Why Skyrim sucked for me and how i could have enjoyed it more.

[mega lenin]

I didn't think I jumped into the middle of argument. I've read this thread since the beginning.

With that clarified, does SajuukKhar judge Bethesda too highly? Yes, they are not the second coming of Christ and I prefer the time I do spend with the Witcher series to the time I spent with TES. However, I spend much less time with the WItcher than I do with TES.

This post of yours seems somewhat reasonable, so I guess it's this continuing discussion you have that made you seem so unreasonable in your other posts in this thread.

There are flaws with TES games, but many of them are due to the raison d'etre of them, to be as close to total freedom as can be accomplished in a videogame with current technology. I would love for Skyrim to have been deeper, to have better writing and followers who are more like Bioware's. However, to do so at the expense of everyone being able to be a different race and a different class, to have different followers without even encountering the followers other's choose, for everyone wo plays to be able to follow their own path, that would destroy TES reason to exist.

TES can be better, but it must not come at your expense to say: "An evil wizard is destroying the land and I'm the one chosen by the Gods to stop him? *** that[/I}, I'm going the complete opposite direction until I reach a shore and then I'm going to be a pirate instead".

What caused me to enter thread was how you simply handwaved everything that made TES unique as not really unique. The fact you did so to annoy and piss off SajuukKhar rather than that actually being an honest attempt at a discussion makes sense, though be aware that no matter the temptation to take the low road in discussions, others (or at least any rational others) observing the discussion will side with the one that takes the "least low" road.

I took the liberty to bold the things I'm responding to. I'm more than happy to acknowledge that Skyrim provides a huge open world sandbox with carefully crafted lore. Unfortunately the TES series has suffered from not being a very immersive one with any particular character other than scenery and strategic item placement. And that problem is what keeps it from being a truly great game. I'm fine with the skill leveling changes and getting rid of attributes (though hopefully they come back in future iterations of the series), because grinding ten levels of acrobatics to get +5 speed for my next level by jumping up and down on a tavern table wasn't my idea of fun. Stats and leveling should be tied to actually adventuring and an action adventure game shouldn't punish me for adventuring by making me underpowered because I didn't needlessly spam minor skills. Thankfully Skyrim ended all that. Stats return in a better system would be nice though and would help character builds feel more specialized and less samey.

I disagree that the reason there are no memorable characters in Skyrim is totally due to its open worldness. It isn't. As far as game structure this is comparable to Baldur's Gate II. You have an overarching game story in a map with a whole bunch of little sidequests and stories to encounter in all the little nooks and crannies of the game's world. You have a selection between being seven different races with the general full layout of class types that appear in rpg's. And in vanilla Skyrim, like Baldur's gate II, you are railroaded into the same starting point. What you do afterward is up to you, but if you want to see the game's ending you have to go through all the steps of the main quests. The only real difference between them is once you clear places in Baldur's gate and do the sidequests their isn't anything to do but quest, whereas in Skyrim I can revisit those places for more grinding or just brew potions and bake bread because I like playing house with my imaginary kids. Yet somehow I can describe the characters of Minsc, Imoen, Xar, Korgan, etc. without relying on what they look like or their class or role, but I can't for any follower or any character really in the whole TES series other than Sheograth.

That is the main problem in these games. NPC's are treated as mere quest receptacles and info dumps to interact with. They aren't written as characters without much more than maybe one dimension of complexity. The character's interaction is simply based on whatever immediate problem they want the player to solve for a reward, or to give the character a lore infodump about the world. They aren't written as an integral part of the setting, tone, or theme of the overall world. And consider the world of Skyrim for a moment. We have civil war, the Thalmor hunting Talos worshippers, and dragons terrorizing the countryside after centuries of dormancy. This is a crisis to rival the Black Plague, but if you talk to any peasant or watch life in any village or hold you'd think those problems are happening world's away. The fact is the only people who seem engaged in or affected by the civil war are the Jarls themselves, and the only people that care about the dragon menace are the interchangeable blades characters and the old bearded guys on the mountain (and I'm not even sure if they give a shit really, either they sort of just infodump what I need to do).

