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Poil posted:Personally I like grabbing conjuration as a warrior. It might not be optimal but charging in and cleaving the head from some bandit or whatever and raising it as an undead servant to help bring down the rest of the enemies is very satisfying. There isn't a wrong way to play a video game if you enjoy it, my man.
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Dec 23, 2017 01:31
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Enjoying it so far, but the only thing I'd say is, you don't need to keep justifying in/out-of-character knowledge. Going through the thought process is fine, but you don't have to labour the point as much.Poil posted:
I hear liars bleed out faster than people who tell the truth. I mean, they all wind up bleeding out one way or another, but at least they can be vindicated in death.
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Dec 23, 2017 02:22
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Other perks that will benefit you no matter your build: Put at least 3 perks into Speech. Get that Merchant perk. The QoL perk that all characters love to have.
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Dec 23, 2017 10:04
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Weeble posted:Other perks that will benefit you no matter your build: Put at least 3 perks into Speech. Those perks ARE really tempting, but on the other hand money quickly becomes infinite unless you’re doing vast amounts of both smithing and training. It goes against my nature, but after a certain point the smart move is just to stop looting anything at all because you don’t need the money. As it happens, that’s usually around the time your speech gets high enough to qualify for Merchant
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Dec 24, 2017 05:06
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You can always use a mod to reduce the effectiveness of speech to more reasonable levels. That way you don't need to run to every single merchant in Whiterun to, hopefully, unload everything you picked up in one dungeon.
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Dec 24, 2017 10:27
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Poil posted:You can always use a mod to reduce the effectiveness of speech to more reasonable levels. That way you don't need to run to every single merchant in Whiterun to, hopefully, unload everything you picked up in one dungeon. Or if you're lazier, sell it all to one merchant by hitting him and reloading every time he runs out of money. Ah, Bethesda programming.
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Dec 24, 2017 11:06
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Hey Melth love your challenge LP, because I sure as hell not going to enjoy doing that myself as I don't like fights that last forever regardless of actual difficulty. Shame about legendary is just piling more numbers against that you have to resort to exploiting the AI all the time and not a God Hand/Dark Souls balance of hard-but-fair.
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Dec 24, 2017 11:34
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The bear song deserves a Grammy. Melth, you're making me play a mage for the first time, and those bears annihilate me and my atronachs just by looking in my general direction. You may have talents beyond those of mortals.
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Dec 24, 2017 23:57
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The key to low level atronachs and bears is that you summon it between you and the bear and the seconds the bear spend killing it gives you plenty of a headstart to leg it. 
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Dec 25, 2017 00:11
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Palladium posted:Hey Melth love your challenge LP, because I sure as hell not going to enjoy doing that myself as I don't like fights that last forever regardless of actual difficulty. Shame about legendary is just piling more numbers against that you have to resort to exploiting the AI all the time and not a God Hand/Dark Souls balance of hard-but-fair. I really do need to play Dark Souls sometime. God Hand always looked really silly when my roommate played it though. The trouble is that I just don't really like RPGs or action games much. I like Skyrim mainly because it's pretty much the exact setting I spent my whole life up until 2011 wishing someone would make a game for. I mean it's like these developers were in my D&D campaigns taking better notes than my players. I also think there's a certain elegance to many of the mechanics which is completely unlike all the convoluted and terrible gameplay in the rest of this series of remarkable, unpleasant games. RearmingStrafbomber posted:The bear song deserves a Grammy. Thanks! I hope "May have talents beyond those of mortals" makes it onto the dust jacket of one of my books someday. As for atronachs vs bears, a simple comparison of stats tells you that bears will destroy flame atronachs easily on any difficulty. They will also often beat frost atronachs because the ones you summon are MUCH weaker than anyone else's on any difficulty, but that's a closer fight. Bears are just brutal, which is a big reason I picked up that Kyne shout. I could kill a bear now with some cleverness if I really wanted to, but it will never be worth the effort. I do kind of like that actually. Yes they're a nuisance, but fighting a bear in hand to hand combat SHOULD always be so dangerous and unrewarding that you would never do it. Meanwhile you're allowed to avoid them 90% of the time because they'll warn you off and not pick a fight.
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Dec 25, 2017 07:33
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The next episode is ready! Days 5-6: A Word to the Wise I'm going to try for a schedule of updating every Wednesday and see how that works out. Also! I was thinking this LP is developed enough to start posting it around on other sites. Anyone have any recommendations of Elder Scrolls sites with a substantial LP community?
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Jan 1, 2018 19:03
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Is there any enemy you can't just run past when outdoors? Even sprinting uphill/upstairs doesn't seem to slow you down enough for something nasty and hungry to catch up.
