Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

[koro]

I do not understand the religious fixation some of you people have on never touching a ranged weapon.

My sword and board fighter/healer has a bow and some arrows for backup if absolutely necessary, but I almost never use it for a few reasons:

- Unless you are stealthy (my fighter is not), shit is going to aggro you from miles away and generally through rooms if you're in a dungeon, which negates some of the element of surprise that you'd use a bow as a non-ranged-focused build to obtain.
- Switching from a bow to a different set of weapons triggers a fairly slow animation that can get you killed if the enemy is close enough, especially if you use a two-hander in melee combat. The bash attack for the bow isn't always sufficient.
- Actually using my bow will level the skill for it which contributes to level ups. This can be detrimental thanks to the ever-lovely level scaling that's still out in full force, especially with the slew of other skills that you usually can't control the leveling speed for (hi, Speech and to a lesser extent Lockpicking) helping to inflate your level beyond your combat capability.
- Unless you invest some of your incredibly precious perk points into a weapon that will only see sporadic use unless you're an archer or someone who splits their time heavily between archery and melee in order to get the zoom and time dilation perks, the things you're most likely going to want to use a bow for (dragons in flight and not wanting to land) will be impossible to hit.

That said, I do make a point to keep a bow and some arrows around to pop hanging oil pots and get the occasional fight-starting sneak attack in though.

[lamaros]

I do not understand the religious fixation some of you people have on never touching a ranged weapon.

- Actually using my bow will level the skill for it which contributes to level ups. This can be detrimental thanks to the ever-lovely level scaling that's still out in full force, especially with the slew of other skills that you usually can't control the leveling speed for (hi, Speech and to a lesser extent Lockpicking) helping to inflate your level beyond your combat capability.

The level scaling has never been a problem for me, even with a character who has higher smithing, lockpicking, enchanting and sneak than the combat skills of one handed and light armor. And who has taken to going around fighting unarmed for one on one fights.

Next character is a brawler for sure. I figure with some enchants and the heavy armor perk - fists of steel - I'll be able to get unarmed up to around +50. Just got to figure out a way to keep the theme and still be able to kill dragons.

[Ingmar]

Being a khaijit will help a lot with that.

[rk47]

I do not understand the religious fixation some of you people have on never touching a ranged weapon.

- Actually using my bow will level the skill for it which contributes to level ups. This can be detrimental thanks to the ever-lovely level scaling that's still out in full force, especially with the slew of other skills that you usually can't control the leveling speed for (hi, Speech and to a lesser extent Lockpicking) helping to inflate your level beyond your combat capability.

The level scaling has never been a problem for me, even with a character who has higher smithing, lockpicking, enchanting and sneak than the combat skills of one handed and light armor. And who has taken to going around fighting unarmed for one on one fights.

Next character is a brawler for sure. I figure with some enchants and the heavy armor perk - fists of steel - I'll be able to get unarmed up to around +50. Just got to figure out a way to keep the theme and still be able to kill dragons.

Hadouken the motherfucker with fireballs.

[Miasma]

The game needs to be a little smarter about when to script events, in particular, it should only do one at a time...

I'm doing a scripted event where I'm fighting off a horde of monsters to save a town, that's fine, but then what happens?  An elder dragon spawns right on top of the town as I'm fighting the other event.  Oh well I think, that's just bad luck but after grinding out 100 smithing and enchanting I can still easily do both, but then what happens?  A God damn courier comes out of motherfucking nowhere and the game stops everything I'm doing to camera pan to him while he goes through his spiel about having a message for me and digging it out and then taking forever to say 'well I guess that's it then bye' .

[tgr]

You have to acknowledge his dedication to duty, and bravery in the face of immense danger.

[rk47]

Gawd. Ice Form Shout is so broken. I thought it'd just affect one target...but I ended up freezing my companion, a necromancer, and two undead in the same room I used it.  I casually pull out my warhammer and smash them to bits.

[Rendakor]

It is called

Oh ok, yes I have that quest. I realize now you meant a couple steps along the quest, not after literally walking a few steps. I never went to the temple because those Forsworn guys seemed like assholes and I was afraid it was a quest to join their faction.

[koro]

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2011-11-29-skyrim-the-first-western-game-to-receive-a-40-40-famitsu-review

Interesting, if not particularly meaningful.

