@@Darkworldwolf the thieves guild in skyrim chastises you if you kill a person. They literally tell you that you suck and you get no money. The only time you get to kill is with Mercer frey
The Thieve's Guild isn't a Thieve's Guild. It's basically a mafia that works under Maven. Which is fine tbh, but I think it would've been more interesting if they separated the actual Thieve's Guild / Nightingale Cult from the Black-Briar Mobsters into two separate factions, but still kept them vaguely connected.
It's a small detail, but I liked how random NPCs would say "shadow hide you" in Oblivion. It really made me feel like I was part of a secret cabal with members everywhere. Skyrim's Thieves Guild felt less secretive, more like an organised crime faction supporting corrupt businesses, which like you say was far less fun to be part of. I can't help but have affection for Brynjolf, though. It's the accent I think.
Yep. In one hand I liked that in Skyrim they were more of a crime organization and not a group of Robin Hood wannabies, but then again I didn't like that in Skyrim the thieves guild was a group of ruthless common thugs, when in Oblivion the had at least some class.
the Thieves Guild is different i every provinces. In Morrowind, they were much more public, and widely viewed through a more cultural and political lens than just a bunch of criminals. They were challengers to the outlander-hating Camona Tong, and so more tolerated by the Empire. In Oblivion, they were more of an anti-establishment Robinhood-esq group who protected Cyrodiil’s poor. Eso's seems like a mix of the oblivion and morrowind thieves guild. We have comments about how the thieves guild overall limits the crime in hammerfell, stopped the slave trade and the trade of scuma and most of the dailies and heist are about steeling from deadric cults and stealing stuff that has already been stolen and returning it. But then there are quest about harrasing people that don't pay their dues and pick pocket random people just to cause a commotion
Skyrim NPC dialogue is kind of a shitshow. Same npc can say contradicting things and trigger dialogue that shouldnt. I went into College of winterhold ONCE to have the enchanter enchant my gear, and already the guards around the world triggered "ah you are the mage from the college" despite not joining the college.
Oblivion thieves guild: Rob homes and castles of their valuables Skyrim thieves guild: go run some dungeons lol. here's a radiant quest to press e on a ledger.
Oblivion Thieves guild master: A Count wearing the gray cowl of nocturnal. Skyrim Thieves guild master: A stupid incompetent thief that forgot there´s a master lockpick open spell, on sale.
Skyrim's homes and castles barely even have anything worth robbing. A bit of gold, some potions and a few display cases with items worse than the ones you already have.
I agree, there should have been a optional quest like that for the Thieves Guild, The Companions, and The College. Being able to be the ultimate Hero/Villain of your dreams
"Kill Maven Black-Briar" could have shown up in either Civil War finale. For the good guys, they determine she's a dangerous criminal, and have you put her down. And for the Stormcloaks, they determine she's a dangerous criminal, and have you put her down. Or the Thalmor get pissed that she thinks she's on level with them, and you hand-gift her to the Thalmor for torture. Come to think of it, with as much of a bitch as she is, how has no one put a bounty on her, or got the Dark Brotherhood after her?
Shadow Freddy Well, it has been said that she’s got close ties with the Brotherhood, but honestly I don’t know what’s really stopping anyone. And the Thalmor, too. She was SO pretentious at Elenwen’s party, “power respects power,” as if her little meadery could even compare to the Dominion lmao
Imo every guild should have a rival guild. Some even had that but they weren't joinable. Like the silver hand. I mean killing werewolves? That doesn't seem very evil. It's like vampire hunters. And some kind of necromancer guild as rival to the college/mages guild. And with Mjoll there should have been a questline to destroy the thieves guild or at least some other rival thieves but they're more stealing to help the unfortunate rather than be mafia/thugs
The only bad thing about the Silver Hand is that they're essentially little more than bandits with a special name. I'd be able to like them more if they didn't attack anybody and everybody on sight, as they do to the player whether or not you're a werewolf or even in the Companions.
I SO agree with you! It annoys me that the game forces me to become a member of the Mages College if I want to learn expert+ level spells, for example. I would love to be able to join the Silver Hand, or take down the Thieves Guild, or play as a lone necromancer or hedge witch and still be able to learn higher level spells, or at least have another option to get them other than rare, random loot drops. For that matter, why do I have to join the fighter’s guild if I want to be a werewolf? And how is it the Companions think they’re honorable when they /eat people/?!? If I want to play as an honorable, Paladin-type character, 3/4 of the faction quests are problematic at best, or downright out of character, and the last one is geared toward mages, not warriors. Just having opposing factions that the player can join would (potentially) fix a lot of role-playing issues.
@@chronostc4850 yeah but that's what I mean they had the faction ready but made them just bandits who were somehow fond of torturing/killing werewolves rather than being fleshed out as a faction with a purpose and history
@@spoinlar yeah man I agree. They say magic is for weaklings and fighting with steel in hand is the only honorable way but if you completely transform into a whole other being it's a blessing and doesn't qualify as magic. Like what!?!?
The companions was boring and I really wish you could’ve gathered evidence that they were werewolves and show it to the jarl which would lead to you joining the silver hand and getting a little group to kill off the companions. It would’ve even been cooler if you exposed them and the whole time shunned them and stuff like that
Oblivion actually MADE you be a thief. You needed to fence stolen goods to progress through the storyline. In contrast, Skyrim didn’t make you do much stealing.
Jack - it was even discouraged in a way because you couldn’t sell any stolen items without the perk or joining the thieves guild. And with joining the thieves guild you have one person to sell to until you basically finish the whole guild quest...
I would say, and I say this only because I play the game so much, that in order to be guild master and specifically get the guild master armor you have to complete five missions in all the major holds. You get special missions to complete for each, and after doing all that work it does feel like meaningful progression. There are more merchants and the guild adds members, banners and such. Idk. I personally felt it was fleshed out when you run it to completion.
One of the problems I had was that your character was forced to swear an oath to serve Nocturnal in the afterlife, even if your character serves other Daedric Princes and gods. My Dragonborn is far too accomplished to be sitting around an old crypt for an eternity after he dies.
That’s it Avarti, I told you if you went after my boy Brynjolf again I’d have to beat you up. 3 o’clock tomorrow, behind school and bring your lunchbox
I wish there was an alternate path to the thieves guild where you team up with Mjoll and go all vigilante hero and shit on the guild and the Black Briars, taking down Riften's criminal underworld.
@@Hektols I’ve only recently started using mods. Still trying to figure out the Xbox one search. What’s the name of the mod you’re talking about and who is the author?
@@XDeadxSpawnx The mod is Taking Care of Business Redux, by Mordivier. It's here among other mods for the Thieves Guild: thebestmods.com/skyrim/skyrim-thieves-guild-mods
Simple answer it didn't make you feel like a thief you're more of a hired thug than anything else the radiant quests were more Thief based than anything else. Oblivion the thieves guild made u feel like a thief and the grey fox at the end of it all.
@Rosario Manorang Manik "all kinds of crimes excluding the muder" You can kill Aringoth,the golden glow mercenaries,Hamelyn,Gulum-Hei,The guards of the East Empire Company Warehouse,The guards of the Laboratory of Calcemo and to Aicantar and there will be no consequences And I know that killing them is optional, but you can still kill them and there will be no consequences.
Rosario Manorang Manik He’s saying that there are no consequences to killing anyone you clod. What’s the point of creeping around like a cockroach when it’s actually easier and faster to run in and murder everyone with a battle axe?
I think Skyrim suffers the problem that most factions are deteriorated and on the verge of ruin. Thieves Guild-can barely hold control over their own city they’re based in Dark Bros-1 of only 2 sanctuaries in the entire continent and ends with only a half dozen members remaining and the night mother. Blades- totally destroyed and only 2 members with no incentive to rebuild it College of Winterhold-only a few students and teachers located in the ice boonies Imperials-lost a huge war and on the verge of total collapse Companions-a group that has no baring on the rest of the Provence, basically just glorified mercenaries with werewolves thrown in. As much as I like Skyrim the factions within just don’t have that same grand and imposing feeling to them. The closest I feel to how they should be is when you fully restore the thieves guild, allowing you to bribe and have power over the guards in all the holds. Sure it’s great to have a small group and build it to a large force to be feared but it’s annoying when almost every faction has the same problems.
Yep. It's a massive problem because with oblivion you can see the faction decline and then you can get it better than even before. Either the factions were more... Glorious.
I feel like Skyrim was rushed. There's so many plot threads and quests that go nowhere. I love Skyrim, don't get me wrong, but it's riddled with issues.
@@opticalraven1935 it was rushed for the release date. Just look at the cut content , there are entire questlines cut. The civil war became basic gang fight. And so on.
Sadly yes. It feels almost stupid how much wasted potential Skyrim had. Then again I doubt that Skyrim was rushed to release, as in Bethesda's fashion they announced it very close to the release date.
They could have made that clear decay a focus of the story, to show how the once mighty empire and the powerful organizations that thrived during its prime have fallen from grace. But it fails to show the glorious past in order to acknowledge that loss.
Runs around killing dragons and gets reckognised as am honourable member of the Companions or a Wizard by the guards He laddie, never did an honest day of work for all that gold you are carrying......
I’d say killing people and mythical creatures isn’t technically honest work. It’s just you happen upon a bandit camp and proceed to send them to the planes of oblivion.
The worst part of that line from Brynolf is with the kind of culture described in Skyrim publicly accusing someone of being dishonest is the same as accusing them of having an unnatural relationship with their mother, a fight will start.
My character was a homeless bum, was not carrying any gold because i never did an honest day of work ever. Now that i think about it, wtf “honest work” is there to do in Skyrim?
Sad thing is, when I first started playing the Thieves Guild, I thought that the devs had finally taken it into an ideal direction. They were no longer some jolly band of loveable rogues and Robin Hood wannabes, they were a full-on Mafia organization who made most of their income not necessarily by stealing things, but by running protection rackets, fronting illegal operations behind legitimate business, and rubbing shoulders with the local power players. And they weren't very nice either; they were hardened criminals who could and would do some really scummy stuff to get what they wanted. That's something that I prefer from my fictional crooks. Having them be sympathetic or outright heroic only really works if the ruling government is itself a corrupt and/or evil entity, but since that was clearly not the case in Oblivion, I never can really buy into the impression that a guild of thieves could ever be righteous. More like it's something they just tell themselves to justify or romanticize their immoral actions. But that's neither here nor there, because the Skyrim Thieves Guild got stupid real quick and ended on a boneless note that made me feel like I got conned. The Oblivion Guild, for all its trappings not being to my taste, has by far a better story, quest, and ending, and which does a better job at making you feel like a thief who got the last laugh on a Daedric Prince.
Agree with you on everything. I too loved that in Skyrim it was a proper crime syndicate, not some group of anti-hero vigilanties. The problem with *every single* faction in Skyrim was that they had great ambigion for the climax, but they just rushed straight in. Wasted potential in every faction.
What the hell? That's exactly what's wrong with just about every faction in Skyrim. E.g. the Dark Brotherhood. You go almost straight to being literally the highest ranking member in the guild and killing the emperor, after doing *one* proper assassination. There is no sense of progressing through the ranks, they're just shallow as hell. The same goes for the College of Winterhold and Thieves Guild. They're short let-downs and the anti-climactic, because there is no climax, what should've been the climax of the questline IS the whole questline.
@@paistinlasta1805 You're joking right? Or are you just being disingenuous? There at least half a dozen proper assassinations before the player even finds out about the contract on the emperor. Then there are about a dozen more before the player actually gets to fulfill the contract. Then there are the assassinations themselves, which in Oblivion usually had optional objectives that the showed how the game wanted you to do them, and you would get penalized if you did them another way, this reduced the choices available to the player (aka "depth") and made the quests far more shallow as a result. Skyrim changed the optional objectives to be extra things you could do, while letting the player have the option to approach both the initial contract and the optional objectives in a wide variety of ways.
I feel like Skyrim's Thieves' Guild makes a lot of sense for being how it is though. Riften is a broken down, corrupt shithole of a city, and as a result it's not farfetched to think a bunch of bad people who don't know much of anything about what the Guild really is would take power eventually and exploit the already established networks the Guild has. There's a lot of shady folk in Riften even without the Guild, and when society in general is kind of somewhat falling apart as it is in Skyrim, I think it does seem possible that a local chapter could lose its way in what other chapters may strive to be, going from a guild that fancies itself as a group of Robin Hoods to a guild that fancies itself exactly what the name suggest, a guild of larceny-loving-low-lives. I dunno, it never seemed like the Guild was RUINED or anything, it just felt like Skyrim's local chapter just... was like that, and that the Guild isn't like something like the Mage's or Fighter's Guilds where the goals may be similar across provinces because they're official, important, imperial-sanctioned organizations, the Thieves' Guild has always been pretty autonomous between chapters, only sharing a name at most. While yeah, I'll admit it was kinda lame, it fit Riften and the state of various other crumbling guilds across Skyrim as well.
Not to mention that it seems everyone who has played Morrowind and Oblivion has to cry about how lacking Skyrim is. I agree this guild fit the city it was in. My only complaint is that there was not more (or any) interaction between the guild and the beggars.
@@windowsVD Well yes, but actually no. Skyrim is pretty watered down compared to older games, and Bethesda has gotten shit for Skyrim ever since launch. The criticism isn't new and it's entirely valid. However, there are also legitimate defenses for the game and certain aspects of it, such as the guild being how it is. The Thieves' Guild questline still isn't great, and TES has a problem in general where after you finish a guild's questline there isn't really anything more to it, but it being how it is does at least make sense lorewise and compared to where it is.
To be fair, the Companions, the Dark Brotherhood, and the Thieves guild had all been corrupted from within. The Mages College was very nearly taken over or destroyed by Ancano, and will probably blow itself up anyway. The Blades remain true to their cause, but won't get on with the times and are probably facing their final days. Now the real question is, "is every faction in the game being corrupt or doomed intentional on Bethesda's part?" *Puts on Alex Jones hat*
@@worcestershirey Oh I don't disagree that there are some valid criticisms against Skyrim's guilds, and I know some fans have had problems with it from the start, but there has been this hyperbolic bandwagoning against Skyrim that has increased ever since Fallout 76 came out. Clickbait titles like this along with more and more people claiming that Skyrim isn't an RPG at all or that the game wouldn't have been successful without mods is ridiculous. There's room to argue over the game's merits as an RPG compared to previous TES games, but claiming that Skyrim is literally not an RPG is silly and the game was already the most successful game in the series even more Bethesda released the modding tools.
