MidevalGuy

There is an abandoned, run down house with a bed close to the Watchtower where you fight your first dragon. It's south of the city on the main road...

Translation: I have an agenda, I am going to force that agenda whether you like or not because my ego demands validation. Have fun with your intellectual masturbation thread. The rest of us have real lives to live.

Skyrim considers two handed weapons to be broad swords, only. Broad swords traditionally required two hands, but as you pointed out, smaller, light weight swords e.g. Katanas, can also be wielded with one, or two hands as well So, you are pretty much left with going with what the game offers you unless there is a mod that allows for faster swings with two handed weapons?

In my opinion, subtitles are a must for non-native English speakers and because in fantasy games like Skryim, a lot of the lore vernacular is foreign, so having it spelled out (literally) makes certain things easier to understand and helps with immersion. This goes double if you are a visual learner, too. The most common flaws with voiced mods are... 1) The recording equipment used Nine times out of ten the voices were recorded with cheap gaming headsets/mics. You can tell because it has a very muffled quality compared to professional, or prosumer recording equipment. 2) Poor post-processing and compression. Amateurs don't realize different environments have different acoustic properties. So, if a character is in a cave, their voice should echo. If they are outdoors, the voice should be mixed in relation to ambient back ground noises e.g. other people, the clang of the blacksmith hammer, the thud of the ax cutting wood, the chirp of nearby birds, etc. The reason amateurs take these acoustics for granted is because professional sound engineers and foley artists already took these factors into account when recording and then mixing the dialogue. Did you ever wonder why some guild members are not programmed as followers e.g. Vex, Delvin, Astrid, et al? That's because they are written for a specific environment... The subterranean Rataway, or dungeon Sanctuary ... So, all their dialogue is easy to mix because they are in ONE location. They get around this with Serana by having her commentary be whisper-like and not overly pronounced. So, her comments work no matter where (inside, outside, cave, house, etc) she and the player may be. 3) The people doing the voices are not voice actors This is the most obvious one, but it's because they aren't professionals and don't know how to "act". Voice acting is a profession unto itself and requires even more talent and training than normal acting because voice actors have one tool to express thousands of emotions whereas normal actors can use their entire body to express different emotions. Most of the amateurs doing voice over for custom NPCs over act, under act (not emotion in the performance), or emphasize the wrong things because they aren't acting and don't know how to process the emotions they are supposed to be conveying. They are just reading lines. Acting is not pretending. Acting is becoming a character and being in a specific moment in time when they say that particular line of dialogue. This is why voice acting is harder than normal acting because voice actors have to be the character through voice, tone and inflection only without any other cues.

Never mind.

I also don't like ENB because of the performance hit, and I have a pretty beefy machine. The alternative to ENB is SweetFX. I think the SweetFX presets are better because they tweak basic things like contrast, luminescence, etc... The same things ENB does... But it uses different post-processing and rendering methods than ENB does. So, there is less of a performance hit, but the same amount of eye candy, and then some. SweetFX is based off the Submorphical anti-aliasing injector (SMAA) that allows you to give games that have no native AA... Like Unreal engine games... AA that looks like 6x and 8x, but with the performance hit of 2x and 4x.

Remember, the Tropical Skyrim overhaul is visual only. It's just window dressing over the original game. Hence, why the NPCs still complain about the cold e.g. "Hey, conjurer. Why don't you conjure me up a warm bed and some mead?" Frostfall builds onto the original game's setting and is suited for a very arctic and cold environment, obviously. In my opinion, the best way to play Frostfall is with the Snow overhaul since that doesn't effect the mod, but it adds more immersion due to snow actually covering the entire environment unlike the vanilla game.

