The Sheogorath quest is... bad, to say the least

shadyjane62 · August 3

I did what I had to do to get the 10k and then unmarked any further quests.

Elvenheart · August 3

Thevampirenight wrote: »

Elvenheart wrote: »

Other than the heavy reliance on cheese, my biggest problem with the story was
that the story was so unoriginal. A powerful deity-like figure chooses to give up their power on a whim to experience life as a mortal - what could go wrong? Of course someone is going to try to take advantage of that, and of course it is going to be up to a mortal to save the day, and of course the deity-turned-mortal is going to be so helpless and not going to be able to handle the most basic tasks. I just wish there could’ve been something incorporated that would’ve made it more original.

The thing is one was a god turned mortal, but then their companion is a mortal who was turned daedra and is basically a powerful paragon soul shriven. the Vestige isn't mortal at all. So it was up to the immortal vestige to save the day to save the mortal Sheogorath. Though I think Sheogorath's reason for becoming mortal was just so he could have an extended stay within Mundus, that way he can vacation there rather then just do it just because they wanted to feel mortal. Given Sotha Sil's compact restricts Sheogorath so he cannot just stay in mundus like that. He had to do it as a mortal. So that was part of the plot too I felt like. So it was unique in its own way and ties to the lore on the compact.

Years ago, when the Sheogorath costume came out I wove that into the story of one of my characters in that they entered into a compact that allowed Sheo to possess the character from time to time in exchange for greater power, and it’s been fun head canon. 🤪

Malprave · August 3

Well, I finished the quest. It was ok, but I completely get what people are saying here.

It seemed like a very sanitized version of Sheogorath. A PG-13 Sheogorath. This guy should evoke some sense of horror, some fear. That’s completely absent.

Maybe it’s just a personal preference but I feel like my favorite content typically has a certain “creep” factor. A little more of a horror element of having Sheogorath and his madness lose in the world would have been better.

As it is it’s pretty forgettable content.

fall0athboy · August 4

Terrible content. Glad it's over.

I've never been a fan of Sheogorath. His content has never been funny.

MasterSpatula · August 4

"Lackey." And I thought I hated being called "Mercenary."

jle30303 · August 4

The poor guy who gets turned into a dragon frog, and you feed him his own former boot and foot to trigger some of his last memories as a human... doesn't come back.

DP99 · August 4

I thougthe ht it was pretty fun.

The idea that Tamriel has an annual Cheese Festival in Vvardenfel is hilarious imho.

One thing, though, I don't know if it's a bug, or intentional, but for some reason even though I've finished the whole thing, I still see Noth in certain places like Anvil and Marbuk telling me that I have to hurry up and go back to Sheo and that he can't be left alone for too long.

???

I'm done, he got his power back, and I got all my rewards there is nothing left to do!

Gagoimaliu · August 4

The entire questline just made me really hungry for cheese honestly

WhiteCoatSyndrome · August 4

This quest is horrible. Sheogorath is usually clever and manipulative, this is the same Prince who got Malacath to kill his own son! Here he gets himself poisoned by a random mortal and then whines about it endlessly! And I’m sick of the constant cheese references.

prof-dracko · August 5

WhiteCoatSyndrome wrote: »

This quest is horrible. Sheogorath is usually clever and manipulative, this is the same Prince who got Malacath to kill his own son! Here he gets himself poisoned by a random mortal and then whines about it endlessly!

This, I think, is the crux of why this didn't click with me. Sheo's mad, but he's smart. He's commanding, in control of the chaos (if not himself), and at his core has a deep understanding of how mortal minds work. or at the very least how to completely break one. He would never be naive enough to let himself be poisoned and have his staff stolen.

This could all have been fixed if, like someone has suggested, the whole questline was a calculated plot to mess with us and Noth. THAT would be very on-brand for Sheo.

Castagere · August 5

I used to love doing his mad quest. Was looking forward to a quest chain about him. But man, they turned him into a wimp. To see him cowering in a corner while you fought mobs was just sad. I couldn't even finish the questline. I got as far as going to the Isle and just didn't want to finish it.

AlienatedGoat · August 5

They turned him into a doddering fool with a cheese fetish. I physically cringed my way through the entire questline.

CatalinaWineMixer2 · August 5

I really liked the quests and storyline. Most of my Guildies were having good conversations about it too. It was nice to see Sheo again and it brought back some fond memories of Oblivion. The cheese statue emote and tomeshell were nice rewards as well.

katanagirl1 · August 5

Finished the quests today, why is the Shivering Shack like a purple version of Apocrypha? A purple tomeshell and purple booknadoes and stacks of books. I was baffled.

