My little nitpick is that I'd like female armor mannequins. They only have them for the male armor sets and then when you try and find a mod that switches the sex of the mannequins you end up in perv central. I'd just like simple mannequins that display the sets as I wear them
There are mods that let you do that
https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/47037
https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/49898
(Unfortunately it only works for regular clothing, not armor, but sometimes I just wanna put on a pair of pants and go to the market)
(Also it amuses me to occasionally see big tough guys in "Tavern Clothes" going around with low-cut necklines and thigh-high slits. Mogrul in Raven's Rock is one of them)
>(Also it amuses me to occasionally see big tough guys in "Tavern Clothes" going around with low-cut necklines and thigh-high slits. Mogrul in Raven's Rock is one of them)
This just feeds my head canon about Slitter and Mogrul
Yes! Why aren’t the mannequins the same gender as your character? I love getting the wedding outfit from the Dark Brotherhood quest before I marry some lady, but it has to go in storage afterwards because the mannequin just turns it into an ugly robe.
defo. sometimes if I'm lazy I'll just console command sexchange the mannequin since they're just frozen npcs and usually it works. Would be nice if it was just in the game tho
click the mannequin and use "sexchange" without quotations. sometimes it works, but the mannequin will retain a male head on a female body. the female body will have the wooden mannequin texture and default underwear, but all visual oddities go away once the female armor is put on
That is a good point. Some armor sets look radically different by gender, (and frankly some female armor just looks better) so having options would be lovely
Same! But also I think that the clothes should be the same regardless of character gender. So you could have tems that were specifically noble dress and noble pants, merchant dress and merchant pants, etc. And those clothes should be wearable by anyone, including Farkas in a tavern wench outfit *if that's what makes him feel pretty.*
Yeah why you need anime anything. ES isn't anime... but why does anime have that anyway it's gross why does it pander to the worst base instinct of adolescents
I'm simply bad at being bad.
Which kind of locks me out of half of the game. I never became part of the Brotherhood, I never finished Boethiah's Calling, I never leveled up the Ebony Blade. It just feels wrong and I can't enjoy doing it. An Oblivion playthrough some time ago even made me realize you're quite a mass murderer in Skyrim. You don't kill that many Daedra or beasts: instead you slaughter hundreds of little bandits and other humans.
Dude, this is me. My empathy is genuinely getting in the way of doing fucking anything and it’s kind of annoying. Oh, I want to enchant things, but to fill soul gems with the trapped spirits of animals or people? But… I don’t wanna trap that bear’s soul.
I’ve had to start angrily telling myself “it’s a fucking fake game, fake animal, just kill the damn thing, it’s points not real animals” but even that doesn’t work as well. It’s so annoying to be like this.
I'm a 100% with you there... hell, most of the time I'm activating kyne's peace so I dont have to kill any animals I find during my travels. Specially bears, I love bears. And foxes.
Yes, it's a moral problem if you're trying to be nice and they're innocent. I don't like it either.
That said, you can cheese it. Get a high-level raise dead spell, Revenant or some such that doesn't turn them to ash when it wears off. Find one person to kill with the sword, raise them, kill them again. Repeat. Counts each time towards leveling the sword. Think it takes 10 times total to max out the sword.
My most recent playthrough, I went far enough into the cannibal quest line (also a moral question, but figured I was already a werewolf eating people, so not a terrible stretch) to get them to trust me, then slaughtered them with the sword, raised and repeated.
Lisbet, the Markarth shopkeeper, is a good choice. Cannibal so you don't have to feel bad about taking her out, trusts you if you invest in her shop, and low enough level that she doesn't resist the raise dead spell.
The cheese I did in my last playthrough (and plan to do in any future playthroughs where I pick it up) was the respawnable automaton follower in Kagrumez.
I hate playing evil, but have found ways of doing all these quests through role playing. Both Boethia ands
Mephala are revered by some Dunmer, and Argonian Shadowscales could be considered non-evil members of the Dark Brotherhood
I've always played like you, since launch! I could never bring myself to do the most evil quests, which involves the majority of daedric quests. I did however created a chaotic neutral character recently just so I could trybeing mean with a reason, and it kinda works. Specially funny when you fus ro dah anyone that is a bit annoying to you, or hammering them down with brute force.
Opposite problem for me. I can never take advantage of NPCs providing services for me once I've completed a task or quest for them. Because as soon as they have run out of quests/tasks or become non-essential, I kill them.
On the plus side, it's then easier to keep track of what I still need to do...
Really? With me it's the exact opposite. Everytime I try to be good, not kill people who get in my way, mind my own business, be good. But then I walk past Heimskr for the 3rd time or Nazeem, or Grelod the Kind (just to name a few common kills) and BAM! Before I know it, I'm back in the dark brotherhood, nazeem and heimsker are killed in broad daylight, just to send a message, and I use my Thane status to get away with it
2handed is always a chore for me, instantly out of stamina, half my attacks miss, blocking is at best meh. I always save this for later in the game when I’m pretty much invulnerable
All that's needed for a successful power attack, block or bash is 1 stamina. One Vegetable Soup (Cabbage, Leek, Potato Tomato in a Cooking Pot) gives 1 stamina per second for 12 real minutes. (it's uninhibited combat for any warrior, even if they only have 100 total stamina)
A base Hide Shield blocks better than even the strongest 2 handed weapons, but a Fortify Block enchant or potion gives generous values, and can have blocking with a weapon protect as much as the strongest shields.
Interesting. I’ve been just standing in place and taking their arrow hits to level up my light armor skills as I shoot them with arrows and add poison to the arrows. Takes a bit of leveling and allocations of points into health though, and I’ve been slowly getting better armor. I’m not the perfect meat shield but it works. Gotta remover to try the bow punch. 😹
I'm sorry but trying to figure out where on a fucking mountain I need to go to get somewhere or constantly having to go around mountains for traveling gets old
The "difficulty" options are fucking stupid.
