The Elder Scrolls

[Bominominomu Nemo]

Skyrim is most certainly for casuals

 

Morrowind master race

 

Unfortunately, yes.

It's kind of sad when I can have a harder time with Survival mode Minecraft than with a TES game.

 

I've managed to get a no fast travel mod + more travel options mod, but I wish there was a mod that would remove all the "essential" flags whilst at the same time boosting the previously essential NPC's stats to outrageous levels, making them possible to kill, but taking a greater deal of effort to do so.

 

It would feel more satisfying to have a long and painful fight with Jaree-Ra instead of beating him easily, and then going to UESP and looking up his actor ID while he's down so I can set him to non-essential via the console.

Edited February 6, 2013 by Vir Nemo

[Takatu]

Well, got Dragonborn for the PC on Tuesday. Arrived at Raven Rock and saw Bonemold armor and Dunmer style buildings while Morrowind music played. Felt like I got punched in the face with the fist of nostalgia.

 

I'm a little torn, though. On the one hand, Solstheim is so cool and offers a LOT in the way of exploration and Morrowind-y stuff, and the trips to Apocrypha are really cool. But the main story was way too short and kinda lacking, didn't really feel the impact on some character deaths because I felt like I didn't really get to know them.

 

So while Dawnguard had much, much less than Dragonborn (seriously, Dawnguard doesn't even come close to the amount of time you can spend in Dragonborn alone), I feel like what was in Dawnguard was just much better written than most of DB. Serana still remains pretty much the most developed character in the game, for sure.

 

Still, DB was WELL worth the twenty bucks, there's just an insane amount of stuff to do on Solstheim. I flipped when I found what was inside that barrow on the island just east of the Skaal village, because I remembered it from Bloodmoon and it was AWESOME.

[BBBBalta]

no fast travel mod

Or you could justyou knownot fast travel. Edited February 7, 2013 by Baltarc

[Takatu]

Using the Slow Time shout while using Miraak's sword produces a pretty cool effect when the tentacle extends out. Just an FYI lol.

 

Also, while I still believe Serana is pretty much the best/most developed NPC in the game, Neloth is wonderful. Kind of rude, but hilarious. Talk to him extensively.

Edited February 9, 2013 by Takatu

[Toa Levacius Zehvor]

In case I end up spoiling something -

 

 

 

Some people have called the Miraak fight an anti-climax, and nothing really special, based on things I've read. In one aspect, I agree. It could have been more... special? But, honestly, it was still the best major fight in the game for a few reasons. Namely, this is because I didn't have abilities that would just wipe him out. With Harkon, I used Slow Time (one of my signature shouts, next to Soul Tear) and... well, you know. Plus, Serana was there, and he had some minions to help him.

 

I usually don't like it when monsters regain life points. Mercer Frey doing it was especially annoying. But it seemed done well enough with Miraak simply because of how the fight was set up. I got to use a number of shouts, but if I used one like Slow Time, I would have only knocked him out completely with it once. He would have just regenerated.

If you don't try to work to your hardest and make use of strange advantages in the game that let you kill Ancient Dragons without taking damage, the fight can be somewhat fun, if not hard - and it's the fun that's most important, honestly. Just run the narrative in your head in the process and its a lot better. Add your characters lines of dialogue in.

 

Hit Points are more than just a characters life; it's all the other factors besides that. After all, your character can't really survive being bitten in half by a dragon, no matter how well armored. With Miraak, I went about it that way. Everytime he absorbed the Dragon Souls, he was just recharging himself. On the second dragon he butchered, I drank the White Phial to gain back 100 LP. Not because it was the best potion, but because it was small, and all my character could really pull out in that brief span and actually go back in immediately.

 

As I saw it, the fight was an even match, and neither my character nor Miraak really took that much damage in the short few minute span that it took. It would have gone on much, much longer if Hermaeous Mora hadn't intervened with the tentacle.

 

 

 

Going along with what Takatu said, though Dragonborn doesn't have very many well detailed characters, and deaths aren't particularly striking. Even the final battle doesn't leave that much of a sense of accomplishment. Solstheim definitely needed to feel more... three dimensional, I guess. More emotional investment.

 

Step one is fixing the games biggest problem, which was expressed by one of my friends at school (one of the few fans of Oblivion I know who never played Morrowind) -

 

"In Oblivion, you go and help some kids save a farm from an army of goblins. In Skyrim, you get their family sword from Draugr. In Oblivion, you go into a portal to another dimension and fight an army of demons. In Skyrim, you enter a cave and kill Draugr. In Oblivion, you have to break into a mansion and burn down a tree. In Skyrim, you fight a Draugr. It's all nothing but Draugr."

