Elder Scrolls V - Skyrim

[ulukinatme]

Fucking Trolls. I began the long climb up the 7000 steps only to killed by a ice troll on the way up. Somehow my horse disappeared when I decided to jump off an kill a wolf.

Man, I thought I was a bad hoarder/clepto...you're hoarding baskets and brooms? C'mon man, sell that stuff and boost your Speech skill

I feel like I'm a decent portion of the way through the game now. I hit level 40 and have nearly maxed Destruction, Archery, and several others skills. I haven't done much of the main quest line, but I've located 90+% of all the locations on the map just by wandering on my horse for endless hours. I've cleared out probably 50%-60% of those locations and done a ton of sidequests. I have to say that Skyrim is beautiful, but the snow gets depressing after awhile...especially living in Ohio and going into Winter soon. I love the new interface, implenting the perk system from Fallout. I love the dual casting of spells and epic Archery perks. Overall I think they made Fallout more entertaining though.

I realize it's a difference between they're two franchises, but the lack of humor makes the game less entertaining for me. Don't get me wrong, I love all their Elder Scrolls games. I've played them all but the first. I'm just starting to get bored with the "Go to a cave, clear out the bandits/necromancers/draugr, retrieve item" questlines. The quests involving Daedric Princes or Draemora have been the most entertaining so far. It seems like too many quests are cut and dry, not as many cool ones that are outside the box or involve neat objectives or NPCs. I'm finally getting around to doing the Thieves Guild quests, so maybe that will change (I wrote the Oblivion Guide for the Thieves and Mages guilds for GameFAQs). I was very disappointed with the Mage's Guild, waaaay too short.

 

[Smooth Olaf]

Here's a question since I'm new at Elder Scrolls. I'm a Nord with a sword and shield. Whenever I level up, I either raise my health or stamina. Do I do anything with Magicka? Can I even use magic? I haven't done a damn thing with Destruction or the like. Whenever I up my skills, I usually choose one-handed, shields, archery, lockpicking, and smithing. Am I doing it right or am I setting myself up for some serious failure later on?

 

[CentralMOBuck]

Here's a question since I'm new at Elder Scrolls. I'm a Nord with a sword and shield. Whenever I level up, I either raise my health or stamina. Do I do anything with Magicka? Can I even use magic? I haven't done a damn thing with Destruction or the like. Whenever I up my skills, I usually choose one-handed, shields, archery, lockpicking, and smithing. Am I doing it right or am I setting myself up for some serious failure later on?

I started with the same path and just started messing around with Magicka (level 9). I've got my two-handed quite high so I'm going to hold off for a while on upgrading that. If it's a tough enemy I start out by shooting him up with fire and electricity. When my magic drops to low I switch to my main weapon and bash them until they die.

Man, I thought I was a bad hoarder/clepto...you're hoarding baskets and brooms? C'mon man, sell that stuff and boost your Speech skill

Ha, I got that from another forum.

 

[jlb1705]

Here's a question since I'm new at Elder Scrolls. I'm a Nord with a sword and shield. Whenever I level up, I either raise my health or stamina. Do I do anything with Magicka? Can I even use magic? I haven't done a damn thing with Destruction or the like. Whenever I up my skills, I usually choose one-handed, shields, archery, lockpicking, and smithing. Am I doing it right or am I setting myself up for some serious failure later on?

If you're playing using primarily melee attacks, then I wouldn't worry about raising Magicka until your Health and Stamina are well-established, if ever. However, you can use magic and probably should at least to a small extent for healing and soul trapping (for use in recharging enchanted weapons) if nothing else. Just keep in mind that if you don't raise Magicka, some of the more powerful spells will be off limits to you, costing more Magicka to cast than you have.

My character is a lvl. 24 Nord that uses bows and one-handed weapons. I haven't spent any points raising Magicka. I really only use Restoration spells with any sort of regularity. I'm anticipating that I'll reach a point where I've looted all I'll need to loot and I'll have less of a need to raise my carrying capacity. At that point I might start to raise my Magicka a bit. At some point I'll probably need it for stronger/faster healing against more advanced foes.

