Elder Scrolls Skyrim thread

[dbt1949]

Started a new game and Riverwood has new items for sale. They fixed the sneak exploit.

[Alefroth]

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Anniversary Edition FAQ

Ya. I have no plans to ever pay to 'upgrade'

I have my physical copy, my Steam copy, my Steam SE copy. Im good,.

You get this for free.

[hentzau]

Been watching the concert. I love concert versions of game soundtracks, but the people stories on top of the music is annoying.

[Scraper]

I fired up the PS5 version. Load times are much improved and it seems like the frame rate is really solid. Other than those things I don't see much of a difference from the PS4 version.

[hepcat]

Just a heads up for Xbox series X owners: I clicked on the link for the creation club and it showed me a bunch of items all listed as owned. But when I clicked on a bunch of them, I found that none of them were installed. So I hit the Y button to install and and let it do its magic. May have just been with my upgrade, but something to check.

It looks significantly better to me with the upgrade, but it just be in my head. Load times are definitely better though.

Going to pursue all the dark brotherhood and thieves guild stuff with a dark elf. I hope I can do that and the expansion stuff without replaying the main story though.

[Daehawk]

Nov 18th, 2011
Someone Actually Did Name Their Baby Born On 11/11/11 "Dovahkiin" to Get Lifetime Supply of Bethesda Games

That kid is now 10 years old. Wonder how he is doing with that name

Back in February, Bethesda announced that if someone had a baby on November 11, 2011, the release date for Skyrim, and named that baby “Dovahkiin,” a name used in the game that translates to “Dragonborn,” they’d get a prize. If this IRL quest was accepted and completed, instead of a few points to dispense between health, magicka, or stamina, Bethesda would provide free Bethesda games — past, present and future titles — for life. Well, a couple took Bethesda up on the offer and gave the world 8 pound, 1/2 ounce Dovahkiin Tom Kellermeyer.

[Isgrimnur]

2018 update

[hepcat]

A similar contest was held back in the 70’s and thus was born dbt’s oldest son, Pong.

[Daehawk]

I thought he had twins....did Ping pass away?

[Skinypupy]

I grabbed the Anniversary upgrade and restarted yesterday on PS4. It doesn't look significantly different (that I can tell, anyways), but the load times definitely feel improved.

I've never played any sort of casting class before, so I'm trying a Battlemage this time around.

[dbt1949]

Watched a Youtube on it the other day where the guy concentrated his build on fishing. I was amazed at how much you can get into with that.

[Octavious]

I upgraded as I'm lazy to mod myself and I'm kind of in a gaming rut so why not?

[dbt1949]

There's a lot of new homes for you. Lots of new weapons. Lots of new quests. Tame wild horses to be your personal ride. At least one new race of beings and one can be your companion. Many more new locations.
None of which is essential to finish the game but can extend the game length tens of hours if you want.
I have an orc that has heavy armor and two handed weapons. No stealth or finesse at all. Little archery. Much different than I'm used to. He's a lot of fun. Just run straight at everything and bash it with a warhammer. Two handed weapons are up to 99. Two hits will take down a dragon.
I also invested heavily in smithing and enchanting with anything left over in lock picking.
Have high blocking as I just stand there in front of giants blocking. (or not for high heavy armor) I haven't invested in it but it's still high.

[Daehawk]

Watched a Youtube on it the other day where the guy concentrated his build on fishing. I was amazed at how much you can get into with that.

You might like Olaf's story....he starts shoeless in the farms and rises to a really good yet reluctant semi hero Full series is fun. Better in the beginning though.

[Fardaza]

I have an orc that has heavy armor and two handed weapons. No stealth or finesse at all. Little archery. Much different than I'm used to. He's a lot of fun. Just run straight at everything and bash it with a warhammer. Two handed weapons are up to 99. Two hits will take down a dragon.
I also invested heavily in smithing and enchanting with anything left over in lock picking.
Have high blocking as I just stand there in front of giants blocking. (or not for high heavy armor) I haven't invested in it but it's still high.

