RobVarak wrote:
It might just be because I'm older than he and have played everything back to Arena, whereas as a youngster he may expect things like L.A. Noire to be the new standard in this regard. In any event, his critique is certainly valid but not one with which I agree.
Im also older so it should really come as no surprise that I fall on your side of this.
He compares it to Dark Souls. I love them both and that is why I am so very glad that they are different.
Played Skyrim for the first time yesterday and wound up not moving off my couch for three hours. I have tended to struggle a bit with open world games because I'm often overwhelmed by the choices (that was my issue with Oblivion), but this reminds me of Fallout 3: I want to just keep walking around and soaking in the world. I love little touches like how the weather changes at the top of the mountain.
Is it possible to play primarily as a mage, with little skill given over to weapons? I stated as a Breton mage and have been double-fisting destruction magic, but I'm wondering if I'll need at least some melee or ranged weapon skill later in the game.
I think you should be fine at the higher levels once you have a companion. They're good for drawing fire and attention.
I'm doing a magic/axe combo, and I don't end up needing my axe very often. Summon a creature, have a companion, and then pelt from afar with destruction magic. Working wonders.
Brando70 wrote:
Is it possible to play primarily as a mage, with little skill given over to weapons? I stated as a Breton mage and have been double-fisting destruction magic, but I'm wondering if I'll need at least some melee or ranged weapon skill later in the game.
That will definitely work, especially at higher levels. I think the only build that would be problematic is a pure melee set up, because I'm not sure how you'd deal with dragons.
This game is just eating my life right now. The individual quest lines for things like the College of Winterhold or Thieves Guild are like games in themselves.
I had an amazing experience last night where I ran into a Blood Dragon right after a dungeon run, so i was low on potions. It was going to be a tough battle. Just as things got going, the dragon wheeled off and started messing about with something over the next hill. Turned out there was a group of 3 frost trolls there who apparently have long-standing beef with our winged friends. It turned into a wild tripartite circus with me, the trolls and the dragon all wailing on each other. Really cool.
That remind me, if you're having trouble with the dragon fights it helps to draw them near to towns or encampments. I've had a few Imperial camps make short work of the big guys.
--
Edit It occurs to me that there is a serious drawback with using not melee specialization. You don't get the bad-ass decapitations and backstabbing animations.
Last edited by RobVarak on Tue Jan 03, 2012 12:19 pm, edited 1 time in total.
XBL Gamertag: RobVarak
"Ok I'm an elitist, but I have a healthy respect for people who don't measure up." --Aaron Sorkin
Absolutely. My wife plays that way. I've never used a spell on my main character, but my wife made it to level 40 without ever swinging a weapon, really.
I always have a problem in the RPGs going too far 'jack of all trades' and it seems like, in this one, it's not as big an issue so far. I am mostly a destruction magic guy, though I did use the bow a lot early on and still pull it out for the sneak attacks, and I extensively use my one-handed sword especially when creatures seem to be resistant to whatever magic I can try.
However, now that I am in the mid-teen levels, I am starting to die a lot and from only a few hits. I am sort of sucked into the mage quest line now, and early into that I switched from light armor to the robes with the various magic buffs, and it doesn't take much to kill me if they get close or have bows. But I just don't want to give up those buffs and put on my armor, even with the crappy 'novice' robes! What am I missing? I seem to have only come across a very weak 'summon familiar' spell and that little wolf doesn't take many hits. I have yet to find a 'summon atronach' spell, where did I miss it? Also I read somewhere about spells that surround you with damage-dealing fields, so enemies can't get too close without taking damage, but I haven't found any yet. I have oakflesh and stoneflesh, but with no perks spent in alteration, they use up a lot of mana, and they don't really seem to help much.
I can certainly deal the damage, hosing out flames or frost or whatever, but the range of those is very short. I only recently got the rangier fireballs and such, so that helps with the dragons, but I just can't take any hits without collapsing in a heap of dead.
I will say that as opposed to Oblivion, where I sort of role played a good character and essentially avoided the thieves guild stuff, I am now finally realizing the Bethesda games sort of want you to 'do it all,' so I'm sure I will end up checking out all the various quest lines.
One thing I notice that is vastly different from Oblivion, which was my first Elder Scrolls game, is that money is much less of a worry. In Oblivion I drove myself batty looting every little dead thing and taking every even remotely valuable plate or cup because for whatever reason I never had enough money, but now I can't even remember what I ever needed to buy. But anyway, I would often have to go back and forth from a cleared dungeon several times to carry out all the loot i could get. Here, I can be much more selective in what I grab, instead of clearing it all out like a plague of locusts, because I don't seem to need money much at all.
