TES V: Skyrim Discussion Thread

I have no desire for a Elder Scrolls MMO. ffs - they need to leave single player games alone

 

Has anyone noticed the brazier fires and some of the dungeon fires in this game and how extremely bright they look compared to the surrounding scenery?

Here's what a fire's supposed to look like:

By androsforever at 2012-03-16

Here's what I keep seeing all over dungeons and towns:

By androsforever at 2012-03-16


By androsforever at 2012-03-16

Really breaks immersiveness and is starting to drive me crazy as everything else is perfectly immersive.
Anyone know of a texture fix for this?

 

Fires are bright. Have you ever lit a fire outdoors at night?

 

None of these pictures accurately depict how a fire looks at night, but the top one is the most accurate.

I hope you don't really mean to tell me you think the second and third pictures look accurate to you.

They the texture looks like its been cut and pasted from another scenery into that one.

 

well good news is i think i got a handle on the UI xD

also alchemy + enchanting + smithing is retardedly OP.... I think I am going to downgrade my weapons lol. 950 damage bow is 3 shoting dragons just isnt right ><

also you guys notice headshots seem to do more damage? its hard to tell cause the "body-hit-box" seems pretty out of wack in skyrim but ya. Anoying because in oblivion you could shoot an arrow very close to most walls and it would still hit your target... here it just gets stuck in the air most of the time =(

 

there is a mod that replaces all the embers

Steam Workshop :: Chopping block / Wood fires FIX

 

do you guys have the Skyrim: High Resolution Texture Pack DLC? Is the 3GB worth it?

 

Yes and yes.

If your laptop can handle it, than I say that the High Res textures are beautiful and definitely worth it, There is also a Lite version if you don't want to go all out but still want a bit more eye candy.

 

Already tried that one, does not replace the ones that I am talking about unfortunately.

STOP RIGHT THERE CRIMINAL SCUM!

Haha sorry, I had to go there at least once on an Elder Scrolls thread

THIS is what you want: Bethesda Hi-Res DLC Optimized at Skyrim Nexus - Skyrim Mods and community

It has the same quality HD Textures from the 3GB DLC and fixes the bugged textures in the original DLC.

Also it's only 752mb compared to 3GB
I've been using it and it's fantastic, also it cuts down on VRAM usage (which is essential for me who is using 1gb VRAM card) and will give you the same smooth fps as without the textures, provided you use a fast hard drive like an SSD to load them.

 

You can get some mods to fix that. I think the FXAA PPI makes things darker. Or it might be some other mod. Can't remember.

 

Getting bored with BCB2, so I'll play with a new character with this.

Do you guys know any fun mods to save me from my boredom?

 

The Unofficial Skyrim Patch is an absolute must in my opinion, check out the list of fixes here, it's ridiculous.

It used to be a Beta / RC but now it is on version 1.0.

 

No unfortunately there is not mod to date which addresses those fires, but it's fine, there are only a few of them in the game anyway.

 

Unofficial Skyrim Patch
Deployable Traps
Throwing Weapons
Frostfall
Imp's More Complex Needs
Alternate Start: Live Another Life
Deadly Dragons
Deadly Traps
Radiance
Real Wildlife
PISE/ASIS
Occupy Skyrim
Master the Time and Space
Reflection Ward
Summon Ice Wall
Wieldable Lanterns
Drop Lit Torches
Handyman
Uncle Sheogorath's Helpful Tips
Sounds of Skyrim: The Dungeons
Realms of the Daedra
Moonpath to Elseweyr
Wheeze's Dungeon Pack #1
Journey to the Center of Nirn
Niflheim
Legacy of the Tyrants

 

I just had one of those rare gaming moments that really make you pause for a second and go "Wow... what did I just witness". In a good way. A very very good way. So good I can't go any further in the game without writing about it first

I have a lot of mods installed, so if you need to know which ones I am using. I'll share my list.

*very slight spoilers below*

I was making my trip to the shrine of Azura from a nearby coast town wearing my dark nightingale armor.

My character is currently a vampire, but looking for a cure (I am currently RP'ing that he needs the soul gem of Azura to get cured, not just any regular black soul gem with a greater soul) so he is on his way there during the night.

A blizzard is raging along the mountains and journeying his way across the mist he finds himself in the middle of a large battle between the Stormcloaks and the Legionnaires.

