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The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim |OT2| Team Edward's Revenge

GhaleonEB

Member
Dwarven ruins are amazing for leveling up smithing. Just grab all the struts/dwemer metals and make dwarven bows. Not as fast as pre-patch making daggers but it's still pretty good.

They also tend to have some pretty good loot in general, given the mix of enemies. Certain very large bosses at the end of them are like walking loot pinatas. Again, assuming you're high enough level to take them down.


I'm slowly grinding my final pre-Dragonborn character up to level 50 for the achievement. I've transitioned from pure archery to include daggers, and throats are getting cut left and right. I just went through a big fort filled with wizards and cut about 2/3 of their throats in the process. Incredibly satisfying stuff.

I've found I can combine my archer and alchemy to power level my one-handed, which is facilitating said throat cutting. I'll poison my bow with paralysis, which is good for 12 seconds per dose, two doses per bottle. Then tag some fairly powerful enemy such as a bandit marauder or chieftain, and while they're laying there helpless pull out the ol' dagger and wail away on them. If I don't finish before they start to get up, pull out the bow and tag them again, then back to the dagger to finish. Pushed one-handed up 10 levels in a couple days this way. (Playing on Master means everyone has plenty of health to work through.)

Level 44 overall now, about to hit level 45, which will make Luna my highest ranking character. She'll get to 50 on the basis of the three crafting skills (all in the 70-80's), pick pocketing, and one handed. I'll probably hit 50 right before Dragonborn comes out, at which point I'll re-roll a new character and dive in.

Over a year later, Skyrim still has me by the balls.
 
Have never played an Elder Scrolls game before but my gf's parents bought me Skyrim last Christmas and I've finally cleared my backlog and I'm ready to jump in

Any good starting tips (a'la Dark Souls don't fight the skeletons)? Also, what's a good starting class for beginners and what skills should I be concentrating on upgrading at first? Thanks in advance!

The easiest playstyle in the game is definitely that of the Sniper- Emphasize Sneak and Archery with the highest-powered bows and arrows you can get your hands on.

Also, don't really worry about what race you choose- you are what you play, and starting advantages cease to matter very quickly. Just play how you feel comfortable.
 

Merguson

Banned
So after 210 hours of Skyrim (including the DLCs as well), I finally discover the wooden mask in the Labyrinthian which allows you to insert the dragon priest masks onto a shrine.

I had two on me.. no idea where the rest are... I know I've stored some of them in my houses so I'll have to go hunting for the masks...

After spending so much time with skyrim, I'm still finding new stuff!
 

GhaleonEB

Member
So after 210 hours of Skyrim (including the DLCs as well), I finally discover the wooden mask in the Labyrinthian which allows you to insert the dragon priest masks onto a shrine.

I had two on me.. no idea where the rest are... I know I've stored some of them in my houses so I'll have to go hunting for the masks...

After spending so much time with skyrim, I'm still finding new stuff!

This was one of my favorite things in the entire game. I love that it's not a formal quest - there's no misc. task or quest that pops up telling you to collect all 10. Just the wooden mask, the situation with the back story, and the pedestal. No hand holding here, which is kinda refreshing from Bethesda.

I created one character whose main task was just to collect those masks, it was a lot of fun.
 

Merguson

Banned
This was one of my favorite things in the entire game. I love that it's not a formal quest - there's no misc. task or quest that pops up telling you to collect all 10. Just the wooden mask, the situation with the back story, and the pedestal. No hand holding here, which is kinda refreshing from Bethesda.

I created one character whose main task was just to collect those masks, it was a lot of fun.

Speaking of which, I found all the masks except Krosis. He was in an area that was already discovered. If I didn't check his location, I would have been all over skyrim trying to discover locations to find him. It was amusing to go through my houses trying to figure out where I put the masks.

It was pretty sweet to discover that "quest" and complete it. I have no idea how I missed that shrine room. I explored through the place already. Only checked it out again because I found the place of the Dragon Cult, killed the guy that impersonates the imperial or stormcloak officer, discovered the note telling him to take the mask to Labyrinthian. And from there, the task started.
 

