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Today I learned that falling a fair distance will INSTANTLY kill you. In midair. Without warning. Although in my case I may have tried jumping from the top of Dragonreach down to the first level's roofs and the developers didn't like that. Haven't fallen from any great heights on the mountains so I guess we'll see. I also managed to hurt myself minorly from time to time from trying to wade through skulls or other lightweight two-hand sized objects lying around on the ground. Harder to manage in Fallout but it was still possible, so I guess that's just a product of the engine itself.

Also, GlitterMIST cavern. Cool atmosphere, alien-like surroundings. Good flow up until you start encountering the insect monsters that start with C. Hate them.

There was a bandit guy on the summit that wrecked me early on. Since I wouldn't be selling any of my stolen goods anytime soon, I had a strong paralytic poison (very expensive too!) handy. Instead of stealthily ambushing him like last time, I just rushed him with my treated sword and started wailing. First touch he stiffened up and after several strikes he received a cinematic death. Then I went down and dispatched his blind man henchman. Him and any two-hander bandits are scary damage dealers if they hit you. I also like how different one-handed weapons feel compared to two-handed weapons. I toyed around with a greatsword for a bit before settling on maces.

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Running into the black screen crash in Glittermist Grotto. I'm going to see if backing out of there entirely will change things because damn is this frustrating. Otherwise sixth time I'm going to crank down the settings and see if that fixes it.

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I'm a confirmed Thief now instead of someone who fiddles with locks in his spare time. I think they're playing with procedurally generated quests here! The introduction quest was something quick and simple too, demanding no more of your time than say 3 minutes tops. While your recruiter draws their attention you have to steal something and then place it on someone all in the same location. Then afterward you realize some of the background noise is the guy that was framed getting hassled by the watch. The game doesn't demand your attention here, it just lets it play out. Not sure how good the motivations of the guild is, but I'm going to play it by ear and see how it resolves. I'm going to be burning BEES next mission; this is going to be exciting.

PROTIP: get the three Novice elemental spells soon as possible. Frost keeps the heavy guys from power-attacking you dead. Lightning keeps the magic guys from elementalling you dead. And fire is just damage that BURNS.

Saw two dragons after the tutorial one. The first was when I was trying to infiltrate a fort filled with elemental adepts during night so I didn't want to start a ruckus with them close by. The second was deliberately finding the site and then getting completely surprised by the dragon sleeping when I reached the top of a tower. Killed that one after a good long battle, using a level up to top me off when I was down to 3 hit points.

Ran into a wispmother. That's another grueling fight that came out unexpectedly I was trekking to the south-east corner.
Also got lost in a troll cave after getting one angry at me. That led to me wandering full tilt into four more, evading them and dashing away for the entrance.
Once shot a bandit stealthily that led to him slumping over a fence and falling over the edge of the cliff. When physics works like in reality, it feels so much more satisfying.
Once shot a bandit chief point-blank several times. He could not see me even after his death. Stealth kinda breaks the game?
Bears are ornery bastards. Same with above ground trolls.
Ghosts are well done this time around. Completely hilarious to pop them with one arrow but if you let them they will put up a fight. That's not even touching on the Barrow guardian I ran into. He will mess your shit up.
Jarring to run into invisible walls. =/

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Nah, it was just some random broken down fort that had the previous occupants HORRIBLY evicted by crisping. After I cleared it out I found one random adept patrolling the outside. He wasn't inclined to just wade in there and instead pulled out his dagger and yelled 'Stay away!' and 'That's far enough!' Bit of a stand-off but we're cool now. I let him patrol that dead place forever.

Although I did find another mask holder in another fort on the top of a mountain near Riften. Guy giving the quest to retrieve it was sketchy as hell, but I pickpocketed him well in advance so I sort of knew what trick he was going to pull. After a LONG trek (no kidding, it took me a good hour or so) through the ghost and draugr infested burial halls, I awakened the current owner Rutgad or something close to that. I was kind of busy stealth critting the draugr wights to notice until one ran over to his former resting place and HOLY HELL that tattered man is hovering off the ground and burning the air around him! At that point the draugr caught on to where I was so I scampered off down the halls to calm them down. I lured him away from his guardians then dagger backstabbed him a couple times. He still had a good fourth of his health left from all that so I played ring-around-the-rosie with a broken down column, shooting arrows when he came around the side and stafing away before he could respond.

