Support NeoGAF

[Blue Ninja]

Fucking Christ.

Really?

10 minutes into the goddamn game and they decide to throw spiders the size of Volkswagons at you?

Fuck you Bethesda. How about a build up toward that shit. Maybe some giant snakes, giant falls, or being forced to speak in public or something.

Virtual spiders, mayne. Wait until you meet their giant versions.

And pretty funny you mention giant snakes... Somebody else in-game has the same thoughts.

I'm constantly amazed at the volume of arachnophobe's protest. I didn't hear anyone with a phobia for scorpions complain about the Radscorpions in Fallout, and those creeped me out a lot more than Fluffy McSpider. Spiders aren't exactly the most lovable animals, but you get to kill them.

 

[NBtoaster]

I'm an arachnophobe, but spiders in this game don't bother me. I like spiders in games, they usually look cool. And in this game you can squish them and take their souls, which is nice.

 

[CloudWolf]

If you play on PC, there are mods out there that replace the spiders with other animals like bears and mudcrabs.

Okay, I just chuckled a bit imagining a giant mudcrab/bear dropping from of the ceiling in spider-dungeons.

 

[Dabanton]

I just finished Labryinthian this morning great dungeon as for the boss he was fairly easy to deal with after sending Lydia home as she for some reason didn't want to follow me.

Me and Barbas went to town on his ass. It's great that Barbas is basically invincibile until i complete his quest.

 

[Barrett2]

Anyone else almost always fast forward through night time? I just hate walking around in darkness.

 

[Blue Ninja]

Anyone else almost always fast forward through night time? I just hate walking around in darkness.

I tend to find a place to sleep at night. Though sometimes I just want to see the aurora.

 

[Anteater]

Anyone else almost always fast forward through night time? I just hate walking around in darkness.

Yea, I usually sleep and/or fast travel. I've been thinking about traveling more in the dark, maybe using candlelight a bit (not sure if it actually helps that much, never used it).

 

[Fine Ham Abounds]

Virtual spiders, mayne. Wait until you meet their giant versions.

And pretty funny you mention giant snakes... Somebody else in-game has the same thoughts.

I'm constantly amazed at the volume of arachnophobe's protest. I didn't hear anyone with a phobia for scorpions complain about the Radscorpions in Fallout, and those creeped me out a lot more than Fluffy McSpider. Spiders aren't exactly the most lovable animals, but you get to kill them.

I love spiders and feel bad whacking them in games ;p At least these are really hideous and trying to kill me, so it's motivation enough.

 

[Red Liquorice]

I hate spiders, the smallest ones have me running for my life, but in Skyrim they don't creep me out, one-shotting them with an arrow is all it takes. Those big ones that drop from the ceiling though, sometimes they plop down right infront/behind you, that gives me a jump for sure!

 

[Kajiba]

Decided that I'm going to beat the game(main quest story) when i get too level 50 and I'm already at level 41. Doing all the guild quest now. Only have three more left to do.

 

[The Librarian]

What are the guild quests? I know about the Thieves guild. Is that the only guild?

 

[Tony Redgrave]

What are the guild quests? I know about the Thieves guild. Is that the only guild?

Companions- Basically an anologue of the fighter's guild, they are located in Jorrvaskr, a mead hall in Whiterun.

Collegue of Winterhold- The only institution in Skyrim fully dedicated to magic, located in Winterhold.

Thieves Guild- Self explanatory, located underneath Riften, Brynjolf will approach you and ask you for a job, accept if you want in.

Dark Brotherhood- You must go see Aventus Aretino in Windhelm to fire up the quest.

Bards College- Located in Solitude, you have to talk to Viarmo to start the quest.

Empire/Stormcloacks- If you want to take a side in the civil war you have to choose one of them. Talk to general Tullius in Solitude or Jarl Ulfrick in Windhelm to start the respective quest line.

 

[Foliorum Viridum]

Is one side more interesting in the war quest?

Both sides seem like assholes so I have no real preference, I just want the best missions.

 

[Blue Ninja]

Is one side more interesting in the war quest?

