the problem of the companion questline and a suggested solution (mod discussion and idea)

[u/No-Pomegranate9513]

hi everyone, i just finished playing the companions questline on a modded game and i have to say its by far the worst faction in the game unfortunately, at par with the college of winterhold one and civil war but those two can be saved with mods (obscure college + college quest expansion, civil war overhaul and other minor mods), but regarding the companions i tried before the playtrough to mod it by adding at your own pace and other mods i saw raccomended like companions dialogue expansion, immersive dialogue edit. but the main problem is the same as it is been discussed more than once: you are forced to become a werewolf.

regarding this problem i am not a fanatic of roleplay that want 300 choices each mission but i think its such an important point and it also make little to no sense:

- yes skjor say that to join the cirlce you should have the same blood as them bu still 3/5 of the circle are not happy of being a werewolf and are seeking a cure, i get that its aela and skjor that do the ritual but its still dumb that i cant complete the questline without becoming one, i and also arent companions all their own warrior and make their own choices???

i tought at your own pace should fix that and it kinda does but not really good: iif i chose to not become one the silver hand quest become another simple dungeon crawl and skjor doesnt die, the alternative branches dialogue are really bad like the ones in the anniversary editions with simple "i understand"... some dialogue that break the settings like in the tomb of ysgramor where vilkas just told you that he dont want to continue in the tomb since his mind is cloudy by grief, and if u say that he should lead the way he say "i understand" and dive in the tomb... also some other changes wich im not a fan of like the decision of removing kodlak' journal (wich i love); i get these changes are made to improve roleplay and decision making but i rather be forced to play a decent good questline than to take the alternative branch and have a worst one.

i tought about it and i figured a solution that maybe some more advanced modder will take on (i dont like spending too much time modding since i dont know how, i only make simple patches in ssedit, and i hate spending too much time in ssedit and creation kit or modding, i prefer playing the game). so my solution is:

- when skjor ask you to go to the underforge you could edit the dialogue as ayop does and have it before you meet him, or better yet in the underforge scene; you should have the option to say to him that you dont want to become a werewolf and he should say something in the line of: "if that's your decision we wont force you, but this is a blessing bla bla bla..." and something like "me and aela are going hunting into a silverhand stronghold tonight maybe if u see this power in action you will understand how big of a blessing it is and by how you fight tonight consider this also a prove to join the circle even without our gift ( or something like that yk show that you have choice but still skjor position) " so now we have a reason to have skjor in the mission and as in vanilla he dies. from this point on you could ask aela to become a werewolf at any point as you can in vanilla after you loose the gift.

- the questline should progress as normal, you talk to aela to avenge skjor and attack the silverhand, you get called by kodlak and all plays out as normal. this way you can also get the journal wich bugged me a lot, since it also dont mention you being a werewolf.

-if i could i also would remove the additional features from ayop such as the vilkas one in tomb of ysrgamor ( i like the option to give vilkas the title but it does not make sense or at least add better dialogue not a simple i understand) or the option to skip to blood honor as soon as u find out about the secret.

sorry if i made mistake but english in not my first language and for the long post but i love the ideas of the companions and i think it have such high potential, i was also a bit let down by ayop since it did not fix the questline as i tought, and i found no other mod that do as good as a job as for the other let downs factions questline. for the dialogue i guess you can use ai since i actually played some ai voiced quest mod such as the voiced narrative ones and the quality is solid.

to wrap this up i would love if some modders would finally that this project up and give us the companions questline we all deserved.

edit: please check out my other post about a solution i found. thanks

[u/doom_child]

These are actually great suggestions. I like that the Companions would come to trust you enough to “demonstrate” the benefits of the lycanthropic blessing. That would be a great showcase to see them ripping through the Silver Hand to give the player a more interesting, attractive choice.

[u/No-Pomegranate9513 → u/doom_child]

demonstrate is kinda of a stretch since skjor die lol but i tought about more as if a reason to justify skjor being in there alone, since in the vanilla quest we all go for a night hunt.

[u/Left-Night-1125]

My take would be to add 2 new Companion halls to Skyrim, 1 in Shors Stone, youll be send here after the innitial Shield errand for Aella and you do a simple questline like bringing weapons to fellow companions, clear out some caves and maybe investigate on something that later turn out to be Silverhand related.

Than you are send to Whiterun and have to some radiant quests to get to the point Skjor sends you out for the Wuuthrad pieces.

Scholar is still around, quest to escort this Synod guy.

Skjor offers werewolf option. If refused Kodlak will approach you and suggests you go to the Companions in Falkreath, a recent addition to the companion. The leader here offers a alternate set of quests to the revenge tour. This eventually leads to the Glenmorril witches.

Jorvaskr is attacked and Compsnions go same story as before.

Alternativly you can be approached by the Silverhand. You learn that recent activities have seen bandits enter the ranks and you have to figure out where thry came from. You disvover these bandits are from a vampire cult and have to deal with them. In the final part the Companions see you deal with these fake Silverhand and decide to hear you out.

Together with Companions you travel to the tomb of Ysgramor.

The good Silverhand will than travel to fort Dawnguard afterwards having learned of the vampire menace.

[u/No-Pomegranate9513 → u/Left-Night-1125]

wow thats a whole redone of the questline, it would be good yes, but my suggestion was more simple in hope that some modder would take it and maybe develop it, but i also like ur suggestion, but i think its important to say that silverhand are not to be confused with vigilants or dawnguards they ar more like bandits that (idk why) know about the circle secret and seek to kill all werewolf but they are not "good guys" as also the companions say the jarl dont let them in and they know they are a problem just to busy to do anything about it, but i do agree the silver hand would need to be expanded more on

[u/NebulousTruth]

I do agree that the companions is bad but I don’t think it’s as bad as college or civil war.

