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sek929 · Mar 6, 2012, 09:14 AM

Not sure, probably mid-50s

Jawbone54 · Mar 6, 2012, 12:21 PM

Last night I started what appears to be the final chapter of Uncharted 3, so I should be getting back into Skyrim full-force Thursday night (when my loinfruit goes to stay with his grandparents), provided I don't get lured into BF3.

The Final Dakar · Mar 6, 2012, 12:25 PM

I doubt you'll be lured. My experience is I'm about the only person who is willing to play it solo.

Jawbone54 · Mar 6, 2012, 12:32 PM

Reading sek's experiences whet my appetite to hop back onto Skyrim. It would take quite a party to drag me back this week.

lpkmckenna · Mar 6, 2012, 01:44 PM

Happy Mass Effect Day!

sek929 · Mar 6, 2012, 02:13 PM

Always had interest in ME, but at this point I feel like I'd have to at least play ME2 to remotely enjoy ME3, and I simply do not have the time for that rabbit hole.

sek929 · Mar 9, 2012, 04:58 PM

Just hacked and slashed a dragon, ended up in an elaborate finishing move cinematic where I hopped on it's head and chopped away.

Hovering just under lvl 30 now, smithed all glass armor and weapons (enchanted), and am starting to be a bit more brazen in my fighting thanks to my newfound strength. Still, at 3x critical damage, my bow does 207dmg. Not shabby.

Rumor · Mar 9, 2012, 06:58 PM

Just restarted. Went from an Orc melee to a High Elf dual caster.

Jawbone54 · Mar 9, 2012, 10:28 PM

Originally Posted by sek929

Just hacked and slashed a dragon, ended up in an elaborate finishing move cinematic where I hopped on it's head and chopped away.

Sounds beautiful.

I've killed two dragons so far, but each kill has been pretty anticlimactic. I barely know they're dead until the swirling begins.

Hovering just under lvl 30 now, smithed all glass armor and weapons (enchanted), and am starting to be a bit more brazen in my fighting thanks to my newfound strength. Still, at 3x critical damage, my bow does 207dmg. Not shabby.

Glass armor? I didn't even know this was possible! I've gotta wiki it.

Originally Posted by Rumor

Just restarted. Went from an Orc melee to a High Elf dual caster.

I'm curious to see how much interest you're able to maintain during a second play-through.

P · Mar 10, 2012, 08:03 PM

Originally Posted by Jawbone54

Glass armor? I didn't even know this was possible! I've gotta wiki it.

Glass is the second-best light armor material, just below Dragonscale. It's a decent upgrade from Elven.

Jawbone54 · Mar 11, 2012, 12:11 PM

I tried using the Elven armor I stole from guards during the party mission, but decided to go back to the two Dwarven pieces I've collected so far until I level up enough to craft the others. My heavy armor skill is nearly twice as high as the light armor.

I killed my first white dragon last night, and was rewarded with the kill animation that sek mentioned a few days ago. I was on such a high that I shot at a nearby giant, then ran for my life when I realized I'm still not ready for that particular task.

Also, the platinum trophy (or 100%) is definitely attainable in Skyrim, so long as I spend some time ranking up my sneak and steal skill set at some point. Have any of you guys done so yet?

P · Mar 11, 2012, 01:01 PM

Not sure what that trophy requires, but I have a few skills at 100.

Dwarven is fairly weak armor. Orcish, ebony, dragonbone and daedric are all stronger. It's better as a weapon - for some reason it beats orcish, and there are no dragonbone weapons, which makes it the third most powerful.

Jawbone54 · Mar 11, 2012, 01:37 PM

Originally Posted by P

Not sure what that trophy requires, but I have a few skills at 100.

You have to join the Thieves Guild and "restore it to its former glory," whatever that means. I haven't stolen a single thing all game, so you can imagine what that skill is like right now.

Dwarven is fairly weak armor. Orcish, ebony, dragonbone and daedric are all stronger. It's better as a weapon - for some reason it beats orcish, and there are no dragonbone weapons, which makes it the third most powerful.

Oh, it's just a placeholder until I level up my smithing. I haven't found any Orcish, Ebony, Dragonbone, or Daedric armor yet.

sek929 · Mar 11, 2012, 02:29 PM

Originally Posted by Jawbone54

You have to join the Thieves Guild and "restore it to its former glory," whatever that means. I haven't stolen a single thing all game, so you can imagine what that skill is like right now.

