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Running The Gauntlet; This is neildarkstar's challenge competition.
Topic Started: Jun 22 2017, 06:27 PM (1,446 Views)
Serethil
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Et'Ada
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Can't help you with that one. I haven't done ONE vanilla start in.... um.... I don't know how long. Much less a restart from a "clean" save. However. If you're using a save from tower or wherever - it's baked already. Every script in that save is going to fire as soon as you use the save - and that might cause some weirdness.

As I understand it from icecreamassassin, a "clean" save is anything but, and no matter that you think you're okay with same, you can have some seriously strange issues right out of the reload box.

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Brambleberry
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Jarl
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Spoiler: click to toggle
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neildarkstar
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I suppose some of you are wondering just how S'Virre plans to deal with her enemies... so I thought I'd post a little sample.

Of course this is low level ( I think only level 3) and her tactics will have to change as things progress, which is what makes this challenge so... er, challenging.

This video has two parts, in the first part S'Virre takes on a Bandit who is using a steel warhammer. The running back and forth is an attempt to get the bandit to swing, creating an opening.

In the second part, this was just so very.... feline, that I was rather taken aback myself.



This video is also posted in the "Skyrim Videos" thread, just so I can find it down the road. :)

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Areial
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Et'Ada
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Rick I will apologize... and say that you do an excellent job editing... Some of the battles that I have seen, I thought it was paralyze enchant.. but it was paralyze poison.. I should have realized.. as I know you are very adept at Alchemy.. but the vid's looked so seamless, I took it for an enchant instead.

But I still stand on my opinion that enchanting is both passive.. ie resist fire.. and ranged.. fire damage.
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glargg
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Rick, I didn't mean to imply anything at all about your intentions. I did take your questioning of staves vs scrolls as an attempt to point out some sort of discrepancy in Neil's rule set, which is what I meant by "critiquing." The word "critique" may have some more negative connotation on your side of the pond; if so, I apologize.

I do think there's an element of "pissing contest" here. You (rightly) think highly of your/Adella's accomplishments. Sometimes, though, you come across as seeming to suggest that your/Adella's playstyle is somehow "superior" to some other. I'm pretty sure you don't mean it that way, but it can come across that way.

It comes across that way in your "cars" metaphor. You decided to use an example in which the objective was to cross the whole country, i.e. "Endure." That's Adella, for sure.

But that metaphor really isn't applicable to Neil's challenge. Neil is giving us a moped with one gallon of fuel, and he's saying "Get on this thing, and go out in the desert, and see how far you get before the buzzards get you." :)
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neildarkstar
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S'Virre problems have turned up, and somehow S'Virre finds herself alone in the Main Chamber of Dustman's Cairn. Some time ago and several rooms back, Farkas abandoned her seemingly chasing a Skeever.

This one hates to think it, but she fears he simply used that as a ruse to run away. She waited long, but he never returned, and when she went looking for him he was nowhere to be found. Finally, forced to choose between going back and continuing on with her trial, she entered the next series of rooms.

S'Virre has never encountered Skeever like these... They are so hardy that she can hardly damage them, and their bites sink deep into poor S'Virre's flesh. After a long battle, she managed to kill the last of them, then continue on slipping past giant spiders and a few remaining draugr who chased her nearly to the Main Chamber itself.

Now, she has found a strange curved wall that seemed to sing to her, and learned a word in an unfamiliar language. She also gleaned a meager treasure form a nearby chest, and has positioned herself defensively on a Large table that sits at the head of the room. She is waiting for Farkas, but fears he will never come, and that her fate is to be sealed in this grand, but fearsome tomb.

She can see the fragments of Wuuthrad that she came for sitting on the table near to her, but she fears to take them... some sense of foreboding fills her each time she looks at them.

Perhaps she could take them and retreat back the way she came alone, but she fears that will not happen so easily.
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Andra Hawksdaughter
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Jarl
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*Where's my popcorn? Damn, too early for it. I gotta wait., what will she do? Watching avidly.* :nails:
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Serethil
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Et'Ada
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Neil, did you try saving, quitting to desktop, then loading the save to get Farkas back? Sometimes that works fine with situations like that. And of course, sometimes it doesn't.
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neildarkstar
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Actually Sere, that's what I'm doing right now... I left the game so that I could try reloading, and stopped in here on my way. :)
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Serethil
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Et'Ada
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Ah, hope it works!
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Brambleberry
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Jarl
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You don't happen to have the first word of Aura Whisper yet on S'Virre? You might be able to find that Skeever chaser (werewolves, rollseyes). ;)
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neildarkstar
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I thought it'd be fun to make a video of the outcome, so:



Just to avoid spoiling the outcome, for those of you who don't want to spend the bandwidth to watch this (it's almost 15 minutes long), send me a PM and I'll send you a written version, or I'll post the written version here tomorrow or the next day. :)
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Serethil
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Et'Ada
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I'll just wait until you post a written version.
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Andra Hawksdaughter
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Loved it Neil, but omg, the spawning and the spawning! Poor Farkas! LOL
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Lapuaboy
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That is vintage Neil; some of the craziest stuff I've seen :O

S'Virre was in DIRE trouble more than once. You must have been pucker city, vacuum bonded to your chair. I know I was!