This game fails to deliver moments that would make us care about being involved in any of these problems. There is no one in Skyrim I feel attached to so that doesn't help, and outside of the occasional dragon attack on a hold no real consequences for the problems remaining unresolved. And don't tell me immersive patrols or Civil war redone fixes this, it doesn't. Seeing a bunch of NPC's in uniform randomly duke it out in the woods is not what I'm talking about. What this game needs are more vignettes that don't involve the player that establish the implications and consequences of the war. How about a random event where Stormcloak soldiers are pillaging a man's farm for supplies while he begs at swordpoint for something to be left behind. How about a moment where Imperial soldiers intern fighting age people from a particular family because their relative went off to join the Stormcloaks. Little things in this vein that the player can experience as part of the setting of the world are all things that might make me care even the least bit about what is happening. Instead you just walk through and see everyone going about their business talking about cloud districts and arrows to the knees. All of this wouldn't require new functionality, it would require a new way of looking at the writing of these games. Rather than taking the here's a menu of things we can tell the player to do approach in each area they should shift to how we can show the story of this area to the player and let them make decisions on what they should do. That in essence is the problems with these games and it has nothing to do with their open worldness of them. It has to do with developing characters as being just infodumps and questgivers.

 

[SajuukKhar]

You win because prophecy demands it. Its already been written.

That's actually false, its been outright stated multiple times that an Elder Scroll's prophecy isn't true until the hero actually manages to accomplish it. From Michael Kirkbride, the Elder scrolls series foremost lore writer.
http://www.imperial-library.info/content/forum-archives-michael-kirkbride

Spoiler

Writing the Elder Scrolls (08/27/10)

You misinterpret the meaning of what Elder Scrolls are in the colloquial Tamrielic. When taken in this context, to "write an Elder Scroll" is "to make history".

A deeper meaning is meant, too, but not very many laymen bother with that. Until a prophecy is fulfilled, the true contents of an Elder Scoll are malleable, hazy, uncertain. Only by the Hero's action does it become True. The Hero is literally the scribe of the next Elder Scroll, the one in which the prophecy has been fulfilled into a fixed point, negating its precursor.

Also, Martin mantled Akatosh and dragon-[censored] Dagon silly, so his outlook on time in quite unlike our own. In fact, he said those words during the dragon-[censored] fight and you only remembered them later, a comforting memory that the Jills mended back into your timeline.

Yes.

He got destroyed and got called out on it every time he did. He had the gall to proclaim himself the king of fallout lore just because he played Fallout 3, and fallout veterans didn't like it.

-I never said anything else was garbage.
-I never said Bethesda was above the medium.
-I never proclaimed myself king of fallout lore, ever.

I was content to just read and not comment, but seeing this I wonder - have you ever played a Souls game? I know you are a self-proclaimed TES fanatic, but it doesn't appear you have if that comment is any indication.

I have played the souls series, and I see why many consider them fun, and well made games, and I find the combat mechanics to be done well, but they overall arent my cup of tea.

And the boss fights in the souls games are FAR from being like that, and they are what I was referring to, not the common trash mobs. I realize I wasn't clear on that at all.

Sarthaal is a good example and the first Draugr crypt you enter for the Companions quest line (Dustman's Cairn?). If you try to access these locations before doing the quests then you are greeted with a very important looking door, a location marker, and then a dungeon that stops at the first room.

Those are both done for highly logical reasons

A. Sarthaal is a College of Winterhold excavation site, and excavation sites are closed off to the public even in the real world.

B. Dustman's Cairn is closed off because the Silver Hand are using it to bait the companions by luring them to the bottom, however, they dont enact their plan, and thus dig out the entrance room, until the story actually gets that far.

