Just got Skyrim!

I have been waiting forever, after watching all the videos on youtube about skyrim for the past months it is so incredible to finally get the game! I have been doing my best to not spoil anything and stay away from lets play videos. How excited were you guys when you got it? If you haven't gotten it yet are you dying to get it?

OK, who paid you?

*Sniff*… anyone smell spam?

The OP finally got his copy of the game and he's pleasantly surprised to learn that it's better than his wildest expectations. This is the same reaction many RPG fans are having all over the world.

I felt the same way when I first watched some of the live streams a few days before the launch date.

I have been eagerly awaiting this game since last December, expecting it to be basically an improved version of Oblivion; however it turned out to be so much more. I've logged 65 hours since Wednesday night and I can say without hesitation Skyrim is the most fun game I've ever played.

I'm not even remotely surprised that you say that, given the level of hype in your posts prior to Skyrim's release.

Then again, I'm probably as bad whenever Piranha Bytes is about to release a new game.

I also think it is one of the best games I have played in a very long time. Risen 2 is going to have a hard time matching up to this. I am debating though whether I should stop playing and wait for a couple of patches just so I can maxmise my enjoyment but I am finding it really hard to stop playing…it is just that good.

Just replay it with mods the second time around. You get the patchy goodness plus whatever enhancements you feel would improve the game.

Anyone know if Darnified is working on this or if he is still in the modding scene? The reason I ask is because he left the New Vegas mod unfinished. He just up and left it.

Hmm the exploration aspect is rather ruined for me on the second playthough. And apparently playing a mage your damage doesn't scale with your level as well as melee/ranged. My sneaky archer may be my only playthrough.

Originally Posted by Thrasher
Hmm the exploration aspect is rather ruined for me on the second playthough. And apparently playing a mage your damage doesn't scale with your level as well as melee/ranged. My sneaky archer may be my only playthrough.

Unless you explore the entire map there will always be new things to see and do. And some quests and actions appear to permanently cut off others like how you handle an invitation to the assassin's guild.

Consider playing a mage a bigger challenge and maybe run it at a lower difficultly level? It always seemed a lot more challenging to me in Oblivion and Morrowind.

To plan for a second playthrough, you're right, I'd probably purposely not explore the whole world the first time. That's something hard for me to resist.

Originally Posted by Thrasher
Hmm the exploration aspect is rather ruined for me on the second playthough. And apparently playing a mage your damage doesn't scale with your level as well as melee/ranged. My sneaky archer may be my only playthrough.

Whatcha talkin bout Willis? Mage's scale very well because of one or rather two very important things. One…enchantments. Get a few enchantments that lower your mana use in a particular field and you can blast till the cows come home. The other is alchemy you can increase your skill level for a short time. This helps tremendously with spells.

There is one thing you could do, but it will ruin the game for me so I'm not touching that with a ten foot pole. Deck out your gear with destruction skill enhancements. You'll be an overpowered walking death machine ….well so I've read on the forums, but I believe them because the potions that temporarily increase my skill level helps a lot on tough battles. I like to do it that way because one, it's temporary and two you still have to hunt down the ingredients to make the potions. It's a little more involved than just enchaniting all your gear with enhancements to D skill.

Plus, I'm playing a pure mage and doing very well. My highest is destruction then conjuration, illusion, alteration and finally restoration. There is also a main advantage destruction has over melee. There is a perk where if I double up my spell and cast it. It will stagger my opponent. That has helped me survive more than once. Also raising the dead to kick their butt helps as well. Lots and lots of different tactics to keep me from being bored out of my mind. Swing, hit, swing, hit, swing, hit….naaahhh I'll pass. Give me magic please

Originally Posted by Thrasher
To plan for a second playthrough, you're right, I'd probably purposely not explore the whole world the first time. That's something hard for me to resist.

I'm playing a dark elf dual wield stealthy character and I decided to skip the College of Winterhold and Companions questlines completely this time. Between the Thieves' Guild and the Dark Brotherhood, I'm sure this playthrough will last hundreds of hours. Steam tells me I've already logged 75 hours and I have just started the Thieves' Guild, haven't even found the Dark Brotherhood yet.

I also noticed that it is a lot more satisfying to find magic items and spell tomes as rewards for exploring dungeons, etc., rather than buying from merchants, so I'm trying to avoid buying any spell tomes or magic items.

