Best "Year Long Adventure" Chapter Main Villian?

peacenote

Rada Al-Saran (Dark Heart of Skyrim)

Best villain by far was Rada al-Saran, due to his history with Count Verandis. He felt the most lore-friendly and I cared because of those connections to other characters I'd met in the past. It felt like I was uncovering a big mystery.

By far the worst was Lord Baconator. My goodness, I could barely tell those nobles apart and I just didn't care. There were things about High Isle I liked in the story but I agree with the OP; there was so much promise and it kind of ended as "ok, whatever" to me.

Another thing that may be interesting to mention is that at first I couldn't really bring to mind any villain named. My first thought reading the title was "Abnur Tharn." Then my mind said "no no, that big red dragon." And THEN my mind said "oh wait, they were both good characters." So, first of all, overall, I'd say "Season of the Dragon" was my most memorable series, even though my favorite villain was Rada al-Saran. Second, it made me realize that, hands down, the characters I love the most are ones that are really a good redemption story. Or partial redemption. Someone all-good is kind of boring and predictable, and someone all-bad kind of fades in my memory. But I really enjoy the ones that have an edge to them, but ally with us. I love love LOVE Arox the Mutilator.

Perhaps because, in reality, the vestige is really that kind of character too. We can justify it all we want, but the truth is we've made a lot of widows and widowers and orphans (though we never see the children) as we rip through Tamriel, shamelessly massacring bandits and whatnot who all probably have families over and over again. Innocent wild creatures shall never get in our way. Even the most pure roleplayer has to take many lives as they complete quests, level their character, and fight the good fight. We do an awful lot killing in the name of saving the world.

Vevvev

Rada Al-Saran (Dark Heart of Skyrim)

Rada Al-Saran had a good story, a good character, a reason for his plan that actually made sense, a cool boss fight with a side mechanic you could ignore, and a healthy HP pool that put a smile on my face.

I want to rematch the dude so badly, but ESO won't let us redo content on our characters.

Syldras

Rada Al-Saran (Dark Heart of Skyrim)

peacenote wrote: »

Perhaps because, in reality, the vestige is really that kind of character too. We can justify it all we want, but the truth is we've made a lot of widows and widowers and orphans (though we never see the children) as we rip through Tamriel, shamelessly massacring bandits and whatnot who all probably have families over and over again. Innocent wild creatures shall never get in our way. Even the most pure roleplayer has to take many lives as they complete quests, level their character, and fight the good fight.

Their choice to attack - their choice to die, you know? Not counting in actual murders, it's basically self-defense.

ArchMikem

Rada Al-Saran (Dark Heart of Skyrim)

Rada's a believable, charismatic Antagonist.

He does what he does out of a genuine Love for his Family, his fellow Vampires. His downfall is succumbing to an "Us vs Them" mentality by devaluing Mortals. You can fully understand both the why behind his actions, and why he must be stopped.

ruengdet2515

Rada Al-Saran (Dark Heart of Skyrim)

I still love all of them.
But sadly game play story is only 20-30 hrs.
I hope for more 60 hrs.+

Dr_Con

Mehrunes Dagon (Gates of Oblivion)

peacenote wrote: »

Perhaps because, in reality, the vestige is really that kind of character too. We can justify it all we want, but the truth is we've made a lot of widows and widowers and orphans (though we never see the children) as we rip through Tamriel, shamelessly massacring bandits and whatnot who all probably have families over and over again. Innocent wild creatures shall never get in our way. Even the most pure roleplayer has to take many lives as they complete quests, level their character, and fight the good fight. We do an awful lot killing in the name of saving the world.

The Vestige is the immune system of Nirn, and its inhabitants are the bacteria

MerguezMan

Still not decided who's the best at doing evil.

This,though :

Necrotech_Master wrote: »

[*] mehrunes dagon was ok, but the surrounding story was abyssmal (i hate eveli now because of it)

Have you ever heard Eveli's french sub in Orsinium ? The girl voice is nice, but the emotion compares to a mix between Alexa and Glad0s. The voicing alone in Blackwood somehow improved Eveli's character for me.

When thinking of Eveli, I get "Oh, the rebel orcs have ... the antivirus database has been updated ... killed everyone !" vibes.

