sea's (Mostly Technical) Skyrim Initial Impressions

[Flubby]

Okay I'm only level 5 but I need to know if it's worth it to continue putting points into destruction magic because right now it's doing shit all for damage. I can spam sparks or flame spells on draugur until my mana is nearly gone and the fuckers are still alive. I've been splitting my points evenly between destruction and one-handed.

 

[Multidirectional]

Damn, that "FXAA Injector" is pretty cool. And customizable too. Been avoiding it because of it's name, but it appears it does quite a bit more than just FXAA.

Vanilla:

Injector on:

I'll probably end up tweaking it some, but even on default it looks a lot nicer than vanilla to me. And performance is identical.

 

[Heresiarch]

Destruction magic kicks ass before level 30-35 even at master. But technically speaking, adept is the only "fair" difficulty for a pure mage:

Higher difficulties gives ANY NPC a 30-40% damage reduction.

This means:

1. Since there is no way save for potions that can increase your spell damage, So there is no way to strengthen yourself further to fight NPC on a equal ground. The ONLY thing which makes the game tougher is you need to spend an extra 50%-100% magicka to blow shit up.

2. Every NPC receive the damage reduction bonus, INCLUDING your follower/summonings. Which means while YOU are gimped thanks to your spells' damage is not only static but also get the 40% penalty, your minions can go toe-to-toe with bosses because they are TOUGHER than on lower difficulties.

So unless you love chucking potions after potions to firebolt damage sponges to death, or watching Frost Atronachs and Lydia tank and kick ass while you do nothing, playing on adept is a better way to go for a pure mage.

 

[Medic]

Okay I'm only level 5 but I need to know if it's worth it to continue putting points into destruction magic because right now it's doing shit all for damage. I can spam sparks or flame spells on draugur until my mana is nearly gone and the fuckers are still alive. I've been splitting my points evenly between destruction and one-handed.

Destruction is a good way to go, I'm playing a pure mage using destruction, restoration and illusion magic on master level difficulty. Some fights are pretty hard, but I can kill everything I need to.

 

[Gord]

So regarding RadiantStory, I found some interesting thing on UESP wiki (minor spoilers ahead)
Bear in mind that this is not about one of the random quests, but a Deadric quest.

Spoiler

Variations are in many of Skyrim's adventures. If you get lost reading the walkthrough, remember that the NPCs/items/places involved are sometimes random and part of Skyrim's Radiant Story aspect. In this quest description, for example, it mentions that a priest is angry with you for losing a wedding ring. In another case, this role was played by Ysolda of Whiterun (an aspiring merchant). Regarding mages as opponents in the Fort, another case showed that it was comprised mainly of vampires. In one final example, the woman whose sheep you lost may actually have been a man whose goat you lost. However, some parts of these quests will never change, such as the starting NPC's identity and the end result of the quest (in this case, anyway).

Spoiler-free version:
Apparently, at least according to UESP, some quests do contain variations, with you being send to different persons or fighting different enemies to solve the quest.
It seems to be mostly flavor to me, as the structure will probably stay the same (with a notable difference mentioned in case of certain relations to npcs).
Still, seems somewhat interesting to me - guess we have to play through 7 times to fully appreciate it.

 

[AlaCarcuss]

Damn, that "FXAA Injector" is pretty cool. And customizable too. Been avoiding it because of it's name, but it appears it does quite a bit more than just FXAA.
<snip>
I'll probably end up tweaking it some, but even on default it looks a lot nicer than vanilla to me. And performance is identical.

HOLY SHIT!!!

Apart from looking better, this gave me full crossfire scaling when using radeon pro and the Crysis xfire profile. My FPS just went through the roof on ultra!!! (2x 2GB 6970's).

I'd stopped playing waiting for the profile from AMD, but this has solved my problem. Thanks MD.

 

[Data4]

A little too much saturation in that FXAA after pic. I'd probably go about half way between that and default. I understand that the default's desaturated look is supposed to give a cold, grey feeling to the land, but it does get boring to look at after awhile. I'll have to get this myself.

Does it do anything for shadows, by any chance?

 

[Gerrard]

Enhance your graphics with (...)bloom (...) )vignette

I want to murder this person.

Also, why are people impressed with water in this game? Last time I checked water didn't have the consistency of mucus, which is what it looks like everywhere it flows in Slkyrim. Sharp edges are also pretty pathetic in this day.

