Blue Ninja
Member
It's just something I've noticed. As you're rising in level you'll come across some respawning dragons, those don't give you any souls.
-
Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.
The Elder Scrolls V: Dragonborn |OT| Did you think you were the only one?
- Thread starter Blue Ninja
- Start date
It's just something I've noticed. As you're rising in level you'll come across some respawning dragons, those don't give you any souls.
Dragonborn definately has more content, in terms of areas, but I have felt that Dawnguard has been worth the price. (I realize this is a YMMV thing, so I'm not really arguing, just sharing my thoughts on it.) They do really different things, with Dragonborn adding landmass and content largely tied to it, and Dawnguard adding content that spans the entire game. If Dawnguard were just limited to the questline and new locations (I'm not through the main quest yet), I'd probably agree.
Outside of the questlines, Dawngarud adds lots of new high level enemies and gear, the werewolf perk tree, becoming a vampire lord (which my daughter loves) and the perk tree for it kind of round out the package. Even small things like being able to smith arrows, and the variety of new vampires and encounters with them in town/countryside. The side quest with the map, across the Dwemer ruins was fantastic. I encountered and/or used a lot of what Dawnguard had to offer before I ever started the questline.
Solstheim was a big, concentrated new experience, while Dawnguard sprinkles new content acrosss all of Skyrim, but for me at least I've found them to be a comparable value, in terms of what I got out of them. (Part of the reason I held off on buying Dawnguard is I didn't think the description was worth $20, but I've changed my mind after playing it. But then, I picked it up on sale and only paid $10, so I can't complain.
)In Bethesda games, the line between bug and feature can be quite nebulous.
Yeah, it's actually not part of the sale. There will likely be a sale on it at some point... just not next week.
Dragonborn definately has more content, in terms of areas, but I have felt that Dawnguard has been worth the price. (I realize this is a YMMV thing, so I'm not really arguing, just sharing my thoughts on it.) They do really different things, with Dragonborn adding landmass and content largely tied to it, and Dawnguard adding content that spans the entire game. If Dawnguard were just limited to the questline and new locations (I'm not through the main quest yet), I'd probably agree.
Outside of the questlines, Dawngarud adds lots of new high level enemies and gear, the werewolf perk tree, becoming a vampire lord (which my daughter loves) and the perk tree for it kind of round out the package. Even small things like being able to smith arrows, and the variety of new vampires and encounters with them in town/countryside. The side quest with the map, across the Dwemer ruins was fantastic. I encountered and/or used a lot of what Dawnguard had to offer before I ever started the questline.
Solstheim was a big, concentrated new experience, while Dawnguard sprinkles new content acrosss all of Skyrim, but for me at least I've found them to be a comparable value, in terms of what I got out of them. (Part of the reason I held off on buying Dawnguard is I didn't think the description was worth $20, but I've changed my mind after playing it. But then, I picked it up on sale and only paid $10, so I can't complain.
.
Absolutely, it's definitely a matter of opinion, but I do feel differently. I played Dragonborn first then immediately played Dawnguard right after (I've completed the main story already) and I just didn't feel Dawnguard added as much. Actually, the comparison video I linked earlier on this page goes over a lot of my points but I'll try to summarize a few here.
1. For something called "Dawnguard", the Dawnguard have a pretty small roll to play. In the end, if you've sided with the vampires at least, it's fairly anti-climatic. You never have a final showdown with the Dawnguard... they just kind of get forgotten about.
2. Any weapons/armor found in the Dawnguard DLC pales in comparison to Dragonborn. There's just more and higher quality items to be found throughout Dragonborn that are actually useful. Most of the stuff in Dawnguard, aside from the bow, are junk.
3. The actual content within Dragonborn is simply more fun. When you go into the book worlds you have a ton of interesting content to read, as well as some fun puzzles that are different than the standard fare found on the main continent. In comparison, Dawnguard is pretty straight forward with just a bunch of fetch quests and a whole bunch of walking through, at times, some rather overly long and monotonous areas.
4. At the end of Dragonborn you get a home that actually feels like home, with people talking to you and thanking you for helping out, while in Dawnguard the castle pretty much remains unchanged... and everyone acts the same. Most of the characters don't even have anything new to say. It's a bit disappointing, to be honest.
5. The Vampire Lord form is fun for about 5 minutes, but then you quickly realize it's just awkward to use and maneuver with the Werewolf form being much better (and more powerful).
