Almeida

Your dog companion nudged you off a cliff? That's it, I knew it! All the companions are sociopaths.

You guys aren't getting it - there is a difference between something being realistic and something being a worthwhile gaming feature. There's a problem when people 'yield' then try to stab you again six times in one fight, or every 3 or 4 enemies does it. It gets old and makes the feature look pointless. I just don't get why evil/always hostile enemies are coded to do it, and so often. The only time it has occurred and made sense in the entire time I've played the game was in a boxing match... and then my companion whacked the yielding foe in the back with an axe anyway. Companions seem to ignore yield, which was a large part of my problem. Why code something into the game if it never leads to anything because 99% of the time it's a ruse and if you have a companion near you they will just kill the opponent anyway? As I said, the feature's half-baked. Good idea, poorly executed.

I do sheath my weapon, I think I mentioned that. Maybe I forgot. Anyway, the enemy just takes a breath then gets up and swings at me again, putting me at risk. Considering it appears a good quarter of human enemies yield and I have not once come across one who doesn't immediately attack again even when I reciprocate, I reserve the right to continue calling this 'feature' half-baked. How often do you come across enemies who are not immediately hostile anyway? Why are they yielding when they will attack you again every single time? It's just messy.

So it's not just me, this is how yield is supposed to work - by not doing anything at all? I hate to come off as yet another nitpicker, but the number of half-baked features I am coming across are starting to sour me on Bethesda a bit. Mods will fix it all, I'm sure, but since when was it our job as a community to do all the work of ironing out balance issues, graphical glitches and dead-end features that seem coded for and then not really utilised?

I have put a fair number of hours into the game now and I have noticed that often human enemies near death will lay low and call out that they yield. Yet if I have a companion of any sort, they will continue to slay them mercilessly. At first I thought this was just because I happened to have partnered up with complete sociopaths who kill without hesitation, but I have found that while alone I cannot seem to do anything with a yielding enemy. I can't talk to them, they just take a breather then stand up and keep trying to kill me. So what's the point in yielding?

Bethesday said they have procedurally generated quests in the game, so I'd imagine this is going to be infinite and is just a way to grind some skills and cash. If you've completed the Companions storyline, I'd be surprised if the faction has more for you to do.

Isn't that a bit of an issue though, since the game allows you to try to make a living doing certain activities (smithing, for instance)? If you're crafting lots of armour or something, you will inevitably be grinding smithing, and then you are to be penalised for it? I wish Bethesda would give up on the level scaling nonsense. I understand they want players to continue to have a challenge at high levels, but requiring forty whacks with an enchanted axe to take down a mudcrab is not the answer. Looking forward to a mod that deals with that, though their efforts this time appear more restrained as I haven't yet had the nightmare of glass-armour bandits appearing.

I made a female high-elf thief. Training a lot in sneak and archery, not so much in pickpocketing so far but it is easy enough to loot people and places so far, as long as I am decent with a lockpick. I was hoping to have a sort of seductive diplomat kind of character, someone who can talk their way into and out of just about anything and thus can use the opportunity to steal rare and precious items, but the perk system has me spread really thin trying to support archery, pickpocketing, sneaking, one-handed for daggers, light armour, alchemy for poisons, AND speechcraft, plus probably a couple of others I have forgotten about and any of the schools of magic if I want to be able to do anything remotely magey. There's a lot of stuff to balance if I want to be the character I envision, but I quickly run out of road with my main skills' perks when requirements jump from about 20 to 40 or 50.

I fell about 30 feet, not super high at all, and the thing died, threw me off, and I rolled all the way down the damn hill and died at the bottom. Bloody horse. The question of 'what is it good for' reminds me of a song. The answer's the same - absolutely nuthin'.

I like the game and have not come across the significant problems that some others have. My machine does not really meet the recommended requirements (close, but the CPU and graphics card are both slightly weak) and yet runs at a decent framerate on Ultra, which looks gorgeous. I do not have a huge monitor (22" I think) so the resolution isn't obscene but I really do not see the issues people are having with the game looking ugly. Some rock textures are surprisingly rough, but I'd say 97% of what I see is beautiful. I have also been fortunate enough to not have frequent crashes, just one CTD and one weird freeze, which is of course annoying but sadly is pretty darn good for a modern vanilla PC game, particularly from Bethesda. My main complaint would be the interface, which is awkward, counterintuitive and rather unresponsive. I'm not usually one to bleat about console vs PCs or things of that nature, and I don't really care if a game is a console port or not, so long as it's good and enjoyable. The interface, however, does bother me, because it very clearly is not suited to people used to keyboard and mouse combos in RPGs and is blatantly Bethesda not even thinking about the PC audience. That's aggravating and insulting, and while I am sure it will be tweaked in the not-too-distant future, it betrays a rather poor attitude toward customers Bethesda already irritated by asking them to pay far more than normal for a PC version of a game they clearly have not spent any extra time or resources tailoring to the platform. Long story short - good game with some avoidable headaches that should have been caught long before now. Still a very worthwhile experience.