However, a problem that persists for me from Oblivion is that I am heavily burdened with potions and ingredients. I use potions a lot more now than I did for the longest time in Oblivion, but they are still crazy heavy. And I think over half my carry capacity is taken with with Dragon bones and Dragon scales, which I am wary of selling off. They are valuable, but like I said I don't know what to spend money on, and I have this nagging fear that they will become super useful at some point, but I honestly have no real idea. Are they useful? Or should I just cash them in and unburden myself? They are insanely heavy!
Also I don't have a house yet, so I've missed something somewhere. In Fallout 3 I used the fridge in that little boy's house where the fire ants were first encountered to hold all my weapons and such, but here I don't know where to store anything. And I've read some scary stuff about people's things vanishing from their chests in their houses, so that's not good. What to do? Where have I missed the house buying? Don't even know where to begin, who to talk to.
While this game hasn't really grabbed me the way Oblivion did, it is starting to get me more and more interested and I am starting to feel that urge to explore and discover getting stronger and stronger. It is a fun world, and so insanely wide open, both in terms of geography and in terms of gameplay style and player/NPC interaction. Certainly about 180º different from the Bioware games, and I do at time miss the much more clear, 'you are doing THIS mission now, complete it!' nature of that gameplay rather than the very ADD style of 'ooh, look, something shiny!' here where you can just get lost on a tangent in the midst of some other quest. And for the record, I loved Dragon Age II, still love it, played it way more than Dragon Age Origins, almost as much as Mass Effect I, and so yes, I realize I am probably the only person on Earth who likes it.
1. No spoilers here, but have you pursued the main quest through the Greybeards portion? If not, I highly recommend doing so. I avoided the main quest line for too long, and when I went back I got the distinct impression Bethesda designed that line as a bit of a tutorial. It opens up a few shouts and other powers that will help you deal with melee combat as a mage and it barely scratches the surface of the plot.
2. Overburdening yourself is much less of an issue once you get a house (or complete the College quests) I basically never carry any ingredients that weight .5 or more. Those go into storage at my base (which has an alchemy table). Same with ore/ingot.
3. Start enchanting right away.
4. Sell the dragon bones and scales. They're valuable and heavy. If you need it later, it stays in the merchant's inventory (albeit at a premium price to re-buy). The exception here is Thieves Guild fences, which I believe dump their inventory. Sell the dragon parts and buy more health/mana/stamina potions. I carry almost exclusively those potions, with a few resist cold/heat and one or two waterbreathing potions. Everything else gets sold.
XBL Gamertag: RobVarak
"Ok I'm an elitist, but I have a healthy respect for people who don't measure up." --Aaron Sorkin
I bought my house in Whiterun from the Jarl's number two dude. It's great to have a chest for all the stuff I feel like keeping around, bookshelves for my books, and a place for Lydia to hang out when I don't want to subject to her to my Thieves Guild skullduggery. Last time I went back to get her, she was sitting in my bedroom eating bread.
I played so much Oblivion that the overall Skyrim experience isn't so revelatory, but with these landscapes and vastly improved dungeons I get moments from time to time that are far beyond anything I had in the previous game. Stuff like passing a gorgeous waterfall on horseback at night with a candlight spell floating alongside, or watching a dragon and a giant fight under an aurora borealis, or crazy dungeon fights where I'm using drawbridges to my advantage and diving into the water to shake my enemies. And while I know I'm missing out on certain melee finishing animations, I'm so into archery this time around. I get mad stealth bonuses, and walked into an enemy camp and killed everyone in their sleep last night. Thunk. Thunk. Thunk.
Slumberland wrote:
I do wish I could store armor loadouts.
Agreed 100%. I have a pure mage spec with robes and magika buffs, a spellsword setup with light armor and dual-wield and a thief spec with bow and thieves guild goodies aplenty. Drives me crazy switching back and forth, or getting caught wearing the wrong get-up.
I had one of those stop and admire moments last night and all I was doing was getting a quest. I was talking to someone in the Guild, but the creepy cistern environment and torchlight made the entire thing cinematic and extra-creepy.
XBL Gamertag: RobVarak
"Ok I'm an elitist, but I have a healthy respect for people who don't measure up." --Aaron Sorkin
I play a one handed / destruction mage and like Zep I hit some trouble in the 20 levels, specifically on the Mage College quest line. I was able to get through it by lowering the difficulty. I think it is entirely possible to play all magic or so what I am trying it is just going to be hard if you then also spot spend your skill points on other things. That was my problem, now my points just go into 1 hand or D-magic until I am maxed.
