Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim announced

[Scotch_Lufkin]

I beat the game last night with a level 16 mage, and it wasn’t hard at all. At Adept difficulty.

There are no problems at those low levels.

[TimJames]

I get the impression that a lot of those guys insist on playing on a higher difficulty. That said, I did restart my pure mage of 10 hours for fighter type character. I took a peek at the later spells and they’re just not that interesting. The lack of spellmaking really hurts; I miss making combining various spell effects and (best of all) naming them. Plus, my major complaints with the game as a mage (can’t block with spell+sword, too few hotkeys, etc) are likely to be fixed by mods in the near future.

Now you’re scaring me. The low-level magic seemed extremely interesting. Same with fighting against mages (though it’s pretty boring 1 on 1 as an archer). I hoped it would stay fresh at high levels.

Maybe it’s all a DLC scheme.

[Brian_Seiler]

Week Two DLC: Mage Armor?

[DeepT]

What is the default difficulty the game plays on? I never changed it. I assume it is normal or the one that the game was designed to be played on.

Now that I think about it, I can see why pure magery might have gotten a bad mechanic from a game design over-sight.

Basic weapon damage is: Weapon x Skill x Enchant x Perks.
Basic Magic damage is: Spell x Skill x Perks.

Aside from the missing enchant, you are also missing the fact that the “Weapon” can be upgraded many times where as the “Spell” never does. Its like a basic sword that you find at the beginning of the game. A sword you can never replace / improve / enchant.

So any ideas on stat allocation for a warrior type? I figured splitting between stamina and health all the way.

[John_Reynolds]

There are no problems at those low levels.

Ah, so it’s the higher levels where magic really bites. I keep hearing people complain about giants and fireballed one to death in Blackreach relatively easily, but I was probably 14th level at that point. I peeked at the strat guide and there are higher level spells though. Firestorm is available at Expert (not sure what the character level has to be), and I remember the Dragonreach mage getting Adept spells for sale when they previously weren’t there before. So no idea when vendors’ stores populate the higher level stuff, could be a combo of character and related skill level.

[Jag]

There are no problems at those low levels.

What’s the mid level difficulty? What are most people playing on? I’m using the default, hoping that’s not too easy.

[Scotch_Lufkin]

Isn’t there already a Mage Armor spell? :)

The late game FIGHTING mages is fun, they are very challenging and have some variety in spells - including late game foes that can banish my Deadre Prince.

But the spell selection for destruction is a bit bland. The “wall” spells to me feel just like the early game “flamethrower” type spells, but you can cast them on the ground (though it seems more effective to cast them right at something, as they effect is very short lived). The master spells are big and impressive, but take a looooong time to cast and cost an arm and a leg.

The non-Destruction schools are all very cool and interesting. It’s not Magic I feel is under powered, it’s Destruction spells in particular. And only once you get into the 20’s or so, I think.

[Scotch_Lufkin]

What is the default difficulty the game plays on? I never changed it. I assume it is normal or the one that the game was designed to be played on.

Now that I think about it, I can see why pure magery might have gotten a bad mechanic from a game design over-sight.

Basic weapon damage is: Weapon x Skill x Enchant x Perks.
Basic Magic damage is: Spell x Skill x Perks.

Aside from the missing enchant, you are also missing the fact that the “Weapon” can be upgraded many times where as the “Spell” never does. Its like a basic sword that you find at the beginning of the game. A sword you can never replace / improve / enchant.

So any ideas on stat allocation for a warrior type? I figured splitting between stamina and health all the way.

Except Spells don’t get skill bonus either. :(

Skill bonus in destruction only reduces (very slighly) mana cost. And there are far fewer perks that bump damage (only up to +50% for one of the given elements, it would cost 6 perks to get all 3 of them up to that, but a weapon can have up to +100% damage in addition to other damage bonus like "power attacks deal a crit when charging which is double damage (rather than the usual +50% damage). It’s very lopsided.

[nKoan]

They’re tough for archers. Without a sneak attack critical, you’re way behind the curve by the time they close the distance. It has nothing to do with how strong your character is in general, just what kind of enemies they’re suited to handle.

Haha, I knew this post was coming. It also took me a while to discover this. Then I immediately used it to escape from a bear!

The archery perk that staggers enemies 50% of the time has really helped me with bears. One bear or saber cat at a time is really no big thing.

But, yesterday I came over a ridge to see two trolls fighting with a bear and two saber cats. The instant they saw me, they forgot about their skirmish and came right at me. I definitely didn’t have enough to take them all on at once, in the open wilderness.

[Teiman]

I am level 26, my character is a Mage Thief. I have only 70 in destruction…

I find the game dificulty Ok. I somewhat feel I have cheated with one boss, because was night imposible, so I resorted to a lot quicksave and load, and cheese tactics.

I have found a NPC that sells a lot of destruction books recently, and I am learning to use these new spells, but for maybe 25 levels I only have used the fire beam, ice beam, electric beam and the small fireballs. Then at level 22-ish found that wards are a must, and I am using wards wen fighting single wizards. I find some battles hard, so I try to have a companion, and spawn a atronach of ice to deal mele damage.

If magic on the endgame is weak, I suppose I will resort to cheese tactics, or maybe buff my companions with ultra armor, so my companion become the powerhouse and I the brain.

