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I wouldnt change so much as add to the game. Skyrim’s Civil war is sorely lacking in depth and political intrigue, which is a shame considering how important it is. It may have been mentioned this is another thread but the Civil War should have played out like the NCR vs Legion conflict of Fallout New Vegas.
The game needed more depths and options in general if you ask me. There should have been an option, like you suggested, to take down the Black Briar family and to destroy the thieves guild to list just a few examples.
I wish every faction in Skyrim had a rival faction with an opposing objective you could join. Silver Hand vs Companions, Synod vs the College, Dark Brotherhood vs Morag Tong are just a few conflicts which would have added so much to the game.
Astrid’s betrayal and the slaying of most of the Darkness brothethood’s members. Turning on the listener was a sudden and poorly written part of the quest. I would argue it was the quest’s weakest moment.
Of the members killed I would have at least have liked to see Veezara and Arnbjorn survive. They were my favorite members.
Yeah, It seemed a bit out of character for Astrid to put her husband in danger.
I agree. Years of careful planning to keep the last known Brotherhood members alive, and she goes and does that? Any idiot could have predicted Commander Maro would go after the rest of the Brotherhood after disposing of the Dragonborn.
Exactly. Both she and her husband talking about loving each other more then themselves and the void and then she indirectly kills him.
Either Bethesda phoned it in when writing these quests, or the Dragonborn has this mysterious ability to turn faction leaders into morons.
Have someone else other than the Dragonborn become the listener. Then have the quest line split into two different paths depending on whether the dragonborn sides with Astrid or the new listener.
The Civil War and the stalemate negotiation that comes during the main quest. The whole thing should make a very compelling backdrop for the story, but the wartime atmosphere isn't really there, and the war has little effect on the rest of the game unless the Dragonborn joins one side. In which case it's over in a heartbeat, narratively speaking. And the war questline is rather bland as well.
To contrast, the Witcher series does an excellent job of weaving the large-scale war into its main narrative. The armies are there, fighting every day, and the war progresses and develops along with the main plot. The player character can affect the outcome directly, but joining up with one of the armies is so far removed from their main goal that it isn't even an option.
I'm not saying Skyrim's Civil War should have been exactly like that, but I would have appreciated a way to affect it more deeply than "Negotiate a truce for the main quest, then it never changes again" or "Join one side for a quick and guaranteed win". Where's the intrigue? Where's the scouting and spying, the misdirection, and the sense of either side having an actual strategy? Where's the part where the player gets to directly see how the war is affecting civilians? Where is the meaningful response by either side towards the dragon crisis? Where's the chance to make use of either army for the main quest, and bring a sizeable force to bear on the dragons? Where's the brutal anti-guerrilla campaign against the Forsworn? How do the Orc Strongholds play into it? Has anyone even bothered to send out delving parties of any kind, given that Skyrim is utterly littered with magical artifacts of considerable power? And where are the meaningful changes to the country after one side has won the war? Do they prepare for Great War Part 2? Make a permanent force to deal with the remaining dragons? Does anyone even give a shit about the vampire threat within their own borders?
I guess all of this displays the underlying problem that the war isn't really an integral part of the rest of the game. It's treated as a permanent side mission, never coming into the main focus unless the player chooses to join up. Which is a shame, because it would have been cool if it were a more meaningful part of the main narrative.
I would have remade The Companion's and made them more like The Fighter's Guild were in all the Elder Scroll's game's. They would have been a guild of Mercenaries/Soldiers for Hire that would have been more about rising up through the Faction's rank's by completing Missions,Jobs & Tasks instead of a half baked story about Werewolve's.
The Volkihar questline was a huge missed opportunity on Bethesda's part to imbue the game with a true sense of political intruigue. In my first play through of the Volkihar side of DG I thought this was what the questline was leading to upon killing Vingalmo and Orthorf's acolytes in Red Water Den. But sadly this was not the case. You have no choice but to kill Harkon once you've attained Auriel's Bow, which to me represents the kind of lazy writing that stifles a player's roleplay experience.
A better route, in addition to what we're familiar with, would have been to give the player the following options presented at various points of the quest:
Throughout the questline the opportunity to betray and double cross your chosen side should present itself.
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