The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

[Maple Leafs]

Originally Posted by ColtCrazy

Spent the entire weekend remodeling the living room

It speaks to the depth of the game that at first I still thought you were talking Skyrim.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by Maple Leafs

It speaks to the depth of the game that at first I still thought you were talking Skyrim.

LOL, but I agree that it's an easy mistake to make

[ColtCrazy]

haha. That made me laugh. Then I remembered I haven't seen Lydia lately, a comment I didn't keep to myself. Now my wife is wondering who Lydia is. Whoops.

[Buccaneer]

I was looking at the major questlines and it seems like after the Main and Winterhold quests, the only choices are the fighter, assassin and thieves ones, plus the civil war. None of those appeal much to me so I guess I'll just continue to do the miscellaneous quests then? I suppose I could do the civil war one eventually but in the meantime, I guess the misc. ones could keep me busy for a while. What I was really wondering if there could be more of a focus to the quests instead of picking up random ones here and there. Do you try to do all of the quests in a city, for example?

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by Buccaneer

What I was really wondering if there could be more of a focus to the quests instead of picking up random ones here and there. Do you try to do all of the quests in a city, for example?

The city related quests (or several of them at least) are often related to meeting the requirements of becoming a thane of said city. Most aren't particularly difficult (often seem to be "deliver this" missions which follow a dungeon clearing mission) or action-packed but there's at least a certain sense of organization about them if you want to look at it that way.

Since your playthrough seems to have been very different than my own in terms of style, I'm curious about something -- how many of the world's locations have you discovered so far? (it's in your stats somewhere, showing your progress toward an achievement for finding X number IIRC).

[Buccaneer]

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

The city related quests (or several of them at least) are often related to meeting the requirements of becoming a thane of said city. Most aren't particularly difficult (often seem to be "deliver this" missions which follow a dungeon clearing mission) or action-packed but there's at least a certain sense of organization about them if you want to look at it that way.

Since your playthrough seems to have been very different than my own in terms of style, I'm curious about something -- how many of the world's locations have you discovered so far? (it's in your stats somewhere, showing your progress toward an achievement for finding X number IIRC).

79.

I did a few of the Daedric quests. Nasty, evil stuff. Think I'm going to buy a house in Whiterun, find a wife and do nice things for a little while.

[thealmighty]

One of the coolest random sidequests I have encountered...

Spoiler

On my second go-round: Came out of Whiterun on my way to clear some quest mine, when I come upon a little farm. By the main road, someone's making lots of noise so I go investigate. Wow, it's a crazy dude in a wagon with a broken wheel who wants help getting the farmer dude to help him with the wheel.

Cool part- it is Cicero taking his "mother," in the coffin, to her resting place.

For those who have done the Dark Brotherhood questline, it's the Cicero with the Mother's coffin apparently on his way to the hideout.

Thought that was a very cool touch.

[SackAttack]

Originally Posted by thealmighty

One of the coolest random sidequests I have encountered...

Spoiler

On my second go-round: Came out of Whiterun on my way to clear some quest mine, when I come upon a little farm. By the main road, someone's making lots of noise so I go investigate. Wow, it's a crazy dude in a wagon with a broken wheel who wants help getting the farmer dude to help him with the wheel.

Cool part- it is Cicero taking his "mother," in the coffin, to her resting place.

For those who have done the Dark Brotherhood questline, it's the Cicero with the Mother's coffin apparently on his way to the hideout.

Thought that was a very cool touch.

Spoiler

And if you HAVEN'T done that questline yet...how you handle that particular sidequest can affect how Cicero treats you once you join the Dark Brotherhood.

[mckerney]

Originally Posted by thealmighty

One of the coolest random sidequests I have encountered...

Spoiler

On my second go-round: Came out of Whiterun on my way to clear some quest mine, when I come upon a little farm. By the main road, someone's making lots of noise so I go investigate. Wow, it's a crazy dude in a wagon with a broken wheel who wants help getting the farmer dude to help him with the wheel.

Cool part- it is Cicero taking his "mother," in the coffin, to her resting place.

For those who have done the Dark Brotherhood questline, it's the Cicero with the Mother's coffin apparently on his way to the hideout.

Thought that was a very cool touch.