Simple mods like the ones mentioned above just make the game more logical and less daunting, too. Even if you have played the game ten times, the default system just clutters up your quest journal and isn't even logical for certain character types if you are a hardcore role player. Why would a mage join the Fighter's Guild a.k.a. The Companions? Why would a warroir who hates magic visit, let alone join the College of Winterhold? Why would a good paladin join the Thieves Guild, or Dark Brotherhood? I know the technical reason is so players can do multiple play throughs with different characters and not have to go searching for ways into these quests, but the way the vanilla game goes about introducing you to these various factions is illogical because even if you hear a rumor about something doesn't mean you'll necessarily pursue it, right? There is also a mod called "Destroy the Thieves Guild" which should have been in the game from the start, IMO. Again, it helps hard core (and even general) role playing because why would a good character join an organization like that? They would probably go out of their way to avoid, or if forced to, destroy them like this mod allows. There are also other mods that put statistical player limitations on joining certain factions, too. One of them requires you to have actual thieving stats (sneak, pickpocket) at certain levels before Brynijof will even approach you... Unlike how it is scripted in the vanilla game where he approaches you during the main quest when going to Riften to find Esbern. The underlying element of choice & freedom is what these kinds of mods bring (back) to the vanilla game.

To add to what djjohnjarvis wrote... You can tell Skyrim what folder to save your save games in by adjusting the Skyrim.ini in your Documents\My Games\Skyrim\Saves folder: You can create another folder (your character's name) and then move all your saves into it and then change the .ini file so it reads... [General] SLocalSavePath=Saves\<CHARACTER NAME>\sLanguage=ENGLISH Just move all of the saves with your character's name into this folder. This is a good way to manage multiple characters/profiles without the fear of overriding master saves and autosaves. NOTE: Do not delete the Prisoner folder, or any saves that have "Prisoner" in them. This is the default save the game uses right before you use the RaceMenu to choose and name your character. It is the best way to start a new game because it skips the long carriage ride to Helgen, too. So, make sure you do all of this AFTER you have chosen your race and named your character. Just change the ini file and move all of the saves associated with your character into the character name folder and you should be good to go.

If you use the Nexus Mod Manager it should be as easy as... 1) Download. 2) Click to install. 3) Play the game. If the mod author(s) have done a good job making an installation package, it may even have certain things you need to check off like owning just the vanilla game, or DLC compatibles.

http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/141/? <-- Skyrim Flora Overhaul http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/3288/? <-- Lush Trees & Grass There was another (more recent) grass mod called "Dat Grass", but it has since been made unavailable here at the Nexus :(

There is mod called "Timing is Everything" and it includes ALL the major quests and DLCs. Players can decide at what level and where in the main quest the Dragonborn cultists start attacking (as well as Vampire and Werewolf/Werebear attacks, too). It's a must have mod for fresh play throughs because I set Dragonborn to start AFTER the last quest of the main story "Dragonslayer". This makes much more sense (to me) just like having Dawnguard and vampire attacks start after you've finished Dragonborn. There is also another mod that disallows any quests and subquests to be automatically activated unless you specifically engage in dialogue with certain NPCs. So, when you arrive at Whiterun and find Alea and the companions fighting the giant at the farm, the miscellaneous quest "Join the Companions" will NOT be added to your journal unless you select very specific dialog in her dialog tree. This goes for other things like the civil war ("Join the Imperial Legion/Join the Stormcloak Rebellion") and all quests that are automatically added to your quest journal just by hearing about it from NPCs. Also... I find Skyrim is the only RPG where it actually takes a couple of play throughs to understand how the game works (or doesn't work!) behind-the-scenes, so you can plan your character build(s) to be more effective in combat. The console versions are flat out broken. For example, the magic system doesn't scale with the player's level. So, if you transition to the PC from consoles without knowing this, you probably don't know why you aren't doling out better damage at higher levels like warriors (including stealth and archer) can. Broken game play like this requires a mod that scales magic and/or overhauls the magic system/perks to improve it, but... Like I wrote, a lot of new players might not know this if they are just playing the vanilla game and only using mods that don't change core game play mechanics like this. Another aspect of the default magic system is it is counter-intuitive because most people think having a larger magicka pool means being able to cast more powerful spells. So, if playing a mage, they logically put a lot of points in magicka when leveling up, but then they don't know why their spells aren't doing better damage (regardless of skill level progression) AND are draining thir magicka to almost nothing in combat. The real "goal" of a mage in Skyrim is the amount of magicka used when casting spells, but this is a very counter-intuitive concept when play the game the first few times. Most other games do this kind of resource management for the player e.g. in military shooters, you don't have to worry about your weapon NOT doing more damage as you rank up, or finding more ammo if you run out thanks to power ups and other mechanics built into the game to keep players playing and doing less micromanaging. This may be why you are having such a hard time? For all the things Skryim does right, the biggest thing it does wrong is just because your character may have a high skill level in certain areas doesn't mean they are an effective high level character, ironically. That's the worst part of all and why I believe mods that change core game play mechanics behind-the-scenes are essential if you want to have an enjoyable (and logical!) play through experience.

