[Megathread] Skyrim Discussion

[obdigore]

i would consider that you basically have to powerlevel blacksmithing with iron daggers and leather bracers a design issue. I would also consider that you are pretty much forced into powerleveling enchanting by only using petty soul gems as a design issue as well. I would further consider the ability to then sell those enchanted daggers to make easy gold as another design issue. these issues are further compounded by the fact that the best gear is easily crafted and enchanted by you. I never left the area around whiterun, never visited another hold and yet somehow i was running around in the best gear.

Clearly I'm at fault here when i notice during my first playthrough that all crafted gear was available to me if i choose to craft iron daggers and leather bracers for efficent skill points in blacksmithing. Again i must have been the one at fault to notice how easy it was to get petty soul gems (or really any soul gem other than grand, because enchanting gear you wear with anything other than a grand soul is stupid), then fill them and use them to make enchanted daggers to make gold with. The piss poor design is not at fault nor the people who made the system but didn't bother to put any thought into it.

i don't think anyone disputes that you can get enjoyment out of playing the game, i certainly have. however, i don't think the game is worth all the accolades that everyone seems to be so willing to throw upon it. before you go off calling it the perfect game, try brawling someone or picking a lock.

Wait, where do you 'have' to powerlevel blacksmithing? how are you 'forced' to powerlevel enchanting? I didn't do either of those two things with my second character and made it all the way up. I did a couple quests involving brawling and I picked somewhere over 300 locks... if you guys want to find something you complain about, you always will be able to. I just find it funny that you claim to be forced into powerleveling something to make the game too easy.

[Neeshka]

2 daedric axes with paralyze+fire/paralyze+stun. upgraded to legendary status. 1h skill is 100; i didn't level up any other melee skill.
full dragon armor with enchants. smithing/enchanting with pots obviously.

I chose axes because they have the highest damage in the game and swing speed seems irrelevant because stuff dies in 3-4 hits at the very most anyway.
Swords with the massive crit bonus also seems quite viable.

Draugr deathlords and dragons are ESPECIALLY easy for some reason. I typically kill draugr before they even activate and dragons before they complete a full breath rotation (dragon rend, walk up to them, dual power attack).

I don't sneak at all; but I just started levelling that up (which is also suprise suprise really easy to level - autorun afk with c pressed near a guard/sneak attack summoned familiar).

Sword and board and 2h are really low damage builds compared to 1h, which is why you don't 2 shot anything. Just borrow some wow knowledge and see the stats on weapons.

I agree Sneak is also incredibly op; but
1) levelling sneak is a pain
2) can't wear heavy armor effectively AND sneak around until high sneak levels
3) staying stealthed is a huge issue with multiple enemies

---------- Post added 2011-12-07 at 07:03 AM ----------

i don't think anyone disputes that you can get enjoyment out of playing the game, i certainly have. however, i don't think the game is worth all the accolades that everyone seems to be so willing to throw upon it. before you go off calling it the perfect game, try brawling someone or picking a lock.

Well put; I too have enjoyed a lot of things in the game like exploring the misty grove; some of the spriggan caves; the dream sequence a few of the outdoor locales and some quest chains like the winterhold eye quest.

But other than being a great hiking simulator the game is riddled with bugs and glaring design flaws and also; just like oblivion ridiculously overrated.

---------- Post added 2011-12-07 at 07:07 AM ----------

Wait, where do you 'have' to powerlevel blacksmithing? how are you 'forced' to powerlevel enchanting? I didn't do either of those two things with my second character and made it all the way up. I did a couple quests involving brawling and I picked somewhere over 300 locks... if you guys want to find something you complain about, you always will be able to. I just find it funny that you claim to be forced into powerleveling something to make the game too easy.

If you want to level smithing, you have to make items right ?
If you make anything other than daggers they weigh TONS.
Given how moronic the inventory/weight system is making anything else is stupid.
Hence; 100 daggers.
Since you are making these daggers you can level enchanting alongside.
Seriously there aren't that many skill trees in the game given the magic is completely useless. So going for enchanting/smithing isn't unusual.

