Skyrim impressions

Q-BZ said:
*blinks* Wow, way for me to pay attention. I didn't know this game had a hardcore mode or are you just suggesting that people "pretend" that it does?

Sounds like a punishment to me but some of you guys would probably love it. Whatever works for you. :)
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Pretend. Game does not have a hardcore mode out of the box.
 
dj_2004 said:
Pretend. Game does not have a hardcore mode out of the box.
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Thank you for restoring my confidence in my own attention span and attention to detail. ;)


I bet we see at least one hardcore mod before too long if not several.
 
I killed the leader of the Dark Brotherhood and all her lackies in that dungeon. Am I missing out some sweet questage?
 
If you choose to kill the dark brotherhood then yes you are. One of the better quest line imo
 
cmadki4 said:
I killed the leader of the Dark Brotherhood and all her lackies in that dungeon. Am I missing out some sweet questage?
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Did you flag people as non-essential? I tried doing that with the Thieve's guild, but every person i tried was fuckin essential.
 
I only got to touch the DB quest line by loading a save file I got from the Nexus. Even though I didn't earn my way in there legit in my own playthrough, the Dark Brotherhood quests that I got to do felt awesome to play through, and a certain dramatic plot twist hit me pretty solidly.I thought about the experience afterward because it was so cool to experience for me.
 
UtopiA said:
How many times can you pointlessly explore the same old Draugr caves?
Some of you guys amaze me. Maybe World of Warcraft is right up your alley if you enjoy repeating the same mundane tasks over and over.
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By being high and talking to friends on mumble at the same time. It's not actually that repetitive, to give them their dues.
 
Jellylesg said:
By being high and talking to friends on mumble at the same time. It's not actually that repetitive, to give them their dues.
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Oh yea that goes without a doubt lol

Got my buddy in the other room i can go chat with about w/e it was i just did, and my bong is on my desk waiting to whisk away the first feelings of boredom that may creep up. IMO, the collector's addition should have come with a dragon pipe... i would have bought it.
 
cmadki4 said:
Can it be undone? This was hours of gameplay ago.
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That is what replays are for.

I have several missions that failed due to bugs and many of the missions are counter to others so the game will change each time you play it if you make different decisions.

My first time around I am an elf with high archery, one handed weapons, and light armor skills. The darker missions kinda grind against my character.

My next go round I will be playing the evilest SOB I can come up with and will focus on theft and mayhem.
 
I think I'll just return to a save before killer her and go from there. I don't think I accomplished a while lot since then. I don't really see a whole lot of replay in my future. With any game.
 
chockomonkey said:
Oh yea that goes without a doubt lol

Got my buddy in the other room i can go chat with about w/e it was i just did, and my bong is on my desk waiting to whisk away the first feelings of boredom that may creep up. IMO, the collector's addition should have come with a dragon pipe... i would have bought it.
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Glad I'm not the only one who really enjoys playing this game stoned.
 
Ok, so while not totally wrong, i think the leveling Mod in oblivion got it right.
The minor skills only count half as much towards your next level as your major skills. This helps you control leveling.

So say im a mage, and I just leveled light armor. Well, it shouldn't count towards my next level as much as me leveling destruction or say alchemy (if I picked alchemy).

I think that made more sense, since you were not as worried about leveling up a non core skill as you do in Skyrim
I sell something, or I pick a lock or I sneak, and I level... but I'm a mage who summons familiars and casts great big fireballs of death!
 
Megalomaniac said:
Ok, so while not totally wrong, i think the leveling Mod in oblivion got it right.
The minor skills only count half as much towards your next level as your major skills. This helps you control leveling.

So say im a mage, and I just leveled light armor. Well, it shouldn't count towards my next level as much as me leveling destruction or say alchemy (if I picked alchemy).

I think that made more sense, since you were not as worried about leveling up a non core skill as you do in Skyrim
I sell something, or I pick a lock or I sneak, and I level... but I'm a mage who summons familiars and casts great big fireballs of death!
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Yea, the major/minor skill groups and class generation would have worked fine in a perks system. Needlessly done away with.
 
kledar586 said:
If you choose to kill the dark brotherhood then yes you are. One of the better quest line imo
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Better then the main quest.

Had a bit of a funny oops last night.

Was doing a random quest, trying to recovering a neckless. Run through the place in my normal 'if it moves, it dies' mode and ended up at an outlook at the top of a mountain. I see the guy with the quest marker and figure I'll take it easy and use the Storm Call. Remembered that I had my shout set to Unrelenting Force right after I hit the button for shouts. Was a lot of fun watching him fly off the side of the mountain, but finding him kinda sucked
 
I just got a ring that says "Armor and Weapon Smithing improvements are 15% better", yet when I wear the ring and try to improve my gear, the numbers are identical as they are without the ring. Anybody know what this enchantment actually does? I need to decide whether to keep the ring as is or disenchant it.
 
shantd said:
I just got a ring that says "Armor and Weapon Smithing improvements are 15% better", yet when I wear the ring and try to improve my gear, the numbers are identical as they are without the ring. Anybody know what this enchantment actually does? I need to decide whether to keep the ring as is or disenchant it.
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Noticed this with Elven Bracers of Smithing at first. But now they do increase my smithing improvement a certain percent. Not sure what changed.

