The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Catch-All

tboon wrote:
jonfentyler wrote:
tboon wrote:

A steak dinner costs more than a room for 3 nights. Where does all the food come from? 20-30 steak dinner equivalents are in caves 15 minutes away...

So Skyrim is like Las Vegas?

Exactly, but with fewer strip clubs.

There's a mod to fix that, I'm sure.

misplacedbravado wrote:

Also, now that I'm getting close to the end of the Dawnguard quest...

Spoiler:

The Soil Cairn feels similar -- all that exotic landscape, but only a handful of quests and no map markers -- and I'm only just getting into the Forgotten Vale but suspect it'll be a similarly oversized dungeon.

What got me in that part of Dawnguard was definitely the lack of quest markers. Exploring an area is fine, but combing the place for N special widgets gets tiresome quickly. I never finished the Ninroots quest for the same reason.

Regarding travel, I've never been terribly annoyed by random encounters in Skyrim because they're so easy to avoid. Most of the time I'm on a horse and I'll just gallop past the thing I don't feel like fighting. This does remind me of an issue I have with Need for Speed: Most Wanted though. It's an open world game where you have to go to specific destinations for races. Police cars cruise around the world and if you speed past them they'll call for backup and try to arrest you. While this is an okay mechanic when I'm just driving around, when I'm driving to a race I generally don't want to deal with it. The game has a routing mode where you tell it you want to go to a race and it will map the path for you, and I wish when that mode were active the number of spawned police cruisers would be lower.

Similarly, in Skyrim if I'm just wandering around to experience the world I'm fine with random encounters but if I'm heading to a quest location I often find them a hindrance. Though I imagine that's one reason fast travel exists in the world. If you don't want to deal with the encounter mess, just fast travel to the destination. When I fast travel I'll usually jump to a location near where I'm headed and walk the last mile or so rather than jumping directly there. It gets a lot of the mechanical travel out of the way without making the world feel too much like a collection of dungeons connected by jump-gates.

It's a familiar sounding story, when people are regularly skipping parts of your game, why is that part in there? I really wish Bethesda would make a new game without following their template, just to see what would happen.

Scratched wrote:

It's a familiar sounding story, when people are regularly skipping parts of your game, why is that part in there? I really wish Bethesda would make a new game without following their template, just to see what would happen.

See, whereas I find some of the random encounters fun. Wolves? Not so much after like the first 20 (or really, once I no longer need leather for smithing). A fan of the Gourmet who I can show my Writ of Passage to? Hilarious.

Best random encounter is running into a bunch of Thalmor pricks and goading them into a fight by saying I'll worship whoever I want.

Quintin_Stone wrote:

Best random encounter is running into a bunch of Thalmor pricks and goading them into a fight by saying I'll worship whoever I want.

Also loved that, luckily I ran into them as I started the whole Oghma whateverum quest where I needed their blood.

"So glad I ran into you, I need your blood."

Scratched wrote:

It's a familiar sounding story, when people are regularly skipping parts of your game, why is that part in there? I really wish Bethesda would make a new game without following their template, just to see what would happen.

I think a lot of this could be solved with improved quest tracking. For example, when you're in a town people will ask you to do all sorts of stuff and you may not know where any of the dungeons are, so you make a note to look out for the lost item or whatever and go on your way. From there what I'd like is short-range quest markers so when I'm walking around I'm shown only quest locations that are nearby. And then when I enter a dungeon I'd like all quests for that location grouped together so I can keep track of what needs to be done. Then it would at least be easier to do quests as a part of natural exploration rather than being overwhelmed by a hundred quest markers on your radar. As things stand, I generally pick one or two quests I want to complete, activate those markers and disable everything else, and fast travel across sections of the map to make things go quicker.

complexmath wrote:
Scratched wrote:

It's a familiar sounding story, when people are regularly skipping parts of your game, why is that part in there? I really wish Bethesda would make a new game without following their template, just to see what would happen.

I think a lot of this could be solved with improved quest tracking. For example, when you're in a town people will ask you to do all sorts of stuff and you may not know where any of the dungeons are, so you make a note to look out for the lost item or whatever and go on your way. From there what I'd like is short-range quest markers so when I'm walking around I'm shown only quest locations that are nearby. And then when I enter a dungeon I'd like all quests for that location grouped together so I can keep track of what needs to be done. Then it would at least be easier to do quests as a part of natural exploration rather than being overwhelmed by a hundred quest markers on your radar. As things stand, I generally pick one or two quests I want to complete, activate those markers and disable everything else, and fast travel across sections of the map to make things go quicker.

I think that's kind-of the problem, Bethesda are good at making stuff, making big worlds, lots of dungeons, etc, but not so good at designing stuff. To a certain extent, that's business, but the need to make a lot of stuff for people to chew through seems to me to come at the expense of making it well.

