Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

[Cosmic_Guru]

Don't know if anyone has asked this yet but...

Can you carry on playing after completing the main quests? Like in Fallout 3?

Ta

PS haven't had enough time to play this at all - only just completed the golden claw quest :-0

Yes you can - you can leave whole quest lines to after completing the "main" quest if you so wish.

[Yewone]

Two hits? Lucky sod. I gave everything I had to Lydia, chucked gallons of potions down my neck and occasionally popped up with a lightning bolt while she went hammer and tongs with two staffs and a bunch of scrolls

More annoying than anything, I did it and then died on the next fight without saving, and got stuck trying to do it again for an hour

Well worth it though!

I hit my first proper difficulty spike with this fight.. I got to the end of the dungeon with relative ease, but no way could I clear that last room!

Tried various methods over about an hour, including using fire/lightning runes, every suitable potion I had on me, reanimating corpses.. But just couldn't survive long enough to start doing any serious damage... In the end I just equipped all the stealth enhancing kit I had, quaffed a potion of invisibilty, creeped my way around to the chest, nicked the staff and then ran like fuck!

.... did I miss any good loot off the enemies? If so I may head back there with a tooled up companion at a later date.

Was beginning to wonder if this sudden increased difficulty was the new level banding system in effect. I'm sure I read that certain dungeons enemies base themselves to the level your character is at when you first enter! (i was lvl 18 upon entering this one). If so I could be in bother going forward as my armour rating and close quarter fighting skills are horribly lacking at the mo

[Yewone]

What this does result in, however, is a bit of an obstruction for the main street through the village...

Edit - just noticed the dog in the last pic! He's loving it

This is exactly how my Riverwood high street looks too.. Was quite funny when you first kill it and all the villages gather around the corpse, in total awe!

[SharkyOB]

But if that were the case, lockpicking for example would be significantly easier for me now at level 55 than it was at the start of the game. But it isn't, it's exactly the same level of difficulty for any class of lock because I haven't invested any levelling up points into the perks which do make it easier.

Lockpicking is one where you'd least notice the difference though. If you attack with a weapon type in which you are skilled there's no way you're doing the base damage of the weapon - its damage will be the result of various modifiers such as player ability and opponent defence and armour. Otherwise levelling your skills would be rendered pointless.

There are also different prompts when smithing which suggest at this. You'll get a prompt saying that you haven't got a specific perk required to make an item, but you also get a different prompt if your skill is too low - showing that skill level does make a difference.

[Ran]

But if that were the case, lockpicking for example would be significantly easier for me now at level 55 than it was at the start of the game. But it isn't, it's exactly the same level of difficulty for any class of lock because I haven't invested any levelling up points into the perks which do make it easier.

Maybe there are exceptions like lockpicking for balancing reasons. I'm sure the skill levelling must make a difference to combat/spells and sneak.. That whole system is pretty devalued if you're slowly trudging 10 empty levels or so just to unlock a perk. If you never assigned a perk to sneak but had crept your way to 100 then you'd be as sneaky as someone on Sneak 20 if the levels don't alter your performance. That seems pretty unlikely to me from a game design perspective.

[Ferine]

I was accosted by some hired muscle whilst visiting Riverwood. Based on the contract they were carrying evidently someone was rather disgruntled with my thievery, although I'm not sure how they knew who to blame as no one has ever witnessed any of my crimes.

Anyway, the point was I dragged their corpses to the river and let the current take care of them; I put a lot of work into buttering up the inhabitants whilst robbing them blind, so I didn't want to litter. I guess that probably won't work for a dragon, though.

[Hello Goaty ♥]

Spoiler time for some of you.

Regards the Orphanage in Riften:

I killed the evil bitch owner and the kids are loving it! plus I got away with it. Have I broken any quests by doing so? or made it more interesting?

[kiroquai]

I have got a really good quartet of weapons for all situations now - very pleased with how that's turned out.

Have a Legendary Elven bow which is particularly brutal and can paralyse enemies for a few seconds which, with my perks, is great for taking out enemies at mid-long range. If I have someone running at me in my face I have a particular mace that I got from a quest, which having now been upgraded does a decent amount of damage. I also use the Sanguine Rose to create a handy diversion so I can escape and hide.

The real ace up my sleeve is my Legendary Daedric dagger, which I have enchanted with Soul Trap and can use with my dagger damage x15 sneak perk. The way things work, what I do is buy a load of empty soul gems before setting out on my adventures. I then use the dagger on pretty much anything close-range (very handy in dungeons) and given that it does 15 x 24 damage if I attack properly, my soul gems get filled very quickly and my other three weapons can remain nicely charged.

I AM A KILLING MACHINE

[Cosmic_Guru]

I don't think that can be right! I'm sure that as your skills improve they do get better, regardless of perks. For example, you will do slightly more damage for each level of a combat skill such as archery and you will have a slightly better sneak modifier for each level of that skill.

