave it at that and not suggest even worse alternatives.

Stat checks are fine - if there is at least one (possibly non-ideal option) to allow the player to proceed.

Except, this being Morrowind, there are a multitude of ways to get the required stat. I really don't see the problem. Even if you purposefully gimp your character so you have no enchant, no strength, no alchemy, no fortify spell, and no item to boost strength, you can STILL get around it using nothing EXCLUSIVELY items available to you within CC. It's a nonissue. It's like raging because you're dungeon crawling and there's suddenly a locked door in front of you! with the key right next to it! HOW DARE THEY PLACE A LOCKED DOOR WHAT IF MY CHARACTER HAS NO LOCKPICK GRANJGJHGJHDJGD.

Almalexia has no such qualifications. She's power-mad, has nothing diminishing her (especially as post-Ghostfence she shouldn't need to spend any extra energies keeping it up)

She has plenty diminishing her. The Tribunal was severely weakened to begin with when Dagoth Ur stole the tools, which they needed to tap into the Heart's power. Then you can go and destroy the Heart, ie their source of power and immortality. She is greatly weakened compared to what she was.

Neither does Sotha Sil.

You've used the explanation for Vivec but it fits Sotha Sil even more. It's pretty clear that at this point he just doesn't care, and there's good reason to think he's not even really "there" by the time Alm offs him.

You know what would have worn the Nerevarine down? If she let the Nerevarine fight Sotha Sil and then she cleaned up afterwards.

That of course is assuming Ner and Sil kill each other. Or she might've showed up for the cleaning and found both had a little chat and decided they should off her instead.

 

[DraQ]

It's still stupid, forced and contrived.

Yes, it is, but it has good out-of-universe reasons and in-universe one that doesn't make you try to summon the eternal darkness by headbutting the nearest wall.

They obviously just wanted to make an expansion that focused on a city but didn't have an engine that could manage it within exterior cells. They could have made it all one outdoor area instead - put Mournhold on an island or something

Except they couldn't because it isn't.

Made/designed by a god/demigod, with too much time on his hands and fascination with technology. I had no particular problems with that.

Doesn't matter if a god did it. It's still stupid.

Ok, you have a setting where you have:
-living creatures
-p. advanced tech made by advanced and mysterious but otherwise mundane normal race.
-this tech including autonomous combat robots
-a genius god/demigod with obsession with technology, reclusive lifestyle, presumed obsession with understanding life itself and overcoming limitations of the body (note - he is a cripple), technical aptitude allowing him to far surpass the dwemer technoogy and waaay too much time at his hands
-him doing research into cyborgs is stupid how exactly?

Critical path should never have a requirement that only "might" be fulfilled.

Indeed, but in this case "might" is "almost guaranteed to".

Stat checks are fine - if there is at least one (possibly non-ideal option) to allow the player to proceed.

Again, I agree. It's not that it isn't stupid, it's that it isn't much problem in practice.

First of all, it's arguable that Vivec lets you kill him and wants to die.

Second, Dagoth Ur wasn't anywhere near at full power. His energies were being consumed by building his own Liberty Prime, and as is established, it's not the strength of a god's avatar that's so powerful as it is the fact that gods are, by the standards of "regular people", immortal.

Almalexia has no such qualifications. She's power-mad, has nothing diminishing her (especially as post-Ghostfence she shouldn't need to spend any extra energies keeping it up), and wants to kill you as much as anyone else - her entire plan seems to revolve around it. You may have killed gods before but you'd think she'd be even more powerful than them given the circumstances.

Except none of the Tribunal managed to get a recharge from the Heart for a helluva long time and now it is permanently gone because you've banished it. Both Ayem, Vehk and Seht are running on vapours by now. Voryn Dagoth was actually by far the strongest of them before his demise, because he was hogging the heart all to himself and basking in its glory, even without Tools of Kagernac. Hell, in gameplay terms you couldn't even put a dent in his HPs because he regenrated 5000/s or something.

