Advice for Noobs

[FrostedPink]

Hey everyone! As I've mentioned before, Skyrim is the first big RPG game I have ever played in my life. I am absolutely loving it. Often I have wondered what I would tell others who are in the same position as me. I'm talking basic, easy peasy stuff that an experienced gamer takes for granted, while us little peons struggle with walking in a straight line once we have escaped the chopping block. Seriously, it took me about 10 minutes to get it down! Moving along, what is some advice you would give to the new gamer to make their game get off to a great start? Any gamer secrets? As a noob, this is what I would share:
1. Giants are not friends. Avoid at all costs.
2. It will take you ten minutes to learn how to walk in a straight line, all the while looking ahead.
3. Don't let foxes fool you, they lead you straight to danger!
4. Don't kill chickens
5. Good luck jumping down that mountain and making it in one piece.

Add to the list!!

 

[Psiberzerker]

6​

How about a short-cut to High Hrothgar? You gotta climb up there some time, and there's a lot of animals that might could make it challenging for a low level character and an inexperienced player. I won't spoil the wakeup call boss, except to say there is one.

So, when you get the call, fast travel (Click the icon on the map) back to Helgen, and head East from the gate. Turn right after the signpost, and head north up a small holler. At the end will be a temple called Skybound Watch. If you want to, kill the three bandits in there, it's just a marker. Turn Right (East again) and you should see a rocky slope headed upward. Not all the way, but high enough for you to stickyfoot around the ridge to your left, and over to a snowy slope further up. Climb that to the path, past all the monsters, and about 6500 of the infamous 7000 steps. Turn Left (Not right, unless you really want to fight, and probably die) and follow the path to the temple.

 

[T1d3]

6​

How about a short-cut to High Hrothgar? You gotta climb up there some time, and there's a lot of animals that might could make it challenging for a low level character and an inexperienced player. I won't spoil the wakeup call boss, except to say there is one.

So, when you get the call, fast travel (Click the icon on the map) back to Helgen, and head East from the gate. Turn right after the signpost, and head north up a small holler. At the end will be a temple called Skybound Watch. If you want to, kill the three bandits in there, it's just a marker. Turn Right (East again) and you should see a rocky slope headed upward. Not all the way, but high enough for you to stickyfoot around the ridge to your left, and over to a snowy slope further up. Climb that to the path, past all the monsters, and about 6500 of the infamous 7000 steps. Turn Left (Not right, unless you really want to fight, and probably die) and follow the path to the temple.

yea that wake up boss gave me a wake up 10 or 100 times.

 

[T1d3]

I guess a tip would be, just don't be afraid to explore, if you are in a cave that branches off in multiple directions, go each direction and see what is at the end, most caves and dungeons have great loot.


if you are being attacked by a dragon and are getting whooped, if you are near a town run that way and let the guards help you if you aren't afraid that an important NPC will die.


Trolls are very tough for low level players, because they can regenerate health VERY quickly and deal massive damage. they have a weakness to fire though.


if you get bored, do not just murder a village, I made that mistake and it hindered me from doing stuff.


If you are fighting a vampire and don't want to become one, always apply a cure disease or go to a shrine such as one of the Shrines to Talos and activate it, that will cure the early stages of vamperism if you contracted the disease in a fight (does not work once you become a full fledged vampire)

 

[Konvoy]

Do your best to manage your weight to value ratio, as in, don't be a pack rat with heavy items that don't sell for squat lol. I generally like to get a wife asap because they start up a store out of your home and give you 100g every day. It's not a ton but adds up eventually. Also watch for pressure plates, even if you're into the sneak perk that makes it so you don't trigger them. You can use them to bait enemies into to get smashed by whatever trap was meant for you.

I could go on and on but that's basic enough I think.

 

[Jaeger]

Hold on to a bottle of Black briar mead and Honningbrew mead. The first for a jarl, the second for some revelers on the road for a magic item.

Hang on to these alchemical ingredients until somebody asks for them: 20 nirnroot, 20 death bell, 20 nightshade, 20 jazbey grapes, 10 fire salts, 6 ice wraith teeth, some frost salts. Uh, I think that's it. Hang on to ectoplasms if you want to upgrade Ghostblade. Never use daedra hearts for alchemical ingredients.

The wood elf special ability is an AOE effect. Go kill giants at first level, use ability, mammoth are buds! Take good plops from giants. Giant toes make the most expensive (and hence raise alchemy more than any other potion)

Use the UESP for uncovering alchemical effects. Type in ingredient into the search bar.

If you're going the Heavy Armor route or just want to level Smithing fast since iron daggering doesn't work as fast past level 30 smithing, go to Mufti to the dwarven storeroom to the right of mufti. No critters, low level locks, lots of dwarven ingots and scraps and a dwarven fire sword. Make dwarven bows for fast leveling. Also get the Transmute spell from Haunted creek fort (something like that) and lots of iron ore. Transmute iron ore to silver or gold (whatever jewelry you have) - levels smithing fast.