Neither of those are means of punishing the player, they are means of making a logical and realistic game world that is consistent with the stories it tells. It wouldn't make sense of the College to NOT have Sarthaal locked up, especially when its a great archeological find that many would logically try to steal from.

I can understand why some people would feel "punished", most RPGs nowadays tend to let players go anywhere and do anything no matter what factions you are/arent a part of, and so people expect that, but those areas are closed simply because they logically would be until a certain part in that faction's story.

And while its arguable that they should make guild plotlines progress in some way even if you dont join them, THAT would be punishing the player by forcing them out of content because they didn't join a faction by whatever arbitrary time limit Bethesda set for it to auto progress.

Facts can't reach people who respond by saying the same thing only louder.

Ohh I know of such things, however, I have gotten use to dealing with such people, like the former escapist user Anthaxus.

 

[Vern5]

they should make guild plotlines progress in some way even if you dont join them

That would blow my goddamn mind just from a technical standpoint.

If all of the major guild questlines actually played out their events without any player interaction and I could hear about it from other NPCs in the game that would just amaze the hell out of me. Sure, I would get to miss out on all of the lame dungeon crawling and plot railroading but at least Skyrim would feel like an actual place instead of a Dragonborn-centric theme park.

 

[SajuukKhar]

That would blow my goddamn mind just from a technical standpoint.

Its entirely doable, Bethesda had programmed a near fully functioning dynamic civil war where the imperials and stormcloaks would attack each other, lay siege to, and capture, each others forts and cities without player interaction.

although, no side could actually outright WIN the war without the player's help, because it would be unfair otherwise.

It had to be cut though because much of the smaller stuff became a scripting nightmare, and because it maxed out the already nearly maxed out consoles, and because it was getting a lot of NPcs killed, thus breaking a lot of smaller misc quests.

 

[Loonyyy]

Clairvoyance. The Illusion spell. I always thought that was a pretty neat means of navigation. It showed you the general direction of your next objective for a limited time and could actually be explained in-game as just another spell. But, like you said, the compass just makes it completely redundant.

I sort of wish that the Clairvoyance spell was the only means of tracking and was a toggle power sort of like the wolf-sense from LoZ: Twilight Princess. Or like the Guide beacon technology from Dead Space.

Exactly. It's a nice in game, in lore way, of giving a lead you by the nose compass. Unfortunately, the compass, and the icons which mark chests, items, and targets make it redundant. Plus, it's got a pretty low cost, so you can easily use it regularly. I think that might make you gain some illusion levels which might be a problem though. It's kind of like they didn't think that spell through at all.

Failing that, they could just have an animation which showed the NPC handing over a section of map with locations on it, or directions, or even pointing to the map (Apparently it's bad form to grab the camera and control. That's why they definitely didn't do that for the annoying unskippable conversations with various Daedric gods and Dragons, in what seemed a deliberate attempt to piss off anyone who wanted to explore the conversation tree. And god how slow their performances are. Fuck voice acting sometimes).

That patrols mod you mentioned sounds impressive, I'll have to give it a go. Does it have a performance hit? I'd always assumed the lack of battles etc was due to the limitations of the engine, how much power it would take.

 

[MasterPaz]

In past TES games magic was a "secondary" skill set that only existed to buff melee fighters, in Skyrim magic is supposed to be equal to melee weapons, not beneath them. It also introduces actual choice and consequences when it comes to playstyles, since you actually have to play a mage as a mage, and an actual warrior as a warrior, instead of just getting a free pass as a quasi battlemage no matter what you pick, like in past games, thus making playstyles more diverse.

Go back and play Morrowind. Play around with the spell creation, and then tell me that magic in past TES games existed only to "buff melee fighters".

Also, Destruction magic in Skyrim becomes very underpowered late game. Mainly because none of the spells have any scaling, you can't create your own spells, and the higher level spells just don't do enough damage to be effective late game.

 

[SajuukKhar]

Go back and play Morrowind. Play around with the spell creation, and then tell me that magic in past TES games existed only to "buff melee fighters".

