V The Elder Scrolls

[Sno]

I'm pretty sure the listed weight does count towards my carry weight. Most quest items are not that heavy, except these blade shards which have a weight of 6 :/

Nah, they don't.

At one point, i had like 30 "pounds" of quest items in my inventory. So i made a save, dumped everything i could out onto the ground, and still found myself at 0 encumbrance despite the 30 pounds or so of quest items i was unable to drop.

So unless the game is bugging out for you or something, i'm quite certain that quest items don't add to your overall inventory encumbrance.

However, once such items are unmarked as quest items by finishing their related quests, they are then added to your total inventory encumbrance.

[elmuerte]

Hmm... then I'm simply carrying too much crap around.

I'd really welcome a mod that fixes the inventory system. Or at least a mod that fixed the mouse controls for the whole UI system.

[brkl]

I guess I've been too unfocused in developing my character, and now I can't (for example) climb to High Hrothgar. Also, nothing that interesting has happened so far.

[JonCole]

I really wish the potions didn't all weight 0.5 lb by default. As a person who loves the crafting stuff (smithing 92, enchanting 63, alchemy 67), I'm CONSTANTLY weighed down by potions even after I have dumped any excessive stuff.

[brkl]

So you guys are having fun? I don't get it. It just seems like this huge timesink and playing is a real drudge because mid-level critters can kill me with a hit or two while my Destruction-focused magic doesn't have much of an impact. I don't get how you're supposed to not wear armour when the magical wards and such suck all mana immediately but don't really seem to have an effect.

Sorry for the complainy post :/

[elmuerte]

I'm having fun. I could walk around for hours clearing an occasional dungeon. This game just does it for me. But I can understand that it doesn't do it for you, I have the same with RDR.

I think with the new skill system it's not really obvious how badass you are, or not, compared to the rest. So some creatures might look very tough, but are peanuts to defeat at some point, while others are tough as rocks. Also, some creatures have funny weaknesses. I killed a giant once with little effort.

He was afraid of water, even thought it was very shallow.

[Brannigan]

So you guys are having fun? I don't get it. It just seems like this huge timesink and playing is a real drudge because mid-level critters can kill me with a hit or two while my Destruction-focused magic doesn't have much of an impact. I don't get how you're supposed to not wear armour when the magical wards and such suck all mana immediately but don't really seem to have an effect.

Sorry for the complainy post :/

I've had tough fights but never run into anything I absolutely could not do. What level are you and what combat skill level? Granted I haven't played a caster at all yet. I do know a friend played as a heavy armor caster and did fine, I think he also used conjured weapons a lot though. Oh and yes having plenty of fun wandering around/killing things. Occasionally remember to level my crafts.

[juv3nal]

So you guys are having fun? I don't get it. It just seems like this huge timesink and playing is a real drudge because mid-level critters can kill me with a hit or two while my Destruction-focused magic doesn't have much of an impact. I don't get how you're supposed to not wear armour when the magical wards and such suck all mana immediately but don't really seem to have an effect.

Sorry for the complainy post :/

I'm going glass-cannon style no armor/destruction/sneak/archery and doing ok.

I do much better in the world than in dungeons though. Usually, I sneak in, get a shot off with the bow, switch to dual flame then start backpedalling and flamethrowering (I have the dual destruction, half cost destruction perks plus a 15% off cost for destruction/+75% magicka regen robe). Apply force push shout to buy me some extra time to regen magicka against smaller things (not giants or dragons). Quaff potions as necessary. It works fine in the world where you're pretty much free to backpedal and kite as much as you want. In dungeons, guys can get uncomfortably close. I've found that the fire bolt (in general, the element projectile family of spells) is much less magicka efficient than the spraying flamethrower type especially as the advantage of the projectiles is range, which I'm better off using the bow for.

It's cheaty, but you can basically train archery for free up to 50.

there's an archery trainer in the first town who can become a companion...who you can then grab your training fees from when they're in his inventory.

[JonCole]

I think the best way to spec a pure mage is robes early, but eventually disenchant the robe you want and reenchant some light armor. Even with low light armor, some smart enchanting can buff your magic resistance/magicka regeneration like crazy and still benefit from the armor in physical attacks (like in the unavoidable aforementioned dungeon corridors).

[elmuerte]

A few days ago I found an interesting archery trainer high up in the mountains. Instead of paying money, there's actual training involved. I don't like the idea of simply paying for an instant increase in experience. There isn't a real penalty. In Daggerfall this was much better, training took game-world time and money. And you couldn't train too often in a row with a single trainer. It was much more restrictive.

Anyway, today I jumped off the the huge waterfalls in the south east. Found a dungeon that was filled with those tough weird gollum like creatures and their very tough insect pets. That was a hard fight, but I won \o/

[juv3nal]

In Daggerfall this was much better, training took game-world time and money. And you couldn't train too often in a row with a single trainer. It was much more restrictive.

