Skyrim: thoughts?

[Vebyast]

My two cents.

There are mods that will make the game look much, much better. The big one is the FXAA injector, which does cheap and effective antialiasing, adds bloom and technicolor, and increases the saturation.

The linear dungeons don't bother me much. The terrain in each encounter is enough to make them reasonably nonrepetitive, especially for stealthy characters that haven't gotten their skill high enough to hide in plain sight.

[NineInchNall]

It's also really annoying that you never find any good loot. You can play for 150 hours and be lucky to see one top tier piece of armor or weapon. But even that probably has a shit enchantment on it, which completely ruins its usefulness.

After a while, I stopped bothering to check chests and corpses because there was nothing in them for me.

Also, because of the no spellmaking thing, there's this huge conceptual problem with how new spells get made in the world at all. It's like the Ur-priest problem: if the only way for a character to become an ur-priest is to be taught by an ur-priest, then we get into an infinite regress.

[PhoneLobster]

Do you know what I actually said? Clearly not. What I actually said was, "Hey PL, stop accusing us of not noticing something just because we didn't bring it up."

I am seriously amazed at this last one. Have NONE of you noticed how stupid these dungeon maps are?

Accusing, Asking, same thing am I rite?

That is your problem. You read something that did not say ... but you just assumed I must have meant. That is the actual fucking perfect example of a Strawman.

Oh the irony of how insanely stupid you are Kaelik. Are you done embaressing yourself yet?

When you are you can perhaps THEN tell us what you think about the rail loop in Skyrim dungeons. Rather than writing endless massive attack posts.

[Kaelik]

Accusing, Asking, same thing am I rite?

Yeah, you were totally actually just curious if we noticed the blindingly obvious. You certainly didn't ask 5 variations of the same rhetorical question to make a point about how much you hate it, and we are bad people for not making fun of it earlier. You were just curious to know if other people had noticed it.

Rather than writing endless massive attack posts.

Still not attacking you. Well, except about the thing were you keep declaring that I am pro rape every time you disagree with me. That shit really does piss me off and you do deserve to be attacked for it, you rapist.

[Judging__Eagle]

Actually, Kaelik....

I was referring to the first dungeon that I went to be incredibly linear; the one where one gets the Golden Claw.

I was going through the twists and turns of the place... and started using my map b/c my Diablo trained instincts began to kick in.... and then I realized that despite all of the twists and turns I had been going through I had actually fulfilled my own requirements of a "clear" (i.e. explore all open areas, before engaging closed off areas).

I was sort of confused, and sort of annoyed. I've played Fallout 1 & 2 maps that needed more exploration; and they were mostly "big facilities" not "dungeon catacombs".

The dwemer/Dharas/Dorf dungeon is.... rather daunting, and is going to prove interesting in the future. I cleared out the first most easily accessed parts and found the one of the three missing scholars.

There I confusedly tried to take sap from the tree I found there with Nettlebane, and realized that the tree I was looking for was elsewhere, this was an other 'cutting'. I also later rechecked and found out that I still needed to bring the dagger to the NPC in Whiterun who first gave me the quest, derp.

Now, I'm taking myself up to getting the horn for the greybeards. I figure that the main quest line could do with some continuing.

Also, giants, not that hard. I've killed more giants (4) and mammoths (3) at level 21 than I have Dragons (2). Although it is challenging to drop those padded sumo HP bags; even 'basic' Frostbite is more than enough to keep them in place while my Housecarl in full dwarven armour shoots them to death while my wardog nips at their heels.

My character got drunk with Sam Guenne, and ended up in Markath... which was a bonus, since I was heading to the Lover Stone for the +15% overall skill boost anyway when I passed through Rorikstead.

[Doom]

My favorite stone first time through was The Steed...even after I got the perk that made my heavy armor no longer slow me down, the +100 carry bonus is nice. I like grabbing all I can.

[Zinegata]

Actually, there are some dwemer ruins that aren't linear, and are freakin' HUGE.