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Jan 1, 2018 20:03
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Poil posted:Is there any enemy you can't just run past when outdoors? Even sprinting uphill/upstairs doesn't seem to slow you down enough for something nasty and hungry to catch up. Dragons or the very, very rare mounted enemies. That's pretty much it. Very little moves even as fast as you, much less faster.
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Jan 1, 2018 20:16
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It sounds like Fus Ro Da to me, yeah, not "Witchita" or whatever you said at the end. Though it is annoying that half the time there is no Fus and the RO DA only comes a few seconds after the actual casting.
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Jan 1, 2018 20:39
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Slaan posted:It sounds like Fus Ro Da to me, yeah, not "Witchita" or whatever you said at the end. Though it is annoying that half the time there is no Fus and the RO DA only comes a few seconds after the actual casting. That happens a lot actually, especially with dragons. They ARE shouting when they do breath attacks and stuff and they can be heard doing so, but usually after the breath is already going out.
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Jan 1, 2018 21:08
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Poil posted:Is there any enemy you can't just run past when outdoors? Even sprinting uphill/upstairs doesn't seem to slow you down enough for something nasty and hungry to catch up. It depends a lot on what's in the way. Saber cats at least can go slightly faster than your sprint on even ground but often run in slow zigzags for trivial obstacles. Generally speaking the issue is that you run out of stamina and THEN they catch you and kill you. Or that you run past one and then immediately encounter another but are now out of stamina. Chronische posted:That happens a lot actually, especially with dragons. They ARE shouting when they do breath attacks and stuff and they can be heard doing so, but usually after the breath is already going out. Yeah, though I find it to mainly be a problem when fighting draugr. Dragons basically only ever do their breath weapon. 95% don't HAVE any other shouts, so you know exactly what to expect. Draugr on the other hand can have a decently wide variety. I don't mind being hit by a Fus Ro Dah at all (except from a death overlord or someone else who can actually ragdoll me), but I do NOT want to stand there and get hit by a Zun Haal Viik that I assumed was a Fus Ro Dah and lose a legendary weapon forever.
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Jan 1, 2018 22:01
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Yes that freaking disarm shout is awful. Dark twisting corridors and rooms full of junk and wonky physics where objects have barely any weight and are covered with rubber.Melth posted:It depends a lot on what's in the way. Saber cats at least can go slightly faster than your sprint on even ground but often run in slow zigzags for trivial obstacles. Generally speaking the issue is that you run out of stamina and THEN they catch you and kill you. Or that you run past one and then immediately encounter another but are now out of stamina.
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Jan 1, 2018 22:37
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Slaan posted:It sounds like Fus Ro Da to me, yeah, not "Witchita" or whatever you said at the end. Though it is annoying that half the time there is no Fus and the RO DA only comes a few seconds after the actual casting. yeah the nords didn't standardize on pronunciation until the 4th age, so you get all these fus ro da dialects, like, fus ro da or fus ruh dah if you're a hillbilly draugr
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Jan 1, 2018 23:07
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Poil posted:Yes that freaking disarm shout is awful. Dark twisting corridors and rooms full of junk and wonky physics where objects have barely any weight and are covered with rubber. I think the number one spell I would like to see added to Elder Scrolls, which would solve this problem and others, would be some kind of detect magic.
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Jan 2, 2018 20:25
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didn't morrowind have that? Or detect_magic_item at least (in addition to detect_key and detect_enemy)?
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Jan 2, 2018 21:25
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Melth posted:Is it possible to message you? I want to keep most of my cleverest gear choices secret from the general public for my eventual warrior playthrough.
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Jan 3, 2018 12:01
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I look forward to the warrior run. I've only done sneak archers and mages in elder scrolls games before. Melee combat in this game has never clicked for me. I'm really interested in how it works
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Jan 3, 2018 15:42
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This is a neat Let's Play. I'll crank the difficulty up to Legendary when my character gets too powerful, but I had no idea how to survive on the highest difficulty from the start. Really curious to see how a warrior plays when you can't summon atronachs to tank for you and your ranged options are more limited.Melth posted:I think the number one spell I would like to see added to Elder Scrolls, which would solve this problem and others, would be some kind of detect magic. double nine posted:didn't morrowind have that? Or detect_magic_item at least (in addition to detect_key and detect_enemy)? Yeah, it was Detect Enchantment and highlighted enchanted items within a certain radius on your minimap.