You know what would have worn the Nerevarine down? If she let the Nerevarine fight Sotha Sil and then she cleaned up afterwards.

And how would she ensure the fighting part? Because I can't really see it going any other way than Sotha-Sil, Vivec and Nerevarine collectively sticking their feet up Almalexia's ass within minutes of Sotha-Sil talking to Nerevarine.

It's like trying to arrange a holdup at firearm store filled by bored cops on their lunch break.

And then there is this little detail that without her going to CC, offing Sil and stealing his toys, there would be no fabricant invasion on Mournhold. So how to explain shit to Nerevarine? "Um, listen, I know you almost certainly think I've proven to be backstabing whore and offed you because Vivec had bigger spear or something, but I really think you should go and kill Sotha Sil just because."?

So your argument is that she had no real plan, and that she was just winging it?

No, that her plan was robust enough to not fall apart if Nerevarine bought the farm early. She just needed Nerevarine to be her martyr. Villain's plan doesn't have to be complex. Protagonist's actions foiling it do.

If she wanted it, she would have asked the Nerevarine to give it to her so she could strike the Nerevarine down with it, just like she did with the other artifacts she asked him/her to collect.

Except the sword was Nerevar's weapon, would be pretty fucking weird to ask for your own, personal weapon. And she had her own, IMO better sword for the striking part.

I can sorta buy the second point, but again - there is a fine line between "brilliant plan" and "what the fuck am I reading", and if the writer cannot make the distinction then that's just bad writing.

No, plan that works and doesn't hinge on improbabilities is a good plan. If audience goes "what the fuck am I reading" on it, then regardless of writer's skill it's audience's problem.

The main problem of Tribunal, in terms of questline is how rigidly scripted it is, because it arbitrarily disallows doing perfectly sensible stuff that would push the questline in different direction and force it to go in different way or realign itself somehow (like the plot in Deus Ex did).

You know what I just realized.

So Almalexia's plan is to get rid of the Nerevarine. Right?

She sends the Nerevarine to Sotha Sil's city using the Mazed Band, which she keeps for herself. In this place, Mark and Recall spells are blocked. There is no way out except for using the Mazed Band. Sotha Sil is dead, and the place is full of monsters.

WHY DIDN'T SHE JUST LEAVE THE NEREVARINE THERE FOREVER?!

I mean, the Nerevarine has to eat. There's nothing in the clockwork city to eat. So the Nerevarine would last what, like, 2-3 weeks at most? And then lying on the ground, starving to death, Almalexia could go stab the Nerevarine through the chest if she really wanted to make it personal. Or, just, like, don't ever return ever, for like a hundred billion years.

Except CC was never designed as prison. Sotha Sil could certainly leave it without Mazed Band. It was however allegedly designed as huge, powerful reality shaping device. Locking your enemy alone and unsupervised in something amounting to cockpit of reality shaping engine, even without user manual is pretty fucking retarded way of getting rid of them. Plus, CC can at the very least create fabricants. They are cyborgs, partially made of meat.

Okay, so the entire Dark Brotherhood attacks basically just become a dropped plot thread that's eventually hand-waved by the king and you can do nothing to really follow up on it properly

You can try to stab Helseth dead, but that will break the MQ and, with item obtained, gameplay.

It isn't entirely dropped, because Helseth does try to kill you off a few more times

Where?

King's Oath - Daedric Claymore given to you as a "reward". It has 20pts of damage health over 3s and 20s of fire damage over 3s on strike enchantment. What isn't displayed in game - the fire damage part is on self.

Duel with Karrod killing you would presumably not have been ill received, especially given that Helseth seems surprised if you win.

Attempt at Barenziah's life was almost certainly yet another attempt at siccing the DB on you, especially given that assassins know where you are and Helseth is surprised that you're alive.

 

[sea]

Except they couldn't because it isn't.

I didn't specifically mean an island in the sense of a natural one. But maybe there is a large moat around it with multiple bridges and gates preventing you from going into the "city proper" and restricting you to the city core area.

