Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim announced

Brian_Seiler · 2011-12-12T07:58:21.000Z

Drastic:

As a note on Conjuration, it also levels up simply by your summons being engaged in combat. I assume from them inflicting damage and/or getting smacked in return.

I can’t figure out how Conjuration works. I’ve had it level when my woefully under-hit-pointed Atronach hit somebody with a fireball and I’ve had it level on spell use and everything in between, which I guess isn’t much, but there you go. I would say that if you’re planning to play a balanced mage of any kind, you should make a focused effort to level up your conjuration, as I’m currently having a time getting that skill into line with my others (i.e. over 50, so that I can get the next tier of spells, which, by the way, is way too high a gate for the third tier of spells). I had an entire fight last night with a big dead guy sidequest target (and many, many previous extended fights with multiple Forsworn, who have quickly become my most hated enemy, because they don’t even carry anything I can sell) that basically consisted of me running around in circles around a couple of pillars and trailing him like a Benny Hill sketch while flamey the flamer sat back at the base of the stairs and threw fireballs at him, because it only took one hit to kill the little guy and even with the discount in place he was running me out of magicka trying to keep him up.

Also, the explosion was getting annoying.

Drastic · 2011-12-12T08:06:41.000Z

Yeah, conjuration life gets a lot better once you get Frosty. At that point, suddenly the worst thing in dungeons were narrow doorways.

TimJames · 2011-12-12T08:29:21.000Z

DoomMunky:

SirDigby: Thanks for the awesome description of your mage build.

I wish it was in the builds thread because I’m never going to find it again when I’m ready to play a mage.

Jamie_Madigan · 2011-12-12T08:47:34.000Z

Drastic:

Yeah, conjuration life gets a lot better once you get Frosty.

Ha. I call him that, too.

And I loved both the Thief’s Guild and Dark Brotherhood quest lines. The DB seemed to be telegraphing one thing early on and I thought I had it figured out, but it took a bit of a twist.

ShivaX · 2011-12-12T09:13:14.000Z

Brian Seiler:

(and I still don’t know how you’re supposed to beat a dragon in melee when they seem to randomly do that whole eat you trick).

Stay away from the head or block and bash them when they go for the bite. If you have Quick Reflexes from Block it will slow-mo because its a power attack. If you’re a dual wielder your only hope is to avoid the head and do enough damage to kill it before it kills you (you know, like every other fight).

Brian_Seiler · 2011-12-12T09:13:54.000Z

Confirmed: I will be killing all dragons from range.

Chris_Nahr · 2011-12-12T09:27:03.000Z

Quick Reflexes is awesome for shield users, by the way. Some enemies have a very long power attack, like the fire-breathing Dwemer centurion, and slow-motion stays enabled all the time! I can leisurely stroll around the centurion and hit him half a dozen times on the backside before his attack ends…

Pogo · 2011-12-12T13:28:41.000Z

I’m still getting my ass handed to me by “elite” enemies with two-handers, like the Captain bandits that are at the end of any bandit dungeon/fort that I just steam-roll through. I either have to chug potions like crazy, using poisons that don’t seem to do any extra damage, or kite them with stupid exploitable tactics.

It’s fucking stupid.

Zepo1a · 2011-12-12T13:32:30.000Z

Razgon:

I spent around 6-7 hours on the mages guild quest…thats more than most modern games!

Really? It seemed to be I did like 2 or 3 10 minute quests and then they started calling me the Arch-Mage.

Brian_Seiler · 2011-12-12T13:48:27.000Z

Zepo1a:

Really? It seemed to be I did like 2 or 3 10 minute quests and then they started calling me the Arch-Mage.

You didn’t talk to enough dudes. If you talk to all of your classmates, they’ll barf objectives and quests into your log like a keg party at the vomitorium. It’s a pretty stark contrast against the Companions, who WILL ONLY GIVE YOU ONE QUEST AT A TIME AND THE NUMBER IS ONE AND THERE NEVER SHALL BE MORE THAN ONE QUEST AT A TIME AND YOU WILL NOT HAVE MORE THAN ONE QUEST.

Haven’t even brushed up against the thieves or assassins yet, so not sure on those.

scharmers · 2011-12-12T13:52:12.000Z

Brian Seiler:

It’s a pretty stark contrast against the Companions, who WILL ONLY GIVE YOU ONE QUEST AT A TIME AND THE NUMBER IS ONE AND THERE NEVER SHALL BE MORE THAN ONE QUEST AT A TIME AND YOU WILL NOT HAVE MORE THAN ONE QUEST.

Having come off of a run-through of the Thieves’ Guild quest chain with a previous stabby-sneaky kitty, I also find it puzzling that my sword & board meathead just gets a very linear set of quests for the Companions – really? I can’t get generic quests like I did in the TG whilst on the Silver Hand track? How meh.

Sarkus · 2011-12-12T13:52:37.000Z

I’ve been playing through the mage stuff and I just did a dungeon this morning that took quite a long time even though the difficulty of the enemies is trivial (I visited it very early in the game and apparently set the enemy level very low.) It took time because it was so huge. So I don’t know about how people are rolling through this series in a short amount of time.

