Skyrim impressions

Ok, can I join them as a redguard in the Legion/Companions? The guards call me a sneak thief, but I think I'd make the cut.
 
FiZ said:
They are a splinter of the Thieves Guild.
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the NG light armor

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Man this game is big, like massive. It's going to be 100 hours for me I reckon. I have 1 friend who is on about 93 hours now who is way ahead of me. I'm level 43 and have nearly mastered all my main skills, but i've been taking on every possible mission and I still have about 40 quests in my quest log.

As well as most of the thieves guild chain to do, all of the brotherhood, most of the main storyline, all of the mages guild, it's really crazy, I've been doing loads of the Champions quest line and I'm still not done with it.

I was impressed with DAO lasting me the better part of 70 hours but I think this is going to easily beat that.
 
PrincessFrosty said:
Man this game is big, like massive. It's going to be 100 hours for me I reckon. I have 1 friend who is on about 93 hours now who is way ahead of me. I'm level 43 and have nearly mastered all my main skills, but i've been taking on every possible mission and I still have about 40 quests in my quest log.
.
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101 hours in... haven't even touched the main quest (aka no dragons thus far... i know i know what is the purpose, cant even use shouts! oh well... i am having fun and that is ALL that matters really :) )
 
Riddleofsteel said:
Ok, can I join them as a redguard in the Legion/Companions? The guards call me a sneak thief, but I think I'd make the cut.
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The Thief's Guild? Yes. You have to play thought it to land the NG armor.


Edit, got my problem fixed. Took a break from the quest line to grind my smiting skill up so I could add to my armor and weapons :)
 
It seems like a trendy thing to brag about how long you can avoid the main quests in Skyrim.
Saw a guy on Reddit with 100 hours "Only completed the Jarl delivery 2nd quest!" and this giant circlejerk around the fact that they avoided completing the main quests.

Fucking WHY?!
You miss out on shouts and two of the most amazing maps in the entire game. What's wrong with completing the main story, AND THEN enjoying another 100+ hours? And most of them haven't even unlocked dragons yet... Some people don't realize that dragons don't unlock until you fight the 1st dragon outside Whiterun and they have played over 50 hours with zero dragons.

Why are people LIMITING their content on purpose? Why are people bragging about 50 hours and 0 dragons?! You're missing out on raw content by "exploring" mindlessly. Or completing Thieves/Dark Brotherhood missions while dodging the main story? What's the difference? Virtual bragging rights?
Shit's weird.

I zerged the main story back-to-back, completed it in about 6-10 hours or so, and have spent the last 70 hours doing side quests and exploring. I can't help but laugh at the self-righteous hipsters who feel like they're trendsetting by seeing how long they can avoid the main quests. This isn't an Iron Man competition.
 
UtopiA said:
It seems like a trendy thing to brag about how long you can avoid the main quests in Skyrim.
Saw a guy on Reddit with 100 hours "Only completed the Jarl delivery 2nd quest!" and this giant circlejerk around the fact that they avoided completing the main quests.

Fucking WHY?!
You miss out on shouts and two of the most amazing maps in the entire game. What's wrong with completing the main story, AND THEN enjoying another 100+ hours? And most of them haven't even unlocked dragons yet... Some people don't realize that dragons don't unlock until you fight the 1st dragon outside Whiterun and they have played over 50 hours with zero dragons.

Why are people LIMITING their content on purpose? Why are people bragging about 50 hours and 0 dragons?! You're missing out on raw content by "exploring" mindlessly. Or completing Thieves/Dark Brotherhood missions while dodging the main story? What's the difference? Virtual bragging rights?
Shit's weird.

I zerged the main story back-to-back, completed it in about 6-10 hours or so, and have spent the last 70 hours doing side quests and exploring. I can't help but laugh at the self-righteous hipsters who feel like they're trendsetting by seeing how long they can avoid the main quests. This isn't an Iron Man competition.
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I only avoided it so I could do Dark Brotherhood and Thief's Guild first to see how they 1, compared to Oblivion and 2, because I always did that on replays in Oblivion.
 