Now, funnily the quest giver is leashed to his starting location. That means if he gets far enough away then he respawns back at his camp in one of two ways. You come out of the death halls from the balcony, so with some doing you can perch on top of the entrance arch and fire down on him. He gets mad, his pathfinding says he can get to you INSIDE and walks in. And then promptly responds back at his camp. One of his spawn positions exposes his back, so I then sauntered down the arch and did him in.

Then a Beothiah cultist decided to descend upon me and give me hell for no apparent reason. I'm way up in the mountain and this shirtless guy comes barrelling across, yelling something or other and swinging his sword/axe/random weapon he generated with. I'm intrigued with the results, however, but I had enough for today.

EDIT: Oh, the forward roll when stealthy is a short boost in speed that looks incredibly ridiculous in third person because the animation gets cut short. I don't sprint often enough to really need it.

ALSO ALSO: The bee burning quest for the Thieves Guild is interesting. I have a feeling you were allowed to kill the mercenaries and probably the owner too if need be. I felt obligated to do it as bloodless as possible, using invisibility potions to get me out of tight spots, because the guild leader was harping on about doing it clean.

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OBLIGATORY PICTURE TIME:

Off-site album because I used Prt Scrn instead of F12 for taking pictures and it's all glorious raw dimensions.

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I guess that depends on if it respawns things like it does for shops and homes, replacing everything in about a week. I know I cleared out a apothecary shop of it's ingredients lying about on their shelves and then one day new stuff showed up (and not necessarily the same stuff from before, I think). I can go check out Shimmermist Grotto (not Glittermist as I mistakenly thought) and see if the encounter is more difficult. I have got the spawns for mostly everything down pat from having to run it so many times before the black screen crash.

I just sort of wish there was a greater 'tell' for some of the similar monsters like the draugr. Too often recently I sneak up on a monster to see if I can kill it and then find out it's not a Wight but instead a Scourge with a third more health and much more angry that there's now a huge gash in their back. Humanoid mages are probably the most dangerous at the outset because you have no idea their strength until they come out spells flashing. Sometimes they just showering you with sleet and slush irritatingly, other times it is full on icicles that will kill in a short amount of time. Bandits have the same issue but it's more in terms of how much health they have than strict danger to your life.

It is hilarious to fight necromancers sneakily. I shanked a guy sitting down at a table, then at the doorway to the next room fired an arrow to another's face because the way in was covered. They twig on that something's wrong and right off the bat raise their naked, dead acquaintance. I quietly wait in a dark corner while they run about then calm down with their buddy back tagging along moaning softly to himself. Wait for a minute for it to suddenly fall back and disintegrate into ash. Rinse, repeat.

There are also the carry over PHYSICS! traps that Oblivion had. The ones that were strictly from there are still rather terrible and are no danger to you if you inadvertently trigger it. I tried to deliberately set off a dart trap for a draugr and he was more curious about the sound they made than any damage it caused. The wall with spikes, though, I have massive respect for. There was one in some corner of the draugr halls I was wandering about right where about four or five of them woke up from their slumber. They have this nicely set up gap in some stalagmites that you can shoot an arrow through and trigger the pressure plate, sending this wall rotating 270 degrees through that corner at a massive clip, pretty much killing anything that gets in its way. Rather entertaining to see the draugr set it off inadvertently then flying through the air.

There's also this magic trap powered by a soul gem that acts as a sentry tower for things in range and line of sight. The first one was a frostbite trap that I was initially wary for but was so surprised by what it did that I did not get away the second time it triggered. The second was powering a lightning bolt spell, nasty little thing that had really good aim and range. Made it difficult to disarm. Also, disarming them is amazingly intuitive.

