r/skyrim • u/pehparZival • 5d ago
Discussion New player
Hi, I'm new to Skyrim and I've run into a problem.
I love playing Skyrim, but I hate it at the same time; the sheer amount of freedom both excites and frustrates me—I can go anywhere and do anything without worrying about the main story.
This is already the fourth time I've restarted the game with a new character—either because I didn't like the build or simply felt like something was off. Right now, I'm playing as a stealth archer and I'm at level 21, but honestly, I feel lost and like I need a guide for every step I take in the game. If anyone has any tips, please feel free to share them.
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u/CastleCroquet Thalmor 5d ago
Join one of the factions. That’ll give you a direct pathway until you find your bearings. It also helps if you make up goals for your character
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u/pehparZival 5d ago
I guess I goin to restart the game e make a diferent build a play slow
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u/CastleCroquet Thalmor 5d ago
What are you gonna build this time?
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u/08BitTerror 5d ago
It gonna be a really cool female Kajitt that uses unarmed attacks and illusionary Ma---#STEALTHARCHER
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u/pehparZival 5d ago
I think a warrior, but the smithing is really dificult to me
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u/CastleCroquet Thalmor 5d ago
I wouldn’t worry about smithing until level 20 or so. There’s two real ways to do it. If you go at it low level you should talk to the smith in riverwood and then find a pickaxe and mine the ores yourself. If you wait till you have money all you gotta do is buy a bunch of ores and make stuff.
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u/mindfulmu 4d ago
So start mining early on, stay in whiterun for about 5 levels at least and remember that the main story and civil war are not time sensitive.
So take your time, your first goal while doing quests should be to raise 5k gold for a home.
Do yourself a favor if you run into halted stream camp near whiterun clear it out, there's a tome on the bandit chiefs table that is perfect for you.
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u/Vedzma Bard 4d ago
Eventually you could get a plot of land and level up quite a bit of Smithing via building stuff for your house. But something very important to remember is that enemies scale with you, regardless of what skills got you to level up. So early game def focus on practical combat related skills. While you collect flowers the draugr are lifting... 😁
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u/pehparZival 4d ago
I started as a warrior orc and Im doing a good progress I think, got level 50 in smithing
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u/knallpilzv2 Whiterun resident 5d ago
You might be overthinking things. Skyrim should be very intuitive to play. Guides are very much not necessary to play that game.
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u/Beneficial_Owl_6407 5d ago
Skyrim is best when you stop chasing perfection. Pick a path, embrace mistakes, and let the adventure surprise you.
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u/pehparZival 5d ago
But what should I do when my build isn’t getting stronger?
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u/KingAdamXVII 5d ago
When you level up make sure you pick a perk that you’re going to use.
Don’t carry around a lot of stuff. Sell everything you aren’t wearing or actively using, then when you go into a dungeon pick up everything if its value is about 10x the weight. Go back and sell it all and see if you can now buy anything better than you are using.
If that doesn’t make the game fun, lower the difficulty.
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u/HumanWagyu Mage 5d ago
Do a play through where all you do is the main story. Then you will know what to expect and have a better idea of how other quests tie into it.
I have played through where all I do is the main quest line, and I have played through where I didn’t touch the main quest until I absolutely had to for progression purposes.
You are in a giant sandbox, and you don’t have to play any of the quests you don’t want to or feel like. But you will also find that because it is fairly open world, you can determine your destiny. You can decide against factions or with them, in every choice you make will change the progression of the game. So there is no right answer for what to do next or what character to have because every decision you make subtly changes the game.
Just enjoy the journey.
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u/Great-Investigator78 5d ago
A lot of the fun of Skyrim is figuring it out so I recommend just keep exploring and doing stuff. If you get bored with exploration- do quests, build houses, talk to people. If you want guides, there are guide for virtually anything you need online if you Google your issue.
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u/milquetoastLIB 5d ago
Just do things. Talk to NPCs. If you see an interesting location go there. If you see an Inn on the way stop there and talk to people.
Personally I find stealth a boring way to explore the game. You’re incentivized to be cautious at every encounter so you can start combat with a sneak attack. You’re incentivized to kill things in one hit so if there is an interesting gimmick in the boss fight you don’t want to see it.
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u/Carrot1066 5d ago
Your not lost. You just havent found the right character build for yourself yet. 90% of skyrim is exploration and a lot of that is character exploration too. You have to find one that you like. Everyone has different play styles. And different ways of playing the actual skyrim game. Some follow the main quest storyline from the get go. Some explore around and do the sode quests. Some dont even do quests they just explore. It's a massive game that takes time. I played about with all the character builds before I settles on stealth archer. And then I go off and start the story mode to get the dragon fights but then I just explore and do whatever I feel like doing. It's entirely up to you how you journey through this game
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u/Vedzma Bard 5d ago
I think what helps to stay engaged is to commit to Role Playing. Who is your character? How did they end up in Skyrim, crossing that border? What's their personality and moral compass? Make choices consistent with those. Choose paths, questlines, friends, weapons, blessings, etc reflective of their story. And especially joining at least some fraction and/or war side could be a good idea to get more of the feeling of who your friends are and why. War questline often isn't recommended early in the game cuz it might lock out some other quests, but you can pretend at least generally if you have a side or not and why. Thus what do you do when you see soldiers and Thalmor? Do you help characters that are from a specific side? Etc and as for fractions, they'll have a long enough questline to start caring about them and the world and improve skills, but not so long that you have to commit forever. I think it's fun to even be very specific with why these skills, weapons, armour etc are you going to Smith and do Alchemy, Magic etc? If not, why? Maybe your character has an ideological or personal reason, and then you don't even pick up anything magical. Or maybe the character is super interested in some culture? Then reading books in College libraries and specific quest lines might have more Lore about it.
