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[PTTG??]

What's Wars in Skyrim do?

[kaenneth]

I'll admit to using TGM to move piles of items to a new house, instead of making a bajillion trips.

Also, player.setscale 10 for fun before reverting to an earlier save.

And I noticed Skyrim on a Steam 'midweek madness' sale this morning, for like $39.99. Unless I imagined it; wasn't paying close attention.

[Jacob/Lee]

What's Wars in Skyrim do?

It increases the spawn rate of monsters and people, with a bunch of different levels ranging from a slight increase to a massive increase. He recently added is going to add a ton of features, too.
http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/downloads/file.php?id=6176

[Wolf Tengu]

Ooh, that reminds me.

Y'know that quest where you rescue What's-his-face Greymane from the elf-nazi's, and he says he's going to join the Stormcloaks? What happens if you've won the Civil War for the Empire at that point? Does his dialogue change?

[Metalax]

Right, just finally picked up skyrim now that the CK is out and it is on sale. While I'm downloading it, are there any must-have mods out yet? Particularly if skyrim suffers from the same problem as oblivion of every random bandit running around in daedric armour or never seeing the weaker creatures again when you get to mid/high levels, I'd like one that would fix it.

[MorleyDev]

The same problem as oblivion of every random bandit running around in daedric armour or never seeing the weaker creatures again when you get to mid/high levels, I'd like one that would fix it.

Skyrim's is a lot tamer than that. You simply encounter more and more higher level bandits amongst the weaker bandits. They never get any "WTF why don't they sell this 60000g sword of uber awesome and just live like a king?" gear. Personally I'd rather they just do away with the level scaling almost completely, but that's because it doesn't go well with non-combat skills and you can easily get outclassed by enemies as punishment for selling too much loot and therefore levelling up your speech skill -_-

[forsaken1111]

The same problem as oblivion of every random bandit running around in daedric armour or never seeing the weaker creatures again when you get to mid/high levels, I'd like one that would fix it.

Skyrim's is a lot tamer than that. You simply encounter more and more higher level bandits amongst the weaker bandits. They never get any "WTF why don't they sell this 60000g sword of uber awesome and just live like a king?" gear. Personally I'd rather they just do away with the level scaling almost completely, but that's because it doesn't go well with non-combat skills and you can easily get outclassed by enemies as punishment for selling too much loot and therefore levelling up your speech skill -_-

Yeah, the most I ever saw even in my high level games was a bandit in full steel plate with a glass sword, and that was the leader. Instead of 'levelling' by gear they level by increasing the stats of the bandits and the ratio of strong/weak bandits. You'll still have several bandits which die easily but a few will be made of sterner stuff.

[kcwong]

Yeah, I think the only time I've used any spells at all was for lighting stuff on fire.

That Thieves Guild quest? You can use a torch or wait until you find Fire Breath (line up properly, shout once and then jump into the lake to escape).

[Criptfeind]

I used the fire spell I started with.

[Duke 2.0]

 You can actually light them by just getting close. They just sorta spontaneously combust.

[Sordid]

Yeah, the most I ever saw even in my high level games was a bandit in full steel plate with a glass sword, and that was the leader. Instead of 'levelling' by gear they level by increasing the stats of the bandits and the ratio of strong/weak bandits. You'll still have several bandits which die easily but a few will be made of sterner stuff.

I actually think that's worse than having them acquire better gear, because it doesn't really make any sense for one guy to die in one hit and another guy, who is completely identical in his physical build and wears stuff that appears to be the same, to take five or ten hits. It's especially a problem for a stealth character. You can't tell a Bandit from a Bandit Marauder just by looking at them, so any attempt to sneak attack with ranged weapons is a gamble. If I shoot that guy over there, will he die instantly or am I just going to alert him and his five buddies to my presence? You just have no way of knowing.

[Microcline]

So did anyone else catch Todd's speech at DICE?