Skyrim theme is "the end of time", that's why everything is downgraded, I mean everything is not as what they were before. - Dark Brotherhood isn't the real guild anymore, just a group of murderers - College of Winterhold is just group of mages who want to stay away from the peoples who hate magic - Thief Guild is just a broken gang of crooks and criminals do anything illegal - The Companions is just a hired sword and werewolves Everything is ruined because it is the end of time, the end of the world. But it being presented badly
@@Gelato41_ Yes, and it is the end of Bethesda creative world building, funny because they can make Fallout 3 but not doing the same with Skyrim. Greed totally consume them now...
I think the end of the world theory perfectly fits in. Just see Imperial Empire, how it was in Oblivion and Skyrim. Skyrim's Imperial are just shadow of what it was in Oblivion. They just execute people on basis of suspense. They knew at the start of the game that the dragonborn wasn't a thief or stormclock at the start of the game but still send him to the chopping board. They couldn't defeat the Thalmor in the great war and had to sell out Hammerfel to the Thalmor but Hammerfel on it's own defended itself from Thalmor.
I actually loved the Morrowind questline the best. You had a secret hideout under a shop, partnering with an abolitionist movement with the twin lamps, special "right the wrong" missions, the skeleton key was the end reward--not the sacrifice, and there was a genuine tension between them and the fighters guild where you had to choose who you ultimately supported. The only thing that sucked about it was the higher-level quest givers were located behind about 6 loading screens lol. But mark and recall solved that the first go through.
And you can make it work by being in Thieves Guild and Fighter’s Guild. Which all you had to do, is to overthrow the Fighter’s Guild Master by challenging him in a Duel in Vivec Arena.
I guess I'm one of those goody two shoes who would rather root out the thieves guild with Mjoll than actually join. Not that I haven't. Yes, the thieves guild is evil. Or at least they don't have anyone's good but their own at heart. I do wish there was a Destroy the Thieves Guild mission, or at least that you could reform them into something better. I did grow attached to some of these people, but in the end you have your nightingale cohort saying that your victory will lead to the greatest crime spree that Skyrim has ever seen. You are not good people.
You could argue that the Thieves Guild isn't either a good or a bad faction. You could argue for the sake of immersion that the Guild helps both sides of the law. Although it's implied that guards end up in the Guild's pocket out of fear rather then than being paid... I like to think the Guild would gift the guards and potentially the Jarls with tribute now and again. Guards provide more for their families and the Hold's Treasury is better of by a sum.
@@TheLukey27 I often roleplay it as my character planning to reform the guild into a spy organization. Not just stealing goblets and stuff, but stealing enemy information.
Honestly...I really hated Morrowind and Oblivion's Thieves Guild--mainly because it doesn't feel like a Thieves Guild. It felt like your typical Robin Hood's merry band. Skyrim's Thieves Guild felt the closest to being cutthroat like it should, but even then it felt too soft. I couldn't help but roll my eyes when we tell Mercer "The difference is I have honor". Bullshit, you're stealing from defenseless old women as part of your regular contracts and extorting innocent people. Trying to act like the good guy during the Thieves Guild questline is just stupid and ruins any sense of roleplaying. Being a thief isn't about "being evil", it's about making money. But when you've chosen to become a thief and to become wealthy at the expense of others, you are making an evil choice. You've chosen to cast aside any sense of morality and principles for your own selfish gain. Trying to claim some moral high ground while doing this is just ridiculous. It would be equally ridiculous to join the Fighters Guild or Companions and try to add "evil options". And again, while they handled the whole Mercer Frey thing badly, there's still plenty of reason to go after him. He did just stab you in the back, steal from you, and basically screw you over. Whether it's revenge or getting everything back, you have all the reason to hunt him down. Personally? I think the Dark Brotherhood and Dawnguard handled it best. Here's the evil route for this questline and here's the good route instead of trying to justify being a hero in an evil faction. I wish they'd add something like that for all non-neutral factions. Maybe something where you help Mjoll expose the Thieves Guild if you want to be a hero.
Honestly there should be a post mercer quest line that appears after you become grand master thief, which has you on a split choice of either working with Maven to expand her influence across Skyrim utilizing the thieves guild at it's best, OR work to undermine and destroy Maven Black-brier's influential power and eventually ending the questline with her Family's name ruined and powerless, and Maven held within Cidna Mine The With Maven route basically continues the kind of quests that the early Thieves Guild had, destroying specific property, sabotaging potential rivals and threats and setting up new Thieve guild hide-outs in the other Holds, eventually making the other cities fall more inline alongside Riften. The Against Maven route instead has us work to make the Skyrim Thieves guild independent from Maven, and to destroy her families reputation, influential power and monopoly of the market, with the eventual 'Maven free' Riften becoming larger, housing a bustling market place outside it's walls allowing plentiful of new merchants to trade with 'aka sell to, and steal from' Both quest paths would reward a similar outcome, but the difference would be the With Maven route leading to a more spread out increase of venders in towns and cities with a discount, MEANWHILE the Against Maven route would lead into a more concentrated increase of Venders in/outside Riften, basically the outer walls of Riften becomes a settlement of it's own as a large Marketplace, allowing an easily accessible abundance of venders to trade and sell with, alongside a satisfying visual upgrade to Riften.
Ever hear the phrase, "honor among theives"? Honour among thieves is the concept that criminals do not compromise the criminal activities of other criminals. It can also mean that even corrupt or criminal individuals can follow some form of code of honour, moral, justice, or ethics for the benefit of everyone involved or implicated. I admit, the beginning of the questline could have done better to represent this theme, but once the ball is rolling, the theme is very prevalent.
>Let's cut the part of the Thieves Guild questline that actually let's you shut it down, despite a quest-essential NPC and the Jarl's housecarl both telling the character they want to take it out. >What's that? We have some extra space on the disk? Eh, whatever, add a maze underneath the mages' college or something.
I really liked Skyrim’s thieves’ guild due to the revenge plot line. I really felt betrayed when Mercer backstabs you and I spent the rest of the storyline in anticipation to make that bastard pay for crossing me and betraying my friends in the guild
I like a revenge plotline like the next guy but I must say it was poorly written here. You barely get to know the guy before he backstabs you. As a gray mane says in Whiterun, there's no more bitter enemy than an old friend. And I wouldn't consider myself and Mercer friends before the point he betrays the player. You feel me?
"friends in the guild" you mean the people who do nothing but shit talk like everyone else in Skyrim? regardless of what you've achieved? yeah. Morrowind had ridiculously hostile NPCs, then Oblivion made it's NPCs more realistic and less vitriolic, then Skyrim went back to the "I'm so cool and realistic because I'm an asshole" trope.
@@sigalius Sigalius Mýricantur Laugh all you want, but I thought it was well-written to paint Skyrim's TG as filled with jaded, world-weary higher-ups who were extremely skeptical of the player's success and enthusiasm due to Mercer's shenanigans having beaten the life out of the guild for 25 years. It makes sense that Delvin and Vex are so brooding as compared to the younger Tonilia who is more preoccupied with running a business and her boyfriend than trying to make things better. Brynjolf is younger than the others (I always thought he was about 30 while Vex and Delvin were both approaching 50) and still remains an idealist, as shown by his hasty recruit of you and other thieves as implied by dialogue. The guild's overall attitude, including how each character deals with the stress of working in a dying institution, seems both believable and realistic.
@Avarti - I'm surprised you didn't notice: The Skyrim Thieves Guild Questline is a Copy & Paste of The Skyrim Dark Brotherhood Questline. 1. Both organizations are in the dirt, struggling to get by, until the Dragonborn arrives. 2. Astrid & Mercer betray their own organizations that they are the leader of. 3. Nocturne & Mother praise you for returning their organizations back to the right path, now they will flourish. 4. You become the leader of both. The only differences - you're recruited by Brynolf instead of Mercer. Thieves guild doesn't lose their base unlike the DB. Cicero is the final boss instead of Astrid, whereas Mercer is the final boss. But the similarities between them cannot be denied. Bethesda got lazy with these two groups. In previous TES games, both organizations are vastly different in how they lead the PC along. In Skyrim, they clearly didn't care.
Final mission for Oblivion Thieves Guild: Steal an Elder Scroll from the Imperial Palace itself. The whole thing is designed with stealth in mind, and can be completed without much combat. Makes you feel like the greatest thief that has ever lived. Final mission for Skyrim Thieves Guild (excluding the 2 conclusion missions that just wrap things up): Generic Falmer dungeon (which admittedly can be stealthed), ending with a forced battle with Frey. You can't stealth kill him, you have to talk to him and then fight. The final quest is a boss battle. Doesn't make you feel like an accomplished thief. You didn't earn leadership by being the best thief in Skyrim, you earned it by beating the shit out of and killing the previous boss. The generic radiant quests required more skill at thievery than the main quest. You could probably complete the main quest (the end quest especially) with no stealth skills at all.
One RUclipsr actually beat the entire Thieve’s Guild questline without stealing anything. The only crimes he committed were one trespassing and one lock picked.
Skyrim was my First Elder Scrolls game. I quite enjoyed the Thieves guild quest line. Though the Fetch quests were tedious. I just wish that they would have put in the option to destroy the Thieves guild as they did with the Dark Brotherhood. You could have still went after the Skeleton Key , say you opt to destroy them. Then a week or so later Karliha shows up when you sleep. Thanks you for killing Mercer then tasks you with finding the key.
In Skyrim's questline, you didn't really do a whole lot of thieving for being in the Thieves Guild. Felt more just like a criminal thug than a thief. In Oblivion, the guild would not let you progress further into the questline until you'd fenced x amount of gold in stolen goods, so you could prove you were actually a capable thief. I guess it just comes down to a matter of perspective, since Skyrim's is a lot more hard crime and mafia type of stuff, but I just generally prefer the more romantic kind of thievery. Steal from the rich, give to the poor, I love that corny shit.
I suspect the removal of the stolen goods requirement was either a decision made by Bethesda or fan complaints because they had to level pickpocketing and hated being caught and sent to jail, which reduced your stats based on how big your bounty was.
Reminds me of my problem with Morrowind's Morong Tong and the Dark Brotherhood in Oblivion, at least in part. One of the things that I Iiked about the Morong Tong was that you hunted criminals, or could take "Grey Writs". This let you be a noble or heroic assassin instead of a cold-blooded murderer, if you wanted. What I liked about Olivion vs. Skyrim is based out of this same concept. In Oblivion the Thieves Guild could act as a better moral option for steath players. In Skyrim your given no better moral option. Your either a thug for the mob, or a professional hitman. Both were decent story arcs; but, as a stealth player who prefers being the hero, I didn't appreciate being shoehorned into a "bad guy" role by the guild quests.
The problem with Skyrim really comes down to its theme. In Oblivion, the theme was 'chaos'. Oblivion gates were everywhere, no road was safe, and people used this to further their own agendas from the Mages Guild to the Dark Brotherhood. A land in chaos is a great theme for a world and has been used to great effect. Your role in the world is to help each faction achieve their goals and change the world, for better or worse. The theme in Skyrim is 'broken'. The land is divided, all of the guilds are broken (or dealing with something broken from the past such as The Companions and Wuuthrad and the breaking of the Werewolf curse), and the entire world is near collapse due to an ancient dragon coming back from a broken timeline. Your role in the world is to fix everything-to make it whole or to ensure its complete collapse. Either way, the players role is to shape the world moving towards the future. There are only so many ways such a story can be told, and you don't have a chance to explore and discover in such a setting as you could a theme of 'chaos' (or the multiple themes in play during Arena, Daggerfall, and Morrowind where there is no one central theme). Ultimately, I think the best way to handle a Guild and world storyline is to divorce the two and keep each of their goals and purposes separate, but playing in the same world, where one can affect the other, but not all share the same theme or move towards the same ultimate end, only serving to set up the world for the next games' lore.
Title: *has "ruined" in all caps* Video: "not that skyrim's guild is awful" Bruh... Edit: it's at 69 likes, whoever gives the next like shall have his name written on my hitlist lol
@@Jysyncyt I'm not debating whether it was good or not (it was meh), I'm pointing out how this guy has describes the guild in Skyrim as "ruining" for the legacy of they thieves' guild in the older games but then at the start he says "it's not that bad". Like c'mon, has it ruined the thrive guild or is it not that bad? Two polar opposite ways to describe the guild in Skyrim.
Karliah: We need to sell our souls to Nocturnal so she can give us power to defeat Mercer! Dragonborn: I don't want to sell my soul, but if there's no choice the I must do it **After selling your soul** Dragonborn: So, how I use my new power? Karliah: Oh, no no, after we defear Mercer Frey she will give us the power
@@TainoBoriken911 Also it annoyed the hell out of me that you are made the most important person in DB hirearcy at like the first fith of the questline. Also it goes to killing the emperor just as fast. Honestly the DB in Skyrim had such potential. It had great ambiguity with killing the emperor but it just rushed to it. You did one assasination (those "kill 3 random npc:s" are not frigging assassinations) before you was announced the listeren and sent to kill the emperor, wheras in Oblivion you did 20 assassination before the questline progressed any futher. 20 assassinations, each with more depth than the whole questline in skyrim.
Paistin Lasta Problem with Bethesda is they always brag about taking their time to do their games, but we can see they’re full of it. The next elder scrolls game might suffer the same fate unless they learned their lesson with fallout 76.
The Skeleton Key is just...disappointing. Oh, a lockpick that never breaks? I already have several hundred lockpicks, so...uhhh...no thanks. Even Clavicus Vile's Mask is more useful.
Yeah, I didn't like Skyrim's Thieves' Guild either. Ironically for the reasons why others enjoyed them. Beating up old ladies for protection money wasn't my thing while pulling heists, smuggling contraband in and out areas, helping to set up legit businesses to wash goods acquired by the guild, etc. would have been my thing for a thief character. That's probably the biggest dilemma for designing a Thieves' Guild. Which criminal archetype are we going to represent? Will the archetype we pick be able to satisfy everyone that wants to play their version of a thief character? What I think would have worked better would have been to split the Thieves' Guild into multiple factions vying for control of Skyrim's underworld and we decide which one comes out on top. That way we all get the Thieves' Guild we want. There were also missed opportunities with the Thieves' Guild. Like think about the Riften Orphanage. Imagine the Thieves' Guild pulling a stunt that gives them the deed to orphanage. Then they start making an effort to put all the orphaned children around Skyrim in that orphanage. Children that were starving and freezing on the street, or were being abused by the previous owner, aren't anymore. People find it harder to believe that the people helping these orphans are these supposed criminals, decide to put them on the bottom of their list because they are keeping things stable and aren't drawing attention, etc.