[snowwy]

So, i decided to get married in-game. Riften is a "cozy" place after all. Standing there waiting for my bride, Ysolde, when all of a sudden all the guests go "Get out of here!"
I'm all WTF. Then i look at the front door where a very dead Lydia lies. This is no surprise, since i left her corpse in some dungeon 15 levels ago after catching one to many fireballs to the head.
Nice timing Lyds. stupid bitch. Couldn't stay where you were, could you?

Is this an ingame "feature" or what? Kill off a companion, get their corpse back at your now cancelled wedding?  

edit: seems this is fixed in tomorrows 1.2 patch

[Ingmar]

The marriage thing is pretty retarded, but hey, it gets you a vendor in your house. (Someday someone will figure out how to combine Bioware-style character writing with Bethesda-style open world goodness, I hope it happens before I die. The characterization and acting in this game is like 95% terrible and half-assed.)


In other news, I am now finished with: Thieves Guild, Companions, Dark Brotherhood, maybe a third of the Daedric quests, and a bunch of other miscellaneous crap and am sitting at around level 46 or so. On to the wizards next, which should be entertaining since I haven't really cast a spell in the entire game other than setting some stuff on fire for a quest that needed stuff to be set on fire. Steam says that took me about 70 hours so far but I think I left the game on overnight once.

[lamaros]

The marriage thing is pretty retarded, but hey, it gets you a vendor in your house. (Someday someone will figure out how to combine Bioware-style character writing with Bethesda-style open world goodness, I hope it happens before I die. The characterization and acting in this game is like 95% terrible and half-assed.)

I believe the solution is easy: shitloads more money.

You can only spend so many resources on areas of focus, if you want to havea huge open world with 30,000 quests then the writing is going to suffer. If you only have one plotline and 10 side-quests then it's much easier to get something more polished.

Meanwhile Bethesda a throwing a lot more of their money at world and dungeon creation, art, weapons, etc, etc, etc.

Plus I don't think the writing is actually that much better in Bioware games; they only seem to because they have more voice actors and fewer characters. If you took the Main, Thieves or Dark Brotherhood quests and polished them up with voice acting and cut-scenes they would easily reach the level of the main Mass Effect 2 plot. (FWIW I think they could all be improved a hell of a lot - but I realise that the cliche BS is deliberate and good vaule for money in such games)

[Ingmar]

They would need a LOT of polish. Right now even the most major NPCs are pretty much cut-outs. It isn't even really a complaint, since that's clearly not what the game cares about, and I can play the game they gave me and enjoy it.

[rk47]

If I had to choose between two developers game to get at this point I'd take Bethesda after comparing their recent efforts.

[Ingmar]

Luckily there are no straw men pointing guns at me in the real world and I can play and enjoy both.

[kildorn]

I may not take this game seriously enough. I am tempted to install http://skyrimnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=1698
Especially if they ever add audio to it.

[Ingmar]

The audio for that is practically in already.

[Lakov_Sanite]

I think you may be terrible at games sinij...I'm play a two-hander orc now and just ruining people's shit left and right. Haven't even used a potion yet, though I got my smithing to a beefy place.

[sinij]

I played RPG games on PCs since the days PC had a turbo button, writing was important back then since how limited other story-telling medium was. Now? Not so much.

I personally think Skyrim quests are fantastic game design, sure you can justifiably criticize weak dialogue in many instances, but just like with Star Wars romantic dialogue, entire experience is not about that.

You want good writing? Go replay Planescape Torment. I on other hand just happy with sandbox aspect of it.

[rk47]

Finally got a horse speed mod. Fucking hell. Those four legged creatures were so pointless before. And completing a Daedric quest got me a warhammer with 50 stam absorption on hit. Awesome. Unlimited Power Attacks!

[rattran]

The leveling system is still pretty clownshoes. And Smithing for weapon/armor upgrades makes combat trivial. That said, the sandboxy bits are great, but all the major quest lines seem to end with a meh, not a bang.

Also, if you leave the skyrim launcher open, steam thinks you've played it for 150 hours!

[Ingmar]

It's SO much better about the leveling than it was before, though, even though it is still kind of silly. It hasn't interfered with getting on with the game for me like past TES games.