I did something similar a couple of replays ago. It was definitely a switch and fun!

[Daehawk]

Ive always been curious why anyone would play an Imperial.....well unless its a 2nd pay through and you want something different. They basically tried to Murder you and you had done nothing. They didn't even care. Plus they are in league with the bad old elves. Ive never once been able to side with them.

[Chraolic]

Ive always been curious why anyone would play an Imperial.....well unless its a 2nd pay through and you want something different. They basically tried to Murder you and you had done nothing. They didn't even care. Plus they are in league with the bad old elves. Ive never once been able to side with them.

Imperials are just people from the province of Cyrodiil, most of them have nothing to do with the Third Empire other than living inside its borders, but so do the Nords, Bretons, Redguards and so on.

[Blackhawk]

And there are some interesting potential character concepts tied to them. One of which I'm experimenting with right now.

[Skinypupy]

I have an orc that has heavy armor and two handed weapons. No stealth or finesse at all. Little archery. Much different than I'm used to. He's a lot of fun. Just run straight at everything and bash it with a warhammer. Two handed weapons are up to 99. Two hits will take down a dragon.
I also invested heavily in smithing and enchanting with anything left over in lock picking.
Have high blocking as I just stand there in front of giants blocking. (or not for high heavy armor) I haven't invested in it but it's still high.

I did something similar a couple of replays ago. It was definitely a switch and fun!

That’s my usual. I went completely off script with a spell caster this time.

[Octavious]

I think I'm done with the modding and will try and actually play it. I think I "only" added about 30 mods on top of whatever is in the new edition. The majority of my time was messing with lighting/weather mods. I spend hours upon hours and then remember the lighting in the game is broken (Shadows in particular). So I ended up with Vivid weather and the ELFX mod. Looks great. I tried to mess with some ENBs, but they are such a pita and kill performance. Not worth the hassle.

Alternative start seems to work fine. No flipping way am I doing that boring hour long intro every time. There's the 2020 texture mod, but it's gigantic and will take 900 years to download. I'll set that up to download overnight. I have the 2017 texture mod installed and that looks pretty darn good.

[Octavious]

I have no idea if all my mods are working correctly, but I'm not seeing any issues so I'm just going to pretend they are for now. I may toss in a few QOL things later as I think of them, but I'm pretty much done and started a proper playthrough. Having a blast so far as I haven't played in a long time. I'm going to the mod that adds the explorers guild to start off. That should keep me occupied for a long time.

[Fardaza]

I'm going to the mod that adds the explorers guild to start off. That should keep me occupied for a long time.

What's the explorers guild?

[Octavious]

I'm going to the mod that adds the explorers guild to start off. That should keep me occupied for a long time.

What's the explorers guild?

Legacy of Dragonborn. Pretty much the top rated quest mod on the Nexus. There's a museum that you have to go collect things for it. It adds A LOT of things to do. Using alternative start I just started my game in that area and I'm going from there. There's a solid chance I'll run into some bugs as some things are a bit wonky with mods with the last update to aniversary. It seems to be working for me though. Shrug.

[Blackhawk]

Legacy of the Dragonborn is both amazing and massive. It's not something you add to your playthrough, it's something you base your playthrough around. It is what motivates and directs you through the world.

And it is something you build your mod list around, too. You start with Legacy, and you pick mods that play nice with it.

The intro is interesting, but the real overview starts about 2:15.

[Fardaza]

Anyone ever have problems with Soul Trap / Soul Stealer?

I found all my saves for any character would not work correctly anymore. Played for 10 years. I know how to use Soul Trap and Soul Stealer in conjuration tree. About a week ago I noticed that soul trap just doesn't work. I hadn't used it in a few replays, but was playing a spellsword with a focus on conjuration and restoration. Was concentrating on one-handed, heavy armor, and alchemy at first. Got up to level 16 without trying to trap a soul. When I took the perk Soul Stealer was when I noticed it not doing anything. I've tried every method for enchanting, spell casting, etc. Tried a new character. It just simply doesn't work. All characters, old saves, nothing. Sent a help ticket to Bethesda. Still waiting.

