Topic: The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

I don't think there's anything inherently wrong at all with valuing narrative elements over interactive elements or visa versa. I guess, to me, the best examples of a medium are the ones that exploit the unique features of said medium, which is why games that are, for all intent and purposes, just interactive movies confuse me. Why not just make a movie if you don't care about the element of interactivity and player choice? Or at least design the game so it focuses on its strengths instead of constantly reminding me of its weaknesses. I'd much rather play a VN that doesn't even pretend to be "gamey" than something like The Last of Us where the player is either engaging in busywork like dragging planks or boxes around or being railroaded into performing one specific action because the game is worried about maintaining the pacing of its narrative elements.

At the end of the day, it comes down to what expectations you come to a game with in the first place. I've always been a bit disappointed with Skyrim, but I fully understand that this is because, in part, the game is emphasizing elements I just don't care about and de-emphasizing things I do care about. Same with @KirbyTheVampire and BotW, I imagine.

You can't make 20 hour movies, especially in fantasy settings with different races, magic, and fantastical sights. And even if you could you wouldn't get as invested in the characters as you do playing them in survival horror-type games, nor as good of a feel for the environments as you can in games with elaborate level design like Skyrim.

And both The Last of Us and Skyrim do the simple thing that I like of picking up items off of shelves in ruins, which adds to the role play of existing in a world.

Yeah, I struggle to think of a game with a more in-depth magic system than the Elder Scrolls that isn't running terribad MMO combat, action bars, the kind of things that indie developers rely on.

Careful, now. If anyone here plays Skyrim for too long, it's going to feel weird switching to an RPG where most of the NPC's aren't voice-acted. It's going to feel strangely....silent.

There's over 50,000 lines of dialogue in Skyrim.

@Snaplocket I've played this game for like 2000 hours, remember? I think I'll decide for myself how in-depth the spell system is. Not to mention that you're only talking about destruction, and then only about battlemage characters.

Skyrim is an actual action RPG, unlike games like Witcher 3 when you play a single character with a predefined set of abilities. There are so many unique spell effects and perks that modify them; constant cast spells, traps, telekinesis, sneak, confusion spells, a bunch of different summons, necromancy that you can use on any corpse in the game including boss NPCs, and of course all of the different shout effects like storm call. You can create so many characters out of that system that people have created websites and online communities around it — a singleplayer game.

@mikecrci It's so rough, I hate finding unvoiced NPCs and scenes in JRPGs.

@mikecrci I think that's one of the biggest turn-offs with Morrowind for me. The characters just feel a lot more dead than they do in Skyrim and Oblivion when they don't have any voice acting outside of a simple greeting when you first start talking to them.

Plus, the slow walking and unbearably thick fog is really annoying. I should try to find some mods for that. I think I'd enjoy the game a lot more if my character wasn't slowly strolling around a world that looks like Silent Hill. I haven't touched it in so long, which is a shame, because it must be considered such a classic for a reason.

@Ralizah Yeah, I think how you feel about Skyrim is pretty much exactly how I feel about BoTW, lol.

Getting the crossbow in this game makes combat 1000x more fun

@mikecrci I don't think it's THAT much better than a regular bow, although it really feels like it packs a punch when you shoot it, which is satisfying.

@Snaplocket Nah man, it takes a long time to reach the point where you can use the higher-end spells. The basic ones are most certainly basic, which is probably what you've been using.

@Snaplocket You should check out the online spell list if you don't care about spoilers, because there is quite a bit there. You're right that some are just better versions of the basic ones, but there are plenty of unique ones there as well, not to mention the Guardian Stones and Shouts, as well as some of the gear.

@Snaplocket Well, you could say that about the combat system in any game with a combat system that's at all deeper than 2D Mario. Why block, parry, or use the runes in Breath of the Wild when swinging the sword and dodging works just fine?

@Snaplocket Well, they made the game that way so that people could have success no matter what their play style is. For example, they didn't make melee way worse than magic because not everyone wants to be a mage. It's the same thing with BoTW. The weapons all look and control differently, but one isn't significantly better than the other.

I see what you're saying, but I think any one style having a significant leg up over another would be bad game design.

@Snaplocket I could see that being cool to have certain weapons being much more useful than others at certain points, yeah. The only thing is, Skyrim is an RPG, which means you generally prioritize certain skills over others. In Zelda, you're automatically a master of everything and have basically every type of weapon all the time, so they could afford to have certain weapons be more useful than others at certain points.

But if there was a point in Skyrim where a straight melee player needed a bunch of magic, or a straight mage needed high level archery? They would be completely screwed.

@Snaplocket Hey, no worries. I haven't played many WRPGs or RPGs in general either, I just know that the idea behind Skyrim has always been that any play style is viable at all times, albeit each have their own strengths and weaknesses.

ITT people talkin' like rods and runes aren't heavily underpowered in Breath of the Wild's combat. I know Skyrim magic doesn't scale as well to higher levels, but you can just turn the difficulty up or down until you find the right balance for your character. There's nothing that makes a silver enemy take any less than 10 perfect bomb arrow headshots.

New players should also know that a lot of unique spells and shouts are hidden in the DLC content. Not every spell is sold in Whiterun, plenty are hidden behind quests.

