Scott DeWar
Prof. Emeritus-Supernatural Events/Countermeasure
that is and 'always right' thing.
Happy Haggert Hurried Hungry Hitch Hiking Hired Henchmen Hivers.... apply within
- Thread starter megamania
- Start date
Random Bystander
First Post
Should the pie, then, be square?
Random Bystander
First Post
Ah; that is not a matter of concern. The second-to-last character creation question before leaving the dungeon will be a choice of class, which will alleviate your initially poor skills. In the meantime, all of the challenges in the tutorial dungeon are calibrated to your starting (poor) skill level, such as monster skill levels and heath. One of the classes available is "custom"; a "class" is simply seven skills in which you have moderate training. The "custom" class allows you to pick those seven skills yourself. If you are playing anything other than a pure mage, I would recommend "armorer" as one of them.
The last is the option to change any character creation choices made previously, just before exiting the dungeon. You may wish to save just before opening the last grate, as that will save you having to do the tutorial dungeon again. It should be apparent which is the last grate; there will be a light at the end of the tunnel. Daylight, specifically. The game has a day and night cycle, but this is not generally apparent inside a dungeon.
As a final note, rats hate the undead, and vice-versa.
Mad_Jack
Legend
I've played the game part way through several times before... I prefer to take the time at the beginning and end of the tutorial to work several skills up to high levels before I go out into the world - particularly my stealth and a couple of magic skills that I need to get up to a certain level by the time I get to the magic academy to start enchanting items. Although I'm going to be playing a rogue-type Khajit character, I usually switch to a High Elf mage at the end of the tutorial so that I have starting spells and then pump up at least illusion, mysticism and alteration to the point where I have journeyman skills even after I change back to a Khajit. If I raise them up during the tutorial, it saves me from having to do it later on out in the real world, where I have less control over what I do and thus less chance of getting the +5 bonuses to my skills when I level up.
It was much simpler to pump up my skills when I was playing on my PS3 - I could just rig up something to hold the button down or just keep tapping it with one finger, while I did something else on this computer that didn't really require two hands. Unfortunately, playing on the computer, I have to Alt-tab to do other things, and the game has decided that it wants to lock up every time I go back to it.
I was trying to get the game to run in a window, but when I got it to do that, I couldn't minimize or move that window at all. I've been researching the issue but so far none of the ancient answers posted online have been satisfactory, so I've just resigned myself to doing something non-computer-related while I wait for the skills to pile up. Tomorrow I'll need to cook a pan of chicken and a big pot of spaghetti and sauce so I'll do that and either watch movies or read a book while the food's cooking and the game's running.
It was much simpler to pump up my skills when I was playing on my PS3 - I could just rig up something to hold the button down or just keep tapping it with one finger, while I did something else on this computer that didn't really require two hands. Unfortunately, playing on the computer, I have to Alt-tab to do other things, and the game has decided that it wants to lock up every time I go back to it.
I was trying to get the game to run in a window, but when I got it to do that, I couldn't minimize or move that window at all. I've been researching the issue but so far none of the ancient answers posted online have been satisfactory, so I've just resigned myself to doing something non-computer-related while I wait for the skills to pile up. Tomorrow I'll need to cook a pan of chicken and a big pot of spaghetti and sauce so I'll do that and either watch movies or read a book while the food's cooking and the game's running.
Last edited:
Random Bystander
First Post
Ah; apologies. Have you considered a levelling mod, if you are unsatisfied with the rate of skill increase? Alternately, if you simply want your skills at a certain level before "starting the full game", have you considered the console cheats?
Mad_Jack
Legend
I wasn't actually aware of the console cheats until after I'd begun (haven't had the time to look them up yet, either) since all my previous run-throughs were on the PS3 instead of the PC, but just raising my stats and skills without putting in some sort of work for them edges close to the rather fuzzy and indistinct line between making it easier for me to have fun playing the game and just hitting the "I win" button. (Although I may well just do that for my Athletics, Acrobatics and Restoration, since those are the most uncontrollable skills in the game).
I'm using the concept of "efficient leveling" to attempt to stay powerful in relation to the challenges of the game, and trying to walk the fine line of keeping it just hard enough to be entertaining while not turning it into a god-mode walkthrough. I'm basically playing the game as Grand Theft Auto: Tamriel, just to entertain myself by headshot-ing some bad guys, stealing everything not nailed down, and stuffing the naked corpses of my enemies into fires or posing them in compromising positions, lol...
But I don't want to make it too easy, since just cakewalking through it on autopilot is just as boring as having to slowly grind my way through it fighting and clawing for every last desperate inch of progress.
The concept of efficient leveling involves being able to control which skills you raise each level so as to get the highest possible bonuses to the correct attributes at each level, thus keeping your attributes and skills relatively high in relation to the challenges of the game, which are dictated by character level. If I can raise a particular attribute by +5 rather than +3 at each level, over the course of 10 levels I'll have raised the attribute by 20 more points.
