The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Catch-All

Baron Of Hell wrote:

Skyrim was just updated so anyone using SKSE mods will have to wait a bit for it to be updated to the new version of skyrim.

Oh, darn it. I was just thinking the long weekend would be a good time to add SKSE to Skyrim SE, tweak my mods, and start a new game.

Can anyone recommend a mod that lets you repeat crafting in enchanting? Like how in smithing you pick a recipe and you can just keep hitting Craft to make it over and over again as long as you have the components. In enchanting it is pretty annoying if I want to enchant like 30 iron daggers for skill-ups that have to keep going through and manually picking the same thing over and over 30 times.

I don't think that exist. I was looking for a mod like that but couldn't find one. I recall reading a thread on it and most people thought it wasn't possible.

Thanks Baron. That is disappointing...

What is the hardest achievement in this game you have personally won?

Actually completing the main quest, 600+ hours in.

I have 80 hours in on the PC but they were all with at least one mod so I didn't get any achievements... I have about another 40 hours on the Switch and I don't remember if there are achievements there.

Hey everyone! I've recently jumped back into Skyrim and I'm currently at the 40hr mark. So obviously I know this game is huge, but I'm wondering if it's possible to have a good Skyrim experience without sinking in hundreds of hours? I'd like to properly experience the main story in one go and then potentially dip in and out of side stuff over the coming months, years, decades.... What kind of time commitment would I be looking at to do the main story justice if I'm currently...

Spoiler:

...finishing up getting the Blood Scroll and about to start looking for the Dragon Scroll?

And any general tips for ways to get the most out of Skyrim when you don't have 100s of hours to put into it? To explain what I mean, I recently spent some time hurting myself on spikes then healing myself (rinse and repeat) to increase my restoration and my overall level. Are there any other tricks like that I should be doing? Or maybe there's a catch to doing things like that??

Any advice is appreciated! This game is huge!

I don't remember either of the spoilery things you mentioned, but it's 7 years since I played seriously so.....

Count me among the minority group of skyrim players who just played the main story, had fun with it, and have just dabbled in the intervening years. I played 40ish hours, then about 10 in the special edition just trying out a few mods really. I still feel I got my moneys worth and don't feel as though I missed a huge amount by not playing it the more common way, which is apparently to just do your own thing and forget about the main quest for a while. Don't get me wrong I did a few side quests if they looked interesting, but I tend to prefer a focus and the main story did that for me.

That sounds good. I probably spent a good chunk of those 40 hours just messing around but I'm definitely at a stage now where I'm looking for a more focussed approach. From what you're saying, I should be able to do that and still have a good time!

Sadly, the strength of Skyrim is not the main story, or the storytelling of the quest itself- Skyrims strength lies in exploration, and telling smaller, more compact stories - Like in the Barrow near the 700 Steps to the old men in the sky. It lies in suddenly finding a small cave, exploring it, and finding the story inside - Sometimes it connects with a larger story, or the lore of the area, but sometimes its just on its own. Hell, I consider the cave entrance I found just by running around, and then suddenly finding a plot to return a queen mentioned in some of the books lying around, some of the games strongest storytelling.

Your milage may vary of course, but there is no shame in just having fun running around and never completing the main story. I haven't in all of the around 1000 hours I have in the game, on 6 different systems so far.

It's hard to tell where you are in the main quest because the point you spoilered is where the main quest of the original release and the main quest of the Dawnguard DLC intersect.

Spoiler:

If you've met Paarthurnax, then you're a little past halfway through both plotlines. If you haven't, then you've been focusing more on the vampire-related story and have some catching up to do on the dragon-related story.

During one of my playthroughs, one thing I did was mostly stick to the main roads, and not explore a new cave or location unless it was right off the road. This helped prevent a lot of aimless wandering, reduced filling up my inventory, and helped keep me focused on whatever quest I was doing at the moment.

If you don't have a lot of time, I would actively avoid doing things like grinding skills up, especially ones as grindy as Restoration, or Alchemy. They just take a while no matter what. Alternatively, some skills like Smithing and Conjuration can be boosted fairly quickly (jewelry or materials for building a house for the former, conjuring bound weapons and then attacking a summon for the latter). Maybe you can optimize your character build around that?

