Battleaxx90 said:
So yeah; after finally remembering that I have a fully functional Xbox 360, I decided to go out and buy The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim for it. The thing is, I know absolutely fuck-all about this game. I've never played an Elder Scrolls game in my life and the only thing I know about this one is that it might have dragons in it. However, I am a big fan of RPGs and I've heard good things about this one, so I think I'll enjoy it.
Therefore, I beseech my fellow Escapist chums, who have no doubt been playing this game since launch and know literally everything there is to know about it; is there anything that I should know about this game heading in? I'm looking for things like possible plot-relevant information from previous games that this one'll be assuming that I already know, or a heads-up about common pitfalls that newbies like myself tend to fall into. Things like that.
Also, this probably goes without saying, but no spoilers, please. If you must insist on saying something spoileriffic, remember that spoiler tags are a real thing. I'm counting on you guys!
Oh, and for the record, I plan on using a melee build for my character. Any advice on that would be muchos appreciated.
Unless you hit up the highest difficulty, you're not going to have any problems. Skyrim is about as difficult as Minecraft and complex as Tetris. You don't need to know a lot, and what you do need to know will be spelt out to you through either exposition or written in an in game book. The game is made to be as accessible to new players as possible.
Now, how to play is entirely up to you. There are generally 3 ways though; The fun way, the OP way, and the Nerfed way.
The fun way is quite simple. Don't use smithing, enchanting or high level sneaking. Anything else is fair game, but I'd recommend something in addition to magic as destruction is majorly nerfed in Skyrim, and all the others are rather round about ways of doing things that take time more than being difficult - I.E: Summoning something to kill your enemy for you, or making another enemy do it. Why no smithing/enchanting/sneaking? They are OP as fuck, and you quickly become a god among men with them. I ended up 2 hitting the strongest non-Alduin dragons in the game in the end, whilst taking almost no damage from them, without even trying to exploit the system that's how OP it gets. And with sneak at the highest levels you can pretty much be standing right infront of someone, hitting them, and they won't see you. Yeah, that's an exaggeration, but you are practically undetectable unless you want to be, and have an instant-cloak ability that can hide you mid combat so you can run away.
The OP way is also simple. Enchanting, and smithing definitely, heavy armour and duel wield two swords. Power attack and almost anything will die in one hit at the end game when you have fully upgraded and enchanted Daedric gear, and you will take damage from almost nothing. There's also the stealth archer, whom can never be found and just rains arrows of death on your opponent. That's OP too.
The nerfed way is to make sure you have a hell of a time getting through the game. Use only one type of magic. Seriously. Magic is the most gimped thing in this game, as it does not scale with skill like everything else does. It costs less to cast, but does no more damage, so your spell that killed a level one wolf after 5 seconds when you were level one will be the same when you're fighting level 50 dragons, and will take ten minutes or so to kill it - though you will have more damaging spells too, but not the extent you'd hope. That's destruction anyway. Illusion is alright, but it relies on making enemies fight one another and just walking around dodging them whilst doing so. Conjuration is actually OP if you use it right, as you just have an endless swarm of minions fighting for you, and restoration is useless in combat unless you're fighting undead. It heals you, and that's about it. On the flipside here, you should focus on levelling up only smithing, enchanting, alchemy and keep your combat skills to a minimum. This will cause you to level up, leveling up all monsters, whilst you have gained no combat improvements, only the ability to make OP items you should not use because this is the nerfed way.
Additionally note; the first 10-20 levels are the hardest in the game. Dragons actually pose a challenge, bandits can kill you, and giants can still one-hit moon program you. After that though you should be fine. Dragons become a chore more than an epic battle, and you stop looting them because your inventory is already full of bones you can't sell 'cause you've been to every merchant in Skyrim and sent them broke from all the bones you've been selling them.
Also, a light exploit you may want to consider if you do find the game hard; Potato Stew. Restores 1 stamina point per second for 60 seconds or something. The way everything with Stamina in Skyrim works is so long as you have 1 stamina, it will happen. Even if your heavy attack consumes 20 stamina, if you have 1 you can do a heavy attack, you can shield bash, you can do anything. Hence, drink one potato stew in a fight and you can just keep power attacking/shield bashing/W.E until the end of time.