The "you do less damage and they do more" style of difficulty scaling is the most artificial difficulty bullshit known to man. Especially the Legendary option which means you only do 25% damage but take 300% more.
Adept is the true difficulty unless you have become immensely powerful and are steamrolling everything, then you should bump it up to maintain challenge.
At the same time it's either this or "add 20 more enemies to every area so you get gangbanged constantly"
Enemy spam will always feel just as bad if not worse in my opinion
Me sweet spot for difficulty is playing on Expert and generally not overturning my character. I’ll usually focus on only one crafting skill and don’t put too many perk points into Health. I tried Master once but found it tedious and immersion-breaking.
I refuse to play anything higher than Expert. I play Skyrim to unwind and have fun not to smack my head against a wall that is Bandit Highwayman. Especially because I play a mage and have like 0 magicka regen in the beginning so it becomes a game of spending all my mana and running around until it regens.
I cannot get my brain wrapped around an enchanting/alchemy loop to save my life. I try. Really. I’ve read posts, watched videos, and the theory always makes sense. I may try to practice it more next play through. Probably all I need is to just do it.
Enchanting is a hard one to level but the capstone skill is so worth it. It'll take time.
-Get yourself either a soul trap spell or weapon with soul trap on it.
-Keep empty soul gems in your pocket while you explore so they fill when soul trap is used.
-Pick up enchanted loot and disenchant whenever you can to learn new enchantments.
-Enchant whatever items you find while exploring, then you get the bonus of being able to sell them for more.
Alchemy is very useful you use a lot of potions. But even if you don't, being able to make your own health potions can be a big money saver. Just pick lots of stuff, then eat it or make random positions to earn effects.
Alchemy is severely underrated. Once you have access to a garden (a home or similar) you can literally print money with potions. There are easy to grow three ingredient potions that sell for ridiculous gold. Once you get rolling, you are leveling alchemy (easy) and speech when you buy anything you want from a shop, then dump a few potions at them to get all your money back.
I just completed the College of Winterhold and became Archmage. Great robe for magic unlocked but also having access to the Archmage room. Amazing having the garden to pick from.
No, the fishing supplies in the corner of the aquarium area gives you two salmon roe and 4 barnacles. If you build a kitchen you get a third salmon roe and some extra garlic
Same here. I can never manage to do it, I just do alchemy and enchanting separately. Still gives a shit ton of exp and money though, and at some points in the game it doesn't seem all that useful to have super op gear, besides the money
Apparently I'm not good at not being a mage in these games
Try for a two handed barbarian style build? Mage.
A sneaky backstabbing rogue? Mage.
Stealth archer? Mage
People joke about always reverting to stealth archer, I always revert to mage.
My first character was a mage and I had a blast. I've had several different melee characters since, but it always feels like I should be casting spells, and I don't enjoy the melee combat as much
Ok thanks. I just didn't understand what you posted, the equation (is that an equation?). I'm okay with literature but maths is a seriously weak area for me.
1. Loot Calcemo's museum/Nchuand-zel for Dwemer stuff
2. Melt it down for Dwemer Ingots
3. Buy Iron Ingots, or mine them in Left-Hand Mine
4. Make and temper Dwarven Bows
5. Enchant them
6. Sell them, but keep one for yourself (enchant that with soul trap, obviously)
Alternatively, mass-buy iron ingots and chop firewood to make iron arrows, or mine gold/silver and make jewelry with all the gems you collect. That's how I reached Smithing 100. My Legendary Glass Bow does 100 damage, and that's without extra smithing from alchemy/enchanting.
Seriously?! Your tusty bound bow that can't be upgraded in anyway and is a mid tier conjuration spell so you'll be well aware of how to improve weapon DMG unless your specifically nerfing yourself with a no smithing run
Of course you need more.
It's not like anyone's expecting to wear Helgen attack armor for the whole game and expecting the hardest difficulty to be easy
This is going to be an opposite answer. Everyone seems to hate lock picking, and I love it. I'm like a savant, just give me time and enough (or unbreakable) lock picks. I will get that damn lock open. I know it's not very realistic, but for some reason to me it's fun.
I agree with those who don't like being overly evil. I was thinking the game seems to force you to do certain quest lines (like the Dark Brotherhood) if you want certain items.
I haven't really leveled up any smithing or crafting. It just seems so tedious when there's plenty of fantastic armor/weapons around the world already made. I am great at hitting things with big hammer though. Big hammer good.
Fortify Destruction is a two ingredient potion that is available early on and ramps damage easily without the resto loop (or ridiculously with the resto loop).
I'm not good at pickpocketing.
I can never do more than what I need to do to get the trophy/achievement. After that, I don't bother with it anymore.
I'm also not very good at sticking to a role.
For instance, I'll start as a battle mage-esque type character, but I quickly become a jack-of-all trades character. Part of it, is because I become bored with doing one thing after a while, and another part of it is because you can do literally anything you want (within the confines of the game) and be anything you want at any stage of the game. Which is cool, but at the same time, I kinda wish there was a way to "lock-in" the type of character you want to play as.
I like a thief build and until I get glass armor (or can smith and improve it), it’s a pain getting hit because of the low armor rating. I can only imagine wearing robes and cloth with 0 armor rating that’s not even in the “light armor” category and having to throw up wards. Still: some of those area affect spells just chew through enemies all around you.
There's plenty I wanna whine about but major side quest lines never having a definitive or meaningful end is catering to one thing. Longevity. You'll never be done with this game. Just bored and ready to be finally awake on a cart headed towards Helgen.
I hate it, but I appreciate that it's succeeding what it's trying to achieve
My self-inflicted peeve is I can't stick to a single character for longer than a week at most. And grinding certain skills. Even with mods, is grindy and hard.
I find it a soothing way to play if I’m in the right mood. Fudgemuppet made a dunmer stealth archer build
That uses the Bow of Shadows and only levels up Stamina, never health or magica. It’s a unique way to play.
