The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

[Dignified Pauper]

Question, why do all the NPC Vendors only ever have 700 gold on them! I need them to have more money so I can finish furnishing my home in Solitude.

Yeah... I bought the biggest house in the game. uJellies?

[Quindiana Jones]

I was excited for this game, I bought this game, I enjoy this game. Though I'm still "This is awesome! *fapfapfapfapfap*", I can't help but notice it's exactly the bloody same as the other two.

Not in that way, no. I mean that it hasn't done anything out of the ordinary. Morrowind, Oblivion, Skyrim: graphics are some of the best around. M.O.S: huge world. M.O.S: great voice acting, but repetitive. The list goes on. It's a really weird complaint to have, if it even is a complaint. But when I am playing Skyrim, I lose a lot of hours. It's brilliant and fun and amazing. But as soon as I leave I don't have the hunger pangs that I used to get with Morrowind and Oblivion. I honestly don't know if I'll even play this more than once. Although everything is new, nothing has changed: it's the same kind of new.

Smithing and Enchanting are hilarious, though. Ground those mothersmurfers straight up to 100. Did someone say free Master Destruction spells? Oh, and how much damage does your bow do? Holy crap.

EDIT: Also, where the bloody hell is Spellmaking? Easily the funnest part of Oblivion was making your own ridiculous spells. They've improved the gameplay only to reduce the fun!

[Loony BoB]

I honestly don't know if I'll even play this more than once.

The mods will come and you will have your new content/gameplay. *nod*

EDIT: Also, where the bloody hell is Spellmaking? Easily the funnest part of Oblivion was making your own ridiculous spells. They've improved the gameplay only to reduce the fun!

I never got the full effect of this in Oblivion, I guess. I mean, you can only change the time/intensity of existing spells. What's so ridiculous about that? When I heard about spellmaking in Oblivion I got all sorts of insane ideas but then I found out it's not spellmaking, it's simply spelladjusting.

[Yeargdribble]

@Neo

The fact that there is no urgency is just one of the conceits I'm willing to deal with to enjoy a game with so much side stuff. This is hardly a new thing. You can spend forever d**king around in Zelda games while you're supposed to be saving a princess or something else important.

I think there would be value in some urgency, but I think that has explicitly become a non-aim of TES games because, in general, it's what players want.

@Sir Hatt

I do get the pangs for Skyrim. Actually playing any of TES games gives me pangs for all of them. It just makes me want to jump in and go back over some lore stuff. I never made a point of grinding my skills up. I mean... first grinding isn't fun and from what I hear, once you have highly level smithing or enchanting, the game ceases to be fun because you're an almighty god that can smite anything with a cough. To each their own, but it takes a lot of fun out of it for me. I might as well just put it on easy and then use console hacks to give me all of the best gear in the game.

I've heard of other people missing spellmaking too, but I haven't. I like that the system makes sense and scales based on skill rather than you having 12 iterations of the same spell. Not to mention how difficult it was to manage spells in Oblivion once you have 12 iterations of 20 spells. It seems that most people who miss spellmaking miss the min-maxing which, like the above, kills a lot of the fun for me.

In regards to spellmaking, I'm also glad enchanting works as it does. It's more rewarding to get enchants from armor your disenchant for me personally.

[Shattered Dreamer]

from what I hear, once you have highly level smithing or enchanting, the game ceases to be fun because you're an almighty god that can smite anything with a cough. To each their own, but it takes a lot of fun out of it for me. I might as well just put it on easy and then use console hacks to give me all of the best gear in the game.

I totally agree with Yeargdribble on this point. I'm at level 33 at the moment & I enjoy that the game is still a challenge in certain places. I admit there is nothing quite like 1 hit killing all the enemies in a dungeon then 4 or 5 hit killing the boss at the end but if that happened in every situation I would get very bored very quickly.

My smithing & enchanting both sit at about 50 each & this has happened at a natural pace as I have played through the game. I almost have a full suit of Ebony armour which I have smithed to superior & enchanted with various perks I've picked up along the way, 4 daedric artefacts (a helmet, a mace, the wabbajack & Mehrunes razor), & various weapons with different enchantments for different enemy types. I also have more than half of the games Shout's & a restoration skill of 60 plus & destruction of about 45. I'm a werewolf! I'm close to mastering my first skill with One handed sitting at 97. What is so great about all this? It happened without have to grind for a single second!

I have never understood grinding in RPG's for the sole purpose of making your character into a God & then laying waste to game. The only time I grind is when I'm to weak to complete a quest or defeat a boss. I enjoy RPG's for the "journey" or "struggle" & the story & by over grinding I think some gamers are missing half the fun of most RPG's.

