User:Zydrate/Blog

April 3, 2013

Honestly over the past year I've documented my various adventures in Skyrim on Tumblr, I'm nearly at 50 Skyrim-related posts. In the midst of a few hundred, so if you're really that interested in the things I've been up to, you're welcome to give that a poke.

March 22, 2012

Last few days I've created a Forsworn agent concept. Well, not so much "agent". She walks around in the 'uniform' without a care in the world. And before she even hit level 5, she had a few bounties in a few holds.

Alas, I could not keep that up for long. Eventually my practical nature overrode my roleplaying and had to visit towns, clear the bounty in whatever method I could, and start using their facilities. (Especially when I began leveling smithing).

So, the Wanted achievement (1000 bounty in every hold) will have to wait. For now. At least until the guards stop kicking my ass.

I also got her the Savior's Hide, and it looks tribal enough. Indeed, I daresay she looks like a distinguished member of the Forsworn! Though I wish, after that quest, most forsworn would stop attacking me other than a single bloody camp. Would make my roleplay a tad more viable.

Anyway, she's around level 22 or so... Gonna get her last 6 points of smithing and then resume the companions questline so I can get Aela as a wife (and a free archer trainer). Funfun.

March 12, 2012

I am redoing my Orc Archer with heavy armor and two-handed. I think she's mentioned in this blog somewhere. I'm going to try and blow through the Companions, get Farkas as a follower, then semi-powerlevel my heavy armor to 70 so I can get that perk immediately, because it's pretty much vital to my run-ability.
Then I'll be doing a lot of odd jobs from Stewards and Innkeepers to help bump her weapon skills back up. And mostly just to freeform around.

I thought about this because I was running around trying to find enchanting potions for my mage, and it just got tiresome.

The above was actually typed up two days ago, and I'm lazy.
So to update, my plan worked perfectly. I had PLENTY of money to both train (and get my money back) and consistently level smithing up via the iron dagger trick. I even had plenty left over to get Aela to bump my archery up to an admiral level.

I had also powerleveled my sneak by setting the game on Master and backstabbing Hadvar in his house. I bumped it to around 74 or something, enough to get me the triple damage for bows.
So then I went to take up a job from an innkeeper like I said I would. They sent me against two giants.
I was level 29 with 71~ish heavy armor and ~68ish Archery so it's not like I was a weakling, but these giants messed me UP. I completed it (Miraculously) and then went off to Bleak Falls barrow, and wondered why I was so weak against a Frost Troll who brought me down to 1/3rd health. I ran from it, and the bandits were rough, too! I finally remembered that I had Master on from powerleveling sneak and finally turned it down, and resumed my orc's normal badassery.
But boy, did I feel stupid.

I'm actually doing a little of the main quest and eventually the Civil War stuff so I can get the house in Windhelm. All my characters use the house in Whiterun and I could use a change in scenery.

March 9, 2012

My mage just upgraded the Thieves Guild to stage 4, don't think I'll bother with the -actual- questline. If she's hard on cash I may have her do a couple jobs. She's fairly broke, since I'm constantly buying grand soul gems. She'll be even more broke once I buy the house in Solitude, so she, along with her wife, can move to a nicer place.
And TTG jobes at 500g a piece, isn't anything to sneeze at.
Another alternative is to do some more exploring, though I've done plenty and I'm not sure where else to go. I may go dragon hunting, sell some scales and bones. I -do- plan on going through the main quest next as well. Get her hands on Dragonbane, a good strong weapon for her to use.
Speaking of equipment, I finally got her elven set enchanted with magic things, so all my destruction spells cost nothing. I do however plan on upgrading to glass, which I've equipped her wife with (Did they fix that glitch where they unequip stuff if you leave their cell?).

Glass armor is pretty.

March 8, 2012

Hrrng. I caved in.
I rigged my mage to her 40's, mostly to get enchanting up because it was a real bastard to level and enemies were too rough for her current gear. She had little survivability.
There is some good news. It didn't feel as cheap because I had already put around 10 or so hours into her. Before, I'd have level 40-50 mages with only an hour or two in, there was little to work towards.

