Random Off-Topic

Well that's a nice hobby to have Plastic. Luckily I don't use horses in TES it means I have to stick to the roads and I won't be able to travel through the mountains.

I remember making spells in Oblivion. I had a spell that would drain around 250 health in 1 sec. Sure it wouldn't last but I could kill almost anything. I also remember having a flame spell that would do the exact same thing but it's radius was long enough so it could take out the whole Anvil guard.

I only made one paralysis spell and used on the Adoring Fan at Dive Rock. It felt good.

You could make spells worth it, but the level 29 (i think) wizerds fury was always more efficient.

Combat magic in skyrim blows and illusion, all by itself, eliminates the need to even have any other skill, save for fighting dragons.

Forum Pirate wrote:You could make spells worth it, but the level 29 (i think) wizerds fury was always more efficient.

Combat magic in skyrim blows and illusion, all by itself, eliminates the need to even have any other skill, save for fighting dragons.

It was even worse in Oblivion. You could enchant all your equipment with invisibility and nothing could fight back at all

PlasticandRage wrote:It was even worse in Oblivion. You could enchant all your equipment with invisibility and nothing could fight back at all

Heheh That reminded my of my 125% stealth armor. You could barely see your outline in that, no one could see me steal things right in front of them and nothing happens! Good times.

Chamilion. With invisibility it breaks when you swing and you'd have to re equip it. They can still fight back, its just less effective.

Thats also enchanting being broken (it still is) not illusion.

Undead, deadra, and constructs (who are immune to illusion) also ran rampant in morrowind and oblivion, necessetating the illusion mage defend themselves fairly frequently, wher the perk in skyrim removes the need to fight any non dragon, ever.

True about those udead and deadra it did not work. It was fun however to enchant a set of armor with chamilion at different % for over 100%. There was quite a lot of places to go in those castles in oblivion when no one sees you. Made it easier sometime to drink blood as a vampire.

Now that I think of it is being a vampire easier in skyrim than in oblivion?

nearly everything (vampires included) is easier in skyrim than oblivion, and everything in both games is easier than in morrowind.

There seems to be a pattern in difficulty with that. It gets easier and easier with each game. Was that to mainstream the games or try out new concpects(?). I did like the werewolf for a while in skyrim I felt a lack in lasting value. Heh I guess I'm not really into norse and viking based games.

It was to draw fans.

Morrowin has a very long list of skills, all movement affects attack damage (thrusting is moving forward or back, so strafing with spears is useless), magic only recovers with rest, stamina is drained by jogging, there are more spell effects, more starting classes, ext.

Its been reduced in each subsequent game to draw mass appeal.

I'd explain farther, but I'm sure someone would mistake my distaste for the dumbing down of the series as contempt for the people its dumbed down for and get offended so I'll stop.

Alchemy was the way to go in oblivion. My favorite poison, named gin and tonic since all worlds have a drink named that, caused paralysis and high levels of damage in several areas.

Really? Alchemy seems so useless in Skyrim.

Its so broken. Use it to increase enchanting with a potion, use the potion to make a better set of alchemy buffing enchanted gear, repeat until bored, then enchant a set of gloves with +765% one handed damage.

But I just find those Enchanter's Draughts and Blacksmith Draughts randomly in the world, and I hoard them.

When I go to craft things I drink them, so I don't bother making my own.

Forum Pirate wrote:Its so broken. Use it to increase enchanting with a potion, use the potion to make a better set of alchemy buffing enchanted gear, repeat until bored, then enchant a set of gloves with +765% one handed damage.

To be honest i doubt bethesda really care if that's possible, and even more crucially i don't think they'd expect everyone to exploit every last little loop hole so they can get stupidly overpowered gear.

Still though, just another reason to say how rubbish and lazy bethesda are, i mean just look at the stale combat mechanics they use.. eww.

WhatDoesThePendantDo? wrote:But I just find those Enchanter's Draughts and Blacksmith Draughts randomly in the world, and I hoard them.

When I go to craft things I drink them, so I don't bother making my own.

Thats what I do to, but that cycle is entirely possible. Its not infinite, it caps somewhere, but I have seen a legitimately crafted bow have an ar of 11,000 (including the obscenely powerful bow damage enchantments on the players gear)

They arn't lazy or bad, imo, they just (with TES series anyways) have fallen into a main stream, minimum effort=max profits slump. Where fallout is glitchy as hell, it is everything tes used to be before oblivion, the setting is just different.

