I don't hate the civil war quests, but I do dislike how heavy-handed the devs were in getting players to participate in it, and nearly all of the other major storylines, DLC included. I shouldn't have to align myself with a polarized side, and become the single deciding factor that tips the scales one way or another. For the most part that's a hero role and to be honest.. hero roles are overdone, overrated, and kind of boring. War scenarios and conflicts like this one effectively make you choose to omit yourself from half of what's offered because they make it so black & white, with no middle ground options at all. For that reason I'll play it if I must, but It's also a relief when it's over and I can get back to more entertaining things.

I don't consider that minor. Doing Dragon Rising triggers the spawning of dragons at lairs. It changes the whole nature of the game, by forcing the concept of "Dragonborn" onto the player-character. Now you're fighting dragons, absorbing dragon souls, and learning shouts. All because you got involved in a civil war.

Absolutely, for a game that supposedly offers immense freedom, things like these are a flat out sinful design choices.


Personally, I think the civil war svcks ass. There's nothing to spoil anyway. You already heard (shallow) stories of both sides, and nothing changes, what you heard from random dialogue is all there is to it, as far as complexity goes. Then there are quests. Clear a fort, clear a fort, clear a fort, now raid a dungeon, then clear a fort. It's exactly the same no matter which side you take, you just kill a uniform with scarfs of different colours. Writing was initially ok, but goes down as you progress the quest.


In Bethesda's "defense", Skyrim's main quests are much better than Oblivion, and will hopefully improve with each game (not that it was easy to do as bad as Oblivion).

Mainly, I view the Stormcloaks and Imperial Legion as so similar, that it makes said conflict feel uninteresting compared to say, House Redoran vs House Telvanni in Morrowind. Both have lots of heavy armor, both are primarily melee, both tend not to be spell casters, and their architecture is also much more similar to each other than the feuding Great Houses of Morrowind. Both are factions of mostly magically inept human warriors, with the only major difference being the Imperial Legion suppressing Talos worship, and the Imperial Legion not being in their own home land.

Agreed. I just said both sides svck, but this captures the intent of what I meant a lot more elegantly. The fact that the questline for each side is a near mirror image of each other doesn't help either, or the fact that the world does not really change once your are done. The random world encounters involving prisoner escorts and Imperial/Stormcloak skirmishes really ought to have a condition that either stops them or changes them into something more appropriate them once you have finished the CW questline.

this one has done the Civil was quests only once a very long time ago, and that was just to be able to say she has completed the game!

Personally the Civil was quests have a very weak story line to represent something as important as to how the FUTURE of Skyrim is shaped,

this one agrees with many others that it has no depth and all you do is the same thing over and over.

Maybe if there was no internal civil war & Bethesda used the option that Skyrim was being invaded by an external evil power would have had more appeal to many Dragonborns as to why join a war. Yea defend Skyrim against invasion or join the invaders if you a real mean dude

1. It's boring. Capture fort, defend/attack city

2. It has no impact. Nothing changes. Basically you're choosing whether you like the colour red or blue more.

3. Both sides aren't that likeable. I often end up siding with what I believe to be the lesser of two evils.

Now, what could have made it better would have been something akin to Star Wars Battlefront II's Galactic Conquest game mode. Imagine the map of Skyrim, with a big, multi-coloured net over it to show enemy and friendly positions, armies, forts, cities, etc. Now imagine that each side takes a turn maneuvering its soldiers in an attempt to take over all of Skyrim. Basically much like http://dulfy.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/eso-cyrodiil-aldmeri-skyshards-ruined-spire-peering-north-to-the-tower.jpg, but of course made for a singleplayer TES game.

Depending on what side wins, all guards of western/eastern Skyrim are replaced by stormcloak/imperial soldiers respectively, which is pretty dumb. They should always stay Markarth or Dawnstar guards with their signature armor, but with a change of dialogue depending on how owns the hold.

Because:

-whichever side i chose i end up feeling guilt and thinking i should have picked the other side

-hardly anything changes in the world. Some things don't even make sense why they are still there, in a case of a SC victory

-it feels like much content have been cut and the quests are bare bones

That MQ-related negotiations quest prevents a specific play-out sequence

On top of that it is actually a quite remarkable quest in Skyrim, no wonder it was made to happen regardless of whether that particular scenario is still possible or not.

The CW questline was meant to be bigger and better than what was shipped.

