Skyrim - The Elder Scrolls V

[Leonel]

Oh man the level scaling is awesome! I remember starting out as an apprentice mage and being intimidated by wolves and barely denting a frost troll's health bar with all of my magika but at level 21 I handle wolves and bandits as if they're ants and I can hold my own against a dragon pretty well. My only annoyance is that the gold that vendors have doesn't increase as you level so I'm stuck with visiting multiple places to get as much gold from my loot as possible.

 

[MjM]

I can meet a lot of the recommended specs except video card. Mine is only 512. Hopefully the game will run decent.

Nvidia GT 220 here, so 512 as well.

It runs fine for me. Just turn off Anti-Aliasing and Anisotropic filtering.

It still looks great. Also, turn shadows on low and water reflection off, neither look good on anyway and cause unnecessary lag.

 

[Double A]

Out of the 3-4 people in my 1st period who know anything about Skyrim, 0 of them understood why I wanted it for PC, even when I mentioned mods and bad UI.

And then I had to explain that UI meant user interface.

The game feels so much like the Pacific Northwest in some places, down to the majestic cloud formations and the low sun. The cold temperature also adds to the immersion

Scandinavia is also cold, which is what Skyrim's based on.

I guess vases and amphoras were on special online this weekend? Anwyay laughed my arse off at that.

What does this have to do with anything?

The way he talked about it, it made it seem like he did everything in the games. The day he bought Morrowind he completed it within 5 hours and then traded it in because there was nothing left to do in the game, and was surprised that I didn't finish the game since it was an easy game that anyone could finish in that time.

He could have used cheats.

Ever since my treasure chest at the Mage's Guild in Oblivion magically deleted all of its contents (supposedly, a place where I was told in game I could leave things, i.e. I owned it) I have resorted to a single place where I simply leave everything on the ground that I can't carry but don't want to give up. Guess I need a new spot!

That chest is used to increase your supply of ingredients every week. I think it's only flowers and crap, not minotaur horns, daedra hearts, and every other useful thing. If you stick anything else in it, it will go poof at the end of the week. That's also the only chest you can own that gets cleared out. You're even told this in-detail.

So basically, you lost your items because you didn't listen.

 

[Rub'Rum]

What does this have to do with anything?

Alright. *takes a breath*. Maniacal had originally accidentally posted the picture of the Jarl of Whiterun with vases and amphoras on his head in the Weekend specials thread. So I answered what you saw there in the week-end specials thread. Then a mod moved both our posts in this thread right here, I hadn't even noticed. So I guess my message is now 5-10 posts below the picture that had prompted me to say this. There.

 

[SS-18 ICBM]

You know, I don't really care for medieval fantasy that much. But the amount of things you can do in this game is making me want to start a game of it. Anyway, I want to be a wizard but I'm worried that I might be too squishy. Is there a way to still do decent magic damage while wearing metal armor?

 

[GoodSarmatian]

Oh man the level scaling is awesome! I remember starting out as an apprentice mage and being intimidated by wolves and barely denting a frost troll's health bar with all of my magika but at level 21 I handle wolves and bandits as if they're ants and I can hold my own against a dragon pretty well. My only annoyance is that the gold that vendors have doesn't increase as you level so I'm stuck with visiting multiple places to get as much gold from my loot as possible.

Level scaling seems to be inconsistent. I'm level 21, I've killed four dragons and the last one wasn't very hard, but from time to time I run into a bandit leader who can and will crush me unless I lower the difficulty level for the fight. After I killed one dragon I foollishly went to check the nearby word wall without saving and was quickly killed by a lich thing named Krosis It's been a couple of levels since then, I think I'll try again soon.
I'm not very combat focused with my skills. I play a Breton jack of all trades kind of character and my highest skills are Smithing, Alchemy and One Handed, in that order. I can make better equipment than I usually find and am running around in self-made Elven Armor but can't improve it right now for lack of Quicksilver.

Nvidia GT 220 here, so 512 as well.

It runs fine for me. Just turn off Anti-Aliasing and Anisotropic filtering.