And that's the reason why I'm looking for a mod that lowers the enemy levels and removes the really powerful weapons from them. The problem is, as Urtel already pointed out, not all of them are compatible with Falskaar. I had this issue when I was playing Dawnguard. I was doing one of the quests where I had to recover a Dawnguard Rune artifact. The problem was that it was being guarded by a level 50 Fire Wizard and I was level 19. It didn't matter what I did, the damned Fire Wizard kept killing me. I got so angry that I broke both of my PS3 controllers. I had the same issue today while playing the Falskaar mod. I was trying to clear out the harbor so I could go back to Skyrim, and I got attacked from three directions by eight Bandits. I managed to kill two of them, but I still got killed. That's bloody insane. And I'm playing this game on the Novice difficulty level. Dawnguard's recommend minimum player level is 30-40, I believe? This was because it's a DLC and the developers assumed players were well beyond that (probably maxed out) considering the time between when the original game came out and the expansion. I don't think they intended for players to start Dawnguard with a low level character, unfortunately. This is probably the same rationale Falskaar's author used when he made his mod, too, right or wrong. You probably already know this, but sneak attacks and Archery are WAY overpowered in this game if used in tandem. So, if all else fails, change your strategy and become a stealth archer until you can build up your other skills. Learn to prioritize targets for sneak attacks like Wizards and high damage dealers (Brutes, other Archers). If you bring a follower, they will draw most of the incoming attacks letting you do what an archer is supposed to do and that is provide overwatch protection. Once the tougher enemies are gone, then help your follower mop up whoever he/she hasn't already killed. Also, I use mods that make my followers essential a.k.a. indestructible AND that make them ignore friendly fire (spells, runes, arrows, etc). Why? Because this is one area of frustration that is completely out of the players hands. It might not be as realistic as having follower permadeath , but it saves reloading the game not because you died, but because your follower doesn't know how to fight as well as you because of their limited AI. TL;DR If you're getting your ass kicked, change your strategy and always assume your enemies are tougher (higher level) than you even if the actual AI is much lower. Depending on your character, you may have to switch battle strategy on-the-fly and try things you normally would not e.g. a warrior might summon an Atronoch purely as a decoy to allow them to flank the mobs that descend on the Atronoch. Never just go toe-to-toe even if you are an Orc with Beserker rage. The enemies will still be tougher due to scaling, so you need to outsmart the system Bethesda put in place... Which is actually part of the fun of the game, IMO.

I think I tried uninstalling it. The issue was being unable to have more than one follower, using the tweak commands and sometimes dismissal of followers (although the last might have been specific to UFO mod). Also, I can't get Janessa (dunmer in the huntsman lodge whtrn) to become a follower. Her ass stays in her chair. Dialogue options are normal. Thanks! I use AFT alone as my advanced Follower mod. I don't know how well (or not) it works with UFO, or others since they are trying to do the same thing (modify the vanilla compaions scripts + add extra functions). I always try and load AFT last even if it's after 150+ other mods. This way, the commands/scripts for AFT are the loaded last (which means nothing else is loaded after it that might screw up AFT's functions).