-him doing research into cyborgs is stupid how exactly?

It's more just the idea of dino-robo-scorpions, not cyborgs. I know Elder Scrolls isn't quite typical high fantasy but it doesn't really fit the genre and theme for me.

Except none of the Tribunal managed to get a recharge from the Heart for a helluva long time and now it is permanently gone because you've banished it. Both Ayem, Vehk and Seht are running on vapours by now. Voryn Dagoth was actually by far the strongest of them before his demise, because he was hogging the heart all to himself and basking in its glory, even without Tools of Kagernac. Hell, in gameplay terms you couldn't even put a dent in his HPs because he regenrated 5000/s or something

That's true, and I can buy that Dagoth Ur might be stronger than those guys - even in a weakened state - because he has access to the Heart and the Tools. But again, I think that the whole god-slaying thing is treated less like, you know, god-slaying and more like just another dumb NPC at the end of a stupid quest line with a story that makes very little sense and whose motivations are either unclear or idiotic.

And how would she ensure the fighting part? Because I can't really see it going any other way than Sotha-Sil, Vivec and Nerevarine collectively sticking their feet up Almalexia's ass within minutes of Sotha-Sil talking to Nerevarine.

Frenzy 100 pts. for 10 hours on target. Come on, I'm sure she could do it, she's a god.

And then there is this little detail that without her going to CC, offing Sil and stealing his toys, there would be no fabricant invasion on Mournhold. So how to explain shit to Nerevarine? "Um, listen, I know you almost certainly think I've proven to be backstabing whore and offed you because Vivec had bigger spear or something, but I really think you should go and kill Sotha Sil just because."

True. But the Nerevarine is already shown to be dumb as bricks so it's not like she couldn't come up with another excuse... or invent one. The fabricants are circumstantial evidence at best and the Nerevarine doesn't even know they're Sotha Sil's minions until Almalexia says they are. So basically she could have just summoned a bunch of her own monsters to invade the city, give them different uniforms or whatever, and then say they're Sotha Sil's too.

No, that her plan was robust enough to not fall apart if Nerevarine bought the farm early. She just needed Nerevarine to be her martyr. Villain's plan doesn't have to be complex. Protagonist's actions foiling it do

You know, I'm thinking about it, and I still can't figure out why she needs the Nerevarine for this. She can kill Sotha Sil. She can probably kill the Nerevarine (canonically not of course). I'm just wondering why she needs to go through all the song and dance. Sotha Sil is dead; getting the Nerevarine to do all this stuff for her is completely unnecessary. What does framing the Nerevarine do for her exactly?

Except the sword was Nerevar's weapon, would be pretty fucking weird to ask for your own, personal weapon. And she had her own, IMO better sword for the striking part.

The Nerevarine isn't Nerevar, it's a prophetic "spiritual rebirth" that is one of possibly hundreds of failed incarnates, i.e. other players who bit it before the end of the main quest. The Nerevarine shouldn't necessarily feel "entitled" to a sword, especially if the Nerevarine is a mage etc. Since she doesn't explain her motives or the reason for getting the sword, there's no reason to assume the sword will be given to the Nerevarine other than for the reason that "in a videogame, if someone asks the player to assemble a weapon, the player is going to keep it."

The main problem of Tribunal, in terms of questline is how rigidly scripted it is, because it arbitrarily disallows doing perfectly sensible stuff that would push the questline in different direction and force it to go in different way or realign itself somehow (like the plot in Deus Ex did).

It also has major structural issues. Again, it lacks a good central antagonist or real mystery up until 3/4 of the way through. All that stuff about the Dark Brotherhood is basically just an excuse to get the player to travel to Mournhold. Messing with the Temple and the Empire stuff is just filler. It's just really tough to get a sense for what Amalexia's plan is and what she wants to accomplish when you get all of maybe 3 or 4 missions from her, none of which have their reasons explained until the very final one. Not being able to question things is a problem but it's also a matter of basically throwing the entire story into the last hour of gameplay.