Spoiler

I was so happy once I was finally able to kill Cicero

[gstelmack]

Originally Posted by Buccaneer

Think I'm going to buy a house in Whiterun, find a wife and do nice things for a little while.

I had to buy a house in Whiterun pretty early on just to keep all my dragonscales and dragonbones until I can start smithing my own dragon armor...

[mckerney]

Originally Posted by gstelmack

I had to buy a house in Whiterun pretty early on just to keep all my dragonscales and dragonbones until I can start smithing my own dragon armor...

This weekend I finally leveled up my smithing enough to make dragonscale armor. So many iron daggers. Now I just need to fight some dragons, finally killed my second one last,night while doing an assassination outside of Markarth.

[Crapshoot]

Originally Posted by gstelmack

I had to buy a house in Whiterun pretty early on just to keep all my dragonscales and dragonbones until I can start smithing my own dragon armor...

This. My cupboard has 50 dragon scales and 30 bones, because I've sold off a bunch.

[Buccaneer]

From the beginning, I've always made it a habit of making the seller's run after a quest, particularly if I had killed a dragon. The run usually involves Riverwood, Whiterun and Solitude plus Wilhelm if needed. Now that I married Camille, I can go home and sell to her too. She may not be the hottest chick in the game, like Lydia or that one in the Winking Skeever, but she sure is pretty and nice. I chose a house in Whiterun because I have always liked that place - very friendly and sunny most of the time, with great views.

For a while now, I've been able to 3-shot dragons so that's easy money but I do have to sell immediately after, usually. With fast travel, it doesn't take much time.

[Radii]

So I'm using the categorized favorites mod (if that matters, unsure).

I have an Axe bound to '1', a mace bound to '2', and heal bound to '3'.

Axe = main hand, Mace = offhand. I always want my axe equipped. I want to be able to switch my offhand between my mace and heal as needed. But what ends up happening is that I press '3', heal up, press '2', and my mace goes back into my main hand, leaving me equipped with my mace and heal instead of the two weapons. press '1' for axe and it goes back in main hand too. I can't seem to figure out a way to use the favorites buttons to go from dual wielding -> using a spell -> back to dual wielding, I always have to go into the menu to put the weapon back in my offhand.

Is there a solution to this or am I simply doing something wrong?

[mckerney]

Originally Posted by Radii

So I'm using the categorized favorites mod (if that matters, unsure).

I have an Axe bound to '1', a mace bound to '2', and heal bound to '3'.

Axe = main hand, Mace = offhand. I always want my axe equipped. I want to be able to switch my offhand between my mace and heal as needed. But what ends up happening is that I press '3', heal up, press '2', and my mace goes back into my main hand, leaving me equipped with my mace and heal instead of the two weapons. press '1' for axe and it goes back in main hand too. I can't seem to figure out a way to use the favorites buttons to go from dual wielding -> using a spell -> back to dual wielding, I always have to go into the menu to put the weapon back in my offhand.

Is there a solution to this or am I simply doing something wrong?

It looks like this can be done through the favorites menu mod, but can't be changed in game.

========================================================================
Equip sets
========================================================================

Equip sets allow you to specify a set of equipment to equip all at once.
This is an experimental feature, so it might not work perfectly.
Unfortunately, the game doesn't allow the favorites menu to write to a
file on disk, so equip sets have to be configured manually in the
config file. (This will hopefully be improved). Also, any item that you want
in an equip set must be favorited (or the favorites menu won't know about it!).

Note that the equip stets that come with the default configuration
are very generic, so they may not work very well for you. See the
config file for how to configure equip sets.

When you select an equip set, its items will get equipped. Any items
that are already equipped will not be unequipped, unless they're being
"overriden". That is, if I have Steel Armor, a Shield, and a Sword
equipped, and I select an equip set that has Flames and Frostbite,
the Steel Armor will still be equipped. If all the items of an equip
set are equipped in the correct places, then it will be displayed
with an equipped icon.

Equip sets can also have hotkeys. They can be assigned ctrl+0 through
ctrl+9. The modifier key to use can be configured in the config file
(eg, alt+1, shift+1). Hotkeys can be disabled if they interfer with
another mod. The favorites menu must be open for these hotkeys to work.
Equip set hotkeys are not compatible with the xbox controller at this time.