If you are having problems with AFT, just dismiss all of your followers, quit the game, uninstall the mod, load the game, save, then re-install the mod (you will see AFT updating the factions in the upper left-hand corner) and everything should be fine. You may lose custom gear you equipped any followers with, but unless it's high level gear the trade-off is worth it having AFT work as intended again.

Slightly OT: The problem with scaling mods is they almost always never take into account early game levels where you character is weak. The idea behind non-leveled enemies sounds great on paper, but once you get in-game it becomes very restrictive because there is no way to win certain fights since the enemies might be five to ten levels higher than you, but you have no way of knowing this until you die repeatedly, or decide to make a tactical retreat and try again once you've leveled up. Having encounter zones, or locations hinders free roam exploration. It wouldn't be so bad if the levels were maybe slightly lower and/or if there was some in-game system to let you know the levels of the enemies you might face if you decide to go into a particular crypt/tower/ruin/dungeon anyway. Of course, anything is better than direct scaling like Oblivion had. That was absurd and just plain silly since you are the hero of the story, but lowly bandits you encountered on the road somehow magically became "gods" like you did?

If by 'ignorant' you mean lacking in information... well, you'd be wrong. PCs are more versatile, typically more powerful, and far more customizable than consoles could ever hope to be. In every technical sense, PCs are superior. Really? I was not aware of that :dry: I just don't like being told this over and over by kids who need to make themselves feel superior and self-important. Here is a novel idea: True gamers play GAMES on whatever platform they are available. True gamers play games on ALL platforms... including mobile/hand held! If these kids spent half the time playing games instead of e-penis posturing it would make the internet and gaming communities much more friendly and inviting, IMHO.

What does any of the above have to do with the question? You're not seriously suggesting that the reason you can't skip dialogues is because the game was designed for consoles? Sounds like just another excuse to get in a personal rant. I agree. I get sick of this "PC Master Race" B.S. all the millennials spout. It's just immaturity and insecurity at it's worst. It's also ignorant as well. As to the original question the OP asked... I think the technical reason may be due to the files for Daedric characters being large files versus smaller ones normal NPCs use. So, the larger Daedric monologues have to play all the way through whereas normal NPC files are much smaller (shorter), so you can cut it off without any load limitations, perhaps?

I recommend the following mod if you don't want a straight-up cheat: http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/21777//? <-- Unleveled Blacksmith This mod unlocks all the weapons and armor in game you can buy from Gray-Mane at the SkyForge in Whiterun. The only catch is good stuff like Daedric costs 40,000+ gold. So, you aren't getting it for free, but now you have the choice of buying some of these weapons instead of crafting them if you can afford them and/or don't want to grind smithing. Here is a straight-up cheat mod: http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/28450//? <--Smithing Made Easy This does exactly what you want and that is it removes all material and perk requirements, so you can forge anything you want including Deadric, etc. right from the start. There is also a version that requires perks if you've already invested points/time in smithing and want to switch over. Just be aware that even without perk, or material requirements, you will still level up smithing. Hence, why this is a straight up cheat mod versus the one above where it still requires you to loot, adventure and grind a little instead of just handing it to you.

I would also recommend downloading some of the Cheat Mods on the Nexus... Namely, mods that integrate "cheating" into the game e.g. One mod has a chest outside Riverwood that allows you to level up 10 skill points per Skill by reading "special" books that can only be found in that chest. Others integrate cheating/leveling into the world in other ways like going to a "cheat shrine" and "praying" to the God of cheats to become stronger, faster and better, etc. I recommend using these kinds of mods if you are not comfortable with the console commands because (depending on the mod) you have more control on how and what you level up. This way, the game doesn't get confused and glitch out because it thinks you are playing the game normally, just at a much faster rate, obviously.

