The OFFICIAL Anandtech Forums TeS V: Skyrim Thread

[thespyder]

yes, these are common problems. How many times have I mashed F9 because I lopped off Lydia's head instead of that Deathlord, as she happens to step in front of my sneaking self at the last second?

sigh...

LOL. yeah, I can totally see that. I personally like more of the spell action, so Fireball is my go to spell of choice. Had this one tomb where some dude paid me to go in with him. After reloading like 5 times (he kept on rushing in and dying) I finally got to the "Main room" with the necromancer. I opened the door and he ran in.... and died. After four or five more times like this, I opened the door and ran the other way. Eventually he came back trailing undead. Still it took a lot of micro-managing but I got the baddie dead and my tag along somehow survived.

And Undead are twice as useless as they only last a minute and then die automatically? What were they thinking?

 

[SMOGZINN]

LOL. yeah, I can totally see that. I personally like more of the spell action, so Fireball is my go to spell of choice. Had this one tomb where some dude paid me to go in with him. After reloading like 5 times (he kept on rushing in and dying) I finally got to the "Main room" with the necromancer. I opened the door and he ran in.... and died. After four or five more times like this, I opened the door and ran the other way. Eventually he came back trailing undead. Still it took a lot of micro-managing but I got the baddie dead and my tag along somehow survived.

And Undead are twice as useless as they only last a minute and then die automatically? What were they thinking?

Raise dead sound useless, but they can be quite powerful. I raised a saber cat that killed a blood dragon by itself while I was busy killing a group of bandits. Also you get more powerful raise dead spells that last longer.

 

[amish]

Yes, Lydia in sneaking her heavy armor sounds like a walking percussion band. Clump-Clump-Clump. Maybe a muffle spell would help.
I think that different followers have different skill in sneak. If you want to be sneaky, you need to find a sneaky follower.

i went with aela the huntress. she has a decent sneak value and can help with long range bow shots when she wants to. unless the baddies are right on top of us she doesn't ruin my sneak. when they are on top of us she acts as the first meat shield behind my anatronachs.

 

[zinfamous]

Quick question as I never used a companion with a sneaky character. Can companions be detected while I am sneaking and kill my attempts to sneak around? It would make sense.

yes, but in my experience, you still get the sneak bonus and skill hit even if they are noticed while you perform the attack.

It's a pretty good strategy, actually.

I'm at the point where, from lvl 80-94? (current) sneak, and only 1 point into 1st sneak skill, muffle noise, and backstab, my heavy armor one-handed warrior can sneak up to 95% of things completely unnoticed.

I'm using Boethiah's ebony mail, which in tern makes the perk into muffled noise completely wasted, I think--but that perk is also useless considering that it's an easy enchant.

 

[Red Storm]

I generally always run sneak in Elder Scrolls games. It let's me know when something has spotted me that I'm not aware of.

 

[Atomic Playboy]

I started as a pure destruction mage, raining death from fireballs and lightning, with the occasional ice spear thrown in for good measure. I started building up sneak when I started doing missions for the Thieves Guild and it's surprising how useful it is, especially with custom-enchanted armor with Fortify Sneak and Muffle. I've done a number of missions where I just sneak through the level, grab an item, and sneak back out without alerting a single guard, which is a whole new way to play (for me). Now I've taken to sneaking through dungeons and one-shotting everything with my soul-snaring bow (I've got like 300 filled soul gems I need to use, but there's really no reason given how I'm sitting on a small fortune of 180,000 or so). It's shocking to me how many different ways there are to play this game and I have yet to play as a traditional warrior or a tank.

 

[Slew Foot]

My stupid followers never engage in melee combat. Give give them a full set of enchanted dragon armor and a ebony sword and they sit back firing iron arrows with some stupid wooden bow.

/firstworldproblems

 

[SMOGZINN]

My stupid followers never engage in melee combat. Give give them a full set of enchanted dragon armor and a ebony sword and they sit back firing iron arrows with some stupid wooden bow.

/firstworldproblems

Each follower has a prefered skill set. Lydia is heavy armor and 2-handed weapons for example. If I give her one of the basic ancient nord battleaxes and a highly enchanted glass war axe and ebony shield she will go into battle wielding that stupid 10 damage battleaxe.