Also, Destruction magic in Skyrim becomes very underpowered late game. Mainly because none of the spells have any scaling, you can't create your own spells, and the higher level spells just don't do enough damage to be effective late game.

I recently got done replaying Morrowind about three weeks ago, magic in that game was, and still is, secondary to melee weapons, for the sole fact you can still use it while usingmelee weapons, making it something that exists only to FURTHER increase your total damage output while using melee weapons, rather then BE your damage output rather then melee weapons.

Also, destruction magic + stagger perks = stun locked dragons. Using the Lightning storm master destruction spell, you can kill even legendary dragons in less then 10 seconds.

 

[Seraj33]

-Dragon were never a major threat, they are a species of animal, much like all others, except tied to the gods via their connection to akatosh.
-the thalmor were never a major part of the main plot or skyrim, or the cause behind anything.
-Yield, put away your sword, if you have a bounty under 100, which killing a chicken gives, putting away your sword will cause all enemies to stop attacking and guard will let you pay your fine.
-Its literally impossible for the game to stop spawning generic NPCs unless you use mods.
-The puzzles are MADE to be easym if you had read the in-game books you would have known those puzzles were meant to keep the draugr in, not people out.
-Why would you need to take notes when you literally have a map that you can pull out and people can just point to a location and say "I know the bandits who took me stuff are here"

Not OP but I'll tell you what I think.

-Then why does litterary everyone in the game hype them up like they are the goddamn holocaust on wings.
-Then why are they there? Why add something like the thalmor into the game if you aren't going to do anything with it? Sure I guess it can be important to make the plot make sense. But in my opinion it is more important to the game design as a whole to be able to interract with every component of the game. Especially an entire faction.
-That whole thing brings me to another point that I dont like about elderscrols as a whole, that litterary everyone is a swordmaster and will do everything in their might to stop the criminal. It doesnt seem very believable to me, but thats off topic.
-I guess so.
-Then why put puzzles there at all? Why not just, you know, seal the fuckers in with an iron gate as thick as a cow? They sure as hell wont be able to leave then.
-Because it is boring! Boring and odd. Like, how do you explain that everyone in the world knows EXACTLY were to point on a map were the bandits went. How can you be sure they haven't moved or the directions given were off? Even more wierd is how everyone knows how to even read a map or have maps or even seen a map in their lives.

I liked how they did maps in Gothic 1 and 2. Were it was an actuall physical item you had to aquire, and it was hand drawn making it hard to navigate even if you had it. And best of all, no darn 100% accurate questmarkers. If someone told you, go to Obar's farm, then you had to find that shit on the map yourself you lazy ass. It makes the game more imersive.

 

[Thyunda]

snip

Obviously you ignored my point. I wasn't denying that the Romans used crossbows, I was merely asking why, if Rome used them, did bows still exist a thousand years later? Which of course I would quickly follow up with 'Because warfare doesn't work the way you think it does", and with "Crossbows are unreliable, prone to breaking, can't work in the rain, require three people to manage, and you wouldn't find a peasant militia trained in crossbows and so required a standing army. Most peasants were at least competent with any of the other kinds of bow."

But you might discount that and then copy-paste a clipping from Wikipedia that...doesn't prove your point at all.

 

[Vern5]

That patrols mod you mentioned sounds impressive, I'll have to give it a go. Does it have a performance hit? I'd always assumed the lack of battles etc was due to the limitations of the engine, how much power it would take.

Bethesda cut a lot of content due to the limitations of the 360 and the PS3 rather than the game's engine. Immersive Patrols hasn't cost me much performance and I run Skyrim on a laptop. The only time where it might cause visual lag would be when you're right at the epicenter of two patrols meeting in combat, especially if those patrols have mages, which they usually do.

You can grab if off of Nexus or the workshop right now, just be prepared for a lot of fighting if you chose a side in the war; each squad has about 4-5 soldiers and I've seen as many as four squads traveling together and then clashing with another four squads.