Something I've been thinking while browsing the nexus and the wide array of armor and body mods, and how Bethesda use two generic models that they change a little bit for the whole population of whatever region they're using in a game, wouldn't it be good if they just had a more advanced physique model that would allow them to set all kinds of variables and how it affects the characters. There's no one I can identify as fat, weak, etc. Delphine is apparently 50 but doesn't look older than 40. Every bit of clothes looks the same on everyone and always fits well. I'd love to be able to find a bit of armor and have it offer poor protection or reduced mobility until I have it properly adjusted.

Heh, the unofficial dragonborn patch is already out.

complexmath wrote:
Scratched wrote:

It's a familiar sounding story, when people are regularly skipping parts of your game, why is that part in there? I really wish Bethesda would make a new game without following their template, just to see what would happen.

I think a lot of this could be solved with improved quest tracking. For example, when you're in a town people will ask you to do all sorts of stuff and you may not know where any of the dungeons are, so you make a note to look out for the lost item or whatever and go on your way. From there what I'd like is short-range quest markers so when I'm walking around I'm shown only quest locations that are nearby. And then when I enter a dungeon I'd like all quests for that location grouped together so I can keep track of what needs to be done. Then it would at least be easier to do quests as a part of natural exploration rather than being overwhelmed by a hundred quest markers on your radar. As things stand, I generally pick one or two quests I want to complete, activate those markers and disable everything else, and fast travel across sections of the map to make things go quicker.

I would like a way to toggle where quest givers are. I do kind of miss the days of WoW where I know where all the quests were on my minimap. Trying to hit 81 and working on one and two handed and block and I am in need of quests to take my mace and warhammer on. Would be handy to find all those little citizen quests and such to have it when I need it, then turn it off to bring the immersion back in.

Well Demosthenes now that the DLC is coming your way you can finally get some more quests

Scratched wrote:

Heh, the unofficial dragonborn patch is already out.

Yeah, lots of bad script edits and rewrites that don't do anything that were left in. That alone is a large part of the unofficial patches apparently, removing dead and unnecessary scripts.

beanman101283 wrote:

Well Demosthenes now that the DLC is coming your way you can finally get some more quests :D

I spent all night watching Dune on my wife's laptop while spraying fire and healing spells at a locked up pit wolf by taping down the triggers. By the end of my 3 hours of viewing... I still wasn't done. Glad I cheated that, as 3 straight hours of doing damage = not maxed = stupid! Glad the enchanting max is free spell casting though, as that would have been annoying to do with actual casting. Certainly was for illusion and alteration.

Yeah, Destruction, Restoration, and Alchemy are all taking forever, with Alteration close behind. One handed is taking a while too, though at least it's in the 90s. Not looking forward to getting two-handed up another 50 points.

Demosthenes wrote:
Scratched wrote:

Heh, the unofficial dragonborn patch is already out.

Yeah, lots of bad script edits and rewrites that don't do anything that were left in. That alone is a large part of the unofficial patches apparently, removing dead and unnecessary scripts.

So much for the extra months they were sitting on it that would have allowed them to polish it a little.

beanman101283 wrote:

Yeah, Destruction, Restoration, and Alchemy are all taking forever, with Alteration close behind. One handed is taking a while too, though at least it's in the 90s. Not looking forward to getting two-handed up another 50 points.

Alteration is pretty easy. With 100 enchanting, you can make gear to cast it for free. Find a locked up bad guy in a cage, make sure he sees you, and cast stoneskin about a billion times. Only took me about an hour and a half, watching Bones with my wife on her laptop.

So far I've been trying to do all my grinding as organically as possible. Throw on heavy armor, cast Ironskin, cast Flame Cloak, case Bound Sword, and equip a shield. Then cast Fast Healing once the battle's over. With no perks in any of those skills, i'm pretty weak and can go down pretty quickly to anyone weilding a battleaxe or warhammer. Falmer Warmongers, Bandit Chiefs, and other high level humanoid enemies all necessitate switching back to my standard sneaking outfit.

Still, I'm not above letting the last bandit standing in a cave whale on me a bit to boost heavy armor and block. I might even heal him/her a few times for their trouble before finishing them off. So I suppose a bit of alteration grinding isn't out of the question.

beanman101283 wrote:

So far I've been trying to do all my grinding as organically as possible. Throw on heavy armor, cast Ironskin, cast Flame Cloak, case Bound Sword, and equip a shield. Then cast Fast Healing once the battle's over. With no perks in any of those skills, i'm pretty weak and can go down pretty quickly to anyone weilding a battleaxe or warhammer. Falmer Warmongers, Bandit Chiefs, and other high level humanoid enemies all necessitate switching back to my standard sneaking outfit.

