Conjuration breaks EVERYTHING : V - Skyrim

» Fri Jun 01, 2012 10:09 am

so...dont do that...

» Fri Jun 01, 2012 5:39 am

I don't think Conjuration breaks the game...I'm level 55 and can summon dremora lords, but everything I fight at this level is very powerful and the dremora lord dies almost instantly.

» Fri Jun 01, 2012 11:53 am

The pc versoin is broken.

I can use the console to LEVEL myself up to 100 in every skill in less than 2 minutes! :brokencomputer:

Really.. There are exploits in every game, and that doesn't mean it is broken. You are breaking it yourself, you know. If you, god forbids, did't use the exploit the problem would not be there.

» Fri Jun 01, 2012 3:25 pm

Using your combat skills in combat breaks the game? Damn, I've been playing the game wrong all this time.

» Fri Jun 01, 2012 12:54 am

I would find it amusing if a daedra lord appeared and kicked the players ass for abusing flame atronachs.

This! They could show up when you're sleeping or if it's more lore-friendly they could become hostile when you summoned one. Kinda like the hired thug encounters

» Fri Jun 01, 2012 8:36 am

so you... have found this game breaking, overpowered, unholy feature that you can attack your own summoned creature?
let me tell you something, that was possible in every elderscrolls game i remember.

i will never understand this. i think the only skilltree noone cried about so far is lockpicking.
Im pretty sure you can find a thread "x is so damn gamebreaking" for every single skilltree except lockpicking.

"Balance" is a word not known in the elder scrolls universe. by "abusing" skills , you can get you charakter overpowered with every single skilltree the game has to offer.
was the same way in morrowind, didn't change in oblivion, same in skyrim and it will be exactly the same in the next 10 tes games to come.
Tes was never about balance, and the games are certainly not about challenge, they are all about playing the game the way you want.

but i have some good news: are you forced to powerlevel smithing? no. using alchemie and enchant to smith you some godlike armor? no. attacking you own summons? no.

» Fri Jun 01, 2012 1:59 pm

And then after 9 hours doing this you realise you could had been playing the game normally and have the skills at about the same lvl, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=23ZG6HJVKuQ

» Fri Jun 01, 2012 2:53 pm

And then after 9 hours doing this you realise you could had been playing the game normally and have the skills at about the same lvl, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=23ZG6HJVKuQ

he will have a higher level conjuration skill. game-fu**ing-breaking. needs to be fixed asap.

» Fri Jun 01, 2012 5:00 am

its the same in them all only difference. There was more to do in Oblivion and Morrowind.

» Fri Jun 01, 2012 7:42 am

Would it feel better if there was a training dome to fight atronachs in or something? Doesn't seem too wierd.

As for balance, the game's narrative wants you to be strong enough to fight monsters who will eat ALL LIFE ON THE PLANET then go to the afterlife and EAT IT AGAIN.
So, the game's narrative drives you to godmode. The enemy balance doesn't keep up with that of course, so you wind up killing Alduin in five hits all trololo style.

» Fri Jun 01, 2012 1:12 am

By not trying to clamp down hard on the edge cases of balance, Bethesda actually allows a greater variety of choice and play style, which is GOOD game design.

I think among the places we disagree, this is the most fundamental. You characterise this sort of thing as an edge case of balance; I believe that sometimes these problems go beyond that and would be more accurately described as exploits for the same reason that levelling sneak by sneak attacking the immortal tutorial NPC or speech via the bugged dialogue on an NPC in Riften are exploits. I believe that these represent unintended interactions of game mechanics.

This is largely simple opinion: without an explicit statement from a developer to confirm or deny there is no way to know for sure where they stand on such things. However I believe their treatment of the stacking Alchemy effects in Oblivion is the relevant precedent and in that case it was treated exactly as I have suggested - as an exploit to be patched.

For me, it really boils down to this: if any given "exploit", "balance edge case" or what-have-you is genuinely an intended scenario, where are the NPCs in the world who are doing it. If there aren't any then it probably isn't something that's supposed to be there. The player is unique in being Dragonborn but is far from the only powerful mage/experienced smith/whatever. If you seem to be the very first to have discovered some new technique to rise to power then there either needs to be an in-game explanation for why everybody else isn't doing it, or it simply shouldn't be there.