(A future feature might be hotkey sets, but I haven't found a way to do
this yet!)

You need to edit favoritesmenu.cfg in the \skyrim\data\interface folder. Currently reading up on how to make the changes for it.

[mckerney]

From testing, it appears that the equipsets will only work when you have the favorites menu open and not in game, but it will still let you switch fairly quickly.

[Radii]

Heh yeah I assumed this would have been a common problem, dang. And I'm seeing the same thing you are:
[list]
name = Equip Sets
type = equipset
enabled = true
equipsets = Dual Wield, UseHeal, Hand to Hand Combat, Magic Weapons

[equipset]
name = Dual Wield
hotkey = 1
equipment = Axe of Whiterun, right
equipment = Orcish Mace of Gleaning, left

[equipset]
name = UseHeal
hotkey = 2
equipment = Axe of Whiterun, right
equipment = "Healing", left


That works but the game isn't recognizing "Ctrl-1" and "Ctrl-2" to switch them in real time, but if I press Q and click on those sets it does it.

[mckerney]

Here's an example of what you're need to put in your favoritesmenu.cfg file to get the equip sets you want. This will work as long as you only have one axe and one mace in your favorites, so as long as you unfavorite your old weapon when you get a new one it will still work. If you have more than one favorited you need to put something more specific like Glass Axe or Axe of Diminishing.

[list]
name = Equip Sets
type = equipset
enabled = true
equipsets = Axe/Healing, Mace/Healing, Dual Wield

[equipset]
name = Axe/Healing
hotkey = 1
equipment = Axe, right
equipment = "Healing", left

[equipset]
name = Mace/Healing
hotkey = 2
equipment = Mace, right
equipment = Healing, left

[equipset]
name = Dual Wield 
hotkey = 3
equipment = Mace, right
equipment = Axe, left

The default equip sets would need to be deleted from the config file. Not quite as convenient as being able to change the equip sets without going to a menu, but Q - ctrl+1 - Tab should be less inconvenient than how you do it now.

Adding different equip sets requires both a new [equipset] heading, but also adding it's name in the equipsets = line under[list]

[mckerney]

Originally Posted by Radii

Heh yeah I assumed this would have been a common problem, dang. And I'm seeing the same thing you are:
[list]
name = Equip Sets
type = equipset
enabled = true
equipsets = Dual Wield, UseHeal, Hand to Hand Combat, Magic Weapons

[equipset]
name = Dual Wield
hotkey = 1
equipment = Axe of Whiterun, right
equipment = Orcish Mace of Gleaning, left

[equipset]
name = UseHeal
hotkey = 2
equipment = Axe of Whiterun, right
equipment = "Healing", left


That works but the game isn't recognizing "Ctrl-1" and "Ctrl-2" to switch them in real time, but if I press Q and click on those sets it does it.

Yeah, I was trying to get them working doing it in real time and wondering what I did wrong.

[Kodos]

Is this game enjoyable for a guy who has never really been into RPGs? It sounds interesting, but I have my doubts. One thing I should note is that I don't have a ton of time to spend on games each week. It sounds like maybe it is too deep for my one or two hours a week where I am free.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by Kodos

Is this game enjoyable for a guy who has never really been into RPGs? It sounds interesting, but I have my doubts. One thing I should note is that I don't have a ton of time to spend on games each week. It sounds like maybe it is too deep for my one or two hours a week where I am free.

At 1 or 2 hours a week, you could very easily be playing it more than a year from now.

That might sound very cool to you, it might sound insanely unappealing, whichever way you react might just make the decision for you one way or the other.

[thesloppy]

Yeah, I seemingly spend 1-2 hours just selling random crap everytime I play Skyrim, I'm not sure how it would hold up under those constraints.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by thesloppy

Yeah, I seemingly spend 1-2 hours just selling random crap everytime I play Skyrim, I'm not sure how it would hold up under those constraints.

I almost said the exact same thing, wasn't sure how abnormal that was so I held back on going that far but ... yeah, a typical session for me probably includes 2-3 hours of trading, load balancing, off-loading & re-loading, etc.

[RainMaker]

I feel like it's coming to an end for me. I've done so much and am running out of main quests. Explored almost every inch of the world.