Even Morrowind had two different factions for every playstyle. There were two warrior-based factions in Morrowind, not just one: House Redoran and The Fighter's Guild. The mage-based factions were House Telvanni and The Mage's Guild. The religious-based factions were The Tribunal Temple and The Imperial Cult. The thief-based factions were House Hlaalu (sort of) and the Thieves Guild.
As a player who first began with skyrim and now is playing the oblivion thieves guild, i confirm your thoughts. Your points are absolutely correct, and i also have a personal reason for why it fails in Skyrim. You see, a common theme in Skyrim questlines, is that you are looked down upon by absolutely everyone, your skills are downgraded, which ONLY changes once you finnish the whole questline. In oblivion, yes you are kind of looked down upon at the start, but as your status grows, people speak to you different. You actually feel like your actions have effect. Whereas, in skyrim, while you do get some level of appreciation from some members complimenting you on "what you did", it doesn't feel meaningful because as you do larger and larger missions, that dialogue stays the same. There is no effect.
Also in Oblivion you were punished for killing. In Skyrim, you can literally kill every mercenary at Goldenglow and the person who wins it with no penalty.
Frl, you can absolutely just brute force your way through it in Skyrim. I swear i saw a video of someone killing all the outdoor mercenaries at Goldenglow, reviving them with the Ritual Stone, and charging the estate with an army of the undead You don't have to be a good thief to excel in the Skyrim Thieves Guild
You are 100% correct. Oblivion's thieves guild was this mysterious band of strangers and beggars. It was so big that you didn't even know if someone walking right past you was affiliated. The ranking system was clear as you would be introduced to new superiors as you took on more challenging robberies. By the end of the questline (and it took awhile to get there) you finally undergo The Ultimate Heist. And it FELT like a truly ultimate heist. All the quests leading up to it made sense and you still had this sense of confusion like why am I doing all these specific jobs now and after you steal the final target you face the biggest twist imaginable. So much more memorable than the thieves guild in Skyrim. Super predictable way too short in general, and the ratway was such a cool idea but fell short I think. Something about it felt so boring. I guess there should be more people and liveliness. It felt small and uninhabited - even more so than the rest of Skyrim. The entire game and all its cities should be upscaled by about 3-4x at least. In fact I think all the guilds fell short compared to Oblivion's the guilds are the heart of the game
I am with you that Oblivion's Thieve's guild had a much more interesting plot line. I also agree that I don't feel as noble as I did in Oblivion. Times have changed and the moral compass of most people has slid into a set of values that Skyrim reflects. There was a higher standard and more self sacrifice in our culture even 25 years ago, and Skyrim suffers from "it's okay to play dirty with others as long as they are not part of your perceived clan" rather than do unto others as you would have them do unto you, no matter who they are. Who are the bad guys? The line grows dimmer each decade.
@@misterkid skyrim isnt a game for immersion.. you either play vanilla which is completely pointless for immersion you play slightly modded which is slightly better or you play heavily modded which wastes time.
Oblivion: "Here, go steal an Elder Scroll and here's a Daaedric artifact that basically gives you a second identity and you become a literal thief God." Skyrim: "Here, go do some menial tasks and then go chase some guy who stole from the Guild and your reward will be hanging out in a dingy cave in the afterlife in service of a Daedric prince that hardly gives a fuck about you."
Morrowind Thieves Guild: 🎵”Oh you got to pick a pocket or two.🎵 Oblivion Thieves Guild: 🎶”We’re men, manly men, in tights, tight tights, we’re going around protecting the people’s rights”🎶 Skyrim Thieves Guild: “Where’s ma money, you gonna give me ma money? WHERE’S MA MONEY?!”
The final real mission in Skyrim is to do a dungeon crawl with some slight puzzles. The final mission in Oblivion is to secretly infiltrate the White Gold Tower itself and steal an elder scroll. 'nough said.
Oh man, it's not even a real question... Oblivion's Thieve's guild quest was WAY better than Skyrim's! Oblivion had an epic... and I mean EPIC... heist at the end for none other than an actual Elder Scroll! It was cool to see how all the former quests that you had done prepared you for this monumental quest. And I remember things like having to be REALLY precise with a bow and arrow that I'd only get one shot with! These crazy details stick out even though it's been over a decade since I played it. I enjoy the Skyrim Thieves Guild quest, and I play it often... but it's mostly because it's fun to be a thief in Skyrim since the sneaking mechanics are a little better and the world is incredible to be in. But for sure, it's predictable as hell, and aside from a few cool moments, (my duel to the death with Mercer Frey inside a forgotten ruin on top of an enormous snow-elf statue), it's easy to just write it off as enjoyable... not memorable.
For everyone complaining why there is no option to destroy the Thieves Guild, there is a pretty simple reason for that. If you do the main quest in Skyrim you have to find Esbern at one point and you have to ask the Thievs Guild cause they know the ratway very well. If they would give you the option to destroy the Thieves Guild they would have to make a change to the Main quest as well. So the way they did it was just the cheaper solution.
Aside from like the first quest, oblivions thieves guild actually was benefitted from being stealthy, and the ability to actually be able to steal shit, Skyrim I swear was just dungeon crawling for 90% of their quests. And was more focused on a revenge mission than ecalating heists. You can just walk and fight through all of Skyrims thrives guild with literally no repercussions. I feel like Skyrims tone of being alot more immoral wasn't the issue, just their obsession with walking into the 50th draugr ruin.
skyrims thieves guild is its only in depth faction in my opinion. with the other guilds you become leader almost immediately after joining, but with the thieves guild you have to work to become guild master. even after mercer dies and the skeleton key was returned to the sepulchre, you still have to restore the guild to its former glory before you become the guild master. until then, brynjolf acts as a temporary leader of the guild. thats why i like the guild so much.
I already knew Mercer was gonna be the villain before he left me for dead. I knew this because of his lines when he was fighting enemies with me. “I’ve defeated legions before you!” seriously that sounds like what a villain would say.
I hope in TES VI, the final Thieves' Guild questline gives you the task of stealing the Cowl back from Sheogorath, assigned to you by Nocturnal. Because the Cowl was last eorn by the Hero of Kvatch, the Cowl wold later be in Sheogorath's possession, and Nocturnal doesn't exactly know how he got it. Sheogorath would create a challenge that if she "steals" it from him, she would have it back. Knowing that he would always win these mind games, she sends a poor sap, such as yourself to overthink a plan to steal it. The quest gives you plenty of leads to investigate, but ultimately leads you nowhere. Like for example, stealing a scroll from a daedra worshipper that supposedly sends you to the Shivering Isles, but instead sends you to the Evergloam. The true solution is to make a replica of it, claim that you're the Gray Fox and then start some shit. Sheogorath will tell you and Nocturnal that they had always had the Cowl the whole time in a condescending, smug manner.
Yeah, you basically have to accumulate a high enough bounty across the entire province while wearing the Cowl. And when you take it off, even right in front of them, the guards can't make the connection that you and the Grey Fox are the same person, just like what the original cowl could do.
I think one way the thieves guild questline could have been better is if they would have explored the skeleton key's ability to open non tangible locks a bit more. It is alluded to that the skeleton key doesn't just unlock any physical lock, but can also unlock those in your mind. but then when we fight mercer this feeling is completely gone. through Irkngthand we see mercer effortlessley sneak kill multiple falmer and even push over a freaking tower to block the way. it would have been interesting if for example you made it to the statue only to find that the eyes of the falmer where already gone. now you have to backtrack through a whole new area of Irkngthand all the while mercer stalks you. out of the shadows a sudden paralyze spell incapacitates Brynjolf and so Karliah and you continue alone. then a sudden arrow strikes out of nowhere and karliah is left wounded. Towers fall down as you pass them and boulders come loose from the ceiling without there being any type of tripwire or pressure plate. sometimes you'll get damaged out of nowhere which is Mercer striking from the shadows. If you turn around quick enough you can just see mercer fading into the shadows. at the end of the path you find Mercer getting ready to leave with the eyes but his pride just overtakes him and he must accept your challenge. now an epic battle begins where mercer activates more hidden traps as you fight. he clones himself with the power of the skeleton key and he even summons falmer and dwemer constructs that act as if Mercer himself is not even there. The shadows themselves attack you as if they are controlled by mercer. and then when you finally defeat Mercer it is revealed that you had Nocturnal's favour all along and the only reason you where able to survive mercer's attempts and traps is because she protected you. Then when YOU have the key it could give you three abilities that mimic what mercer did. All these powers could only be activated once a day each as to balance it but they could be as follows, Summon three shadow copies of yourself to aid you in battle enemies in a wide radius cannot see you and fight among them selves for 60 seconds. Summon a trap effect like a falling boulder indoors or an elemental rune explosion outdoors on enemies within a certain radius. This could have made the Key more unique (Granted still not as unique as the cowl but it would have turned the key into more than just: "key that opens any lock....... oh yeah and it gives you super powers which you'll never see but just trust me bro!"). Also i feel like the key itself shouldn't have just been an unbreakable lockpick but more so a literal key that passes every lock check like the key to that lock would (no it wouldn't work on nordic puzzle locks like mercer used it cause that would be a little too OP i think) This all also enables a pseudo alternate ending where keeping the key is worth more than just unbreakable lockpick. They could've even extended it by having spirits of the nightingales attack you periodically if the key is not returned within 5 days. Nocturnal could have even remarked this if you returned the key late by saying something like: "Finally my nightingale returns the key, had a bit of fun I see. Leaving me waiting was a bad idea mortal, but since you returned the key I can see past it just this once. See to it that you follow your duties in a more timely manner next time."
Part of the difference between Oblivion and Skyrim is that the guilds have became way too simplified. Skyrim spoon feeds players into the guilds where Oblivion did a better job making players felt like they discovered them. The theives guild in Skyrim is probably the worst. As soon as you show up in Riften you get offered to join the guild. No mystery, just, "hey want to join the super secret theives guild?"
Skyrim's theives guild lost me when they tried to portray the guild as "honorable Nightingales" when all they do as thieves was ruin honest people's lives in favor of the rich (Maven in particular). Oblivion's thieves guild on the other hand didn't need to cater to Nocturnal to appear honorable. They forbade stealing from the poor and actively helped out the poor. That's why all the beggars in Cyrodil were on their side. Not to mention how Karliah sold Dragonborn and Brynolf's soul to Nocturnal without consent so she could be excused for her shortcommings.
Brajof does mention that killing is bad for business. Giving a more adult reasoning to not murder. But yeah oblivion gud quests where better as they focus on the guild identity more. As you correctly pointed out. The thieves guild are no different then the thousands of bandits we slaughter. But that is a problem with skyrim guilds in general. You get promoted too quickly. It doesn't feel earned.
The worst problem with the Thieves Guild is the conflict. Mercer successfully stole the skeleton key, an artifact that is so much more than just a key. He could unlock or unseal anything material or spiritual. He coupd transcend the plains themselves. Instead, this sod uses the key to steal from his allies and hangs out in the sewers for over twenty years! Mercer Frey is a loser!
My counter thieves guild idea is something along the lines of Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser. Destroy the thieves guild by acting as independents. Do jobs better than they do. Avoid DB assassins that they hire to take you out. Maybe end it by somehow setting up their guild master to take the fall. Quests should be stealth based and not thuggery.
*(Edit:)* With the way you described it, the Skyrim Thieves Guild basically is a fantasy bootleg Mafia, but without all the extra fun and charm of *actual* Mafia's portrayed in other games! And yeah, the Skeleton Key is an old, generic fantasy RPG trope, highly unoriginal compared to the Grey Cowl, so it's no wonder Skyrim's Thieves Guild seemed so bland compared to past games.
Honestly the one thing Skyrim's TG did better *was* being a proper crime syndicate, not a group of romanticized anti-hero vigilantes. But yeah everything else was better in Oblivion.
@@paistinlasta1805 But was it even the "thieves guild"? It honestly was just a mafia, which was already present with Maven in Riften, so the fact that she was affiliated with the thieves guild just never made sense to me cause she wouldn't need them at all. In fact, they should've kept the mafia theme as its own faction, then the thieves guild could have been a rival to that. Makes much more sense than the three storylines they tried to shove into the Skyrim Thieves Guild quests. The three of course being: Nocturnal, Maven, and Thieves Guild operations.
What I hated was I was forced to be a nightingale to complete it. Why didnt I have the choice to turn down the role and maybe have a tougher Mercer Frey fight but give the key to Karliagh or Brienolf and gain a unique buff (I found all nightingales abilities to be kinda useless and their armor sucked as armor)
Oblivion. 1.) You were actually a thief and did thief type things. 2.) You didn't have to sell your soul to a daedra to beat up some dude when you are capable of taking Alduin down. Wtf is up with that?
Well they mostly "changed" the thief guild for the "nightingales", and in a way made it more "nocturnal" centric. Also the retcon of the skeleton key, I mean, it's interesting, yet Nocturnal threw it around in the previous games. I disagree with the "yeah you had to be a thief on the side" because that's what you do the "jobs" to restore the sewers. However those are randomly generated sigh...All in all, Oblivion was about going against Nocturnal ( adaedric prince) while Skyrim was going with nocturnal (so helped by such), I mean, thieves/rogues are supposed to be rebels, so no wonder we prefer Oblivion's questline. As for Morrowind, it was interesting and difficult because there was a war between the thieves' guild and the local thugs: Commona Tong, which was controlled by house Hlaalu. So it was more political, and delicate to complete both fighters guild and thieves guild because of it, but interesting. There was also a "separate" quesline to "help the poors" already. The problem in Skyrim is that starting from becoming a nightingale, it becomes more of an exploration adventure, than an infiltration heist!
