[Gaming] Elder Scrolls 5 - Dawnguard is HERE!

I was suspicious of this to be honest. I'm using expert level stuff and having a hard time killing things with it.
Have you ever tried a Staff of Stormcalling? You point it at the ground and it makes a wall of lightning that does 50 points of damage a second. Sounds like it'll eat through soul gems but it certain has the damage you need. I believe I got mine in one of the Barrows that has a fragment of an amulet... I know I went there because of a letter I received too.
 
Yeah Ash, but you have to admit that it's a bit unbalanced that a Bow can do 300%+ damage and 2-6shot most anything, yet the most powerful Archmage in all of Skyrim has to cast 15 spells to down a bandit?

Again, Shego the Witch is on complete standby till the leveling mod is put up.
 
Have you ever tried a Staff of Stormcalling? You point it at the ground and it makes a wall of lightning that does 50 points of damage a second. Sounds like it'll eat through soul gems but it certain has the damage you need. I believe I got mine in one of the Barrows that has a fragment of an amulet... I know I went there because of a letter I received too.
The wall spells are fucking awful in practice, they barely work.
 
If I "aquire" a child and "name" it thusly, will I recieve such gifts?

I'm sure I have one still wriggling in a meat locker somewhere...
 

GasBandit

Staff member
My earliest days in RPGs have always been as tank/melee dps. The part of me that was brutalized to death and picked clean by UO tankmages and by naked mages in everquest (wizards wearing no gear so they would lose nothing if they died in pvp) has made it so that I can't help but chuckle every time a game makes magic users underpowered compared to melee. I know it's not consistent with magical "reality," but I still SO love to see it happen.
 
UO tankmages were owned by archer/pot chuggers almost throughout all of UO. After that, naked dexxer kryss/macers dominated anything in plate.

EQ? I played a SK. I harmtouch massacred mages so I can't comment there.
 

GasBandit

Staff member
EQ? I played a SK. I harmtouch massacred mages so I can't comment there.
Did you play on Rallos Zek? I started out SK, but four little words changed me to a monk- "target resisted your harmtouch." Every. Time. Then six more changed me to a druid - "your feet adhere to the ground."
 
Yeah Ash, but you have to admit that it's a bit unbalanced that a Bow can do 300%+ damage and 2-6shot most anything, yet the most powerful Archmage in all of Skyrim has to cast 15 spells to down a bandit?

Again, Shego the Witch is on complete standby till the leveling mod is put up.
I've been saying that since I first found the Bow Damage items. Part of the reason I kept going as far as I did was to point out and see just HOW broken it is. Thinking of maybe doing a post on their official forums or something to bring up the issue. Thinking of calling it "How I Became One with the Arrow".

They REALLY need to ether nerf bows or buff everything else. A simple fix would be to reduce the amount of + Bow Damage you can get on a single item to maybe 10% and/or to remove the ability to add it to rings, bracers, or helmets. Alternatively, they can add in more + Weapon Damage locations and a + Magic Damage bonus.

Do we have any fighters using melee who could chime in on their damage potential? Kinda want a comparison.

I'm also going to look at enchanting a good set of armor for casters... see how much magicka bonus and magic regen I can stick on armor, so we can see how viable they are in the end game. What's the best magic chest piece? I've only seen expert's robes with +125%. Is there anything better than that?
 
Well yeah GasB, a resist pretty much meant I was toast. I was mostly talking about the "naked mages".

A fully geared Druid though? Yeah that was pure bullshit...
 

GasBandit

Staff member
Well yeah GasB, a resist pretty much meant I was toast. I was mostly talking about the "naked mages".

A fully geared Druid though? Yeah that was pure bullshit...
So did you play on Rallos? Or were you on Tallon/Vallon? Just curious if we ever fought is all.

And yes, the naked mages were resisting them too with alarming regularity.

But my monk got new casterkilling life when he got his Master Wu's Trance Sticks...
 
I've been saying that since I first found the Bow Damage items. Part of the reason I kept going as far as I did was to point out and see just HOW broken it is. Thinking of maybe doing a post on their official forums or something to bring up the issue. Thinking of calling it "How I Became One with the Arrow".

They REALLY need to ether nerf bows or buff everything else. A simple fix would be to reduce the amount of + Bow Damage you can get on a single item to maybe 10% and/or to remove the ability to add it to rings, bracers, or helmets. Alternatively, they can add in more + Weapon Damage locations and a + Magic Damage bonus.

Do we have any fighters using melee who could chime in on their damage potential? Kinda want a comparison.

