Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim - Page 8

Exactly. Moments like this keep happening. It's like the crazy emergent moments that used to happen while playing Vice City, but with even more possibilities. For example, during one of the early Companion quests where I'm supposed to go rough someone up It was an incredible moment of chaos that added so much to that single, simple task.

And I've never played an RPG where I felt like I had an entire party's worth of combined abilities. In a party-based RPG, you have your magic users, your ranged fighters, your sneaky assassin types, your melee attackers, your healers, and so on. But in Skyrim, you're often playing all of those roles, frequently in the same fight. It was so smart of them to open up the "character map," so to speak, so that you're never confined to one or two character builds. In that respect alone, it's unlike any RPG I've played.

This game seems to be good at chaos when you're having a fight. I had a dragon appear when I was wandering through a wooded area next to a stream. I went in a house, checked it out, and a dragon was flying overhead when I came out. It was pretty normal dragon fight until he landed, then all hell broke loose. Suddenly I'm fighting a dragon, and a bear, and two saber cats, and a couple of wolves were running around. I got the bear to go after the dragon, and the dragon helped me kill the saber cats. There were even two mud crabs in the mix, which made me laugh that the game pitched the kitchen sink at me like that. Warts and all, this game is fun.

I'm liking the open character tree as well. It's been fun being able to just upgrade my character any way I want, yet not have to pay a penalty for a perk or skill outside of my "class". My next go I'm going to specialize in thief skills, yet I know I won't have to run away all the time because I can be a thief/mage/fighter and be good at all three. Playing the way I want FTW.

Moving away from "class" trees is a real revelation. I may never want to play another RPG that feels confining in that way. It'll now seem outdated and old fashioned. If there's anything that's "revolutionary" about Skyrim, it's that one major design change. We'll see if it has an effect on future RPGs.

What do you mean by that? Skyrim's skill system isn't much different from any previous Bethesda game (also New Vegas if you want to be pedantic). The only real change is that leveling up each skill is controlled by usage, but that's the same as Morrowind with some tweaks that make it much more usable (the minor vs. major skills thing sucked). The Witcher also has a skill-based tree, although it's a small bit closer to a traditional class system.

I find it quite different. The biggest difference is that abilities that used to be super easy to "game" or others that were totally useless have been balanced so that pretty much everything continues to serve a purpose. Yes, in prior Elder Scrolls titles you could branch out, but there was never any point in doing so. This is the first Elder Scrolls game where it actually makes sense to use and develop every ability at your disposal.

I guess we just play the games differently, as I'm finding myself leveling up in pretty much the same way I have in every other Bethesda game (+ New Vegas). The way you distribute perks is obviously different, but the classless system is not. I only really started branching in Skyrim once I maxed the offensive skills I normally use (destruction & archery), though.

Downloaded 1.03 patch yesterday. Any info on that?

There are patch notes somewhere, but basically it fixes the things that the prior patch broke.

That's it, though. In prior games, there was always an encouragement to focus on just a few skills through the first 40-50 hours, then branch out. But Skyrim is very open from the beginning and encourages you to branch out early on. For me, that fundamentally changed the way I've played. It was always possible to do that in prior games, but you'd be at a disadvantage. In Skyrim, it's the exact opposite.

Also, just powered through the main quest line (since I'm going on vacation). The difficulty curve was fantastic the whole way through. Got harder as I went, but only just enough. No major difficulty spikes. And, wow, what an ending. Loved it. I'll come back to it in a while to do the Civil War quest line and factions, but I could really use a break (75hrs logged so far).

I just started playing, I've done a few quests and then something strange happened - the POV changed in a bad way. In 3rd person, as I began the game, the camera was pulled back so that you had an almost panoramic view of what was in front of you. Now, that 3rd person view has the camera almost on my guy's back, which is a very limited view. It's incredibly annoying. Is there any way to change this? I can't seem to figure it out. If anyone knows anything...

Click your right thumbstick and hold it, then move your left thumbstick to change the distance of the camera.

I never liked the 3rd person view of any Elder Scroll.
Skyrim is better tho, but I feel more comfortable in 1st person.
I switch to 3rd person to look at my character new armor from time to time.

Always played every other ES game in 1st person (twice all the way through Morrowind). But Skyrim finally nailed the third person view. Played most of my 75 hours in third person. Combat took some getting used to, but after a dozen hours or so, it felt better than in first person.

Advantages to third person:
-Wider field of view
-Ability to look around corners
-Easier to deal with multiple enemies
-Textures look better at a distance
-"Platforming" is much easier
-Character models (in conversations) look better from a distance
-Ranged attacks (arrows and magic) work surprisingly well--especially after perks

Thanks, I'm glad that was easy to fix.

