OT: A Very Interesting AI

[Lanzfeld 1]

Okay I bought Skyrim after reading the other thread started by Hellshade I think.

Anyway I am hooked. I wanted to share a little funny story that might give a small glimps into the inner workings of the AI in the game. Deep stuff man.

 

So I am a total Noob in RiverWood. I have slowed time to timescale=5 so days and nights are much longer than default (20). I have just been killing time learning the game and fine people of Riverwood. The days are long and I don't venture too far and the nights are spent in the pub with the town drunk before I make eyes at the innkeepers wife and go to bed alone. I am taking it slow. Anyway I get around to doing the blacksmith tutorial and I am having fun. I make myself some leather armour and I want to improve it but I need more leather. For a few days I have noticed a large elk across the river from town that hangs out in a field so I grab my bow and off I go! I spook it at first and it runs away down river so I stalk it over the next half hour near the old womans house (no hot daughters). I finally get a good bead on it in a field and I draw back an arrow (with spider poison on it) and shoot the elk. I hit! He is not down! He runs......now I have to chase.

 

 

Here is the cool part: He runs back across the river and down the path into Riverwood as I chase him. When I get into Riverwood everyone is scrambling to kill the elk! It's like they are all hungry for fresh meat! The Blacksmith is chasing the elk down the road through town and the woodchopping elf is taking pot-shots at it with his bow! Even my drinking buddy is running after the elk with a mug of ale! LOL! Really made my day as I have not seen a game with depth like this before. This will kill some time before P4 for sure.

 

I guess I'll man up soon and venture over to Whiterun or whatever.What a blast! Not sure what I like best: magic, bows, or swords.

Edited February 17, 2012 by Lanzfeld

[Bullethead 12]

Welcome to Skyrim. Good to see it discussed in here again .

 

You do need to make a decision pretty soon on what your main combat skills will be, and always keep their levels rather above those of your noncombat skills like crafting. While you CAN be a jack of all trades, it pays to specialize on 2 or 3 main areas at the expense of the others. This is because your overall character level is sort of the sum of all your skill levels, whether they're combat skills or not. And it's your overall character level that determines how tough a lot (but not all) of the opposition is. So if you spread yourself out too thinly, or get too good at crafting to the neglect of swordplay, you'll eventually start getting your butt kicked on a regular basis. You CAN recover from this, but it takes a long, painful time.

 

Anyway, as to combat skills, you need something for distance and something for up close. Magic can do both so the options are basically sword + bow, sword + magic, bow + magic, or magic alone. All work quite well, they just require different tactics and gear. For instance, getting the most out of swords and bows requires a lot of stamina, while heavy reliance on magic requires a lot of magicka, and gear that buffs it and/or reduces the cost of using certain types of spells. This all has impacts on how sneaky you need to be, what type of armor you wear, how much loot you can carry, how much damage you can take, etc. IOW, everything about how you play the character. So it's an important choice if you have a desire to play a particular type of character.

[Lanzfeld 1]

Good advice Bullethead. I suppose I will get to proper adventuring soon it's just that I love to mess around as this game is so frikkin huge!

 

I still keep downloading so many mods I am still tweaking it. I have "deadly dragons" even though I have not seen a dragon yet. It is so much fun to explore and tinker. It is the randomness that is great. While stalking the elk in my OP I saw a lizard-man running through my field. I ran after him and caught him and he was just known as "Theif". He really didnt want to talk to me but I always wonder where the game had him going to.

Just great.