TES V: Skyrim

EVE has grown, as I mentioned. They were over 400k as of december of last year, but it's a very very slow growth. Still better than the sharp decline that almost every other MMO has seen post-launch-euphoria...
 
Yes, for almost all western MMOs except EVE and WoW, because they've been unable to retain subbers and thus revenue starts going down which forces them to cut back on development, meaning no new stuff, so more subbers quit, causing a spiral towards oblivion if they were to rely on subs alone.

Even with F2P, games like Warhammer age of reckoning hasn't released much of any new content at all; the game's alive, but it seems that's pretty much it.
Well, many have managed to grow before eventually petering out. But yes, entirely too many have a strong initial flurry and then just go downhill ever after. I do hope that we see a core of players that stays, and then gradually grows.

I should also mention that the TES MMO has a strong probability of going down this same route: a strong initial flurry that then peters out a bit shortly after.

Melee is much harder than ranged combat IME, because power attacks hitting you can really put the hurt on at early levels (or even kill you outright), and also frost mages sapping your stamina with their spells while simultaneously slowing you to ridiculous levels, meaning you have no chance to catch up with them...meaning you die, unless you shoot them first.
Very much so! That's part of what makes melee fun :)

This is especially true at higher levels, when you get the perks for ranged attacks that stagger your opponents. A mage with some +destruction armor and the stagger perk can take anything out in no time, with very little danger. The spells in an unmodded game are individually weak, but when you have 100% stagger chance and armor that dramatically reduces the spell cost, well, enemies don't stand much chance.

Or keep swigging potions, but that's usually a losing proposition unless you're like me and run a no-weight-potion mod running constantly. (Along with no weight alchemical ingredients, no weight blacksmithing supplies, gems, scrolls... Heh. I must be carrying around 500+ pounds of excess weight at all times, but I'm gonna drop off all that junk and rid myself of the excess mods.)
I don't like the weights of the potions and ingredients, but I just feel it's cheating to go that far, so I don't. I generally just minimize the number of potions/ingredients I'm carrying around at any one time.

My 2nd character will definitely be a high elf mage. I would like to try out the Conan-like barbarian nord type character, but the attraction is not high enough there.
One of these days I'd like to figure out a build that I like to play that combines magic and melee combat effectively. But I always find myself focusing strongly on one or the other.
 
Talking about being overpowered in Skyrim: I am a pure mage build. What I do: I summon two Dremora Lords. Those guys are super funny when listening to their chatting and are super strong. Two of them are unbeatable. So all I have to do is....well, nothing. Just stand there and watch how those guys crush through everyone and everything while making fun of the enemies.
 
How do your dremora lords deal with dragons...? :p Or are they also equipped with bows for fighting ranged attackers?

Anyway, how do summons scale with leveling? I remember dabbling a bit with a familiar when I started out, but that poor wolf always got pulverized very quickly. Are summoned monsters dependent on some fixed "spell level" hardcoded into the game, or do they inherit the player's level? I guess I could test that myself by summoning up a familiar at level 81, but I'm not in the game right now... :)

And Chal, I think Bethesda is well aware of the risk of that initial hump + petering out. The only thing that can stop that is a constant stream of new content, and even then players can be very fickle, as Blizzard has been experiencing for a couple years now. Their sub numbers have been doing the yo-yo thing for a while now, while still remaining at a rather comfortably high level overall.
 
How do your dremora lords deal with dragons...? :p Or are they also equipped with bows for fighting ranged attackers?

Anyway, how do summons scale with leveling? I remember dabbling a bit with a familiar when I started out, but that poor wolf always got pulverized very quickly. Are summoned monsters dependent on some fixed "spell level" hardcoded into the game, or do they inherit the player's level? I guess I could test that myself by summoning up a familiar at level 81, but I'm not in the game right now... :)

And Chal, I think Bethesda is well aware of the risk of that initial hump + petering out. The only thing that can stop that is a constant stream of new content, and even then players can be very fickle, as Blizzard has been experiencing for a couple years now. Their sub numbers have been doing the yo-yo thing for a while now, while still remaining at a rather comfortably high level overall.

Easy, they wait till he lands (dragon ai lets him attack dremoras all the time, also from ground) and then do a few sword slashes and dragons die. Dragons are especially to easy in this game. I don't know how they summon monsters scale to be honest. I am lvl 46 character, but all my main magic abilities are 100. So far, I have not encountered an enemie stronger than my two Lords..
 
Anyone thinking the game is just way too easy etc, get Frostfall and t3nd0ns (or something like that) Skyrim Redone.
edit: and maybe Deadly Dragons
 
Easy, they wait till he lands (dragon ai lets him attack dremoras all the time, also from ground) and then do a few sword slashes and dragons die. Dragons are especially to easy in this game. I don't know how they summon monsters scale to be honest. I am lvl 46 character, but all my main magic abilities are 100. So far, I have not encountered an enemie stronger than my two Lords..

Yeah, but I bet you had a really hard time before you got the ability to summon the dremoras.
I also have a preference for having a "turtle progression" if the end result is worth it, but to get that, one has to be ready to spend lots of time with long and inefficient fighting (and quicksaving) throughout a large portion of the game.
 
Yeah, but I bet you had a really hard time before you got the ability to summon the dremoras.
I also have a preference for having a "turtle progression" if the end result is worth it, but to get that, one has to be ready to spend lots of time with long and inefficient fighting (and quicksaving) throughout a large portion of the game.

