Gaming Thread
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Karmic
speedy meatmonger
I'm in the beta for Star Wars: The Old Republic this weekend. Excited.
haha me too
Talking Backwards
Senior Citizen
- Oct 5, 2009
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So, I'm level 20, have 286 AR and was doing some random quest for Winterhold that took me to a dweomer ruin. It had the standard mechanical constructs that I dispatched pretty easily, then the game came to a screeching halt. I entered an area where there are these Reaper insects that would remind you of a Deathclaw by how hard they hit you. They spit some kind of acid/poison on you and with that much AR, I still died in two hits. This doesn't make any sense, because the quest is at or below my level.
Actually, I know what it is; I use magic and I don't use a shield, and in this game destruction FUCKING SUCKS. It's like I'm playing Bioshock instead of a TES game. After you pick up the +50% damage increase, there's absolutely no way to improve the damage of your spells. You don't gain power from using them and you don't gain a reduction in cost, you simply gain the "right" to purchase a perk that cuts the cost of that particular rank. You are only as strong as the last, most powerful spell you picked up. And right now, they are all pretty much trash. The default flame spell kills most of the weak units, then you have Firebolt, Icebolt and Lightningbolt to Dual Cast on med targets. Yet for something as simple as a Cave Bear, I have to expend my entire mana bar just to kill it. There are no awesome dots like what you could make in Morrowind/Oblivion and the spells are just completely boring.
The shouts so far are garbage too. They seemed pretty cool when you first get them, but they don't actually do much. There's one that freezes your enemies for around six seconds, but it also has the added benefit of protecting them from any spell you cast on them...uh, ok? The first one you get staggers them for a whole second, and then there's another that shoots frost breath in a line that does literally no damage at all. So glad I didn't pick sword and shield to block 100% damage all day long and counter attack in my sleep to victory.
Oh, and Runes blow chunks too. They are basically a land mine that never ever increase in damage. So they are "great" for like two levels. On top of that, you cannot even have more than a single Rune out at a time (can't have one fire, plus one frost for example). They literally serve no purpose for "traps" because enemies come rushing towards you regardless and your default flamethrowers will do more damage quicker plus stagger them.
Yet you can enchant weapons to hit for around ten times as hard as your best spell. That makes sense.
Actually, I know what it is; I use magic and I don't use a shield, and in this game destruction FUCKING SUCKS. It's like I'm playing Bioshock instead of a TES game. After you pick up the +50% damage increase, there's absolutely no way to improve the damage of your spells. You don't gain power from using them and you don't gain a reduction in cost, you simply gain the "right" to purchase a perk that cuts the cost of that particular rank. You are only as strong as the last, most powerful spell you picked up. And right now, they are all pretty much trash. The default flame spell kills most of the weak units, then you have Firebolt, Icebolt and Lightningbolt to Dual Cast on med targets. Yet for something as simple as a Cave Bear, I have to expend my entire mana bar just to kill it. There are no awesome dots like what you could make in Morrowind/Oblivion and the spells are just completely boring.
The shouts so far are garbage too. They seemed pretty cool when you first get them, but they don't actually do much. There's one that freezes your enemies for around six seconds, but it also has the added benefit of protecting them from any spell you cast on them...uh, ok? The first one you get staggers them for a whole second, and then there's another that shoots frost breath in a line that does literally no damage at all. So glad I didn't pick sword and shield to block 100% damage all day long and counter attack in my sleep to victory.
Oh, and Runes blow chunks too. They are basically a land mine that never ever increase in damage. So they are "great" for like two levels. On top of that, you cannot even have more than a single Rune out at a time (can't have one fire, plus one frost for example). They literally serve no purpose for "traps" because enemies come rushing towards you regardless and your default flamethrowers will do more damage quicker plus stagger them.
Yet you can enchant weapons to hit for around ten times as hard as your best spell. That makes sense.
Dead Winter
STAHP
Ok, so there's zombie porn, dinosaur porn, monster porn, and now dragon porn?
WTF
ShadowsWithin
Member
been doing a lot of blacksmithing, its at 50 now and i just made some plated steel....awesome looking, gonna make an orcish set next since that makes more sense considering im an orc, really easy to get xp smithing though.