I'm very frustrated at this point. I even upgraded to Anniversary Edition thinking that might solve the issue. Nope. Disabled all mods. Nothing.

HELP!

[TheMix]

I'd have guessed a mod. But you disabled them. I don't recall ever having any trouble stealing souls. Tag 'em and bag 'em. Sorry.

[Suitably Ironic Moniker]

All I can suggest is a clean install. Even disabled, some mods can leave loose files, especially if it was improperly structured.

[Daehawk]

If you look for skyrim broken soulsteal on google its a common reoccurring issue it seems. I think the first guy posted a fix but not sure.

[Fardaza]

If you look for skyrim broken soulsteal on google its a common reoccurring issue it seems. I think the first guy posted a fix but not sure.

I googled everything I could think of, but I'll try those exact words too. Thanks.

[Daehawk]

I might have used soultrap. Those may be two different abilities. I never use them. I did in Morrowind but that was ages ago. Anyways i googled soultrap and found the fix guy.

Heres some links. I have no idea if they will be helpful though. Some are really old posts.

Soul Trap Bug Fix
SKYRIM SE Solved: soul trap spell not working.
soul stealer perk isnt working all the time... why not??
BUG CONFIRMED: Soul Stealer Perk

[Fardaza]

I might have used soultrap. Those may be two different abilities. I never use them. I did in Morrowind but that was ages ago. Anyways i googled soultrap and found the fix guy.

Heres some links. I have no idea if they will be helpful though. Some are really old posts.

Soul Trap Bug Fix
SKYRIM SE Solved: soul trap spell not working.
soul stealer perk isnt working all the time... why not??
BUG CONFIRMED: Soul Stealer Perk

Only the first one is something I haven't seen and considered. Maybe that will fix it.

All I can suggest is a clean install. Even disabled, some mods can leave loose files, especially if it was improperly structured.

For a clean install, do I have to manually remove the game or only uninstall it from Steam? I still have the original CDs, but the game has since been linked in Steam.

I think when I bought this computer about 5 years ago, I copied the hard drive from the old machine to the new one. Thus everything about this game's install is possibly 8 or 9 years old. That would include game, updates, DLCs, mods, everything.

I've had so many iterations of NMM, Vortex, etc. I don't even think I could find all the mods to delete them.

How do I wipe it out and get everything?

Edit: I disabled all the mods in Vortex and in-game before posting this. Nothing seems to work.

[Blackhawk]

All I can suggest is a clean install. Even disabled, some mods can leave loose files, especially if it was improperly structured.

The files are still there, but unless they're replacement files (which generally wouldn't affect mechanics), the game won't load them. The real problem is that once a mod has been loaded, elements from it are included in the game save. That's why removing mods in mid-playthrough is generally frowned upon. It can cause all sorts of issues.

For a clean install, do I have to manually remove the game or only uninstall it from Steam? I still have the original CDs, but the game has since been linked in Steam.

I think when I bought this computer about 5 years ago, I copied the hard drive from the old machine to the new one. Thus everything about this game's install is possibly 8 or 9 years old. That would include game, updates, DLCs, mods, everything.

I've had so many iterations of NMM, Vortex, etc. I don't even think I could find all the mods to delete them.

How do I wipe it out and get everything?

Edit: I disabled all the mods in Vortex and in-game before posting this. Nothing seems to work.

Note that you may want to copy them to your desktop and extract your save files, but keep in mind what I said - a save file is effectively tied to the combination of mods that it was saved using. Changing those mods can cause anything from minor problems to failure to even launch. And if you have mods that are 8 or 9 years old - including mods - then I can guarantee you that you have some bad mods. There were things that were done back then in modding that have since been discovered to be huge problems. And mods designed for retain Skyrim may or may not work with the Special Edition, and most mods are not written for the Anniversary Edition at all (it was released too late - most authors stuck with the SE.)