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I think it shows just how out of it he really is.  At 18:10 he talks about how much of a success the "skills as constellations" menu, the one thing that has been universally derided, even in the publications that serve as industry shills, is.  Ironically, earlier in the speech he spits out the platitude that it's important to admit your mistakes.  He also didn't mention anything about the writing other than that the player can "create their own story".  This might explain why the chief philosophy in designing Skyrim's culture was "remember those naked Nords we included in Morrowind as a joke who liked axes and fightan and hated dem dirty magic users?  Well let's copy paste them a couple hundred times and call it a day".

The biggest disconnect seems to be his assertion that Skyrim is based around four cyclic elements (Learn, Play, Challenge, Surprise).  Challenge has always had a tenuous relationship, and learning only takes place in the very beginning.  Once the player knows how to hit things and arrange snake/bird/whale totems and that the setting can be accurately summarized as "generic fantasy barbarians" there aren't any new elements that are introduced.  This relates to Sordid's post about the level scaling.  The big problem is that the only thing that goes up are the numbers.  You fight the same draughr/dragons with the same models that take the same number of hits to kill because you've been leveling your primary attack skill like a good boy and would never put points into things like lockpicking or speechcraft that might lead to solutions that don't involve murder.  Morrowind had the player constantly learning new things: the Dunmer factions showed the massive scope of the culture, leveled lists often introduced new enemies (i.e. supporting ash zombies with ash slaves, and ash slaves with ash ghouls, and eventually bringing out the ascended sleepers instead of just repeating the same creature with padded sumo hitpoints), and constantly expanded the player's arsenal of spells.  Skyrim's lame "your focus on magic allows you to cast the exact same fireball you cast at the beginning, but with more damage" has no way of competing with Morrowind's "your focus on magic has enabled you to fly".  Without learning, challenge, or surprise, the only thing left is what Todd refers to as "play", which given the criteria of his definition might be better described as "grind".

Also, look at 21:00 for a montage of things Bethesda managed to accomplish in a week.  With that kind of dedication it seems amazing that they had five years and still managed to half-ass everything.  I get the feeling that since Oblivion the design philosophy has been "let's just make an AI that can generate the writing for us" and that they realize a month before the due date that Radiant AI/Quest is a hopeless mess, the competent writers left years ago and now they have to kludge together whatever they can.

edit: spoiler'd due to length.  Also, if nothing else I'd recommend watching the mod montage at 21:00, as it justifies every quote about steering clear of mudcrabs.

[Ivefan]

So did anyone else catch Todd's speech at DICE?

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I think it shows just how out of it he really is.  At 18:10 he talks about how much of a success the "skills as constellations" menu, the one thing that has been universally derided, even in the publications that serve as industry shills, is.  Ironically, earlier in the speech he spits out the platitude that it's important to admit your mistakes.  He also didn't mention anything about the writing other than that the player can "create their own story".  This might explain why the chief philosophy in designing Skyrim's culture was "remember those naked Nords we included in Morrowind as a joke who liked axes and fightan and hated dem dirty magic users?  Well let's copy paste them a couple hundred times and call it a day".

The biggest disconnect seems to be his assertion that Skyrim is based around four cyclic elements (Learn, Play, Challenge, Surprise).  Challenge has always had a tenuous relationship, and learning only takes place in the very beginning.  Once the player knows how to hit things and arrange snake/bird/whale totems and that the setting can be accurately summarized as "generic fantasy barbarians" there aren't any new elements that are introduced.  This relates to Sordid's post about the level scaling.  The big problem is that the only thing that goes up are the numbers.  You fight the same draughr/dragons with the same models that take the same number of hits to kill because you've been leveling your primary attack skill like a good boy and would never put points into things like lockpicking or speechcraft that might lead to solutions that don't involve murder.  Morrowind had the player constantly learning new things: the Dunmer factions showed the massive scope of the culture, leveled lists often introduced new enemies (i.e. supporting ash zombies with ash slaves, and ash slaves with ash ghouls, and eventually bringing out the ascended sleepers instead of just repeating the same creature with padded sumo hitpoints), and constantly expanded the player's arsenal of spells.  Skyrim's lame "your focus on magic allows you to cast the exact same fireball you cast at the beginning, but with more damage" has no way of competing with Morrowind's "your focus on magic has enabled you to fly".  Without learning, challenge, or surprise, the only thing left is what Todd refers to as "play", which given the criteria of his definition might be better described as "grind".

