Does anyone know if jumping about, swimming lots, running, etc. Increases your stats. In morrowind I used to jump constantly as it increased agility. It didn't work in oblivion though. So I doubt it does in Skyrim. I still jump about mostly though.
I don't think so. If I remember correctly it was called athletics in Oblivion..I jump all the time no change in stats. I may be wrong though.
Oblivion have 21 skills I think, Skyrim only has 18... They took out Athletics and Acrobatics, which was under speed or agility? I remember that Khajiit in oblivion who talked very peculiarly and run away randomly... he had 100 athletics and THAT is why I could never catch him, ahaha..
In skyrim I haven't even found any movement speed buffs or apparel... but you do notice a difference from taking off your armor.
I do remember jumping in Oblivion, but it only gave you experience if you had stamina .
@Aesir, I was about to post that about the controls. Dang rascals.
@Stinger, I don't think it's a shame at all that jumping and running don't increase acrobatics and agility anymore. All it did was make me jump and run whenever I could which is a fucking annoying way to play to level up skills. Also constantly jumping and running did work in Oblivion to get those skills up.
@Ryswick, you can walk while sneaking too to go extra slow and be quieter. The sneak run is good for archers like me or people who backstab so we don't always have to be walking super slow to get damage bonuses.
Also in general on the speed, it seems that every player starts with the same speed and it's changed based on the armor you're wearing. Heavy Armor slows you down more than Light Armor. There's perks for Light Armor that makes it so you go as fast as you would without armor on and I believe there's a perk like that for Heavy Armor too.
Also another rascal note. In Oblivion I got my speed up to 100 and had speed buff enchants on all of my armor from the Daedra Orbs so I had about 155 speed. I also had master heavy armor with a full Daedra set so it didn't encumber me at all. It took quite a while to get that character there but it was quite fancy to play on.
Also another rascal note. In Oblivion I got my speed up to 100 and had speed buff enchants on all of my armor from the Daedra Orbs so I had about 155 speed. I also had master heavy armor with a full Daedra set so it didn't encumber me at all. It took quite a while to get that character there but it was quite fancy to play on.
I had a character in Morrowind that could levitate indefinitely. Flying everywhere was so cool. I miss Levitate
Just started playing on the PS3 and now I am hearing about how the save files can kinda bloat and once past 5mb the game becomes almost unplayable due to the lag (which is already noticable here and there)
Hope they can fix that soon in an update. Have a bunch of time I could spend playing this over thanksgiving and when you hear people only 16hours in being unable to play anymore really makes you wish you bought it used from Gamestop or not at all...
If not I guess I will just have to wait to get a good computer and torrent the game seeing as how I already spent 60 bucks on it.
Really like the whole R1/L1 controlling main and off hand. Super cool wielding a sword and magic like a boss.
@Autocon, I had a somewhat similar problem with Oblivion on my 360 a few years ago. I just kept saving a new file every time I saved and eventually when it was up to about 160 saves it took about 5 minutes to save each time... I had to go through and delete all 160 saves one by one so that it would save in a reasonable amount of time.
Ha, same here! When I got to work today a co-worker asked me who I went with and I had no idea what he was talking about. I figured going with the prisoner was the only choice. The depth in this game is really blowing my mind.
the choice whom you follow doesn't seem to matter much in the end. Both lead you to the same town and you can still join whatever faction you want. Bad example to illustrate the depth of the game, but I know what you mean. There's just so many details and hidden secrets everywhere.
I love how it is an awesome RPG, just like Dragon Age, yet totally different from its approach
Blown away by the game so far. Absolutely loving it. Anyone else care to share their modified ini's? I'd love to test some other setups to see what looks best.
love those screenshots! Guess I have to mess with the ini today. I have most settings on high and ultra but my video card still seems to have some reserves...
Just started playing on the PS3 and now I am hearing about how the save files can kinda bloat and once past 5mb the game becomes almost unplayable due to the lag (which is already noticable here and there)
Hope they can fix that soon in an update. Have a bunch of time I could spend playing this over thanksgiving and when you hear people only 16hours in being unable to play anymore really makes you wish you bought it used from Gamestop or not at all...
If not I guess I will just have to wait to get a good computer and torrent the game seeing as how I already spent 60 bucks on it.
Really like the whole R1/L1 controlling main and off hand. Super cool wielding a sword and magic like a boss.
