Skyrim Impressions after finishing up my first character

There is a shout or something to that effect.

I hope you don't mind me posting my current impressions in your thread, Maylander, because my views are very similar to your own. After some time with the game, it started to wear down on me, and I found myself becoming less impressed.

Starting off, the game was wonderful. Exploring the tundra outside of Whiterun was especially satisfying. I began gathering as many quests as I could, then immediately plunged the depths of caves and dungeons. None of them "feel" the same or repetitive, but the drawback lies in what you actually find in there (which is nothing for the most part). I do agree that exploration isn't too varied, but I suppose it's "the frozen north", so that's what I can expect.

I have not yet completed the main quest, but it has been enjoyable. I have concentrated my efforts more toward the guilds. So far, I've only completed the Thieves Guild. Starting out was rather bland, but I found it more exciting as it drew closer to the conclusion. I am, however, disappointed by how short it was. If I recall correctly, you're given two tasks involving stealing and/or sneaking into someone's home to plant something, then leads to the real plot of the questline. I won't spoil anything, but the introduction to Karliah was where it started to really light up for me. I think she specifically will become one of the more memorable (read: favorite) characters to me. I only wished I could have had her as a companion and they made more use of her. I haven't done much in the way of the Dark Brotherhood or the College of Winterhold yet (I'm holding off on Dark Brotherhood to prevent killing any potential quest givers).

One of the problems I have with the game is the scale of mountains. They take up so much space on the map, and as a result, I feel as if there's much less space to explore. Frequently I'll be heading to an undiscovered location on the map, only to end up saying "Oops, there's a mountain in the way, I have to go around.". It's not so much that there's something in the way, it's the consistency of something being in the way.

As with the Elder Scrolls games starting with Oblivion, there's a lack of any real C&C. More of that is involved with the Stormcloaks/Legion from what I gather, but it's fairly limited. As side quests are completed, you'll accumulate gold very fast, and you'll have more than you need a large percentage of the time.

As for shouts, I found a handful of them really useful. Ice Form comes to mind as it freezes oncoming enemies in their tracks (not including dragons, giants, or anything too big). The other shouts that force animals to attack/retreat and such haven't been used at all. From what I've noticed, however, the damaging shouts such as Fire/Ice Breath seem to increase your Destruction skill a bit (though I need to have someone else confirm that), but not enough to level it due to cooldown times.

I know it's not much, but those are my current impressions with the game. As time goes on, I'll highlight more strong and weak points in Skyrim.

Ragnaris said:

One of the problems I have with the game is the scale of mountains. They take up so much space on the map, and as a result, I feel as if there's much less space to explore. Frequently I'll be heading to an undiscovered location on the map, only to end up saying "Oops, there's a mountain in the way, I have to go around.". It's not so much that there's something in the way, it's the consistency of something being in the way.

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Every mountain is scalable though and has stuff on top. Some of my favorite exploration moments so far have been climbing mountains and finding cool stuff on top, like a shrine to Mehrunes Dagon or a new sage stone.

They're not black holes on the map like New Vegas' were.

Ragnaris said:

As with the Elder Scrolls games starting with Oblivion, there's a lack of any real C&C.

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I don't think any TES game has had real C&C. Well, Daggerfall and Morrowind didn't, I never really played Arena. Morrowind had the same kind of thing Skyrim has, where you pick between competing factions. Other than that it had nothing really. Oblivion had even less.

Ragnaris said:

I am, however, disappointed by how short it was. If I recall correctly, you're given two tasks involving stealing and/or sneaking into someone's home to plant something, then leads to the real plot of the questline. .

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I've been playing the Thieves' Guild questline for about 40 out of the 90-odd hours I've racked up. I got about 4 different quests from Devlin, 4 different quests from Vex and 2 quests from Bronflyn (sp?), and I still haven't got into the main plot of the questline yet.

Are you sure you kept talking to those guys to get the additional quests? They have me traveling all over Skyrim to do these minor jobs and since I don't use fast travel, it takes quite a long time to carry them out and return to Riften.

I'm blown away by how much content there is just in the Thieves' Guild quests.

As I'm playing a sneaky Dunmer thief, I'm find I'm using Throw Voice Shout and Aura Whisper the most. Throw Voice is excellent if you have the 15x dagger backstab perk as you can use it to make enemies run off toward a distant corner and sneak up behind them for a one-shot kill from the shadows.

DoctorNarrative said:

Every mountain is scalable though and has stuff on top. Some of my favorite exploration moments so far have been climbing mountains and finding cool stuff on top, like a shrine to Mehrunes Dagon or a new sage stone.

They're not black holes on the map like New Vegas' were.

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I won't argue with that. At least it's worth getting to the top!

DoctorNarrative said:

I don't think any TES game has had real C&C. Well, Daggerfall and Morrowind didn't, I never really played Arena. Morrowind had the same kind of thing Skyrim has, where you pick between competing factions. Other than that it had nothing really. Oblivion had even less.