GhaleonEB

Member
So have people posted pictures or videos of their adventures breaking outside of the intended world geometry before? Twice now I've found myself exploring and going far beyond the edges of the map, out to these surreal barren landscapes we were not meant to see, and then out further to the very edge of the world geometry. From there you can jump off the world and land in the sea beneath the physical game world, and swim under the mountains and land we normally walk on.

It's surreal and amazing. I did it in the south a few weeks ago, and took lots of pics. and just did it again in the mountains to the far north of Markarth. It's one of those bugs that makes me appreciate the game more, not less, because of just how much more Bethesda built than we actually can see normally.

Here's where I am on the world map:

IMG_8087.jpg


And the view:



This is the edge of the physical world, which I've been running along:



And the Sea Beneath the Land, when you jump off it:


It gets really trippy down there....
 

chunk3rvd

Member
Just got to the first village and I'm still trying to play with my moral compass on for now! Most of the stuff in the village says "steal" which I guess I'm not supposed to do but in the blacksmith's house there's a bunch of stuff I can just take. Am I ok to do this? Are there any repercussions?

It's all a bit overwhelming so far. I've arrived in the village and been given 2 missions but I feel like I could spend an hour or 2 exploring everything in this tiny village. I'm like this with most open world games at first though. I'm sure once I get used to the locations it will all start to feel a lot smaller and manageable
 

Arjen

Member
Just got to the first village and I'm still trying to play with my moral compass on for now! Most of the stuff in the village says "steal" which I guess I'm not supposed to do but in the blacksmith's house there's a bunch of stuff I can just take. Am I ok to do this? Are there any repercussions?

It's all a bit overwhelming so far. I've arrived in the village and been given 2 missions but I feel like I could spend an hour or 2 exploring everything in this tiny village. I'm like this with most open world games at first though. I'm sure once I get used to the locations it will all start to feel a lot smaller and manageable

I'm level 78 with over 210 hours playtime on that character and i still discover new locations.
To give you idea about the scope of the world ;)
 

GhaleonEB

Member
Just got to the first village and I'm still trying to play with my moral compass on for now! Most of the stuff in the village says "steal" which I guess I'm not supposed to do but in the blacksmith's house there's a bunch of stuff I can just take. Am I ok to do this? Are there any repercussions?

It's all a bit overwhelming so far. I've arrived in the village and been given 2 missions but I feel like I could spend an hour or 2 exploring everything in this tiny village. I'm like this with most open world games at first though. I'm sure once I get used to the locations it will all start to feel a lot smaller and manageable

The blacksmith there is friendly and will help you out with some initial supplies, for free. Keep in mind that anything that counts as stealing you won't be able to sell. You can use that stuff, of course. Just don't get caught. :)

I'm on my 6th character with 300+ hours into the game, and last night I found two places I'd never explored before. The game is nuts.

Oh yes. It's awesome, I agree.

I need to start playing this game again.

Ah, I actually remember that now. How time flies.

Luna is level 45 now, about to hit level 46. Assuming I stop wandering around for a while.
 

Slermy

Member
Just got to the first village and I'm still trying to play with my moral compass on for now! Most of the stuff in the village says "steal" which I guess I'm not supposed to do but in the blacksmith's house there's a bunch of stuff I can just take. Am I ok to do this? Are there any repercussions?

Nope, story wise it's because he's offered to help you out.

Finally gonna get this game, can't wait! Can you play as an orc or something similar?

Playing as one actually gains you access to some forts you would be hostile to as other races.
 

vixlar

Member
Just got to the first village and I'm still trying to play with my moral compass on for now! Most of the stuff in the village says "steal" which I guess I'm not supposed to do but in the blacksmith's house there's a bunch of stuff I can just take. Am I ok to do this? Are there any repercussions?