The nice thing about TES games is that as long as you have a strategy of some kind, any number of styles of play can be successful. You just have to commit to it. What will end up happening isn't that you won't become strong enough to finish the game, it's that you'll hear about something that lies outside of your character's skills that would be really fun to do, but can't. That's why you play the game again with a new character.

This game is also a little different from previous TES games. In Oblivion for instance, if you play long enough, purchase training and spam all of the things that raise your skills, you can eventually max out everything. You could potentially play the game nearly to exhaustion, not touch anything magic related and then suddenly max it all out at the end and become a Master of ever skill in the game. With the new perks system though, that should be impossible since you can't unlock them all with one character. There is an apparent level cap of 81 - which could earn you enough points to unlock about a quarter of them, I believe. On the other hand though, the new system is great for figuring out exactly what you want your character to be like in the first place. In previous games you had to decide up front what you wanted your character's strongest skills and attributes to be - for better or worse. In Skyrim, you can play the game and try out just about any skill you want before committing to your specialties. If you're not too far along, you might want to try out some of the magic and see if it is to your liking

BTW, re: lockpicking... I'm not playing as a thief, but I pick just about every locked chest and door that might lead to loot. I haven't gone after a single perk in that tree and have been able to pick any lock I want (even Adept and Master level) in 5 picks or fewer. Raising your lockpicking skill was essential in Oblivion - so much of it was due to chance and picks broke like crazy. In Skyrim, you can get by more on your own skill with the thumbstick. Just some food for thought - I'm spending those perk points elsewhere.

 

[ulukinatme]

Here's a question since I'm new at Elder Scrolls. I'm a Nord with a sword and shield. Whenever I level up, I either raise my health or stamina. Do I do anything with Magicka? Can I even use magic? I haven't done a damn thing with Destruction or the like. Whenever I up my skills, I usually choose one-handed, shields, archery, lockpicking, and smithing. Am I doing it right or am I setting myself up for some serious failure later on?

I was the same as you and CentralMOBuck. I started off dual weilding swords though. I found that it wasn't very efficient against dragon fights, so I started leveling Archery/Sneak. I got to a point where I was 1 shotting a lot of mobs with my bow and Sneak attacks. Eventually I wanted to try magic, but that wasn't until level 25-30. I've found that magic can be very effective where I don't need to sneak around so much, but I spend time running/hiding to let my magic bar refill sometimes so I don't burn potions. Having put a lot of points into Destruction and getting it to 80+, I destroy just about anything with 1-4 Dual Casted Lightning Bolts. I could use Thunderbolt, but the extra Magicka cost sometimes makes it too costly. It also helps to find gear that helps Magic Regen, as otherwise you'll be forced to switch to weapons mid fight a lot or you'll have to join Potion Drinkers Anonymous.

In any case, I don't think you're going to be setting yourself up for failure. I haven't run into any mobs that are immune to the ol' sword and shield. I do suggest training in some sort of ranged attack though, whether it be Archery or Destruction. There will be some fights where it will greatly benefit you to be able to hit a target from a distance. It's especially handy against those tougher 2 hand weilding boss mobs that can kill you in just a few hits, blowing them away before they even get within range is awesome. Also remember that stagger is your friend! Anytime you can unlock stagger with either magic attacks, archery, or regular weapons you'll be making fights go much easier for yourself.

 

[Deety]

Cool looking game. This isn't something where you need to have played the earlier versions to get what's going on, is it?

 

[ulukinatme]

Cool looking game. This isn't something where you need to have played the earlier versions to get what's going on, is it?

Not really, I didn't start playing the TES games until III, I went back and played II later. Often times the game will make some references to past events, but usually just in passing. Every story is unique for each game, and theres no reason not to jump in at any time. Often times you'll find books in game as well. They will cronicle previous stories and plots, so you can get a taste of what happened before.

