Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

[koro]

Last I played (which was, admittedly, before any DLC hit), mages who focused primarily on destructive offensive spellcasting were kind of boned unless they actually broke the game by enchanting gear to give them 0% Destruction spell cost. Destruction magic costs too much to cast and does fixed damage that doesn't scale with any stat; by even the 40s Destruction mages are doing piddly damage to any enemy whose health scales up that high. I know I had to slap on a Destruction overhaul mod before I even finished my first playthrough, and I don't know if DLC or patches have changed this any.

But yeah, archery is pretty good for Conjuration, especially since you can just summon bound bows whenever.

[PalmTrees]

Getting paralysis from the alteration school (and requiring doing some of the college's story) is so very useful. Dual casting with 0 mana costs and the stagger when dual cast perk and my mage did fine. But yeah, you really need that dual enchanted, mana cost reducing equipment.

[Hawkbit]

Green Man Gaming has the new DLC on preorder for $15.99 right now.  Comes out Tuesday I think.

Decided to go heavy into Conjurer.  I'm walking through parts of the game I played before that I had trouble with.  The Flame Atronach is pretty overpowered, at least at lvl 12.

[DraconianOne]

That wouldn't be so bad if some other NPC saw the job opening and took over the job after a while :P

Doesn't her husband still run the place? He has the same supplies as she does/did.

[Rasix]

He has the same kind of supplies, yes, but his stock is entirely his own.  You really miss the drive-by shopping.

[Samprimary]

I had the opposite experience with destruction magic. I just basically used dual cast lightning bolt to chain stun everything to death; reductions in destro mana costs were fairly easy to acquire just to, you know, seal up the fact that once I'm targeting something it is standing there staggered until dead, whether it's a mudcrab or a dragon.

[Merusk]

He has the same kind of supplies, yes, but his stock is entirely his own.  You really miss the drive-by shopping.

His stock is his own unless they're both in the interior for some reason.  She was tending the desk last night and once I'd sold to her, i walked over to him.  Zero gold for purchases and he was showing the stuff I'd just sold her.

[PalmTrees]

That can also happen if you go inside too fast after talking to her outside. Since npcs will follow you through a door transition to finish their dialogue they're both in the same area for a second.

[Sir T]

The reason is that there's a Chest embedded in the floor generally that the NPCs draw from to do their trading. If a trade NPC goes to another area they start drawing from that areas chest and not their own. Its just a game mechanic but its how traders work.

[Khaldun]

Looking forward to the DLC unlocking later today.

[Lucas]

Looks like the Dragonborn PC launch went pretty smooth. Plus, today Bethesda released a new HD Texture Pack, entirely dedicated to all the DLC released so far.

http://www.bethblog.com/2013/02/06/skyrim-hd-texture-pack-update-on-steam/

[Khaldun]

Getting off the boat on the island immediately made me decide to go ahead and do the Overhaul patch on Morrowind and play that next.

[Khaldun]

[Ingmar]

Bethesda doesn't really do any kind of characterization for the player character at all, so no surprise there.

Getting off the boat on the island immediately made me decide to go ahead and do the Overhaul patch on Morrowind and play that next.

Every time I think about doing something like this I have to make myself remember how shitty character building/leveling is in the prior games.

[Sir T]

Yeah but the thing is, Morrowind has all this awesome stuff that they yanked out the later games as it was completely broken but fun. Like flying. And leaping over tall continents.

[Khaldun]

Bethesda doesn't really do any kind of characterization for the player character at all, so no surprise there.

Well, it does and it doesn't. They do leave you room to do things that change your internal conception of the kind of person you are (say, luring a companion to an altar and then stabbing them to death) but yeah, nobody really seems to care about whether you're a murderous psycho or an angel-in-disguise. Much of the time, I'm satisfied with a quest that says, "Would you like to be a bastard? Then do this and I'll give you some money" and letting me decide whether I want to or not. On a main questline, I'd really prefer that when I come to a moment like that and I'm going to have to be a bastard to progress that the game extend out the dialog tree to give me a chance to express regret and/or eagerness for my bastard behavior.

[Xuri]

Yeah but the thing is, Morrowind has all this awesome stuff that they yanked out the later games as it was completely broken but fun. Like flying. And leaping over tall continents.

It also had Cliff Racers.

[Tebonas]

Maybe you are lucky and the Morrowind mod for Skyrim will give you the chance to experience it in a modern environment (without the flying and leaping, presumably)

Its development values could even be improved with the assets of the new DLC, which feel VERY morrowindy.

http://morroblivion.com/forums/skyrim/skywind-development

[Lakov_Sanite]

Doing a Stormcloak playthrough right now and is it me, or does it seem like Ulfric has a big jar next to this throne filled with titles to give out and just grabs a new one at random.

