Bloodskal Barrow door / blade glitch?

[s0shlychlngd]

I'm really sorry if I am posting this in the wrong place. This is about the Bloodskal Barrow door / blade in the Dragonborn: The Final Descent quest.

I have been trying to get the damn door open for hours. I have watched countless videos online and read this wiki and others. I guess my door or blade is glitched. In order to get the first 4 "cuts" to register, I basically have to be touching the wall for the blade to unlock the crack in the door. I have experimented with other save files as well. It simply does not register my swings unless I am right up on the door.

The reason this is bad is because the last two cuts, the ones that are up high, seem to be unnatainable. I guess I am simply too far away from the actual slice in the door for my power swings to register. I even tried standing with my back against the wall, start the power swing, then do a 180 as fast as I could, aiming for the cuts. No good.

Has anyone had this happen before, and do you have any tips? I did not see other people having this problem on the Discussion pages of the wiki.

And yes, I am on an xbox 360 so no console commands for me.

On a side note . . . If this means my game really is glitched and I cannot advance. This is the last straw. I am so sick of the glitches in this game and not being able to do anything about it. I have a number of quests left unfinished and glitched word walls that never activate because of this crappy programming. It makes me want to throw my xbox out the window. I wouldn't say that I am OCD, but I do like to FINISH things that I have started. Do you know how irritating it is to see a list of unfinished glitched-out quests every time I open the menu? When I start a new quest, I immediately go to the wiki notes section and look for bugs. It's such a habit now that I don't even think about it. This is not how you are supposed to play a game. And, I paid money for this! And thank you Hearthfire for also being a POS. I probably won't even play Dawnguard either.

Back to the issue at hand . . . is there anything I can do to open this door?

[BetaB17]

If I'm reading this correctly, your blade is unable to create the red slash when doing a power attack? Assuming it's not actually is glitched, you should be able to complete the puzzle via three slashes if standing proper. If the game truly is glitched, and neither sword nor door can be fixed, I assume there must be a way to phase through collision via exploits

[s0shlychlngd]

Thank you for helping! I am able to correctly do a power attack. I am able to get through 4 of the "switches" (the lower two horizontal, and the middle two vertical). However, I cannot get the last upper two horizontal to register. I have watched videos and have seen people stand as far back as the steps - however, I could not get even the first switch to recognize my power attack from that far away. I had to stand so that I was basically touching the wall for the game to register my power attack.

[BetaB17]

Pardon my lack of aid in this post, but I do recall the final step to be challenging even for me. It's been many years since I did it, and highly unlikely for me to do so again since that calls need for a whole new playthrough(I'm on console too). Tomorrow I may just reboot Skyrm and see if I may still have an old save relatively close to that stage and see if I can retrace the steps(idk if I may have did the same like in this vid), if not then I'm sorry to say another's insight is needed Though I do expect another user would have the solution fresher in mind than I

Edit: The closest save I had would of called for too many hours to invest, sorry mate

[Evil-i]

I remember the targeting to be a wonky and imprecise during this task.

Try targeting the red slash at a point slightly before it begins. I think this is what worked for me.

Also, are you playing with any mods or under any Active Effects that might gimp the energy blast from the weapon?

[s0shlychlngd]

I'm happy to say that I worked this out. I would be surprised if I was the only one with the problem.

Like I said, the first four cuts were only registering when I was right up touching the door. I just had to get closer to the last two up high, but didn't know how. I was taking a break from hacking this way and that, and upon exploring the landscape I noticed the beautiful columnar jointing (sorry, geologist by day). I thought maybe, just maybe, I could hop over on top of the door and try a few swings. With a few jumps and Whirlwind Sprint or two, I manage to get on top of the door (it was actually very uncanny . . . there were little platforms in parts of columnar jointing leading over to the top of the door). I tried a few different positions and found luck by standing on top of the two outer cage hangers. I would do the power swing as I was turned facing horizontally into the door, so that I would not fall off. Then I would try to re-position myself as close to the cut as possible. My last one (the one on the right, as you are looking at the door) actually registered as I was falling, but I was just close enough for it to work. It took a couple days of trying and giving up, but I think I just got lucky.

It was frustrating . . . but what was behind the door was worth it at least. I think someday I will be switching to a PC gaming system because all these glitches are killing me. I'm on an Xbox 360 (no mods).

Like I said I had to stand on top of the two outer human sconces for it to work. If anyone else has this problem . . . good luck.

[Evil-i]

Glad you managed to work around it.

Skyrim is a bit like a deluxe Swiss Army Knife. When the obvious tool doesn't quite do the job, you can sometimes find another tool hiding inside which solves the problem.