One time I saw a group of Thalmor engage a veritable army of Stormcloaks. The Stormcloaks mopped them up pretty quickly. Then an equally large group of Imperials wandered in from another road and suddenly it was a 20 v 20 matchup. They were only a few seconds into the fight when a dragon showed up and started torching all of them. That's when it got weird. The Imperials and Stormcloaks that were hit by the fire teamed up to take on the dragon, but the ones who were lucky enough to dodge the flames kept killing their original opponents. AI couldn't make up its mind and the Dragon ended up killing most of them (not to mention a passing hunter) until I finally decided to step in.

 

[MasterPaz]

I recently got done replaying Morrowind about three weeks ago, magic in that game was, and still is, secondary to melee weapons, for the sole fact you can still use it while usingmelee weapons, making it something that exists only to FURTHER increase your total damage output while using melee weapons, rather then BE your damage output rather then melee weapons.

Also, destruction magic + stagger perks = stun locked dragons. Using the Lightning storm master destruction spell, you can kill even legendary dragons in less then 10 seconds.

Actually, you press the R key to ready magic, and the F key to ready weapons, you can't use one while using the other. And you obviously haven't played Morrowind very much if you think melee weapons offer more damage than magic.

It's also hilariously weird to see stun lock a dragon with destruction spells. I'll agree that the stagger perk helps keep the spells slightly useful, but it also looks completely ridiculous in practice when it's easily spammed.

 

[Cecilo]

-Dragon were never a major threat, they are a species of animal, much like all others, except tied to the gods via their connection to akatosh.
-the thalmor were never a major part of the main plot or skyrim, or the cause behind anything.
-Yield, put away your sword, if you have a bounty under 100, which killing a chicken gives, putting away your sword will cause all enemies to stop attacking and guard will let you pay your fine.
-Its literally impossible for the game to stop spawning generic NPCs unless you use mods.
-The puzzles are MADE to be easym if you had read the in-game books you would have known those puzzles were meant to keep the draugr in, not people out.
-Why would you need to take notes when you literally have a map that you can pull out and people can just point to a location and say "I know the bandits who took me stuff are here"

Not OP but I'll tell you what I think.

-Then why does litterary everyone in the game hype them up like they are the goddamn holocaust on wings.
-Then why are they there? Why add something like the thalmor into the game if you aren't going to do anything with it? Sure I guess it can be important to make the plot make sense. But in my opinion it is more important to the game design as a whole to be able to interract with every component of the game. Especially an entire faction.
-That whole thing brings me to another point that I dont like about elderscrols as a whole, that litterary everyone is a swordmaster and will do everything in their might to stop the criminal. It doesnt seem very believable to me, but thats off topic.
-I guess so.
-Then why put puzzles there at all? Why not just, you know, seal the fuckers in with an iron gate as thick as a cow? They sure as hell wont be able to leave then.
-Because it is boring! Boring and odd. Like, how do you explain that everyone in the world knows EXACTLY were to point on a map were the bandits went. How can you be sure they haven't moved or the directions given were off? Even more wierd is how everyone knows how to even read a map or have maps or even seen a map in their lives.

I liked how they did maps in Gothic 1 and 2. Were it was an actuall physical item you had to aquire, and it was hand drawn making it hard to navigate even if you had it. And best of all, no darn 100% accurate questmarkers. If someone told you, go to Obar's farm, then you had to find that shit on the map yourself you lazy ass. It makes the game more imersive.

They don't. They hold that the return of the Dragons is the return of Alduin. They fear Alduin, the supposed Eater of Worlds, Dragons are not a threat, the Blades wiped out the Dragons without a Dragonborn when they were the Akiviri. The difference between Alduin and the rest of the Dragons. As far as I can tell, is just that he was partially divine(?), being the direct son of Akatosh, seems to have granted him more powers, stronger, and he can go to Sovngarde to eat souls of the Nord's dead. Which somehow restores his life. How that works? I have no idea. It does though.

