Gaming Thread

[Talking Backwards]

having 210 armor stat and my dragon priest mask having 200+ armor as well plus 30% resistance to all) and using an Enchanted Sword smithed to cause 87 damage, 30 extra damage and using an elixer of the warrior (%50 more damage to one handed, and i have one handed maxed out at 100 and almost all the sword perks).

Just so you know, damage reduction caps out at 80%, and armor beyond 580 does nothing.

Also, your sword damage is a reflection of your one-handed skill and perks. I'm also not sure on the exact values either, but in this game, perks > skill, and going from 1-100 in a skill seems to give an equivalent gain as simply taking a single damage increase perk.

I've pretty much stopped using any of the crafting professions other than Enchanting, and only for some added resists or a single item or two that adds %skill or -%cost, but I'm not stacking it, or else it gets really boring very quickly. Can't wait until the mods start maturing, because a lot of great ideas are waiting to be realized, but they are waiting for the CK to be released.

 

[Enemy242]

Just so you know, damage reduction caps out at 80%, and armor beyond 580 does nothing.

Also, your sword damage is a reflection of your one-handed skill and perks. I'm also not sure on the exact values either, but in this game, perks > skill, and going from 1-100 in a skill seems to give an equivalent gain as simply taking a single damage increase perk.

I've pretty much stopped using any of the crafting professions other than Enchanting, and only for some added resists or a single item or two that adds %skill or -%cost, but I'm not stacking it, or else it gets really boring very quickly. Can't wait until the mods start maturing, because a lot of great ideas are waiting to be realized, but they are waiting for the CK to be released.

I thought I mentioned that but in addition to having a skill of 100 in one handed I also have every perk on the tree for swords (including the multiple rankings of it, there's only 2 of them which control critical hits which i have 2/3 on I believe). so basically I have 100 skill, almost all the perks for one handed swords (which is what I use), an insanely high smithed sword (gauntlets which smith 20% better, a necklace which smiths 18% better and a smithing potion), and a ring that increases my one handed damage by 20%.

so basically yeah i can kill most any enemy in 2 sword swings. I'm definitely going to bump it up to master because it gotten to the point where dungeon crawling is too easy with a one handed weapon as I can just stomp all of them and end up saving my companion all the time instead of actually fighting myself. I've been using two handed weapons (which like people have stated here are AWFUL, the enemies who use them can stomp the fuck out of you but when you use it it is slowwwww and i have 70 skill in it, no perks though). I actually like that the leveling has gotten more difficult now because I leveled up so easily. granted I've played 85 hours and am at level 55, but still I could just go and cast a spell over and over (especially long duration ones like muffle or oakflesh seem to raise your level fast) and level up mega quickly.

that all being said I still like this way better than Oblivion or even Morrowind. I think it's a good progression and really does allow you to play the character you want (and mods will allow for picky people to tweak whatever they want, that's their choice and should be allowed and luckily is) in a more organic fashion. In Oblivion by the end I was getting bored as fuck trying to level up a skill I didn't want to use at all, but had become one of my major skills due to oversight at the beginning or something similar. This new method with the skills, perks and overall just getting better at whatever it is is great. I completely ignore some trees and do a bunch on others, and it just feels right. There are a ton of ways to xp farm obviously, but mods will fix that for those it bothers and I just try to avoid that now. i also can't wait to see what mods are going to come out since they have sooo much to work with. So far I've just been tweaking performance via the .ini (tried a replacement .dll and it blew) and my game runs PERFECTLY, plus I have a clock on loading screens and a level up percentage which helps more than one would imagine.

 

[Det Som Engang Var]

I've actually been really torn on the issue of what side to choose, without spoiling the plot of the actual quests themselves, why should i choose the stormcloaks? for each of your reasons I have a counter reason (and i am not partial to either side):

