Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

[KallDrexx]

Just saw this browing around:

Super Skyrim Brothers

[calapine]

Possible Skyrim Expansion Files Found in 1.8

In what is becoming a bit of trend when it comes to Skyrim expansions, files found in a recent patch (this time, the 1.8 patch) allude to a possible expansion to the latest installment of the Elder Scrolls franchise. In a thread posted in the Bethesda Softworks Forums, a user reports that files found in the beta update suggest the new expansion will be called "Dragonborn", will involve the player traveling to Solstheim (the location of the previous expansion Bloodmoon for Morrowind), and will include certain new content like dragon mounts, new armor, magic usable on mounts, and new creatures. While it has not been confirmed as of now, a trademark on the name Dragonborn for ZeniMax Media Inc. issued on September 25th, 2012 may lend support to these rumors. Bethesda has refused to comment on the leak.

Weeee!

If you are asking yourself 'Patch? What patch?!': 1.8 is currently in beta and available on Steam (Settings > Beta Participation)

[Tannhauser]

That is some good viral marketing.  Intentional or not.  I want to go back to Skyrim, but there's so many great games (GW2, XCOM) taking up all of my time.  Still unsure on buying the Dawnguard xpac; don't give a feck about vampires.

[Rendakor]

I'm surprised they didn't have Dragonborn trademarked anyway since that's the nickname of the main character. Either way that sounds really cool. I'm in the same boat as Tann; neither of the current DLCs interest me enough to pull me back in with as many great titles as there are out there, although I intend to buy them all eventually.

[DraconianOne]

PC and PS3 are both getting Dragonborn DLC in February. It's on the 5th for PC  but no date yet for PS3 users (who are also getting Hearthfire and Dawnguard too).

[koro]

Heh, so they finally figured out how to get the DLC working on the PS3 without the game completely shitting itself? I'm impressed, it only took a year.

[Rendakor]

I had the opposite thought; no release date yet for PS3 and only a vague promise of HF/DG sounds like they still don't quite get it.

[Nayr]

I had the opposite thought; no release date yet for PS3 and only a vague promise of HF/DG sounds like they still don't quite get it.

Hearthfire is the only DLC I care about getting for PS3.

I have to wonder why they are having so much trouble with making the DLC for the system. You'd think after Oblivion, Fallout 3, and New Vegas, Bethesda would understand how the PS3 works.

[Rendakor]

It's not just the DLC; remember the save file corrupting glitch on the PS3 at launch? For some reason they've just always had problems with Skyrim on the system.

[koro]

Oblivion and Fallout 3 also had huge major problems on the PS3 as well. Last I heard a nontrivial number of Oblivion GOTY copies won't even run on the PS3, period.

[Stormwaltz]

The engineers who worked on the PS3 port of Skyrim actually worked in the ZeniMax Online office. They were always pulling their hair out about the save game system. You can save at any time, and it stores all the data about absolutely everything you've touched in the world - to the level of noting the location, speed, and vector of every single in-flight projectile at the time of the save. Apparently the PS3 does not handle this with the same aplomb as a PC.

[Sheepherder]

The consensus seems to be that 256 MB of memory is not a lot to run a game made in 2011 and that the cell architecture is weird.

[Quinton]

The cell architecture is AWESOME (well, really neat on a number of technical points at least), but it turns out that boring 'ol SMP + GPU gets the job done and is what everyone else is using.  People have enough trouble writing multiprocessor code in fully symmetric systems, much less environments with a bunch of special purpose, non-coherent speciality processing units (to be fair, the PS3 isn't nearly as bizarre as the PS2 or PSX in this regard, at least...).

[Merusk]

Because we have a thread for it I'll just move this conversation here..

Forget that nonsense Paelos is talking, I'm sure he dutifully files Dwemer gains every year.  If you go into a Dwemer ruin you should be carting out enough tonnage in random goods that you have no room for scrap.

I'm a Dwemer millionaire! Seriously though, the bent metal stuff is 2 carry per metal. What planet are yall living on where this is too much to carry? By the time I start doing this I have well over 500 carry space. (Steed stone, pickpocket perk, stamina boosts)

So Stamina has a use?  I haven't picked it up at all because I'm an Archer/ Mage and it doesn't have much use for Destruction spells or archery.  If I get in to melee I've fucked-up somehow and I'll rely on my minion or a summoned fire elemental to take care of things.

Money's doing better now that I started focusing on quests again instead of being ADD about it. Got the house, blew a bunch on decorating, then  raising smithing and then on trying to level barter. (Buy & sell back)  and I'm still sitting on about 3k gold.

