Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

[Bojangle]

I've been bought the PS3 version for Christmas, but I'm worried about all these reports that the game is completely fucked on the platform...

It's hard to say. Some people seem affected by it, others (myself included) haven't had any of the terrible slowdown with large save files.

[Broker]

SEVEN characters??

Dunmer Stealth Mage, Nodric Two handed weapon wielding warrior/blacksmith, Bosmer assasin, Almer Pure Mage, Khajit Thief, Imperial Battlemage, Breton Necromancer. Some of them have had a lot more focus than others, I like to play different specialist characters for different quests, but a few of them never really found a calling so they've been neglected.

How do you people level so fast?

I've played around 95 hours now with my argonian assassin-type and he's only level 31.

Maybe I spend too much time just looking at the scenery.

Depends what you're doing, the higher level characters on my list start off, train a few basic skills until they're good enough, then start a major questline. Doing that for the thieves guild and dark brotherhood gave me two characters between level 30 and 40 when I finished the quests.

Anyway, the point is, if you want to avoid the PS3 lag issues, start a new character and avoid the main quest.

[Ferine]

I've been bought the PS3 version for Christmas, but I'm worried about all these reports that the game is completely fucked on the platform...

For what it's worth the game's still readily playable for me after 45 hours. It is disheartening to see the save file gradually increase in size, though, especially as I'm not entirely convinced they'll be able to fully patch the issue. Then again I notice the technical foibles of games more than most people and I keep overshooting my forecast stopping point by an hour or two, so...

If you are looking to switch platforms, GameStation are apparently selling this for £22.49 in store and online; not entirely sure when the brick and mortar deal starts.

[drkbfhmmr]

I'm guessing as your Argonian assassin you mainly use the skills pickpocket, sneak, archery and one-handed. Maybe a couple of others.

I think if you focus on a narrow skillset you'll tend to level up a little slower. I had a set of skills I meant to use on my first character, but then I ended up extending into other things naturally, without perking them. A wider range of skills may mean you end up less specialised at a particular level, but it pays off later on if you want to get past level 50, as you can only continue to level if you have skills that are yet to reach 100.

I do think I have a pretty broad range of skill usage. My sneak is at around 85 I think, but I don't think I have any other that is above 60 yet. I've got a lot in the 40-60 range.

Like you I have also used some skills a lot that I didn't expect to at first, like enchanting and alchemy.

So if I understand you correctly, 50 is the level cap, but you can continue to level each skill to 100 after you reach it. In that case I'm in no hurry with the leveling, as I want the game to continue to give me choices (i.e. perks) for as long as possible. I think I might get bored with my character when he reaches the cap.

[Space Gibbon]

I've been bought the PS3 version for Christmas, but I'm worried about all these reports that the game is completely fucked on the platform...

I've been playing well over 100 hours on PS3. Have I had occasionally game-breaking slowdown? Yes. But mostly after long play sessions, and generally well after I'd played the game for 50+ hours. And there are workarounds - take a break when it's running poorly, delete the game data and reinstall etc.

It's disappointing that the PS3 version suffers from issues the 360 version doesn't (though by all accounts the 360 has some other texture-based issues and I've seen a "Let's Play" on 360 that crashed a number of times) but I'm still willing to say that bugs and all, Skyrim on PS3 is still the best game I've played in years.

But I think I'm more tolerant of bugs than others, generally I come from a position of never trusting that technology will work.

[Space Gibbon]

I do think I have a pretty broad range of skill usage. My sneak is at around 85 I think, but I don't think I have any other that is above 60 yet. I've got a lot in the 40-60 range.

Like you I have also used some skills a lot that I didn't expect to at first, like enchanting and alchemy.

So if I understand you correctly, 50 is the level cap, but you can continue to level each skill to 100 after you reach it. In that case I'm in no hurry with the leveling, as I want the game to continue to give me choices (i.e. perks) for as long as possible. I think I might get bored with my character when he reaches the cap.

The level cap is 81, it's just that if you've been focusing on a small pool of skills, level 50 is around the point where you'd be maxing them out, and therefore unable to level further without expanding into other areas.

[Guest]

Is it only 50 perks then?

[Space Gibbon]

No, it's 81.

[drkbfhmmr]

The level cap is 81, it's just that if you've been focusing on a small pool of skills, level 50 is around the point where you'd be maxing them out, and therefore unable to level further without expanding into other areas.

