Tips & Spoilers Thread

Originally Posted by CelesteGB
Can anyone tell if perks in Enchanting and Smithing are worth it? Not many but just a few?

I play as an archer and have not touched either till now. I can potentially spend perks on boosting the initial enchant strength, and the 25% bonus to skills on armour (apparently covers jewelry). I should be able to make 20% + items for Archery damage, I already have three from exploring. I won't bother with the rest of the perks yet. My base skill is 60 from doing lots of daggers. I think the perks are worth it later so you can do better enchants than those you find - you could make a set for your fighting style (archery, sword etc), a set for smithing, a set for alchemy etc.

As I am reaching the top of the Archery tree, I need other ways to boost my damage as monsters scale …

I play an archer too but am only level 17) I put some points in smithing to improve my bows and armor. Your point on the initial enchantment perks coincides with what I was thinking. I just wasn't sure what would be coming up later in terms of loot.

I have 4 perks right now saved up and I'm trying to decide how to spend them.

Oh guess I can put a few points in light armor so I can a bonus

Thanks!

My character is an archer and I love enchanting, makes tons of cash, and gives me massive damage bonuses to my bows, add sneak for triple bow damage and it's all good.

Daniel.

Is there a cute looking Asian lady I can marry? ^_^

Originally Posted by bloodlover
Is there a cute looking Asian lady I can marry? ^_^

I've looked for the same one… Seems that the answer is - no. However I still haven't solved everything in the game so… Dunno. Maybe one emerges overtime.

EDIT:

A question if one knows… How many times do I have to repeat the quest AFTERSHOCK till something new happens in the game? Or it's just a brainless mobrespawning repeatable quest?

If you're playing a nice guy there is a quest that has you destroy the dark brotherhood instead of joining it.

According to wiki it is repeatable. No idea if it's intentional or a bug.

Originally Posted by zahratustra
According to wiki it is repeatable. No idea if it's intentional or a bug.

Yes but does solving it, let's say 10 times, open another quest? Or it's just there repeating itself only to help you pump your battle skills and bring you some easy cash?

I've only seen one place where repeating a quest seems to unlock something, and that is in the thieves guild. As far as I know, none of the college repeatables lead to anything new.

Okay so I have 4 x 33% dmg enchants for bows, and have decided to leave Lydia at home and turn up difficulty to expert now.
Not even stated upgrading armour much yet, or light armour tree.
Some challenge is now back for boss mobs, some horrible wisp thing etc.
Common bandit sniping never gets old ;-)
Still no need for dagger crits or 1handed tree TBH.

Originally Posted by Maylander
I've only seen one place where repeating a quest seems to unlock something, and that is in the thieves guild. As far as I know, none of the college repeatables lead to anything new.

True, those thieving "bonus" jobs actually unlock more quests after you repeat them for a while. Thanks for the hint! And I thought I've solved the whole thieves' guild questline…

As for Aftershock quests, I'll skip those, seems it doesn't open anything new which is too bad.

Oh, one thing… During thieving quests I've found an item: a bee in the jar. And it looks awsome! I'll decorate my house with it.. Unless it's a quest item. It doesn't trigger any quest when picked up. Do I need to bring it somewhere or what?

There are a set to find an collect. I believe that's it though.

One tip I can suggest is Daedric Armour is actually better than the Dragon armours. Start storing daedric hearts early.

More than anything, I'm having fun with archery in this game. I've really tried indulging myself with magic, but I just can't get into it.

I only have one armor piece with a bow enchantment on it, and I don't seem to have much trouble on Expert difficulty (I bumped it up to compensate dragons dying in 5 hits). I'll wait and see if I can find a balance here, if not I'll eventually move it to Master difficulty. I'm currently clocking 109 hours on Steam, though not counting the time I spent alt-tabbing, reading articles, and taking a break to eat here and there, I'd say it's at about the 100 hour mark.