- the empire may be in worse times, but what do you expect? after the oblivion crisis they had nothing, had to appoint someone, and the thalmor used that to slowly take over
- in the end of the great war the only way they were able to fight off the thalmor was via the hammerfell rebels joining with the empire, how can they possibly hope to fight off the thalmor if every state becomes independent, potentially warring with themselves, just waiting for the thalmor to come and pick them off one by one?
- do we really think that completely independent states would be a good thing? what about for the other races? ulfric is racist as FUCK and many people are, you can see it in the dark elf persecution. racism has been a pervasive theme throughout the elder scrolls games since morrowind, how are the other races going to do if ulfric and his racist armada takes over? some sort of genocide would not surprise me at all
- do we really need nord supremacy? my character is a nord, but i get the vibe of nord supremacy throughout all the stormcloak areas, and honestly i don't see why that is better than the empire
- the empire didn't just surrender worship to talos for kicks, the war was insanely bloody and awful and if they didn't give in they would've been crushed; they fought and eventually gave up so it wasn't like they just from the start said OH FUCK YEAH FINALLY WE CAN OUTLAW TALOS, it was forced upon them. the empire didn't want to secretly outlaw talos worship
- the empire when it comes down to it, just like the stormcloaks is a group of people. there may be fucked up areas, fucked up forts, fucked up leaders etc, but in the end they're just trying to keep the peace and restore the kingdom. they may not be as good as the septim dynasty (though they also were insanely brutal and harsh) but i don't see how state rule would be any better.


if people can give me some hard evidence as to why the empire sucks, why the empire will continue to suck, and why state rule would be better than i will gladly join the stormcloaks. as of right now i think both of them have their positives and both of them have their negatives, but i'm slightly leaning towards the empire because the only way to fight off the thalmor would be a united tamriel (they've used the fragmented empire to gain power before such as in elswyr) and the potential genocide that could erupt from ulfrics racist regime would be devastating for everyone but the nords in skyrim, potentially following in other provinces.

The thing is, they could have defeated the Thalmor, at least according to the Redguards. I mean, they couldn't even take control of Hammerfell, they have zero chance of conquering Blackmarsh. Same goes for the Empire. Talos was only able to unite Tamriel because the Dunmer gave him Numidium, considering the countries will never be united again, why should Cyrodil control Skyrim? There's no reason Skyrim can't be independent and fight alongside Hammerfell and Cyrodil.

People say Ulfric is racist, but I disagree. He doesn't have to let the Dunmer refugees live in Windhelm. He controls half of the country, he could easily kick them out.

Plus, there are some Stormcloak members that will tell you they don't believe in the whole Skyrim for the Nords, thing.

 

[Anvil]

You guys need a Skyrim thread to spam those stories in.

 

[Enemy242]

You need to be playing Skyrim!

I see your point John, but I'm still skeptical. Honestly I'm torn because I don't think either side is good (going with the Imperials could be great or reallyyy fucking stupid, and going with the Stormcloaks could be great or reallyyy fucking terrible for any race besides the Nords) and deciding is killing me haha. Hearing the racism coming from Ulfric and his higher up men is really unsettling, but then again the Imperials seem to have no idea what they're doing aside from crushing the Stormcloaks. I've read a couple books about the Dark Elves and it seems that the overall vibe from the majority is that they're scum and shouldn't be in Skyrim, and mirrors the opinions of the radical conservatists in real life on immigrants.

At this point I'm still so torn I think I'm not going to decide yet. I'm 85 hours in and plan to reach 100 and then finish the main quest (can't think of any other game you can put 100 hours into before even finishing the main quest and still have a blast playing it haha) and then after that make a save file and exclusively do the Imperial line, then save that game, revert to the old save, then do the Stormcloak line. I know it's really weak and cheating, but I'll be able to do both and decide which one I want to stick with (considering I'll have to deal with it for the rest of the hundreds of hours I play the game). Going through them exclusively shouldn't take forever so I won't lose much as long as I don't go off the path. I'm really interested to see where either side leads since there's no specific good or bad guy, and that's one of the biggest things I'm looking forward to in the game. God damn I love Bethesda and can't wait for Fallout 4 now.

 

[Talking Backwards]

I thought I mentioned that but in addition to having a skill of 100 in one handed I also have every perk on the tree for swords (including the multiple rankings of it, there's only 2 of them which control critical hits which i have 2/3 on I believe). so basically I have 100 skill, almost all the perks for one handed swords (which is what I use), an insanely high smithed sword (gauntlets which smith 20% better, a necklace which smiths 18% better and a smithing potion), and a ring that increases my one handed damage by 20%.

All I was doing was saying (in a less asshole way) that it's redundant listing damage and then also mentioning skills/items that increase damage. Your skill, perks and +%skill items are all already reflected in the damage that your weapon displays.

As far as it being better than Morrowind...you might want to wait until the new car scent fades before drawing any conclusions. I think that it does quite a few things as good, if not better than what was in Morrowind,but it also does quite a few things much worse, or not at all. It's still easily much better than Oblivion...because I actually want to finish it.