Still, I'm not above letting the last bandit standing in a cave whale on me a bit to boost heavy armor and block. I might even heal him/her a few times for their trouble before finishing them off. So I suppose a bit of alteration grinding isn't out of the question. :D

The issue being, with alteration, that you can't just stand in your house to do that, you need an enemy at least generally around. My favorite spot is a dungeon north of Shor's Stone where two wolves are locked in a cage outside the dungeon (don't go inside, as entering early will break a Skooma Ring quest in Riften). Just stand in front of the wolves and cast. Just be careful as your follower/companion will attack them with ranged spells to try and kill them too. :X Leave your follower at home, be amused as your horse constantly tries to get to them to attack and can't. Assuming leaving my game running casting flames and healing hands while I was at work worked... only magic I'll have left to go is Conjuration, which is just soul trap a few billion times.

Edit: What's funny is as a result of doing this, I've got some very expensive spell books sitting in my bookshelf in Markarth that will probably never be used. I dunno why I bought them, but it seemed like something an Arch-Mage should hold onto.

Demosthenes wrote:

See, whereas I find some of the random encounters fun. Wolves? Not so much after like the first 20 (or really, once I no longer need leather for smithing). A fan of the Gourmet who I can show my Writ of Passage to? Hilarious.

I do have to admit that any number of wolves are still infinitely better than the never ending Cliff Racer endurance tests of old...

I think some blue pygmies just duped me into enacting a cynical reading of all RPGs ever made.

beanman101283 wrote:

So far I've been trying to do all my grinding as organically as possible. Throw on heavy armor, cast Ironskin, cast Flame Cloak, case Bound Sword, and equip a shield. Then cast Fast Healing once the battle's over. With no perks in any of those skills, i'm pretty weak and can go down pretty quickly to anyone weilding a battleaxe or warhammer. Falmer Warmongers, Bandit Chiefs, and other high level humanoid enemies all necessitate switching back to my standard sneaking outfit.

This is what I have to look forward to. Level 66, four of my combat and stealth skills are in their 90s, (Block, Alchemy, Lockpicking, Speech) and the rest are at 100. Now I totally shift gears and start working on my magic skills—Enchanting is at 75, Restoration at 45, and the rest are 20 or below. o.O I'm gonna have to buy some spell books.

On the one hand, I still have a hojillion quests left I want to do, so I can work on it pretty organically. On the other hand, this'll be a fundamental shift for my character (and me, since I've never really used magic in TES games), so I think I just ramped up the late-game challenge (which otherwise didn't exist, really, except for that one Revered Dragon I've run into).

I guess I'm the only one who gives themselves 10m gold and just uses a trainer.

I have the 360 version. And pride.

Spoiler:

Smiley

Spoiler:

SERIOUS FACE

The combat in Skyrim is getting repetetive and unengaging after hundreds of hours of play? What a surprise.

I'll take this over 90% of other ARPG combat systems any day. The fact that it's taken this long to become stale for some seems like a good thing to me.

Are there any combat enhancement mods like Morrowind used to have? I never tried them myself, but they seemed popular.

Scratched wrote:

I guess I'm the only one who gives themselves 10m gold and just uses a trainer.

Screw that. I just gave myself the levels in skills that I didn't want to waste time leveling up.

Redwing wrote:

The combat in Skyrim is getting repetetive and unengaging after hundreds of hours of play? What a surprise.

I'll take this over 90% of other ARPG combat systems any day. The fact that it's taken this long to become stale for some seems like a good thing to me.

Are there any combat enhancement mods like Morrowind used to have? I never tried them myself, but they seemed popular.

There certainly are! There's a few big ones, actually. I use Skyrim Redone, which is a mega overhaul for everything. There is also big combat overhaul mod called DUEL.

Well it's finished downloading so hopefully tonight I'll get some time to play! I noticed the really big 1.5gb patch this morning too so that should be done by the time I get home from work today.

beanman101283 wrote:

Yeah, Destruction, Restoration, and Alchemy are all taking forever, with Alteration close behind. One handed is taking a while too, though at least it's in the 90s. Not looking forward to getting two-handed up another 50 points.

You can level Alchemy pretty fast, you just need to focus on creating high-value potions. Generally this involves trying to combine as many properties as possible into a single potion. If you don't know enough of your ingredients' properties, go into the Ingredients tab and randomly combine sets of three ingredients - just don't combine them if they're greyed-out.

BlackSabre wrote:

Well it's finished downloading so hopefully tonight I'll get some time to play! I noticed the really big 1.5gb patch this morning too so that should be done by the time I get home from work today.

HD textures for all three DLCs, based on what I read. Jealous!