It's all a bit overwhelming so far. I've arrived in the village and been given 2 missions but I feel like I could spend an hour or 2 exploring everything in this tiny village. I'm like this with most open world games at first though. I'm sure once I get used to the locations it will all start to feel a lot smaller and manageable

If you want to steal something, go to stealth mode, so you are sure nobody is seeing you. If you steal something and nobody sees you, no worries. You can use that item, but you can't sell it. And if you go to jail, you lose all the stolen items... I think. At least it was like that in Oblivion.

If you try to steal and someone see you, you get a wanted bounty and guards would try to catch you, but you can go to other region, and the guards there won't know anything about you being a criminal. If you return to where you comitted a crime, those guards still remember your actions.

Ah, and if you complete a mission for a store owner, check the products on display, many of them would be free...
 

chunk3rvd

Member
Thanks for all the advice guys. I've been asking my girlfriend's dad about it too (since he bought the game for me last Christmas) and his simple version was - red writing means you'll get in trouble - white writing I can just fill my pockets!

Still not sure how I want my playstyle to evolve as I've never played anything like this in my 25 years of video games. Played all the Zelda's and stuff like Earthbound, Mario RPG, FF VII and more recently fell in love with Demon's and Dark Souls, but no RPG like this so it all seems a but daunting and overwhelming right now. Just trying to read what I can and take it all in

My GF's Dad said he played the whole game with a bow and arrow and a few people here have called it "easy mode" so while it seems like an obvious path to take, part of me would like to experiment a bit more and try stuff out. Just been going round with my Iron Mace and Shield so far which have both been upgraded to fine although I found a different version of the iron mace that seems to have all the same stats but inflicts stamina penalties so I'm thinking I'll upgrade that a little and swap over. Rolling a Nord but didn't like the bigger 2H weapons so far as they seemed a bit slow
 

cdyhybrid

Member
Thanks for all the advice guys. I've been asking my girlfriend's dad about it too (since he bought the game for me last Christmas) and his simple version was - red writing means you'll get in trouble - white writing I can just fill my pockets!

Still not sure how I want my playstyle to evolve as I've never played anything like this in my 25 years of video games. Played all the Zelda's and stuff like Earthbound, Mario RPG, FF VII and more recently fell in love with Demon's and Dark Souls, but no RPG like this so it all seems a but daunting and overwhelming right now. Just trying to read what I can and take it all in

My GF's Dad said he played the whole game with a bow and arrow and a few people here have called it "easy mode" so while it seems like an obvious path to take, part of me would like to experiment a bit more and try stuff out. Just been going round with my Iron Mace and Shield so far which have both been upgraded to fine although I found a different version of the iron mace that seems to have all the same stats but inflicts stamina penalties so I'm thinking I'll upgrade that a little and swap over. Rolling a Nord but didn't like the bigger 2H weapons so far as they seemed a bit slow
One handed with a shield is a solid build for starters. Very sturdy. You'll want some form of ranged attack at some point though, either archery or magic.
 

GhaleonEB

Member
One handed with a shield is a solid build for starters. Very sturdy. You'll want some form of ranged attack at some point though, either archery or magic.

Yeah, sword and board is a lot of fun, especially once you get shield bashing down. Combined with archery or destruction magic and it's a well rounded build.

I love stealth so I tend to do archery, stealth and daggers to fall back on for close combat.
 

cdyhybrid

Member
Yeah, sword and board is a lot of fun, especially once you get shield bashing down. Combined with archery or destruction magic and it's a well rounded build.

I love stealth so I tend to do archery, stealth and daggers to fall back on for close combat.
What difficulty do you play on? I briefly started an assassin character that uses crossbows. On Master I can one-shot common bandits and stuff but anything bigger I have to run them around in circles and jump off ledges to exploit their pathing.

Can't decide if I want to save that character for Frostfall 2.0 and Dragonborn or save my light armor 2h berserker.
 

GhaleonEB

Member
What difficulty do you play on? I briefly started an assassin character that uses crossbows. On Master I can one-shot common bandits and stuff but anything bigger I have to run them around in circles and jump off ledges to exploit their pathing.

