Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

[CaptainNapkin]

Someone put together this perk planner spreadsheet, which has worked well enough for me until someone builds a nice fancy web-based one.

[jth]

I got this on PS3 and played for some time during the weekend, but then I decided to go for the PC + TV + wireless controller option for better fov and much better graphics. So I bought the game from Steam (for a rip-off price) and got me a XBOX 360 wireless receiver which arrived today.

But now I have a problem.  Whatever I do, I can't get Skyrim to run on the secondary display (TV). The options dialog lists two identical "Nvidia GTX 570" lines for display device, but no matter which one I pick, the game opens on the primary monitor. I tried to find solutions with google, found a couple of posts from people with the same problem but no solutions. Any ideas? Setting my TV as the primary monitor is the last possible option, because it's nowhere near my computer and I can't navigate around my desktop blind.

[koro]

Sounds like what he's saying is that there are multiple paths to the top of the talent tree, but if you choose the wrong path, once you're at the top you can't come back down on a different path and must start again from the bottom in order to get to the armor-making perk which is somewhere in the middle.

It's probably too early for any of the wikis to have full listings of all the talent/skill trees complete with full descriptions of what they do.  And the interface is so convoluted that I'm not sure if anyone will bother going through it repeatedly to get all the info.

http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Smithing

You basically start out at the bottom with Steel Smithing. Dragon Armor making is at the top; you can unlock Dragon Armor by going up either side of the tree. But, if you go up the Light Armor side and get to Dragon Armor, you have to go back up the right-hand Heavy side if you want to make Daedric weaponry.

This also means that if you somehow did come across an Ebony or Daedric weapon, you wouldn't be able to improve it to its max potential, even with 100 smithing, unless you went and picked up the perks for them.

[Lakov_Sanite]

Seems silly but it's kind o a wasted perk imo. Only reason a light armor char would care about those is for the weapon upgrading and I could use those prks in better places.

[lamaros]

Someone put together this perk planner spreadsheet, which has worked well enough for me until someone builds a nice fancy web-based one.

http://www.anuconsulting.com/skyrim/skyrimperkpicker.html

Got the game. Playing a cat man. Going stealth/archery/light armour/enchant. Dual wield is up next I think. Or smithing.

[JWIV]

Someone put together this perk planner spreadsheet, which has worked well enough for me until someone builds a nice fancy web-based one.

http://www.anuconsulting.com/skyrim/skyrimperkpicker.html

Got the game. Playing a cat man. Going stealth/archery/light armour/enchant. Dual wield is up next I think. Or smithing.

Completely random question, but are Argonnians and cats still unable to wear boots?

[lamaros]

Someone put together this perk planner spreadsheet, which has worked well enough for me until someone builds a nice fancy web-based one.

http://www.anuconsulting.com/skyrim/skyrimperkpicker.html

Got the game. Playing a cat man. Going stealth/archery/light armour/enchant. Dual wield is up next I think. Or smithing.

Completely random question, but are Argonnians and cats still unable to wear boots?

My cat has a fine set of boots, though I think he wears them more as shin guards.

[WayAbvPar]

Someone put together this perk planner spreadsheet, which has worked well enough for me until someone builds a nice fancy web-based one.

http://www.anuconsulting.com/skyrim/skyrimperkpicker.html

Got the game. Playing a cat man. Going stealth/archery/light armour/enchant. Dual wield is up next I think. Or smithing.

Completely random question, but are Argonnians and cats still unable to wear boots?

My cat has a fine set of boots, though I think he wears them more as shin guards.

[Morfiend]

I bought this yesterday on Steam. I havent started it. Does anyone have any advice as far as character building goes. I usually like to play ether a Stealth/Light Armor Melee/Archer, or a Spellblade type, with Melee, heavy armor (?) and magic.

Can anyone give me any tips for building these. Oh yeah, I also like to play Human.

[Ingmar]

"Building" a sneaky archer is pretty much just a matter of finding a bow and sneaking around a lot. You'll want to spend a lot of perks on archery, they're pretty much all good. Race is not terribly important in Skyrim, at most it gives you a 10 point head start on a skill which is really not that big a deal.

[Sky]

The Nord resistance to cold + the blood of one of those ice wisp thingies let me stand in a frost dragon's breath and laugh...taking no damage.

[Ingmar]

And then it bit your head off. 

[Miasma]

This is an online skill builder.  It seems accurate but I'm pretty sure there are some discrepencies.  In game I think the first point in stealth gives 20% but then the next only brings you to 25% whereas that skill builder says it goes to 40% like most of the 1-5 first perks.

[Amaron]

I think that depends on your level. At 29, a lot of the enemies I'm running across now (like more powerful Draugr, some Falmer, Dwemer enemies, some really strong mages, etc.) hve so much HP (or are immune to the stagger) that trying to do that is folly.

