Skyrim (Console + PC Thread)

2011-11-30 11:35:03 am

Also know as L0rdy

I tried bowls, didnt work for me. Funny that it works so easy for you :>.

I got my platters in whiterun, you have to go to the stables anyway, so going there for dragons reach waypoint doesnt loose any time. I get my platters after I talked to the Jarl of Whiterun about the first quest chain. You would have to listen to him anyway latest when you try to capture the dragon after you killed Alduin first time. So that shouldnt waste to much time either.

Caelint

2011-11-30 11:41:47 am

What do you think about getting the apprentice stone? It's a minute away from Solitude and doubles your magicka regen. Does it have the potential to save more than a minute on the 2 Alduin encounters?

Scepheo

2011-11-30 02:41:08 pm

Quote from Caelint:

If bowls work, have you tried plating through the locked door and skip looting the keys? I tried that and it didn't work, so I gave up on using bowls.

Which locked door do you mean? And I've had more succes with bowls than with plates so far.

Quote from L0rdy:

I got my platters in whiterun, you have to go to the stables anyway, so going there for dragons reach waypoint doesnt loose any time. I get my platters after I talked to the Jarl of Whiterun about the first quest chain. You would have to listen to him anyway latest when you try to capture the dragon after you killed Alduin first time. So that shouldnt waste to much time either.

Why bother starting the first quest chain? I'm fairly sure that it's a waste of time to do anything except for heading straight to the embassy when you leave Helgen. Well, and finding waypoints we're gonna need that are en route while you're at it. Which we should perhaps start making a list of.

FlamingMage

2011-11-30 06:36:27 pm

Scepheo, have you played through the game with embassy skip? When you eventually go talk to the Jarl, you have to begin his first dragon quest before he'll gain the option for talking about trapping the dragon. Finding the marker for Dragonsreach and getting his dialogue about the first dragon going takes only marginally longer if done before going to the embassy; precisely, it takes as much time as it takes to load into Dragonsreach and sprint to the Jarl, which is the only action you have to repeat when you return if you separate the two dialogues.

usernameguy

Edit history:

usernameguy: 2011-12-01 01:29:41 pm

usernameguy: 2011-12-01 01:28:16 pm

2011-12-01 01:26:09 pm

Here's a skip that I haven't seen mentioned, but isn't all that useful if we're plating into the backdoor to get the Elder Scroll:

It's in the first Alftand map, towards the end of it inside the Dwemer ruins (after the ice caves). There's a loop formed where you end up leaving a room, walking a long ways, going upstairs, then coming back into the same room on the second floor. You can, instead, get up on the second floor the first time you're in the room, using a piston in a corner, and then cross the gap with Whirlwind Sprint.

Also - hi Lordy! Nice work so far. Smiley

EDIT: Oh, and when you're at Sky Haven Temple, waiting for Esbern & Delphine - there's a bunch of good gear 20 seconds away in a side room. Sadly, most of it's heavy armor, but maybe you could pick up a good weapon or two with another build. You could maybe pick up the heavy armor but not put it on, then use parts of it for the bigger fights only.

Kotti

2011-12-02 09:56:40 am

I was trying to find some way to duplicate platters without much luck, but I think I might have found something that explains why some items seem to work inconsistently for different people.

Platter I dropped from my inventory:

The same platter after picking it up and dropping it again:

For whatever reason the platter got noticeably bigger, which might make some difference when trying to clip. I tried repeating the process but it didn't seem like anything was happening beyond that point. Other than that, I haven't done any testing.

usernameguy

2011-12-02 10:53:41 am

The Oblivion/Fallout engine apparently presents this weird feature to level designers: you can ask it to change the size of the object by any percent. You see this most often in Skyrim with coin purses - there are giant ones, small ones, and all sizes in between.

I suspect all that happen here was that you picked up a 80%-sized plate, and then for whatever reason, the game forgot that it was 80%. Maybe it went into a stack of plates, and that info got erased.

Imperfect

2011-12-03 09:07:33 pm

I noticed that when you have large numbers of items in a chest (in the thousands) that not only do you get a lot of lag when you remove or add items, it seems that some items are duplicated and possibly some are deleted. Also what would a 100% for this game be even categorized as?

