The OFFICIAL Anandtech Forums TeS V: Skyrim Thread

[cytoSiN]

The game is too addicting to stay away from though.

This. Very this.

 

[zerocool84]

I tried Googling this but didn't get a clear answer. When you start out in the beginning, how do you use the race powers? I'm Orc and I have Berserker Rage. I have no idea how to activate it. I'm level 11 and haven't used it once.

 

[cytoSiN]

I tried Googling this but didn't get a clear answer. When you start out in the beginning, how do you use the race powers? I'm Orc and I have Berserker Rage. I have no idea how to activate it. I'm level 11 and haven't used it once.

I haven't played an orc yet, but all of the other racial powers I've used are under Magic>Powers. You can equip from there, or add to favorites and equip from the favorites menu, or add to a hotkey and equip using 1-8.

 

[zerocool84]

I haven't played an orc yet, but all of the other racial powers I've used are under Magic>Powers. You can equip from there, or add to favorites and equip from the favorites menu, or add to a hotkey and equip using 1-8.

So just like any other spell? Maybe I've used it without noticing.

 

[shortylickens]

I am REALLY sorry I ignored smithing until late in the game. Finally pushed to Glass and made myself a very nice set of armor. Was very surprised when I found I could upgrade it to flawless and almost double the defense.
Was positively shocked when I made a glass sword much stronger than anything I had up to that point, and then doubled its attack on the grindstone. Now I'm walking around pretty much invulnerable and killing tough monsters in one or two hits (I decided to focus on dual-wielding).

Only downside was I pissed away all my iron and most of my leather building up my skill. Wasnt paying attention and realized too late that MOST stuff needs at least one piece of iron or one leather strip.

 

[RavenSEAL]

I tried Googling this but didn't get a clear answer. When you start out in the beginning, how do you use the race powers? I'm Orc and I have Berserker Rage. I have no idea how to activate it. I'm level 11 and haven't used it once.

It's under magic.

 

[RavenSEAL]

fus ro da!

http://www.wimp.com/rodah/

loooooooooooooooooooooooooooollllllllllll

 

[Imp]

I am REALLY sorry I ignored smithing until late in the game. Finally pushed to Glass and made myself a very nice set of armor. Was very surprised when I found I could upgrade it to flawless and almost double the defense.
Was positively shocked when I made a glass sword much stronger than anything I had up to that point, and then doubled its attack on the grindstone. Now I'm walking around pretty much invulnerable and killing tough monsters in one or two hits (I decided to focus on dual-wielding).

Only downside was I pissed away all my iron and most of my leather building up my skill. Wasnt paying attention and realized too late that MOST stuff needs at least one piece of iron or one leather strip.

Don't worry about it. Most mines I've found contain iron, as do the mine-able patches in the open. Also, once you're loaded or start having too much crap to sell, actually bartering crap for ingots of whatever works well. I have over a hundred ebony ingots because the stores didn't have enough money.

I burned through most of my iron and leather to level whore too. They're very available from smithy merchants.

 

[shortylickens]

Don't worry about it. Most mines I've found contain iron, as do the mine-able patches in the open. Also, once you're loaded or start having too much crap to sell, actually bartering crap for ingots of whatever works well. I have over a hundred ebony ingots because the stores didn't have enough money.

I burned through most of my iron and leather to level whore too. They're very available from smithy merchants.

If you go crazy buying all the potions and scrolls you see, stores will have enough money to take all your junk.

Whenever I see a mage I immediately use one of each resistance potion. Lightens my load as I explore dungeons.

 

[Visaoni]

If you go crazy buying all the potions and scrolls you see, stores will have enough money to take all your junk.

Whenever I see a mage I immediately use one of each resistance potion. Lightens my load as I explore dungeons.

Ha. These days potions are the main item I can't unload. Even with a mod to give all merchants 3000 gold, I can often only unload about 3 potions per merchant. My +25% alchemy set, and maxed Alchemist/Physician/Benefactor may be at fault.

Without the mod, I would be unable to sell most of the potions I make without first buying stuff from the merchant - which I almost never do these days, as my mage has 100 Enchanting, all the enchants I want, and has no need of smithing (despite having 60 smithing just from leveling enchanting).

I'm sitting on about 200k gold, and have a bunch of valuable potions sitting in my house until I get around to spending some serious time dedicated just to traveling around selling them. And I still pick up everything with a value/weight ratio of at least 10. I don't know why, but I still do it.

 

[PrayForDeath]

welp, I've done it. gone and ruined the next 2 or 3 months of general productivity.


current major super gripe--when assigning "hotkeys" to weapon sets, as broken as the vanilla system is, is there any way to make sure that switching between sets (1-8--9 seems to be broken for me), actually retains an offhand item, like shield or 2nd weapon?

whenever i switch from sword/shield or sword/axe to sword/magic, then back to my offhand set, it always retains the magic in my offhand, or unequips my lead weapon. you can't really assign both weapons (or weap+ shield) to the same numbered hotkey, so is there an in-game way to do this, or is this a community fix, somewhere?

