First impressions

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A lot of us prefer Party-based gaming. I sure do. There are few solo rpgs that hit the mark for me. Though I will try a solo game if it looks good, has tons of character options(for replayability) and gets good reviews. Reviews on boards like these, not form a computer gaming magazine. You guys sure do make this game sound like a winner.... I will have to look into a bit more.

 

It is a great game, I'm currently in early 20s level wise and reached a bit of a frustrating time I'm still only finding steel equipment (found one piece of elven) and the opposition is a bit too tough for me playing a pretty much solid thief with Lydia backing me up.

Is funny having enemies sneak by me because they heard Lydia though then stabbing them in the back, but that can only get you so far

Kev is doing really well with his spellsword, He did go up eight levels last night sat smithing stuff for hours - A tad frustrating when one of us was having to read legalese and all you can here is Tink! Tink! Tink! *Splosh*!

 

Be careful with levelling, make sure you keep your combat skills up to par with your character level or else the parts that are levelled in the game will wtfpwn you.

 

Well, we have a pretty small and cosy community here, not all of whom will buy a game right away when it comes out. And even then not everyone here will discuss their game experiences a great deal. At least apparently not here.

And it's not that strange for a forum mostly known for it's IE games players, that the BG games will get more attention than any random game. Even if this random game happens to be the new TES game.

Also, Skyrim is not Medieval 2: Total War

 

I used to be a Baldur's Gate fanboy, but then I took an arrow in the knee...

But yeah, there are definitely things they could improve in Skyrim. Bugs aplenty, constant crashing to desktop, weird graphical issues, etc. None of which detract from what is essentially the best RPG I've played. Ever. IMO of course.

 

I've been wondering, where does this whole "arrow in the knee" thing come from? I've been seeing people mention it many times, but have no idea about why it's so funny.

Anyway, I loved Morrowind, then was severely disappointed by Oblivion, and haven't really touched a Bethesda game since. Currently, I'm looking more forward to playing through Deus Ex Human Revolution, doing a run through Stalker Call of Pripyat with the Complete mod installed, finishing a few runs through the BG-series and picking up where I left the Milanese in M2: TW. Oh and I wanted to run through the Witcher 1 & 2 again.

All of these things are higher on my to-do list than Skyrim at the moment. I'm sure it's a very entertaining game and I'm equally sure that I could spend a lot of time on it if I so wished, but time is limited and nothing I've heard makes me want to go ahead and buy this game immediately. Kind of disenchanted with Bethesda and how they seem to handle quality control. They've had this ancient engine for pretty much a decade now and still they couldn't figure out how to make better animations, how not to get stuff to clip through geometry constantly and generally make a more stable game? Their patches also seem to break more than they fix and in the end it's always down to the community to fix everything they broke.

 

The arrow in the knee thing is a stupid, stupid meme that emerged from one of the passing comments made by guards in some of the cities. When you walk by them, they'll say things like "Is dat hair growing out of yaw eahs?" (if you're a werewolf), or "I've got my eye on you, outsidah."

This one, specifically, is "I used to be an adventurer like you...then I took an arrow to the knee." Pause for hysterical laughter.

I honestly have no idea what's funny or amusing about it, and it's SO, so played. Tassadar gets a noogie for that one.

 

It just struck me, every question I have had I have googled and one of the two wikis has had a satisfactory answer. No more waiting for people to reply but also a bit more boring.

My character is almost done and I am getting ready to read the Elder Scroll. I have not found anything better than the Archmage robe which is sad, I maxed out enchanting and drank a potion but I could not enchant a chest to be anywhere near as good as that. All other pieces I make myself are superiour but not that. For my char to really be what I want I need six more perks, I really should not have put points in onehanded or alchemy. Sadly, alchemy is kinda pointless, you find so many free pots that you don't really need to make your own and the potions you make are nothing specia. Also it is a pain to experiment to find out what each thing does. Preferred Oblivion's take on it where the higher skill you have the more abilities were revealed. I LOVE picking up ingredients and making potions, it was one of the things that made me adore Morrowind and Oblivion, I love that mechanic. I must admit that in Skyrim it is not as satisfactory, yes you made x100 more potions in Oblivion than what you needed as well I am some silly amounts of potions in Skyrim, ones I don't need and it takes a LONG time to level alchemy. I think I will change to the thief stone and just level some stealth so I can put my last points in alteration and destruction. (Lightning masterspell is superawesome, need to put some talents in lightning)

 

Well well well, who'd thunk..

Just a week ago I'd never even HEARD about Skyrim and then I get bombarded with a rave review on the LOCAL newspaper (think "way less than 50,000 readers"), two of my best friends mention it without any prior input and then I stumble upon it HERE of all places.

You, my friends, are therefore accomplices in what is to soon become a negligence of a family life. Ordered it today.