Kotti

2011-12-03 09:12:55 pm

^^I guess that makes sense, but it still might affect the clipping.

I tried the current route just now and it worked just fine up until the first Alduin fight, which didn't happen. Alduin never showed up in the cutscene in which I'm supposed to learn Dragonrend, forcing me to load a save. Tried again, same result. Any idea what might have caused that?

The plan was to try the ord build but since I never got to the fight, I can't say whether it's good or not. Definitely bad against a dragon spawned through console, but I don't know how high level that one was.

mattBLiTZ

2011-12-03 09:35:13 pm

Pac is Back

Quote from Imperfect:

I noticed that when you have large numbers of items in a chest (in the thousands) that not only do you get a lot of lag when you remove or add items, it seems that some items are duplicated and possibly some are deleted. Also what would a 100% for this game be even categorized as?

Well, imo, I don't know if it actually classified as "100%" but I think the other relevant category besides main quest would probably be main quest + all guilds. I don't see side quests or misc quests being relevant, and there's no relevant "every item" or anything like that. Max level isn't viable criteria for speedrunning, either. I'd have to put more thought into the possibilities but off the top of my head I can't think of anything better than a main quest + all guilds run, assuming anyone actually wants to plan and execute a run that extensive.

Kotti

2011-12-03 09:41:48 pm

I think 100% would include every non-repeatable quest in the game.Yes, it's a load of work but keep in mind that many of the quests can be failed more easily than be completed. Main quest + guilds just sounds like a half-assed 100%. Why complete almost everything when you could just do everything?

mattBLiTZ

2011-12-03 09:47:55 pm

Pac is Back

Quote from Kotti:

I think 100% would include every non-repeatable quest in the game.Yes, it's a load of work but keep in mind that many of the quests can be failed more easily than be completed. Main quest + guilds just sounds like a half-assed 100%. Why complete almost everything when you could just do everything?

Correct me if I'm wrong but aren't there a bunch of randomly generated quests that aren't necessarily repeatable but they just keep giving you slightly different ones? Even if not, I'm pretty sure there's hundreds of arbitrary miscellaneous quests to be done. I dunno. Just throwing out some thoughts and all. I would love to see 100% everything happen, but I thought due to how the questing system works that it wouldn't be possible. I should probably shut up and let more informed people speak on this issue Tongue

Kotti

Edit history:

Kotti: 2011-12-04 10:36:15 am

Kotti: 2011-12-04 10:35:56 am

2011-12-04 03:33:14 am

With repeatable quests I meant the randomly generated ones, but you have a point about the misc quests. Perhaps include every quest that appears as a separate entry in the quest log?

EDIT:
Full quest list and a proper map of Skyrim.

Aphox

Edit history:

Aphox: 2011-12-05 09:53:15 am

2011-12-05 09:27:40 am

Also know as L0rdy

Ok here is another Test-Run with the newest route in 1:28:01.

http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLFF7EACCFD453ADE6&feature=view_all

Again lots of mistakes but still its nice to see how much the new skips found actually save.

Oh and I amlost forgot: Hi @ usernameguy ^^.

dballin

2011-12-05 03:13:42 pm

Balls jerky

sub hour and a half skyrim O_o

why has it taken me 120 hours???? haha

Kotti

2011-12-05 04:23:14 pm

- Wait before learning Clear Skies, it skips the sequence where the words appear in the ground and the dialogue after learning it. I think. Don't know if it could be used for other shouts too.
- Check if it's faster to leave the Thalmor Embassy through the front door or through the basement
- Check if it's any use to level up after Alduin spawns because of level scaling
- High elves have the largest models in the game so they run faster than other races and for all I know might make a difference when plating

If I had other comments I forgot them.

usernameguy

Edit history:

usernameguy: 2011-12-05 05:28:30 pm

usernameguy: 2011-12-05 05:26:22 pm

2011-12-05 05:24:03 pm

Route notes off Lordy's runs, now that I've finally finished the game:
- I have a feeling that, eventually, if you "do the math", you'll skip the Mage Stone - just not worth the side trip.
- I doubt you actually have to crouch to steal your plates. Smiley

