Nope. I’m just out of a fight with a barrow dweller who spotted me while I hardly could see it (I’m a sneaky archer). I threw pretty much everything I had handy on the thing, including a scroll of summon storm atronach. I expected it to stand its ground until I could resume my usual “shot from a hidden place” routine. No such luck. Said atronach was dispatched in two blows (guesstimate…maybe it was three, but anyway, the atronach was destroyed almost immediately).
I made it without having to reload (my mesure of success), but then only figured out who was the “resident” of this barrow, and my character would never have desacrated his grave had I not missed the obvious clue.
Pfff… I’ve been killing every Thalmor I’ve encountered since the beginning of the game (along with every imperial). It was a bit though at first, but now… No need of this Wuuthrad thing you’re talking about.
By the way, I freed a huge number of prisonners, though it doesn’t seem that it has any impact on the game.
I didn’t read your link in order not to spoil my game, but I sure hope they’ll send this hitsquad to me. There’s something lacking with killing a lot of Thalmors without any consequence whatsoever.
An utterly mad period at work coincided with the release (not to mention me leaving it a while when the resistances bug was about), meaning that I am only level 15 or so anyway. I’m way behind you chaps.
Okay, I ducked out of this thread for a while whilst I was playing the game as people didn’t seem to be playing by the spoilers rules a lot of the time, but it’s now been over a month since it’s out and so I think that’s fair game.
Completed the main quest and went with the Stormcloaks and helped them win the civil war, so that’s the majority of the main content of the game done as far as I can tell (of course I have a billion misc quests to do still). I was severely underwhelmed by how the main quest resolved, and by the fact that dragons are still flying around. Why aren’t they gone? I beat the fucking king of the dragons??? Also I was expecting some kind of link to the Thalmor and the banning of Talos worship to the return of the dragons, maybe now that the original hero dragon slayer was no longer being venerated it allowed the dragons to resurrect? But no, completely wrong about that, seems like according to the lore of the game Alduin had to appear at some point in history and this was it.
I did like, however, the set up of the Empire vs Stormcloaks, and I think the arguments in this thread itself shows there’s no simple answer to who one should support. Yes the Thalmor are the real dicks in all this, but ultimately siding with the Empire or the Stormcloaks brings its own set of downsides. Colour me not too surprised to find the Thalmor trying to prolong the civil war as long as possible, I guess a victory for either side would be less preferable than each continuing to go for one another. Next time I’ll go Empire, see what happens.
I’m currently at level 43 and can quite happily breeze through any dungeon or question without pausing for breath, so maybe I need to turn the difficulty up a bit! But still, one the whole this has been one of the best gaming experiences I’ve ever had. In the month since its launched I clocked up 87 gaming hours playing it, I can’t think of anything that has sucked me in more.
On a sidenote, just finished off my Xmas shopping. I was in the Game shop picking up a couple of titles for my daughter, when I spotted the Platinum edition of Oblivion for £15. Be rude not to I thought…
I have a level 22 High Elf Mage. Have Iron Flesh but not yet up to the adept level perks. I also sneak at over 50 and shoot a bow. Will that hurt my character? I have Destruction over 50 and can do wicked damage with fireballs.
Also what’s the best way to get an enchantment to improve the armour on my clothes? Currently I just wear the adept robes, sneak in and shoot a fireball. Run away and summon a flame atronach and the cast iron or stone flesh. is this a viable strategy long term?
I try not to steal too much, but swiped a few ingots from the capitol city’s blacksmith while he and his apprentice were sleeping. I had the “unseen” symbol the whole time and thought I got away with it. When I came back a few days later, three hired thugs jumped me outside his shop. One carried the bounty contract on me that was signed by the blacksmith. How did I get caught? Did he do an inventory when he woke up? We’ve mended our business relationship now so it’s all OK.
This time I’m evoving into a pure mage. It’s nice to have followers do all the heavy hitting while I sit back in the pocket and direct the fight. Gotta go get a dog follower and a horse to increase the size of my offensive line.
I activated the Steed stone to get a free 100 carry increase. Frees me to dump alll my level up points into magic instead of health. Don’t really need Stamina either, since I’m not swinging weapons. It feels different not wearing much in the way of armor, but it’s exciting having that achilles heel exposed in combat.
I had a similar experience. A drunk wanted me to get him some argonian ale in Whiterun. I got it from a storeroom, whilst sneaking. The barowner (Hulda I think) sent 3 guys after me. After killing those, I went to speak to here. There were no conversational propmpts about the situation.
I’ve had those thugs show up with 3 separate characters. The second time was nasty; they showed up in Riverwood when I was really low level and they has iron & steel armor; hard to hurt at that level.
They jumped me at the Whiterun gates. Theres me, a thane of the city, and the damn guards just stood and watched. A well placed fury on one of my assailants soon changed that however… lazy ass guards.
I had a weird contract too - thugs sent at me by a name I didn’t recognize.
So I looked the name up on UESPwiki, and it turns out she’s the wife of the farmer who wouldn’t help Cicero fix his wagon. I’ve had zero interaction with these people outside of the quest, and though I don’t recall not nicking their stuff I’m pretty sure the worst I did was pick up their crops.
I persuade the husband to lend a hand to his fellow man (without intimidation, either), and she buys a mercenary band to kill me ? Girl has issues.