[Yeargdribble]

I used to be a grinder in turn based RPGs. It really took playing Oblivion for the first time on a reasonable difficulty to make me realize how much fun it can be not just raping everything.

In Skyrim, I managed to get my block to 100 naturally without spending undue time grinding it up and it was extremely rewarding. Every time I got access to a new perk I loved the anticipation of working toward the next one. I can absolutely own people with my shield now, but without working my way there I really don't think I would've appreciated the skills that 100 block gives me or learned how to work them into the combat system efficiently.

[Quindiana Jones]

I honestly don't know if I'll even play this more than once.

The mods will come and you will have your new content/gameplay. *nod*

EDIT: Also, where the bloody hell is Spellmaking? Easily the funnest part of Oblivion was making your own ridiculous spells. They've improved the gameplay only to reduce the fun!

I never got the full effect of this in Oblivion, I guess. I mean, you can only change the time/intensity of existing spells. What's so ridiculous about that? When I heard about spellmaking in Oblivion I got all sorts of insane ideas but then I found out it's not spellmaking, it's simply spelladjusting.

One day I shall show you my PC, and we will both have a good laugh at the idea of it ever being able to play anything xD.

Spellmaking was awesome. It gave non-PC owners the ability to do what they want with the game. My first spell would always be a ridiculous Fortify Speed, Fortify Athletics one, and you'd be zip-zipping around the countryside like nobody's business. Now we're stuck to a slow speed and crappy jump height. Keeping some of the "pointless" abilities would have freed up the LB button for something good like Headbutting or Pimpsmack. Although Skyrim spells are cool, and I think the different varieties of delivery is fantastic, it wouldn't have been hard to have that and Spellmaking. You'd just have other options of "Spray, Rune, AoE" etc. The groovy glitches you could take advantage of were some of the best parts about Oblivion (for other playthroughs, of course), and it's unfortunate to see the Elder Scrolls series heading towards that bizarre version of realism game developers love.

Once again though, excellent game, love it, good job Bethesda, but looking forward to the next one on next gen consoles which will hopefully have more freedom with regards to the player and dicking about in the amazing worlds.

[Kokichi]

Marked for Death with three words is OP.

Followers be OP.

DLC please. :c

[Shattered Dreamer]

Marked for Death with three words is OP.

Followers be OP.

DLC please. :c

Considering it sucks at 1 word, I have 2 words but haven't used it, I'm happy to hear it becomes useful with 3 words. I can't wait to get 3 words for Dismay I've made quite good use of this as a method of crowd control.

[Necronopticous]

I finished the main quest last night. I usually don't care for achievements in games, but I realized there are only 10 I don't yet have and at least 8 of those are easy and straightforward things I just haven't gotten around to yet, so I will probably fill out the achievements list in a game for the first and only time since Viva Pinata. After that I think I can retire from Skyrim and concentrate on NetHack until Diablo 3 comes out.

P.S. I actually literally fell asleep during the minor main story spoiler:conference for peace in High Hrothgar.

[Yeargdribble]

I've been waiting for this... Yahtzee gave Skyrim and absolutely glowing review.

The Escapist : Video Galleries : Zero Punctuation : The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

[Shattered Dreamer]

I've been waiting for this... Yahtzee gave Skyrim and absolutely glowing review.

The Escapist : Video Galleries : Zero Punctuation : The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

That review is hilarious I laughed until it hurt

[Ultima Shadow]

I don't "hardcore grind" skills in these games, but when I find something easily exploitable, I have a hard time not exploiting it simply because "it's there, right in front of my eyes". Like... when you realise you can skyrocket the smithing skill with nothing but iron ingots and leather stripes, it's hard to not simply buy all those iron ingots and leather stripes whenever you see them for sale. It's especially hard when you reeeaaaally want that sexy, badass-looking Ebony Armour too. And once you have the Ebony set, you are only 10 levels away from Daedric - THE most badass armour in the game.

And enchanting actually levels up very fast if you use it often (without actually grinding). It only requires more "hard to get" material than any other skill to level up.

It's a lot more fun when you have to run like hell from those giants, than when you can simply walk straight up to one and smack it down in two hits with your enchanted Daedric Warhammer. But at the same time... who would use less powerful weapons and less powerful armour "just because"? I think pretty much everyone equips the most powerful things they come across, since they don't want to intentionally nerf their character ( unless you're doing some kind of challenge and set up rules for yourself that involves doing just that ).