I've been complaining about this since the game first came out. It's the reason I stopped dual wielding (going from dual wield swords to spells, and then back is impossible with hotkeys). If anybody knows a community fix pls let me know!

 

[PrayForDeath]

I am REALLY sorry I ignored smithing until late in the game. Finally pushed to Glass and made myself a very nice set of armor. Was very surprised when I found I could upgrade it to flawless and almost double the defense.
Was positively shocked when I made a glass sword much stronger than anything I had up to that point, and then doubled its attack on the grindstone. Now I'm walking around pretty much invulnerable and killing tough monsters in one or two hits (I decided to focus on dual-wielding).

Only downside was I pissed away all my iron and most of my leather building up my skill. Wasnt paying attention and realized too late that MOST stuff needs at least one piece of iron or one leather strip.

I decided to skip crafting professions (smithing, enchanting, alchemy) in my playthrough because first, I'm tired of crafting after playing WoW for years, and second, because I heard it sort of cheeses the game and makes it too easy. I guess that's part of the reason why dragons are still kicking my ass at level 40.

 

[VulgarDisplay]

You do realize that one simple console command would fix this right?

Did you even bother googling it?

Yes I did. After I loaded a prior save without realizing how far back it took me.

 

[pandemonium]

I've been complaining about this since the game first came out. It's the reason I stopped dual wielding (going from dual wield swords to spells, and then back is impossible with hotkeys). If anybody knows a community fix pls let me know!

A rather annoying fault of the system. I decided to just stick with it and use the favorites menu to equip my aft hand every time (suffering through some 70 hours of buffing every 60 seconds in dungeons). At this point, my 1h is 100, so I've been skilling archery, 2h, and magicka skills and only dual-wield in fights that are serious.


Maybe it's just me, but I don't understand rolling another character at all. If you really want to focus on other perks for a role-type character why not just re-specialize your perks and continue leveling the same character in a game that takes so much time to build quest completion, rapport, map exploration, shouts, etc...? I know the feeling of starting over and fresh is often deceivingly rewarding (first rewarding, later not-so-much when you realize all the things you have to do over again), but I really don't understand in a game as time intensive as this.

 

[pandemonium]

I decided to skip crafting professions (smithing, enchanting, alchemy) in my playthrough because first, I'm tired of crafting after playing WoW for years, and second, because I heard it sort of cheeses the game and makes it too easy. I guess that's part of the reason why dragons are still kicking my ass at level 40.

That's no excuse. I've hit cap in every major profession on several characters in almost every MMO to hit the market (minus FFXIV...since I quit after playing for only 2 months).

I did it in stages. First to glass, then later to dragon and full enchanting abilities. I haven't done alchemy yet since I'm building a large stock of ingredients first (and honestly, I find more than enough potions around that it really isn't necessary). I only started leveling smithing once I started taking too much damage as to not make it overbearingly easy. Now, heh...I find other ways to make the game challenging (increase the difficulty and being level 56 using skills that are only 30-50 with no perks assigned to them can be very difficult).

 

[shortylickens]

Ha. These days potions are the main item I can't unload. Even with a mod to give all merchants 3000 gold, I can often only unload about 3 potions per merchant. My +25% alchemy set, and maxed Alchemist/Physician/Benefactor may be at fault.

Without the mod, I would be unable to sell most of the potions I make without first buying stuff from the merchant - which I almost never do these days, as my mage has 100 Enchanting, all the enchants I want, and has no need of smithing (despite having 60 smithing just from leveling enchanting).

I'm sitting on about 200k gold, and have a bunch of valuable potions sitting in my house until I get around to spending some serious time dedicated just to traveling around selling them. And I still pick up everything with a value/weight ratio of at least 10. I don't know why, but I still do it.

I remember both Elder Scrolls 3 and 4 had some house mods that were really elaborate but also terribly expensive. The Private Mobile Base for Morrowind easily costs close to a million when its fully loaded, but its also the biggest and best home you could ever find. I suggest you investigate Skyrim Nexus for player houses that have to be paid for.

 

[Red Storm]

I keep my gold at around 20k, and as long as it is close to that figure, I don't worry about money/looting/selling. Really lets me enjoy the exploring/fighting/thieving/assassinating aspects of the game.

 

[shortylickens]

Crap. Got a game breaking bug now. Trying to enter thieves guild. Did the silly task Brynjolf wanted. Met him down in the Flagon. His dialog got weird and then he said we cant talk here, lets get to the Flagon. Then he walked back up to the surface and started doing his distracting speech from the stall again. Quest log tells me to meet him in the Flagon. No matter how much time passes he keeps running his speech from the stall. No one leaves or goes to eat or goes back home. He never goes down to the Flagon again.

For me its game breaking cuz I need to unload my stolen loot. Plus the thieves quests are usually pretty cool. See no reason why Skyrim would be different.

