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The Elder Scrolls V: Dragonborn |OT| Did you think you were the only one?

GhaleonEB

Member
Stahlrim bow forged, and one part of Azel's quest is complete. A second quest started when I finished it up, which was unexpected.

This character needs to slay a legendary dragon, and then get married and settle down, to knock off two achievements. Level 65, almost there.

After she retires, I'll start a short lived character who will become a vampire lord and go on an extended rampage across Skyrim. Then, a break until the next DLC hits.
 
Honestly, I think the best part of Dawnguard and especially Dragonborn is how unique and well-crafted the dungeon designs are compared to normal Skyrim.

With Skyrim, it was like "Oh my god. Another Dwarven Ruin and Barrow with cookie-cutter designs and completely inseparable in my memory from all the other dungeons." But then, in Dragonborn, everything is unique. They clearly spent time designing these unique dungeons, that look different, and only once in awhile have a little piece of generic Skyrim poking out of them. One of my favorites I've done so far is the flooded Dwarven ruins on Solsthiem. It actually has a somewhat deeper puzzle to it throughout, almost with a Zelda feel, and the best part is, there's a huge area to it (that I haven't explored yet, so how huge, IDK), that you can miss if you just do what has to be done.

I really wish they spent a little more time to make some of the dungeons in normal Skyrim unique and special. When the dungeons are good, it makes it that much easier to completely forget about the bland combat.
 

Volimar

Member
I really liked the Dwarven ruins in vanilla Skyrim, but I also love the extra effort put into more diverse places to explore in the DLC.
 
Just had a BRUTAL bug that would have been game breaking if I hadnt managed to work around it, via the console.
I was 110 hours in, and this glitch broke the main quest. I would have been super-pissed if I was playing on a PS360 and just had accept it and restart.
 

Onikaan

Member
Hi folks. Long time lurker here, finally been accepted!

Morrowind is probably my favourite game of all time (so far). Skyrim would be on that list too, however, starting my Elder Scrolls Adventure with Morrowind set it in as the definitive title for me. I've put just over 220 hours into Skyrim now, Oblivion was slightly less than that and I won't guess for Morrowind... It would be unreasonable.

And now that I can finally post I've been meaning to ask you, Ghaleon, if you ever managed to work around that fatal crash bug in Solstheim? Unfortunately I've encountered this menace, but in a different place. If I approach
my property
in Raven Rock at a certain time of day (Usually around dusk or dawn) the game will choke up. Thankfully I can get around it by waiting until dark and then approaching. Still a real pain, though.

Hope Bethesda can keep the game as stable as possible for this final run of DLC.

Anyway! Been following this thread for a while so I know most of you already. I've registered not specifically but especially to be involved in this lovely little Elder Scrolls backwater. Look forward to conversing with everyone.
 

GhaleonEB

Member
Kind of floating around doing quests I hadn't done in a while, and holy shit is the Bard's College glitched to hell and back.

Finding the instruments early has glitched the dialog and rewards for the two I've found, leaving dialogue stuck, and the items in my inventory.

I watched what's his name to the reading of King Olaf's verse, and he engaged me in conversaion after. For some reason that got cut off part way through, and when I re-initiate it, the option to complete it and get my reward is gone. But I'm supposed to go and tell Jorn the festival is back on. Okay then. Only his dialog option is stuck as well, and even after talkign to him and waiting until after dark, nothing happens. He just has the same option, to tell him the festival is back on, over and over. Can't advance it.

Going to go back four (!!) saves to try the loop again. Yowza, haven't run into this many glitches in a long time.
 
My whole game is screwed.
After passing a certain point in the main quest, when I try to continue the main quest or complete qusests for factions like the DB or TG, the NPC's talk to me like we've just met.
This happens, even though my journal directs me to them, to finish the quest.
Im gonna have to try and find the console command for each quest and force it to the correct stage. That'll be fun :/
I know Bethesda have a reputation for buggy games, but I never had any real probs with Morrowind, Oblivion or Fallout. My current Skyrim issue, seems to effect the whole, damn game. lol
 

GenericUser

Member
27th, release of dragonborn in germany, got 1 day off of only for that ... you know what that means!