Except CC was never designed as prison. Sotha Sil could certainly leave it without Mazed Band. It was however allegedly designed as huge, powerful reality shaping device. Locking your enemy alone and unsupervised in something amounting to cockpit of reality shaping engine, even without user manual is pretty fucking retarded way of getting rid of them. Plus, CC can at the very least create fabricants. They are cyborgs, partially made of meat.

In-game version seems to refute this. She could have just sabotaged the door puzzle so the Nerevarine gets locked inside for all time if she wanted to.

 

[Turjan]

-him doing research into cyborgs is stupid how exactly?

It's more just the idea of dino-robo-scorpions, not cyborgs. I know Elder Scrolls isn't quite typical high fantasy but it doesn't really fit the genre and theme for me.

The step from Dwemer automata to this is too much? Really? Looks more like a slight extension of the theme to me than anything else.

That's true, and I can buy that Dagoth Ur might be stronger than those guys - even in a weakened state - because he has access to the Heart and the Tools. But again, I think that the whole god-slaying thing is treated less like, you know, god-slaying and more like just another dumb NPC at the end of a stupid quest line with a story that makes very little sense and whose motivations are either unclear or idiotic.

She isn't really a god anymore, and the plot makes this very clear. The whole sequence with the dwemer artifact that produces ash storms serves no other purpose than to show even to the most inattentive player that her powers are gone. She was the fighter of the Triunes. Vivec has CHIM, and Sotha Sil had his own connection to the universe (or his version thereof), but she only used the power, probably without understanding it. And her power source was destroyed. By yours truly.

You know, I'm thinking about it, and I still can't figure out why she needs the Nerevarine for this. She can kill Sotha Sil. She can probably kill the Nerevarine (canonically not of course). I'm just wondering why she needs to go through all the song and dance. Sotha Sil is dead; getting the Nerevarine to do all this stuff for her is completely unnecessary. What does framing the Nerevarine do for her exactly?

I don't think she needs the player/Nerevarine for anything. She wants revenge. He's the one who took her powers away (I don't think Vivec asked her before he decided it's time to finish this up). She wants the player dead, but not only as a person. She also wants to destroy the hero and his fame. You are supposed to suffer for her fate.

The one point where I agree with you is that this was visible from the onset. You have to play dumb to go on with the plot. The only motivation to play on is some morbid curiosity about how the story would end. The "real" Nerevarine would have never done anything for those two assholes in Mournhold.

 

[baturinsky]

Speaking of destroying of Heart of Lorkhan, was it really necessary? Why not kill Dagoth Ur and claim Heart for yourself?

 

[DraQ]

Speaking of destroying of Heart of Lorkhan, was it really necessary? Why not kill Dagoth Ur and claim Heart for yourself?

Because it's impossible?

You don't know how to do anything with HoL but destroy (or rather banish) it, and DU is designed to be impossible to kill by resetting his health every tick and the only way to break it is boosting your str by abusing exponential alchemy.

I didn't specifically mean an island in the sense of a natural one. But maybe there is a large moat around it with multiple bridges and gates preventing you from going into the "city proper" and restricting you to the city core area.

Levitation.

a story that makes very little sense and whose motivations are either unclear or idiotic.

Bethesda should have invented lore compass instead.

Frenzy 100 pts. for 10 hours on target. Come on, I'm sure she could do it, she's a god.

For whatever stupid reasons frenzy, command and demoralize don't have effect on player (then again, given the AI it's a good thing - *is frenzied* *runs around and falls into lava*), so it's a non-option in terms of gameplay.

True. But the Nerevarine is already shown to be dumb as bricks so it's not like she couldn't come up with another excuse... or invent one.

That's actually the only part of TR I truly hated - you were forced to go with the script so to either be stupid or play stupid, though the hints were towards the latter.

The fabricants are circumstantial evidence at best and the Nerevarine doesn't even know they're Sotha Sil's minions until Almalexia says they are.

