Of course, there are alchemy boosting enchantments and enchanting boosting potions, so you can just bounce those back and forth.
Have you managed to enchant a boost higher than 29% doing that?
I like the 3D map, but it’s a little tricky to correlate a point I want to go with any of the 2D maps available online. It took me about 20 minutes of land navigation to find a certain standing stone. Stop, look around, check the map, check the compass, walk some more, repeat…That was actually pretty cool and it’ll get easier as I discover more places and the map gets more cluttered so I can reference them to place my custom marker.
I tried out the tip I read online of clicking the flags on any Jarl’s battle map to update my in-game map. It worked, and now I have a few more places I can reference on my map. I can’t fast travel to them, but they’re on the map, at least.
Someone mentioned a future map mod that will zoom all the way to ground level - that’ll be sweet. A compass rose would be nice, too. Right now I reference everything off of the Throat of the World, but having a north arrow and/or grid lines would be a nice touch, too (FO3 had 'em).
Regarding the map, something that can help is to right click (PC controls obviously, not sure for console) and drag either upwards or downwards, can’t remember. The viewing for the map should rotate to overhead, making the various land features easier to see.
I just wish the map had roads, or even just the major ones, drawn on it. In the mountainous areas, there very well may be impassible rocks between you and your destination.
You’re right, and I have done this, but I’m at the stage now where I don’t need to buy anything and yet have shit tons of dwarven and ebony armour that I crafted and no-one can afford it (each ebony armour set is 3800 each!).
The only solution I know of to get merchants enough gold is to invest in the speechcraft line until the perk where you can invest 500 gold with a merchant to increase their available gold - then invest in the riverwood trader and he will have nearly 10k gold.
Yeah, I’ve read that archery is really OP. My plan is to intentionally gimp my character by being a jack of all trades, master of none. So that by the time he is back to level 50ish, the game will still be interesting at expert level.
[QUOTE=Max the Immortal]
Have you managed to enchant a boost higher than 29% doing that?
[/QUOTE]
I’ve been able to put 40% enchantment for boosting archery and blacksmithing on items, if that’s what you mean. I just drink a potion and then enchant the items. That’s the best I’ve been able to do though. I’ve found items that boost 50% to something, but I can’t personally make anything that good.
-XT
[QUOTE=madmonk28]
Yeah, I’ve read that archery is really OP. My plan is to intentionally gimp my character by being a jack of all trades, master of none. So that by the time he is back to level 50ish, the game will still be interesting at expert level.
[/QUOTE]
It is when you get to high level, certainly. It’s all about the gear and perks though. Currently my character is doing 265 damage with the bow I have, but take the gear off and put a regular bow in his hands and it’s a lot less (of course, this doesn’t count what arrows you are using or if you are shooting from stealth and have the stealth damage perks). Basically, if you want your character to be gimp, then don’t give him or her the best gear and don’t put your perk points into archery. You’ll be plenty gimped. 
-XT
Archery on its own is not particularly OP, but Sneak+Archery is just broken, and what’s more it’s broken from very early on - once you’ve got the Sneak perk for triple damage, a couple of perks in bow damage and either Dwemer or Elven smithing (AFAIK there are no Steel bows, though the Ancient Nord weapons might qualify) you’re pretty much set for the first 30-40 levels.
I made it a houserule for my new char that I’m only allowed to backstab whenever I’m being serious and not just murdering wildlife for sport to train my bowmanship for dragons. Otherwise it feels like I’m playing Rainbow Six while everyone else is playing Soul Calibur :). That being said, Sneak+Illusion magic is turning out to be quite ridiculous as well. Did you know that you get the backstab bonus on people you’ve just Calmed as they were smashing your face in ?
I disagree it’s broken. It’s powerful, certainly, but you can’t just jump into that power. You would have to expend the perks and level up the skills to get to the point where you had triple damage in stealth and higher levels of damage in archery. It’s like blacksmithing. The stuff I’m making now (at level 50) is so over the top that it makes me practically unbeatable against everything I’ve gone up against. My biggest worry now is that either the horse or my pack mule will jump in front of me and eat an arrow, since I can literally one shot the horse now and if the chick is hurt at all she will die like dog if I accidentally hit her. 
