Elder Scrolls V - Skyrim - Page 312

being made archmage after enrolling in mage college a few days prior

First to make it absolutely clear I'm playing on the medium difficulty as a mage, and I make no guarentee of this applying to harder difficulty modes or character set ups. I will be trying a second character as hard as I can set it next, and I'll report back on that then. For now I'd just be guessing so I'm writing this from the experience of Adept mode Mage.

So I just fought my first ~40 type dragon and damn those things have a lot of health....and the ability to chew you up and throw you off a cliff while you still have around 200 health...

But still, I have to say as much as I still enjoy the occasional dragon fight the ai is too easy to beat on them. Avoiding their attacks, especially with the rediculously overpowered Impact ability in the Destruction tree (more on that later) and the fact that standing to the side of them basically makes you invincible. The increase in health and damage isn't accompanied with new abilities or better ai, it's just a case of "now it takes a little longer". Again, it's still fun, but they haven't held the same charm since around level 15. If you've played the game up until your 2nd Blood Dragon game, tell me you don't just see them as "I hope it lands somewhere I can hit it soon, some nice cash in those bones!". Tell me I'm just being cynical.

So on to my second biggest issue, which I've begun addressing already - Mages. The Mage system in this game is frankly awesome, and you can feel really powerful. Would maybe be cool if you could focus even more heavily in the necromancer side of things (I want a legion I tell you!), but besides that I have no real complains except when it comes to the scaling of the mana mechanic and the Destruction tree.

So first and as mentioned earlier, the Impact perk. This is a perk which will literally temporarily stun any opponent, of any size, doing anything, 100% of the time. If you've not experimented with this tree yet, think about that for a second. It's rediculous. I can literally take any enemy of any size, at any time, in any place 1 on 1 because all I have to do in the absolute worst case scenario is hit them with a dual cast spell they're not resistant too, wait for the stagger back to finish so they're able to move again and then do it again. Usually though an enemy staggered and thus having no way to defend themselves is going to die in that time though so it doesn't get to waiting for them to get back on their feet.

The second issue with Mages, while more general to the whole "class" (for lack of a better word) is magicka regen scaling, especially with mage gear. From 1-10 ish it sucks hard. From 10-20 it's well balanced. By the time you reach level 40 (only around half way to what I can apparently reach?) you are literally not going to run out of mana on all but the busiest of encampments or the absolute toughest of enemies - and even if you do one of your insta restore 150 mana pots will get you back in the fight in a moment, and given how rarely you use them and how often you find them it's not even an issue. That said, simply avoiding the next attack your opponent throws out is probably more than sufficient time to regen enough mana to destroy everything that might have somehow survived your first 400 mana. Speaking of mana...

...the spell system is completely ass backwards. On a per mana point basis the one up from base spells are thus far the most efficient by far, and are still doing more than enough damage fast enough for that to not be a concern. And yes, that does take in to accound having the correct "reduces cost" perks for the level of spell, though I'm yet to reach the Masters perk at 100 skill (4 off!) so maybe it'll make sense then. For the moment I'm literally still one shotting enemies with dual cast Firebolt on a regular basis, though the occasional stronger foe might take 2. By comparison why would I waste more mana on unreliable and less damage-per-cost spells, for the chance an aoe hit that usually won't catch anything at all? The simple answer is, I haven't been and unless something changes there's literally no reason to. This just feels broken.

Questing, bar the occasional frustrating bug (npc's under floors, quests bugged in quest log and hand in's needing to be remembered or looked up - not as part of the quest, but simply standard turn in's) is actually still quite fun. I've cleared a crap ton of dungeons and discovered over 150 locations so far and none of it has been the same or felt repetetive in and of itself. Seriously impressive given how much I've played. On the subject of questing - the civil war is a side quest. I mean, I get that in terms of playing the game, but that puts the enormous nature of the game in to perspetive where you taking a side and struggling to unite Skyrim is just a side quest. Also the Daedric involvement in the game is really well done, with the exception of one of them lifting you so far in to the air as to kill the graphical immersion in moments but that really is a minor complaint compared to how well done they are.

Companions are pretty good. They're good at dying to traps. They're good at blocking doorways. They're good at giving away your position. They're good at getting lost. They're *really* good at running in front of you as you attempt to launch a spell at your opponent. But seriously, I actually like my companion. She's got some really nice fully enchanted Ebony gear and is more than capable of holding her own in combat without me constantly having to make sure she doesn't die, and she seems to switch weapons intelligently as needed and apart from her minor issues I've mentioned I wouldn't be without her at this point.

So finally on to small general problems. The controls still feel a little under polished sometimes, especially in chat, though having played with them for a hell of a long time now they do seem to work fairly well on mouse and keyboard. Quest NPC's that are no longer ever going to be needed should be killable. Especially if the game gives the player the instruction to seek out and kill them. Convincing yourself not to exploit your way over or round a mountain through wall walking is actually a harder task than exploiting it. Chat should either be immediately cancelable or not be allowed to be forced on you during combat - EVER. To conclude this list though, a wish rather than a problem. I really want to be able to see how much weight each section of my inventory is using. Would make remembering tuff at vendors/making space/clearing potions a lot easier.

Now this post seems to come off a bit negative but anything I've not critised is, in my opinion, not worth being critical of. Overall this is still a really great game that I'm still going to be playing tomorrow and probably for a significantly longer period in to the future.

you get tasked by an mad(insane) wizard to find an elder scroll. COULD BE SICK