If Archery your thing, get the Bosmer follower/archery trainer in Riverwood. Make follower/train in 5 levels of archery/trade and take money back.

The mine near Riverwood is one of the few places to get lots of torches. They respawn so you can get more later. Plus a good amount of ore and maybe gems.

After clearing the spiders from Shors stone (maybe that's the name of the village) do not go in there during the day or the miners might get killed because the spiders will respawn.

You can leave equipment in the barrels outside the blacksmith in Whiterun, a woodaxe in the barrel by the woodchopping block in front of the bannered mare and alchemicals by the barrel by the apothecary. Who needs a house? As long as you come back within a couple of weeks, the barrels will not reset. At the UESP (it really is your friend) you can find safe houses or anything about Skyrim - If places has bugs, ways to power level, what equipment will followers use, how to reset followers to your level with the Wabbajack.

Some special magic items are leveled. If you want the highest level that item can be, do not get it until that level. The list is at the UESP. Type in leveled items into the search bar.

If you want to know where all the mining spots are - type in the location where you're at into the UESP; on the right, click find on map; zoom in on the map. Move map around.

That's enough from me.

Your welcome.

 

[AS88]

Hold on to a bottle of Black briar mead and Honningbrew mead. The first for a jarl, the second for some revelers on the road for a magic item.

Hang on to these alchemical ingredients until somebody asks for them: 20 nirnroot, 20 death bell, 20 nightshade, 20 jazbey grapes, 10 fire salts, 6 ice wraith teeth, some frost salts. Uh, I think that's it. Hang on to ectoplasms if you want to upgrade Ghostblade. Never use daedra hearts for alchemical ingredients.

The wood elf special ability is an AOE effect. Go kill giants at first level, use ability, mammoth are buds! Take good pl*** from giants. Giant toes make the most expensive (and hence raise alchemy more than any other potion)

Use the UESP for uncovering alchemical effects. Type in ingredient into the search bar.

If you're going the Heavy Armor route or just want to level Smithing fast since iron daggering doesn't work as fast past level 30 smithing, go to Mufti to the dwarven storeroom to the right of mufti. No critters, low level locks, lots of dwarven

I 100% agree, but for clarity, those dwarven ruins are called Mzulft and the place with the Transmute spell near Whiterun is called Halted Stream Camp. Other basics include backing away while you're using magic, so you don't get yourself hit, stay in the shadows if you're sneaking, be careful with your stamina if you're a melee fighter. Also, feel free to message me or whoever you like if you don't want to ask what you think may be a silly question, Skyrim was my first RPG too

 

[King o' the Britains]

DO NOT, and i say do not, kill people for fun. there are some people called "Essential NPCs" who cant die! Then everyone will be after you.

 

[imaginepageant]

Don't worry so much about money. I had the mindset of OMG MUST TAKE EVERYTHING IN THIS DUNGEON TO SELL LATER BECAUSE I WILL NEED SO MUCH MONEY on my first playthrough. I ended up with 50,000 gold in pocket after buying all five available houses—as well as a lot of wasted time and Speech perks. Nowadays I only pick things up to sell in the first ten levels or so, when I actually need money. I've found that you pick up enough gold along the natural course of your travels that it's rarely necessary to purposefully go looking for some.

 

[Jaeger]

^^

But if you do like picking a place clean and roleplaying-wise you don't mind raising the dead. Kill something, give everything to the corpse, raise corpse, fast travel to town. Corpse will turn to ash, take your stuff back. Save before you do it though. Rarely, you click on the ash pile and nothing happens.

 

[Jaeger]

If you're a magic user, traveling through the wilderness, have Detect Life in one hand and an area effect spell like Fireball in the other. You see red with the Detect Life, let loose with the fireballs. Heehee

 

[Alissa DeWitt]

Don't power level. If you power level without getting higher level equipment (through the natural progression of playing) baddies will get harder and it will be VERY hard to kill them. (Though I think this applies more to previous Elder Scrolls games. I've just had it drilling into me since getting my butt handed to me in previous games after trying to power level)

 

[Psiberzerker]

Just play the game, and explore the massive map before trying to break the game by power leveling, or looking up every powerful item, and artifact. I played Skyrim for 2 months before I read any Wikis, or went to any forums to avoid Spoilers. It was also a hell of a lot more fun back then. Now, i spend more time talking about skyrim, than actually playing it.

Likewise, don't be afraid to start a new character, and use what you learned for a better run through. There's also different choices you can make regarding Race, Character focus, and Questlines (Especially the Stormcloaks/Empire's Storylines, you can't do both with the same character.) Do the main quest first, there's a lot of rewards, a good sampling of most of the possible enemies, and it sends you around some major points on the map. There are many many many areas you cannot get to without being on a particular quest, and therefore you have to run all of the Factions to see it all (Just not necessarily with one character.)

