I'd say get out there and follow your heart (eg: just wing it). You can spend a good 30 hours just doing random quests and misc objectives. Just ask around towns and inns, every other person has some quest to give you.
Skyrim advice!
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do the main story line till you kill a dragon so you can start getting shouts, Then I recommend doing anything you want.
My method deviates quite a lot from what people here have said. For one, I make a character with specific goals because I really do love role-playing the characters. A lot of the fun for me is making really long back stories and motivations for each character I play.
Depending on what I choose to roleplay is how far I'll go in the main quest. I've had two characters that went all the way through the main quest, and the rest don't even start it. Being Dragonborn carries almost no weight unless I make a character who puts stock in being the Dragonborn, so I just ignore it. Then I'm off to the city of my choice to start my adventure.
Depending on what I choose to roleplay is how far I'll go in the main quest. I've had two characters that went all the way through the main quest, and the rest don't even start it. Being Dragonborn carries almost no weight unless I make a character who puts stock in being the Dragonborn, so I just ignore it. Then I'm off to the city of my choice to start my adventure.
I would recommend going to Riverwood and then following the Quest until you kill the Dragon, you will then be able to have a 'follower' and well they will help quite a bit if you go exploring and find yourself in trouble.
As for what should you do? Up to you though my last recommendation, try not to turn into a vampire (if you intend to play that way) until you are a decent level or you might find the con's of the trade hard to live with, though if you do become a Vampire I can help answer hopefully any questions you have.
As for what should you do? Up to you though my last recommendation, try not to turn into a vampire (if you intend to play that way) until you are a decent level or you might find the con's of the trade hard to live with, though if you do become a Vampire I can help answer hopefully any questions you have.
What everyone is telling you is basically correct, you can just go wherever and do whatever, but something tells me you already knew that - you bought the game after all, and thus likely read a little about it first. So I assume you came here looking for a little advice more structured than the "go/do wherever/whatever" responses you're receiving.
Anyway, I'd suggest sticking with the main quest at least until after the first dragon encounter. It should only take you about 45 mins to get that far. You'll get your first shout (a handy thing to have) your first follower (intermittently handy) an enchanted weapon of some kind and a small pocketful of gold. You'll also get the location of the next story quest on your map, so you can conduct your random adventuring in that general direction if you like. That way you'll discover some nearby landmarks that you can fast-travel to when you decide to continue with the main quest.
Also, if you haven't already decided what style you wish to play - be it sneaky bastard, armoured up tank, batshit lunatic with dual axes, one of the various incarnations of mage, or some hybrid of any of the above - I'd recommend saving your game, laying your hands on as many weapon, armour and spell variants as you can, and hitting up a few enemies to see what feels right. When you've decided, locate the first trio of Standing Stones (Warrior, Thief and Mage) and take the bonus from whichever one best fits. If you still can't decide, or if you feel none of those stones really works for you, make one of your earlier adventures westwards, and locate the Lover Stone.
Oh and, hoard soul gems from every available source. If you're playing a mage, cast Soul Trap on everything you fight (if you can) to fill any empty soul gems you have. If you're melee, use any soul trap weapon you find to deal the last blows to any enemy you can. If the soul trap weapon you find doesn't fit your play style, disenchant it and apply the enchantment to a weapon that does, using your best available soul gem.
Soul gems are invaluable for leveling Enchanting, which is an extraordinary source of power for equipment in its later levels. It's also a fantastic way to make money. Fill soul gems as you adventure, and then toss enchantments on any gear you find to drastically increase its value before you sell it.
If you're a melee class & you have some funds available, level your smithing a little by spamming iron daggers (buy iron ingots/ore & leather at Warmaiden's in Whiterun, then cut the leather into strips at the tanning rack, smelt any ore into ingots at the smelter, and then use the forge. All of these things are at the side of Warmaiden's, immediately to your right upon entering Whiterun). It's worth doing this and dropping a perk into Steel Smithing so you can improve early steel weapons/armour for your own use. Then take those iron daggers you made, enchant them and sell them to Warmaiden's to easily recoup all your money. Don't level smithing or enchanting too far at once though, or you'll find your character level too high to handle level-scaled enemies, despite your awesome gear.
If you find yourself lacking direction still, the Companions offer some decent low-level quests to follow, and you can always find work in taverns and from jarls & their stewards.
Good luck, and I hope you enjoy the game!