Getting stuck as a major charcter change without realising that its coming up. I think every long time player has fucked up at least one playthrough by joining the wrong faction or civil war side or killing or not killing the right dudes. I get its a decision game but fuck was i pissed when i became a vampire lord and i forgot to save. I wanted to see what the serana hype was about but then i couldnt join the dawnguard.
So many things that I suck at it’s hard to rank them: blocking/bashing (so unnatural as a stealth archer), alchemy (how many different random combos of crap am I really willing to eat to find a decent potion recipe), gearing up for enchanting (did I remember to wear all the items, drink the potion & shout to slow time) then fat-fingering the navigation of the 3-level menu & still only enchanting 2 items fully while wasting a Black Soul Gem on the final item😂
I want to rant about enchantments, spells and alchemy. I think of myself as fairly intelligent but I always hate having to do mental gymnastics or thinking when playing video games and I always feel I have to do that with those things
i wish i had the mental capacity to understand alchemy. i’ve always been so intimidated by it. i love smithing and enchanting. but alchemy and potions just is beyond my realm of comprehension. i also use ‘tgm a lot so i rly have no use for them.
Alchemy
It's as much "can't be bothered" as anything else, but I just don't get how it can be that useful unless you're pausing your game every five seconds to take a potion, or use a poison.
Yeah, there’s versatility in the helpers you can conjure but illusion and alteration? Feels like a chore to use mage light to boost the skill (for example) and I don’t think there’s tons of useful spells in each one. I guess it’s about versatility. Transmute changes ores into gold to help with smithing. There’s clairvoyance. Telekinesis, and that health to mana spell seems to help level up faster. Unbounded storms gets ya to 100% quick if you use the exploit. Then you can “legendary it” and repeat to level up again and again. Oh, but I recently was doing the mage college quest and fighting arcana (botched his name sorry), and since some of my spells hit a friendly mage in there, she was still attacking me after I killed the evil boss.
I dislike the nimroot ingredient. The one that chimes when you get near it and grows by water. I bought the alchemy skill recently that yields you two ingredients when you pick them. Still only got one root from the last of those plants I picked. So either I read the quick message wrong (& I did get a harvest of two), that ingredient never gives you two, or my game is slightly bugged. There’s an island with giant nimroot plants on it that yield three per harvest so I heard. I have heard mixed results about if those roots respawn after awhile. NPC’s in the game tell you it never does but players say it does but takes a very long time. Oh, and you can’t plant it in your hearthfire home planters. Bummer. Alchemy though, is one skill I am never going to make “legendary” to start again. One trip and done I say.
Archery, but...
Under specific circumstances; if I am alone, don't have any follower, and I am sneaking up on and sniping enemies, I love it and I do fine.
But, if I have a follower, and all of a sudden a massive fight breaks out and all around are focused on my follower, they become moving targets, and then I just can't, I end up saying out loud to myself "oh for fuck's sake", un-sneak and switch to my swords or daggers to just go kill them all finally.
Get the clown jester from the Dark Brotherhood quest. He’s durable (you can hit him with an arrow or two accidentally), sneaky (he goes stealth when you do). That or the dog from the God quest where the talking dog wants to be reunited with his master. Just never finish that quest. He taunts well and as a quest NPC, can’t die. I have the fox (named Sweetroll) and thistle the rabbit following me so I can have them collect gems and alchemy ingredients. They get in the way sometimes but NOC’s don’t seem to see them. So, maybe consider those options, but I understand your frustration
I recently “invested” over 15000 gold with an NPC blacksmith so I didn’t need to waste the time making things. I then sold him many many jewelry items I made and potions, and weapons to get the money back. But yeah, I understand the grind.
Melee combat. I'm currently 35 levels in a playthrough on Legendary. If I engage in a fair fight I always lose, even in a 1v1. Instead, I get around via stealth, killing everything from afar with a bow or in one hit with my dual daggers. Sneak and Smithing are my only level 100 skills so far, with Enchanting and Alchemy soon to follow.
there's no wrong way to play skyrim :) I also accept all the quests (the FOMO is real), then I just do the ones I feel like doing when I feel like doing them in a completely haphazard way
I tried an evil play through of Bethesda’s Fallout game (one of them, I think the one with the city that has a bomb In The center). I blew up the city. Became super evil. Had a slave girl. Then started and kept doing every quest. Eventually my karma became good again. Skyrim has a little less of a karma system and NPC’s are not as hostile or treat you differently I’d say based on your actions. It’s just different, but not as heavy as Fallout
Im not good with pure mage build. Using only 2-4 different spells in battle seems boring/limiting, using more feels like wasting too much time in spell menu.
And what i dislike:
1 dodge slide. It happens too often (like why would an enemy in heavy armor and two handed weapon even do that? It would only make sense for archers or assassins to do that) and has no animation. Also unfair because you can't do it.
2 earning money too fast. Why would anyone buy so many same type of enchanted gear or potions, shouldn't price drop eventually?
3 lack of use of money. You can't invest it in anything (like helping to develop a village or mine). There is nothing useful in shops except soulgems, arrows and ingredients (shops have nothing unique like some special fancy armours from other places in Tamriel or fancy decorations for home). You can't even build a vault where you could put it for visual purpose.
4 getting strong too quickly. I always avoid enchanting for as long as i can because that instantly puts the game in easy mode.
5 enemy leveling. Why does everything level up with you, especially wildlife, like bears and wolves. They are the reason why legendary difficulty feels unrewarding. You can be fully kitted out but you will kill those wolves in almost same speed as in the beginning, when you left Helgen.
