[Gaming] Elder Scrolls 5 - Dawnguard is HERE!

doomdragon6

Staff member
Sigh, I got tired while character creating and went to sleep. My girlfried comes home soon, but apparently she's scheduled for work, so I'll get a few hours in. ^^;
 
I played for a few hours last night and a bit more this morning. Rolled a Dunmer specializing in stealthy magic with a bit of archery and one handed thrown in. I'll post some screens once I get home.
 
I'm in love with this game. Can't wait for a few patches and the Mod Tool to come out.
A few gripes :
1. I cannot get the fucken "favorite" system to work, AKA, I switch weapons manually in that Fable-ized UI. A fix for this would be awesome.
2. Talking down to people when I'm on a horse. I'm able to do it in RL, in these forums and I better be able to do that in the game. Dismounting to chat is lame.
3. I hope there's no LVL cap or auto level, I'm already LVL 16 and mostly because I've been.... pillaging and looting. (70 pickpocket, 45 lockspicks, 50 stealth and only 22 archery and 24 one-handed). I just had to fight some thugs and they were epics battles to say the least.
Added at: 19:15
I haven't been able to make a character that isn't fugly as shit yet.
1D1w8.jpg


This is madness!

This is SKYRIIIM!

Also the women of Skyrim are very nicely done, especially Nord women thus far.
 
So what kind of character builds are people going for? I usually go for a Mage or Theif in these kinds of games so I was thinking of mixing it up and going with a Nord 2 hander to try something different.
 
Honestly, builds revolve entirely around perks this time and perks have minimums for advancement. This basically means you can't min-max unless you have a shitload of money for training. Just play how you want and you'll be able to advance in a means that fits that style.

For instance, I am playing a sort of Tank/Bow type. So I picked the Thief Guardian stone (+20% gain speed for Stealth skills) to advance my bow more quickly and I've been dumping my perks into Archery, Lockpick, and Restoration.
 
Thieving mage.

My Redguard is light on her feet, prone to lock-picking, pickpocketing, arrows, and destruction magic. I keep a shield and dagger on hand for close encounters.

Dual-wielding maces is fun though.

I love how fluidly your character evolves based on how you're playing. I adore the Fallout games, but this is ideal. I don't have to plan things out from the start--I can just roll with whatever I'm already doing.
 
A lot of the problems with Oblivion, Morrowind, and the two new Fallouts are tied to the Gamebryo engine... however, since the company that made it went out of business and will no longer be supporting it, they made their own engine. That means that they got rid of the pre-made build problem.
 
I'm going for a stealth/bow sniper/thief. I loves me some stealth kills.

BTW, I seem to be able to use that build way more effectively in Skyrim than I ever was in Oblivion.
 
That's because the bow perks make their damage scale more evenly. In Oblivion, bows were really only effective once you mastered them because of the knockdown perk you got. In Skyrim you can boost their damage and get improved staggering long before you get the knockdown, so it's more effective early on.

Honestly, my bow is all I've been using since I found my Fortify Archery ring. +15% damage to bow hits? Yes please!

Also, I love how they actually made enchanting (as a skill) viable again. It was so worthless in Morrowind that they took it out completely in Oblivion.
 
That's because the bow perks make their damage scale more evenly. In Oblivion, bows were really only effective once you mastered them because of the knockdown perk you got. In Skyrim you can boost their damage and get improved staggering long before you get the knockdown, so it's more effective early on.

Honestly, my bow is all I've been using since I found my Fortify Archery ring. +15% damage to bow hits? Yes please!

Also, I love how they actually made enchanting (as a skill) viable again. It was so worthless in Morrowind that they took it out completely in Oblivion.
Enchantment?
 
Enchantment?
You need to fix your image tag. I don't know what your trying to say.

Yes, you could enchant stuff in Oblivion, but it didn't require skill to do so and most of the stuff enchanted at flat rates. In Morrowind it was a skill you needed to raise, but raising it increased how quickly your items recharged. However, there was a significant chance of failure when you enchanted yourself so it was always a better idea to just pay someone to do it. Hence you never raised the skill and never got the bonus.
 

doomdragon6

Staff member
I went with a Nord because it was the only race I could make look decent. I don't like how I'm "from here", though. I would have loved to go Dunmer, Breton, or Imperial. Just couldn't make then not look like ass. Granted Dunmer are supposed to look like ass.
 
Damnit. I think I did something dumb. I named my character and picked the race and it said, "Cool beans guy, you good to go?" and I said sure. I realized it never asked if I wanted to change the appearance of my character. I'm guessing I just overlooked whatever let me do that and now I'm a hour or two into the game. Dammit. I really don't want to replay everything so far but I'm kind of annoyed. Hell, I don't even remember it asking me if I was male or female. How did I miss that?
 