But this one, has real goals and they're proving to be a challenge to achieve. She still has to work for her stuff, since she's consistently broke, not grand souls or anything. She's resorted to working for thieves to earn the funding for her magical pursuits.
Right now, I've got a leather set for her thieving (Since my enchanting gives much more powerful things than the actual guild set), and elven armor for her "battle" outfit, which is what she uses out in the world. All my Destruction magic is now free, and my leather stuff has some serious numbers on it. Like 40% better sneaking, 40% one-handed damage, etc.
Neither set is complete, still looking for elven boots and her leather cap and chest remain unenchanted. I'm about to research enchanting and find out why nothing I have will go on the chestpiece (I was going to put carry weight on it).

Anyway, she's still more fun that my previous attempts at maging because it wasn't an instant-rig. It just got too annoying to play without enchanting.

March 7, 2012

My newest (and moderately successful) attempt at a mage just beat the College of Winterhold quests, so I'm sitting on some decent magey gear at level 20.
Problem is. Enchanting is a bastard to level and may find myself rigging all her magic skills via a certain exploit anyway, which is what I was trying to avoid.

The good news is, at least I know I can level mages properly without resorting to it, even though enchanting is still a bastard. It mostly just consists of any future post-fix mages to just explore around and clear more dungeons than some of my other alts would have to. (My rogues can level up in cities, with all the sneaking, pickpocketing and lockpicking) and my warriors are hardy enough to just flail around and make stuff dead.

It was a good thing to find out -before- they fix that glitch.

March 6, 2012

Today, I've begun a proper mage playthrough. I've had trouble with mages before, but this character Is basically clearing various dungeons, moreso than my other characters (Warriors who just level naturally and my rogues who can still level up and earn money in cities). So, it's been moderately successful thus far. That was just some backstory.

I'm still fairly squishy mind you, but that's par for the course for mages.

I had my eyes on the Dawnbreaker as my chosen "mage" weapon (Though I'm not sure recharging adds to enchanting skill?) because an artifact is better than anything I could find or craft, and will probably hold me for a long time.

So I began The Break of Dawn right at the requisite level of 12. Damn first part made me go through hell and back in order to get the beacon (Had to go through a dwarven ruin where it drops you - the falling rocks instakilled me several times, even a mere touch).

But again, that's just some backstory.

Finally doing the quest proper, and I come across this bastard. I'm level 12 on novice, mind you. First go, he one-shots me with a ranged snow spell. I reload the autosave at the door, so I kill a couple of the shades again and save in front of the boss plus his backup.

I die about five more times, each surviving more and more. During though few times I find that I happened to have some resist frost potions, dropped from a few Ice Wraiths I killed in my travels. That helped me survive his usual one-shot spell (though I learned to try to not get hit from it to begin with, as this fight pretty much kills all my health potions).

Anyway. Funny part is, I finally get him after an Impact perk spell staggers him, and I -rush- in and slap him with Flames+Melee, not even bothering with the four shades that support him yet. For some reason he didn't employ his one-shot spell in melee range so I survive, with a lot of healing still. Thankfully his little popup shade when he dies wasn't as difficult.

Now, that's a lot of text for the point I'm getting at:

THANK YOU, Skyrim. THANK YOU for giving me something that actually felt like a freaking boss. I admit I sometimes go into autopilot when playing Skyrim (Powerlevel this, do this quest, get that artifact, beat this questline for that piece of armor, etc) but this really forced me to think, and it brought back the feelings of accomplishment. The kind in other games where a boss kills you a few times while you figure out how he works - the perfect amount of challenge. I found myself not even MINDING the deaths because I would just think, "Okay, so let's try this..." rather than "GOD, AGAIN?!"

So, thank you.