The two are tearing each other apart, with the Legionnaires having the advantage at first but eventually losing that advantage by being flanked by Stormcloak archers. My characters doesn't get involved in the battle and travels on.

It was amazing seeing how original the AI can be in these situations, with lone Legion archers hiding in Ice crevices to stay out of the open only to eventually get shot off the cliff flying for hundreds of yards.

I move on and find an old Dwemer ruin in the mountains where I notice a giant is fighting some wolves. All of a sudden I hear a dragon's cry and look up. He is flying above the field and I hide to hopefully escape his notice. (I am using deadly dragon mods and they are much harder than in vanilla, a powerful dragon can take on an army, as it should be).

Suddenly the most beautiful thing I have seen in gaming happens. While I look at the dragon flying above me he lets out a dragon shout and the raging blizzard turns into hard rain. Solid ice spears fall from the sky and I stop sneaking and start rushing away towards some cover in the mountain paths ahead.

Luckily the dragon ignores me and takes on the giant. I run forward without looking back, but the rain does not stop. There are goats, deer and all sorts of wildlife running around in panic as the storm rages on.

Just as I feel I have escaped danger and I am safe away from the dragon, he swoops in above me. I go into sneak and luckily he hasn't noticed me. After a couple of rounds the dragon, who was obviously victorious against the giant, decides it's time to rest. He lands himself on a high mountain peak and goes to sleep.

The rain stops and snow starts once again gently falling from the sky as the sun comes up. Soon after I reach Azura's shrine, which is another amazing sight with the sun glare gleaming from behind it.

That was the last hour or so of Skyrim for me. After I quit Skyrim I really felt like I had been on an epic and dangerous trek to find the Shrine. I have never felt something quite as immersive as this experience. Especially when the Dragon did his godly "shout of turning snow into water", it was an ecstatic moment. Suffice it to say: Best, game, ever.

 

Fantastic post andros, this shows that to truly enjoy Skyim, you have to live it not just playing it.

Andros, can you please share with us what mods are you using in skyrim please?

 

Heh, thanks my man, I'm glad you liked it ^^
Here's a copy of my current mod list. I warn you, it's quite lengthy but all those mods are worth the time to look them up and download them

Btw scratch "Better Villages". It's a nice mod, but it causes CTD's and some strange bounty bugs, so until the creator updates it's better to disable it.

 

Spoiler

Great read man! It brings up the very important point that to enjoy this beautiful game to its fullest, you should make your own stories, adventures, and really take the time to live it all in. Don't rush or power-level your skills/levels. Just have pure fun!

 

Absolutely. Here's a few pics to go along with that story of mine

The Town


By androsforever at 2012-04-24

The Battle


By androsforever at 2012-04-24

The Dragon


By androsforever at 2012-04-24

The Shrine


By androsforever at 2012-04-24

 

The first DLC is coming "this summer" for Xbox and then later on PC and PS3.

 

Is there any meaning to Dawnguard?

 

DLC probably. They said yesterday to stay tuned for DLC announcements today

edit: here 30 days after 360 release apparently for pc users.

 

Is there a pattern to starting Daedric quests? Or you really have to look it up at wiki to find all of them?

 

I kind of like to just come across them naturally in the course of exploration.

There are a few I've done on previous playthroughs, so I know how those are started, but I think it ruins the fun to look them up.

 

Hmm, I think I ticked of a Whiterun guard. One of them sent three thugs after me. Maybe I accidentally stole his sweetroll while I was cleaning the entire legion's stock of steel arrows .

 

Yeah, they do that. At least the thugs are generally soft and full of resalable gear

 

I've been playing Skyrim for quite some time now, but only last night I decided to try it with headphones (Sennheiser HD280) for the first time...

The experience is completely different, only now I can truly appreciate the sound effects in this game, and the environmental sound differences according to the location you are at (forest, city, cave, etc)

 

Well in that case they might have to keep sending thugs after me. My character needs all the arrows he can get, and guards are the most reliable source for that low-level newbie.

Still questioning the choice of a bow as a primary weapon though...

 

I did that with my first character, and once you level up archery considerably, it gets pretty fun.

I have never been out on "arrow scavenging" quests, but never ran out of them either... I guess I don't waste them...

