Is your ESO character just dumb?

Saxhleel

I don't know if I should roleplay as an Argonian born with 1/4 of a brain because this is ridiculous. The previous question was literally "What are the Hist?"

There are probably worse things for other races like a Nord asking who Kyne is.

AVaelham

Yeah, sometimes they are. Especially in Blackwood where Eveli is spelling everything out for you for some reason.

On a serious note, I think they add this kind of questions for lore exposition for newbies. The game assuming you have previous knowledge of the world is an unpopular questing design these days I suppose.

Malthorne

Apparently so.. and it seems to be getting worse with each chapter/dlc

Fennwitty

They just have to phrase the damn lines better!!!!

"Sorry, what is a Saxhleel?" -> "Tell me more about the Saxhleel."

Finedaible

AVaelham wrote: »

Yeah, sometimes they are. Especially in Blackwood where Eveli is spelling everything out for you for some reason.

On a serious note, I think they add this kind of questions for lore exposition for newbies. The game assuming you have previous knowledge of the world is an unpopular questing design these days I suppose.

The mandatory summary/recaps every two seconds in more recent dlc stories have gotten pretty awful though. It actually feels more immersion-breaking than the newest "puzzles" which solve themselves... I guess they are trying to keep the main story accessible? I'm not even sure who they are trying to accommodate anymore though with the Mature rating whilst writing at a kindergarten comprehension level and also having such a steep difficulty curve between normal and veteran content.

AcadianPaladin

What I hate is that such questions are oft required to progress. I don't mind having such super basic questions in our list of choices but don't make us pick them to progress the quests. Give us additional choices that are more learned or even to end the dialogue with a goodbye. Too often now, if you simply say goodbye or exit the dialogue, the NPC stands there with the quest arrow over their head until you engage them again and ask the stupid question that you know your character would never ask. It can be quite frustrating and encourages quickly clicking through the dialogue and transitioning to a 'whatever' attitude instead of being engaged in the quest.

kargen27

My character isn't just dumb. She is also mean. She once killed a follow just because he was standing by a butterfly she wanted to rip the wings off of.

Araneae6537

AcadianPaladin wrote: »

What I hate is that such questions are oft required to progress. I don't mind having such super basic questions in our list of choices but don't make us pick them to progress the quests. Give us additional choices that are more learned or even to end the dialogue with a goodbye. Too often now, if you simply say goodbye or exit the dialogue, the NPC stands there with the quest arrow over their head until you engage them again and ask the stupid question that you know your character would never ask. It can be quite frustrating and encourages quickly clicking through the dialogue and transitioning to a 'whatever' attitude instead of being engaged in the quest.

So true! I’m all for choices!

Magdalina

Well it's very newbie friendly. I mean it's not unreasonable to think that someone could actually come to ESO without having previously played TES series and choose an Argonian for cool looks while knowing nothing of their culture.

If you want a lore-friendly explanation, perhaps you're an Argonian that's been orphaned as a baby and raised by another race in a faraway land and this is your first exposure to actual Argonian culture

But yes, we do get some pretty silly dialogue sometimes. The ones about 'wait...who are you again?' with NPCs you've met before are best - 'Wait, Lyris...who the hell are you again? - Well, we met in Coldharbour, escaped it together, saved the world together, then investigated a witch conspiracy together... - Ohhhh right. You're THAT Lyris!'

TheImperfect

My character just roleplays these moments as though she is gaging the npc's understanding of the situation.

aipex8_ESO

I always head canon all conversations to be more personal. What you see on-screen is like in-game books, unreliable narrator.

Folkb

All those hits to the noggin take a toll.

GoldenGirl

AVaelham wrote: »

Yeah, sometimes they are. Especially in Blackwood where Eveli is spelling everything out for you for some reason.

Oh, don't get me started about Eveli! The zone quests were so painful because of her annoying teenager vibe and the dialogue. I mean, seriously? You're trying to find someone.. you talk to three people and every one of them says the person was going to the pantry. Eveli wants to talk...

My character - "Do you think we should check the pantry?"

/facepalm

phaneub17_ESO

There's a married Argonian/Dunmer couple who don't know much about the Hist, in fact he (argonian) knows very little of the Hist until late in the quest and he was growing sick being apart from it not knowing why.

spartaxoxo

I always just felt like the Vestige is like this because of their experiences in Coldharbor personally. They don't seem very connected to their culture, ask dumb questions, and are pretty forgetful (not unlike Cadwell). They used to be brilliant and certainly have their moments, but they also just say and do ridiculous things sometimes.

Tryxus

https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Online:Venom%27s_Sanctuary_Marginalia

Sundas
The New-Blade asks the most interesting questions. I need to jot these down.

"What do we do after we get to Blackwood?" Good question!
"How do we do that?" Sometimes New-Blade is a bit dense.
"What do you need me to do?" I could have been inappropriate here.
"Wasn't this Sanctuary abandoned?" Not paying attention. Already explained that.

pdblake

Just done a quest in Summerset where someone explained what an altmer was to my altmer character.

That said a northern elswyr character gave me a useful recap in southern elswyr. It had been a while between zones for me and I didn't have a clue who she was

Maya_Nur

If the reputation system will ever be implemented, such questions should decrease your reputation for your incompetence.

wheresbes

Well, with all the fighting, a case of post-traumatic amnesia isn't too much of a stretch, really.

StolenEyes

I often think the best way to deal with this is that when the camera goes into the first-person view for conversations, they are not talking to your character, but to you the player.