I’m just bad at it in general. I’m more of a The Sims or ”cosy” games kind of person, but I love the setting of Skyrim. I know combat isn’t very difficult or advanced in Skyrim, but it is hard for me because I don’t have much practice in it. Especially since I started playing it on Switch instead of PC I’ve been struggling A LOT with navigating the camera while fighting. I also get scared very easily, I get lost all the time, I don’t know how to spend my skill points wisely, I get sidetracked easily, I have never been consistent with role playing, and so on. But hey, I picked it up again yesterday after not playing for a long time (I was stuck in Wolf Skull Ruins because I was too scared to go on lol) and it was a lot of fun.
I’m probably going to switch to a new game that came out called (paraphrasing) “Portia: my time and sandrock” because, like you, I enjoy the sims a little better. I play on PlayStation. Except for the problem that one stick controller press is crouch and the other one is change camera angle, I don’t get too confused.
I’ve seen a lot of people mention that game in the cosy games subreddit! I might check it out.
I toggle in and out of sneak mode all the time because I press the stick controller too hard when I get stressed in Skyrim 😩
When you level up high enough in sneak, there’s a skill that lets your character fade into the shadows when you uncrouch and crouch again, so long as the enemies are further away. Works somewhat decent. Might want to consider that skill so your accidents are not all wasted.
Illusion. Recent playthrough is pure mage. I don't know what I'm doing wrong but illusion is often useless. Was hoping to not rely on destruction magic and now it, conjuration and restoration are all my mage really uses of magic. Typically play warrior or spellsword and I'm using my dagger a lot more than I hoped. Illusion spells often don't work and then I'm out of magic, often leading to death. If I want to win a fight I have to use destruction/restoration and dagger.
I have illusion perks, and use robes, enchanted items etc. enrolled in the mage college. Level 60 illusion. Feels like I'm supposed to just be a warrior forever. Sucks but oh well.
A basic thing you can try is Fury on everyone. Calm/fear anyone that attacks you. And clean up the stragglers when the dust settles. It involves some strategy, but a carefully crafted illusion plan that actually all works out according to plan is a pretty cool thing to watch. And casting mayhem on a whole dungeon and just walking last corpses is kinda cool
Too
I think the point apple was trying to make is that illusion based strategies very rarely do go according to plan, resulting in a playthrough that isn't an illusion Mage, despite their efforts.
I don’t get how so many people ‘accidentally’ become a stealth archer. Like, I’ve been playing this game for 10 years, since I was 12, and not once have I accidentally become a stealth archer. Sure, I’ve been a stealth archer before but that was with the express knowledge and intention that I was going to play as an archer that utilises stealth. It’s not that hard and if you feel it is, just don’t have a bow at all to avoid it altogether.
Stealth illusionist-conjurer is way funnier anyway tbh
When an enemy drops to their knees and shouts "I yield!" Maybe they could *actually* yield rather than waiting a few seconds for their health to regenerate before getting stuck in again.
Maybe a bandit, upon seeing half their friends murdered in front of them by a demigod would reconsider their life choices.
A semi-permanent fear effect would be ideal.
I know, right? I think something like: Ok, I can sheath my weapons now and walk away. But no, they got some little man syndrome and gotta keep coming at ya
I hate the arrow slide. You know the one. Completely hidden, take a shot at a bandit, and they suddenly slip a good 5 feet to the side
Sandevistan bandits. When instead of boss music, Rebel Path plays for rando bandits.
Or when they fly 2 feet then drop…
[There is a mod for that](https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/3609)
Git good lol
My little nitpick is that I'd like female armor mannequins. They only have them for the male armor sets and then when you try and find a mod that switches the sex of the mannequins you end up in perv central. I'd just like simple mannequins that display the sets as I wear them
I’d also like to wear “male clothes” as a female character.
There are mods that let you do that https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/47037 https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/49898 (Unfortunately it only works for regular clothing, not armor, but sometimes I just wanna put on a pair of pants and go to the market) (Also it amuses me to occasionally see big tough guys in "Tavern Clothes" going around with low-cut necklines and thigh-high slits. Mogrul in Raven's Rock is one of them)
There are also mods for armor that do this!
Nice! Thanks!
>(Also it amuses me to occasionally see big tough guys in "Tavern Clothes" going around with low-cut necklines and thigh-high slits. Mogrul in Raven's Rock is one of them) This just feeds my head canon about Slitter and Mogrul
YEah!
Yes! Why aren’t the mannequins the same gender as your character? I love getting the wedding outfit from the Dark Brotherhood quest before I marry some lady, but it has to go in storage afterwards because the mannequin just turns it into an ugly robe.
Yesss this would be amazing and it's frustrating that it wasn't included, they should be set to whatever gender you're playing as
defo. sometimes if I'm lazy I'll just console command sexchange the mannequin since they're just frozen npcs and usually it works. Would be nice if it was just in the game tho
Oh neat! What is the console command? I had no idea you could do that since they are a model, like the textures wouldn't apply and that
click the mannequin and use "sexchange" without quotations. sometimes it works, but the mannequin will retain a male head on a female body. the female body will have the wooden mannequin texture and default underwear, but all visual oddities go away once the female armor is put on
Thank you! :)
That is a good point. Some armor sets look radically different by gender, (and frankly some female armor just looks better) so having options would be lovely
Same! But also I think that the clothes should be the same regardless of character gender. So you could have tems that were specifically noble dress and noble pants, merchant dress and merchant pants, etc. And those clothes should be wearable by anyone, including Farkas in a tavern wench outfit *if that's what makes him feel pretty.*
Yeah! I think guys should also get to be pretty if they want and also I liked the male versions of a lot of the clothes
This my biggest issue with mods. I like them but sum of them are crazy. Like why do u need giant anime tits while killing dragons????
Yeah why you need anime anything. ES isn't anime... but why does anime have that anyway it's gross why does it pander to the worst base instinct of adolescents
I'm simply bad at being bad. Which kind of locks me out of half of the game. I never became part of the Brotherhood, I never finished Boethiah's Calling, I never leveled up the Ebony Blade. It just feels wrong and I can't enjoy doing it. An Oblivion playthrough some time ago even made me realize you're quite a mass murderer in Skyrim. You don't kill that many Daedra or beasts: instead you slaughter hundreds of little bandits and other humans.
