The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Catch-All

tanstaafl wrote:

Hmm... I never considered lore/history to be spoilers. It's not stuff that happens in the game (as in "this happens in this quest" or "help this person and they'll give you that"), just something you find by reading books and the like, but I'm willing to be corrected if people do consider that spoilery. Should I go back and spoiler that out?

I don't consider the lore spoilers. Lots of quest, quest-line, content type spoilers in the last dozen or so pages that I am compelled to read. Some of them hidden behind spoiler tags, others out in the open.

Spoiler, main storyline, a little after meeting the leader of the Greybeards and going "underground" (boy, I'm super good at being vague):

Spoiler:

Anyone try reading the Elder Scroll? I figured, what the hell, right? If I go blind, I go blind. Even still, it spooked me.

Man, I was such a bad-ass until 2, yes 2 Blood Dragons just killed my ass on the way to Solitude. Ouch!

I wish there were more to do than just be a killer robot who talks to people who's only problems involve killing things. I don't think Bethesda's game design has kept up pace with their ability to create amazing worlds.

Also, I have to say that I'm a bit annoyed that it's apparently not very cold despite being very snowy. With the amount of furry animals I've killed there should be enough pelts for everyone. Go get some proper clothes ffs.

karmajay wrote:

I know someone asked this earlier, I was fighting a big baddie that disarmed me twice. I can't find my weps on the ground anywhere. Anyone have ideas? This was actually

Spoiler:

the main bad guy in the 3 part amulet quest, the one where he turns in to 3 archers, the water area

nvm, went to 3rd person ans the crosshairs finally lit them up

jonfentyler wrote:
drdoak wrote:

Wow, seeing your screenshots, I wish I could play on Ultra.

Agreed. I am hoping to find a good deal on a new GPU in the next few weeks.

I'm actually doing Ultra quite comfortably at 1680x1050 with a GTX 260. I also have a rather beastly overclocked 2500K CPU, though, and I have heard the game is CPU-limited, so bear in mind when upgrading that the video card may not solve all of your problems.

4xis.black wrote:
jonfentyler wrote:
drdoak wrote:

Wow, seeing your screenshots, I wish I could play on Ultra.

Agreed. I am hoping to find a good deal on a new GPU in the next few weeks.

I'm actually doing Ultra quite comfortably at 1680x1050 with a GTX 260. I also have a rather beastly overclocked 2500K CPU, though, and I have heard the game is CPU-limited, so bear in mind when upgrading that the video card may not solve all of your problems.

What did it default to for you?
I also have a GTX 260 and I run the game at a lower resolution but I've stuck with High, which it defaulted to. Got a worse CPU though, Q6600.

kyrieee wrote:

I wish there were more to do than just be a killer robot who talks to people who's only problems involve killing things. I don't think Bethesda's game design has kept up pace with their ability to create amazing worlds.

There are lots of other things to do! I've helped a potential suitor discredit his competition, and helped a young woman start a business as a merchant. I've captured and delivered forged military orders, blackmailed powerful individuals, and investigated murders. I went on an epic hangover-fueled journey to find out just what the hell I did the previous night. I infiltrated a fancy party and caused a diversion in order to slip away and steal important documents. I even played hide-and-seek with a little girl. Some of these quests did involve violence, but this was usually because I play a violent character with no skill in stealth or diplomacy.

It defaulted to high, but I was amazed to discover that after maxing everything and even throwing in some decent AA it didn't complain too much. Maximum view distances, all that stuff. I even did some of the graphics quality INI tweaks floating around the mod thread.

To be fair, much of the dialog is utilitarian and rather weak; it often gives me the sense that I'm just murdering and fetch questing because there is so little narrative to contextualize my actions.

To me, my actions ARE the narrative.

Is there a point to being able to forge numbers in the record books you can find in inns and shops?

iaintgotnopants wrote:

Is there a point to being able to forge numbers in the record books you can find in inns and shops?

It is part of a quest for a certain faction.

I ran into my first random dragon encounter today. It was pretty really easy, but then, it was a frost-breather and I'm a Nord (50% resistance to frost, plus a couple extra points from a potion).

