Do you think some of the dungeons are too long?

[Gigapact]

Let me explain. Some of the dungeons just seem to drag on and on with the same look throughout. I'm talking about the ones with the Draugr and same old. Sometimes also with Dwarven Ruins (some are unique though). For the elder scroll, can't remember the name of the place, but it went ON AND ON AND ON. And eventually, I stopped having fun. I was just ready to get the hell out of the ruin and get outside into the wilderness. By the time I got towards the end, which was beautiful with all of the glowing mushrooms and whatnot, I was already ready to leave.

Some have unique and beautiful things, but some long dungeons just drive me nuts, especially the ones where it goes something like this:

1. Fight Draugr and 2 Bandits.
2. Collect stuff.
3. Keep going and going.
4. Get to the end.
5. Beat Draugr Deathlord or whatever.
6. Search big chest.
7. Take shortcut back to beginning.

But then some caves are just absolutely BEAUTIFUL. I can't remember the name, but it's the one that you visit to kill a giant for Malacath's quest. That cave was beautiful, but it was so short.... I was sad. I feel like some that are just breathtaking are cut much shorter than some that are boring.

Like I said, this isn't obviously going to be true for every single cave/dungeon/whatever. But what do you think?

 

[AnjaRoslyakova]

I think the Dwarven ruin for the spellbreaker mission is too long. I always get bored doing that one.

That one and Falmer hives are the worst. I hated dark fall cave, up until I got to the vale section with the poison blossoms and gleamblooms or whatever they're called.

 

[Strafer]

I think the Dwarven ruin for the spellbreaker mission is too long. I always get bored doing that one.

That one and Falmer hives are the worst. I hated dark fall cave, up until I got to the vale section with the poison blossoms and gleamblooms or whatever they're called.

Screw that Spellbreaker quest. I almost gave up and almost ended up using a console command to get it. But I pushed on and got it.

 

[AnjaRoslyakova]

I play on xbox and I almost gave up too. I visited the shrine really early on in this game and I only just completed it yesterday. The prize almost doesn't seem worth the effort.

 

[DestroyerDevourMaster]

To tell you the truth this hasn't happened to me yet. Maybe it's because I just love fighting Draugr.

 

[Rimfaxe96]

I hate Dwemer ruins with a passion. Overall I don't mind if a dungeon is too long, as long as they don't repeat themselves.
In Skyrim, sadly they do.
Enter cave, fight a few hundred enemies as you move on, sometimes with a little surprise bigger-boss here and there and on a few occasions even with a little end-boss (for example the Dragon Priests lurking in their caves and waiting for you, HATE those). The only dungeon I enjoyed to some degree was the one in the TG questline when looking for Nocturnal, the rest got just so plain boring over time that I enjoy breaking into houses much more than anything related to deserted dungeons.

 

[Anouck]

Well, not exactly too long. Just all the same. The only difference between dungeons is that in dungeon 1 you have to go to the right and dungeon 2 you have to go to the left. I really can't separate one dungeon from another. It would be more enjoyable if every dungeon had a back story, with maybe some documents or old books laying around that revealed something about the dungeon's history. I understand that the Nords have a certain culture and building style, so you can't really avoid that all the dungeons look the same. But a bit more variety would've been great.

 

[Vaga8ond]

I agree the Dwelmer ruins are way long, although it is interesting to imagine what happen to them, as in where did they go. It's funny that I have had this game over a year and still haven't explored every cave and ruin. It would be nice to have more open areas to fight in but I haven't had dungeon fatigue as of yet either.

 

[Gigapact]

I think the Dwarven ruin for the spellbreaker mission is too long. I always get bored doing that one.

That one and Falmer hives are the worst. I hated dark fall cave, up until I got to the vale section with the poison blossoms and gleamblooms or whatever they're called.

I completely agree with you, that spell breaker quest was never ending. I almost called it quits 2 times.

 

[Twiffle]

I think, IMHO, that its not just that they are a little repetitive, but its that they are too easy, in easy i mean that they seem to have been designed for gamers who have never been immersed in an RPG game before, for instance take the oil slicks, they are so obvious its almost laughable, and the puzzles or levers to open secret chambers and doors, well you might as well put a big sign over them to help you, IMO it just seems that the trickiness of Oblivion and such games has been lost for the sake of making it easy and therefore more attractive to part time casual gamers which means that dungeons, caves etc have to be trimmed so as not to loose these gamers, but make it seem that its huge area by length rather than by content.

thats my 2 cents,, hope i got my point across,, sorry if i didn't ,

 

[thanks2Ralof]

lets be honest...is it too long b/c you are getting beat up??...would it be just fine if you cruised through lopping off drauger heads??.....thats how i feel anyway.....LONG=HARD

 

[ColleenG]

Nope, I like the long ones. I'm sad when they end.

 

[JoeReese]

Aye, most of the Dwemer dungeons outlast my span of attention.

 

[Gigapact]

lets be honest...is it too long b/c you are getting beat up??...would it be just fine if you cruised through lopping off drauger heads??.....thats how i feel anyway.....LONG=HARD

Hah, no I've done both ends of that and in between. Getting my ass beat, or killing everything in one hit, or being in the middle. Makes no difference for me.

 

[JoeReese]

lets be honest...is it too long b/c you are getting beat up??...would it be just fine if you cruised through lopping off drauger heads??.....thats how i feel anyway.....LONG=HARD

Hah, no I've done both ends of that and in between. Getting my ass beat, or killing everything in one hit, or being in the middle. Makes no difference for me.

I feel like I should take you to confession and possibly a support group, after that.