Anyway what do you consider a "normal" set of skills to level if you dislike the broken and underpowered magic system ? Please let us know.

[Blznsmri]

]
Enchanting, Smithing, Alchemy, Sneak, One-handed.
ALL of the above are broken.
I really doubt if there is any scenario where a player that wants to be melee actually *wouldn't* break the game.
Also I'm unsure why anyone would not intentionally choose any of these.

Because they don't want to use them? That falls under "playing how you want." My first character did no enchanting at all, a little bit of smithing, but was otherwise focused on archery, sneak and light armor. Then I made an Axe Maiden that specifically focused on One Handed, Light Armor and Smithing. Speech and enchanting were just extras that I tagged on after playing around with them. I'm on my third character right now and I'm focusing on magic. All trees save for Illusion (they took out the fun spells). It's harder than rolling a sneak melee character, but it's still not as horribly broken as you say.

If you actually have to try to make your character underpowered by playing a mage and ignoring any sensible profession and putting points into dumb stuff like speech and lockpicking/pickpocketing; I really really don't know what to say.

it's a sandbox rpg. on top of that the magic system is so horribly broken there is little point even going that route. Being able to do "whatever you want" is a heavily marketed feature but I really don't get this concept at all. You do the main quests; a number of non-radiant quest chains, and clear out most of the interesting dungeons and that's it.

No perk is wasted if you're playing that archetype. If you're a sneaky thief type and want to be frugal with your picks and make lockpicking faster and easier, as well as be able to steal people's clothes off their backs, then sell all those things with out getting completely ripped off, then none of those perks are wasted, in fact, each of those perks are integral to how you play.

Same goes for magic.

The game is meant to be played how the player wants to play it.


Your negative experiences with the game doesn't make it a bad game.

[jakeic]

Wait, where do you 'have' to powerlevel blacksmithing? how are you 'forced' to powerlevel enchanting? I didn't do either of those two things with my second character and made it all the way up. I did a couple quests involving brawling and I picked somewhere over 300 locks... if you guys want to find something you complain about, you always will be able to. I just find it funny that you claim to be forced into powerleveling something to make the game too easy.

if you want to wear the best gear you need to get to 100 blacksmithing, to get to 100 blacksmithing you don't sit there and craft the most extravagant item available to you at a ridiculous cost that nets you the same skill up as an item that requires 2 leather scraps and an iron ingot. the same thing goes for enchanting. but you're right i'm at fault for desiring the best gear, not how retarded the system is for getting the best gear.

The point i was trying to make with brawling and lock picking is that they are stupid. brawling i sit there and spam the mouse button, not unlike combat in general, and eventually my opponent has enough. obviously i'm not trying hard enough to make brawling more awesome, i should try to dodge his every blow and only use power attacks to his backside! the same problem exists with lock picking, picks are everywhere and they are plentiful, furthermore every lock is picked the same way, move the pick, note the position, try to open, rinse and repeat. these are stupid because they are a waste of time, add nothing to the gameplay, add nothing to the replay-ability, and are not exciting in the slightest.

i'm sure there are any number of asinine ways to go through the game, i'm glad you're excited about those possibilities, however i require more from a game.

[Neeshka]

Lockpicking - I use 1 lockpick; never need more than that. You can probably do it with 10-15; not like getting them is hard anyway.
Speech - used to get more gold from npcs (not needed), bribing guards (not needed)
Pickpocketing - useless skill that doesn't add anything to the game; again money is too easy to ever bother with this shit

if you are putting points into stuff like speech, lockpicking and pickpocketing that are completely useless compared to the other perks you are intentionally making the game harder since levelling non-combat abilities makes enemies scale higher whilst your combat skills are trash.

Magic is so horribly broken in the game compared to melee I would never want to be a primary caster.

Brawling is bad because melee combat in the game is bad; it's the same nudge forward+melee+nudge back/pots repeat snoozefest.
Brawling is better in soooo many games - arkham asylum&city, assasin's creed, dark messiah, witcher 2 the list is just endless.

