Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

I've decided to abstain from all addictive behaviors and compounds for the time being. To be honest, what I've seen of FO4 hasn't inspired much interest, but I may watch a few hours of a playthrough to see if its less of a wooden rehash than I fear.

Trolls gave me the fear early on but after I leveled up some I'd saunter through Labyrinthian with nothing but a bow and some swagger. Hang in there!

I just wish I had more time to dedicate to playing it!

Temple of Xrib? I was thinking of Blackreach (re: fields of salmon's post), which was one of the best bits of the game!

There's a fun easter egg of a sort in Blackreach: go to the main temple. climb one of the towers, use your Force Push Shout (or whatever it's called, the one that allows to you push people away) on the big disco ball that hangs from the ceiling, and see what happens.

Another fun easter egg that I discovered all by myself: go to Lost Valley Redoubt, and climb to the highest manmade ledge there. From up there you can see the lake way down below you. Jump straight to the lake so the massive fall won't kill you, and something interesting will happen.

Also, there's a loophole that allows you to create ridiculously powerful equipment via enchanting and smithing, but I wouldn't recommend using it. (If you want to know how it goes: use alchemy to create a potion that enhances enchanting, then drink that potion to create clothes that enhance alchemy. Then wear those clothes to create more powerful "enhance enchanting" potions, drink those potions to create more powerful "enhance alchemy" clothes, etc etc. Once you've done this enough times, you can create potions that enhance smithing and enchanting so much that you'll weapons will do 10 times more damage and your armor will protect you 10 times more.) After I figured this out, I used it to make my weapons and armor super tough, but because of this the battles became increasingly boring, only on the highest difficulty level did they pose any challenge.

On the plus side, this allows you to use all those cool-looking clothes and weapons that are otherwise too weak, because pretty much any weapon or piece of cloth is strong enough after this treatment. Personally I used the smithing and enchantment potions to make a pair wooden swords (you know, the ones you normally give to your kids as a gift) into killer weapons, then went around slaughtering dragons and giants as a dual-wielding wooden-sword elf-woman. I've read from somewhere that someone else did the same to a fork (you can't enhance a fork's damage by smithing, but you can put damage-dealing enhancements to it) and became the Great Fork Killer.

"damage-dealing enchantments"

Just played this again last night after having an out-of-commission PS3 for months. It looks amazing when you've been away from it for awhile!

I'm now remembering a few things that it took me waaaaaaaaaay too long to figure out during my first playthrough:
-That iridescent substance you occasionally see on floors? Yeah, that's flammable and something you can use to your advantage.
-The stone doors that open with the claw keys? Yeah, you'll notice that the combination is on the key if you examine it close up. You don't actually have to dodge an endless barrage of poison darts while trying every possible combination.

Figuring out the flammable liquid thing was cool, but the stone door key thing is ridiculous! What's the point of those puzzles then, and why would anyone make a code key that has the code in the key itself? It's ridiculous!

lol

I knew I'd eventually stumble upon something in this game that didn't make sense.

Any opinions on whether Oblivion is worth playing if one hasn't already? I mean, is there anything I'd likely get out of it that I wouldn't get out of Skyrim?

Oh i worked out the claw thing easily. The clue said its "in the palm of the hand"!

Loved figuring out the flammable oilslick tho. Wait near one, let all the dragur come at you, fire a blast at it, and step back and watch the 'splosions.

I love Oblivion a lot btw - somethign about the older artwork/graphics has a soft, nice feel and its a warmer climate than skyrim. But after a while the dungeons and crypts - especially all the oblivion plane places - are verrrrry samey, which was disappointing.

yall should fuck w morrowind for real tho

The draugr dungeons in Skyrim get pretty samey too, especially since the game has the same brown/grey colourscale pretty much everywhere. Skyrim is a better game in general, but one of the things I really liked about Kingdoms of Amalur was how the dungeons changed when you travelled the world, so in the forest lands for example they would have this gorgeous, colourful and psychedelic vegetation... But Skyrim is much bigger, so I guess repetitive dungeons is the price you have to play for depth. I would definitely getting the Dragoborn DLC thought, the ash/desert island it adds to the game is amazingly freaky compared to murky Skyrim, with weird (sometimes downright surreal) fauna and flora and weird colours. The other DLC (the vampire one) is not quite as good because it takes place in Skyrim proper, so all you get is some new enemies, new powers, and some new locations. (The creepy afterlife level in it is quite cool though.)

"I would definitely recommend getting the Dragonborn DLC"

Dragonborn is good, I agree.

I was also thinking about checking out Amalur and/or Dragon Age to see how they measure up. Except that I know I'm probably just going to be disappointedly expecting them to be Skyrim.

I think I have some "legendary" edition that includes all the DLCs? It keeps telling me i can adopt kids. Funny, I've sat on this boxed set for like 2 years + without playing it til now.

It came with a giant, thick map printed on some kind of canvas paper!

You can adopt kids in the vanilla Skyrim too, but the Hearthfire DLC allows you to adopt more than one, and also build a home of your own (instead of just buying a home in one of the cities), with its own livestock, greenroom, library, etc. There's no big quests involved with it, but if you're the sort of person who enjoys role-playing and immersion and not just fighting draugrs, it's hours of fun.

I was also thinking about checking out Amalur and/or Dragon Age to see how they measure up. Except that I know I'm probably just going to be disappointedly expecting them to be Skyrim.