[lamaros]

I don't get complaints about levelling. How exactly is it silly?

[Cyrrex]

I'll restate what someone said earlier in the thread.  This game is gorgeous.  Even on my laptop with "only" high quality settings, if you put all the draw distances to max...it looks absolutely amazing.  I am a big time graphics slut, and this is just over the top.  I could love this game for no other reason than just tootling around the world, looking at stuff.

I got jealous of everyone with all their fun Lyida stories, so I decided that I wanted to get in on the fun.  First mission out from the city, heading towards the Greybeards, and we come across some big ass keep.  She aggros the first Fire Mage, and I go to help her out.  Must have accidentally clipped here a little bit (really, it didn't seem like I was THAT close to her), because she died instantly.  Joy.  I generally don't like reloading when things like this happen, because that wouldn't be very RPG-ish of me.  So I trudge on without her.  Would have been nice to have had her along, if for no other reason than to be my mule.  Dumb slut.  Oh well, it didn't really fit into the ambivalent, sociopathic Dark Elf sneaker that I am trying to play anyway.  

[Ingmar]

I just like a little more control over how it happens, that's all. I'd rather not, for example, have MMO-style crafting grinds in my single player RPGs. The way some skills go up (speech in particular) is irritating because you have very little control over it unless you do ridiculous things (like buy and sell a hat a billion times) to farm your skill up.

This is still light years better than the preceding games, like I said it isn't enough to really interfere with my fun at all.

[Tebonas]

After I finished my Goody-Two-Shoes-Paladin playthrough, my Thief/Assassin will definitely have to manage without Smithing and Enchanting. Those are not only overpowered, they take some of the fun out of the loot I find. "Magic Ethereal Sword that ignores armor? Nice to display at home. Next please."

Good that my Nord can't stomach betraying people and therefore won't ever join the Thieves guild and/or the Dark Brotherhood. This game is chock full of quests for different playthroughs with different character backgrounds. Almost the perfect Sandbox experience.

[Ingmar]

Interesting, I find the exact opposite - I always end up just playing these Bethesda games with one Super Character Who Can Do Everything and because there's not really multiple interesting paths through the actual plot sections, I never replay them, I just explore everywhere and do everything with the same dude. I don't feel incentivized at all to play 'in character'.

I think maybe the big problem is they allow you to 1) play a complete and utter psychopath but 2) only reward you for it, never punish. (Which really is the problem with all games that let you go full serial killer for the most part.) There's no in-character 'cost' to doing all the Daedra quests, Dark Brotherhood, etc., partly because I can't get invested in caring whether any of the NPCs live or die. Sure, I'll murder this dude to get this cool thing, there's literally no reason NOT to.

[Tebonas]

My second Character will only do the things my first didn't want to (Thieves, Dark Brotherhood, Daedra Quests) and be done with the game. Because planting evidence is wrong for a Nord or something.

[rk47]

Character building plan
1 Argonian for Thief & Dark Brotherhood
1 Nord for Storm Cloak / Companions / Dragonborn <<<< Current Run
1 Empire for Legion
1 High Elf for Mage Guild

The whole game clicks together if you limit yourself actually. When you say 'the character that can do everything' it really means nothing, because you can simply tap the CTRL key, and two shot anything and wondered why you even bothered wearing heavy armor and wield a great ax.

[Falconeer]

Talking about the difficulties of playing a mage-allergic melee character, have you guys met Krosis?

I liked finding an enemy that made good use of the open space and his kiting abilities, but for about an hour I was about to smash the monitor in rage due to what seemed on obviously unfair fight.

Outside of that, the only other part where I had to sweat has been in a mage filled dungeon where I got 4 of them aggroing at once with 3 blowing wind and fire rays at me, and the fourth, the leader, long range bombing with explosive shells for two-hits kill. Again, the Companion, chain healpotions, lots of reloads and a few lucky strikes did the trick, but not without spending about an hour on it.

I am not complaining though. Outside of these two encounters the game seems too easy to me (Dark Souls after effects?), and I am very disappointed in how trivial the dragons are. They go down in a few hits, and they hit for less damage than the stupid White Hand Leader or any generic mage.

