Deal With the Devil [Quest] - Critique

[Slunko]

This is an RPG game. So it really upsets me as a RPG fan and as a long-time table top D&D player when I'm shoe horned into a scenario where I have no influence or effect over a quest, with absolutely nothing to at least cover it up.

Now I get it, you make a quest and you want to show us how badass your random NPC is. And you also sometimes get lazy and don't want to write and code different paths for the said quest. But at least have the decency to cover it up.

Most other quests only really have the illusion of choice, but at least the illusion is there. This one though? I have Hellknights rampaging through my lawful kingdom with me not being able to propose a reasonable way of them dealing with it all, only blindly agreeing with their obvious stupidity or kicking them out. But that's really not the main problem here. The greatest issue here arises when you end up in the secluded lodge...

*Spoilers ahead, if it wasn't clear already*

...Not only is there NO way to avoid fighting the hellknights, which by the way, should be simple as all hell by the protagonist choosing different words or explaining himself before deciding to butcher them all, it also ends up by the most ridiculous conclusions to this part of the quest...
The fugitive they were after, who so cunningly "tricks" the protagonist (because we have NO other choice but to be tricked, so... slow clap for that one.) then (even if he died during combat to a KILL SPELL!) simply gets up, delivers his cunning and coy villain line, and proceeds to simply cast greater invisibility and vanish.

This all would pretty much be horrible as it stands. But I came prepared for the trickster. I had my communal See Invisibility on. I also had True Sight on. This would have been a good way to allow us to anticipate the trickster's move as we saw him preform illusionary spells before to hide his true plans, but no. See invisibility does nothing. The man simply isn't there. That's it.

And so we are railroaded onwards to the next part of this grind fest, while entirely shattering our immersion and lowering the expectations of future fun choices by another notch.


Now, before anyone loses their minds and decides to throw all sorts of unhelpful comments down under this post...

...please don't. This pointless side quest has simply upset me enough to write something a developer will perhaps read and something may come of it. The topic is not here to upset anyone. Feel free to disagree, just... keep it civil people. Comments like "You don't have to do the quest if you don't like it." are ridiculous at best. I'm hoping most people at least somewhere deep down understand that.

[the stton]

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[Esmian]

This was such a bad quest. My lawful evil character basically did everything they could to go along with the hellknights. I even attacked the dude when he showed up at the capital and I still get put into a fight with the hellknights.

[MintBerryCrunch]

Originally posted by Esmian:

This was such a bad quest. My lawful evil character basically did everything they could to go along with the hellknights. I even attacked the dude when he showed up at the capital and I still get put into a fight with the hellknights.

Does that happen even if your a asmodeus worshiper? Haven't gotten that far yet but I was really looking forward to having them working In my kingdom.

[Slunko]

Im guessing you get the same damned result if you're asmodeus himself. Also just you wait till this quest's conclusion. It's just as terribke as the rest of it.

[xarfaks]

I am pretty sure that this is a result of cut content.....

Hellknights were supposed to be a bigger part of the game.
There is even reference to a building called hellknight castle. A kingdom project you can do states in the discription that it makes that building cheaper.
So they probably had this already coded into the game and then decided not to fully remove it but simply to cut this short and leave only 1 solution in.

[mreed2]

I agree 100% -- this quest is awful. I'm assuming that, in a totally shocking twist, the Servant of the Archdemon of Greed who has flatly told you that he has needs tons of money to complete his deal with Mammon is going to fail to pay up the 10k gold he "promised". Of course, now that you've killed Linxia, she is, quite properly, not going to trust you if you try to side with her (again).

This is absurd: first, the cost of this quest chain is simply to high for the lousy rewards that you get out of it. Second, as pointed out, this makes a mockery of player choice and obviously railroads the quest to a single conclusion. Yes, evil people aren't trustworthy, which is why a smart evil person makes sure that he/she is prepared for the inevitable betrayal. There should be an option to open the conversation with Linxia with "Darven approached me and told me you would be here -- we should leave immediately and meet in amore secure location to discuss next steps" or something to similar effect. Even better, the player should have a way to send a messenger to Linxia with same intent, ideally via the Hellknights that are residing in my capital (who she should trust at least a bit).

Yes, this means splitting this quest into two (one where you side with Darren and one where you side with Linxia), but its absolutely essential in this case.

Edited to add: At the very least, let the player demand the money upfront from Darren.

[mreed2]

Originally posted by xarfaks:

I am pretty sure that this is a result of cut content.....

Hellknights were supposed to be a bigger part of the game.
There is even reference to a building called hellknight castle. A kingdom project you can do states in the discription that it makes that building cheaper.
So they probably had this already coded into the game and then decided not to fully remove it but simply to cut this short and leave only 1 solution in.