To be fair, you can only train 5 times with a trainer per experience level. So it is somewhat restricted, but mitigated by the fact that those 5 skill increases push you towards your next level up (and consequently another 5 available training sessions).

[MrHoatzin]

Argh, I so want to waste my time not updating Hobo Lobo on playing this with you people, but I can't justify buying a new computer or wasting said allocated Hobo Lobo time! I should try kickstarting a new computer for myself one of these days. Plenty of rubes out there who'd pitch in with a promise of some small pseudo-collectable bauble and quality entertainment media product of some sort... AND THEN SKYRIM WILL BE MINE———¬¬

[elmuerte]

ugh... the recent steam patch put the game stability back to a crash every 30 minute or something.

The LAA tweak really improved the stability for me. But that now no longer works, hopefully the new tweak works.

[jennoa]

ugh... the recent steam patch put the game stability back to a crash every 30 minute or something.

The LAA tweak really improved the stability for me. But that now no longer works, hopefully the new tweak works.

Yeah it rendered the game unplayable for me too. Luckily the mod community has already come to the rescue.

4GB Skyrim

[Lu]

I totally cracked and bought it. I'm really enjoying it, except for the UI, which I was prepared for since everyone complains about that. Let's hope someone makes one soon that doesn't suck ass.

[elmuerte]

I've figured how to use the menu, specially the speech menu, without too many false selections. Simply don't use the mouse at all, make sure the mouse pointer is on the left of the pointer thingy, and then use the cursor keys to find the correct option. Just make sure you watch the slight change in font color.

[elmuerte]

LOL... I had a bit too much to drink and ended up in Markath, and there was also something with a goat? Talk about a hang over.

Markath is a real shit hole, I don't like what's going on over there.

[JonCole]

LOL... I had a bit too much to drink and ended up in Markath, and there was also something with a goat? Talk about a hang over.

Markath is a real shit hole, I don't like what's going on over there.

Yeah, there's a lot of bad shit going on in that city, you don't even know the beginning of it. And they don't even have to deal with the shitty climate of northern holds, bah.

[brkl]

Oh, BTW, I now like this game.

[Sno]

So you guys are having fun? I don't get it. It just seems like this huge timesink and playing is a real drudge because mid-level critters can kill me with a hit or two while my Destruction-focused magic doesn't have much of an impact. I don't get how you're supposed to not wear armour when the magical wards and such suck all mana immediately but don't really seem to have an effect.

Sorry for the complainy post :/

Wards are more for defending against magic, which is extremely important, but wards drain too much magic for use in all situations. (Unless you're applying perks in such a way that their costing costs are reduced to relative viability.) The alteration spells are what you need for a non-armor builds to survive in physical combat. Their casting cost isn't as huge and casts as a passive ability, but those won't defend against magic.

[elmuerte]

The disarm shout is really annoying, specially the first time. I was doing the

wolf queen quest

and at some point I encountered a

Draugr Deathlord

and it immediately shouted and disarmed me. It took me a little while to figure out what happened and where my Ebony waraxe was.

Also, the

wolf queen quest

was one of the toughest quests I've been on so far. Specially the

final battle against a large army of tough draugrs

was difficult.

[Sno]

I have played this game for over 110 hours.

I am level forty... something...

I still have not seen two of the game's major cities.

Big game is big.

Some more random thoughts -

The main cities, in general, seem probably smaller on average than the major cities from Oblivion. (To be fair, there's more of them.)

The dungeons are generally quite great, there's a lot of good variety. It's made me realize that Oblivion's dungeons were on the whole quite shit. (While also remembering that Morrowind had a lot of particularly great dungeons.)

I find Skyrim a very visually interesting place, and i like exploring it. The winding roads, the peaks and valleys, and the diverse terrain all remind me very much of the way Morrowind was. I always felt that one of the biggest weaknesses of Oblivion was how dull the rolling hills and endless forest of Cyrodiil were.

Bugs, i've seen a lot. There are a small handful of situations where i've had to backtrack to an earlier save because something broke, but the vast majority of the glitches i've seen are harmless visual or audio defects. (But, holy shit, i've seen a lot. My Argonian's face even broke for a few hours at one point, had a really weird contorted look.)

Playing Bethesda's games, you eventually develop a radar for the kinds of bugs you're likely to encounter, it's usually the same kinds of issues popping up again and again. You can just feel some of the scripting straining at certain spots. It's pretty creaky at times, especially when there's a lot of moving parts in a quest. NPC's acting strangely, incidental events obviously failing to trigger, and worrying if that will affect the overall quest script.

Like i said, it's only outright broken for me a couple of times, and i was able to backtrack out of those situations because i had been saving frequently. The game does have issues, but it's probably still the most solid a Bethesda game has ever been at launch. I mean, hey, it's even pretty stable, that's important. Had maybe four lock-ups in all the time i've been playing.

