Topic: The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

@FaeKnight High elf mages are the only character class in TES. Something in your way? Burn it. Someone in your way? Burn them. A hundred people in your way? Burn them all at once. Did they scratch you while you were trying to burn them? Heal yourself back to max. Then burn them. They were the only one with the key to the only door to the 8 story tower you needed to get to the roof of? Just effing fly there.

And if you're looking to change things up, try electrocuting them just for fun!

Meanwhile my lizard man misses the arrow shot, alerts the enemy, and fumbles about trying to swing a sword and use magic at the same time.

It takes a long time and is boring, but you can grind 100 Stealth in the tutorial by grabbing a knife and backstabbing the torturer over and over again while waiting for his health to regen between stabbings. (why has that still not been fixed?!). At which point you'll almost never have to worry about being spotted unless it's a random wolf in the wilderness, your follower charges in recklessly, a civilian is looking in your direction, you get reckless, or are trying for a melee backstab.

EDIT: It was stupid and tedious, but I just killed the end boss of the first barrow you're suppose to delve into at the start of the game. I did so by crouch walking up to the dragon words wall thingie, crouch walking across the room while the boss was breaking his way out of the coffin, then plinking him with an arrow and waiting for him to stop searching. Yeah, sure he was leveled enough I could barely hurt him with a sneak attack due to me grinding Stealth in the tutorial (as well as one handed melee to an extent). Sure it took 30 or 40 arrows to defeat the boss. But I did in fact win, without ever actually being detected.

I played a stealthy archer on PC, and it is indeed a very powerful build. On Switch, I went with a battle mage with bound sword and destruction magic who is also extremely effective.

Not sure if it's a bug, but if you intend to be stealthy it seems using a bow is required. With maxed out stealth (100) and a bow in hand (or even magic) you can be three inches away from an enemy that's looking in your direction with a campfire at your back and they probably wont see you. If you have a melee weapon out though, it seems like enemies can see you with ease regardless of how high your stealth is.

EDIT: On the other hand, I like that if you pay close attention when picking locks, you can tell where the 'sweet spot' is just by the HD rumble effects.

I roll with a conjurartion archer who can sneak. It works surprisingly well.

Been playing this for the first time since it launched on the Xbox 360 (feels like a life time ago!!) and its been bringing back some great memories. I have to admit the game has not aged anywhere near as well as I thought it would. Interiors, especially caves, feel to cramped and the lighting feels off. Whether this was an intentional design choice or just the limitations of the hardware at the time I don't know. NPC animations and movement are rough and the whole sliding along thing is just as jarring as ever before. Character movement feels awkward. Despite all of this it can't be denied this game is still magical to play. You can forgive it all because exploring this well designed massive open world still feels exciting and looks beautiful.

I got this recently to fill the breath of the wild void in my life and I have to say im really underwhelmed... is it just me or is the combat terrible?

^ don't play TES games for the combat. Play it for the huge world and the near total freedom to do what you want. Combat is TES is always gummy/off.

After years and years of wanting to play this, I finally started it today. Which was probably a big mistake because now I am probably going to get stuck into it and never get around to finishing Trials of Mana or any of the other games I have. I'm still very early, but already I have to say I like it better than Oblivion because the very first side quest/favor for someone I have found to be really cool, and I only found one I liked in my entire playthrough of Oblivion. And it has been long and in depth, so if all of the hundreds of them or however many are like this, this game truly will take me forever.

Before I get too far, what have people found to be the most fun way to play. In Oblivion, I was basically a warrior who just sworded my way through (or more frequently, ran away from) any problems. So this time I have decided to focus more on magic and bows and arrows, although unfortunately I can't use them both at the same time so I still find myself using a sword more than anything with the other hand doing magic. I know everyone says combat is the worst part of Bethesda games, and I did find the swordplay lacking which is why I wanted to switch it up this time; but I remember the end boss of Oblivion basically being immune to magic so it was good that I was a warrior otherwise I likely couldn't have beat him. Without spoilers, will I run into a similar problem here (you know, in about 5 years when I finally reach the final boss)?

@Xyphon22
so this will be your first time at skyrim? in that case you will have a blast at the game, well the best way is yor way anyway stealth and bow are considered the most satisfying way to play for a lot of player, i enjoyed magic as well because the small starting pool of magicka make the game much harder for me

i have just one tips for you, do manual save a lot , especially before starting a quest or enter a dungeon if you encounter any breaking bug(yes there are still a few and they start random ) you just need to loading from the nearest save and re do it and most of the time will be fixed, another tips if you go inside dungeon randomly and find special time (especially book) with special names do not pick them, sometime when you started in the future the relative quest the game will forgot you already have it in your inventory and will send you to the same dungeon to retrieve it and the quest will remain stuck forever in your quest log.