Dealing with the Boethiah (sp) cultist drew the attention of some random dragon that decided to ice him down. I helped by shooting the dragon with arrows. Once the cultist was dead it started in on me and then was distracted by something at the foot of the mountain. I slid on down to a nice spot to fire down arrows. Whatever was attacking it, aside from me, was hurting it about as much as me! So the dragon dies, I clatter down closer to find that the culprit was a cave bear. I guess they are low enough on the ground that the dragon breath was missing him because he was only missing a chunk of his health rather than being on his last legs.

I mean, I've caught a dragon fighting a giant once, which makes sense because some of their lairs have mammoth bones scattered about. My second dragon took time out to attack something over a ridge so I couldn't tell what was there. I'm not sure I like how easily distracted they get. =/

ALSO, invisible walls. Especially in that grove Mr. Mechanical was talking about; I think I could have jumped around the roots rather than nicking them with Nettlebane. It's weird to see this sort of restriction when I can, in the same game, sidle around mountains at angles that should rightfully have made me slide to my death.

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Here's my character, a Bosmer with white eyes. I like that there are head armour that do not cover up the head. That one makes all spell schools cost 5% less magicka. Can't remember where I picked it up. The mask I picked up near Riften gives 70 stamina points which isn't terribly useful for me.

I would show the glass war axe I've acquired, but her hand clips right through when it's hanging off the belt and you can't do a face shot when you have it out. So instead you have my bow and arrows. Raiding Nord burial chambers gave me lots of arrows to waste.

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I like the alternate dagger cinematic attack. It doesn't mess up as often as the throat cutting one, where you're more than likely slit open their eyes instead.

I'm at the point where I'm just absent-mindedly pickpocketing a lot of the people I encounter. It sort of works for quest important people since they have incriminating evidence most times on their person. And when I get caught I just wave some money at a guard's face or tell them I'm the Thane (in Riften, which makes sense considering their ties to the Thieves Guild). Or in the case of a Vigilant investigating, axe his face in when under the influence of Molag Baal.

100 Stealth and the last perk taken in that constellation. I'm thinking that it wasn't worth it, because if I fucked up stealth I'm already far too close for it to trigger. UNLESS I can flee fast enough and that will reset their alertness quicker. I wonder.

PS. The quest to shadow someone, he is supposed to spawn outside the city. It already takes him a LONG time to get to his destination (and then another AGE to wander around and finally finish his route) I guess they decided to skip one extra step. Drove me nuts when I already stole his key to get in there and knew exactly where he was going for the first part. So technically he should have not been able to get in, although I had picked that lock.

PPS. Skill number does have a little incremental effect. Your armour will give you more protection, your attacks will do more damage, it takes less charge time and (I believe) less magicka to cast spells, the effect of crafting is greater.

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What bug? I'm at the point where the Psijics decide YOU AND YOU ALONE can SAVE THE COLLEGE from CERTAIN DESTRUCTION and tell you as much, a rank student at the College. And then the old man tells you the tale of the sentient future-reading gas hidden DEEP in the basement and oh god is this written so hilariously badly.

The Companions feel like it ramps from stranger to initiate to full-fledged member realistically from what little I've done. The Thieves Guild I was already pretty good with a pick and the darkness so it sort of made sense that I blew the recruiter away with my skills (betting my view would change dramatically if I had been a big hulking warrior clad in full plate) and begin the bee hive burning. This is just completely and utterly pulp.

I have a feeling pickpocketing caps itself off at 90% success, which is a bit low for someone that will be super-humanly good at the skill.

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Sounds about as badly directed as the introduction to the Forsworn. All sense of reality crashes away when you see an NPC suddenly pull a weapon in the middle of the street. You've been taught that only bad guys ever have weapons out so your first impulse is to get combat ready. I let the scene play out but I could have stepped in and backstabbed the guy before he killed the other NPC. Too late now but next time I'm thinking of doing just that. They probably made him invincible until the script played out because he died really, really quickly afterward.

AND THEN this guy casually strolls into the scene, forces you into conversation and then forces a note that 'you must have dropped on the ground' onto you with barely any way of protesting. Why would the PC have a note on him in the first place, much less have it dropped from their expansive inventory? Railroading is never a nice way to start a quest. I would have preferred an alternate path where the guy shows up shortly after every time you're in that city, trying to get you to take his note in a variety of paper-thin disguises until you take it in exasperation. Or they give up and have someone tell you the start of the quest because you couldn't take a hint. That would have endeared me to doing it just to see how it goes down instead of feeling disgusted at the writer/director.