 

[DrunkenMage]

There are a few, while not exactly too long. They just irritate me and I can't be bothered with them, one being the first dungeon of the Companions where you go collect the fragments of Ysgramor's axe with Falkas. Just dislike the sitting around waiting in the scene where he transforms.

 

[Wildroses]

There are enough short and medium dungeons that I don't object to long ones.

This is strictly from the perspective of trying to clear one for a fetch quests or just because you thought it looked interesting though. I so see what the opening poster meant about Blackreach though. By the time I got there I was so grumpy at how long it took me to get there and how over-encumbered I already was before I got into Blackreach I didn't care how beautiful it was. Even now I associate Blackreach with badness as it is the place you had to find 30 Crimson Nirnroot. But to be fair it isn't only because it is huge. The first time I did that quest my game kept crashing around 25-29 Nirnroots and bumping me back to the low teens, then a dragon kept attacking the farm and killing Avrusa's sister when I was trying to hand in the quest. Did you know Avrusa refuses to talk to you and turn in a quest if her sister is killed, even if said sister is resurrected with the console? I didn't.

And I got really fed up with the Dawnguard questline. I could have coped with the Soul Cairn, and I could have coped with Forgotten Vale, but both of them together just made finishing the questline take longer than I could afford at the time.

What really gets to me about these long enormous dungeons like Blackreach, Soul Cairn and Forgotten Vale is when you are required to search through every bloody inch for your quest objective, and you don't have the option of just exploring as much as you can handle. I get lost really easily and can never remember if I have searched a certain area or not when I'm looking for something, and end up wandering around in circles checking the same area three to six times before I eventually stumble onto the unexplored area with the quest objective.

Finding 30 Crimson Nirnroot in Blackreach and all 20 pages of Saint Jiub's Opus are two of the most miserable experiences of my Skyrim life. Yes, these are sidequests and unnecessary to progress the story, but I was pretty miserable looking for the Tower of Mzult as well, and all the Keepers, and I don't want to even talk about the ninety minutes it took me to find the fifth Wayshrine, I really don't, and if I wanted to progress the storyline I had to find them all.

For all that though, I don't really think it was a mistake for Bethesda to include them. Plenty of players like the open world feeling of these huge dungeons, they were wise enough not to make every single dungeon Blackreach size and difficult to find, and variety is always good even if only to make you appreciate small dungeons. My sense of direction is awful as well (the closest my mother has ever come to killing me is when I'm trying to navigate for her), so it is probably best not to take me as a typical player experience when I complain of getting lost easily.

 

[shadowkitty]

There are a couple that I feel are pretty long and I usually don't get through them in one sitting.
Like the quest Blindsighted where you trek through Irkngthand with Karliah and Brynjolf. I remember the first time I did that quest, and how looong it was, then the fight at the end and then trying to escape the water...I had NO idea where the tunnel was and I was afraid I would drown.. then heaving myself out of the ruins at last only to be set upon by TWO dragons! whimper.. it was rough.

 

[Gigapact]

What really gets to me about these long enormous dungeons like Blackreach, Soul Cairn and Forgotten Vale is when you are required to search through every bloody inch for your quest objective, and you don't have the option of just exploring as much as you can handle. I get lost really easily and can never remember if I have searched a certain area or not when I'm looking for something, and end up wandering around in circles checking the same area three to six times before I eventually stumble onto the unexplored area with the quest objective.

Wow.... This. This is me. You are not alone! Especially with that damned Soul Cairn with finding all those godforsaken pages. Because after a while, everything starts looking the same, and I kept trying to come up with a way so I could remember what I explored already. Like going one direction and sticking to the border of the Soul Cairn and then sweeping back. Worked for a little while.... then I forgot my place. And I actually started finding the pages before I even talked to that guy because I just thought the story on the pages was interesting. So I thought I finally had gotten them all and searched the whole Soul Cairn. Well.... then I found the guy... and come to realize I was missing quite a few. I was fairly angry.

Next, like you said, that damned Forgotten Vale. The first time I ever played all through Dawngaurd, I could not find that last Wayshrine for the life of me. I was terribly confused... almost embarrassing. I kept going all through those portals, couldn't find it. Wandered around, couldn't find it. Finally after however long, I found the stupid thing. That was a very happy, yet infuriating moment in my life when I found it.

I think part of the reason, for me, is that I've never played a game with Bethesda's type of map. (I don't care for Fallout too much and I never had the chance to play the older Elder Scroll games) I remember when I first started playing Skyrim, I was so pissed at the map. It confused the absolute plops out of me. Took me a while to get the hang of it. Finally I did. But in places like we listed above, it's not that easy, because all you see is the stupid marker and that's it. The spell Clairvoyance has helped me quite a bit, but sometimes, even the damn spell can't find it!!!

Nice to know I'm not alone

 

[Perkless in Skyrim]

There are a couple that I feel are pretty long and I usually don't get through them in one sitting.
Like the quest Blindsighted where you trek through Irkngthand with Karliah and Brynjolf. I remember the first time I did that quest, and how looong it was, then the fight at the end and then trying to escape the water...I had NO idea where the tunnel was and I was afraid I would drown.. then heaving myself out of the ruins at last only to be set upon by TWO dragons! whimper.. it was rough.

I DID drown the first time. It was ... upsetting. I had to kill him AGAIN. Which would've been satisfying if I didn't have to scramble to find the exit. AGAIN. That was indeed a long one.

Dwemer ruins and Falmer hives are bad for being lengthy and I try to avoid doing them unless I have a lot of time to kill or I'm feeling spunky and want to show the Falmer who's boss. I never lose that sense of danger against them. Though I think it's more the Chaurus that do it to me since I've had quite a few bad encounters against them.