Author: NecroFile  <...>    76.169.75.159 Use this link if you want to link to this message and its entire thread of discussion. Post a Msg
Date: 5/29/2017 12:39:48 PM
Subject: RE: Robbaz attacks the blimp

"The other night, I played Dawnguard for a while. Sorry, but this DLC blows prodigious ass. It's one twisty hallway after another with occasional skeleton and gargoyle attacks."

yes, what do you expect with vanilla gameplay? everything is nerfed. but the dungeons of skyrim do kick ass. they layouts are actually good. not enough credit is given here, the first person view while dungeoneering is very good.
but you dont have 5 melee enemies blitzing straight twords you, all throwing full-force swings while others stay behind pelt you with armor piercing arrows and magic. and you dont have your game spawn 2x and 3x enemies for every normal enemy placed. my enemy encounters in dungeons average about 6-8 per encounter, which is a lot. but they can get up to 10-20 in some areas, especially outdoor foresworn camps


"The vampire chick I have as a companion has no personality whatsoever. She sounds like a bored college girl from Wisconsin. The only good thing about her is her combat magic."

ok.

"Also, I have made it quite clear that I don't want to be a vampire, but the DLC constantly tries to nudge me in that direction. Most recently, the girl and I were about to enter some kind of Bioware void of the not-quite-dead or something, and I was told that I couldn't enter unless I became a vampire or let her trap my soul. The vampire option didn't seem to have a downside, but the soul-trap choice would reduce my stats. Apparently, if I go the vampire route, the Dawnguard will change me back with an easy fix. Hello? I don't want to be a vampire. That's why I joined the Dawnguard. And if they can fix me so easily, why are they so worked up about vampires in the first place?"

ok.

"Another thing: the whole mission is about finding three elder scrolls. We already have one, and the girl runs around with it strapped to her back. Let me see if I can explain how crazy this is. Elder scrolls are so mysterious and powerful that they're like dark matter. Yet we're looking around for them like they're someone's contact lenses. What happened to Bethesda?"

vampires are elite in this sort of sense. elder scrolls are like some petty mortal affair to them. the game properly reflects this, though i guess not everyone is able to understand why.

"I'll tell you: they replaced Ken Rolston with a bunch of mouthbreathers they found in some Maryland coffee shop -- or more like a coffee shop in Seattle or Portland, Oregon. Possibly Boulder, Colorado or Austin, Texas. I don't know -- someplace where the cops are hipster beatniks and the only thing you can buy in stores are bean sprouts. Whoever worked on this DLC has reached a toxic level of bean sprout consumption. I only hope I can fast-travel out of this castle so I can start the Dragonborn DLC, but I cringe at what they might have done to Solstheim."

the dawnguard dlc is indeed silly in many places, so is dragonborne. though i would rate dragonborne much higher. but they each have great level and dungeon designs, you keep tying the bland vanilla gameplay with things which are not bad. dawnguard rewards you with arch curator vyrthur, you can dead thrall him.
he levels up to 75. its the best thing which you can thrall. actually the ebony warrior is best. ordinator perks mod removes the thrall spell cap for NPC level you can thrall. i also have a mad which manually does this just to be sure. vyrthur is a pretty bad ass companion. jizzargo has been fixed to only level up to 30. also, there are 3 dawnguard companions you can higher after beating the arch curate, they are the only NPCs with no level cap and can level with you past 100. this is intentional and is not patched.

i would also like to take this moment and clarify on one of the changes i have made to this game.
i previously mentioned balancing the exp gradient for skills leveling. however i forgot to mention that normal leveling is untouched, skills level normally up to 100, this vanilla rate is actually balanced and does not need editing, i reduced the exp curve for beyond level 100. actually to be honest, i started raising the exp at level 80, you level skills normally up to 80, and it gets faster afterwards, but the rate is still gradual and you cannot notice. it feels very natural, its not like you are leveling up every 2 seconds. you cannot tell anything is going faster at all. the skills leveling speed up past 100, but it still takes a while to levelup. i have been playing around with these numbers, perfecting them. skills past 100 have the same exp grade as roughly level 90 and basically continue this way into the 150's and 200's and up to 500's for crafting skills. which do get slow up around level 400, the rate is like vanilla level 150 for using the vanila exp formula, which takes a while. its definitely slow, just not impossibly slow.