Renswic said:
I only avoided it so I could do Dark Brotherhood and Thief's Guild first to see how they 1, compared to Oblivion and 2, because I always did that on replays in Oblivion.
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exactly... its not a CJ, its just those stories are usually better per MW and OB
 
Okay, I have a few new questions. If I go Dark Brotherhood, can I also go thieves/Nightingales? And when I murder a high profile target and the guards confront me, what's the best way to escape without my bounty and body count spiraling out of control? Thanks.
 
Riddleofsteel said:
Okay, I have a few new questions. If I go Dark Brotherhood, can I also go thieves/Nightingales? And when I murder a high profile target and the guards confront me, what's the best way to escape without my bounty and body count spiraling out of control? Thanks.
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Not sure about this one, yet, but in oblivion you could complete all story lines. I suspect it will be the same here for the guilds with the exception of the empire/rebels storyline.
 
Riddleofsteel said:
Okay, I have a few new questions. If I go Dark Brotherhood, can I also go thieves/Nightingales? And when I murder a high profile target and the guards confront me, what's the best way to escape without my bounty and body count spiraling out of control? Thanks.
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Yup sure can :)

Depends if they try and stop you or attack on sight. If they try to stop just do your time. If they attack, run like hell.
 
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Riddleofsteel said:
Ok, can I join them as a redguard in the Legion/Companions? The guards call me a sneak thief, but I think I'd make the cut.
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Guards and other NPCs make small talk based on the skills you've leveled the most, so if you level archery and light armour a lot they will say things like "Ah I see you favour the bow", it's quite a nice touch.

The sneak thief comments are generally because your pickpocket is high, not because you've got caught. With my new SSD loading is so fast that it's basically instant so I always quicksave before pickpocketing and just load if I fail so I've got a perfect thieving record but they still call me sneak thief :)

Tetrahedron said:
101 hours in... haven't even touched the main quest (aka no dragons thus far... i know i know what is the purpose, cant even use shouts! oh well... i am having fun and that is ALL that matters really :) )
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I'd recommend that you do at least a tiny part of the main quest chain, slay the first dragon at the tower which will trigger dragon spawns around the land, this is handy because the dragons drop bone and scales which you need to save up to craft the best armour.

Also that will quickly lead in to the next stage where you'll go see some people which will explain the dragon powers and how to use them etc. I triggered the dragons reasonable early so I've stocked up on dragon parts but I regret not doing those tutorial missions so late, I had a lot of misconceptions about the shouts until they were explained and now I'm using them more.

Also some dungeons later on start needing you to have shout powers to complete them.

UtopiA said:
I can't help but laugh at the self-righteous hipsters who feel like they're trendsetting by seeing how long they can avoid the main quests.
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JEEEEESUS CHRIST, not everyone is avoiding the main story for "bragging rights" some people just prefer to get the fluff out of the way with first and then deal with the epic quest at the end, I think a lot of us probably believe that side quests will feel pointless once the main mission is complete, some of us want to out level the game and be a badass when we attempt the main missions, some people may actually prefer the brotherhood questlines as they're roleplaying an assassin or a thief or whatever, there's loads of reasons other than being a "hipster", seriously dude...

I think a lot of people are saying this for the same reason I did, because it shows just how large the game is, that there's so much to do even without completing the main story.

I agree about the dragons and the tutorial though, everyone should play the main quest line as far as getting training for your powers this will adequately explain the shouts and give you soem idea of what is going on, and also trigger dragons to make the world more...interesting.

In all fairness though, it's not obvious to first time players that you need to "trigger" dragons like that, it's a game design fault, they're assuming players are playing one specific way and not everyone does, clearly.
 
I'm going to avoid starting the main quest in my new playthrough for RP reasons.

I actually have this problem with how Bethesda structures its main quests, and I wish they instead did it in more "stages" without a constant sense of urgency. While of course this doesn't matter from a game play perspective, since there are no actual time limits, but in terms of role playing it doesn't make sense to me to put off a potential world ending threat to find someones lost dog and then spend weeks to months wandering the country side. If you do go through the main quest, you basically become a legendary world saving hero, and at that point to me it would seem quite mundane in comparison to start that career in pickpocketing.