When I re-started the game last week I chose to follow the Imperial guard instead of the Stormcloak into the keep during the dragon attack at the very beginnning, just to see what would happen. Instead of entering the same round room as last time, only with Imperial NPCs instead of Stormcloaks, I was outside the room with my new Imperial companions. We rushed into the room to fight my old Stormcloak companions from the first game - nice touch.
I use the “Throw Voice” shout (4 second recharge!) and then get them. I find that sometimes archery attracts other nearby enemies. Plus my 1h is better than my archery. Finally, it gives you the cool animation…
I can’t determine whether that is flavor text or an actual effect. I use it now because it is weightless, but it will become less important to me once I finish the quest.
Your carry weight is affected by stamina, not health. Or do you mean you can now carry all kinds of healing potions, etc.?
For me, it was Nurelion (White Phial guy). Got me outside the Riverwood shop. Nurelion acted like nothing was different. I don’t remember what I stole, but it didn’t jeopardize the quest.
I’d rather piss off some farmwife than Cicero, his assassins would get you in your sleep. Or even worse, he’d show up in your bed unannounced and want to… talk… shudder.
Am I crazy for starting over? I have a level 54 Breton mage with 100 in alteration and 90 something in destruction. With enchantments, my magicka is 900+. Basically, every battle I dual cast ebony flesh, summon a dremora lord, dual cast the master level electricity spell and then sift through the ashes of my foes for treasure. It’s gotten a little boring. I don’t even sneak around in dungeons anymore, I just walk in the front door like I own the place and kill anything that has a problem with that.
I started over last night with a Breton (same name as the other mage) but using equal parts light armor, sword and some magic. Every once in a while, I use the bow to snipe an enemy. He won’t be the highly specialized demi-god my other mage was, but I’m hoping he won’t be quite so boring to play.
[QUOTE=Lochdale]
I have a level 22 High Elf Mage. Have Iron Flesh but not yet up to the adept level perks. I also sneak at over 50 and shoot a bow. Will that hurt my character? I have Destruction over 50 and can do wicked damage with fireballs.
[/QUOTE]
IMHO the bow is the most destructive weapon in the game if coupled with stealth and all the perks to enhance it. You could open the battles with your bow, and then quick change to destruction spells when they close on you (though, honestly the mobs never get to me anymore, and this has been true for a while now…only if I literally run into one or if there is a scripted event that puts the mobs right on top of me).
How I got mine to 100 was just keeping all of the jewelry I would find, and also keeping all of the steel and other un-enchanted weapons I had, as well as all of the soul stones I had charged up, and then just putting any old enchantment on everything. Not only did it get my enchantment up quickly but the stuff was worth more to sell.
The only trouble I’ve had with enchantment is that I STILL haven’t found a single item to buff enchantment. No rings, necklaces, gloves…nada! In order for me to put that enchantment on something, and buff it, I need to have an item first…and I’ve found nuffin’. So, my enchantments are basically at 100 skill with nothing added.
I guess it will work, as long as you can continue to kite them. The only time I summon anything like the flame atronach is when I’m doing those zone rift quests where you have to kill all of the stupid wraiths or whatever they are…then I summon stuff to tank it while I help out shooting and keeping my pack mule alive with healing hands. My strategy is to use my life detection shout to see what’s around, stealth in telling the pack mule to hang back, then fire arrows from extreme range, killing the mobs before they know I’m even around. Even if the mob is in a bad location you can fire an arrow at a wall close to them, the the mobs will go over to investigate and sit there looking around while I’m killing them. I used to do the fireball thing when I first started, but found that they can home in pretty easily on where the fireballs are coming from and track it back to you pretty quickly.
One of the great things about the game is the non-linear feel I get from it. I wander around with Lydia and just start dropping in on random places. Sometimes I die horribly but usually I just run away. Have to figure out how to marry Lydia too seeing as she takes all sort of damage for me.
The Thieves guild quests are great and I just need to focus on the main quest one of these days.
It’s a great game and I’m looking forward to stumbling my way through it!
No worries…I love this game and love talking about it. Nearly (hell, more) than Fallout 3/NV.
[QUOTE=Lochdale]
One of the great things about the game is the non-linear feel I get from it. I wander around with Lydia and just start dropping in on random places. Sometimes I die horribly but usually I just run away. Have to figure out how to marry Lydia too seeing as she takes all sort of damage for me.
[/QUOTE]
I do the same thing. Once you get a horse it becomes second nature to just ride around and find new places. I don’t often explore them, but it’s helpful to find them so that when you get a quest to a place you can just fast travel. I usually alternate between simple exploration, knocking out quests and crafting.
I still haven’t gotten all that far with the main quest line. There is just so much to do and explore, and I got seriously side tracked doing the magic college quests, then the assassins guild and thieves guild quests, then quests for cities and misc. quests, plus periodically going back to the old guys and getting a side quest to track down a new shout (I think I have most of the shout lines, but I still have words to fill in to get all 3 words of a shout for several of them).
One thing I haven’t found is quests for the ship wrecks in the far north. I want to try and track those down. I have them all marked, but there must be some quest for them.
Me as well. I’m just playing, with no real goal in mind…very much like I played Fallout 3/NV (I STILL haven’t finished the main quest line in FONV). The DLCs for this game should be coming out in the next few months, and with Steam integrating mods…well, it should be a hell of a ride. Months of play time still left for me…at least.