Speaking of character builds, maybe decide to make multiple characters that each focus on one main faction. Whichever one you end up enjoying the most, use that one to finish the main quest, and continue with the expansions. Focus on questing, keep extraneous exploration to a minimum, and make liberal use of fast travel, and you can probably get through a lot of the quest content relatively quickly doing that.

Dungeons are mostly leveled, right? Is there actually any reason to bother raising your skills in anything if your goal is to experience the main quest/storyline?

IIRC, you can easily finish the main quest before level 20 in 10-15 hours of gameplay.

I agree with the majority, that's not really the strength of Bethesda games, and Skyrim is no exception, but if that's your goal, and you just stick to completing the main story line objectives, there is literally no reason to level any of your skills beyond using up your materials whenever you are in town and hitting things with swords or arrows or spells as required to get through a particular area.

Not sure about dungeons specifically, but I believe the higher in elevation you go, the harder things get. There's also the soft gate vis a vis frost trolls when going to see the Greybeards the first time. You at least need to be strong enough to get past them.

beanman101283 wrote:

During one of my playthroughs, one thing I did was mostly stick to the main roads...

There are roads in Skyrim??

I'm kidding...kind of. One of my issues is that I inevitably lose sight of the roads and end up just taking a straight line to my destination. Usually over a mountain.

misplacedbravado wrote:

It's hard to tell where you are in the main quest because the point you spoilered is where the main quest of the original release and the main quest of the Dawnguard DLC intersect.

Spoiler:

If you've met Paarthurnax, then you're a little past halfway through both plotlines. If you haven't, then you've been focusing more on the vampire-related story and have some catching up to do on the dragon-related story.

Naturally I've been (inadvertently) working on the DLC quests and not the main story quests... I thought I'd googled a list of which quests were for the main story but it just have included the DLC quests too. I'll finish up this quest then figure out what I should be doing!

Dakuna wrote:

Dungeons are mostly leveled, right? Is there actually any reason to bother raising your skills in anything if your goal is to experience the main quest/storyline?

IIRC, you can easily finish the main quest before level 20 in 10-15 hours of gameplay.

That's good to know, I'll just focus on enjoying playing and not bother getting into grinding or anything like that.

I hope it doesn't come across like I wanna rush the game cause I'm not enjoying it. I'm having a great time. (Every time I save while I'm on a horse and then load that save the game completely freaks out. It's hilarious!) It's more that I wouldn't say that I have any idea of the scope of the story yet, and I don't wanna google it and spoil things.

Meeting the greybeards sounds familiar though so it sounds like I'm alright level-wise.

Fun fact; Turns out that since I made the decision to focus exclusively on the main story quests, I haven't done a single quest from the main story...

I'm actually really enjoying the Dawnguard stuff though so I don't mind. I'll get back to the main story once the former wraps up or starts to drag.

Stevintendo wrote:

And any general tips for ways to get the most out of Skyrim when you don't have 100s of hours to put into it? To explain what I mean, I recently spent some time hurting myself on spikes then healing myself (rinse and repeat) to increase my restoration and my overall level. Are there any other tricks like that I should be doing? Or maybe there's a catch to doing things like that??

Any advice is appreciated! This game is huge! :)

I double checked my playtime, and I was able to finish the story, get intentionally lost and explore a lot of the map, and do some of the big and small quests all in about 73 hours. And that included time spent grinding for materials so I could max out smithing so I had the best armor and get an achievement. I saw what I wanted to see, and when people talk about dropping hundreds of hours in one of these games, I don't know how they do it on one playthrough.

I had no DLC, though.

Sundown wrote:

I double checked my playtime, and I was able to finish the story, get intentionally lost and explore a lot of the map, and do some of the big and small quests all in about 73 hours. And that included time spent grinding for materials so I could max out smithing so I had the best armor and get an achievement. I saw what I wanted to see, and when people talk about dropping hundreds of hours in one of these games, I don't know how they do it on one playthrough.

I had no DLC, though.

That sounds similar to the approach I'd like to take. Now that I'm back on track I'm making good progress. From what I'm seeing, I've just finished Act 2 of the main story. I think I'll go back and finish Dawnguard once I finish the main quest, I was enjoying all the Vampire stuff.