But to me it seems like as the main quest chain's story (same as Oblivion, marginally better for FO3, can't quite remember Morrowind) has a sense of urgency that makes prioritizing it more natural, at least to me. Maybe I'd just like it for once that you start off just part of the world and are trying to live in it, and discover the adventure. As opposed to being thrust into the thick of things right away.
 
I think you're right, it would be nice if the main quest was more structured. I was thinking last night that a sort of fame attribute would work well, because people trust you with all sorts of stuff straight away even though you're a stranger.

It would be nice if people wouldn't give you the time of day until you become more known in the land, and most of your fame comes from the main quest. Conversely it would be nice if the main quests were triggered in stages based on your level/ability, so in order to get the fame to unlock side quests you have to complete a stage of the main quest, and then to get ability level to continue the main quest you need to go adventuring for the people in side quests get your level up and come back. This would lead to flip/flop questing which I think would work well, forcing some pacing into the main story quests and allowing the developers to make sure everyone has done the tutorial main quests early on.

Alas it doesn't appear as if that level of thought has gone in to the game, you're just released in to the wild, everyone trusts you with their goods and coin immediately and you can wander about ignoring the impending doom doing errands all day which seems unnatural from a roleplay perspective as limitedaccess points out.
 
F'ing why?

Maybe because they want to! It's fun to drag the game out. :)
 
Nvidia 290.36 Beta Drivers Released

the drivers add official support for Ambient Occlusion in Skyrim and is also the recommended driver for Arkham City...check out some screenshots with Ambient Occlusion enabled/disabled at the GeForce website (which [H] does not allow hotlinking to)
 
Riddleofsteel said:
Okay, I have a few new questions. If I go Dark Brotherhood, can I also go thieves/Nightingales? And when I murder a high profile target and the guards confront me, what's the best way to escape without my bounty and body count spiraling out of control? Thanks.
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1) Yes, you can.
2) Finish the Thieves Guild quest line if you're worried about bounty/body count.

After you finish the Nightingale quest line, you get the choice of one of three powers. One of them is "Go invisible every time you crouch". You can hit this power, one-shot the target, and then stand up and crouch again. Guards lose sight of you instantly. Sometimes you can even nuke the target in plain sight of the guards without them seeing you. I like to Sneak shot with a bow, stand up, crouch, and go invisible before the arrow hits the target. It's also a very useful ability for getting through guarded doorways without being seen.
 
polonyc2 said:
Nvidia 290.36 Beta Drivers Released

the drivers add official support for Ambient Occlusion in Skyrim and is also the recommended driver for Arkham City...check out some screenshots with Ambient Occlusion enabled/disabled at the GeForce website (which [H] does not allow hotlinking to)
Click to expand...

Dumb question: If I enabled SSAO in Nivdia Inspect what happens with a driver update? Everything goes back to default? I hope so, just so I don't have some weird redundancy or conflict.
 
About shouts, I've killed the first dragon and go the first word and went to see the greybeards and got the second part of the first shout and whirlwind sprint. I also thought they taught me a 4th word but while playing later I noticed they hadn't, is something screwed up or is this right?

Also, do I need to finish the line of quests for retrieving the horn before learning more words? I've found 3 other shout words and have collected a couple dragon souls but they are not unlocking.
 
DarkStar_WNY said:
About shouts, I've killed the first dragon and go the first word and went to see the greybeards and got the second part of the first shout and whirlwind sprint. I also thought they taught me a 4th word but while playing later I noticed they hadn't, is something screwed up or is this right?

Also, do I need to finish the line of quests for retrieving the horn before learning more words? I've found 3 other shout words and have collected a couple dragon souls but they are not unlocking.
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Erm..