[Aeon221]

Uh, I’m in the early 30s with my mage, and I started mowing through Spriggans in groups at about level 24ish. Spriggans seem far more dangerous than cave bears, which I’ve never really noticed. Impact plus an ice spike and they fuck right off.

I stopped bringing followers because they kept dying – probably because I was killing them with indifference.

Are spell bonuses lowish? Yes. Do I really need all that much of a bonus when I’m shitting out doublefisted AOE fireballs at an obscene rate? No. Everything dies, and anything that doesn’t die gets staggered.

Seriously, don’t care how much damage weapons do, you cannot do that damage simultaneously to multiple targets at range while staggering them. And you can’t do it every second or so for thirty seconds. My doublefisted fireballs do, what, upwards of a hundred and change damage, and they cost me like 30-40 mana? Together? Tops! I can shit that out all day!

At higher levels incinerate or whatever is kind of neat. Slowish charge but so what, I have time. Anything gets close I cancel and do the FUCK YOU shout and it flies away.

Dragons are irrelevant thanks to ward. Your breath can’t break it, eventually you will die HAW HAW eat shit dragon.

[soondifferent]

Also, what 4 entries? I suppose taking 4 gold pieces would modify your total money to increase in 4 units. I very much doubt there is 100 entries in the savegame file if you have 100 gold pieces.

Even if gold is not considered in a special way (very possible), it would be soemthing like this: Type of item: gold, quantity: 100. 2 records, not 4 or 100.

So I’m talking about instances where you find a number of gold pieces scattered on the table. Each of those gold pieces is a record in the esm file for the world cell that you’re in. When you take a gold piece, your save game has to record that the gold piece has been taken. That record then overrides the base game data when you load that save game. So when you run into a table and scatter the plates all over the room? Your savegame just got permanently bigger. (that’s my understanding of the engine, anyway.)

I love gamebryo. It’s by far the most mod friendly engine I know. As soon as the construction set is released it’ll take just a minute to change some of the tiny things that bug me a lot (ie. nerfing Bretons and giants.) Still, it tends to get a bit fragile overtime, or if you run a lot of mods.

[Aeon221]

Where will I put that bigger save?

Oh I know! In the eight gigs of ram I shoved into this super cheap pimpmobile! Ha! Solutions erryday.

[WarrenM]

So I’m talking about instances where you find a number of gold pieces scattered on the table. Each of those gold pieces is a record in the esm file for the world cell that you’re in. When you take a gold piece, your save game has to record that the gold piece has been taken. That record then overrides the base game data when you load that save game. So when you run into a table and scatter the plates all over the room? Your savegame just got permanently bigger. (that’s my understanding of the engine, anyway.)

I love gamebryo. It’s by far the most mod friendly engine I know. As soon as the construction set is released it’ll take just a minute to change some of the tiny things that bug me a lot (ie. nerfing Bretons and giants.) Still, it tends to get a bit fragile overtime, or if you run a lot of mods.

I’m sure using console commands to modify your inventory will keep it nice and stable. :) Good luck!

[soondifferent]

I’m sure using console commands to modify your inventory will keep it nice and stable. :) Good luck!

They actually are quite safe. Some of them (ie. showracemenu) I’d be more careful with though.

[Royal_Fool]

Skyrim Nexus remains completely inaccessible due to traffic.

I don’t like the Nexus sites too much because they’re horrendously designed, but they do have the biggest collection of mods for Bethesda’s games, by far.

[RepoMan]

WARD! DUH! Clearly I need to spam ward next time I’m in a dragon fight. I’m slow, but I can learn.

Also, John Reynolds, you beat the game at level 16? Did you do nothing but the plot? I’m stunned. I’m level 16 and 25 hours in, and I feel like I’m only about one-sixth of the way through. But then again I’m an explorer by nature…

[DeepT]

Except Spells don’t get skill bonus either. :(

Skill bonus in destruction only reduces (very slighly) mana cost. And there are far fewer perks that bump damage (only up to +50% for one of the given elements, it would cost 6 perks to get all 3 of them up to that, but a weapon can have up to +100% damage in addition to other damage bonus like "power attacks deal a crit when charging which is double damage (rather than the usual +50% damage). It’s very lopsided.

Are you sure? I am almost certain my lower level spells did more damage as my skills went up.

[Scotch_Lufkin]

I’m 100% sure, yeah. They are static spells that don’t change unless you put points in the perks that relate to those elements.

Just look at your low level flame spell. It will still say 8 damage/second (unless you have +25 or 50% of course, then it might say like 10 or 12/second) even if you hve a Destruction of, say, 50. Or 80. Or 100. No damage scaling, just the mana drops.

What Aeon221 describes sounds just like what I was hoping for, late game pure mage smoking fools. Maybe if I had robes and things that bump magicka, I suppose, but even with the archmages robe and a mask that grants +100% magicak regen (on top of the arch mage robes) and nearly 500 mana, dual casting just wasn’t doing it.

Maybe the key is the Stagger perk, which I have not picked up. Seems sort of odd to hinge the success on an entire tree on a single perk though.

[Giaddon]

Damaging multiple enemies is also a big advantage over a warrior. I’m playing a two-hander right now, and taking on multiple enemies is a challenge: when I attack one guy, I am opening myself up to another.