Anyway, I'll leave it at that. Again, it does come down to what you enjoy and what you want out of the DLC, but those are some of my justifications as to why Dawnguard just doesn't live up to Dragonborn. I feel like Dawnguard was very much incomplete in comparison to Dragonborn.
Blue Ninja
Member
Yeah, it's a bug, but it's been there since launch and as far as I know, everyone has it. I just meant that it didn't neccesarily mean his gamesave was fucked.
Mr. Wonderful
Member
Yeah totally agree. I liked Dawnguard but the price was a bit high, IMO.
Rumor has it that the next DLC is named "Redguard" - hopefully that will take us out of province as well.
I hope it includes a lot of stuff that is applicable to vanilla Skyrim as well, too. New things to make your remaining quests in Skyrim more interesting/improved, you know?
That or just make accessing the new area more seamless, rather than an isolated new area.
I would honestly rather it take place in a new locale, as I've explored every nook and cranny of vanilla skyrim. I wants me some new environments, like the desert areas people were talking about a little earlier.
Give me some sand dunes, or hell, some kind of crazy place scarred and crystallized by magic or something of the sort. Just not more of vanilla skyrim plox.
Fair enough.
I think the only plus to having it be an isolated new area is that it only has to load cells from that world - so it's a bit more stable on consoles. I definitely would like something more seamless, though.
All I really know is that if it's Redguard themed, then I am psyched for what will hopefully be more RG armor and weapons and definitely more RG characters that have a voice other than the one used for Kematu. I swear that quest was so weird where him and all his buddy's had the exact same voice - lol
Well, other than the very rare unique voice for important characters, there are only like 17 voices in the entire game.
Yeah it's too bad. Though I did notice that with DB that they got some more male dunmer voices into the mix and not just Keith Szarabajka over and over again like in Vanilla Skyrim.
Blue Ninja
Member
I like the Dunmer voices in Skyrim/Dragonborn. They're not as gravelly as the ones in Morrowind, but they're pretty awesome.
The P of Poland
Member
You've never been to Shearpoint before, I take it? That's a natural part of the game.
Nearly all of my prior characters cleared it and got that shout. I guess I just never noticed before, somehow. :lol
Edit: Forgotten Vale. Holy crap, this place is enormous. First thing I do when I enter a new place is check the perimeters, and I was rewarded with a ton of loot for the trouble.
Not sure if the side caves are needed or not. I found and mined a shellbug in the back of a small Falmer cave. I also snagged a special gem off a frost giant, which got me into a loot cache (gems!). I explored a massive Glacial Crevice, and came out in a big Falmer nest I'm still working on. Found a second one of those gems on the frost giants, too.
Edit 2: Forgotten Vale lands up there with the Soul Cairn and Blackreach among the incredible, massive and beautiful environments Bethesda has made. What an incredible place. I can't get over how beautiful the environment is.
I crossed the bridge to the Inner Sanctum on a clear night, the moon nestled in the valley, blue sky lights waving, mist rising off the waterfalls.
The boss fight was, um...
Arch-Curate Vythur starts to attack...Fus-Roh-Dah! Over he goes. A few seconds later....mission completed. I had to toss on Become Ethereal and then back track all the way through just so I could loot the bastard. :lol
That aside, I officially no longer understand any complaints about Dawnguard's price. It added a huge amount of content, both vast and detailed.
Wuthering_Heights
Banned
Given Bethesda's track record, do we know when we MIGHT be able to expect a game of the year edition of Skyrim?
Trying to decide if I want to buy the PS3 DLC when it's 50% off or just wait for the GOTY edition.
Trying to decide if I want to buy the PS3 DLC when it's 50% off or just wait for the GOTY edition.
Blue Ninja
Member
I'm guessing around summer, after the final piece of DLC.
Reminds me...I need to get that one for my thief Bosmer, and Aura Whisper too. The Greybeards should have compiled a map of all word walls by now, dammit
Reminds me...I need to get that one for my thief Bosmer, and Aura Whisper too. The Greybeards should have compiled a map of all word walls by now, dammit
Oh they have one, they just like for you to keep crawling back to them.
Glad you finally made it to the later half of Dawnguard; that's where it gets really interesting to me.
It's a constant stream of surprises:
beautiful Ancestor Glade, collapsing bridge, Snow Elves!, Portals!, Forgotten Vale!, Double Dragons!, Snow Elf Temple!, Boss Battle!
Yeah, that was my response. It was just a long cascade of surprises, set in a really fantastic location that rewarded exploration. Some thoughts on the main quest now that I've had some time to think back on it.