Still sort of tempted to start up from scratch afterwards with a totally different character and play it completely different. My character could do some magic, but was mainly a one-handed fighter with heavy armor who couldn't sneak up on anyone. Might go the straight mage route next time, although I don't know how I'll do. I have a tough time switching to light armor and staying alive sometimes.

[Radii]

Originally Posted by Kodos

Is this game enjoyable for a guy who has never really been into RPGs? It sounds interesting, but I have my doubts. One thing I should note is that I don't have a ton of time to spend on games each week. It sounds like maybe it is too deep for my one or two hours a week where I am free.

I'm very hit or miss on RPG's. Dragon Age sucked me in, Fallout 3 sucked me in, but most just miss. I've only played a couple final fantasy's and only finished one of them.. but this one has stuck quite nicely and I think I'm going to be putting a ton of time into it.

As far as the time blocks, you're probably not going to finish it any time soon, but you can play for 2 hours at a time and have an enjoyable experience and then put it down for awhile. Go do one quest, finish it, come back to town, sell, train, craft, save, quit. Or explore a new town to talk to everyone and collect new quests, etc. You can definitely enjoy it and accomplish a lot in smaller blocks of time, and probably pick and choose parts of the story that are the most interesting to you and set other stuff aside.

Obviously can't say for sure you'd dig it, but the potential could be there for you to get into it.

[Radii]

So I got to level 15 before I realized that the night vision for the cat race wasn't a passive/always on thing but rather something I can essentially toggle as a shout. whoops. Also, annoying that it takes up the shout slot so that's yet more hotkeys locked up to switch between a couple shouts.

[thesloppy]

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

I almost said the exact same thing, wasn't sure how abnormal that was so I held back on going that far but ... yeah, a typical session for me probably includes 2-3 hours of trading, load balancing, off-loading & re-loading, etc.

I don't think we're anywhere near atypical....and I even have my speech tree nearly maxed, with perks sunk in, have 'invested' in every merchant I can, and can sell anything to anyone....but it still takes me hours of after-work to clean up after a trip to a good sized dungeon or dwarven city. I just recently was finally able to train myself to stop picking everything up, and that's been a relief.

[mckerney]

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

I almost said the exact same thing, wasn't sure how abnormal that was so I held back on going that far but ... yeah, a typical session for me probably includes 2-3 hours of trading, load balancing, off-loading & re-loading, etc.

Typical play session for me involves asking my wife for money, adventuring, and then selling stuff.

[Buccaneer]

Long story short - I do not like RPGs since I don't role play, nor care much about fantasy type stories. Did a long session over the holidays but now I am finding myself playing about 2 hours each night, just doing stuff. Lots of variety and lots of fun.

[Maple Leafs]

Originally Posted by Kodos

Is this game enjoyable for a guy who has never really been into RPGs? It sounds interesting, but I have my doubts. One thing I should note is that I don't have a ton of time to spend on games each week. It sounds like maybe it is too deep for my one or two hours a week where I am free.

I haven't played RPGs in about 20 years, and I don't have much time for gaming (although more than one or two hours a week) and I've been enjoying it plenty.

I'm sure I'm missing out on something by not micromanaging my inventory/cash flow as well as others do, but it doesn't seem to really bother me.

[Radii]

Originally Posted by Maple Leafs

I'm sure I'm missing out on something by not micromanaging my inventory/cash flow as well as others do, but it doesn't seem to really bother me.

ditto. I take the time to try to craft and to keep my starting carrying weight down before I go out anywhere, I try to come back with a full load to sell, but it sounds like there is a LOT more that can be done to work on speech and make as much money as possible that I hadn't really thought about, but its not something I would ever do. I like though that there are so many ways you can dive so deeply into various aspects of the game if that's what you want to do, but yeah, that part of it isn't for me.

[duff88]

Originally Posted by Kodos

Is this game enjoyable for a guy who has never really been into RPGs? It sounds interesting, but I have my doubts. One thing I should note is that I don't have a ton of time to spend on games each week. It sounds like maybe it is too deep for my one or two hours a week where I am free.

I showed the game to my 55 years old father. He is not a gamer, mostly just plays random Wii games and Zelda.