Actually, the Greybeard start of the main quest smacks of this very same railroading. You're basically TOLD it's a bad idea to cross these guys and you should get there as soon as possible to be inducted into the secrets of the Voice. All without, you know, showing off their TERRIBLE powers except as a echoing voice heard across the countryside. It turned me off and led me to just go wander at will through the countryside.

On the other hand, the introduction to Molag Bal was well done. You don't HAVE to do what is expected a couple of times and just leave. But you were curious, stuck around and then step into an obvious trap. At that point you have the voice of Molag Bal dryly lay out what he wants from you in return for your continued existence. It's a fiendish and completely evil, bastard thing that is in character with the daedric prince. And it sounds like you could can double-cross him in the end if you so choose.

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There's a startling lack of Khajiit and Bosmer bachelor[ettes] and only one Altmer woman (High Elf). You mean I can't even marry within my own race if I so choose? =/

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Or go Bosmer/Argonian and have 50% resistance to disease.

Be part of the minority for this game, even though I have yet to run into an occasion where that becomes an issue. Even in that city where they were threatening that dunmer I can stroll across without a single muttered insult from anybody that passes by. It's kinda disappointing because it is in the lore that the Nords distrust the 'mer; it shows up occasionally in the loading screens. Hell, I don't think I've come across another Bosmer.

Regarding the perk system the failure in it is it describes interesting specializing mechanics that you want to try out and use. With the levelling list system in place, however, the humdrum flat increases to damage are probably the best perks to pick up. Then you can slowly branch out because you have that base to fall back on when those skills fail you (sneaking, conjuration, alchemy poisons, etc). Then you have the horror of a 'level cap' hanging over your head (that's for the achievement, developers said it goes up beyond that but levelling slows down) so you are trying to make sure you get the skills you think are cool based on their description.

That said, the Sneak 100 skill is kinda meh. It has very little feedback on how well it shook off foes because your UI sticks on 'detected.' Sometimes they wander around aimlessly at your last known location, sometimes they come barreling towards you. I can make it work but it feels a letdown compared to the investment. The roll at 70? is amazing for speeding about without making a sound. It seems to be on par with running in terms of distance.

ALSO! Fuck quest items with weight that you can't drop. The Eyes of the Falmer are 5 each. I have had Dravin's Bow for the longest time, too. And probably the worst offender, the Stones of Benezariah.

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When in doubt, put them in damage increases of your weapons/magic or healing/magicka regen increases of Restoration.

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Not quite our soul. If I remember that part correctly, the ritual pledges your life to serving Nocturnal. Only Karliah promises her soul (serving after death) for bodging the first triad and to be able to continue with the re-creation of the Nightingales. Still, yeah, it's a bit overblown to go that far but like most elements there is no consequence afterward for the player.

(They are referred to as daedric princes, including ones with female attributes on their statues. They're genderless entities!)

Has anyone figured out how to continue the quest of Boethiah's Proving? Because everytime I lure one of the pub punchers to the altar and kill them in a variety of ways, it doesn't register. I might have skipped over something important in the dialogue; I sort of rushed through it because the priestess' dialogue was boring me.

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Smithing FINALLY hit 100. The way they describe the perks in that constellation, it seems like each only affects the craft set you unlock. But no! Each upgrade above it adds another 'rank' that can be achieved by that piece of armour/weapon. So what I thought was the best for glass, epic, is actually called legendary. No wonder Smithing is hilariously broken. EDIT: Apparently I'm wrong and how much you can upgrade depends entirely on your smithing skill with no cap.

Still working on Enchanting mainly because that interface is so shit. I would prefer it to have the same options selected so long as you have the same item/soul gems unenchanted. It's a hassle, particularly when you are trying to grind through the levels so you can unlock the broken 100 perk. Also, did anybody go through the fire/ice/lightning line to get to that point? Because I really didn't see a huge need to have them.