I think my next playthrough will either be an Orc or Nord 2H barbarian type, a Redguard Sword & Board or an Altmer or Breton pure mage. Also want to somehow fit in a playthrough as a Khajiit, Bosmer and Argonian.

Originally Posted by Thrasher
Hmm the exploration aspect is rather ruined for me on the second playthough. And apparently playing a mage your damage doesn't scale with your level as well as melee/ranged. My sneaky archer may be my only playthrough.

My Mage is doing fine. You need the perks in destruction to be effective though (Impact staggering everything if you are dual casting is pretty OP too) and wear magicka reduction cost enchantments (unless you want to be drinking potion all the time).

From looking at the official forum, people are mostly saying that Magic is underpowered because enchanting allow you to create uber weapons.

Damage goes up with skill levels in one-handed, two-handed, and archery. Without spellmaking, spell damage does not go up with skill levels in magic schools, only reduced mana cost. Seems like a major Bethesda screwup to leave out spellmaking to be able to increase spell damage as you can afford it. Plus apparently, they got rid of the ability to create custom spell chains through spellmaking.

One of my favorites was to do the sequence:

1. weakness magic
2. weakness magic + weakness element
3. weakness magic + element damage
repeat 2 and 3 until fried.

I would create custom spells for 1,2,3 plus variations for diff damage types. And create new versions that would do increased damage at higher levels as my character progressed.

This is not possible in the current system without spellmaking. Hopefully found spells can be used this way, but I doubt it. We'll see…

And I don't see anyway to increase damage rates incrementally like this with the new skill system.

Originally Posted by Thrasher
One of my favorites was to do the sequence:

1. weakness magic
2. weakness magic + weakness element
3. weakness magic + element damage
repeat 2 and 3 until fried.

I'm intimately familiar with that spell combo, and it was a lot of fun; however, the result was something like 100,000 damage if you do it enough. I found playing a mage to be extremely OP in vanilla oblivion for these reasons, but after installing FCOM, Duke Patricks, etc., and cranking up the difficulty setting it was actually challenging even with these powerful spells.

I'll reserve judgement on the feasibility of a pure mage build in Skyrim until I try one during my next playthrough.

Originally Posted by CountChocula
I'm intimately familiar with that spell combo, and it was a lot of fun; however, the result was something like 100,000 damage if you do it enough. I found playing a mage to be extremely OP in vanilla oblivion for these reasons

Well I never abused the system to that extent. Usually just a few castings was enough to take out my enemies. Also, using touch spells was more of a challenge since it took you into smackdown territory. Made it fun dodging around while trying to touch them to death before the weakness spells timed out. Required a lot of finesse, and was not overpowered. In fact it was quite risky. Fun times.

Don't see that playstyle being viable in Skyrim, but someone correct me if it's otherwise.

Currently playing a pure mage, and it's not really viable to stay in close combat. You can always use summoned weapons and deal some damage in melee, but I generally reserve that for situations where I run out of mana.

At this point I'd say it scales rather well as long as you focus on Destruction, but it might be an issue in about 10 levels (at 40+). There really isn't a lot for me to gain in terms of damage output, so if enemies improve too much I might have a problem.

Increasing magic skill will get you the following:
- Access to higher level spells (Fireball, Chain Lightning, etc).
- Access to better perks

I'm nearing maxed out now, and will start focusing on Conjuration soon. Unfortunately, Conjuration is rather slow to level for a pure mage (I rarely use summoned weapons).

Well my character is now the Archmage of Winterhold and has now started on the Stormcloaks quest chain, surprisingly seeing as I'm the Archmage I'm more into archery than magic at the moment! I just love stealthing and shooting arrows of doom about!

Enchanting is excellent I've got myself and archery helm and gauntlets which are really increasing my damage as well as protecting me nicely. Not sure what I need to kill to get those grand soul gems powered up though, I have to buy all mine. (only grand one I charged up was a black soul gem from killing a necromancer)

Daniel.

Originally Posted by Maylander
I'm nearing maxed out now, and will start focusing on Conjuration soon. Unfortunately, Conjuration is rather slow to level for a pure mage (I rarely use summoned weapons).

Filling soul gems raises conjuration ridiculously fast. Early on, it seemed lilke one or 2 fills raised the skill level 1 point. I was stunned.

I got as far as the opening scene featuring the cart with prisoners. It was a nice little ride down the mountain, and the everyone got out of the cart and then they called me…WTF, I wasn't ready for that. I have some serious strategies to figure out