My recommendation would be to do a clean install (as in that video), and then install either a specific set of mods, or do yourself a favor: Install the Special Edition, and use a Wabbajack install (read through the packs and pick one.) Read every word of the instructions, but it's faster than a traditional install (by a significant margin) and more stable to boot.

[dbt1949]

I have found with all my games if I'm going to do a fresh install to go into the programs directory and remove all traces of the old install.

[Blackhawk]

I have found with all my games if I'm going to do a fresh install to go into the programs directory and remove all traces of the old install.

But don't forget that many games store files in My Docs/My Games/AppData.

As an aside, I wish they'd stay out of AppData. It is way too hard to navigate. And My Documents isn't supposed to be full of storage folders - I wish they'd stick with My Games. But from what I understand, Microsoft is the one that wanted it that way. And anybody who has tried to deal with game files on any program installed via the Microsoft Store will know that Microsoft considers users accessing files to be the least important thing under the sun.

[Daehawk]

I wish like the old days they'd just be in the directory i choose to install the game to and thats it. Also like the old days Id prefer my offline single player game be totally offline and not require a connection to play.

[Fardaza]

All I can suggest is a clean install. Even disabled, some mods can leave loose files, especially if it was improperly structured.

The files are still there, but unless they're replacement files (which generally wouldn't affect mechanics), the game won't load them. The real problem is that once a mod has been loaded, elements from it are included in the game save. That's why removing mods in mid-playthrough is generally frowned upon. It can cause all sorts of issues.

For a clean install, do I have to manually remove the game or only uninstall it from Steam? I still have the original CDs, but the game has since been linked in Steam.

I think when I bought this computer about 5 years ago, I copied the hard drive from the old machine to the new one. Thus everything about this game's install is possibly 8 or 9 years old. That would include game, updates, DLCs, mods, everything.

I've had so many iterations of NMM, Vortex, etc. I don't even think I could find all the mods to delete them.

How do I wipe it out and get everything?

Edit: I disabled all the mods in Vortex and in-game before posting this. Nothing seems to work.

Note that you may want to copy them to your desktop and extract your save files, but keep in mind what I said - a save file is effectively tied to the combination of mods that it was saved using. Changing those mods can cause anything from minor problems to failure to even launch. And if you have mods that are 8 or 9 years old - including mods - then I can guarantee you that you have some bad mods. There were things that were done back then in modding that have since been discovered to be huge problems. And mods designed for retain Skyrim may or may not work with the Special Edition, and most mods are not written for the Anniversary Edition at all (it was released too late - most authors stuck with the SE.)

My recommendation would be to do a clean install (as in that video), and then install either a specific set of mods, or do yourself a favor: Install the Special Edition, and use a Wabbajack install (read through the packs and pick one.) Read every word of the instructions, but it's faster than a traditional install (by a significant margin) and more stable to boot.

Reinstalling after following the advice in the above video. With my slow internet speed it's a good thing I'm going to bed now. Maybe it'll be done by morning.

I'm happy to start a new game if it will work properly. I think I'll be a little more judicious in choosing mods. I like the idea of Wabbajack, but with my slow download speed it might take several days.

Edit: 1.5 gig out of 11.5 gig so far. Maybe it won't take days!

[Daehawk]

Ive went out and bought a physical cd copy of a game before, gotten it hoem and shoved it in my drive, then click install and it actually download the ENTIRE game from STeam That pissed me off SO much@!! I was ready to play after a short install but instead had to wait over an hour for whatever it was to download ARGH lol

[hepcat]

What's a "CD"? Is that something from my father's time?

[dbt1949]

A crossdresser? Hardly from your father's time.

[Fardaza]

Success! The video that Blackhawk linked helped me to wipe and reinstall Skyrim SE! I was able to soul trap a wolf as soon as I got the spell!

Only added in 7 mods so far, all from the official mod list inside the game. It appears that many of the mods I had been using are not officially sponsored in the Creation Club?

I wonder now if I use Vortex again and add some of the mods back in if it will kill my game again. Oh well. I guess the old adage may have to be followed. One. Mod. At. A. Time.

Thanks for your help!