Hi,

So it has been a fairly decent amount of time since I posted on these forums (not since the hype days ). So hello to anyone who remembers me! Although, I seriously doubt there are any still using these forums since the announcement of “no new DLC for Skyrim” (Boo!). I am posting this thread because I have recently started playing Skyrim again, after a long absence on BL2, and wanted to share it with the community in hopes of firing your passion for Skyrim again.

So what has caused this new found interest I hear you ask?

Simple. Start/System/Settings/Display. Now turn HUD opacity and Brightness down to the minimum!

Enter your new Skyrim experience.

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Darkness and The Torch

No longer do you stroll around Dragur infested crypts like a God of War or sneak like a wraith into bandit camps and backstab every NPC on your compass, your new world is a dark and terrifying place! Enemies now merge with the shadows, once familiar room layouts take on new shapes as you struggle to make out anything past the dim glow of you fluttering torch and travelling the open world at night becomes a death sentence. Having played for a few hours like this I have decided that this was how the game was meant to be played, not only does the increase in darkness hide the dated graphics (on console) making the game far more beautiful and atmospheric than I could have imagined but enemies like Dragur (especially their vivid ice cold piercing gaze) and wraiths become terrifying to behold.

I am reminded of a particular encounter and one which serves to really explain what I have said above. I was travelling at night on foot, having strayed from the path, I found myself in a dense woodland. The glow from my torch acted as a double edge sword, for whilst it helped me to stop blundering into trees or over cliff tops, it also destroyed my peripheral vision and anything beyond a few metres (an ingenious and very realistic effect I didn’t appreciate until now, Thanks Bethesda!). It was then that I heard something in the undergrowth, a deep and terrifying growl. I quickly scanned my surroundings, which proved useless in the dark, only helping me to further my disorientation. Fear gripped my spine and with shaking hands I drew my sword, its wicked edge glinting in the moonlight. And then the beast was upon me… Out of nowhere a huge and fearsome bear reared up in front of me, its evil beady eyes lit up like a demons in the torch light. I barely managed to parry its first strike with the torch. The blow jarring my arm up to the shoulder and sending a shower of embers over my face. Quickly I returned the favour (with no cross hair), blindly hacking into the meat of its side. Fortunately the blow landed and it had enough power behind it to stagger the beast. Unfortunately the beast was not alone. Its mate thundered into my side (I literally jumped!), oblivious to the danger I was unprepared for the blow and I felt the sickening impact as I was knocked back, my own blood spraying over my face. On weak legs I staggered back, desperately trying to avoid the killing blow. It missed me by a hairs breadth, whistling past my face. Using the torch as a weapon I smashed it across the second bears face, following up with two solid blows to the head with my sword, mutilating the bears face. Watching it go down in its death throes, it was at this point that my torch fluttered and died, sending my world into complete darkness. Floundering around in the dark and aware that somewhere close by was an injured and angry bear, I crashed into a tree, struggling to light another torch. Heavy and fast footfalls signalled its rapid approach. Finally I managed to light the torch, illuminating the beast as it charged towards me. Thwack!

The beast skidded to a halt, spread-eagled and stone cold dead…a silver arrow shaft protruding from its head. Aela had finally caught up.

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Had I been playing normally I would have seen the bears or been aware of them the moment they appeared on my compass as red dots. Simply walking up and killing them, then continuing on my way. And we wonder why games get boring.

I haven’t even covered the joys of archery with no crosshair or how rewarding hit is when your shaft punches home. Maybe another time

Hope you enjoyed!

HeX

I play with HUD off (most of the time) and brightness 3 from the left. I need a torch in almost every dungeon and all the time outside at night.
When I have the HUD on I have the crosshairs off, floating markers off and quest markers off.

Its awesome how much the world changes when you rely on that torch to see. Dungeons become more interesting, battles more intense and creatures more terrifying. I can soundly say I will never go back, kills and dungeon completion are far more interesting this way.

Thanks for posting!