Bethesda created two huge, unique environments in the Soul Cairn and Forgotten Vale that are at once similar and a study in contrasts.
In both you have a few items dotted through to collect, some formal quests and some hidden, (
), some optional interiors and places to explore. They both richly rewarded exploration with loot in every hidden corner and high perch you could find.
The contrasts were in the style and layout. The Soul Cairn was a wide open expanse of desolation and remorse, its flat, almost desert-like wasteland enabling the numerous structures to accumulate silhouettes on the horizon. (It is partly on this basis that I know Bethesda would do Elsweyr justice.) The design motif on the Forgotten Vale was verticality. High suspended archways, spiraling ramps and plunging waterfalls (which we can plunge over). The one large open space - the frozen lake - is set high above much of the Vale, giving way to one of the most spectacular views in the entire game, IMO.
The very first thing I did in the Forgotten Vale was hug the perimeter to explore the outside of the valley I was in. I was thinking that valley was going to be the extent of my journey. I was rewarded with exotic furs, gold and silver ore veins galore, and other goodies, as I searched. That kept up through the entire place, even as I realized it was several times larger than I expected. I explored it over two days.
the Opus on the Cairn, the books in the Vale; the three gems in the Cairn leading to the unmarked boss battle, the five gems in the Vale leading to the loot caches)
The contrasts were in the style and layout. The Soul Cairn was a wide open expanse of desolation and remorse, its flat, almost desert-like wasteland enabling the numerous structures to accumulate silhouettes on the horizon. (It is partly on this basis that I know Bethesda would do Elsweyr justice.) The design motif on the Forgotten Vale was verticality. High suspended archways, spiraling ramps and plunging waterfalls (which we can plunge over). The one large open space - the frozen lake - is set high above much of the Vale, giving way to one of the most spectacular views in the entire game, IMO.
The very first thing I did in the Forgotten Vale was hug the perimeter to explore the outside of the valley I was in. I was thinking that valley was going to be the extent of my journey. I was rewarded with exotic furs, gold and silver ore veins galore, and other goodies, as I searched. That kept up through the entire place, even as I realized it was several times larger than I expected. I explored it over two days.
Those two locations were the highlights of a quest line that was largely satisfactory. The story took some great twists
Snow Elves! The source of the Prophecy! Oh shit two dragons!!?
I maintain that Serana felt shoehorned into the Dawnguard side of the story. I think I'd have been more willing to go with this had there been more tension between her and the Dawnguard. It played out like Bethesda tipped off the Dawnguard to the fact they were stuck with her, so they accepted her in long before I did.
Regardless, Serana was a fantastic character and represented some of the best character and situational writing I've seen Bethesda pull off. They clearly wanted her to be the star of the show, and I can't really blame them too much. I just wish the absurdity of her role in the Dawnguard quest were acknowledged, or even embraced.
Personally, the Dawnguard questline, including those two locations, was worth the price of admission. The array of higher level enemies, new armor and gear, side locations (I tumbled through the added skooma den on my romp), side quests (Ancient Technology string of quests, Lost to the Ages), that was all gravy.
(On a side note, my training strategy on this character has gone well. I'm already level 54, and have not touched stealth, archery, two-handed or pick pocket, and have yet to max out anything other than one-handed. I should get to 78 with minimal grinding.)
A bit ago I pulled the enhanced Dwarven crossbow off the wall, enchanted it, popped on my Ring of Peerless Archery (+40%) and began my archery career. I'm still not liking the crossbow, I just don't feel the strong connection to the weapon that I do with melee and bows. But I'm going to romp in Skyrim for a bit to get my stealth and archery up a touch so we'll see if I get used to it. If not I'll smith up a Daedric bow and head over to Solstheim.
Question: I smithed the
Shellbug Helm, which I assume is unique. Other than looking cool and parking it on my mannequin, is there anything else tied to it? It was cool to find and make, and that is enough, just not sure if that is all.
I enjoyed both Dawnguard and the Dragonborn DLC, but the Dragonborn DLC was buggy to me almost to the point of being completely broken for me. I hit three major bugs with this DLC:
-Byshop
In any of the book world areas as well as a few of the temples there was some sort of crazy collision detection issue that would cause objects to fly around the room and cause my character and companions to clip through the floor. I fell through the dungeon many times and in the book world that drops you right into poison water. This was especially bad in any of the areas that had moving hallways or magic platforms. It was so bad I literally couldn't even walk across the glowing blue platform puzzle without falling through them. I only made it through by quicksaving every 30-60 seconds.