Great stuff, as usual. :thumb:
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neildarkstar
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I just looked at my watch and it informed me that it is now "Tomorrow" in Darkstarland...

So I'm going to post this written version of the video, as most people who are interested and going to watch the Dustman's Cairn video have probably already done so. If you haven't watched the video, but plan to and would like it unspoiled, don't open this spoiler tag.

Spoiler: click to toggle


In other news, I have decided I am going to have to make some changes. Eh, what? Oh, not to the challenge, but to my personal load order. The Monster Mod is just too much to deal with under these conditions. I don't know where the mod author came up with all of these variations on Flame Atronachs, but it seems every thirty feet along the roads there is some kind of flaming, fireball spitting, hot-headed jackass, and if there' not one of them, there's two or more.

There's just no way for S'Virre of Seven to deal with them... Who's S'virre of Seven, you say? Oh, well she is a second cousin to S'Virre of Nine, who is a good friend of a second cousin to Seven of Nine. Also, she is the fifth iteration of S'Virre since that Dustman's Cairn video was made.

After returning to Jorvaskr, S'Virre was given a task by Aela... Animal Extermination: clear out a troll cave. There was no way that was going to happen without spells, weapons, or armor and with limited scrolls, so S'Virre decided to go to High Hrothgar and accumulate some shouts. On the way, she had a meeting with two of those flame Death Overlord critters who were playing craps on the roadside. They were just too much for one little cat to deal with.

Starting new S'Virres, I hit a patch where I just couldn't get clear of Helgen. It didn't matter whether it was with hedvar or Raloff, the other side just ignored S'Virre's companion, and ran her to death (literally) inside the keep. Finally, S'Virre of Seven made it out and has been making some decent progress around Riverwood.

If she decides to go for the Companions/Werewolf thing, perhaps Aela will give her something reasonable like a cave bear peeing on somebodies fur rug, or a herd of vampires at a Blood Bank during a Blue Light Special.

I've got another short video (2 1/2 minutes roughly) nearly ready based on S'virre of Nine that shows events I kinda thought of as mind-boggling. That'll be ready later today or tomorrow. ;)

BTW, I'm actually quite pleased with S'virre (the video version). She had done Embershard Mine, Bleak Falls Barrow, Dragon Rising, Dustman's Cairn, and cleared Bonestrewn Crest. Not bad for a no weapon no armor character at level 10 on Legendary.
Edited by neildarkstar, Jun 25 2017, 06:00 AM.
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After Dark
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Noble
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I decided to test it and my initial statement is valid: drop the cat and embrace the wolf within.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7uBn8wjQ2xg

I loaded my back-up for Adella's challenge who already had those skills set to 0 using console commands.

The only skill you really need is Block and it's only to get you through Dustman's Cairn and the little quests between the first stages of the Companions questline.
This means you can stay forever at level 1 and this makes the Werewolf so overpowered, even on Legendary.
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neildarkstar
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So... What kinda farm tractor is that... John Deere? :D (I told Rick that when he gave that car analogy that some guy with a farm tractor might beat us both)

Frankly, you may be right, and it may be possible, but it gives rise to other questions. It seems to me that staying at level 1 and using the werewolf to be OP is either an exploit or an outright cheat. Just feels that way to me, maybe it's not. On some level I think that may be the saddest news I've heard in years, simply because it invalidates the basis for the entire game.

Why bother with Weapons skills, armor skills, Smithing, Alchemy, Magic, or any of the rest, when all you need is a torch and the companions? Actually, at that rate, why bother playing at all? I wonders.

Maybe I'll see that differently after I get some sleep, but right now, I'm seriously depressed as well as dead tired. Jeez, can you imagine what this means for Rick? He's spent thousands and thousands of hours building first Ulda and then Adella into some kind of ultimate warrior, and now he's going to hear that it was completely unnecessary... The irony is horribly thick.

I guess I could make vampires and weirdewoofs not allowed for the challenge, but seriously, I'm thinking it might be time to just walk away from Skyrim entirely.

Sheesh, what a night this has been... :)
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After Dark
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Noble
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It's obviously a prototype since this was a test run, by it was quite a fun one.

While you can get far with a werewolf, there are certain things you can't do. One example would be dealing with Alduin at the Throat of the World. Let's say you hit him with Dragonrend an immediately use Beast Form. You can use Sprint Power attack 4 times at most before he takes off and you have to use Dragonrend again.

course, you can just forget about Alduin, but Rick wanna do all major questlines, so that's not an option for him.

About staying at level one, it's not because I want it to be that way. You can see that i'm not holding back and i bash the he'll out of those draugr, but the skill barely rises.
Edited by After Dark, Jun 25 2017, 11:39 AM.
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Areial
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It's depending on the way you play... I have no issue looking at that and continuing the way I generally play. For me it's all about the story, everything else is. ..icing.

Now, taking a break, that I can see. We both know their is a way around anything... and in all actuality, I had been planning on a mini game with no regular melee or magic skills, just the odd things... shouts, werewolf or vampire lord, scrolls and staffs.

I knew it could be done, just hadn't figured out exactly how it would work competition rule wise.
Edited by Areial, Jun 25 2017, 12:30 PM.
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