The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim

[Fidcal]

Trading yesterday my Xbox select button started moving down a line after the last in a group but even worse: firing twice sporadically.

 

What this means is say I had: iron armor(3) to sell then normally you would click, click, click but now I got click, click, then the cursor jumped to the next item leaving the last single iron armor above.

 

The double click error means that as I was selling a big list of loot I would click one item in the list which would be transferred to the trader but then the cursor would move to the next item below and sell that too! And I was tapping the button lighter and lighter but there was no doubt it double clicked itself. This was bad enough so long as I was still among stuff I wanted to sell but then what I feared happened and it sold one of my best items. I switched off in disgust because I knew I'd have to go through the routine again of setting up apparel that gave me better price perks plus get all the stuff from Lydia then rebuy the new stuff and do it all again. What is even worse, I'd just bought some cool new item and I'm fairly certain that will be gone when I next reload. I've seen that before when after a lengthy trade and buying a great new item I suddenly realized I wasn't wearing my 'better-price' necklace etc so reloaded but he no longer had the item on offer and I've never seen it since. This is odd. It seems some traders' wares are generated randomly each visit even after a reload.

 

I'm hoping (!) the double click is my Xbox controller sticking but it's never done this before yesterday. If this happens again I'll plug in my other controller.

 

Incidentally though, this reminds me that during a hefty battle a sluggish weapon like a big hammer can double (or even triple) fire after releasing. I've always put that down to buffering. I accidentally hit Lydia now and again and once the buffering hit her about three times and she walked off in a huff so I had to reload.

 

The load/save menus (reading the disk) are really slow on the Xbox and also the + inventory menu. If I call that up then keep pounding Items or Map etc there is no response for many seconds then the + graphic in the middle goes slightly bigger then it works. That's not every time but neither is it only once per session. It might be after every reload or save I'm not sure.

 

Volskygge: If you play this dungeon there is the hardest monster I've come across yet called something like draugre dark lord or dark warrior or something. So take plenty of potions and also it disarms you so take some spare weapons you can switch to. Even so after max restoring my health with potions he killed me with only two hits. I had maybe 15 or 20 reloads before I beat him and even then I'm not sure if he got stuck. The way I did it in the end was hit and run with invisibility potions and let Lydia hold his attention. (I'm not sure she was hurting him at all though.) Then I got into a shadow and kept pounding him with arrows. Not sure if that was a bug. Maybe he got stuck. I'll take it though. Dragons are easy by comparison. Of course though the difficulty is going to depend on your level, weapons, style, and skill etc. I've not really yet got into magicka. Ah that reminds me, I think you can change the difficulty setting in-game. Maybe I could have turned it down to easy at least temporarily.

 

btw I think I got the same Word again: whirlwind sprint. What's that mean? Battle through a tough dungeon and the quest leads to something you've already got? That sucks. Or maybe it's something to do with mastering the word. I've seen that somewhere but no idea what it means.

[Baddcog]

Well, you can't get the same word twice. But each shout has 3 words that upgrade it. If you do the quest for the guys on the mountain top (greybeards) they will train you in the whirlwind and give you 3 words for one shout.

 

I haven't played for a few days, sounds like the patch screwed a lot of stuff up and I need a break anyway.

 

Yeah Dark Lords can hit hard. I tend to try and get a sneak shot arrow in from a distance with a poison for a good first hit. Then just keep moving. I use fire on them mostly. You can flame from a distance and keep back peddling. Wait until you get to the one cavern with 6 of them in a really small area, lol. I replayed that at least 5 times.

Also, put a weakness to fire poison on an arrow, hit em with sneak attack, then pound them with fire.

 

Use buff health and magic potions first, then be ready to guzzle more.

[jaxa]

Fid: go to your shouts menu under magic. If you have at least one dragon soul, you can upgrade Whirlwind. Each shout has two upgrades. The upgrades basically improve duration or magnitude of the effects, or slightly tweak what it does. Cooldown time also goes up. To use the upgraded form you need to hold down whatever button you use to cast it (Z for PC players) until you speak all 2-3 words.

 

Don't tell me you haven't seen people yelling FUS RO DAH all over the internet?

[Komag]

Fidcal, I think I played that dungeon with the ultra hard guy - was it the one where you had to first find the two skull-key things, then put them in the slots and the baddie pops out? I managed to get him stuck in the water section while I hid behind some wood and just kept popping out and shooting arrows FOREVER till he finally died. Before that I probably died and reloaded a dozen times, trying every possible combination of fighting tactics, potions, buffs, etc. Yeah, probably should've temporarily lowered the difficulty there.

[Fidcal]

Also, put a weakness to fire poison on an arrow, hit em with sneak attack, then pound them with fire.