February 2, 2012

I've played a new Concept; Dunmer Vampire. I chose dunmer to help with the fire resistance (and vamp's weakness), but fire hasn't come into play as much so I wager I could eventually roll a different race to be a vampire.
Unfortunately, I was forced to powerlevel her through Hermaeus Mora's quest reward because I chose to be a hybrid assassin/caster. The caster part still troubles me for Skyrim. Enemy difficulty spikes faster than my magical ability ever does. Mana is rarely the issue, just the power of my spells. I still deal with Flames and Firebolt in my 20's, which eventually does very little and saps my mana for more difficult fights. Meanwhile, even in the 20 range, I am unable to actually afford all the better spells. And even then, my skill isn't high around (Destruction possibly being in the 40-60's), so not as many perks invested to help cut the cost of the stronger spells, which DOES lead to mana problems. I'm just not sure how to level a caster properly.

I think I'll post this on the forums at some point.

January 31, 2012

Haven't been updating of late because I've been playing LOTRO, and I don't like clogging up my blog of stuff the community won't bother to read.

Lately, I've tried my hand at an Orc. It was a bit difficult to get them even acceptably cute... But based off of one of the presets; I removed warpaints and pushed her mouth back to look less obtrusive, and finally got her to look moderately attractive. As men say, 'I'd hit that'. I got her name wrong but I don't care (Misplaced the "gra" part, mostly)
I originally planned to marry Ghorza, but had issues finding the damn book. (The quest tracker didn't point me straight to it, so I scoured the base.) So instead I located Borgakh who in fact, doesn't look too horrible! I mean, Ghorza's just a little dirty but given her occupation that makes sense. But Borgakh looks better anyway.

Anyway, my Orc's concept is a heavy-armor wearing Archer who can sneak around with the best thieves. I mostly do a sneak attack as an opening, but then I go into alert status, because more arrows = more level ups.
I happened to waste 2 or 3 perks into One-Handed in my early game, because Once I got a hold of Wuuthrad, my Two-handed skill leveled like 9 times during that quest so I figured; Why the hell not? So now I've got her set up with a daedric two-hander as her melee weapon. It's already up in its 40's along with my One-Handed. Didn't take long.
I had her do a lot of the Thieves Guild jobs (So the base is fully upgraded), but I want to say it's mostly an OOC thing to earn money. For once in a long time, money is kind of an issue on this character. I trained heavy armor to 70, I trained several bits into Archery, I'm buying arrows, I just bought her Whiterun house (And she'll eventually move to Windhelm, closer to her tribe of Narzulbur), and other stuff. She's just... buying stuff. She's level 40 and has like 3000 gold. Livia, as a level 40, has 40,000 gold. Or thereabouts.
I attribute some of this to the fact that she only has 350 carry weight. And not counting heavy armor due to the weightless-when-worn perk, she still has 100 pounds worth of essentials to lug around. In comparison, Livia only has about 62 pounds of essentials, and she has ~500 carry weight due to a pickpocket perk.

So my Orc has less of everything in the loot-selling ability. Still, a trip to a full upgraded Thieves Guild, with all its merchants and the 4000g fence, I can walk out of there with more than 7-8k sometimes. But it all goes straight back into arrows and housing. (That Solitude Fletcher is useless, his stock is minuscule compared to the Drunken Huntsman.)

Speaking of fletching; Why can't we craft arrows? One ingot could be like a random 10-30 number. Or for Ebony/Daedric, 5-20. Something like that.

Anyway, that's my latest. This orc is easily my best warrior-type I've done yet, though there was a lot of prep-work. (The Thieves Guild moneymaking is considered my 'prep work', so I can buy the materials to spam smithing and then get the character up-to-date weapons by raiding the Narzulbur Mines, which NEVER SEEM TO RESPAWN for some reason).

Also, the Berserker Rage is BOSS. Saved me from a couple deaths so far in my early game.