[Ingmar]

Finished the main quest of Dragonborn. Ultimately I thought it was pretty weak. The stuff that happens in Oblivion isn't like, Oblivion-level tedious, but it still isn't very interesting. I still have plenty of other side stuff left to do and that is generally more interesting. Probably didn't help that at level 55+ with max enchanting and smithing that there is basically no challenge to be had, even when I'm skilling up a new weapon and armor type.

[Khaldun]

Yeah, I did feel a bit like, "Wait, is that it? Isn't there more to it?" with the main quest. In some ways the main questline in Dawnguard had better pacing.

The best part of the main quest I thought was getting into the temple itself at the beginning. I did get that delicious sense of, "Wow, this keeps going deeper and deeper..."

Some of the side quests on the island are fun. Some also are a bit oddly truncated--the quest with House Hlaalu sneaking into the island ended just as soon as it seemed to be warming up.

[Ingmar]

I am pretty sure that the main quest in Dawnguard was just flat out longer, too.

[Sir T]

It certainly felt like it. The vampire hunter side is slightly longer than the vampire one but that's still a lot of play.

[Meester]

I felt that Dawnguard was alright, at least for the Dawnguard side which I chose. I havn't been to see the Greybeards yet, after god knows how many hours [over 400], so cultists won't come up to me but its good to see I can smith the carved nordic armour outside of solstheim. This games sidequests are where its at really though, need to complete the aetherium quest, free serana from vampirism, kill a load of animal ghosts and do something with keening. Maybe i'll take keening with me to solstheim.

[Merusk]

I started doing the Dawnguard stuff last week and last night when I got home I realized that I hadn't ES played since Saturday and didn't have the desire to.  Something about the Soul Carin really sucked the will to play out of me.  I think I might just abandon the whole Dawnguard thing and go back to the main quest/ random quests. 

Consider that my evaluation of the Dawnguard DLC.

[Ingmar]

Yeah there are basically 2 spots in the game where I feel they really didn't get the fun up to the standards of everything else: The Soul Cairn and Blackreach.

[Fabricated]

My cousin is a gigantic TES sperg and has put hundreds and hundreds of hours into Skyrim. His verdict on Dawnguard was, "Meh". He liked some of the armor and the crossbows and the rest was...eh. He thought vampire girl was a way more interesting and fleshed out companion but thought she was kinda fanwanky "Check out my hot vampire gyrrlll pet" shit.

I haven't touched Skyrim for a while.

[Ingmar]

I do enjoy the crossbows, especially after adding a mod that changes the loadout of Imperial troops to be about half crossbow users.

[Merusk]

Yeah the crossbow is very, very nice and makes me wish there was an upgrade.   My Dragonbow Exquisite bow (still haven't gotten alch up high enough for Legendary) does so much more damage but is a pain to fire off in non-sniping combat.

[Ingmar]

Upgraded Enhanced Dwarven Crossbow is pretty competitive.

[Khaldun]

Soul Cairn and Blackreach both have the problem of being big and easy to get lost in without a lot of 'special' discoveries that reward you for getting lost and exploring. It should feel llike getting into that center area of buildings in Blackreach is like getting to the heart of a gigantic secret, and instead it's just Falmer-killing-time and then some ho-hum Dwemer ruins same as the rest.

[Merusk]

Upgraded Enhanced Dwarven Crossbow is pretty competitive.

I had no idea there was an upgrade.  Now I'll have to go get it.  Thanks.

I'll give the Soul Carin one thing.  It's wonderful for getting the soul crystals I was in desperate need of for finishing off the last 20 points of enchanting.  Every one of those monsters drops a common or better. Very nice.

[Ingmar]

Soul Cairn and Blackreach both have the problem of being big and easy to get lost in without a lot of 'special' discoveries that reward you for getting lost and exploring. It should feel llike getting into that center area of buildings in Blackreach is like getting to the heart of a gigantic secret, and instead it's just Falmer-killing-time and then some ho-hum Dwemer ruins same as the rest.

They're also both totally cut off from the normal fast travel conveniences etc., Blackreach being full of treasure is not very exciting without somewhere to sell it.

[Rasix]

The fun part about Blackreach is throwing away your pickaxe in the ruins well beforehand and then spending the next 30 minutes looking for one in Blackreach due to all of the fucking ore everywhere.  That place was dumb and boring.   What's even better at the conclusion of that quest, you get one where you need a sample of Falmer blood.  "I WAS JUST THERE!@#!@#@"

Soul Cairn I just sprinted through and it didn't seem to take that long.  I was totally in "just finish this goddamn game" mode by then. 

[Ingmar]

I have to do the Soul Cairn again to get the Soul Tear achievement, because when the skeleton dragon showed up outside afterwards I was like NOT THIS FUCKER AGAIN and killed him before he was apparently supposed to talk to me. 

My life is difficult.