El Stormo
Member
Enemy242
Member
The shouts so far are garbage too. They seemed pretty cool when you first get them, but they don't actually do much. There's one that freezes your enemies for around six seconds, but it also has the added benefit of protecting them from any spell you cast on them...uh, ok? The first one you get staggers them for a whole second, and then there's another that shoots frost breath in a line that does literally no damage at all. So glad I didn't pick sword and shield to block 100% damage all day long and counter attack in my sleep to victory.
I'd reserve judgement because there are some pretty useful ones. Yeah some of them are fucking stupid as hell (like for me i think the one where you throw your voice and basically have a shout that is an audio distraction to enemies) but i got fire breath and it stomps ass. i play on expert (sometimes bringing it down to adept if i'm stuck somewhere in a battle wayyy too hard) and fire breath can take a good chunk out of their health; see the enemy, shoot fire breath, draw sword, power attack and youv'e just killed most enemies or at least done a good amount of damage to the high level ones.
still can't fix my fov and its pissing me the fuck off; sometimes it works sometimes it doesnt but the console always works and yet i don't want to shut off achievements; does anyone know if adjusting the fov via the console will for sure stop achievements? if it doesn't that'd be amazing.
also does anyone know if you can improve silver weapons? i have level 30 smithing, can improve most types of weapons/armor but i can't seem to be able to improve my silver sword which kinda blows (even though i have silver ore, silver ingots etc).
Talking Backwards
Senior Citizen
- Oct 5, 2009
- 1,833
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There's a really strange tweak to actually make them look good, and it doesn't cause a performance hit. Basically, from the game launcher, change the shadows to the "medium" setting, and then go into your SkyrimPrefs file in your documents and change these figures:
http://i.imgur.com/4LirV.jpg
What is odd about this is that it doesn't actually make the shadows do whatever the ultra setting did as far as system resources go and they look much better. If you try changing those numbers with it set to ultra, it doesn't even work!
It will tell you on the crafting table whether or not you can actually enhance them, because the requirements are listed below. You can also use the potion and enchanted items that increase how much more you can improve weapons and armor. I found some gloves that were 20%, and the potions are 20% (they don't stack). I'm wondering though if you can enchant more pieces of armor with it and then that will stack.
I restarted simply because Destruction alone is complete and utter ass. It's like they just assumed "Oh, caster? Ok, you're GOING TO USE SUMMONS!" Since like, you know...I can't actually just survive with my mega AR and kill something on my own. Anyway, I am dual wielding right now and a fucking dervish compared to what the Destruction only character was doing. The funny thing too is that I rarely used my power at all, so I figured the racial power is mostly meaningless. I just picked High Elf for the +50 mana since I would be using it for healing and that's it for now. It also allowed me to dump five more levels into health instead of mana, so that 25% magic resist from Breton or whatever is kind of pointless since the extra health will be able to soak it vs casters, and vs everything else I'll be in the lead. Archery is also so laughably superior to destruction magic, it's not even funny. The Orc racial might be useful vs dragons, but vs everything else, having that extra mana just to refill your health with the basic healing spell is more useful overall.
Oh, and just so you know...coming from someone who had screenshots of their character; dragon armor actually has less AR than daedric. So there's no point in going to 100 since all dragon does is gives you fugly looking armor and no weapons, while daedric gives you badass looking armor with superior AR and some of the best base weapons. Logic much?
Talking Backwards
Senior Citizen
- Oct 5, 2009
- 1,833
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You must either have some really bad vision, or you accidentally found a setting no one else found. Or, you simply just settle for MUCH less.
This is what they look like normally (on Ultra no less): http://i.imgur.com/4MHuh.jpg.
If you paid attention in the first dungeon (jail in the intro town) area, they stand out even more. The shadows of the "bars" look seriously like the "S" in Kiss or Slayer. For caves, tombs etc they aren't nearly as noticeable. Your IMG was pretty funn though! All that was missing was the scene with the dragon using the dragon vag from above.
@Enemy: I had never actually gone to finish that last quest that leads you to the Fire Breath shout. I did that and got a pretty ridiculous sword from completion in the process.