 

[jlb1705]

Not really, I didn't start playing the TES games until III, I went back and played II later. Often times the game will make some references to past events, but usually just in passing. Every story is unique for each game, and theres no reason not to jump in at any time. Often times you'll find books in game as well. They will cronicle previous stories and plots, so you can get a taste of what happened before.

I started playing with III (Morrowind) as well. I'm a console player, and that was the first one available that way.

As somebody else said earlier in the thread, you don't need to play the earlier games to catch up to this one, but you should play them anyway because they are damn good games.

 

[Deety]

Not really, I didn't start playing the TES games until III, I went back and played II later. Often times the game will make some references to past events, but usually just in passing. Every story is unique for each game, and theres no reason not to jump in at any time. Often times you'll find books in game as well. They will cronicle previous stories and plots, so you can get a taste of what happened before.

Cool. I don't play often, and I have some from the Steam summer sale I haven't touched yet, but I keep hearing people say this one looks incredible. Everyone seems to be playing it in different ways, which is very appealing.

I am looking forward to BioShock Infinite, but have a feeling all that flying through the air is going to make me dizzy. Er. Dizzier.

 

[jlb1705]

Cool. I don't play often, and I have some from the Steam summer sale I haven't touched yet, but I keep hearing people say this one looks incredible. Everyone seems to be playing it in different ways, which is very appealing.

I am looking forward to BioShock Infinite, but have a feeling all that flying through the air is going to make me dizzy. Er. Dizzier.

Heck, I plan on playing it in different ways in my own right. Right now I'm playing as a warrior hero. I want to do new runthroughs sometime in the future both as a mage and as a thief/assassin/evil jerk.

 

[CentralMOBuck]

I did hear one of the characters mention "morrowind" during a dialog. Nothing more than talking like it was another world/continent.

 

[Deety]

Heck, I plan on playing it in different ways in my own right. Right now I'm playing as a warrior hero. I want to do new runthroughs sometime in the future both as a mage and as a thief/assassin/evil jerk.

That hoarder career looks pretty fun. All your random stuffs are belong to me!

 

[ulukinatme]

Cool. I don't play often, and I have some from the Steam summer sale I haven't touched yet, but I keep hearing people say this one looks incredible. Everyone seems to be playing it in different ways, which is very appealing.

I am looking forward to BioShock Infinite, but have a feeling all that flying through the air is going to make me dizzy. Er. Dizzier.

I definitely suggest getting the game for PC if you do try it, whether it be through Steam or traditional hard copy. TES games beg to be played on PC because the modding community is superb. I do suggest playing the game through as "Vanilla" first, but the mods put out by the community can add a lot of life to the game afterwards. Custom quests, NPCs with voiced dialogs, tougher mobs, new spells, new weapons, custom houses, custom worlds even, and HD textures and improved sounds. Then theres other other mods that can add completely new features. For instance in Fallout 3 someone made a complete working movie theatre that played old timey pictures when none of that existed before. The community has already released over 100 mods for Skyrim in the week and a half it's been out, it's certainly amazing.

http://www.skyrimnexus.com/

 

[Deety]

I definitely suggest getting the game for PC if you do try it, whether it be through Steam or traditional hard copy. TES games beg to be played on PC because the modding community is superb. I do suggest playing the game through as "Vanilla" first, but the mods put out by the community can add a lot of life to the game afterwards. Custom quests, NPCs with voiced dialogs, tougher mobs, new spells, new weapons, custom houses, custom worlds even, and HD textures and improved sounds. Then theres other other mods that can add completely new features. For instance in Fallout 3 someone made a complete working movie theatre that played old timey pictures when none of that existed before. The community has already released over 100 mods for Skyrim in the week and a half it's been out, it's certainly amazing.

Oh boy. Now that sounds dangerous. I like things that can be modded. Mess with all the things!

 

[CentralMOBuck]

Oh boy. Now that sounds dangerous. I like things that can be modded. Mess with all the things!

With the pc you can hit tilda key and generate nearly any item. So you could quickly fill up a room and generate all the shit you want.