469 replies to this topic

[SoulBlazer]

Oh, the game is defentily huge and time consuming. I knew this going in, cause I'm also a big Morrowind and Oblivion fan and recall spending easily 3 months just playing each game. So before Skyrim came out in mid-Novemeber I was trying to clear out my backlog of games and set things up, cause I KNEW how much I was going to be playing Skyrim.

I'm getting somewhat close to the end, though. Here's all the things I've been able to do:

Quest lines finished: Companions, Bard's College, Winterhold Mage's College, Dark Brotherhood, Thieves Guild
Maxed out at level 81
ALL skills maxed at 100
Best weapon and armor in game that one can make, and double enchanted thanks to the perk.
Thane of all 9 holds
Houses bought in 4 of 5 (can't buy in one due to being Imperial)
Over 200k in gold on me
Married
Most of the misc quests and deadric quests complete
Maxed out knowledge on all alchamey ingridents
No more word walls for the Graybeards to find for me

I still need to go back to Winterhold college and do a few of the radient quests (the ones for each of the magic skills once you get above 90 for that) and a couple of other open ended quests (like the stones of Berenziah one)

But this weekend I finally went back to the Main Quest and the Civil War quest lines that I had placed on hold since the start of the game (only a little progress on both until then) and going back and forth between them. Really fun missions so far.

I really liked the 'Defense of Whiterun' quest -- that got hairy for a bit, standing at the barricade using my special bow to nail Stormcloaks, and then falling back as they smashed through the first line of defenses, and then taking out my sword and hacking away at the enemy as we made a last stand at the city gates.

Also did the Thalmour party quest last night and that was one really different and enjoyable also.

Here's what I'm using for my main weapons:

Main weapon: Deadric sword, base damage 109, enchantments of fire and shock which does a additional total 50 points of damage and target burns after hit for even MORE damage.
Ranged weapon: Deadric bow, base damage of 62, enchantments of fire and shock, firing ebony arrows.

[HuckleCat]

Ok, wait, so you DO continue to get skill points after level 50? I have seen some people claim that this is not the case, but I hope they're wrong.

Another question I have is about the Civil War quests. I haven't done any of these either, as I kinda chose not to choose a side between the Stormcloaks and the Legion. Does picking a side begin the civil war quests?

[SoulBlazer]

HuckleCat, on Mon Feb 6, 2012 9:21 AM, said:

Ok, wait, so you DO continue to get skill points after level 50? I have seen some people claim that this is not the case, but I hope they're wrong.

Another question I have is about the Civil War quests. I haven't done any of these either, as I kinda chose not to choose a side between the Stormcloaks and the Legion. Does picking a side begin the civil war quests?

Yes, for each skill you can keep raising it until you hit 100, and it counts also toward your overall level. The more you go up, the more you gain -- so you'll see your bar increase more for raising a skill at 90 as opposed to 30. Eventuly you can max out all your skills at 100, and that means a max level of 81. Each skill has a perk that you need it to be at 100 to unlock, and one of the good things about taking the time to max out your level is that you gain max perks -- 80 of them!

Between my own experience and looking online I also found 'cheap and easy' ways to gain points for each level. I should make a new note about that.

In regards to the Civil War questline -- you need to decide somewhat early in that quest line which side you're going with, the Imperial Legion or the Stormcloaks. Early in, there's a quest to recover a ancient crown, and once you have it, that's your last chance to change sides if you want. After that quest you're locked in and then do missions to help your faction win the civil war in Skyrim. So picking a side doesn't begin the Civil War quests per say -- the next one will show up on your journal as a active quest, but you can ignore it for as long as you want. I basicaly put it aside myself until recently while I did everything else in the game.

It's worthwhile doing them, though -- not only are they fun and you can get some good loot, but most of the quests involce 'tactical battles' where you help your army defeat the other side in taking a fort. That means you go in with them and do mass battles killing everyone in the fort, and as I described above in the Defense of Whiterun, it can get crazy.

Edited by SoulBlazer, Mon Feb 6, 2012 10:26 AM.

[SoulBlazer]

I thought some people here might be interested in knowing some 'cheap and easy' ways to raise a skill if you don't use it that much. I developed these through trial and error myself and from using the awsome Unoficial Elder Scrolls Website online.

A number of skills you should be able to max out on your own just through constant use, but I'll share some advise anyway.