Dragonborn_Screenshots_9.jpg
 

Onikaan

Member
My whole game is screwed.
After passing a certain point in the main quest, when I try to continue the main quest or complete qusests for factions like the DB or TG, the NPC's talk to me like we've just met.
This happens, even though my journal directs me to them, to finish the quest.
Im gonna have to try and find the console command for each quest and force it to the correct stage. That'll be fun :/
I know Bethesda have a reputation for buggy games, but I never had any real probs with Morrowind, Oblivion or Fallout. My current Skyrim issue, seems to effect the whole, damn game. lol

Sometimes it can feel like a game of Russian Roulette when you load up Skyrim. I'm constantly saving and/or creating new saves after I've done something significant so I can revert back to that if I run into a game breaking bug.

Last night I played for about 2 hours and I had to restart my Xbox about 4 times. Other nights I can play longer and have no issues.

Morrowind and Oblivion had their own share of hiccups, but I'd agree with you in saying Skyrim chokes up more often than either of them.
 

lmpaler

Member
Anyone play on the PS3? I'm thinking of finally getting this after the patches supposedly fixed a lot of the problems, but I'm curious if anyone still has those issues.
 

krioto

Member
Anyone play on the PS3? I'm thinking of finally getting this after the patches supposedly fixed a lot of the problems, but I'm curious if anyone still has those issues.

I'm currently playing Dragonborn on PS3 - no issues. Current character is L39, about 200 hr save - all good so far.
 
Sometimes it can feel like a game of Russian Roulette when you load up Skyrim. I'm constantly saving and/or creating new saves after I've done something significant so I can revert back to that if I run into a game breaking bug.

Last night I played for about 2 hours and I had to restart my Xbox about 4 times. Other nights I can play longer and have no issues.

Morrowind and Oblivion had their own share of hiccups, but I'd agree with you in saying Skyrim chokes up more often than either of them.

At least with me on PC, I feel like I have a chance (via the console command) to salvage my game, somewhat.
I had to delete a significant (main) quest item, before, and then re-add it via the console as it had bugged out on me. I cant help but feel this has something to do with my current woes.
Ive put about 115 hours into this current character but I have to say, even if my game were now destroyed beyond repair, I wouldnt be too mad as I've had so much fun getting here.
Maybe I'll just sink 100+ hours into someone else instead :)
 

GhaleonEB

Member
Is the Dragonborn DLC on PS3 permanently 50% off the normal price or was that just a sale for its release?

I believe that was just for the first week of release.

(My Bard's College set of glitches cleared up after backing up a few saves. Yay. Lamest quest line ever.)
 

Onikaan

Member
I believe that was just for the first week of release.

(My Bard's College set of glitches cleared up after backing up a few saves. Yay. Lamest quest line ever.)

Ghal does your daughter still encounter the crash in Solstheim?

Been wondering if that cleared up for you as I've been running into it. Same place every time.
 

GhaleonEB

Member
Ghal does your daughter still encounter the crash in Solstheim?

Been wondering if that cleared up for you as I've been running into it. Same place every time.

She was able to get rid of it by traveling back to Skyrim proper, and the back to Solstheim. I think it resolved itself once Solstheim was re-loaded from scratch. (We had tried fast traveling to a different part of the island, and then walking back to the glitched part of the beach, but that didn't do it - it just crashed again.)

Hopefully that helps you as well, it was maddening.
 

Locke_211

Member
She was able to get rid of it by traveling back to Skyrim proper, and the back to Solstheim. I think it resolved itself once Solstheim was re-loaded from scratch. (We had tried fast traveling to a different part of the island, and then walking back to the glitched part of the beach, but that didn't do it - it just crashed again.)

Hopefully that helps you as well, it was maddening.

