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The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim |OT2| Team Edward's Revenge

witness

Member
Well over 20 hours and I finally had my first lock up. In a dungeon, the frame rate just crashes like I was playing this on a god awful PC. Single digit frames, just terrible. I go to the next part of the, loading screen and it hard locks my 360. Pretty disappointing after finishing the entire main quest without a problem.
 

Hugs

Member
So, how exactly does improving work? My smithing is 100 and I can improve all my regular weapons and armor to legendary but when I went to improve Dawnbreaker I could only improve it to flawless. What do?
 

Lakitu

st5fu
Finished the main quest and I'm doing the civil war stuff now. Just took over Fort Dunstad and I didn't get an achievement, was I supposed to?

I'm using archery now and it feels so much better than melee.
 
So, how exactly does improving work? My smithing is 100 and I can improve all my regular weapons and armor to legendary but when I went to improve Dawnbreaker I could only improve it to flawless. What do?


Drink a smithing potion or wear some gear that improves smithing.
 
I'm enjoying the game a lot but Bethesda overhyped the unique dungeons etc I think. The best the game has to offer is walking around the world and seeing the random events. Very few of the quests/dungeons have been interesting thus far.

Dude, did you play Oblivion? Seriously, it felt like there were maybe 5 templates that the majority of the dungeons used with a unique one sprinkled here and there.

In this game, I have not come across a carbon copy dungeon once. There are a few architectural similarities between them, but that makes sense considering those ruins would have been built by the same races.
 
Yes I played an ungodly amount of Oblivion.

They're better than in Oblivion, but they still feel too samey. I would like less but more unique ones.

(I'm only 12 hours in, so I probably haven't seen the best)
 

GhaleonEB

Member
Yes I played an ungodly amount of Oblivion.

They're better than in Oblivion, but they still feel too samey. I would like less but more unique ones.

(I'm only 12 hours in, so I probably haven't seen the best)

I'm 140 hours in, and still getting pleasantly surprised by dungeons regularly. There are unique touches and elements in every one I've seen so far. Keep exploring - I don't think the uniqueness of the dungeons was over sold. I've had over a dozen jaw dropping standouts. Some are wide open and gorgeous. Some just plain massive. Some have some rather unexpected design elements.

I did a tiny little cave last night, nothing remarkable. But it was amusing because an elven mage had taken up refuge in it. I walk in the door and there's a three way fight between an ice wolf, a cave bear and a troll in the middle. Dude's corpse was high up on a rock; they were fighting over his corpse. I think he walked into more than he was expecting. :lol
 
Tell that to Sul. He's level 40 and a Forsworn Briarhart still manages to one-shot him.

I'm a level 50 and there's this one Forsworn Briarheart that gives me trouble still, I got mauled by him like 20 levels ago and happened to wander back to his area randomly the other day, he was one of the 1st enemies I ever ran into that came at me dual wielding, I think he has two axes or something. Hes at some crazy looking ruins/camp with a lot of steps north of Markarth and has a pet bear that hides in one of his huts at the top of the steps.

I figured I was gonna mop him up now that I had leveled up so much as I haven't been tested in melee combat in quite some time, and I just got thru fighting 4 Draugr Deathlords at 1 time in some other dungeon and barely broke a sweat so I was feeling untouchable. I spared him the archery approach and wanted to teach him a lesson mano y mano so I let him run down his stairs and I power-whacked him once with my Legendary Hero Greatsword and to my surprise it didnt do much damage then he returned fire and did his little two handed spin move and took like 3/4's of my life in one twirl.

Had to retreat, drink some potions then use my Slow Time shout and hacked him to death Matrix-style. Was pretty surprising that he was still so strong. I was rocking the Nightingale Armor, smithed up to Epic, with all the Light Armor Perks. Checked his corpse and he had regular ass weapons too, dude is just a beast.
 

coopolon

Member
Well I think I'm done for now.

I've played well over 100 (probably closer to 200 than 100) hours over a few characters and really enjoyed my time with it. I've only beaten the College and Companion quests and gotten close to beating the Thieves Guild quests.

I'll come back in a year or so once the DLC is out and we get some meaty mods.