Oh, it's just a placeholder until I level up my smithing. I haven't found any Orcish, Ebony, Dragonbone, or Daedric armor yet.

I found Elven Armor and weapons to be the most useful, until glass of course. Though I am specializing in light armor, so it made more sense to me. Also, refined moonstone (needed to craft elven stuff) is pretty damn expensive at first, even now with a high-ish speech skill (like 60) refined moonstone is still just under 200 gold a piece.

I just recently replaced my glass gauntlets with bought enchanted elven ones because they had 30% more damage with bows.

Only now can I attack giants with a fair amount of impunity, even just did a quest to kill a giant leader and killed several of them along the way. They usually had really awesome weapons on them (glass greatswords and the like). At this point I'm finding it difficult to sell off my inventory without visiting a half dozen vendors, I'd love the speech perk to add 1000 gold to all merchants, but I've got so many other skill trees I'd rather put my points towards.

P · Mar 12, 2012, 06:20 AM

The weapons are not in the same order as armors. From the top down I think it's Daedric > Ebony > Glass > Elven, but I generally just grab some nice artifacts fairly early and not just bother until I get some Daedric stuff. The drops are dependent on your level - ie, there is a level where the chance of getting an Ebony weapon is as large as that of getting an Iron weapon on level 1. The exception is Daedric, which is very rare no matter how highly levelled you are.

Selling stuff is indeed annoying. The way I do it is grab that perk that lets you sell anything to anyone and then go somewhere with lots of vendors close together. Solitude is good - 5 vendors in a fairly small area close to the fast travel point.

"Restore the Thieves Guild to its former glory" is probably just finishing that questline. I don't really want to get in to that questline now - maybe I should restart with a sneaky light armor dude to do Thieves and Dark Brotherhood, because that is most of what I have left to do to get achievements. I have a few levels left to 50 and I don't have all the artifacts, but there's not a lot more to do.

sek929 · Mar 12, 2012, 12:11 PM

Now at 85/86 smithing, replaced my Glass weapons with all Ebony weapons. Now my bow does nearly 100 base dmg. Enchanted Ebony dagger with 15x crit does 555dmg (!). Did the Daedric Quest* to reassemble Mehrune's Dagger, two leveled Dremora spawn after you get the dagger and they totally kicked my ass the first go around. Second time I used a potion of invisibility, and critical sneak attacked both guards with the dagger, insta-kill.

Had a very similar instance with a dragon just like Mattyb posted a few pages back. Battled an Ice Dragon solo for several minutes, it finally landed with near zero health and I ran up to it to land my final blow....bastard chomped on me and killed me instantly.

*Favorite quests so far have been the Daedric Quests. They net awesome weapons, they are kinda spooky and they have awesome locales. I'm not going to be able to get the achievement for all Daedric Weapons though, since I opted to keep a certain mage as a follower instead of killing him and grabbing the weapon. I still have a saved game right at the moment of choice, but I doubt I'm going to re-play the game from that point forward just to get and achievement.

::maroma:: · Mar 12, 2012, 12:42 PM

Yes, the achievement to restore the Thieve's Guild to its former glory is just completing their quest line. Which is pretty fun, and you get some nice gear in the process.

I had a dragon kill me once by grabbing me in his mouth, shaking me from side to side, then tossing my lifeless body across the field, smashing into a large rock. That was a pretty cool way to die.

Jawbone54 · Mar 12, 2012, 01:53 PM

Felt like an idiot last night after I spent a ton of gold buying Dwarven metal ingots, then stumbled across the Dwarven storehouse near Mzulft, which had more than enough ingots to craft the full Dwarven armor set I'm now wearing.

sek929 · Mar 12, 2012, 03:41 PM

Also a bunch of scrap Dwemer metal pieces in Understone Keep in Marcarth.

What level are you at JB?

Jawbone54 · Mar 12, 2012, 03:57 PM

Only at Level 20. I abandoned the 360 save since the PS3 version is finally functional (though I never personally had problems).

Thanks for the Understone Keep tip. Guess where I'll be going tonight? I've got to craft and sell some just so I can recoup my losses.

Rumor · Mar 12, 2012, 09:01 PM

Originally Posted by Jawbone54

I'm curious to see how much interest you're able to maintain during a second play-through.

I only made it to level 19 when I realized how flawed my build was.