I couldn't get the Illusion master quest from the Winterhold Illusion trainer. I had 90 in Illusion, but the option to ask him for it just didn't appear, no matter how long I waited or how much I reloaded. But then travelling to Solstheim and back made it appear! It'd be quite cool if having Solstheim there as a separate area fixed pretty much everything :)
 
I encountered a nasty glitch during the Vaermina's quest that gave me CTDs whenever I wanted to save or quicksave. After some initial panic, the issue was resolved with a bit of Google-fu, (after a certain point in the quest, just go outside and save then get back and resume your quest) but in the meantime I was quite concerned I had broken something within the game because I'm running about 40 mods or so, and I'm not what you'd call a meticulous mod installer. I just install and uninstall stuff during the playthrough overwriting save files as I go. Only thing I'll do is reinstall texture mods or stuff like that that get overwritten by newer mods but that's about it.
 

Onikaan

Member
She was able to get rid of it by traveling back to Skyrim proper, and the back to Solstheim. I think it resolved itself once Solstheim was re-loaded from scratch. (We had tried fast traveling to a different part of the island, and then walking back to the glitched part of the beach, but that didn't do it - it just crashed again.)

Hopefully that helps you as well, it was maddening.

I can't shake it. Every time I try to enter
my house
in Raven Rock during the day, It freezes. Tried clearing cache, taking the boat from Windhelm, approaching from the side, nothing. Thankfully I can get in if I wait until night. So it's only a slight annoyance now. Still very strange.

We heard any rumours about what the next DLC might be?
 

GhaleonEB

Member
Damn, dragonborn is hard! Can't compete with my lvl17 character. What the hell is this shit?

As the others said, it's made to be challenging. On the flip side, you're going to be finding ebony gear from the get-go, and some of the unique loot is very powerful. At your level it's a high-risk, high reward situation.

Me, I started a new character and headed to Solstheim on Master difficulty when it came out. Talk about taking a beating, but I loved it.
 
Fuck getting experience, I went there with a newly-made Dunmer Spellsword and had a lot of fun. Didn't tackle the main quest, though, but did go after the other black books.

As he said, though, Ghaleon is the king of badassess.
 

Onikaan

Member
Well, crap.

Revered Dragons are nasty. For a brief moment I thought I was witnessing an awkward glitch, but no that is his head.

I've started work on my 2nd Hearthfire Home. This one I've designed specifically as a museum to my adventures. I did plan on displaying my precious weapons and armour in the Armoury Wing of the house. However, the mannequins are in a terrible mess. The game seems to save the mannequins as you displayed them for the first time, and will duplicate items if you remove a set, meaning whatever you threw on it the first time is now on display forever.

They also seem to be able to walk around my house, as I've found a few of them standing around in the room, detached from their mountings. Creepy.

Anyone encountered this? Do you know a work around?
 
Well, crap.

Revered Dragons are nasty. For a brief moment I thought I was witnessing an awkward glitch, but no that is his head.

I've started work on my 2nd Hearthfire Home. This one I've designed specifically as a museum to my adventures. I did plan on displaying my precious weapons and armour in the Armoury Wing of the house. However, the mannequins are in a terrible mess. The game seems to save the mannequins as you displayed them for the first time, and will duplicate items if you remove a set, meaning you're whatever you threw on it the first time is now on display forever.

They also seem to be able to walk around my house, as I've found a few of them standing around in the room, detached from their mountings. Creepy.

Anyone encountered this? Do you know a work around?

It's an I Am Legend easter egg.
 

Onikaan

Member
It's an I Am Legend easter egg.

FRED!


So what do you guys want to see in the Elder Scrolls VI?

I'd like the combat to become more visceral. I play in first person and It's important that I feel like I'm there, holding the weapon, wearing the armour. Perhaps being thrown to the ground, stumbling back up quickly before I'm slain. Things like rolling forward but seeing it in a first person perspective like if you really did roll forward.

Of course there's a fine balance. I don't think people would agree with quick-time events or losing control of your character in an Elder Scrolls game.

What about you folks?
 

GhaleonEB

Member
FRED!


So what do you guys want to see in the Elder Scrolls VI?

I'd like the combat to become more visceral. I play in first person and It's important that I feel like I'm there, holding the weapon, wearing the armour. Perhaps being thrown to the ground, stumbling back up quickly before I'm slain. Things like rolling forward but seeing it in a first person perspective like if you really did roll forward.