I wished that Skyrim expanded more on the Nightingales and made them more interesting. Maybe doing more quests for Nocturnal and defending the Twilight Sepelcur and maybe getting a daedric artifact, like the Ring of Kahjiti( which is shared by Nocturnal and Meridia if I'm not mistaken)
Honestly, partway through I was really interested because it seemed like, yes the guild is more corrupt and less interesting, but it seemed like that was a consequence of Mercer's poor leadership and lack of morality. I thought the guild would slowly become better over time as you returned it to its former glory and Mercer's influence waned, and it would that much more satisfying and exciting... but then that didn't happen.
I feel like they cut it short, like they should have made more quests to bind u with mercer and the thieves guild before u learn about mercer. Kinda to make u feel like u earned being the leader of the thieves guild. but instead it’s like 3 easy quests then u have to hunt mercer and then boom guild master.
Guilds need rules. This is especially true for guilds like the dark brotherhood and the thieves guild. What separates the DB from other murderous groups? The rules and their deity. What separates the thieves guild from thugs? The rules. If I am supposed to steal something and the group is fine with me murdering everyone in my path to steal it without sneaking at all then there is a problem.
One thing I would like to see is maybe a version of these Guilds that evolve with your choices or depending on how you act in a storyline. For instance, for a Thieves Guild questline you could help shape the Guild to be a Robin Hood type where you steal from nobles to give to the poor or you could drive it to be money-hungry where you take more money as being hired thugs to those nobles. It's something I'd like to see in all the guilds or factions, where you help shape the direction in which those guilds grow. Right now it's just linear storylines that wind up with you being the leader of them and only go from A to B.
I always thought it was funny that Brynjolf snd Karliah made such a big deal about how dangerous Mercer Frey was when you’re literally the renowned dragon killer. He’s just some guy.
You also get the skeleton key in oblivion so like already better you also get to steal a fricking elder scroll that's such a pro move nothing can compete
It should have been like morrowinds where if you join the thieves guild once you get to a certain rank in the guild you cant join the fighters guild because you end up killing the fighters guild leaders or vice versa, or how if you joined one of the great houses you couldn't join any others, or how if you joined house telvanni you couldn't join the mages guild, etc. I thought it was dumb how in skyrim you can join the legion but then you can join the dark brotherhood and kill the emperor. They should have had faction wars like legion vs stormcloaks vs dark brotherhood, thieves guild vs mjoll or maybe even thieves guild vs the companions. Would have made the game more interesting and it also means you cant just do everything on one or two playthroughs.
I actually like the degradation of codes of honor and prestige within the guilds. The "End of Days" vibe you get in Skyrim is interesting. I suppose it's my wide-eyed newness as this is my first Elder Scrolls game, but I thoroughly enjoyed the faction quests. I'm not arguing that the story couldn't have been better because, again, I haven't anything to compare it to, but from a thematic standpoint I think the factions are well-fitting, and as someone without any prior experience with the guilds, they're fun to play through. To clarify, I'm not arguing with his points in the slightest, just providing another viewpoint.
I don't wanna join the thieves guild but I have to because I want to collect all the Dragon Shouts and for some BS reason Bethesda decided to lock some behind guild quests for dragonborns who don't want to use magic or be evil.
The quests were mediocre, but some were still surprising. I had no notion we'd end up on a race with mercer Frey to reach the eyes of the falmer, for example. Nor did I expect to find Gallus and Nocturnal herself at the end
Another thing that makes no sense, mercer idolizes the grayfox but their actions are polarized. And in regards to the skeleton key, according to skyrim it's essential for the sepulcher to function.... And yet nocturnal quite happily hands it over to you in oblivion....
I did the thieves guild quest in skyrim only because the fence there has the most money to buy your stuff. I was actually into oblivians thieves quests.
I don't have the effect of nostalgia (unfortunately -maybe I'll give it a try to the IV), but I agree with you, there are many things that are not complete. First: the totally missing incognito of the guild members (you could walk in the city with a guild or even nightingale armor without any trouble) -ok it could be the strange game mechanic anyway, but... the skeleton key should give special, more mysterious quests because as it mentioned in the game it opens not just locks. This leads to my third problem: no real reason why you should "sell" your soul to Nocturnal. Maybe a quest that could reveal more about the origin of the skeleton key and the nightingales could give more answers to this question beyond just beating Mercer.
I would have liked the Thieves' Guild quest giving the player a key choice as to spiritual direction of the guild. Would they be vigilantes secretly righting wrongs, taking from the rich and giving to the poor, or would they be straight up gangstas? That would've been interesting. Assuming the leadership of the guild would have a meaningful impact, and the quests could've been more interesting as the Dragonborn had to decide between the two factions and help one of them get the upper hand. Ah well.
Oblivion in my opinion, had better faction quests in general. with the fighters guild, you just undertook merc work for the most part, for the mages, you had to undergo a bunch of little initiation quests that helped you understand magic in general, as well as leading you to Black soul gems. the dark brotherhood had a bunch of random NPC's that had no other purpose than to die, and they often had several interesting ways to do it. skyrim though, basically has a bunch of dungeon runs that you do for all the quests. occasionally you have to do some simple puzzle work, but for the most part, skyrim is go here, kill all the things, and get the item from the boss chest. that isn't fun. That's repetitive and boring.
Never played Oblivion’s thieves guild but I always felt like Skyrim’s thieves guild was lack luster, not evil enough to play as a bad character but not good enough to play as a morally good character.
The Nightingale parts of it is the main issue with Skyrim's thieves guild. It goes from a thief mystery mixed in with Maven Blackbriar to a long Daedric questline. Similar to the Companions, you're forced to become part of the "Daedric cult" in order to progress the faction questlines. There should've been a split path somewhere along the line where you could choose to lead the thieves guild and restore it's glory or to restore Karliah's honor and pact with Nocturnal. Doing both mixed in robs the player of freedom and saturate the meaning of what it means to be in a guild of honorable thieves.
I wouldn’t say one is better than the other. They tell different stories. Besides Skyrim provides a level of satisfaction that Oblivion doesn’t when I look at where the thieves guild started when I join compared to where I can take it.
i have played Skyrim since day 1 in 2011. and the most time I spent with the thieves guild in skyrim was the introduction quest with Byrnjolf. After that, I only installed a mod to kill them all.
At the very least, the goals of the Skyrim Thieves Guild are more based on what thieves really are, self important. Personal profit matters, or the profit of the group, rather than the more unrealistic idea of altruistic thieves. Skyrim didn't ruin the thieves guild because it isn't the same guild. Unlike an organization like the Dark Brotherhood, where every clan is directed by the Night Mother, thieves guilds are not directly ran by Nocturnal. Nocturnal grants boons, but in exchange for fealty, outside of that Nocturnal doesn't interfere in the day to day workings of any guild. So no, it wasn't ruined, it is just a different guild with different goals.
@Jacob Unger Thank You for your constructive, thought provoking and incredibly nuanced reply. Truly you will be revered as being in the top eschelon when it comes to the brightest minds in history.
I feel like Bethesda took the "Darker and grittier" approach that was popular around the time Skyrim was released and just ran with it for everything, even the art style. Almost every single surface in the game looks rough and coarse, even stuff like noble and fine clothes look coarse and like they're covered in a thin layer of dirt and grime. Even Solitude, probably the most "civilized" city in Skyrim with the strongest presence of The Empire doesn't look particularly kempt compared to other cities. It has stone structures but that's about it. The Altmer are supposed to classy and snobby but beautiful but in Skyrim they just look like tall, yellow goblins with their horrifically ugly facial structure. Even freshly-made ingots, the things you'd expect to be the cleanest-looking things in the game, look coarse, have a bunch of scratches and wear and grime on them. This "Darker and grittier" approach extended to a lot of the questlines. The Thieves Guild was more like a generic organized crime ring that supports a corrupt official rather than a Robin Hood like group of thieves who steal from the rich and give to the poor. The Dark Brotherhood is... well, still The Dark Brotherhood, but in Skyrim you get a lot less zany quests compared to something like Oblivion. The College of Winterhold is the replacement for The Mage's Guild, and the College is practically falling apart when you get to it. The student count is at an all time low, all the locals hate magic, and it's generally just in a bad state when you arrive. You could even argue that almost every single joinable faction in the game is pretty much in a bad state of disrepair and is about to collapse unless the player intervenes. I'm not a fan of the "Darker and grittier" style of doing things. I didn't like it back in the mid to late 2000's and I still don't like it today. I especially don't like it being done in Skyrim because I feel like most of the time it's an excuse to make the player feel even more badass and heroic on top of being named "THE LAST DRAGONBORN" in the first few hours of the main questline. Everyone *_needs_* to be suffering so you can help them out, people aren't allowed to live normal lives when you're around. Everyone has a problem that they need *_you_* and only you to solve. The world looking like it's gone down the drain is to further support the fact you're a superhuman who can survive the hardships of Skyrim with ease.
@@HyperShadic0 Really can't argue too much with that thought about the overall aesthetic of Skyrim. While I wouldn't expect the overall opulence of Cyrodiil to be reflected in the far north, due to Nords generally more used to harsh living. I also wouldn't expect so many places to be so run down either. I won't get too down on them about the heroics though, it is a trope that the PC in an RPG is 9 times out of 10 going to be the Savior. Though I would argue that the powers to achieve the role come far too early.
I’ve had this game since the day it came out. 9 years almost. I only just NOW got the Thieves Guild achievement. It’s so fucking painful and tedious to do, I’ve never wanted to do it, and even now I can tell you it’s not worth it AT ALL. It’s a colossal waste of time. You’ll literally make more gold just picking up loot from dungeons or even making your own things to sell than you will trying to sell stolen goods and rebuilding *an entire network of fences from scratch* . In fact, leveling up Speech to get the perk that lets you sell stolen goods to merchants you invest in is a more valuable way to spend your time than bothering with the Thieves Guild.
I recently did a playthrough where I got to a point where I could get the small jobs from Vex and Devlyn did the jobs I needed to to get the vendors and earn Devlyns respect then proceeded to advance through the quest line, becoming a Nightingale, then being able to become the Guildmaster right after, then with the CC quest for the Gray Cowl of Nocturnal, I sought it out, and made it more immersive that way. But yes, Skyrim totally wrecked the level of intrigue with the Thieves Guild, too predictable, and way too watered down. Sure it gives us Karliah and Brynjolf, but the thing that left it empty, was the omission of becoming the Gray Cowl as an ultimate reward, OR the choice to become EITHER a Nightingale, OR follow the trail of the Gray Cowl. Focusing on the players choices rather than, like The Companions, shoving something down your throat as conditions to completing a quest.
Would've been pretty cool if they made the faction destroyable like the dark brotherhood
Theres a mod out there that fixes that
Theres a mod on nexus that lets u destory the thieves guild.
yeah but that mod acesses cut content
@@gavindenton6821 yea but still. It is out there
@@ghostwarrior3878 Everyone knows there's a mod for that. There's a mod for everything. They're obviously talking about the base game
Guild in skyrim: this guy killed my friend pls kill him
Guild in oblivion: you are not in the dark brotherhood so no killing just steal that apple xd
assassins guild: kill that man
thief guild: kill that man and take his belongings
Also Skyrim: Being accosted by thieves on the road who will kill you if you don't hand over your valuables.
@@chadnorris8257 Oblivion: being accosted on the road by thrives demanding 100 gold when they wear 2000 gold worth of gear.
@@Darkworldwolf the thieves guild in skyrim chastises you if you kill a person. They literally tell you that you suck and you get no money. The only time you get to kill is with Mercer frey
Rosario Manorang Manik i’ve never killed aringoth either tbh, thought you failed if you did that
The Thieve's Guild isn't a Thieve's Guild. It's basically a mafia that works under Maven. Which is fine tbh, but I think it would've been more interesting if they separated the actual Thieve's Guild / Nightingale Cult from the Black-Briar Mobsters into two separate factions, but still kept them vaguely connected.
It's a small detail, but I liked how random NPCs would say "shadow hide you" in Oblivion. It really made me feel like I was part of a secret cabal with members everywhere. Skyrim's Thieves Guild felt less secretive, more like an organised crime faction supporting corrupt businesses, which like you say was far less fun to be part of. I can't help but have affection for Brynjolf, though. It's the accent I think.
I think a combination of both worlds is the perfect Thieves Guild.
Yep. In one hand I liked that in Skyrim they were more of a crime organization and not a group of Robin Hood wannabies, but then again I didn't like that in Skyrim the thieves guild was a group of ruthless common thugs, when in Oblivion the had at least some class.
the Thieves Guild is different i every provinces. In Morrowind, they were much more public, and widely viewed through a more cultural and political lens than just a bunch of criminals. They were challengers to the outlander-hating Camona Tong, and so more tolerated by the Empire. In Oblivion, they were more of an anti-establishment Robinhood-esq group who protected Cyrodiil’s poor. Eso's seems like a mix of the oblivion and morrowind thieves guild. We have comments about how the thieves guild overall limits the crime in hammerfell, stopped the slave trade and the trade of scuma and most of the dailies and heist are about steeling from deadric cults and stealing stuff that has already been stolen and returning it. But then there are quest about harrasing people that don't pay their dues and pick pocket random people just to cause a commotion
The Skyrim thieves guild is basically a mafia
Skyrim NPC dialogue is kind of a shitshow. Same npc can say contradicting things and trigger dialogue that shouldnt. I went into College of winterhold ONCE to have the enchanter enchant my gear, and already the guards around the world triggered "ah you are the mage from the college" despite not joining the college.
Oblivion thieves guild: Rob homes and castles of their valuables
Skyrim thieves guild: go run some dungeons lol. here's a radiant quest to press e on a ledger.
Oblivion Thieves guild master: A Count wearing the gray cowl of nocturnal.
Skyrim Thieves guild master: A stupid incompetent thief that forgot there´s a master lockpick open spell, on sale.
Sebas G What open lock spell? There’s nothing of the sort in Skyrim.
Skyrim's homes and castles barely even have anything worth robbing. A bit of gold, some potions and a few display cases with items worse than the ones you already have.
Oblivion Thieves Guild: Literally steal an Elder Scroll
Skyrim: durrrrrr
@@sebas8225 The lore of the skeleton key cements Mercer Frey as a true idiot.
Skyrim needed a mission to destroy the Thieves Guild or kill Maven in the base game, but fortunately mods exist.
power of console commands. screw the questline.
Any mod for that on Xbox?