They should teach you a couple of shouts, there's 2 parts to each shout, there's learning the language which gives you the shout in the spells menu, and then you need a dragon soul to unlock the shout. The first ones the graybeards give you they unlock for you without the need of a dragon soul, but the ones you find in the wild will need unlocking

You simply enter the menu and go to spells, then go to shouts, you can see each shout not already "bought" in gray, it tells you the number of spare "unspent" dragon souls in the bottom right of the screen, you then unlock them with the R key (from memory)

Each shout can be upgraded 2 times for a total of 3 variants of that shout so you need 3 dragon souls to get each shot to its max power

It's worth noting the 2nd level for the fire shout ability is really quality, especially the effects, by comparison the first level shouts are pretty pathetic, I can't wait to see the level 3 ones.
 
I don't use the damage shouts since they don't count as xp.
For example killing a mob with your sword or spells will give you experience and using the shout does nothing. :/

It's the same reason my companion (Aela) carries a low level bow.
 
UtopiA said:
I don't use the damage shouts since they don't count as xp.
For example killing a mob with your sword or spells will give you experience and using the shout does nothing. :/

It's the same reason my companion (Aela) carries a low level bow.
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I had a sneaky suspicion this was the case. I was deliberately avoiding using them so I did more damage with my bow overall and made sure to keep levelling that, the mobs can easily out level your damage output if you do most of your leveling through crafting instead of fighting.

I went through a period of grinding my smithing and enchanting up, it sent my main level up and made the enemies stronger but obviously my archery was at the same level still so relatively they became harder which was a pain.

It wasn't until I actually maxed out my armour and built dragonbone armour that fights became a bit easier again. The problem with enchanting is that you can't re-enchant an item.

So if you have something rare like Dragonbone or Daedric armour you will want to wait until a perfect 100% in enchanting before you enchant it because that gives you a proper "maxed out" endgame style armour. However it also means waiting while you grind and putting up with the difficulty hit of harder enemies with nothing to really show for it, unless you can grind out 2-3 sets of the same armour and that's a lot of dragon killing or Daedric heart hunting if you're in the top tier armour.

I actually had enough dragon bone/scales to make 2 sets because I maxed my smithing late game so I built 2 sets one which I enchanted at about level 50 enchanting and the next set I will enchant once I get to 100 enchanting and can take the double enchant bonus. I think you can get something daft like +200% total bow damage with a fully enchanted set of items which is crazy.
 
PrincessFrosty said:
I had a sneaky suspicion this was the case. I was deliberately avoiding using them so I did more damage with my bow overall and made sure to keep levelling that, the mobs can easily out level your damage output if you do most of your leveling through crafting instead of fighting.

I went through a period of grinding my smithing and enchanting up, it sent my main level up and made the enemies stronger but obviously my archery was at the same level still so relatively they became harder which was a pain.

It wasn't until I actually maxed out my armour and built dragonbone armour that fights became a bit easier again. The problem with enchanting is that you can't re-enchant an item.

So if you have something rare like Dragonbone or Daedric armour you will want to wait until a perfect 100% in enchanting before you enchant it because that gives you a proper "maxed out" endgame style armour. However it also means waiting while you grind and putting up with the difficulty hit of harder enemies with nothing to really show for it, unless you can grind out 2-3 sets of the same armour and that's a lot of dragon killing or Daedric heart hunting if you're in the top tier armour.

I actually had enough dragon bone/scales to make 2 sets because I maxed my smithing late game so I built 2 sets one which I enchanted at about level 50 enchanting and the next set I will enchant once I get to 100 enchanting and can take the double enchant bonus. I think you can get something daft like +200% total bow damage with a fully enchanted set of items which is crazy.
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The dragon materials are pretty trivial to acquire since there are so many dragons. I feel that while you artificially level up with smithing /enchanting, the end product is gear that makes you far more powerful than your level.

At the same time... you get this super powerful gear pretty 'early' relative to how high you can level - so you're pretty much stuck in that respect in terms of how powerful you are. It almost makes me not want to level anymore and just stay where I am because I feel I'll just get relatively weaker from here on out.
 
TeeJayHoward said:
1) Yes, you can.
2) Finish the Thieves Guild quest line if you're worried about bounty/body count.