Speaking of quests, the vast majority have been very, very basic. Though, on the strength of the dungeons, it's not really an issue i've been bothered much by.

Scaling also works really well, it's basically what they've done in oblivion and Fallout 3, but with much more restraint. You never, ever run into a party of bandits decked out with full suits of glass armor, for example. Better items are slowly trickled into the world economy, but never in such a way that they become commonplace. Even a hundred hours into the game, glass armor is still pretty rare, and that's the way it should be.

I do take some issue with the fact that a bottom-level bandit NPC can, as a result, be visually indistinguishable from one that can kill you in two hits. I'm not sure if that's something worth complaining about, but it doesn't really bother me that much.

I've grown to find Dragons annoying. I still think it's awesome and laudable that these big sprawling battles can happen at any time, with you tracking them across potentially miles of terrain. Honestly though, speaking practically, i'm not especially cool with them going around killing quest givers in the outlying settlements. That's dumb, i don't like it. I don't care if they're useless and totally incidental quests, I want to do them.

They seem to be on a timer though, and i've kind of gotten a hang of it. When i think i'm due for a dragon battle, i fast travel to a location where i think i can control the battle more effectively, i kill the dragon, and then fast travel back to wherever i was previously.

Stealth has really been improved so dramatically much, the basic last-known-position search routine they added to the AI really changes everything, and a lot of the dungeons have much wider layouts and things specifically in place to fuck with stealthy players. (The noisy chimes made of bones will alert enemies in the area if you bump into them.)

I'm feeling, now, that the melee combat in this game might actually be worse than it was in Oblivion.

The perk system is awesome, and in general i still really love the things they've done with the stat systems.

Does pick-pocket really deserve to be its own skill?

I haven't used a companion at all, it feels weird to have party in a TES game.

Paarthurnax is awesome

.

Also, internet people did math, the level cap is 81. That gives you 80 perks, if anybody wants that number for planning their builds accordingly. (Though there's a soft cap at 50 that dramatically reduces exp gains.)

[JonCole]

The disarm shout is really annoying, specially the first time. I was doing the

wolf queen quest

and at some point I encountered a

Draugr Deathlord

and it immediately shouted and disarmed me. It took me a little while to figure out what happened and where my Ebony waraxe was.

Also, the

wolf queen quest

was one of the toughest quests I've been on so far. Specially the

final battle against a large army of tough draugrs

was difficult.

Yeah, I pretty much carry 3-4 weapons at any given time to combat this. Kind of a shitty counter, but it does the job.

[elmuerte]

I went on a shopping spree and bought a 2nd house with everything in it. Now I'm kind of broke. Anyone figured out a way to make money without finding gold and selling scraps? According to the stats there should be a way to invest in stores... but how? Anyway.. the house in Solitude is awesome, much better than the one in Whiterun.

In the meanwhile I've started to collect quite a great collection of unique weapons.

After 46 hours I still have so much to explore. I'm currently at level 32 and I'm already starting to feel quite bad ass. I recently picked up a new gadget which only takes up 1/3rd of the screen

[JonCole]

I went on a shopping spree and bought a 2nd house with everything in it. Now I'm kind of broke. Anyone figured out a way to make money without finding gold and selling scraps? According to the stats there should be a way to invest in stores... but how? Anyway.. the house in Solitude is awesome, much better than the one in Whiterun.

In the meanwhile I've started to collect quite a great collection of unique weapons.

After 46 hours I still have so much to explore. I'm currently at level 32 and I'm already starting to feel quite bad ass. I recently picked up a new gadget which only takes up 1/3rd of the screen

You have to be pretty high in Speech to unlock the perk to invest in stores. The best methods I've found for making a quick buck are alchemy and enchanting.

With alchemy, certain potion effects result in much more profit than others - like invisibility or lingering damage magicka. If you manage to make a potion with multiple effects (regardless of how well they work together), the potion sells for exponentially greater. Chain that stuff with potions that boost Alchemy or Barter and you can really get a lot with very little investment (picking up flowers/mushrooms whenever you see them).

With enchantment, it's good to know that any item you enchant gains value based on the spell you enchant it with rather than what soul gem or item you start with. For instance, fortify archery is great for helmets, fortify carry weight is good for boots/gauntlets, fortify healing rate is great for armor, and absorb health is good for weapons. Weapons almost always sell for more than armor, so it's good to hang onto any iron/steel daggers you find on corpses. Beyond that, buy petty/lesser soulgems at every opportunity and enchant a bow with soul trap 1 sec. Kill deers, foxes, wolves, rabbits for petty souls. Enchant daggers, which increase their value to 1k+, sell for profit.

That ended up being a huge wall of text, but both of those things are really easy to just collect while you're adventuring and worry about later.