Ah, that makes sense.

I guess I could start using two-handed weapons at some point, or something like pickpocket, it's still only in the 20's.

Or the different kinds of magic that's not destruction and restoration. Have barely used those.

I'm glad to hear the cap is so high - that's a hell of a lot of perks to choose from still.

[Broker]

I've got a character with 100 pickpocket, 92 sneak and 84 lockpicking. He was pretty useless in combat before, but now that the thieves guild is done he's started using some daggers and archery. It always feels like there's more to do.

[Schnibbles]

I thought being an Illusion mage would be way more difficult than your standard Destruction mage, but it turns out that the Illusion arsenal packs a pretty powerful punch.

If there is only one enemy, I can be invisible and silent and backstab them. If there are two or more, I can just frenzy them until they've murdered each other enough that I can then backstab the survivor. If there's one really powerful enemy, I can easily backstab, turn invisible, back away and repeat.

These days I very rarely kill anyone (I let everyone else do that for me) - I'm probably going to start the Dark Brotherhood stuff soon, and I'm interested to see if I can do the entire questline without killing a single person. That might sound slightly counterintuitive, but I'm pretty sure it's possible until about halfway through the questline at least (which is as far as I've got, so don't spoil how you kill the ultimate target).

All that said, I'm a bit pissed off about the Master Illusion spells. Not only is the quest to get access to them TOTAL bobbins, they're basically completely useless.

[Guest]

No, it's 81.

A +1, that's great news! At level 34 I've still got LOADS of perks to go

[Cosmic_Guru]

These days I very rarely kill anyone (I let everyone else do that for me) - I'm probably going to start the Dark Brotherhood stuff soon, and I'm interested to see if I can do the entire questline without killing a single person. That might sound slightly counterintuitive, but I'm pretty sure it's possible until about halfway through the questline at least (which is as far as I've got, so don't spoil how you kill the ultimate target).

As a matter of interest how are you planning to go about this?

I can see there are various indirect means of achieving the death of a mark that don't involve you swinging a sword or firing a destruction spell, such as reverse pickpocketing poison, or pulling aggro and then using summons to do the job, but are you thinking even more indirect?.

[Space Gibbon]

As a matter of interest how are you planning to go about this?

I can see there are various indirect means of achieving the death of a mark that don't involve you swinging a sword or firing a destruction spell, such as reverse pickpocketing poison, or pulling aggro and then using summons to do the job, but are you thinking even more indirect?.

I remember in Oblivion if you used a Frenzy spell it turned whoever you used it on into 'the bad guy' so that guards would kill them. Maybe you could do some of the DB contracts that way.

[Teeohbee]

I keep getting the urge to start new characters on this. Despite the fact that I play them all pretty much the same.

It's (dragon)born out of some form of crippling OCD.

Despite the fact I play 99% of the time in first person, my tail poking out through the cloak of the nightingale armour does my head in.

Crippling OCD

[Mr Ben]

There's a lot of useless guff in the game that could be left out to keep the database to a minimum and free up memory for more things.

Examples:

1) All food, as Karzee pointed out, is pointless - Potions do a damn better job of healing you. So having potatoes, salmon, cabbages, carrots, horker meat, goat meat, different cheeses ... it's all pointless and I'm willing to bet only a minuscule percentage of the player-base actually do anything with them. At least you can make potions with all the herbs and mushrooms.

2) All the containers/cutlery are pointless - Cups, trays, plates, goblets, baskets, you name it. These are all things you can pick up, and frequently accidentally pick up when you simply want to pick up the coins that are in/on them. If you were to go to a house and move everything around, the game keeps track of it, and this adds to the bloated save files.

The soups/stews I found were by far the best foods in the game as eating one vegetable soup I think it was had the same effect of drinking an health and stamina regeneration potion, and weigh less than the 2 potions (0.5 per potion, 0.5 per soup).

The containers are indeed worthless, although you could pick it all up and sell it to an npc I suppose for a bit of extra cash

[Space Gibbon]

I keep getting the urge to start new characters on this. Despite the fact that I play them all pretty much the same.

It's (dragon)born out of some form of crippling OCD.

Despite the fact I play 99% of the time in first person, my tail poking out through the cloak of the nightingale armour does my head in.

Crippling OCD

You could always, like, not be a cat.

Or a lizard, but I'm assuming you're a cat.

No one plays a lizard.

[Schnibbles]

As a matter of interest how are you planning to go about this?

