Skyrim "Hardcore" Playstyle

I really like the idea of removing the HUD and no fast travel. I'm not sure how I feel about the weight limitation but it would definitely add some more realism to the game. I give you kudos for making it anywhere playing like that. I just finished up the main quest line at about 100hours so I think it's about time to bump up to master and hardcore.

Keep in mind you can adjust the carry limit to whatever you're comfortable with. My next character is going to be a straight-up warrior nord who NEVER sneaks. I will probably do a carry of 10% plus 20 or 25 for him since he would be a stronger character.

And keep in mind you can always make adjustments as you go. I didn't start out this character without the HUD. I didn't start that until like level 8 or 9 I think. Just experiment and stick with whatever works to enhance your experience. d;-)

My death knight character plays on master and never sneaks, fast travels or carry unrealistic items (like a dozen swords). there is no weight limit yet but i have not gone over 120 yet. I figure that he is strong as a two-handed sword fighter carrying heavy armor. Arrows are limited to 40 and i always use the best i have. I am no alchemist and buy/find potions. I am a smith but i do not power level and I avoid followers where i can.

I do raise about every corpse i find/make (zombie wolves compagnons!) unless i already have a zombie follower.

I have entered quiet some caves and dungeons, encountered my first Falmer at level 4 (i died many times but killed two of them). *SPOILER ALERT* I killed alot of Thalmor with my buddies from Whiterun to find a lost son. Very hard on master and level 8 but i managed by raising the wizards as zombies. Crosshair is disabled for archery purposes

That sounds like a fun character. I was trying to think of some ideas to make my straight-up nord fighter more 'interesting'. Maybe I should go the 'death knight' route. d;-)

Leveled up some more yesterday and now im using my bound battleaxe as i enter combat. I then raise my first kill unless there is a caster which i kill first and raise. Zombies are fast and can still use magics which i like. To bad that they often leave their weapon on the ground and go fist fighting.

Have you tried picking up their weapon yourself and planting it back on their body before you raise them? Wondering if that would work.

Just thought I'd post an update since there were some that thought this playstyle would be impossible at some points. Below is a potential MINOR SPOILER so read at your own risk (I'm going to be as vague as I can).

I've been doing the College quests and had to go retrieve a staff from someone. After fighting my way down into the dungeon I was left with finishing off the guy with the staff ... who was obviously a major badass. I only had about 9 arrows left on me but I'm sneak-striking with them for about 135 dmg so I figured if I hit with every arrow I should be able to take this guy down (dealing 1300+ dmg). As it turns out I hit with all but 1 arrow, but was able to sneak and recover it and ended up hitting him with that one too. He still wasn't dead and now I was down to just my dual daggers.

I was pretty sure this meant I was a dead man because my character doesn't survive for long in direct combat. So I formulated this plan to try and sneak attack with the daggers and then sprint off and hide and repeat. I sneaked up behind him and with a dual thrust I killed him. What a relief! Best of all, I never even took a hit from him.

Only problem is that as you go to leave on this quest someone steps in to stop you, and he's in a small room that is VERY well lit with no opportunity to sneak attack him or get behind him. He's also a pretty badass mage and on my first attempt with direct combat he killed me in about 5 seconds. So I had to come up with something else.

I thought about shooting an arrow off to the side and attempting to sprint through the room past him, but I was still pissed that he had killed me so I decided he had to go down. I ended up going back through the entire dungeon to the start to pick up any arrows I could find that I had left behind earlier due to my 30 carry limit. I came back with 8. It took 3 to kill the mage.

I've had two other moments in the game that appeared impossible at first but I found a way through them. Love playing this way!

I'm guessing you are on a pc. how do you deal with the random crashes and this style of play. Do you just say oh well and go back to the last save or do you not have that many crashes? I seem to get them all the time almost randomly so I tend to quick save a lot. I guess in this case, if the game crashes I'd reload the quick save, but if killed reload the "nightly save". OH, you don't go back to the autosaves then either?