Yes, you must be right - disregard earlier nonsense from me!

[Ste Pickford]

Spoiler time for some of you.

Regards the Orphanage in Riften:

I killed the evil bitch owner and the kids are loving it! plus I got away with it. Have I broken any quests by doing so? or made it more interesting?

Just sleep on it...

[Flub]

Spoiler time for some of you.

Regards the Orphanage in Riften:

I killed the evil bitch owner and the kids are loving it! plus I got away with it. Have I broken any quests by doing so? or made it more interesting?

I'm pretty sure that's the start of the

Dark Brotherhood line. Shortly you get a letter

[Ste Pickford]

I've been experiencing the end of dungeon boss difficulty spike as well.

I'm usually happy playing games on the easiest difficulty, but this felt a bit too trivial on the lowest setting, so I set the difficulty to the middle setting (Adept) and it feels just right for me. A bit of a challenge when I fight baddies, and I don't always win fights, or sometimes have to retry a couple of times and win with an almost empty health bar.

About three times now I've played through dungeons in this way, really enjoying it, only to meet a boss at the end who I can barely scratch to before being killed in one or two hits.

I guess it might just be me playing poorly, but the difference in difficulty between the bosses and the rest of the dungeon feels a bit too great to me. If I could kill the boss then the dungeon would be trivial. In each case, after a few failed attempts and different tactics, I've had to knock the difficulty back down to easy just for the boss fight. Feels a bit unsatisfying, although I'm glad the difficulty slider is there so I can keep progressing.

[Takizawa]

The merchants are a bit disappointing in this. They seem

to be scaled, so even though there's a bit of variation, they're all selling broadly the same stuff. I hoped shops miles away would sell different stuff. For example I went to the Mages College thinking I would learn spells I couldn't get elsewhere, but all the merchants just sell the exact same spells that Whiterun does. And it's easier to buy them in Whiterun because they're all with one merchant rather than spread across several wandering around the college.

The chap in Dragonsreach only sells up to apprentice level spells, from what i've seen. Or have I missed anther trader of spell tomes somewhere? The guys in the Winterfell College sell all scrolls for each school of magic, once you reach the required level in that skill.

[Schnibbles]

The chap in Dragonsreach only sells up to apprentice level spells, from what i've seen. Or have I missed anther trader of spell tomes somewhere? The guys in the Winterfell College sell all scrolls for each school of magic, once you reach the required level in that skill.

I don't bother with the mages in Winterhold, since you have to faff around finding the relevant expert in each skill. The court wizard of Whiterun, Farengar Secret-Fire, sells all the spells up to your level of mastery - which makes for Christmastime anew every time I can use a new level of spells.

[spork]

So I've tried climbing the steps to the grey beards a couple of times but after only getting a fraction of the way up I end up having this big snow tiger/leopard thing come charging at me which kills me in hardly any time at all.

Am I missing something? It still happens when I sneak up the stairs and being mostly skilled in stealth and bows it is proving a bit difficult!

[Broker]

As for the weapons' history, all the good weapons in Baldur's Gate had histories as I remember.

Suddenly I understand your frustration with lots of aspects of the game, if you're comparing it to BG. Games like that just aren't viable anymore, the amount of work you'd have to put in to make a world of that size at an acceptable modern graphical fidelity with all that detail would be too much, plus the combat wouldn't be considered to be immediate enough.

There will never be another game like the Baldur's Gate series, but this is probably the closest we'll get. Just look at the stuff Bioware are doing now, it's much more limited in scope than Skyrim is in all aspects except dialogue trees and sex options. Games like BG are a relic of the past, the way the industry has moved is away from giant open worlds which are rife with endless options. As imperfect as Bethesda's games may seem to you, they're the only developer making triple A games where that spirit is still alive.

[Magoo]

I've been experiencing the end of dungeon boss difficulty spike as well.

I'm usually happy playing games on the easiest difficulty, but this felt a bit too trivial on the lowest setting, so I set the difficulty to the middle setting (Adept) and it feels just right for me. A bit of a challenge when I fight baddies, and I don't always win fights, or sometimes have to retry a couple of times and win with an almost empty health bar.

About three times now I've played through dungeons in this way, really enjoying it, only to meet a boss at the end who I can barely scratch to before being killed in one or two hits.

I guess it might just be me playing poorly, but the difference in difficulty between the bosses and the rest of the dungeon feels a bit too great to me. If I could kill the boss then the dungeon would be trivial. In each case, after a few failed attempts and different tactics, I've had to knock the difficulty back down to easy just for the boss fight. Feels a bit unsatisfying, although I'm glad the difficulty slider is there so I can keep progressing.