Shouldn't you be done with the game at 29?

[Ingmar]

Leveling is not particularly tied to story progress in TES games. The theoretical max level (all skills raised to 100) is around 80.

[Xilren's Twin]

Found a cave entrance this morning by literally falling down a hole into water, with no way back up other than entering the cave and finding an exit somewhere else.  Which lead to those damn sneaking blind goblin things and dwarven ruins including a jumping down ledges shaft deep enough than a goblin i shouted into it fell to his death.  Random yet enjoyable; so many POIs that keep distracting me..

Glad to here the game is selling well; need more games like this.

[ShenMolo]

I got this on PS3 and played for some time during the weekend, but then I decided to go for the PC + TV + wireless controller option for better fov and much better graphics. So I bought the game from Steam (for a rip-off price) and got me a XBOX 360 wireless receiver which arrived today.

But now I have a problem.   Whatever I do, I can't get Skyrim to run on the secondary display (TV). The options dialog lists two identical "Nvidia GTX 570" lines for display device, but no matter which one I pick, the game opens on the primary monitor. I tried to find solutions with google, found a couple of posts from people with the same problem but no solutions. Any ideas? Setting my TV as the primary monitor is the last possible option, because it's nowhere near my computer and I can't navigate around my desktop blind.

I worked on this problem as well. I plugged in a LCD TV to my Geforce GT 430's HDMI slot. After spending a couple of hours trying to run Skyrim on the LCD TV with my desktop running on my monitor, best I could do is Clone the desktop onto the LCD using Nvidia control panel. I can play Skyrim now on the LCD but it also is running on my monitor. Google searches provided little help.

[Miasma]

Leveling is not particularly tied to story progress in TES games. The theoretical max level (all skills raised to 100) is around 80.

They are saying past level 50 it is really hard to level though so you can sort of think of 50 as a more realistic cap.  Without console commands obviously.

[NiX]

Shouldn't you be done with the game at 29?

Such an odd question when it comes to a TES game. I'm level 23 and I haven't done anything for the main story beyond climbing The Throat of the World for the first time. It all depends on how much you focus on your skills, not really a matter of story progression.

[Lucas]

Hmmm....



And another one 

[schild]

Silly mods are silly.

[Ingmar]

Shouldn't you be done with the game at 29?

Such an odd question when it comes to a TES game. I'm level 23 and I haven't done anything for the main story beyond climbing The Throat of the World for the first time. It all depends on how much you focus on your skills, not really a matter of story progression.

Yep. I think I was level 7 or so when I finished Oblivion's main quest so this is a pretty vast improvement in terms of making character progression something you actually 1) want to do 2) isn't shitty 3) doesn't fuck you over if you don't do weird unintuitive shit.

[stray]

I don't really have a problem with the constellation thing. Maybe it's another thing that doesn't come off as bad on a console.

Although.. I kind of want to be an asshole and say to stop whining.  

The Nord resistance to cold + the blood of one of those ice wisp thingies let me stand in a frost dragon's breath and laugh...taking no damage.

For some reason, I hear that in an Ahnold voice. "I laugh at your frost damage!"

[Lakov_Sanite]

I gave up being a vampire. When fast travel eats up so much of your time, you find yourself having to stop and find someone to drink there blood way too often.  It wouldn't be so bad if you could just charm villagers and drink but you have to find someone who's sleeping to feed and that's a huge pita.

[Big Gulp]

From Cracked:

King: Wanderer! Thank the gods you've come! The prophecy told us that a mighty warrior would
arise, worthy of wielding Fjalnir, the God-axe, and slaying the evil Demon Prince Synraith. We
believe you to be that warrior. What say you, traveler? Will you accept this task?

Me: Yea, verily I shall accept thine task and vanq- wait, Synraith? Fiery dude in a floating city?
Cape made out of screeching souls? Ahhh, shit. I already killed that guy.

King: You ... already slew the Demon Prince, the Knife in the Dark, the Void at the Heart of All Men,
whose identity you did not learn until just now?

Me: Yup. I saw that castle floating up in the sky, and I wanted to know if I could jump up the rocks
to get in the back way. It took a lot of reloads, but I finally managed to hop on up in there.

King: You "hopped on up" into the Abyssal Palace?

Me: Yeeeep, yep yep yep. Just squat-jumped on in there and looted the place. Then I killed that
Sydney guy-

King: Synraith, Demon Prince of the Abyss.

Me: -yeah him. I ganked that guy. Mostly just to see if I could. Plus he looked like kind of a dick.

King: Indeed, the Foulest of the Foul was "kind of a dick." But you vanquished him without the aid
of sacred Fjalnir, the God-axe?