December 5, 2011

Put Livia, my major thief character on hold while I play a new dark elven warrior. I was about to reroll yet another Nord or Imperial but was in the mood for something new an exotic. I even briefly considered making another high elf, only as the warrior. But the Dunmer racial ability is really neat as a melee user. I don't expect 8 damage to be as useful in the higher levels but it's helped. Especially when I was a wee level 7 going for one of the heavy dragon masks. I'm level 7 and the whole place pounded me with Draugr Scourge, which is a 4th tier (Above Wight) enemy. Expectedly, they would pretty much chop off a fifth of my health in one hit. And I faced several. I had to forsake my shield for constant healing.
And I -barely- got the mask. I ran out of potions and died once. It got better when I realized that the reason I died so quickly is that his flames attack (from the staff) actually remained on the ground and did constant damage to me. Though I lacked magic, he didn't chase me out of the door, and he didn't regenerate health, giving me some breathing room to regenerate my own stuff. I popped every potion I had, including poisons and +damage to One-handed, everything. A bunch of stuff I would normally have just sold.
I was around level 10 or 11 when I left the dungeon.
I was also on Novice.
Silver lining, aye?

So another bombshell. And not the kind of Bombshell that I just got from the Latest Burn Notice episode (Yeesh!), but apparently I'll be moving again. The homeowners just put the house on the market. Sadly, I am not in a community that knows me well enough to where I can share that. As a result, I feel kind of alone. It's not a debilitating feeling, I just would have liked some people to share this with.
It's a pro and con set of emotions. On one hand, maybe we can move somewhere that I can finally get a job? On the Con side of a similar coin, my parents (Yes I'm 22 and living with them, shut up) will have to find jobs elsewhere, meaning we wouldn't even be able to put in a down payment on a new house in a new state. Again with another Con, is that if we just move just to another City in the area, jobs aren't any more plentiful there than they were here. I've looked. We've all looked.

A new state would be ideal but I don't see that happening.

I just hope the homeowners can at least give us this Christmas.

December 3, 2011

I love the Thieves Guild. I am a thief/assassin player by heart and have gone through the chain several times at this point on varied characters, each going about things a different way. Full on murder, sneak and blade-staying, archery, etc etc.

But when it ends and the work to upgrade the place begins, it's rather lackluster. The additional shops are nice, but people described the Thieves Guild as being "like a palace" and "As busy as the imperial city" and... I just don't see it.

For example... The second upgrade. Rugs. RUGS. I could have fucking -STOLEN- some rugs from some kind of rich district if they really wanted me to. I could have done that. That could have been one of the -first- things I could have done. I even saw some rugs in the East Empire Company warehouse.
And I get a shiny new bed. Why can't everyone else have shiny beds? We're already drowning in cash. I could go out and buy them all beds legitimately if they wanted me to. I find it silly that I get a mattress and a little improvised 'wall' while everyone else has to deal with metal rods and some animal fur.

As an additional note, I'd like to know what exactly is upgraded on each phase. I know of the rugs, the shops, the Nocturnal statue in the Cistern but... Everything else is too subtle. The place is still kind of a dump afterward.

That is all. Still already put 200 hours into this damn game. Mostly as thieves.

November 29, 2011

Still not that happy about the backwards quest rewards, as seems to be the trend. Everyone remember in Oblivion, Shivering Isles expansion where if you wanted the Dark Seducer armor, you had to take the Golden Saints or Mania side? Vice versa.

It happens here again with the Stormcloaks and Legion. If you want General Tulius' armor, you have to side with the Stormcloaks and kill him. Imperial side, your reward is clothes.
And swords of course, for both sides. But I wanted clothes befitting of the character I am roleplaying.

A shame, for an entire team of brilliant people who frequently think of everything, this particular facet is rather... well, thoughtless!
The fix is oh-so easy. As for Oblivion, siding with Mania or Dementia, you should have been rewarded with the proper armor of the side you chose. "Thank you, Duchess. Here's some of OUR armor".
For Skyrim, I was hoping the entire time at the end of the Legion that he would reward me with a set of his armor, as a symbol of my station, helping unite an entire fuckmothering nation.

Alas.

November 28, 2011

Probably shouldn't be writing one of these when I'm half asleep here, but I'm almost at two weeks without giving a soul an update to my current Skyrim experience.

It's heavily improved. I keep having to recreate Livia because of the eyebrows. ALWAYS the fucking eyebrows. Bad eyebrows have caused countless rerolls on both Dragon Age and Mass Effect for me. I can excuse a lot, but it's always the goddamn eyebrows.

