The decline of the Elder Scrolls series

[Kahlis]

I wonder if you can calm Divvy. But yeah, it seems you can kill them all as long as you can take the HP hit. You don't really need the mittens, just bulky resistances.

I became enemies with him once after attacking somebody in the Coprusarium, and I think I convinced him to help me by using The Emperor's Voice (I was playing an Imperial), which brought his disposition high enough to be on speaking terms with again, and then by bribing him ten times or so.

 

[Turjan]

I wonder if you can calm Divvy. But yeah, it seems you can kill them all as long as you can take the HP hit. You don't really need the mittens, just bulky resistances.

I became enemies with him once after attacking somebody in the Coprusarium, and I think I convinced him to help me by using The Emperor's Voice (I was playing an Imperial), which brought his disposition high enough to be on speaking terms with again, and then by bribing him ten times or so.

I tried this once, after I read one of these "Bethesda is criminal and devil incarnate because I killed someone in the Corprusarium and cannot finish the game anymore" threads. I went on a killing spree in the Corprusarium and then used a self-made 6 second charm spell on Divayth Fyr. He reconsidered. I was not allowed to write that the poster was just stupid, though.

 

[Commissar Draco]

Used Voice of an Emperor too, You did have the options to play as charismatic Healer or Knight in Morrowind.... On the other hand the speech skill from Skyrim was complete letdown used maybe a 10 times in entire game and not tied to reputation and skill ranks at all.

 

[Stereotypical Villain]

They could've had speech affect shouts but that'd still be a god damned let down... albeit a useful one.

 

[Kahlis]

Used Voice of an Emperor too, You did have the options to play as charismatic Healer or Knight in Morrowind.... On the other hand the speech skill from Skyrim was complete letdown used maybe a 10 times in entire game and not tied to reputation and skill ranks at all.

It was used in dialog? I could've sworn it was nothing but barter discounts. I think the perks were all tied to that, too.

I'm still shaking my head somewhat at how most of the skill perks in Skyrim were nothing but arbitrary multipliers of the skill's damage/duration/effectiveness. Almost completely contradicts Todd Howard's "oh, we want your characters to be cool and unique with special abilitiez" idea, that character advancement should reveal new, appreciable and tangible options and effects upon the game world and not more mere improvement of numbers. Because of this, skill levels in Skyrim really represent nothing but how far along you are to unlocking the next perk (which are largely the only real measure of your character's possessing of additional advantage/effectiveness over others), so it surprises me they didn't just phase those out entirely and have some sort of arbitrary exp system.

That's something that bugs me considerably about the game - how hidden and flighty all of the remaining numbers do feel. Skills and spells are improved with random percentage modifiers instead of specific point values, and you have no easy way of assessing how (if at all) those bonuses stack. Never mind how you have to jump across multiple menus to get all of the numbers in the first place.

 

[Xi]

Used Voice of an Emperor too, You did have the options to play as charismatic Healer or Knight in Morrowind.... On the other hand the speech skill from Skyrim was complete letdown used maybe a 10 times in entire game and not tied to reputation and skill ranks at all.

It was used for bartering, and more importantly for perks related to investing. Aside from that, the intimidation/persuasion perks were a joke that hardly affected the game. Maybe a few scenarios, but mostly an after thought.

 

[RK47]

Speech sucked in a game where you don't even have much of a dialogue going on.
It's more of a Mercantile skill instead of Persuasion in Skyrim.
In Morrowind most people used it to just abuse the mini-game and aim for the 'killing through self defense' outcome from provoking a dude.

As a guy who like the concept of stealth gameplay, I was kinda let down by how hard stealth is when compared with going for the Heavy Armor/Greatsword warrior build in Skyrim. I just plowed through everything - there's no need to change your approach unless being forced to using a bow in some encounters, otherwise, use Shield spell, rush forward, LMB LMB LMB LMB LMB.

Health +10 on level up and continue onwards.

 

[Carrion]

As a guy who like the concept of stealth gameplay, I was kinda let down by how hard stealth is when compared with going for the Heavy Armor/Greatsword warrior build in Skyrim.

Depends on what you mean by "stealth" (ghosting or just murdering everyone very quietly), but I thought playing a sneaky assassin was clearly the most enjoyable way to play the game (probably the only enjoyable way, really). I did use sword and shield as well, and some spells too, but Skyrim was probably the first TES game where playing a stealthy character was actually a valid and somewhat fun option outside the standard Thieves Guild and Dark Brotherhood quests. In Morrowind and Daggerfall you could just use Illusion and Alteration spells to do every sneaky thing you wanted to do, and Oblivion had unbelieveably shitty bows and dungeons that clearly weren't designed for sneaky characters in the first place.

 

[RK47]

Sorry? When you're spotted in high levels, you're pretty much dead - cause your armor training is low, and combat skills are low - you hardly used them.
The only way to make stealth work is to remain static on that particular level and not gaining any skill points. The higher your character level is, the more punishing it is if you get caught.
That is never a problem for the straight-up Heavy Armor Warrior playstyle.

This is mostly outside of the DB & Thief scripted quests though.
I still recall being two-shotted by a bear while playing a thief.

 

[Broseph]

Stealth characters are weak outside of their stealth takedowns, yes. But the game is so easy to begin with that making a thief type character is really the only way to play. Warriors are more satisfying in Skyrim than previous games, but mages are shit as they've completely neutered the magic system.

 

[Carrion]

Sorry? When you're spotted in high levels, you're pretty much dead - cause your armor training is low, and combat skills are low - you hardly used them.

Maybe if you only invest in bow and sneak skills, but I can't really see any Skyrim character being anything else than some variant of fighter/mage/thief anyway. Skills increase so fast that using a dagger as a secondary weapon will get your one-handed skill to decent levels pretty fast, and if you manage to play the game without increasing your armor skills (i.e. without getting hit), you probably won't really even need them in the first place. I don't know how pure fighters are in Skyrim (I'm guessing boring as hell), but when playing a thief you usually have to improvise a bit when it comes to the hard parts, like use a shout or a spell or trick an enemy into falling off a cliff or something, and that's what makes stealth fun in the first place. And if you find yourself in a really tight spot, stealth also lets you exploit the fuck out of the AI in the hardest encounters, like those one-shotting mages that are pretty common on the hardest difficulty level.

Oblivion did have the problem of stealth-based characters becoming total shit at later levels, but I think Skyrim's perks balance that out pretty well. You actually get a sense of some progression instead of just further gimping your character at every level. At the start of the game I got one-shotted by everything, not so much at level 10 or 30. Later it was me who was doing the one-shotting with my 15x sneak attack bonus.

 

[Mastermind]

Used Voice of an Emperor too, You did have the options to play as charismatic Healer or Knight in Morrowind.... On the other hand the speech skill from Skyrim was complete letdown used maybe a 10 times in entire game and not tied to reputation and skill ranks at all.

You use it constantly to buy and sell shit (which is a huge pain without the investment options if you don't want to play a thief).