Hirion wrote: »

You don't have to indimidate anyone. There are other options but usually means you have to run around more. As for being the good guy, even hero's have to make some grey choices and ESO brings that to the Tamriel hero. As an M rated MMO I expect to see even more of this kind of content in future.

No. They don't always provide you with more options. They should, but they don't. The Elder Scrolls Online wasn't even meant to be rated "M", so you can't play that card.

I just did a quest where a guy was possessed by a dagger. He was being stupid and insisted that the only way he would be free would be for him to die. The game gave me an intimidate check to get the dagger from him peacefully. I wasn't doing intimidation, so I picked the other option, asking him to hand it over. He again expressed concern and I was presented with yet another intimidate option. I could only pick one other dialogue option at that point and that was to nonchalantly kill him.

What, game? I couldn't knock him out? I couldn't talk him out of it? It's suicide or threats?

@KefkaGestahl you can blame ESRB for M rate, ZOS had to place M because they didn't want change things in ESO, so problem is ESRB trying censor gaming to way they like it, "america" and its two morality.

But you are right on intimidate, some places it or bribery is are only options and usually people take second to save moneys, especialy if quest bugs and you need to abandon it and re-do.

There isn't always a happy ending.

There isn't a single quest in the game where you are forced to use intimidate. In every single situation, there is an option to complete the quest without it.

That's because Intimidate takes a skill point and not everyone buys it. The developers aren't going to lock content off that way.

So if you (wrongly) believe that you are forced to intimidate, you simply need to start paying more attention to your other options.

There does seem to be an inordinate amount of intimidation options in quest dialogue compared to persuasion ones - I'd say a 3:2 if not even 3:1 ratio from my experience. My primary character I fancy as somewhat of a nice, articulate individual who would rather talk his way out of things than scare or kill when possible, but, like the topic creator and others have said, that tends to run contrary to some options, such as when presented with:

A. (Intimidate) "Give me that dagger, you filthy milk drinker, or I'll slit your throat!"
B. Kill him.

Sure, you're often given other options and the Intimidate/persuasion mechanic is mainly to speed things along, but from any sort of role-playing or even immersion into the story aspect, when my choices for a generally good guy are to either threaten to beat someone up or go rob a grave, it feels wrong, especially when it feels like it would be a circumstance where I could talk the person out of what I need or find another solution.

The RPer in me cringes at these moments, but the part of me that remembers I'm playing an MMO tries to reconcile the fact that you're basically just clicking through elements just to build up your character and just accept it as part of how MMOs are. Heck, despite attempts, even in the more RPG emphasized single player Elder Scrolls games you're often faced with unfavorable choices to complete quests (often involving killing).

It's still giving me a disproportionate amount of intimidation options. Just did a quest in Coldharbour where the only "happy" ending required intimidation. I know daedra aren't known for their reasonable disposition, so a persuade option wouldn't have made sense, but I wish they gave me another means to rescue more people.