It can be irritating, changes the rhythm of the combat as well. Normally I enjoy balancing between my bow and a few favourite spells to get through the dungeon but sometimes when I reach the boss it's about throwing every attack/shout I can and spamming potions like in Diablo. I don't think there is sufficent scope in the combat engine to increase the difficulty of the boss any other way though.

[AlwaysBeClosing]

1 disc, no, where the hell are you? The moon?

Cheers. Cambodia, most of the phones here are fake, fake DSes, modded PS3s and 360s to high heaven and not a sign of an official case - a floor of a shopping centre here dedicated to copied 360 games, PS2 games, movies, TV shows and music. No choice sadly as a 360 and Skyrim would cost about £100 to post here and probably wouldn't arrive either.

[csuzw]

Regarding boss difficulty spikes. There are a couple of reasons why you might not be scratching them other than them just being too hard. Firstly that they're shielded/warded in some way. Most bosses seem to have some magic ability and mostly that involves warding. It's just about survival until the point they run out of magicka to keep the ward up. Often they'll only cast a ward when you're casting so just keep a spell charged up but don't fire it and they'll hold their ward until it fails. The other option is that they're immune or very resistant to a certain type of damage. Even some lowly novice mages are like this in that they'll just soak up any of 1 type of damage without noticing it, I switch to another type and they drop immediately. That said there are definitely places that are extremely difficult compared to previous bits.

[Cosmic_Guru]

So I've tried climbing the steps to the grey beards a couple of times but after only getting a fraction of the way up I end up having this big snow tiger/leopard thing come charging at me which kills me in hardly any time at all.

Am I missing something? It still happens when I sneak up the stairs and being mostly skilled in stealth and bows it is proving a bit difficult!

This is a tricky opponent at lower levels since trolls regenerate health. Some ideas

1 enchant your bow with fire damage and alternate with fire ball spell (weak to fire)

2 hire a merc or bring a melee follower to distract while you keep your distance

3 avoid the confrontation by riding a horse up or taking advantage of your Companion guild experience and run past

[Magoo]

True and using a resist potion helps a lot if they have a particular magic attack. The ones I have greatest difficulty with are the double hard mercenary types without any magic, just plate armour and massive sword.

[Wickedkitten]

Had another cracking evening on this, finished off the College quests which was superb all the way through. As someone mentioned earlier, they could package that up as a standalone game, it's that good.

Finished off a few side quests (and picked up twice as many more) but unfortunately the night ended on a sad note... Brelyna, my companion from the College, was finally bested I think of the 40 hours i've been playing she's been with me for 25, so i'm feeling the loss. After being jumped and downed by three Forsworn, there was just not enough time for me to save her, even my war dog Vigilance looked on hopelessy as she fell.

R.I.P Brelyna.

Wait a minute, what? War Dog?

[Flub]

So I've tried climbing the steps to the grey beards a couple of times but after only getting a fraction of the way up I end up having this big snow tiger/leopard thing come charging at me which kills me in hardly any time at all.

Am I missing something? It still happens when I sneak up the stairs and being mostly skilled in stealth and bows it is proving a bit difficult!

I've been up those steps on two different characters so far and all I've seen are a few wolves (Trivial) and a snow troll that my battlemage was high enough level to have a good scrap with and my archer just ran away from. I've never seen a sabre cat up there. Maybe it was off looking for wabbits and I got lucky

[kiroquai]

Wait a minute, what? War Dog?

There's a dude just outside one of the cities who sells them. Can't remember where it was though... Markath perhaps?

[Flub]

Wait a minute, what? War Dog?

Outside one of the towns by the stables you can buy a war dog as a follower for 500g.

[kiroquai]

Go talk to the bald dude who hangs around the Jarl (to the left, sometimes up the stairs in the area behind and above the throne) - he'll sell you a house for 5,000 gold .

[Sng]

You just need to find the guy who sells it.

I started levelling heavy armor but changed my mind after a couple of levels/perks and went light armor. I'm not really sure why though. I'm a one-handed weapon fighter who also likes bows. Does using light armor make you, what, quieter when you move around and quicker when running/switching weapons, etc?

Switching weapons/sheathing is one thing I bloody can't stand doing in this game.

[Wickedkitten]

There's a dude just outside one of the cities who sells them. Can't remember where it was though... Markath perhaps?

Outside one of the towns by the stables you can buy a war dog as a follower for 500g.

Ooh cheers, I totally didn't know about this

[redbloodcell]

You just need to find the guy who sells it.

I started levelling heavy armor but changed my mind after a couple of levels/perks and went light armor. I'm not really sure why though. I'm a one-handed weapon fighter who also likes bows. Does using light armor make you, what, quieter when you move around and quicker when running/switching weapons, etc?

Switching weapons/sheathing is one thing I bloody can't stand doing in this game.

Quieter, faster and weighs less.

[robdood]

Ooh cheers, I totally didn't know about this

Sometimes you findstrays just wandering about too! If you talk with them they'll join you