Can't decide if I want to save that character for Frostfall 2.0 and Dragonborn or save my light armor 2h berserker.

I've played both Expert (the 4th one up, I think?) and Master. In general I like Master a lot, it's got a nice steep difficulty curve but it's doable. But it has some odd difficulty spikes when you run into the odd damage sponge that can one hit you, and you end up with the kind of situations you describe.

For my current character I did Expert until I got up to around level 30 and I felt I was one-shotting too many dudes so I bumped it up to Master, and it's worked out pretty well.
 

SJRB

Gold Member
After not playing the PS3 version since my save game tanked, today I purchased the pc version. It's good to be back in Skyrim, landscape still looks stunning.

The improvement in graphic fidelity between the PS3 and PC is shocking to say the least.
 

Dyno

Member
I'm burnt out on Dark Souls so I made a new character.

I wanted to play a pure fighter type so I selected Redguard because they are a great race for that kind of play. I made a handsome black guy and then called him Dynobama! He fights with two swords and a bow. Slashing with two swords and then activating Adrenaline Surge is just the kind of campaign strategy Dynobama needed to win the primaries.

Dynobama is all for big government so he joined the Imperials, who have the right to defend themselves against Nord aggression. At the beginning of the game someone asked Dynobama to speak with the Jarl at Whiterun but our man Dynobama wasn't elected to waste time with foreign dignitaries. Dynobama has a mandate to find jobs and get this country back on track. He needs to marshal the nation's resources, so he went into a mine.

So far it's been good times. Any tips for fighting with two weapons? Some times I get walloped but good!
 
What's the GAF consensus on Dawnguard?

It's a wonderfully story-focused questline with Half-Life 2 companion-based story-telling. Dawnguard also acts as the addition of a new Guild, which is pretty neat as well. All in all, well worth the $20, IMO, and easily worth the $10.
 

KePoW

Banned
It's a wonderfully story-focused questline with Half-Life 2 companion-based story-telling. Dawnguard also acts as the addition of a new Guild, which is pretty neat as well. All in all, well worth the $20, IMO, and easily worth the $10.

Thanks guys, I'll get it on the Steam sale!
 
HALP, GAF.

I've decided to finally get back into the game on PC and I've run into an odd problem regarding Xbox 360 controls. I prefer to set 'A' as jump and 'Y' as activate, but when I change them it also changes the menu inputs as well, all the way to the start screen, so now confirming an option is done with 'Y' which is really bugging me. I don't recall it doing this when I last played the game a year ago. Did one of the new patches change something? Is there a way for me to change gameplay controls using the X360 Controller without affecting menu controls?

HALP, GAF. I have Google'd this for hours and couldn't find anything regarding it.
 
HALP, GAF.

I've decided to finally get back into the game on PC and I've run into an odd problem regarding Xbox 360 controls. I prefer to set 'A' as jump and 'Y' as activate, but when I change them it also changes the menu inputs as well, all the way to the start screen, so now confirming an option is done with 'Y' which is really bugging me. I don't recall it doing this when I last played the game a year ago. Did one of the new patches change something? Is there a way for me to change gameplay controls using the X360 Controller without affecting menu controls?

HALP, GAF. I have Google'd this for hours and couldn't find anything regarding it.

I dunno, really. I remember it being like this for the 360 version of Oblivion, as well, but I never bothered changing them for Skyrim.
 
I dunno, really. I remember it being like this for the 360 version of Oblivion, as well, but I never bothered changing them for Skyrim.

Hmm, maybe it was always like this but I just didn't care a year ago. But I highly doubt that as it's annoying when the on-screen prompt says to press 'A' even though I gotta press 'Y' for everything now.
 

cory021

Neo Member
Wait, do you really have to go to the College of Winterhold for spells above Apprentice level? I was hoping to put that off.
Pretty certain that spell books are sold globally and are related to what skill you are in that college of magic. If you are level 55 in Conjuration, you'll be able to find Journeyman level spells from places that sell those books.
 

