About Skyrims Bounty system....

[Mebantiza]

Something I wanted to bring up since its been kind of bugging me a while now. Its about the frequency with which the various holds farm out bounties. What I have noticed, last few playthroughs especially, is the game seems to overwhelmingly favor handing out slay Giant bounties, as opposed to others. This is not to suggest, other forms of bounty are not being offered, they are, just that in my experience, the games radiant systems seems to have a propensity to hand out kill giants more than any other type.  I find this irritating for a couple of reasons. I can go to Whiterun for example, and be offered slay giants 6 times in a row, or more. Now I find that interesting because of a comment Skald makes. He says something to the effect that the empire had laws basically prohibiting the Jarls from arbitrarily attacking giants. IoW, the empire said, leave the giants be unless some reason exists not to. Skald of course, being a rebel is too happy to disregard that. Whiterun however, is  at least (unofficially) loyalist, yet hands out giant kills with even more frequency than Skald does.  Even the game stresses that giants are not overtly hostile, or aggressive, but not exactly 'friendly' either. Of course, Bethesda made giants toes a highly favored item.....but thats another topic. Bandit OTOH, you would think would be of greater interest in suppressing, at least in terms of ease and how much trouble they raise. Dragons are bad news sure, but humans most persistent and troublesome enemies, are just as often times-other humans.

 

I was I had logged actual data, but here what I am seeing in terms of offering. I think next playthrough with USKP 2.6 I will log some actual #'s and locations just for my curiosity. Currently playthrough I am level 88 and over 90% of the bounties are easily kill giants from whiterun and a large percentage also in Dawnstar. Numerous bandit camps that are radiant enabled still-not offered(yet)

 

Here is how the game likes to offer this DB jobs.

 

#1 Slay Giants-WhiteRun, Dawnstar worst.

#2 Slay Dragons -Popular but nowhere near as popular as kill-a-giant if hold has giants spawns)

#3 Way down list-Slay Bandit leader.

#4 Slay forsworn (#1 in Markarth not surprisingly) but of course, pretty much nill everywhere else.

 

That and the fact the Hold pays out a paltry 100 septims for the job of giant-slaying makes it even more irritating. Not that I need the money-but its still piss poor pay no matter how you slice it. 

 

In my current playthrough, there are tons of Potential Radiant locations(mainly in Whiterun-but other places as well) that game hasn't offered because all the offerings are time and again, slay giants.

 

I hesitate to call this a 'bug', though it does bug this DB to a certain extent. Is there, any sort of programmed bias in the game to offer these missions the way it does-or is it just random strangeness that I seem to be constantly called on to genocide giants, even long after I have any use for giant toes? Is there anyway to 'balance out' the options somehow to make them more realistic.

 

What are your thoughts(if any)?

[garthand]

This is interesting. I rarely take the time to do bounty quests but it seems like it might qualify as a bug, (due to the inconsistency), for imperial-aligned holds to be passing out giant bounties in the first place.

[IsharaMeradin]

Interesting.  My results tend to be mostly bandits.  It might have something to do with player level, if the player has a follower as well as what locations are available.  Never really delved into the Radiant AI system for quests so I'm just speculating...

[Mebantiza]

On my next playthrough, probably with 2.06 and a full re-install, I intend to log %'s -by hold-type and global averages and so on. Id like to rigorously test how the game hands these bounties  out. Gar says he gets a lot of bandits. I get *lots* of giants. But I do think imperial aligned holds, shouldn't really hand out giant bounties, or very rarely. This of course, lets Dawnstar and Windhelm off the hook being rebel scum and all. Still, Id like to see the game hand out a more balanced distribution of quests. Seeing anywhere from 6 to 8 giants kills in row offered up while lots of some of Whiteruns big bandit camps are STILL not being revealed, even with me being L90 currently, seems off somehow.