Yeah, I just did the Markath one. Like I said though, when you've got dozens of dungeons, I'd prefer not to spend most of my time trying to find my bearings in most of them .

(incidentally, is there anyone out there who has an I-can't-do-this hard time with lockpicking? Even 'expert' doesn't seem to be much of an issue for me, and I doubt I'm particularly gifted at it).

Lockpicking is extremely easy. The only problem may be the supply of lockpicks, but once you have access to the Thieves Guild you can buy like 30 of them every day for only 6 gold apiece (or cheaper).

There is absolutely no reason to ever invest in any of the lockpicing perks. It's easily the worst skill tree.

And finally, every dungeon past a certain length (2 rooms) has a 'shortcut' exit route, because the committee felt that players wouldn't have fun retracing their steps through the longer dungeons.

I like this actually. Because often times it makes more sense for the inhabitants of the dungeon to have easy access to the entrance of the dungeon that can only be opened from the inside, as opposed to walking through all of the damn traps they set in the dungeon .

[Count Arioch the 28th]

All I know about giants is that one stomped me in the ground at level 3. Other than that, I have avoided them entirely. It is possible that my level 33 character wouldn't have any problems with one.

And shadowmere is freaking psychotic. If there are any enemies in the nearest mile I'll know because it runs off to stomp them in the ground with its hooves. I saw the dumb horse solo a dragon. And win...

I think I will re-roll my mage type character. This time, more stealth, more illusion (for buffs), and I'll run around with an army. (I've run around with Shadowmere, a spectral assassin, and my dog before, I wonder if they'll let me add a housecarl and a couple of summoned monsters too).

That's my next character. Hordemaster...

[Kaelik]

Actually, Kaelik....

Learn to read. I'm not the one who is complaining about how no one else brought it up, that's PL.

[Lokathor]

It's also really annoying that you never find any good loot. You can play for 150 hours and be lucky to see one top tier piece of armor or weapon. But even that probably has a shit enchantment on it, which completely ruins its usefulness.

After a while, I stopped bothering to check chests and corpses because there was nothing in them for me.

Also, because of the no spellmaking thing, there's this huge conceptual problem with how new spells get made in the world at all. It's like the Ur-priest problem: if the only way for a character to become an ur-priest is to be taught by an ur-priest, then we get into an infinite regress.

There aren't any spell making facilities within Skyrim. Because skyrim mostly hates magic and has a single mages college. Other provinces that are more friendly towards the arcane arts have spellmaking facilities there, and then spell tomes can be sent up north for mages to learn.

What's so complex about that?

[CapnTthePirateG]

The fact that dudes in the mage college obviously made their own spells (Tolfdir invented dragonhide, Arniel invented Arniel's Convection) yet you can't?

[NineInchNall]

And the people at the mage's college are obviously totally incapable of setting up their own spellmaking facil--

*death attack*

[Lokathor]

You should probably be able to make your own spells and stuff, I'm just saying it's not a conceptual problem if you can't in Skyrim. I mean, baldur's gate doesn't let you make your own spells, but no one complains about that.

[Count Arioch the 28th]

Well in defense of the criticism, that's something that Elder Scroll games have allowed in previous installments...

[Zinegata]

Spells-making in previous installments honestly wasn't that fantastic though. It was basically just customizing how much magicka you spend in comparison with damage/healing.

Custom spells created by mods were far more interesting, and I'd be much more interested in modpacks or DLCs that give you special spells (i.e. Transform into a Dragon!) than adjusting the power of a flamebolt.

[NineInchNall]

You should probably be able to make your own spells and stuff, I'm just saying it's not a conceptual problem if you can't in Skyrim. I mean, baldur's gate doesn't let you make your own spells, but no one complains about that.

I did.

[CapnTthePirateG]

Spells-making in previous installments honestly wasn't that fantastic though. It was basically just customizing how much magicka you spend in comparison with damage/healing.

Custom spells created by mods were far more interesting, and I'd be much more interested in modpacks or DLCs that give you special spells (i.e. Transform into a Dragon!) than adjusting the power of a flamebolt.

