Carnal Sins quest discussion....

[The DarkLight Emissary YT]

So, do I need say SPOILERS? From here on out?


For those of you who have done this quest however, you know what its like. I for one enjoyed it quite a bit and even found the "reveal" at the end of the quest interesting but upon thinking about it further I found the quest not to make sense.

It goes fine until the actual Murderer who in this case is the Coroner himself actually basically tells you who his next "victim" is with the name on a piece of human skin parchment in a "new victim" in the morgue. What I don't understand is how did he make it to the Vegelbud residence before you? Do Higher Vampires have teleportation abilities? Why did he even give you that kind of lead to begin with? Then when you go "almost catch him" he gives you a false lead to Nathaniel the Reverend when ironically that probably should of been what was written on the parchment in the morgue......that whole convoluted bit bugged me a bit.....

I enjoyed the quest and all but found that annoying.....anyone else notice this or possibly have a explanation for it?

[The DarkLight Emissary YT]

I "Try" not to use fast travel too much unless its really frivolous quest goals like go here, talk to this person, then go here, talk to that person.

I got on roach and galloped all the way there so, thats why I wondered :P.

True. I did wonder at the names of the next victim being left to be found, almost like his pride, his... hubris made him want a confrontation. The chance to make his hunters chase around in a panic, and then the chance to be able to tell them why he did what he did. That big speech he gives you when you catch him at the dock, about humanity's sins and how the church was right, yadda yadda. You see murder mystery films and novels with similar villains in them.

True, he definitely seemed to be waiting for you at the docks, expecting you to see through his ruse. And also obviously expected to kick your butt hard in the fight. Witcher or not. I guess when your a immortal vampire you kinda can endup thinking that way :P.

[BoogieMan]

This quest made me wish we had more freedom of choice.

First thing I thought at the very beginning of the quest was that dude is way younger than the surgeon, how is he his teacher? Odd, but perhaps he's some kind of prodigy and the older guy started late.

Then, when questioned on this by Geralt, his little talk about working in the cold and with formaldehyde prolonging your life.. Right. You worked long enough to become a professor, then another 30 years as a mortician and look that young? Yeah that's a red flag.

Suspicion went to a guilty verdict and identified as a higher vampire on the spot. Wish I could have killed him right then and there, but I couldn't attack him. Would have solved the crime early and the Vegelbud lady would still be alive, and possibly the hooker (lol steam censors p rostitute but not hooker) unscarred.

[The DarkLight Emissary YT]

Yeah I didn't catch on to those things myself but you would kinda suspect Geralt who we know is a veteran by this point probably would have....oh well, another one of the more minor things on a overall great game though.

[Entrails]

Ok, so I did not choose the calmer options with Nathaniel and killed him right away. Will I eventually get looped back in to the quest? Will the murders continue?

[The DarkLight Emissary YT]

From what I hear he does continue to murder more people. You find a corpse soon after or something I guess. From what I know at least he doesn't go back and finish the job on Priscilla at least.

[Quintus_Fontane]

I think if the quest completed after you killed the guy torturing the lass, you can't revisit it and the murders will go on, as the real culprit is still at large. You can load a previous save if you want.
Also, Orex, it's a tough one for the developers. If they put too many clues in from Geralt, people would complain that there's too much hand-holding in the game (Like lots of people are already saying about quest markers), but if they put too little in, people will complain that it's too hard and too easy to miss things. It might have been a little non-obvious in this quest, but as satisfying as the angry conversation choices are, the calm, rational approach is generally more rewarding in this game.

[The DarkLight Emissary YT]

Yeah. I tend not to knee-jerk attack choice options because it may limit what happens later on in the game. I like to "keep the door open". Other times its just me projecting what I view Geralt would be like. Hes not afraid to defend himself, but hes a monster hunter, not a human hunter. I feel like if he is allowed to he won't just kill humans, but theres no way I see Geralt leaving Nathaniel alive after what Geralt witnessed. Geralt has always to me at least seemed like he respects women, and wouldn't let that stand.