IMO Amalur has a better main quest and better visuals than Skyrim... It doesn't adhere to the idea (seen in games like Skyrim and movies like LoTR) that "serious" fantasy fiction needs to have a brown/grey colour scale to feel more "realistic", so it has some gorgeous-looking, vividly-coloured locations and creatures. But on the other hand it has less role-playing options (no marriage, no kids, etc), and there are some irritating bugs (nothing game-breaking, but irritating nevertheless). And the biggest flaw I think is the difficulty; after you've done enough grinding, the game becomes too easy, even at the highest difficulty level. (This happened to me around the half-point in the main quest, though it was partially because I'd completed one of the two DLCs fairly early in the game, thus having done much more grinding than without the DLC.) And since the company that produced Amalur went bankrupt, the bugs and the difficulty issue will never be patched.

I'd still recommend Amalur for the storyline and visuals, just don't expect the gameplay to be as good as in Skyrim.

IMO Amalur has a better main quest and better visuals than Skyrim... It doesn't adhere to the idea (seen in games like Skyrim and movies like LoTR) that "serious" fantasy fiction needs to have a brown/grey colour scale to feel more "realistic", so it has some gorgeous-looking, vividly-coloured locations and creatures.
― Tuomas, Friday, December 4, 2015 6:05 AM

not denying skyrim had too much brown/grey but amalur's graphics and color palette and other games like that are the fuckin worst. a game being in the fantasy genre shouldn't mean it has to look like a thomas kinkade eyesore.

yall should fuck w morrowind for real tho

― adam, Thursday, December 3, 2015 2:28 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

^^^

never played morrowind but i hear that a lot. any recommended graphics/UI mods for a more modern experience?

stop trying to make morrowind happen

well i was staying out of this thread but then tuomas was like the terrain in dragonborn is so interesting!

(adam: the morrowind graphics extender and various mods by Vurt are baseline but you can spend weeks of frustrated unRARing and from-scratch reinstalling on making morrowind look like skyrim. and that's before the fun even begins!)

A warning is that Dragonborn extends the level cap and introduces higher level enemies. Instead of "Draugr Overlord" as a boss you will find "Draugr Death Witch Soul Fiend" or something,

Make sure you have a good, recent, savegame before you go or you will not be coming back. It's brutal.

I beat the under saarthal boss easily this time. taking a companion everywhere is v useful (I have Faendal)

the other year i used a morrowind mod guide from the something awful forums to get it all pretty but the OG still looks good imo. the low poly count enhances the general visual weirdness at play.

xpost Letting your companions do the bulk of the dirty work is a great way to deal with fights that are over your head. Just remember, though, only you can kill a companion (as I inadvertently learned the hard way).

you sure they cant die? Mine got stuck in a flame-trap, and cos he was on fire and hurt he dropped to one knee which just kept burning him, I ended up flinging myself on him, but then I died, lol.

I understand some followers cant, cos theyre essential NPCs, but I didnt think that applied across the board.

On that note tho, I have also just found out that me and my follower(s) wont set off rune traps! SO HANDY TO KNOW THIS.

All permanent followers become protected NPCs while they are actively following you. When your follower would die due to an enemy attack or a trap, they will be incapacitated for some time and begin to recover their health, just like essential NPCs; enemies will stop attacking or targeting them during this time. However, if they lose all their health again during this period, they will die for good. Thus, you should try to move the fight away from them, so that they are not hit by a stray arrow or area-effect spell. They can die from a damage-over-time effect that is stronger than their health recovery; most commonly those are caused by poisons.

themoreiknow.gif

Actually re poisons I read if you give them cure poison bottles to hold, they'll drink em if they need em? Yet to test this one in situ.

never seen an npc die by enemys hand, they usually just go into loop of fighting / falling to one knee. if you happen to smack them or hit em with a stray fireball they will drop dead. they're only a reloaded save away but some followers don't deserve the revive

But they're sworn to carry your burdens even if they get an arrow to the knee.

Another helpful hint: companions can bear the brunt of even the most powerful force shout you can dole out. Keeping a proverbial leash on your companions can be difficult at times, so this trick is useful if, say, you're navigating your way down some rocky terrain and don't want your companion to get too confused about how to circumnavigate a particular boulder (this happens, particularly if any jumping is involved). Just force shout them off the side of the cliff and meet them at the bottom as they're dusting themselves off. And, unlike most other methods of assault, you can do this repeatedly without your companions getting pissed and attacking you or leaving your company. Be warned, though: I've also force shouted a companion or two off the side of a mountain out of frustration because he/she was being a navigational douche and I wound up losing them for a time. But you can always quickly get them back to your side by fast travelling to the nearest location on the map.

Most importantly: watching your companions rag doll through the air and into an abyss is a treat that no Skyrim player should miss out on.

Who are your favourite companions, everyone?

"Favorite"? They're mostly different shades of irritating imo. The dog, maybe? Actually, the dark elf lady from the college was fine. Certainly not J'zargo or whatever his stupid name is.

in my 3 playthroughs i don't think i had one for very long, maybe early game.

I think I accidentally killed all of my followers (except for elf lady, who works in my house).

Aela is my favorite. She's useful no matter what kind of character you have.

It's not jzargo's fault he only has so much room to carry things.

It's totally J'zargo's fault that J'zargo always refers to J'zargo in the third person, though.

I married Mjoll the Lioness and we were very happy together.

Hey, that's my wife, too! What's the idea.....

I've Faendal as a follower and I can't marry him! rude.

Have you figured out how to get married? It's an unintuitive process that I finally had to just research (like curing vampirism). Involving an amulet from I don't remember where.