Especially segmented.
- Is the Winking Skeever actually the closest place to get your 3rd plate? It can be any old platable item, right? Not, say, something in Riverwood, Whiterun, or Helgen?
- Nice use of the glitches in general. I'm guessing you "back into" High Hrothgar because going through the front door resets the quest triggers. (Btw what happens if you go get the Elder Scroll right out of Helgen? I assume it just gets stuck.)
- Hadn't realized why you kill Septimus before, but it makes sense - avoid another conversation. Nice.
- In Whiterun again, it's faster maybe to wait for Adrianne to be outside - avoids a load. Depends if loads are part of the timing or not (I forget). 'Course, that depends on what time of day you arrive. She's outside roughly from 10am to 4pm, sometimes more like 6 or even 8.
- Nice picking up the plate again, after the Elder Scroll.
- In a full balls-out segmented run, obviously you could get "better" random encounters - ie ones you could run past.
- I assume we're not too interested in exact point-to-point routes right now (I wonder about Riverwood-to-Whiterun, crossing Whiterun, climbing up to High Hrothgar, etc)
- What happens if you wait right after Alduin fight #1? Does the game disable wait then?
- Can you murder Farengar? (Is he essential?) Maybe faster, he has a few lines during the dragon trap sequence.
- There's gotta be a way to speed up the peace talks... They go on and on.
- It's interesting that you pass Lydia during a trip to Dragonsreach in one run - could she be useful in Skuldafn? She tends to fall behind, but maybe she'd be worth it for more grist for the Dragonsreach trapped dragon. (Do companions show up at Skuldafn, or are you on your own?)
- Would it be useful to loot the chest(s) in Skuldafn, in a segmented run?
- When does timing end, exactly? I think a fair point is when the Dragonslayer quest is done, right? There's so much coda in this game, it seems important to define the end.

It's probably not worth too much thought on the smaller points while the glitches are being worked out, I guess.

BTW in re 100% - you could either do each "radiant quest" (repeatable quest) once, or not at all in 100%. 2 or more makes no sense at all. I tend to think a complete 100% would have all quests possible mentioned in the quest log, once, but that's just MHO.

Route notes off Lordy's runs, now that I've finally finished the game:
 - I have a feeling that, eventually, if you "do the math", you'll skip the Mage Stone - just not worth the side trip.
 - I doubt you actually have to crouch to steal your plates. :) Especially segmented.
 - Is the Winking Skeever actually the closest place to get your 3rd plate? It can be any old platable item, right? Not, say, something in Riverwood, Whiterun, or Helgen?
 - Nice use of the glitches in general. I'm guessing you "back into" High Hrothgar because going through the front door resets the quest triggers. (Btw what happens if you go get the Elder Scroll right out of Helgen? I assume it just gets stuck.)
 - Hadn't realized why you kill Septimus before, but it makes sense - avoid another conversation. Nice.
 - In Whiterun again, it's faster maybe to wait for Adrianne to be outside - avoids a load. Depends if loads are part of the timing or not (I forget). 'Course, that depends on what time of day you arrive. She's outside roughly from 10am to 4pm, sometimes more like 6 or even 8.
 - Nice picking up the plate again, after the Elder Scroll.
 - In a full balls-out segmented run, obviously you could get "better" random encounters - ie ones you could run past.
 - I assume we're not too interested in exact point-to-point routes right now (I wonder about Riverwood-to-Whiterun, crossing Whiterun, climbing up to High Hrothgar, etc)
 - What happens if you wait right after Alduin fight #1? Does the game disable wait then?
 - Can you murder Farengar? (Is he essential?) Maybe faster, he has a few lines during the dragon trap sequence. 
 - There's gotta be a way to speed up the peace talks... They go on and on.
 - It's interesting that you pass Lydia during a trip to Dragonsreach in one run - could she be useful in Skuldafn? She tends to fall behind, but maybe she'd be worth it for more grist for the Dragonsreach trapped dragon. (Do companions show up at Skuldafn, or are you on your own?)
 - Would it be useful to loot the chest(s) in Skuldafn, in a segmented run?
 - When does timing end, exactly? I think a fair point is when the Dragonslayer quest is done, right? There's so much coda in this game, it seems important to define the end.

It's probably not worth too much thought on the smaller points while the glitches are being worked out, I guess.

BTW in re 100% - you could either do each "radiant quest" (repeatable quest) once, or not at all in 100%. 2 or more makes no sense at all. I tend to think a complete 100% would have all quests possible mentioned in the quest log, once, but that's just MHO.