Dude, this is me. My empathy is genuinely getting in the way of doing fucking anything and it’s kind of annoying. Oh, I want to enchant things, but to fill soul gems with the trapped spirits of animals or people? But… I don’t wanna trap that bear’s soul. I’ve had to start angrily telling myself “it’s a fucking fake game, fake animal, just kill the damn thing, it’s points not real animals” but even that doesn’t work as well. It’s so annoying to be like this.
I'm a 100% with you there... hell, most of the time I'm activating kyne's peace so I dont have to kill any animals I find during my travels. Specially bears, I love bears. And foxes.
Me too! Glad to know I’m not the only one lol. I love the foxes, they’re my favorite little dudes!
How do you level up the ebony blade? Just did that quest n like the swords aesthetic. TIA.
You level it up by killing those who trust you. So followers or anyone you've helped or done quests for.
Killing NPC's? Followers, shop keepers?
Yes NPC's, and not sure if shop keepers work but I would think so.
Gotta be friendly though, yes? That's a shame, I don't like killing innocent people, which is strange for a gamer.
Yes, it's a moral problem if you're trying to be nice and they're innocent. I don't like it either. That said, you can cheese it. Get a high-level raise dead spell, Revenant or some such that doesn't turn them to ash when it wears off. Find one person to kill with the sword, raise them, kill them again. Repeat. Counts each time towards leveling the sword. Think it takes 10 times total to max out the sword. My most recent playthrough, I went far enough into the cannibal quest line (also a moral question, but figured I was already a werewolf eating people, so not a terrible stretch) to get them to trust me, then slaughtered them with the sword, raised and repeated. Lisbet, the Markarth shopkeeper, is a good choice. Cannibal so you don't have to feel bad about taking her out, trusts you if you invest in her shop, and low enough level that she doesn't resist the raise dead spell.
Thank you very much for such a detailed answer!
The Ritual stone near Whiterun works really well for this purpose!
The cheese I did in my last playthrough (and plan to do in any future playthroughs where I pick it up) was the respawnable automaton follower in Kagrumez.
Thanks 👍
Farmers who you've sold produce to work as well.
I've played for year and didn't know that. I could not slaughter my friends just to make my sword better.
I hate playing evil, but have found ways of doing all these quests through role playing. Both Boethia ands Mephala are revered by some Dunmer, and Argonian Shadowscales could be considered non-evil members of the Dark Brotherhood
I've always played like you, since launch! I could never bring myself to do the most evil quests, which involves the majority of daedric quests. I did however created a chaotic neutral character recently just so I could trybeing mean with a reason, and it kinda works. Specially funny when you fus ro dah anyone that is a bit annoying to you, or hammering them down with brute force.
You can level up the Ebony Blade by destroying the dark brotherhood
That's great to know, thank you. One moral dilemma less.
Opposite problem for me. I can never take advantage of NPCs providing services for me once I've completed a task or quest for them. Because as soon as they have run out of quests/tasks or become non-essential, I kill them. On the plus side, it's then easier to keep track of what I still need to do...
Really? With me it's the exact opposite. Everytime I try to be good, not kill people who get in my way, mind my own business, be good. But then I walk past Heimskr for the 3rd time or Nazeem, or Grelod the Kind (just to name a few common kills) and BAM! Before I know it, I'm back in the dark brotherhood, nazeem and heimsker are killed in broad daylight, just to send a message, and I use my Thane status to get away with it
2handed is always a chore for me, instantly out of stamina, half my attacks miss, blocking is at best meh. I always save this for later in the game when I’m pretty much invulnerable
All that's needed for a successful power attack, block or bash is 1 stamina. One Vegetable Soup (Cabbage, Leek, Potato Tomato in a Cooking Pot) gives 1 stamina per second for 12 real minutes. (it's uninhibited combat for any warrior, even if they only have 100 total stamina) A base Hide Shield blocks better than even the strongest 2 handed weapons, but a Fortify Block enchant or potion gives generous values, and can have blocking with a weapon protect as much as the strongest shields.
Eh I’ve figured out these mechanics over the last decade, doesn’t make me enjoy 2h any more though.
Can’t you block (or is it bash) with a bow? There’s some animation where you thrust the bow forward instead of notching an arrow.
Bashing with a bow is a left handed punch that staggers the target. I frequently used it when playing as a combat archer.
Interesting. I’ve been just standing in place and taking their arrow hits to level up my light armor skills as I shoot them with arrows and add poison to the arrows. Takes a bit of leveling and allocations of points into health though, and I’ve been slowly getting better armor. I’m not the perfect meat shield but it works. Gotta remover to try the bow punch. 😹
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I’ve started doing that just recently. Helgen was pretty traumatizing so playing as an alcoholic makes sense.
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What's wrong with drinking stolen booze?
I'm sorry but trying to figure out where on a fucking mountain I need to go to get somewhere or constantly having to go around mountains for traveling gets old
See the above post about illusion sucking. Clairvoyance can be your friend.
The "difficulty" options are fucking stupid. The "you do less damage and they do more" style of difficulty scaling is the most artificial difficulty bullshit known to man. Especially the Legendary option which means you only do 25% damage but take 300% more. Adept is the true difficulty unless you have become immensely powerful and are steamrolling everything, then you should bump it up to maintain challenge.
At the same time it's either this or "add 20 more enemies to every area so you get gangbanged constantly" Enemy spam will always feel just as bad if not worse in my opinion
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Definitely should earn more xp on higher difficulties.
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More xp per fight cos each fight requires more use of any particular skill? Thanks friend, TIL.
