So, Skyrim's out 11/11/11

[kandrathe]

I have tried the two handed, light armored barbarian type (my preference) as well as the heavy armored sword and shield type. Both get eaten alive by opponents like the Silver Hand.

I was lucky enough to get Unrelenting Force, and Freeze as shouts before level 10. This was enough to do some limited crowd control. I had Lydia then, and the way I controlled her, was to take away her sword when I only wanted her bow skills. And, tell her to wait, well back from you (whereas you can always run back to her dragging your mobs to her if you like), or outside the dungeon if you don't want her breaking your stealth (I do this just for the extra loot carrying capacity). I used many minor healing potions. Unrelenting Force shout to stagger the enemy (or better later), then I'd take the time to use healing hands, or heal myself. I find sword and shield is better, esp. when you get bash, block arrows, and block a portion of magical attacks.

The silver hand are specifically designed as enemies of the companions, so I've only ever fought them "naked".

Now, that I'm near level 50, I use a conjured summons as a decoy. They don't last long, but when you are fighting 8 Death Lords at the same time, it's nice to present as many targets for them as is possible. They give me a little payback for my early levels by spamming me with unrelenting force shouts now. It's hard to fight when you're constantly flying through the air, and picking yourself up off the dungeon floor. On the positive side, anything less than a death lord is a cake walk. But, above ground, Ancient Dragons, the Forsworn and Hagravens are always a challenge too. I did get totally owned by a wandering group of Imperial "Guards" that demanded money from me for walking on the road. I refused thinking they were like the other Imperials I'd fought before, but they stomped me in about 5 seconds. I reloaded, and ran back to repeat the encounter, but it was a different random group who were not as difficult.

As luck would have it, I stumbled upon Meridia's shrine and did his quest line. He's the one who hates the undead. His reward is an awesome device for dealing with draugr (and vampires, etc).

[Zyn]

Not to provide any spoilers - but for anyone who hasn't done the portion of the Main Quest where you have to go to Blackreach, I highly recommend heading that way and trying it out. Its about 60% of the way through the main quest, I think.

Basically its the most epic dungeon crawl experience I've had in Skyrim (Or almost any TES game) to date, and it took me over an hour and a half to sort through a long cave, spiraling infinitely downwards past scores of Falmer/Traps/Dwarven Constructs just to get to the elevator to get into Blackreach, let alone complete the quest.

Its a great time, go try it out if you haven't. It was a challenge even at level 51ish with full double enchanted Daedric Weapons/Dragonscale Armor.

-Z

[Thenryb]

I had Lydia then, and the way I controlled her, was to take away her sword when I only wanted her bow skills. And, tell her to wait, well back from you (whereas you can always run back to her dragging your mobs to her if you like), or outside the dungeon if you don't want her breaking your stealth (I do this just for the extra loot carrying capacity).

Yeah, you can do this with Lydia, but you cannot make Aela or Farkas wait. You have no control on their behavior at all and they can really get in the way. In one of the Silver Hand missions, I wanted to use a door as a choke point but kept getting "pushed" through the door by Aela. (Speaking of "pushing" companions, none is worse than the dog in the Lord Vile daedric quest). My sword and shield warrior has finally come into his own, largely because I spent some time improving his blocking skill. Just as in Oblivion, upping your blocking skill is really time consuming. You have to let a wolf beat on you at low levels. Finally, my character can use giants to up his blocking skill. I do not know why blocking is so much harder to skill than other combat skills. It has to be the single slowest combat skill to level.

[kandrathe]

Yeah, you can do this with Lydia, but you cannot make Aela or Farkas wait. You have no control on their behavior at all and they can really get in the way. In one of the Silver Hand missions, I wanted to use a door as a choke point but kept getting "pushed" through the door by Aela. (Speaking of "pushing" companions, none is worse than the dog in the Lord Vile daedric quest). My sword and shield warrior has finally come into his own, largely because I spent some time improving his blocking skill. Just as in Oblivion, upping your blocking skill is really time consuming. You have to let a wolf beat on you at low levels. Finally, my character can use giants to up his blocking skill. I do not know why blocking is so much harder to skill than other combat skills. It has to be the single slowest combat skill to level.