Kotti

2011-12-05 05:49:48 pm

- I doubt you actually have to crouch to steal your plates. Smiley Especially segmented.
There are two more platters in Dragonsreach, they could just be carried to another room for stealing. Or if that's for whatever reason not possible, one of them can be stolen from the main hall anyway.

- Nice use of the glitches in general. I'm guessing you "back into" High Hrothgar because going through the front door resets the quest triggers. (Btw what happens if you go get the Elder Scroll right out of Helgen? I assume it just gets stuck.)
You just get the scroll but reading it at The Throat of the World won't activate the quest. I suppose you could get it whenever you felt like it without affecting the time.

- There's gotta be a way to speed up the peace talks... They go on and on.
I couldn't agree more. I haven't touched the civil war questline at all yet, maybe that could somehow be broken? Seemingly more unlikely and slower than finding a way to skip the quest, but because I don't know nothing about it I'd like to at least give that an honest try.

- It's interesting that you pass Lydia during a trip to Dragonsreach in one run - could she be useful in Skuldafn? She tends to fall behind, but maybe she'd be worth it for more grist for the Dragonsreach trapped dragon. (Do companions show up at Skuldafn, or are you on your own?)
Do you mean Sovngarde? I don't think she would do anything in Skuldafn as there's no fighting.

BTW in re 100% - you could either do each "radiant quest" (repeatable quest) once, or not at all in 100%. 2 or more makes no sense at all. I tend to think a complete 100% would have all quests possible mentioned in the quest log, once, but that's just MHO.
I still think the radiant quests might as well be ignored, aren't they completely random too? Restarting a segment over and over just to have good luck with a randomly generated quest would be really dumb. What I think should be taken into consideration are discoverable locations and words of power. Personally, I don't think locations should matter but words of power (locked or not), might be good to include.

[i]- I doubt you actually have to crouch to steal your plates. Smiley Especially segmented.[/i]
There are two more platters in Dragonsreach, they could just be carried to another room for stealing. Or if that's for whatever reason not possible, one of them can be stolen from the main hall anyway.

[i]- Nice use of the glitches in general. I'm guessing you "back into" High Hrothgar because going through the front door resets the quest triggers. (Btw what happens if you go get the Elder Scroll right out of Helgen? I assume it just gets stuck.)[/i]
You just get the scroll but reading it at The Throat of the World won't activate the quest. I suppose you could get it whenever you felt like it without affecting the time.

[i]- There's gotta be a way to speed up the peace talks... They go on and on.[/i]
I couldn't agree more. I haven't touched the civil war questline at all yet, maybe that could somehow be broken? Seemingly more unlikely and slower than finding a way to skip the quest, but because I don't know nothing about it I'd like to at least give that an honest try.

[i]- It's interesting that you pass Lydia during a trip to Dragonsreach in one run - could she be useful in Skuldafn? She tends to fall behind, but maybe she'd be worth it for more grist for the Dragonsreach trapped dragon. (Do companions show up at Skuldafn, or are you on your own?)[/i]
Do you mean Sovngarde? I don't think she would do anything in Skuldafn as there's no fighting.

[i]BTW in re 100% - you could either do each "radiant quest" (repeatable quest) once, or not at all in 100%. 2 or more makes no sense at all. I tend to think a complete 100% would have all quests possible mentioned in the quest log, once, but that's just MHO.[/i]
I still think the radiant quests might as well be ignored, aren't they completely random too? Restarting a segment over and over just to have good luck with a randomly generated quest would be really dumb. What I think should be taken into consideration are discoverable locations and words of power. Personally, I don't think locations should matter but words of power (locked or not), might be good to include.

usernameguy

2011-12-05 06:14:39 pm

I doubt there's much to be gained by joining the Stormcloaks or the Legion - there are so many quest triggers to hit, and a lot of walking/zone discovery. "Regain the Pale... Regain Riften..." etc. If there's a glitch there to be used, it'd have to magically walk through the sequence or find a way to trick the game into giving a conversation towards the very end.