 

Me likes!

[Fidcal]

Fidcal, I think I played that dungeon with the ultra hard guy - was it the one where you had to first find the two skull-key things, then put them in the slots and the baddie pops out? I managed to get him stuck in the water section while I hid behind some wood and just kept popping out and shooting arrows FOREVER till he finally died. Before that I probably died and reloaded a dozen times, trying every possible combination of fighting tactics, potions, buffs, etc. Yeah, probably should've temporarily lowered the difficulty there.

 

No, mine was Vilskygge or somesuch name. No wait. I'm getting muddled up. Vilskygge I think is like metal age with bots and good steam punk stuff. btw there is a special dwarven(?) mechanical device in there that needs an object. I had to check the net and it said that's a separate quest so if you get to that and can't work it don't worry but you'll come another time the easy way I guess. Oh yeah I could find no way to get Lydia up the steps into this one so had to leave her outside. There was so much loot in this one I had to make two journeys back to the shops and still abandoned a little bit. The quest is to get the swedish sounding female warrior retired adventurer's sword back: grimsever or somesuch. I think she was in Riften.

 

No, the dark lord I'm thinking of I think was a dungeon beginning with M. Msfyflgelj or somesuch.There's another boss outside Msyfifiggdfjjd at the end but he's not so hard and you get a cool mask helmet gives you extra carry, trade prices, and underwater breathing

 

So anyway it sounds like I'm going to come across more and more of these dark lords. I'd better get sharpening my hammer.

 

My double clicking never happened yesterday so hopefully it was a one-off memory corruption (I sometimes get insomnia and the Xbox was left on all night.)

[Fidcal]

Fid: go to your shouts menu under magic. If you have at least one dragon soul, you can upgrade Whirlwind. Each shout has two upgrades. The upgrades basically improve duration or magnitude of the effects, or slightly tweak what it does. Cooldown time also goes up. To use the upgraded form you need to hold down whatever button you use to cast it (Z for PC players) until you speak all 2-3 words.

 

Don't tell me you haven't seen people yelling FUS RO DAH all over the internet?

 

I gave up trying to figure out what souls I've got. I clicked something yesterday and it said you need a soul and I know damned well I'd killed a dragon 20 minutes earlier so I don't know what that means. I'll have to go through the menus and stats again to figure out where I am with that. I guess you upgrade by clicking the word in the magic menu?

 

I think the menus are confusing. The perks I can make no sense of. I just basically muddle through and click one that appeals and see if it works or not but I can't see any way to tell if it is available except by trying it. For instance, say I have 1 perk. I see a perk that says archery:52 requires 50. I click it and nothing happens. I go to another and it says: Sneak: 46 Requires 40. I click it and it says accept y/n? I suspect the first one perhaps I've already got but how can one see any difference. Or it might be that the perk will only work on types associated with my level up eg, strength. But again, which? The graphics are beautiful but they sacrificed clarity. The printed manual is just the skimpyist overview and last time I looked Bethesda had no official on-line help that I could find.

 

On another topic: I wonder why they didn't do some differently named spiders? There are varieties in size and colour etc but they are all called frostbite spiders. I'd have thought they would have named some of them differently.

 

Another topic: what's the best way to fight those ice wraith things? Like fighting smoke. I think they do die when hit with physical weapons but it seems unconvincing. Maybe I'll try fire next time but I think I've tried that. What I'd like to see is some indication of impact. Anyway, Lydia usually finishes them off. You should see her armour now with the huge steel boobs.

[jaxa]

Shouts: I think that message is due to an interface flaw. YOU HAVE TO CLICK IT IN A DIFFERENT WAY.

 

Seriously. Lol. I'm not sure since it's Xbox.

Edited December 4, 2011 by jaxa

[Baddcog]

@Fid:

 

Yep, fire always beats ice

 

I agree about the spiders, how hard would it to be to have another named/colored one with a different poison or something. I guess every thing in Skyrim is frozen?

 

There are tons of the darklord skeletons, but they get easier as you level up. They also get more frequent. Then there are some 'dark mages' or some such. There are only a certian number of those and you'll figure that out once you find a certian spot. Those guys have some wicked magic spells.

 

Perks can only be obtained in order and with the correct level. So you have to start at the bottom and work up. If you don't have the first you can't get the second up the line (literally). IF you can get it the star will be blue, if it's still pink then you either don't have the level high enough or you don't have the one before it.

Some of them say (0/3), so you can get that 3 times to make it stronger. When your level gets high enough those will be (0/5).

 

Shouts: You click on a shout and it says you need a soul. This was a bad menu choice on their part. That actually pops up twice for me before I get it to go away. Instead there's another button to use (F on PC) and it should say at the bottom of screen (F to use soul)

I have no idea why they did that.