Ah. Quest companions, yes, there are many where Aela stands outside guarding the entrance, and the NPC goes hog wild on the dungeon, aggroing everything. <reload>

I was helping the youngest with his stealthy thief on Irkngthand, in the latter steps of the thieves guild quest line. He had to sneak by the Falmer ( sightless snow elves with excellent hearing), but trying to lead the two NPC's through a Falmer camp, while the Falmer are moving around, and not setting off the alarm awakening 10 or so Falmer. For the last camp, he just skipped the sneaking, put on his best armor, and booked for the zone changing door on the other side of the camp. Luckily, the enemy boss NPC you need to defeat, dialogs long enough for the health and stamina bars to recover.

[Concillian]

Picked it up a while ago and have been playing it.

So far mostly good. The consoley UI irritates me, but I'm overlooking it for now.
I'm a side-quester. Only just got Lydia at lvl 13.

Doing light armor / 2H (sword) / sneak / Ench / Smith perks as a first go around. Getting a 2H sneak attack is pretty funny. Two shot a bear with a critical sneak attack this morning.

Seems balanced to be easy enough that you don't really need to optimize, but I'm still pretty early on in the levels.

The leveling system is miles better than Morrowind. Pretty organic, you are what you skill kind of system, I like it.
Skills do have a strange balance in terms of leveling though. I have had to do a certain amount of letting things beat on me to get my armor skill or blocking to keep pace. On the other side of te coin, Sneaking seems to be a little on the "tremendously easy" side to level (you can sneak walk into a wall around a sleeping friendly while AFK and get skill ups). But it is nice that a successful sneak attack gives a HUGE chunk of a skillup... at least with a 2H weapon. I suppose this is considered a difficult kind of sneak attack, so it may get more bonus than a dagger.
Just by feel, weapon skills seem to be balanced around damage done rather than independent hits, so that seems good. Initially, I avoided weapon perks tried keeping my rockjoint just to get extra attacks each kill, but it didn't seem to help. That's some good design.

The caves and such feel pretty linear, but they are fun. Difficult enough that charging in gung ho will often get you killed, so that's good too.

I haven't had much experience with Lydia, but found this gem, thought people would like it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MTMwjYgJsFQ

[kandrathe]

Oh, crap. I guess I'm going to be taking it easy for awhile. I did a dumb thing.

I updated to the 1.2 patch reflexively without checking to see if that was a dumb thing. It's an irreversible change, since at release they updated to 1.1. If you clear the patch, you go back to 1.0 and then the save games (at 1.1) won't load.

The game killer is that they've completely hosed resistances. Whether it's my Nord racial perk, resist gear, or potions, the game delivers full elemental damage. I cleared a cave with high level necromancers, but it soon became deathly serious. I don't mind the dungeon crawls... I can do that. But, without protection, an elder or ancient dragons breath is an almost instant kill.

So, I'm stuck waiting for patch 1.3.

[Treesh]

Oh, crap. I guess I'm going to be taking it easy for awhile. I did a dumb thing.

I updated to the 1.2 patch reflexively without checking to see if that was a dumb thing. It's an irreversible change, since at release they updated to 1.1. If you clear the patch, you go back to 1.0 and then the save games (at 1.1) won't load.

The game killer is that they've completely hosed resistances. Whether it's my Nord racial perk, resist gear, or potions, the game delivers full elemental damage. I cleared a cave with high level necromancers, but it soon became deathly serious. I don't mind the dungeon crawls... I can do that. But, without protection, an elder or ancient dragons breath is an almost instant kill.

So, I'm stuck waiting for patch 1.3.

That sucks. PC version? I haven't been running with resistances except to poison and disease on the Xbox version. Of course, the only real pain from the spellcasters are the damned hagravens so I just get into melee range with them as quickly as I can. And, of course, she only just now made it to level 32 so I've been taking it slow. =)

Conc> That video was hilarious. Poor Lydia. I had to agree with the guy after Lydia got stuck that it was probably for the best. Too funny.

[kandrathe]

That sucks. PC version? I haven't been running with resistances except to poison and disease on the Xbox version. Of course, the only real pain from the spellcasters are the damned hagravens so I just get into melee range with them as quickly as I can. And, of course, she only just now made it to level 32 so I've been taking it slow. =)

Nope. Xbox. If it were the PC I'd have a proper backup. That's what I did in the cave. Just ran up and bashed them with the shield and killed them as quickly as I could before they could get too many spells off.