The Thalmor are there to give cause for why the Stormcloaks are fighting. If the Stormcloaks only said "So yea the Empire surrendered and forbade the worship of Talos, and now the Thalmor have the right to do x,y and z to us" But then had no Thalmor doing X, Y and Z, then their example really doesn't hold up, or show the price they paid.

I don't have much for this one, Just that Skyrim in particular, is a very dangerous place, In Cyrodil I would expect to see Merchants who aren't willing to fight. Not so much in Skyrim.

Because they had better uses for Iron? Like weapons? And Armor? And Whatever else the ancient Nords had for Iron?

Well, if they don't know exactly where they are how are they going to give you directions? If they are going to give directions, then they can point it out on a map, Either way it is knowledge they shouldn't have isn't it? And TES isn't the real world, everyone seems to have a basic use of maps, books, writing, reading. Very few people have shown themselves to be stupid.

And for your last point, I don't know what kind of game or universe Gothic is. But for regions that have been settled for at least a solid thousand years by the same people. I damn well expect a map to be up to date and filled in. This isn't the middle ages where people are carving out swaths of land for themselves, they have been here for.. ages.

 

[Vern5]

It wouldn't make sense of the College to NOT have Sarthaal locked up, especially when its a great archaeological find that many would logically try to steal from.

If it's so important, why didn't the College post a guard as well?

 

[SajuukKhar]

snip

-They dont, they hype AL-DU-IN as a holocaust on wings, because he is the literal world eater. The other dragons are a problem, and could very easily kill MANY innocent civilians, but they aren't the end times, and everyone knows they were killed off by hunters before, and that they can be killed again.

-Because they exist? Why make lore about other lands like Akavir, Atmora, Panyodea, and Thras if you never get to explore them? Because TES is a WORLD, not a single province, and the world has many different things with various levels of influence in various parts of the world. The Thalmor are there to show how things are different from Morrowind and Oblivion, now, isntead of one singular massive empire, we have independent provinces like Morrowind, Black Marsh, and Hammerfell, but also ANOTHER empire in the world, with its own ideals. The Thalmor are our taste of the living and changing world, since we can go to the Dominion directly.

-I do agree everyone wanting to kill you over the smallest things, or random civilians attacking dragons, is dumb, and needs to be changed.

-Because Draugr can open doors, and gates, and putting up an unmovable gate makes families unable to visit their families tombs, and their ancestors, which kinda defeats the whole point of making family tombs.

-Because large groups of bandits often stay in a singular well defended location, due to it being a good location to strike out across the hold from, and people who have a singular stationary base eventually become well known over time for their actions.

Also, maps are a very common item in TES, they can be found in almost every city or military fort. They do have means of mass producing books as well.

[Actually, you press the R key to ready magic, and the F key to ready weapons, you can't use one while using the other. And you obviously haven't played Morrowind very much if you think melee weapons offer more damage than magic.

I never said melee does more damage then magic. I said magic buffs melee, it can add more damage in a buff then the melee was doing already.

If it's so important, why didn't the College post a guard as well?

Because they are Mages? and could, at least in lore, easily kill pretty much any intruder with ease? Still better to just lock the place up to not have to kill anyone at all.

There is also at least one cut college guard NPC in Skyrim's game files.

 

[Oroboros]

I found Skyrim to be a bit underwhelming, both lore-wise and gameplay wise. The Retcons, the removal of many gameplay mechanic mainstays, and the way the game seemed generally more action-oriented. I actually prefer Oblivion in many ways to Skyrim.

As for the ongoing discussion on crossbows, they generally get an unfairly poor showing in games and other media. Historically they were powerful tools of war. Their power and accuracy (particularly with the heavier crossbows) insured that they remained relevant in the military even while gunpowder weapons became popular. They were used quite extensively in the conquest of the New World, for instance.

