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Sly Reflex
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Rather than suggesting the actual class, why not play with the mantra of 'you either die a hero, or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain'?

 

Start as a lovable character who helps everyone and around the half way point start letting you inner cunt out and only complete side quests that serve your selfish needs?

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  • 4 weeks later...

I think I'm pretty much set on an idea this time around.

 

This time around I'll be embracing the archer life. But not the meme infused stealth archer stuff, because fuck that. Will there be stealth arrows? Occasionally. But as a whole once combat has started it'll be bow only, with a dagger for emergencies. If I'm using he dagger in open combat, things will have really gone south.

 

As main trees I'll be looking mostly at Archery, Light Armour and One Handed.

 

Archery I've not done since Oblivion. Not as a main thing anyway. I am going to try and be as aggressive as possible with the bow. I'm undecided if I should have conjure bow as a spell to fall back on should I run out of arrows. Maybe I shouldn't, it might make it more interesting if all I have for protection is my dagger and shouts. I'll probably end up running a few bows, one for general mobbing and another for more serious threats.

 

Light Armour is an obvious one. I'm trying not to get hit, but chances are it's going to happen and unlike last time I'm not going to have a glut of minions to help me out. It's also going to help with the melee weapon I have chosen. Mostly though, it's about keeping on the move, if I can stay out of reach and keep pelting them with arrows whilst only taking chip damage, I should be grand.

 

I have not gone one handed since Oblivion either. Back then I had a real hotchpotch of skills, but this time I will be using a dagger. Just one. It'll be used for close encounters, but also for stealth. I don't think it's interesting to watch someone ping enemies from the dark with arrows, nor play as that style, but watching and playing as someone that has to risk getting up close to plant a dagger in the back of a foe should prove more interesting. Will I be successful at this? Probably not, but I'm going to try.

 

Secondary trees. There's a few here I want to look into. Alchemy. Pickpocket. Sneak and Speech.

 

Alchemy I have never ever done properly in a TES game, sure I have dabbled, but this time I'm going to make a concerted effort, not only for the benefits of the potions which will help me survive, but also in crafting poisons which will help me slay enemies. I have a feeling that these might be the deciding factor in some battles.

 

Pickpocket. Another skill I've never spent any time messing with. Generally with TES games I take everything that's not nailed down, but rarely have I gone into peoples pockets to steal from them directly. The intention is just to take the lightest valuables. If I fail at one of these I will live with the consequences. Expect me to be paying a lot of fines or doing jail time whilst I'm getting to understand how it works. Killing anyone that is not an enemy to begin with is forbidden.

 

Sneak is an obvious one. I'm going to potentially have to stab a lot of people in the back as well as have my hand in a lot of peoples purses, so being able to sneak well it a must. Sometimes it might be a case of knowing I cannot take the enemies on in a fight, so some rucks might have to be avoided completely.

 

Speech. Might as well level this, since you get better prices on trades and more damage from your shouts. Speaking of which, this playstyle opens up some interesting uses for the shouts in the game. Stuff like getting animals to fight for you, showing up enemy positions, disarming enemies, allowing quicker strikes, slowing time and throwing your voice. What I am thinking about it's not fighting fair. Using Unrelenting Force to Fus Ro Dah my way through the game seems like a brute force tactic which doesn't seem to be the modus operandi of this character. Will I use Unrelenting Force? Probably, but it will more than likely take a back seat as I discover other shouts. There's also a nice perk in Speech where you can tame an animal to tag along with you. This maybe the only follower I have outside of quest related companions.

 

So you're reading this, if you've manage to read this far down and you're like "Sly, It looks like you're playing a Ranger/Rogue cross, why the hell aren't you picking up Lockpicking?"

 

To this I say, it's really not worth it, or at least I'm looking at it now and saying it's not worth it. In vanilla Skyrim the lockpicking tree is completely useless and you should never invest in it. In Ordinator there's a skill that might help me in the form of bear traps that can be placed down. We'll see how we get on, it might be worth going up that tree if I'm having trouble and the bear traps offer me a chance to level the playing field in some instances, but overall I'm not going to bother with it. It's not like I can't open all the locks in the game with enough patience and skill.

 

I think that's it. As for a direction I take in the game for quests, I don't know. I'll probably try and finish the main quests as well as the main sideline. I would like to try and visit Solstheim this time around as well, but I think I'm getting ahead of myself there. I'll just see where the game takes me.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Day 1.