I could never leave the book world by reading the exit book. The game acted like I was in combat all the time and it would just tell me "You cannot concentrate on what you are reading". I could only leave by killing myself.
The final reward for killing Mirack allowed you to reset any of your skill trees to re-spend your perks. When I did this, it reset the tree but didn't refund the perks, essentially wasting them.
-Byshop
I'm running on PC. I haven't spent much time digging into this, but the unofficial patches seem focused more around scripting errors, missing quest items, map geometry issues, etc than this level of bug fix (except for maybe the perks issue, that seems right up the alley of the unofficial patches). When I have more free time I'll spend more time figuring out what's up, but I was curious to know if anyone else on the PC version had the same issues before I wasted a bunch of time troubleshooting something that everyone experiences.
-Byshop
-Byshop
I ran into that on that particular book, repeatedly. At the time the Lurkers were just demolishing me, so getting out alive was rare. And when I did, I had to restart several times. Sizzling even followed me back to Skyrim.
Okay, so I had a little bit more time to dig into this. At least the biggest glitch (falling through the floor and floating platforms, crazy physics, rocket propelled inannimate objects) seems to be because:
I started FRAPS up and got about 120FPS+ indoors at 2560x1440 with absolutely max settings. As soon as I started recording video to try to capture the problem, FRAPS locked the FPS down to 60, which in turn appears to have fixed my problem.
Apparently it's a quantum physics bug since I changed the outcome by trying to observe it.
I'll flip vsync on and that'll probably fix this overall issue, so the Dragonborn DLC is not to blame for me falling through the floor. I think the Dragonborn DLC maps just have more areas where this could potentially be an issue (moving hallways, floating platforms, etc).
The other two bugs, however, are DLC specific.
EDIT: Arg: Vsync is actually on in the INI file already. I don't remember ever even trying to disable it. I wonder if the DLC has broken this swtich in the INI file. Anyone else noticing vsync breaking after loading the DLC? I tried forcing vsync through CCC and Radeon Pro but no luck.
Second EDIT: Crossfire is hosing me. It's vsyncing to 120 instead of 60 when I run fullscreen.
I started FRAPS up and got about 120FPS+ indoors at 2560x1440 with absolutely max settings. As soon as I started recording video to try to capture the problem, FRAPS locked the FPS down to 60, which in turn appears to have fixed my problem.
Apparently it's a quantum physics bug since I changed the outcome by trying to observe it.
I'll flip vsync on and that'll probably fix this overall issue, so the Dragonborn DLC is not to blame for me falling through the floor. I think the Dragonborn DLC maps just have more areas where this could potentially be an issue (moving hallways, floating platforms, etc).
The other two bugs, however, are DLC specific.
EDIT: Arg: Vsync is actually on in the INI file already. I don't remember ever even trying to disable it. I wonder if the DLC has broken this swtich in the INI file. Anyone else noticing vsync breaking after loading the DLC? I tried forcing vsync through CCC and Radeon Pro but no luck.
Second EDIT: Crossfire is hosing me. It's vsyncing to 120 instead of 60 when I run fullscreen.
Is my Dragonborn bugged? Playing PC version (No mods on right now) and the nights on Solstheim are super bright. The sky is basically constantly orange, even if it is 2 am. Is it supposed to be this way cause of the Red Mountain erupting? Cause it kinda makes night time look like shit.
That's what its supposed to look like in the ash lands.
The P of Poland
Member
Glad you liked Dawnguard Ghal.
I agree that there should've been more tension between the DG and Serana, as well. But she's just so awesome that I forgive Beth for it.
Why couldn't they make her marriageable?
I agree that there should've been more tension between the DG and Serana, as well. But she's just so awesome that I forgive Beth for it.
Why couldn't they make her marriageable?
Blue Ninja
Member
I had Solstheim's aurora bleed through into Apocrypha one time. It was strangely beautiful.
You know, except for the tentacles.
You know, except for the tentacles.
I liked her, she had a cool vibe and had a lot of interesting situational dialogue. I liked that she did more than just hang around as I adventured, but would start doing things along the way. My daughter visited High Hrothgar with her, and during conversation she knelt down and meditated to one of the shrines. I've seen her sit down cross legged on the ground to wait, start mining, and a bunch of other stuff. The combination lots of branching dialogue, good voice acting and situational responses made her feel much more like an authentic character than most in Skyrim, IMO.
