So today I learned that Marcy Long in Sanctuary is flagged as "Essential". What is she essential to, exactly?


In Morrowind you could kill ANYBODY. But if they were essential to the story it would warn you that you had broken the game.


In Oblivion it was applied to a very small number of absolutely essential people without whom the main quest could not advance.


Then by Skyrim it was pretty much EVERYONE who featured in ANY quest.


Now it's ANYONE WITH A FREAKIN NAME.


It would be nice if the devs thought a little harder about what the word "essential" means before checking that box. Fallout 2 could be completed even if you killed everyone in the game - or no-one at all.

Actually it isn't. There's a bunch of named npcs that would ruin my save if they died that can. Drinkin' Buddy and Cabot for example.

Well to his point... explain marcy long. Why is she essential?

I think more than a few essential npc's should just get the protected flag.

The tag should have gone off after the Concord quest, imo. I think it is because she is part of the first Settlement you start and it is just to have more people there for you, available. Not that i really care if she is essential or not. In the Workshop DLC you can throw her into an Arena battle with a Deathclaw and you will get your vengeance.

We are having this discussion in the Community Discussion.

I myself want to see all NPC's killable in all Bethesda Game Studios developed video games.

I don't like NPC's not being unkillable at all.

I have no problem with it. I like having as many named settlers around my settlements as I can. If I came back to Sanctuary and found that Marcy, Jun, Sturges, and Mama Murphy were all dead, I'd just reload an earlier save anyway. Tagging them as essential prevents people from having to do this. Honestly I wish there were MORE essential characters. I've had to reload saves due to the Vault-Tec Rep and Anne Hargrave getting killed in attacks. It'd be nice to just avoid that.

In marcys case I assume she is flagged because she is indeed part of the concord quest, then they didn't bother to turn it of, because they assumed most common sense folks have no reason to kill her.

Atleast with named Settlers there is some attachment, unfortunately Marcy is a stone cold B-word.

I thought Preston Garvey was the only companion that people found the most annoying? So there's Marcy also? Any other companions that are annoying?

My point is that the "Essential" flag was created to prevent the game's main story from becoming unwinnable by mistake, not to create unkillable harpies that nag you incessantly.


Using it more sparingly would lead to not only more immersion, but I think greater creativity: instead of making Maxson unkillable, why not come up with what would happen if he died?


My biggest problem with Bethesda games is that no matter how much power and game you supposedly accumulate, you never have any ability to change the status quo outside rigidly controlled quest moments. I think it would be a better game if the devs had to answer the question: "What if the player kills Maxson?" instead of just lazily flipping the "Nope, too complicated" switch and making him magically unkillable.

The thing is though if you make bad decisions then you should have consequences of failing quests or suffering the consequences.

Plenty of people dislike her, but she doesn't bother me. I think a lot of people force that on themselves. I honestly can't even remember the last time I heard Marcy say anything. Yes, she's a bit of a naturally [censored]y woman. But she also lost a kid, and has generally been through a lot. She's venting her frustrations in the way that she knows.

A very fair point. I like how they grieve in so different ways, her and Jun that is.

Companion refers to NPC's whom will travel with you. Marcy Long isn't considered a Companion.

I don't go to Sanctuary, but she didn't bother me much either. However she does bother a lot people it seems which is why I'm such a staunch supporter of the protected flag, it keeps npc's alive but also gives the player the choice to go aggro on the wasteland.

It is actually the opposite of this. There were more essential NPCs in Oblivion than there were in Skyrim. Skyrim added the new Protected tag and lowered the number of NPCs with the Essential tag.

So has my character. Granted, my character's son was kidnapped, not killed (so there's still a glimmer of hope), but her husband was assassinated in front of her, so she knows loss. I would have preferred if my character and Marcy could have had several heart-to-heart, grieving-mom-to-grieving-mom sessions. A special quest creating a bond between the two women could have been fantastic (not to mention very powerful, emotionally).

I suppose the same could be said for Jun and a male Sole Survivor, but people don't seem to have as much dislike for Jun as they do for Marcy.

Well, I can notice that some players want kill any npc in the game. The game is made for who don't want do that even some npc are annoying. I agrees with QuantumCurt, I like to have many npc as possible. I want to have more named npc flagged as essential, all these hireable traders and dog sellers as example. I cannot understand why they are not essential since players may want them. As soon as I knew about the rare named ones, I had to set them essential by myself. Much better.

Cheers,

-Klevs

Really not a big deal at all OP.

This is how I feel. I'm not fond of having to arm and armor my named settlers to the teeth in hopes that they don't die. Last play through Deidre died right after I got the Slog as a settlement, never even had time to armor her. Now I've been putting them in ballistic 5 clothing and armor and hope that a horde of Super Mutants with missile launchers don't take them out. That's what happened to Deidre.

I severely dislike that my some of my named NPCs can be killed.

Strange things can happen to unessential NPCs

It seemed as though Old Man Stockton was killed on his way back from a meeting...

Found his body, stripped of his suit, in the street near his base...