From what I gathered, try and not have too many Quest in your Log and/or don't buy houses when given the option, other then the one in Whiterun.
I just took another bunch of quest and pumped full another house, bam. I just went from 10MB to almost 11.5MB.
how you kill a dragon? I've only managed two so far, and its because NPCs were helping me. whenever I encounter these blasted bastards, they fly high, and kill me from above. It doesn't seem so I can kill them with my bow. And the shout only pissing them off, hardly do any damage.. well, compared to their health bar. I'm lvl15 now, feel stupid :poly122:
how you kill a dragon? I've only managed two so far, and its because NPCs were helping me. whenever I encounter these blasted bastards, they fly high, and kill me from above. It doesn't seem so I can kill them with my bow. And the shout only pissing them off, hardly do any damage.. well, compared to their health bar. I'm lvl15 now, feel stupid :poly122:
They tend to land only if there's enough open space, which can be annoying sometimes because there will be some open space but they'll choose not to. In some spots you can use objects to hide behind when they do their breath, for instance a house, if they like to land on that instead of on the ground you can get right up to the wall and not be hit. I'd say the best thing to do is to get a summon or a companion (or hell, even a horse), and get ready to heal through the attacks they do on you. If you're on master difficulty you might find you can't take on most things 1v1 except things like simple bandits and wolves (unless I'm doing something wrong) so you have to use things to assist you or take advantage of the terrain.
Right, just got past Mirmulnir and by gawd; this game is better then life...
Nothing like sporting a magic spewing oversized stealth cat. The Khajiit are pure win!
Get 100 smithing and buy the Dragon Armor perk at the top of the tree, it unlocks both dragonscale and dragonplate.
And how can I get a house in solitude?
Talk to the Jarl in Solitude (might have to go through the quests her advisor gives you first) and she'll tell you in order to become a Thane you need to buy a house and help five people and she'll tell you who to buy it from. (can't remember the name) It's 25,000 Septims though.
25,000 Septims for a shitty house in Solitude? I might go buy a house somewhere... I've got 50,000 gold right now and nothing to spend it on. I'm thinking of just not looting most things anymore because it's annoying having to go sell all of this shit to about 5 different vendors because they only have 1,500 gold. I've got about 20 different rings and necklaces I've crafted from random gems and silver and I can never sell them all!
Guess that makes sense if you're just vendoring everything. I pretty much went the opposite direction, I bought a house and then never vendored anything. Every container in my house is filled with endless garbage.
I have a leather addiction. all my gold goes to leather that then goes into smithing. How did you get so much cash? I need to know! I HAVE SOUL GEMS TO BUY!
I have a leather addiction. all my gold goes to leather that then goes into smithing. How did you get so much cash? I need to know! I HAVE SOUL GEMS TO BUY!
A lot of dungeons I guess... I used to spend all of my money on leather and soul gems too but now I have Smithing 100 and all of the armor and enchantments I'll need until I get more enchanting perks. I even buy any Grand or Greater Soul Gems at vendors when I'm selling stuff so that the vendor will have more money but I still can't even empty my inventory of all of this jewelry before they're out of gold.
Craft a crap ton of stuff. I crafted about 1000 iron daggers, seems everything is the same experience value. After that, I just started going a little craft crazy.
And that's the dragon armor I'm sporting.
Anyone know where I can find a nice looking hood that shows my face? doesn't even need any advantages, I just want a nice hood without a mask.
Blown away by the game so far. Absolutely loving it. Anyone else care to share their modified ini's? I'd love to test some other setups to see what looks best.
Heres mine, and some shots to go with it. (note this is all running fine on my 560ti, but i wouldn't suggest pushing it much more then this it seems to crash a lot when i have tried)
@willy-wilson: Holy balls that looks awesome, will be trying your ini's for sure, i assume it's the ones in documents/my games/skyrim? Should be noted that vsync and mouse acceleration is on also, for those who prefer them off like me
edit: Skyrim sets my settings to high when launching, will setting it to ultra break anything in the ini's?
They tend to land only if there's enough open space, which can be annoying sometimes because there will be some open space but they'll choose not to. In some spots you can use objects to hide behind when they do their breath, for instance a house, if they like to land on that instead of on the ground you can get right up to the wall and not be hit. I'd say the best thing to do is to get a summon or a companion (or hell, even a horse), and get ready to heal through the attacks they do on you. If you're on master difficulty you might find you can't take on most things 1v1 except things like simple bandits and wolves (unless I'm doing something wrong) so you have to use things to assist you or take advantage of the terrain.
