Skyrim - Miscellaneous Roundup

Dhruin

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Some miscellaneous Skyrim odds and ends.
Over at Rock, Paper, Shotgun is Hey Bethesda, Could You Fix Skyrim?, with their wish-list of fixes and improvements. I can't say they are all on my list but some of them are spot-on:
Clearly so many of the quests need tidying up. This cannot and should not be left to industrious modders, because that’s just plain rude. They should, for instance, have endings. And perhaps beginnings. Alec had an impressive moment when he was able to pickpocket a letter addressed to him, his name at the top, due to be given to him upon completing a quest. A quest he hadn’t yet been offered. It would also help if essential quest items could appear in people’s pockets before they’ve died – that’s an oh-so confusing thing. Do they shit out the key in their dying moments?
The Raptr service folks have used their tracking data to announce the Most Played Game of 2011. According to their data, Skyrim wiped the floor. Looking at the RPG category, Skyrim was played 6x more than Dragon Age 2, apparently. Details via VG247.
NVidia has released their own Tweak Guide. I haven't played with it but you'd assume nVidia should be able to give you some good tips (especially if you use one of their cards).
Lastly, Jeff Vogel blogs about his frustration with weight limits:
But, like all RPGs Bethesda makes, you spend sooooo much time sorting through items. Looting the dungeons takes ten times longer than killing the monsters within. And you can only carry so many pounds of treasure. So every item you find requires tiresome "Is this hide shield worth enough money to justify the weight. OK. It weighs eight pounds and is worth 20 coins, or 2.5 coins per pound, so that is an efficient piece of treasure to pick up and ... AHHHH. MY BRAINS!!!!!" And then you pick up one suit of armor too many and you have to drop two pounds of stuff so you go through your pack to find something top drop and ...

Does anyone ever find this fun?
More information.
 
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But, like all RPGs Bethesda makes, you spend sooooo much time sorting through items. Looting the dungeons takes ten times longer than killing the monsters within. And you can only carry so many pounds of treasure. So every item you find requires tiresome "Is this hide shield worth enough money to justify the weight. OK. It weighs eight pounds and is worth 20 coins, or 2.5 coins per pound, so that is an efficient piece of treasure to pick up and … AHHHH. MY BRAINS!!!!!" And then you pick up one suit of armor too many and you have to drop two pounds of stuff so you go through your pack to find something top drop and …

Does anyone ever find this fun?

So true, but hasn't he heard of the console command? Methinks he is playing on a PS or XBOX. For shame. ;)
 
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I've been accustomed to encumbrance being used in RPGs for so long that I never think about it when playing. Honestly, it's for the greater good (for me and probably many other relatively compulsive looters) to have limits on how much you can carry. I imagine that my inventory would become a complete and utter mess if there wasn't a restriction on how much I could carry. I prefer to have a system that forces me to at least somewhat manage my inventory as I go; otherwise, after many hours of looting several dungeons, I would never be able to sort out my inventory and be left with a massive, nightmarish list of items that I don't really need to use or sell. Also, I guess I find encumbrance limits to be a small part of the challenge of an RPG, and managing my inventory doesn't feel like a tedious hassle for me.
 
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Not everyone cheats with the console.

Also, I fully agree with him on inventory management in weight limits in Skyrim. I kinda dislike how it's managed in almost every game. Huzzah for the junk bag.
 
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Since when is using a console command common within a game ?
It should imho still be the exception, not the rule.
 
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If a game feature annoys one to the extent that you complain about about vociferously on your blog, one would think use of a simple console command to remove the annoyance would be common sense. But then I know there are some here who lack common sense. :rolleyes:
 
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What I typically do is get a packhorse type mod. I like the idea of encumbrance when I'm in a dungeon but don't want to go back to town after every visit. With a packhorse mod, I can load the horsie up with xxx amount of junk and go back after clearing several dungeons instead of just one.

There is a script extender for Skyrim called Dragon Script or Script Dragon and a mod that allows your horse to carry stuff, but I haven't installed them yet. If anyone has done this, let me know if it screws anything up or not.
 
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Hold for a day before looking Thrasher. Since the patch, the guy has to change Script Dragon to match the new version. Of course, if you haven't loaded 1.3 hurry up and grab the old version before it disappears :)

http://alexander.sannybuilder.com/Files/tes/ScriptDragon_1.2.12.0.zip

http://skyrimnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=2790

Note, the packhorse author has said that the horse inventory disappears after a certain amount of time, so I think we'll need to wait before getting this type of mod.
 