P · Mar 13, 2012, 05:42 AM

Dwarven stuff is easy enough to smith, there is scrap in all the Dwemer ruins that you can melt down. That and the low skill req to smith it are the two good things about it.

Agree about the Daedric quests, they're all good. Anyone picked up Dawnbreaker yet?

Jawbone54 · Mar 13, 2012, 12:23 PM

Originally Posted by Rumor

I only made it to level 19 when I realized how flawed my build was.

What did you screw up?

Rumor · Mar 13, 2012, 12:28 PM

I'd have to look at the build, but getting decimated by a dragon didn't help.

mattyb · Mar 14, 2012, 03:32 PM

If you have stuff to sell, buy loads of stuff first and then sell your expensive gear. There will be a point when you don't really give a shit about 200 or 300 more gold. Think that I was at the 30,000 level when I stopped playing - I had only bought 1 house (there's an achievement for having houses in each city).

sek929 · Mar 14, 2012, 03:52 PM

I did enough Thieves Guild missions to unlock the Fence in Whiterun, which has helped a bit.

At this point I'm not keeping any swag that isn't worth 600+ gold. I did a mission yesterday where my "pay" was a mediocre enchanted dagger worth 120 gold, I dropped it right at the feet of the person who gave it to me.

I've been hovering above and below 20 grand for a while now, only have the one house in Whiterun at the moment

mattyb · Mar 14, 2012, 04:08 PM

If you're interested in leveling up enchanting, then keep those daggers. Loads of petty soul gems and daggers and you'll be able to create dual enchanted armour in no time. Plus you can sell them as well, which increases your speech skill. Win-Win situation.

mattyb · Mar 14, 2012, 04:09 PM

All this Skyrim talk is making me want to play it again.

sek929 · Mar 16, 2012, 02:19 PM

Just a stone's throw from Dragonscale Armor at this point. Just made myself some Daedric weapons, no armor though since I am specializing in Light Armor.

Meandered my way through my first Dwemer ruin last night, pretty freaking cool. At the end I awoke a Centurion, but my sneak is so high I was able to back away and kill him with 3 glass arrows. Deeper in the ruin I came upon a large group of Falmer, and I had a thought. The lore is that the Dwemer just up and disappeared long ago, my question is, did they simply end up becoming the Falmer?

Joined the Dark Brotherhood and netted some neat gloves that do double damage on a backstab. So yes, that means if I sneak attack someone from behind with a Dagger it will do a whopping 30x (!!!) damage. Which is simply insane. Couple that with my newfound Shadow Stone (turn invis once a day) and I have an effective way of one-hit killing just about every enemy in the game.

At this point the regular dragons have become quite easy. If I can get a few hits on them the first time they land I can usually take off enough health to ensure they never take off again, then it's only a case of running behind them and slashing away.

I know it's been said before, but Smithing is probably the most useful skill tree there is. Vendors barely even have Elven and Glass weapons and I'm running around with Deadric ass-kickers. The only problem here is that the availability of Glass Arrows is very low, if only you could smith your own arrows too. My only regret is spending points in silly places, which now seems to be the Magika-related skill trees. I only use magika on enemies I don't feel like wasting enchated weapon charge on. Those points would have been spent more wisely in the Enchanting tree, by now I could have dual enchanted weapons and that makes me sad.

gradient · Mar 16, 2012, 07:11 PM

Originally Posted by sek929

Deeper in the ruin I came upon a large group of Falmer, and I had a thought. The lore is that the Dwemer just up and disappeared long ago, my question is, did they simply end up becoming the Falmer?

The Falmer are the ancestors of the Snow Elves, who were driven underground by the Nords and poisoned by the Dwemer leaving them blind.

P · Mar 16, 2012, 07:26 PM

Originally Posted by sek929

Meandered my way through my first Dwemer ruin last night, pretty freaking cool. At the end I awoke a Centurion, but my sneak is so high I was able to back away and kill him with 3 glass arrows. Deeper in the ruin I came upon a large group of Falmer, and I had a thought. The lore is that the Dwemer just up and disappeared long ago, my question is, did they simply end up becoming the Falmer?