(note that ALL bethesda games are borderline unplayable on the PS3 because bethesda is buthurt that sony wouldn't give them early access, which is total BS as its us who suffer, but thats a different argument)

yeah, on fallout 3 it would crash every 3 hours or so i played it, glitch out all over the place and other things.. i remember a quest i couldn't turn in for some reason because the npc decided to live in a different plane of existence.

I just wished they put some more effot in, with the money they have, a few nice ideas for the combat and some decent voice acting you could have a great game (long as they bothered to properly test it first rather than using the launch player base as their initial testing squad)

There are to many variables to test properly. They can and should do the basics, but with so many variables its tough to streamline anything. You moving 1 piece of cheese half an inch could theoretically screw with the hexmapping and drop you through the floor.

As far as combat goes, the games weren't actually supposed to be about combat. Only recently has tes started to shift that direction. Its supposed to be about exploration and roll playing (like fallout still is) so its only natural they're not very good at it.

Its like me and being friendly. Friendliness is almost never my goal in anything, so I suck at it.

I'd argue though that fallout's combat is fine. It's a lot easier with gun combat to have a fine system when it's simple than hand to hand. It's just because it's so basic, and like you said there's a greater emphasis on combat now. The war between rebels and empire, being the great slayer of dragons.. it's all action oriented, and every change in the game suited that. The streamlining of skills, ease of access to high end equipment.. the only problem is they didn't improve the combat when they were done switching the emphasis.. maybe they didn't realise quite how much their game had changed?

I know with things like that cause problems, but the fact is if one person can play the game and in an hour i can notice probably minimum of 3 glitches, then surely when they get loads of tester players in they'd clear up more problems than they do? It just seems like they don't bother, cus most of the glitches are simple like things spawning miles high and items floating or dropping through the floor.

My guess would be that they've yet to use a truly new engine. They just keep redesigning the same engine they used for morrowind. Its just to old to keep pace, but a new one would be very expensive to design (and they would have to design it themselves)

On the combat note, thats a solid idea. Redesigning the combat for a more action oriented game would probably improve the game, but at the same time, I would hate to see them make that final step. To officially declare that the series that has consumed so much of my life is dead, and its idiot offspring have taken over.

I think they could improve the combat without totally neglecting the role play and exploration in it. But in my opinion the story in elder scrolls hasn't grabbed me (bear in mind though i have only played oblivion and skyrim, neither exactly set the world on fire for me), the thing that made elder scrolls fun for me was random extras, the side quests in guilds like mages, dark brotherhood and then just going into random caverns and looting the **** out of it.

To me, the biggest fun in elder scrolls is exploring an finding random things to do, rather than being given them. I think (this is my personal idea, and probably isn't that good) that you shouldn't be give specific markers on your map of where to go, and no solid 'story mission' for you to follow. They should obscure it, make it wholly optional and subtle.

Rather than having specific checkpoints and quests, there should be a quest log with the different tasks and things other npcs have said to do, but there shouldn't be checkpoints or exact pinpoint instructions, but things you should be able to as an adventurer figure out and complete. both specific if you're like savign their girlfriend, or finding a sword etc and also general area quests like 'find the sword smith of former king, resides in the western cities of morrowind, or wherever'. You actually HAVE to search for them yourself, and in the process you discover more and get more to do.

I know it could kinda backfire as without the massive checkpoint markers people could get lost, but considering it's an rpg thats shifted emphasis to mindless slashing, i think they should drag back something to get the roleplay edge back, and this idea i think could make things very immersive.

Or they can just continue how they're doing lazily

You'd probably love morrowind to bits. 30 minutes in (if you follow the main quest) you're told to go do stuff and come back when you suck less. You are then free to explore 11 (i think) different factions on a huge island where NOTHING is scaled to your level, and hundreds of random quests/caves/ruins. If you're given directions, wright them down because you won't be told again. You can also choose not to accept most quests.

That sounds great. I think if it's on steam for a decent price I might look into it..

What happened when they changed everything to checkpoints and fetch quests? What were they thinking? Sounds like the really diluted the whole experience

They did. It should be on steam and I'd be surprised if it was more than $8 us. Its old. Back when halo was ground-breaking era.

It takes some getting used to (combat is still first person, but movement is much more important unless you cheat and enable "always use best attack" and its roll based, ie each attack is a roll to determine wether or not the attack succeeds) but its well worth the adjustment.

I'm enjoying Skyrim so far. Other than a few minor gameplay things and not being able to remember the names of places and people right off the bat. But that will come with time I soppose.

skyrim is too difficult. I need golden trails on the ground pointing me to all objectives including the solution to lever doors. and I need a 100% succcess auto attempt on lockpicking!