Enemy242
Member
the fire breath shout kicks ass. i've gotten maybe 4 quests into the main quest and am now just going around raiding dungeons, doing mini side quests, building my skills, exploring, and deciding what guilds to join. hopefully soon my shouts will be badass as fuck.
i tried that shadow fix and it didn't really work. some shadows look completely normal and others look like the blocky shitty ultra ones, i had the same problem with the shadows on ultra just being shitty as hell. at least most of the time they're fine (better than ultra anyway) and my performance outside in the forests/mountains and whatnot has actually gotten better so it's not a big deal. i wish they'd be flawless but the art design of the game makes up for any graphical problems and it's so engrossing that it's only very rarely noticeable and bothersome.
today kicks ass though. i went through the day thinking it was sunday because i basically acted as if thursday was my friday, so i did laundry, took out the trash, cleaned up, got all set up so i could get to sleep by 1 or 2 am and then i went to check on shows for the night and realized it was saturday. that feeling of knowing i have another entire day is fucking rad. more skyrim for me, i was kinda bummed the week was starting just when i'm in the thick of it but now i get all tonight and yet another day to slay dragon ass.
i tried that shadow fix and it didn't really work. some shadows look completely normal and others look like the blocky shitty ultra ones, i had the same problem with the shadows on ultra just being shitty as hell. at least most of the time they're fine (better than ultra anyway) and my performance outside in the forests/mountains and whatnot has actually gotten better so it's not a big deal. i wish they'd be flawless but the art design of the game makes up for any graphical problems and it's so engrossing that it's only very rarely noticeable and bothersome.
today kicks ass though. i went through the day thinking it was sunday because i basically acted as if thursday was my friday, so i did laundry, took out the trash, cleaned up, got all set up so i could get to sleep by 1 or 2 am and then i went to check on shows for the night and realized it was saturday. that feeling of knowing i have another entire day is fucking rad. more skyrim for me, i was kinda bummed the week was starting just when i'm in the thick of it but now i get all tonight and yet another day to slay dragon ass.
I'll take a few screenshots later today. Not a big deal though, since you can tweak the shadowmap setting anyway. I may get involved in some modding. Time to grab the SDK!
Just go to the skyrimpref.ini file and under display, try 4096
iShadowMapResolutionSecondary=4096
iShadowMapResolutionPrimary=4096
iShadowMapResolution=4096
Talking Backwards
Senior Citizen
- Oct 5, 2009
- 1,833
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ShadowsWithin
Member
Been saving my dragon scales and bones. They are very heavy so I have my companion carry them around until I get back to store them away in my dorm room at the College of Winterhold.
Also, I'm sure most of you already know this but I am going to say it anyway. Don't even bother with purchasing a horse. That is 1,000 gold you can be saving up towards something else. My damn horse attacks everything near it, so I have to park it FAR away from where I want to attack. I hate that it just goes up to anything, regardless of how dangerous it may be and tries to kill everything. It just ends up dying and now I have lost 1,000 gold. I hate having to reload a savepoint just so I can get my horse back.
No thanks, not worth the time or money in my opinion.
Also I want to have relationships in the game. I hope to see a mod enable that for me.
Also, I'm sure most of you already know this but I am going to say it anyway. Don't even bother with purchasing a horse. That is 1,000 gold you can be saving up towards something else. My damn horse attacks everything near it, so I have to park it FAR away from where I want to attack. I hate that it just goes up to anything, regardless of how dangerous it may be and tries to kill everything. It just ends up dying and now I have lost 1,000 gold. I hate having to reload a savepoint just so I can get my horse back.
No thanks, not worth the time or money in my opinion.
Also I want to have relationships in the game. I hope to see a mod enable that for me.
El Stormo
Member
!!!!
FUUUUUU
I need to figure out how to do this.
"In Skyrim some of the coolest additions to gameplay include the ability to start relationships with certain NPCs. Some you can even get married to. Find someone that spots your eye, get married, buy a house for the both of you, and reap the rewards. They will not only help you out but they give other benefits such as preparing a special meal for you once per day. Aside from wives/husbands though there are hirelings and friends as other companion options that can help you out. The player can meet these people in places such as taverns and once hired they will take orders from the player. You can command them to do things such as attack an enemy, use an object, or open up a locked door or container. Each hireling has their own combat specialty even. While the getting married and buying properties part will add to the roleplaying opportunities these open world games offer the companions and orders will add to and open up new gameplay possibilities and offer tactics in combat situations. Both are welcomed additions to the series."
FUUUUUU
I need to figure out how to do this.
