The Elder Scrolls XV: This is my Thu'um Stick

[LibraryOgre]

Speaking of dragon encounters, I started playing through the Dragonborn DLC. I got to the quest where you need to head up to the dragon wall and learn the Bend Will shout. Yeah, I learned not to go traveling around the island at night.

I got lost. Oops. Oh but it got better!

After figuring out where I went wrong, I made a series of jumps over a mountain to scale over to the wall on the other side. And triggered the boss Drauger fight. At the same time as the dragon fight.

My world was reduced to Fus Roh and Fire. XD

I got lucky when the dragon got stuck in the mountainside and refused to fight anymore. Uh... thanks, Bethesda? ^^

Oh, yeah, that one gets CRAZY. Times like that I'm glad I'm a conjurer. Hide and spam, hide and spam.

[DigoDragon]

Oh, yeah, that one gets CRAZY. Times like that I'm glad I'm a conjurer. Hide and spam, hide and spam.

I'm curious to look up what you would have to do if you didn't already have a dragon soul to unlock the Bend Will shout (since Miraak steals the one from the dragon you kill). I guess go back to Skyrim and find a dragon?

[Keltest]

I'm curious to look up what you would have to do if you didn't already have a dragon soul to unlock the Bend Will shout (since Miraak steals the one from the dragon you kill). I guess go back to Skyrim and find a dragon?

Basically. Although I don't believe he's guaranteed to steal any soul, including that one.

[LibraryOgre]

I'm curious to look up what you would have to do if you didn't already have a dragon soul to unlock the Bend Will shout (since Miraak steals the one from the dragon you kill). I guess go back to Skyrim and find a dragon?

Yep. Part of why I build up a reserve of Dragon Souls before I go to Solstheim.

[Triaxx]

It's a 30% chance he'll steal up to the next 5 dragon souls.

[DigoDragon]

Ah okay, so he doesn't steal all of them.

The dlc didn't feel long. I got the house in town and did most of the quests. The island visuals are quite nice. Guess I should go get that third Bend Will shout and pummel Miraak. Apophra... Apopr... that realm Miraak resides in is stunningly creepy and I like that alien feel to it, but it is filled with annoying enemies and is hard to spell. XD

[veti]

I just finished a playthrough of two mods: Maelstrom and Vigilant. Both involve a lot of dark, literally as well as figuratively. Some mild spoilers follow, but I'll avoid anything detailed enough to make much difference to how you play.

Vigilant is a huge mod in four acts.

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Act 1 is, honestly, pretty crap: go here, beat up monster, come back and report to your superior vigilant (who is, naturally, doing sweet FA, mostly in the pub). It feels like it's trying to build to a climax when the utterly predictable twist happens, and sure enough you end up fighting Molag Bal (him in the form of, I dunno, a giant chaurus or something), but it feels very forced and mechanical at this point. The frankly risible English voice acting doesn't do it any favours either. I wish I could have voices in the original language with English subtitles, but can't figure out how to do that.

Act 2 is more worthwhile. It's a gratuitously long dungeon crawl through "Old Windhelm", a complete city below the current city (you'd think it would be flooded, no?), infested with deformed vampires. Dozens of the sods. Stealth is highly recommended. Culminates in a confrontation with Lamae Bal herself, and it turns out Molag has now selected you as his personal nemesis or something.

But if you thought stealing through the dark streets of a city of vampires was creepy, you ain't seen nothin' yet. Act 3 sends you to a Haunted Mansion. Not a jolly, well-appointed mansion like Luigi's - no, this is a dark, creepy, bloodstained, dark, sinister, dark place, with the obligatory Lovecraftian letters and journals lying about to describe how every inhabitant of the house has killed themselves/each other/been possessed, and some of them are still haunting the place in the form of invincible ghosts, which blur your vision and drain your stamina if you so much as look at them. (Come to think of it I never did find out precisely what happened to Marcus, but by the end it doesn't seem to matter.) The only way out of the mansion is to accept Molag Bal's offer to transport you out - to Coldharbour. (Note there's practically nothing to eat in the mansion, and you're going to be here for at least a couple of days, so if you're playing with a "needs" mod, bring a picnic.)

After the gloom (did I mention it was dark?) of the Bruiant Mansion, the stark and horrific - but well-lit - hellscape of Coldharbour is frankly a relief. There may be demons, undead, constructs, hideous mutant leeches, giants and possessed maniacs waiting behind every door (though actually quite a lot of them aren't hostile), but at least you can see them when they come at you. There are a few sewer segments where the dark returns, and one of those goes on long enough to be oppressive, but on the whole Coldharbour is a lot more fun than the mansion. It's also huge - the whole thing is based on the map of the Imperial City from Oblivion, and you have to journey all the way around the walls - outside and inside - before you get the necessary doohickeys (and karma) to enter the city centre and force Molag Bal to let you go home - completing many subquests along the way, all without the benefit of a meaningful journal or quest markers.