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Yeah, that's what I was talking about (factions were the only thing really C&C related from Morrowind, and it's the same for Skyrim, but much less so, I think).

CountChocula said:

I've been playing the Thieves' Guild questline for about 40 out of the 90-odd hours I've racked up. I got about 4 different quests from Devlin, 4 different quests from Vex and 2 quests from Bronflyn (sp?), and I still haven't got into the main plot of the questline yet.

Are you sure you kept talking to those guys to get the additional quests? They have me traveling all over Skyrim to do these minor jobs and since I don't use fast travel, it takes quite a long time to carry them out and return to Riften

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Actually, that's a good point, but I was specifically speaking of the Thieves Guild main questline. On the other hand, the side missions that Vex and Devlin hand out to you are literally filling up my entire quest log. So I guess I wouldn't say the Thieves Guild as a whole is short, just the main quests involving Mercer.

I have taken advantage of the Sneak ability quite proficiently. So much that I've limited myself to only using Mehrunes Razor, and it works out nicely. The 15x damage is wonderful, and when equipped with the Shrouded Gloves from the Dark Brotherhood, it turns that 15x damage bonus to 30x damage.

Ragnaris said:

Actually, that's a good point, but I was specifically speaking of the Thieves Guild main questline. On the other hand, the side missions that Vex and Devlin hand out to you are literally filling up my entire quest log. So I guess I wouldn't say the Thieves Guild as a whole is short, just the main quests involving Mercer.

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Yeah, what they basically seem to have done is take all the filler quests for the factions and make them optional. That's nice really, from a normal bloke perspective that might even be called awesome. For people like us that want to do everything though it probably just makes the main questline feel short.

Also the companions didn't seem to have any sidequests, they would all tell me "you already have a job" when I asked for work, meaning the main quest job.

A lot of the filler stuff is just random generated content though. For example "find this book" quest in the mage guild. It's not an actual quest - it's just a randomly spawned book in a random dungeon. There's no progression or anything. You can do an infinite amount of them by the looks of it. I even got one where I had to collect the same book that I had just collected in a dungeon I had already cleared. That's what happens when you clear most of the map and still try to pick up such filler quests.

And no, I don't mind people writing their impressions here. That's what this thread is for!

Anyway, I've completed my second character now, a mage that ended up at 43. Could've reached 50 without too much trouble, but I tried to keep him as pure as possible. I was a lot more thorough this time around, so I'm nearing 110 hours now in total.

All in all, I have to say mages are pretty cool in Skyrim, though I do miss the spell crafting. Also, I was able to completely trivialize the ending by crafting armor that reduced my destruction mana cost to 0 for all spells.

I've started my thief/archer character now, level 19 right at the moment. Currently doing the thieves guild, will do dark brotherhood, imperial legion and bard's guild as soon as I have the time. That should be the final content I have left, in addition to a few side quests here and there.

Oh, a small note: I underestimated the amount of C&C in this game. There are several major quests that are quite heavy on the C&C - imperial vs stormcloak, to help or destroy the dark brotherhood and so on. Definitely a big plus compared to Oblivion!

How are you liking playing an archer? I love it. Only on medium though.

Maylander said:

A lot of the filler stuff is just random generated content though. For example "find this book" quest in the mage guild. It's not an actual quest - it's just a randomly spawned book in a random dungeon. There's no progression or anything. You can do an infinite amount of them by the looks of it. I even got one where I had to collect the same book that I had just collected in a dungeon I had already cleared. That's what happens when you clear most of the map and still try to pick up such filler quests.

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I think the books quest was a normal scripted quest actually, with the NPC involved and the "boss." I could be wrong though.

huggster said:

How are you liking playing an archer? I love it. Only on medium though.

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Well, I tend to rely on swords a bit much right now. The bow just seems a bit clumsy inside dungeons. It works great outside though. Also, I've added a bit of Conjuration so I can use summoned creatures and weapons. I find that bound sword and bound bow are pretty good.

DoctorNarrative said:

I think the books quest was a normal scripted quest actually, with the NPC involved and the "boss." I could be wrong though.

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Probably a different quest then. The one I'm talking about actually asked me to collect the same book twice. Scenario:
- You must collect Book Something Something.
- I collect the book and hand it in to the guy at the library.
- Do you need some other books collected?
- Yes, get me Book Something Something.
- What. The. F.. ? I just gave you Book Something Something a few seconds ago!

The worst part is that the second time I collect Book Something Something, it had spawned in a chest in a dungeon I had already cleared due to a different quest.

I honestly think those random side quests are simply there to point you towards dungeons. Basically, they give you a reason to one dungeon after the other.

Maylander said:

Probably a different quest then. The one I'm talking about actually asked me to collect the same book twice. Scenario:

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Oh THAT one, yes, that one was radiant. My mistake. I was talking about the "so-and-so left with our books on magnus go get them" quest.