PS: I loaded prior to killing Astrid of the DB. I've now "caught up" to where I was before and am officially a member of the DB. Good or evil, I'm not going to turn down any quest that isn't mutually exclusive with another.
 
disenchant the ring and make a set of enchantment gear. also understand the improvement is for upgrades, not making new armor/weapons. For a 30 point increase the 15% should add 4 points. You should also be drinking a smithing alchemy potion at the same time
 
Lvl 21 Mage here. Just finished the Dragonslayer quest. What do you suggest I start now?
 
On "Ill Met By Moonlight", the quest marker to "Kill the beast" is off the map... What the?! What must I do to either get to it or trigger it to come back? Bugged, perhaps?
 
harsaphes said:
Lvl 21 Mage here. Just finished the Dragonslayer quest. What do you suggest I start now?
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There are a ton of side quests.

I'll recommend Dark Brotherhood of Thief's Guild.

And it looks like I'll be 1 achievement shy of all 50. My 360 gave me the gift of RROD for Christmas.

Going to try the heat gun trick, if that fails I'm out of gaming for a while :(
 
Just got the game a couple of days before Christmas and have been playing the crap out of it, 23 hours so far according to Steam (though I'm sure that's a lie as sometimes I often pause the game when I go out or go to eat food). Got a level 18 "ranger" type, focusing on archery and 1 handed with light armour. Though at the moment my 1 handed has been left behind a bit and I'm finding it hard to actually hurt opponents with it.

The game is pretty addictive. I never found previous elder scrolls games addictive, they were deep and fun, but I never struggled to walk away after an hour or two of playing. Skyrim, however, is really sucking me in.
 
Tudz said:
Just got the game a couple of days before Christmas and have been playing the crap out of it, 23 hours so far according to Steam (though I'm sure that's a lie as sometimes I often pause the game when I go out or go to eat food). Got a level 18 "ranger" type, focusing on archery and 1 handed with light armour. Though at the moment my 1 handed has been left behind a bit and I'm finding it hard to actually hurt opponents with it.

The game is pretty addictive. I never found previous elder scrolls games addictive, they were deep and fun, but I never struggled to walk away after an hour or two of playing. Skyrim, however, is really sucking me in.
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I've got the same build. Make sure you have this ini edit, Skyrim.ini under [Combat]

f1PArrowTiltUpAngle=0.7
f3PArrowTiltUpAngle=0.7
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I received Hircine's Ring after the 'Ill Met By Moonlight' quest but after enabling it under 'Powers' how do I change back into human form?...with the regular werewolf transformation it wears off after a few minutes but I don't see myself changing back after wearing the ring
 
Got introduced to Elder Scrolls by Morrowind, then also finished Oblivion, so I guess me getting Skyrim is inevitable. I was waiting for the AMD driver glitch (especially CrossfireX as my rig runs 2x Radeon 6870s) to get sorted, the price to get kinda lower than $59.99 and also for my credit card billing cycle to pass (spent too much on my paintball marker this month) before picking it up...

...Christmas Eve's Steam holiday sale though had it for $41. Ugh. Bought....

Both my Morrowind and Oblivion finished runs were Battlemage characters. Usually Breton, medium to heavy armour, one-handed blade, shield, Destruction and Restoration. Obviously it's a very surviveable build, and both games didn't penalize you too much for being a tank caster (unlike D&D games like Neverwinter Nights). Though my other reason for such a build is my pet peeve... neither game was able to show both bow and melee weapons on your 3rd person model, because as conventional weapons they occupy the same slot.

It doesn't look like I can make a sword-and-board-and-cast character anyways now because of that one-function-per-hand rule. So, I'm thinking longbow + dual wield longsword / shortsword. Though, once again I'm wondering if I can block melee attacks with the off-hand weapon, and also whether or not the game will draw the bow + quiver + both sheathed blades on my character even when not in use.

I guess I'll find out....

...hmm, I'm using Catalyst 11.12 with CF 6870s, CPU is i7 920 @ 3.2GHz, Ultra settings but no multisampling AA so FXAA only, so should be playable according to the performance articles. However, in the opening horse cart scene, whenever I look towards the town, I got about 20fps. Looking away then I peg the 60fps VSYNC. Shall I NOT be using the 11.12 driver but instead one of the 11.11 Performance Preview drivers?

Edit: Forgot to mention that the resolution is 1920x1200.
 