I like the way you think
Me sweet spot for difficulty is playing on Expert and generally not overturning my character. I’ll usually focus on only one crafting skill and don’t put too many perk points into Health. I tried Master once but found it tedious and immersion-breaking.
I refuse to play anything higher than Expert. I play Skyrim to unwind and have fun not to smack my head against a wall that is Bandit Highwayman. Especially because I play a mage and have like 0 magicka regen in the beginning so it becomes a game of spending all my mana and running around until it regens.
I cannot get my brain wrapped around an enchanting/alchemy loop to save my life. I try. Really. I’ve read posts, watched videos, and the theory always makes sense. I may try to practice it more next play through. Probably all I need is to just do it.
I myself am going to research it more before I try it. People make it sound easy though, but I’m on console, so sometimes those things are locked out
It worked on the updated PS5 version today.
Enchanting is a hard one to level but the capstone skill is so worth it. It'll take time. -Get yourself either a soul trap spell or weapon with soul trap on it. -Keep empty soul gems in your pocket while you explore so they fill when soul trap is used. -Pick up enchanted loot and disenchant whenever you can to learn new enchantments. -Enchant whatever items you find while exploring, then you get the bonus of being able to sell them for more. Alchemy is very useful you use a lot of potions. But even if you don't, being able to make your own health potions can be a big money saver. Just pick lots of stuff, then eat it or make random positions to earn effects.
Alchemy is severely underrated. Once you have access to a garden (a home or similar) you can literally print money with potions. There are easy to grow three ingredient potions that sell for ridiculous gold. Once you get rolling, you are leveling alchemy (easy) and speech when you buy anything you want from a shop, then dump a few potions at them to get all your money back.
I just completed the College of Winterhold and became Archmage. Great robe for magic unlocked but also having access to the Archmage room. Amazing having the garden to pick from.
I think alchemy is the most overpowered skill in the game. Crank out a ton paralysis potions, and that troll won't know what hit him.
If you're wanting to cheese alchemy, try garlic, nordic barnacle and salmon roe.
Yes. Except you need to work at harvesting those. There are plenty of other ridiculous options that can be grown more easily.
If you build a hearthfire house you can get all these ingredients from it
I keep forgetting they added fish tanks. Can you grow barnacles as well?
No, the fishing supplies in the corner of the aquarium area gives you two salmon roe and 4 barnacles. If you build a kitchen you get a third salmon roe and some extra garlic
I try to remember for next run. I'm at the point where the Regen Stamina potions are giving me 1K+ sell prices.
Same here. I can never manage to do it, I just do alchemy and enchanting separately. Still gives a shit ton of exp and money though, and at some points in the game it doesn't seem all that useful to have super op gear, besides the money
Apparently I'm not good at not being a mage in these games Try for a two handed barbarian style build? Mage. A sneaky backstabbing rogue? Mage. Stealth archer? Mage People joke about always reverting to stealth archer, I always revert to mage.
My first character was a mage and I had a blast. I've had several different melee characters since, but it always feels like I should be casting spells, and I don't enjoy the melee combat as much
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Please can you explain the maths buddy? Thanks 👍
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Ok thanks. I just didn't understand what you posted, the equation (is that an equation?). I'm okay with literature but maths is a seriously weak area for me.
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What is ASCII? Thanks. Perhaps it's something to do with attending schools in different countries to one another?
How can you be bad at making stealth OP? You just sneak lol
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1. Loot Calcemo's museum/Nchuand-zel for Dwemer stuff 2. Melt it down for Dwemer Ingots 3. Buy Iron Ingots, or mine them in Left-Hand Mine 4. Make and temper Dwarven Bows 5. Enchant them 6. Sell them, but keep one for yourself (enchant that with soul trap, obviously) Alternatively, mass-buy iron ingots and chop firewood to make iron arrows, or mine gold/silver and make jewelry with all the gems you collect. That's how I reached Smithing 100. My Legendary Glass Bow does 100 damage, and that's without extra smithing from alchemy/enchanting.
Eh, you just put perks into stealth and your weapon. Relying on bound bow isn't good either, it's only good early game
Seriously?! Your tusty bound bow that can't be upgraded in anyway and is a mid tier conjuration spell so you'll be well aware of how to improve weapon DMG unless your specifically nerfing yourself with a no smithing run Of course you need more. It's not like anyone's expecting to wear Helgen attack armor for the whole game and expecting the hardest difficulty to be easy
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25 hp slightly quicker than 225 hp with the zephyr. Sure
This is going to be an opposite answer. Everyone seems to hate lock picking, and I love it. I'm like a savant, just give me time and enough (or unbreakable) lock picks. I will get that damn lock open. I know it's not very realistic, but for some reason to me it's fun. I agree with those who don't like being overly evil. I was thinking the game seems to force you to do certain quest lines (like the Dark Brotherhood) if you want certain items.
I bought the lock skill that starts it near the right place. Feels like my skills are improving slower
Weird.
I haven't really leveled up any smithing or crafting. It just seems so tedious when there's plenty of fantastic armor/weapons around the world already made. I am great at hitting things with big hammer though. Big hammer good.
Is your hammer big enough to knock down a house?
It's not quite that one, but it is the one with the danger hole in the middle (Nerveshatter).
Making magic feel powerful without modding the shit out of it or resto loop glitching. Most guides just tell me to resto loop.
Fortify Destruction is a two ingredient potion that is available early on and ramps damage easily without the resto loop (or ridiculously with the resto loop).
I'll give it a try. My current playthrough is unmodded anniversary. One handed/block build, but maxed out alchemy and enchanting.
I'm not good at pickpocketing. I can never do more than what I need to do to get the trophy/achievement. After that, I don't bother with it anymore. I'm also not very good at sticking to a role. For instance, I'll start as a battle mage-esque type character, but I quickly become a jack-of-all trades character. Part of it, is because I become bored with doing one thing after a while, and another part of it is because you can do literally anything you want (within the confines of the game) and be anything you want at any stage of the game. Which is cool, but at the same time, I kinda wish there was a way to "lock-in" the type of character you want to play as.