Coldharbour, I have to say, is awesome. I don't think I'll play this mod again anytime soon - it tends to take over the game somewhat (I was about level 25 when I started, 40 when I finished, without doing anything else between). But Coldharbour, as a separate game space, beats the heck out of Blackreach or the Forgotten Valley, or even Solstheim. Along the way there is lots of - interpretation, I believe would be the neutral word - of the First Era history of the Alessian Empire. I'm not sure how much is accurate and how much is "evil spin", because Molag Bal, but the whole thing is both fascinating and very sad.

Maelstrom takes a much more modest scale, but quality-wise it's at least as good. It's basically a single, lengthy dungeon crawl that mixes horror themes, dreams and Norse mythology into Skyrim. At the end, you get to choose between two followers, plus some nice but not obscenely overpowered gear (the sword did good service all the way through Vigilant). The whole being much more manageable to fit into a larger playthrough, with whatever other mods you fancy. I highly recommend playing this one when you reach roundabout level 20 or so.

[DomaDoma]

Very basic question I think we've overlooked: why does TES: Blades HAVE a PvP mode?

It's an online game, multiplayer happens, but rightly there should be two modes: Don't Get Too Friendly Mode (stay alive and do what little you can) and Cooperative Multiplayer Mode (arm as many civilians as possible before you are murdered in your sleep.) The game on the whole is a screamingly brazen B.F. Skinner model, which is why I've never played it, but the PvP mode must be by someone who looked at the Civil War endings and said "needs more gut-wrenching".

[Morty]

After much deliberation and downloading mods, I have started Morrowind again. My character is a female Khajit with a specialty in Stealth and Agility and Intelligence as favored attributes. Light Armor, Block, Short Blade, Speechcraft and Enchant as primary skills. Conjuration, Alchemy, Security, Marksman and Mercantile as secondary. I feel like I ought to have put Conjuration or Alchemy as primary, since otherwise they're lousy. But maybe I'll train them up.

[veti]

After much deliberation and downloading mods, I have started Morrowind again. My character is a female Khajit with a specialty in Stealth and Agility and Intelligence as favored attributes. Light Armor, Block, Short Blade, Speechcraft and Enchant as primary skills. Conjuration, Alchemy, Security, Marksman and Mercantile as secondary. I feel like I ought to have put Conjuration or Alchemy as primary, since otherwise they're lousy. But maybe I'll train them up.

Do you have a levelling mod? If not, I recommend wearing medium or heavy armour while a scrib or a rat or something attacks you, at least once per level for the first few levels. Trains up Endurance, thus giving you more health at each level up.

[Morty]

I'm using the Madd Leveler mod. And my alchemy and conjuration skills seem to be stuck in a Catch 22 where they're too bad for me to use them and thus improve them.

[Caelestion]

Alchemy should be able to be solved with any of the thousands of Restore Stamina ingredients around (e.g. most food). As for Conjuration, I'd design a cantrip to help out - minimal effect should ensure that it's easily castable.

[veti]

Alchemy should be able to be solved with any of the thousands of Restore Stamina ingredients around (e.g. most food). As for Conjuration, I'd design a cantrip to help out - minimal effect should ensure that it's easily castable.

Tip: Bound Bow for 15 seconds is a sovereign remedy for cliff racers, and costs just 1 magicka. You just need to carry arrows.

[Morty]

I've tried making potions from ingredients I had on hand, but the rate of advancement is so slow and the chance of failure so high it's going to take me a while.

[factotum]

I've tried making potions from ingredients I had on hand, but the rate of advancement is so slow and the chance of failure so high it's going to take me a while.

You need to boost your Intelligence to make better potions more reliably, so your best bet in Morrowind is to first make potions to boost Int, then drink those before making more potions.

[LibraryOgre]

I've tried making potions from ingredients I had on hand, but the rate of advancement is so slow and the chance of failure so high it's going to take me a while.

You need to boost your Intelligence to make better potions more reliably, so your best bet in Morrowind is to first make potions to boost Int, then drink those before making more potions.

This. It can also be helpful to buy a couple Fortify Int potions from vendors, drink one, slam your way through cheap ingredients to make cheap potions, sell your cheap potions to the vendor for more cheap ingredients, drink another (if the first has worn off; gametime, this has probably taken all of 2 seconds), and slam through more cheap ingredients.

Tip: Bound Bow for 15 seconds is a sovereign remedy for cliff racers, and costs just 1 magicka. You just need to carry arrows.

I personally find bound armor a bit less annoying to cast, since it doesn't go through the equip/unequip animation all the time. If you can make it custom, learn the basic effect, then create it for a minuscule amount of time.

[Triaxx]

I used so much Bound Armor in Oblivion. The worst part was chasing down all the individual effects.

[LibraryOgre]

I used so much Bound Armor in Oblivion. The worst part was chasing down all the individual effects.