And I get a kick out of the side characters in the Dawnguard. I'm bad with names (not just in games, but in life), so I can't remember their names offhand. But the dude that thinks he can (or can he?!) be in constant communication with Arkay is pretty funny. (His responses when you ask him what he has for sale are great.) And I love the woman that feeds the Ancient Technology quests, she cracks me up. ("There are at least 30 different ways to be attacked and killed in your own home at any given moment." She offers that up as if she's observing the weather.)
Blue Ninja
Member
Huh, I just discovered Horker Island on Solstheim for the first time. As I'm climbing up the hill, all of a sudden there's this huge-ass Horker giving me the evil eye.
I killed him and claimed his soul.
I killed him and claimed his soul.
I'm having a real third wind with this after platinuming it last April. Wanting to finish everything in Dragonborn has turned into resolving to getting to level 81 so I can fight the Ebony Warrior. I'm at level 65 now! Grinding all the skills is sort of fun, since I'm really heavily using mechanics like smithing and pick-pocketting that even after Platinuming it I barely used.
EDIT: a question about Dawnguard, gathered from the official release blurb, but I assume the answer would be a big spoiler. I quite want to do the vampire side, but if you complete that, does it do anything dramatic like permanently blot out the sun, as the publicity suggests is their plan? That would probably make me side with the Dawnguard instead!
EDIT: a question about Dawnguard, gathered from the official release blurb, but I assume the answer would be a big spoiler. I quite want to do the vampire side, but if you complete that, does it do anything dramatic like permanently blot out the sun, as the publicity suggests is their plan? That would probably make me side with the Dawnguard instead!
You
get the ability to blot out the sun at will (lasts through the current day). So it's not a permanent thing at all. Can't think of anything else that would be a permanent change like that
Alright, I finally got fed up with the game. Dragonborn unleashed so many scripting bugs into my game that I couldn't even finish the main questline of the game, so I'm giving up and making a whole new character on a fresh install. Any mods I may have missed that would be good to add in? I have all the standards, SkyUI, UFO, etc, and a hell of a lot of weapon and armor mods. Anything else?
Blue Ninja
Member
Siding with the Dawnguard
gives you the ability to use sunbeams to attack your enemies, though, which is cool.
Though, if you want to be really specific,
both sides can use both abilities.
On a Dragonborn-related note, finished the main quest again, and went on to tackle Karstaag. Took me a few tries, even with my beefed-up level 55 badass. At one moment Karstaag knocked me straight into the tunnel that leads away from the ruins. That fucked up my third-person view: even though I looked normal while running around in first-person, my character model in third would look like a corpse gliding over the floor. It was hilarious, and yes, I taped it.
Afterwards, I engaged in fisticuffs with a werebear which had already transformed, but somehow still was stuck to his human animations.
I have a video of a dog that had the same animation issue, up on youtube here. It was hilarious. I had a similar issue with a dead body get up and reanimate, in place.
The very first thing I thought of when Sony announced the "share" video recording feature for the PS4 was how great it will be to use on Bethesda's games. All these crazy things we talk about - whether great emergent moments or glitches - can be shared with pictures and video. It's going to be so great.
Blue Ninja
Member
Yeah, it's like that, except I get to control the character. I'll upload it in a sec. I've also seen that reanimation thing happen, with a Falmer. It just died, stood up, and remained frozen in place.
I'll upload it in a sec. I've also seen that reanimation thing happen, with a Falmer. It just died, stood up, and remained frozen in place.The P of Poland
Member
That would be Florentius Baenius and Sorine Jurard, respectively. Sorine is great, in particular.
Blue Ninja
Member
I also forgot to mention this last week. I came across a curious-looking Thalmor Justiciar...
At least, I'd never encountered one wearing glass armor before. He still died like the rest of them.
And here are those aurorae I mentioned seeing in Apocrypha.
Last and certainly not least, here's the video of my near-death experience.
At least, I'd never encountered one wearing glass armor before. He still died like the rest of them.
And here are those aurorae I mentioned seeing in Apocrypha.
Last and certainly not least, here's the video of my near-death experience.
The P of Poland
Member
Thalmor automatically switch from Elven to Glass armor when you reach a high enough level.
Blue Ninja
Member
Wulf's tale is over, and I'm taking a break from Skyrim for a while. Once the next DLC is out I'll get back into it, or I'll double-dip when the GotY-edition is released on PC.