@Snaplocket Yeah but they're not dangerous, they just have a lot of health so you have to ragdoll them more times.

I just like the enemy health system in Skyrim because you can always leave a dungeon and find something to improve or specialize your character further to better deal with the situation.

There is a reason that back in 2011 and now with the special re-release Skyrim was called a masterpiece by many critics. Of course this will not be the case for everyone but for most is a masterpiece.

I have found one glitch that I never experienced playing on Pc. Sometimes the level up sound effect plays with no reason at all. I have three Amiibos, I often hear it after I scan the third one, today I've heard it while I was in the water catching fishes. It's not a serious issue but still a gltch anyway.

Sometimes when I'm in battle, my Shouts randomly unequip. Does that happen to anybody else?

Man, I can't figure out the gameplay loop in Skyrim.

I keep filling up my bag and having to dump it at Anise's cabin. And I'm only like level 6 or 7 (maybe 8?) so I'm dying to all kinds of enemies- ran into some trolls. Bad move. Ran into giants- I thought I was whittling away their life but then one hit and he knocked me like 100 feet into the air... should've captured that on video. Idk why I didn't.

I am reluctant to go on the main quest because I feel like I want to power up more, and there's so much to do and I suck at enchanting because I don't really have any good enchantments, and the one I do have (once you factor in my skill and everything else) it only adds like a 1% increase to Magika. And when I try to use the Forge or anything else I never have the right stuff to do it. So I'm not yet upgrading my armor and I'm not yet crafting and I'm not yet making potions (well I've made a few, but I never seem to have the right ingredients) and I'm always stocking up on all the food I see because I need all the help I can get and that just fills my bag up.

Perhaps one of the veterans here could give me some pointers in the game play loop I should be getting into. Should I be crafting yet? Enchanting? Cooking, etc? What should I not be grabbing and taking with me? I tend to take anything that has a value of eight times the weight, give or take. And should I be progressing with the main story or doing side quests or what? My friend at work told me I should take the carriage to all the major cities in Skyrim then so that I can then fast travel to whichever one I need and explore from there but at least I will have a base of operations all across the map. Seemed reasonable.

I have two unusual gems that need an appraiser, I have TONS of stolen crap I need a fence for (but I'm new and in Whiterun, Idk where to find one), I just got a scroll that turns silver into gold and iron into silver. That's kinda cool. And I'm not even sure if I'm spreading my skills too thin. I'm melee but also using magic and trying to use bows. I'd like to have a nice even mix of all three, but if that's spreading myself too thin should I just not use magic at all, or should I just not use the bow? I like the bow, and magic can heal and cast light and all other manner of helpful stuff. And has Fire for trolls ( even though I'm like 50 levels under powered still). It just seems too important to neglect.

@JaxonH Don't worry about enchanting or upgrading yet. Your gear sucks too much to bother, and it's difficult to find the right materials when you're just starting out. You should focus more on just getting more powerful for now. Once you can hold your own, then you should start thinking about smithing and enchanting and whatnot. (Looking up some guides on the best way to level those skills might help, but you can totally do it blind if you want to)

As for what you should take, I would grab anything that has a value level above 50-100, and then sell it right away. Basically, if it looks like it could be useful, keep it. If not, sell it. You can only sell so much to shopkeepers at a time, so you might have to visit up to 3 or so shops every time you want to sell a load.

If you want potions, head to various shops and steal any useful potions from the shelves. Stealing non-useful ones can help as well, once you get a fence you can sell them too.

Whether you start the main story now or wait until later is up to you. There's no right or wrong way to do it, although I would at least do the story until you complete the quest Dragon Rising. Then you'll get access to these things that are scattered across the world that are very powerful.

You should do the carriage thing, but I wouldn't travel to them all at once. That's a decent amount of money once you add it all up. If you need or want to get somewhere, take the carriage, but don't use it if you don't plan on traveling around that area.

When it comes to the fence and unusual gems, just take a carriage to Riften and head to the marketplace. You'll meet a ginger guy with a Scottish-sounding accent named Brynjolf who will point you in the right direction.

You can absolutely do all 3, although unless you plan on making a magic-heavy character, I would only put levels into two schools of magic at most, and even then, you should probably focus either primarily on magic or melee. You could dabble in other schools too, but you can only focus on so many things. That's more true at the start of the game, though. Once you've built your base, you can be more free to level up other things.

Keep in mind that I haven't played since 2012 or so, but...

1) If you aren't using some sort of restoration magic, you should focus on keeping a good supply of restore health potions. I believe all of the ingredients to make it are common finds around Whiterun.

2) B&A is awesome, but I'd focus on leveling up either melee or magic first. Don't spread your skills too thin. Bows aren't great early on, but if you level up your stealth and then invest in bow skills that grant extra damage when you're sneak attacking with them, they become way OP.

3) Don't waste perks on lockpicking or speech. At least, not until you've pumped a bunch into other areas. Focus on armor and weapons/destruction magic/whatever you're primarily using to inflict damage on people.

4) Don't stress too much about doing things right or wrong. It's a big, open game, and half the fun of it is figuring stuff out. With that said, I'd loot everything that isn't borderline worthless and then fast travel to different cities you've unlocked to sell the stuff.