And then somehow get Alchemy boosted so I can create an infinite loop of

"create alchemy boosting gear"
"create smithing boosting potion"
"create smithing gear"
REPEAT

I'm finding that in my later levels I'm spending more time in town doing work than going out and wandering dungeons.

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I find it more fun to see how quickly it is to pull off within the limitations of the game, like Morrowind's Fortify Intelligence potion loop. Also, numbers going up beyond the usual caps. It's like making a Wish Engine character in ADOM or doing disgusting amounts of damage in Disgaea. Lot of effort that is unnecessary to beating the game.

Although by how I've already had to grind for smithery and enchantment, it's not going to be as simple as the previous games to break in half.

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I figured out Boethiah's Calling quest. It fucking uses a mechanic that was never introduced and one that I will NEVER use outside of that one instance. What the fuck, Bethesda. The Ebony Mail is kinda interesting for being a Heavy Armour sneak suit. Also, I'm fairly certain I could have tromped up and slaughtered everyone in plain sight even with the quest clearly stating I should do it steathily. I used Iona and then resurrected her because well, I couldn't find anybody I really wanted killed. I think she might still hate me enough to not come home to Riften. ;-;

Went and got myself jailed just to see how that would turn out. Uh, one lockpick, Expert locks on the door AND chests? I still have the Skeleton Key so fortunately breakage wasn't an issue. Without, it means you have to invest 4 perks into the lock picking skill (having at least 75 skill) to have a good chance without that artifact. Otherwise it's all in your luck. Getting jailed and breaking out means your bounty isn't cleared so you still have to sneak about in the town.

Mehrune's Razor quest was interesting once you got to Dagon's shrine. I didn't like the man so I had no qualms in killing him to gain the prince's favour. The fight afterward was a refreshing bit of terror. The shrine dungeon itself was incredibly disappointing.

Bum rushed the dude in Azura's Star so the daedra don't help him all that much.

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Gotta get that shout. But yeah, if you don't go far enough in the main quest it becomes irritating, particularly the Elder dragons and their tons of health. Normal bows don't really do a good enough job to hurt them quickly enough.

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Try...

1. Kill NPC.
2. Open console (~ key, should be the top left of your keyboard)
3. Click on the corpse, bringing up it's ID.
4. Type "resurrect" and enter.
5. RUN AWAY.
6. Wait maximum amount of time, just to make sure.
7. Return.

If that doesn't fix it, don't know what will. You could make them Calm temporarily with that Illusion spell. Wonder if they'll talk to you normally that way.

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They don't tell you this but if you bring up the favourite menu in the PC version, you can bind weapons/shields/spells to the 1-6 keys by pressing the respective key when mouse-hovering over a choice.

Console is screwed in this case, though.

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Brilliant of Bethesda to make them guards as well as PC companions. Script confliction when you have a bounty in Whiterun and you do that quest.

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Best introduction to the Dark Brotherhood. No blatant rumours about the Dark Brotherhood, no random murdering to get their attention, no outright telling you where they reside (a la Morrowind's Morag Tong). An innocent quest, possibly an introduction to Cicero earlier on when he's carting his 'mother' around and then BAM. Kidnapped and forced to show your worth.

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You can hold down your mouse button for a power attack (and I think there's a disarm perk in there somewhere) but yeah you're mostly pounding away at them. That's if you're not doing it stealthily. In which case you're just crouch-walking everywhere, power-attacking their backs with a knife and then skedaddling away if other enemies become wary.

Probably the most visceral it gets are the brawling matches in the taverns.

Never tried dual-wielding. Are you talking PC weapon becoming unbound using the number shortcuts from the favourites list?

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Speaking of murdering the witnesses I managed at one point to pick off this hunter in the wilderness by accident and had the message of 'Bounty in the <area>: 1000 gold' and something about witnesses show up. No other human was around. His dog, on the other hand, was frantically running about so on a hunch I killed him too. Bounty drops to 0.

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Dark Brotherhood quest line is probably the best written ones of the bunch. Some of the Daedra artifact quests are up there too.

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It's more of a curve of liking the game and then finding niggling bits and pieces that detract from the experience. You are seeing that tail end.