Syldras

Rada Al-Saran (Dark Heart of Skyrim)

Dr_Con wrote: »

The Vestige is the immune system of Nirn, and its inhabitants are the bacteria

An immune system that kills all bacteria regardless would be malfunctioning Just saying.

Gaebriel0410

Lord Baconator (Legacy of the Bretons)

Having just finished the Firesong epilogue, I think Lord Bacaro deserves more credit.

Sadly the Ascendant Lord's identity was spoiled for me by rageposting story rushers in general chat right around Firesong's release, so I can't genuinely say if I was surprised by the reveal. Though the identity of the Ascendant Magus did surprise me, in the High Isle story, so with Bacaro I might not have guessed until the very end, eventhough he was one of the main suspects for me and my friends.

Though I think that the Ascendant Lord as a villain does rely a lot on the player paying attention to small details and reading the various letters before progressing in the quests. Perhaps too much, though for me that was actually a positive.

I often see people go "bad/amateur writing" (that goes for all games really lol) when they dislike something. And it always makes me wonder if I have low standards when I am one of the few who isn't cynical or jaded haha, though I know I am definitely not a gifted story writer myself so I can't really say. But as a believable villain, I think Bacaro was really well done in terms of motivations.

I really liked the investigation part of the epilogue. As someone who loves roleplaying nobility intrigue, I liked how the villain covered his tracks, all my "what if" moments were countered by story developments. The trail of evidence from the poison was nicely done, it was long and deep enough to look convincing for someone trying to hide his motives, but not long enough to make you visit 198231 locations/leads and become an extended fetch quest in gameplay terms.

I think the unsung hero of the story was druid Ryvana. With the poisoned wine incident, she mentions how it's fortunate that she was there and not a healer from for example the Steadfast, due to it being a really obscure and hard to detect poison.

I thought that was a good way to do a poisoning attempt that was required to fail for story reasons. It made the villain look devious and not incompetent. Leading the healing oriented Steadfast, Bacaro knew that a conventional healer (which would have been the obvious choice for the aristocrats he tried to poison) would not have been able to trace it back to him, but he could not have forseen a druid would have been present in the city. Likewise, I love how he tried to shift the blame to another house, when he conveniently had to go help the people he just blew up. At that point it was definitely likely that he was the villain, though imo that was mostly from my omniscient player viewpoint as it wouldn't make sense for it to be someone we hadn't encountered.

I also really enjoyed the discovery of the genealogy charts noting they were requested by his parents, as it showed how the villain's justifications that he was meant to rule were likely imprinted on him since an early age, and were not a sudden muahaha twist.

I can go on and on about little touches like that, but in the end I thought the Ascendant Lord was an excellent and believable villain, even if some of it heavily relies on the player taking time to think and read the books and letters before progressing. So in a spectacle kind of way he was less good as for example the dragon, but I will always favour the slower more down to earth antagonists.

Snamyap

Rada Al-Saran (Dark Heart of Skyrim)

I know this is more about the story than the fight but the only fight of those four that I have a clear memory of was against Dagon. And that is because of the bug with gapclosers, I was using the Maelstrom 2H.

Sarannah

At the moment of doing them I enjoy all of them equally. So I cannot vote for any of them, as I only vaguely remember the last one.

But as I have so much going on story-wise(movies, tv-shows, games, etc), I never remember any of them for a long time. Which is also another reason why I dislike the year-long stories so much. I never remember what part came before the part I'm doing at that moment. And the parts of the year-long stories placed in dungeons is totally lost on me, as there is never any time to listen to it.

But I love going through the stories at the time of doing them, and I also love questing.

PS: Does anyone else feel like if we took a day off of questing in ESO, Tamriel would be doomed?

Dragonnord

How can the title of this treat don't have a **SPOILER ALERT**?

colossalvoids

Rada Al-Saran (Dark Heart of Skyrim)

Dragonnord wrote: »

How can the title of this treat don't have a **SPOILER ALERT**?

Like, isn't the title implying it's content clear enough?