Crossbows requiring multiple people to operate is not historical outside of some of the Roman/Greek Siege weapons. Devices like the belt hook, Crannequin, crow's foot, and the windlass allowed later steel crossbows to have a lot more power than any longbow. Reload time and the degree to which crossbows are cumbersome are somewhat exaggerated as well. Crannequin and Crow's foot allowed heavier crossbows to be used on horseback, and while bows *are* faster than crossbows, the degree to which they are faster is not that great.

 

[Seraj33]

snip

-They dont, they hype AL-DU-IN as a holocaust on wings, because he is the literal world eater. The other dragons are a problem, and could very easily kill MANY innocent civilians, but they aren't the end times, and everyone knows they were killed off by hunters before, and that they can be killed again.

-Because they exist? Why make lore about other lands like Akavir, Atmora, Panyodea, and Thras if you never get to explore them? Because TES is a WORLD, not a single province, and the world has many different things with various levels of influence in various parts of the world. The Thalmor are there to show how things are different from Morrowind and Oblivion, now, isntead of one singular massive empire, we have independent provinces like Morrowind, Black Marsh, and Hammerfell, but also ANOTHER empire in the world, with its own ideals. The Thalmor are our taste of the living and changing world, since we can go to the Dominion directly.

-I do agree everyone wanting to kill you over the smallest things, or random civilians attacking dragons, is dumb, and needs to be changed.

-Because Draugr can open doors, and gates, and putting up an unmovable gate makes families unable to visit their families tombs, and their ancestors, which kinda defeats the whole point of making family tombs.

-Because large groups of bandits often stay in a singular well defended location, due to it being a good location to strike out across the hold from, and people who have a singular stationary base eventually become well known over time for their actions.

Also, maps are a very common item in TES, they can be found in almost every city or military fort. They do have means of mass producing books as well.

On Thalmor: I understand that, but what I mean is that you don't really get to see what they are doing and they don't feel as present as they maybe should. Except for the ocational prisoner train and a few quests there isn't much to them. Then again, that could play on the whole "something big and sinister" in the background that you don't notice.

On Draugr and puzzles: But why on earth would anyone want to visit their ancestral tombs if they are infested with mummies with a thirst for blood? And you could simply make a gate that is only openable from one side and just leave someone by the entrance incase it closes behind the visitors.

On the Bandits: If I was a succesful bandit leader though, I would want to move around and stay under the radar of the guards the best I can. But I guess in these times the guards are already occupied with civil war and dragons, so I guess it would work to remain in a single stronghold for a longer time.

Other than that I see your point and I don't really have anything more to add.

 

[SajuukKhar]

snip

-That's sort of the point, your not supposed to know what exactly The Thalmor are doing, but there are various books, quips by NPCs, and general acts by them do let you in on what it is exactly they are trying to accomplish.

Both Esbern and Ancanno make mention of them wanting to end the world, and the dossiers at the Thalmor Embassy sow they are helping both sides of the civil war in order to keep it going.

but if you really want the full plan spoiled, here it is, as stated by Michael Kirkbride, one of TES's lore writer

Spoiler

What appears to be an Altmeri commentary on Talos:

To kill Man is to reach Heaven, from where we came before the Doom Drum's iniquity. When we accomplish this, we can escape the mockery and long shame of the Material Prison.

To achieve this goal, we must:

1) Erase the Upstart Talos from the mythic. His presence fortifies the Wheel of the Convention, and binds our souls to this plane.

2) Remove Man not just from the world, but from the Pattern of Possibility, so that the very idea of them can be forgotten and thereby never again repeated.

3) With Talos and the Sons of Talos removed, the Dragon will become ours to unbind. The world of mortals will be over. The Dragon will uncoil his hold on the stagnancy of linear time and move as Free Serpent again, moving through the Aether without measure or burden, spilling time along the innumerable roads we once travelled. And with that we will regain the mantle of the imperishable spirit.

-Draugr dont normally attack family members.

-Moving around constantly makes having a safe place to fall back to hard, and it makes it hard to stash your loot. If you are really successful, you need a single place to hoard the stuff you get.