Apparently, at least according to UESP, some quests do contain variations, with you being send to different persons or fighting different enemies to solve the quest.
It seems to be mostly flavor to me, as the structure will probably stay the same (with a notable difference mentioned in case of certain relations to npcs).
Still, seems somewhat interesting to me - guess we have to play through 7 times to fully appreciate it.

Still doesn't change the fact that 90% of the quests in the game are shitty "go to X, kill Y/find Z" that you get from NPCs you just met after 1 line of dialogue.
Funny how no review mentioned this either.

 

[crufty]

Procedural elements are nice ESP when the lifespan of npcs is unknown.

The radiant ai has made the thieves guild quests a nice little challenge. I got one spotted by a dude in unarmed combat! He did some kind of pile driver animation on me. Dude was pissed i guess.

Though I found my first unkillable quest npc in riften, not that i have tried before, sneak up on someone while sleeping, a 15x dagger strike or two later...no death. Then she stands up and has full health.

So add to wish list...ability to assisinate thieves guild members.

I had to burn some perks to get a pickpocket bonus arrrg. Should have spent more time thieving less time sneaking. Doh!



I completely agree that this is the true successor to morrowind. I never played oblivion. For whatever reason, I think maybe the topic here is more interesting (to me at least--who here doesn't have Viking fantasies at some level). The whole talos religion vs divines aspect is p.cool. At no point have I felt like...Im in a random dugeon. Ea dungeon has some kind of tie, and I like that a lot. Maybe this will change, only been a week.

I disagree with those who say everything looks the same. I have not seen that at all.

For example riften is an obviously poor town. The signs are faded and weathered. The roads are in disrepair. The town is mostly creaky wood. The towns people are not well dressed. The interior furnishings are poor. The people are rude. everybody is pissing and moaning. The jaded person could say...generic river town. I say...off in a remote corner of skyrim, with the right level of foreshadowing...no jrpg style "obvious riften is obviously poor". It feels right and is fun. No quest topics (yet).

So what do I do when I get there? Steal everything that isn't bolted down. Hahaha take that you paupers. *yoink* more gold for the gold god!

Ps. Thanks crispy.

 

[Luzur]

looks like modders are on the case to fix the UI:

http://forums.bethsoft.com/index.php?/t ... g-the-gui/

 

[Bruticis]

What the fuck is up poltergeists? Half the inns I enter (or any other interior space with lots of placed items), the items go ape shit and start flying everywhere for no damn reason. Plates, bowls, food, shit is spooky. I remember this being a very mild problem I'd encounter once in awhile in Oblivion but this is in nearly every crowded space thus far.

 

[Gerrard]

Still the same shitty physics engine.

 

[Multidirectional]

I'd stopped playing waiting for the profile from AMD, but this has solved my problem. Thanks MD.

Nice to hear I improved quality of your life.

A little too much saturation in that FXAA after pic. I'd probably go about half way between that and default. I understand that the default's desaturated look is supposed to give a cold, grey feeling to the land, but it does get boring to look at after awhile. I'll have to get this myself.

Does it do anything for shadows, by any chance?

No I didn't notice any changes to shadows. But I didn't pay much attention to them in the first place. And yeah, I ended up lowering my saturation too.
Also, anyone who doesn't like additional effects can just use their brain and turn them off. Using sharpening alone is enough to make the game look better. Nice little tool.

 

[villain of the story]

Damn, that "FXAA Injector" is pretty cool. And customizable too. Been avoiding it because of it's name, but it appears it does quite a bit more than just FXAA.

I'll probably end up tweaking it some, but even on default it looks a lot nicer than vanilla to me. And performance is identical.

Gives me a pretty hard performance hit. The game drops at least 10 FPS.

 

[Multidirectional]

Gives me a pretty hard performance hit. The game drops at least 10 FPS.

Heh, the random nature of mods. Maybe you can try lowering AA from launcher, while using FXAA. Sharpening should take care of blurring anyway.

 

[Wolfus]

Edit both .ini files and set "ishadowmaps" (both min and max) to 4096 or 6144. It won't fix them completely, but it helps.

 

[Gerrard]

And how big performance hit will that cause?

Also, you guys noticed that the sun shadows are not updated constantly but every couple of seconds? It looks ridiculous.

 

[Wolfus]

And how big performance hit will that cause?