You can still build the castle. I don't think this was cut content -- it is a "message" quest (evil = untrustworthy).

[Geminichild]

What bothers me the most about this quest is the fact that i tried to work with the Hell Knights when I got to brineheart but the quest wouldn't go forward until I selected one of the others choices that made me fight the hell knights

[Freyaldo]

Yeah I was forced to fight the hell knights too in that town, but if I try to kill davern afterward (apperently chaotic evil chooice) he revives and I have to take 2nd CE hit. Hopefully this quest gets fixed fast.

[Geminichild]

Originally posted by Freyaldo:

Yeah I was forced to fight the hell knights too in that town, but if I try to kill davern afterward (apperently chaotic evil chooice) he revives and I have to take 2nd CE hit. Hopefully this quest gets fixed fast.

Agreed. It is the reason I am taking a break from the game for the moment

[shnelle]

I don't like this quest because as a good neutral character I don't agree with the alignment choices. The guy admits to us he kills people weaker then him and its Lawful Good to help him? I dont mind going after the hellknights as a good character but I would want an option to tell him to take a hike as well without saying I wanted to just ignore them both.

[Kainsec]

Yes this is badly done quest. The "Good" thing to do by the game's mind is to side with the guy who sold his soul to one of the rulers of hell, wants to make a city where they openly worship him, tries to bribe you over and over again, establishes said city in my kingdom without permission, and betrays and frames you at least once in this quest.

As bad as the hellknights are they are at least the lawful choice and only by the loosest definition of lawful since I as the lawful ruler told them to take a hike at the start of this debacle, though the arguement could be made they obey the law of their god/nation still leaving them lawful. The honest good choice would be to let me kill all of them, the hellknights are lawful stupid to the extreme and need a good killing, and no good comes from dedicating entire cities to worshiping archdevils, like ever. Ever. Has any dnd/pathfinder module ever ended well in that situation? No, because that's usually how all bad things start.

[mreed2]

Originally posted by Kainsec:

Yes this is badly done quest. The "Good" thing to do by the game's mind is to side with the guy who sold his soul to one of the rulers of hell, wants to make a city where they openly worship him, tries to bribe you over and over again, establishes said city in my kingdom without permission, and betrays and frames you at least once in this quest.

As bad as the hellknights are they are at least the lawful choice and only by the loosest definition of lawful since I as the lawful ruler told them to take a hike at the start of this debacle, though the arguement could be made they obey the law of their god/nation still leaving them lawful. The honest good choice would be to let me kill all of them, the hellknights are lawful stupid to the extreme and need a good killing, and no good comes from dedicating entire cities to worshiping archdevils, like ever. Ever. Has any dnd/pathfinder module ever ended well in that situation? No, because that's usually how all bad things start.

Technically, the land he founds his kingdom and city on isn't part of your kingdom (check the region map -- also, you can't access the kingdom management square from the city).

But the rest of it... Yeah, this quest needs another pass. I'm suprised that you can even start this quest if you aren't evil (I'm playing LE, and I assumed that there would be alternate content for good or neutral characters).

[keriv136]

What do u have to do for the last part of the quest?

[jonlevir]

I was trying to plow through, despite the bugs, despite the horrible "morality" choices and how ridiculous the options given are in some of these quests. This quest just broke it for me.

At the start, I tell the obviously evil hellknights to get out of my kingdom. I was already a king at this point and had an extremely powerful military and security force. I had iron golems throughout my city and 2 different mercenary bands supporting my military and security forces as well as a blood brotherhood with the chief of the Tiger Lords.

Did any of that matter? Nope. Everywhere in my city Hellknights are accosting my citizens and talking about how they'll torture anyone who doesn't give them the information they want. I can't do anything about it in person. I can't do anything about it in the kingdom interface despite an event card showing up saying that they're going through my lands doing whatever they want.

In universe, my Neutral Good king, who has taken down a barbarian horde and a cyclops lich supported by the forces of hell - the same king who has a literal army, tons of guards, iron golems, a goblin tribe, the Golden Shields, the Rusty Dogs, and the Tiger Lords at his command - can do nothing but sit around twiddling his thumbs while a small - less than a 100 at most - group of Hellknights walks in and kicks his citizens around even though he told them to leave.

Then I'm supposed to allow someone allied with another demonic power to use me to escape the Hellknights so he can set up a demon worshipping city nearby? No. Just no. This is as bad as some of the worst railroading GM stories I've heard of or read about online. And since I can't pull an Old Man Henderson, the only winning move is not to play.

If they decide to overhaul their nonsensical morality choices and give us actual options to handle this quest and others like it without just "going along with it" or ignoring it, then I'll come back. I'm too far in for a refund, but I'm really regretting my purchase at the moment. Maybe the devs will change things enough to save it, maybe modders will be able to save it. For now, I'm done.