At first he thought it would be too complicated for him. He has loved it for the last week. Even though he isn't sticked to it for hours a day, he plays it every now and then and has made it to a level 6 Nord warrior so far.

[Kodos]

Thanks for the input, guys. I think maybe I'll wait for a "Game of the Year" version to come out... although I do have a gift card burning a hole in my pocket. Decisions, decisions.

[Buccaneer]

I've been doing lots of various quests, getting tremendous loot everywhere. Problem is that with 70k gold, I have nothing to spend it on. The Arch-Mage robes have been suiting me fine for a long time, so I don't need armor or enchantments or whatever. I only use magic to fight, so I don't need swords and stuff, but I am far beyond being able to spend gold on training. Got a nice house, only need one though. Finally, I don't need to buy or make any potions - don't get hurt much and besides, there's plenty of potions (and everything else) laying around. I guess I should stop looting unless there's something I'm missing?

[ColtCrazy]

I'm with you Bucc. About the only thing I think I need is a better bow (I have the elven one, think the best one must be the dwarven one. I found the armor I like. I seem to be good on potions. Money was an issue early, but now I have nearly 10K and already bought my house.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by ColtCrazy

(I have the elven one, think the best one must be the dwarven one.

Daedric bows can rock some worlds

[Crapshoot]

What I've done ( as a light armored imperial who uses destruction magic anyone handed weaponry) is basically go buy equipment every time it has a new effect (ie, haggling, smithing, fire resistance). Because I have light armor, it means I can carry all this stuff and switch out to whatever effect I need at the time. I do have a $130k now, so perhaps I need to start buying more houses.

[JPhillips]

I could spend hours hunting hawks. I love the way they bounce around as they fall from the sky.

[frnk55]

Can anyone comment on master level of play? I'm on expert now and it's getting a bit easy. I don't want to switch if I'm going to get killed in one shot. I would imagine dragons would be a bitch on master along with mages who shoot fireballs.

[Buccaneer]

After 100 hours, I think I've done enough. Reached Master level in Destruction with the appropriate spells. My quests log is nearly empty (skipped two major cities), with a bunch of minor misc. ones though. Found 125 places and killed my 30th dragon (in about 4 seconds). Easily the greatest action-adventure RPG I had ever played. Highly recommend.

[Radii]

I'm not a fan of Riften so far... numerous really tedious quests, the ethical stuff of the thieves guild which I assumed I'd really want to do b/c I'm playing a rogue'ish character (but I haven't done any stealing/pickpocketing... just the sneaking/archery/1h/dual wield side of things for rogues). And I ran into my first seemingly broken quest involving stealing a horse, I can't find the dude that wants it at all after going through a couple steps.

I get OCD about finishing quests... not necessarily right away but once it ends up in the log I intend to finish it, Riften has kinda bogged things down a bit for me. I'm sure it'll be better once I sit down and knock a few things out though to make some more progress.

In other news, I'm level 30 now, just got Smithing to 100 with Alchemy and Enchanting both in the 30s. I recently hit a point where I can usually have enough soul gems on me so that I could buy out the iron from the blacksmith, make lots of iron daggers, use most of the lower level soul gems to powerlevel enchanting with the daggers, which increases their value by a ton, which keeps me in enough cash to buy more soul gems and to buy out all the alchemist reagents to powerlevel that as well. I haven't been back to my house in Whiterun since I hit 100 smithing, but I'm very much looking forward to beginning my set of Dragonscale armor

[SackAttack]

Originally Posted by Radii

I'm not a fan of Riften so far... numerous really tedious quests, the ethical stuff of the thieves guild which I assumed I'd really want to do b/c I'm playing a rogue'ish character (but I haven't done any stealing/pickpocketing... just the sneaking/archery/1h/dual wield side of things for rogues). And I ran into my first seemingly broken quest involving stealing a horse, I can't find the dude that wants it at all after going through a couple steps.

Spoiler

I ended up finding him running around outside Riften attacking some bandits on my way back with the horse. If you have 'clairvoyance,' that's a really useful way to find him.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by Radii

And I ran into my first seemingly broken quest involving stealing a horse, I can't find the dude that wants it at all after going through a couple steps.

