Bug in Companions questline

[kellygreen83]

Ok I'm fairly new to the computer gaming world so I'm not 100% sure of all the appropriate terminology so I'll be using plain speak for most of this. 

 

I started the companion quest line shortly after playing the game for the first time back in November (I play in marathon spurts rather than a little every day) and everything was fine once I learned the different gameplay style from WoW.  I made it through the first few quests in the companions and started working on the radiant quests concurrently over the next few months going back and forth between that and exploring/working on other quests.  I got to Retrieval (CR11) about the same time I was working on Blood's Honor (C04) ( and one of the repeatable "Take Up Arms" radiant quests but I'm not 100% sure which one as it was many saves and many weeks ago) and decided to do retrieval first, I went to turn it in to Aela and she wouldn't let me because I was working on the other radiant quest too so I went and took care of that one real quick (I think it was a hired muscle one now that I think about it) and went to turn in both ... I was able to finish the first one but Aela refused to talk to me about quests again after that (no dialogue prompt was available). 

 

I hadn't learned about the quest command prompts at this point yet so I just kept working on the main companion quest line thinking that I'd eventually get to turn it in as I finished the main line ones.  I completed "glory of the dead" and the quest item from "retrieval" became a normal item and I figured that I could just get the next radiant quest from her later.  I picked up a random quest from Vilkas (I think) but it turned out to be a "Family Heirloom" (CR06) quest that I'd already done before.  It (along with CR11) shows up in my quest log as incomplete but when I look at the map it doesn't show up as a quest in the appropriate random dungeon and when I went to the dungeon anyways and cleared it ... it never showed the quest prompts and I did not get the quest item.  I went back to the companions to see if I could get a new quest and they all say "aren't you on a quest for Skjor, come back when you've finished that." or something to that effect.  At this point I'd heard of the command prompts and decided to try them after doing some research. 

 

I used the SetStage prompt first (with a little bit of trial and error to figure out how to type it correctly without the brackets)  and when that didn't work I moved on to the Getstage (showed CR06 255) Player.sqs, SetObjectiveCompleted, showquesttargets (useless as I have a LOT of quests in my quest log lol) and completequest (which worked to clear the quests out of my log but didn't change the dialogue prompts from the companions).  None of them really helped after multiple tries and I finally logged out after creating a new save in frustration. I did the dungeon crawl for CR06 and all the subsequent actions last night.  I just tried to log in to get the exact information that player.sqs showed and got a message that reads "This save relies on content that is no longer present. Some objects may no longer be available.  Continue loading?".  As for what mods I'm running I have:

 

Skrim.esm

Update.esm

Unofficial Skyrim Patch.esp

Dawnguard.esm

Unofficial Dawnguard Patch.esp

Hearthfires.esm

Unofficial Hearthfires Patch.esp

Dragonborn.esm

Unofficial Dragonborn Patch.esp

100xCarryWeight.esp

ArcheryDummyXP.esp

RGMsAlchemistsCompendium.esp

SkyUI.esp

 

I also had  Audio Overhaul for Skyrim 2, Hearthfire Display Case Fix (which never worked by the way), and Project Reality - Climates of Tamriel-V3 but I unistalled them last night. I didn't install any of theses until around the 1st of June anyways and the first quest issue (Retrieval CR11) happened long before that.  So ... any thoughts or did I accidentally break Skyrim?

 

Edit: to add a few things I forgot the first time (and fix the formatting a bit lol), I have the Legendary edition of Skyrim with all the DLC, I'm using Nexus Mod Manager for the Mods, I have the SKSE thing to use for my SkyUI mod and I added the LOOT program recently too.

[IsharaMeradin]

I do not know about the companions problem.  The message box you got about missing content is because you uninstalled mods that the save game was referencing.  That is normal behavior.  It is a warning that you are about to load a save that is expecting data that is not there. Depending upon what is missing all kinds of problems can happen.

[kellygreen83]

So by uninstalling those 3 mods I may have killed that game (over 135 hours of gameplay) ... great ... wish I'd known that before hand, I wouldn't have bothered with mods to begin with *sigh*.

[Shadowblade]

Possibly. Uninstaling mods and continuing is NEVER recommended, unless you can load a save that never saw those mods.

 

But it is not GUARANTEED to break your game. It depends on the mod and how it impacts on your game.

 

You could try re-installing them and loading a save from before you removed them.

 

But it is more likely you broke it using console commands to advance quest stages etc. You should never do that unless you really know what you are doing, and even then I would think twice. Especially on a modded game. The USKP series is designed for pure Vanilla, but is compatible with SkyUI, SKSE etc etc.