Now my only complaint is that NPCs don't have enough money to buy all the shit I'm trying to sell.   Can't win!

[Rasix]

I think I'm at 36k gold and I don't really try hard at all to make money.  I really wish I knew there was some dude with near infinite cash that would by all my crap.  I have thousands in worthless magic crap I'll never use.  I think I left like 5k in staves on my now inaccessible steward. 

Focusing a bit now on the main quest.  Seems I've overleveled it by a lot.  It's really easy. 

[Nayr]

The engineers who worked on the PS3 port of Skyrim actually worked in the ZeniMax Online office. They were always pulling their hair out about the save game system. You can save at any time, and it stores all the data about absolutely everything you've touched in the world - to the level of noting the location, speed, and vector of every single in-flight projectile at the time of the save. Apparently the PS3 does not handle this with the same aplomb as a PC.

Well most game saves on the PS3 don't bloat up to 15mb and be three auto saves on top of the normal save. Sony probably never expected a game to ever save that much data.

I've heard that the shortcoming was because the PS3 divides its memory up. 512 mb total, 256 for system, 256 for games. But couldn't be too sure.

Shame the PS3 doesn't let you have virtual ram - use space on the hard drive to store the data that doesn't fit in available memory. That would probably help it some. And anybody concerned about available space could just upgrade their hard drive, which isn't hard to do at all.

I think I'm at 36k gold and I don't really try hard at all to make money.  I really wish I knew there was some dude with near infinite cash that would by all my crap.  I have thousands in worthless magic crap I'll never use.  I think I left like 5k in staves on my now inaccessible steward.  

Focusing a bit now on the main quest.  Seems I've overleveled it by a lot.  It's really easy.  

Trick to it. Build up your skill and get the perks that let you sell anything to anyone, and be able to invest.

Then basically make your rounds, sell items to vendors around the towns using fast travel. And when their gold is exhausted, wait three days and start over.

You'll end up with no junk and a lot of coin. And investing in the shops afterward means they'll have more gold to give you the next time around.

[Rasix]

Ahh, I haven't even looked at some of those perks yet.   I'm getting really spread thin on perks, there's just so much I want to get.

[Nayr]

And in other details. . .

I support the Stormcloaks. The real Empire died with Martin Septim and Titus Mede II is weak and nothing like his namesake, who conquered Tamriel by seizing the Imperial City with an army of only 1000 men. Letting the people who defeated them strip away their culture and defame Talos when there is definitive evidence in their world that he is a legitimate divine is stupid. They're letting the Thalmor weaken them so they can win in the next war.

[Paelos]

Two things help with the "vendors have no money" thing.

1 - I go to the smiths and buy all of their ingots. Then, I improve all my crap I picked up. Then I craft whatever's left and upgrade from the ingots. I sell the highest dollar items to the guy who now has $$$ from the crap I bought. I then go to the general vendor and buy soulstones (low carry weight), and sell the rest, saving the ones with souls to enchant my crap I just crafted. I then go to my house with the stones, enchant the stuff, and go back to a new city of vendors to sell those enchanted items. Also, since I'm an archer, I can buy arrows as well from fletchers to up their available gold and then make high dollar trades.

2 - Go to a person who is a merchant and a trainer for a skill you have 40+ in. I like the light armor trainer in Riften for example. Training with her puts your gold in her inventory, which you can then sell your shit back to her to get it back. So you get the skills and you get to unload thousands in items at once.

[Sheepherder]

Ahh, I haven't even looked at some of those perks yet.   I'm getting really spread thin on perks, there's just so much I want to get.

The points that proc a critical hit, a bleed, or ignore armour are pretty useless, you can skip them.

[Paelos]

By the time you get to level 50, you should feel like you have your bases pretty well covered, I think.

[Khaldun]

I don't know how often it gets mentioned, but I really appreciate the delicate tuning of the Empire v. Stormcloaks conflict. I think most players would side intuitively with the Stormcloaks, but Ulfric is an egotistical jerk and the Empire does have a point about being the only thing that can keep the Aldmeri Dominion at bay, plus General Tullius comes off as a fairly reasonable sort. On the other other hand, they tried to kill you and I'm sure most players would say 'And I was innocent' in their vision of the backstory. (or at least, 'where's your evidence?')  It's really well-calculated to make either choice plausible to a wide variety of characterizations.

Thalmor, though, those guys were built to be hated.

[Paelos]

Raise your hand if you went to the Thalmor embassy and cleared them out. Also Northwatch.