Anyway, I'd suggest sticking with the main quest at least until after the first dragon encounter. It should only take you about 45 mins to get that far. You'll get your first shout (a handy thing to have) your first follower (intermittently handy) an enchanted weapon of some kind and a small pocketful of gold. You'll also get the location of the next story quest on your map, so you can conduct your random adventuring in that general direction if you like. That way you'll discover some nearby landmarks that you can fast-travel to when you decide to continue with the main quest.
Also, if you haven't already decided what style you wish to play - be it sneaky bastard, armoured up tank, batshit lunatic with dual axes, one of the various incarnations of mage, or some hybrid of any of the above - I'd recommend saving your game, laying your hands on as many weapon, armour and spell variants as you can, and hitting up a few enemies to see what feels right. When you've decided, locate the first trio of Standing Stones (Warrior, Thief and Mage) and take the bonus from whichever one best fits. If you still can't decide, or if you feel none of those stones really works for you, make one of your earlier adventures westwards, and locate the Lover Stone.
Oh and, hoard soul gems from every available source. If you're playing a mage, cast Soul Trap on everything you fight (if you can) to fill any empty soul gems you have. If you're melee, use any soul trap weapon you find to deal the last blows to any enemy you can. If the soul trap weapon you find doesn't fit your play style, disenchant it and apply the enchantment to a weapon that does, using your best available soul gem.
Soul gems are invaluable for leveling Enchanting, which is an extraordinary source of power for equipment in its later levels. It's also a fantastic way to make money. Fill soul gems as you adventure, and then toss enchantments on any gear you find to drastically increase its value before you sell it.
If you're a melee class & you have some funds available, level your smithing a little by spamming iron daggers (buy iron ingots/ore & leather at Warmaiden's in Whiterun, then cut the leather into strips at the tanning rack, smelt any ore into ingots at the smelter, and then use the forge. All of these things are at the side of Warmaiden's, immediately to your right upon entering Whiterun). It's worth doing this and dropping a perk into Steel Smithing so you can improve early steel weapons/armour for your own use. Then take those iron daggers you made, enchant them and sell them to Warmaiden's to easily recoup all your money. Don't level smithing or enchanting too far at once though, or you'll find your character level too high to handle level-scaled enemies, despite your awesome gear.
If you find yourself lacking direction still, the Companions offer some decent low-level quests to follow, and you can always find work in taverns and from jarls & their stewards.
Good luck, and I hope you enjoy the game!
I heard the ps3 version has some problems. Here's what I recommend. During/after the tutorial if you want to be a fighter or archer head with the Imperial. If you want to be anything else head with the Nord. Note: You don't have too, either choice is fine, but going with the imperial gets you free ingots which allow you to sup up your weapons and armour. Sell any crap you aren't using to the store in Riverwood in the tavern. You will hear of a side quest to get "The golden claw" from a close burrow. Do this and finish the dungeon and make sure you grab the stone off the final boss. Go to whiterun, and talk to the Thane. Give the mage the stone, and kill yourself a dragon. There you can now buy farming a miniscule amount of stuff you can buy yourself a relatively cheap house.
Also pro-tip: The carriage at whiterun stables will shuttle you to other cities in the world even if you haven't discovered them. So if you want to get some nice light armour, go join the Thieves guild by traveling to Riften, or get some mage equipment by traveling to Winterhold.
Edit: Oh and probably one of the most important things in the world. Get the black star, not azuras star. There are way too many human enemies in this game to not make the Black star worth it over Azuras.
Also pro-tip: The carriage at whiterun stables will shuttle you to other cities in the world even if you haven't discovered them. So if you want to get some nice light armour, go join the Thieves guild by traveling to Riften, or get some mage equipment by traveling to Winterhold.
Edit: Oh and probably one of the most important things in the world. Get the black star, not azuras star. There are way too many human enemies in this game to not make the Black star worth it over Azuras.
Well there is no real best place to start with Skyrim. It's pretty much a "pick a direction and go" kind of game. However, if you're looking for some guidance regarding a particularly rewarding jump-off point, I'd recommend that you talk to the general goods merchant in Riverwood after you go through the tutorial level. The quest he puts you on will net you some decent treasure and cashflow, and it'll prep you up for some other quests along the line, as well as get you some dungeon crawling practice.ELCTea said:
As for glitches, the only one that particularly springs to mind is for a quest called (spoiler link) [a href="http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Blood_on_the_Ice"]"Blood on the Ice"[/a], which you currently can't complete if you finish the Civil War plot on the side of the Imperials, and seeing as the reward for that quest is being able to buy arguably the best house in the game, it can be pretty annoying. Otherwise just save often and most glitches won't be a problem.
