CalibanX

Okay, I found another thing. I've been doing a lot of ranged stealth shots and I get the "2.5 stealth damage" bouns appearing in the corner of the screen. So, I decided to get the Ninja perk which adds additional stealth damage, but now, I'm still getting the same 2.5 stealth damage bonus I was getting before I had the Ninja perk. Something is off methinks...

Oh yeah. I also have terrible shadow stripping problems outdoors. Even worse than Skyrim. It was a bummer to see that again.

I've had two instances of truly heartbreaking bug. Two times my best weapon has completely disappeared from my inventory. Both instances were right after upgrading the item at a work station. This isn't the temporarily invisible weapon bug. These items were completely removed from my inventory! Horrible! I'm aftraid to use workstations now.

I feel bummed. I'm a total Bethesda fan and have loved thier games in the past, but I'm having a really hard time enjoying this new game. The controls feel so awkward to me, the UI is even more painful to use than it was in Vanilla Fallout 3. There's no tutorials for anything and I'm just wandering around without enough ammo to kill anything and getting killed. I've never had this problem before. Maybe I'm just too old now. Anyway, I can't wait for the heroic modders to swoop in and save the day. I just got this game today and I'm already missing Skyrim. I'm genuinely confused why this isn't grabbing me as my favorite thing about past Bethesda games was the exploration.

It's really weird. My last save disappeared and if I attempt to fast travel it transports me back to my initial location. If I try to walk out of the main gate of whiterun the game puts me back in whiterun instead of outside. Something is very wrong with my game. I can't fast travel or leave any location my character loads into from a previous save. Wtf?

I did not know that. :) I'll give it a try. Thanks for the help!

Drats! I can't seem to isolate the right shadow settings in my ini to fix the wavy lines. Does anyone have a list of their stable shadow settings from their ini that I could try?

Well, first, I'd recommend trying Requiem as suggested above. It's a solid overhaul mod that has a huge following. It's worth checking out. For combat & magic, I'm using these mods: Immersive Difficulty Levels Duel Immersive Loot Better Enemy AI Proper Magic Minimalist Magic Overhaul Lore Mongering Beasts Another Food Mod Armor Rating-What you see if what you get

There are lots of great combat overhaul mods out there. A general problem I find with many of them is that while the greater challenge is initally a breath of fresh air; eventually, I get worn down by the sheer tedium of "hardcore" combat. It's one thing to have to hit a Dragon 100 times with your two-handed battle axe to bring it down, they are, after all, huge behemoths, but 80% of the combat in Skyrim is against human-sized opponents. When it takes 50 hits with a battle axe to fell a bandit or mage it starts to feel ridiculously tedious to me. So, I prefer using mods that change the difficulty in ways that allow me to play at Adept Level. Higher difficulty levels = more hits to kill an opponent. The balance, is trying to mod your game so that you aren't one-hitted by archers but still have challenging opponents. I'm currently using a very small mod that makes the enemies you encounter be at a higher level with another unleveled loot mod. The single biggest exploit in skyrim combat is the ability to pause the game and chug healing potions. By removing this one exploit, even on vamilla, you will get a much more satisfying challnege since every enemy in Skyrim can be defeated if you have enough healing potions. Playing without them really makes a big difference. I use food mods that buff my stats for a while rather than heal damage for instance. Good luck!

I'm hoping the next series will focus on a non-human race. I loved what the artists did with Skyrim. The place feels like a cold, rough place yet still has distinct geographic regions, and differrent exprestions of Nord culture in the various cities. I'm a gamer who savours these kinds of details and still enjoy playing Skyrim 2 years after it's release. Still, it would be great to see an older, more mysterious culture like the Altmer fully developed by Bethesda's art department. I'm crossing my fingers for something non-human so they can really run with an alien culture unrestrained by the more typical, human cultures.

Thanks again for the help Renn. I run my settings pretty high. I probably did change my ini long ago as I used to experiment with all kinds of different ENB mods, however, I've been playing wihout any ENB the last few months as I decided I preffered silky smoothe performance over ENB effects. So, I've been experimenting with non ENB lighting overhaul mods. I'm currently using Realistic Lighting Overhaul and I'm pleased with it. I'll look into that mod and see if I can find what the shadow ini's should be set at. I'm at work now, so I'll have to do that later. Thanks!

I'm having the same issue this person was. Screenshots included in link. It's weird. I checked my gamma and have it set in the middle. Thanks for the input. :) Any other ideas? http://skyrimforums.org/threads/wavy-lines-on-everything.35111/

I'm getting this new visual bug where, about 10 feet around my character, the ground gets these wavy lines on it. If I go into an interior dungeon and cast a Candlelight spell the way lines affect is greatly intensified. At first I thought it was a return of the shadow stripping bug, but I don't think it is as I have the mod that fixes that. Any idea what could be causing this? Thanks!

