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ELDER SCROLLS OMNIBUS THREAD


JLSigman

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The "jump upstream" bit is actually easier than the hatchery, it would seem.  You can hit them with Frostbite at the streams and that'll work.  It doesn't seem to work at the hatchery, though; I suppose because they don't actually come out of the water.  Argh, my hatchery plans remain unhatched. I don't wanna do Bleak Falls Barrow! *stamps foot petulantly*

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I have a lot of mods for this, as you do for Bethesda games in general.  But two of my favorites are Delay Dawnguard and Delay Dragonborn.  I push back the former to Level 40 and the latter to completion of, I think, the Horn of Jurgen Windcaller.  I just did something I've never done before, because either I didn't have the mods or I just didn't have the wherewithal to care, but I went and visited the Hall of the Vigilants that's just north of Heljarchen, which of course gets wiped out when Dawnguard starts.  It's really too bad, because it's kind of an interesting space they designed for what amounts to a cabin.  There really ought to be "Rebuild the Hall" mod/quest (actually it turns out there is one, but it's a bit like the FO4 settlements where attacks can happen and is a little fiddly).  It kinda sucks that the Vigilants just eat shit through the entire game.

Edited by Contentious C
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Well, I am clearly a massive dunce.

For the longest time, I thought Telekinesis was the most broken leveling strat in the game, because if you had free magic from enchanting your gear the right way, you could just rubber-band your trigger down and gain levels infinitely with it.  This is basically the old "FF7 disc 2 & onward versus the Midgar Zolom" strategy.

Then I realized you can cast Harmony (again, abusing free magic) in soldier camps and gain as many as 20 skill levels of Illusion in 1 casting, and that seemed pretty good.

But, nope!  Telekinesis is, in fact, the most broken leveling strat in a rather broken game, because it turns out you can:

  1. Go anywhere you can fast travel
  2. Hold an item with Telekinesis
  3. Fast travel far away

And...you will level Alteration all the damn way to 100 if the distance is far enough.  So, multiple *entire* levels in a single cast and it doesn't even require free magic to work (you could do this well before exploiting Fortify Restoration/Fortify Enchant & Alchemy).  It kind of screws up the notion of training every level for skills that are harder to train (like combat or Restoration), but so what?  You can always just pop the exploit another time and train whenever you get where you're going.  I just popped from Heljarchen to the College and then back to Dragonsreach from the College, and those were full, "rank 30 to rank 100" skill gains, so it's not even half the map in size to fully apply the exploit.  I think I'm going to spend some time figuring a "minimum safe distance to cheat at 100% effectiveness".  Pick up some clutter!  Carry some bullshit once in a while!  You never know when you'll need it to drop it on the ground and break the game.

Edited by Contentious C
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  • 4 weeks later...

Little things that annoy me in the game.

  • Why does Amren's wife, Saffir, have dialogue in the quest, In My Time of Need, but Nazeem's wife, Ahlam, does not?  I suppose there is a racially charged joke there about Nazeem being an uppiity Redguard that thinks he's a Nord.
  • Stuff left in the game that was obviously supposed to lead to something that was eventually cut from the game (Ahlam and Nazeem having keys to Wintersand Manor which does not exist, Maven Black-briar asking you to get the Goldenglow bill of sale for her and then having terminal amnesia,  Rune giving you his backstory about being rescued as a child from a wrecked ship near Solitude and then finding nothing relating to Rune on any of the shipwrecks near Solitude).
  • Random encounters that continue to repeat even though logically they shouldn't (killing the Good Death orc like twenty times, Mistwatch babe showing up to tell you about her kidnapping even though you already talked to her and did all of the Mistwatch shit, ad nauseum).
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  • 2 weeks later...

I was about 5 minutes away from resetting 20 levels worth of progress yet again because I thought I'd lost Orchendor's corpse for the umpteenth time. I fast traveled to every house, back to Markarth (used him last for Nchuand-Zel), and then checked the forums for ways to find a corpse.  Turns out I just forgot I slit his throat last in one of my cellars, since I was busy smelting the literally 2000+ pounds of dwarven metal I hauled out of Markarth.

Then I resurrected him, then I got bored again.

