PC So I am just starting Skyrim.. Any tips?

[michaelb15]

I have never played any of the elder scrolls games before, and Ive just started to play Skyrim. I just got out of the cave and split up with that guy, and am heading to his house..

Well I am wondering if there is any tips, or a crash course on how to play the game.. Or anything I should know? (without spoilers )

otherwise I am running on PC, and wondering if there is any peformance tweaks, as I would like to have the highest graphic settings possible on my system.

I have a Pentium D, 2.8Ghz, @ 3.02Ghz,
a Geforce 8600 GT, that I have overclocked as high as I can get it (without glitching)

well its nice to start the game, it seems like its pretty nice.. looking forward to getting in deeper

 

[Onyx]

Hello and Welcome to Skyrim!

I think when starting out the best tips I could give would be to not spend any perks initially. Try out the various skills so you can get a feel for how you want to play/develop before spending perks (as these are limited and cannot be taken back but you can level up all skills with no issue).

The crafting skills are good so you might want to dabble

Smithing = Create and enhance Weapons and Armor
Alchemy = Make potions (health/stamina/mana), Posions and other useful potions (like invisibility etc). If going down this route harvest as many flowers/butterflies/mushrooms as you can. Also a nice source of money
Enchanting = Enchant your gear with powerful effects.

But most important thing is have fun! And if an enemy is to tough now, come back later when you are more powerful. You can travel anywhere and most enemies are somewhat leveled to you, but some are not so possible to face enemies much tougher.

Beware Giants and Mammoths...do not try to take these on early as they are very tough (Tougher than Dragons..silly I know but true).

Speak to everybody and read as many books. Not only can this increase your skills you can get many a quest from this. Also Taverns are a great place to pick up rumors (quests).

Hope this helps some

 

[michaelb15]

wow ive been playing this now for the last 3-4 hrs, and I have barly done anythng lol.. Ive just gotten the golden claw.

But boy time flies! Ive never actually played any games like this before, but im starting to get addicted to this one

Im just trying to have fun, killing things, and just randomly looking around. getting the golden claw is prolly the first objective (I think) but I dont even know.. im just still trying to figure this out.. and having a great time!

I really have to give Bethesda Studios major props for all their great games. (Fallout 3, Fallout NV, and now Skyrim. And these are just the ones that I own. I havnt played many of the others, which im thinking maybe now I should!

 

[Onyx]

Aye that is the things with these games, get so caught up exploring and stuff hard to focus on quests sometimes

So much to do and pretty much something for everybody

 

[Rayven]

You will notice as you play that you pick up tons of quests. Some are smaller and some are the main story line. My advice is to recognize the main story line quests and don't necessarily rush to do them. In the beginning you will obviously have to in order to proceed but this world is best explored via all the side-stories that are present. You can absolutely ignore the main story.

Save often. I don't say this because of crashes and glitches (although some folks do have issues with this) but rather, you never know how a combat or even a conversation is going to turn out. Don't just save over you last game; have multiple saves so you can backtrack a bit if you feel like you must.

Since you are on a PC, you will also want to learn about the "console" screen. Every now and then you may encounter a weirdness where an NPC disappears or, as happened to my husband, the character got stuck awkwardly under a rack of fish or pheasants or something! The console can be used for cheats but I highly recommend against it. It can, however, bail you out of glitches.

Overall, enjoy it. Don't rush through. The developers put an extraordinary amount of nuance into the game for you to enjoy and you should take advantage of that.

I'm not familiar enough with your graphics card to give advice there but standard advice is to make sure Skyrim is the only thing running on your machine. Different areas of the map put different strains on your system so don't be discouraged if you have to turn a setting down for one certain thing to get smoother gameplay. My computer is well below the specs and I'm still having a blast. There is one place where there are archery exercises where I have to turn up the item and object distance.

Lastly, post your questions here as you move through the game. Everyone seems to be pretty helpful.

Have fun!

 

[Starr]

One tip I can offer from my game play is that I think Alchemy is VERY beneficial.
You can make incredibly powerful potions for protection and damage boosting
as well as boost Smithing bonuses 100% and enchant bonuses 30%. On top of that
I found it very fun trying to figure out what to mix with what. You will find that each
Reagent has 4 properties. I did not know this at the begining, but eating each thing
REVEALS its 1st property - or just mix things until you get something like I did.
It is also a major money maker. Some of my potions are worth 2000g each.
I could go on and on about smithing and enchanting as well - have all maxed too - very nice to have.
ENJOY !

 

[michaelb15]

im trying to play it kinda like I play fallout. Talk to everyone possible, and gather everything that has value to sell.. but I finally have the dragonstone from the first quest. It was a pretty good fight at the end, and I am enjoying the game more then I thought I would (I like games with longer range weapons, aka guns, more then I like melee wepons, and swords) but im still having a great time!

