Help me enjoy skyrim

[Thespian]

I think to enjoy Skyrim you have to enjoy Roleplaying, because that's the main strengh of Skyrim.

Come up with a backstory for your character, give them a short history and a summary of personal feelings, prejudices, etc. (I once played a Kahjit with a fear of water, for example, so anything that involved travelling through water was out of the question unless there was no other option.)
Giving them a D'n'D alignment [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alignment_%28Dungeons_%26_Dragons%29] or roleplaying as a character you know well helps (e.g. play as Batman, or Kratos, or Zoidberg (Why not?) )

Don't use your knowledge of the game to influence your character's actions, let them choose based on the personalities you gave them.

1. Don't fast travel unless absolutely necessary.
2. Try and design a character around a theme, or a role, rather than grab bagging everything or meta-gaming.
3. Mod up what you can, grabbing such mods as suit your personal tastes. There are plenty of visual mods everyone should look at.
4. Don't take Blacksmithing.
5. Don't take Enchanting.

The "point" of Bethesda RPGs such as Fallout 3, Oblivion and Skyrim is not to chase the tepid quest lines to their completion so much as to inhabit the world. It requires a measure of suspension of disbelief. If you play it like a story-heavy RPG, or a mechanically robust combat simulation, you will be perpetually unhappy with the results.

THESE THINGS

Okay seriously, I loved Skyrim but I still got bored of it quickly and became irritated with it's lack of rewarding choice. Still, the reason I enjoyed it at all was having fun with the character and setting.

I didn't craft the best dragonbone demonheart ultrapwnage armor with my max blacksmithing skill. I didn't have fun by becoming head mage, head companion, head thief and king assassin all with the same character. I didn't even do the main quest.
What I did do was make a Dark Elf who, by day was the illustrious Thane Usod of Markarth, Winterhold college dropout, wealthy patron of the city and devoted husband to Argis the Bulwark. But the Thane hid a dark secret, for by night he was the infamous Nightcrawler, notorious vampire of the Reach, preying unsuspecting civilians and escaping into the night using his mastery of the magic art of Illusion that he learned from Drevis Neloren. He kept his vampiric thrall, Argis, whom he fed upon by night, as a voluntary devotee to his cause. Until one day the Thane was discovered, and ran out of his city of Markarth, becoming the feared criminal of Skyrim, Usod Nightcrawler, the ghost vampire who ran to Riften and learned the ways of thieves to make a living as both thief and predator.

See that? See how I just publicly masturbated over the story I made up because I'm so self-satisfied with it? That is the true fun of Skyrim. For realsies.

 

[rob_simple]

OT: As someone who absolutely hated Skyrim, the only advice I can give you is really get stuck into the world and soak it all in. I was playing purely to platinum the game, so after a while everything became a blur of fast-travelling and fetch-quests; it was only a long time after I finished the game that I realised how intriguing the world actually was, particularly an abandoned lighthouse I stumbled upon filled with corpses and the torn out pages of a diary.

I never found the quest attached to that incident so I always wondered what had happened to those people and, in the end, I made up my own version of events. It's little moments like that that make Skyrim utterly absorbing and enjoyable.

As to the combat, all I'll say is I enjoyed it a lot more after I set it to the lowest difficulty and started mowing down enemies like a tidal wave made of swords.

So did you enjoy Skyrim or not? I'm confused. You absolutely hated it but found it utterly absorbing and enjoyable. Also don't know what you found so offensive about someone saying they play games to pass the time.

I was saying that, while playing Skyrim, I hated it because I was playing for the wrong reasons (trophy hoarding) but, upon reflection, there was a lot there to love if I'd devoted time to playing in character as opposed to joining every faction available and speeding through every storyline.

And my offense was taken at someone saying, 'meh, I just play games to kill time' in a thread where someone was asking what, in particular reference to Skyrim, specifically made the experience so enjoyable for other people. I guess I over-reacted, but I get really pissed off when people dismiss an entire art form as a time sink just because that's all they particularly get out of it.

 

[Benni88]

Get the Cloaks of Skyrim mod. It's purely aesthetic but it adds a lot to the characters in the world.

 

[Auron]

I enjoyed it, but some mods were required for me to actually like it. Skyui for example, the rest was just some personal choices and one or two sets of armour I liked. Overall I just create a concept. After my first playthrough of Oblivion as Battlemage I rolled a swashbuckler and even though it wasn't as powerful but it was pretty good fun.

Still on my first run of Skyrim though, waiting on Dragonborn to consider it finished.

 

[cikame]

I really love everything in slow motion so i installed the Masters of Time and Space mod, then when i wanted everything to get really epic i'd hit the key and make that slow motion sound with my mouth, like *BCHOOOOOO*.

 

[squidface]

snip

This encapsulates when I most enjoyed playing skyrim, and when i least enjoyed playing it. trying to get all the achievements, level up everything, loot everywhere etc... makes it boring. it becomes routine and repetitive. but letting it carry you along in the story and the lore and immersing yourself in the world, not just playing in it, is the best way to play it to fully love it.

 

[Matthewmagic]

If you don't like the game, then you don't like it. I personally can't stand call of duty. No matter how I try to play it I'm just burdened by the fact that I'm just not having fun. It is okay to not like a game as popular as skyrim. Stop trying to enjoy a game you don't like and move on to a game you do.

 

[CommanderL]

I agree with the role play thing My new guy is My dark elf from oblivion returning after a long trip away as such he is very for the Imperials as he remember's his strong friend ship with martin He refuses to rob tombs as most of his friends have died and he wouldn't want that to happen to him he only takes linen as he wants it for his cloaks he is going to start very rich and he will start with a level 100 destruction skill and alchemy skill with all the perks and every thing else will start at zero as during his 200 hundred year trip he only used magic and alchemy he cares not for money and is very interested in fighting dragons

 

[MeChaNiZ3D]

Don't fast travel, try to role play a bit, and if you want to retain any sense of challenge do not grind those enchanting and smithing levels. That said, I enjoyed it plenty until a game-breaking bug with little difficulty.

 

[BrainBlow]

I played the game for well over 250 hours. If you didn't like it then I don't think there's much that can be done.
It's a game played to be immersed in, not to "win". Otherwise no playthrough would last longer than about 40 hours.

 

[Smeatza]

Type TCL into the console

Use Fus-Ro-Dah on somebody several times in a row

Type TCL into the console again

That's the most fun I had in Skyrim. Seen as role playing is impossible if your character wants to interact with NPCs.

 

[smartalec]

Likewise roleplaying.

The most fun I had with Oblivion was in installing a load of mods to improve spellcasting, spell selection, the mage's guild quests, and added in a DLC Mage's stronghold for the player. Then, I made a character, played him as if he was a young, feckless apprentice wizard, and gave him the goal of having been left the deeds to this vast, mysterious wizard's stronghold by a deceased elderly relative, but the terms of the will were contingent on him becoming a fully-trained Mage.

And bingo! All of a sudden, there was an extra dimension for everything he did. I avoided the main quest initially, and steered clear of the Fighter's and Thieves' Guild quests, but did everything else I could find, and it all tied back into my character's overall quest as he tried to find ways to fund his tuition, practice his spellcasting, and earn the right to explore this strange stronghold. And in time, when I eventually did get around to embarking on the main quest, my character had progressed into this powerful Merlin-like character working to combat daedric incursions and guiding the heir to the throne.

Good fun.