DO not make essential NPCs nonessential!!!!

[alexander_dougherty]

Someone is posting a tweek to the ini file that removes the protection from EVERY essential NPC in the game. Using this .ini tweek is a VERY BAD IDEA!

If you use it, the NPCs who are supposed to be protected from dying, will no longer be protected. Again this applies to all of them, it's not a targetted command, it changes a basic function for the game. This means NPCs who are supposed to give quests, or receive them when completed may be dead when you need them.

If you want to change the essential status of an NPC, first find out why they are set to essential, with a handful of exceptions there is a reason. Then use a console command, people here will tell you it, we just try to make sure you know what you are doing first....


And if you do use the .ini tweek that makes all NPCs unprotected, don't ask how you fix a quest, because the answer is undo the .ini tweek and start a new game.

[worm_master]

I jus console it away, for those i wanna kill, why would u take a chance, the game gets really buggered, coz some Jarl got dusted, and cant give u that all important quest?

Some people are so dense.

[Yellowbeard]

"The Fremen were supreme in that quality the ancients called "spannungsbogen" — which is the self-imposed delay between desire for a thing and the act of reaching out to grasp that thing." - Princess Irulan

[SpeedFreak1972]

Well it can be worse in one play (bug) Delphine died in Kynesgrove ... that was fun ...

[alexander_dougherty]

Originally posted by SpeedFreak1972:

Well it can be worse in one play (bug) Delphine died in Kynesgrove ... that was fun ...

Exactly the kind of problem I'm talking about.

[Liquid Inc]

i use this said tweak, both here and in Starfield, but i know the risks of such and i don't do the MQ's.
It is true that anyone can die, and they can die outside of your control. If the Courier died while bringing you a letter, it will screw every quest that uses him (IE, the Dark Brotherhood won't start). If Ulfric died, say goodbye to your MQ. If Delphine dies, or Esbern, or even those at the Thalmor Embassy, say bye to your chances of "completing" the game.

Just giving such a tweak to anyone with a problem is a recipe for disaster! It is however an option if you accept those risks and know what your getting into.

[psychotron666]

Sorry Todd, but I like freedom in my games. Stop insulting our intelligence by making NPCs everywhere essential

[Tealius Maximus]

I prefer making NPCs protected.

Still means I can kill them.

[SpeedFreak1972]

Originally posted by Tealius Maximus:

I prefer making NPCs protected.

Still means I can kill them.

Indeed for instance someone can die without you being present .... in a lot of games this is no problem, however Bethesda didn't write in a backup plan in when a npc is needed and died for an essential quest

[Ihateeverybody]

Originally posted by psychotron666:

Sorry Todd, but I like freedom in my games. Stop insulting our intelligence by making NPCs everywhere essential

Its not your intelligence its theirs (the NPCs). Anyone who punches a dragon (well, outside of actual trained Martial Artists) is an idiot that needs to be protected from themselves.

I have seen NPCs run INTO FIRE, run between me and the Raider, Vampire, Brawling, Wizard Duel, etc.

It's not to keep you from killing them, its to keep them from killing themselves.

[Zero McDol]

I never took the ini tweak seriously myself.

edit:
Yea, I know it works, but I have no interest in breaking my game.

[alexander_dougherty]

Originally posted by Ihateeverybody:

Originally posted by psychotron666:

Sorry Todd, but I like freedom in my games. Stop insulting our intelligence by making NPCs everywhere essential

Its not your intelligence its theirs (the NPCs). Anyone who punches a dragon (well, outside of actual trained Martial Artists) is an idiot that needs to be protected from themselves.

I have seen NPCs run INTO FIRE, run between me and the Raider, Vampire, Brawling, Wizard Duel, etc.

It's not to keep you from killing them, its to keep them from killing themselves.

Yeah....
Which is why I say use the console command if you want to kill them, the AI in this game is idiotic.

Somewhere between Oblivion and Skyrim Bethesda nixed the AI, in older games there was a difference between the different types of NPC, now the AI treats all NPCs within a faction exactly the same.... which is why all the enemies in a dungeon charge you even if they couldn't possibly know you were there.

[alexander_dougherty]

Just to clarify, I have no problem with people breaking their game...
The point is just that the .ini tweek is bad advice, basically guaranteed to break quests.

If you realise this, and still want to use it, fair enough.

But there isn't a way to unbreak the quests, you have to undo the .ini tweek and start a new game.... because resurrecting named NPCs breaks the game as well.

[grab these bandages]

With this character's death, the thread of prophecy is severed. Restore a saved game to restore the weave of fate, or persist in the doomed world you have created.

[psychotron666]

Originally posted by Ihateeverybody:

Originally posted by psychotron666:

Sorry Todd, but I like freedom in my games. Stop insulting our intelligence by making NPCs everywhere essential

Its not your intelligence its theirs (the NPCs). Anyone who punches a dragon (well, outside of actual trained Martial Artists) is an idiot that needs to be protected from themselves.

I have seen NPCs run INTO FIRE, run between me and the Raider, Vampire, Brawling, Wizard Duel, etc.

It's not to keep you from killing them, its to keep them from killing themselves.

Except Skyrim already has a solution for this in the form of protected characters. Protected is the same as essential except they can be killed by the player (recruited companions for example are protected), but not anyone else. Bethesda has a solution already programmed in game and made a conscious decision to fill the world with essential characters instead

[alexander_dougherty]

Originally posted by psychotron666:

Originally posted by Ihateeverybody:

Its not your intelligence its theirs (the NPCs). Anyone who punches a dragon (well, outside of actual trained Martial Artists) is an idiot that needs to be protected from themselves.

I have seen NPCs run INTO FIRE, run between me and the Raider, Vampire, Brawling, Wizard Duel, etc.

It's not to keep you from killing them, its to keep them from killing themselves.

Except Skyrim already has a solution for this in the form of protected characters. Protected is the same as essential except they can be killed by the player (recruited companions for example are protected), but not anyone else. Bethesda has a solution already programmed in game and made a conscious decision to fill the world with essential characters instead

Yes, but that does not mean making them killable is a good idea.
You might disagree with Bethesda's methods on this one, and I am not defending them, but simply making them killable, which is what the ini tweek does, is not a good solution.

Now if you installed a mod that made essential characters merely protected, then that would be ok, not great given Bethesda's protected status is buggy but ok... but again that is not what the ini tweek does, it doesn't downgrade them to protected, it merely turns off their essential status, meaning they can be killed by everything.