My initial impressions about two-handed weapons has changed slightly. I think if you are playing on Adept or below as a melee, it does not matter what you choose. If you play on Expert or above, I do not see any reason for two-handed weapons if you are primarily melee. I do however find them very useful if you are only ever using melee as a backup plan and not your main damage. I think using a two-handed weapon is the way to go for an Archer or Mage who only ever needs to use melee damage sometimes. With a companion/summons, it's also pretty easy to use the power attacks without being too open. I didn't bother using any companions though until my third character. Actually makes things a bit too easy for almost every build other than one that use the "D" word.

 

[WhiteBeastofWotan]

 

[Psychonaut]

She is sworn to carry my burden...

 

[Det Som Engang Var]

I wish I could be as excited about Fallout 4 as Andrew is. I don't know, they're great games but the setting can't pull me in. I like the radiation, but I could care less about the 40s (or whatever it is) vibe.

I'm looking forward to DLC for Skyrim, though. Please, gods, give us a Daedric realm.

 

[Enemy242]

I wish I could be as excited about Fallout 4 as Andrew is. I don't know, they're great games but the setting can't pull me in. I like the radiation, but I could care less about the 40s (or whatever it is) vibe.

I'm looking forward to DLC for Skyrim, though. Please, gods, give us a Daedric realm.

Bummer, I'm insanely excited. I think mostly because I dig post apocalyptic stuff normally (movies, books etc) and the 40s are just a cool time. I'm not extremely into the setting or anything, but it provides something different than the usual sci fi and blending together the futuristic aspects with the past aspects and the present aspects all ends up being something cool. Fallout 3 and New Vegas were great, but limited in their immersion because sometimes it really didn't feel like a true wasteland (Fallout 3 did an amazing job but NV almost just felt like a desert a lot of the time, not so much a radiated wasteland), but after seeing the jump from Oblivion to Skyrim in terms of world design and immersion i absolutely CANNOT wait to see what they're going to do with the next one (as long as its not some bullshit like another desert or alaska which I know is in the lore but would be soooo fucking lame).

Have you done the Azura quest? I'm not going to spoil it at all, but I thought it was pretty fucking cool. One great thing about Skyrim is when I'm always feeling like I might've exhausted it and seen every creature, every style of area, every gameplay element/item etc I always get thrown a curve ball and find some new enemy, some new style of location or some new gameplay element that just knocks me off my feet. The vistas I've already commented on how amazing they are (my folder is getting a bit too full of screenshots and I only take them at the most beautiful times) but some of the really simple deviations like totally unique and uncommon places totally blow me away.
(SPOILERSPOILERSPOILER holy blackreach batman. SPOILEROVERSPOILEROVER)

 

[Det Som Engang Var]

Haven't done Azura yet. I also want to mention I've put many many hours into Fallouts and enjoyed the hell out of them, I know my previous post didn't give that impression.

 

[E-bortion]

Fallout 4 will be gaymazing. Also, Flame Atronarch's are ridiculous.

 

[Enemy242]

almost got to 100 hours before finishing the game, but i ended up beating it at 98 or so then played more (got married, did a side quest, sold some shit) until 100. and yet i still want to play, ridiculous.

(there used to be me talking about my feelings on the main quest end here, but even though i had no spoilers really im still going to cut it out since i know i'd be pissed if anything at all were shared, even if it weren't a real spoiler)

i plan to get all the shouts (3 more left fuckkkk), explore the rest of the map, join the thieves guild (now that i've got sneak and pickpocket up to a good level) and then maybe check out the dark brotherhood (or daedra). its baffling that theres still so much left and i'm not bored, i still see new enemies and it keeps fresh whereas by the end of oblivion i had seen the same 3 daedra at least 1,000 times (whereas in skyrim i've seen 1 daedra maybe in 3 instances). Hopefully by the time I get bored DLC will be close to coming out (except it'll be later due to the 360 exclusivity, fucking microsoft) or i'll just dig in to the gta pack i got on steam.

 

[Det Som Engang Var]

I finished the College, Stormcloaks, and Companions. Now my Dunmer is resting while I play my Bosmer.

I'm having so much fun being a Dick-Ass-Thief. Sneaking around has the same effect it did in Deus Ex, I get an erection.

 

[Enemy242]

I'm down with sneaking but sometimes it's a bit unresponsive. In the early levels you could be totally hidden but be discovered easily, but once you get up in the higher levels/increase your perks you can literally be standing inf ront of a bandit in sneak and they won't see you. I know they have to make it a game of manyyy genres and playstyles so developing the sneak mechanic won't be perfect, but at some points it's a bit ridiculous. luckily i don't focus on sneak and am only developing it so that i will be able to do thieves guild/dark brotherhood without driving myself insane (one sneaking/stealing quest i did early on took at least 15 tries due to constantly being discovered).