I agree, there should have been a optional quest like that for the Thieves Guild, The Companions, and The College. Being able to be the ultimate Hero/Villain of your dreams
"Kill Maven Black-Briar" could have shown up in either Civil War finale. For the good guys, they determine she's a dangerous criminal, and have you put her down. And for the Stormcloaks, they determine she's a dangerous criminal, and have you put her down. Or the Thalmor get pissed that she thinks she's on level with them, and you hand-gift her to the Thalmor for torture.
Come to think of it, with as much of a bitch as she is, how has no one put a bounty on her, or got the Dark Brotherhood after her?
Shadow Freddy Well, it has been said that she’s got close ties with the Brotherhood, but honestly I don’t know what’s really stopping anyone. And the Thalmor, too. She was SO pretentious at Elenwen’s party, “power respects power,” as if her little meadery could even compare to the Dominion lmao
Imo every guild should have a rival guild. Some even had that but they weren't joinable. Like the silver hand. I mean killing werewolves? That doesn't seem very evil. It's like vampire hunters.
And some kind of necromancer guild as rival to the college/mages guild.
And with Mjoll there should have been a questline to destroy the thieves guild or at least some other rival thieves but they're more stealing to help the unfortunate rather than be mafia/thugs
The only bad thing about the Silver Hand is that they're essentially little more than bandits with a special name.
I'd be able to like them more if they didn't attack anybody and everybody on sight, as they do to the player whether or not you're a werewolf or even in the Companions.
I SO agree with you! It annoys me that the game forces me to become a member of the Mages College if I want to learn expert+ level spells, for example. I would love to be able to join the Silver Hand, or take down the Thieves Guild, or play as a lone necromancer or hedge witch and still be able to learn higher level spells, or at least have another option to get them other than rare, random loot drops. For that matter, why do I have to join the fighter’s guild if I want to be a werewolf? And how is it the Companions think they’re honorable when they /eat people/?!? If I want to play as an honorable, Paladin-type character, 3/4 of the faction quests are problematic at best, or downright out of character, and the last one is geared toward mages, not warriors. Just having opposing factions that the player can join would (potentially) fix a lot of role-playing issues.
@@chronostc4850 yeah but that's what I mean they had the faction ready but made them just bandits who were somehow fond of torturing/killing werewolves rather than being fleshed out as a faction with a purpose and history
@@spoinlar yeah man I agree. They say magic is for weaklings and fighting with steel in hand is the only honorable way but if you completely transform into a whole other being it's a blessing and doesn't qualify as magic. Like what!?!?
The companions was boring and I really wish you could’ve gathered evidence that they were werewolves and show it to the jarl which would lead to you joining the silver hand and getting a little group to kill off the companions. It would’ve even been cooler if you exposed them and the whole time shunned them and stuff like that
Oblivion actually MADE you be a thief. You needed to fence stolen goods to progress through the storyline. In contrast, Skyrim didn’t make you do much stealing.
Jack - it was even discouraged in a way because you couldn’t sell any stolen items without the perk or joining the thieves guild. And with joining the thieves guild you have one person to sell to until you basically finish the whole guild quest...
Seems like the guilds don't go far enough to make you conform to their way of doing things.
Yeah, aside from the jobs given out by Delvin and Vex, which are ultimately only there to restore the Guild’s influence and nothing more.
@@grasakfairy8969 And apparently everyone is your boss
Even though you're the leader of whatever guild
I would say, and I say this only because I play the game so much, that in order to be guild master and specifically get the guild master armor you have to complete five missions in all the major holds.
You get special missions to complete for each, and after doing all that work it does feel like meaningful progression.
There are more merchants and the guild adds members, banners and such. Idk. I personally felt it was fleshed out when you run it to completion.
One of the problems I had was that your character was forced to swear an oath to serve Nocturnal in the afterlife, even if your character serves other Daedric Princes and gods. My Dragonborn is far too accomplished to be sitting around an old crypt for an eternity after he dies.
I always thought Akatosh would claim TLB's soul
That's the thing, the dedric princes THINK they have your soul, but your soul is owned by akatosh, no matter what.
@@monotonegaming1043 exactly.
Yeah, you get to go chill with Tiber Septim for eternity.
EDIT: damn autocorrect can't handle names
The truth is that lore-wise it probably isn't the dragonborn doing these big quest lines. There's a Listener, a Nightingale, a Molag Bal Champion, etc
That’s it Avarti, I told you if you went after my boy Brynjolf again I’d have to beat you up. 3 o’clock tomorrow, behind school and bring your lunchbox
no one likes the thieves guild
Irish twat
Cringe Animate ur mad cuz ur not a leprechaun
By the Nine this will be a good one, I'm comin too.
The important question is.... will there be drinks?
I wish there was an alternate path to the thieves guild where you team up with Mjoll and go all vigilante hero and shit on the guild and the Black Briars, taking down Riften's criminal underworld.
The are mods that allow you to do that, you can even try to reform the captured guild members.
That would be awesome
Thievery in itself isnt evil though..
@@Hektols I’ve only recently started using mods. Still trying to figure out the Xbox one search. What’s the name of the mod you’re talking about and who is the author?
@@XDeadxSpawnx The mod is Taking Care of Business Redux, by Mordivier.
It's here among other mods for the Thieves Guild:
thebestmods.com/skyrim/skyrim-thieves-guild-mods
Simple answer it didn't make you feel like a thief you're more of a hired thug than anything else the radiant quests were more Thief based than anything else.
Oblivion the thieves guild made u feel like a thief and the grey fox at the end of it all.
Right, first thing you do is frame an innocent elf and then rough up some other merchants. Nice bar you have there, shame if anything happened to it.
@@kevinconrad6156 yeah that quest was great.
I would've preferred the honourable thief approach
@Rosario Manorang Manik "all kinds of crimes excluding the muder"
You can kill Aringoth,the golden glow mercenaries,Hamelyn,Gulum-Hei,The guards of the East Empire Company Warehouse,The guards of the Laboratory of Calcemo and to Aicantar and there will be no consequences
And I know that killing them is optional, but you can still kill them and there will be no consequences.
Rosario Manorang Manik He’s saying that there are no consequences to killing anyone you clod. What’s the point of creeping around like a cockroach when it’s actually easier and faster to run in and murder everyone with a battle axe?
I think Skyrim suffers the problem that most factions are deteriorated and on the verge of ruin.
Thieves Guild-can barely hold control over their own city they’re based in
Dark Bros-1 of only 2 sanctuaries in the entire continent and ends with only a half dozen members remaining and the night mother.
Blades- totally destroyed and only 2 members with no incentive to rebuild it
College of Winterhold-only a few students and teachers located in the ice boonies
Imperials-lost a huge war and on the verge of total collapse
Companions-a group that has no baring on the rest of the Provence, basically just glorified mercenaries with werewolves thrown in.
As much as I like Skyrim the factions within just don’t have that same grand and imposing feeling to them.
The closest I feel to how they should be is when you fully restore the thieves guild, allowing you to bribe and have power over the guards in all the holds.
Sure it’s great to have a small group and build it to a large force to be feared but it’s annoying when almost every faction has the same problems.
Yep. It's a massive problem because with oblivion you can see the faction decline and then you can get it better than even before. Either the factions were more... Glorious.
I feel like Skyrim was rushed. There's so many plot threads and quests that go nowhere. I love Skyrim, don't get me wrong, but it's riddled with issues.
@@opticalraven1935 it was rushed for the release date. Just look at the cut content , there are entire questlines cut. The civil war became basic gang fight. And so on.
Sadly yes. It feels almost stupid how much wasted potential Skyrim had. Then again I doubt that Skyrim was rushed to release, as in Bethesda's fashion they announced it very close to the release date.
They could have made that clear decay a focus of the story, to show how the once mighty empire and the powerful organizations that thrived during its prime have fallen from grace. But it fails to show the glorious past in order to acknowledge that loss.
Runs around killing dragons and gets reckognised as am honourable member of the Companions or a Wizard by the guards
He laddie, never did an honest day of work for all that gold you are carrying......
Spacefrisian see “Why Brynolf is an Idiot”
I’d say killing people and mythical creatures isn’t technically honest work. It’s just you happen upon a bandit camp and proceed to send them to the planes of oblivion.
...eh, lad/lass?
The worst part of that line from Brynolf is with the kind of culture described in Skyrim publicly accusing someone of being dishonest is the same as accusing them of having an unnatural relationship with their mother, a fight will start.
My character was a homeless bum, was not carrying any gold because i never did an honest day of work ever. Now that i think about it, wtf “honest work” is there to do in Skyrim?
Sad thing is, when I first started playing the Thieves Guild, I thought that the devs had finally taken it into an ideal direction. They were no longer some jolly band of loveable rogues and Robin Hood wannabes, they were a full-on Mafia organization who made most of their income not necessarily by stealing things, but by running protection rackets, fronting illegal operations behind legitimate business, and rubbing shoulders with the local power players. And they weren't very nice either; they were hardened criminals who could and would do some really scummy stuff to get what they wanted. That's something that I prefer from my fictional crooks. Having them be sympathetic or outright heroic only really works if the ruling government is itself a corrupt and/or evil entity, but since that was clearly not the case in Oblivion, I never can really buy into the impression that a guild of thieves could ever be righteous. More like it's something they just tell themselves to justify or romanticize their immoral actions.
But that's neither here nor there, because the Skyrim Thieves Guild got stupid real quick and ended on a boneless note that made me feel like I got conned. The Oblivion Guild, for all its trappings not being to my taste, has by far a better story, quest, and ending, and which does a better job at making you feel like a thief who got the last laugh on a Daedric Prince.
Agree with you on everything. I too loved that in Skyrim it was a proper crime syndicate, not some group of anti-hero vigilanties. The problem with *every single* faction in Skyrim was that they had great ambigion for the climax, but they just rushed straight in. Wasted potential in every faction.
That said, at least skyrim's queslines have proper story structure. No more of this"the intro quests have nothing to do with main story nonsense"
What the hell? That's exactly what's wrong with just about every faction in Skyrim. E.g. the Dark Brotherhood. You go almost straight to being literally the highest ranking member in the guild and killing the emperor, after doing *one* proper assassination. There is no sense of progressing through the ranks, they're just shallow as hell. The same goes for the College of Winterhold and Thieves Guild. They're short let-downs and the anti-climactic, because there is no climax, what should've been the climax of the questline IS the whole questline.
@@paistinlasta1805 You're joking right? Or are you just being disingenuous? There at least half a dozen proper assassinations before the player even finds out about the contract on the emperor. Then there are about a dozen more before the player actually gets to fulfill the contract. Then there are the assassinations themselves, which in Oblivion usually had optional objectives that the showed how the game wanted you to do them, and you would get penalized if you did them another way, this reduced the choices available to the player (aka "depth") and made the quests far more shallow as a result. Skyrim changed the optional objectives to be extra things you could do, while letting the player have the option to approach both the initial contract and the optional objectives in a wide variety of ways.
Yeah, that's exactly my gripe too. It started strong, I really liked the criminal syndicate part, but when stuff with nocturnal started... lost me.
Make *Why Farkas Is A GENIUS* already, we all know it's gonna come eventually..
makae *Why AVARTI is an IDIOT* already
Has he done why faendal and sven are idiots? I also want to see a why camilla is a whore video.
I feel like Skyrim's Thieves' Guild makes a lot of sense for being how it is though. Riften is a broken down, corrupt shithole of a city, and as a result it's not farfetched to think a bunch of bad people who don't know much of anything about what the Guild really is would take power eventually and exploit the already established networks the Guild has. There's a lot of shady folk in Riften even without the Guild, and when society in general is kind of somewhat falling apart as it is in Skyrim, I think it does seem possible that a local chapter could lose its way in what other chapters may strive to be, going from a guild that fancies itself as a group of Robin Hoods to a guild that fancies itself exactly what the name suggest, a guild of larceny-loving-low-lives.
I dunno, it never seemed like the Guild was RUINED or anything, it just felt like Skyrim's local chapter just... was like that, and that the Guild isn't like something like the Mage's or Fighter's Guilds where the goals may be similar across provinces because they're official, important, imperial-sanctioned organizations, the Thieves' Guild has always been pretty autonomous between chapters, only sharing a name at most. While yeah, I'll admit it was kinda lame, it fit Riften and the state of various other crumbling guilds across Skyrim as well.
Not to mention that it seems everyone who has played Morrowind and Oblivion has to cry about how lacking Skyrim is. I agree this guild fit the city it was in. My only complaint is that there was not more (or any) interaction between the guild and the beggars.
It's trendy to criticize Skyrim, especially now that Bethesda's reputation has gone down the shitter after Fallout 76.
@@windowsVD Well yes, but actually no. Skyrim is pretty watered down compared to older games, and Bethesda has gotten shit for Skyrim ever since launch. The criticism isn't new and it's entirely valid. However, there are also legitimate defenses for the game and certain aspects of it, such as the guild being how it is.
The Thieves' Guild questline still isn't great, and TES has a problem in general where after you finish a guild's questline there isn't really anything more to it, but it being how it is does at least make sense lorewise and compared to where it is.
To be fair, the Companions, the Dark Brotherhood, and the Thieves guild had all been corrupted from within. The Mages College was very nearly taken over or destroyed by Ancano, and will probably blow itself up anyway. The Blades remain true to their cause, but won't get on with the times and are probably facing their final days.
Now the real question is, "is every faction in the game being corrupt or doomed intentional on Bethesda's part?"
*Puts on Alex Jones hat*
@@worcestershirey Oh I don't disagree that there are some valid criticisms against Skyrim's guilds, and I know some fans have had problems with it from the start, but there has been this hyperbolic bandwagoning against Skyrim that has increased ever since Fallout 76 came out. Clickbait titles like this along with more and more people claiming that Skyrim isn't an RPG at all or that the game wouldn't have been successful without mods is ridiculous. There's room to argue over the game's merits as an RPG compared to previous TES games, but claiming that Skyrim is literally not an RPG is silly and the game was already the most successful game in the series even more Bethesda released the modding tools.
Skyrim theme is "the end of time", that's why everything is downgraded, I mean everything is not as what they were before.