Both sides seem like assholes so I have no real preference, I just want the best missions.

Missions are pretty much exactly the same.

Alright, good to know I'll go with Stormcloaks because they sound cooler then!

Rebel scum.

 

[Foliorum Viridum]

Alright, good to know I'll go with Stormcloaks because they sound cooler then!

 

[DrForester]

Is one side more interesting in the war quest?

Both sides seem like assholes so I have no real preference, I just want the best missions.

It's pretty meh on both sides. But it has no impact on the game whatever you do except that opposing camps (but not cities) will be hostile if you enter their camp. And you still can't wipe out the camps since you can't kill the camp leaders...

 

[The Librarian]

Companions- Basically an anologue of the fighter's guild, they are located in Jorrvaskr, a mead hall in Whiterun.

Collegue of Winterhold- The only institution in Skyrim fully dedicated to magic, located in Winterhold.

Thieves Guild- Self explanatory, located underneath Riften, Brynjolf will approach you and ask you for a job, accept if you want in.

Dark Brotherhood- You must go see Aventus Aretino in Windhelm to fire up the quest.

Bards College- Located in Solitude, you have to talk to Viarmo to start the quest.

Empire/Stormcloacks- If you want to take a side in the civil war you have to choose one of them. Talk to general Tullius in Solitude or Jarl Ulfrick in Windhelm to start the respective quest line.

Hm. So can I be a part of more than one guild?

 

[Kajiba]

Hm. So can I be a part of more than one guild?

Yep.

 

[Andrew.]

Just Started....made an awesome dark elf...how do i make my flames/sparks more powerful...do they just get upgraded via the skills menu/xp?

 

[Foliorum Viridum]

It's pretty meh on both sides. But it has no impact on the game whatever you do except that opposing camps (but not cities) will be hostile if you enter their camp. And you still can't wipe out the camps since you can't kill the camp leaders...

I might leave it til last if it makes certain areas hostile, then.

 

[Bisnic]

I might leave it til last if it makes certain areas hostile, then.

The only areas that turn hostile are small camps with nothing interesting in them. I wouldn't worry about it.

 

[Andrew.]

How sparce are the blessing stones...i have one of them activated now but will eventually wanna change to another one...like i just wanna know if its gonna be a pain to find another set or are they not that hard to come across?

 

[Red Liquorice]

Having to reload because you get stuck inbetween rocks and can't run/jump out >:-(

Come on Bethesda, I had this shit in Oblivion, Fallout too, sort it out!

 

[GhaleonEB]

How sparce are the blessing stones...i have one of them activated now but will eventually wanna change to another one...like i just wanna know if its gonna be a pain to find another set or are they not that hard to come across?

There's an achievement for finding 13 of them, so at least that many. I see them regularly in my travels.

Having to reload because you get stuck inbetween rocks and can't run/jump out >:-(

Come on Bethesda, I had this shit in Oblivion, Fallout too, sort it out!

That's probably my biggest disappointment with Skyrim. Bethesda overhauled many things, but the way we interact with the world is not one. You'd think that a game world designed around mountain climbing would have some good mountain climbing mechanics, or at least animations. Character should lean into the paths as they trudge up them, etc, scramble for footing on sheer cliffs. Horses should not have ultra-magnetic hoofs. And improved physics for how we interact with the ground, so there's none of those getting stuck in corners and we can't jump kind of frustrations. But it's all just carried over from the past games.

 

[EmCeeGramr]

Having to reload because you get stuck inbetween rocks and can't run/jump out >:-(

Come on Bethesda, I had this shit in Oblivion, Fallout too, sort it out!

I had my first (non-Whiterun) dragon fight nearly ruined by this. That, and the dragon suddenly deciding to fight some things on the other side of a mountain that would take me 10 minutes of trekking to walk to. As I tried to find a shortcut, I fell between some rocks and had to fast-travel to the spot I was right next to, though thankfully the "time passing" apparently killed whatever the dragon was fighting it finally came back.

It was doubly hilarious/annoying because the Dovahkiin song was playing, I was all pumped up fighting this dragon, and then suddenly it decides some bears or trolls a thousand yards away need to die and I fall in a rock and the music fades out.