I finally got my blacksmithing up to 100 so I made dragon armour and was annoyed at the fact that I can't choose daedra until I unlock the weaker armour perks. So lame.
Also I'm loving the hand made dungeons. Found another one with a necromancer who would kidnap women and turn them into his ghost slaves.
Also came across a bug where my two legendary glass maces keep unfavourit'ing themselves. Well, more like I can only equip one and I have to manually equip the other in the weapons menu.
Also, for anyone wanting to understand the language of texture replacement packs, "better" or "high quality" means high density, dirt-overlayed and noise-filter'ed.
Also, for anyone wanting to understand the language of texture replacement packs, "better" or "high quality" means high density, dirt-overlayed and noise-filter'ed.
It's like a thu'um blowing your eyes out.
Well. the more "things" on the screen the better and more realistic right!? :O
^^
Yepp, there is a important saying that says more is more, or something along those lines.
In short I think it means the more grunge texture overlays the better.
Starelfûr - Well, I cleaned the bandits out of your mine. How about some money.
Mine Boss - What already? I only told you about them 5 minutes ago.
Starelfûr - Yeah, well the mine is right there and the bandits weren't exactly tough
Mine Boss - No, the bandit mine is over there *points*
Starelfûr - Huh. Well I cleared the bandits out of this mine without you even asking. I think that deserves an extra reward.
Mine Boss - There aren't any bandits in this mine. Only my miners.
Starelfûr - Oh... I have to go now.
Alright there's sufficient praise in here for this game I think I can vent a bit. Don't get me wrong, the game is awesome, worth every damned penny, but there's some game design that's really starting to kill the mid/ late game.
/gameplaySnob
The item/ Enchanting/ Alchemy/ Money/ Skill/ entire damned gameplay system doesn't blend together into a coherent fun whole that makes any kind of sense. This whole time i've been gathering, enchanting, smithing, stealing old ladies walking sticks in pure bliss working towards an ultimate goal of being rich off my ass buying all the cool stuff i ever wanted or making it myself.
But i can't.
Years ago MMO's came out and told us we can't buy or make awesome items, because proliferation of these items to lower level players would kill the game. Why doesn't skyrim have decently scaling self made, bought, or stolen items? No damned reason at all as far as i can tell.
I've got days of time invested, the entire game I've painstakingly geared my play and progress to allow me to craft a badass set of dragon scale and use it with sneak and full bonuses and enchant it with junk. Yet when i finally get to the enchanting table to apply my buffs to the armor it's a tiny tiny fraction of what the bonuses were to the original pieces i had destroyed to get the bonuses from. The mana regen to me as a caster was far more important than the AC. I am far worse off trying to tailor my own crap than if i had just totally forgone all the skills and just pumped up light armor and magic stats.
I mean what's the point of these other skills? They don't make items better than what you can find. And if you don't need to make crap or train tons of skills you don't need money. I can't see the reasoning behind this skill system. Level up my smithing forever to throw a bonus or two on items I found? That's a bit anti climactic, and the armor bonuses are rarely noticeable in combat. The one thing i will admit is great is the big damage bonus you get to weapons when you pump it up, but bleh, that's just forced and invalidates the entire system of tradeskilling. Make 50 billion daggers and bracers so one day you make use 1 ore to make your uber weapon you found in a dungeon better.
They need to revamp enchanting so that using them makes items as good or better than what's dropped in the game or else what's the point? Enchanting is balls if the enchantments are a fraction of the power of other items. Imagine if you could STACK enchantments to make them more and more powerful, using an item for each stack. Woulda been far more rewarding and add a more obvious method of farming then the awkward soul gem system.
Pump up the stats of self made items to make blacksmithing actually fun to use, it'd be cool if each type of armor had a great set bonus if you made it all yourself to really sell it. It's a joke how in depth the system is to make massive amounts of shit items you'd never use because of all the better loot that drops. I mean this is a single player game, there isn't even other people to show the stuff off to. The system is squandered.