 

 

By the way, I think the paragraph return on your keyboard is broken, MRMASSIVEWALLO'TEXT

 

~

[kellygreen83]

The mods I uninstalled dealt with the in-game audio and video functionality (called Audio Overhaul for Skyrim 2 and Project Reality - Climates of Tamriel-V3 respectively) and one to "fix" the display case functionality in the Hearthfire homesteads. I'm going to try loading the game from the last save. How do you load from a different save when not already in-game?  I only ever have seen the "continue from last save" option when opening the game after closing it out. 

[IsharaMeradin]

After you have created at least one save file you should see the following in the lower right of the main menu

 

Continue

New

Load

Credits

Quit

 

Continue picks up where you last left off.

New starts a new game

Load lets you select which save to load.  (I always use this instead of continue)

Credits shows the game's credits

Quit obviously quits the game

[Hana]

But it is more likely you broke it using console commands to advance quest stages etc. You should never do that unless you really know what you are doing, and even then I would think twice. Especially on a modded game. The USKP series is designed for pure Vanilla, but is compatible with SkyUI, SKSE etc etc.

 

This. Don't worry about the uninstalled mods because you've already broke your save game by using console commands.

 

The order in which you did the quests is out of order, that's the first issue. You should not have gotten Glory of the Dead to start before finishing Retrieval because you need those quest items.

 

What exact Companion quests are active in your journal right now?

[kellygreen83]

Oh ... yah for some reason I never really saw the "load" option before ... thanks . I really don't want to go back and have to re-do a lot of stuff but I guess it's that or restart the game from scratch, which I might just end up doing anyways at this point as I A) don't remember exactly which save it was that I'll need and B) I'll be losing about 16-36ish hours or more of gameplay (or about 4-6 levels, about 20 or so quests (misc. and main), and my 99% completed Falkreath homestead) to get rid of the mods *sigh*.  Thanks for the help/advice by the way, I really appreciate it .  On the plus side, I might be able to "fix" the <CR06> quest issue if I go back far enough and just NOT accept that quest in the first place lol ... maybe .  Oh well, again thanks for the help and I'll post again if loading from a previous save works or if I just had to start from scratch. 

 

One last question though, if I did start from scratch, would that overwrite all the game files on my laptop or would I have to go and delete them manually to make room?  I have a lot of saved items in my houses (ingredients, books, potions and the like) so I'd rather it be gone if I started from scratch so it doesn't bog down my memory/RAM/whatever it's called. 

[kellygreen83]

to "Hana" (I don't know how to use the quotes button)

 

Ok so I broke it ... fun ... the companion quests in my log are Family Heirloom and Retrieval (which has been in the log for a long time).  I guess the best thing to do at this point is to just start from scratch then ... remove all mods, create a new game and add the ones from the list back in ... is there a procedure I should follow? 

[IsharaMeradin]

For starting over....

Step One:

Make Skyrim Vanilla again

 

Step Two:

Install your mods

 

Step Three:

Run BOSS or LOOT, clean as necessary with TES5Edit, create a Bashed Patch with Wrye Bash (if necessary).  It is a good idea to do the Bashed Patch anyway just to ensure that any USKP edits to leveled lists are properly handled.

 

As far as your save files, you will have to remove those yourself.  If you use Wrye Bash, you can delete the files through the Save tab.  Otherwise, you'll have to navigate to Documents > My Games > Skyrim > Saves.

[kellygreen83]

Ok ... note to self ... next time I think deleting MODs (or adding them in the first place for that matter)  or trying to "fix" it myself is a good idea I should return to this thread and remember why it is a NOT GOOD VERY BAD IDEA TO DO THAT!!!  Though, apparently it broke itself before the mods even came into play when it let me progress in the companion quest line w/o completing the Retrieval quest first so there is that .  Well this should be fun ... thanks for the help though.  I really do appreciate it .  Wish me luck as I clearly don't know what I'm doing with computers apparently .  

[lmstearn]

It's nigh time the mod managers implemented a "warn on uninstall" alert for those starting out. You know, one with a "Don't Show me this again" checkbox for the rest of us wise old birds.

[Korentin]

For starting over....

Step One:

Make Skyrim Vanilla again

 

Step Two:

Install your mods

 

Step Three:

Run BOSS or LOOT, clean as necessary with TES5Edit, create a Bashed Patch with Wrye Bash (if necessary).  It is a good idea to do the Bashed Patch anyway just to ensure that any USKP edits to leveled lists are properly handled.

 

As far as your save files, you will have to remove those yourself.  If you use Wrye Bash, you can delete the files through the Save tab.  Otherwise, you'll have to navigate to Documents > My Games > Skyrim > Saves.

 

You can also delete your saves through the vanilla startup menu from the Load option.

[IsharaMeradin]

Guess I never paid attention to the "X Delete" option there.  Still it is faster to select a group of save files and mass delete than it is to have to do each individually.