SKYRIM HYPE THREAD: UNDEAD CHICKEN SOUP FOR THE DRAGON'S SOUL

Had to reinstall because of some stupid steam error. Patch 1.2 makes dragons fly backwards, lol.

author=Jude
Surprising number of console players. Elder Scrolls always screams "get it on PC" at me.

I made the executive decision to get the PS3 version, and pirate the PC version. What I've always found with the PC Version of the Elder Scrolls games is there is always some game-breaking flaw that I spend so much time overcoming that I don't want to play anymore. Skyrim was (rather, is) no exception.

The PS3 version works excellently but the controls make Archery/Ranged Magic a pain to use, which I knew so I made a Heavy Armor 1 Handed Shield/Restoration character and its working just fine for me.

The PC version on the other hand, while I get way better framerates and much higher graphics (after applying a 3rd party patch for one of the .dlls,) and can actually utilize Archery and Magic properly.. after a while the game will randomly black-screen and occasionally crash without error. I have been told this has to do with having two monitors and playing fullscreen; but when playing Windowed I find Archery and Magic to be a problem again (cursor goes off the screen all the time.)

The game also suffers from the same 'Consolization' problem that almost all new releases do. The game was designed with console gaming in mind, and the controls don't translate well to PC. Thankfully they are open to modding and this can easily be fixed. I find it has you alternating from mouse gestures to clicking to using the keyboard to using the directional keys all on the same few menus. It doesn't know what it wants to do for controls. The PS3 version however the controls are incredibly good (except for accidently sneaking in intense fights because I hit the directional thumbstick to hard.) Oh, and the fact the thumbsticks are AWFUL for aiming. Half the time I am stealing things, its by accident because I slightly mis-targeted an NPC to talk to. I think its due to the sensitivity (the same sensitivity that determines slow-walking versus jogging) the jump from slowly aiming to quickly aiming is drastic and sudden.

;.;
Accidentally stole a book from the trading post and got chased out of Riverwood. Damn guy won't leave me alone. I kill him, he comes back. I can't even get near the place without him chasing me away...
I think I might just head to jail or something. That'd get rid of the bastard, right?

He came at me with a mace! ^.^;
I've since left that town to its own devices. Crazy-ass people live there. XD
And holy hell, is there a ton of side-quests or what?! I think I've only played one Elder Quest game before and not for long so this is all pretty new to me. I'm having a blast though, mace-wielding maniacs aside.

Tried that. Tried putting it away too. Also dropped the book. Didn't help. The crazy guy chased me all the way out of town and into the wilderness. I was attacked by a wolf and him at the same time! (I killed them both, then ran like the dickens. Well, swam like the dickens, anyway. He had trouble following me too far into the water.)

I think I'll just stay away from Riverwood for a while...

That said, some of the characters that help you one quests are stupid. I was aiming a shot at one of those bee/tree creatures when the guy following me jumps in the way just as I loose my arrow. Needless to say I looted his and his friends' corpses.

bahleted

After 150 hours of Skyrim, finishing all the main stuff on master difficulty, and experiencing 3 different builds fully developed (warrior, rogue, mage) I have a very specific list of balance changes I'd like to see. Let me know what you think.

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1) Get rid of the alchemy/enchanting loop. Using alchemy potions to increase your enchanting skill to increase your alchemy skill to make better enchanting potions, etc, so that you eventually have a set of armor + fortify skill potions that totally break the game. How do they fix this? Simply hard cap fortify enchanting potions at 25%.

2) A difficulty level higher than Master. Skyrim does such a good job bringing in "casual" gamers, that it forgets a hardcore mode. There are so many tremendously fun ways to make your character really good at annihilating things, but at a certain point, the most powerful enemies on the highest difficulty are a complete joke. And that's without the alchemy/enchanting loop.

3) Destruction magic is a dead end. Make it not a dead end. Right now, it is far more effective to craft a powerful daedric bow, and enchant and improve it, than the strongest destruction spell. WAY more effective. Destruction needs to scale a lot better with progression. It starts off fine, but loses ground to physical combat by a huge margin.

4) Fix the game economy. The vendors are too willing to shower you with gold for your junk, and don't have enough money. All this does is waste time making more trips and finding more vendors who haven't had their gold stockpile raped by the player's endless truckload of dungeon loot. With no speechcraft perks, the player should get totally ripped off at pawn shops, you know, like in real life. Money should generally be a bit tougher to come by, and things like bounties, bribes, etc, should cost more.

5) Rare artifacts should no longer be worthless compared to crafted gear. I don't want to take away the ability to make awesome crafted gear. However, Daedric artifacts and other rare equipment are quite terrible in quality, generally.

6) There needs to be a point to food and drink, besides imagining that you're role-playing. Right now theyre just extremely weak versions of potions. They could offer other buffs, like a well-fed buff that functions like the well-rested buff.

7) The Reunification of Skyrim needs to be less anti-climactic. Going into detail here is too spoilery, but basically, the civil war is like "welp, guess we win or something." I want an epic war campaign, dammit!

8) Marriage SUCKS. Make it less suck. Seriously, it turns your spouse into a worthless submissive 50's housewife (regardless of their gender.) Also, you get married basically by buying someone. I don't know how to fix this, but I wish someone would.

re: re: post

1) I and many other players have voiced their frustration with being forced to gimp themselves. These "hardcore rules" playthroughs, to me, are just dumb. I want to play more, not less. Skyrim gives you so many ways to become badass, I want to use them, not not use them.

Also, my proposed fix of hard-capping ONE crafted potion to 25% effectiveness would totally ruin the alchemy/enchanting loop without ruining any trees or perks. 25% is how much purchased (though rare) enchanting potions buff you, and the only reason you're able to do the loop is because a super-buffed alchemist can get it to about 28% right off the bat, with that small % creating compounding interest that only stops when you round down from a decimal point and thus reach a pseudo-hard cap. But by then, you can create insane potions and, consequently, insane enchantments.

2) Yes those high level mages can be tricky. Some individual enemy re-balancing is called for as well, such as nerfing ultra-mages a bit, and buffing high level dragons.

3) Mods just don't "feel" right. Yes, I know how they work, I've been using them since Morrowind. But I prefer to play what everyone else is playing, you know? It kind of corrupts my experience when I'm playing "some guy"'s perception of a fix. Especially when most of them are entitled "Better _". Why's it better? Because "Some Guy" said so.

8) The world isn't ready for a game that isn't a sexual free-for-all. I totally agree that there should be some characters that are straight, some that are gay, etc. You know, like in real life. But there would be someone, some bored, paranoid mother f'er, who would have a problem with that system, somehow. And being that that is such a hot issue, Bethesda would have to cave.

And one of my characters was a nord female. I figured she deserved love like anyone else, right? So I remembered the Companion quests with Farkas, seems like a nice guy. So my nord amazon married Farkas and he turned into a complete wuss! And also, I felt... really... odd... having some dude hanging around my house calling me "dear" and "my love." Sorry, it doesn't take a "homophobe" to feel uncomfortable when a man with a batman voice actor is calling me his "love."

...So I Fus Ro Dah'd him off High Hrothgar and figured it was for the best.

I got Skyrim yesterday~

Hm, maybe i should try a no allocating points game, considering how broken the game tends to be towards the end. (Just like Oblivion, except in Oblivion you could prolong leveling almost indefinetely.)