It's hard to analyze something as complex as gender in one sentence, but for your benefit SKYRIM IS GENDER BIASED. I CHECKED. Ops, two sentences. Does that break it for you?. Now I'm just curious, if you didn't read, did you take a wild guess and answered anyway? Hey, keep shouting because it appears you're the only one who cares. BTW, your feeble attempt at trying to make me look like an unsophisticated dolt backfired the minute you wrote this pompous opus a.k.a. your original, rambling post. I've seen posts like this a thousand times. You don't want discussion, you want validation and unanimous agreement. Guess what? I don't think most people give a damn, to be blunt. I know that is probably a blow to your ego, but that's because this whole thread is about you secretly wanting praise and not discussion even if you don't come right out and say it. Piece of advice: Keep the college essays for the professors and just let us enjoy the game, no matter what gender we are, OK?

TL;DR However, the reason there are so many anime-style female models on the Nexus is because the majority of Skyrim and RPG players are horny teenage males and this is what they associate beauty and "love" with. It's a very naive and immature view of women, but it is what it is.

Probably not, but that's what's so appealing about the Dwemer, IMO. They are an enigma, a puzzle that will (hopefully!) never be solved because that would take the whole fun out of them since the mystery of their disappearance is what defines them just like the legends of Atlantis, and Ancient Astronauts define those people even though there is no definitive proof they ever existed.

The developers could easily write a return of the Dwemer in the next TES game and have it be an event that happens after Skyrim, when the next game takes place. Skyrim takes palce 200 years after Oblivion, so having a lot of time pass between now and then allows for a efficient exposition of the returning Dwemer while focusing on the main plot at the same time. I don't speak for anybody else, but I would not like a story line where you and whatever empire/land/allies are fighting off a Dwemer invasion. I feel that would turn TES into a very generic FPS -- Even though you use swords, bows and magic -- Because what you'd be fighting a good percentage of the time would be robots, more or less. It's great way for Bethesda to get the "Teen" rating and an even bigger audience, but like I wrote, this would make the game less appealing to me... And probably a lot of others, too. It would turn TES into a medieval Call of Duty, IMO. The appeal of the Dwemer is the mystery surrounding their disappearance. If Bethesda takes that way, then they become just another race in Tamriel. The other main appeal of the Dwemer is they are the only race (besides Imperials, Nords) who most closely resemble the player in general. Dwemers are (were) technologically advanced like most Western societies, and the cautionary tale Bethesda may, or may not be telling is something big happened, an extinction level event, that may or may not have been self-inflicted by the Dwemer due to whatever reason(s). Technology (Numidium) and mysticism (Heart of Lorkhan) played a large role, obviously, but the age old "human" adage of "absolute power corrupts absolutely" could probably serve as the Dwemers epitaph if it turns out this is why an entire race was wiped out, transported to another plane, cast forward in time, etc. Speaking of which, Bethesda could make a huge fourth wall joke and say the Dwemer used an Elder Scroll to travel forward in time and ended up becoming... Us (the players in 2013, 2014, etc)!

The main difference between Skyrim and other open world games (no matter the genre, or setting) that claim ultimate freedom is Skyrim feels like a living, breathing world outside the players home. True, most of the NPCs are robotic and lack any real character, and a lot of "random" encounters are scripted. However, whenever you venture out there is always something going on. It never ceases to amaze me. Add in encounter mods like Immersive Patrols and others that build on the autonomous AI and it makes the world seem even more alive than it already is. For example, you are on your way to to a dungeon as part of a quest line, but before you even get half-way there you might encounter bandits, wild animals, different factions fighting (Vigilant vs. Vampires, Stormcloaks vs. Imperials, etc.) dragons, not to mention newly discovered dungeons, caves, crypts and towers along the way. If you take the time to deviate from your original plan and explore some of the larger caves and ruins those end up turning into secondary quests themselves... Like the one where you help the a guy near Riften rescue his family who are being held captive in his keep by bandits who invaded. Other open world games like Saints Row and GTA simply give you an open world with not much else in the world other than a large space to roam around. In Skyrim almost every single building, shop, home, shack et al,. you find you can enter and interact with things. That's the defining characteristic of Elder Scrolls games and what makes their worlds much more realistic and immersive.