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Jan 3, 2018 16:32
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Mountaineer posted:This is a neat Let's Play. I'll crank the difficulty up to Legendary when my character gets too powerful, but I had no idea how to survive on the highest difficulty from the start. Really curious to see how a warrior plays when you can't summon atronachs to tank for you and your ranged options are more limited. I'm sure some mod or other re-adds certain useful and distinctly missing mysticism and alteration spells like that. Legendary is pretty obnoxious imo, I'd rather play an overhaul than just have enemies have massively bloated HP totals. Requiem works wonders, I find! A massive overhaul that rebalances practically everything, from perk trees to racial abilities to the stats of every single creature in vanilla and Dawnguard. Melee weapons are now massively deadly, heavy armor is actually functional and useful instead of trash, magic is tough until you get out of apprentice level, and many other changes that make for refreshing gameplay. As a solo-warrior in vanilla, though, you'd just block a bit more often. You'd probably use a fair amount of poison, and maybe two-handed weapons, to cut through the HP total. One handed and shields would work too, since vanilla you can easily chain-stagger foes with shield bashing.
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Jan 3, 2018 18:05
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Yeah but until you get good at block it feels like you barely reduce the damage you take at all.
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Jan 3, 2018 18:36
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Blocking is a trap, never do it on purpose. The mechanics of block are extremely complex, but I’ll get into them on that warrior playthrough. Another thing you’ll see on that playthrough is just how crippling blocking is and how the most dangerous enemies in the game are always those who do not block. I do hear good things about requiem so I often consider trying it, but I just like the base game too much to bother. The enemy’s extreme toughness can be a nuisance sometimes, but it’s never a chore to me like max difficulty Oblivion was
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Jan 3, 2018 19:20
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Melth posted:Blocking is a trap, never do it on purpose. Oblivion was absolutely a chore. Blocking, however, is quite fine if you get it ranked up a bit. You can even block stuff like magic or dragon breath with a certain item! Makes it quite valuable, but I doubt it blocks enough to be worth it on Legendary. Shield bashing is where it's at though, since a staggered enemy is one that's open for a few easy hits, maybe even a good power attack. What's amusing though is blocking will NOT block poison, so a poisoned weapon might as well hit a non-blocking guy. Especially the paralysis poisons, those will save your rear end on the regular.
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Jan 3, 2018 22:12
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Edited: next episode had an audio oddity I didn't catch at one point; I'm fixing that and then I'll re-upload
Melth fucked around with this message at 02:20 on Jan 4, 2018 |
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Jan 4, 2018 02:01
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Re-uploaded episode 6: Days 6-7: Two Words from the 'Wise'
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Jan 4, 2018 15:21
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In retrospect it's kinda hilarious how Arngeir isn't doing anything but yelling at the others to give you free stuff.
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Jan 4, 2018 16:00
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You can also head directly to Whiterun and the cultists will fight you just inside the city gates, where the Hammerfell mercenaries will help you if you walked away when they tried to initiate their quest. Also I believe all cultists are dunmer so using fire magic on them isn't a very good idea. Speaking of armor and an amulet of Talos, a lot of what you can wear leaves amulets fully visible and no one cares that you're blatantly wearing it. Not even the thalmor.
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Jan 4, 2018 16:35
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This may seem like an odd question, but are you going back in post and adding in additional audio commentary? There's a moderately jarring contrast between some of your audio. For an example of what I'm talking about, when you're reading out the text of Emblem I at around the 5 minute mark, the second line sounds distinctly different from the first and third lines, as if you recorded it in a different room or something. Edit: You talk about the number of steps on High Hrothgar - some crazy person of course actually went and counted. I've heard elsewhere that Skyrim's dimensions are shrunk to 1/10th of what they "should" be, but I have no idea what the basis for that claim is for - perhaps an excuse for why the entire playable area is only 14 square miles. It probably wouldn't make a better game if all travel times were ten times longer without a commensurate increase in points of interest. However, if High Hrothgar were ten times taller, there probably would be 7,000 steps leading up to it, so maybe the 1/10th scale thing is true? It's hard to find clear information about this. Olesh fucked around with this message at 18:47 on Jan 4, 2018 |
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Jan 4, 2018 18:25
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Ah, CHIM: the highly controversial bullshit power no one can seem to agree on. Is it a reference to the console or creation kit? Is it a character realizing they're in a video game world and hijacking power? Is it a cheap way to cover plot holes and make no longer relevant characters super special again dolled up as being "super deep and metaphysical"? The world may never know.
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Jan 4, 2018 19:21
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You can talk to the Greybeards other than Arngeir, and sometimes they whisper 'Dovahkiin', also making the ground shake slightly. So yeah, their voices are surprisingly powerful - though probably only when speaking dragon tongue?