But, the thing is, when you get to be high level and have skilled up, you SHOULD be pretty much god like to most stuff. That’s the way these kinds of games generally work, and the reason you level up. I’m not sure what they will do in the DLCs to make things challenging for characters like mine (at a guess, it will be like the Fallout expansions where you lose all your stuff and have to use crap gear).
-XT
I’m doing that as well. I’m managing, but battles are pretty interesting. My combat abilties are from best to least: Destruction -> One-Handed (Dawnbreaker cough) -> Two-handed -> Bow.
I’ve got a stockpile of gold bars and soul gems for eventual training purposes, but few skills over 50 yet, even at level 27.
I’m back at level 7 and it’s kind of fun being weak. I was walking to Riften when I got chased by a saber cat. If that thing hit me even once, I would be dead so I summoned my familiar to delay it while I ran for it. It was right on my tail when I jumped off a waterfall into a lake below, just an awesome moment.
The smiting piece sounds like the problem - small investment drives a massive amount of grinding, powerful equipment and money making which allows for more ingot buying and the cycle continues. Honestly it sounds like you could personally arm every damn peasant with legendary armour and take over the world.
I think they might restrict the amount of raw materials and progressively reduce the money people would pay for the end product. Eventually you get to a point where you’re losing money making gear.
My character is utterly gimped and not by design but I’m good with it. Most fights are still a challenge to me at (now) level 23. I went into Cragwallow thinking I’d do an easy quest and got obliterated by the conjurers in there. Was a lot of fun though as I threw everything at them and almost won.
I also got attacked by the hired thugs last night but I saw them from a distance and fireballed them to a horrible end (and they had lots of gold on them).
I’m useless at smithing and whatnot (though I’m in the 40’s in alchemy). Seems like I should put some life into archery as my sneak is in 59.
Just loving the game though and wandering all around the map.
For Oblivion, there were a number of mods out to prevent the game from becoming too easy. OOO3 included a number of them such as putting a cap on chameleon at 75% so you couldn’t just walk around invisible all the time and introducing newer, harder enemies. I expect the same will be done for Skyrim.
I bought Oblivion a while back when it was in the bargain bucket. Fun game but the leveling and magic system turned me off. I much prefer the (easier) Skyrim but them I’m playing on a console.
Yeah, you can’t play Oblivion with out the mods. OOO3 actually includes lots of other mods that make it a much better game, IMHO.
ETA: Am I the only person who misses spellcrafting in Skyrim?
[QUOTE=Grey]
The smiting piece sounds like the problem - small investment drives a massive amount of grinding, powerful equipment and money making which allows for more ingot buying and the cycle continues. Honestly it sounds like you could personally arm every damn peasant with legendary armour and take over the world.
[/QUOTE]
The major limitation on the very best stuff is the daedric hearts. They are used in everything from armor to weapons. I can now buy them from the elf in the mage college, and I also have unlocked a daedric shrine where mobs that drop the things respawn periodically, but they are still pretty limited. If you are willing to step down to ebony weapons and dragon armor though, yeah…there is essentially no limit. I still have over 100 bones and scales in store (and I sold a lot early on), and my character is in full dragon scale (afaict it’s the best light armor in the game, and absolutely unreal with 2 enchants on each piece as I have it now). Money has never really been an issue, and now it’s definitely not one. I can pick up enough raw materials just tooling around to make huge amounts. The only limitation is whether I’m willing to travel around to hit all the vendors in the various towns, since just selling a couple of pieces of the stuff I craft will drain them of all their money pretty rapidly. I don’t even bother anymore as I think I’m over 100k right now.
Well, if they put a dynamic economy in then as you sell stuff the vendors would pay less and less for it…after all, if I’m selling a bunch of ebony or dragon armor sets that’s going to bring down the market, especially in a single town. I only craft gear now for myself or my pack mule, and that’s only when I get some new enchant or ability to put something new on (I just crafted 2 new sets a week ago because I finally got the perk that lets me put two enchants on an item, and so wanted fresh gear…I STILL haven’t sold all of the old stuff because I’m not willing to travel through the world to find vendors to buy each piece of gear).
-XT