The stealth system itself is also pretty dumb; 100 skill level and I can be in full heavy armor right in front of enemies and they can't see me; yeahhh......

Why not take queues from established game design patterns that have evolved over the years ? Why stick to a formula that is terribad and from the early 1990s ?

[Blznsmri]

Lockpicking - I use 1 lockpick; never need more than that. You can probably do it with 10-15; not like getting them is hard anyway.
Speech - used to get more gold from npcs (not needed), bribing guards (not needed)
Pickpocketing - useless skill that doesn't add anything to the game; again money is too easy to ever bother with this shit

if you are putting points into stuff like speech, lockpicking and pickpocketing that are completely useless compared to the other perks you are intentionally making the game harder since levelling non-combat abilities makes enemies scale higher whilst your combat skills are trash.

Magic is so horribly broken in the game compared to melee I would never want to be a primary caster.

That's your opinion. There are people that find those perks and skills extremely useful to they way they want to play the game. There's nothing forcing you to do any of the quests or fight any of the monsters/ npcs in Skyrim. Dragons don't spawn globally until the second or third quest in the main story. You can run away from literally everything. The game, and whether or not you enjoy the game, is what you make of it.

I know people that spend hours and hours of gameplay just running around stealing things. I know others that go on brutal killing sprees just because they can.

You made the decision to play a heavily combat oriented roll. You made the decision to supe up your weapons and armor with enchants, you made the decision to do things that made the game easier than it needed to be. It was all your decision and thus, all your fault.

[Neeshka]

It's an action rpg where every quest involves - kill everything in crypt/dwemer ruin/cave; collect item at the end; return for a 100g reward (lulz).
The main quests encourages you to become a more powerful dragonborn and get ready to fight big dragons.
The large side quest chains make you do exactly the same.

"Creative" ways of playing like going for a naked drunken elven brawler putting points into speech and illusion magic doesn't seem that intuitive to me at least.

[Verbatim]

Random question, but this is the thread to do it in after all:

I've been playing Skyrim since release, but have only now come around to getting my poor Nord infected with vampirism. Thing is though, from screenshots, I can tell that vampires get black eyes and slightly emaciated faces. I recieved the latter, but her eyes are still normal.. which arguably removes one of the relatively few cool visuals, attached to the condition.

Is this a known bug, or am I going wrong somewhere?

[Blznsmri]

It's an action rpg where every quest involves - kill everything in crypt/dwemer ruin/cave; collect item at the end; return for a 100g reward (lulz).
The main quests encourages you to become a more powerful dragonborn and get ready to fight big dragons.
The large side quest chains make you do exactly the same.

"Creative" ways of playing like going for a naked drunken elven brawler putting points into speech and illusion magic doesn't seem that intuitive to me at least.

There's nothing forcing you to do any of those quests though. Nothing. Nothing at all. On my mage I got to the whiterun stables then immediately bought a ride to the winterhold college. No dragon shouts or souls yet at all. On my next character, I'll go pure thief and only do thieves guild quests and focus on thieflike skills. This game doesn't force you to do anything. At all.

---------- Post added 2011-12-07 at 01:56 AM ----------

Random question, but this is the thread to do it in after all:

I've been playing Skyrim since release, but have only now come around to getting my poor Nord infected with vampirism. Thing is though, from screenshots, I can tell that vampires get black eyes and slightly emaciated faces. I recieved the latter, but her eyes are still normal.. which arguably removes one of the relatively few cool visuals, attached to the condition.

Is this a known bug, or am I going wrong somewhere?

Does it say under magic effects that you have Prophyric Hemophilia (or Vampires Disease) and have you gone to sleep at all? If you haven't gone to sleep you should be able to cure it at an altar or with potions/ spells

[Redcrow]

lost all of my save files on ps3 for some reason. dont even want to start over again. feelsbadman.jpg

[Umbra]

Does it say under magic effects that you have Prophyric Hemophilia (or Vampires Disease) and have you gone to sleep at all? If you haven't gone to sleep you should be able to cure it at an altar or with potions/ spells

Prophyric Hemophilia was in Oblivion: what you want to be looking for is Sanguinare Vampiris.