But I think I have the final version of her and she's set up pretty good. Like Matthias, I rigged her to 81 via an exploit (Which I expect to be fixed any day now), because they're my two most powerful characters. I don't do it with much else though, and level naturally with everyone else. (Though sometimes I may hold onto if it I just want to finish up a level or rush my way to a certain perk I'm not far from).

Hax? Maybe. But it doesn't stop the enjoyment of the game. I still roleplay fairly well. I put on normal clothing while in cities (Always found it odd that no one bats an eye while wearing full assassin-like gear, from leather to thieves to brotherhood, approaching Thanes and Jarls and High Kings and shit).
Sadly, I had to kill a woman to get "Tavern Clothing", which I adore. Doesn't entirely fit Livia's personality but she still gets in "the mood" occasionally, so why not.

Oh yea, and most of my previous complaints have been quelled to an extent.
I previously feared that leveling my sneak, blacksmith, and speech (Speech, again, via a small exploit) would leave my combat ability in the dust. Thankfully, smithing in general -fixes- that problem. Even though a character may still be wielding an orcish or dwemer sword, it can be sharpened to almost double the damage while I work to get a better upgrade.

Some of you may be getting that "powergamer" red flag while reading some of this, and sure. I admit it to an extent.
But I've already spent a while chipping wood, several minutes circling a mill, hours walking around town in casual clothing and speaking to people, helping with their minor issues that don't necessarily take me out to "adventures". For example, just today in Solitude, a woman wanted me to help get her spiced wine shipment and a clothing merchant wanted me to be a walking advertisement for the local Jarl. (I half expected her to be offended at such a blatant promotion, but Elisif is a fairly decent, well spirited woman).

And I still do those kinds of things in between my EZmode playstyles. That's my experience.

And of course, my EZmode playstyle will be stabbed to death once they finally DO fix that exploit, then I'll be playing normally like I did before. My max level was a mid-thirties before I discovered it.

Anyway, toodles.

November 14, 2011

So, Skyrim! I admit, my first 4-5 hours of playtime did not give me a good first impression.

My first and foremost gripe is movement and to a lesser but related extent, controls. My character is slow to move and slow to turn, which is annoying when enemies are all speedsters that are fairly skilled in movement and flanking my ass. The sensitivity doesn't help, as there's no middle ground. It's either too slow or too fast to where I press to turn and I spin around like a top.
That's the most annoying thing for me right now. I can even excuse the ultra-small text, since I can still read it (provided there is a dark enough background). Which is my second issue, and I hope we eventually get a setting to help that. But I doubt we will, since I have the same problem with Dragon Age 2 and there's been nary an update for a "text size" setting.

Some of this has been lessened, however. The movement was mostly a case of "getting used to it". I eventually got it figured out and can do combat with multiple targets without spinning like a top.

Still not sure how I feel about the leveling system yet. I like how "everything" contributes to a complete level up and yet, I don't actually level any faster. Although this is probably because half my beginning playtime was spent getting to Riften so I could get to the Thieves Guild. (Later finding out that I could have taken a carriage and saved a whole hour) But hey, this is a first impressions, not a review. I still wish there was an easier way to level up my sneak, which is VITAL. One little slip and suddenly those two bandits in the Riften Ratway charge me like a couple of wolves. Not gonna call it unbalanced, but it was certainly unfair since I didn't do anything to alert them. I just need a higher sneak.

As far as good things go? Basically everything else.
I love how elves look more iconic now rather than round faces with long ears.
Love the voices.
I love how rivers and water has an active, working current.
I love crafting, but I don't like how am forced to carry around way too much weight in craftable materials. But I accept this, because ingots in real life are NOT light things. Still, it cuts down on my ability to steal as much crap as possible. But hey, trade offs, right?
I love how I'll be able to make like 4 different thief/assassin characters and still not do the same thing twice.

More to come, eventually!

November 10, 2011

So, I'll be playing Skyrim tomorrow evening... And probably won't stop for some months.

So I'll dedicate this post to a quick, simple rundown of my own lore and stories in the TES universe.