 

[cytoSiN]

Crap. Got a game breaking bug now. Trying to enter thieves guild. Did the silly task Brynjolf wanted. Met him down in the Flagon. His dialog got weird and then he said we cant talk here, lets get to the Flagon. Then he walked back up to the surface and started doing his distracting speech from the stall again. Quest log tells me to meet him in the Flagon. No matter how much time passes he keeps running his speech from the stall. No one leaves or goes to eat or goes back home. He never goes down to the Flagon again.

For me its game breaking cuz I need to unload my stolen loot. Plus the thieves quests are usually pretty cool. See no reason why Skyrim would be different.

This should help you. If all else fails, try this: go to the Ragged Flagon, open the console and summon Brynjolf to you with "player.placeatme 0001B07D"

 

[shortylickens]

This should help you. If all else fails, try this: go to the Ragged Flagon, open the console and summon Brynjolf to you with "player.placeatme 0001B07D"

I dunno. He already told me the first quest was complete and walked me down to the Flagon. Then when we got there he pretended he didnt know anything about it and voluntarily walked himself up to the market again. I'll try to do it.

Freakin Bethesda. This isnt the first time the Thieves guild could be permanently broken by bad scripts. Oblivion had the same issue.

 

[shortylickens]

OK, it worked, surprisingly. Guess what? Another bug.
After giving him the payments he says lets go and I'll show you what we really do here. I follow him to the next area, and the people walking around attack me. For some reason he turns hostile and tries to kill me too.

 

[Red Storm]

OK, it worked, surprisingly. Guess what? Another bug.
After giving him the payments he says lets go and I'll show you what we really do here. I follow him to the next area, and the people walking around attack me. For some reason he turns hostile and tries to kill me too.

It's a trap!

 

[dennilfloss]

Yes!!! Found Ysgramor's tomb while on a horker 'extinction' hunt (I decided to go on an arctic safari and I bagged 22 of these uglies). I have a pretty good idea what I must do to go further in the tomb and access the hilltop behind it but I wasn't in the mood and

Spoiler

smithing

isn't for us Bretons. So I spent ~15 minutes and I managed to frigging climb the cliff, jumping laterally etc..., and I did get to the top and got a word of power. Take that Ysgramor! Now I'm gonna enter the tomb from the backside and see what's in there.

BTW, I was at my parents since December 2nd and just came back yesterday. No computer, so no Skyrim. I was so rusty that I decided to roll another (prettier) destructosummoner and start again. Worst encounter so far was a wispmother at level 8. My flame atronachs battled her for almost 20 minutes before I decided that keeping on fighting her (she could not reach me as I was hiding in a crevasse) would be tantamount to simply maxing up my conjuration since she was healing herself every once in a while and there's little fun in that, so I retreated in the end and let her live. I'll be back for sweet revenge later. :twisted:

Edit: backdoor is a no-go.

 

[zinfamous]

OK, it worked, surprisingly. Guess what? Another bug.
After giving him the payments he says lets go and I'll show you what we really do here. I follow him to the next area, and the people walking around attack me. For some reason he turns hostile and tries to kill me too.

Thought I was screwed last night, running into a bug that appears to be seriously game-breaking, and common, on the X360 version according to the internets:

visiting greybeards for the first time to learn about shouts (at level 14 for me), the main old dude would keep asking me to shout after I shouted at them. tried reset and load, traveling, waiting 24hr to come back and shout again, nothing.

loaded it up this morning at the same save point just outside Hrothgar (love that they chose that name, btw), and it worked on first try, and didn't bug out during the rest of that training sequence (which is also fairly common).

Only other problem that I have had, so far, is the drinking contest from that lady at the tavern, when you wake up in that monestary. I cleaned up and talked to the priest lady, then when exiting, I got a CTD. I've just ignored it, for now. So lucky that I didn't quicksave or save over anything after waking up in the monestary.

The only way in which I have altered the game, so far, is to change the shadow points for trees and stones to add depth (forgot where I saw that), and using console to increase my weight load. Honestly, if I didn't alter the load, I would have stopped playing long ago (18 hours in, so far). That is the single-largest issue I have with these games.

I get the immersion, but fuck it--I really don't want to be running back and forth and spending every 2 minutes in a dungeon selecting how many brooms I need to drop so that I pick up my 5th silver gunatlet.

 

[Markbnj]

visiting greybeards for the first time to learn about shouts (at level 14 for me), the main old dude would keep asking me to shout after I shouted at them. tried reset and load, traveling, waiting 24hr to come back and shout again, nothing.

I didn't realize at first that I needed to shout right at him and knock him back. Later when I had to shout with both words it took me a bit to figure out that I had to hold the key down a bit. At least... I think that's what did it.

One thing that currently has me puzzled... the bullet-time animations that I drop into sometimes when I finish a mob off. Am I triggering those, or are they just candy?