1 Month into Skyrim - Is this really GOY?

[Couthful]

Hi. First posting here however I've been referencing this site for as long as I've been playing Skyrim.

Its been about a month since I purchased the game and I've got two major issues. I have had a few characters, tested out each skill tree pretty well, leveled past 50, etc and I must ask, aside from the Main and Guild quest lines what is there to do in this game? I have already explored enough for my liking and I am not interested in completing infinite amounts of fkill\fetch quests for all the Jarls and aside from Daedric quests there just doesn't seem to be a lot of content.

So I am wondering what else there is to do out there? Please do not say chop wood or mine as I do not need anymore gold nor armor, this is the worst part.

Sadly I was *stupid* enough to place skill points into the crafting perks and I have now become so powerful things die in one shot on Master difficult. This is my problem, too powerful with nothing left to do, after a month. I do not want to reroll yet another character as this one is perfectly done for my style, except of course my error in advancing through Alchemy and Enchanting, hello balance issues.

Hope to get some good advice as I returned to gaming with this Elder Scrolls offering after taking time off because I burnt out on Warcraft. My style has become sword\board and sword\spell because I honestly found pure melee, pure caster, or pure stealth (especially) to be too overpowered and easy.

Two weeks ago I'd agree this is Game of the Year however now I am having doubts about it's replay value. Notice I say replay because I feel I've almost *beat* the game, infinite giant killing\fetch quests are not fun and do not count as content in my eyes because each kill\fetch is nearly identical... not to mention I've gotten duplicates ffs.

 

[Dragonfang]

Balance in Skyrim is a pain, everyone follows the smith-enchanting paths and get overwhelming PCs that destroys everything in one shot...

You could try some balance mods, for example im using a material mod limitator to not "power level" myself by removing and reducing the materials sold by merchants, also a level mod to not level the crafting skills (enchanting, alchemy and smithing) that fast.

And there is a lot of mods that fix balance issues, like the cheat (is like a cheat) of potions, everypotion regen the amount of HP on time, not instantly, in five seconds, so i drink the potion and i get my 20 HP back in five secods, not at the instant, making combat actually challenging, not just "rush-power attack-back-potion-repeat."

Im hoping to see more balance mods soon, the game balance is indeed horrible.

The work isn`t perfect, but is a well deserved GOY (even if a preffer Witcher 2 more) but yeah, balance in skyrim is wrong, you have to mod the game, limit a lot yourself and put the master dificult on to feel the "challenge".

 

[NikolaTesla]

i hate to say this, but look around i places, like Blackreach, there are all kinds of cool quests waiting to be discovered. Plus I have a feeling withing the next 2 months, DLC shall be released.

 

[Dragonfang]

I hope the DLC comes with a nice balance reconsideration...

Come on you can 1 kill everything in the game just having smith, enchantment, alchemy and sneaking.

Smith allows you more DPS and resistance than actually leveling up the armor and battle perks.
Enchantment just make above reallity even more overpowered.
Alchemy makes you inmortal and unrelenting. (potions are just broken)
Sneaking makes you invincible, just go there, do a sneak attack, retreat, repeat, profit.

And all of this can be archieved in a few hours of power leveling...

Not a chance in hell thats balance.

 

[Skooma Virgin]

Two weeks ago I'd agree this is Game of the Year however now I am having doubts about it's replay value. Notice I say replay because I feel I've almost *beat* the game, infinite giant killing\fetch quests are not fun and do not count as content in my eyes because each kill\fetch is nearly identical.

I would have to agree. Hell though, being chased by a giant for the first time and getting your first shout was worth the price of admission alone, but I also feel like I've 'beat' the game. Randomly generated missions are fun the first couple of times before you realize, ''Oh''.

I have two characters and both have taken very different parts, so much of content I've seen. I'm sure I haven't seen a few dungeons etc but other than that I feel the same.

That said it is a good game that I know I'll play again. I think that fact that I only got round to playing Fallout 3 a month prior to Skyrim's release didn't help either as I consider that a superior game even though it's three years old(er).

 

[Tiddleykong]

How many games have this many people put 200+ hours into in one month?..... Oh ya none

 

[Mabe]

It needs more interesting quests. Im sick of the same formula.
Meet NPC.
NPC has problem. His dogs squeeky toy is lost in a cave.
You can solve it be killing everything in a cave and getting the squeeky toy back.
Enter cave, kill easy things
Fiddle with a puzzle...get frustrated and look it up on UESP. Walk back to start of cave looking for the dam key. Check UESP again and realize the key was in the same room....walk all the way back, find key, open door.
Find harder things to kill.
Find and kill the boss. Loot chest for squeeky toy.
Return to NPC, rinse, wash and do it again.