I think the only thing I would change going back is to never use enchanting. Enchanting completely breaks the game in terms of loot and difficulty. Without enchanting the loot you find in the world will still be interesting and potentially better than what you can smith. That would help a lot to keep dungeons interesting, and with the perk you can still improve the enchanted items you find.

It's just kind of disheartening when the quest is "Hey, let's go find this legendary sword that is all powerful." You go find it, and it's worthless compared to the sword you've double enchanted and crafted to triple the damage using enchanted smithing clothes. And that's all without ever touching alchemy or using that infinite loop exploit. That's just using enchanting and smithing how they were designed.
 

Esch

Banned
Forsworn Briarhearts are the only human enemies that can really fuck with the Dovahkiin. Mostly because they're all dual wielding enchanted weapons.
 

eznark

Banned
Its such a shame the Blades are idiots. The armor looks cool.

I piled that shit on Lidya when I got it. 90 hours in, she falls off a bridge and dies. I fast travel to a town to unload my stuff, come back...her body (along with that rad armor I was going to throw on a mercenary) has vanished. Infuriating.
 

DTKT

Member
So.

Is the PC suffering from the same memory leak as the PS3 version? After 2-3 hours of play, I'm starting to see materials without any textures and I will end up crashing while fighting a dragon or loading a new area.

Anything I can do about that?
 

LiquidMetal14

hide your water-based mammals
Pretty sure I beat the main story today. Someone correct me if I'm wrong but defeating
Alduin marks the end of the story no?
. It's rather seamless so I wasn't really sure as it just was like a quest ended and nothing more in that arc. Yipee, I suppose lol

Now to tackle some side missions or other major quest and maybe hit up the online mod. I installed SkyUI, MANDATORY MOD for PC gamers. It's so much better for inventory management.
 

GhaleonEB

Member
I haven't played Skyrim in a week and just got prompted to download the most recent update.

Do I want to do this or no? 360 version.

I haven't heard of new issues introduced with the new patch, and it fixed the dragons in my game - I can actually fight them now. No backward flying ones since the update.
 

Barrett2

Member
This might be the most addicted i've been to a game in years. I can barely force myself to put down the controller every time I need to stop playing.

Did the quest this morning to get the Honed Ancient Nord Greatsword of Burning. This is the only weapon I want to use from now on. After putting most points into destruction magic for most of the game, I feel like it's just not useful in some situations. I've been using a lot of perks on two handed weapons, and goddamn its awesome. With my Burning Greatsword I am constantly getting amazing death animations of stabbing an enemy through the gut, hoisting them in the air with the sword as their entire body bursts into flames. Fucking awesome.


I piled that shit on Lidya when I got it. 90 hours in, she falls off a bridge and dies. I fast travel to a town to unload my stuff, come back...her body (along with that rad armor I was going to throw on a mercenary) has vanished. Infuriating.

I've had some weird moments with Lydia. During a big fight I was battling the main priest guy and she was fighting a few skeletons and she straight up dies. Had to reload the save... But then just an hour ago a giant clubs her, sends her hurtling 100s of feet into the air, and five minutes later she wanders back to where I am. So random.
 
Because Destruction doesn't scale at all in terms of damage. There are a few one-off increases in damage when you get a new spell, or add a perk, but that's it. Once you get to a certain point you will never ever hit any harder. And that extra damage is something you have to pay for with the increased Magicka cost of spells.

Compare that to melee weapons or bows which cause your damage to increase directly as your skill increases, you can increase the damage much higher with perks (+100% with 5 perks verses +50% in Fire/Frost/Shock with 6 perks), you can add +damage enchantments to gear, and you can improve weapons further with Smithing. Plus you can constantly perform normal attacks with no stamina, and the cost of power attacks is the same with a crappy weapon as it is with a badass Daedric Sword of Infinite Win.

It's one of the major balancing fuckups in the game.

The problem early on was getting close enough to some enemies (particularly mages) in order to use your melee weapons. I'd easily get decimated by some mages with two blast of whatever before I got close and my archery was too slow/weak to really be of much benefit.
 
Attention Skyrim-HaloGAF (specifically Ghaleon and Blue Ninja)

I was able to open a present early, and thanks to my amazing guessing skills – feeling the packages (oh my) – I opened Skyrim.