 

Well this was kind of rough. I've not run out of arrows yet, but I've had to have a few cheeses where I let the enemies shoot at me and then pick their arrows up.

 

Nearly got killed by a bear on my way to Ivarstead. No way I can even contemplate fighting a bear at this level. Running was the only option and even then it was only the river that saved me.

 

Didn't manage to kill the High Hrothgar Troll either, had to run passed it on both directions. I cheekily thought I could blast if off the mountain, but you need all three words for that so I let him get point blank before whispering in his arse. Ended up just leaving him for dust.

 

Then I was attacked by another bear, this time quick thinking saw me jump off the bridge to save me from dying to it. Of course I was washed down river. I got out of the water and took a few steps before being attacked by cultists. The guards helped me deal with them.

 

Had a quick nap for the well rested bonus and then went back on the road for the next step. Stopped at the "toll bridge" and had a go at stealthing the ones I knew I could maybe get away with backstabbing. Turns out even with a unseen power attack using the dagger to the back results in a pissed off bandit with a knife in their back instead of a nice warm corpse ready to loot. Investment needed if that's to work.

 

I've a long way to go.

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Day 2.

 

Well we went and got the horn no problem. On the way back I had to run through Labyrinthian since I still cannot take trolls on. This was a scary run, but after this I talked to Delphine and we went to go fight the dragon. It died after I fired about 50 arrows into it.

 

I tried my hand at pick pocketing and on the 3rd hit I got a bounty so now I'm a wanted man in Eastmarch.

 

I caught the carriage to Riften and joined the Thieves Guild, but in the process got caught trying to reverse pickpocket so lost all my stolen shit anyway, since I was arrested.

 

Anyway, I am now a fully fledged member of the guild, I have some nice armour and next up it's the meadery that's going to get hit. Now they said don't kill anyone, but I can't see this happening. I am at least going to try and get some back stabs in on the guards to see if I can finally get them done.

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Day 3.

 

Goldenglow got hit. Someone set their beehives on fire and rolled the place over for valuables. Also despite being told not to kill anyone, a few people got killed. Whoops. It was all in self defence.

 

Honningbrew got rid of it's rat problem and ended up under the control of the Black-Briars.

 

Some other stuff happened as well, a bit of stealing here and there, a bounty run up where I got caught.

 

Day 4.

 

Started out with me trying to pickpocket a ring I needed without getting caught. Needless to say it went shit and now I'm a wanted lady in Markarth. There's no getting the guards there to look the other way, not yet anyway.

 

I then proceeded to Solitude and did the Docks. Despite playing the game numerous times and doing this quest, I've never been able to sneak my way in.Needless to say, this soon passed and I was back to bollocksing up stealth at  every opportunity. I could, and boy are the fights you have to endure rough when you make a mess of it all.

 

I thought the combat would get easier as time passed and I levelled skills, but it's not. Tougher enemies are starting to get thrown in with the regular ones now and I'm having a hard time of it. There need to be something changing because otherwise the difficulty will get passed me I think. The bow might be good when they're far away from you, but when it gets up close and personal it gets so messy so quickly. I might have used more potions per minute played than I've ever done before.

 

Next up is the Thieves Guild Twist or The Thalmor Embassy. Neither are going to be easy.

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Day 5.

 

Well Mercer was found out, and confronted before fucking off. A bit of theft happened. Also a lot of death happened also, my first deaths since starting the playthrough actually. The museum in 

 

Also the arrow in the knee meme appeared. A good 12 hours or so into the game, I'm impressed usually it gets said about 30 minutes into the game.

 

Day 6.

 

All the set up for the fall of Mercer was laid right in this session. His house was cased and plans were set to catch him before he left the province. Some stealing happened here, and I got some bounties in places I didn't even know the names of. It looks like there's a hard cap of 90% for stealing, which is a bit stupid as they have stuff in the pickpocket tree that adds up to over 100%.

 

Day 7.

 

Mercer Fray is dead and I am now a Nightingale. I have the skeleton key, but am I going to give it back? Tune in to find out. Also I found out I made a huge fuck up with the Nightingale Blade, which I always thought was a dagger, but it turns out it's a sword. It has now been stowed away to prevent further straying from the role play and a dagger has been reequipped. The funny thing is I said "Wow, this is a big dagger" when I got it, but never thought to check since I thought it'd make sense that cutpurses would use a dagger for all their criming exploits.