 

Honestly, the biggest problem is how little variety their is in the things you fight. I really do miss the Morrowind set up where specific enemies were at specific points as NPCs, with no randoms (until Bloodmoon came out) and randomly appearing monsters of numerous sorts and types. Dwemer Centurions and Draugr get boring quickly, and the only thing keeping Dragons from being boring is being Dragons.

 

Heck, did they even need Dwemer Ruins on Solstheim? Where were those 200 years ago? Were they invisible? I've always gone with the 'you just didn't see them' policy, but at least the one on the east coast is pretty big. I mean, I would think you'd notice that one.

 

Overall, lack of interest in NPCS during the main quest and the fact I had to fight some robots is all that disappoints me. I can even live with the Draugr, since it makes some sense (though seeing Draugr more like the ones from Bloodmoon - feral and hunched over - would have been more interesting, especially if it was like in the actual Bloodmoon barrows where it's so dark that all you can see is the red light of their eyes). But if I needed to fix one thing in this, it would have been those Dwemer Ruins.

 

Stupid Dwemer. Do you know why they're extinct? Because the other races all got together and murdered them all for trying to take all the face time, and then wiped out any evidence. And that's the truth - elves and nords, living together, in harmony, killing dwarves that are elves.

 

-Toa Levacius Zehvor

[Takatu]

I know you were kidding at the end, but they do kinda heavily hint at what happened to the Dwemer in Morrowind, heh.

 

I know what you're saying about their ruins, and it doesn't make much sense, but I overlooked it because I have a soft spot for Dwemer ruins. I just chalked it up to Red Mountain's eruption covering and uncovering all sorts of stuff from the ash and lava, although that still doesn't really make sense with the ruin on the east coast.

 

And in case I'm spoiling anything:

 

I guess I didn't really expect a whole lot in the way of NPC depth for the most part, since Serana is pretty much the only one that's pretty well-written, but I was still disappointed with MIraak. There was SO MUCH potential with him that they even touched upon, but never elaborated. He could have been such a great foil to the player character, whatever choices the player may have made, due to the nature of being a Dragonborn (will to dominate like the dragons, etc.). But we really only got the vague nutshell book The Guardian and the Traitor, and the couple things Frea said about him when you were in his temple. When I entered that room with her that had all the bodies strung up on iron pipes and Frea mentioned how cruel his rule must have been, I thought, "Oh YES, a real, vicious villain in the Elder Scrolls!" But they never brought that up again, and the most we got was a few arrogant comments from him in the final battle in Apocrypha.

 

I guess they decided to spend more time and energy on the exploration trademark of Elder Scrolls, as opposed to the much heavier story-driven Dawnguard, which didn't have a whole lot in the way of random exploring.

[Toa Levacius Zehvor]

The way I see it -

 

 

 

They didn't put enough time into making a longer or better written main quest. I guess the expectation was that Apocrypha would be impressive enough on its own, but it seemed like we spent half the story there, and not much of interest happened in the main world - we didn't see much of what happened to the NPCs, or learn much about Miraak.

 

It would also have been nice to have met a few more dragons willing to do a little more in the terms of discussion. Perhaps one of the Ancient Dragons that destroyed Miraak's temple telling you something about him?

 

Miraak just didn't have enough time for us to learn more about him. And, honestly, neither did Alduin, or Harkon. Even Mankar Camoran made a better antagonist with a lot of hype, even though he was just a simple boss fight in the end.

 

The biggest way to address the problems with Dragonborn would have been to possibly add more character writing, or make it about ten hours longer with NPC dialogue or more information about the story.

 

 

 

-Toa Levacius Zehvor

[Takatu]

At least we still learned about what drove Alduin to do what he did, even if it was indirectly and mostly through what Paarthurnax said. And we got to actually solve the mystery of what it was he was doing and why, but with Miraak, I know he wanted to return to Tamriel from Apocrypha, and that somehow absorbing the player's dragon soul will help him with that, but how or why that does anything is never even brought up. I also didn't really see how indirectly controlling the population to build shrines around those Stones helped his objective, other than just messing up the Skaal's way of life a bit. I'm willing to forgive Harkon, since he's no worse than most of your run-of-the-mill ES villains, and his plot does make some sense. There just wasn't enough of the quest, I don't necessarily need a ten-hour questline, but something a bit more than "learn the Bend Will shout and go beat up Miraak" would have been nice.