Why would Sheogorath have these things???

Noth was a good character but her animation looked like AI and she has the weird eye thing Khajiits have, one pupil has a light reflection, the left one, and the right one does not. The right pupil looks like a jagged black void in her eye. I wish they would fix that. I see it on my Khajiit character but it’s much more obvious on the closeup with Noth for conversations.

RaikaNA · August 5

The newest Sheogorath questline is insufferable. No Daedric prince would EVER do anything so dumb as what Sheogorath did in this questline. Sheogorath is quite a likable character outside of ESO.. and it's shameful to dumb this character down so low like this.

The writing is beyond horrible, not to mention the rewards... I received CRAFTED (Coldharbour's Favorite) gear! Gear that I can craft myself. I mean what?!?!?!??!. I felt like it was written by ChatGPT in the worst possible way.

Elvenheart · August 5

DP99 wrote: »

I thougthe ht it was pretty fun.

The idea that Tamriel has an annual Cheese Festival in Vvardenfel is hilarious imho.

One thing, though, I don't know if it's a bug, or intentional, but for some reason even though I've finished the whole thing, I still see Noth in certain places like Anvil and Marbuk telling me that I have to hurry up and go back to Sheo and that he can't be left alone for too long.

???

I'm done, he got his power back, and I got all my rewards there is nothing left to do!

My question is…where was Haskel?

About the cheese festival, it was my impression that it was all a farce set up by the bad guy to lure him there, but maybe I read too much into that.

WhiteCoatSyndrome · August 6

prof-dracko wrote: »

This could all have been fixed if, like someone has suggested, the whole questline was a calculated plot to mess with us and Noth. THAT would be very on-brand for Sheo.

Very much agree, that would have gone a long way towards saving it.

Elvenheart wrote: »

My question is…where was Haskel?

This is a very valid question and I would also like to know!

dcrush · August 6

I really liked the new TG quest line. This… was bad. The story was bad, the fetch quests where you have to chase after animals who run in a circle were even worse. Rewards were probably the worst of all though. I was struggling to get through the quests but did them to get the golden pursuit rewards (and for completionist reasons).

ESO_player123 · August 6

The two things that I liked about this questline is the design of the Shivering shack and the Violet Vvardvark. The rest ....
I truly had high hopes for these quests, but, unfortunately, mid questline I started to wish for it to end as soon as possible.

PoveusRonin · August 6

Overall, I think a lot of people who are complaining have been an Elder Scrolls fan beyond just ESO and those who liked the story seem to be more just ESO fans. I never played any of the other Elder Scoll games and for me these quests seem mostly on par with everything ESO has show on Sheogorath. He's an annoyance who spends way too much time talking cheese and if he had a "human/mortal" holiday, I could see it being about trying all the various cheeses.

As a mortal on holiday, what else should he have been about? He can do the other crazy hi jinks any time, as a mortal though, he could see if cheese was really as impressive to his mortal form as it was to him normally. What else could he have had a need to be mortal for?

RaikaNA · August 6

WhiteCoatSyndrome wrote: »

This quest is horrible. Sheogorath is usually clever and manipulative, this is the same Prince who got Malacath to kill his own son! Here he gets himself poisoned by a random mortal and then whines about it endlessly! And I’m sick of the constant cheese references.

Yeah, this isn't the same Sheogorath that we all know. Don't forget that Sheogorath challenged Hircine in 16 Accords of Madness Volume 6 and won with just a tiny little bird.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ozvzg714wZQ

Am I to accept this new questline as canon or just view it as a very badly written fanfiction?

The cheese reference is getting quite old too... it was funny a very long time ago.. now its just stale.

Faltasë · August 6

I agree, I think this new Sheo quest is one of the worst things TES has to offer.

They basically unwrote him into a shell of his former self. Like a husk from the soul cairn, he just isn't what he used to be. They essentially turned him into an insufferable whiny manchild, which is honestly not at all how I viewed him in base game quests and more importantly definitely not how I viewed him in Shivering Isles from Oblivion.

I think the cheese thing is also fairly insufferable on the writers part because it's similar to making the lusty argonian maid thing more abundant or that it was "based off old bards tales" or whatever.
See, the lusty argonian maid being written by Crassius makes sense because in Morrowind he literally is THAT creepy dude. It's his character. It makes sense that he would be the author. It also makes sense that the book would not become as popular as seeing it in every corner of Tamriel. It's taking something and running with it because "her der funny meme" and not with any sort of actual grace to the world you're building. Lusty Argonian maid being known by everyone in Tamriel does not feel like good writing. That simply is *** writing. It's also not very creative.