Of course there's a fine balance. I don't think people would agree with quick-time events or losing control of your character in an Elder Scrolls game.

What about you folks?

I actually thought Beth did a good job at making combat feel impactful, or as you said visceral. I really enjoy one-handed combat, despite it's relative simplicity. Swings and sword connections feel really solid, smacking shields and bashing with them feel really good to me. Getting shield bashed in turn walks that line between an effective stagger and making the enemy feel cheap, IMO.

I'd like to see a bit more nuance added to the combat. More combos than just swinging back and forth; perhaps a few multi-swing moves for each weapon class (mace, sword, axe). And they've got to make combat with two handed weapons more fun. I'm working on that skill now, and it simply gets boring.

I'd also like to see the weapon materials not be stacked into a linear hierarchy as they are now. I'd like to see each material have different properties. Say, glass weapons cut more sharply and cause bleeding damage, while steel is heavier and staggers enemies more, but swings more slowly. Elven might be very light and so swing faster. That kind of thing. Clearly there should still be some hierarchy, but adding more differences beyond just visuals and the damage output would be neat.
 

Onikaan

Member
I actually thought Beth did a good job at making combat feel impactful, or as you said visceral. I really enjoy one-handed combat, despite it's relative simplicity. Swings and sword connections feel really solid, smacking shields and bashing with them feel really good to me. Getting shield bashed in turn walks that line between an effective stagger and making the enemy feel cheap, IMO.

It's definitely the best combat in the series. I just feel that it can sometimes get a bit "floaty", which Is probably down to restricted animation than anything else. I'd like to see enemies react to every blow (not just shield bashing or heavy smackdowns) without making encounters exploitable. Perhaps my want for more realism is, unrealistic. After all it is a video game.


I'd like to see a bit more nuance added to the combat. More combos than just swinging back and forth; perhaps a few multi-swing moves for each weapon class (mace, sword, axe). And they've got to make combat with two handed weapons more fun. I'm working on that skill now, and it simply gets boring.

Well I totally agree. I even miss the stabbing forward days of Morrowind. Variety!. Also, being able to use the environment would be a welcome edition. Not just using their own traps against them but the ability to pick up anything in the Elder Scrolls games should be implemented into the combat.

Dark Messiah is often quoted during Elder Scrolls combat discussion.

I'd also like to see the weapon materials not be stacked into a linear hierarchy as they are now. I'd like to see each material have different properties. Say, glass weapons cut more sharply and cause bleeding damage, while steel is heavier and staggers enemies more, but swings more slowly. Elven might be very light and so swing faster. That kind of thing. Clearly there should still be some hierarchy, but adding more differences beyond just visuals and the damage output would be neat.

I love this. Could be implemented for armour too? It's always bothered me that I can't wear the armour that pleases the eye, lest I get my butt kicked because of its terrible rating.
 

GhaleonEB

Member
It's definitely the best combat in the series. I just feel that it can sometimes get a bit "floaty", which Is probably down to restricted animation than anything else. I'd like to see enemies react to every blow (not just shield bashing or heavy smackdowns) without making encounters exploitable. Perhaps my want for more realism is, unrealistic. After all it is a video game.
Yup, totally agree. The animation came a long way from Oblivion, but they could go a lot further in the combat. In a way any flaws are heightened by the perspective we have; as enemies mover over the uneven terrain there's bound to be flaws, and we see that in intimate detail. Still, hopefully it gets better. Really, I'd just like to see that sideways slide dudes do when I fire arrows at them go away.

I love this. Could be implemented for armour too? It's always bothered me that I can't wear the armour that pleases the eye, lest I get my butt kicked because of its terrible rating.

I think Bethesda started to go down this road with Dragonborn. One of the loading splashes said stahlrim armor and weapons enabled more effective frost enchantments. I remembered this right after I posted but didn't have time to edit it in.

Frost enchantments, such as frost damage and resist frost, are 25% stronger when placed on items crafted from Stalhrim. This effect is identical to the Enchanting perk "Frost Enchanter" or the Destruction perk "Augmented Frost".