Unfortunately, Bethesda had to cut it down for some reason or another, most likely due to hardware constraints of the previous-gen consoles.

As a result, the Civil War questline we got was widely disliked because most of the missions consist of going to a fort, killing all the enemies, and reporting back to your superiors.

However, http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/37216/?.

I don't hate the civil war quests. Most of my characters side with the imperials.

My last character used the 'timing is everything' mod to ignore the civil war because it was not relevant to that character (civil was was too big and complex for one person to determine the outcome).

My only issue was when I sided with the Stormcloaks once - I would have liked it if it was not tied to the main quest and I did not have to be 'friends' with Balgruf first.

As a player I can take or leave them.

None of my characters side with the Imperials.

Some of my characters side with the Stormcloaks.

All the rest stay Neutral and the Civil War questline is not advanced.

Hate is a strong word I would say that a lot of us don't hate the civil war quest line but were disappointed with it. The story was a little lacklustre and if you don't use mods to correct the situation then other than the occasional troops escorting a prisoner there is absolutely no indication of a civil war going on.

Yea, that struck me this time reading the thread title. I don't "hate" the questline, I just don't think it's worth it. I did a couple for the Stormcloaks and one for the Imps. The rest just ignore the whole thing. The real benefit of not participating for me is keeping both warcamps open for selling in the wilderness

Yeah I often play what you could call a stormcloak or imperial sympathiser and by not completing or even starting the civil war I give myself the option of attacking the odd camp and freeing the odd prisoner. One mod that really did spice up the civil war was masters of disguise as if you joined stormscloak / imperials the other side would attack you on sight. sadly that mod is not available any more.

It would have made more sense if the Thalmore was secretly funding and supplying weapons to the Stormcloak resistance as a way of destabilizing the Empire. Think, Chancellor Pallpatine/Darth Sidious secretly using the Trade Federation to attack the Republic. The Player could have been an independent third party working with the Blades to expose the Thalmore Conspiracy.

It's not my favorite questline. It feels on rails, and I do it kind of perfunctorily.


I will say it's a lot of fun killing tons of enemies in waves on the forts, though. I know people might think that's repetitive, but I usually do it right when my archery skills are really developing, so I enjoy the war itself.


It could just use something more, like political intrigue or more complex battles.

Because it's forced as many quest lines are in Skyrim. ()

Because it's pointless. I've done both sides.

Because even if you choose to ignore it, it's still forced. Rammed down your throat if you do the main quest.

Because Delphine. I don't need to prove anything to her, and I don't care if she believes or no. I have a special dagger just waiting to stab her in the face..until my arm gets tired. Yeah.



Edit

This should be in spoilers.

I resent being forced to choose sides, I'm not enamoured of either side honestly and I'd rather let others got on the business of war and left me out of it. I also hate how every soldier of the opposing side will forever hate you afterwards. Hey its nothing personal I was forced into it by the game!

Then you would probably be interested in the http://en.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Thalmor_Dossier:_Ulfric_Stormcloak.

This topic reminds me what I loved about Oblivion, once you exit the sewers you were truly free to do anything unlike Skyrim where they try to nudge the player in certain directions. Like the gauntlet you have to go through when entering Riften for the first time where the game tries to make you join the thieves guild. Or the fact you are forced into guilds if you want to learn all shouts, what's up with that, are they afraid we wont play their content? Not all content in the game needs to be played by everyone.

Oblivion did this too. Try to walk past Kvatch with a character who is not doing the main quest. You will be accosted by Hirtel, absolutely the most annoying force-greet NPC in all of Elder Scrolls history. There are others as well, such as Glarthir, who force greet our characters and put quests in our journals without our permission.

Yes, Skyrim did this more often and more annoyingly. But it began with Oblivion.

I typically did the Kvatch quest simply to get rid of the Oblivion Gate. Kvatch is a Misc, not main, quest. It just Straddles the MQ line (what, you thought it was going to be EASY?!)

So much this!

I love the phrase you used for entering Riften: "Gauntlet." First (though not forced) is Mjoll's conversation. Then Maul "grabs you." Then, Sapphire is putting the low-down on the stable hand, whose name escapes right now (again, not forced). Finally, Brynjolf tracks us down to make totally out of the blue comments about our wealth and makes horrendous assumptions to someone who he doesn't even know. Yes, Gauntlet fits perfectly