- Dark Brotherhood isn't the real guild anymore, just a group of murderers
- College of Winterhold is just group of mages who want to stay away from the peoples who hate magic
- Thief Guild is just a broken gang of crooks and criminals do anything illegal
- The Companions is just a hired sword and werewolves
Everything is ruined because it is the end of time, the end of the world. But it being presented badly
No excuse to not have made fleshed out unique and well detailed guilds. Such a waste
@@Gelato41_ Yes, and it is the end of Bethesda creative world building, funny because they can make Fallout 3 but not doing the same with Skyrim. Greed totally consume them now...
If that was actually the point, that would be great. But I'm pretty sure it's just bad writing.
In that case they could have made a bit more dark souls 3 type environment
I think the end of the world theory perfectly fits in. Just see Imperial Empire, how it was in Oblivion and Skyrim. Skyrim's Imperial are just shadow of what it was in Oblivion. They just execute people on basis of suspense. They knew at the start of the game that the dragonborn wasn't a thief or stormclock at the start of the game but still send him to the chopping board. They couldn't defeat the Thalmor in the great war and had to sell out Hammerfel to the Thalmor but Hammerfel on it's own defended itself from Thalmor.
“This is the Skeleton Key. It will never break.”
Okay, but I have master picklocking so my picks don’t break anyway sooo...
Pick locking.. pick locking are you serious.
I actually loved the Morrowind questline the best. You had a secret hideout under a shop, partnering with an abolitionist movement with the twin lamps, special "right the wrong" missions, the skeleton key was the end reward--not the sacrifice, and there was a genuine tension between them and the fighters guild where you had to choose who you ultimately supported. The only thing that sucked about it was the higher-level quest givers were located behind about 6 loading screens lol. But mark and recall solved that the first go through.
And you can make it work by being in Thieves Guild and Fighter’s Guild. Which all you had to do, is to overthrow the Fighter’s Guild Master by challenging him in a Duel in Vivec Arena.
I guess I'm one of those goody two shoes who would rather root out the thieves guild with Mjoll than actually join. Not that I haven't. Yes, the thieves guild is evil. Or at least they don't have anyone's good but their own at heart. I do wish there was a Destroy the Thieves Guild mission, or at least that you could reform them into something better. I did grow attached to some of these people, but in the end you have your nightingale cohort saying that your victory will lead to the greatest crime spree that Skyrim has ever seen. You are not good people.
You could argue that the Thieves Guild isn't either a good or a bad faction. You could argue for the sake of immersion that the Guild helps both sides of the law. Although it's implied that guards end up in the Guild's pocket out of fear rather then than being paid... I like to think the Guild would gift the guards and potentially the Jarls with tribute now and again. Guards provide more for their families and the Hold's Treasury is better of by a sum.
Thievery itself isnt a bad thing.. its why and who you take from.
@@TheLukey27 I often roleplay it as my character planning to reform the guild into a spy organization. Not just stealing goblets and stuff, but stealing enemy information.
Honestly...I really hated Morrowind and Oblivion's Thieves Guild--mainly because it doesn't feel like a Thieves Guild. It felt like your typical Robin Hood's merry band. Skyrim's Thieves Guild felt the closest to being cutthroat like it should, but even then it felt too soft. I couldn't help but roll my eyes when we tell Mercer "The difference is I have honor". Bullshit, you're stealing from defenseless old women as part of your regular contracts and extorting innocent people. Trying to act like the good guy during the Thieves Guild questline is just stupid and ruins any sense of roleplaying.
Being a thief isn't about "being evil", it's about making money. But when you've chosen to become a thief and to become wealthy at the expense of others, you are making an evil choice. You've chosen to cast aside any sense of morality and principles for your own selfish gain. Trying to claim some moral high ground while doing this is just ridiculous. It would be equally ridiculous to join the Fighters Guild or Companions and try to add "evil options".
And again, while they handled the whole Mercer Frey thing badly, there's still plenty of reason to go after him. He did just stab you in the back, steal from you, and basically screw you over. Whether it's revenge or getting everything back, you have all the reason to hunt him down.
Personally? I think the Dark Brotherhood and Dawnguard handled it best. Here's the evil route for this questline and here's the good route instead of trying to justify being a hero in an evil faction. I wish they'd add something like that for all non-neutral factions. Maybe something where you help Mjoll expose the Thieves Guild if you want to be a hero.
Honestly there should be a post mercer quest line that appears after you become grand master thief, which has you on a split choice of either working with Maven to expand her influence across Skyrim utilizing the thieves guild at it's best, OR work to undermine and destroy Maven Black-brier's influential power and eventually ending the questline with her Family's name ruined and powerless, and Maven held within Cidna Mine
The With Maven route basically continues the kind of quests that the early Thieves Guild had, destroying specific property, sabotaging potential rivals and threats and setting up new Thieve guild hide-outs in the other Holds, eventually making the other cities fall more inline alongside Riften.
The Against Maven route instead has us work to make the Skyrim Thieves guild independent from Maven, and to destroy her families reputation, influential power and monopoly of the market, with the eventual 'Maven free' Riften becoming larger, housing a bustling market place outside it's walls allowing plentiful of new merchants to trade with 'aka sell to, and steal from'
Both quest paths would reward a similar outcome, but the difference would be the With Maven route leading to a more spread out increase of venders in towns and cities with a discount, MEANWHILE the Against Maven route would lead into a more concentrated increase of Venders in/outside Riften, basically the outer walls of Riften becomes a settlement of it's own as a large Marketplace, allowing an easily accessible abundance of venders to trade and sell with, alongside a satisfying visual upgrade to Riften.
Well one could argue that oblivion recognized the difference between steeling a begars last bit of food than robbing a lords castle.
@@nonyabuissness5128 One harms a single beggar, the other results increase taxes for everyone--including beggars.
@@zeveria7206 I can see that... but then you just steel the taxes back. Like what the guild did in oblivion
Ever hear the phrase, "honor among theives"? Honour among thieves is the concept that criminals do not compromise the criminal activities of other criminals. It can also mean that even corrupt or criminal individuals can follow some form of code of honour, moral, justice, or ethics for the benefit of everyone involved or implicated.
I admit, the beginning of the questline could have done better to represent this theme, but once the ball is rolling, the theme is very prevalent.
>Let's cut the part of the Thieves Guild questline that actually let's you shut it down, despite a quest-essential NPC and the Jarl's housecarl both telling the character they want to take it out.
>What's that? We have some extra space on the disk? Eh, whatever, add a maze underneath the mages' college or something.
I really liked Skyrim’s thieves’ guild due to the revenge plot line. I really felt betrayed when Mercer backstabs you and I spent the rest of the storyline in anticipation to make that bastard pay for crossing me and betraying my friends in the guild
+1
Wasn't that obvious? The air around Mercer Frey smells of betrayal. Nobody trusts a Frey.
I like a revenge plotline like the next guy but I must say it was poorly written here. You barely get to know the guy before he backstabs you. As a gray mane says in Whiterun, there's no more bitter enemy than an old friend. And I wouldn't consider myself and Mercer friends before the point he betrays the player. You feel me?
"friends in the guild"
you mean the people who do nothing but shit talk like everyone else in Skyrim? regardless of what you've achieved?
yeah. Morrowind had ridiculously hostile NPCs, then Oblivion made it's NPCs more realistic and less vitriolic, then Skyrim went back to the "I'm so cool and realistic because I'm an asshole" trope.
@@sigalius Sigalius Mýricantur Laugh all you want, but I thought it was well-written to paint Skyrim's TG as filled with jaded, world-weary higher-ups who were extremely skeptical of the player's success and enthusiasm due to Mercer's shenanigans having beaten the life out of the guild for 25 years. It makes sense that Delvin and Vex are so brooding as compared to the younger Tonilia who is more preoccupied with running a business and her boyfriend than trying to make things better. Brynjolf is younger than the others (I always thought he was about 30 while Vex and Delvin were both approaching 50) and still remains an idealist, as shown by his hasty recruit of you and other thieves as implied by dialogue. The guild's overall attitude, including how each character deals with the stress of working in a dying institution, seems both believable and realistic.
@Avarti - I'm surprised you didn't notice:
The Skyrim Thieves Guild Questline is a Copy & Paste of The Skyrim Dark Brotherhood Questline.
1. Both organizations are in the dirt, struggling to get by, until the Dragonborn arrives.
2. Astrid & Mercer betray their own organizations that they are the leader of.
3. Nocturne & Mother praise you for returning their organizations back to the right path, now they will flourish.
4. You become the leader of both.
The only differences - you're recruited by Brynolf instead of Mercer. Thieves guild doesn't lose their base unlike the DB. Cicero is the final boss instead of Astrid, whereas Mercer is the final boss.
But the similarities between them cannot be denied. Bethesda got lazy with these two groups. In previous TES games, both organizations are vastly different in how they lead the PC along. In Skyrim, they clearly didn't care.
Final mission for Oblivion Thieves Guild: Steal an Elder Scroll from the Imperial Palace itself. The whole thing is designed with stealth in mind, and can be completed without much combat. Makes you feel like the greatest thief that has ever lived.
Final mission for Skyrim Thieves Guild (excluding the 2 conclusion missions that just wrap things up): Generic Falmer dungeon (which admittedly can be stealthed), ending with a forced battle with Frey. You can't stealth kill him, you have to talk to him and then fight. The final quest is a boss battle. Doesn't make you feel like an accomplished thief. You didn't earn leadership by being the best thief in Skyrim, you earned it by beating the shit out of and killing the previous boss.
The generic radiant quests required more skill at thievery than the main quest. You could probably complete the main quest (the end quest especially) with no stealth skills at all.
One RUclipsr actually beat the entire Thieve’s Guild questline without stealing anything. The only crimes he committed were one trespassing and one lock picked.
That's certainly a few points in Skyrim's favor. Leave the really intense stealth stuff to the people who are doing it purely for it's own sake.
@@intergalactichumanempire9759 Good o'l Ymfah
@@silentdrew7636 wut
@@alexsm3882 bonus challenge content should generally be more difficult than the main story content. That's what makes it a challenge.
I feel like skyrim while still a good game ruined alot of things from oblivion by making it more simplified.
Everyone has it's personal taste. Do you like to enjoy the game or geting frustrated every time?
Skyrim was my First Elder Scrolls game. I quite enjoyed the Thieves guild quest line. Though the Fetch quests were tedious.
I just wish that they would have put in the option to destroy the Thieves guild as they did with the Dark Brotherhood.
You could have still went after the Skeleton Key , say you opt to destroy them. Then a week or so later Karliha shows up when you sleep. Thanks you for killing Mercer then tasks you with finding the key.
Still pathetic compared to Oblivion.
Thief appears
Me: NeVeR ShOuLD HaVE CoMe HERe!
More like entire Riften population + the guards
Then wait 45 minutes for the entire town to successfully kill the thief
In Skyrim's questline, you didn't really do a whole lot of thieving for being in the Thieves Guild. Felt more just like a criminal thug than a thief.
In Oblivion, the guild would not let you progress further into the questline until you'd fenced x amount of gold in stolen goods, so you could prove you were actually a capable thief.
I guess it just comes down to a matter of perspective, since Skyrim's is a lot more hard crime and mafia type of stuff, but I just generally prefer the more romantic kind of thievery.
Steal from the rich, give to the poor, I love that corny shit.
I suspect the removal of the stolen goods requirement was either a decision made by Bethesda or fan complaints because they had to level pickpocketing and hated being caught and sent to jail, which reduced your stats based on how big your bounty was.
@@Keyce0013 Then learn to save scum and don't get caught?
Reminds me of my problem with Morrowind's Morong Tong and the Dark Brotherhood in Oblivion, at least in part. One of the things that I Iiked about the Morong Tong was that you hunted criminals, or could take "Grey Writs". This let you be a noble or heroic assassin instead of a cold-blooded murderer, if you wanted.
What I liked about Olivion vs. Skyrim is based out of this same concept. In Oblivion the Thieves Guild could act as a better moral option for steath players. In Skyrim your given no better moral option. Your either a thug for the mob, or a professional hitman.
Both were decent story arcs; but, as a stealth player who prefers being the hero, I didn't appreciate being shoehorned into a "bad guy" role by the guild quests.
The problem with Skyrim really comes down to its theme. In Oblivion, the theme was 'chaos'. Oblivion gates were everywhere, no road was safe, and people used this to further their own agendas from the Mages Guild to the Dark Brotherhood. A land in chaos is a great theme for a world and has been used to great effect. Your role in the world is to help each faction achieve their goals and change the world, for better or worse.
The theme in Skyrim is 'broken'. The land is divided, all of the guilds are broken (or dealing with something broken from the past such as The Companions and Wuuthrad and the breaking of the Werewolf curse), and the entire world is near collapse due to an ancient dragon coming back from a broken timeline. Your role in the world is to fix everything-to make it whole or to ensure its complete collapse. Either way, the players role is to shape the world moving towards the future. There are only so many ways such a story can be told, and you don't have a chance to explore and discover in such a setting as you could a theme of 'chaos' (or the multiple themes in play during Arena, Daggerfall, and Morrowind where there is no one central theme).
Ultimately, I think the best way to handle a Guild and world storyline is to divorce the two and keep each of their goals and purposes separate, but playing in the same world, where one can affect the other, but not all share the same theme or move towards the same ultimate end, only serving to set up the world for the next games' lore.
Title: *has "ruined" in all caps*
Video: "not that skyrim's guild is awful"
Bruh...
Edit: it's at 69 likes, whoever gives the next like shall have his name written on my hitlist lol
Well he gotta get those clicks
Lol
Clickbait man.
It wasn't all that bad, but I feel it could have been better. Where is the GF?
@@Jysyncyt I'm not debating whether it was good or not (it was meh), I'm pointing out how this guy has describes the guild in Skyrim as "ruining" for the legacy of they thieves' guild in the older games but then at the start he says "it's not that bad".
Like c'mon, has it ruined the thrive guild or is it not that bad? Two polar opposite ways to describe the guild in Skyrim.
Karliah: We need to sell our souls to Nocturnal so she can give us power to defeat Mercer!
Dragonborn: I don't want to sell my soul, but if there's no choice the I must do it
**After selling your soul**
Dragonborn: So, how I use my new power?
Karliah: Oh, no no, after we defear Mercer Frey she will give us the power
all of skyrims questlines are letdowns, only one that i enjoyed was the DB quest, and even that was worse than Oblivions...
Nino A What I find most annoying in Skyrim is that even made leader you’re still treated like the lap dog.
