Lost to the Curse quest (SPOILERS)

[Toraoh]

I just want TO VENT because this quest has dissapointed me so badly... It's my first playthrough and the first time I talked to Danyla I agreed to kill her as a merciful action. But I felt bad telling to her husband that she couldn't make it due to the curse. So I tried to save her, loaded a save game from 2 hours ago bc I hadn't saved recently and ignored her. I thought ''if I don't talk to her and lift the curse, maybe when I came back she's alive and safe because there's no longer curse''.
And I did, I wanted the most peaceful ending, after doing the quest I returned to the Forest and tried to find her, hoping that now she's an elf again. But what did I found?
NOTHING, she just DISAPPEARED. Why? I understand that she was suffering, and the pain that she were feeling was so hurtful but that was enough to kill her? She is safe but fled? She died? If so, why there's not even her corpse so I could say ''Oh, Danyla didn't make it, I was too late'' or some object that basically is saying ''She's dead'', how am I supposed to return to the campsite and say the truth to Athras? What am I supossed to say if not even me know what happened with her? He goes into the forest alone to search her and that concludes the quest but ♥♥♥♥ it's that it? Ok then, ♥♥♥♥ this couple and ♥♥♥♥ her, let's save the entire linage/descendants of murderers but let not live this ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ dalishan elf, she does not deserve it. That's in summary what devs did with this ♥♥♥♥♥♥ quest. I can't believe I cried with this ♥♥♥♥.

[ChisaiiNeko]

Well since you did not do her quest and went past a point of no return with the main questline, the game will flag it as you having never coming across her and will just remove her from the game. It't not the devs doing as it's really just how old rpgs worked.

Same with finding the Blacksmith's daughter in Radcliff. Solve everything but never met her? She's removed from the game. Can't even find the corpse.

In all likelihood, the pain drove her insane (as pain is known to do to people) and she has since either fled the forest or became a wild nameless werewolf killed by a hunter/bandit or by you.

[The Dude]

Stop blaming linear quest design on the age of the game.

Morrowind came out close to a decade earlier and didn't suffer from it nor did the original Fallouts.

That is just BioWare's laziness showing.

[Bullpup]

Originally posted by The Dude:

That is just BioWare's laziness showing.

Linear design is a valid alternative to open world and not laziness. It would be like me saying original fallout was lazy because it didn't allow flying planes even though other and earlier games did. Linear design gives better story telling and control over difficulty. That's why linear DA1 is infinitely better than open world DA3.

And what has linear design got to do with not accounting for all the player actions on a minor quest with a throwaway NPC? Should I name all the non-linear Morrowind quests that didn't react to literally every event and state that a player could trigger?

[Redman]

Agreed. Considering the fact that there are plenty of other quests and incidents that are resolved by coming back to them later, this one does seem like it could've allowed this path and let us save her by either not engaging with her or allowing us to subdue her without killing her.

The ball was dropped but I think the devs just forgot about it. I mean, you can literally bed the elf girl three different ways but not save this one Werewife?

[ADEC Inc]

I just wanna know what was actually killing her. None of the other werewolves react like her. Is it simply because she never met the Lady?

[The Dude]

Originally posted by Bullpup:

Linear design is a valid alternative to open world and not laziness.

It's lazy when you don't allow the player to cure the poor miserable elf on your way to cure the poor miserable elves.

Two lines of dialog and a short detour back to check on her without destroying your vaunted story of miserable elves being uplifted out of their miserable existence only to cause pathing issues on the way to the final battle.

[Valden21]

Originally posted by The Dude:

Originally posted by Bullpup:

Linear design is a valid alternative to open world and not laziness.

It's lazy when you don't allow the player to cure the poor miserable elf on your way to cure the poor miserable elves.

Two lines of dialog and a short detour back to check on her without destroying your vaunted story of miserable elves being uplifted out of their miserable existence only to cause pathing issues on the way to the final battle.

If you do the quest, Danyla outright tells you that it's too late to cure her; the only way out for her is a merciful death. It's implied that the only way to actually remove the curse is if Zathrian lifts the curse on his own, and you have to force him to do that.