Veritable said:
Got introduced to Elder Scrolls by Morrowind, then also finished Oblivion, so I guess me getting Skyrim is inevitable. I was waiting for the AMD driver glitch (especially CrossfireX as my rig runs 2x Radeon 6870s) to get sorted, the price to get kinda lower than $59.99 and also for my credit card billing cycle to pass (spent too much on my paintball marker this month) before picking it up...

...Christmas Eve's Steam holiday sale though had it for $41. Ugh. Bought....

Both my Morrowind and Oblivion finished runs were Battlemage characters. Usually Breton, medium to heavy armour, one-handed blade, shield, Destruction and Restoration. Obviously it's a very surviveable build, and both games didn't penalize you too much for being a tank caster (unlike D&D games like Neverwinter Nights). Though my other reason for such a build is my pet peeve... neither game was able to show both bow and melee weapons on your 3rd person model, because as conventional weapons they occupy the same slot.

It doesn't look like I can make a sword-and-board-and-cast character anyways now because of that one-function-per-hand rule. So, I'm thinking longbow + dual wield longsword / shortsword. Though, once again I'm wondering if I can block melee attacks with the off-hand weapon, and also whether or not the game will draw the bow + quiver + both sheathed blades on my character even when not in use.

I guess I'll find out....

...hmm, I'm using Catalyst 11.12 with CF 6870s, CPU is i7 920 @ 3.2GHz, Ultra settings but no multisampling AA so FXAA only, so should be playable according to the performance articles. However, in the opening horse cart scene, whenever I look towards the town, I got about 20fps. Looking away then I peg the 60fps VSYNC. Shall I NOT be using the 11.12 driver but instead one of the 11.11 Performance Preview drivers?

Edit: Forgot to mention that the resolution is 1920x1200.
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Try 12.1 and the lastest cap. I have the same setup and and it runs great with that.
 
I'm a level 38 ranger type with Archery, 1-handed, heavy armor, & smithing. I pumped up my smithing to 100 by creating a shitload of leather bracers. Made a set of Daedric armor and sword, enchanted them to boost 1-handed and archery. Totally broke the game. Playing on Master level difficulty, I was still one-shotting most enemies, and for harder enemies like dragons I was simply tanking everything, hacking away with my sword and drinking health potions until victory.

I had to revert back to a save from 1 week ago. My smithing's at 60, I think that's where I'll have to leave it. Don't make the same mistake I made. Unfortunately, the combat in this game is very limited, all that really stands between winning and losing is your durability. If you're more durable than your opponent, you'll beat him everytime in mindless fashion. The only way to keep combat even mildly interesting is to keep your armor rating at an average level. This will force you to have to use buffs, sneak up and take shots with your bow, and then go in for the melee kill.
 
What is it? Can you provide a link? Haven't tried any mods yet, but I'm willing to have a look.
 
Pluto's Improved Skyrim Experience

Basics
This mod, as its name indicates, aims at making Skyrim a more challenging and rewarding game without changing the feel of vanilla Skyrim. The changes made by this mod can be divided into different categories. This section deals with the changes in the main PISE.esp; for a list of changes in the optional .esps, see file list below. (note: more detailed gameplay changelog visible at:)

Basically, the main PISE.esp features:
- More spawns
- Harder enemies (deleveled dragons, mages make use of healing spells, bosses shout sooner and more accurately, humanoids have and use potions)
- Overhauled enemy AI (blocking more often, power attacks, better aiming, faster reaction times)
- Harder battles (enemies detect you easier when looking directly at you, mages may heal their allies)
- Less leveled loot

I strongly recommend that you check out the gameplay changelog for a list of all changes: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1bmmloY_UGalbMvpoYLwhuF4bb4RXwg5cp4ykxAgC7KY/edit
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The main story felt extremely short. It also seemed like it ended out of nowhere. I had this same feeling in FO3.

There was no sense of I'm almost there. I got the scroll and figured once I got back up the mountain to use it I would be transported back in time and would be required to do a bunch of additional quests. I didnt think it would bring Alduin to me.

I also found the fight with Alduin to be very annoying.
 
So I just got this game with some BB gift cards from xmas. Overall it runs good on my rig (see sig) but there are a few points where it chugs pretty bad (I would say in the 25-30fps range) while otherwise it's 60fps+. This happens even in some indoor-only settings where there doesn't seem to be that much detail.

What are the graphics settings in this game that really kill performance?
 
Colonel Sanders said:
What are the graphics settings in this game that really kill performance?
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AA and shadows. I can't see your rig having any problems though but if you had to take the froth off the top I'd take AA from 8 down to 4 and Shadows from Ultra down to high. I bet you won't have to,though.


Question for folks: Trying to track down an issue my sister is having with the game.

What were/are the causes for the CTD where it happens real fast and you don't even see an error message or anything. It's the kind of CTD where you're playing, you blink, and you're starting at your desktop in a flash.
 
I have gotten that a few times sporadically while fast traveling or opening containers. It happens but rare for me
 
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