[AfkForCoffee]

Just finished this quest myself and I found the whole "high vampire with a Jack the Ripper syndrome" entertaining, more entertaining than a lot of the other quests so far.
Like many before me have said it was pretty darn obvious that something was wrong with the coroner. Then it became pretty clear when you talk to him and learn that he was the professor at Oxenfurt academy.
Also the coroner's human character/face/model resembled WAY too much that other vampire (Katakan) you find in the sarcophagus in Novigrad. This would be the "5 more minutes"/ "is it 13.58 yet"/"Then ♥♥♥♥ off" vampire (Which was funny as hell).

[The DarkLight Emissary YT]

I haven't ran into the one from the trailer that tells you to F-OFF. Yet ^_^.

[Quintus_Fontane]

Aye Orex, I get that. Do the same myself. FORTUNATELY, you can talk to the torturer guy, find out what he knows about the coroner, and THEN kill him. Everybody wins :D

[The DarkLight Emissary YT]

Yeah I was hoping upon hope that the chat wouldn't end and I had to leave that woman with that sanctomonious hypocrite. Fricken Eternal Fire is the distilled worst qualities of every religion IRL I can think of.

[Quintus_Fontane]

That's something this game does EXTREMELY well, but a lot of people seem to be misreading it. It's full to the brim with racism, betrayal, religious strife, witch hunts, war, murder, persecution of minorities, mistreatment of women, basically every bad aspect of our entire species. But it's always you standing there as Geralt, a century old and jaded, watching this endless hypocrisy and evil happen again and again, and it points out in a very subtle way how all of these actions are pure madness. It doesn't glorify anything. It's one of the most subtle yet potent pieces of anti-violence, anti-war and anti-bigotry that I've ever seen.

Problem is, that subtlety just means it flies right over the heads of some folk.

[SophisticatedPie]

you have to ask and use the most options.

[Gmd]

I just ♥♥♥♥♥♥ up this quest aswell and only just realised that i actually failed to find the killer when returning to Novigrad near the end of the game to find another murder and Geralt saying "Guess Nathaniel was innocent, murderer still out their"(I killed Nathaniel on the spot). Awesomely even all this time later the game still lets you clear up all loose ends. If you go back to Joachim (the doctor) you can tell him how you made a mistake and the killer is still free. Then i decided to check up on Hubert to tell him how i ♥♥♥♥♥♥ up and it is only then i find out that i have been duped hardcore as he leaves a letter in the morgue confessing he is the murderer and has left the city going into hiding. Somehow he outsmarted me, how i didn't notice his age and stuff is beyond me. Love this game for the small realisations like this and extreme detail in the secondary quests, no matter how horrible a detective you are.

[Unit]

This quest is really dumb because it only makes sense if we assume that geralt is an idiot, and that the player wasn't paying attention. I'm sorry if I come off as a ♥♥♥♥ here, but seriously, if you couldn't figure out that Nathaniel wasn't the real killer, then you either didn't look around the crime scenes for clues, or you didn't pay attention to the clues you found.

At the scene of Priscilla's attack, you find a set of footprints that lead to a sheer wall and stop, and Geralt remarks that he "...couldn't even jump that wall", so how on earth would Nathaniel be able to? Then the coroner (think his name's Hubert?) looking significantly younger that his pupil, working in a morgue with easy access to formaldehyde, basically all clues that scream "I"M A VAMPIRE!".

The greatest issue with the quest though is that it boils down to an arbitrary diologue option in the end. You have to chose the specific option that has Nathaniel flat out tell you that the coroner is the real killer and only then you can go get him. If you kill Nathaniel first, then you never even get the option to continue investigating even though it was really obviously not Nathaniel.

For instance, the could be an option where you search Nathaniel and discover he has no salamander egg or formaldehyde on him, nor any in the room where you fight him, as well as noticing that he's human and therefore couldn't have jumped that wall, or something like that. But the game just cops out and goes, "oh yeah by the way the REALL killer escaped! :D" (except it doesn't even tell you that unless you read the character entries afterwards).

Someone said it before, but this is a quest which would benefit from more freedome of choice.