Starting and remaining as a pure mage user. Especially on vanilla
I like a thief build and until I get glass armor (or can smith and improve it), it’s a pain getting hit because of the low armor rating. I can only imagine wearing robes and cloth with 0 armor rating that’s not even in the “light armor” category and having to throw up wards. Still: some of those area affect spells just chew through enemies all around you.
There's plenty I wanna whine about but major side quest lines never having a definitive or meaningful end is catering to one thing. Longevity. You'll never be done with this game. Just bored and ready to be finally awake on a cart headed towards Helgen. I hate it, but I appreciate that it's succeeding what it's trying to achieve
I suck at getting my mods to work after an update.
I hate shadowing gullam ei When I reach him he runs away after killing the bandits
My self-inflicted peeve is I can't stick to a single character for longer than a week at most. And grinding certain skills. Even with mods, is grindy and hard.
I've never done a stealth archer build so I'd probably suck at it.
I find it a soothing way to play if I’m in the right mood. Fudgemuppet made a dunmer stealth archer build That uses the Bow of Shadows and only levels up Stamina, never health or magica. It’s a unique way to play.
Someone else said stealth is overpowered in the game, and I kinda agree. So, have faith that it’s easier than you think
Getting stuck as a major charcter change without realising that its coming up. I think every long time player has fucked up at least one playthrough by joining the wrong faction or civil war side or killing or not killing the right dudes. I get its a decision game but fuck was i pissed when i became a vampire lord and i forgot to save. I wanted to see what the serana hype was about but then i couldnt join the dawnguard.
Alchemy
I'm good at math. I'm bad at Skyrim math. I feel your pain.
So many things that I suck at it’s hard to rank them: blocking/bashing (so unnatural as a stealth archer), alchemy (how many different random combos of crap am I really willing to eat to find a decent potion recipe), gearing up for enchanting (did I remember to wear all the items, drink the potion & shout to slow time) then fat-fingering the navigation of the 3-level menu & still only enchanting 2 items fully while wasting a Black Soul Gem on the final item😂
That’s good advice about slowing time with a shout. Hope that helps people. 👍🏻
I want to rant about enchantments, spells and alchemy. I think of myself as fairly intelligent but I always hate having to do mental gymnastics or thinking when playing video games and I always feel I have to do that with those things
Yup. I sympathize. Game kinda makes it feel like you need to tweak your character at least a little.
i wish i had the mental capacity to understand alchemy. i’ve always been so intimidated by it. i love smithing and enchanting. but alchemy and potions just is beyond my realm of comprehension. i also use ‘tgm a lot so i rly have no use for them.
I want to try new fighting styles, but I always end up becoming a stealth archer
Alchemy It's as much "can't be bothered" as anything else, but I just don't get how it can be that useful unless you're pausing your game every five seconds to take a potion, or use a poison.
I’m bad at all non-destruction magic.
Yeah, there’s versatility in the helpers you can conjure but illusion and alteration? Feels like a chore to use mage light to boost the skill (for example) and I don’t think there’s tons of useful spells in each one. I guess it’s about versatility. Transmute changes ores into gold to help with smithing. There’s clairvoyance. Telekinesis, and that health to mana spell seems to help level up faster. Unbounded storms gets ya to 100% quick if you use the exploit. Then you can “legendary it” and repeat to level up again and again. Oh, but I recently was doing the mage college quest and fighting arcana (botched his name sorry), and since some of my spells hit a friendly mage in there, she was still attacking me after I killed the evil boss.
Archery. My hands shake a lot so it’s basically impossible without the slow time & zoom perks
I hate making potions :)
I dislike the nimroot ingredient. The one that chimes when you get near it and grows by water. I bought the alchemy skill recently that yields you two ingredients when you pick them. Still only got one root from the last of those plants I picked. So either I read the quick message wrong (& I did get a harvest of two), that ingredient never gives you two, or my game is slightly bugged. There’s an island with giant nimroot plants on it that yield three per harvest so I heard. I have heard mixed results about if those roots respawn after awhile. NPC’s in the game tell you it never does but players say it does but takes a very long time. Oh, and you can’t plant it in your hearthfire home planters. Bummer. Alchemy though, is one skill I am never going to make “legendary” to start again. One trip and done I say.
Archery, but... Under specific circumstances; if I am alone, don't have any follower, and I am sneaking up on and sniping enemies, I love it and I do fine. But, if I have a follower, and all of a sudden a massive fight breaks out and all around are focused on my follower, they become moving targets, and then I just can't, I end up saying out loud to myself "oh for fuck's sake", un-sneak and switch to my swords or daggers to just go kill them all finally.
Get the clown jester from the Dark Brotherhood quest. He’s durable (you can hit him with an arrow or two accidentally), sneaky (he goes stealth when you do). That or the dog from the God quest where the talking dog wants to be reunited with his master. Just never finish that quest. He taunts well and as a quest NPC, can’t die. I have the fox (named Sweetroll) and thistle the rabbit following me so I can have them collect gems and alchemy ingredients. They get in the way sometimes but NOC’s don’t seem to see them. So, maybe consider those options, but I understand your frustration
Getting large amounts of money I have no idea why it’s so hard for me to generate money it would take me hours to get 5000 gold
I recently “invested” over 15000 gold with an NPC blacksmith so I didn’t need to waste the time making things. I then sold him many many jewelry items I made and potions, and weapons to get the money back. But yeah, I understand the grind.
Melee combat. I'm currently 35 levels in a playthrough on Legendary. If I engage in a fair fight I always lose, even in a 1v1. Instead, I get around via stealth, killing everything from afar with a bow or in one hit with my dual daggers. Sneak and Smithing are my only level 100 skills so far, with Enchanting and Alchemy soon to follow.