 

I personally really enjoy Skyrim, and have already reached level 56 or something about a week ago.

But I am starting to find things I don't like. The game experience is great, and the landscape alone is definitely more fun to walk through than Oblivion ever was (Skyrim came out after I finally decided "I might want to start Shivering Isles" before Skyrim comes out...also, I still haven't finished the main quest of Oblivion. It just didn't grip me as much, and Shivering Isles was a welcome distraction).

But now, I find things I miss. The quests are mostly interesting. I entered the Thieves guild like I always do. But it seemed a bit too...grand. I miss Morrowind's guilds! I miss the small quests given by each guild master in the different towns. Not only for the Thieves, but also for the other factions. I mean, a main plot is nice...but seriously? I am someone just escaped from execution, and happen to be a prophesised saviour of the world, but that doesn't mean I have to be the hero for every faction! I rise through the ranks a bit fast. How do they know they can even trust me?

But I am sure I am not only one disliking that. Apart from the main Thieves guild quest the regular burglaries are a bit bland. They are randomly generated, which gives variation over play, but essentially they are the same. Go there, do that, come back. Wash, rinse, repeat.


I don't even remember if there was a major main plot behind the Morrowind Thieves guild...I remember that the Fighter's guild had some inside conspiracies between guild houses, and that the head of the mage guild had a request for me to kill the heads of the Telvanni houses - and what's the awesome thing, is that you *didn't* have to usually blindly follow that instructions. You usually had other options. Which is good, because I am head of house Telvanni.

Also, while it is nice that Bethesda immediately gave us mannequins and weapon racks and bookshelves which arrange the books for you, I find I don't use them. They obviously got that inspiration back when in Morrowind modders added all that themselves. But the novelty is gone. Especially for the bookshelves. My librarian in Tel Uvirith automatically sorts the ones he considers worthy for an Archmagisters library (he complains a bit that he had to include "ABC for Barbarians", but hey, Completionist! ), and always has a nice conversation ready. Also, Book covers! That are readable from a distance! Woo!

Even the library in the Marc Mori estate I used to have was more fun than simply sorting my books in the Skyrim shelves.

It is well meant, but I prefer collecting out of my own motivation, otherwise it feels...boring. It feels as if I am getting a task, and have to complete it. Self chosen tasks always create a much greater motivation. Everything else feels a bit railroaded.


Of course, the exploration is great. And I am going to finish Skyrim gladly. There were some great quests, like the Namira one - even though it assumes things of me that are really not part of my character's build, but okay. It was still kind of fun. I still hold that I am not what you claim, because I am an elf, and not a human. (If you already found that quest, you should be able to figure out what I am getting at.)



Now, don't get me wrong. Skyrim is great. But I will finish it for the story's sake, but I have a feeling I won't be coming back all that soon to relive it. Also, for now I've gone back to Morrowind. Because even though I completed the Main Quest ages ago, I still find new things, and still enjoy it like it was the first time. *THAT* is what I really miss in Skyrim.

 

The first forty hours of Skyrim have been nice indeed. I like the interactive feel of the world, although I'm plenty aware that there WILL be a day when I reach the repeating loop phase of responses. The combat and the overall console game feel were a mess at first for a WoW veteran but now I'm actually starting to like it.

Three rather major hiccups so far:

It takes AGES for me to get to the game's main menu (as in several minutes at times), which made me think the game crashed on me upon first launch. I've heard that's caused by the latest patch so I've just sucked up my pride and endured so far.

The very first quest has several key points where it's possible to break the game script. Made me wander around in frustration for a good twenty minutes before I realized that I needed a reload. Just to double-check, I managed to hang the quest in two other spots soon thereafter by just being a know-it-all and doing stuff I knew would happen in advance.

The last hiccup is quite possibly caused by my 6 year old computer (although with newer GPU), but exploring the wide open outdoor world sometimes freezes the game to the point I need to do a hard reset. Also, details load painfully slow at times, causing anything from the hilarity of ending up inside a locked barn once it finally loads to not being able to enter a dungeon because the very entrance of it just won't display/activate. Reboot/reload has solved all of these issues.. so far.

 

The freeze issue is something I experienced in my first game but it is blessedly absent in my second. Have no idea why.

 

Now that I've passed the 100 hour mark, I still gotta say that Skyrim delivers. Reached level 42 yesterday, so I'm taking my sweet time.

I haven't even BEEN to most of the major holds yet (only NE corner, really), in anticipation of reaching level 50 first so that possible follower candidates have reached their top level before the game spawns them. I want to check whether I like a mage or yet another melee dude as my companion. I've had melee so far but that's only because I happened to meet such when it was time to upgrade. First Jenassa, then Lydia a short while, traded back to Jenassa soon thereafter. And now I travel with my black cat, ie. Kharjo with full Ebony set.