This is the problem with smithing and enchanting - they are too easy to access, too easy to level up quickly and too easy to abuse once you figure out how.

In short: it's fun to make/find insanely powerful weapons, but it sucks to actually be a god. And yet, striving to become that "god" character is part of the fun of leveling up/searching for more powerful equipments etc.


Personally, my biggest issue with Skyrim (beside not being able to kill children) is that it's poorly balanced in too many aspects. Even if you don't abuse/power-level smithing and enchanting, you "will" become more overpowered than anything else could possibly make you once you do get them to 100 - whenever that may happen. If it never does, then fine. And in the same way smithing/enchanting is ridicolously OP, there are other skills that are very, very weak. I mean... why would you actually bother putting perks in Lockpicking for example? Hardly anything in the entire skilltree is worth the effort.

The x15 sneak-damage multiplier skill is also a bit too powerful too. At least when you equip those things that doubles it, meaning you get x30 damage from sneak-attacks.

Finally, my last issue is the magic skills:

Destruction: is awesome early, but all the cool spells get too weak almost right away. I love the idea of the magic traps, but they stop being useful just a few levels after you get them - and they never get better. Fireballs, icestorm and the elemental cloaks cost too much magicka at low levels but their damage becomes almost irrelevant when you are strong enough to cast them frequently. As a pure mage who relies on Destruction to kill foes, you will have to make sure you never get your levels too high, or the fun will be ruined since all the unique spells will become useless. And the magicka cost of the Expert and Master spells won't be worth the damage either, unless you once again abuse enchanting to reduce the casting cost to practically "nothing".

Really... they should have reduced the base casting costs and base damage for certain spells, then added individual multipliers for the spells "per point above 20 in the destruction skill" or something like that. For example; fireballs and such could have used a +1% or +2% multiplier per increase, while traps and cloaks could have used a +3% multiplier. Since opponents generally have higher HP but less attack power/defense than the player, spell damage is already dangerous for the player as it currently is though, so reduce enemy spells from being too overpowered, the enemies could have "half damage" penalty for spells.


Illusion: the spells - at every single level - do pretty much the same thing, save "Invisibility" and "Muffle". The lack of varity makes the skill pretty boring and it's hard to be motivated to put valuable perks in the skilltree. Illusion feels, to me, very much like the usual "same spell, but more powerful" thing that Oblivion had so much of. The master spells might be a bit more fun though, since they affect everyone around you. But it's still the very same effects.

Alteration: The passive effects in the skilltree are good and Paralyze + Master spells are very powerful and awesome. No problem there. But the first two entire levels - Novice and Apprentice - only contains 4 spells out of which 2 are basically "see better in the dark" and the other two "better defense rating for pure mages who wear no armour at all". So the only reason to ever get the "cast Novice and Apprentice for less magicka" perks, is to get access to the "cast Expert and Master for less magicka" perks. Really... more low-level spells needed!

My first spell would always be a ridiculous Fortify Speed, Fortify Athletics one, and you'd be zip-zipping around the countryside like nobody's business. Now we're stuck to a slow speed and crappy jump height.

...speaking of Athletics and Acrobatics, I think magic that increases running speed and such would have been a perfect addition to the Alteration set of low-level spells.


...both Conjuration and Restoration are perfectly fine and pretty well balanced though.


/end of rant.

Those are pretty much my only issues with the game ( plus the lag that occurs on the PS3 version ). Also, despite "being unable to resist making a very good enchanted daedric armour", I still have trouble with Ancient Dragons and some other foes (like the Dragon Priests) on Master difficulty. So even with "god mode activated", you are not completely invincible.

[Madame Adequate]

Destruction gets a smurf of a lot better once you get Impact and a couple of spell cost reduction items to help. Mostly Impact though.

Also Illusion might not have many spells but when one of those spells is Fury I don't really care, because it's funny as hell. Silent casting > Sneak > Fury a Bandit, someone gets killed > Conjure the corpse, the games begin anew!

I do miss Spellmaking though, I really loved it in Morrowind and it was okay in Oblivion. It'd be nice if for no other reason than just being able to make something tailored to your current level rather than the big jump between like Lightning Bolt and Chain Lightning right here.

I do wish there was still Acrobatics and Athletics. They could have folded them into a single skill that did things like more efficient stamina use, better carry weight, etc. on top of the obvious run faster and jump higher.

[Shattered Dreamer]

If you want to talk about useful daedric artefacts you'll want to lay your hands on Mace of Molag Bal, Mehrunes' Razor, Sanguine Rose & most of all Spellbreaker. While you can probably make better equipment later on these have proven invaluable to me.