Those of you who are into archery, what are y'all using bow-wise? I'm mostly a sword-and-board fighter, but I'm thinking I should develop my archery at least a little more so that I have something to do in dragon fights when they're doing their swoop-and-strafe thing.

Right now I've got a Forsworn bow that I enchanted with Soul Trap for hunting / refilling soul gems, but it seems like a waste of charges to use it against dragons (which can't be Soul Trapped). I sort of think I need to slap together a dragon-fighting bow for myself.

Speaking of equipment, it makes me sad that the next step up from my current Leather armor (Light armor specialist) is Elven gear. Ygritte the Dragonborn is a proud Nord who wouldn't be caught dead in that elven nonsense. May have to wait and skip straight to Glass.

iaintgotnopants wrote:

Is there a point to being able to forge numbers in the record books you can find in inns and shops?

Not going to spoiler this as it's purely my own speculation so I don't even know if I'm right or wrong. But given all the rumors about what the bad state the Skyrim Thieves Guild is in, I'm guessing it has something to do with them and how they could find they way back to their former glory.

Dysplastic wrote:

Actually, it's a bit simpler. The "F" key for favorites is actually "Whatever your Toggle POV" button is (This is what F is bound to by default when not in a menu). So if, in the process of remapping your F button for ESDF movement, you remapped your "Toggle POV" to "ALT", you now use the "ALT" button for favorites, even though the UI still says "F".

Yes, the Skyrim UI designers were bastards.

Awesome! thanks Dysplastic. Didn't think of that. Will try it out and see how it works.

There's another thing I'd like to applaud Skyrim for; attention to aquatic environments. It's so rare in most games to get the ability to dive under the water and see various fish and plants, let alone have the ability to interact (well, savagely kill) with them.

I also love the variety of non-hostile fauna. In most FPS/RPGs it seems like everything that's not a town-person is out to kill you; in Skyrim there's a lot of stuff that ignores you or (wisely) runs from you.

IMAGE(http://www.pucemoose.com/pics/pondman.jpg)

Thank you to all the folks who chimed in on the political factions topic. I'm not at all up on the history and lore. So I have a much better understanding of the situation now. And as I feared, there isn't a clear cut good and bad side. So I'm going to play it by ear for now. Or I'll use the WWMJD* system of ethical decision making.

* What Would Mr Jumbles Do.

MisterStatic wrote:

Man, I was such a bad-ass until 2, yes 2 Blood Dragons just killed my ass on the way to Solitude. Ouch!

I met a Blood Dragon -- yes, that's singular -- when I fast-traveled to a Word Wall I had already cleared completely. In retrospect, I'm absolutely thankful that I'm not playing duckilama's "no reloads" handicap, because that would've put twenty-seven-odd play-hours and twenty levels on my main, straight into the grave. Had to reload so many bloody times...pun intended, I guess.

hbi2k wrote:

Those of you who are into archery, what are y'all using bow-wise? I'm mostly a sword-and-board fighter, but I'm thinking I should develop my archery at least a little more so that I have something to do in dragon fights when they're doing their swoop-and-strafe thing.

I had a bow with a flame enchantment, but I swapped it out for a nicer, Elven bow that I stole from

Spoiler:

a locked display case I found tucked away in the Companions' headquarters; I felt bad, even though I'm a member, but man is it a nice bow; also, after enchanting it, I think the "stolen" tag went away.

I'm flip-flopping between some ranged attacks and having a decent short-sword for close-up fights; and most of my dragon fights conquests have been applying the following strategy: "Appropriate Dragon Shout + Gouts of either Flame/Frost from my southpaw + swinging madly and wildly at its flank or tail constantly and consistently, all while trying to avoid its mouth" which has been a project which mostly met with success.

That Blood Dragon I mentioned above was the only one, if I recall correctly, who swallowed me whole on a couple of my attempts.

(And in the interests of full disclosure, I am playing on a "not a real man" difficulty level. The dragons are still fierce, though...)

EDITED TO ADD:

Shawnosaurus wrote:

So I'm going to play it by ear for now. Or I'll use the WWMJD* system of ethical decision making.