Instruct me in the ways of the Elder Scrolls. I need some advice for a first-time player, tips and tricks, and what I should do right off the bat.

Remember to speak slowly and plainly.
 

Kaper

Member
Attention Skyrim-HaloGAF (specifically Ghaleon and Blue Ninja)

I was able to open a present early, and thanks to my amazing guessing skills – feeling the packages (oh my) – I opened Skyrim.

Instruct me in the ways of the Elder Scrolls. I need some advice for a first-time player, tips and tricks, and what I should do right off the bat.

Remember to speak slowly and plainly.

PC? If so, head to The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim PC Performance and Modding discussion and check out the featured mods.

Gameplay-wise, I'd suggest getting a companion as soon as possible, which basically doubles your carrying capacity. Faendal is fast and easy to get. Try everything out that interests you, in terms of skills. As a word of caution, Destruction magic has a damage ceiling, so just be wary of that. If you're a hoarder like me, you should invest in a house first, otherwise a horse is better.
 
I'm so excited about the idea that there may be DLC that takes you to Morrowind.

I just found that gate/path that points east on the far eastern side of Skyrim. It has an invisible wall, but there HAS to be a reason why they put an uncrossable path/archway going in that direction.
 

lil smoke

Banned
I guess the dog is a bad idea eh? I am pretty close to not just killing it, but how much can I torture it and for how extensively after he stands in front of me, blocking my passage. My game is based around finding something that won't exactly kill him, but show him how I feel about him.
 

NBtoaster

Member
I'm so excited about the idea that there may be DLC that takes you to Morrowind.

I just found that gate/path that points east on the far eastern side of Skyrim. It has an invisible wall, but there HAS to be a reason why they put an uncrossable path/archway going in that direction.

Well..it does make sense that there is a road to other provinces. There's one to Hammerfell as well.
 

Volimar

Member
I'm so excited about the idea that there may be DLC that takes you to Morrowind.

I just found that gate/path that points east on the far eastern side of Skyrim. It has an invisible wall, but there HAS to be a reason why they put an uncrossable path/archway going in that direction.

I think they said that the entire continent is there outside of the walls. I imagine it was done for modders though.
 
So.

Is the PC suffering from the same memory leak as the PS3 version? After 2-3 hours of play, I'm starting to see materials without any textures and I will end up crashing while fighting a dragon or loading a new area.

Anything I can do about that?

I think it can -- I've had the same problems a couple of times.

Have you tried the Skyrim 4GB mod? It fixed most of those issues for me.
http://www.skyrimnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=1013
 
Attention Skyrim-HaloGAF (specifically Ghaleon and Blue Ninja)

I was able to open a present early, and thanks to my amazing guessing skills – feeling the packages (oh my) – I opened Skyrim.

Instruct me in the ways of the Elder Scrolls. I need some advice for a first-time player, tips and tricks, and what I should do right off the bat.

Remember to speak slowly and plainly.
Right, here's my suggestions. Other people may have others, but I'm basing this on the viewpoint of a first-time Elder Scrolls player.

As a first-time player, you might be overwhelmed by the game at first. Basically, there's a fuckton to do and no particular order to do it in. I would suggest focusing on one questline at first, depending on the character you want to play. Try out a couple different playstyles in your first few hours: sword and shield, two-handed swords, daggers, bow and arrow, magic, see what you like best. Don't get discouraged if you get your ass kicked.

I suggest starting off by following whoever you exit the opening dungeon with. The town you head to first will offer some great quests for low-level players. Just talk to people. Once you're ready to move on to bigger things, I suggest doing a few quests in the main quest. You'll see and do some pretty cool shit, and those first few quests won't be overly tough, so you'll have plenty of time to decide what playstyle you like best. Once you feel you're comfortable with the way the game plays, you can head out into the world and explore or try your hand at one of the guild questlines.

If you feel the game is too tough (and you've already lowered the difficulty), you can try and find a companion to travel with. These will help you fight and carry some of the loot you'll undoubtedly gather: there's a ton of shit to pick up and sell. And if you earn money, you can buy yourself a nice home. Doing the main quest will give you the opportunity to buy a relatively cheap house early on, so I definitely recommend it. This also nets you a companion, should you feel you need one. Having a place to store the things you don't want to sell is just a neccessity in this game.

