quote:Originally posted by Aros: The PS3 version was so laggy. . . . I ended up buying a solid state drive. Smooth as silk. One of my load times (coming out of the Arch-mage's quarters) was under 1 second.
Awesome.
This link shows a couple guys putting a SSD in a PS3, and finding absolutely no difference in speeds for saving, installing, and loading. I wonder if Skyrim accesses the hardware in a different way that allows the load times to decrease with a SSD.
Posts: 684 | Registered: Aug 2001
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quote:Originally posted by Aros: The PS3 version was so laggy. . . . I ended up buying a solid state drive. Smooth as silk. One of my load times (coming out of the Arch-mage's quarters) was under 1 second.
Awesome.
This link shows a couple guys putting a SSD in a PS3, and finding absolutely no difference in speeds for saving, installing, and loading. I wonder if Skyrim accesses the hardware in a different way that allows the load times to decrease with a SSD.
With the older games that weren't constantly accessing the hard drive, that was true (your link was from 2009). In late 2010, Tom's Hardware and a few other sites posted that more intensive games, specifically the new Gran Turismo, loaded twice as fast.
I was only having a little lag too, at first. But, as a lot of PS3 users are reporting, it gets worse and worse as your save file grows. I was to the point where I had to reboot my PS3 once an hour to even keep it playable. Every time I went into a new area it was a good 15 seconds before I could even move.
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I'm finding the load times on the 360 pretty aggrivating. Lately I've kept a book next to me on the couch to read when moving in and out of dungeons/buildings/whathaveyou.
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I still find that my pc load times are so fast that I honestly have not managed to read 90% of the load screen texts. I mean, talk about the right kind of problem to have ..
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quote:Originally posted by Jake: I'm finding the load times on the 360 pretty aggrivating. Lately I've kept a book next to me on the couch to read when moving in and out of dungeons/buildings/whathaveyou.
Really? I don't think I ever had enough time to read anything during loading times.
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I'm really, REALLY enjoying the new character, because dual wielding combat is fun ... until you get enchanted/unique/smithed weapons and the default interface and keys bug out hard and you can't use hotkeys to re-equip twin weapons. Since I'm about to do that, I have to wait for mods. HAVE to.
Still, in exchange for twin weapons being unable to completely (sword and board) or partially (2h) block, you do horrendous amounts of damage, and the standing power attack with both weapons will kill bosses flat out in about 150 stamina.
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It's mostly too early, as I don't think the toolset is out there yet (I may be wrong, can't check from work). There are some mods, but they are mostly a few graphical tweaks and annoyance fixes. PC Gamer had an article about them.
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Initial assessment is that patch 1.2 has broken my PC version of the game.
Menu interface has gone from being annoying to non-functional, both with my 360 controller, and mouse and keyboard.
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I've heard from a lot of people that 1.2 broke the PS3 version as well. Super crashes, dragons flying backwards, loss of all magic resistance, etc.
I think I'll refrain from installing it until I hear more.
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My 1.2 patch for the ps3 is working perfectly. fixed the game lag that occured after a few hours continuous play. I am very happy with the game and the patch
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1.2 has broken a few things on the PC version. Particularly with the interface. Not prohibitively so for me, but annoyingly so.
I'm also getting the dragons flying backwards.
I'm no professional in the game development industry, but I must question Bethesda's PC testing department. They've worked on this patch for three weeks, and I played a whole ten minutes before I noticed things that were now broken.
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quote:Originally posted by Aros: Who has time for a second character? My first is barely to level 40!
Depends on whether you complete the game, I guess. I've been a bit of an altaholic. Only one character has gone much into the main quest, and none have completed it.
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quote:Originally posted by Aros: Who has time for a second character? My first is barely to level 40!
I like to play multiple characters. My sneak-thief Daedra worshiping Khajiit is 32, I have an Empire loving nordic princess around 15-20, and a couple of dick-mages around 10-15.
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dick-mages, eh? I once drank deep of the font of dick magic, but some say that power comes at a cost ..
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Anyone else notice that dragons difficulty is dependent on your level, but not true for trolls, so you can kill a dragon pretty easily, but trolls kick your ass the first 1/4 of the game?
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It's not true for basically any monster but dragons. Giants, trolls, wisp mothers, ice wraiths, etc... even Dragon shamans.
Also you can occasionally encounter ancient dragons when they are nigh unkillable (that fight took about four tries!) and you continue occasionally facing blood dragons even once stomping them becomes child's play.
I think my previous grumpiness at the amount of leveling was unfair. They do it pretty darn well. I still prefer less leveling than they did, but I acknowledge that if they made me happy it would probably piss off a lot more people than it pleased.