Damnit. I think I did something dumb. I named my character and picked the race and it said, "Cool beans guy, you good to go?" and I said sure. I realized it never asked if I wanted to change the appearance of my character. I'm guessing I just overlooked whatever let me do that and now I'm a hour or two into the game. Dammit. I really don't want to replay everything so far but I'm kind of annoyed. Hell, I don't even remember it asking me if I was male or female. How did I miss that?
"Who are you?"

When it shows your character, all of the appearance options are in tabs across the top.
 
Yeah, I totally missed it, just thought it was walking me through stuff. Then I figured, oh it will be like Fallout and ask me at the end of the tutorial.

Nooooooooope.

Ah well. I suppose I'm in armor all the time anyway, who cares what my hair looks like.
 

doomdragon6

Staff member
I honestly don't know how you could have missed that. I actually had a hard time finding how to name my character. I figured "Done" meant "done done", not "done, now name your character."

It asks "Who are you?" and brings up your character--what you look like-- with a huge slew of options with Races and whatnot.

Like, not in a mean way AT ALL-- I honestly can't fathom having missed that. XD
 
I honestly don't know how you could have missed that. I actually had a hard time finding how to name my character. I figured "Done" meant "done done", not "done, now name your character."

It asks "Who are you?" and brings up your character--what you look like-- with a huge slew of options with Races and whatnot.

Like, not in a mean way AT ALL-- I honestly can't fathom having missed that. XD
Doom, I don't think you should rag on anyone for not noticing stuff, considering our D&D sessions :p.
 
Man, I got no idea how I missed it. All I can guess is I must have accidentally punched a button and jumped right to the race then name thing. but like I said, it's not a huge deal in the long run.
 
Thieving mage.

My Redguard is light on her feet, prone to lock-picking, pickpocketing, arrows, and destruction magic. I keep a shield and dagger on hand for close encounters.

Dual-wielding maces is fun though.

I love how fluidly your character evolves based on how you're playing. I adore the Fallout games, but this is ideal. I don't have to plan things out from the start--I can just roll with whatever I'm already doing.
I have to agree wholeheartedly on this. I 'enjoyed' Fallout 3, but I felt so restricted by choices made at the beginning of the game, Oblivion in a similar fashion. I'm much more invested in Skyrim simply because my character moves forward based on what I want, not what the story demands. And there's no 'wrong answer' either. My bow sniper/resto mage is still as effective as any slash and burn warrior.
 
Gripes so far: Holy shit, did they get one guy to do a Swedish chef impression for like 99% of Nord males? Heer in a boingy Skyarim. Herda Gerda Merda!
All the fucking glitches. I've never played a glitchier game. This puts fucking New Vegas to shame.

Or not. I'm like 6-7 hours in and I've yet to encounter a single bug. Madness.
 

Dave

Staff member
So far I'm enjoying the hell out of this. I'm now level 12 and I'm one sneaky bastard. I have yet to kill a giant though. They tend to fuck me up.

Oh, and no bugs here, either.
 
I went with a khajiit. I almost never select humans. Next playthrough will most definately be a dark elf destructo mage. Even if all the elves look like they have Downs Syndrome.

Also, after the one crash, I did the sound quality change fix and everything is now hunky dory.
 
Ha ha, getting used to Z not being the manipulate objects button has made for some pretty funny moments. I knock over some shit in my house so I go to pick them up only to dragon shout the holy shit out of my house cause a fucking tornado of mess.
 
"Hey, you should go to the mage's school in such and such." said the man to the sick of no one having spells high elf spell murderer.

"You're right, I fucking should!" screamed the high elf before setting off.

And set off he did. He ran north of the sleepy valley surrounding Whiterun. He waved at some giants. They grunted back in a show of mutual respect. The high elf thought to himself, man, this is a great place.

SUDDENLY, a snowy sabrecat appeared and obliterated the mage in around 2-3 seconds.

THE END.

I missed this kind of Elder Scrolls. Thank you for reminding me of my place.
 
I'll say, I've already had some pretty epic spell battles. I had to fight this thing called a somethingorotherhag after warring my way through a whole coven of witches that dug clever girling me from Jurassic Park. This hag was just lobbing massive exploding fireballs that knocked me on my ass even when my spellward was up. So I had to book around the whole area using the terrain to my advantage while I tagged her with lightning bolts to try to slow down her insane fireball assault.

This single fight (and the one where I killed three mammoths and 2 giants by abusing the terrain) was better than any combat I had throughout any of the Elder Scrolls games.

Magicka is so fun.
 
So I just found out that you can bind Weapons/Spells in the favorite menu to numbers. Made switching between Bow and Sword n Board a breeze.Feel kinda dumb for not noticing that earlier.
 
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