I'm not convinced, incidentally, that this conjuration thing is so severe that it falls into this category; it's not really very different from e.g. spamming Muffle to raise Illusion in my opinion. My argument is really with this tendency to go straight to "you're doing it wrong" and completely overlook the possibility that something might in fact need to be fixed. Balance has always been important in single player games and that this is a large complex sandbox world does not make it an exception.

» Fri Jun 01, 2012 4:14 pm

Question how exactly is this breaking the game?
You summon something and fight it and level up while doing it. Its a stupidly boring thing to do but you can do it to get stronger if you feel the need to do so.
I personally will much rather kick the crap out of actual enemies but to each his own.

You want a challenge? I have Orchendor and Savos Aren as a dead thralls (+ I disable/enabled them so they are leveled properly). Punch them 4 times and see where you end up if you equipped the Orchendor with Sanguine Rose :X

» Fri Jun 01, 2012 3:14 am

Sounds like the guy complaining about his toothache yet constantly poking his tongue near the sore spot. Ouch yeah still there. Hopefully things like this stay in every TES game because if they throw stuff like this out the game will become very limiting.
It's never been about gaining levels or raising skills really fast. Not about powerplay BUT immersive role playing!
New players are way too fixated on numbers and therefore complaining that the game is broken if they'll level too fast. Well stop doing that. Nobody is holding a gun to your head.

» Fri Jun 01, 2012 6:21 am

Try sending your summons to kill a master necromancer. He'll take out your summons easily. Maybe some sort of daedra banashing weapon/spell.

» Fri Jun 01, 2012 10:43 am

I think among the places we disagree, this is the most fundamental. You characterise this sort of thing as an edge case of balance; I believe that sometimes these problems go beyond that and would be more accurately described as exploits for the same reason that levelling sneak by sneak attacking the immortal tutorial NPC or speech via the bugged dialogue on an NPC in Riften are exploits. I believe that these represent unintended interactions of game mechanics.

I don't see the relevance of "intent." I'm sure the developers don't intend that you play the game by finding loopholes and exploits, but these aren't the sorts of things you're going to do by accident. You, the player get to choose whether or not you want to "ruin" the game like this, just as those of us on PC can use console commands at will to do or undo virtually anything, or we can make mods to take things even further.

This isn't a multi player game, so it really doesn't matter if there are exploits, as long as those exploits 1) Aren't required to play the game and 2) require conscious planning and effort by the player to accomplish. I guess it would be nice if you could show off your little trophies or achievements for Skyrim with the knowledge that any one who has them, earned them fairly, but (just my personal opinion) some trophies in my gamer profile aren't nearly as meaningful to me as having many options to play the game. IMO these exploits can add to the game's enjoyment, especially for console players, who may want to explore different character concepts at some point and not want to invest 300 hours to get their character to the desired stats "organically."

Ultimately it comes down to your decision as a consumer and as a gamer, whether or not you can control your impulse to cheat in cases where you know (or suspect) that cheating is going to diminish the game.

IMO, an "exploit" like being able to attack and kill your own summons adds a lot to the game and takes nothing from it. The fact that this was actually an intended mechanic (explicitly mentioned to you by NPCs, in fact) leads me to believe that it may even be an intended way of playing.

» Fri Jun 01, 2012 3:07 am

And you're also playing the game wrong.

This.

Summoning a helper and beating the crap out of it to level up is pretty non-heroic. To the max.

» Fri Jun 01, 2012 12:19 pm

Meh. Can be useful - if you want to play an Altmer/Argonian Warrior, Nord mage, etc. It can let you balance out the bonuses that each race initially gets. The key is balance - if you do this a lot, you have removed the challenge of the game, and therefore you are stupid.

» Fri Jun 01, 2012 10:57 am

> player.setav conjuration 100
> player.setav onehanded 100
> player.setav [etc] 100

There, I just achieved the same results as the OP, even faster and with even less fun and challenge.

Oh no! Dev console BREAKS EVERYTHING! Remove the dev console!

» Fri Jun 01, 2012 5:35 am

I wasn't able to find any sort of thread that talked about this, so I figured that I would address this:

Conjuration can break literally every single combat skill

And here's how:

The conjuration school is, by itself, a good school. You summon stuff, be it a weapon or a Atronach, and you kill things. This school becomes broken once you start taking that weapon you've summoned (though it technically isn't necessary) and started to use it against whatever Atronach.