@@TainoBoriken911 Also it annoyed the hell out of me that you are made the most important person in DB hirearcy at like the first fith of the questline. Also it goes to killing the emperor just as fast. Honestly the DB in Skyrim had such potential. It had great ambiguity with killing the emperor but it just rushed to it. You did one assasination (those "kill 3 random npc:s" are not frigging assassinations) before you was announced the listeren and sent to kill the emperor, wheras in Oblivion you did 20 assassination before the questline progressed any futher. 20 assassinations, each with more depth than the whole questline in skyrim.
Paistin Lasta Problem with Bethesda is they always brag about taking their time to do their games, but we can see they’re full of it. The next elder scrolls game might suffer the same fate unless they learned their lesson with fallout 76.
I liked looking for special books for Urag in the mages guild library.
ASSORTED BOOKS, SCROLLS xD he's my favorite.
It's not about the absolute body count, it's that you have barely got setteled in the brotherhood when you already are sent after the emperor.
Oblivion was way better you actually got to keep the cowl and you could get the skeleton key too 😂
The Skeleton Key is just...disappointing. Oh, a lockpick that never breaks? I already have several hundred lockpicks, so...uhhh...no thanks. Even Clavicus Vile's Mask is more useful.
I hate how being the pawn of a daedra is also forced if you want to complete the quest line
Yeah, I didn't like Skyrim's Thieves' Guild either. Ironically for the reasons why others enjoyed them. Beating up old ladies for protection money wasn't my thing while pulling heists, smuggling contraband in and out areas, helping to set up legit businesses to wash goods acquired by the guild, etc. would have been my thing for a thief character.
That's probably the biggest dilemma for designing a Thieves' Guild. Which criminal archetype are we going to represent? Will the archetype we pick be able to satisfy everyone that wants to play their version of a thief character?
What I think would have worked better would have been to split the Thieves' Guild into multiple factions vying for control of Skyrim's underworld and we decide which one comes out on top. That way we all get the Thieves' Guild we want.
There were also missed opportunities with the Thieves' Guild. Like think about the Riften Orphanage. Imagine the Thieves' Guild pulling a stunt that gives them the deed to orphanage. Then they start making an effort to put all the orphaned children around Skyrim in that orphanage.
Children that were starving and freezing on the street, or were being abused by the previous owner, aren't anymore.
People find it harder to believe that the people helping these orphans are these supposed criminals, decide to put them on the bottom of their list because they are keeping things stable and aren't drawing attention, etc.
Even Morrowind had two different factions for every playstyle. There were two warrior-based factions in Morrowind, not just one: House Redoran and The Fighter's Guild. The mage-based factions were House Telvanni and The Mage's Guild. The religious-based factions were The Tribunal Temple and The Imperial Cult. The thief-based factions were House Hlaalu (sort of) and the Thieves Guild.
As a player who first began with skyrim and now is playing the oblivion thieves guild, i confirm your thoughts.
Your points are absolutely correct, and i also have a personal reason for why it fails in Skyrim.
You see, a common theme in Skyrim questlines, is that you are looked down upon by absolutely everyone, your skills are downgraded, which ONLY changes once you finnish the whole questline.
In oblivion, yes you are kind of looked down upon at the start, but as your status grows, people speak to you different. You actually feel like your actions have effect.
Whereas, in skyrim, while you do get some level of appreciation from some members complimenting you on "what you did", it doesn't feel meaningful because as you do larger and larger missions, that dialogue stays the same. There is no effect.
Also in Oblivion you were punished for killing. In Skyrim, you can literally kill every mercenary at Goldenglow and the person who wins it with no penalty.
Frl, you can absolutely just brute force your way through it in Skyrim. I swear i saw a video of someone killing all the outdoor mercenaries at Goldenglow, reviving them with the Ritual Stone, and charging the estate with an army of the undead
You don't have to be a good thief to excel in the Skyrim Thieves Guild
You are 100% correct. Oblivion's thieves guild was this mysterious band of strangers and beggars. It was so big that you didn't even know if someone walking right past you was affiliated. The ranking system was clear as you would be introduced to new superiors as you took on more challenging robberies. By the end of the questline (and it took awhile to get there) you finally undergo The Ultimate Heist. And it FELT like a truly ultimate heist. All the quests leading up to it made sense and you still had this sense of confusion like why am I doing all these specific jobs now and after you steal the final target you face the biggest twist imaginable. So much more memorable than the thieves guild in Skyrim. Super predictable way too short in general, and the ratway was such a cool idea but fell short I think. Something about it felt so boring. I guess there should be more people and liveliness. It felt small and uninhabited - even more so than the rest of Skyrim. The entire game and all its cities should be upscaled by about 3-4x at least. In fact I think all the guilds fell short compared to Oblivion's the guilds are the heart of the game
I am with you that Oblivion's Thieve's guild had a much more interesting plot line. I also agree that I don't feel as noble as I did in Oblivion. Times have changed and the moral compass of most people has slid into a set of values that Skyrim reflects. There was a higher standard and more self sacrifice in our culture even 25 years ago, and Skyrim suffers from "it's okay to play dirty with others as long as they are not part of your perceived clan" rather than do unto others as you would have them do unto you, no matter who they are. Who are the bad guys? The line grows dimmer each decade.
Why Skyrim's thieves guild sucks: all the guards know I'm part of the thieves guild
@Aaron Giles yeah, also that. Fuck Guards in Skyrim. They're just there to ruin your immersion
@@misterkid skyrim isnt a game for immersion.. you either play vanilla which is completely pointless for immersion you play slightly modded which is slightly better or you play heavily modded which wastes time.
@@sirspongadoodle speak for yourself
Oblivion: "Here, go steal an Elder Scroll and here's a Daaedric artifact that basically gives you a second identity and you become a literal thief God."
Skyrim: "Here, go do some menial tasks and then go chase some guy who stole from the Guild and your reward will be hanging out in a dingy cave in the afterlife in service of a Daedric prince that hardly gives a fuck about you."
With all the pacts with dietys your character makes in skyrim I have zero fucking clue what happens when you die
Morrowind Thieves Guild: 🎵”Oh you got to pick a pocket or two.🎵
Oblivion Thieves Guild: 🎶”We’re men, manly men, in tights, tight tights, we’re going around protecting the people’s rights”🎶
Skyrim Thieves Guild: “Where’s ma money, you gonna give me ma money? WHERE’S MA MONEY?!”
The next thieves guild is called Bethesda loot boxes
The final real mission in Skyrim is to do a dungeon crawl with some slight puzzles. The final mission in Oblivion is to secretly infiltrate the White Gold Tower itself and steal an elder scroll.
'nough said.
Oh man, it's not even a real question... Oblivion's Thieve's guild quest was WAY better than Skyrim's! Oblivion had an epic... and I mean EPIC... heist at the end for none other than an actual Elder Scroll! It was cool to see how all the former quests that you had done prepared you for this monumental quest. And I remember things like having to be REALLY precise with a bow and arrow that I'd only get one shot with! These crazy details stick out even though it's been over a decade since I played it.
I enjoy the Skyrim Thieves Guild quest, and I play it often... but it's mostly because it's fun to be a thief in Skyrim since the sneaking mechanics are a little better and the world is incredible to be in. But for sure, it's predictable as hell, and aside from a few cool moments, (my duel to the death with Mercer Frey inside a forgotten ruin on top of an enormous snow-elf statue), it's easy to just write it off as enjoyable... not memorable.
For everyone complaining why there is no option to destroy the Thieves Guild, there is a pretty simple reason for that. If you do the main quest in Skyrim you have to find Esbern at one point and you have to ask the Thievs Guild cause they know the ratway very well. If they would give you the option to destroy the Thieves Guild they would have to make a change to the Main quest as well. So the way they did it was just the cheaper solution.
Aside from like the first quest, oblivions thieves guild actually was benefitted from being stealthy, and the ability to actually be able to steal shit, Skyrim I swear was just dungeon crawling for 90% of their quests. And was more focused on a revenge mission than ecalating heists. You can just walk and fight through all of Skyrims thrives guild with literally no repercussions. I feel like Skyrims tone of being alot more immoral wasn't the issue, just their obsession with walking into the 50th draugr ruin.
skyrims thieves guild is its only in depth faction in my opinion. with the other guilds you become leader almost immediately after joining, but with the thieves guild you have to work to become guild master. even after mercer dies and the skeleton key was returned to the sepulchre, you still have to restore the guild to its former glory before you become the guild master. until then, brynjolf acts as a temporary leader of the guild. thats why i like the guild so much.
Righteousness? Needing a reason more than personal gain? Where do you think you are, the Knights of the Nine? This is the thieves guild!
I already knew Mercer was gonna be the villain before he left me for dead. I knew this because of his lines when he was fighting enemies with me. “I’ve defeated legions before you!” seriously that sounds like what a villain would say.
I hope in TES VI, the final Thieves' Guild questline gives you the task of stealing the Cowl back from Sheogorath, assigned to you by Nocturnal.
Because the Cowl was last eorn by the Hero of Kvatch, the Cowl wold later be in Sheogorath's possession, and Nocturnal doesn't exactly know how he got it. Sheogorath would create a challenge that if she "steals" it from him, she would have it back. Knowing that he would always win these mind games, she sends a poor sap, such as yourself to overthink a plan to steal it.
The quest gives you plenty of leads to investigate, but ultimately leads you nowhere. Like for example, stealing a scroll from a daedra worshipper that supposedly sends you to the Shivering Isles, but instead sends you to the Evergloam.
The true solution is to make a replica of it, claim that you're the Gray Fox and then start some shit. Sheogorath will tell you and Nocturnal that they had always had the Cowl the whole time in a condescending, smug manner.
That seems like it could be interesting, but shouldn't Sheovorath realize that the true power of the cowl lies in the public perception of it?
Yeah, you basically have to accumulate a high enough bounty across the entire province while wearing the Cowl.
And when you take it off, even right in front of them, the guards can't make the connection that you and the Grey Fox are the same person, just like what the original cowl could do.
Skyrim taught me it's ok to best the crap out of strangers if i get money, but i should NEVER EVER hurt my family bc
You have to give credit to how Mercer was displayed as this expert thief who could also overwhelm in combat. He was a good antagonist.
Artemis Entreri knock off at best lmao
The thing is you can get both the cowl and the key in Oblivion. You have to do Nocturnal's Shrine quest and it grants you the key.
It felt so dumb when Brynjolf was talking to Mercer about honor
I think one way the thieves guild questline could have been better is if they would have explored the skeleton key's ability to open non tangible locks a bit more.
It is alluded to that the skeleton key doesn't just unlock any physical lock, but can also unlock those in your mind. but then when we fight mercer this feeling is completely gone. through Irkngthand we see mercer effortlessley sneak kill multiple falmer and even push over a freaking tower to block the way. it would have been interesting if for example you made it to the statue only to find that the eyes of the falmer where already gone. now you have to backtrack through a whole new area of Irkngthand all the while mercer stalks you. out of the shadows a sudden paralyze spell incapacitates Brynjolf and so Karliah and you continue alone. then a sudden arrow strikes out of nowhere and karliah is left wounded. Towers fall down as you pass them and boulders come loose from the ceiling without there being any type of tripwire or pressure plate. sometimes you'll get damaged out of nowhere which is Mercer striking from the shadows. If you turn around quick enough you can just see mercer fading into the shadows. at the end of the path you find Mercer getting ready to leave with the eyes but his pride just overtakes him and he must accept your challenge. now an epic battle begins where mercer activates more hidden traps as you fight. he clones himself with the power of the skeleton key and he even summons falmer and dwemer constructs that act as if Mercer himself is not even there. The shadows themselves attack you as if they are controlled by mercer. and then when you finally defeat Mercer it is revealed that you had Nocturnal's favour all along and the only reason you where able to survive mercer's attempts and traps is because she protected you. Then when YOU have the key it could give you three abilities that mimic what mercer did. All these powers could only be activated once a day each as to balance it but they could be as follows,
Summon three shadow copies of yourself to aid you in battle
enemies in a wide radius cannot see you and fight among them selves for 60 seconds.
Summon a trap effect like a falling boulder indoors or an elemental rune explosion outdoors on enemies within a certain radius.
This could have made the Key more unique (Granted still not as unique as the cowl but it would have turned the key into more than just: "key that opens any lock....... oh yeah and it gives you super powers which you'll never see but just trust me bro!"). Also i feel like the key itself shouldn't have just been an unbreakable lockpick but more so a literal key that passes every lock check like the key to that lock would (no it wouldn't work on nordic puzzle locks like mercer used it cause that would be a little too OP i think)
This all also enables a pseudo alternate ending where keeping the key is worth more than just unbreakable lockpick. They could've even extended it by having spirits of the nightingales attack you periodically if the key is not returned within 5 days. Nocturnal could have even remarked this if you returned the key late by saying something like: "Finally my nightingale returns the key, had a bit of fun I see. Leaving me waiting was a bad idea mortal, but since you returned the key I can see past it just this once. See to it that you follow your duties in a more timely manner next time."
Part of the difference between Oblivion and Skyrim is that the guilds have became way too simplified. Skyrim spoon feeds players into the guilds where Oblivion did a better job making players felt like they discovered them. The theives guild in Skyrim is probably the worst. As soon as you show up in Riften you get offered to join the guild. No mystery, just, "hey want to join the super secret theives guild?"
Skyrim's theives guild lost me when they tried to portray the guild as "honorable Nightingales" when all they do as thieves was ruin honest people's lives in favor of the rich (Maven in particular). Oblivion's thieves guild on the other hand didn't need to cater to Nocturnal to appear honorable. They forbade stealing from the poor and actively helped out the poor. That's why all the beggars in Cyrodil were on their side.
Not to mention how Karliah sold Dragonborn and Brynolf's soul to Nocturnal without consent so she could be excused for her shortcommings.
Brajof does mention that killing is bad for business.
Giving a more adult reasoning to not murder.
But yeah oblivion gud quests where better as they focus on the guild identity more.
As you correctly pointed out.
The thieves guild are no different then the thousands of bandits we slaughter.
But that is a problem with skyrim guilds in general.
You get promoted too quickly.
It doesn't feel earned.
The worst problem with the Thieves Guild is the conflict. Mercer successfully stole the skeleton key, an artifact that is so much more than just a key. He could unlock or unseal anything material or spiritual. He coupd transcend the plains themselves. Instead, this sod uses the key to steal from his allies and hangs out in the sewers for over twenty years! Mercer Frey is a loser!