I'm on the Xbox 360 and oddly enough I had only had one crash until yesterday, when I had 2. In those cases I just let the game reload the last save, which is likely an autosave. I'm fine with letting the game autosave, I just never want to save right before a big battle and then go back to that save when if I die. If it starts crashing a lot more I will probably start manually saving at times just in case. I wouldn't use those saves unless the game crashed, though.

What about playing with nothing but your bare hands and the clothes you start with. that would be hardcore.

Check the other thread in my sig. I did just that. Started the game with nothing but fists and rag clothes AND used these restrictions. d;-)

Just updated the original post with a new save idea. With my current character I now only use the 'save on rest' feature for ALL saves. No more saving while waiting or traveling (not that I fast travel) and no more autosaves ... also no more manual saving. This will fit well with my character requiring sleep every day. This way if I'm deep in a dungeon and can't sleep, I have much more at risk. Anyways, just another idea to try out.

Doing all those things? Ultra realistic but suicide. I play Skyrim to escape from reality not make it more difficult than real life. All power to you but not my cup of tea. Gaming is supposed to be fun not a hardcore slog.

May cthulhu be with you my friend.

I like the idea of saving only on rest. I may have to adopt that one. What about not stealing ANYTHING. What about not CREATING anything. BUYING anything, etc. Just live off the land and what you find.

conchvegas said:

Doing all those things? Ultra realistic but suicide. I play Skyrim to escape from reality not make it more difficult than real life. All power to you but not my cup of tea. Gaming is supposed to be fun not a hardcore slog.

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I totally understand. This kind of stuff IS what makes the game more fun for me. I think it's because of all the additional immersion and challenge. Playing this way makes nearly every encounter or quest truly epic, and I love that. d;-)

Dragon Bourne said:

I like the idea of saving only on rest. I may have to adopt that one. What about not stealing ANYTHING. What about not CREATING anything. BUYING anything, etc. Just live off the land and what you find.

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I'll add the stealing and buying ideas. Great ideas. I already have the 'no creating' idea on the list (no smithing or enchanting). My current character doesn't steal either as he is good at heart. Thanks for the ideas!

Just edited the original post with an update. After playing my current character to level 11 I decided on a few changes.

First, removing auto-saves has been a bad idea. I've had several game freezes which caused me to have to use a previous manual save and lose progress. I now allow auto-saves but they are only used in the event of a game freeze. If my character dies I must still revert back to the last manual save, which has to happen before resting in a bed or a bedroll.

Also, if my character dies, I now have to rest and eat for 7 days in an inn. This actually can affect the game because a week goes by. So if you had stored some items in common container they might be gone, etc. It also requires an expenditure of gold for the food. This can easily cost around 200g after a week, and given the other play restrictions this is a big deal since gold is hard to come by.

Lastly, I changed how I allow potions to be used. To me it makes no sense to poison a bow, so now I'm allowing arrows to be poisoned. Essentially, I have to decide in advance (before combat) how many arrows are poisoned and with what. Once I make that decision I can't change my mind. But this simple adjustment allows me to have multiple poison arrows available for combat if I want.

I also now allow poisoning of a weapon during combat, but it's not easy. In order to do this I have to cease all action (swinging, blocking, moving, shouting, etc.) for 10 seconds. I literally count out loud to "one thousand ten". If I'm able to do that then I can poison my weapon again. If not, tough luck.

Anyways, just wanted to provide an update for anyone using these restrictions. Have fun!

Im guessing skyrims weight system is in pounds or kilograms or something of the sort. 300 pounds sounds like a lot to carry but its possible. I started playing by this way, ignoring a few rules like wieghts and the whole no smithing...

Sure, it's possible to carry 300 pounds, but you wouldn't be running around and fighting while carrying that much. But my reason for limiting carry weight was less for realism and more for economy. When you allow your character to carry everything back from a dungeon and sell it you gain too much gold too fast and (for me) it takes away from the experience.