 

[Khaldun]

Ahh, I haven't even looked at some of those perks yet.   I'm getting really spread thin on perks, there's just so much I want to get.

The points that proc a critical hit, a bleed, or ignore armour are pretty useless, you can skip them.

If you're going stealth archer, I think the crit proc sometimes is good.

[Ingmar]

Yeah I don't see any reason to skip that crit one in archery. The paralysis proc is the one that is actually pretty inconvenient at times, since it seems to make the shot do no damage when it goes off.

[Sir T]

Yep I agree that they REALLY had made it a hard choice between the Stormcloaks and the empire. If Ulfric was not a xenophobic asshat it would be more clear, but even he is noble in his own way. In my first playthrough I went with the Empire, and I really was second guessing my choice the whole way through, wondering had I done the right thing. I expect I would have been doing the same if I had gone with the cloaks. Really really nice work on that whole thing.

Didn't stop me murdering any Thalmor I came across though :D

Interestingly;


Another proc to avoid is the disintegration one in lightning magic, as it means the corpse vanishes when it goes off meaning no loot, and apparently it can screw up quests.

[Paelos]

The paralysis archery thing does provide for some pretty hilarious "Hasta la vista, baby" moments of up close and personal murder.

[Morat20]

Two things help with the "vendors have no money" thing.

1 - I go to the smiths and buy all of their ingots. Then, I improve all my crap I picked up. Then I craft whatever's left and upgrade from the ingots. I sell the highest dollar items to the guy who now has $$$ from the crap I bought. I then go to the general vendor and buy soulstones (low carry weight), and sell the rest, saving the ones with souls to enchant my crap I just crafted. I then go to my house with the stones, enchant the stuff, and go back to a new city of vendors to sell those enchanted items. Also, since I'm an archer, I can buy arrows as well from fletchers to up their available gold and then make high dollar trades.

2 - Go to a person who is a merchant and a trainer for a skill you have 40+ in. I like the light armor trainer in Riften for example. Training with her puts your gold in her inventory, which you can then sell your shit back to her to get it back. So you get the skills and you get to unload thousands in items at once.

I  have something like 800 pounds of potions ingrediants in the satchel on the alchemy table in my house in Whiterun. I sell loot by buying out potions ingrediants, then selling off loot. (It's more like trading, really).

I'm a good alchemist, so it's well worth it. Plus now if I need cash, I can make poisons that sell for quite a bit. (I also can do banish enchants which is easy money off petty soul gems).

Mostly I used the investment perk -- that helps out a good deal, over time.

[calapine]

Those playing Skyrim on PS3 please disregard the following.

Re: weight problems: Have you tried modding? Using a mod that lowers the carry weight down to something more 'realistic' cured me of my OCD must-loot-absolutly-everything tick and also solved the 'have-so-much-gold-its-worthless' problem.

Now I still pick up a fancy magic sword or expensive armour, but - now that I know I can't possible carry everything anyway - I don't have to pick clean every single fallen enemy (which lead to a world full of naked corpses...) and empty every stupid bag for apples and carrots. Less items mean less inventory management, traders don't run out of gold as quickly and more time spent actually playing. Even with reduced income I could afford a house & horse easily.

Less is more!

[Khaldun]

Paralysis plus fus-ro-dah on baddies near ledges is always fun.

[Paelos]

Now I still pick up a fancy magic sword or expensive armour, but - now that I know I can't possible carry everything anyway - I don't have to pick clean every single fallen enemy (which lead to a world full of naked corpses...)

No no no. I have to leave a stack of naked corpses at every bandit camp I find. It warns the other bandits that I'm serious this time.

[Sheepherder]

If you're going stealth archer, I think the crit proc sometimes is good.

Yeah I don't see any reason to skip that crit one in archery. The paralysis proc is the one that is actually pretty inconvenient at times, since it seems to make the shot do no damage when it goes off.

Via quickload spam until it procs a critical strike.  I could probably get slightly more accurate numbers if I didn't have a fire enchant on my crossbow, but fuck it, it's not worth the effort.

It doesn't scale with anything, it procs 20% of the time, and it's base damage isn't anything to phone home about either.

I've been meaning to fix it up, as well and the one-hand and two-hand weapon-specific perks via mod for a while now.

[Ingmar]

What about the difference between a non-stealthed hit and crit?

[Sheepherder]

Afaik it's the same damage, it doesn't even get the 2x stealth bonus, but I'll check.

[Sheepherder]

Yep, same ~13-14 damage.