This used to be my theory, until I got a bit deeper into the game. There is a quest in there that gives some hints without really giving any answers, but about the Falmer: They're Snow Elves, and it seems the Dwemer kept them as some sort of thralls, but the interesting bit is if you Soul Trap one and kill them. They don't have Black souls. All elves and men do, but for some reason, the Falmer don't. Meanwhile, all Dwemer things are driven by soul gems. The nasty theory is that the Dwemer captured the Falmer, changed them so they had "regular" non-black souls so they could be harvested to fuel their machines. Since everyone with black souls are sentient humanoids, the theory is that whatever the Dwemer did made them non-sentient. Pretty gruesome.

I agree that smithing is one of the best skills in the game. Enchanting is pretty awesome too, though,.

glawson · Apr 13, 2012, 02:13 AM

anyone who can give tips to increase accuracy in using bow?

P · Apr 13, 2012, 03:50 AM

You increase skill by shooting things. If you're not good, preferably things that don't try to hurt you - walk around the landscape and shoot deer or something. You can also pay a trainer - I think one of the companions in Whiterun is an archery trainer.

Jawbone54 · Apr 13, 2012, 01:09 PM

I know this is stupid, but I've been playing the PS3 version as a sword/shield/heavy armor warrior and the 360 version as a stealthy archer elf. The experience is completely different, but I have to say that the most satisfying feeling in the game is derived when you take out a mid-level enemy from an extremely long distance with a bow for an instant kill (the new 1.5 kill animations make it even better).

sek929 · Apr 13, 2012, 02:17 PM

The only thing that matches a long-distance arrow kill, is sneaking behind a very powerful enemy and 30x critical hitting him with a dagger.

I haven't even played since the 1.5 update, just moved into a new place with the g/f, haven't had much time, especially since I was at PAX all last weekend.

The Final Dakar · Apr 13, 2012, 02:27 PM

Bow-chika-wow-wow.

Jawbone54 · Apr 13, 2012, 04:08 PM

mattyb · Apr 16, 2012, 05:31 AM

Originally Posted by sek929

just moved into a new place with the g/f, haven't had much time, especially since I was at PAX all last weekend.

Is this the beginning of the end of Fatty's marathon Bethesda games sessions?

sek929 · Apr 16, 2012, 12:55 PM

Originally Posted by mattyb

Is this the beginning of the end of Fatty's marathon Bethesda games sessions?

Pretty much, though part of it has been due to me getting rather burned out of Skyrim for the near future. If we save up for a second TV I can see my ability to enjoy a game like Skyrim, which takes hours and hours at a time, going up.

I'm actually going to start playing MW3 again. Quick matches lend themselves well to my current situation.

sek929 · Jul 5, 2012, 05:46 PM

So I downloaded Danwguard, and although I have yet to even start the first quest I already have one giant thing that has improved the game ten-fold for me.

Crafting DragonBone weapons is pretty cool, not much stronger than my already overpowered Daedric set but still a new use for all the dragon bones that have been stacking up. The really huge improvement is.....being able to craft f**king arrows!!!! Thank god they finally added this. I could craft a suit of armor and ten weapons but was stuck with unreliable vendors and random enemy drops for arrows, not anymore. Now I have more arrows than I'll ever be able to shoot.

Destro1991 · Sep 20, 2012, 05:42 AM

I cant live without skyrim)

mattyb · Sep 20, 2012, 11:34 AM

Started again with a new character. Doing a no-magic approach, archery and sneak are the only skill trees I'm improving atm. I'll do Smithing and Enchantment when I can kill big beasties easily (only have a 17 damage bow).

P · Sep 20, 2012, 12:07 PM

Maybe I'll give it another whirl some time. Started playing Fallout: New Vegas after I got it on one of those Steam sales, but even that game is starting to get old after all the hours I put in.

mattyb · Sep 20, 2012, 12:11 PM

I've restarted by doing quests that I hadn't yet done. I've only killed one dragon and got the first shout working. Now I'm in Riften and I'm going to do the thieves quests - IIUC you get some gear that aids sneaking at the end.

P · Sep 20, 2012, 12:45 PM

There's lots of sneaking gear in the game, but doing the Theives' Guild storyline gets you the Skeleton Key, which basically means infinite retries on every lockpicking attempt.

I stopped playing because a) I was too powerful, not very fun any more and b) the quests that were left to do were Thieves Guild and Dark Brotherhood, and they didn't fit at all with the sort of guy I was playing. Not sure if I'll go back. Honestly Fallout 3 seems more likely at this point, I didn't go through all the DLC that I got with the GOTY edition.