Other than weight and noise generation, armor could have properties such as this, with certain materials more receptive to certain kind of enchantments. It would expand the factors to consider when smithing and enchanting armor and weapons. I need to think it through more, but I thought the stahlrim example was an interesting direction enchanting could go. Different materials might be better suited for resisting physical vs. magical damage, by way of their ability to hold more powerful enchantments. If that were the case I'd have different armor sets depending if I was raiding a witches coven vs. a bunch of draugr, and I'd be more likely to mix armor types to hit a certain balance.
 
Yeah, the combat is still a bit floaty. I wouldn't mind them looking at Dark Messiah or Chivalry for inspiration on the combat. Have fights turn into actual duels, and not just swinging your sword at an enemy until his health bar depletes.
 

GenericUser

Member
As the others said, it's made to be challenging. On the flip side, you're going to be finding ebony gear from the get-go, and some of the unique loot is very powerful. At your level it's a high-risk, high reward situation.

Me, I started a new character and headed to Solstheim on Master difficulty when it came out. Talk about taking a beating, but I loved it.

I pulled out my old lvl 40 character and it is still very challenging. Doable lvl 1 on master? Sounds crazy. How did you manage that?

I wasn't aware of that huge leap in terms of difficulty, but I have to admit I did not read any previes/reviews before buying it. Still, it's awesome to visit morrowind again.
 

GhaleonEB

Member
I pulled out my old lvl 40 character and it is still very challenging. Doable lvl 1 on master? Sounds crazy. How did you manage that?

I wasn't aware of that huge leap in terms of difficulty, but I have to admit I did not read any previes/reviews before buying it. Still, it's awesome to visit morrowind again.

I used a three part strategy to get over the steep initial difficulty. First, I got all three words of Unrelenting Force, so I could get powerful enemies away from me if needed, and to kill the grasshopper enemies outright. That meant I got to the island around level 10 or so.

Second, I leveraged stealth and archery heavily, lots and lots of sneaking. I basically put everything into stealth and archery, and worked on smithing/enchanting heavily to maximize damage output. It was hit and run combat until I cleared level 25 or so. I think I explored the entire island while sneaking at one point. Direct engagement usually meant death, which was a frequent occurrence. It helped that ebony gear showed up in my early teens.

And third, I put I also put work into Illusion, using Fury and Frenzy to have enemies fight one another; lots of fights that were too much for me got settled by having the enemies take each other out. I just did clean up duty. I cleared out an entire Reikling cave while never being detected; I used Frenzy and archery the entire time, killing maybe a half dozen guys myself but otherwise letting them do the work.

Around level 30 or so I started to mount the difficulty curve and it got a lot easier, dudes I used to run from I could kill in 4-5 shots. If it had stayed that hard the entire time I'd have bailed, but I really enjoy climbing out of the hole, so to speak, through progression. It felt great to go from being the hunted to the hunter.

Edit: and I almost forgot, alchemy. Invisibility and especially paralysis potions go a long way. Many a Reaver Lord got paralyzed and then clubbed to death while they lay there.

As a bit of an update to my current character, Luna is about to hit level 70, with plenty of skills to keep leveling. Should hit 78 without difficulty. I'm going to hit a couple of the magic mastery quests, purely by leveraging training. It's nice to have new content this far down the road.
 

Kenai

Member
FRED!


So what do you guys want to see in the Elder Scrolls VI?

I'd like the combat to become more visceral. I play in first person and It's important that I feel like I'm there, holding the weapon, wearing the armour. Perhaps being thrown to the ground, stumbling back up quickly before I'm slain. Things like rolling forward but seeing it in a first person perspective like if you really did roll forward.

Of course there's a fine balance. I don't think people would agree with quick-time events or losing control of your character in an Elder Scrolls game.

What about you folks?

My main problem besides the random bugs (that are probably always going to be there in some way) are the current implementation of the skill trees. I feel like so many of the perks are either borderline OP (two Daedra Lords, double enchants), near useless (the entire Lockpicking tree) or just weirdly organized (Destruction tree).