Darkstorne

Yokuda and Ansei lore? Thank you for finally giving me a reason to start the Greymoor story 😁

I just dismissed it as all vampire stuff. Got the chapter on sale for the antiquity system since I love the lore, and never really been to Greymoor properly yet.

emilyhyoyeon

Rada Al-Saran (Dark Heart of Skyrim)

Rada is easily the best and the fact that the Markarth prologue content isn't the focal point of Markarth made me so sad

KlauthWarthog

Mehrunes Dagon (Gates of Oblivion)

Out of the bunch, daddy Dagon was the only one that I was not completely annoyed by the storyline, and was not completely overshadowed by more interesting story NPCs on the way.
The vampire guy might have been interesting, but I was already pissed off enough from the Greymoor storyline that I blanked Markarth entirely.
Big bad dragon guy got overshadowed by his underlings, and by Abnur Tharn.
Evil druid king wannabe, I was pissed off by the entirety of High Isle, and by the atrocious dialogue options from the vestige (who apparently has been polishing his/hers extensive lead mini collection with his/hers tongue).

So yes, not a very fair comparison between the villains themselves, but I did not experience them out of their context.

pelle412

Kalgrontiid (Season of the Dragon)

I picked Season of the Dragon because even 4 years after I do remember it fondly. I did like the Skyrim one as well but since I don't remember it as well it must have been more forgettable for me.

Definitely Legacy of the Bretons was the least memorable and even annoyed me at times with its shallowness.

ghastley

Rada Al-Saran (Dark Heart of Skyrim)

From that limited set of one-year villains, I eliminated Dagon as having too many pre-existing conditions, Kalgrontiid for similar reasons - just acting like a dragon is expected to act - and that left Bacon hamming his good-guy alter ego, or Rada al-Saran being a credible adversary with a different outlook that was valid from his viewpoint, and maybe only his.

With a wider scope, I would vote for Nocturnal, because double-crossing Clavicus Vile is justice,

Ascarl

Kalgrontiid (Season of the Dragon)

phantasmalD wrote: »

The problem with Kaal is that there were just so many dragons, they all sort of blend together and acted as a hive mind. Which isn't bad per say, but really makes it hard for Kaal to be memorable as an individual.

I actually voted for Kaal is because for me the dragons as a group formed the most memorable vallain. i just found out during the Elswyr festival how much I love slaying them again. No other mob makes me feel so good to slay (maybe final maelstrom boss on vet).

Necrotech_Master

MerguezMan wrote: »

Still not decided who's the best at doing evil.

This,though :

Necrotech_Master wrote: »

[*] mehrunes dagon was ok, but the surrounding story was abyssmal (i hate eveli now because of it)

Have you ever heard Eveli's french sub in Orsinium ? The girl voice is nice, but the emotion compares to a mix between Alexa and Glad0s. The voicing alone in Blackwood somehow improved Eveli's character for me.

When thinking of Eveli, I get "Oh, the rebel orcs have ... the antivirus database has been updated ... killed everyone !" vibes.

i only play with english lol

i didnt mind her character in orsinium and seemed fine to me

but the interactions you have with her in black drake villa and the rest of the blackwood/deadlands arc to me painted her as a blonde bimbo with a shrill voice that was constantly yelling out the obvious

not to mention i still think that she caused 90% of the problems that we had to solve in the blackwood story

she found that book in black drake villa, then she GAVE said book to one of the dagon ambitions, which then ended up betraying you because of said book

it almost makes me sympathetic to the true-sworn guys in black drake villa, like they were actually trying to destroy the book, i dont entirely know if thats the case, but with the way they (zos) treated eveli thats how it made me feel lol

spartaxoxo

Rada Al-Saran (Dark Heart of Skyrim)

Rada was one of the most compelling and understandable villains ESO has ever produced IMO. His actions are horrific, but his motivations are complex and you can really see his point of view.

Bastian has a line that says, "Every villain is the hero of their own story. Funny that." And I think it applies really well to Rada.

In addition, his over confidence is earned. His stalling actually makes sense. And he just has a lot of swagger.

He's not honestly not just one of my favorite ESO villains but one of my favorite Elder Scrolls Series villains period. Amazing how much characterization they managed to give him in such a short amount of time.

spartaxoxo

Rada Al-Saran (Dark Heart of Skyrim)

RaptorRodeoGod wrote: »

Side note, is it just me, or were the Q4 DLC stories better than the chapter stories for the year-long format?