 

[Andrew.]

can someone explain the shouts/words of power to me? i found one....just started the game last night....and i dont fully understand what i found

 

[iNvid02]

can someone explain the shouts/words of power to me? i found one....just started the game last night....and i dont fully understand what i found

the words of power on walls are special moves you can pull off, e.g. blowing people away is one of the first basic ones.

once you read a word of a wall and get it absorbed it needs to be unlocked or learnt from the shouts menu. to do this you'll need to use a dragon soul to unlock a shout.

you get dragon souls by killing dragons and absorbing their powers

Spoiler

ridiculous but awesome

 

[Andrew.]

the words of power on walls are special moves you can pull off, e.g. blowing people away is one of the first basic ones.

once you read a word of a wall and get it absorbed it needs to be unlocked or learnt from the shouts menu. to do this you'll need to use a dragon soul to unlock a shout.

you get dragon souls by killing dragons and absorbing their powers

Spoiler

ridiculous but awesome

thanks....very helpful. looking forward to next session!!!!

 

[Stet]

Even at endgame, killing dragons as a backstabbing assassin is frustrating as hell. Even with Shadowcloak of Nocturnal popped and a Potion of Enduring Invisibility, 50% of the time he can see me right off the bat. When he can't, for some reason the hitbox to touch him and the hitbox to attack him aren't equal, so I can't get off a dagger attack without touching him and being detected. Then, if I ever do manage to do that, after taking off 3/4 of his health, he takes off and flies around until it regenerates.

My options are to sit there attacking him and popping potion after potion or spend an hour chipping his health away with arrows. Great.

 

[ShinNL]

Joy.

In Labryinthian, I can take down a

Spoiler

skeletal dragon on my own, and a spectral Draugr Deathlord.

However, I've now met one of the Dragon Priests, who 1) kills me instantly from a distance of about 50 yards with a lightning spell, even when I'm blocking with my newfound ebony shield and have Stoneflesh (60 point defensive boost) on, and 2) turns my summoned fire atronoch against me.

I landed one whack in an ambush to see how much damage I could deal, and I couldn't even see the health bar go down. So probably a good 100 blows to kill it, while it kills me in one, from very long range.

Grand design there, Bethesda.

Wow, I thought you out of all people would know that armor rating doesn't help jack against spells. Didn't you play a lot of characters? A better shield does nothing and stoneflesh does nothing. Don't be greedy and invest in some magic resistance, it makes your skyrim life a lot easier.

 

[daedalius]

So I managed to get full Daedric legendary armor and sword/shield yesterday, looks pretty epic.

Loving the game, got like 30 hours in and have barely done any of the main quest, lol.

I don't know if my tank character would be a very good thief, might have to invest in some enchanted light armor to do the thieves guild stuff.

Also, Stormcloaks seem kind of like assholes; not that the empire guys in the region seem much better. Both sides just seem like assholes.

 

[Blue Ninja]

Having not played the Companions yet, I have a question. Does the questline force you to do anything evil, or does it fit in fine with a 'noble' character? The whole

Spoiler

werewolf

-thing has me a bit doubtful.

 

[GhaleonEB]

Wow, I thought you out of all people would know that armor rating doesn't help jack against spells. Didn't you play a lot of characters? A better shield does nothing and stoneflesh does nothing. Don't be greedy and invest in some magic resistance, it makes your skyrim life a lot easier.

Regardless of that fact (which I did not know), the difficulty spike was insane and stupid. And as I said later, I did have magical resistance enchanted into my armor, specifically because I knew I'd be fighting enemies that used magic. Used a couple of grand soul gems to max out the effects. I also had an enchanted axe, twice improved, that did ~1% damage. I was able to get through everything else in the dungeon with minimal difficulty.

 

[Charmicarmicat]

Having not played the Companions yet, I have a question. Does the questline force you to do anything evil, or does it fit in fine with a 'noble' character? The whole

Spoiler

werewolf

-thing has me a bit doubtful.