Except that's *the* explanation you can buy into. There are no other possible sources for cyborg dinosaurs and scorpions than either Dwemer or Sotha Sil because no one else has ever had the tech. And then you observe fabricants fighting the dwemer animunculi, eliminating the former option. It's convincing, at this point, questionable as some of her actions might have been, you have pretty good reason to think that Almalexia is not bullshitting you, because you're confronted with direct, physical evidence that Sotha Sil went off the deep end and decided to fuck shit up.

So basically she could have just summoned a bunch of her own monsters to invade the city, give them different uniforms or whatever, and then say they're Sotha Sil's too.

Are you just dumb?
What other monsters?
Glue some cogs onto kagoutti and unload them from cages?
Dremora with cog-hats?
Skeletons with dwemer tubes for dicks?

There is nothing she could do that wouldn't become retardedly transparent once one of her minions got killed.
She needed fabricants because no one else but Sotha Sil could into this kind of stuff.

You know, I'm thinking about it, and I still can't figure out why she needs the Nerevarine for this. She can kill Sotha Sil. She can probably kill the Nerevarine (canonically not of course). I'm just wondering why she needs to go through all the song and dance. Sotha Sil is dead; getting the Nerevarine to do all this stuff for her is completely unnecessary. What does framing the Nerevarine do for her exactly?

She doesn't just want to kill Nerevarine. She wants to consolidate religious and political power and to do so she needs the other triunes out of the picture in a way that casts them as villains so that she can have their followers and recently reincarnated hero-pretty-much-demigod who just happened to do something everyone loves him for to die as *her* martyr, doing stuff for *her* and preferably at the hands of those traitorous other triunes, to appropriate his followers and further rile up the population against their former gods. She can't just lolstab nerevarine in the face in front of the temple because that would shit all over her plans.

The Nerevarine isn't Nerevar, it's a prophetic "spiritual rebirth" that is one of possibly hundreds of failed incarnates, i.e. other players who bit it before the end of the main quest. The Nerevarine shouldn't necessarily feel "entitled" to a sword, especially if the Nerevarine is a mage etc.

Except she consistently tries to convince you that you are actually Nerevar incarnated. Look, you're Nerevar, you kicked DU's ass as prophesized and here is your sword - feebler shit has worked on otherwise strong-minded people IRL.

Since she doesn't explain her motives or the reason for getting the sword, there's no reason to assume the sword will be given to the Nerevarine other than for the reason that "in a videogame, if someone asks the player to assemble a weapon, the player is going to keep it."

Actually in videogame if someone gives player an item player doesn't need, they are going to sell it. It's more of an RL stuff to attach more significance to objects than whatever gives the most pluses.

It also has major structural issues. Again, it lacks a good central antagonist or real mystery up until 3/4 of the way through. All that stuff about the Dark Brotherhood is basically just an excuse to get the player to travel to Mournhold. Messing with the Temple and the Empire stuff is just filler. It's just really tough to get a sense for what Amalexia's plan is and what she wants to accomplish when you get all of maybe 3 or 4 missions from her, none of which have their reasons explained until the very final one. Not being able to question things is a problem but it's also a matter of basically throwing the entire story into the last hour of gameplay.

Like I said, the central theme is being a pawn playd by two powerful sides against each other. It's sort of like Soul Reaver, except shorter and not written as well.

In-game version seems to refute this. She could have just sabotaged the door puzzle so the Nerevarine gets locked inside for all time if she wanted to.

Oh no, it's "DURRR DU LIVES FIVE MIUTES FROM NEAREST VILAGE" shit again.

 

[baturinsky]

Speaking of destroying of Heart of Lorkhan, was it really necessary? Why not kill Dagoth Ur and claim Heart for yourself?

Because it's impossible?

You don't know how to do anything with HoL but destroy (or rather banish) it, and DU is designed to be impossible to kill by resetting his health every tick and the only way to break it is boosting your str by abusing exponential alchemy.

I mean, not by game, but by lore?