Yes. They mostly definitely were.

For me personally

Northern Elsweyr = Dragonhold
Greymoor < < < Markarth
Blackwood < Deadlands
High Isle < Firesong

spartaxoxo

Rada Al-Saran (Dark Heart of Skyrim)

Darkstorne wrote: »

Yokuda and Ansei lore? Thank you for finally giving me a reason to start the Greymoor story 😁

I just dismissed it as all vampire stuff. Got the chapter on sale for the antiquity system since I love the lore, and never really been to Greymoor properly yet.

Yokuda, Ansei, and Reachman lore. The Reachman lore in particular gives these people depth I can't personally ever recall them having. Markarth in particular is not just vampires.

Vevvev

Rada Al-Saran (Dark Heart of Skyrim)

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Darkstorne wrote: »

Yokuda and Ansei lore? Thank you for finally giving me a reason to start the Greymoor story 😁

I just dismissed it as all vampire stuff. Got the chapter on sale for the antiquity system since I love the lore, and never really been to Greymoor properly yet.

Yokuda, Ansei, and Reachman lore. The Reachman lore in particular gives these people I can't personally ever recall them having. Markarth in particular is not just vampires.

And a little dash of Psijic Order stuff as well in Markarth with that one side quest.

Aliyavana

Rada Al-Saran (Dark Heart of Skyrim)

Nice to see how many people enjoyed rada

VaranisArano

I would say Rada al-Saran, but I'm going to be blunt and say that the Markarth DLC did the bulk of the heavy lifting AND he would have been much more easily foiled if the writers hadn't forced my Vestige to keep her mouth shut about plot relevant info she figured out from his first monologue.

He had a great set-up: "Tell me about your ally and I'll tell you important info about my plan."

Fun! Except I can only assume the writers expected us to refuse. I sold out Count Ravenwatch in a heartbeat, Rada told me enough to figure out his plan to sacrifice the Reachmen in Markarth, and then the writers decided I had to shut my mouth and never share this vital info until after Rada railroaded his way to victory. It went far beyond the usual case of "Vestige-induced stupidity."

That really soured me on him. In his own way, he's as much of a writer's pet as Count Verandis "I let villagers suffer from a blood curse on my doorstep but I'm totally a good guy" Ravenwatch. I can't stand him either.

Hating a villain is usually a mark of a good story, but in this case, it's for all the wrong reasons.

Had I actually been able to share his confession with my allies like Arana, and then had to figure out a way to defeat him anyway, I think he'd be a much stronger villain. He would've actually earned it then.

OtarTheMad

Kalgrontiid (Season of the Dragon)

Definitely Kaalgrontiid, that was so fun. Dark Heart comes in a close second.

TaSheen

Kalgrontiid (Season of the Dragon)

OtarTheMad wrote: »

Definitely Kaalgrontiid, that was so fun. Dark Heart comes in a close second.

Eh, I didn't find him "fun" - nor did I find Muulamniir "fun". Painful..... Muulamniir was the single most miserable experience of my gaming career - and Kaal was just as bad.

And on top of that, I love dragons. So I really hated having to kill them.

OtarTheMad

Kalgrontiid (Season of the Dragon)

TaSheen wrote: »

OtarTheMad wrote: »

Definitely Kaalgrontiid, that was so fun. Dark Heart comes in a close second.

Eh, I didn't find him "fun" - nor did I find Muulamniir "fun". Painful..... Muulamniir was the single most miserable experience of my gaming career - and Kaal was just as bad.

And on top of that, I love dragons. So I really hated having to kill them.

I love dragons too. The way I see it they aren’t truly dead because you aren’t Dragonborn. So, it’s all good.

katanagirl1

TaSheen wrote: »

OtarTheMad wrote: »

Definitely Kaalgrontiid, that was so fun. Dark Heart comes in a close second.

Eh, I didn't find him "fun" - nor did I find Muulamniir "fun". Painful..... Muulamniir was the single most miserable experience of my gaming career - and Kaal was just as bad.

And on top of that, I love dragons. So I really hated having to kill them.

They aren’t dragons, they are wyverns. Dragons have four legs.

I get what you mean, though.