I'm not really sure if I prefer this sort of leveling to the old system or not, but if perks are going to continue they definitely need to be rebalanced.
 

soldat7

Member
I have an obsession with collecting books, but I rarely read them. :|

What are some of the best ones? I probably have them lol.
 

GhaleonEB

Member
I have an obsession with collecting books, but I rarely read them. :|

What are some of the best ones? I probably have them lol.

The Cake and the Diamond is a fun read. As is Three Thieves; it's a long book but the story is great.

I just finished collecting The Poison Song on Solstheim. I'm lugging it around but haven't read it yet.

I have the same problem you do with books. I tend to collect and organize sets of books, but seldom take time to sit down and read them. On my last two characters I had a spreadsheet with series I was collecting and which volumes I had. :lol
 
My Heljarchen Hall has a near-complete library. Or, you know, as complete as I could make it.

Read a lot of them, too. Though now that I think about it, I've never read the Dragonborn books.
 

Locke_211

Member
I have an obsession with collecting books, but I rarely read them. :|

What are some of the best ones? I probably have them lol.

Worth pointing out there's an Apple and Android app that has all the books from Daggerfall to Skyrim on it, so you can read them on a tablet or phone.
 

moojito

Member
I went over to the Enderal site (skyrim conversion from the makers of Nehrim) to see if there was any updates. Not a lot, a few new nice screenshots. Dat music, though. Damn.

What's more, if you hover your mouse over the pause button at the bottom left, there's a download link so you can get a copy of the track! Awesome sauce.
 

soldat7

Member
Thanks! I did the same thing in Oblivion (meticulously collect books, never read them.) In fact, I still recognize most of the shared titles after all these years lol.

On a side note, there are some moments of sheer beauty in this game, even on the 360.
 
Wonder when we'll hear about Redguard?

Done with Dragonborn for now. Still another 30 hours of content between vanilla and Dragonborn that I will want to do one day, probably, but for now, I'm giving it a break.
 
legendary-1024x576.jpg


The 1.9. update is coming (beta out on Steam), and it contains some new stuff:

Legendary difficulty setting
Legendary Skills – Skills of 100 can be made Legendary. This will reset the skill to 15, return its Perks and allow the skill to affect leveling again. This effectively removes the overall level cap

They also fixed the Oghma Infinium glitch.

I wonder if making a skill Legendary does anything else beside, you know, just resetting it. Seems kinda pointless otherwise.
 

GhaleonEB

Member
Just let us get every perk, for christ's sake.

The perk system was specifically designed to prevent that, to encourage specializations/rerolls. I love it, it forces hard decision making. I'd hate to see that undone.

Edit: on re-read, I'm not really sure how the Legendary skills work. So, you reset the skill to 15. And then get your spent perks back. Do you get another perk for each level you go up, so you effectively get more perks than before? Only you have re-level the skill to spend them there? Seems odd to max out a skill then get it reset.

That's one monster bug fix list. I've run into a dozen or so on from it on my current character. Nice to see Bethesda cleaning up so much, even a year+ later.

Also:

•Fixed rare instances where Arngeir would not teach Worldwind Sprint

It can't be that rare, he's never taught me Worldwind Sprint!

Definately doing Legendary difficulty for the next expansion. And my daughter will love the Legendary skills, she's been stuck at around level 50 forever.
 

Onikaan

Member
The 1.9. update is coming (beta out on Steam), and it contains some new stuff:

I wonder if making a skill Legendary does anything else beside, you know, just resetting it. Seems kinda pointless otherwise.

It'll be an easy 81 and lots of Iron Daggers...

The perk system was specifically designed to prevent that, to encourage specializations/rerolls. I love it, it forces hard decision making. I'd hate to see that undone.

Only problem I have with it Ghal, is that I don't like to play through the game 3 or 4 times. I take my character through every experience and work on him exclusively.

It hinders my character from becoming the jack of all trades that I set out to build.
Dragonborn allowed me to switch/swap with the perk reset, but it's hardly ideal, costly too.
 
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