 

I was wondering why a lot of the dagger perks were not proccing, turns out they can't proc if I don't use a dagger in the first place.

 

Also started investing in the pickpocket trainer in the Thieves Guild and learned something new about how TES works. Turns out you can train 5 times per level, not 5 times and done like I always assumed and therefor never bothered with trainers. It gets expensive real fast, but then again what am I meant to spend all this stolen loot on?

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Day 8, 9 and 10. I really should write these up after I'm done, but I forget.

 

Anyway, I have sorted out the Thieves Guild and got it back on its legs. However I've not sorted out the Nocturnal stuff because I want to hold onto the skeleton key for a bit longer.

 

I'm just over 1/3rd of my seasonal playthrough and I've gone back to the mainline. I just did the Thalmor Embassy and I've lit up the Crown of Beranziah as well, since ultimately I need 75 grand for the last stone since it's situated in Solitudes player home. However since last update I've been stealing a lot and as a result I have gold coming out my arse, but not enough to completely ruin the game yet. Usually my goal would be to break a skill tree that I can level quickly to get skill points to fill out the bits I would like, however I don't think this is possible this time so am looking to take the level 100 pickpocket perk that allows me to exchange 50k gold each time I sleep for a perk point. Will I manage this before the 31st? I'm unsure, but I am trying. House purchased first, then we'll see about trying to abuse the game in a way that lets me become a god.

 

Getting strong enough to fight the harder mobs now, still not OP, but those back stabs that instantly go to the kill cam are so nice.

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Day 11, 12, 13, 14 and 15.

 

I have been doing the stones of benrenziah. I have been using a mod for this, because fuck trying to do it without any markers. A notorious quest in Skyrim since barely anyone manages it. There's just so much wrong with this quest, a lot of little quibbles, but they add up.

 

Some of them are in obvious places. Just go and look. Nobles have them. This makes sense. Then you have them in other places of interest. Which again makes sense, they want you to look everywhere. This is the first one that pisses me off, since you need to access the College of Winterhold, but if you're not doing a magic character, why would you even bother going there? The other part is you have to join to get in. No breaking in or anything like that, you have to physically join and sit through all the patter. But not only that, the room that has the jewel is locked and doesn't unlock until you have the 1st quest out of the way, which also dumps something in your inventory that you cannot drop. Since the item is for mages, it's no use to me, so now I have this silly trinket that I cannot get rid of purely because I want to get the gem. Terrible design. Some of the gems are in the most inexplicable places. There's one on the escape of the Thalmor Embassy. No reason for it being there, it just is. You think it'd make more sense to put it on the head Thalmor's table, but no, just in a cave you escape through.

 

There's one that's right on the edge of the map that you might stumble upon if you happen to do the Dawnstar Museum where you put Mehrunes Razor together, it sends you there and you see it on the final bosses table, but it's so far off the beaten path you'd never really stumble across it.

 

Another no no is that there's a gem situated in the Dark Brotherhood, although if you're playing a sneaky person, you're more likely to get into this.

 

Honestly this quest could have been made so much better if they just altered it a slight bit, maybe gave you a book with clues to the whereabouts of the stones that has the clues cross off as you collect them. It especially needs to be something that you do naturally  in the early to mid game otherwise you're never going to reap the benefits of it.

 

Anyway, I've done a lot of sneaking, a lot of side quests I never intended doing just to get the stones that were walled behind them. On my way I've upgraded to glass equipment, except dagger which I have Mehrunes' Razor. It's gotten to a point that as long as I don't do anything stupid I can fight with the best of them, playing with stealth and poisons has made me think outside the box of what I would usually do, stuff like causing distractions so I can sneak up behind them and give them a poke with the dagger for x10+ sneak damage is very nice. I am starting to get the gold from the overkill perks and soon I'll be getting the gems from the Crown.

 

I am at the half way point now. The time has passed so quickly. I don't know if I'm going to be able to get everything I want to do squeezed in. It's looking unlikely.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Well the end of the road is drawing near. It's been an interesting run.

 

Main quest line was completed.

 

Thieves Guild was completed fully with the stones collected.

 

Bards Guild was completed.

 

Dark Brotherhood was completed and for the first time ever Cicero was killed.

 

Civil War quest line completed for the first time ever. Not a satisfying outcome, I wonder what taking Skyrim's independence would be like. Maybe next time.