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I've just encountered a huge glitch that will require me to remake another character.
Basically, I was doing the main questline where you have to go and get a crown for Ulfrik. Then I went off to go do another quest for the greybeards. This particular quest involved getting the two warring factions to stop fighting. I went back to each side to convince them and they each agreed, but then when I went back up to see the greyboards they wouldn't talk to me. I tried everything but it was all for naught. Nothing worked at all. So then I went back and tried to finish the stormcloaks quest, thinking that if i did maybe it would fix it. Unfortunately, the guy with the quest wouldn't talk to me about anything except that he couldn't believe I convinced Ulfric to join the quest. So there you have it. Broken.
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I haven't looked it up, but I don't think any of the random dragons are scaled specifically to the PC, but they you simply start encountering them when your level hits the appropriate range-but the dragons don't continue keeping pace, once you top out at random Ancient Dragons.
I base this on my encounters-I never saw an Ancient or Elder Dragons in random fights early on, but the last six or so have been exclusively Ancient and Frost. Ancients used to be hair-raising, barely-make-it fights. Resist Fire potions were a must, because a steady sneeze of fire from one would kill me even before it finished exhaling.
Now, though, they no longer one-shot me with direct bite attacks, and their breath doesn't take me down near as much-I think they've topped out.
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All of the dungeons automatically level to you when you first enter. If you leave and return later, they're still leveled toward your first entrance -- monsters, loot, etc.
Outside, almost nothing is leveled except dragons.
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That's not accurate in my experience, Aros-the last bit I mean. In a given group of enemies, you'll likely find several non-leveled enemies such as bandits, Forsworn, but among them you'll probably see at least one or two Marauders and Ravagers.
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Maybe the number of enemies is leveled. I don't know, I'm just repeating what all of the sites (IGN, GameSpot, etc) have said.
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Anyone else have a glitchy dragon which just randomly flies around (often backwards) and won't land or engage around Mistwatch? Stop the danger music, there is no peril here!
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Looks like the mod dev kit will be released in January. I think I might stop playing until then.
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quote:Originally posted by Stone_Wolf_: Anyone else have a glitchy dragon which just randomly flies around (often backwards) and won't land or engage around Mistwatch? Stop the danger music, there is no peril here!
When I first met
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Parthanax
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he did this weird thing flying backwards into the sky indefinitely. While in dialogue, he kept going until he was a speck in the sky and I couldn't hear him.
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Yeah he did the same thing to me! Until I back out of the conversation. Then he landed and acted like nothing had happened.
Posts: 3580 | Registered: Aug 2005
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I have an unpatched game, so the backwards dragon problem (at least Re: Paarthurnax) is not unique to 1.2
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Sometimes the dragons don't have a good place to land or don't see anything they want to attack, so they eventually leave. Or I chase them down and take their souls. Whichever.
Posts: 5422 | Registered: Dec 2001
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I finally have a PC that can play Skyrim, and my PS3 recently died for the third time. No more reflows for it. I put it in the trash. I got the PC version for Skyrim and am enjoying the improved graphics. I do miss the controller, but that's about the only thing I miss from the PS3 version.
Definitely a cool game.
Posts: 684 | Registered: Aug 2001
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Thread necromancy, but I bought Skyrim on the recent Steam sale. No way was I going to spend 60 bucks on it when it came out, but getting the game for 8 bucks was a no-brainer.
I am liking the game a lot so far, but I'm afraid I am having "altitis". I have started a whole bunch of characters, but am just not sure what to stick with and play up all the way. This is a common problem for me in RP games like this. I've played the intro and the Bleak Falls Barrow quest at least five times already.
My farthest character is a Wood Elf archer/sneak. Which has been fun so far. But I keep thinking that maybe playing a mage would be more interesting.
I started a female Nord mage, and played it for a bit before I started reading tips and guide threads. Such threads led me to realize that the Nord race is the very worst one for a mage, having all their bonuses in combat skills.
But how big of a deal is it to start with a 15 in destruction as opposed to 25 like a dark elf? So far I haven't gotten a good feel for how much that matters. If it just means the beginning of the game is harder, and I'll eventually catch up, that's fine with me. But if it means that I'll be gimping myself through the entire play-through, that's another story.
I tried starting a dark elf spell caster for the 25 stat, but I just couldn't get into it. I prefer the look of Nord females, and I enjoy the feeling of fighting for my character's homeland...
Posts: 5656 | Registered: Oct 1999
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I think ultimately the game lets you get away with whatever build you go for. If you can get your mind to accept that mechanically your Nord mage isn't optimized or even competitive then you should have fun.
