Forums » Elder Scrolls

TES Factions And Things We Love To Hate.

    • 367 posts
    December 4, 2015 2:25 AM EST

    There’s been plenty of times we’ve all talked about the various factions and the lyc(anthrope) in Skyrim that we lyc and of our favourite followers. What about those factions we can’t stand?  The ones that make you cringe whenever you go near them? Those groups you find repulsive.

    For me it’s the blood sucking parasites we refer to as Vampires. Joining them instead of Dawn Guard.... First off there’s that dingy stinking rat infested hole they call a castle. A castle? That? Oh it’s got a portcullis great, well that’s super isn’t it. Has anyone looked at the dining hall? They say werewolves have bad table manners...

    Whenever I start a new character, if they end up for whatever reason getting bitten by a vampire before I manage to partake in Aela's blood, I start again. All my saves are 100% vampirism free.

    Followers... Serana... She does my tail in to no end.

    Every time there is a fight, every single Hircine damned time it’s...

    “Oh let me summon something. Oh I can raise that to fight for you”

    “NO!!! Stay the hell out of it... They just get in the damn way... Can’t you at least hold a bow like you’re going to use it?” And please if you’re that old then shouldn’t you be wearing Ancient Nordic Armor? It’s ancient like you for howling out loud... Here's a chair. Sit down, shut up and wait until I've cleared out the dungeon.

    What about you? Is there a faction you just cannot stand or a group?

    Is there a follower who you detest to the full?

    • 647 posts
    December 4, 2015 2:54 AM EST

    Dark Brotherhood. Don´t get me wrong, I think that their questline is probably the best one in Skyrim, but the whole idea of sadistic, worshipping god of "slaying", assassin family is repulsive. I like assassins, I really do. But I like professionals, someone who does it for money, not because he/she enjoys the slaughter.

    Plus I found the whole idea of Sithis being the god of killing little bit too much brainwashing. Whole DB feels like some cult that´s trying to wash your mind. If Bethesda went for worshipping the Night Mother (which is clearly real) it would be really great twist in TES, because at least for once, you can see what everyone´s worship.

    I still think that Night Mother "came up" with all that Sithis bullshit because she knew they won´t worship her. So she pretty much controls the DB and uses some distant primordial force to control them.

    As I said, Dark Brotherhood is full of crap.

    • 320 posts
    December 4, 2015 3:05 AM EST

    Not to mention their armor makes you look like...well a bondage slave (as one guy in the forum posted).At least the Morag Tong has real armor..(they look like spies/agents with their googles)

    • 1217 posts
    December 4, 2015 3:09 AM EST
    Not really. There are only a few characters in each faction I really like, but there's nothing/no one bad enough to put me off a whole faction.
    • 411 posts
    December 4, 2015 3:16 AM EST
    i have three
    First is the dawnguard The reason is they want to kill my kind! I only have 3 characters that didn't betray them to become badass vampire lords.

    The second is the Vigil of stendarr They kill vampires werewolves any type of undead. They also kill daedra worshippers. I'm also convinced if they had the chance they would purge the Orc strongholds and raven rock of any that worship malacath or the Reclimations.

    And finally the Companions
    I'm not the biggest fan of factions that force me to become a werewolf in order to advance. Every time I finish that questline I cure myself become a vampire and purge it of any Werewolves.
    • 411 posts
    December 4, 2015 3:28 AM EST
    In morrowind they had better looking armor.
    • 647 posts
    December 4, 2015 4:21 AM EST

    Those goggles had practical reason. Ash storms on Vvardenfell were pretty common, that´s why they had it.

    And yeah, Mirric, their armor in Morrowind looked much better. It had some morrowind feel to it. Oblivion´s DB armor didn´t look as bad as in Skyrim, but it could have been better.

    • 393 posts
    December 4, 2015 5:03 AM EST

    I totally agree with Karver about the Dark Brotherhood. The only time I wanted to join I ended up killing Astrid, because I was revolted by that bloodthirsty bitch.

    The vampires, they are kinda disgusting too.

    And the Thieves Guild. The way you can't go to Riften market without being stalked by Brynjolf annoys me to no end. I have to run from the bastard every time because I don't want to do his stupid quest.

    • 697 posts
    December 4, 2015 10:26 AM EST
    I'll start with followers since there is but one I've come to dislike, and that's because she's just awful. Oh, Serana. The fact that the game forces me to take her along to progress in the story is annoying enough. What's worse is that she never stops complaining. The angst oozes from her shitty undead pores and when I'm forced to abandon a good partner like Jenassa or Teldryn, then were already off to a bad start.

    As far as factions go, I'm not vehemently against any one in particular. I just find most of them uninteresting. The Dark Brotherhood is a little silly to my mind, as they come off as more of a caricature of themselves than anything. They don't feel as dark as they do awkward, like people who started taking Dark Brotherhood roleplay way too seriously.

    Volkihar are vampires and automatically suck. Quests are fine though. Same with Dawnguard. Quests are fine, but the characters there are actually pretty interesting.