I'd normally say that a skip is far more likely via hitting a future quest trigger - but in this case, that seems really unlikely. The most obvious quest triggers - the dragon trap ones - are all conversation based, not location based. Unless there's some way to get up to Skuldafn without talking to the dragon, it's gonna be hard to find a skip past the peace talks.

Also, yeah, I meant Sovngarde. That was a comment left over from the earlier run, where there was a fight or two in Skuldafn, but the question still applies to Sovngarde.

Imperfect

2011-12-06 02:55:23 am

There's gotta be a way to speed up the peace talks... They go on and on.
I couldn't agree more. I haven't touched the civil war questline at all yet, maybe that could somehow be broken? Seemingly more unlikely and slower than finding a way to skip the quest, but because I don't know nothing about it I'd like to at least give that an honest try.

Doing civil war quests would take too long even if they could break the sequence.

If there is some way to get to Skuldafn without flying there you could potentially save a lot of time. I am not sure if there is some way to glitch up the mountains to it or some use of OOB to get there and there is a high chance that it is "instanced." So if you don't have the quest, currently active you will be unable to go there if this is the case.

Also about 100% there could be some potentially unorthodox ways of categorizing it or perhaps special categories for the following (one reason doing all quests is sort of odd is because they don't really progress the character or story in any way with some rare exceptions of quests that level up skills or give an ability):

Collect all dragon shouts/words of power (they do give character progress even if most shouts are never used)
Clear all dungeons/areas (this would be clearing out 100% of the clearable places in the game, though what would be considered clearable and not clearable and in some cases what is required to be clearable may be debatable)
Reaching max level (this however would most likely be very boring to watch as a speed run and would result in a lot of exploiting though i suppose it would be intriguing to see what people would do to exploit certain skills such as alchemy or lockpicking)

Even if these wouldn't classify as 100% they could be their own categories possibly, one problem is that doing any of these categories or 100% of quests would probably just take too long to be a reasonable speed running option.

There's gotta be a way to speed up the peace talks... They go on and on.
I couldn't agree more. I haven't touched the civil war questline at all yet, maybe that could somehow be broken? Seemingly more unlikely and slower than finding a way to skip the quest, but because I don't know nothing about it I'd like to at least give that an honest try.

Doing civil war quests would take too long even if they could break the sequence.

If there is some way to get to Skuldafn without flying there you could potentially save a lot of time.  I am not sure if there is some way to glitch up the mountains to it or some use of OOB to get there and there is a high chance that it is "instanced."  So if you don't have the quest, currently active you will be unable to go there if this is the case.

Also about 100% there could be some potentially unorthodox ways of categorizing it or perhaps special categories for the following (one reason doing all quests is sort of odd is because they don't really progress the character or story in any way with some rare exceptions of quests that level up skills or give an ability):

Collect all dragon shouts/words of power   (they do give character progress even if most shouts are never used)
Clear all dungeons/areas  (this would be clearing out 100% of the clearable places in the game, though what would be considered clearable and not clearable and in some cases what is required to be clearable may be debatable)
Reaching max level   (this however would most likely be very boring to watch as a speed run and would result in a lot of exploiting though i suppose it would be intriguing to see what people would do to exploit certain skills such as alchemy or lockpicking)

Even if these wouldn't classify as 100% they could be their own categories possibly, one problem is that doing any of these categories or 100% of quests would probably just take too long to be a reasonable speed running option.

Scepheo

2011-12-06 06:54:21 am

- I have a feeling that, eventually, if you "do the math", you'll skip the Mage Stone - just not worth the side trip.
Interesting theory. The side trip is pretty small and the 20% bonus pretty big. The question is then how much you can train without losing time and how much time this saves on the fights. I doubt that it'll actually save less time on the fights than it costs to visit the stone, but you might be right.

- I doubt you actually have to crouch to steal your plates. Especially segmented.
C'mon people! You don't need plates! Any kind of random clutter that's even remotely flat will do. I've even done it with buckets and basket and all kinds of bowl. I haven't tried yet as I just think of it, but it might even work with swords. Yes, it has a smaller chance of succeeding, but we're doing segmented anyway so that's not an issue. There's more than enough clutter to be found on the route through Helgen for the entirety of the run. Diverging the smallest bit from your route to pick up plates is, thus, a waste of time.

- There's gotta be a way to speed up the peace talks... They go on and on.
Agreed. I think this would be one of the biggest time savers, unless we actually find a bigger skip than the Thalmor Embassy one.