I got the house in Whietrun and then you get a spot after the Mage College quest. That quest btw is one of my favorites but I hate the outcome. I don't want to give any spoilers away but my character build should not reap that reward.
Overall I just love this game, by far my favorite Bethesda game I hope once the main quest line is done the Dragons show up less frequently.
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The first people you meet in Riverwood give you a key to their house, whether you followed the Stormcloaks or Empire.
In that house, you have a chest. You can freely drop/remove crap from it. When you drop stuff into the chest, it shows as red sometimes, but taking them back out shows them as normal. It's a storage chest to use until you have a house.
And as for the dragon bones/scales, they are required to make dragon armor (the best in the game) at 100 Smithing. If you do not plan on smithing, sell them.
I'm at level 28 with a pure mage and it's been pretty fair so far. At one point in the 10-15 range I was having some trouble in a couple areas where enemies would 1-3 shot me, but that might have been expected for any builds. Around that time I started using the Summon Atronach and it made things a lot easier since those will divert the enemies' attention. The Summon Familiar was never worth using in my experience.
I also kept the basic mage's robes until I came across some better robes. The mage's questline will help you out for sure if you are able to get through it (might be tough if you are having issues elsewhere.) I will experiment more with melee combat when Ieveling becomes more difficult.
I use one handed axes and shields, and other than healing spells and shouts pretty much ignore magic, an ebony war axe being my weapon of choice. So far I haven't met a dragon I didn't like. I'm level 29 at the moment.
Thanks for the tips, fellas. I believe I will go ahead and ignore the seeming urgency of finding the staff of whatever for the Mage quest line and go back to do what the graybeards told me to do so very long ago. I'm assuming I need to find a proper conjuring guy at the college and he will have the atronach spells? I must have never run into that dude up there. I would dearly love to have a reliable agro magnet.
And who is this Lydia? I see mention of her everywhere on the internets but I must have missed that one, too. Aargh.
You must have run right past her if you already talked to the Greybeards.
On the way out of Dragonsreach in Whiterun after talking to the Jarl and getting the quest to speak to the Greybeards, Lydia is your Housecarl on the way out of the place. She stops you to talk to you if you don't run right by her full speed.
I have a level 41 2h Daedric sword wielding, Daedric armor wearing dude......Played through the Companions, Dark Brotherhood and the Thieves guild main quest lines.
At some point I will play more of the actual main quest but I am just having too much fun playing through the guild quests and hanging out with the dragons in Skyrim. Game really has surpassed expectations.
Zeppo wrote:Thanks for the tips, fellas. I believe I will go ahead and ignore the seeming urgency of finding the staff of whatever for the Mage quest line and go back to do what the graybeards told me to do so very long ago. I'm assuming I need to find a proper conjuring guy at the college and he will have the atronach spells? I must have never run into that dude up there. I would dearly love to have a reliable agro magnet.
I think I stumbled upon mine somewhere else, but yeah you can find a person from every school of magic in the college.
I love how we all have a different way of playing this game. What a testament to how good it really is. I am only level 14 right now and haven't been doing much of the main story quest so I haven't even seen a dragon since the beginning of the game. I have pretty much been going with the old sword 'n' board but have just made it to the college and I'm thinking of trying to find a happy balance between melee and magic. Great game.
I am a patient boy.
I wait, I wait, I wait, I wait.
My time is water down a drain.
Aaaah, I remember Lydia. At some point I think she just walked away, I probably told her to go for some reason, and then I couldn't find her again and gave up and went to the college to get some spells, one thing led to another and I got embroiled in the madness of that quest line.
Ive found her again. She can die, right? Last night I saw a dragon in the distance and told her to stay because I didn't want her to get killed. I ran off to fight the dragon and next thing I know, there she is trying to hack the thing to death. I can't tell what her health status is, is there a bar or something?
Scoop, actualy I am struck by how many people seem to play as I do, with a combo of destruction spells and a one handed weapon. I suppose you can straight up sword and board it, but it seems to me you'd really have to force yourself to play that way, Such as, why use expensive potions and heavy food for health when you can just use a heal spell, which costs you nothing except mana which regenerates automatically? I still need the potions when I get in a pinch, but I don't need to carry very many. Or, what benefit is there to not having a ranged attack such as a bow? Sure I guess it'd be possible to play through like that, but when there are no limits of ability due to a class choice, to me it seems you have to really want to role play it to do so.
I'm level 29 at the moment.