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Skyrim was played 6x more than Dragon Age 2
Imagine that. And I thought it's already known that *every* decent game was played 6x more than DA2…
 
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I used to use 'feather' to increase my carrying capacity - worked very well. But for some unknown reason they left it out of alteration this time. High level alteration allowed a feather of around 300 or so which was very useful (many a suite of high-end armour was carted to a shop like that!). Non magic uses could get scrolls/potions. 'Stamina/strength' potions are all we have now. A pack animal would make sense too - I remember there was a very good guar mod in Morrowind (coudl serve as a mount and a pack animal). Only problem is that pack animals get killed and then you're screwed…. I do agree that carrying capacity makes sense and should be in - one thing I didn't like about gothic . A bigger issue is the poor money supply of vendors. At least there are no insanely overpriced items like sunder/keening - 150,000 gold…eish.
 
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What I typically do is get a packhorse type mod. I like the idea of encumbrance when I'm in a dungeon but don't want to go back to town after every visit.

Hint: Travel on horseback in Skyrim is not slowed down no matter how much you are carrying.
 
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A bigger issue is the poor money supply of vendors.
So invest in them (speech tree).

Weight etc. is done perfectly in Skyrim IMHO - there's enough there to reward you for making choices, but not so much that it's a real drag - you can still move to get to your horse etc. My character is often bent over with the weight of books, but that's exactly right.
 
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Agree 100% with Jeff, the funny thing is that just adding a Value/Weight tab to the inventory menu would have been such an easy addition to the game that modders have already done it.

I would also have found some "You've already read this book/Know this spell" indicators useful.

Obviously the idea behind vendor money limit is to try and keep some semblance of balance in the economy, but given how easy it is to become rich and how there don't seem to be any useful money dumps then the vendor limits become pointless.
 
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BTW, you can move quickest when encumbered by equipping a bow and drawing an arrow :) Also, followers can carry unlimited amounts but once they reach their stamina limit, will only take things one at a time from the ground. I had Lydia carrying 20 sets of steel plated armor one time!
 
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Jeff Vogel embodies everything that is wrong with the current mentality of CRPG bloggers and community. "I want it easy" "I don't want to be challenged" "by gods I have to use my brain to do 101 level math? How horrible". Seriously? If you don't want to use your brain go play a FPS. And stop advocating the dumbing down of RPGs. What a idiotic, amature comment from someone who clearly cut their teeth on CRPGs playing DA2 odds are. If not he should be ashamed of himself.
 
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I agree with him on encumbrance. The Gothic series had it right - no weight limit, no inventory size limit, bottomless pockets.

Unrealistic maybe, but so is carrying around thousands of gold coins (which many RPGs with limited inventories/carry weight seem to have no problem with).
 
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I like encumbrance limits. I barely even play the game much, I'm level 21 and have never really lacked for money. Being able to carry and sell everything all the time would make having currency pointless.

And yeah, I always LOL about the "immersion" of Gothic games when my nameless hero runs around carrying 120,000 pounds of crap in his backpack.
 
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Wow what a bunch of pack rats you all are lol :) and to think I use to consider people around here hard core. Haven't weight limits been in RPGs for like forever?

I like weight limits - helps me organize and prioritize and is just a tad more realistic.

Seriously though - I almost never reach the limits. I just ignore most crap and stick to the key things. Course that may be why I also find the gold balanced in the game because I don't expect to haul a dump truck load of crap around in my back pocket.
 
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Hold for a day before looking Thrasher. Since the patch, the guy has to change Script Dragon to match the new version. Of course, if you haven't loaded 1.3 hurry up and grab the old version before it disappears :)

http://alexander.sannybuilder.com/Files/tes/ScriptDragon_1.2.12.0.zip

http://skyrimnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=2790

Note, the packhorse author has said that the horse inventory disappears after a certain amount of time, so I think we'll need to wait before getting this type of mod.

OK, again thanks for the info! It amazes me these guys can do this without the Creation Kit, but we should really wait until they have the proper tools. In the meantime there is...

player.setav carryweight 9000

(BTW, I've learned to type this in my sleep). ;)
 
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