BlueJackalope · 2011-12-12T14:08:30.000Z

Brian Seiler:

I can’t figure out how Conjuration works. I’ve had it level when my woefully under-hit-pointed Atronach hit somebody with a fireball and I’ve had it level on spell use and everything in between, which I guess isn’t much, but there you go. I would say that if you’re planning to play a balanced mage of any kind, you should make a focused effort to level up your conjuration, as I’m currently having a time getting that skill into line with my others (i.e. over 50, so that I can get the next tier of spells, which, by the way, is way too high a gate for the third tier of spells). I had an entire fight last night with a big dead guy sidequest target (and many, many previous extended fights with multiple Forsworn, who have quickly become my most hated enemy, because they don’t even carry anything I can sell) that basically consisted of me running around in circles around a couple of pillars and trailing him like a Benny Hill sketch while flamey the flamer sat back at the base of the stairs and threw fireballs at him, because it only took one hit to kill the little guy and even with the discount in place he was running me out of magicka trying to keep him up.

Also, the explosion was getting annoying.

I went heavy with the conjuration early as I nevered liked the melee in Oblivion so having someone else do sounded great.

Start with “summon familiar” to build up your conjuration points. Once you can dual conjour you can summon an atronoch that will last long enough for you to summon her before you get into trouble.

Steven_Dickson · 2011-12-12T14:08:40.000Z

Sarkus:

I’ve been playing through the mage stuff and I just did a dungeon this morning that took quite a long time even though the difficulty of the enemies is trivial (I visited it very early in the game and apparently set the enemy level very low.) It took time because it was so huge. So I don’t know about how people are rolling through this series in a short amount of time.

That’s been my experience as well. I’ve only done the first 5 or 6 objectives in the main mage questline but most of these have involved travel to and exploration of significant locations. On average, I’ve spent a couple of hours on each of these. I’ve probably got about 8-10 hours under my belt on the main mage questline itself so far.

In addition to the main mage questline, there are also several large side questlines that branch off from the main line and a lot of mini-quests that are spawned by talking to some of the other students and staff at the college.

Syzygy · 2011-12-12T15:31:13.000Z

Sir Digby:

I actually shelved my conjuration character until Christmas, I’m currently playing a warrior but side-building him as rogue; as a rogue if you manage to get illusion to 70, buy invisibility and complete the DB quest line you basically become the Ninja God: confuse entire bands of enemies, vanish in thin air and kill them all.

How does an engagement like that work? Cast enrage on enemies then invis and watch them fight it out? Why is 70 a prereq?

Papageno · 2011-12-12T15:47:44.000Z

BTW, has anyone else noticed that the latest patch makes the subtitle options not stick? I’ve had to reset them twice now (I like the subtitles because I can read much faster than the NPCs can speak).

Sebmojo · 2011-12-12T15:54:39.000Z

Skyrim has already sold more copies than Oblivion.

After a month.

Arbit · 2011-12-12T16:18:03.000Z

Brian Seiler:

I can’t figure out how Conjuration works. I’ve had it level when my woefully under-hit-pointed Atronach hit somebody with a fireball and I’ve had it level on spell use and everything in between, which I guess isn’t much, but there you go. I would say that if you’re planning to play a balanced mage of any kind, you should make a focused effort to level up your conjuration, as I’m currently having a time getting that skill into line with my others (i.e. over 50, so that I can get the next tier of spells, which, by the way, is way too high a gate for the third tier of spells). I had an entire fight last night with a big dead guy sidequest target (and many, many previous extended fights with multiple Forsworn, who have quickly become my most hated enemy, because they don’t even carry anything I can sell) that basically consisted of me running around in circles around a couple of pillars and trailing him like a Benny Hill sketch while flamey the flamer sat back at the base of the stairs and threw fireballs at him, because it only took one hit to kill the little guy and even with the discount in place he was running me out of magicka trying to keep him up.

Also, the explosion was getting annoying.

I’m not quite sure how skill increases work with certain spell schools, either. I’ve sneak attacked enemies with a bound blade and had my alteration skill go up the second I struck. Pretty weird. Leveling does seem to occur faster if you cast spells in the presence of enemies, so try casting your flame atronach after he is aware of your presence. If you’re not above a little min-maxing, you can repeatedly cast bound blade while your atronach dukes it out.

I really haven’t messed with zombies, but those might be a lower cost alternative to summoning atronachs.

FWIW, I’ve been using the bound blade almost exclusively as my weapon and summoning atronachs almost every fight and my skill is about 94 (level 32 or so) so spamming bound blade might be the key to boosting your conjuration skill.

RepoMan · 2011-12-12T16:26:39.000Z

Sebmojo:

Skyrim has already sold more copies that Oblivion.

After a month.

That is so awesome. That, together with winning the VGA Best Game Of The Year Award, definitely ensures some serious shelf life for this masterpiece of an exploraholic’s wet dream game.

rei · 2011-12-12T16:42:07.000Z

Dear god, this is my GOTY. I’m at 104+ hours now plus 30 untracked (v1.0 before Steam was forced on TESV.exe) according to Steam.

I think the PC has slowdown/instability issues too now that I’m at 30+ hours in a game that has saved 200+ times (yeah I’m a pause-save-reload-baby) and my wired USB Logitech G500 mouse keeps disconnecting-reconnecting (I can hear the Windows USB reconnect sound) in-game when it keeps losing responsiveness. Anyone else getting this or is just it my bum mouse?