[Fidcal]

Been experimenting and reading the manual.

 

Yeah I only just noticed the words go in the magic menu. I thought just the shout name went in. I never took any notice of the word. So now I see there might be more than one word and they are feinted out until unlocked.

 

I was shocked to find that the first one you get (I forget the name) that pushes enemies away has THREE words and you have to hold the button down longer. All this time I've just tapped it. When I tried holding it down it blasted the enemy off his feet backwards!

 

I've also been carrying around more and more spell tomes until I realized you just read them and the disappear and you get the magic you can use forever. If you have more than one of the same tome then just sell it as its no use at all if you've already learnt the spell. The scrolls are the opposite. They seem to be that you actually use the scroll and they are once only.

 

And the powers I now see you have to tap the button and you can only use a power once a day. First time I got that Voice of the Emperor to work!

[Baddcog]

IMO this might be the worst part of the game.

 

On one hand they probably figure a lot of previous ES players are playing, so you have an idea of how things work. But still, it's been a long time since I played Oblivion, and stuff has changed.

 

On the other you probably have tons of new players, and there's no explanation of most stuff at all. Trial and error. I know they want to start with a cool intro, and having to click this button to do this, and this button to do that can break the atmosphere. But having no tut at all throws you into a massive game with a lot to learn. And it sucks to get 10+ hours in and go 'oh shit, that's how that works'.

 

If only i had known some of this stuff earlier my early game would have gone better. Like crafting, had I realized you could upgrade 'multiple times' at once i would have saved a ton of materials.

[stumpy]

I've got two of those mask helmets, they drop from the dragon cult undead priest bosses.

 

I have a really big dragon problem in that they fly away when ever I try to kill one, think its a really bad bug that got put in last patch, I have something like 10 dragons in my game that fly up into the sky and out of sight, pretty sure they're supposed to land and attack the player but they're doing the complete opposite. The only dragons I get to kill are the tough pre_scripted dragons, that are not a good idea to attack after dark due to hdr on pc causing the bright flame to cause a pitch black screen when the flame goes out.

 

anyone found the dwemer ruin that drops you into a pool of water, but it seems to take about a minute for you to drop a really long way, its somewhere east of riften in the mountains.

[jdude]

Here's some stuff I've figured out playing Skyrim:

 

Easy money:

 

Make iron swords

Enchant them with banish Dedra with any size soul gem.

Sell and make $700 / sword

 

Super enchantments / weapon/armor upgrades:

 

Make a potion that enhances enchanting capability. Those Blue butterflies work.

Go to enchanter and create something enchanted with increased potion strength

Repeat until you have uber plus enchantment potions.

Enchant something with increased armory ability.

Wear it when armoring or use uber enchantment potions to give yourself uber enchantments.

[jaxa]

stumpy, are these dragons you attacked and whittled down or they just never noticed you? Did they land once and later leave or never land?

[Shadowhide]

I've got two of those mask helmets, they drop from the dragon cult undead priest bosses.

 

I have a really big dragon problem in that they fly away when ever I try to kill one, think its a really bad bug that got put in last patch, I have something like 10 dragons in my game that fly up into the sky and out of sight, pretty sure they're supposed to land and attack the player but they're doing the complete opposite. The only dragons I get to kill are the tough pre_scripted dragons, that are not a good idea to attack after dark due to hdr on pc causing the bright flame to cause a pitch black screen when the flame goes out.

 

anyone found the dwemer ruin that drops you into a pool of water, but it seems to take about a minute for you to drop a really long way, its somewhere east of riften in the mountains.

[Baddcog]

Very nice Pic there shadow, what the hell does it mean?

[Shadowhide]

skyrim is boring and i cant belive that you keep talking about it

[Baddcog]

If you're going to do it, do it right.

 

[Baddcog]

I can't believe I'm talking about this game again...

 

Is anyone feeling a little broke. Need to find more loot, some hard to find items???

 

[PPoe]

That is probably some sort of easteregg..

[Glyph Seeker]

*Picks up every broom possible*

 

I'm gonna be so prepared for the broom dungeon.

[rebb]

@Glyph Seeker : There actually is a special crafting action in the game that requires brooms

[Komag]

...I still get a kick out of how so many of the "thiefy" characters in the game are voiced by Stephen Russell! Especially the thief that gets killed every night in Riften, man the bodies are piling up!

[stumpy]

patch earlier today fixed my dragon problem,

[jaxa]

Actually I think way too many thiefy characters, and characters in the Thieves' Guild, are voiced by Russell. For example, Mercer the guild leader, and Enthir at the College of Winterhold.

 

But if I have to hear the same voice all over the place, they picked a good one.