FIN

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  • 3 weeks later...
On 2/11/2023 at 2:31 PM, Contentious C said:
  • Skip Bleak Falls Barrow altogether because frankly the game is nicer and more leisurely without dragons and the Main Quest - CHECK!

Eh, dragons being in the game are more of a nuisance than stressful.  My only problem with dragon attacks is that all of them are violent retards.  They zoom about and will waste time chasing elk or burning wolves and mudcrabs to death rather than fight me straight up.

I also hate it when dragons attack a town when I first arrive and fuck up the NPC dialogue.  This is what happens when you don't have cutscenes your game.  Later on in the game, dragons have the annoying habit of efficiently and effectively killing all of the non-essential NPCs in a town if you are not careful.

This is why I try to time it so that every so often I fast travel to the usual dragon spawn points on the road and smoke them out in the wild.  High Gate Ruins near Morthal  is my favorite dragon ambush point since there is usually a snowy saber cat, snow bear, or a giant there to help me kill the fucking thing.  Whomever wins the fight gets poisoned arrows to the dome and then I sell their shit or make leather out of their pelts.

Fighting a dragon near High Gate Ruins is still a gamble because the dragon may aggro on the Imperial Legionnaires at the nearby camp and slaughter them all... including the horses.

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One of my biggest sources of annoyance is that the dragons are unbelievably swingy.  I had a female Nord I was playing a while ago before I zoinked Orchendor into The Dead Zone, and I swear to Elvis, Tupac, and Biggie that I got attacked 90% of the times that I *could* have been attacked (other than places like Falkreath). 

Started playing Snake McSphincterson?  No.  Goddamn.  Attacks.  I usually wait until I have Smithing/Enchanting both about to pop 100 before finally completing Bleak Falls Barrow with a big fat frowny face the whole time, but since then, I've been attacked only where they pretty much have to spawn, like the places in Solstheim.  I might have had *one* attack me at Tel Mithryn.  NONE - not a single fucker - at the College, which is a good spot for them, after getting ALL THE DRAGONS at the College on the previous lady.  And so I had to clear out the actual word walls to get enough smithing components.  Make me actually, I dunno, play the game or something, little assholes...

Edited by Contentious C
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  • 3 weeks later...

Well this is exciting.

The Skywind Project is a port of Morrowind with Skryrim: SE remastering.   It will only be available on PC thanks to console ports not having the Skyrim Script Extender fully enabled.   You'll need to have TES3 / Bloodmoon / Tribunal or TES3 GotY edition as well as Skryim: SE already installed on your PC in order for Skywind to run properly.

No word on any release dates, but this thing may scratch your TES itch until Bethesda releases the next TES game in ten or so years or something.

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So, we all agree that there is some Daedrirc level shady shit going on in Rorikstead that is probably an aborted side quest, right?   Two mothers died at child birth and the bountiful harvests are a result of the "blessings of the gods?" 

7dnfgO.gif

It annoys me that I can't just stab Jouane in the chest and make everything better between Lemkil and his twin daughters.  From the sound of the conversation between Jouane and Rorik in the tavern, Rorik has no fucking clue what is up.  The Breton is totally fucking suspect.

I also think that Reldith is probably involved, but I dislike most Altmer in general, except for Jarl Siddgeir's steward, Nenya, and Runil, the priest of Arkay in Falkreith.

It feels like this was supposed to be a part of the quest involving Clavicus Vile before his artifact quest got shoehorned into the Falkreath content.

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Lod the Blacksmith:  I am loyal to Dengeir.  He is a good man and a true friend.

Dengeir of Stuhn:  I think Lod is a traitor.  Break into that asshole's house and steal that private letter for me.

Edited by J.T.
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Lots of talk online that they may be adding in a revised creation club/some new form of paid mods. Supposedly would be modeled after Minecraft's system.

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  • 3 weeks later...
On 5/26/2023 at 5:14 PM, cwoy2j said:

I actually just started Elder Scrolls Online. Anyone else here play that? If so, any tips?

Oddly enough, lots of the tips that work for the RPG also work for the MMO as far as min-maxing by pairing up races with the classes that their abilities will best support aka Breton / Altmer casters, Redguard / Nord/ Orc fighters, Khajiit / Bosmer stealths, and Argonian / Imperial hybrids.