I'm pretty sure I know which one that is, turned into my favorite quest line moment out of both of Oblivion and Skyrim. I was still very low-level at the time, got a random encounter en route, which led to some NPC's related to the mission getting involved. Resulted in a pretty good sized pitched battle (by Skyrim standards) and ended up with a major league caliber scav'ing haul, like five or six rounds of load/sell/store/return & reload ... all before I ever got near the horse

edit to add: The random + the result + the ragged edge of my combat ability at the time being totally tested but managing to survive w/out dying, just all fit together into gaming awesomeness.

[Radii]

Originally Posted by SackAttack

Spoiler

I ended up finding him running around outside Riften attacking some bandits on my way back with the horse. If you have 'clairvoyance,' that's a really useful way to find him.

I do have that and don't use it nearly enough, I'll be trying it next time I'm in the area, thanks!

[thealmighty]

Originally Posted by Radii

I'm not a fan of Riften so far... And I ran into my first seemingly broken quest involving stealing a horse, I can't find the dude that wants it at all after going through a couple steps.

Spoiler

The thing about that quest is after you steal the horse, the guy you need to take it to is in standing in the middle of the forest- I imagine so as not to be seen accepting Maven's stolen horse

I found him using the mapping feature in the questlog- where you highlight a quest and hit the 'm' button and it will take you to the right spot on the map.

[Radii]

Originally Posted by thealmighty

I found him using the mapping feature in the questlog- where you highlight a quest and hit the 'm' button and it will take you to the right spot on the map.

So this is making me think its more likely that it is indeed broken for me. That 'm' button is greyed out for that quest. Clairvoyance seems to be sending me all over the world to do other quests. I rode the stupid horse all the way to Windhelm before I clued in on that, oops. Thanks for the suggestions though guys


I had been putting perks into Smithing down the light armor side and have my dragonscale armor set completed and upgraded... but now have realized that I probably want to go down the other side of the smithing tree as well so I can make and improve a Daedric bow.

I've only focused on a fairly small number of trees with my perk points... Sneaking, Smithing, One Handed Weapons, Light Armor, and Archery. there's pretty much always been something I could immediately make great use of, but now I'm having a pretty tough decision on whether to spend my next four levels (which are starting to come a lot slower) on smithing or to keep pumping up Archery and Sneak skills which have some immediate benefits. I've been raising Alchemy a lot lately too and damn I want all of the improved potion skills... I'm impressed how difficult the game has made these decisions for me

[ColtCrazy]

So how many of your bring a companion with you? I have always had one, and like when they seem to take the brunt of the early battle...but now I find I need to watch them because I can't do some attacks when they are around for fear of killing them too. Just curious how others play.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by ColtCrazy

So how many of your bring a companion with you? I have always had one, and like when they seem to take the brunt of the early battle...but now I find I need to watch them because I can't do some attacks when they are around for fear of killing them too. Just curious how others play.

I take them probably close to 90% of the time. I have them wait outside the dungeon & just handle the combat myself maybe half the time at this point though. Or bring them with me to a certain point in the crawl but leave them waiting when I think things are going to get tougher. Most of the time in confined areas like that I'd rather do the combat alone but I like having them handy for pack mule duties.

[Buccaneer]

I brought my companion everywhere I had went. If he/she had stepped into my destructive spell and died, then I would reload. Only in my last fight when I had Lightning Storm was when I told J'zargo to wait. I would say 98% of the time, the companion were helpful since I rarely engaged in any close combat. By the way, if any of you have a chance to get Lightning Storm, it's really cool and powerful.

[ColtCrazy]

Originally Posted by Buccaneer

I brought my companion everywhere I had went. If he/she had stepped into my destructive spell and died, then I would reload. Only in my last fight when I had Lightning Storm was when I told J'zargo to wait. I would say 98% of the time, the companion were helpful since I rarely engaged in any close combat. By the way, if any of you have a chance to get Lightning Storm, it's really cool and powerful.

Yeah, that got my attention. How do you get that? I just got Lightning Bolts and it's been my go to weapon ever since (coupled with some flame runes which are pretty handy if you can lay them before a charging foe)

I guess I'll stick to being careful when the campion gets hurt. I like having a grunt that goes in for close combat so I can stay back with my arrows or with my magic.