Also, look at 21:00 for a montage of things Bethesda managed to accomplish in a week.  With that kind of dedication it seems amazing that they had five years and still managed to half-ass everything.  I get the feeling that since Oblivion the design philosophy has been "let's just make an AI that can generate the writing for us" and that they realize a month before the due date that Radiant AI/Quest is a hopeless mess, the competent writers left years ago and now they have to kludge together whatever they can.

edit: spoiler'd due to length.  Also, if nothing else I'd recommend watching the mod montage at 21:00, as it justifies every quote about steering clear of mudcrabs.

Quite accurate.

And thinking of what they released and comparing it to that montage... Makes me wonder what kind of monkeys they employed all the other weeks under development.

[Leatra]

So did anyone else catch Todd's speech at DICE?

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I think it shows just how out of it he really is.  At 18:10 he talks about how much of a success the "skills as constellations" menu, the one thing that has been universally derided, even in the publications that serve as industry shills, is.  Ironically, earlier in the speech he spits out the platitude that it's important to admit your mistakes.  He also didn't mention anything about the writing other than that the player can "create their own story".  This might explain why the chief philosophy in designing Skyrim's culture was "remember those naked Nords we included in Morrowind as a joke who liked axes and fightan and hated dem dirty magic users?  Well let's copy paste them a couple hundred times and call it a day".

The biggest disconnect seems to be his assertion that Skyrim is based around four cyclic elements (Learn, Play, Challenge, Surprise).  Challenge has always had a tenuous relationship, and learning only takes place in the very beginning.  Once the player knows how to hit things and arrange snake/bird/whale totems and that the setting can be accurately summarized as "generic fantasy barbarians" there aren't any new elements that are introduced.  This relates to Sordid's post about the level scaling.  The big problem is that the only thing that goes up are the numbers.  You fight the same draughr/dragons with the same models that take the same number of hits to kill because you've been leveling your primary attack skill like a good boy and would never put points into things like lockpicking or speechcraft that might lead to solutions that don't involve murder.  Morrowind had the player constantly learning new things: the Dunmer factions showed the massive scope of the culture, leveled lists often introduced new enemies (i.e. supporting ash zombies with ash slaves, and ash slaves with ash ghouls, and eventually bringing out the ascended sleepers instead of just repeating the same creature with padded sumo hitpoints), and constantly expanded the player's arsenal of spells.  Skyrim's lame "your focus on magic allows you to cast the exact same fireball you cast at the beginning, but with more damage" has no way of competing with Morrowind's "your focus on magic has enabled you to fly".  Without learning, challenge, or surprise, the only thing left is what Todd refers to as "play", which given the criteria of his definition might be better described as "grind".

Also, look at 21:00 for a montage of things Bethesda managed to accomplish in a week.  With that kind of dedication it seems amazing that they had five years and still managed to half-ass everything.  I get the feeling that since Oblivion the design philosophy has been "let's just make an AI that can generate the writing for us" and that they realize a month before the due date that Radiant AI/Quest is a hopeless mess, the competent writers left years ago and now they have to kludge together whatever they can.

edit: spoiler'd due to length.  Also, if nothing else I'd recommend watching the mod montage at 21:00, as it justifies every quote about steering clear of mudcrabs.

Well said.

Player must have the feeling of accomplishment when the character levels up. It's Gaming Psychology 101. I try to pick locks very carefully but not for conserving lockpicks, I have hundreds of them already. I just don't want to level my lockpicking skill up. Yes, in Morrowind you had to micromanage your skill level ups for maximizing attribute bonus but it didn't really matter because of how level scaling was implemented in Morrowind. It's just something power gamers did.

[Neyvn]

Gah wish there was a way to pick up a book without reading it. Don't want to get the skillpoint just yet and for some that I don't even want to level (Self challenge mode)...