I used it a lot in Morrowind, where it was relatively easy to make the "Arming Charm"... carry nothing and, as soon as you're attacked, be wearing full daedric armor, including sword and shield.

[Morty]

Considering the quality of potions I can make right now, buying them is the only real way for it to work.

[Caelestion]

That's why I suggested Restore Stamina ingredients. They're cheap and plentiful and it doesn't really matter how many you blow through to level up your alchemy.

[veti]

I personally find bound armor a bit less annoying to cast, since it doesn't go through the equip/unequip animation all the time. If you can make it custom, learn the basic effect, then create it for a minuscule amount of time.

If all you want is to train conjuration, then OK. The point of the 1-pt Bow is that it's also an extremely useful and practical weapon in its own right.

[Aeson]

Are you against paying for a few levels of skill training? Ajira's an Alchemy, Conjuration, and Enchant trainer (up to level 48 naturally in each; you can go higher with Drain Alchemy/Conjuration/Enchant on Self - which will also make training cheaper - or Fortify Alchemy/Conjuration/Enchant on Touch/Target) who also buys and sells potions/ingredients and is reasonably likely to have a high opinion of the player character from fairly early in the game due to being the first Mages' Guild questgiver you're likely to encounter if you go to Balmora like you're directed at the start of the game, so you can probably buy a few levels of training from her fairly cheaply, can buy some cheap potion ingredients (Crab Meat and Small Kwama Eggs are cheap, restocking, and have Restore Fatigue; Scales and Kwama Cuttle are slightly more expensive, restocking, and have Water Walking) to check if your Alchemy skill is at a point you consider acceptable, and can fairly easily recover the gold you spent on training if you feel like doing so.

[Vinyadan]

I used it a lot in Morrowind, where it was relatively easy to make the "Arming Charm"... carry nothing and, as soon as you're attacked, be wearing full daedric armor, including sword and shield.

For what I remember it also had a fixed 80 armour rating, so it was really good, especially at the beginning of the game.

[Imbalance]

Morrowind only ever felt difficult in the beginning, when I was bewildered by the exploration potential, and tried to swim out to an island or stumbled into a Sixth House base. I found solace on Gamefaq's forums in the teachings of SR71, who ought to be canonized by Bethesda. Yes, it can be satisfying the first time you OHK Vivec 30 minutes off the boat, but the beauty of reverse variable magnitude enchantments is that they are far more scalable when all you want to do is survive a mudcrab ambush with flair.

My recommendation is to play through organically your first time, because the depth and breadth of allowed exploits is a game unto itself. I wouldn't start spamming INT potions until you've at least tried to handle the final parts of the MQ on your own.

[Morty]

Morrowind only ever felt difficult in the beginning, when I was bewildered by the exploration potential, and tried to swim out to an island or stumbled into a Sixth House base. I found solace on Gamefaq's forums in the teachings of SR71, who ought to be canonized by Bethesda. Yes, it can be satisfying the first time you OHK Vivec 30 minutes off the boat, but the beauty of reverse variable magnitude enchantments is that they are far more scalable when all you want to do is survive a mudcrab ambush with flair.

My recommendation is to play through organically your first time, because the depth and breadth of allowed exploits is a game unto itself. I wouldn't start spamming INT potions until you've at least tried to handle the final parts of the MQ on your own.

This short-lived attempt isn't my first time by far. I played Morrowind extensively once. Sadly, I was quickly reminded that it didn't age well at all.

[Caelestion]

It's aged just fine, I think. The faces are ugly as they ever were and the combat was always a little bit janky, even in 2002. The lack of NPC schedules and people not following you through doors are about the only things that are noticeably missing now, as opposed to when it was new.

[halfeye]

people not following you through doors

I thought that business of NPCs that start talking to your back, then follow you through doors to continue the non-conversation was new in Skyrim, they certainly didn't do it in Oblivion.

[Caelestion]

But unlike in MW, people do chase you through doors in OB.

[veti]

It's aged just fine, I think. The faces are ugly as they ever were and the combat was always a little bit janky, even in 2002. The lack of NPC schedules and people not following you through doors are about the only things that are noticeably missing now, as opposed to when it was new.

The controls also take a bit of getting used to. "Right-click to use your off hand" - makes a lot more sense than "right-click to freeze the game and fill the screen with menus".

Another thing that comes as a shock after Oblivion and Skyrim is the need to walk everywhere, v e r y s l o w l y, at least at first. Although personally I enjoyed that.

The faces, however, are one of the easiest things to fix. Unless you mean the PC's own face, but who cares about that?

[factotum]

Another thing that comes as a shock after Oblivion and Skyrim is the need to walk everywhere, v e r y s l o w l y, at least at first.

There's a silt strider station in Seyda Neen from where you can travel to Balmora, Gnisis, Suran and Vivec, so even right at the start you don't *have* to walk everywhere.