Looks terrific! Dawnguard didn't interest me, but I'll definitely by buying this one. Yea for January! :)

Any strategy you pick is doeable with enough Potions on hand. With potions, you never really have to worry about builds, if you have enough Healing/Magica/Stamina potions you will always be fine. That's why I now don't use them. It makes the game a lot more interesting. In general, Mages problem solve by having a variety of spell options to deal with different kinds of enemies & scenarios. So, don't get stuck doing the same tactic for every fight. Some fights will go a lot easier if you can Summon an Atronach or Fury your enemies to fight each other. Almost all variations of Battle Mage are really good at most combats cuz they're not helpless when their Magicka runs out. Don't sweat it. Just charge it with spells blazing and switch to one handed when you have to and things will probably go your way more often than not. :)

I've been thinking about High Elves and the Thalmor lately. And about Archer builds. I imagine that the High Elves would, next to magic, have an aesthetic preference for archery above other martial arts. It's elegant, ranged and not as messy and vulgar as close quarters melee combat. Archery just seems so much more suited for the non-Magic using High Elves. Using Archery and ranged magic is an expression of their distaste and condescension of other races. Their enemies are not to be dealt with up close with barbaric Axes and furs. That would assume that they stand as equals with the filthy barbarians on the field of combat. Dispatching the uncouth dullards from afar would be the natural inclination for the High Elf mentality. For this reason, I think it would be cooler if the Thalmor Inquisitors in Skyrim were accompanied by Archers instead of Sword wielders. Also, an Austere Archer would not lower themselves to crouching or trying to be stealthy, so they would be very different in play style from their hunting-expert Wood Elf cousins. Has anyone out there made a High Elf (non-stealthy) Archer character? Was it viable?

Lots of folks use various Economy mods that makes buying and selling in Skyrim much tougher. For us, we are not swimming in extra gold. Yet, I agree that 10 Gold for a night at an Inn does seem a little too cheap. What I'd like is a mod that simply changes the base Inn Prices from 10 Gold a night to 25 Gold with the exception of the 5 largest Holds (Whiterun, Solitude, Markarth, Riften and Windhelm) raising their prices to 50 Gold per night to account for the greater demand that would occur in cities.

My idea for my next character is this: Female High Elf who only uses Lockpicking, Speechcraft, Enchanting & Alteration. Uses no armor, no fast travel (except carriages) no consumables, Potions or Poisons and fights only with Daggers. This was the concept I came up with for a super gimped character. I like the idea of playing an awkward character who's skills don't usefully fit into the usual niches of magic/stealth/melee. This should be interesting. Does anyone else have super gimped characters they've tried playing with?

Did you get approached by a courier and given the letters needed to start the quest? Cause that won't happen for me. Yeah. I was walking through Winterhold when the courier ran up to me. I'm very important. I have lots and lots of mods running too.

I got it right away. 5 bucks? Hell yeah. Although my character is broke right now. I suspect I'll have to wait a while before being able to afford this new house.

I was obsessed with Oblivion for years. It was my fav game. Now it's Skyrim. I tried going back to Oblivion, but everything just felt so dated. Core gameplay elements like melee combat felt especially primitive compared to the sorts of things one can do in Skyrim. I have very fond memories of Oblivion, but now it just feels silly going back to those awkward looking characters & stiff animations.

To answer your question, I usually play fighters because there's a lot of variety there. I like the Axes best. Both 2 and 1 handed. They don't feel as slow and clumsy as Maces & Hammers nor as light and swishy as swords & daggers. With every build I make I try to do something that I haven't done before. Turns out I never go around to doing a battle mage that uses Destruction, so I'm trying that out now. I'm also making him look like myself which is fun too. The character before this one I made to look like my girlfriend. I do suffer from restartitis. Usually I end up retiring a character in the low 20's. Then a make another, different one. With my newest one, I want to try to take him further into the 40's. We'll see how that goes. I'm thinking some fights will be really tough without out Potions (Dragon Preists, etc.)

Dude! I LOVE Liar's Retreat! That place is one of the few super challenging fights in Skyrim. Way tougher than a mere Dragon. I think with my first Stealth-Mage, I snuck in and cast Fury on the Falmer to fight each other, then Calm to make some go away, then run around like a chicken downing tons of healing & magic pots while setting the whole place on fire. Good times. :)

I think I know what you mean about Mages. They're damage output isn't great and they're squishy. That's why my current battle mage wears light armor and wields an axe in the other hand. Although, I do enjoy some of the other Magic skills though. Illusion is a hell of a lot of fun to use tactically. Making your enemies fight each other is amusing even at high levels. Conjuration is really useful and the Bound Weapons it provides are much better than anything you're likely to find at low to mid level. Still, despite it's flaws, the one thing I really like in Destruction is the Runes. They are super fun to lay down and they do decent damage too. That being said, I'm usually drawn to the non-magic using character builds too.

Well, I've made it to Level 10 I think without using a single Potion or Poison and it has so made my gameplay MUCH more enjoyable. My character is a battle mage that's 80% Mage/20% fighter. With the mods I have, everything has been going really good. Lower level enemies consume my Magicka before I dispatch them and bosses kill me three or four times before I can figure out how to take them out. Which is just how I like it. If you haven't tried doing this, I recommend giving it a try. It feels like a welcome breath of fresh air. Turning to healing & magicka potions when facing a harder opponent now feels like a cheap short cut instead thinking about how you can change your tactics to win. Although, at Level 10 I haven't fought any Dragon Priests yet and had to run away when 3 Saber tooth tigers were chasing me. But overall, I'm REALLY digging my new character & No Potions play style. Try it! :)