The main point of assigning the less controllable skills as minor skills and then cranking them up to medium-to-high levels before starting is to keep them from affecting the leveling process as much as possible. Since the attribute bonuses you get on leveling are based on the skills you've increased the most, keeping yourself from too quickly gaining points in those skills by setting it up to require more experience in them from the start (i.e., making them minor and non-specialized skills) and then cranking them up all at once so that it takes longer to unintentionally increase them once you're out in the game (higher skill levels require increasingly more experience to achieve) makes the likelihood of you accidentally getting the choice of multiple +3 bonuses to attributes you don't care as much about raising much smaller. Thus increasing the chances of getting a *5 bonus to an important attribute at each level-up. By front-loading the least-controllable increases, I can get more control over which attributes I increase later on while I'm playing the better parts of the game.
Things like your health, mana and stamina are dictated by your attributes, not your skills (although your skills quite often dictate how efficiently you use those resources). As your character level is tied directly to your major skill increases and the benefits of most skills cap out at 100, there's effectively a "level cap" in the game when you max out all your skills. Efficient leveling means I can attempt to control how hard the challenges of the game are at a specific point by balancing better skills and stats against how tough the opponents are, which is determined by my level. Also, certain quests are easier or harder at different levels since some require certain spells or weapons to deal with them effectively, and some quests require you to drag NPCs along who can easily get killed by higher level monsters.
It can be a somewhat complicated process and takes a bit of thought, but I enjoy employing brainpower and effort to work out strategies like that much more than I enjoy having to spend large amounts of time and resources slogging through even random encounters because of their difficulty. As I mentioned earlier, I'm all about just throwing in the game for an hour or two (or twelve) and blowing through a bunch of fights and some quests, rather than putting in several hours trying to accomplish one thing.
I'm using the concept of "efficient leveling" to attempt to stay powerful in relation to the challenges of the game, and trying to walk the fine line of keeping it just hard enough to be entertaining while not turning it into a god-mode walkthrough. I'm basically playing the game as Grand Theft Auto: Tamriel, just to entertain myself by headshot-ing some bad guys, stealing everything not nailed down, and stuffing the naked corpses of my enemies into fires or posing them in compromising positions, lol...
But I don't want to make it too easy, since just cakewalking through it on autopilot is just as boring as having to slowly grind my way through it fighting and clawing for every last desperate inch of progress.The concept of efficient leveling involves being able to control which skills you raise each level so as to get the highest possible bonuses to the correct attributes at each level, thus keeping your attributes and skills relatively high in relation to the challenges of the game, which are dictated by character level. If I can raise a particular attribute by +5 rather than +3 at each level, over the course of 10 levels I'll have raised the attribute by 20 more points.
The main point of assigning the less controllable skills as minor skills and then cranking them up to medium-to-high levels before starting is to keep them from affecting the leveling process as much as possible. Since the attribute bonuses you get on leveling are based on the skills you've increased the most, keeping yourself from too quickly gaining points in those skills by setting it up to require more experience in them from the start (i.e., making them minor and non-specialized skills) and then cranking them up all at once so that it takes longer to unintentionally increase them once you're out in the game (higher skill levels require increasingly more experience to achieve) makes the likelihood of you accidentally getting the choice of multiple +3 bonuses to attributes you don't care as much about raising much smaller. Thus increasing the chances of getting a *5 bonus to an important attribute at each level-up. By front-loading the least-controllable increases, I can get more control over which attributes I increase later on while I'm playing the better parts of the game.
Things like your health, mana and stamina are dictated by your attributes, not your skills (although your skills quite often dictate how efficiently you use those resources). As your character level is tied directly to your major skill increases and the benefits of most skills cap out at 100, there's effectively a "level cap" in the game when you max out all your skills. Efficient leveling means I can attempt to control how hard the challenges of the game are at a specific point by balancing better skills and stats against how tough the opponents are, which is determined by my level. Also, certain quests are easier or harder at different levels since some require certain spells or weapons to deal with them effectively, and some quests require you to drag NPCs along who can easily get killed by higher level monsters.
It can be a somewhat complicated process and takes a bit of thought, but I enjoy employing brainpower and effort to work out strategies like that much more than I enjoy having to spend large amounts of time and resources slogging through even random encounters because of their difficulty. As I mentioned earlier, I'm all about just throwing in the game for an hour or two (or twelve) and blowing through a bunch of fights and some quests, rather than putting in several hours trying to accomplish one thing.
Last edited:
Scott DeWar
Prof. Emeritus-Supernatural Events/Countermeasure
[video=youtube;C8EahBs-P58]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C8EahBs-P58&sns=em[/video]
Scott DeWar
Prof. Emeritus-Supernatural Events/Countermeasure
[video=youtube;dsqC6HRS8Lc]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dsqC6HRS8Lc&index=6&list=RDC8EahBs-P58[/video]
Similar Threads