Then again, this is also why all my characters are Imperials. Displaced from their home, they make a living as adventurers, mercenaries, assassins and thieves. The can live anywhere, as the description for the Cyrodilic Jungle House in Malabal Tor makes clear. They can fit into any alliance, be ignorant of any of the other races cultures or beliefs, and ask all the questions they want without appearing stupid. And if they wander into opposing alliance territory, its not in the least bit jarring if they're attacked by the invading forces of their own alliance.

Larcomar

My ESO character is incapable of climbing small steps or ledges.

He has to resort to bunny hopping up and down to get over them.

I'd say, yes, he needs things explained. Very very slowly. Probably with pictures. Preferably pop up ones.

colossalvoids

Every Vestige is like that. Just pretend he's "special".

Seriously though I just click through those lines not as a character but like "let's see what's zos think good explanation is" after the dialogue. It might not always work like in Blackwood where you just betray DB as an organisation but anyway.

DinoZavr

It's all the dastard Mannimarco's fault. What he did with Vestige caused Alzheimer.
That is why you always ask "where am i?", "who are you?", "what we are doing?"
There is no escape, there is no way out of here, you're locked in this universe..

Narvuntien

I think we hit our head when we fell from Coldharbour.

but then again we were dumb enough to follow a person in a hood, where is our sense of stranger danger?

slip9419

Saxhleel wrote: »

There are probably worse things for other races like a Nord asking who Kyne is.

dunmer asking who are tribunal
i'm pretty sure i saw that question and i'm also pretty sure it was mandatory to proceed the quest so i had to pretend i didn't ask it just for the sake of not thinking of my dunmer as brainded

anyways, if to be serious, i think those options should be there, should be avaliable to ask, but they well... shouldn' be the only option around to progress through quest/dialogue. thats the only way around i see.

lemonizzle

My comment on this issue would be [snipped] anyway, so I'll just add that this is one reason why I can barely force myself through the latest dlc quests. The main quests suffer the most, getting ever dumber since Summerset, and even before it was not without it's painful moments.
I like to read and listen to dialogue when it's worth my time, and immerse myself for hours. Lately the dialog looks like it's there only to fill a pre-fixed letter quota.

xxslam48xxb14_ESO

They can't assume your characters back story. Like as an Argonian you could have born away from the hist and have no connection to Argonian culture at all. You could be a Bosmer that has only ever lived in the imperial city, all kinds of back stories. So I suppose they just opt to make you character a clueless outsider in every society IF you CHOOSE to press those dialogue options. If you really want to RP that your character already knows everything about Argonian culture, then just don't click those dialogue options. However I think trying to RP through dialogue options in an mmo is just a bad idea and it will never be satisfying.

RaddlemanNumber7

In my roleplay I have two ways of dealing with this "dumb" dialogue:

First: The Vestige is an avatar of Lorkhan. The Vestige does not speak, but people think they hear words the Vestige has spoken. NPC's hear the Vestige speak the words that the NPC needs to hear in order for the NPC to progress on the path towards confronting Lorkhan's test. This is the Vestige acting as a catalyst, or like a prompt in a theatre. It's also a bit like the NPC is on the psychoanalysts couch. When the psychoanalyst says, "tell me about your mother," it is not really because they are curious about your mother. When Xukas hears the Vestige say, "What is a Saxhleel?" it is because Xukas needs to focus consciously on his own identity before the coming events which will try him greatly.

Second: The Vestige is possessed by a Xyvkin Soulbrander who is acting as an intelligence officer for Molag Bal. He doesn't just want to know what's what, he's also trying to find out who knows what, what their attitudes are, and how to manipulate them into serving his master's cause.

Ippokrates

RaddlemanNumber7 wrote: »

In my roleplay I have two ways of dealing with this "dumb" dialogue:

First: The Vestige is an avatar of Lorkhan. The Vestige does not speak, but people think they hear words the Vestige has spoken. NPC's hear the Vestige speak the words that the NPC needs to hear in order for the NPC to progress on the path towards confronting Lorkhan's test. This is the Vestige acting as a catalyst, or like a prompt in a theatre. It's also a bit like the NPC is on the psychoanalysts couch. When the psychoanalyst says, "tell me about your mother," it is not really because they are curious about your mother. When Xukas hears the Vestige say, "What is a Saxhleel?" it is because Xukas needs to focus consciously on his own identity before the coming events which will try him greatly.

Second: The Vestige is possessed by a Xyvkin Soulbrander who is acting as an intelligence officer for Molag Bal. He doesn't just want to know what's what, he's also trying to find out who knows what, what their attitudes are, and how to manipulate them into serving his master's cause.

Interesting approach, although i am not sure that Vestige could be consider Shezzarine

IMHO Tamriel is Daedric realm of Lorkhan and arena for Daedric forces to gain power, and we as a players are just some kind of "anima" occupying the body of the avatar we choose to summon to live at Balfiera. But this Avatar have didn't exist before we created it, so we do not have any form of relatives or family home/city in Tamriel, unless we are talking about things created by other Alts

From this perspective, Argonian asking what is Saxhleel is not so stupid idea

Tiphis

It's funny that the first npc quest giver you talk to in base game (Captain Rana-bleakrock isle) recognizes your race and the dialogue changes but then some of the later ones don't.

Remathilis

I feel my character has gotten dumber in each chapter, barring some occasional moments of brilliance (such as stating they knew Skooma Cat was Shegorrath from the beginning, despite Sheo treating it like it's a grand revelation). Blackwood seems especially bad when it comes to the "What's a Paladin?" Style questions.