[lamaros]

I just like a little more control over how it happens, that's all. I'd rather not, for example, have MMO-style crafting grinds in my single player RPGs. The way some skills go up (speech in particular) is irritating because you have very little control over it unless you do ridiculous things (like buy and sell a hat a billion times) to farm your skill up.

This is still light years better than the preceding games, like I said it isn't enough to really interfere with my fun at all.

So don't do crafting if you don't want to? If you want to level up speech I assume you want to do it because it helps with buying and selling lots of stuff, so saying it's annoying to buy and sell a lot of stuff is pretty weird if that's what you want.

[Ruvaldt]

If you haven't done it already, Falc, you can increase the difficulty.  I have for both of my characters so far and it has helped a little.

[lamaros]

Interesting, I find the exact opposite - I always end up just playing these Bethesda games with one Super Character Who Can Do Everything and because there's not really multiple interesting paths through the actual plot sections, I never replay them, I just explore everywhere and do everything with the same dude. I don't feel incentivized at all to play 'in character'.

I think maybe the big problem is they allow you to 1) play a complete and utter psychopath but 2) only reward you for it, never punish. (Which really is the problem with all games that let you go full serial killer for the most part.) There's no in-character 'cost' to doing all the Daedra quests, Dark Brotherhood, etc., partly because I can't get invested in caring whether any of the NPCs live or die. Sure, I'll murder this dude to get this cool thing, there's literally no reason NOT to.

Sorry for the double post but I don't get this at all. Why does one character have to do everything? Maybe this is related to your skilling complaint, in that you want to be able to do everything, but not actually... do it?

If you play as a psychopath you will not really be allowed to go in to many cities. If you play as a clever psychopath who doesn't get caught then you can, but that's hardly unrealistic. Why should there be a 'cost' to being a dickhead? There isn't in the real world, and there certainly wasn't in more medieval times. I find that to be strangely moralistic. You should not want to murder everything because that's not the game you want to play, not because the game won't let you.

Hell, I'd be fine if they let you kill children and had all the characters be nude if you stripped them dead. Then I'd probably not loot clothes off most people because I'd feel like a sick bastard for doing so. This would be an example of the freedom of the game making it a better experience for me, because I control my own behaviour to make the world what I want it to me, rather than the world telling me who I can and can't be.

You seem to expect the game to control your experience a lot more that make sense. Which would ruin what many of us love about it: the freedom to make the game experience one we want.

Talking about the difficulties of playing a mage-allergic melee character, have you guys met Krosis?

I am not complaining though. Outside of these two encounters the game seems too easy to me (Dark Souls after effects?), and I am very disappointed in how trivial the dragons are. They go down in a few hits, and they hit for less damage than the stupid White Hand Leader or any generic mage.

I found that fight to be really easy actually, I just smashed him to pieces with my dual blades. My assassin cut through casters like butter though, unless they managed to freeze him, and I had several ways of going invisible and then getting in sneak attacks if I felt the need.

Meanwhile Dragons were a bastard, as I didn't have any way to make them land, didn't have slow time archery (or a very high skill) and had to make sure I didn't get front side or I'd get gobbled up. I usually ignored them unless I fought them near cities and had help to take them down.

My mage is smashing stuff up at the moment, very different playstyle.

[Falconeer]

Uhm. My problem with Krosis is that he kept backpedaling. In no way I could land more than one hit since he kept moving backward while bombing and two-shotting me. Sure when I finally trapped him in geometry I stunned him and hit him hard, but his kiting work was amazing.

Dragons, I just wait until they land. They always land. If they don't it's because there's no space, so I go somewhere open and they finally come down. Not a single dragon ever brought me to even half health, and there's no dragon I didn't kill at first try. Very disappointed in dragons.

[lamaros]

Uhm. My problem with Krosis is that he kept backpedaling. In no way I could land more than one hit since he kept moving backward while bombing and two-shotting me. Sure when I finally trapped him in geometry I stunned him and hit him hard, but his kiting work was amazing.

Dragons, I just wait until they land. They always land. If they don't it's because there's no space, so I go somewhere open and they finally come down. Not a single dragon ever brought me to even half health, and there's no dragon I didn't kill at first try. Very disappointed in dragons.

Up your difficulty! Also what level are you?