Same thing with the cheese joke. Dude makes one passing comment about cheese and all of a sudden he's now the insufferable whiny cheese god?

Dude is so much more and has so much more potential and yet, he's just squandered underneath *** writers who honestly A) have no respect for the source material and B ) are so lazy that they can't even come up with new jokes that can be meme'd. The devs overwrite *** little quips over and over again and beat dead horses to a pulp because the writers who did know what they were doing and had an imagination apparently did not participate in this story OR they simply left the team years ago.

Waits_Behind_Walls · August 6

PrayingSeraph wrote: »

I enjoyed it. Did anyone else get very mild horror vibes at The Violet Vvardvark? Like to me it portrayed how scary madness can be, such as the description of what happens to a character and his skin. And the overall atmosphere of the tavern was...unnerving to me.

Loved it, best part of the quest, I wish more of it was like this. I was genuinely impressed with that space. They kept telling me that there was madness leaking everywhere, but here they showed it. It was unique and impactful, and I wanted the music and other elements for my own houses. I didn't want to leave.

Nosh was interesting enough. But Sheo was utterly predictable, which is a disappointing quality in a god of madness and chaos. It occured to me that if they'd made it part of the story that he'd become less mad by giving up his mantle, that might have been an interesting development. Let us journey with and get to know a different Sheogorath, not just a depowered one.

Silaf · August 6

It's fun because the characters are great but the narrator could have done better. The dialogues writing is good but the quest could have been so so much more instead of CHEESE!

Some rendom toughts developed right now.
_Make sheogorath remember parts of when he was a mortal and make the reason why he want to get back his powers the fact that he can't bear the loss of his loved ones.
Make the last moment of sanity after regaining his powers be a moment when he does something good for others or in memory of his past like making flowers bloom trough all Glenumbra or similar.

Literally i did this in 25 seconds.

Gagoimaliu · August 6

The entire questline just made me really hungry for cheese honestly

Elvenheart wrote: »

DP99 wrote: »

I thougthe ht it was pretty fun.

The idea that Tamriel has an annual Cheese Festival in Vvardenfel is hilarious imho.

One thing, though, I don't know if it's a bug, or intentional, but for some reason even though I've finished the whole thing, I still see Noth in certain places like Anvil and Marbuk telling me that I have to hurry up and go back to Sheo and that he can't be left alone for too long.

???

I'm done, he got his power back, and I got all my rewards there is nothing left to do!

My question is…where was Haskel?

About the cheese festival, it was my impression that it was all a farce set up by the bad guy to lure him there, but maybe I read too much into that.

Where is Haskel? Is he... safe, is he alright?

templar_heal · August 6

Enjoyed Sheo questline enough, I guess. He was in character, some things happen along the questline wad pretty dark to me. Still pity this frog guy and his girlfriend. Some things was creative and amusing. Like merchants speaking backwards)). And I like shoulder with butterfly!

WhiteCoatSyndrome · August 6

Waits_Behind_Walls wrote: »

PrayingSeraph wrote: »

I enjoyed it. Did anyone else get very mild horror vibes at The Violet Vvardvark? Like to me it portrayed how scary madness can be, such as the description of what happens to a character and his skin. And the overall atmosphere of the tavern was...unnerving to me.

Loved it, best part of the quest, I wish more of it was like this. I was genuinely impressed with that space. They kept telling me that there was madness leaking everywhere, but here they showed it. It was unique and impactful, and I wanted the music and other elements for my own houses. I didn't want to leave.

Scene setting in the Violet Vvardvark was good, yes. Honestly if the rest of the questline had been more like that I’d have fewer complaints.

SerafinaWaterstar · 10:10AM

Isn’t the story about Sheo taking a holiday and not being the Mad God anymore? He gives up his power and is mortal, so would not be the same as when he is fully his mad self?

So he would be vulnerable. That’s why he needs a guide. So yes, he can be tricked & poisoned by a mere mortal. Yes, he would cower as he can’t do combat.

The madness was thinking he could do this without someone/thing scheming to take advantage of the situation.

Lugaldu · 11:57AM

After reading that opinions on the quest were divided, I went into it without high expectations. To be honest, I found the quest entertaining, even if the overuse of cheese was a bit much.
The only thing I really found dissappointing was the lack of effort put into the Shivering Isles at the end. As others have said, they really didn’t put much heart and soul into making it more like the Shivering Isles in TES Oblivion. Simply using Telvanni- Vvardenfell just didn’t work. As Syldras already mentioned, if they’d at least made the sky a different colour, it would have seemed a bit more creative.