My counter thieves guild idea is something along the lines of Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser. Destroy the thieves guild by acting as independents. Do jobs better than they do. Avoid DB assassins that they hire to take you out. Maybe end it by somehow setting up their guild master to take the fall. Quests should be stealth based and not thuggery.
My friends, instead of joining the Skyrim Thieves guild, just become a Pirate ☠
Oblivion Thieves Guild: Robin Hood
Skyrim Thieves Guild: Licking the boots of a wealthy individual
lol
*(Edit:)* With the way you described it, the Skyrim Thieves Guild basically is a fantasy bootleg Mafia, but without all the extra fun and charm of *actual* Mafia's portrayed in other games!
And yeah, the Skeleton Key is an old, generic fantasy RPG trope, highly unoriginal compared to the Grey Cowl, so it's no wonder Skyrim's Thieves Guild seemed so bland compared to past games.
Honestly the one thing Skyrim's TG did better *was* being a proper crime syndicate, not a group of romanticized anti-hero vigilantes. But yeah everything else was better in Oblivion.
@@paistinlasta1805 But was it even the "thieves guild"? It honestly was just a mafia, which was already present with Maven in Riften, so the fact that she was affiliated with the thieves guild just never made sense to me cause she wouldn't need them at all. In fact, they should've kept the mafia theme as its own faction, then the thieves guild could have been a rival to that. Makes much more sense than the three storylines they tried to shove into the Skyrim Thieves Guild quests. The three of course being: Nocturnal, Maven, and Thieves Guild operations.
What I hated was I was forced to be a nightingale to complete it.
Why didnt I have the choice to turn down the role and maybe have a tougher Mercer Frey fight but give the key to Karliagh or Brienolf and gain a unique buff (I found all nightingales abilities to be kinda useless and their armor sucked as armor)
Love your channel Avarti!! Keep up the great work!
Oblivion will always be my favourite, I demand a remake.
Barbara Lerner Spectre keep an eye on Skyblivion. That would be the closest thing we will get to an Oblivion remake.
Barbara Lerner Spectre you typed morrowind wrong
Oblivion. 1.) You were actually a thief and did thief type things. 2.) You didn't have to sell your soul to a daedra to beat up some dude when you are capable of taking Alduin down. Wtf is up with that?
Well they mostly "changed" the thief guild for the "nightingales", and in a way made it more "nocturnal" centric. Also the retcon of the skeleton key, I mean, it's interesting, yet Nocturnal threw it around in the previous games. I disagree with the "yeah you had to be a thief on the side" because that's what you do the "jobs" to restore the sewers. However those are randomly generated sigh...All in all, Oblivion was about going against Nocturnal ( adaedric prince) while Skyrim was going with nocturnal (so helped by such), I mean, thieves/rogues are supposed to be rebels, so no wonder we prefer Oblivion's questline. As for Morrowind, it was interesting and difficult because there was a war between the thieves' guild and the local thugs: Commona Tong, which was controlled by house Hlaalu. So it was more political, and delicate to complete both fighters guild and thieves guild because of it, but interesting. There was also a "separate" quesline to "help the poors" already. The problem in Skyrim is that starting from becoming a nightingale, it becomes more of an exploration adventure, than an infiltration heist!
I wished that Skyrim expanded more on the Nightingales and made them more interesting. Maybe doing more quests for Nocturnal and defending the Twilight Sepelcur and maybe getting a daedric artifact, like the Ring of Kahjiti( which is shared by Nocturnal and Meridia if I'm not mistaken)
Honestly, partway through I was really interested because it seemed like, yes the guild is more corrupt and less interesting, but it seemed like that was a consequence of Mercer's poor leadership and lack of morality. I thought the guild would slowly become better over time as you returned it to its former glory and Mercer's influence waned, and it would that much more satisfying and exciting... but then that didn't happen.
I feel like they cut it short, like they should have made more quests to bind u with mercer and the thieves guild before u learn about mercer. Kinda to make u feel like u earned being the leader of the thieves guild. but instead it’s like 3 easy quests then u have to hunt mercer and then boom guild master.
Guilds need rules. This is especially true for guilds like the dark brotherhood and the thieves guild. What separates the DB from other murderous groups? The rules and their deity. What separates the thieves guild from thugs? The rules. If I am supposed to steal something and the group is fine with me murdering everyone in my path to steal it without sneaking at all then there is a problem.
One thing I would like to see is maybe a version of these Guilds that evolve with your choices or depending on how you act in a storyline. For instance, for a Thieves Guild questline you could help shape the Guild to be a Robin Hood type where you steal from nobles to give to the poor or you could drive it to be money-hungry where you take more money as being hired thugs to those nobles.
It's something I'd like to see in all the guilds or factions, where you help shape the direction in which those guilds grow. Right now it's just linear storylines that wind up with you being the leader of them and only go from A to B.
I always thought it was funny that Brynjolf snd Karliah made such a big deal about how dangerous Mercer Frey was when you’re literally the renowned dragon killer. He’s just some guy.
You also get the skeleton key in oblivion so like already better you also get to steal a fricking elder scroll that's such a pro move nothing can compete
You can steal 3 of them in Skyrim.
@@silentdrew7636 but is it part of the thieves guild?
It should have been like morrowinds where if you join the thieves guild once you get to a certain rank in the guild you cant join the fighters guild because you end up killing the fighters guild leaders or vice versa, or how if you joined one of the great houses you couldn't join any others, or how if you joined house telvanni you couldn't join the mages guild, etc. I thought it was dumb how in skyrim you can join the legion but then you can join the dark brotherhood and kill the emperor. They should have had faction wars like legion vs stormcloaks vs dark brotherhood, thieves guild vs mjoll or maybe even thieves guild vs the companions. Would have made the game more interesting and it also means you cant just do everything on one or two playthroughs.
Exclusive guilds are a terrible design choice.
I actually like the degradation of codes of honor and prestige within the guilds. The "End of Days" vibe you get in Skyrim is interesting. I suppose it's my wide-eyed newness as this is my first Elder Scrolls game, but I thoroughly enjoyed the faction quests. I'm not arguing that the story couldn't have been better because, again, I haven't anything to compare it to, but from a thematic standpoint I think the factions are well-fitting, and as someone without any prior experience with the guilds, they're fun to play through.
To clarify, I'm not arguing with his points in the slightest, just providing another viewpoint.
I don't wanna join the thieves guild but I have to because I want to collect all the Dragon Shouts and for some BS reason Bethesda decided to lock some behind guild quests for dragonborns who don't want to use magic or be evil.
The quests were mediocre, but some were still surprising. I had no notion we'd end up on a race with mercer Frey to reach the eyes of the falmer, for example. Nor did I expect to find Gallus and Nocturnal herself at the end
Most of the thieves guild quests in Skyrim are just dungeon crawlers
Another thing that makes no sense, mercer idolizes the grayfox but their actions are polarized. And in regards to the skeleton key, according to skyrim it's essential for the sepulcher to function.... And yet nocturnal quite happily hands it over to you in oblivion....
I did the thieves guild quest in skyrim only because the fence there has the most money to buy your stuff. I was actually into oblivians thieves quests.
I don't have the effect of nostalgia (unfortunately -maybe I'll give it a try to the IV), but I agree with you, there are many things that are not complete. First: the totally missing incognito of the guild members (you could walk in the city with a guild or even nightingale armor without any trouble) -ok it could be the strange game mechanic anyway, but... the skeleton key should give special, more mysterious quests because as it mentioned in the game it opens not just locks. This leads to my third problem: no real reason why you should "sell" your soul to Nocturnal. Maybe a quest that could reveal more about the origin of the skeleton key and the nightingales could give more answers to this question beyond just beating Mercer.
I liked Oblivion's thieves guild more.
I would have liked the Thieves' Guild quest giving the player a key choice as to spiritual direction of the guild. Would they be vigilantes secretly righting wrongs, taking from the rich and giving to the poor, or would they be straight up gangstas? That would've been interesting. Assuming the leadership of the guild would have a meaningful impact, and the quests could've been more interesting as the Dragonborn had to decide between the two factions and help one of them get the upper hand. Ah well.
Thrives guild quest line is basically the Dark Brotherhood quest line but boring.
Oblivion in my opinion, had better faction quests in general. with the fighters guild, you just undertook merc work for the most part, for the mages, you had to undergo a bunch of little initiation quests that helped you understand magic in general, as well as leading you to Black soul gems. the dark brotherhood had a bunch of random NPC's that had no other purpose than to die, and they often had several interesting ways to do it. skyrim though, basically has a bunch of dungeon runs that you do for all the quests. occasionally you have to do some simple puzzle work, but for the most part, skyrim is go here, kill all the things, and get the item from the boss chest. that isn't fun. That's repetitive and boring.
Never played Oblivion’s thieves guild but I always felt like Skyrim’s thieves guild was lack luster, not evil enough to play as a bad character but not good enough to play as a morally good character.
The Nightingale parts of it is the main issue with Skyrim's thieves guild. It goes from a thief mystery mixed in with Maven Blackbriar to a long Daedric questline. Similar to the Companions, you're forced to become part of the "Daedric cult" in order to progress the faction questlines.
There should've been a split path somewhere along the line where you could choose to lead the thieves guild and restore it's glory or to restore Karliah's honor and pact with Nocturnal. Doing both mixed in robs the player of freedom and saturate the meaning of what it means to be in a guild of honorable thieves.
I wouldn’t say one is better than the other. They tell different stories.
Besides Skyrim provides a level of satisfaction that Oblivion doesn’t when I look at where the thieves guild started when I join compared to where I can take it.
i have played Skyrim since day 1 in 2011. and the most time I spent with the thieves guild in skyrim was the introduction quest with Byrnjolf. After that, I only installed a mod to kill them all.
At the very least, the goals of the Skyrim Thieves Guild are more based on what thieves really are, self important. Personal profit matters, or the profit of the group, rather than the more unrealistic idea of altruistic thieves.
Skyrim didn't ruin the thieves guild because it isn't the same guild. Unlike an organization like the Dark Brotherhood, where every clan is directed by the Night Mother, thieves guilds are not directly ran by Nocturnal. Nocturnal grants boons, but in exchange for fealty, outside of that Nocturnal doesn't interfere in the day to day workings of any guild.
So no, it wasn't ruined, it is just a different guild with different goals.
@Jacob Unger Thank You for your constructive, thought provoking and incredibly nuanced reply. Truly you will be revered as being in the top eschelon when it comes to the brightest minds in history.
I feel like Bethesda took the "Darker and grittier" approach that was popular around the time Skyrim was released and just ran with it for everything, even the art style. Almost every single surface in the game looks rough and coarse, even stuff like noble and fine clothes look coarse and like they're covered in a thin layer of dirt and grime. Even Solitude, probably the most "civilized" city in Skyrim with the strongest presence of The Empire doesn't look particularly kempt compared to other cities. It has stone structures but that's about it. The Altmer are supposed to classy and snobby but beautiful but in Skyrim they just look like tall, yellow goblins with their horrifically ugly facial structure. Even freshly-made ingots, the things you'd expect to be the cleanest-looking things in the game, look coarse, have a bunch of scratches and wear and grime on them.
This "Darker and grittier" approach extended to a lot of the questlines. The Thieves Guild was more like a generic organized crime ring that supports a corrupt official rather than a Robin Hood like group of thieves who steal from the rich and give to the poor. The Dark Brotherhood is... well, still The Dark Brotherhood, but in Skyrim you get a lot less zany quests compared to something like Oblivion. The College of Winterhold is the replacement for The Mage's Guild, and the College is practically falling apart when you get to it. The student count is at an all time low, all the locals hate magic, and it's generally just in a bad state when you arrive. You could even argue that almost every single joinable faction in the game is pretty much in a bad state of disrepair and is about to collapse unless the player intervenes.
I'm not a fan of the "Darker and grittier" style of doing things. I didn't like it back in the mid to late 2000's and I still don't like it today. I especially don't like it being done in Skyrim because I feel like most of the time it's an excuse to make the player feel even more badass and heroic on top of being named "THE LAST DRAGONBORN" in the first few hours of the main questline. Everyone *_needs_* to be suffering so you can help them out, people aren't allowed to live normal lives when you're around. Everyone has a problem that they need *_you_* and only you to solve. The world looking like it's gone down the drain is to further support the fact you're a superhuman who can survive the hardships of Skyrim with ease.
@@HyperShadic0 Really can't argue too much with that thought about the overall aesthetic of Skyrim. While I wouldn't expect the overall opulence of Cyrodiil to be reflected in the far north, due to Nords generally more used to harsh living. I also wouldn't expect so many places to be so run down either. I won't get too down on them about the heroics though, it is a trope that the PC in an RPG is 9 times out of 10 going to be the Savior. Though I would argue that the powers to achieve the role come far too early.
I’ve had this game since the day it came out. 9 years almost. I only just NOW got the Thieves Guild achievement.
It’s so fucking painful and tedious to do, I’ve never wanted to do it, and even now I can tell you it’s not worth it AT ALL. It’s a colossal waste of time.
You’ll literally make more gold just picking up loot from dungeons or even making your own things to sell than you will trying to sell stolen goods and rebuilding *an entire network of fences from scratch* .
In fact, leveling up Speech to get the perk that lets you sell stolen goods to merchants you invest in is a more valuable way to spend your time than bothering with the Thieves Guild.
Terrible and powerful Talos! We, your unworthy servants, give praise! For only through your grace and benevolence may we truly reach enlightenment!
I recently did a playthrough where I got to a point where I could get the small jobs from Vex and Devlyn did the jobs I needed to to get the vendors and earn Devlyns respect then proceeded to advance through the quest line, becoming a Nightingale, then being able to become the Guildmaster right after, then with the CC quest for the Gray Cowl of Nocturnal, I sought it out, and made it more immersive that way. But yes, Skyrim totally wrecked the level of intrigue with the Thieves Guild, too predictable, and way too watered down. Sure it gives us Karliah and Brynjolf, but the thing that left it empty, was the omission of becoming the Gray Cowl as an ultimate reward, OR the choice to become EITHER a Nightingale, OR follow the trail of the Gray Cowl. Focusing on the players choices rather than, like The Companions, shoving something down your throat as conditions to completing a quest.