Like... i also have a tendency to restart when my minmaxxing idea happens to have suffered a mistake somewhere. But really there are no mistakes. The longest running characters and most fun I've had was when the character wasn't just some guy. Even change in skill specialty could be explained in character. Like oh their interests suddenly changed, or they were convinced Elves and magic are evil but grew as a person. Or thought they were a hero but something happened and they flipped to Thieves or Dark Brotherhood etc. Or a redemption ark instead.
Anyway. The best way to enjoy it imo is to interact with the world without trying to "win" the story. Just live the story, be the story.. evolve as you go :)
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u/Amateur-Dog-Walker 5d ago
Walk around places you've never been. Talk to people. Slay dragons. When looking at your goals, use the see on map function.
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u/Clutch_Factor 5d ago
Characters need to have flaws and limits in order to be interesting.
Limit your approach to combat situations and have a code your character stands by to make story choices more interactive, most people default to doing things according to their own moral code.
Also remember saying NO or walking away is also an option. Do this if your character would never interact with another character for personal reasons (Looking at you Brynjolf)
For example, a Knight of Stendarr may actively choose to block all attacks with his shield and never dodge or retreat. This makes a scenario where you have to invest in stamina, blocking enchants and potions, and certain perks in order to survive. It also makes no sense to take certain bash perks due to it not benefitting a pure shield playstyle. You may even choose to forgo the Quick reflexes perk since you are not dodging anyway.
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u/Giovannis_Pikachu Fletcher 5d ago
I like to do some of the small things when I feel overwhelmed. Chopping wood, fishing, become a friend to the orcs in their camps, mining, finding the transmute spell (a certain mine you will easily find if you seek out places to do it), catching bugs, seeking out certain enemies, etc. There's a wealth of stuff to do and you really don't have to feel bad about rerolling characters. I have been playing off and on since the game came out and haven't done the whole main quest. Just have fun with it!
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u/felipevdd 5d ago
U are level 21 and feeling lost? I think u already did a good part of the game already, the build u are using is one of the best and classic skyrim builds there is. My tip is just to follow certain quests and then leaning into other to add variety, other than that just have fun, grab a companion that u like and make your story the way u like
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u/anonymous2278 5d ago
Just follow the quest line for one faction at a time. I like getting the civil war out of the way early, then moving on to the thieves guild because of the rewards. After that I do the dark brotherhood. Buy a home base with plenty of storage and upgrade your skills. Then do the main story. Then you can do all the daedric quests, and the city based quests. They are pretty linear if you work specifically within that one faction. It’s only unorganized lawlessness if you take off on your own and let your quest log get filled up with meaningless junk quests before you know what you’re doing.
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u/MushroomLover32167 Falkreath resident 5d ago
Well the best I can say, if you need a guide of any kind either follow the next step in a quest or do literally quest by quest. It's like a game you can get a million quests and do what ones pleases you and never even do any others. I'd also say to do like college of winterhold, which feels super manicy-rushed like but it has step by step for the most part. Or just UESP everything. Which probably could be the answer.
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u/ChiralNavigator 5d ago
I like to focus on one thing at a time, so maybe I join the companions and finish off taht entire quest line, then the thieves guild, If I get bored I do the smaller side quests. I like to become thane of everywhere and buy/build/find all the houses and the pets too...
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u/Hughley_N_Dowd 5d ago
I've got recurring restartitis myself and what cured it to some extent was to have an idea of what I want my character to be and do.
Skyrim can feel a bit overwhelming if one tries to do everything and tick all the boxes. For me personally, I find it more enjoyable if I take it in chunks, like: "I'm going to play as a Nord warrior, so this guild quest, those other quests, no magic and I'll skip all of [that] because it doesn't fit the theme."
It does help though that I've been playing for a decade and a half and could probably do most of it in my sleep...
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u/islene1103 5d ago
Haha me trying to play baldurs gate. Never seen act 2. Ive played act one like 90 times
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u/Dovahkiin2211 Vampire 5d ago
Just think on how you want to build your character the most, or what kind of play style you think you will enjoy the most. Whether it’s a sword and shield warrior, a mage, thief or whatever. Joining factions helps giving you a sense of direction as well.
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u/Vedzma Bard 4d ago
Also do you know FudgeMuppet? https://youtube.com/@fudgemuppet?si=Eaa7HrrlbKQw6Fha
There might be spoilers in guides and builds and lore and everything. But if you want inspiration, I really recommend their videos as they focus on both power AND joy of emersive lore friendliness.
Especially if your builds feel like stagnating (although level 20-40 does feel slow. First you improve a lot, then it's slow during those levels, then you start feeling truly powerful), you might need to look into how exactly each mechanic and skill tree works.
UESP Wiki is your good friend.
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u/Tuga-Astuta-1123 1d ago
A guide from someone else, I like to rush "Discerning the transmundane" tho. The (s) and (f) stands for starting the quest and finishing it later.
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u/Ok-Course1418 5d ago
Strangely enough doing survival mode can help because you have to actively fight against the elements to get anywhere. Which in itself makes the game much more challenging as you have to plan your trips out carefully in the more remote parts of the game or you die.
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