Theres only one point, the first time you

Spoiler

turn into a werewolf

that could result in you doing something evil, but I'm pretty sure you can just run around not attacking until the sequence ends. Me, I ended up killing Belethor by accident :-/

Of course, you could also read into the history of the Companions and realise that they aren't noble, at all.

 

[Andrew.]

BEST BOW/ARROW COMBO?

-ANYONE>?

 

[Blue Ninja]

Theres only one point, the first time you

Spoiler

turn into a werewolf

that could result in you doing something evil, but I'm pretty sure you can just run around not attacking until the sequence ends. Me, I ended up killing Belethor by accident :-/

Of course, you could also read into the history of the Companions and realise that they aren't noble, at all.

Eh, I'm just gonna wait then. Feel like doing the Main Quest and Civil War again.

 

[TTG]

BEST BOW/ARROW COMBO?

-ANYONE>?

I've been using an upgraded ebony bow that's enchanted with elven or orcish arrows for a while now. You'll get a lot of comments about the Nightingale bow, which is a unique item(has about the same damage as glass I think, but it also has a couple of enchantments), I don't really remember why I stopped using it. May have been draining too quickly for my taste, since bows is all I use at this point. Incidentally, that's why I go with the more common arrows vs glass and ebony. I JUST got my first batch of deadric arrows too and they are about 24 damage a pop.

What you really want to do is enchant as much apparel as possible with fortify archery. There's a hood you can pick up as part of the Dark Brotherhood questline that's +35%, then you got a ring and an amulet for about +30% a piece and finally the gloves, which are also high. That and you can improve any type of weapon up to a point without smithing skills, so drink the best blacksmith potion you can find and improve your bow. Those 2 things put together is what really makes the damage add up.

 

[Omotesando]

Does this game scale on armor aswell or what? I have invested primarly on my smithing getting it to 100 as fast as I can so I can make some sweet Dragon scale for myself and Deadric for the companion. Finally, after 50 hours I made a set, inclusing bow, shileds and mace, fucking huge upgrade...HUGE, and went to the nearest dungeon....to get my ass kicked repeately, I play on master, so I really need to find some solace in my upgrades and armor.

Eh.

 

[The Librarian]

How do you do enchantments? For bows, specifically? Where can I find the best enchantments?

The game doesn't explain any of this for me.

Edit: I'm asking cause I have a badass bow that I found that makes people catch fire whenever I shoot them with an arrow. So cool!

 

[Anteater]

I went and check and find that my 2 characters adds up to 170hrs of playtime, fml

I'll pretend I only had 1 character

 

[CloudWolf]

Maybe I should start using a shield. Up until now I've been dual wielding mostly, but I hear that blocking is actually quite useful.

 

[MrOogieBoogie]

What's the consensus on spending money to learn skills from people? Is it recommended? I have a house in Whiterun and 12,000 gold right now. Not sure what to spend it on as I haven't been to any other cities. lol

 

[Arjen]

BEST BOW/ARROW COMBO?

-ANYONE>?

I'm using a deadric bow upgraded to legendary with fire enchantment, with al the fortify archery enchantments i'm wearing that thing does 290 damage, arrows are usefully ebony or glass.

 

[MrOogieBoogie]

I'm using a deadric bow upgraded to legendary with fire enchantment, with al the fortify archery enchantments i'm wearing that thing does 290 damage, arrows are usefully ebony or glass.

Wow. Couple questions: What's a good, least-grindy-as-possible way to level up Smithing? Unlike Enchanting I haven't found a real useful reason to use it yet.

Also, do you disenchant nearly every enchanted item you find?

And finally, what souls fit common soul gems, greater soul gems, and grand soul gems?

 

[Blue Ninja]

How do you do enchantments? For bows, specifically? Where can I find the best enchantments?

The game doesn't explain any of this for me.

Edit: I'm asking cause I have a badass bow that I found that makes people catch fire whenever I shoot them with an arrow. So cool!

You can learn enchantments by disenchanting items you've found at an enchanter's table. You'll come across a few in dungeons once in a while. There's also one in Dragonsreach (the Jarl's palace) in Whiterun, in Calcelmo's (the court wizard) workshop. Disenchanting an item destroys it, so you might want to hang on to that bow if you plan on using it.

