A pacifist

Ommamar · January 2015

One of the characters that was very fun to me to play in Skyrim was a heavy crafting build who was in a cult that was dedicated to travel and exploration. The catch was that by their by laws they couldn't take another life. So he used a shield, heavy armor except boots to help his stealth, and control spells; such as Fear, muffle, blind and one that reduced the aggro of opponents.
So with the advent of the PvE justice system I see a path for that to occur in this game. I know sorcero'rs have some control and I think NB have one stun and I am hoping that spell crafting will further add non-confrontational spells as well. The biggest obstacle is that many of the quests have you directly fighting the objective then taking an item often times a body part. This could be overcome by making the token something on the person that with the correct tactic or skill could be stolen.
If this path would be made possible I think it would add so much validity to the whole play as you want concept they have put forth as a selling point.

AlexDougherty · January 2015

Not going to happen.

Firstly, it would require intorucing non-lethal possibilities to every quest in the game.
Secondly, doing so would introduce a million and one bugs.
Thirdly, how do you defeat the world bosses and dolmens without killing?

Not the worst idea today, but not practical either.

Ommamar · January 2015

I agree it would be a challenge but still possible.
As to them making changes that introduce bugs, pretty much happens every patch/update.
This would be a challenge, I guess it would all depend on the idea of defeat. I know it is easy to make everything number based so you can count down to 0 and consider that opponent defeated/dead. Would be cool though if at a certain point when something has been weakened you had the option to expel or capture. Think about it how did the undaunted get all the menagerie in there encampment? It would be cool if you could see the bosses you had defeated in cages somewhere.

AlexDougherty · January 2015

Ommamar wrote: »

I agree it would be a challenge but still possible.
As to them making changes that introduce bugs, pretty much happens every patch/update.
This would be a challenge, I guess it would all depend on the idea of defeat. I know it is easy to make everything number based so you can count down to 0 and consider that opponent defeated/dead. Would be cool though if at a certain point when something has been weakened you had the option to expel or capture. Think about it how did the undaunted get all the menagerie in there encampment? It would be cool if you could see the bosses you had defeated in cages somewhere.

I agree that it could be a cool mechanism for the game, but the workload to introduce it would be huge, far bigger than 1.6 is going to be (even before they said B2P).

And I think you misunderstand the bugs part, imagine every single bug that this game has ever had being reintroduced at once, that many bugs.

Basically they would have to redesign the game from the ground up. It would have been fun if they had put a pacifist class into the game at the start (Like a Monk class like everyone wants), but It's too much work for them to do it now.

Khivas_Carrick · January 2015

NPC's of human variety and player characters in town could have a "non-lethal, I-Knocked-You-The-***-Out" option when fighting them, but simply put some things just would not have the option. I'm pretty sure ghosts/undead and demonic entities or otherwise just plain evil people that refuse to go quietly kinda have to be dealt with in a violent and deadly manner.

Why I carry a large and wide 2H sword, I can wing em in the head with the flat side if I gotta take em alive =P

Ommamar · January 2015

I think with the implementation of the justice system and the use of spell crafting sometime in the future (near I hope!) that it would be possible. I am not saying it wouldn't take some work but there is a path available.

Ommamar · January 2015

Khivas_Carrick wrote: »

NPC's of human variety and player characters in town could have a "non-lethal, I-Knocked-You-The-***-Out" option when fighting them, but simply put some things just would not have the option. I'm pretty sure ghosts/undead and demonic entities or otherwise just plain evil people that refuse to go quietly kinda have to be dealt with in a violent and deadly manner.

Why I carry a large and wide 2H sword, I can wing em in the head with the flat side if I gotta take em alive =P

Many of the quests have you expelling a ghost or defeating a representative of a daedric entity already often using a focus or destroying a focus to expel. There are also the quests that have you deciding what happens to the villain. I just get the feeling that the beginning of the path to implement something using non violent/lethal means is already there.

TheShadowScout · January 2015

Only way I see to be a pacifist in this game is being a healer and teaming up with another player. Let them do the killing, you do the healing.

That noted, I would have liked if many more quests included alternate completion paths. It would have been great if more quest could have been done in one of three ways - combat, stealth or social option... face some guards? Fight them, or evade them through stealth or disguise, or fast-talk/bribe them into letting you through... that sort of thing.

Ommamar · January 2015

TheShadowScout wrote: »

Only way I see to be a pacifist in this game is being a healer and teaming up with another player. Let them do the killing, you do the healing.

That noted, I would have liked if many more quests included alternate completion paths. It would have been great if more quest could have been done in one of three ways - combat, stealth or social option... face some guards? Fight them, or evade them through stealth or disguise, or fast-talk/bribe them into letting you through... that sort of thing.

To be fair in Skyrim I just pretty much ran around with that character going to different caves and dungeons.

I agree about the quest thing. There was kind of a shadow of the idea where certain quests had you wearing disguises or offering a bribe but you didn't really have a choice in the matter. There was also the guild passives, I got the feeling those where put in to move the quest along for those who had already done them. One thing I liked about the old game Vanguard was you had an adventure system, a crafting system and a diplomat system. They where all paths to gear but not really interact able with each other. Be really great though if the choice of how to tackle things in different ways was there. I like your idea.

katkat42 · January 2015

That is a really neat idea. I do like to play my crafting character as someone who is reluctant to use violence (but will if necessary). She's a mage -- didn't know much about destructive magic until she got ganked into Coldharbour, sans soul -- but the Nightblade's stealth capabilities have some possibility here too.

But as others have pointed out, as the game stands, there are some bosses that just need killing.

dodgehopper_ESO · January 2015

I'm not sure you could beat any story arc in Skyrim without killing things. Companions, Mages Guild, Thieves Guild, Dark Brotherhood, Main Quests, City Quests, all require you to kill enemies at one point or another. You can't beat the game without killing a number of dragons as well. I can understand tooling about and trying not to kill things, but ultimately how do you play Skyrim without killing ever?

Cody · January 2015

Khivas_Carrick wrote: »

NPC's of human variety and player characters in town could have a "non-lethal, I-Knocked-You-The-***-Out" option when fighting them, but simply put some things just would not have the option. I'm pretty sure ghosts/undead and demonic entities or otherwise just plain evil people that refuse to go quietly kinda have to be dealt with in a violent and deadly manner.

Why I carry a large and wide 2H sword, I can wing em in the head with the flat side if I gotta take em alive =P

just arrow their knees if you need them alive

Ommamar · January 2015

dodgehopper_ESO wrote: »

I'm not sure you could beat any story arc in Skyrim without killing things. Companions, Mages Guild, Thieves Guild, Dark Brotherhood, Main Quests, City Quests, all require you to kill enemies at one point or another. You can't beat the game without killing a number of dragons as well. I can understand tooling about and trying not to kill things, but ultimately how do you play Skyrim without killing ever?

That was the challenge Dodgehopper! There where some quests not in the main line where it was possible to get an item. As I said I didn't really play that character as a quest beat the game build, although I did see a mod that placed quest tokens outside of NPC inventories but had moved on so didn't try to see how it affected things. I get that ESO is a theme park build but once you have been to a theme park and ridden all the rides and played all the game what is the draw? Something where you could make the decision to capture a boss would add an interesting aspect.