[Blznsmri]

Prophyric Hemophilia was in Oblivion: what you want to be looking for is Sanguinare Vampiris.

Ah, I've only contracted it once very early in my first playthough and cured it right away, was unsure.

[PACOX]

lost all of my save files on ps3 for some reason. dont even want to start over again. feelsbadman.jpg

Unless your files got corrupted, I've never heard of PS3 files vanishing. Maybe you are on the wrong account? I would worry about the hard drive going bad and running your PS3 in safe mode to see if any thing else is corrupt. Also, might want to investe in PS+. Automatic online file storage. Online storage saves almost too well. If you don't keep up with it you have things in there you though you got rid of a long time ago.

===
Decide to check out a dragon symbol on my map last night that wasn't "Cleared"...

Turns out there was a named dragon priest and an Ancient Dragon there. As soon as the screen loads, ice to the face and fire to the ass. Luckily I had an invincible companion. I had to kite the priest while watching for dragon strafing attacks which would pretty much kill me if I sat in them. My companion grabs aggro on the dragon and kites him down the mountain as I go dual wielding and execute the dragon priest.

As soon as I kill the priest my companion goes down and the dragon dives towards with a blue streak coming out of its mouth. I find a 2 ft wide pillar to hide behind, this is the only thing keeping the dragon from making me a Popsicle. I pull out my bow and pop shots at the dragon from behind the pillar. He adapts and lands, now he is slowing walking towards me. I thinking its all over because Im corned between the dragon, a pillar, and the mountain to my backside. Then I see a fireball shoot up from below.

My companions is back from her "nap" and ready to go toe to toe with dragon. She screams taunts at the dragon and the dragon immediately takes flight to chase her. The dragon lands right in front of her and I think she is done for, again. I run to the edge of the small rise I am on and see the most epic scene. My companion has equipped her dragon shield and glass sword in full glass armor looking right in the face of the dragon. The dragon bites at her and she is blocking every attempt by it to rip her head off. I take the opportunity to take out my bow and finish off the dragon. The dragon is conflicted, shoot breathes at me the one doing damage or let my companion keep slapping him in the face. Every time he would turn his head to breathe at me, my companion would slap him in the face and yell more taunts at him. The dragon was about 5 normal bow hits from death when he backs up and attempts for flee. I ready my bow and my companion rushed him with an overhand power strike. **Crit sound**, right as the dragon attempts to take flight I nail him right in the back of the head and he goes down. At the same time my companion executed her power attack. We split the loot and venture into the frozen tundra for more adventures. Random encounters are awesome.

[Blznsmri]

Decide to check out a dragon symbol on my map last night that wasn't "Cleared"...

Turns out there was a named dragon priest and an Ancient Dragon there. As soon as the screen loads, ice to the face and fire to the ass. Luckily I had an invincible companion. I had to kite the priest while watching for dragon strafing attacks which would pretty much kill me if I sat in them. My companion grabs aggro on the dragon and kites him down the mountain as I go dual wielding and execute the dragon priest.

You're talking about Krosis aren't you?

[PACOX]

You're talking about Krosis aren't you?

Yup.

Probably didn't help that I waiting to go their until my game was spawning Ancient Dragons.

[Blznsmri]

Yup.

Probably didn't help that I waiting to go their until my game was spawning Ancient Dragons.

Yeah, I accidentally ran into him as well... Luckily it was just a blood dragon and Krosis, though I made damn sure not to aggro Krosis until after I killed the dragon the second time around.

[Erza]

i would consider that you basically have to powerlevel blacksmithing with iron daggers and leather bracers a design issue. I would also consider that you are pretty much forced into powerleveling enchanting by only using petty soul gems as a design issue as well. I would further consider the ability to then sell those enchanted daggers to make easy gold as another design issue. these issues are further compounded by the fact that the best gear is easily crafted and enchanted by you. I never left the area around whiterun, never visited another hold and yet somehow i was running around in the best gear.