 

Still, the DLC is still worth it, since there's a lot of cool side stuff, and the Dragon Aspect shout is SO COOL.

Edited February 9, 2013 by Takatu

[BenLuke]

>Expecting good writing in the actually plot of a Elder Scrolls game.

 

Heh.

Edited February 19, 2013 by Javert

[Takatu]

I know, I know lol. What they really excel at is world building and just overall open-ness of the whole thing. They've created some really cool concepts and stuff in all the games, but their plotting is definitely lacking. Probably why I loved Dawnguard so much, seemed like they really applied themselves in the story writing there more than most.

[Toa Levacius Zehvor]

What's more fun with mining with a pickaxe?

 

Dual wielding Ancient Nordic Pickaxes with Elemental Whirlwind at full power and unleashing a number of power attacks in a row until the Stalhirm is fully mined.

 

What's more fun than that?

 

Doing the same thing to a Draugr Deathlord.

 

And what's more fun than that?

 

Doing it to a Lurker Sentinel or a Dragon.

 

I don't even dual wield, but after seeing just how fast you can go with those pickaxes, I thought to myself, "What could possibly survive that?"

 

-Toa Levacius Zehvor

[Takatu]

That's why dual wielding could potentially be the most lethal and pretty much overpowered combat method in the game. You get the right perks, good weapons and the Elemental Fury shout, you're pretty much a walking meat grinder.

 

Glad to see I wasn't the only one doing that with Stalhrim lol.

[Dapper-Sama]

You get the right perks, good weapons and the Elemental Fury shout, you're pretty much a walking meat grinder.

---

That's what daggers are for.

[Takatu]

So Dragon Aspect is probably one of my new favorite Shouts ever. Although Cyclone is potentially the most hilarious in the right situations.

 

Also, spoilers for a Tel Mithryn/Neloth quest:

Watching my Dragonborn haul Ildari up by her throat and rip her heart stone from her chest is one of my favorite moments in Skyrim ever so far.

[Dapper-Sama]

I don't use PC's for my high-end games, but I still know what you can do with console commands. Here is a recipe for awesomeness:

 

The Walking Wood-shredder

 

-Spawn two of your preferred daggers. I recommend using Daedric daggers or Mehrune's Razors.

 

-Take the player to the locations of all words for Elemental Fury, if needed.

 

-Activate God-Mode.

 

-Shred away.

Edited February 25, 2013 by Dude w/ a Hat

[Toa Levacius Zehvor]

You know what would be awesome? Is if they really do make two more DLCs past Dragonborn like the rumors say, and while the first is independent, the second (and final) is actually a super-massive one and links all of the other DLCs main quests, along with the game Skyrim itself, to some epic end-all quest that pretty much uses all of your powers.

 

I still want to see a quest where you get all of your friends/followers and the like at your side to some awesome thing like take command of military units against the Thalmor or some other force that pops up. Or all of your allied factions. What could possibly stand against you then, or the side you fight for?

 

I'm also intrigued by the idea of Bend Will being used on an Elder Scroll.

 

-Toa Levacius Zehvor

[Katuko]

I still want to see a quest where you get all of your friends/followers and the like at your side to some awesome thing like take command of military units against the Thalmor or some other force that pops up. Or all of your allied factions. What could possibly stand against you then, or the side you fight for?

I want to chime in and say that this is very much achievable through mods, since the only thing keeping you from having more followers is a simple variable check. Turning it off lets you have all followers and infinite summons. There is also a mod that ramps up the number of spawns per spawn point, and everything becomes an awesome war zone.However, the reason why this epicness is not in-game by default... is the heavy lag it may cause, and in worse cases the AI makes it all crash. The Civil War quests spawn many enemy troops in sequence, and note how the bodies fade away very quickly. The game engine doesn't seem to handle mass spawns very well.

[Dapper-Sama]

Bend Will, on an Elder Scroll? Hmm..

 

I think many uses could be had for the shout. I wonder if it works like an Illusion spell, not working on Daedra, Undead or Machines? Also, it'd be intriguing to be able to use Bend Will on Skyrim's Standing Stones(Guardians stones, Ritual stone, etc.). Of course, It wouldn't have a critical effect, as Miraak hasn't fully reached Skyrim. It would do something neat, like amplify the power of the stone once used.