Magic spells... they don't scale well enough and when they do they're AOE. More often than not that's a bad thing as you have allies around or you hit stuff you don't want to (sorry horse, i hardly knew ye). To get the most out of your spells you gotta mix and match, summon, heal etc. Switching spells is such a headache i wish i'd just gone sword and board. The crowd control spells and shield spells are also underwhelming. Casting is just a means of delivering damage or healing for the most part. I still haven't even found an invis spell, that would have made the entire game so much more fun up to this point.
And potions... ugh, talk about a bloated system that could have been scaled down. How about being able to combine potions together to make stronger potions? This way you're not just sitting on 50 billion shit potions that aren't good enough to use but you don't want to throw away 50 billion gold. But you can't sell it either because no vendors have the coin. So you have a chest in your house full of 5000 potions you'll never use as a testament to the bad-ass alchemy system of Skyrim.
Anyway, Kick ass adventure and quest game, flawed combat and trade design in the mid/ late game.
If you guys are loving it all take it with a grain of salt, this is my first go at an elder scrolls game, I'm probably doing a few things wrong or just got unlucky with drops, who knows. Still plan on sinking many more hours into this at some point, but next play through i'm just going a simple thief or warrior who doesn't give a damn about the other skills until he has enough money to not give a f*ck about leveling them.
I still haven't even found an invis spell, that would have made the entire game so much more fun up to this point.
Did you go to the mage college and learn illusion stuff? some fair points about smithing/enchanting I just assumed I was too low level to make anything cool but if you still cant make awesome items at high levels then something is wrong.
Anyone know where I can find a nice looking hood that shows my face? doesn't even need any advantages, I just want a nice hood without a mask.
The Dark Brotherhood has a hood that shows your face. If you enter it and look around you'll find a some pieces on some shelves, and then when you talk to the woman she'll give you some pieces too. One set will have a hood, the other a hood with mask.
The Dark Brotherhood has a hood that shows your face. If you enter it and look around you'll find a some pieces on some shelves, and then when you talk to the woman she'll give you some pieces too. One set will have a hood, the other a hood with mask.
all the cool kids are wearing hoods that make their face disappear these days (Bethesda, please fix this!)
Replies
I don't think so. If I remember correctly it was called athletics in Oblivion..I jump all the time no change in stats. I may be wrong though.
Oblivion have 21 skills I think, Skyrim only has 18... They took out Athletics and Acrobatics, which was under speed or agility? I remember that Khajiit in oblivion who talked very peculiarly and run away randomly... he had 100 athletics and THAT is why I could never catch him, ahaha..
In skyrim I haven't even found any movement speed buffs or apparel... but you do notice a difference from taking off your armor.
I do remember jumping in Oblivion, but it only gave you experience if you had stamina .
Some skyrim HD timelapse
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UU4bSSV4bMM"]Beautiful SKYRIM Timelapse [HD] - YouTube[/ame]
Although I'm still confused as to why horses are sometimes slower then people and you can't ride them in FPS...
I also don't understand why you can't ride horses in First Person Shooter. Also it's weird that sneaking is faster than "walking"
That's been in every Bethesda games since... Morrowind if i remember correctly >_>
@Stinger, I don't think it's a shame at all that jumping and running don't increase acrobatics and agility anymore. All it did was make me jump and run whenever I could which is a fucking annoying way to play to level up skills. Also constantly jumping and running did work in Oblivion to get those skills up.
@Ryswick, you can walk while sneaking too to go extra slow and be quieter. The sneak run is good for archers like me or people who backstab so we don't always have to be walking super slow to get damage bonuses.
Also in general on the speed, it seems that every player starts with the same speed and it's changed based on the armor you're wearing. Heavy Armor slows you down more than Light Armor. There's perks for Light Armor that makes it so you go as fast as you would without armor on and I believe there's a perk like that for Heavy Armor too.
Also another rascal note. In Oblivion I got my speed up to 100 and had speed buff enchants on all of my armor from the Daedra Orbs so I had about 155 speed. I also had master heavy armor with a full Daedra set so it didn't encumber me at all. It took quite a while to get that character there but it was quite fancy to play on.
I had a character in Morrowind that could levitate indefinitely. Flying everywhere was so cool. I miss Levitate
Hope they can fix that soon in an update. Have a bunch of time I could spend playing this over thanksgiving and when you hear people only 16hours in being unable to play anymore really makes you wish you bought it used from Gamestop or not at all...
If not I guess I will just have to wait to get a good computer and torrent the game seeing as how I already spent 60 bucks on it.