 

[Markbnj]

I didn't know Andy Richter did all the character voices for Skyrim...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rj8nHy6aA6E&feature=g-all-u&context=G29affb8FAAAAAAAACAA

 

[NoSoup4You]

Each follower has a prefered skill set. Lydia is heavy armor and 2-handed weapons for example. If I give her one of the basic ancient nord battleaxes and a highly enchanted glass war axe and ebony shield she will go into battle wielding that stupid 10 damage battleaxe.

I've noticed this with Lydia as well, but I'm almost certain she started with a sword and shield so I assumed that was her preferred "weapon set". But if she has any two-hander she'll use it over the Ebony longsword I gave her it seems...

 

[dennilfloss]

I have maybe 3 or 4 of the masks. Does something special happen if I get all of them?

Once you have all 8, you can go to Labyrinthian to obtain the 9th (wooden) that allows you to travel into the past.

 

[Skott]

This guy has recently started a video follower guide on youtube which is kind of nice if you are into who makes the best follower and their stats and whatnot. I found it interesting so thought I would share.

Episode 1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jh4lnFknwJo

Episode 2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m6DUK8tTeGc&feature=channel_video_title

 

[zinfamous]

Each follower has a prefered skill set. Lydia is heavy armor and 2-handed weapons for example. If I give her one of the basic ancient nord battleaxes and a highly enchanted glass war axe and ebony shield she will go into battle wielding that stupid 10 damage battleaxe.

She's nasty with the ebony greatsword that I found for her some time ago. I didn't realize that she had a preference, but I equipped her early on with an orcish greatsword that I wasn't using, and it made a huge difference.

She was running everything through before I had a chance to engage.

 

[zinfamous]

This guy has recently started a video follower guide on youtube which is kind of nice if you are into who makes the best follower and their stats and whatnot. I found it interesting so thought I would share.

Episode 1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jh4lnFknwJo

Episode 2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m6DUK8tTeGc&feature=channel_video_title

Oh, that's helpful.

Thanks much!

 

[Markbnj]

Bah. I don't want to give away any spoilers, so I'll keep this circumspect, but I think this is a good example of what's lame about Skyrim's quest system. Somewhere along the line I picked up a quest to find the shrine of a certain daedra. I locate said shrine, and when I talk to the head cultist there she instructs me to do something my character finds repugnant. One of the choices happens to be "No, I won't." So I choose that, and she insults me and walks away... but the quest is still active. So I think, these people are really bad people; I should kill them all. I proceed to do just that. There are like six of them, not a very tough fight. As soon as they are all dead the daedra reanimates one of them and speaks to me (ok, that's cool). She tells me I have to do the exact same thing I refused to do when the cultist ordered me to, and now I have that quest active even though I never wanted it in the first place, and killed them all to avoid it and rid the world of their evil (not cool).

 

[zinfamous]

Bah. I don't want to give away any spoilers, so I'll keep this circumspect, but I think this is a good example of what's lame about Skyrim's quest system. Somewhere along the line I picked up a quest to find the shrine of a certain daedra. I locate said shrine, and when I talk to the head cultist there she instructs me to do something my character finds repugnant. One of the choices happens to be "No, I won't." So I choose that, and she insults me and walks away... but the quest is still active. So I think, these people are really bad people; I should kill them all. I proceed to do just that. There are like six of them, not a very tough fight. As soon as they are all dead the daedra reanimates one of them and speaks to me (ok, that's cool). She tells me I have to do the exact same thing I refused to do when the cultist ordered me to, and now I have that quest active even though I never wanted it in the first place, and killed them all to avoid it and rid the world of their evil (not cool).

dude.

do that quest.

reward is awesome.

Spoiler

but it was seriously bugged for me. without killing the cultists--and having Boethia spawn after doing her bidding, she wouldn't instruct me to murder everyone as she was supposed to. I had to run in and kill them first to force her to spawn. Kind of like what happened to you, although you did it to bring some sort of justice to the world.

Bah! justice/schmustice--her reward is dead awesome.

But think about it this way: you still remove their evil from the world, even though it is at her bidding. It's not like she is ever going to die, so might as well let her reward you for it. Then, promise yourself to murder any other cultists that return. :awe:

 

[dust]

My stupid followers never engage in melee combat. Give give them a full set of enchanted dragon armor and a ebony sword and they sit back firing iron arrows with some stupid wooden bow.