As you're exploring more and more of the world, you'll undoubtedly get saddled with more and more quests. Only focus on those you want to focus on, don't get bogged down following map marker after map marker. Try and have only one quest active at a time, to minimize headaches and confusion. Before you know it you'll be knee-deep in the murky waters of the Reach and the real life will be nothing more than an annoying distraction while you wait to slay some more dragons.

Oh, and most importantly? Save often, and use a lot of save slots. The game has an autosave feature, but manually saving is a must unless you want to end up having to replay more than 30 minutes because you got your ass handed to you by an angry giant.

Have fun, Dax. If you've got any more questions, fire away.
 

Jeff Chen

Banned
I'm so excited about the idea that there may be DLC that takes you to Morrowind.

I just found that gate/path that points east on the far eastern side of Skyrim. It has an invisible wall, but there HAS to be a reason why they put an uncrossable path/archway going in that direction.

There is also one in the south. I wanna go back to the tower in Cyrodill.
 
Anybody have a glitched "first lessons" quest in winterhold college?

Mirabelle Ervine starts to gve you a tour which triggers some hired nord thugs rush in, causing ger to fight. Once they die she stops talking and says "once I've given you the tour, we can talk" she then proceeds to walk and at the end she eother reads her book or goes to sleep. She continues to say the line in her sleep.
 
Right, here's my suggestions. Other people may have others, but I'm basing this on the viewpoint of a first-time Elder Scrolls player.

As a first-time player, you might be overwhelmed by the game at first. Basically, there's a fuckton to do and no particular order to do it in. I would suggest focusing on one questline at first, depending on the character you want to play. Try out a couple different playstyles in your first few hours: sword and shield, two-handed swords, daggers, bow and arrow, magic, see what you like best. Don't get discouraged if you get your ass kicked.

I suggest starting off by following whoever you exit the opening dungeon with. The town you head to first will offer some great quests for low-level players. Just talk to people. Once you're ready to move on to bigger things, I suggest doing a few quests in the main quest. You'll see and do some pretty cool shit, and those first few quests won't be overly tough, so you'll have plenty of time to decide what playstyle you like best. Once you feel you're comfortable with the way the game plays, you can head out into the world and explore or try your hand at one of the guild questlines.

If you feel the game is too tough (and you've already lowered the difficulty), you can try and find a companion to travel with. These will help you fight and carry some of the loot you'll undoubtedly gather: there's a ton of shit to pick up and sell. And if you earn money, you can buy yourself a nice home. Doing the main quest will give you the opportunity to buy a relatively cheap house early on, so I definitely recommend it. This also nets you a companion, should you feel you need one. Having a place to store the things you don't want to sell is just a neccessity in this game.

As you're exploring more and more of the world, you'll undoubtedly get saddled with more and more quests. Only focus on those you want to focus on, don't get bogged down following map marker after map marker. Try and have only one quest active at a time, to minimize headaches and confusion. Before you know it you'll be knee-deep in the murky waters of the Reach and the real life will be nothing more than an annoying distraction while you wait to slay some more dragons.

Oh, and most importantly? Save often, and use a lot of save slots. The game has an autosave feature, but manually saving is a must unless you want to end up having to replay more than 30 minutes because you got your ass handed to you by an angry giant.

Have fun, Dax. If you've got any more questions, fire away.

Cool. Coolcoolcool. I'll start it later tonight.
 

Jeff Chen

Banned
Anybody have a glitched "first lessons" quest in winterhold college?

Mirabelle Ervine starts to gve you a tour which triggers some hired nord thugs rush in, causing ger to fight. Once they die she stops talking and says "once I've given you the tour, we can talk" she then proceeds to walk and at the end she eother reads her book or goes to sleep. She continues to say the line in her sleep.

Hmm... I don't remember any scene of hired thugs... Are you sure you weren't caught stealing stuff and those were sent to "teach you a lesson?" Did you try to loot the thugs and find a letter saying so?

*update*
actually, it is a known bug here, when the tour is interrupted:
http://uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:First_Lessons

So I was prolly correct -_,-
 
Hmm... I don't remember any scene of hired thugs... Are you sure you weren't caught stealing stuff and those were sent to "teach you a lesson?" Did you try to loot the thugs and find a letter saying so?