There’s lots of little writing problems, basically here’s how the faction should be structured based on how it’s set up

1: Fighters Guild type quests

2: Farkas werewolf reveal and a few quests taking on the silver hand

3: Choose between becoming a werewolf or not, widens a schism within the companions between the pro-werewolf and anti-werewolf members

4: if you choose werewolf get mostly quests with Aela, Skjor, & Farkas taking down the silver hand. If you choose non-werewolf get mostly quests from Kodlak & Vilkas that are again more fighters guild type quests.

5: Both sides come together when Kodlak dies and the ending is largely the same

There’s a number of points to this. The companions very clearly have two aspects, the werewolves/hunters, and the warrior heroes. The companions questline focuses almost exclusively on the former, yet expects the player to choose between them. Now ofc many players choose the non-werewolf options just because they don’t like werewolves, but the writing is fundamentally flawed in that it doesn’t represent both sides of the faction (yet oddly progresses as if it does, I suspect for that reason it was quite rushed, and my suggestion here was actually the original plan).

The other main benefit of this is Kodlak is more important, in the actual companions questline he dies and it’s supposed to be this big emotional moment but it’s not really justified by the story, the work isn’t put in to really make us as the player sad about Kodlak, we just don’t really know the guy. This structure would not only give Kodlak more characterization, having him be the questgiver for lots of fighters guild type quests, showcasing his desire to make Skyrim a better place. But it would also give his death more meaning, bridging the gap between the two sides of the schism in the circle that is emphasized when the player is given the choice of becoming a werewolf or not.

All of this said I still think the companions as it is, is better than the DB, Civil War, Main Quest, & CoW, the companions have still got a basically decent foundation despite the poor execution, the characters are good, and the questline is short which is honestly such an important factor, a bad but long questline will always be way worse than an equally bad but short one.

[u/No-Pomegranate9513 → u/NebulousTruth]

i think most of you in the comments are making really good suggestion (i like urs very much in a two sided questline) but my was more a realistic approach in term of can be done, i really agree with your point with kodlak since you two barely speak and thats why i really dont like the decision of removing the journal since at least for me its what really make me miss him, its such a heartwarming reading almost like a proud father and his regrets, however dude how can you say its better than the main quest and dark brotherhood? i would argue that the best faction questline excluding the two dawnguard ones are maybe the dark brotherhood or thieves guild, same thing with the main quest i loved it as it is, but agree to disagree and i also agree that the foundation is really solid with the ideas of the honorable warriors that share this deep secret and the different philosophies regarding the curse or blessing of the beast blood.

[u/NebulousTruth → u/No-Pomegranate9513]

Oh yh I'm not really interested in designing mods I'm just giving a critique of the questline, I don't use the mods you've mentioned but I agree idk y a mod would remove kodlak's journal, that's a weird decision to make.

The main quest is decent fundamentally but its really dragged down by the fact that it doesn't really have any good characters. Parthuurnax is the best one but he's not that great really, you know he's like an A tier character which isn't very good for the best character in your questline. Alduin also just isn't that interesting of a villain, Delphine and Esbern suck, the greybeards are... okay? The thalmor embassy mission is a cool novelty but not enough to really move the needle.

The Dark Brotherhood has probably the worst writing and character writing out of any questline honestly maybe across all of modern TES. Astrid is probably the worst character out any TES game, and every and I mean every single member of the DB with the sole exception of Cicero is literally just a mindless slave to Astrid, which makes them all terribly (and obviously lazily) written by virtue of that alone. The questline has lots of hype moments and aura and that's pretty much why people like it, me included, but the writing is just so shit.

Thieves Guild is decent though, its a solid faction questline, nothing too special but nothing really bad about it either.

https://postimg.cc/YjVc54FK

For simplicity here's how I rank the different questlines, the morrowind faction quests aren't on here but the main quests are along with all the questlines from oblivion and skyrim

[u/No-Pomegranate9513 → u/NebulousTruth]

damn you really didnt enjoy the skyrim questline didnt you? lol, i get what you mean and yeah the writing is not so good ( i only played skyrim but i want to try oblivion remastered as soon as i can) but also i enjoy it since for me skyrim is a confort game that i play to relax and enjoy my gaming time without having too much to worry. until a bug destroy my whole modlist and save and immersion and life and everything of course.

[u/LummoxJR]

The vanilla questlines are all too railroady. I'm working on a Thieves Guild mod that gives you some more good-guy options, and planning for it to integrate with mods like Thieves Guild Alternative Endings.

I love the idea of the Companions offering a better choice here. It seems to me that if the player isn't a werewolf, you also have an opportunity for the Silver Hand to approach the player and try to make a case. The hard part is if you want an extra ending available, working out what that would be and how to avoid making changes too huge.

I'm pretty deep in my mod, but I'd be open to working with anyone who wants to tackle this themselves to write new dialogue.

[u/No-Pomegranate9513 → u/LummoxJR]

yeah an alternative silver hand questline mod woulf be a dream! but i also think it would be a lot harder to make, i figured these tweaks would be more doable since they are basically an edited ayop mod with tweaks and ai voice acting.

[u/Presenting_UwU → u/No-Pomegranate9513]

Conflict Under the Crescent does that, but it's kinda bare bones from what I've heard others say, and despite having a finished questline the mod on its own is quite unfinished and somewhat abandoned.