So I finally decided to go kick Alduin's butt, and btw LOVED the twist where I had to trap a dragon, etc. (If it had just ended with the fight on the Throat of the World I would have been sorely disappointed).
So got to Sovengarde, and of course, like any good loot-[censored] I had unloaded before the quest to make room in my inventory for any goodies. The real disappointment for me, the biggest tease, was I wasn't able to pick up any of the gold goblets, plates or anything else shiny in the Hall of Valor. REAL bummer.
I didn't even get to loot Alduin!! svcky!! What gives? Is this a glitch or is someone going to tell me it's because it's a 'spirit world' blah blah blah? I felt like Bethesda was watching me try to pick up loot in vain and pointing going na-na-na-na-na-NA!

Thoughts?

It's a spirit world ...

Look on the bright side. At least you didn't dump a bunch of stuff in Shors Halls planning to come back for it after looting Alduin's corpse.
And no, I am not saying I did that. It's just that I thought you were gonna say you did that when I saw your thread title.

You can take the Ox head!

What Ox head???

Oh, and an addendum question: I've heard a lot from people that it's better to complete this 'main' quest earlier rather than later, and I can see why. At level 52 I did feel I was overpowered and it was too easy to beat Alduin in Sovngarde. Any input on what level one should be when I tackle this quest again?

umm... you're not dead yet? lol

no soul from alduin and no loots... kinda RP stuffs if you bother to wander the mists before or stand there and watch who strolls in from the mists... other than that the spoils of sovngarde are gonna await you when you get there and don't get sold outside the rhelm.

On the table in the Hall of Valor. I don't think it's worth much though!

What would Alduin have that other dragons don't?

I started the MQ late in game, was 34 when I fought the first dragon. Made the MQ much harder since everything MQ related scaled up dramatically, first random dragon was an Elder and most word walls were guarded by Elders and Ancients. The fight on the Throat of the World was also very difficult. However, the final fight in Sovngarde was still ridiculously easy. The problem is the way the fight is designed and nothing can be done to fix it by the player. You're fighting alongside three invincible npcs who also scale with the player which ruins the fight entirely, you can literally sit back and watch you only need to help clear the mist. They can do the rest.

The only way it may be possible to actually make the fight hard,might be to wait until you're in the 70+ range. Alduin is the only enemy who scales with the player with no cap and I think the heroes cap in the high 40's or low 50's like every other enemy. So a level 70+ Alduin may be badass enough to wipe the floor with the heroes and make you participate.

I was level 11 at my lowest hit on Alduin and I found Tsun to be the harder fight, other than waiting until I'm capped past the npc's I think the fight will just stay easy. We have help defeating Alduin. If the fight feels easy after all you've done then consider this... without us they wouldn't have defeated him and without them we might not have succeeded. Instead he's done and there's still SOOOO much game to do and explore.

How could you possibly loot something which is not material? If anything, some of the spirits there should be angry at you for looting their tombs back in the land of the living. Imagine finally meeting Ysgramor in person and the first thing he says is: "You thief! Put down that axe and shield where you found, scum!"

The fight with Alduin is too easy. With the NPC's taking care of most of the work, I think I only had to put 4-5 Daedric arrows in him once he landed in order to finish the job. He should get two lives. Just when it appears he's dead, his health completely restores and he becomes even stronger. It should end with just you against Alduin in a real test of your character's capabilities. It could even be a thing where if you die, you're sent back Skyrim and have to complete more quests in order to get back to Sovngarde.

Very anticlimatic.

Now THAT is funny, and yeah, I would have actually appreciated that if that happened.

true

I've beat it at a varity of levels and it's always too easy. The last time was with a level 12 pure mage. She just stood back watched the three Nords do all the work while she shouted from time to time.

Apparently we have no alchemists in this thread - there's plenty of mountain flowers in Sovngard, and you can loot them just fine. Shouldn't they be spirit flowers?

Also, I have a suspicion the dead might not care about what happens to crap in their tomb. Why would the dead care about an axe they can't ever touch or use again because it's locked away in some dusty tomb in Mundus for the past thousand years? That's why I've not problem taking stuff from like Shrines of Talos and such I find out in the countryside - what do spirits want with material wealth they can never use?

That contradicts all the ghostly remains you can loot in certain tombs.

Okay, how do I go back to Sovngarde for the ox head? Seriously, I want something. Something I can point to and say "I was there!"

Heck, I didn't even get a t-shirt that says "I killed the World-Eater in the afterlife and all I got as this lousy t-shirt".

You get the call hero shout.

I can't put that in my trophy case.

I was hoping I could keep Tsun's Armour as trophy.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't Ysgramor have Wuuthrad with him in Sovngarde as well?

he didn't have it when i ran into him at Hollyfrost farm; be kind of weird for a dog to have an enchanted axe-

Oh wait, you meant the other Ysgramor. According to the wiki, yes.