*update*
actually, it is a known bug here, when the tour is interrupted:
http://uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:First_Lessons

So I was prolly correct -_,-
It's strange, but I simply walked up to Tolfdir and the quest completed. Then there was another glitch when he would just stare at me after instructing me to use a ward spell. I simply reset to fix that one. I really appreciate you helping though.

There was also a glitch 30 hours back that would have had me trapped in a dungeon (animal puzzles wouldn't activate) had I not saved prior to jumping down a hole to enter. I love this game but man is it the buggiest piece of shit I have ever played.
 

Jeff Chen

Banned
It's strange, but I simply walked up to Tolfdir and the quest completed. Then there was another glitch when he would just stare at me after instructing me to use a ward spell. I simply reset to fix that one. I really appreciate you helping though.

There was also a glitch 30 hours back that would have had me trapped in a dungeon (animal puzzles wouldn't activate) had I not saved prior to jumping down a hole to enter. I love this game but man is it the buggiest piece of shit I have ever played.

This game is a bug hive for sure. I wasted over 10 hours on some major bugs; had to load a save from 15 days ago to get a trophy because I progressed too far and a bug thus made getting the trophy impossible.

I suggest you turn on auto-save and set it to 5 mins, it will save your ass, evetually, for several times down the way.
 

GhaleonEB

Member
Attention Skyrim-HaloGAF (specifically Ghaleon and Blue Ninja)

I was able to open a present early, and thanks to my amazing guessing skills – feeling the packages (oh my) – I opened Skyrim.

Instruct me in the ways of the Elder Scrolls. I need some advice for a first-time player, tips and tricks, and what I should do right off the bat.

Remember to speak slowly and plainly.

To add somewhat to Blue Ninja's advice (some of which might contradict it).

My single biggest piece of advice, especially early on, is do not fast travel. An enormous amout of what makes Skyrim so amazing are the things you can see and do on the road between destinations. Emergent AI interactions, breathtaking vistas, side quest opportunities, hilarious and wonderful details all over the place. If you start fast traveling from one place to another, chasing one quest marker after another, you'll lose out on so much of what Skyrim has to offer. The journey really is as good (and often better) than the destination.

Following on that, you should feel free to be impulsive. Skyrim, more than any other game I have played, rewards curiosity. What's in that cave? Where does this quest lead? What's this guy got to say? Is that a tower I see in the distance? Will I get away with being that nerfarious? Don't feel like to have to stick to one thing at a time, unless you want to.

Otherwise, Blue's adice overlaps steeply with my own. You might have lots and lots (and lots) of specific questions. Skyrim is enormous and there are a lot of gameplay systems layer into it, and not all are well explained. Don't be afraid to ask. We're here for ya.

I think you're in for a treat.
 

eznark

Banned
Why can't parthurnax take me to skuldofn?

This is really annoying me. Is there really no way to do the quest that way? What a dumb oversight.
 

MrBig

Member
Cool. Coolcoolcool. I'll start it later tonight.

Don't fast travel. Use the carriages to trans between major cities near your desired location.
Systematically clear the game out and don't just hop around everywhere at once.

I did not follow the above advice and I capped out at 100 hours when I ran out of things to do because I stupidly rushed through it, meanwhile Ghaleon is enjoying his 140 hour mark and he's finished maybe half the content in the game.
 
It would be kind of cool if the caravan actually took you on a somewhat faster journey to your destinations rather than just warping you. Would give me time to move laundry around etc.
 
Attention Skyrim-HaloGAF (specifically Ghaleon and Blue Ninja)

I was able to open a present early, and thanks to my amazing guessing skills – feeling the packages (oh my) – I opened Skyrim.

Instruct me in the ways of the Elder Scrolls. I need some advice for a first-time player, tips and tricks, and what I should do right off the bat.

Remember to speak slowly and plainly.
Save often manually. Do one quest at a time. After the intro go to Riverwood.
 

Hawkian

The Cryptarch's Bane
To add somewhat to Blue Ninja's advice (some of which might contradict it).

