4201

So, Skyrim announced and released.

Speculation about the obligatory expansion? When the announce?

4202
4203

It’ll probably be DLC, like Fallout 3, rather than a single grand expansion. But I’m willing to be surprised.

4204

Do they still only let you hit one person per swing? If so, that’s too bad. I liked the asymmetry for warriors in DA2. I guess it’s tougher to convey in first person.

Speaking of first person, I’ve got an amusing new way to kill enemies: I take them down with arrows until they yield, then run up to them with dual daggers. I use the dual power move in third person to watch the animation. I don’t like third person cutscenes for kill moves but it’s more fun than a) plinking them with another arrow, b) watching Bethesda try to do spin moves in first person.

Although now I’m wondering if the first person kill moves occur more often when the enemy is down. I love those.

Oh, one other good way to go might be a Shout if there are any nice ones for executing people. That’d be fun. (No need to spoil me, I’ll wait to be surprised.)

4205

There’s a two-handed perk called sweep that lets power attacks hit all enemies in front of you, but other than that it’s one enemy at a time.

4206

Well get that perk and let us know if it’s a game changer!

4207

I’m trying!

4208

It’d be fantastic if whatever first piece of DLC they sell for this game does include a new magical armor spell that surrounds you with the outline of a mystical horse.

4209

How is it fantastic to give nerds a reason to make even more cute “jokes” about horse armor? :)

4210

I would rather have a full expansion. Sure if during a normal play-through this adds something really good through the game then I might buy it. However, if I am done with Skyrim (the problem with all DLC it seems to me) then I am not going to play through a game for the Nth time just so I can see a bit more content.

Yes it is supposed to be bigger then normal DLC, but how big can it really be to be worth replaying a bunch of “been there, done that” stuff just to get to the new part?

4211

Magic is generally okay but Destruction has major problems, as has been outlined. It suffers from some very significant scaling problems.

First there are perks. For weapons you’re at +100%, for magic it’s 50%. Then with weapons you’re getting upgrades to the weapons which massively increases the effectiveness of that multiplier. A 25 damage sword is now doing 50 compare to the 8->16 improvement over your Steel sword.

But isn’t magic the same? No. First, magicka is expended for even basic attacks, weapons are still very effective without stamina. Second, higher tier spells offer different functionality which you pay for in magicka cost. Fireball is not a replacement for Flames, they serve very different purposes. The problem is Flames is forever stuck at 8(12 perked) damage. All spells suffer from this and it hurts that you don’t get replacements. The later spells are often AE and magicka hogs which is painful in important boss fights. Your firebolt will never get stronger than when you got it and perked it because spells don’t gain damage from skill, only mana efficiency. This is very poor for a glass cannon that needs to kill quickly to live.

The problem gets more aggravated by gear and enchanting. I can add enormous amounts of weapon damage through enchants, but there is no equivalent for magic. You can only boost regen and efficiency which doesn’t help when you’re fragile and must kill quickly.

My solution is the following:

  • new versions of existing spells are made available. I.e there is an Adept version of Flames you can upgrade to. This already is the case for Alteration and Illusion.
  • damage/effect scale with skill level.
  • +damage enchants made available.

Destruction starts out good but you don’t hit harder at 50 than you did at 15. That is a massive problem that needs to be corrected.

Sorry for any typos, posting this on my cell.

4212

Pretty much agree with your assertion; the good thing (for the PC players) is that even if Bethesda doesn’t want to make Destruction scalable (for some odd reason) modders will be able to make it so AND add spellcrafting once the tools are out.

For the time being I’m leaving my breton dohvakiin shelved and I’m going to play my breton meatshield.

4213

Agreed on all points.

4214

Yea, spellcrafting alone could resolve all the issues. Just up the damage on a spell at the expense of magicka, etc. Seems too big a system to patch in but I’d love to see it in DLC or a mod.

How are Elder Scrolls expansions and DLC done? Are they usually just more content or do they add mechanics and systems as well?

4215

Damage doesn’t go up, but mana does. My mana burn rate is obscenely low, and my regen is obscenely high. Based on my current reduction rate, by the time I hit 50 I’ll spend less on fireball than I did as a newbie on flames.

I would like it if each additional mastery perk (Apprentice, Adept, etc) added damage to all spells in the destruction line in addition to the mana reduction. That’s basically how the weapon schools work. Figure each one adds 10%, so if you buy them all + spend the 6 talents on upgrading damage to 50% for each element you’ll do 100% with them all.

edit: Spellcrafting was bad. I mean it was awesome, but it was bad. The magic system is far superior now that I can’t craft absurdly broken spells.

4216

Now you just craft insanely broken swords. :)

4217

Yeah, and have the same base damage spells regardless or level… and you can actually get to the point where you spend 0 mana casting specific spells… so yeah, not to beat a dead horse but magic is pretty broken right now.

Just let mages do the same as those filthy blacksmithing warrior: add bonus to spells. I don’t care if it can be made to be obscenely powerful, that’s your choice, but as it stands it’s not your choice to be forcefully gimped because of a non-scaling issue.

@Kevin: it seems this time around they don’t want to release small incremental DLC’s but rather large ones which means no more “horse armour” silliness like in Oblivion. The latest news about upcoming dlc’s: http://www.wired.com/gamelife/2011/11/skyrim-dlc/

4218

This would be a decent solution, though I’d still like to see the base damage of the spells improve with skill as well, even if just slightly. What level are you right now? I imagine if your skill isn’t in the 50’s yet, you haven’t hit the problem I’ve been describing after all…

4219

Well, Oblivion was just a bit of a quest, new area, and some loot. How much of each depended on the size of the DLC. Fallout 3’s DLC had some more sizable ones and added a few more things on average. New Vegas continued that trend, but then at the end threw in the pre-order bonus items crap as cheaper DLC (well, that and the last DLC was a phoned-in pile of feces). I am guessing they will release fewer DLC than those, maybe 3 big packs, roughly somewhere between the size of Knights of the Nine and Shivering Isles. If I had to guess, they will be $15 in price each.

4220

That’s all true, but there was a world of difference between Shivering Isles and something like The Wizard’s Tower.

http://www.elderscrolls.com/oblivion/dlc/

Shivering Isles was more like what you’d consider the expansions of old while Wizard’s Tower was more like the DLC we’ve all come to know.