I can see there are various indirect means of achieving the death of a mark that don't involve you swinging a sword or firing a destruction spell, such as reverse pickpocketing poison, or pulling aggro and then using summons to do the job, but are you thinking even more indirect?.

By not killing anyone I mean REALLY indirect. Let us say, for example, that you are tasked with killing a man walking through a town. If you get ahead of him, then hide in an appropriately dark corner, you can cast Frenzy (rather than Mayhem - which is the shitty master version of that spell line that is cast around yourself, completely missing the point of the spell) near the man. This will then make everyone treat him as the enemy, and him treat everyone else as the enemy. Bish bosh bash, bob's your uncle.

[Guest]

I seem to recall that in Morrowind the Khajits couldn't wear boots due to they'd stupid paw feet? That should carry over. Pay the price for being a Furry!

[drkbfhmmr]

reverse pickpocketing poison

Please tell me more about this. I always assumed poison was just for applying to your weapons.

Does it work a bit like putting a grenade in someone's pocket in Fallout 3? (I don't expect anything to explode, of course.)

If so, I think I'm going to start using that pickpocket skill a lot more

[Ferine]

You need the associated Perk to be able to place poison on people, although I feel it could do with some sort of damage multiplier: if you're looking to kill it's going to take multiple vials, at which point you might as well stab them in the back instead. I suppose it could be useful for silently applying status effects — enemies don't react to being poisoned — but it's still a novelty more than anything.

I actually sunk points into it purely to try and kill a certain NPC silently — the prerequisite to join the Dark Brotherhood — but annoyingly she still cried out. Curse you, scripting!

[Cosmic_Guru]

Please tell me more about this. I always assumed poison was just for applying to your weapons.

Does it work a bit like putting a grenade in someone's pocket in Fallout 3? (I don't expect anything to explode, of course.)

If so, I think I'm going to start using that pickpocket skill a lot more

I haven't earned the perk for this yet but in Oblivion there were poisoned apples which could be obtained via the DB (of course) and they would work splendidly.

Ive also heard you can replace the iron arrows the archers in Solitude castle area have with a single higher damage one and pick multiple arrows up for free from the targets.

It would be cool also if your NPC companions would take potions you supply them with such as invisibility so as to stealth through whole sections.

[Cosmic_Guru]

I seem to recall that in Morrowind the Khajits couldn't wear boots due to they'd stupid paw feet? That should carry over. Pay the price for being a Furry!

Watch it pig-boy 100g says I can whip your bristly ass in a bare knuckle contest, any place any time.

[Guest]

Watch it pig-boy 100g says I can whip your bristly ass in a bare knuckle contest, any place any time.

It's not really bare knuckle though, as your furry mitts will bounce off my face and probably just polish my teeth, leaving me smiling and feeling buffed

[Teeohbee]

Never been in a brawl with khajiit have you Dino?

[Guest]

Never been in a brawl with khajiit have you Dino?

They're all pussies

*edit* When I get the time I'll find that travelling band of them and murder them. And post pictures. That's what you've done! You! I am just the weapon that's at your feet, bloodied with chunks of fur along it's cruel blade.

[Space Gibbon]

It's a shame they didn't keep unarmed as a skill in Skyrim, what with the way perks work. Would've been great punching dragons to death.

I have a weird...bug I suppose you'd have to call it.

Mild main quest stage 4 or 5 spoilers (after the second main quest dragon):

Delphine has started cooking food at the inn in Whiterun. No idea what she's doing there...maybe she was just on her way back to Riverwood from Kynesgrove, but she's been there twice when I've gone back. I've yet to go back to Riverwood so I hope she shows up there when she's supposed to, otherwise the main quest is fooked for me in this game.

[Space Gibbon]

I haven't earned the perk for this yet but in Oblivion there were poisoned apples which could be obtained via the DB (of course) and they would work splendidly.

I could never get the poisoned apples in Oblivion to work because the people I tried them on would steadfastly refuse to eat them, choosing to consume every other food item in the area first. Even if I went around removing all other food from the immediate vicinity, they'd spend forever eating an item in their hand that couldn't be removed from their inventory.

[deerokus]

I can't remember clearly, but perhaps reverse pickpocketing was required?

[Space Gibbon]

I can't remember clearly, but perhaps reverse pickpocketing was required?

I think it works better that way, but if the target is eating something at the time there's no help for it.