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Jan 4, 2018 20:18
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TheGreatEvilKing posted:In retrospect it's kinda hilarious how Arngeir isn't doing anything but yelling at the others to give you free stuff. Yeah, that’s one of like 12 weird choices about how they handled the graybeards. I have a lot of thoughts to eventually share about how the graybeards and the dragons and their relation to shouting are handled in this game. Poil posted:Also I believe all cultists are dunmer so using fire magic on them isn't a very good idea. I’ve never played Dragonborn before so I just assumed they were all nords. Looking it up, it seems like half are dark elves and half are nords, so only lightning is a good choice since it’s hard to tell their race through that mask. Olesh posted:This may seem like an odd question, but are you going back in post and adding in additional audio commentary? There's a moderately jarring contrast between some of your audio. For an example of what I'm talking about, when you're reading out the text of Emblem I at around the 5 minute mark, the second line sounds distinctly different from the first and third lines, as if you recorded it in a different room or something. This LP is normally live commentary, but this particular episode does have some parts like that where I changed something in post. I wasn’t expecting Mara’s Atmora question so at the time I gave only a partial explanation of the Cyrodiil jungle thing. Since that’s a really contentious issue which there’s a ton of misinformation about, I decided to go back and dub in a somewhat fuller treatment. That required tweaking a few other lines to make it fit.
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Jan 4, 2018 20:21
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Melth posted:I’ve never played Dragonborn before so I just assumed they were all nords. Looking it up, it seems like half are dark elves and half are nords, so only lightning is a good choice since it’s hard to tell their race through that mask. Can't tell a Nord from a Dunmer by their model size alone? And you call yourself a Skyrim expert!
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Jan 4, 2018 20:29
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I appreciate how you seem to just rise up to a challenge I would've gotten frustrated with long ago, and given up on. You even manage to make it interesting, your strategy commentary and your lore digressions do help make it entertaining. But it also helps bring to light so many puzzling decisions that were made with regards to game design too. I still can't wrap my head around 20 minutes of introductory level, or those horribly drawn out cutscenes where everyone speaks to each other about life ending dangers in the same flat affect they used to talk about yesterday's dinner. You help me bring out a lot of conflicting opinions about it, is what I'm saying.
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Jan 4, 2018 20:29
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Lynneth posted:You can talk to the Greybeards other than Arngeir, and sometimes they whisper 'Dovahkiin', also making the ground shake slightly. So yeah, their voices are surprisingly powerful - though probably only when speaking dragon tongue? I believe they only do this after you've been properly recognized as Dragonborn, which hasn't happened yet.
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Jan 4, 2018 21:28
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Melth posted:Yeah, that’s one of like 12 weird choices about how they handled the graybeards. I have a lot of thoughts to eventually share about how the graybeards and the dragons and their relation to shouting are handled in this game. You kind of covered some of my initial thoughts where the dragons are supposed to represent beasts, the greybeards are trying to rise above their bestial nature with the way of the voice, and the draugr are supposed to represent humans slipping into animalism (because of their undead state). This is immediately negated by Jurgen imposing pacifism through violence and the greybeards taking 5 minutes to train you and letting you use acts of violence with no consequences whatsover and yes they are perfectly capable of kicking your rear end so I'm not sure if there is a theme here or if it's fantasy stuff that's "cool". Granted given what we see in game of shouts I don't really think they're as powerful as the setting thinks they are but that is another story for another day.
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Jan 4, 2018 21:31
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Lynneth posted:their voices are surprisingly powerful - though probably only when speaking dragon tongue? This touched upon something about Skyrim’s dragon language thuum thing I’ve always disliked. See the notion that masters of the voice couldn’t speak without causing devastation goes back to the beginning of Elder Scrolls- it was often said for example that great tongues constantly had to wear gags and communicate only in writing and so forth. The dragon language concept makes this ludicrous because tongues could just speak a normal language and be fine. Presumably so could the graybeards, but the game does seem to imply that at least for them even normal speech would also be destructive. Which would mean the game isn’t even being consistent to itself with the silly idea that shouting is all about the dragon language. TheGreatEvilKing posted:You kind of covered some of my initial thoughts where the dragons are supposed to represent beasts, the greybeards are trying to rise above their bestial nature with the way of the voice, and the draugr are supposed to represent humans slipping into animalism (because of their undead state). This is immediately negated by Jurgen imposing pacifism through violence and the greybeards taking 5 minutes to train you and letting you use acts of violence with no consequences whatsover and yes they are perfectly capable of kicking your rear end so I'm not sure if there is a theme here or if it's fantasy stuff that's "cool". Yeah there’s a lot of good and bad stuff here to get into more later. I think I’m general Bethesda’s reach greatly exceeds their grasp with philosophical themes, but I’m still usually glad that they’re reaching when almost no one else is. I think that shouts actually are pretty much as powerful as we were told- or maybe even more so. The only thing preventing them from breaking the game and making you a living god is that they have cooldowns. But I mean you can literally control time and the weather, throw giants like toys, move at superhuman speed, and of course do such petty tricks as spitting fireballs stronger than the hottest destruction spells. I think I’m generally satisfied with the power level of shouts vis a vis both lore and balance.
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Jan 4, 2018 22:04
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