 

I need to try that...

Edited February 27, 2013 by Dude w/ a Hat

[Toa Levacius Zehvor]

I want to chime in and say that this is very much achievable through mods, since the only thing keeping you from having more followers is a simple variable check. Turning it off lets you have all followers and infinite summons. There is also a moderator that ramps up the number of spawns per spawn point, and everything becomes an awesome war zone.However, the reason why this epicness is not in-game by default... is the heavy lag it may cause, and in worse cases the AI makes it all crash. The Civil War quests spawn many enemy troops in sequence, and note how the bodies fade away very quickly. The game engine doesn't seem to handle mass spawns very well.

 

Mods that let numerous followers follow you are a dime a dozen; what I'm talking about is something quest related. The classic 'hah, hero, you are all alone and I shall now defeat you' followed by an off-screen 'no he's not' that ends up with a bunch of your allies being there and giving up a bunch of snazzy one liners before whooping the bad guy down with you.

 

I think many uses could be had for the shout. I wonder if it works like an Illusion spell, not working on Daedra, Undead or Machines? Also, it'd be intriguing to be able to use Bend Will on Skyrim's Standing Stones(Guardians stones, Ritual stone, etc.). Of course, It wouldn't have a critical effect, as Miraak hasn't fully reached Skyrim. It would do something neat, like amplify the power of the stone once used.

 

As far as I can tell, the Bend Will shout has no use in-game besides getting rid of Miraak's influence and putting people/animals/dragons under your command. But supposedly, it can put the very stones of the earth under your command. Since an Elder Scroll is constantly in a state of flux until the hero completes the prophecy and thereby permaently writes the Scroll, if you could actually influence parts of the Scroll into a certain pattern, you could affect the entire world.

 

-Toa Levacius Zehvor

[Dapper-Sama]

But supposedly, it can put the very stones of the earth under your command.

Exactly. I doubt that it's effects are limited solely to Solsthiem's stones. Well, really it's up to Bethesda whether or not to add these features.

[Katuko]

Mods that let numerous followers follow you are a dime a dozen; what I'm talking about is something quest related. The classic 'hah, hero, you are all alone and I shall now defeat you' followed by an off-screen 'no he's not' that ends up with a bunch of your allies being there and giving up a bunch of snazzy one liners before whooping the bad guy down with you.

I know, I'm just saying that likely the only reason why such a thing is not in-game yet is because of how unstable things become when you add more and more AI.

[Toa Levacius Zehvor]

Mods that let numerous followers follow you are a dime a dozen; what I'm talking about is something quest related. The classic 'hah, hero, you are all alone and I shall now defeat you' followed by an off-screen 'no he's not' that ends up with a bunch of your allies being there and giving up a bunch of snazzy one liners before whooping the bad guy down with you.

I know, I'm just saying that likely the only reason why such a thing is not in-game yet is because of how unstable things become when you add more and more AI.

 

I dunno.

 

Another thing I realized Skyrim is missing - cutscenes. I loved the cutscenes in Morrowind and Oblivion. There weren't many, but where they were, they counted.

 

-Toa Levacius Zehvor

[Dapper-Sama]

Argonians are overrated.

 

...for good reason. They offer the most for any race (Histskin, Waterbreathing, Resist Disease. That's 3).

[Toa Levacius Zehvor]

It's to compensate for how badly they sucked in everything before Skyrim.

 

The thing that drew my ire was how badly they nerfed Redguards in Skyrim. Redguards back in Morrowind had some of the best skills and attributes, 75% Resistance to Poison (beat only by Argonians) and Disease (beat only by Altmer) and an Adrenaline Rush that acted as one of the strongest power boosts you could possibly see in the game. Now they just get poison resistance (which is still boss against Falmer) and an Adrenaline Rush for... stamina. Which is cool, I guess... a little.

 

Still enough pure damage that I could thrash any pansy Argonian trying to hide behind his Histskin.

 

-Toa Levacius Zehvor

[Takatu]

I'm pretty sure they said somewhere that they're continuing to work on DLC. I just hope that if they take else to different places again, it'll be someplace completely new. I like Solstheim, it was nostalgic and had lots of neat places, but I've already played Morrowind and Bloodmoon. I wanna explore places I've never seen before.

 

And a Thalmor-related DLC, of course. I would like nothing more than officially taking my violent, vampire lord Dovahkiin with Odahviing, Durnehviir, and any other dragons and bringing eternal wrath down on those elves.