I'm also going to look at enchanting a good set of armor for casters... see how much magicka bonus and magic regen I can stick on armor, so we can see how viable they are in the end game. What's the best magic chest piece? I've only seen expert's robes with +125%. Is there anything better than that?
I have not gotten very far yet but two-handers seem to smack things down pretty good but I don't have tons of modifiers yet, though against Casters I tend to just cross check them with the Shaft or hilt of my weapon as it shuts them up for a few seconds but also does some damage.
 
I think Melee weapons can only get one or two + Damage bonuses, as opposed to my four with bows. Still, I wouldn't be surprised if a Two-hander did much more damage on the whole to balance it out.
 
Alright, I got done enchanting... Here's the best I can do with what -I- know about and with me missing some enchant perks.

+211% Magicka Regen (225% with full perks)
-71% Destruction School spell costs (80% with full perks)
+86 Magicka (100 Magicka with full perks)
+51 Carry Weight Limit (60 with full perks)
+26% Resist to Element of your Choice (30% with full perks)

Mind you, that's with an Expert's Robe of Destruction, so if you can find better robes then subtract -20% Destruction and +125% Magicka regen from the equation and add in whatever is better.

With those stats, would Magic be more viable?
 
And what in all of that, helps damage?
It basically gives you more ammo to work with and better regen, along with more room to carry pots for magic. Like I said, I'm not really familiar with the Master levels of Destruction, so I don't know how much damage a master level spell causes. However, 80% cost reduction means you can cast them 5 times more often and the increased magic and regen means less time not casting spells.

I'm basically trying to figure out a bearable setup for the end game until they do something about the damage inequalities, for all the magic using people. You know, so it's less frustrating in the meantime.
 
And I'm sticking with arrows. I wanted to do an arrow person, so I guess it worked out for me. I'm not uber-powerful as it is, since I don't have any arrow bonuses or enchants.

I love how fluid this game is. I accidentally used my Shout in Windhelm when trying to use my Transmute spell (fortunately it hit a wall). When I get back to Whiterun, a courier gives me a letter referencing that, and telling me a place to go. That's where I'll be heading next. Love this stuff.
 
And I'm sticking with arrows. I wanted to do an arrow person, so I guess it worked out for me. I'm not uber-powerful as it is, since I don't have any arrow bonuses or enchants.

I love how fluid this game is. I accidentally used my Shout in Windhelm when trying to use my Transmute spell (fortunately it hit a wall). When I get back to Whiterun, a courier gives me a letter referencing that, and telling me a place to go. That's where I'll be heading next. Love this stuff.
If you do it too often, the guards will politely ask you to stop because your scaring the townspeople.
 
Hey, there are potions that you can craft that improve spell damage. However, they require materials such as the atronach salts and the like that are rare to come by in any amount and at best they last 1 minute. Also, alchemy levels INSANELY slow.
 
I'll echo the Alchemy thing. Even with the Thief stone (alchemy is a Stealth skill) and the Lovers Stone, you still need like a hundred potions a level.

But I'll also say that Void Salts aren't that hard to come by. You just need to look for Conjurer lairs. They tend to be full of Daedra.
 
Some of the leveling speed choices are baffling. It takes like 187000 potions to level alchemy to 100 but I can almost get my pickpocket to 50 before I'm out of Riverwood only lifting lockpicks, money and potions.
 
So I suppose the way to go would simply be to pay master trainers for 5 ranks/level. Or something.
That gets stupidly expensive after awhile. It goes up ether 100 or 50 gold for each point you have... so to go from 90-100 would be like 25-50 grand, easy.

Also, I just received a "Letter from a Friend" about a Dungeon I was just in... mentioning I was causing quite a stir there!
 

figmentPez

Staff member
All these significant imbalances make me wonder if some sort of mathematical modeling is the next big step for complex video games. Get some math geniuses to figure out how to make an algorithm that analyzes the overall skill/item/level/whatever progression possibilities and identify peaks and valleys to smooth out. Right now it seems like it's done by intuition and play testing, and it seems like there has to be a better way that can be automated.
 
All these significant imbalances make me wonder if some sort of mathematical modeling is the next big step for complex video games. Get some math geniuses to figure out how to make an algorithm that analyzes the overall skill/item/level/whatever progression possibilities and identify peaks and valleys to smooth out. Right now it seems like it's done by intuition and play testing, and it seems like there has to be a better way that can be automated.
Perhaps, but you also need to remember that sometimes imbalances are intentional. However, the biggest problem is simply that the Devs can't afford a large enough team to really tackle all the issues they need in a 2-3 year cycle. There are only SO many hours a day someone can play and you can't really have justify paying for a huge staff of testers for a SINGLE GAME.

Unfortunately, this is why patches were created.
 
Top