Not really to be honest. Fireball is quite strong and imo dragons are super weak. Just a bit annoying when during a fight they suddenly fly away to attack a bear or whatever animal.

In Skyrim, mage were rather strong from the beginning (except tigers, they are fast and deadly!).
 
Yeah, but I bet you had a really hard time before you got the ability to summon the dremoras.
I also have a preference for having a "turtle progression" if the end result is worth it, but to get that, one has to be ready to spend lots of time with long and inefficient fighting (and quicksaving) throughout a large portion of the game.
I don't think so. Summoning is always pretty powerful and levels quite rapidly if you focus on it from the very beginning. The stagger effect for destruction spells is also available pretty darned early, and once you get that the whole game is on easy mode.
 
I just started a pure mage (my previous one was more a nightblade) and I'm going to focus on Conjuration. Having fun with zombies at the moment. How are the bound weapons?
 
I just started a pure mage (my previous one was more a nightblade) and I'm going to focus on Conjuration. Having fun with zombies at the moment. How are the bound weapons?
Never actually used them myself. In principle they should be significantly more powerful than anything you can find early in the game, if they followed the path of previous games, but I don't know.

Edit: Looks like the bound weapons are as good as Orcish weapons to start, Daedric weapons once you get the perk that boosts their power. They are only as good as the un-sharpened versions of those weapons, however, so real ones can always be significantly more powerful, if you get a decent smithing skill.
 
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I just started a pure mage (my previous one was more a nightblade) and I'm going to focus on Conjuration. Having fun with zombies at the moment. How are the bound weapons?

Conjuration is the most powerful thing in the game. Once you get Daedric lords the game hits easy mode.

Unless they have done changes in the system, damage spells suck after a while so you'll be doing summons and melee will your damage methods.
 
How about summons and pathing? I noticed so far my zombies aren't exactly very smart and don't tend to follow me very well. They also seem slow to react to actual combat. Is that because they're zombies and their behavior is quite appropriate?
 
Unless they have done changes in the system, damage spells suck after a while so you'll be doing summons and melee will your damage methods.
Well, damage spells can take a bit of time to kill things, but the auto-stagger makes it tremendously easy to immobilize an enemy while you take them down. Still, the expert-level spells are reasonably-powerful and can take out most enemies after just a few casts. You do need +destruction gear for continuous casting, but that's not difficult to get or make.
 
I've been encountering a ton of frame rate stuttering in outdoor areas ever since, I believe, the last update. The distant terrain keeps loading, causing brief and consistent dips in my frame rate. After doing some research people claim it's because of the game, while Bethesda said they addressed the LAA issue, not utilizing more than 2 GB of RAM correctly. Some tweaks can resolve this, apparently, in one of the .ini files, by manually entering a variable to increase how much RAM the game will utilize. It's really obnoxious. The FPS dip, while only between 2-5 frames, happens every 5 seconds or so, sometimes without fail, as if on an unending cycle. Is anyone else encountering this and, more importantly, know of a hot fix? I'm going to try the suggestions I read by tweaking the .ini, but I was curious if anyone else here has the same issue. I know a lot of people are experiencing it.
 
I do not recall having that problem on my rig -- Win7x64, 3930k at 4.5Ghz, 32GB of ram, 7970 at 1225 gpu / 1525.mem and Cat 13.2 beta 4.
 
How about summons and pathing? I noticed so far my zombies aren't exactly very smart and don't tend to follow me very well. They also seem slow to react to actual combat. Is that because they're zombies and their behavior is quite appropriate?

The pathing for summons is so bad it is the only reason why I just don't do conjuration. They're not like your regular followers (Lydia, mercenaries, quest NPC's, etc) they have some sort of special routine all their own. And they -WILL- almost always get lost when you fast travel from one cell to another.

They will sometimes, maybe minutes maybe hours, find you. Other times they're lost forever and eventually just die somehow.

Dead Thralls are supremely powerful but supremely stupid and kind of limited in use. I'm amazed nobody has tried to fix this problem. Bethesda or modders..

Destruction magick is borderline useless if you play on harder difficulties or even if you start getting to higher levels on almost any setting. Magic schools that are insanely useful and powerful are basically restoration, alteration, enchanting, alchemy... And in a few niche scenarios, conjuration (rarely).

Your best bet, honestly, is to go with a spell sword type scenario. Use dragonhide to grant yourself maximum damage mitigation (and you can keep your robes that weigh nothing or wear anything you want) and use a one handed weapon and probably a stave of some kind with a unique enchantment (like Sanguine's Rose or Miraak's Staff).


I've sunk over 500hrs into the game at this point and have beaten it on all difficulties, so if anybody has questions just ask..


If you want to have alot of fun go with the Necromage + Vampire combo. Necromage perk in restoration grants +25% spell effectiveness against undead. Since you are a vampire, you are flagged as undead yourself. Therefore all enchantments (armor, weapons, etc) and most spells are granted a buff. Many perks are also affected providing you have necromage + vampirism before you take them like Dual Flurry.

This also means you basically get a permanent +25% skill for all enchantments you make yourself on items. Downside is you are also even more susceptible to fire, but less susceptible to ice.
 
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Also, I've noticed that almost 100% of the time, dragon textures are loading improperly, until they're killed. It kind of defeats the thrill of killing a dragon when a simple, texture-less dragon lands in front of you.
 
Also, I've noticed that almost 100% of the time, dragon textures are loading improperly, until they're killed. It kind of defeats the thrill of killing a dragon when a simple, texture-less dragon lands in front of you.

That bug has been in the game for months and months.
 
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