* What Would Mr Jumbles Do.

If I understand the stories from upthread, that means that you'll be stampeding and stomping lots of NPCs, then?

Duoae wrote:
NSMike wrote:

Oh yeah, I need a mod that shows the actual cooldown timer for the shouts. It's infuriating to see that blue bar fade slightly... Then slightly more...

I'm a bit worried about some of the longer shout recharge times since once you use a shout it appears to be the case that its cool-down time applies to every other shout you have available.

Don't forget that praying at a Talos shrine reduces shout cooldowns by 20%. That's the shrine I have stuck with. I remember that there is one here:

Spoiler:

just outside the Thieves Guild hidden entrance, in a garden area in Riften.

Goddamn, there is just so much in this game. "Epic" doesn't begin to describe it.

I now do x30 backstab dmg with my sneaky mage. Or should i say mage assassin?

ranalin wrote:

I now do x30 backstab dmg with my sneaky mage. Or should i say mage assassin? :)

Sweet, now if you can just manage to backstab an Ancient Dragon with a weapon that does 100 dmg, you will almost kill it;-). Good luck with that.

Ok, it's just a random sidequest, but pick up The Blessings of Nature off the priestess chick in Whiterun hanging around the dying tree. It will lead you to one of the most beautiful places I've ever seen in a video game.

NSMike wrote:

Ok, it's just a random sidequest, but pick up The Blessings of Nature off the priestess chick in Whiterun hanging around the dying tree. It will lead you to one of the most beautiful places I've ever seen in a video game.

Yeah, I agree, that was fantastic.

Is the Collector's Edition of the game anywhere near worth it? ($150 on Amazon) What is the quality like on the Dragon and artwork book?

Bethesda weren't blowing smoke when they said the map is actually the whole world being rendered at once:

Skyrim PC tweak allows for in-game map 'street view'

Dysplastic wrote:
cheesycrouton wrote:
Falchion wrote:

Hmm...I guess as a ESDF user I'm screwed when it comes to adding things to my favorite list while in the menu. Tried all the keys and nothing works while I have F bound to Strafe Right.

It's a hack, but how about this?.... Straight-up remap the keys with autohotkey...

skyrim.ahk
-------------------------------------------

#SingleInstance force ;Only allow one instance of this script to be running

;Make ESDFG press WASDF
e::w ;press e, send w (move forward)
s::a ;press s, send a (move left)
d::s ;press d, send s (move left)
f:: d ;press f, send d (move left) <---remove the space before the "d" (used to avoid forum smiley)
g::f ;press g, send f (set favorite)

-------------------------------------------

Actually, it's a bit simpler. The "F" key for favorites is actually "Whatever your Toggle POV" button is (This is what F is bound to by default when not in a menu). So if, in the process of remapping your F button for ESDF movement, you remapped your "Toggle POV" to "ALT", you now use the "ALT" button for favorites, even though the UI still says "F".

Yes, the Skyrim UI designers were bastards.

That will break your ability to favorite. I messed with this for hours, if you remap f off favorites your pretty much hosed. u need to map e s d over through the game and move right to something like h the map f to h and another key, i choose x to f in ahk. alot of crap breaks when you start remapping, seriously follow that link i listed i haev my esdf working perfectly going on 20 hours now.

IMAGE(http://img856.imageshack.us/img856/2015/busyday01.jpg)

Spoiler:

yes, that's me on the left....one after another....

So far this Frost Dragon was the hardest one to kill.
IMAGE(http://img684.imageshack.us/img684/3672/busyday02.jpg)

He froze me, then would walk up and eat me.... very effective! Grmbl.

Spoiler:

I hid underneath a tree when he was flying and behind the same damn tree
when he landed nearby. Yes, like a coward. But in the end....I won! Ha! lol

And now....

Spoiler:

It seems I am turning into a vampire....oh joy....

i just got the Wabbajack. Best "weapon" ever.

Ok, how the hell to do I get up to High Hrothgar? There's supposed to be steps, right? I can't seem to find them. The quest marker sent me to Ivarsted but I don't see any steps.