I didn't even notice if there was any performance hit. And no, my rig is not high end one...

 

[Gord]

You can fix the updating by setting two variables in Skyrim.ini to 0.
I don't remember the exact name, something with SunShadow and/or SunShadowUpdate. With anything below Ultra settings the shadows look pretty "shaky" though, for lack of a better word.
There's a thread in the official technical issues sub-forum.

I've still changed it, as I prefer it to updating only every 20 seconds.

Man, I hope they fix that stupid shadow shit in a patch.

 

[Crispy]

What happens in Skyrim is, it doesn't matter if you have the highest skill or the best armor and shield or whatever. Opponents will always get through your defence, so it's only a little bit better (in an RPG context) than a fightan game like Mortal Kombat.

I have to reluctantly yield to your argument because I saw for myself last night exactly what you're talking about.

I got into a nasty fight with some bandits, one of whom was equipped with a very big two-hander. I think the thing may have had an enchantment on it, can't remember. Anyway, here I am with my measly 35 or so in Block, and him and I square off out in the open, that bitch companion busy wandering off handling some of the others on her own. I'm thinking I'm going to make good use out of my shield, perfect opportunity to measure health vs. stamina drain whenever this guy tried to smack me.

Good God, he chunked 50% of my health on the first shot right through my shield, which was shocking even considering the magical damage that was being added. It was such a rapid health drop that I still didn't get a chance to notice if Endurance was also being depleted.

I was disappointed, butthurt, emotional and disheartened all at once.

Seriously, I need to either beef up my Block skill more and look into its perks, or just abandon S&B altogether and go for, like you said, Mortal Kombat PURE DAMAGE right away since Block at this point, after that little experiment, seems almost useless.

So, again, for the record, villain of the story was right.

Fuck.

Edit: Let me append here and ask or speculate on how the Block mechanics work out. I don't really want to Google the Wiki on it for fear of my sanity but I'm certain what was going on there was that the math of that bandit's damage output was defeating my shield's and my Blocking abilities (theshholds); against weaker opponents/those with inferior weapons my Block seemed much more effective up until that point. Still, vots' point stands because if it's simply a matter of pulling out a TH in order to pwn a shield-wielder that pretty much negates the point of wielding a shield in this game in the first place. Right now it's almost making me feel like I need to reroll and put everything in TH next time.

Thoughts?

 

[RK47]

Combat's shit. My nord warrior still kills faster with flamethrower spell than two handed weapons...I really don't understand why this is so. Everyone seems like generic all the way.

And the introduction was extreme derp. I don't even know WHY or HOW I got on the damn cart. And they still wanted to execute me. FOR WHAT CRIMES EXACTLY? How would other races make sense in this context?

And the UI is killing desire to play at the moment. Because everytime I access inventory, I felt like I was trying to re-learn how to play the game.

 

[villain of the story]

Yeah, that's right bitch, bow down before my massive e-RPG-Cock

I'm certain there's no threshold mechanics in Skyrim.

The game would have you believe that it gets better in higher levels with perks but even at 100 and all the parks, it's still not good. If you don't have a lot of HP to endure lots of punishment, you'll go down fast no matter what. And the perks don't really add that much. Notable perks:

Shield Wall (Blocking 40% more effective at 5th level)
Give you power-bash ability (unlocked at skill level 30)
Chance to disarm an opponent by power-bashing (at 70)
Chance to knock people off by sprinting into them with your shield raised (100)
Move faster with shield raised (at 70)
Reducing fire, frost and shock damage by 50% (at 50)
Completely avoiding all damage from arrows (at 30)

That doesn't sound half-bad on paper, no? But when put to use, they don't really do much shit. The only really half-useful perk (ignoring its insanely high requirements of skill level and a complete branch of other perks) is the ability to knock people down but even that is ultimately useless because you don't get any bonus to damage against temporarily disabled (eg. knocked down) opponents, which is one of the faults of combat.

 

[Syril]

Oh master Villain of the story tell us unworthy untermensch what is the most majestic mortal kombat build in skyrim ?

 

[Crispy]

One would think there'd be a little more chivalry here in GRPG but it's still the KKKodex so I guess I deserved that.

I'll stick with Block just because those perks sound cool but NEXT TIME...

 

[Syril]

but NEXT TIME...i will be raping dragons with penises in one of the nude mods