/firstworldproblems

I've been using the Argonian that you save from the Darkwater Underpass(or something like that). You can find him at a later time at the Darkwater Crossing camp. That guy is awesome. If I go melee, he pulls out the bow, if I have the bow drawn, he charges with the Daedric Sword. He was the only companion that didn't die on me after about 80% of my in-game time.

My first companion was a dude from Riverwood, not the archer, the other one, had a couple of missions done and then he died, Lydia also died shortly after leaving Whiterun, but the Argonian rocks. He's pretty good with the bow also. I gave him enchanted weapons and armor, I took care of his armor/weapon upgrades(some Blacksmith elixirs do wonders),I'm using Restoration as required, and the guy simply won't die.

 

[Sam25]

I'm doing the Dark Brotherhood quests now but was wondering... does finishing the Civil War quests before completing the main quests effect the main quests in any way?

 

[Markbnj]

dude.

do that quest.

reward is awesome.

Spoiler

but it was seriously bugged for me. without killing the cultists--and having Boethia spawn after doing her bidding, she wouldn't instruct me to murder everyone as she was supposed to. I had to run in and kill them first to force her to spawn. Kind of like what happened to you, although you did it to bring some sort of justice to the world.

Bah! justice/schmustice--her reward is dead awesome.

But think about it this way: you still remove their evil from the world, even though it is at her bidding. It's not like she is ever going to die, so might as well let her reward you for it. Then, promise yourself to murder any other cultists that return. :awe:

Wow, well I guess I'll have to find someone to murder. .

 

[shortylickens]

Once you have all 8, you can go to Labyrinthian to obtain the 9th (wooden) that allows you to travel into the past.

Weird, I already got the wood one.

 

[Martimus]

Weird, I already got the wood one.

Once you get all of them and the wooden one, you use the wooden one (in the place you found it) and put the other eight masks on the statues. The ninth one will appear, and you can take it along with all the other masks. I haven't done it yet, but it is supposed to be pretty bad-ass.

 

[Martimus]

Bah. I don't want to give away any spoilers, so I'll keep this circumspect, but I think this is a good example of what's lame about Skyrim's quest system. Somewhere along the line I picked up a quest to find the shrine of a certain daedra. I locate said shrine, and when I talk to the head cultist there she instructs me to do something my character finds repugnant. One of the choices happens to be "No, I won't." So I choose that, and she insults me and walks away... but the quest is still active. So I think, these people are really bad people; I should kill them all. I proceed to do just that. There are like six of them, not a very tough fight. As soon as they are all dead the daedra reanimates one of them and speaks to me (ok, that's cool). She tells me I have to do the exact same thing I refused to do when the cultist ordered me to, and now I have that quest active even though I never wanted it in the first place, and killed them all to avoid it and rid the world of their evil (not cool).

I have to say I kind of wish I didn't do the Namina (sp?) quest, because it was disgusting and the reward sucked. I still haven't done the Boethia quest yet, since I never found someone I felt comfortable sacrificing.

 

[zinfamous]

I have to say I kind of wish I didn't do the Namina (sp?) quest, because it was disgusting and the reward sucked. I still haven't done the Boethia quest yet, since I never found someone I felt comfortable sacrificing.

Is the Namina the one where you ahve to lead the priest to her? I haven't done that either, as I don't really want to--but I'm tempted to complete all of the Daedric quests. I'll go chat with that priest anyway, and if he turns out to be an asshole, I'll sacrifice him.

For Boethiah, I just grabbed one of my drinking buddies (or maybe the dude that I brawled) in Markarth. It is one of the NPCs that if you kill them, his family will send some assassins after you, but that never happened. I suppose it is b/c I took far, far from Markarth and it involved demonic bidding...or something.

 

[JackSpadesSI]

I'm doing the Dark Brotherhood quests now but was wondering... does finishing the Civil War quests before completing the main quests effect the main quests in any way?

I'd like to know this, too.

 

[Markbnj]

Steam just downloaded an update, but I can't tell yet if it's 1.4 because I can't launch the game until I get done with work... but I don't see the construction set so I'm thinking it wasn't the full patch.

Edit: don't see anything about 1.4 in Bethesda's news section, so I guess that wasn't it. There is, however, a new overview of the creation kit:

http://www.elderscrolls.com/community/we-ve-created-monster-and-you-will-too/