But... An ancient dragon before this glitch would nearly deplete my 400 health in one breath unless I hid behind something. Closing to melee too early before the coup de grâce was very dangerous, enabling it to breathe and power attack me. I'm working on getting Dragon Rend for this very reason... That is, once they fix it.

[Treesh]

That sucks. PC version? I haven't been running with resistances except to poison and disease on the Xbox version. Of course, the only real pain from the spellcasters are the damned hagravens so I just get into melee range with them as quickly as I can. And, of course, she only just now made it to level 32 so I've been taking it slow. =)

Nope. Xbox. If it were the PC I'd have a proper backup. That's what I did in the cave. Just ran up and bashed them with the shield and killed them as quickly as I could before they could get too many spells off.

But... An ancient dragon before this glitch would nearly deplete my 400 health in one breath unless I hid behind something. Closing to melee too early before the coup de grâce was very dangerous, enabling it to breathe and power attack me. I'm working on getting Dragon Rend for this very reason... That is, once they fix it.

I guess I just haven't noticed the dragon breaths because I'm always hiding in the shadows or behind rocks firing arrows at them. And probably because I'm not a high enough level to fight the really nasty ones. She's level 33 now (I just checked) with 400 health exactly. No resists, no magic gear beyond a ring of pickpocketing that she swiped. How big is your character?

Edit: Oh, and what difficulty are you running on? That could make a difference too. =)

[Rhydderch Hael]

Edit: Oh, and what difficulty are you running on? That could make a difference too. =)

The version 1.2 patch wiped out all resistances/weakness used by a character. Changing the difficulty level will not absolve Bethesda Softworks from this level of sheer 'suck'.

I mean, do they even bother to playtest the patch before releasing it?

[Treesh]

Edit: Oh, and what difficulty are you running on? That could make a difference too. =)

The version 1.2 patch wiped out all resistances/weakness used by a character. Changing the difficulty level will not absolve Bethesda Softworks from this level of sheer 'suck'.

I mean, do they even bother to playtest the patch before releasing it?

Well, I was thinking more about sucking down the 400 HP in just one shot when I basically shrug it off at 33. If he's at a higher difficulty, then yeah, that would make more of a difference for not having resistances work. Because at whatever the default one is, I don't see my health plummeting like that even without any resistances before the patch.

Did they take out the water currents too with this patch? I liked that the water would actually move me when I was swimming. Now it seems like it's back to the boring, static Oblivion/Morrowind water, minus slaughterfish every single step.

Edit: And to clarify, yes, I know resistances are gone. I'm not debating that fact because it is true. I'm just wondering just what the difference is between his sudden no resistances and my no resistances. I'm willing to bet it's difficulty level and character level.

[Crusader]

I play on expert. Dragons hurt now. Big time.

[Zyn]

I play on expert. Dragons hurt now. Big time.

Yeah, me too - an Ancient Dragon pretty much 1 shot me last night. On a brighter note, Alduin died in about 7-8 power attacks!

-Z

[Thenryb]

Since I bought my game from Steam, I suppose they forcibly updated to the patch you are complaining about. I haven't noticed anything myself. A frost dragon breathing on my Nord or on my Redguard Assassin wearing Nightingale armor should tell me whether I have resistance to frost at least. The only other resistance item I have is a small amount to shock. I hate scrolling through my potions to find and drink a resistance potion only to find have the dragon take off and not land until after the potion wears off. This game for me is so full of annoyances (many of them minor) I wonder why I am still bothering to play it. I now remember why I quit playing Oblivion.

[kandrathe]

I hate scrolling through my potions to find and drink a resistance potion only to find have the dragon take off and not land until after the potion wears off.

I've taken to keeping only the biggest health, and resistance potions with me.

[Rhydderch Hael]

I hate scrolling through my potions to find and drink a resistance potion only to find have the dragon take off and not land until after the potion wears off.

I've taken to keeping only the biggest health, and resistance potions with me.

The potions aren't the problem. What we need is a double Ma Deuce in a sandbag emplacement for some good ol' anti-aircraft work...

... or archers, if you wish to stay in-universe.

[Thenryb]

I hate scrolling through my potions to find and drink a resistance potion only to find have the dragon take off and not land until after the potion wears off.