Once you've learned an enchantment, you can enchant other items with it by using soul gems. Grand soul gems filled with grand souls are obviously the best for this, but those are pretty hard to come by if you're a low-level character. Just experiment, up your enchanting skill and the quality of your enchantments will go up as well.

I went and check and find that my 2 characters adds up to 170hrs of playtime, fml

I'll pretend I only had 1 character

I think I won't check the playtime on my three previous characters. Probably for the best.

What's the consensus on spending money to learn skills from people? Is it recommended? I have a house in Whiterun and 12,000 gold right now. Not sure what to spend it on as I haven't been to any other cities. lol

It's not that useful, imo, since you can only do it five times a level anyways.

Oh, and for those who were here since the beginning: Wulf's been reborn. Let's do this.

 

[Arjen]

Wow. Couple questions: What's a good, least-grindy-as-possible way to level up Smithing? Unlike Enchanting I haven't found a real useful reason to use it yet.

Also, do you disenchant nearly every enchanted item you find?

And finally, what souls fit common soul gems, greater soul gems, and grand soul gems?

Here's a nice list with al the souls.
http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Souls
I never really grinded smithing, just every time i was selling my stuff i bought all the ignots and started crafting daggers, once you get the perk for ebony/deadric/glass you can craft and upgrade those strong weapons.
And yes, i disenchant every item if i havent learned the enchant already.

 

[The Chef]

Woah, 118 hours in and I just quit cold turkey.

Enchanted my Daedric Bow to be in the 260 damage range. My armor is all legendary and enchanted to suit my character which just makes me virtually unstoppable now.

This was my GOAL for hours and hours of this game. Now that I have attained it I have no purpose now. I decided to resume the Thief's Guild and beat that. Beat the Dark Brotherhood as well way early in the game. I figured I would get started on the main quest. Played that solid for quite a while but there was this pattern for me where each quest was "Go to this place and talk to this person *Fast Travel....loading....loading.....loading* Now go talk to this person *Fast Travel....loading....loading.....loading* etc etc..."

Two days ago I got up early for my usual playtime with my coffee and I had no desire to continue. Just nothing. I feel like there is absolutely nothing left for me to see, do, explore or find that isn't what I have already experienced. I definitely know I will never find weapons and armor stronger than what I already have either which is very unsatisfying to say the least. I no longer have that drive I used to have.

So it looks like this might be it for me. Thanks Skyrim. You were a great game.

 

[Deified Data]

Welp, I've tackled the Dark Brotherhood, Thieves' Guild, College of Winterhold (twice)...all with different character. Now I'll tackle the Companions.

 

[Andrew.]

Woah, 118 hours in and I just quit cold turkey.

Enchanted my Daedric Bow to be in the 260 damage range. My armor is all legendary and enchanted to suit my character which just makes me virtually unstoppable now.

This was my GOAL for hours and hours of this game. Now that I have attained it I have no purpose now. I decided to resume the Thief's Guild and beat that. Beat the Dark Brotherhood as well way early in the game. I figured I would get started on the main quest. Played that solid for quite a while but there was this pattern for me where each quest was "Go to this place and talk to this person *Fast Travel....loading....loading.....loading* Now go talk to this person *Fast Travel....loading....loading.....loading* etc etc..."

Two days ago I got up early for my usual playtime with my coffee and I had no desire to continue. Just nothing. I feel like there is absolutely nothing left for me to see, do, explore or find that isn't what I have already experienced. I definitely know I will never find weapons and armor stronger than what I already have either which is very unsatisfying to say the least. I no longer have that drive I used to have.

So it looks like this might be it for me. Thanks Skyrim. You were a great game.

-Mixed emotions for you my friend....i dunno what to say to ya

 

[daedalius]

So is there like a healing companion or anything?

I wish I could tell Lydia to stand back and shoot stuff with her bow all the time so she wouldn't get in my way.

Also, do I just need to assist the Jarls in each of the big cities to get the houses there?