Like this bitch of a combination. Some Draugr Death Lords are strong enough that their 'shout' will blow you off your feet, causing your character to flail like a rag doll until you settle on the ground. Then you are helpless watching your character slowly get back to their feet (five fucking seconds). If this Death Lord has a bow and has randomly generated some higher level arrows, all it takes is one shot to blow through highest level armour and take off more than 280 HP.

Mind, I also had one of the Silver Hands one-shot me with his silver greatsword. You know the 3rd person cut-scenes you perform sometimes when an opponent is at low health? HE did that to me. And he wasn't like a boss or anything; just a random mook generated at character level 50+. I think it took like three power attacks to take him down after I reloaded, unless I just upped and stealth ganked him.


Still playing it myself but it's because I still have a few goals I want to accomplish. Once they're reached, I don't have any inclination to play further.

Also found that I had hoarded like 500+ normal gems of various flavours. Took awhile to sell them off because merchants are useless without Investment.

EDIT: Oh, there's this one place I want to get into somewhere far West that had random dudes called Afflicted spewing poison at me inside some Dwarf ruins. The gate to get inside is locked with a key. No idea where to start, betting it's part of the Companion's quest line (process of elimination, finished off the other guilds'; seems a bit big for a one-shot quest).

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They went for the easy way of scaling difficulty with enemies by making them beefier the higher you go, which doesn't make fights any more interesting than when you first encounter them. This is a huge problem with dragons because the fights just DRAAAAG ON and it is incredibly difficult to get away from them in broad daylight. Also, one-hit kills in melee if they're feeling especially nasty.

Mages would be more fun if there were greater variation to their spells. That's more of a problem of Destruction and Conjuration being ho-hum close range inferno/frost, long range bolt/blast and 5 different summons of different commonalities (frost atronach, dread zombie, flame/storm atronach, familiar from common to rare). Drink resist potion, spam your primary attack, drink healing and repeat until dead. Or if sneaky, wait for good moment to get behind them and dagger stab/bow crit.

EDIT: OH HO, there's a glitch to exponentialize fortify skill enchantments and potions. Strike what I said before, this sounds like the perfect way to blow through the game in nothing flat. Going to try tonight on my main game then try it on a fresh game to see how quickly the main quest can be resolved.

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I've succeeded in crashing the game attempting to enchant a newly minted shield with a potion giving at least a 2 million boost to enchantment. It really doesn't like that.

So to speedrun the game all one needs are the ingredients to fortify restoration (I'd say enough for 5 or 6 starting at a level 1 character), an item that will boost alchemy so that we can reapply it to each subsequent potion, ingredients for fortify smithing to be created after the loop and then whatever is required to enhance your current set of equipment, particularly your melee weapon and bow since the armor rating will cap really easily. Regenerate stamina would probably be a good idea so you can run forever. Once you got all that done, it's just a simple matter of running the main quests fast without levelling for perks.

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You won't be barred from entering cities. You won't be discriminated against. Maybe your race will be remarked upon by guards and townspeople but that quickly gets subsumed by having high level skills. The khaijiiti NPCs will treat you the same way as they would another race. Even in Windhelm where there's open discrimination on the Dark Elves AND Argonians, being those races in that city will not have the citizens there treat you any differently.

Such a missed opportunity.

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So...does this imply that they liked Oblivion over Morrowind and Skyrim? Plain bonkers if that is the case.

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Welp, my method of speedrunning Skyrim has been shot down. I had the best set up, alchemist had the other ingredients for Fortify Restoration; general wares merchant had a piece enchanted with alchemy boost that was just low enough to buy after grabbing everything from the hidden chest (underneath the geometry) near the Companion's smith and selling his wares back to him. First potion gave a reasonable boost, second did not boost the enchantment level at all. Could still be done later on I suppose but I have a feeling you're wasting more time than you gain by it. It would solve the slow battles against the dragon that you are required to fight during the main plot, however.

Anyway...


Incredibly disappointed by the civil war quest line.

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Stealth enhancement needed to be there from the start. Also dark dungeons. Hell, mounted combat too.

Giant enemy crab <3