"In Skyrim some of the coolest additions to gameplay include the ability to start relationships with certain NPCs. Some you can even get married to. Find someone that spots your eye, get married, buy a house for the both of you, and reap the rewards. They will not only help you out but they give other benefits such as preparing a special meal for you once per day. Aside from wives/husbands though there are hirelings and friends as other companion options that can help you out. The player can meet these people in places such as taverns and once hired they will take orders from the player. You can command them to do things such as attack an enemy, use an object, or open up a locked door or container. Each hireling has their own combat specialty even. While the getting married and buying properties part will add to the roleplaying opportunities these open world games offer the companions and orders will add to and open up new gameplay possibilities and offer tactics in combat situations. Both are welcomed additions to the series."
Talking Backwards
Senior Citizen
- Oct 5, 2009
- 1,833
- 43
- 48
So, I really do not like suggesting how someone should play, or tell them that they are somehow "doing it wrong"...or rain on there parade etc etc, but Bethesda really fucking screwed up magic in this game BAD.
1. Destruction is "ok" until around your mid 20's where it falls on it's face because it does not scale at all, and there's no way to improve it after you're already at 100 skill and have all of the perks.
2. You cannot rely on Destruction and very high armor to take care of things for you. In fact, the damage ends up being so pitiful sometimes that punching actually does more! If you want to play a caster that uses Destruction for damage, you literally must use summons. Double Daedric Lords will rape faces and are probably doing two or three times as much damage as you (each). That's actually pretty sad.
3. You may as well just ignore Destruction completely and use the bound weapons since you're investing heavily in Conjuration anyway. The weapons rape face until your late 30's where smithed + enchanted weapons gain ground, but not enough to gimp you. Plus, you didn't have to spend all of that time leveling up smithing.
4. The Destruction spells literally play like Bioshock FPS crap. There's nothing exciting going on with them and the damage is piss. After your second tier of spells (i.e. your first "bolt" type spells) you never get any more single target spells, everything becomes area of effect (at a much higher cost). This essentially forces you to use those shitty bolt spells indefinitely for most of the game since you'll almost always be hitting single targets.
5.I was getting really annoyed with how my character was progressing, because I refused to use summons, so I started over. Even without the broken enchanting crap, my character was doing damage that was unbelievable in comparison to what my Destruction character had been doing. I also could heavily invest in health/stamina, and even though both character had literally the same armor rating, and my "Mage" spent less time getting hit, my melee character's health barely ever dropped below 80%, because I *think* health regen is %based, so the higher your pool, the quicker it regens... I rarely ever had to use the Restore spell either.
6. When I say my melee character was killing things four or five times faster than what my spells could do, that's a gross understatement, and now that I'm using weapons that are hitting for 83 damage each (Fireball is 50), and my power attacks deal an additonal 75% damage on top of what they were already doing...and I'm not even using weapon skill enchants yet...
1. Destruction is "ok" until around your mid 20's where it falls on it's face because it does not scale at all, and there's no way to improve it after you're already at 100 skill and have all of the perks.
2. You cannot rely on Destruction and very high armor to take care of things for you. In fact, the damage ends up being so pitiful sometimes that punching actually does more! If you want to play a caster that uses Destruction for damage, you literally must use summons. Double Daedric Lords will rape faces and are probably doing two or three times as much damage as you (each). That's actually pretty sad.
3. You may as well just ignore Destruction completely and use the bound weapons since you're investing heavily in Conjuration anyway. The weapons rape face until your late 30's where smithed + enchanted weapons gain ground, but not enough to gimp you. Plus, you didn't have to spend all of that time leveling up smithing.
4. The Destruction spells literally play like Bioshock FPS crap. There's nothing exciting going on with them and the damage is piss. After your second tier of spells (i.e. your first "bolt" type spells) you never get any more single target spells, everything becomes area of effect (at a much higher cost). This essentially forces you to use those shitty bolt spells indefinitely for most of the game since you'll almost always be hitting single targets.
5.I was getting really annoyed with how my character was progressing, because I refused to use summons, so I started over. Even without the broken enchanting crap, my character was doing damage that was unbelievable in comparison to what my Destruction character had been doing. I also could heavily invest in health/stamina, and even though both character had literally the same armor rating, and my "Mage" spent less time getting hit, my melee character's health barely ever dropped below 80%, because I *think* health regen is %based, so the higher your pool, the quicker it regens... I rarely ever had to use the Restore spell either.
6. When I say my melee character was killing things four or five times faster than what my spells could do, that's a gross understatement, and now that I'm using weapons that are hitting for 83 damage each (Fireball is 50), and my power attacks deal an additonal 75% damage on top of what they were already doing...and I'm not even using weapon skill enchants yet...
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