 

[Tiddleykong]

It needs more interesting quests. Im sick of the same formula.
Meet NPC.
NPC has problem. His dogs squeeky toy is lost in a cave.
You can solve it be killing everything in a cave and getting the squeeky toy back.
Enter cave, kill easy things
Fiddle with a puzzle...get frustrated and look it up on UESP. Walk back to start of cave looking for the dam key. Check UESP again and realize the key was in the same room....walk all the way back, find key, open door.
Find harder things to kill.
Find and kill the boss. Loot chest for squeeky toy.
Return to NPC, rinse, wash and do it again.

I do agree with this in a way they added a lot of "filler quests" which the old TES games never had you experience

 

[Dragonfang]

How many games have this many people put 200+ hours into in one month?..... Oh ya none

That means nothing, in fact does not matter.

Skyrim is a hell of a game, but still very unpolished, if i have to chose a GOTY from this years RPGs, i would say Witcher 2, much more "deep" than Skyrim, even if the game world is "smaller".

There is an ecuation. You can have quality content and inmersion or you can have a lot of things to do losing deep on the systems and the storytellin,

Skyrim is the second, you can do a lot of things, you can became a lot more, you can go through a wideopen world, but the deep, consecuences and etc. Are too simple... Something i really miss is morality, a moral system like good old D&D or the simplier yet functional morals of the Witcher.

Come on, i can be an honorable warrior of the circle in the companions, or be a shadow of the ninghtingales in the thieves guild, both at the very same time, and no NPC gives a plops about it.

Way to simple.

 

[Tiddleykong]

That means nothing, in fact does not matter.

Skyrim is a hell of a game, but still very unpolished, if i have to chose a GOTY from this years RPGs, i would say Witcher 2, much more "deep" than Skyrim, even if the game world is "smaller".

There is an ecuation. You can have quality content and inmersion or you can have a lot of things to do losing deep on the systems and the storytellin,

Skyrim is the second, you can do a lot of things, you can became a lot more, you can go through a wideopen world, but the deep, consecuences and etc. Are too simple... Something i really miss is morality, a moral system like good old D&D or the simplier yet functional morals of the Witcher.

Come on, i can be an honorable warrior of the circle in the companions, or be a shadow of the ninghtingales in the thieves guild, both at the very same time, and no NPC gives a pl*** about it.

Way to simple.

Oh sorry. I forgot that sales numbers, player numbers, and time spent on the game have nothing to do with how good a game is; my bad I guess as long as there are a few dedicated fans that think another game is better then all those numbers mean nothing. I too agree that the majority of my peers know nothing about video games and their worth (a wee bit of sarcasm)

 

[Skullrattla]

...and aside from Daedric quests there just doesn't seem to be a lot of content.

Wow.... if that isn't enough content then what is?

Seems that you have mastered these games. You must have played many mny hours in total.

I've been playing Skyrim OBSSESSIVELY for two weeks now and i'm still level 16... Didnt invest nothing in smithing, thanks for the tip.
Seems i never have the materials whenever i go to a forge or whatever. I find all these tasks of gathering materials to make things pretty tedious when there so much to explore.

I still cannot afford a house and havent bought a horse yet as I'm not sure if it will always stick around for me.

For somebody new to these games, Skyrim is simply incredible and huge. And very challenging. The only issue for me is the combat, which is clunky- and attempting to improve your blocking skills is just too unrewarding initially to get into it, it has little effect, especially since most enemies use stronger magic and poisons.

I'm playing at Adept difficulty and finding battles very hard , potions too weak, etc...

But on the whole Skyrim is by far the best video game I have ever played. The replayablity factor is several times higher than anything else i've tried, meaning I've finished most past games within a month , this one will take me about 3 at this rate.... And then i could have a different character and start again for a different experience.

Compared to other games , Bethesda have really inimised repetition and things like having to backtrack in some claustrophobia-inducing dungeon to get out ... You cannot get stuck, and just give up on the game. So far, with the only boss i could not possibly beat at my level (Staff of Magnus is a wicked staff), there was an exit nearby, so i could just leave the dungeon before triggering him to attack, without having to find my way back, a long way...

 

[Dragonfang]

Oh sorry. I forgot that sales numbers, player numbers, and time spent on the game have nothing to do with how good a game is; my bad I guess as long as there are a few dedicated fans that think another game is better then all those numbers mean nothing. I too agree that the majority of my peers know nothing about video games and their worth (a wee bit of sarcasm)

Too much sarcasm is bad for health, specially when you are wrong.

No, they have nothing to do with how good a game is, a thousand million guys, including myself, drink coke, the coke is good? no, it isn`t, in fact, is one of the worst things you can drink up.

Numbers, popularity and so has nothing to do with how good things are, that my good friend is a Fallacious Argument.

No matter how many ppl play the game, buy or expend hours in it, a work so unpolished and unbalanced is not a work for the GOTY, the game is buggy as hell and simple? yes. The game is way inbalanced? damn yes. And even if 999.999.999.999.999.999 guys were out there playing Skyrim 24/7, the fact is, the game is unpolished and unbalance, live with that.