 

I'll probably keep a dagger or a close range spell on me then, just in case. Also not entirely sure of my choice for a high elf for this build. Maybe the wood elf would have made more sense. Oh well; at least I get an extra 50 magicka that might prevent my needing to increase that stat as much .

 

I had this game since last December but it keeps on getting fun because of the mods. I hope they release the DLC soon.

 

Which mods did you like the most?

You might also want to try Sounds of Skyrim: The Dungeons - it really enhances the ambient audio for the dungeons

 

I love the Deadly Dragons and the War zones.

The Deadly Dragons makes the fighting more epic. In the past(this is without the mod), I can just fight the dragons face to face and not worry about dying. But with the mod installed, I really have to be cautious while fighting them. Bashing them with a shield doesn't work until their health is low.

 

mine was actually archer/two-hander. It was a Khajiit, and he was unstoppable! hahaha

I think I might go back to those saves one of these days... just for laughs...

I've been playing it mod-free since day one until today

 

Maybe it's just me, but the re-playability just isn't there. I wonder how Skyrim is going to fare in the long run, and I'm especially interested in seeing the sales numbers on the two DLC packs. How many times do you really want to slay the dragon at the Whiterun Watchtower? How many times do I need to delve into &lt;dungeon&gt; for some &lt;treasure&gt; that I must return to &lt;NPC&gt;? Or maybe I have to take out the leader of the &lt;group&gt; at &lt;camp&gt; for the Jarl of &lt;hold&gt;?

Then again I think most games have near-zero re-playability.

 

I agree... the game is huge, but the formulas repeat themselves a lot... I am only on my second character, and havent yet disovered every location (with any character)... I guess once I get bored I'll start installing mods.

 

I've found Skyrim has a fantastic replay value, if you save some of the major questlines for future characters. Also, Master difficulty is the way to go.

For example, my first character was a Dunmer thief, super stealth gameplay mostly with dual wield dagger backstabs. I only did about 80% of the thieves' guild questline, a couple of daedric quests and I collected some shouts. That playthrough lasted about 200 hours before I got up to level 30-40 and started over because it felt like the character was becoming too powerful.

My second character was a Nord barbarian who used two-handed axes and hammers. He was the sort of character who thought ranged weapons, magic and sneaking around are for cowards. He would just rush right into battle headfirst every time. Played around 150 hours or so, completed the main quest, Stormcloaks questline and Companions, as well as collecting a few shouts, then started over around level 30 after finishing the main quest.

My third character is a Breton mage who uses no weapons at all, only spells. She would never deign to set foot in Jorrovaskr with all those sweaty heathens. I've done about 60-70% of the College of Winterhold questline and have only been using spell tomes that I find in dungeons (no buying spells from merchants). As a result, collecting new spells is almost as fun as collecting the shouts, provides a great incentive for exploring dungeons. I've also started installing some survival mods for this character, like for hunger, thirst, hypothermia, etc., and some mods that will make higher level gameplay more challenging. I might continue playing this character beyond level 30.

I've played in total around 600 hours and I haven't touched the Dark Brotherhood, Imperial Army questlines or most of the daedric quests yet.

I think I still have a few future characters to play, perhaps a Bosmer hunter/ranger type who lives off the land. (Deployable Traps, Frostfall, IMCN, will be great mods for this), and a Dark Brotherhood Argonian or Khajiit assassin. Maybe a sword and shield character as well. And there are specializations of magic, like focusing on illusion, conjuration or destruction spells. All these combat styles feel so different, especially compared to previous TES games.

Plus there are already a lot of great dungeon and quest mods. I don't think I will ever find all the locations or completely finish playing, probably until the next Elder Scrolls VI game rolls around in a few years. I still haven't even found more than 50% of the shouts in the game, more than a couple of daedric artifacts, or any master/expert spell tomes yet. I didn't even visit the town of Dawnstar until after I had already played the game a few hundred hours.

 

I wish I had done that... saving bits of the Main Quests for future playthroughs... I did most of them on my first character, which was a total mess (Khajiit, started as sneaker, then became wizard and ended up as archer/two-hander... talk about identity crisis)

I am on a full-mage High Elf now, no weapons, spell & shout collector.

I think for the next one I will try a Heavy armored, sword & shield, Dwarven-obsessed archeologist/warrior... not sure which race to pick, though... Orc maybe.

 

I want to share something that might SAVE Modded Skyrim gameplay for many people.