Clearly I'm at fault here when i notice during my first playthrough that all crafted gear was available to me if i choose to craft iron daggers and leather bracers for efficent skill points in blacksmithing. Again i must have been the one at fault to notice how easy it was to get petty soul gems (or really any soul gem other than grand, because enchanting gear you wear with anything other than a grand soul is stupid), then fill them and use them to make enchanted daggers to make gold with. The piss poor design is not at fault nor the people who made the system but didn't bother to put any thought into it.

i don't think anyone disputes that you can get enjoyment out of playing the game, i certainly have. however, i don't think the game is worth all the accolades that everyone seems to be so willing to throw upon it. before you go off calling it the perfect game, try brawling someone or picking a lock.

I've picked countless locks.. what's wrong with them? Ever played fallout or oblivion? You decided to grind professions and it's your fault lol. I chose NOT to do the things you did, and am enjoying the game at a steady pace. I'm not underpowered nor overpowered. I upgrade my armor with BS and didn't bother with enchanting however I may take it up at some point. If you actually played the game instead of grinding professions in whiterun maybe you would have had a better experience.

It's not piss poor design, it's just options. Elder Scrolls always has that sense of freedom, even more so in skyrim.. yet it's obvious to me now that people can't handle it, abuse it, and blame the developers. How silly. This WoW community mentality is driving me insane. "I don't like this, WAHHHHHHHHHHH" then don't do it "BUT, BUT... WAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"

[frozenkex]

It's not piss poor design, it's just options. Elder Scrolls always has that sense of freedom, even more so in skyrim.. yet it's obvious to me now that people can't handle it, abuse it, and blame the developers. How silly. This WoW community mentality is driving me insane. "I don't like this, WAHHHHHHHHHHH" then don't do it "BUT, BUT... WAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"

Yes it is piss poor design, this isnt minecraft where you need to create challenge for yourself, a lot of things in the game are done with balance in mind, and some of those things worked out, the things that other poster posted didnt work out. How he couldve known whats gonna be overpowered and what isnt? He was just trying to play effectively and just went the obvious path, he couldnt have known what would be the result. I know its a bad comparison, and it is singleplayer game, but you wouldnt really get any noticable advantage by having max crafting skill in wow, and as wow players its not a surprise we would have similar mindset in another rpg.

[Umbra]

Anyway what do you consider a "normal" set of skills to level if you dislike the broken and underpowered magic system ? Please let us know.

Personally, I'm currently going with one-hand/heavy armor/block/archery. Doing just fine so far.

[noteworthynerd]

it's a sandbox rpg. on top of that the magic system is so horribly broken there is little point even going that route. Being able to do "whatever you want" is a heavily marketed feature but I really don't get this concept at all. You do the main quests; a number of non-radiant quest chains, and clear out most of the interesting dungeons and that's it.

And this is where you're wrong... You choose to do "the main quests; a number of non-radiant quest chains, and clear out most of the interesting dungeons and that's it."... There's so much more that you can elect to do, the game is what you make it, especially when you've got console commands at your disposal (for example, the large scale battles or rolling 2500 cheese wheels down a mountain).

It is pretty obvious that a game like Skyrim is not your cup of tea, if you need a game to lay out your entertainment for you and tell you what to do, a sandbox RPG like Skyrim is likely not the way to go, I've seen too many people try to compare a game like Skyrim to a game like WoW... Please don't come here and pass off your opinion like it's fact. =/ You don't like the game, but a lot of people do...

That being said, it does feel less balanced than Oblivion... It took me a day of playing Skyrim to do what it took me a week or more in Oblivion (i.e. getting the best possible armor with the best possible enchants), and even after I got it in Oblivion, I wasn't steamrolling stuff like I am in Skyrim. Even then, I'm still enjoying Skyrim.