Really off-key quest mechanic- White Marsh II Zahua personal quest spoiler (minor)

[Shadeball]

I know this is just venting, but boy am I annoyed. In doing Zahua's quest, the drug-addled walk through a forest, I come across a distressed antelope who wants me to go get a quest item so the wolves won't get her. Because I'm not COMPLETELY blind to plot devices/tropes I split the (high-level) party, figuring that a couple companions will be able to stave off any attack on the antelope while I'm playing with tree sap.

Then upon grabbing the quest item the game cheats and teleports the party members away from the antelope to the rest of the group. When I return, naturally the antelope is dead. Now this is complete ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥t to begin with, but maybe necessary for the plot; but then the game (through Zahua) chews me out for leaving the animal alone! If you're going to railroad the plot, do it more convincingly and don't try and guilt the player for it.

I guess poor quest-writing like this really stands out because it is rare in the game, but boy...

(to balance this out with something nice, I spent awhile clicking on companions until they gave their 'annoyed' lines and that made me feel a little better about it all)

[Relvor]

Hm, I always forget to split my party while doing this quest, so I always thought the death of the antelope was my fault. Apparently not. Thanks for pointing that out.

And I agree, this is lazy/bad design. Scolding the player for a scripted and unavoidable outcome is pretty lame, especially since the game implies there were options, when in reality there are none.

They can do better though.
I think Calisca has no less than 3 scripted ways to die in the intro.
Dying when leaving the cave into a biawac (standard), killed by traps when resting or killed by leaden key agents when resting after disarming the traps.

[D'amarr from Darshiva]

Is it an engine limitation that explains why in (almost?) every scripted sequence the player's party formation is broken up, stealth mode is ended, and the party is moved/teleported to some fixed place? That happens in several of these games. One of the few bad things.