Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

stop trying to make morrowind happen

well i was staying out of this thread but then tuomas was like the terrain in dragonborn is so interesting!

(adam: the morrowind graphics extender and various mods by Vurt are baseline but you can spend weeks of frustrated unRARing and from-scratch reinstalling on making morrowind look like skyrim. and that's before the fun even begins!)

A warning is that Dragonborn extends the level cap and introduces higher level enemies. Instead of "Draugr Overlord" as a boss you will find "Draugr Death Witch Soul Fiend" or something,

Make sure you have a good, recent, savegame before you go or you will not be coming back. It's brutal.

I beat the under saarthal boss easily this time. taking a companion everywhere is v useful (I have Faendal)

the other year i used a morrowind mod guide from the something awful forums to get it all pretty but the OG still looks good imo. the low poly count enhances the general visual weirdness at play.

xpost Letting your companions do the bulk of the dirty work is a great way to deal with fights that are over your head. Just remember, though, only you can kill a companion (as I inadvertently learned the hard way).

you sure they cant die? Mine got stuck in a flame-trap, and cos he was on fire and hurt he dropped to one knee which just kept burning him, I ended up flinging myself on him, but then I died, lol.

I understand some followers cant, cos theyre essential NPCs, but I didnt think that applied across the board.

On that note tho, I have also just found out that me and my follower(s) wont set off rune traps! SO HANDY TO KNOW THIS.

All permanent followers become protected NPCs while they are actively following you. When your follower would die due to an enemy attack or a trap, they will be incapacitated for some time and begin to recover their health, just like essential NPCs; enemies will stop attacking or targeting them during this time. However, if they lose all their health again during this period, they will die for good. Thus, you should try to move the fight away from them, so that they are not hit by a stray arrow or area-effect spell. They can die from a damage-over-time effect that is stronger than their health recovery; most commonly those are caused by poisons.

themoreiknow.gif

Actually re poisons I read if you give them cure poison bottles to hold, they'll drink em if they need em? Yet to test this one in situ.

never seen an npc die by enemys hand, they usually just go into loop of fighting / falling to one knee. if you happen to smack them or hit em with a stray fireball they will drop dead. they're only a reloaded save away but some followers don't deserve the revive

But they're sworn to carry your burdens even if they get an arrow to the knee.

Another helpful hint: companions can bear the brunt of even the most powerful force shout you can dole out. Keeping a proverbial leash on your companions can be difficult at times, so this trick is useful if, say, you're navigating your way down some rocky terrain and don't want your companion to get too confused about how to circumnavigate a particular boulder (this happens, particularly if any jumping is involved). Just force shout them off the side of the cliff and meet them at the bottom as they're dusting themselves off. And, unlike most other methods of assault, you can do this repeatedly without your companions getting pissed and attacking you or leaving your company. Be warned, though: I've also force shouted a companion or two off the side of a mountain out of frustration because he/she was being a navigational douche and I wound up losing them for a time. But you can always quickly get them back to your side by fast travelling to the nearest location on the map.

Most importantly: watching your companions rag doll through the air and into an abyss is a treat that no Skyrim player should miss out on.

Who are your favourite companions, everyone?

"Favorite"? They're mostly different shades of irritating imo. The dog, maybe? Actually, the dark elf lady from the college was fine. Certainly not J'zargo or whatever his stupid name is.

in my 3 playthroughs i don't think i had one for very long, maybe early game.

I think I accidentally killed all of my followers (except for elf lady, who works in my house).

Aela is my favorite. She's useful no matter what kind of character you have.

It's not jzargo's fault he only has so much room to carry things.

It's totally J'zargo's fault that J'zargo always refers to J'zargo in the third person, though.

I married Mjoll the Lioness and we were very happy together.

Hey, that's my wife, too! What's the idea.....

I've Faendal as a follower and I can't marry him! rude.

Have you figured out how to get married? It's an unintuitive process that I finally had to just research (like curing vampirism). Involving an amulet from I don't remember where.

IIRC, the priest who gives you the amulet clearly instructs you how to get married?