    Bard's College was a massive disappointment. For a school that specializes in music and literature, the quest line was almost offensively shallow. Could you imagine if there had been philosophers put in game? I think that would have been amazing! Even if they would basically just be lore-regurgitating NPC's, they're presence would have helped put the college on the map of factions to join and engage with.

    As much as I complain about the College of Winterhold's quest line for being tedious and padded, the faction itself isn't so bad, mostly because almost every NPC has some use, which is selling specific leveled gear and/or giving unique miscellaneous missions.

    Sorry to have to do this Sotek, but I just don't really enjoy the Companions as a quest line or a faction. If it's any consolation, I really like Kodlak and Skjor (though their deaths are part of why I don't like the Companions). My beef with the Companions boils down to two issues. One, I can't tell most of them apart. I find almost every member boring apart from the two I mentioned. I think if Skjor lived and the "thing" he and Alea had was fleshed out a bit more, then I would have felt better about being around the members of the Companions. As they are now, I just find them uninteresting.
    My second issue is the forced transformation into a werewolf. I just wish there was some other way to progress in the story line.

    Oh! Thieves Guild. I actually enjoy being around some of the members. Two. Okay, Delvin.  Brynjolf is a close second what with his handsome charm, but Delvin is just a delight to be around. The quest is good, though falls into the same problem every guild does. Player joins, leader dies, player becomes most unqualified leader in history of guild. It's also excessively padded.

    But there ya go. Why nearly every faction on average earns a half-hearted meh from me. And also why Serana sucks.
    • 294 posts
    December 4, 2015 11:13 AM EST
    Just saying friend. Sotek is probably going to kill you now.

    All in fun, of course.

    I'll put my two septims on what I think of the factions when I'm done with work.
    • 647 posts
    December 4, 2015 11:33 AM EST


    Because they suck in comparison to Oblivion and Morrowind factions. It´s simple as that. Skyrim Factions suck. DB and TG have quite interesting plots, but the whole thing of becoming the "I´m the best there is in what I do, and what I do isn´t nice, so you should give me the most difficult tasks no other members of these factions could complete!" takes away. It forces you to be the One. And I don´t like that. 

    • 697 posts
    December 4, 2015 11:34 AM EST
    Hopefully it's an honorable death then. Arkay preserve me.
    • 320 posts
    December 4, 2015 12:09 PM EST

    While I can't compare Oblivion and Morrowind's faction quests with Skyrim's since I don't have a copy of them.Another faction I can complain about is the Vigilant of Stendarr.

    Radicals is what I could describe of the group.While their cause is just,their ideology of viewing ALL Daedra as evil is kinda not.I just assumed they treat Orcs and Dunmers as Daedra worshipers so they'll probably kill them on sight.They would even destroy Dawnbreaker if they had a chance,the undeads worst weapon destroyed because its a Daedric Artifact.Atleast the Dawnguard accepts lycanthropes into their group.But with all due respect,I like the Vigilants of Stendarr but I just don't like in what they believe in.

    As for Legion,may Stendarr have mercy on you because Sotek probably won't...

    • 697 posts
    December 4, 2015 1:00 PM EST
    I'm not familiar with the factions from those games to be honest, but I get what you're saying. It breaks immersion by turning the player into someone who is godlike at everything. I think I've actually heard that criticism leveled at Skyrim in the past; that Skyrim was designed in such a way to not only allow, but encourage the player to become the best at everything instead of focusing on specializations.

    Your point brings to my mind a situation I've always disliked though. Thieves Guild, the Goldenglow Estate quest. Vex, the "best infiltrator the guild has" couldn't get in, but the player can literally swim up to the door and pick it open. It's just hard to believe that the player is that immediately good. Whatever character Vex had disappeared with that.
    • 288 posts
    December 4, 2015 1:37 PM EST

    I couldn't agree more. Their questline is good (although you do gain in rank rather quickly, this is a common problem for modern Bethesda games), but they as a group are a bit lame and somehow lack the professionalism that one would expect from an elite assassins' guild.

    There should have been an option to side with Astrid and screw the Dark Mother.

    • 1438 posts
    December 4, 2015 1:42 PM EST

    Well, there are Orcs and Dunmer in there. but they have given up their ancestorś worship to follow the Nine

    • 168 posts
    December 4, 2015 4:54 PM EST

    I hate the College of Winterhold and I will tell you why. The basic gist is that, after passing an entrance exam (which consists of casting a novice-level spell for someone), you attend a 30 second lecture and then go on an expedition into a dangerous tomb to hunt for rare, valuable and potentially dangerous artifacts. Plot dictates that you’re contacted by the Psijic Order, a reclusive group of mages from across the world, because for whatever reason they’ve deemed you special. They say that you set a chain of events that can’t be stopped and only you can prevent a future disaster. Later on you find an artifact, and it turns out to be some giant ball of awesomeness that does magic things of an obscure and indeterminate nature. Afterwards, you’re contacted by the Psijic Order again. They tell you that the giant ball of awesomeness is dangerous and offer some vague nonsense about the severity of the situation, but never help you at all. So of course, pretty soon that means the clearly evil Thalmor advisor who was standing around protected by plot armor the whole time, decides to take control of the giant ball of awesomeness and suck out its power, putting a ticking clock that never actually runs out onto the whole affair. In this short conflict the Archmage is killed, followed by his second-in-command.