Does everyone here have multiple characters? the reason i ask is I almost never make multiple characters in games (just multiple save files in branching path games to go back and try out the different outcomes without having to replay the entire game because then i'd never finish all the games i have, though sometimes i do that depending on how good it is :cough:deusexseries:cough but it seems like a bunch of people do. my brother for example has already made something like 2 or 3 different characters, sometimes even restarting the game and continuing which just baffles me. Since they pretty much took away all unique aspects of the races aside from 1 or 2 special powers and the rest being determinable whats the point of doing different races? I'm a nord though i married a dark elf mage from the college, probably because morrowind is my favorite so i'll always think dark elves are fucking awesome (even though she's always hooded, says the same thing and is just totally cut off, gotta marry her because dark elves rule).

 

[Talking Backwards]

Everyone is still currently on a Skyrim high (rightfully so...and I have not been able to play for the last six days ), but you better get your Skyrim fix out of the way within the next ten weeks!

It's been touched on briefly before, but Kingdoms of Amalur has the makings of one pretty spectacular RPG. In this instance, I am looking forward to a "consolized" RPG because of the way it's being handled, and the combat looks incredibly fun. The combat really looks like a cross between Diablo 3, God of War and maybe even Darksiders or Jade Empire.

The "Destiny" system looks just like the TES way of "non class" characters, except this time you actually do get a tangible reward for either sticking to a specific archetype, or for going hybrid (FF Tactics job system). This makes it seem like it will add a lot of replay value (as an actiony game) as long as the combat does not end up being as shallow as what was seen in Fable where you just mash X and sometimes hit Y. It's also supposed to be an open world RPG, so it has more in common with a TES game than something like Fable. And of course having one of the main designers from previous TES games on board does not hurt. The music is also supposed to be pretty fucking awesome as well.

http://www.gamespot.com/showcases/reckoning?sid=6345182&overridePid=
http://pc.ign.com/articles/121/1211333p1.html
http://www.ign.com/videos/2011/09/07/kingdoms-of-amalur-reckoning-a-22-minute-video-walkthrough

I don't intend on getting into the nitty-gritty of the story here, because it's the story that really matters in Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning; I don't want to spoil any of it for you. But as you can see simply by the sheer amount of depth in the locations and people I ran into only a few minutes after beginning my playtime, Reckoning is a dense game, chockfull of lore, story and characters. Everything has an incredible amount of attention paid to it. Indeed, as I noted when I went to a New York Comic Con panel discussing the greater Kingdoms of Amalur story as written by famed fantasy writer RA Salvatore, this world's story is about as deep as it gets. Crazier yet, Reckoning itself only tells a minute slice of Amalur's fictional 10,000-year history.

No matter how good an RPG is, however, it always comes down to how it plays. Is it fun? Is it fluid? Fallout 3 and Fallout: New Vegas, two favorites of mine, don't have the most fluid combat systems, but Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning doesn't seem to suffer from similar problems. Reckoning isn't a hack-and-slash RPG per se, but it feels as smooth as one. Attacks are mapped to certain face buttons. Spells and special skills can be used by holding down a trigger in combination with the face buttons. You can even defend yourself with a shield and parry out of the way of attacks with a quick roll. This isn't a stiff RPG nor is it heavily menu-based. Everything happens in real-time -- an active battle of wits between you and your AI-controlled foes. You can buff-out your character with better gear, special items and more, but at the end of the day, it's about skill in combat, not button-mashing.

 

[Det Som Engang Var]

Damn right I'm looking forward to it. The Morrowind director is working on it, as well as R A Salvatore.

 

[Talking Backwards]

It will literally be the first "RPG" that I'll have a hard time deciding what platform to get it on. I can always buy a wired 360 controller and end up with the same controls, but with superior loading times and probably slightly improved visuals (the cartoony aspect lessens the gap though) on the PC. The downside is that sitting at a computer desk playing an action based RPG isn't as relaxing as it is sitting in a comfortable chair and playing in 720p (or 1080p if it actually supports it) on a large HDTV. I could never play Dark Souls or God of War at my PC desk, but then I could also never play any of the Mass Effect games on the console.

 

[Det Som Engang Var]

 

[Talking Backwards]

Everytime she says that, I think "Good, cuz you're not. I am.".