Also you will have to find a happy medium between Stamina and Health.  Be stamina heavy if you want to be a DD or DoT melee (Nightblade / Ranger / Rogue) and focus on Health if you want to be more of a pure tank. 

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  • 1 month later...

I had WAAAAAAY too much SSD space tied up with Skyrim save games, so I decided to delete a bunch.  Man, I have had a lot of playthroughs.

Some of the winning names I've selected:

QWOP the Totally Homely

Jonas Whalecum (for the Dave Attell fans)

David S. Pumpkins (natch)

Fuckface McGee (aka my go-to for Fallout 4, since Codsworth will happily call you, "Miss Fuckface!")

And of course my most recent playthrough, Snake McSphincterson. 

There is something wrong with me.

Edited by Contentious C
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  • 2 months later...

More like Elder Scrolls: Buy Todd Howard's Castle for Him, Because There's One in Ellicott City That Gets Used for Kink Events and Owning It Is the Only Way He Can Get Invited.

Whew, that was awfully specific, wonder where that came from.

Edited by Contentious C
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  • 2 months later...
  • 2 weeks later...
On 12/6/2023 at 10:34 AM, J.T. said:

Two weeks on and I still can't play anything because this update broke like several thousand mods, also all my saves read as corrupted and the game won't keep me logged into the Creations section so I can't even properly save a load order.

That's good shit, pal

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Sounds like a feature, not a bug: if you can't p(l)ay our way, you won't at all!  Fuckfaces.

EDIT: Turns out my version of the game still plays, after updating SKSE.  I don't have a ton of mods anyway: none of the texture stuff, very little quest-related anything.  I mostly just try to delay DG/DB starts to later points in the game, and use the Run-Away mods that hopefully get merchants to quit fighting dragons to my dismay. 

And left-hand rings.  Because I am a dirty, dirty, dirty cheater.

So naturally I picked up where I left off with Snake McSphincterson at Level 179, creamed my way through the back half of Volskygge, blasted Volsung into another galaxy, grabbed his mask, and promptly got bored again.

Edited by Contentious C
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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 1 month later...

I realized at some point that even small, valuable, productive "Creations" like the USSEP break achievements (and yes, there's a mod for that, but all my mods had been acting a little funky lately), so...uh, yeah.  I started another new character.  Another new character named Bob Newhart, at that. 

I'm to Level 56 and back to creaming my way through the game with Free Magic Cheese.  For anyone curious, hopefully the following section does someone some good: If you want to use the Fortify Restoration exploit to get yourself some Fortify Enchant potions that are in the 300%+ increase range (aka, where 25% reduction becomes 100+% for magic), then you're looking for a Fortify Restoration potion in the ~1700-2000% range (this is with 100 Alchemy & 4 gear pieces at max enchant/25% improved potions).  Some guides will tell you you're better off making a potion, drink, re-equip, make a second, and then Wait for 1 hour to erase the first potion's effects before drinking the second.  However, this is totally unimportant if all you're trying to do is make Fortify Enchant potions.  You just need 1 in the right range and then enough ingredients to make your 20 or 30+ Enchants.  

I had a potion around FR 1540s that ended up giving FE 292% - close but no cigar - and then a 2099% FR potion that gave me 345% FE.  The bumps for things like Sneak/Pickpocket/etc. were around 215% with that, which are not bad.  I usually end up with 322% Fort. Enchants that give about 171% on Sneak, et al.  Of course, you can manipulate the potions to go as high as you want, but it's really unnecessary; anything enchanted beyond those sorts of limits is so high an already far-too-easy game becomes even duller.

But the truly goofy thing I did was knocking out all the Civil War achievements.  Man, oh man, the Civil War quest is the *fucking worst*, because it takes so much color and intrigue out of the game and it could have been *so* much more thought-provoking than it was.  You really are just better off ignoring it.  But, I did it, and I ousted Ulfric, and then Brunwulf Free-Winter was A-OK with me becoming a homeowner in Windhelm.  So, I bought Hjerim, and then....hmmm, I can't decorate my home?  This is strange.  *walks over* *unlocks the door* AW SHIT I haven't evicted the serial killer yet and THEY SOLD ME A MURDER HOUSE!  As that one lady in the Helgen scene says: "You Imperial bastards!"

Edited by Contentious C
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