I also just started the game for the first time, but I'm not having much fun to be honest. Like mentioned above the combat is terrible and the NPC interactions are jarring. So far I only followed the main quest and I find it pretty boring. Also, coming from Breath of the Wild I find it perplexing how you can not even walk up the slightest slopes. The first dungeon of the main quest sits on a mountain top and you have to walk around the whole mountain to find a path up there. What a strange game.

@aresius Yes, it's my first time playing. I'm not very good at stealth, I keep trying to sneak but I always get spotted anyways. And yes, I definitely save a lot manually just for the heck of it, haven't found any bugs yet, but I've just started. And I've already picked up some books, so hopefully that won't happen to me.

@dionysos283 Yeah, I don't think you can really compare it to BotW, it will probably come up lacking if you do. My biggest thing is I keep thinking about my sword and if I need to switch it, but then I remember they don't break in this game so it's fine. And I haven't reached the first dungeon of the main quest yet, but I did have to climb a mountain for my side quest, but I just followed the trail up and didn't really think about not being able to climb straight up because I didn't want to. But your post did remind me of the funniest part of my Oblivion game when I just couldn't beat some vampires in a cave. I thought, I'll lead them out into the sun and kill them that way. That didn't work, so I just ran. I jumped down a cliff and just kept going, but they followed me and died from the same short fall. Except for one who survived and kept chasing me, so I ran to the nearest city where guards came out and killed him for me. Oh, well, whatever works. I think it's fun so far. Looking forward to diving in more.

@dionysos283
sometime you have to try a lot to find unconventional path , i manage to do it 75% of the time, but yes is not like breath of the wild but the same happens for every other open world, only breath of the wild and immortal fenix you can climb everywhere

@Xyphon22

in this game they power up vampirism, sun does not hurt you/them anymore just cut in half health,stamina and magicka during the day, and after one of the earlier patch if you become a vampire yourself people wont attack you anymore if you reach the 4 stage

for stealth you have to crouch and stay out of sight , keep walking in the shadow , and tried to kill with the bow, attacks in stealth while the enemy does not know where you are will do double damage (triple with the right perk)
and after you spend at least 1-2 perk point in stealth to improve it will be more easier to sneak enemies

@dionysos283 I think there are a couple things to remember. This is a 2011 game so the “climb everything“ mania hadn’t been seen outside of assassin’s creed games. Also it’s designed to be first person first, 3rd person second so that lends to that. TES games’ strength relies on the vastness and relative freedom of the game world. But it tries to have realistic constraints so people take roads (usually) and don’t climb things. That being said the collision detection is such that you can jump climb up a mountain if you really want but it isn’t designed with that in mind so it won’t always be easy.

Many people don’t like the main story but instead go off and do their own thing. I know plenty TES people that don’t even complete the main story (I’m not one of them) and just “build a life “ within the game. I’ve certainly put in so many hours that my PC has a full back story and schedule in the game now.

I'm a little overwhelmed with all of the different things in this game. I have leveled up twice and had no idea what perks I should use because there are like 30 different aspects (I chose destruction to help my magic and speech to get better prices and things). I also have no idea about all the soul gems and enchanting and things. I know they were in Oblivion too and I completely ignored them there, so I can probably get away with that in this game, too, but we'll see. I'm sure I'll come to grips with at least some of it the more I play.

@dionysos283 You can't really compare Skyrim to BotW it would be like comparing a Model - T to a modern Car and saying why doesn't the Model - T have GPS. Yes they are both open world games but Skyrim was done back in 2011 so the technology wasn't there for one thing and another you didn't have people trying to go off the beaten path so to speak. Those who did came up with mods and such which is why Skyrim has such a hug modding community.

Not sure why everyone is focusing so much on the BotW comparison. My point was not, that Skyrim is a bad game because you can't climb. I just found it strange that you can not even walk up the smallest slopes. It's definitely not the main reason, why I (so far) don't enjoy the game. Maybe someone can give me some advice on how to play the game?

I'm enjoying my time with Skyrim. I'm 69 hours in or so. But i must say it's buggy. I've already encountered two bugs that are keeping me from completing the main quest. But thankfully there's enough side quest stuff to keep me busy. Even though i can't complete the main quest i would still recommend Skyrim. If you haven't played it yet your really missing out.