Just start talking to people. You will soon collect tons of quests in your journal and from there you go at the pace you want. What I always do though first is select a faction to join and go through their storyline.
Not only is it fun, but you get some advantages and it helps push you forward along your selected path. I always start that way.
Not only is it fun, but you get some advantages and it helps push you forward along your selected path. I always start that way.
Just start talking to people. You will soon collect tons of quests in your journal and from there you go at the pace you want. What I always do though first is select a faction to join and go through their storyline.
Not only is it fun, but you get some advantages and it helps push you forward along your selected path. I always start that way.
Not only is it fun, but you get some advantages and it helps push you forward along your selected path. I always start that way.
honestly just kinda start. i literally pointed myself to a mountain in the distance and started running, finding stuff and meeting npcs along the way, when i got to a city i checked it out, gathering every quest i could. next thing i knew i was lvl 12 running hell for leather from a very angry giant, and after that i was lvl 37 dual-wielding daedric swords and kicking the living crap out of dragons. its very fluid and there's a huge amount to do and see, just do whatever you want and the game will reward you based on how you play.
one tip though, if our low level and run into something that takes half your health with one hit... book it. skyrim will do many things, but it wont hold your hand.
one tip though, if our low level and run into something that takes half your health with one hit... book it. skyrim will do many things, but it wont hold your hand.
I really dont suggest buying any ore/ingots or leather when leveling smithing. go out into the countryside with a pickaxe, bow and arrows and whatever normal weapons you use. look for ore veins throughout the countryside and kill and loot any and all animals such as wolves, bears and deer/elk. This way you get some combat training from random encounters like bandits or wolves and bears and save coin. The bow is for killing dear and elk since the buggers run away and chasing them with a sword sucks. Use the kiln to make the ingots and the tanning rack to make leather and leather strips. Reason being is when you level from any crafting skill it affects your combat skills negativly because you didnt level those.
Ore found in the countryside will respawn like chests but ore found in mines wont so theres no worry about finding an ebony ore deposite but cannot mine it later. and the ore veins will randomly give you random jewels that you can sell or make into jewelry.
When you come across an enchanted armor, jewelry, or weapon dont sell it but disenchant it if you didnt already do that type of enchantment yet. This helps in leveling enchanting as well as gives you the enchantment list to use. once you get enchantment up take any unenchanted item you loot and enchant it before selling. this makes the item more valuable and speachcraft levels faster the more expensive the items you sell. Also enchanting loot before selling means you must go out and get the loot so you will get some combat skills done during the enchanting process.
Same basic principal for alchemy as collecting ore, get out into the countryside and pick them berries! you still get random encounters to keep the combat skills up.
Whatever you do DONT power level enchanting, smithing, and alchemy all at once without combat training too unless you enjoy having a gimped character with uber armor, weapons, and potions. you will still die allot way too easy.
Ore found in the countryside will respawn like chests but ore found in mines wont so theres no worry about finding an ebony ore deposite but cannot mine it later. and the ore veins will randomly give you random jewels that you can sell or make into jewelry.
When you come across an enchanted armor, jewelry, or weapon dont sell it but disenchant it if you didnt already do that type of enchantment yet. This helps in leveling enchanting as well as gives you the enchantment list to use. once you get enchantment up take any unenchanted item you loot and enchant it before selling. this makes the item more valuable and speachcraft levels faster the more expensive the items you sell. Also enchanting loot before selling means you must go out and get the loot so you will get some combat skills done during the enchanting process.
Same basic principal for alchemy as collecting ore, get out into the countryside and pick them berries! you still get random encounters to keep the combat skills up.
Whatever you do DONT power level enchanting, smithing, and alchemy all at once without combat training too unless you enjoy having a gimped character with uber armor, weapons, and potions. you will still die allot way too easy.