Really like the whole R1/L1 controlling main and off hand. Super cool wielding a sword and magic like a boss.
the choice whom you follow doesn't seem to matter much in the end. Both lead you to the same town and you can still join whatever faction you want. Bad example to illustrate the depth of the game, but I know what you mean. There's just so many details and hidden secrets everywhere.
I love how it is an awesome RPG, just like Dragon Age, yet totally different from its approach
I haven't been so lucky.
dragon rodeo
THIS GAME IS LIKE COCAINE
Also, a potentially super frustrating glitch. I got cheated out of a dragon soul, this guy just stuck around after I killed him.
Took this tonight:
I just have it so rocks and plants cast shadows.. 80 FOV.. 2+ gigs of Ram enabled.. and Used Nvidia Inspector so I get SSAO on every prop and plant.
some shots i took.
this is the best game ever.
I just took another bunch of quest and pumped full another house, bam. I just went from 10MB to almost 11.5MB.
how you kill a dragon? I've only managed two so far, and its because NPCs were helping me. whenever I encounter these blasted bastards, they fly high, and kill me from above. It doesn't seem so I can kill them with my bow. And the shout only pissing them off, hardly do any damage.. well, compared to their health bar. I'm lvl15 now, feel stupid :poly122:
http://solidlystated.com/software/elder-scroll-skyrim-graphics-options/
Like a lot. Crazy tons.
Can I allot more Ram to skyrim too?
They tend to land only if there's enough open space, which can be annoying sometimes because there will be some open space but they'll choose not to. In some spots you can use objects to hide behind when they do their breath, for instance a house, if they like to land on that instead of on the ground you can get right up to the wall and not be hit. I'd say the best thing to do is to get a summon or a companion (or hell, even a horse), and get ready to heal through the attacks they do on you. If you're on master difficulty you might find you can't take on most things 1v1 except things like simple bandits and wolves (unless I'm doing something wrong) so you have to use things to assist you or take advantage of the terrain.
Nothing like sporting a magic spewing oversized stealth cat. The Khajiit are pure win!
And how can I get a house in solitude?
To make the Dragon Scale armor you need to have Smithing at 100 and have the final perk selected. You get the dragon scales off of dead dragons.
Talk to the Jarl in Solitude (might have to go through the quests her advisor gives you first) and she'll tell you in order to become a Thane you need to buy a house and help five people and she'll tell you who to buy it from. (can't remember the name) It's 25,000 Septims though.
Guess that makes sense if you're just vendoring everything. I pretty much went the opposite direction, I bought a house and then never vendored anything. Every container in my house is filled with endless garbage.
A lot of dungeons I guess... I used to spend all of my money on leather and soul gems too but now I have Smithing 100 and all of the armor and enchantments I'll need until I get more enchanting perks. I even buy any Grand or Greater Soul Gems at vendors when I'm selling stuff so that the vendor will have more money but I still can't even empty my inventory of all of this jewelry before they're out of gold.
Craft a crap ton of stuff. I crafted about 1000 iron daggers, seems everything is the same experience value. After that, I just started going a little craft crazy.
And that's the dragon armor I'm sporting.
Anyone know where I can find a nice looking hood that shows my face? doesn't even need any advantages, I just want a nice hood without a mask.
AND AGREED, THE KHAJIIT ARE UBER-BAMF
Heres mine, and some shots to go with it. (note this is all running fine on my 560ti, but i wouldn't suggest pushing it much more then this it seems to crash a lot when i have tried)
Screens.
skyrim.ini
skyrimprefs.ini B]see below post as post is to long[/B
edit: Skyrim sets my settings to high when launching, will setting it to ultra break anything in the ini's?
thanks!
Also I'm loving the hand made dungeons. Found another one with a necromancer who would kidnap women and turn them into his ghost slaves.
Also came across a bug where my two legendary glass maces keep unfavourit'ing themselves. Well, more like I can only equip one and I have to manually equip the other in the weapons menu.
It's like a thu'um blowing your eyes out.
Well. the more "things" on the screen the better and more realistic right!? :O
Yepp, there is a important saying that says more is more, or something along those lines.
In short I think it means the more grunge texture overlays the better.
http://deadendthrills.com/2011/11/madness-in-the-method/
Neat stuff!
Mine Boss - What already? I only told you about them 5 minutes ago.