I've taken to keeping only the biggest health, and resistance potions with me.

The potions aren't the problem. What we need is a double Ma Deuce in a sandbag emplacement for some good ol' anti-aircraft work...

... or archers, if you wish to stay in-universe.

Are you really able to hit dragons with archery while they are flying? My assassin has pretty high archery skills and can almost never hit a dragon unless it has landed.

[kandrathe]

Are you really able to hit dragons with archery while they are flying? My assassin has pretty high archery skills and can almost never hit a dragon unless it has landed.

The Ancient I fought yesterday dropped an ebony bow with a 6 sec paralysis enchant. I've yet to see if they drop out of the sky with that one.

It did also exhibit some odd flying behaviors. Attempting to get closer to a mob at a distance from me, it went head down toward the ground, with it's tail almost straight up in the air, and began spinning as if a tornado had grabbed it for about 30 seconds.

I hurt one bad enough and had it crash into the ground recently too. It created a crater, and ripped up the ground reminiscent of the "bugs" co-opted space ship crash in the original MIB.

On many levels, if they can get some of the painful defects ironed out, the dragon AI and animation in an open world 3D game space is a tremendous gaming accomplishment. I was pretty shocked at how "decapitate" *really* works, as the orc brigand's head rolls on down the hill. I would have been even *more* surprised it the head, and the body had separate loots.

My biggest gripes are 1) now, the broken resistance crap, 2) the lag in bringing up the save games list, and 3) blathering NPC's with a limited vocabulary.

Such as, every time I head to the apothecary in Whiterun, the shopkeeper says the exact same thing every 10 seconds. Or, the lack of any prescience whatsoever, such the Whiterun court mage continually suggesting that I may have some talent, and to head up the Winterhold -- not realizing I've been in charge of the Mages College and the Archmage for 6 game months. Having built some stuff in the prior construction sets, these variable checks are really very easy things to program into an NPC. What is not easy, is re-hiring the voice actor to add optional dialog after the fact. Even if they couldn't get it into the initial release, I hope they've scripted more content than they used.

[Thenryb]

[quote My biggest gripes are 1) now, the broken resistance crap, 2) the lag in bringing up the save games list, and 3) blathering NPC's with a limited vocabulary.

Such as, every time I head to the apothecary in Whiterun, the shopkeeper says the exact same thing every 10 seconds. Or, the lack of any prescience whatsoever, such the Whiterun court mage continually suggesting that I may have some talent, and to head up the Winterhold -- not realizing I've been in charge of the Mages College and the Archmage for 6 game months. Having built some stuff in the prior construction sets, these variable checks are really very easy things to program into an NPC. What is not easy, is re-hiring the voice actor to add optional dialog after the fact. Even if they couldn't get it into the initial release, I hope they've scripted more content than they used.
[/quote]

Oh my, yes, the blathering NPCs are really annoying. You run through Whiterun and some old women you never talk to says "come to see an old women have you?" There is also the blacksmith's endless and repetitive blather. One of my characters "married" (if that term really applies to the sterile Skyrim version of the institution) Camella?? and she feels compelled to thank me for returning the Claw to the Riverwood Trader every time I enter my Whiterun home. After you become Harbinger of the Companions, Aela still says the same line to the effect that you are tougher than you look. None of the mages recognize you as the Arch Mage (same with Oblivion) nor do you seem to be recognized as head of the Thieves Guild. All of the guards used to be an adventurer like you until they were shot in the knee.

Another thing is the weight of the dragon scales and bones. You head off to do some quest, encounter a dragon and kill it. If you take the bones and scales you are likely to be encumbered. I know you can avoid this by making sure you are not toting anything you do not absolutely need, but often this happens before you have any safe place to store excess gear. You are then encumbered and the game sees fit to remind you of this every 30 seconds or so. Of course Lydia can assist if you haven't become sick of HER repetitive blather and left her at Dragonreach. I suppose you could leave the bones and come back later but I suspect they would disappear. Maybe the better solution would to be less anal about feeling you need to loot them all. I don't know how you would manage if you wanted to collect some of that Dwemer stuff or whether that stuff even has a potential use. It really does seem like Oblivion without a feather spell.

[Zyn]

Dwemer stuff can be melted for Ingots I believe.

I also agree, I hate the weight of Bones and Scales.

-Z