Let's use an example of my character that I haven't even put 4 hours into. It's already level 15, with 50+ in one handed, conjuration, and archery. This is accomplished by summoning an Atronach, hitting it enough to kill (in the beginning, and even now because of a lack of any perks in one handed, it takes 5 hits with no power attack.) This levels up conjuration (summoning and hitting with a summoned weapon) and one handed (obviously the attacking with the weapon). Literally the only limit on how fast this goes is by how much magicka you have, and how fast it regenerates. Fun little note here too: it's not limited to one handed for combat skills. Want that two handed to power level? Switch after summoning an Antronach. Want to improve your sneak? Attack when it's not aware of you. Want to start flinging some more powerful flames and frost around? Summon and set that bad boy on fire.

But what you're probably thinking is that this is only attack stuff, and I said all combat skills. Now hold your horses, and let me explain:

After 4 hits, an Atronach attacks you back. Problem? Not if you want your armor to get better. You get the crap kicked out of you, and then get that last shot to make it so that you don't die. Oh wait, now your health is low. Good thing that you can use restoration, and improve that school too.

So, by using this one school, we can improve anything combat related.

Don't believe me? Let's go over the skills you can improve using it, and a short bit how:

-Conjuration, by using the skill (summoning, and using weapon)
-One Handed, attacking summoned creature
-Two Handed, attacking summoned creature
-Archery, attacking summoned creature
-Sneak, shooting/stabbing summoned creature in the back
-Illusion, you can use on the summoned creature
-Destruction, using the spells on the summoned creature
-Restoration, healing yourself after allowing yourself to be hurt
-Heavy/Light Armor, allow yourself to be attacked

So yeah, just a tip, Conjuration breaks everything.

No one is forcing you to sit there and conjure things to beat on all day, and level up that way. I personally level up by completing dungeons and quests and have never even thought about this cheesiness.

BUT it is a single player game. People can do that all day and guess what? I won't ever know... or care, because that isn't my game.

» Fri Jun 01, 2012 3:54 am

I had an encounter with a single mudcrab.
I kept letting it hit me, and then I would heal myself when I got to about 20% health.
After 2 hours my Heavy Armor and Restoration were both at 100.

MUDCRABS BREAK THE GAME!

/not a true story- but quite possible, I'm certain

» Fri Jun 01, 2012 8:48 am

And then after 9 hours doing this you realise you could had been playing the game normally and have the skills at about the same lvl, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=23ZG6HJVKuQ

And without the loot if I might add. This basically gimps the OP instead.

» Fri Jun 01, 2012 7:08 am

No one is forcing you to sit there and conjure things to beat on all day, and level up that way. I personally level up by completing dungeons and quests and have never even thought about this cheesiness.

Heh, yeah, it turns out that dungeons and quests break the game because you can level up by doing them. Who knew? :ohmy:

» Fri Jun 01, 2012 1:05 am

This is infact a type of training you can do, same with using lower level monsters to train armor or blocking or sneak or any combat skill.

» Fri Jun 01, 2012 11:42 am

So basically you have to do things to level up your skills, I still don't think this is a problem. I' had never heard of that method of ranking up skills but it's no worse than any other. If people want to be lame and smack a summoned creature around, who cares, it's boring but it works for them. Really, if I lived in Skyrim maybe that would be a decent way to train myself to deal with daedra? I could summon them and practice my attacks without hurting anyone.

and try not to get urself killed :biggrin:

» Fri Jun 01, 2012 3:17 am

"Gamebreaking playstyles" were possible in Daggerfall as well. Does anyone remember 'void ranger' characters perchance? Or vampirically enchanted swords that stole health from your target and gave it to you, making you essentially unkillable in melee?

By creating certain spells characters could exit the normal dungeon confines and levitate directly to whatever part of the dungeon they wanted, skipping every monster, trap, puzzle, and maze in between. Some called it cheating, others rationalized it thus:

"The dungeons are procedurally generated and pointlessly and unrealistically complicated. Its less fun to be lost for hours in the same damn dungeon than it is to void-range directly to the goal. The monsters aren't really that deadly to me anymore because I have a daedric dai-katana enchanted with absorb health. The traps are just annoying without being dangerous. If I would rather save time by skipping content I won't enjoy anyway, I should have that right."

Let's face it, it wouldn't be TES without godlike gameplay decisions available.

As for whether there's a right or wrong way to play the game, of course there is. If a gameplay style ruins the game FOR YOU, its the wrong way to play FOR YOU. Find a more enjoyable style of play and stop restricting the gameplay of others.