 

A really odd playstyle to take if I'm being honest, for me anyway. I only saw one Dragon Priest in the entirety of the game and didn't really get any shouts that would have helped me over the standard Fus Ro Dah one.

 

I know a lot of people really like the bow in this game, otherwise the stealth archer stuff wouldn't be so heavily meme'd. Honestly, I don't think it's for me, if I'm going to use ranged it's going to be spells. The way Skyrim deals with bows isn't great, although this could be said about a lot of TES mechanics in general. In fact when I was brain storming ideas for Rik's youtube an idea I had was "Fixing TES" where I went through everything that bugged me about the game while suggesting what they could do to make it better. I still have those half finished docs, so maybe I'll put up a big fuck off thread that nobody will read beyond the first few lines. But yeah, the bow feels kind of fucked to use. When it's good, it's unstoppable, but when it's bad it's going to get you killed more often than you manage to escape.

 

What really stood out for me here is the stealth where putting a dagger in their back was the main way of getting through dungeons, and if things went south using poisons to apply status effects to get you through the worst of it were probably my favourite parts of this run. Of course going through the whole game like this isn't feasible, it really suffers from the Deus Ex thing where you could stealth a whole dungeon, but then have to fight the boss face to face, which resulted in an extraordinary amount of cheese.

 

Pickpocket was a mixed bag. It's super fun, but the risk vs reward just isn't balanced right. You get caught far too often when you start out too and it caps out at 90% success rate for all items, which imho isn't right. If you get good at something you should be able to take small items without anyone noticing. Sure make bigger items have a cap, but for anything else just be sensible. Really there's no point in pickpocket at all if you're looking to get rich, since you can do it lifting anything that's not nailed down for more coin and less risk. It's another area that really needs a deep rework should they decide to go for something newer in TES6.

 

Using alchemy for my healing was kind of rough. The carry weight was insane and there's so many potions that the game doesn't really tell you enough about from the quick menu that you can waste a lot of stuff. It's just easier to go into the menu and read effects from there as they're misnamed a lot of the time. I think it's way more kinetic towards gameplay to have healing magic equipped simply because it doesn't break the flow of combat, and it does exactly what it says on the tin.

 

Probably the highlight of this play through has been the bits I usually hate. All the Dwarven ruins full of Falmer are generally a huge pain in the cock, but being able to sneak up on their paths and then letting them stroll into x22+ sneak damage. Getting in hot water and having huge mobs looking for me only for me to be hiding in the dark and giving them a poke with the dagger as they fumbled around looking for me was very satisfying. Probably the main highlight was 1 shotting a Dwarven Centurion with a back stab while it patrolled. Every single other play through this fucker has caused me issues, here it was just a case of getting behind him and turning him into fancy scrap.

 

If I could alter anything about this play through, I'd probably ditch the bow completely and go for magic, specifically illusion and restoration. It might have made some things a bitch to deal with, but I think it would have made the experience smoother over all.

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  • 2 months later...

Is this the Skyrim topic? I can't tell. Well I got around to installing a bunch of VR mods cause today's a bank holiday in Ireland and ain't no recruiters or interviews to be talking to today so I finally got some shit working. 

 

One mod which is cool and apparently works outside VR too is this voice recognition mod which seems to even be able to discern my shit Irish nasal into sentences like 'where can I find work' and 'what is a magic'. I can also pick up cheese and throw them, unfortunately the role playing potential is diminished by the fact that nobody in Skyrim cares if someone is bouncing cheeses off their heads. Was also disappointed by the lack of physical persistence when putting objects on people's heads. Tho tbf even Half Life Alyx can't do that very well.

 

The amount of settings for the 'VRIK' mod are frankly daunting and I've no idea where to start with it or why my sword sometimes gets equipped. The combat in this is absolutely terrible and I've no inkling to even attempt to do anything with the campaign cause running around such a massive world bonking idiots on the head with a sword is a bad idea of fun so I wonder if there's some thieving that can be done. Although I might have to find if there's a mod where NPCs notice you picking shit up with the VR triggers cause you could easily just pick stuff up and 'steal' it in a different room. There's also a mod for performing magic with 'glyphs' you draw as a VR gesture which sounds cool if I can even begin to understand how to do it in game

 

a bad video in which I attempt to mess around with physics and objects in VR but in turn become the physics object myself

 

 

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