After you finish the Nightingale quest line, you get the choice of one of three powers. One of them is "Go invisible every time you crouch". You can hit this power, one-shot the target, and then stand up and crouch again. Guards lose sight of you instantly. Sometimes you can even nuke the target in plain sight of the guards without them seeing you. I like to Sneak shot with a bow, stand up, crouch, and go invisible before the arrow hits the target. It's also a very useful ability for getting through guarded doorways without being seen.
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The only down side to rushing to the end of that Line is you lose a rather handy lockpick item. I know if your LP is at 100 it has the same affect as that item. So as is I'm waiting until my LP is up to finish it.

PrincessFrosty said:
I went through a period of grinding my smithing and enchanting up
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Did you do the dagger trick or a different way?
 
Renswic said:
The only down side to rushing to the end of that Line is you lose a rather handy lockpick item. I know if your LP is at 100 it has the same affect as that item. So as is I'm waiting until my LP is up to finish it.
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I honestly didn't know it was a lock-pick until after I had finished the questline. I always have a good 200ish lock-picks on me just from random pick-pocketing and looting chest/bodies.
 
Intel_Hydralisk said:
The dragon materials are pretty trivial to acquire since there are so many dragons. I feel that while you artificially level up with smithing /enchanting, the end product is gear that makes you far more powerful than your level.

At the same time... you get this super powerful gear pretty 'early' relative to how high you can level - so you're pretty much stuck in that respect in terms of how powerful you are. It almost makes me not want to level anymore and just stay where I am because I feel I'll just get relatively weaker from here on out.
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How many dragon bones/scales do you need to make a set of dragon armor? I'm asking because I might as well start selling the stuff off once I got enough for a couple sets of the armor stashed away.
 
TeeJayHoward said:
I honestly didn't know it was a lock-pick until after I had finished the questline. I always have a good 200ish lock-picks on me just from random pick-pocketing and looting chest/bodies.
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Whats really strange about it, you need a normal pick in order to use it.

Finished the Stormcloak side of things today after having to back track to and old save to fit a glitch.
 
Riddleofsteel said:
Where can I safely stash gear until I can afford to buy a house?
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I use the house that you are able to rest in when you get to the first town (after escaping - depends on which path you take on the way out I think).

Just use the available chests in the house.. once you buy your own place, you can move all of the stuff over when you need to.
 
Riddleofsteel said:
Where can I safely stash gear until I can afford to buy a house?
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Safe Containers

Items in containers not owned may disappear over time. Buying a house is one way to gain access to owned containers, where items can be safely stored.

All barrels not owned by the player will reset their contents.

items dropped on the ground (in an outdoor area) by the player never disappear.

The WARDROBE in Riverside Shack is confirmed safe. an item placed in it was still there after over 40 days of ingame time, whereas the chest and barrels had reset their items. be aware that the bear respawns as well after 10 days of game time (Assuming you do not visit the shack within that timeframe) Riverside shack is located along the bank of the river running south from windhelm (a roughly 5 minute swim). It appears on the compass as a small house-like icon

The CHEST in the basement of the inn in Riverwood is also confirmed safe, once it's been revealed to you.
 
Renswic said:
Safe Containers

Items in containers not owned may disappear over time. Buying a house is one way to gain access to owned containers, where items can be safely stored.

All barrels not owned by the player will reset their contents.

items dropped on the ground (in an outdoor area) by the player never disappear.

The WARDROBE in Riverside Shack is confirmed safe. an item placed in it was still there after over 40 days of ingame time, whereas the chest and barrels had reset their items. be aware that the bear respawns as well after 10 days of game time (Assuming you do not visit the shack within that timeframe) Riverside shack is located along the bank of the river running south from windhelm (a roughly 5 minute swim). It appears on the compass as a small house-like icon

The CHEST in the basement of the inn in Riverwood is also confirmed safe, once it's been revealed to you.
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I was storing all my stuff in the two barrels in front of the blacksmith shop in whiterun, never had anything disappear or stolen, though I never let 10 days pass either without adding/taking from those barrels... now I store stuff in DB sanctuary
the one outside of dawnstar in the master bedroom you get built by delvin from the TG
 
I never stored anything until I got a house. I guess that's why I have $60k+. I'm a sell whore.
 
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