- When does timing end, exactly? I think a fair point is when the Dragonslayer quest is done, right? There's so much coda in this game, it seems important to define the end.
As it's the last quest from the main quest line, I doubt there's a better point to end timing.

[i] - I have a feeling that, eventually, if you "do the math", you'll skip the Mage Stone - just not worth the side trip.[/i]
Interesting theory. The side trip is pretty small and the 20% bonus pretty big. The question is then how much you can train without losing time and how much time this saves on the fights. I doubt that it'll actually save less time on the fights than it costs to visit the stone, but you might be right.

[i] - I doubt you actually have to crouch to steal your plates. :) Especially segmented.[/i]
C'mon people! You don't need plates! Any kind of random clutter that's even remotely flat will do. I've even done it with buckets and basket and all kinds of bowl. I haven't tried yet as I just think of it, but it might even work with swords. Yes, it has a smaller chance of succeeding, but we're doing segmented anyway so that's not an issue. There's more than enough clutter to be found on the route through Helgen for the entirety of the run. Diverging the smallest bit from your route to pick up plates is, thus, a waste of time.

[i] - There's gotta be a way to speed up the peace talks... They go on and on.[/i]
Agreed. I think this would be one of the biggest time savers, unless we actually find a bigger skip than the Thalmor Embassy one.

[i] - When does timing end, exactly? I think a fair point is when the Dragonslayer quest is done, right? There's so much coda in this game, it seems important to define the end.[/i]
As it's the last quest from the main quest line, I doubt there's a better point to end timing.

Kotti

Edit history:

Kotti: 2011-12-06 07:34:31 am

2011-12-06 07:33:51 am

Quote:

C'mon people! You don't need plates! Any kind of random clutter that's even remotely flat will do. I've even done it with buckets and basket and all kinds of bowl. I haven't tried yet as I just think of it, but it might even work with swords. Yes, it has a smaller chance of succeeding, but we're doing segmented anyway so that's not an issue. There's more than enough clutter to be found on the route through Helgen for the entirety of the run. Diverging the smallest bit from your route to pick up plates is, thus, a waste of time.

How many fps are you getting? What race are you playing as? How much patience does it take you to get through a door with a bucket? There's got to be more to it than just "use some clutter" because personally I can barely get through with a platter which is supposed to be the easiest item to use and in general there's no consistency in who gets through with what.

FlamingMage

2011-12-06 09:11:05 am

Okay. I have always used the item "wooden bowl" to do this glitch, so I'll say my piece on the issue.

Just use wooden bowls. Once you pull the chain next to the gate immediately after having your hands unbound, grab the nearby bowl. Costs no time, gets you into the embassy. There are at least 3 more you can grab while Esbern's packing.

Bowls totally work, at least on the 360. Just pick them up and press against the wall, I've gotten through on the firs try so many times and never actually failed to get through a working place when I tried for a while.

I don't know if people have found some magical technique, or are trying to find one that doesn't exist, or what. But for me, it is literally as simple as walking into the wall holding the item in front of me.

Scepheo

Edit history:

Scepheo: 2011-12-06 09:47:26 am

2011-12-06 09:12:50 am

Quote from Kotti:

How many fps are you getting? What race are you playing as? How much patience does it take you to get through a door with a bucket? There's got to be more to it than just "use some clutter" because personally I can barely get through with a platter which is supposed to be the easiest item to use and in general there's no consistency in who gets through with what.

About 30 to 40. High elf. A lot. Anyway, the item I find most effective is wooden bowls, of which you can find plenty in Helgen. There's two in the room where Hadvar removes your bindings, then another five or so in the room with the nice carpet and the hearth, where you're supposed to grab some potions. Anyway, I'm currently encoding a video which demonstrates my succes with wooden bowls. No, it's not just for that, it's actually another small timesaver.

EDIT: C'mon YouTube! Get your shit together! I want to upload a video, dammit!

ZenicReverie

2011-12-06 09:25:13 am

Waiting hurts my soul...

walking through walls? lol!

Quote from dballin:

sub hour and a half skyrim O_o

why has it taken me 120 hours???? haha

I think the better question is why did it take the lead QA guy for the game an extra hour to finish.