Open question: Are there any 'must do' side quests? Of the quests I've done, the ones that result in getting the Dawnbreaker and Wabbajack stand out as being really interesting and fun.

There's a very interesting quest in Solitude - you need to talk to the Steward up there, and complete a quest or two before getting it. Its one of those quests, where I sat and said "wow" when I saw what was happening.

edit: oh, oh oh!! You need to do the Lighthouse quest - Man, that was the best quest, EVER! One thing leading to another, and suddenly..well, things aren't quite what they set out to be. Also, its very much world and lore building. Its located somewhere east of Dawnstar.

Bonus return question - I'm guessing you are playing the only way to play skyrim? Stealth Archer?

Each city usually has its own quest chain that is pretty good. The ones in Markarth and Windhelm are standouts. Same with Solitude, as Razgon mentioned. The Daedric prince quests are all interesting and usually get you a good artifact to play with.

There's a quest called, I think, A Night To Remember that was good times. You pick it up in any tavern from a dude named Sam.

^ You do need to be Level 14 to trigger it, so if you're not finding Sam, that might be why.

These all sound great, and the details don't sound familiar either. Thank you. And I actually finished the main story last night just before I went to bed.

Spoiler:

Get rekt, Alduin!

I would agree that the main story isn't Skyrim's greatest strength, but I think things came together nicely at the end and I really enjoyed bringing the story to its conclusion.

Next up is to finish the Dawnbreaker stuff, and I think I'll run around and add all the quests you've mentioned to my quest log so that they're waiting for me when I'm ready to do them.

Razgon wrote:

Bonus return question - I'm guessing you are playing the only way to play skyrim? Stealth Archer?

I wouldn't describe my approach as a 'Stealth Archer'... What I tend to do is run straight at any enemies I find with the fires of hell pouring from my left hand and the Blade that Seals the Darkness in my right. If sh*t gets real I might shout some Dovah obscenities really loudly right in the enemy's face. Usually that makes them fall over, which gives me an opportunity to either recover some heath with my Healing Orbs of Handiness OR (and it's usually this one) hit them with Evil's Bane some more till they stay down.

I think that approach is called the "Who wants to party?"

Good Quests.. I think the one with the Wolf Queen is pretty great, and the one for the .. Blue Palace in Solitude? I think you get the second one from a crazy beggar wandering around in the streets, but I may be confused; no idea where to pickup the first one, but I think there are 7 books about it kicking around that might have some tips.

The books on the Wolf Queen give the background lore and context for the quest about her in Solitude. They've been in the games since at least Morrowind, so it was really cool to have a large quest about her in Skyrim. Since you need to talk to the thane to buy a house in each city, you'll encounter the quest that way, if nothing else. Can't remember what the other triggers are.

Time to start making a list! Looks like the first one leads to a quest that a lot of you have mentioned.

(*) The Man Who Cried Wolf is a quest...given by Falk Firebeard, Steward to Jarl Elisif at Solitude.
(*) Frostflow Abyss is obtained upon entering the central room of Frostflow Lighthouse for the first time. (Is this the one you liked Razgon?)
(*) A Night to Remember...Sam Guevenne has a drinking contest with the Dragonborn and promises a staff to the winner. (Sounds great! :D)
(*) Daedric Quests
(*) Quests from all the Jarls

This should keep me busy! Did I miss any there? I think I'm nearly finished Dawnguard so I might dive into these before I try Dragonborn.

The answer to this, as always, is the UESP. It's how I make my Bethesda RPG checklists.

Skyrim Quests

You can drill down by category, faction, or location from there. I really liked just about all of the named quests and quest-lines listed on that page; they are all custom-made and solidly written.

The repeating fetch/kill/loot quests are called "Radiant" by the devs and in the UESP; you can generally avoid those.

Stevintendo - I absolutely adore Frostflow Abyss yes - and The Man who cried Wolf!

I missed the quest "Rise in the East" on my first playthrough, and it's a shame because it's a pretty fun quest. Check out the East Empire Company Office in Windhelm to get the ball rolling.