I`ve never being on the crew of console haters, but now i think about it, every game that is a console port is just way to simple and unbalanced favoring the player, console games are just way to much easier than PC counterparts... Maybe the problem with Skyrim`s simplicity and unbalance comes from that.

 

[wizkid1696]

Have you beaten every guild? Found every shout? Tracked down all of the Dragonpreists and get their masks? Civil War quest? Done every quest in every hold? Visited the Orc strongholds? If so, then congratulations! And it might be time too move on to a new character.

 

[Couthful]

I've gotten some good advice from others who seem to have run into the same problem. I've also accepted that I will be making a secondary character to stay interested, used to MMOs I suppose. And no I didn't do every NPC quest in the holds, apparently I don't talk to many people because there's actually more than I expected! (Also means I wasn't thaned in every hold)

 

[Sublime]

Seriously? I guess some people are impossible to please. How spoiled can you be? There doesn't seem to be a lot to do...? I can't think of another game this year (or in the history of video games) that has the amount of content and immersion that skyrim has. The only things that come close are other Bethesda games. The only other games that come close to having as many things to do is MMO's, and the immersion is seriously lacking in those games.

 

[Tactikul]

I'll start off by saying that, without a doubt, this is game of the year. Loads of content, Beautiful landscapes, and well-voiced. I will agree with you that the replay value is seriously diminished by a lack of character immersion. Balance issues are a problem as well, you can get full deadra after a day or two of buying up ingots and the crafting perks? get outta here. But all of this aside, This has been the best release of the year and large content RPGs usually will be.

 

[Dragonfang]

Seriously? I guess some people are impossible to please. How spoiled can you be? There doesn't seem to be a lot to do...? I can't think of another game this year (or in the history of video games) that has the amount of content and immersion that skyrim has. The only things that come close are other Bethesda games. The only other games that come close to having as many things to do is MMO's, and the immersion is seriously lacking in those games.

Cuantity does not make quality.

The Witcher and Wither 2 have far better content and immersion than Skyrim, actually, inmersion in skyrim isnt something to be proud of, not when you can be a Companion, a DB and a thieves guild member at the very same time and no one of any of the guilds gives a single fluff about that lol.

From older games, Vagrant Story has much more deep in their systems and is way much better balanced. Probably the best balanced game ever, maybe a little hard in the begining, but you get used quickly to the fact that everyone is a threat not just "oh look, a dragon again, lol, *1 hits KO him*"

Whats the point of having a spectacular dragon story if you can 1 shot them all day?
Whats the point of having a gigantic map if citys are small and low populated?
Whats the point of having over 150 dungeons if they are all the same?
Whats the point of a new quest system if everything you do is kill a bandit, gigant or dragon time to time?
Whats the point of having 40 skill trees if you can simply use 3 of them and become invincible?
Whats the point of being one of the more "free" games in history if nothing you do is rewarding nor have a real weight. That one is critical. Yeah, i can chose being member of every damn guild/clan/school/side of the game, and its part of their freedom, but for akatosh`s sake how that wont carry any consecuences, to me or the world, damn.

I remember when i killed the DB, the only thing i win of that was 3000 septims, a "god job" from the guards of the imperial cities and missing the DB quest storyline... Inmersion where are you, you serious, thats all i get rid of the darkest and most powerfull group of assassins of all skyrim and all i get is that? Come on, any RPG can do it better than that.

 

[Tactikul]

inmmersion in skyrim isnt something to be proud of, not when you can be a Companion, a DB and a thieves guild member at the very same time and no one of any of the guilds gives a single fu** about that lol.

That was my largest issue. I got halfway through the Empire quests, then joined the Dark Brotherhood. **SPOILER** I killed the emperor and was still able to finish the Empire quests, all the while listening to shouts of "Praise the Emperor" and "The Emperor is watching this battle closely" No the hell he's not... I killed him! Immersion was kind of disappointing this first time around, starting my 2nd character.

 

[ItsBenniBlack]

how is every dungeon the same? i havent come across any that were the same am i missing something? and not everyone is at a point where they can one shot a dragon. or anything else evey one isnt playing the game the same way.

the story in my opinion is in tacked i havent worried about joining any teams or guilds im focused on the main quest with small side quests in between and i just did the finding of the elder scroll and that search under the world was crazy, it was tedious, it was suspenseful, you really had to take your time,einchet which made you become your created character i was no longer playing the game i was in the game. and im sorry but fighting that big ass gold machine. (sorry for any spoilers i may have revealed.)..

 

[wizkid1696]

I agree with the immersion thing, but I think you have to restrict yourself. For instance, my warrior character is only in the Companions, he lives in Jorvaskr. That way,
SPOILER***
you dont become the harbinger and then never return there. That makes no sense.