Me: Totally. It wasn't even a thing. I just hid on top of a bookshelf where he couldn't reach me and
shot him with arrows. Then I waited until he forgot I was shooting him, and did it all again to get
the sneak damage bonus. Took a while, but he died all the same.

King: Forsooth! Thine heroic deeds are ... well, that sounds kind of fucked up, actually. Never
thought I'd feel bad for He Who Devours. So you have no need of our sacred totem weapon?

Me: What, the gold dealy, with the shiny bits? Nah, I already stole that out of the display case four
hours ago, before I knew who you were. I gave it to Sven, but he Quantum Leaped out of the game
with that shit.

King: Huh. So. I guess ... the bards will ... sing of your tale now?

Me: Oh yeah? Sweet, let's hear it.

Bard: The hero came with eyes aflame / his tasks already done / the land was rescued all the same /
but 'tis kind of a shitty song.

Me: Word.

[Sky]

And then it bit your head off. 

Then it landed, I bashed it and whittled for a minute. Then it tried to bite my face off, which trigged my block perk slo-mo mode, so I dodged out of the way and power chopped it. Then when real time hit again, I used my slo-mo shout and finished it off.

Just got enough ore to improve my set of orc armor, so now I'm kitted in full orc gear at level 23. Been reading a lot of the books, though, some illuminating stuff in there so you can understand what the npcs are jabbering on about (the great war, especially). I have done a bit of the main quest on the Stormcloak side, though.

[ajax34i]

Someone put together this perk planner spreadsheet, which has worked well enough for me until someone builds a nice fancy web-based one.

http://www.anuconsulting.com/skyrim/skyrimperkpicker.html

Graphical Perk Builder: http://www.ign.com/builds/the-elder-scrolls-5-skyrim/create

EDIT:  Doesn't seem to be limited by the game's max level limit, which I hear is 50.

[Ingmar]

It isn't (see above.)

[NowhereMan]

I think 50 is the soft cap, going above it being a PITA that I'm sure lots of people will do. Also are block perks worth it if I'm going 2H? The slo-mo one sounds like it might be useful (sick of getting sucked into a power attack animation that kills me when I've got 1/3 of my health left) but most of them seem devoted to blocking shit with a shield. I ask because I'm starting to collect perks and unless I dump them into Heavy Armour/2H when I get a high enough skill level then I'm just going to be dumping them all into crafting skills. Unless I boost Restore/Alteration to really focus the Pally build...

I will also say that I think they've finally hit on a TES game where character progression feels like a reasonable consequence of the actions you're taking rather than choosing what you do based largely around what stats/skills you need to boost to min/max. I don't even know that the system itself makes a huge difference (although having lower skills not grant as much xp is already a huge step in terms of helping prevent you fucking yourself). Playing on expert mode (whatever the one above normal is) I feel suitably tough to be able to charge into combat but squishy enough to be very aware that a few fuck ups will kill me quick. Although I did manage to slay a dragon recently only to discover the word of power near him is guarded by a lich who tosses fireballs like they're going out of fashion and can happily take a couple of dozen 2H power attacks to the face. I need to get myself some fire resist potions and go back there to rape face sometime soon, right after I deal with this niggling reaction to sunlight and awful thirst. Is it just me or is it way easier to become a vampire in Skyrim than previous Elder Scrolls? I seem to recall it being ridiculously rare in Morrowind.

[Amaron]

Leveling is not particularly tied to story progress in TES games. The theoretical max level (all skills raised to 100) is around 80.

Yea but leveling excessively is just going to make you WEAKER as the mobs get stronger.   If he's going around leveling every skill he can then he should expect to get his ass handed to him by higher level mobs.

[NiX]

Yea but leveling excessively is just going to make you WEAKER as the mobs get stronger.   If he's going around leveling every skill he can then he should expect to get his ass handed to him by higher level mobs.

Hrm? I'm pretty sure it varies with some things having a soft cap on leveling. Wasn't it explained in this thread?

[stray]

I can't believe I did this, but I rerolled (I was lvl 17). Going 1h and light armor this time (still Nord).

[Amaron]

Hrm? I'm pretty sure it varies with some things having a soft cap on leveling. Wasn't it explained in this thread?

Yes it's not like oblivion but you still don't want to just go around crafting your way up to level 15 before doing other stuff.   Stuff still scales but it has limits on how easy/hard it can be.   At the very least the dragons would destroy you because they do level with you.

[koro]

Main quest beaten!


Not quite as badass doing it as a mage, but badass enough.

That final dungeon though... whooph...

[Hawkbit]

I didn't change much along the lines of tweaking it.  I changed the mouse acceleration, the tree shadows and I removed the compass.  I'm also playing on the level between average and toughest, though I might switch out soon to the toughest setting just to get my money's worth out of the game.  

I just finished an exam for school today, so starting tonight it becomes hardcore skyrim time.