I really don't know what's with people and Skyrim's HUD...I mean, it's waaay less intrusive than Oblivion's. I fact, way less intrusive than the HUD of most games out there. I mean, there only appears the bars and effect icons in your screen, and only if they're affected somehow.

Personally, I just disable the compass and enjoy the game as it is. The rest doesn't break my immersion not even a bit.

Pretty sure on console you cant disable the compass.

Its not intrusive at all, I completely agree. This is more for realism. Not knowing how much health, magika and stamina you have in a battle makes things more fun. And as I said, I didnt even address archery with no cross hair. Awesome!

.ini tweak on PC, or course.

Well, I suppose you're right. Thought personally, not knowing my stats on combat is more annoying than rewarding. What I might try is to disable the crosshair, although it'd be difficult to pinpoint my teleportation spells that way...

You can't disable the compass without disabling all the HUD.

bShowCompass=0 seems to disagree with you.

Thats PC only though.

Never said the opposite

Yeah, i'm the opposite, i want as much stuff on my HUD as possible I especially like the Darn UI for Fallout 3 with all the options. For Skyrim I'm happy with just SkyUI's acitve effect icons.

But as a PC player i don't have to invent challenges, i can use mods And besides, how am i supposed to fight http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=173307208 if the compass doesn't show where it is (a one time glitch, it turned visible soon after taking that shot).

Do you use custom fonts with SkyUI? (http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/95/? maybe?) Does them work well with it? (no scaling problems or whatever?).

*EDIT: Nevermind, I found out http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/40440//?. They fit perfectly my tastes, and works nicely with SkyUI

I wish you wouldn't post lies! You can clearly see him, that pix elated mess above your head! lol jokes!

I wish I has a PC then I would play with mods also but im poor and use an 8 year old console instead.

In theory I like the idea of a darkness mod or setting brightness to low. In practice though, I find it more annoying than anything. If NPCs were equally affected and dungeons were logically lit for those who need light it might be a different story.

Of those i use Magic Cards. Only problem i've noticed is that the last letter of "Last Seed" doesn't fit into wait menu. Minor problem, and it looks a lot more fitting than the default font (seriously, what kind of thinking makes using a font named "Futura" in a fantasy game seem like a good idea? ).


That's the blood decal that appeared after i hit him. Before that he was completely invisible, but there wouldn't be a point to take a screenshot that shows nothing, would there?

I gotta agree with you. I use http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/3222/? and the game is much more fun. I've got the brightness turned down a bit as well. Not very dark, but darker than vanilla. Definitely makes for a more immersive feel, when there's no red dots or white arrows pointing you the right way. I pay a lot more attention to my surroundings now, and I'm discovering parts of the land that I've don't recognize (after almost 2 yrs that's impressive).

I don't think red dots appear until enemies turn hostile, that is when they detect you so it's very easy to stumble upon a group of enemies without seeing them. That's why I use detect life a lot. My sword is in my right hand, detect life (or dead now) is in my left hand. It's a good way to spot enemies before you run into them at night. I also found the detect aura shout to be one of the most useful shouts in the game. Once I get it (haven't in this game yet), I use it all the time, probably my most used shout.

It's the GPS compass and the lack of the ability to disable it on consoles that is the problem. You also cannot disable the sneak icon on a console. Your only choice it to turn down or off the opacity, but then you loose your "invisible" health/magica/stamina bars. You are on PC, so you have an easy solution to the problem, but that does not help all the console players out there.

I like being able to see but I'm going to try this.

I can deal with no HUD but I absolutely need crosshairs. I literally only use my bow(even when I'm face to face with an enemy) and without the crosshairs I am a terrible shot.
My next chat will be more of a classic knight so ill most likely not use crosshairs since my primary weapon will be a blade.

*clap *clap* *clap* *clap*. That is pretty interesting, I will have to do that myself. Thanks!

Will try, thanks for the post.

I keep the HUD, but I do like to play on low brightness, I keep it around 20% brightness. I'll never take it back to default 50%, just looks weird to me now!