FStop7

Banned
I just came across a dragon and a giant fighting each other on a rugged hillside at night... in the middle of a thunderstorm.

When I first saw it in the distance all I could see was the faint glow of the dragon's fire, which looked incredible through the rain and mist

Then, as I got closer, I watched them standing toe to toe trading shots. At one point the giant caught fire. So now there was a flaming giant in the middle of a slugfest with a dragon, at night, in a raging storm. The giant eventually won, and being the jerks we are we then picked it off since it was weakened.

That was probably the most spectacular thing I've yet to see in this game.
 

moojito

Member
I just came across a dragon and a giant fighting each other on a rugged hillside at night... in the middle of a thunderstorm.

When I first saw it in the distance all I could see was the faint glow of the dragon's fire, which looked incredible through the rain and mist

Then, as I got closer, I watched them standing toe to toe trading shots. At one point the giant caught fire. So now there was a flaming giant in the middle of a slugfest with a dragon, at night, in a raging storm. The giant eventually won, and being the jerks we are we then picked it off since it was weakened.

That was probably the most spectacular thing I've yet to see in this game.

Nice. Every time I load this game up I'm in awe. Definitely a contender for best game of all time, in my opinion.
 

daedalius

Member
Having a great time with Dark Souls while I wait for the next round of Skyrim DLC, but dang, I wish Skyrim had the same depth of combat sometimes.

You certainly don't get it by bumping up the difficulty :p Maybe the next Elder Scrolls, eh?
 

GhaleonEB

Member
Good thing, I wanna experience this thing fresh.

The Dragonborn OT is ready, too, as a successor to this thread.

Yeah at this point I'll just ignore any new media or articles. I just want to wander into it with a new character and explore.

Luna is now at level 48, almost 49. To my delight the barkeep in Whiterun finally mentioned the jarl's kids, so I should be able to get the Daedric artifact achievement, which is what I created this character for originally. I've been cycling through her dialogue at every opportunity, taking all her bandit bounties and such. I'll hopefully knock it off tonight.

Also: throat slitting is one of the most satisfying things evah. Luna has moved on from a pure archer to a formidable back stabber, with a mix of paralysis and invisibility potions in heavy rotation. Going into camo, having my target march past, then popping into view as the dagger is pulled across their throat....so good.

Getting 30x damage now that I've thrashed the Dark Brotherhood and am using some of their gloves makes it even better.
 
Yeah at this point I'll just ignore any new media or articles. I just want to wander into it with a new character and explore.

Luna is now at level 48, almost 49. To my delight the barkeep in Whiterun finally mentioned the jarl's kids, so I should be able to get the Daedric artifact achievement, which is what I created this character for originally. I've been cycling through her dialogue at every opportunity, taking all her bandit bounties and such. I'll hopefully knock it off tonight.

Also: throat slitting is one of the most satisfying things evah. Luna has moved on from a pure archer to a formidable back stabber, with a mix of paralysis and invisibility potions in heavy rotation. Going into camo, having my target march past, then popping into view as the dagger is pulled across their throat....so good.

Getting 30x damage now that I've thrashed the Dark Brotherhood and am using some of their gloves makes it even better.

Wait, you did Destroy The Dark Brotherhood? Why? I've never seen that as anything but a way to kill off an entertaining series of quests.
 

GhaleonEB

Member
Wait, you did Destroy The Dark Brotherhood? Why? I've never seen that as anything but a way to kill off an entertaining series of quests.

Because my current character wasn't going to do the Dark Brotherhood - I'd completed it twice already on other characters. I'm going to retire her around level 50, after knocking off a few more achievements (including, getting to level 50). Plus, I'd never done that quest before.

What prompted it was my desire for those gloves Astrid has. Now I'm rocking 30x damage on back stab....worth it. :p

(Random note, the screams the three victims let out are so great.)
 
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