One Handed: Do the Dark Brotherhood main quests. About half way through, you can get a horse called Shadowmere. He's VERY tough to kill and regains hit points -- making him perfect to use for target pratice! Just take your weapon and wack away at him. Unless you have a amazing weapon, he'll regain hit points faster then you can take them away, and you can level up your skill.
Two Handed: Same
Archery: Same
Destruction: Same
Alteration: Find a dead body -- ANY dead body -- and cast Soul Trap on it over and over. It's probaly a bug, but it works.
Illusion: Use a spell over and over again. I did it with Muffle, but you can pick something else if you want. You can just hit the button over and over while doing something else like watching TV.
Conjunction: Stand in a body of water deep enough that you could dive under -- that is, somewhere where you are totally underwater and you could use Waterbreathing for. Don't actually go under, just be standing in that water. Then cast Waterbreathing over and over.
Restoration: A healing spell combined with the one from another school that converts health points to mackiga works well here. I can't recall the exact spell name, sorry, but cast it with one hand and when your health gets low cast the healing spell with the other. Rinse and repeat. Just be carefull not to kill yourself!
Blocking: Grab a shield, stand in front of a foe with a weapon, and just hold the block button down all the time, healing as needed.
Light Armor: Find a enemy, let it hit you over and over, heal as needed. The stronger the enemy, the better.
Heavy Armor: Same
Sneaking: Go to High Hothragar, the home of the Graybeards. Find one of their number, and go into stealth mode. Wait for the Graybeard to either be sleeping or praying -- NOT moving. When you are hidden, swing a weapon at him. You'll get the stealh bonus for the attack. Wait for you to go hidden again (the eye is closed, takes a few second) and hit him again. Repeat as needed. Do NOT attack him when he is moving around! That will cause him to go hostile and he'll attack you. Just do the stealh attacks when he's sleeping or praying, and this works great.
Lockpicking: Buy a ton of lockpicks, find a Master or Expert lock, jaim the right thumbstick over to the left or right, and leave it to allow your skill to go up trying to pick the lock.
Crafting: Buy some ore and leather, and make cheap items like steal daggers, over and over again. This works great when combined with Enchanting (see below)
Enchanting: Buy some cheap filled soul gems (nothing better then Greater) and enchant cheap weapons and armor. As a side bonus, you can then sell the enchanted stuff for extra money.
Alchmey: Stock up on ingridents, and and look online for a page that says what all the receipes are. The BEST ones to do are the ones that call for Giants Toe and use three ingridents -- not only cause it raises your skill the fastest, but cause you can sell it for the most money. I don't have the listings now, but I'm sure you can find it online, or I can post later if someone asks. Do NOT waste your Deadra Hearts on this, though! Save those suckers for when you made Deadric weapons and armor.
Speachcraft: Buy and sell cheap items over and over with a merchant.

I think that's all the skills -- if I forgot one, let me know.

[Random Terrain]

SoulBlazer, on Mon Feb 6, 2012 10:47 AM, said:

I thought some people here might be interested in knowing some 'cheap and easy' ways to raise a skill if you don't use it that much. I developed these through trial and error myself and from using the awesome Unofficial Elder Scrolls Website online.

A number of skills you should be able to max out on your own just through constant use, but I'll share some advise anyway.


One Handed: Do the Dark Brotherhood main quests. About half way through, you can get a horse called Shadowmere. He's VERY tough to kill and regains hit points -- making him perfect to use for target pratice! Just take your weapon and wack away at him. Unless you have a amazing weapon, he'll regain hit points faster then you can take them away, and you can level up your skill.

Two Handed: Same.

Archery: Same.

Destruction: Same.

Alteration: Find a dead body -- ANY dead body -- and cast Soul Trap on it over and over. It's probably a bug, but it works.

Illusion: Use a spell over and over again. I did it with Muffle, but you can pick something else if you want. You can just hit the button over and over while doing something else like watching TV.

Conjuration: Stand in a body of water deep enough that you could dive under -- that is, somewhere where you are totally underwater and you could use Waterbreathing for. Don't actually go under, just be standing in that water. Then cast Waterbreathing over and over.

Restoration: A healing spell combined with the one from another school that converts health points to magicka works well here. I can't recall the exact spell name, sorry, but cast it with one hand and when your health gets low cast the healing spell with the other. Rinse and repeat. Just be careful not to kill yourself!

Blocking: Grab a shield, stand in front of a foe with a weapon, and just hold the block button down all the time, healing as needed.

Light Armor: Find a enemy, let it hit you over and over, heal as needed. The stronger the enemy, the better.

Heavy Armor: Same.