Starelfûr - Yeah, well the mine is right there and the bandits weren't exactly tough
Mine Boss - No, the bandit mine is over there *points*
Starelfûr - Huh. Well I cleared the bandits out of this mine without you even asking. I think that deserves an extra reward.
Mine Boss - There aren't any bandits in this mine. Only my miners.
Starelfûr - Oh... I have to go now.
/gameplaySnob
The item/ Enchanting/ Alchemy/ Money/ Skill/ entire damned gameplay system doesn't blend together into a coherent fun whole that makes any kind of sense. This whole time i've been gathering, enchanting, smithing, stealing old ladies walking sticks in pure bliss working towards an ultimate goal of being rich off my ass buying all the cool stuff i ever wanted or making it myself.
But i can't.
Years ago MMO's came out and told us we can't buy or make awesome items, because proliferation of these items to lower level players would kill the game. Why doesn't skyrim have decently scaling self made, bought, or stolen items? No damned reason at all as far as i can tell.
I've got days of time invested, the entire game I've painstakingly geared my play and progress to allow me to craft a badass set of dragon scale and use it with sneak and full bonuses and enchant it with junk. Yet when i finally get to the enchanting table to apply my buffs to the armor it's a tiny tiny fraction of what the bonuses were to the original pieces i had destroyed to get the bonuses from. The mana regen to me as a caster was far more important than the AC. I am far worse off trying to tailor my own crap than if i had just totally forgone all the skills and just pumped up light armor and magic stats.
I mean what's the point of these other skills? They don't make items better than what you can find. And if you don't need to make crap or train tons of skills you don't need money. I can't see the reasoning behind this skill system. Level up my smithing forever to throw a bonus or two on items I found? That's a bit anti climactic, and the armor bonuses are rarely noticeable in combat. The one thing i will admit is great is the big damage bonus you get to weapons when you pump it up, but bleh, that's just forced and invalidates the entire system of tradeskilling. Make 50 billion daggers and bracers so one day you make use 1 ore to make your uber weapon you found in a dungeon better.
They need to revamp enchanting so that using them makes items as good or better than what's dropped in the game or else what's the point? Enchanting is balls if the enchantments are a fraction of the power of other items. Imagine if you could STACK enchantments to make them more and more powerful, using an item for each stack. Woulda been far more rewarding and add a more obvious method of farming then the awkward soul gem system.
Pump up the stats of self made items to make blacksmithing actually fun to use, it'd be cool if each type of armor had a great set bonus if you made it all yourself to really sell it. It's a joke how in depth the system is to make massive amounts of shit items you'd never use because of all the better loot that drops. I mean this is a single player game, there isn't even other people to show the stuff off to. The system is squandered.
Magic spells... they don't scale well enough and when they do they're AOE. More often than not that's a bad thing as you have allies around or you hit stuff you don't want to (sorry horse, i hardly knew ye). To get the most out of your spells you gotta mix and match, summon, heal etc. Switching spells is such a headache i wish i'd just gone sword and board. The crowd control spells and shield spells are also underwhelming. Casting is just a means of delivering damage or healing for the most part. I still haven't even found an invis spell, that would have made the entire game so much more fun up to this point.
And potions... ugh, talk about a bloated system that could have been scaled down. How about being able to combine potions together to make stronger potions? This way you're not just sitting on 50 billion shit potions that aren't good enough to use but you don't want to throw away 50 billion gold. But you can't sell it either because no vendors have the coin. So you have a chest in your house full of 5000 potions you'll never use as a testament to the bad-ass alchemy system of Skyrim.
Anyway, Kick ass adventure and quest game, flawed combat and trade design in the mid/ late game.
If you guys are loving it all take it with a grain of salt, this is my first go at an elder scrolls game, I'm probably doing a few things wrong or just got unlucky with drops, who knows. Still plan on sinking many more hours into this at some point, but next play through i'm just going a simple thief or warrior who doesn't give a damn about the other skills until he has enough money to not give a f*ck about leveling them.
Did you go to the mage college and learn illusion stuff? some fair points about smithing/enchanting I just assumed I was too low level to make anything cool but if you still cant make awesome items at high levels then something is wrong.
The Dark Brotherhood has a hood that shows your face. If you enter it and look around you'll find a some pieces on some shelves, and then when you talk to the woman she'll give you some pieces too. One set will have a hood, the other a hood with mask.
all the cool kids are wearing hoods that make their face disappear these days (Bethesda, please fix this!)