Except for the crappyness of the master level destruction spells and the fact that destruction caps out much, much earlier than a dude with a stick.

[Swordslinger]

Spells-making in previous installments honestly wasn't that fantastic though. It was basically just customizing how much magicka you spend in comparison with damage/healing.

Custom spells created by mods were far more interesting, and I'd be much more interested in modpacks or DLCs that give you special spells (i.e. Transform into a Dragon!) than adjusting the power of a flamebolt.

Yeah same here. Really I'd prefer the damage itself of your spells just scaled and there were few of them, as opposed to having to constantly upgrade a spell that does nothing more than deal damage.

The spells in Skyrim were a lot more interesting than spells from the prior games anyway.

But yeah, destruction does suck.

[Zinegata]

Destruction's main problem is that the damage doesn't scale, even with the Perks.

But with Impact it's actually a decent enough offensive school. As far as I know it works even with AoE spells, so you can just stun-lock a whole room full of enemies.

[Ganbare Gincun]

Playing a character that specializes in Destruction is much less painful if you install the Better Magic mod from Skyrim Nexus. Each Mastery Perk (Novice, Apprentice, Adept, Expert, Master) within all five spell schools now has a secondary effect that improves all spells in that school. For Alteration, Conjuration, and Illusion, each perk increases the duration of spells in that school by 15%. For Destruction and Restoration, each perk increases the magnitude of spells in that school by 15%. There's a lot of other tweaks in this mod that help better balance Mages against Warriors and Rogues. Frankly, I don't know why this isn't one of the Hot Files on Skyrim Nexus.

[Lokathor]

Probably because most people want mods for graphics and fixing interface deficiencies and things, but they don't want changes to the gameplay itself nearly as much.

I've played 3 characters up to the 20s or so.
`Argonian Destruction/Archery/One-Handed+Shield, and it didn't work out so well because I was to diverse (trying to use a different style for each combat distance)
`Redguard One-Handed + Shield with Heavy Armor and smithing and such. Works very well, except you have to get The Steed as your star sign or you'll just be aching trying to get anywhere.
`Nord Archery/Sneak with Light Armor. Works well I'd say, probably too well once you get the archery perk for stunning attacks. I put every level up into Stamina exclusively (mostly for the lulz), so the game has become rocket tag every time i meet a magic user that has any of the advanced Destruction spells.

[NineInchNall]

It also might be a side effect of the whole caster-hate thing resulting from 3.xe.

[Ferret]

Does the damage on conjured weapons scale like physical weapons? I was thinking of doing heavy armor/shield/one-hand-spell (destruction at range, then Called weapon)

[Zinegata]

Does the damage on conjured weapons scale like physical weapons? I was thinking of doing heavy armor/shield/one-hand-spell (destruction at range, then Called weapon)

It only scales up to regular (unsmithed) Daedra weapons with no enchantments, so you're generally better off with an actual weapon. Even the Skyforge Steel Sword can be smithed to nearly Daedra sword levels with a little smithing skill.

Exception may be the Bound bow. The ammo is infinite Daedra bows and the bow itself is smithed up to Exquisite. But still, no enchantment and that could be as much as a +50 Fire and +50 Cold damage.

[Parthenon]

Skyrim shows us that noone would really give a shit if we ripped divination out of D&D 3.x, got rid of most of the spells and shoved the rest into the other spell schools.

It also shows us that we're fine with absolutely everyone getting cooldown based special abilities, even if some people want the casters to have better versions as well. You could even have a prestige class where you get two cooldown timers instead of one each using a different ability.

Another thing is that a huge number of people want to make our weapons and armour ourselves, and that some sort of secondary skill that adds increasingly powerful masterwork bonuses onto an existing magical weapon could work.

It also shows that if we got more frequent feats we'd be happy with feat trees, especially if all feats were in one of these trees.

Not all of these may actually apply to D&D or other RPGs, but if you are talking about Skyrim in IMHO rather than MPSIMS then why not discuss them rather than critique the game?