Sneaking: Go to High Hothragar, the home of the Graybeards. Find one of their number, and go into stealth mode. Wait for the Graybeard to either be sleeping or praying -- NOT moving. When you are hidden, swing a weapon at him. You'll get the stealth bonus for the attack. Wait for you to go hidden again (the eye is closed, takes a few second) and hit him again. Repeat as needed. Do NOT attack him when he is moving around! That will cause him to go hostile and he'll attack you. Just do the stealth attacks when he's sleeping or praying, and this works great.

Lockpicking: Buy a ton of lockpicks, find a Master or Expert lock, jam the right thumbstick over to the left or right, and leave it to allow your skill to go up trying to pick the lock.

Crafting: Buy some ore and leather, and make cheap items like steal daggers, over and over again. This works great when combined with Enchanting (see below).

Enchanting: Buy some cheap filled soul gems (nothing better then Greater) and enchant cheap weapons and armor. As a side bonus, you can then sell the enchanted stuff for extra money.

Alchemy: Stock up on ingredients, and and look online for a page that says what all the recipes are. The BEST ones to do are the ones that call for Giants Toe and use three ingredients -- not only cause it raises your skill the fastest, but cause you can sell it for the most money. I don't have the listings now, but I'm sure you can find it online, or I can post later if someone asks. Do NOT waste your Deadra Hearts on this, though! Save those suckers for when you made Deadric weapons and armor.

Speechcraft: Buy and sell cheap items over and over with a merchant.


I think that's all the skills -- if I forgot one, let me know.

Here's a list of the skills:

http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Skills


I'm thinking about starting over and trying some of that stuff. I haven't used Enchanting, Alchemy, or Crafting so far. I might still ignore them.

[HuckleCat]

Crafting/Smithing - There's actually an easier way, don't even bother with ore. Just kill every animal you see all the time and just spam hide bracers with the leather you get. I had my smithing up to 100 way before any other skill was even at 50.

[Desfeek]

One phenomena surrounding Skyrim that I find hilarious is the number of people on Craigslist who bought this game (no doubt due to all the hype and badass trailor), played it for 10 minutes, and decided that it wasn't for them. People, people, do your damn research before buying games:

http://portland.crai...2828461899.html (lol enjoy the game you've already played 5 times)

http://portland.crai...2840231207.html (not a bad trade: shitty sports title for an RPG)

http://portland.crai...2835251905.html (I'll give you NFL Gameday 2001 for...your Misadventure of Tron Bonne)

http://portland.crai...2846617434.html (this one's the worst...how do you make the same mistake TWICE?)

Edited by Desfeek, Sat Feb 11, 2012 3:29 PM.

[HuckleCat]

What did they think the game was about? I mean, the guy that got it, er, them as a gift I can sort of see, as they were gifts, but the others? Did they just look at the cover? Was it the name? Did they get upset that it wasn't about a floating anus?

Oh well.

[SoulBlazer]

Yeah, Skyrim is a awsome game, but you need to sink a few hours into it. You should at least finish the opening mission of the game, as that gives you a good feel for what the rest of the game is like.

Finished some misc stuff and I'm getting ready to keep going forward woth the Main Quest. I think the end is in sight....a few more days, probaly. Had to work today but I'm planning on putting some serious time into this tommorow.

[cybercylon]

I assume getting attack by two dragons at once is normal... or maybe they were fighting and I just got caught in the middle of it.

[HuckleCat]

I've had it happen only once, but I did also have it happen.

[Random Terrain]

I just put the game back in and I got another update. Does this one fix things or mess things up even more?

[HuckleCat]

Not sure yet.

That's the big 1.4 update they have been talking about for awhile. From the fix list, it looks like it fixes quite a bit. I'll be grabbing it before I play again. I have some broken quests that this patch will supposedly fix.

[Random Terrain]

HuckleCat, on Sun Feb 12, 2012 2:20 PM, said:

Not sure yet.

That's the big 1.4 update they have been talking about for awhile. From the fix list, it looks like it fixes quite a bit. I'll be grabbing it before I play again. I have some broken quests that this patch will supposedly fix.

Thanks. I hope it's a good one.

I recently switched from a 24 inch monitor to a 32 inch HDTV and the game looks 'prettier.' I knew that text would be easier to read, but everything in the game looks better on this larger screen. People who have HDTVs that are twice as big as mine are probably pooping their pants and drooling all over themselves.

[MagitekAngel]

I finally opened the game and started a file in light of the new patch dropping.
At first I wasn't impressed, but the game is drawing me in rather quickly. The whole time I feel like my Playstation is going to melt as the game engine stutters along, but I haven't had significant glitches or the much-dreaded lagging as of yet. Here's hoping!

[SoulBlazer]

Do you have the option to install to the HD like we can for the 360 version? That should REALLY help.