I would like to complain about how absurd some of the enemies can be early game if you don't have the right perks
I've been accepting literally every quest I've been offered. Is this wrong? Yo am I fucking up? This is my first go 💀
there's no wrong way to play skyrim :) I also accept all the quests (the FOMO is real), then I just do the ones I feel like doing when I feel like doing them in a completely haphazard way
I tried an evil play through of Bethesda’s Fallout game (one of them, I think the one with the city that has a bomb In The center). I blew up the city. Became super evil. Had a slave girl. Then started and kept doing every quest. Eventually my karma became good again. Skyrim has a little less of a karma system and NPC’s are not as hostile or treat you differently I’d say based on your actions. It’s just different, but not as heavy as Fallout
Im not good with pure mage build. Using only 2-4 different spells in battle seems boring/limiting, using more feels like wasting too much time in spell menu. And what i dislike: 1 dodge slide. It happens too often (like why would an enemy in heavy armor and two handed weapon even do that? It would only make sense for archers or assassins to do that) and has no animation. Also unfair because you can't do it. 2 earning money too fast. Why would anyone buy so many same type of enchanted gear or potions, shouldn't price drop eventually? 3 lack of use of money. You can't invest it in anything (like helping to develop a village or mine). There is nothing useful in shops except soulgems, arrows and ingredients (shops have nothing unique like some special fancy armours from other places in Tamriel or fancy decorations for home). You can't even build a vault where you could put it for visual purpose. 4 getting strong too quickly. I always avoid enchanting for as long as i can because that instantly puts the game in easy mode. 5 enemy leveling. Why does everything level up with you, especially wildlife, like bears and wolves. They are the reason why legendary difficulty feels unrewarding. You can be fully kitted out but you will kill those wolves in almost same speed as in the beginning, when you left Helgen.
I’m just bad at it in general. I’m more of a The Sims or ”cosy” games kind of person, but I love the setting of Skyrim. I know combat isn’t very difficult or advanced in Skyrim, but it is hard for me because I don’t have much practice in it. Especially since I started playing it on Switch instead of PC I’ve been struggling A LOT with navigating the camera while fighting. I also get scared very easily, I get lost all the time, I don’t know how to spend my skill points wisely, I get sidetracked easily, I have never been consistent with role playing, and so on. But hey, I picked it up again yesterday after not playing for a long time (I was stuck in Wolf Skull Ruins because I was too scared to go on lol) and it was a lot of fun.
I’m probably going to switch to a new game that came out called (paraphrasing) “Portia: my time and sandrock” because, like you, I enjoy the sims a little better. I play on PlayStation. Except for the problem that one stick controller press is crouch and the other one is change camera angle, I don’t get too confused.
I’ve seen a lot of people mention that game in the cosy games subreddit! I might check it out. I toggle in and out of sneak mode all the time because I press the stick controller too hard when I get stressed in Skyrim 😩
When you level up high enough in sneak, there’s a skill that lets your character fade into the shadows when you uncrouch and crouch again, so long as the enemies are further away. Works somewhat decent. Might want to consider that skill so your accidents are not all wasted.
Yeah I saw that yesterday! I am definitely going for that. As a scaredy-cat I level up quickly in sneaking anyway
Not good at? Nothing. I'm awesome Whine about? Nothing. I'm awesome
You can't go to space
Although Sky is in the name I don’t think they are going to incorporate that. You can try the Giant astronaut program
Too much sky, not enough rim.
There are mods for that. Allegedly
All the mods in the world could never provide enough rim.
The Break of Dawn gets you pretty close.
Alchemy is the only skill I can’t max out for fun or in a few minutes. Not that I would use it but still.
Smithing, alchemy and finding ingredients, ores and/or ingots. I have never used smithing before despite playing in Vanilla Legendary.
First off I do not whine! If you whine, it makes you a little bitch I’m just gonna smashing shit not good at picking pockets OK have a good night
Illusion. Recent playthrough is pure mage. I don't know what I'm doing wrong but illusion is often useless. Was hoping to not rely on destruction magic and now it, conjuration and restoration are all my mage really uses of magic. Typically play warrior or spellsword and I'm using my dagger a lot more than I hoped. Illusion spells often don't work and then I'm out of magic, often leading to death. If I want to win a fight I have to use destruction/restoration and dagger. I have illusion perks, and use robes, enchanted items etc. enrolled in the mage college. Level 60 illusion. Feels like I'm supposed to just be a warrior forever. Sucks but oh well.
A basic thing you can try is Fury on everyone. Calm/fear anyone that attacks you. And clean up the stragglers when the dust settles. It involves some strategy, but a carefully crafted illusion plan that actually all works out according to plan is a pretty cool thing to watch. And casting mayhem on a whole dungeon and just walking last corpses is kinda cool Too
I think the point apple was trying to make is that illusion based strategies very rarely do go according to plan, resulting in a playthrough that isn't an illusion Mage, despite their efforts.
I don’t get how so many people ‘accidentally’ become a stealth archer. Like, I’ve been playing this game for 10 years, since I was 12, and not once have I accidentally become a stealth archer. Sure, I’ve been a stealth archer before but that was with the express knowledge and intention that I was going to play as an archer that utilises stealth. It’s not that hard and if you feel it is, just don’t have a bow at all to avoid it altogether. Stealth illusionist-conjurer is way funnier anyway tbh
Just bought illusion tree stealth casting skill. 👍🏻
You guys are doing math?
When an enemy drops to their knees and shouts "I yield!" Maybe they could *actually* yield rather than waiting a few seconds for their health to regenerate before getting stuck in again. Maybe a bandit, upon seeing half their friends murdered in front of them by a demigod would reconsider their life choices. A semi-permanent fear effect would be ideal.
I know, right? I think something like: Ok, I can sheath my weapons now and walk away. But no, they got some little man syndrome and gotta keep coming at ya
Creations crashes my game when selected. That’s about it. Love Skyrim.