It really makes no sense to mine ore as cheap as iron (the only material you should be using for leveling smithing) especially when you can just sell back enchanted iron daggers and immediately recoup everything you spent. Also, the incredibly minor skill bonus you get from hunting your own leather will in no way compensate for the fast level jumping that comes with leveling smithing and enchanting.JET1971 said:
It's just much faster and more efficient to buy the stuff and use it while pacing yourself to ensure you don't go too far too fast. Unless you're roleplaying a guy who hunts & forages all his own components (in which case, go for it) there's no need to depend on the availability of randomly spawning animals or extremely slowly regenerating ore veins to moderate how quickly you level. All you need to do is notice that you've jumped two character levels since you started and say "yeah that's enough", and stop, storing any leftover materials for later. Then when you come to a point in the game where steel gear isn't cutting it any more, level it a bit more and drop a perk in dwarven or elven.
As for the more expensive/rarer metals later in the game, or the ones that're mostly incidental to exploration (Dwarven ingot components or any hides you do find as a result of being randomly accosted, for example) sure, gather the materials for those as you go unless you're rolling in coin. In all other situations, why waste the time doing something as mundane and repetitive as mining or jogging around in circles looking for wolves or a bear?
Want wolves and bears pick a road and stay on it, they spawn all over the place up to the point that you can get tired of them. i know i am sick and tired of everytime I walk a road from one location to another every 20 meters its another bear or a wolf pack. Worse though is the dam foxes and goats when intentionaly run right infront of you and trip you up. but really its not walking in circles looking for them. as for ore that stuff is all over the place too if you get off the roads.Arkley said:
Thing is you dont just go collect materials but you do it while exploring or going from one city/town to another. when you get where you are going find the nearest blacksmith and make the stuff and sell it. it really isnt a timewaster if you dont use fast travel by choice and at fairly low levels ingots/ore and leather cost more than what they produce so it does save enough coin when you dont have much to begin with unlike higher levels when you have 100k+ and nothing to spend it on and dont need it anymore.
Early in the game if you want to do crafting it makes sense to collect materials for crafting while traveling. but at later levels if you decide to level crafting it doesnt matter if you buy the materials because you have the coin and dont need to worry about power leveling as you are strong enough that an extra 10 non combat levels wont hurt any.
I'm sorry, but ore veins simply do not just pop up during regular exploration, and they're easy to miss even when they do. If you're looking for a particular ore vein, your chances of finding it while on an otherwise unrelated random adventure are minuscule, even if you're after common ore like iron. But sure, like I said - if you do bump into them, take what you can get, same as everything else in the game. But hunting them down when you can buy them so quickly and affordably is just silly.JET1971 said:
You're totally right about wolves and bears etc being quite common, but they're nowhere near common enough to take smithing to 100 in an average player's game unless said player is going to save every piece of leather from the very start and only level smithing once their character level is 50 and never use fast travel. You might get the occasional couple of smithing levels out of "found" hides as you go (and I mentioned that already) but when it comes to leveling to a particular goal level (in order to produce a certain type of armour/weapon) your choice is indeed going to come down to random roaming in search of animals to kill, or just buying the leather.
Also, you mention that ingots/leather cost more than they produce, which leads me to believe you didn't read my post properly before attempting to make a counterpoint, which is foolish. My advice to the person was to level smithing and enchanting gradually and simultaneously, because that way enchanting the iron daggers you produce will result in the sale value being greater than the purchase value of the components, even at low level speech. And since soul gems can be very easily filled in literally any adventure, you don't even have to buy full ones, making profits even greater still.
Look, I get that you have a niche, you like hunting and foraging for stuff to make your equipment. I understand that, because when you acquire all the components for something without handing over any coin, it really feels like it's yours, the product of your own hard work, more than any other way. But I'm not trying to advise anyone on how to get the best experience, because that's subjective. I'm speaking only of efficiency, and there is no question - it is quicker, easier, and more efficient to simply buy everything that you don't find while blundering around, rather than dedicating time to monotonously gathering them.
Even from a very low-cash starting point (say, 1,000 gold) it's possible to enter Whiterun with no materials and level 15 Smithing/Enchanting, and then leave Whiterun with level 30 Smithing/Enchanting, a set of improved & enchanted steel equipment, and 3,000 gold.
Not overpowered? I found transmute REALLY early, and the game has just been mining, smelting, and smithing from that point one. Seriously, about 15 hours of my puny 30 or so hours game has been spent ONLY mining, transmuting, smelting, and selling jewelry. I have so much money that I don't know what to do with it, so many spare rings that I can't sell them all without waiting a bajillion hours for shopkeepers to get more money, and my smithing skill is almost maxed.Mr.Tea said:
Transmute is INCREDIBLY overpowered. I don't mind it, honestly, but to say it isn't overpowered is kind of misleading.