 

[Rayven]

I'm a Fallout alum as well and while there are no scoped semi auto bows, per se, there are perks to zoom in like the Fallout scopes and you can increase your draw rate. I do wish they had slightly better range info, though. I primarily use the bow but have backup melee and magic.

 

[Eturnus]

Wander!

some of the best thigns i've seen so far in this game, have not been from any quest!

i looked at my map, saw an area where it apeared i had not really been to yet (as the other areas were filled with little markers of places i had visted) and said "well lets see whats in that direction!"

 

[Ebony Knight]

Take your time, take your time, take your time! This game is obscenely huge, beautiful, and involving. It would be a crime to miss anything because you were rushing to beat it.

Other than that, just save OFTEN. The world is yours...

 

[zeva]

Pretty much a combination of everything already said.. Get your skills up, find your preferred combat style and magic, and take. your. time. I have a lot of fun putting aside all the quests and mumbo jumbo, just to go soul hunting. Fit a fairly strong bow with soul trap enchant, acquire as many soul gems as possible, and snipe like boss across the lands. You also get your enchanting/smithing/monies up really fast by doing this.

 

[jd-inflames]

The best advice I can give you is pretty much stated above. Save your perks until you've decided exactly how you want to play. From the sounds of it, you would be more interested in Archery or Magic, probably Archery in general. If you are wanting the game to remain somewhat simple for as long as possible, try and hold off on leveling skills you don't need to try and rush your overall level, as it will ramp the difficulty beyond what you might be capable of doing. For example, I was leveling up Illusion, something I wasn't using, and powerleveled my crafting skills pretty high, and my speech to 100 and managed to get to level 35...with elven armor and even worse as far as weapons are concerned. I was getting slaughtered by everything, and finally completely restarted.

 

[bjb68]

Be careful when "power leveling" (spamming some means of raising a particular skill very quickly) things like sneak, speech, enchanting, smithing, alchemy, etc. Though the last three mentioned, if used correctly, will provide you with God-like armor and weapons, it can still leave you up a creek with out a [combat] paddle. If you power level skills and neglect the combat related skills, you will find yourself having trouble dealing with tough enemies. Additionally, it can be difficult playing as a strictly stealth-based character. You can't sneak up on a dragon (with the exception of some stationary ones by word walls).

Enjoy what may be the best game you'll play in a long time!
Play on

 

[Ares]

Stay away from bears...plain and simple. They will rip your face off then wear it.

 

[Dzylon]

Make sure to keep a calendar handy. Feels like Skyrim came out yesterday, but come to find out I've been totally absorbed for two weeks. That's why I'm taking a break from Skyrim, breaking in the new Zelda.

 

[NoVa]

I'm a huge fan of Fallout 3 and NV as well. All I can tell you that hasn't been said before is that sneak attacks are still extremely effective be it with a ranged or melee weapon. However, you can't perform a sneak attack with a spell!

 

[RICE8069]

I loved fallout three and i think thats why i was so drawn to this game because having so many choices makes the game playable in many different ways. I played fallout 3 over four times and never made the same choices and it always opened up new doors. This game is definitely worth the money and the time spent playing it

 

[Tealeaf]

I just got Skyrim last night and played for oh, six-ish hours or so. There's so many options that it seems a bit overwhelming. My biggest question is, do I really need need to do the alchemy and crafting and smithing and whatnot at the start? Will I cripple my characterr in the long run if I just wander around and do side quests and whatnot?

 

[Ebony Knight]

I just got Skyrim last night and played for oh, six-ish hours or so. There's so many options that it seems a bit overwhelming. My biggest question is, do I really need need to do the alchemy and crafting and smithing and whatnot at the start? Will I cripple my characterr in the long run if I just wander around and do side quests and whatnot?

Not at all. Everything in this game can be done at your own pace. I'm not jumping on you for asking but in the future take a look around this forum first. A lot of the questions you are bound to have will have been answered by dozens of people in meticulous detail on other threads. The crafting skills are a great way to improve your character and will eventually (if you pursue them) lead to some of the most powerful items in the game. Do them when you feel comfortable with it though. You can get along just fine without.

Edit: So I am not misunderstood; I say look around first because in some cases you are not going to get nearly as good of an answer out of people when they have already provided amazing answers to the same question before. Pretty helpful community all-in-all.

 

[J747L]

Just an opinion: hold back on power leveling. I reached level 61 without having even answered the Call of the Greybeards and I only power leveled in brief streaks.

IIRC the quests are leveled. Like all RPG players we want to level up our characters and become very powerful for the next encounter. Because of the leveled system I thought of reaching a high level to ensure that everything is less powerful than me even if the system leveled it. I think I regret that decision.

Right now, my character seems just too powerful and I'm thinking that I should have done the main quest as the developers intended.

Of course, it is your game and you can play it however you like.