[SoulBlazer]

FINISHED THE GAME!

Well, 'finished' in the sence that I did all the faction quests, the misc quests, Thane of all holds, have all the houses, have all the Shouts, and most of the Deadric Quests. I don't think there ever IS a end. But I was leaving the Main Quest and Civil War Quest for the end until I got everything else done, as I said in previous posts, and this weekend I finally ended both things.

The end of the Main Quest gets very interesting and hetric. I don't want to spoil anything, but some of the things that you go through include: A peace conference to get the Imperials and Stomcloaks to put the civil war on hold till the end of the dragon threat, a decision to make to side with the Blades or Greybeards, a quest for a Elder Scroll, and visiting some very strange places. The final battle wasn't that bad for my level 81 character, though.

With that done, I picked up the Civil War questline again, fighting on the side of the Imperials. The final battle is to take Windhelm from the rebel forces of Ulfric, and this is a furious swirling battle through the city. You can't take the short route to the castle, got to go the long way around. Finally you get in, fight Ulfric and his aide, and then get to execute him, ending the civil war and installing a new Jarl. I was finally allowed to purchase a home in Windhelm, and it figures, I think it's the nicest of the five homes you can buy.

Finally, I noticed that I was only missing 2 of the 50 achevements you can get int he game (I have the 360 version) so I got one of the missing ones, which was pretty easy -- get a 1000 bounty in all nine holds. Once I got it, I went back to a older save, just unlocking it once is enough to give you credit. The last one I'm missing is getting 15 Deadric artifacts. There's 16 Deadric missions, so I'm going to finish working on those missions to get the last artifacts.

I'll post some stats later on tonight showing how much work went into all this.

So, the game took me 3 months -- which is right about on par with how long Morrowind and Oblivion were. Very good game value.

Now I have my life back.

[Atariboy]

With how heavily you played it, I'm shocked it managed to (apparantly) stay fun for you.

After 6 or 7 hours with Oblivion, I'm ready for something else for months. Still need to finish that game up.

[moycon]

Atariboy, on Mon Feb 13, 2012 9:58 PM, said:

With how heavily you played it, I'm shocked it managed to (apparantly) stay fun for you.

Still playing, pretty much exclusively! Still (definitely) fun for me too.

My game save says 160+ hours!! I suspect that is a bit bloated, although truthfully I don't walk away and leave my 360 running idle for hiurs like I used to, so I'm not so sure it's all THAT bloated!!

[cybercylon]

SoulBlazer, on Mon Feb 13, 2012 8:12 AM, said:

Do you have the option to install to the HD like we can for the 360 version? That should REALLY help.

No, but a big cache file is installed I think.

So far so good with the 1.4 patch on a PS3. Haven't played too much yet though.

[StanJr]

I'm 200 hours in, have completed the main dragon quest, have completed the Bard's College, Mage College, and Companion quests, and am wrapping up all of the word wall quests. I figure I've got at least 25 more hours and then I think I am going to be done. Still having a lot of fun, but running out of things to do (not interested in the Civil War quest this time around).

In a year or so, I plan to play again, but this time focus on magic and basically being an evil character (Theives Guild and Dark Brotherhood stuff).

Game is just stupid fun.

[cimerians]

I'm a little over 100 hours last time I checked. Did all the evil stuff but next time I play I may stick to a more good path.

I cant help it....Shadowmere and some of those Daedric quests are bad ass.



Definitely one of the best games I've ever played.

[SoulBlazer]

Oh, if I wanted to, I could probaly spend another month just playing Skyrim. There's still a ton of optional and misc stuff that I could do for fun -- some of the dungons and misc quests and just exploring over the map still for various places and items. It's amazing how much is there is in here.

[Random Terrain]

Does anyone know how you can get 3025/30 health?

I started Skyrim over, but I can't figure out what I did to get 3025 of health in my previous game. I loaded an old save and dropped pretty much everything I could and it doesn't seem to be something I'm holding, but I can't drop everything, so you never know.

(I noticed one day that my health was 3025/30, but I never knew what happened or what I did.)

[theloon]

@Random Terrain: May be some glitch with fortify health. The number 3025 does appear in some of the properties for fortifydamage health
http://webcache.goog...n&ct=clnk&gl=us

I put Skyrim away weeks ago. The main quest was pretty short. Dragons don't effect the game world enough for sustained amusement. The magic and alchemy systems have been dumbed down too much.

The last exciting thing I did was find a way past the invisible borders in Sovngarde. I also managed to dead-end a session by making Tsun go permenantly aggro so I couldn't warp back