So far the game has held up for me. I always remember that the last game had a very low frame rate and stuttered along during the battle at the end. I was really hoping not to see that with this one.

Just wondering does anyone know if this game has a duplication glitch like the last game had?

There's no reason to cheat. You can use your blacksmithing and enchanting skills to level your character and make lots of money at the same time. Make lots of iron daggers or leather bracers, then enchant them with your small soul gems. They cost very little to make and enchant, but are worth quite a bit after they are enchanted. It's so easy to do it almost feels like cheating.

I'm about 60/40 (1st/3rd) when I spelunking/sneaking I do 3rd person, but when combat I almost always switch to 1st. Missed too many power attacks while in 3rd with my twitching fingers.

btw, patch didn't fix the frame skipping issues for me; still unplayble at times.

I don't know about the rest of you, but since the 1.03 patch I have had more freezes. Played for two hours and had 3 freezes. Not to mention several slowdowns. My save file is 12mb right now. Also have 2 quests I can't complete because of glitches. I hope they put up a new patch soon.

I've only had about 5 freezes during my 80 or so hours of play. The last two were very close together so I decided to delete the game data and let it re-install. What I did was let it install first, then let it update with the patch after the install was done. My game has been much better since I did this so you might give it a try.

I have Skyrim for the PS3 new and unopened. I also have a 360 console. Considering the issues reported with the PS3 version, would it be recommended that I exchange my copy for the 360 version?

Are there also negative trade-offs in going with the 360 version, or is it the clear choice if you have the option of playing on both consoles?

Looking for an unbiased opinion. Thanks.

No version is bug free. But the PS3 version is seriously borked. It's a clear choice. You lose nothing by going with the 360 version. Return the PS3 version. Consider yourself lucky for not opening it.

You should choose your favorite controller because it's gonna be in your hands for a long time once you start! Really though my experience with the PS3 version leads me to believe that the issues are possibly being overblown. The game says I've busted 110 hours and aside from a few freezes, and a bookshelf that doesn't work, I'm enjoying the PS3 version immensely. I don't know the other versions as I haven't played them, but from what I've read they all have their issues of varying strengths.

Seriously, pick the controller you like because it's gonna become a permanent attachment

I played the game for about 120 hours. Turning off the autosave feature made the most difference in the playability of my game. I'd also guess that new players starting the game from the latest update will have less issues than those of us that updated when our save files were already 13MB (i.e., me).

I had 3 save files, and the game started to freeze. Erased two and the issue was gone.

Seems to be hit or miss for many players. But, honestly, if you had the choice of console versions, would you be willing to risk it? I'd be pissed as hell after putting in 90hrs only to discover that the game was no longer playable with no fix in sight.

But, yes, if you have no choice and only have a PS3, there's no sense in missing out on what IMO is the best RPG to hit consoles this generation. If you only have a PS3 and are willing to wait for a patch (or are impatient and feeling lucky), then by all means, go for it. But the poster above had a choice. Total no brainer in that case.

Had my first freeze up last night... right after clearing an area - luckily I had saved just before walking into that area. Froze during an auto-save ... guess I need to get those turned off. Just got the game and started playing from the newest update - save file is only 3mb, but I have multiple saves.

Love the game aside from that one issue!

I finished the Thieves guild. I prefered the story with Gray fox in Oblivion tho.
The nightingale Bow and armor are awesome.
Started the Dark Brothehood I liked how it started. The Dark brotherhood in Oblivion was my favorite part of the whole game.
I hope it's as good.

Wound up receiving this game as an unsolicited gift, so I'm giving it a shot despite the horror stories about game-breaking bugs.

Played up through the Golden Claw quest, and here are my impressions so far:

- Love the Nordic motif.
- Much better looking than Fallout 3.
- Building skills through usage is rational and appealing.
- Melee combat is really loose and crappy, but archery feels pretty good.
- In-game physics are laughably bad, especially for animals on uneven footing.
- 3rd-person view is much better than in Fallout 3, but still really awkward to use due to the screen-centered reticule that ignores which way your character is facing. It controls like it's still in 1st-person from the screen's point of view, but it happens to be drawing your character, too. There's really no excuse for this.

It's holding my interest so far. I'm going to try stealth/archery with no magic and see how long that works for me...

- Jer

They promised us (ps3 owners) a patch this month for the lag issue.

http://ps3.ign.com/articles/121/1216204p1.html

I got mine today, was going to play it but having sound issues. I'm a bit put off now with the bugs I'm reading about in this thread.

Only one is widespread and game-killing. The rest are nothing out of the ordinary for Bethesda. If they've fixed (or even just alleviated) the game-save bug, then all should be good to go.