This is meant for those with GPU's with 1gb or less of Vram that are struggling to manage HD texture mods, HD mesh, HD lod and all sorts of Armor/Weapon retextures and additions.

Also I recently installed many other population and wildlife mods on top of Warzones and Wars in Skyrim and the game is starting to REALLY feel like a living world.

FPS remained very playable at 30+ fps average, but the problem (noticed by monitoring with GPUZ sensors) was that the VRAM would be completely at the limit, hanging around 1015 values until eventually I would randomly CTD. So my first response was to disable a few armor replacement mods, but I have now found a better solution.

Optimizer Textures at Skyrim Nexus - Skyrim Mods and community
This is a texture optimization mod that I just found on the Nexus and DECREASES Vram consumption greatly and INCREASES average Fps greatly, ranging from 5-15 increases from all the comments I've read.

Quality decrease seems to be non-existent from the pics and video I saw on Youtube. I will soon have finished the Compressing process as I finish typing this post.

Make sure to backup your texture folder before you compress and enjoy the free Vram space for MORE MODS (currently have 120+ installed, I am an immersion and gameplay mod addict)

 

Some of the Dungeon layouts do get repetitive, but the world is so huge and immersive its difficult to explore it all. I played on the XBOX360 version and I can't wait until my new notebook gets here and I can install the PC version with Mods and expansion packs.

Also changing the type of character you play changes the dynamics alot, I was a conjurer which to me was ez mode (Enemy is coming - Summon my Army and clear). I assume it will be much different playing a melee or archer type.

 

Well, this time is definitely playing out a little differently. Faendal bought the farm on the way to Ivarstead during a battle with a troll; he was pretty useless while I was dealing with three battlemages earlier in the day as well. Lydia is backing me up now and she seems to be much more effective for this particular character.

The elf? Resting peacefully about halfway between Valtheim Towers and Ivarstead.

 

I just crafted myself a full set of Daedric Armor, enchanted with 100% Fortify Destruction and lots of Fortify Carry Weight.... so no more annoying companions now... flying solo finally!

 

I want to craft one too, I have. 10 Iron Ingot, 34 leather strips, 6 dedra hearts but my enchanting is only 52. Would I be able to craft it anyway?

 

I remember that with fully improved light dragon armor i had armor rating about 700-800, crazy Fully enchanted to regenerate stamina and life, it was too easy.

 

You need ebony ingots, and you need the smithing perk at level 90.

 

Just FYI, armor rating caps out at 567, which translates to 80% damage reduction. You will get absolutely zero benefit from having a rating higher than this. Incidentally, you can reach this rating with all Legendary-quality Steel Plate armor, which, for whatever reason, is part of the Advanced Armor option in the Light Armor side of the Smithing skill tree. So, the only reason to smith Heavy Armor beyond Steel Plate is to make better weapons.

 

I think it is time to ask for help regarding a problem I ran into a couple of days ago. It keeps getting increasingly annoying.

It seems my game plays the combat music (aggro sound) over and over. The funny thing is that sometimes I can hear the default sound in the background.

Did anyone encounter the same problem? Is there a way I can reset the sound? This bug started to bother me lately and I want to get rid of it, but I have no idea how to do it. Apparently, after reinstalling the game due to some nasty mod incompatibility, the sound loop still went on when I loaded my main save back to continue playing.

Help!!

 

you can craft it if you have the right perk, but I strongly recommend getting your smithing & enchanting to 100 before, so you craft the best stuff...

if you want to level up fast, just make thousands of iron daggers, enchant them and sell them

you could try deleting the Skyrim.ini file located in:

My Documents\My Games\Skyrim\

and then run the game again.

 

Thanks for the suggestions guys, I was crafting iron daggers already but I didn't think about enchanting them!
I also found out that in Riften, the blacksmith can train you in smithing..

I am about 60 of enchanting and 50 of smithing, can't wait to craft the legendary armor!

 

Honestly I don't believe that maxing out smithing and enchanting early is the way this game is meant to be played.

It's sort of an exploit that makes the rest of the game way too easy.

If you really want to enjoy the game I would recommend you play it without OP stats and weapons, so that fights are actually challenging and you can't just slice through the game with ease.

Well that's the advice from a hardcore RP'er. I think Bethesda was smart to include other options for players who want to play it more like an first person medieval slice 'em up. XD