 

[DraQ]

Speaking of destroying of Heart of Lorkhan, was it really necessary? Why not kill Dagoth Ur and claim Heart for yourself?

Because it's impossible?

You don't know how to do anything with HoL but destroy (or rather banish) it, and DU is designed to be impossible to kill by resetting his health every tick and the only way to break it is boosting your str by abusing exponential alchemy.

I mean, not by game, but by lore?

Again, because you're incapable of killing Dagoth Ur.

 

[sea]

Here's a better story than Tribunal's I thought up in 5 minutes in the shower:

You arrive in Mournhold after hearing rumors of a great plague. Indeed, you enter the city and discover that most of it has been cordoned off after a mysterious outbreak of corpus disease - something that shouldn't happen now that Dagoth Ur is gone. You quickly learn, by speaking either to the Temple or Empire, that the corpus outbreak appeared just recently and has afflicted the majority of the city, with its central districts cut off to keep the nobility and upper social castes safe.

Almalexia is using her remaining powers to preserve a magical barrier, which she can expand or contract as needed, but with waning strength it will grow smaller during the story and access to certain districts will be lost. Quest progress is not a factor in which areas of the city are still available, but time - it's impossible to complete every side-quest as traveling to a new district advances the clock, so the player will have to pick and choose which factions to help and how, in addition to investigating the causes of the outbreak. Naturally, both factions want the player to use this window of chaos and opportunity to undermine their rival faction in any number of ways.

You also quickly learn that in order to deal with limited manpower and the huge outbreak of corpus walkers and other monsters in certain districts of the city, the new king has contracted a goblin army to be "assembled" from the outlying regions. With no known cure, killing off the diseased is the best solution they could think up in such short notice. Although the goblins did their work at first, many of them have also succumbed to the disease, and due to low morale they are now running rampant throughout the city and are no longer under the Empire's control. Similarly, the Temple has contracted its High Ordinators to do their best fighting the diseased and has equipped them with special blessings of Almalexia's, but morale is waning. The player will find special corpus versions of both types of enemies throughout the story.

Word of the Nerevarine's disease immunity reaches both the Temple and the Empire, and both are eager to ask the Nerevarine to make a push into the cordoned sections of the city to find out what's happened and if there is any clue of where the disease came from. After some dungeon crawling, it's determined through a series of notes and records that corpus flesh was smuggled into Mournhold for some unknown purpose, but the information available is limited and somewhat conflicting, seeming to implicate both factions.

By now, the corpus walkers have reached the doorstep of the royal palace and Temple courtyard, and the Nerevarine can confront either faction with this information. The Empire blames the Temple, while Almalexia blames the Empire - both have reason to distrust one another. If the player has done enough quests for Almalexia instead of the Empire and has uncovered enough evidence, she will admit that she had the corpus flesh procured in order to study it, so she might better understand Dagoth Ur's powers - the outbreak was an accident caused by mishandling and she says she regrets the incident. Vice versa, the Empire truly denies they were responsible, but they admit their bringing the goblins against their will to fight the disease was not a smart move and caused more harm than good.

Now the player has a choice of going after one or the other "causes", and furthermore, if the player learned the truth, he/she can either keep quiet, persuade Almalexia to use her last remaining powers to heal all remaining diseased (though her pride and ego make this difficult), or tell the Empire (who are more than willing to punish the Temple). Almalexia, if the player did not find the truth, will heavily push the player towards wiping out the Empire presence in the city, maintaining the goblin army was there to cover it up.

Might not pass lore check 100% but I think the ambiguity involved would help a lot, as well as the ability to side with two mostly well-meaning but ultimately not-completely-untrustworthy factions.

 

[Manjuice Nutella]

But... how could you set up a date or participate in a theatre play in such setting?

 

[Surf Solar]

The asperger is strong in this thread

 

[Turjan]

Here's a better story than Tribunal's I thought up in 5 minutes in the shower:
[snip]

Sounds very Biowarian to me.