The first character, try everything. Picking locks, pockets, making potions, smithing, enchanting, heavy armor, light armor, 1 hand, 2 hand, archery, sneaking, and so forth. I'm sure the first level you looked through all the constellations, and tried to pick a good place to spend your perk point. Surf around the interface for a while, look at which ones sound neat, and might be fun to try.

Don't let ANYONE tell you to play their way. Find your own unique play style, and play Your's.

Oh, and save often, especially before taking a lot of minor quests, which can glitch, and break the game. That way, you can return to before you took the quest, and either skip it, or try again. Also, before major decisions, like leveling, so if you make a poor choice, you don't have to backtrack as far, or live with it.

 

[No Guarantees]

Oh my, this thread made me laugh! I actually can relate! I hate falling down large cliffs and killing myself, it's the worse!

A piece of advice from me? Don't marry Janessa. Sure, she's awesome -- but she disappeared and I have no idea how to find her. I didn't have a house when my character married her, and she doesn't either, it seems.

Also, don't let your little brother try the game, because they will hog it ALL THE TIME.

 

[Psiberzerker]

There are much better marriage prospects, but the advice still stands: If they don't have a place of their own, and you don't have anywhere to put them, take care of that before getting hitched. The game has a tendancy to lose things it doesn't have a place for. I don't recommend marrying Jenassa, because if you get breezehome, her default location is literally right across the street. Much better to take someone that's out of the way, or hard to get to like Eola. She doesn't have a Home whenever you finish the quest to unlock her as a follower, so if dismissed, she dissappears. (She's also one of the best followeres, easilly top 5.) Same goes for Illia,

NoG, did you check the Drunken Huntsan, where you first found her? How anout the Whiterun Hall of the Dead? They can be killed following you, and if you miss it, you'd never know. It's possible she got stuck on a rock, or wandered just out of sight when a Sabercat ambushed her.

 

[No Guarantees]

Yeah, well I married her two days after I got the game -- I hadn't experienced much of Skyrim at the time. I won't be so foolish next time around! How do you know if they have a place of their own, though?

I did, indeed, check the DH. I stayed there for two in-game days, waiting for her. She never showed up. Although I didn't try the Hall of the Dead -- I will do that once the PS3 is free. c:

 

[Psiberzerker]

Yeah, well I married her two days after I got the game -- I hadn't experienced much of Skyrim at the time. I won't be so foolish next time around! How do you know if they have a place of their own, though?

I did, indeed, check the DH. I stayed there for two in-game days, waiting for her. She never showed up. Although I didn't try the Hall of the Dead -- I will do that once the PS3 is free. c:

Live, and learn (If you can't listen to someone who's already been there.) As for whether they have a place of their own, the quick answer is look it up on the wiki, but when you get them as a Follower, they often have the [Key to Uthgerd's House.] Of course, pre-nuptually, they'll usually be where you first found them [The Bannered Mare] For instance Faendal is almost never home, except to sleep. The rest of the time, he's either in the Trader mooning over Camilla (Assuming you didn't side with Sven) or working at the mill.

Uthgerd's a pretty good choice, she's like a mini-Mjoll, and saves you the trouble of buying Breezehome if you move in with her. She also comes with a good suit of armor, with room for a Dragon Priest Mask.

 

[No Guarantees]

Oh, thanks! I want to go play now. *glares at brother*

 

[Squirrel_killer-]

Don't be afraid of picking up a bow. A lot of people seem avoid bows because of the arrow restrictions.
Always experiment with different skills and combinations.
Don't let your friends tell you not to play a certain way. Everyone I know is all like "Nord ya!" or "Orc FTW!" or "Warrior PWNS!" or "Mage rocks!", but they all seem to agree on "Khajiit sux!" and "Stealth fails!". Guess what? I have a quarter the deaths they do, far further in the game then they are for play time of actively progressing themselves, and laugh in the face of giants since level 10 (not suggest to imitate) while playing on master since day one and I play a khajiit with a heavy stealth role.
Try out a little bit of everything.

 

[Psiberzerker]

Bows are the most powerful weapons in a given tier, because they count damage+the arrow's. Not to mention the fact that it can hit the enemy when they can't hit you (They have better range than Magic too.) A warrior, or even a doublecasting (Not dual casting) mage can do damage faster than you, but they have to get closer to do it. Also, for Sneak Attacks, it's a lot easier to get within Range with a Bow, than reach with a Dagger. So, even though the Assassin's Blade perk can do far more damage late in the game, a level 1 archer in heavy armor with 15 Sneak, and no perks (worst case scenario for Sneak) can still get a damage bonus, while a hand weapon would never get nearly close enough. Especially for Newbies, archery is the most forgiving offense.