I began with three brothers. Each representing the main "classes". The thief, the mage, and the warrior. The thief, the "main", and yet youngest, of the three is a Crime Lord named Matthias. Dalyn, the middle-child, was a Redoran guardsmen of Morrowind. The eldest, Shad'Artael, was a necromancer.
Matthias, (And by the way, no, not this one or that one), is obviously adopted since he was an Argonian in a Dark Elven family.

Anyway, stuff happens in Morrowind. Dalyn gets in over his head and is killed by his brothers, who get along just fine. Some more stuff happens and eventually the remaining two brothers earn long life and a lesser level of immortality, through varying methods. Which is why they survive each installment of the series, especially since Skyrim is 200 years ahead of Oblivion.

Now, I wish I could go into more detail and give you all some context that will make you all actually give a shit when I say that they're both on the last legs of their life. Matthias still has another game left in him, but since Artael is extending his life by magical means... he's becoming increasingly... finished, with life and everything. Matthias may not be as close to actual death, but he's definitely thinking of retiring his criminal empire and handing it off to a long lost daughter - whom he's only discovered a few years before the events of Skyrim. (This is not an asspull, Matthias was very popular and not hard to look at as far as Argonian standards go, and was one hell of a ladies man back in his earlier life).
Matali, the daughter, may become my new "main" TES character. She's mostly the same as Matthias, if a bit more hot-headed and ambitious. And has the Dragonborn thing going for her, which in my sublore, will extend her life without direct magics or Daedric blessings (Matthias' method of immortality was just being awesome enough to impress the higher ups).

I'm doing all this because eventually, my characters can become dated, overpowered, or otherwise dull to play. Maybe they not be as dull but my mind is a character generator, and I cannot play the same one for TOO long.
Which will be my main dilemma, since I only have a couple new concepts to play. The rest, I'll be fiddling with the character creation for what will probably be hours until something, a particular preset face, inspires me.

So yea. See you all in another time and ... well, just time. Same place.

November 6, 2011

So, turns out I -will- be getting Skyrim the -day- it comes out. Funny how luck sometimes works.
The only Guild-Wars newsy piece of info I have is that I gave the full book to the Asurans for my Dervish, since I've built her up for some speed clears and both builds use a different asuran skill. Might as well, ay?
I really do need to drop some coin for an extra headpiece for a different statistic, though. I mean, I -have- one but it's one of the basic armors and doesn't look good when "Shown" with my primeval. Oh well.

Haven't posted here in a few days because I've mostly been on Dragon Age. I'm finally understanding the superiority of Origins over 2. I didn't think so before because 2 was shinier. And because I got them both at the same time and basically zig-zag'd playing them (which I still am, pretty much), I thought I had an authority on the matter.

That's not true as much anymore. While I'm playing DA2 right now because I want to beat the damn thing (And I had my fun with an XP exploit, so I'm running around as a level 38 in a place I'd usually be a 12) and see what the hell happens. However, DA:O just feels like there's... more to do. In comparison, I can beat Mass Effect 1 in 6-10 hours, and that's -with- some extra stuff on the side. But with DA:O, I didn't do many side stuff (That is to say, hopping back and forth between towns for a quick "poke this person and come back" type things) and I think I beat it in 20 hours or so, give or take. Now imagine me doing some of those side stuff, which I will be on my current couple of characters.
Can't say how long DA2 is for me. The 'side missions' don't really feel optional. Especially in Act 1, the "Go to the expedition now" only pops up when you're two quests away from being done anyway, so why not do them? So all of the so-called optional quests feel necessary. Less freedom. Entire game pretty much takes place in the same few city zones. DA:O had me crawling all over a country, where realistically the entire game took place during a full year, due to all the travel time.

And some other stuff. I'm seeing the whole "DA:O is better" side now. But as usual, that's not going to stop me from playing 2, either. I have similar complaints about ME2, which I'll get to if I'm still doing this blog when I get back on them. (Already did another stint while waiting for Skyrim, before I got back to GW)

So, I'm gonna poke at some flash games and maybe do more GW stuff.