For me personally it would drive me nuts knowing my racials don't synch with what my class does.
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quote: If you can get your mind to accept that mechanically your Nord mage isn't optimized or even competitive then you should have fun.
I am fine with my character not being optimized. But what does it mean that they aren't "even competitive"?
If it means that I'll often wish I was playing a build that didn't suck, then no, I am not okay with that. But if it just means that a different character can clear content 10% faster or something, then who cares.
What I need help with, I suppose, is knowing just how much better a DarkElf/HighElf/Breton is than a Nord at being a mage. And if a Nord mage is going to be fun or if it'd be frustrating.
Posts: 5656 | Registered: Oct 1999
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The skill modifiers are ultimately not a huge deal. You can still get to 100 in the magic schools you want. The permanent active and passive abilities (e.g. Cold resist) are somewhat more so.
So if you weren't picking a race with a relevant permanent buff (Altmer or maybe Breton, basically. Dunmer racials don't help magicking directly) anyway then you might as well go Nord.
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Darn, it looks like I missed out on the $8 deal. I still don't want to pay $30, because I'm sure I won't end up playing it enough.
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Once I maxed out destruction, summoning, smithing, enchanting and light armor I was basically immortal. I started playing with heavy weapons and armor for fun, because it was so hard to hurt me anyway through the maxed out armor and enchantments. So it doesn't matter that one alt is this, or another is that, just play one and put time into any skill you want or need at one time and you can pretty much be all the things.
The Dragonborn content was fun, but the civil war was lacking. I had to realize that I had finished it all, because nothing had changed in any way that matters and I was expecting something more drastic. Like the destruction of the bomb town in Fallout 3, you made a choice and lived with it. Skyrims war ended with a whimper not a yell.
I found the house dlc to be lacking, but I would have probably appreciated having it to use and build up over the course of overall game rather than a half a morning project to see the features several weeks after Skyrim had left my disc drive.
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quote: If you can get your mind to accept that mechanically your Nord mage isn't optimized or even competitive then you should have fun.
I am fine with my character not being optimized. But what does it mean that they aren't "even competitive"?
I just meant that if two Xaviers were playing the two builds identically, the optimized build would outpace the suboptimal one.
As I said, the game lets you get away with builds, I would fully expect a Nord Mage to be able to get through the entire game without any real difficulty.
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quote:If it means that I'll often wish I was playing a build that didn't suck, then no, I am not okay with that. But if it just means that a different character can clear content 10% faster or something, then who cares.
What I need help with, I suppose, is knowing just how much better a DarkElf/HighElf/Breton is than a Nord at being a mage. And if a Nord mage is going to be fun or if it'd be frustrating.
Some of this depends on the difficulty level. In Skyrim (and most Bethesda games, if memory serves) difficulty level is entirely based on 'they hit harder, you hit softer'. So for example a Breton's...I forget the term now, racial ability includes a flat magic resistance and a once-daily major short boost to magic resistance.
If you're playing on normal and more or less skilled at these style games, lacking that bonus won't make much difference-especially since as a mage you'll be able to level up two different skills (one spell school, one item creation) to emulate exactly that ability. So having a Nord's frost resistance won't be as good as a Breton's magic resistance, but it'll still be handy (lots of things do frost).
Posts: 17164 | Registered: Jun 2001
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The point value for the skills you start with is almost completely irrelevant. Most racials are completely irrelevant and you will rarely ever use them, especially if your game is unmodded and it's too much work to tab over to, say, Ancestor's Wrath in the middle of a fight.
Many are only somewhat relevant (i.e., Dunmer fire resistance and Nord frost resistance are both very helpful when fighting their respective half of all dragons) and only a scant few elements of your race really do seriously matter so much as to make that race clearly better.
Every race works for anything you want to do with it. Only two races have a 'competitive' 'optimized' advantage I would ever really care about. Beyond that, every race is competitive.
Posts: 15421 | Registered: Aug 2005
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for the curious, only Altmer or Breton come packing noteworthy "optimized" character enhancements. Breton's stock 25% magic resistance is nuts, and Altmer give you, to start, the equivalent of spending five levels on Madjecdkjicka increases
Posts: 15421 | Registered: Aug 2005
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quote:Originally posted by scifibum: Darn, it looks like I missed out on the $8 deal. I still don't want to pay $30, because I'm sure I won't end up playing it enough.
There's going to be another winter sale later in the year. Either that or very early next year.
From what I've heard, the sale prices will be identical to the one that just passed.
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