    After a bunch of dungeon crawling by the newest pupil, you find out that you need a special magic staff which was previously owned by the same god who created the giant ball of awesomeness  in order to… uh, drain the giant ball of awesomeness of its power? So then the player shoots the staff at trigger script and a glitchy boss battle plays out where the player theoretically is supposed to drain the Thalmor of the magic with the staff, then kill him. Afterwards, the Psijic guys Deus Ex Machinas appear again and take the giant ball of awesomeness away to their place and name you the new Archmage. Of course, you don’t have a choice in the matter.

    The most absurd thing about all of it is the extreme pace that everything runs at. There’s no build up to the main quest, there’s no real test for rising through the ranks, there’s no qualification for becoming Archmage save for saving their pathetic hides. You cast that beginner-level spells and then apparently that’s enough magical aptitude to become the Archmage. Nobody in the College does anything to help, except asking you to be their test subject and offer directions on where you should go. It demonstrates that either the College’s master-level mages are just a bunch of pansies, or that they are so stupid that a novice can outperform them in a matter of days, despite having less magical aptitude than your average tavern owner. There’s also the issue surrounding Winterhold and whether or not the College was directly responsible for the Great Collapse.


    • 320 posts
    December 4, 2015 11:07 PM EST

    While looking for Skyrim art at Deviantart,I found one of the best picture/comic to describe the factions questline....

    • 1584 posts
    December 5, 2015 3:07 AM EST

    Yeah, Skyrim felt like one step forward two steps back in terms of guild storylines. I think The College of Winterhold may have gotten the worst of that 11/11/11 deadline.

    • 1584 posts
    December 5, 2015 3:09 AM EST

    Not much love for the Dark Brotherhood here. This makes I sad.

  • December 5, 2015 3:32 AM EST

    The Dark Brotherhood just annoys me. They're clearly meant to be the, "Ooh, they're so funny and evil (and funny) that you just have to love them!" faction, and it's just too much. They get a lot of love and affection from the fandom from what I can tell, and I want no part in it. The whole religious angle is just bonkers, barely explained and completely incoherent (even by TES-religion standards) that it sucks the fun out of being an assassin. One of the great things about the Thieves Guild is that they're professionals; thievery is just a job to them, and it's treated as such. I think if there was a group of assassins that acted like that, I'd like them more. And the armor is weird.

    The College of Winterhold is, on the whole, one of the better factions, but one thing I don't like is that, to unlock most of their basic services, you have to complete the first step of the, "Oh, you're a super-special mage who has a super-special destiny" questline. At least the Companions and Thieves Guild give you a little time as the bottom of the totem pole. I mean, it's totally weird that you can become the leader of pretty much every major group in Skyrim already.

    The Volkihar aren't bad so much as misplaced...they barely feel like a part of the same game as everything else. Even the Dawnguard don't feel as out of place wandering around Skyrim, but the Volkihar are just odd. Like if you had a faction of robots or something just dropped into the game. They could be well-designed and interesting, but they just don'

    • 277 posts
    December 5, 2015 4:50 AM EST

    On my first playthrough I found it a bit weird that I was able to finish the College of Winterhold only with a bow in my hands. However, I found that to be a good thing because it gave me the liberty to complete the faction's story however I wanted. I think all the factions are awesome in their own way.  Considering you can roleplay anyone you want with them, I think Bethesda hit the mark.  My favorite is the Thieves Guild closely followed by the Dark Brotherhood and Dawnguard. I think the College is my least favorite but that is only because I'm not much of a mage player.

    So, stop hating! All factions are beautiful!   

    • 647 posts
    December 5, 2015 5:57 AM EST

    My main issue isn´t with that fact you can complete College without any magical talent, but with Skyrim guilds in general that they force you right from the start to be part of something big. 

    Take Mage´s Guild from Oblivion for example. You have to gain  7 "approvals" from Guild´s halls in Cyrodiil´s cities to gain access to Arcane University. In Thieves Guild you have to win a contest to get into the guild and then you start small, you have to items of certain value to get "a job" and be promoted.

    In Morrowind, guilds actually had Favored Skills and Attributes, which mean that you have to have certain skill to climb in rank. They removed that in Oblivion which allows you to complete every guild, but you have to climb through the ranks anyway.

    So, my issue isn´t that you can become Archmage without knowing crap about magic. My issue is that every guild in Skyrim FORCES you to become the leader. 

    • 288 posts
    December 5, 2015 6:01 AM EST

    Well, the "fact you can complete College without any magical talent" is a pretty big issue, if you ask me. Well....maybe not the completion itself, but the fact that you're made Archmage, which should require not just any but huge magical talent.

    Thieves Guild questline, with all its flaws, does this a bit better, as simply completing the main guild questline doesn't make you Chief Thief, you also have to do small jobs and then the large jobs.

    • 277 posts
    December 5, 2015 6:12 AM EST

    Well, Dawnguard doesn't make you the leader, but I see your point.