It still looks great. Also, turn shadows on low and water reflection off, neither look good on anyway and cause unnecessary lag.

I have only 320 MB VRAM, so I'm below the official minimum requirements. It still runs without problems on 1920*1080 with low details. Looks OK, not much better than Obliivion. I haven't even encountered any major bugs yet, only the rare flying mammoth.

And who ever is responsibel for the UI deserves to be beaten with a brick in a sock. The selection sometimes lingers on the last item instead of where the cursor is at the moment of clicking. Most times it just means I ask the same question twice in a row, but one time I clicked too fast and overwrote a save I wanted to load.

 

[Polycrates]

I mean, I've found multiple word walls, but all they do is give me a new shout (with its basic one word), they never add a word to an existing shout. You're telling me you can find a wall that will power a shout you already have with an extra word?

It seems like there's three walls for each given shout; if you get two or three walls for the same shout, you can get a higher-powered version of the shout. HOWEVER, the trick is that you have to spend another soul to upgrade it, and the interface does its level best to hide that possibility. Go to your shouts list and scroll through each one and see if you get a tiny "upgrade" prompt when you mouse over it.

You know, I don't really care for medieval fantasy that much. But the amount of things you can do in this game is making me want to start a game of it. Anyway, I want to be a wizard but I'm worried that I might be too squishy. Is there a way to still do decent magic damage while wearing metal armor?

Yeah you're not fixed into traditional classes, so you can absolutely be a wizard who focuses on heavy armour with no real penalty. Only thing is that the heavy armour will slow you down and reduce how much other stuff you can carry, and there's some really powerful mage robes you could be using instead. There's also a perk you can take in one of the magic disciplines that makes your protective spells better if you're unarmoured. And if you're carrying a shield, you obviously won't be able to cast with both hands, which is more powerful.

 

[salty mud]

Skyrim sold, on its opening period, 600% better than Oblivion did. I'm honestly not sure what to make of this. I'm thrilled that it's sold so well, and Bethesda have worked very hard on Skyrim and deserve their revenue without a doubt but... I don't know, I think Bethesda has succeeded in getting "Call of Duty's" audience. Those annoying CoD kiddies who rant and whinge on facebook about Call of Duty now play Skyrim, and I fear that this will lead to future simplification of Elder Scrolls games. In some ways Skyrim is simpler, the levelling and attributes are a good example of this. But I hope Bethesda don't take their new found audience as their best, only audience: it's the older fans, who actually like RPG and RPG elements, who are the heart of this community.

 

[illram]

Yeah you're not fixed into traditional classes, so you can absolutely be a wizard who focuses on heavy armour with no real penalty. Only thing is that the heavy armour will slow you down and reduce how much other stuff you can carry, and there's some really powerful mage robes you could be using instead. There's also a perk you can take in one of the magic disciplines that makes your protective spells better if you're unarmoured. And if you're carrying a shield, you obviously won't be able to cast with both hands, which is more powerful.

There are also perks that make your armor weigh nothing. Pretty powerful perks if you ask me, especially if you like heavy armor.

 

[salty mud]

There are also perks that make your armor weigh nothing. Pretty powerful perks if you ask me, especially if you like heavy armor.

Doesn't that essentially make light armour useless? It's advantage is less weight and more movement... If a heavy perk means no weight, it's useless, right?

 

[Rub'Rum]

You're gonna have to spend a lot of time with the heavy armor on to reach that level. In any case, I think light armor is also better for sneaking, and speed...

 

[MjM]

I just killed my first dragon.

 

[Thrawn]

Skyrim sold, on its opening period, 600% better than Oblivion did. I'm honestly not sure what to make of this. I'm thrilled that it's sold so well, and Bethesda have worked very hard on Skyrim and deserve their revenue without a doubt but... I don't know, I think Bethesda has succeeded in getting "Call of Duty's" audience. Those annoying CoD kiddies who rant and whinge on facebook about Call of Duty now play Skyrim, and I fear that this will lead to future simplification of Elder Scrolls games. In some ways Skyrim is simpler, the levelling and attributes are a good example of this. But I hope Bethesda don't take their new found audience as their best, only audience: it's the older fans, who actually like RPG and RPG elements, who are the heart of this community.

