Companion quests

Khressandra

I am doing the companion quests for Sharp-as-Night and I realize that his hope here is to kill the Reformer. Yet at the end of the third quest, he doesn't really get to. Same as Azander, although there's a reason for why he doesn't kill the alternate.
My thought was to change it for future companions so they get a (quick) cutscene where they are the hero of their own story, like the end of the Dark Brotherhood questline or the Main Quest line with the defeat of Molag Bal.

Monte_Cristo

Sharp and Azandar have 4 quests, so that's why they haven't killed their bad guys yet.

Khressandra

They have a "gain the companion" quest and three with them as the companion. In the last quest for both, the Vestige defeats the existential threat to their companion. It is that to which I refer.

Erickson9610

Khressandra wrote: »

They have a "gain the companion" quest and three with them as the companion. In the last quest for both, the Vestige defeats the existential threat to their companion. It is that to which I refer.

The Companion in question always accompanies the player character. It's a cooperative effort — the Companion couldn't have gotten that far without the aid of the player character.


Should the Companion defeat their final boss without player intervention? It would be like the ending of TES IV: Oblivion in a sense — where the main character of the story isn't the player, but rather the character that the player has to escort.

Maybe it's an idea worth considering for future Companions, although it would feel anticlimactic to reach the end of a storyline just to wait for the Companion to finish their fight with their adversary without player assistance. What other questlines in ESO don't end in some sort of final boss fight?

Syldras

Erickson9610 wrote: »

Should the Companion defeat their final boss without player intervention? It would be like the ending of TES IV: Oblivion in a sense — where the main character of the story isn't the player, but rather the character that the player has to escort.

As far as I know, Oblivion's ending wasn't well-received by a lot of players because of that.

In general, I'm wondering whether ZOS could write an interesting companion questline that doesn't end with "kill bad guy x" or "save random friend/relative z" for once.

Khressandra

I agree with you both, but I think you're missing what I'm saying. The cut scenes at the end of the questlines I mentioned have little to nothing to do with the actual fight. I'd create a cut scene with the Companion dealing the final blow rather than the Vestige doing it. Still a boss fight, just the companion gets their moment.

vsrs_au

Khressandra wrote: »

I agree with you both, but I think you're missing what I'm saying. The cut scenes at the end of the questlines I mentioned have little to nothing to do with the actual fight. I'd create a cut scene with the Companion dealing the final blow rather than the Vestige doing it. Still a boss fight, just the companion gets their moment.

Agreed, it would be so nice for the companions to be more involved in the quests.

This reminded me of a moment I had yesterday, while playing Skyrim (again): I have 3 companions/followers (via a mod), and was inside an inn room on the island of Wyrmstooth, and after talking to the innkeeper, I noticed that I could only see one of my companions. So I went around the corner of the room to the bedroom section, and saw the other two companions asleep on the double bed together. Absolutely adorable! It's little moments like these that make the game so much better. The companions in ESO just lack life by comparison to that.

Syldras

vsrs_au wrote: »

Agreed, it would be so nice for the companions to be more involved in the quests.

Generally more involved, yes. I don't see this changing when we still do all the work and there's some Hollywood-esque "companion holds heroic speech and gives baddie one final stab" cutscene in the end. They don't become "the hero of their own story" if it's just that but they still aren't more than a random sidekick for the rest of the time.

So I think the way companions are written could generally be improved.

Also, as I said, the way their stories are constructed. How many kidnapped friends/brothers/moms/sisters have we already freed for them?!