I'm playing a Breton and I found leveling a bit too simple in this game. During the early stages, I'd get one-handed from 30-35 and it seemed like I'd gain a level. It appears to be going much slower now that some of my primary skills are maxed. I went from one level every half hour to one level every 5 hours. I can't tell you how many times his "Dragonskin" racial ability has helped against powerful mages, however.

I found the end of the Mage Guild (much easier to say than College of Winterhold) to be very anti-climactic, though I thought the Thieves Guild was fairly decent when Karliah was introduced and the plot started to revolve around Mercer.

I need a hint!
I've solved mage's guild, bard's guild and thieves' guild. I haven't touched the main story (other than visiting Graybeards), also I haven't chased companions and dark brotherhood yet. On the top of that, I still haven't taken a side in the "civil war". However I've solved every side quest I've found in towns and villages. Except bugged ones.
Oh… One quest remained unsolved, I've collected 20 of 24 Barenziah stones, but ok, I guess the 4 stones I need will pop out later.

As I've stated previously, I ought to be majorly a bounty hunter, but that resulted in queststopper bugs so I've retired from bounties (at least till the patch gets released).
So I need a suggestion. What to go for next? Companions, assassins, imperials/rebels or the main quest? Dark Brotherhood seems the best choice for a bounty hunter wannabe, but I'm unsure if that questline overlaps with other questlines.

Originally Posted by joxer
What to go for next? Companions, assassins, imperials/rebels or the main quest? Dark Brotherhood seems the best choice for a bounty hunter wannabe, but I'm unsure if that questline overlaps with other questlines.

At least in my game, I haven´t encountered any conflicts caused by the Dark Brotherhood questline.

For what it´s worth, I´ve finished all questlines in the game and Dark Brotherhood belongs to the better ones the game has to offer, I think.
Characters involved are a bit more fleshed out than usual, there´s a lot of references to DB from the previous game which give it a good sense of continuity and it has well balanced gameplay elements, aka half or more of it doesn´t involve hack´n´slashing through dungeons (for example, inclusion of the Bard´s College was certainly a nice touch, but, man, were the quests for it lazy) and some rewards are pretty cool. However, personally I´ve found the plotting to be so so and one of the rewards ends up being annoying due to a certain much needed feature missing.
Still, I think it´s the second best guild after Thieves Guild (which has most content and most "guild-y" feel) and is much better than Companions or very lazily put together Winterhold College (whose questlines are very thin and completely lack any sense of "guild-y" advancement).

Imperials vs. Stormcloaks is in my opinion well conceived only as a setting and as a "gray choice" feature, the actual quests themselves are nothing to call home about and consequences aren´t all that substantial, though it´s cool Bethesda implemented this kind of exclusivity into the game nevertheless.
Also, note that these questlines potentially conflict with the main quest, I´ve posted about it in the bug thread.

Main quest is pretty run-of-the-mill as well, there´s a promise of intrigue about 2/5 into it, but that proves to be false fast and it´s simple and nothing special afterwards. Not really bad per se and the ending is rather nice/cool (but has barely any effect on the world), but in my opinion it´s a lot less interesting than, say, Morrowind´s main quest.

Anyway, got a bit carried away here .

Leveling slows down a lot in later levels. It took about as long in-game for me to go from level 1 to 25 as from 25 to 33 where I finished with that character. And I did a lot of training for those last few levels to get my two hand and heavy armor skills into the 80s.

Originally Posted by joxer
Oh, one thing… During thieving quests I've found an item: a bee in the jar. And it looks awsome! I'll decorate my house with it.. Unless it's a quest item. It doesn't trigger any quest when picked up. Do I need to bring it somewhere or what?

I found a butterfly in a jar.

Originally Posted by BillSeurer
I found a butterfly in a jar.

That´s what Skyrim´s about in the end.
Butterflies in jars.

"Look what I´ve found!" … "A butterfly in a jar!"
"So?"
"So what?!" "Pretty cool, isn´t it."

LOL I don't think it's just there to look nice, but maybe the quest about jarred insects is bugged, wouldn't surprise me really.
And thanks for the input, I'm off to Dark Brotherhood next.