Seems like a pretty crass generalization to me. I never really got into Morrowind, only recently started playing a bit of Oblivion, but I'm loving Skyrim. I know a few other people who, like me, don't really play FPS games but are also loving Skyrim.

Given how much I hear people rave about morrowind, I've considered going back to try it again, and maybe finish my game of oblivion some time.

 

[Polycrates]

Doesn't that essentially make light armour useless? It's advantage is less weight and more movement... If a heavy perk means no weight, it's useless, right?

Gonna be a looooong time before you get there though (I think you need 70 heavy armour skill), and you need to take two pretty useless perks to get there too (one for punching and one for falling). Light armour also gets a perk for much faster stamina regen, and there's also a bunch of really nice light armours out there with very nice bonuses to the sneaky skills (one of which, with a bird-themed name, is also one of the coolest-looking armour sets around).

 

[illram]

Doesn't that essentially make light armour useless? It's advantage is less weight and more movement... If a heavy perk means no weight, it's useless, right?

I had that initial reaction, but I examined the light armor perks (there is also a light armor perk to make it weigh nothing, too) and I remember seeing some good ones that balance it out. Also as others noted I would assume there are a lot of cool light armors out there with interesting added abilities/enchantments, and what not. I remember a lot of those in Oblivion.

There is also a pickpocket perk that raises your carrying capacity by 100! Anyone aware of other ways to increase that, other than enchanted items you can equip? It seems like without the Strength ability to level up that has become something that does not level, or am I wrong? I am a huge hoarder in these games so carrying capacity is always something I try to max out.

edit: I also read on another forum that there are quests that pop up if you read books. I was just picking them up real quick to see if they helped me level... now I actually have to flip through the pages of these damn things. There is so much to do in this game, it is a little overwhelming!

 

[Maniacal]

It isn't really a surprise, no one else is even trying to copy the vast open worldness of the TES games (well, the Gothic series is similar but Gothic 3 was a bit of a disaster only saved by community patches and its pretty much dead now. the Two Worlds games aren't much better). Morrowind (GLORIOUS MAP SIRE) came out in 2002 and Oblivion in 2006 so they have had years of people raving and hyping them up to an increasingly large audience plus Bethesda has a marketing budget.

EDIT: I don't really read the books in the game, although as I was looting the castle in Bravil last night I stopped and read through one of the history books about the Empire's invasion of Akavir (it failed).

 

[salty mud]

I've been wanting to try out Morrowind, I've never played it. I thought that when I finish my playthrough on Skyrim, hopefully before I turn 85, I'll Morrowind and a collection of mods to make it bearable in this day and age.

 

[Rub'Rum]

EDIT: I don't really read the books in the game, although as I was looting the castle in Bravil last night I stopped and read through one of the history books about the Empire's invasion of Akavir (it failed).

I've been reading a bit more but I tend to prefer those short ones with random anecdotes that don't teach me much about background lore. The background lore books I am able to enjoy are those that talk about something I know from reading it from another source (the wiki, for instance). Trying to learn the lore from these books is long, dry and tedious often, I find. And I'm rarely in the mood to read books when I'm playing a game, I read books at other times. Maybe I should get all the books in Kindle format or something to read them when I'm going to bed or something. I kind of feel bad for skipping a majority of them, I skim through but if I see it's gonna take me 20 minutes to read it... I only have so much time in my evening.

 

[Maniacal]

I've been wanting to try out Morrowind, I've never played it. I thought that when I finish my playthrough on Skyrim, hopefully before I turn 85, I'll Morrowind and a collection of mods to make it bearable in this day and age.

Link to video.

I'll be in my bunk.

 

[illram]

The Traveler's Guides to Skyrim are useful--they tell you where actually useful stuff is.

I agree reading the books is mostly tedious. But I want to try and find some of these quests, so I will have to engage in this tedium it seems...