I married Mjoll the Lioness too in a lesbian wedding, but then I started to feel bad that this awesome barbarian woman stays home making me food, so I downloaded a divorce app and became single again. After that, Mjoll wasn't very happy to see me whenever I ran across her in Riften, but at least she's free again.

I think the biggest flaw in Skyrim marriage is that every character begins to speak and act in the same domesticated way once they are married, regardless of who they were before. My second wife is this fearsome Orc warrior, and it's pretty weird to hear things "It's lovely to see you again" or "Here, I baked you some pie" from her mouth. I think I'll have to divorce her too, and find some non-warrior woman who might actually enjoy staying at home and taking care of my two daughters.

I guess I could take my wife with me on quests, so she wouldn't have to sit at home baking pies, but I specialize in stealth and long-distance archery killings, so followers are usually useless or even detrimental to me.

Btw, looking for lesbian marriage made me realize the inherent racism in Skyrim... AFAIK there's only one lizardwoman you can woo, and no catwomen at all. Dunno if it's any better with men?

As for followers, the jester guy from the assassins' guild side quest is pretty funny, because he tends to crack inappropriate jokes about the situations you get into. But even that gets boring after a while.

Essential followers cannot, I think, die under any circumstances.

Blackreach is, uh, ambitious and disorienting. For some reason I swear that playing through it with the vampire DLC installed changes the experience slightly. I don't remember those flying bugs at all. Somehow I completely skipped the nirnroot hunt as well.

have you been to blackreach... on weed?

Do I wanna be pretty levelled up before I attempt there? I'm still only about level 15 (been too busy to play games lately)

IIRC, there's nothing too overpowered in Blackreach. There are some giants, but they're avoidable. Lots of falmer hiding in the darkness. I think there might be some spheres? If you haven't encountered those yet, you might want to brace yourself.

It's an enormous area, though, without many exits. And it's largely dark and sometimes difficult to navigate. So keep that in mind.

I dont think Ive encountered falmer or spheres yet! Giants only in the meek, skulking distance. Not impeding on those fuckers.

It was pretty tough even getting to Blackreach for me. If you can get there, it's probably safe to be there.

I don't think you can go there at all until you've met Paarthurnax. That's what the Wiki implies, anyway.

Elder Scroll series is 75% off on Steam right now. Tempted to buy Skyrim again.

http://store.steampowered.com/sale/elder-scrolls/

Huh. I'd buy Elder Scrolls Online if I thought there was a chance in hell my laptop could handle it.

Has anyone here spent any time with ESO?

nope

I'm put off by the concept of MMORPGs, due to the Hell is Other People factor tbrh. 10 mins on WoW back in the day was enough for me.

If I could play it on a private server with a few mates it might be a diff story.

i tried eso for a couple of days. nice looking game but main problem i had with it is that it doesn't have the elder scrolls feel and the mmo part of it is kind of wack. so failing on those 2 fronts, its kinda hard to recommend

i did put boot camp on my macbook recently and installed skyrim and dark souls. looks really good, can't wait to start modding it

this story is amazing

https://twitter.com/PatrickLenton/status/717163582115307521

Most followers have "protected" status or something, but I always fight hard and expect them to just fill in the gaps with magic etc.—side note, is there a follower who just heals you repeatedly? that would be good. But I guess the dogs are not "essential" quest items or whatever. My loyal vampire hunting dog fought along side me for so long, but then, in the dwemer ruins, his AI pathfinding struggled to get out of the water. He just ran and ran and ran into the side of the underwater wall. I thought that leaving would cause him to teleport to me, like Serana always does, but when I went back I found him floating in the water.

... Just floating there...

I debated going to get the other vampire hunting dog I didn't choose, but it was just too sad, so I left.

Huh. I thought you personally had to kill your followers/companions for them to die. Goes to show what I know.

I liked having a companion but he and any other followers in quests kept getting in the bloody way because im a distance fighter and I'd keep inadvertently shooting everyone on my team, to cranky shouts of "hey! I'm on YOUR SIDE!".

...my bf swapped the PS3 for the PS4 in my little cave recently so now I cant play Skyrim anymore and I am sadface :(

(unless I go and buy a PS4 copy and START ALL OVER AGAIN I suppose)