My single biggest piece of advice, especially early on, is do not fast travel. An enormous amout of what makes Skyrim so amazing are the things you can see and do on the road between destinations. Emergent AI interactions, breathtaking vistas, side quest opportunities, hilarious and wonderful details all over the place. If you start fast traveling from one place to another, chasing one quest marker after another, you'll lose out on so much of what Skyrim has to offer. The journey really is as good (and often better) than the destination.

Following on that, you should feel free to be impulsive. Skyrim, more than any other game I have played, rewards curiosity. What's in that cave? Where does this quest lead? What's this guy got to say? Is that a tower I see in the distance? Will I get away with being that nerfarious? Don't feel like to have to stick to one thing at a time, unless you want to.

Otherwise, Blue's adice overlaps steeply with my own. You might have lots and lots (and lots) of specific questions. Skyrim is enormous and there are a lot of gameplay systems layer into it, and not all are well explained. Don't be afraid to ask. We're here for ya.

I think you're in for a treat.
Man I cannot IMAGINE what my playtime would be if I didn't fast travel.
 

richiek

steals Justin Bieber DVDs
So I finally met up with the Thieves Guild and they gave me my first mission. Then
Thalmor agents are attacking me, because I'm looking for Esbern, and the Thieves Guild members just stand there while I'm getting killed!

Bunch of fucking assholes.
 

TTG

Member
Yes I played an ungodly amount of Oblivion.

They're better than in Oblivion, but they still feel too samey. I would like less but more unique ones.

(I'm only 12 hours in, so I probably haven't seen the best)

If you've played Elder Scroll games before, you should know that you don't get to sample most of it even 20 or 30 hours in. I'm up to 60ish hours and I can finally say I've seen mostly every type of area/dungeon the game has to offer. The stuff they really put work into is still off limits to me because I haven't progressed far in a single quest line, other than the thieves guild maybe.

I gotta say, I had a lot of expectations for this game, but it delivered in 2 areas where I never thought they would. First, the game is gorgeous by any standard, but coming from the team that put out the uninspired, ugly mess that was Oblivion, it's especially impressive. And second, the nuts and bolts of the combat still put a smile on my face at times. Not that bashing another round of undead in crypt #32 is fun, but there are moments where it's engaging. Especially where range plays a big role or where you can really adjust your stats to fit the situation you're in. Sneaking is also a nice change of pace, even if it is a trial and error thing for my player.

Maybe they invest the profit from the 10 mil copies they shipped into building more completely unique dungeons, but they've hit pretty good stride with this game. The only time I'm really bored is in the Nordic ruins.
 
Okay. So I started the game. I chose Imperial. That's extra stuff for magic and combat, I think. I followed the dude to Riverwood. Helped out Camilla and her brother (The Golden Claw). Did some clearing out of bandits for the dude in the inn. When I went to get my bounty, I think I finished the next part of the main quest. I don't really know what the main quest is.

I think I'll be playing as an archer because the melee combat in this game is very clumsy.

I'm having trouble grasping the leveling system. So I level up, which helps me purchase...something for either stamina, health, or magicka. Then I get brought to this huge menu of choices that I'm allowed to fill up, one unlock as I gain a level. I've spent both my unlocks on archery (I'm a level two at the moment).

What's the (side?) quest – Join the Imperial army?

Not following the story at all.
 
I didn't fast travel a whole lot either but I do it a bit more now. The problem is you can get so sidetracked by smaller quests or locations discovered in route that you can develop some Skyrim fatigue as well.
 

MrBig

Member
What's the (side?) quest – Join the Imperial army?

Not following the story at all.

There's a civil war going on in Skyrim. Stormcloaks vs the Empire. Stormcloaks are the Nords of Skyrim who worship Talos (worship of whom was outlawed after a war between the Thalmor and the Empire; the Empire signed a peace treaty condemning the worship of Talos [though not enforcing it themselves, rather having the Thalmor enforce it]) and want to break free from the Empire and wage war on the Thalmor themselves while the Empire isn't in a position to wage war (whether or not you think Skyrim is capable of defeating the Thalmor being the main point, though that facet isn't explored in the game, only the set-up for it).

The main quest is completely separate.
 

Hawkian

The Cryptarch's Bane
You can choose to side with either of the sides he mentioned.

But the Thalmor by the way are the true dicks. He didn't really describe them, but they are for real.
 
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