Reaching 100 enchanting was the turning point where I managed to break the game a bit. Sure, I did expect a boost from going from unenchanted, poorly upgraded Dragonplate to double enchants and double legendary status (sup +100% crafter set). Hitching the difficulty to Master has retained difficulty on a level that's easy enough without allowing for any Leeroy Jenkins stunts.

I foresee at least 50+ hours of newbie exploration awe yet to come, although I'm getting a bit tired of the various Nord tombs and mines - they're all too similar.

 

An unfortunate side effect of being a mage is that you are pretty much forced to visit Winterhold, so you can learn new spells. This limits your choice of followers a bit, a mage's best companion is either a fellow mage or an archer imo. While a melee guy seems ideal in paper, in practice he/she will just get in the way of your spells (ie, die horribly).

Alchemy broke the game for me. Combined with Persuasion (and good perk investment) I was making potions worth 100+ gold by Riverwood, and 1000+ gold by Whiterun. I had 50k surplus gold by level 25. With gold being such a powerful resource in Skyrim, it didn't take me long to get the best enchantments, the best gear (pre maxed Enchantment), max my other crafting professions, and buy lots of scrolls (the master-level ones are great), homes and spellbooks.

Powergaming spoiler.

Spoiler

Alchemy also made it so that I was pretty much immune to elemental damage thanks to resistance potions, and I could heal myself to nearly full with a single healing potion. The fortify skill potions can more than double the damage of my conjured weapons - they're actually more effective than the perks that raise archery/two-hand/one-hand damage by 100%, and you need 5 points for those. Fortify skill potions can also more than double the damage of nukes, and (in paper) double that further via elemental weakness poisons. Mages are pushovers thanks to magicka poisons. Finally, as a master Conjurer I am basically able to resurrect the dead (when my minions die their bodies don't disintegrate). So I basically have two extra followers, both of whom I'm currently in the process of crafting Daedric items for (they keep their equipped items).
Atm I'm toying with the idea of resurrecting Red Eagle, if possible. Apparently he respawns, so I plan to have two. Btw I forgot to mention this, but followers can also use potions.
I'm also curious about whether poison effects from different potions/poisons sources stack. I plan to use a magicka poison on my followers (no effect if target has no magicka) that just happens to have a fortify skill effect. I'm still looking for the right recipe though.
Busy, busy, busy.

 

Yeah Skyrim needs to be helluva rebalanced.

 

I think it is hard to balance any kind of free rpg game. The ability to "break" them is part of the allure. My main objective is always to create as powerful a character as possible. Then of course when I have done that I find everything too easy and boring. It is a very narrow line to walk.

 

I received this game on Christmas. I sense my Third Age Total War run winding down, and as a result I am just today installing Skyrim after 6 weeks of it sitting on my shelf.

I have no idea where to start on this one. My last (and only) Elder Scrolls game was Battlespire, probably 15 years ago or so.

 

Marc, I can really vouch for the strategy given to me: Just go with the flow, test some stuff and see what you ACTUALLY like vs what looks nice on paper. Best advice ever.

In terms of perks, there's always those select few that you can boost first no matter what sort of a character you end up being - ie. heavy armor if you're into the knight style, one- or two-handed (or ranged!) style according to what you end up using most and if still unsure, any one of the three crafting skills is as close to a safe bet as it gets.

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Joaq, I've found that the totally op 3 crafting skills combo can be utilized to allow for reasonable secondary (or tertiary) attack forms. REASONABLE being the key word here.

For example, my one-handed attacks pretty much destroy any opposition, so switching over to a bow without perks seems very lackluster. So instead of wasting my perk points into the archery tree, I let my tradeskills double up to create me a bow worth its salt. Or, if I decide later on that I really want to try a heavy armor battlemage approach, I could get up to 87% mana cast reduction with just three items.

 

Thanks for the comments Sir Rechet. I've only managed to clock in around 45 minutes so far. I started as a Nord, thinking just go as a raging fighter, and start simple.

That said, I really never play as a straight fighter, so I quickly decided to start over as a High Elf, thinking a mage character. I'm leaning toward fighter/mage at the moment (or spellsword as they seem to be called in this game).

I'm liking the idea of throwing a spell or two, then running into the fray. Conjuration seems to offer some good summoning possibilities, so I may actually end up getting my "party" fix with this character. I'm also considering enchanting, as it sounds like this is a good way to make money, and get good equipment.

Really haven't had much time to game in the last week or so. Hopefully that will change soon.

If I do spellsword, what might you recommend for a follower? I've heard having a melee follower just gets in the way of spells. I'm thinking maybe an archer (for variety) or another mage. I really don't know what sort of followers are available yet.

Anyhow, the game sure does look beautiful. I'm still getting used to playing in first person. This has never been my thing, but Skyrim seems like a game worthy of making an exception for.