In Skyrim during my first play through, just for fun, I am going to attempt to match or beat the record set by Bethesda's developer - 2 hours, 16 minutes, 30 seconds.

Obviously this is pretty much impossible. So I'll be happy with a time less than 3 hours 30 minutes.

Anyway.

I've put a fair bit of thought into this and how I'm going to do it.

At the moment, I'm thinking about a Nord playstyle favoring such skills as archery, one handed, alchemy, heavy armor, speech and conjuration. Perks to suit an aggressive character

I would love your input on this, however.


What do you think?

Edit: seems people require a why.

Remember back in June and July, when everyone was raging about how dumbed down Skyrim is compared to Oblivion, and how dumbed down OB was compared to MW?

My biggest issue with Oblivion was that it didn't have much of a learning curve. You can only say that Skyrim is dumbed down if you are able to prove irrevocably that it is dumbed down. If Skyrim is dumbed down, then I'll be able to compete with the developer and tester times, as opposed to the estimated 25 - 30 hour completion time.

Why would you speed run your first play through? Don't you want to enjoy the game? Sorry, but that's a horrible idea (in my opinion).

I'd speed run after my third my second play through of the game enjoy the game first then do a spee run through.

You both make the crucial mistake of thinking that I would not enjoy the game, because I am doing a speed run. Which is fine, but wrong.

There's nothing to stop me from enjoying the game by sprinting through the main quest, "killing" the character, starting a fresh and then discovering the rest of the world.

In fact, such a circumstance would even be advisory. In Oblivion, well. Unlike Morrowind I never completed the game and felt satisfaction. The first time through I spent too long playing (6 hours on first Oblivion gate and it continued from there), the second I lost interest around the battle of Bruma. I did the same deal with Freelancer, then found all the little things out, and that game wasn't very open worlded at all (in terms of depth of NPCs. Essentially there was the main quest and that was that)

We've sussed out the why guys. I'm happy and confident with the why. I'm not confident about the how.

Yeah... dude, perks and skills are next to irrelevant in a speed run. If you take a look at the characters, they didn't even swap from the defaults, and from memory one was level 1, the other 4.

They most likely put the difficulty slider (if it exists) all the way down, and sprinted through the mainquest.

The speed run you're proposing (roughly 3 hours) is minimizing the game tenfold, not to mention you've no idea what you're doing.

If you're still into it, so be it... But I think that you'd be better off playing the game naturally.

Don't be a jerk and make idiotic assumptions. I know exactly what I am doing

I made the assumption, that as we supposedly don't have Oblivion leveling, that "bosses" will be at a fixed level proportional to the level the PC should expect to be at, and based off one reviewers experience in a dungeon, this assumption was confirmed to my mind. Hence I thought we would have to level, or get absolutely DOMINATED by the various dragons wandering through the land, and at various points of the main quest.

I'm not minimising the game. I'm not going to complete it, say "HAH!" and throw it to the side to live out a COD orgy for the rest of my days.

Sounds boring, and pointless(I mean; what are you trying to prove?). Also I don't think it'll be possible to beat Bethesda's speed run record on the first run, because you're largely unfamiliar with the game.

Guys.

I haven't come here seeking permission. I think this is a good idea. I'm going to role with it. I am not going to be dissuaded from doing so Keep the discussion on topic. Please.

Not trying to sound like a jerk but, I doubt you will beat that time. Main reason is they have played it over and over and over and over again. To the point when they know where everything is, what path to take, know where enemy spawns are. But meh its your game play how you want to.

I like all the skills you've listed so far, but if it's a speed run and you want to try to level your character more and have better access to nifty perks, I'd drop conjuration and speech.

Extra speech options really aren't useful for a speed run (unless you can skip entire quest lines and even when this has been possible in past games, it takes a consideribly HIGH speech level) and I'm not sure if you really need conjuration if you have archery for ranged fighting and 1h for hand to hand fighting.

Alchemy is a beast for damage once you level it up a bit, but just stating that outloud makes me think it's a time sink that you may want to avoid. Obviously make potions and poisons when you can, but I wouldn't spend too much time on these if you're trying to rush the main quest.

Might want to use 2h's instead of 1h's imo. Otherwise you'll want to tag on blocking with the 1h perks.

So this list:
archery, one handed, alchemy, heavy armor, speech and conjuration

Could be either this:
archery, one handed, alchemy, heavy armor, blocking

Or even this:
archery, two handed, heavy armor

Heya! First, good luck on your speed run I'm sorry you're running into a very predictable and unfortunate phenomenon of people thinking they know better than you what's fun for you. It's very commonplace, sadly, but we'll get this thread back on topic!

I believe for an early speedrun, we're best served by either aggressive melee or destruction magic. Defensive melee and stealth arent suitable for your objective.

As such, my recommandation is either Orc or Altmer for race. Altmers are very good this time around with two solid magic oriented traits, including 50 more magicka. Orcs have the best boss-killing racial in the game for a melee fighter; double damage dealt and half damage taken for a minute. Either would be fine choices.

If youre going Altmer, spec aggressively into Destruction and fire. Heavy armor is fine even if itll slow down your mana regeneration some. Bring potions. Speech is very Mercantile-oriented and not worth it for a speedrun. Conjuration is great. Personally, for a speedrun, I wouldnt master any weapon skills with this build. Go two-handed magic, perhaps carrying a shield for moments its needed.

For the Orc build, two-handed and heavy armor will be your main skills. Conjuration is still fine to help out. Smithing could be useful but then again, maybe not depending on how serious you are on the 'speed' part. Ultimately, for the Orc build if you're really speeding through, its worth considering spending 100% of your perks in 2-handed and heavy armor. Thats ultra focused, but that gives you the kind of punch you might need to defeat foes that will outlevel you seriously at the end of the main quest.

Good luck with your challenge and keep us posted!

The contestants at Bethesda all used a high elf for the huge mana boost. As you'll probably finish in the first 5-10 levels, definitely wise. Five free levels of magic. As for your skills? I don't think you'd -want- an aggressive character. I think a stealthy one capable of sneaking past the majority of fights is best; it IS a speed run. Some illusion magic, maybe a focus on destruction as well. Seems equally viable for ranged/melee damage, and frees you from having to worry about gear. Can just focus on getting'r done. Maybe keeping a sword and some heavy armor for boss fights would be wise, but not sure if that would be necessary. Oh, and if you can sell all your armor off the bat, might use wagons (or whatever they're called) to travel to all the major cities the quest is like to take you to, so you can unlock them for fast travel.

That said? If it's what you enjoy, go for it, but there might be something to the idea of waiting until you've already beat it once. After all, the speed run champ definitely knew where to go. You? You'll be going blind.

EDIT: And yes, for the record, don't worry about skills/levels/perks. If it's a speed run, you shouldn't really be getting much levels with anything. If it's not vital to kill it, it's usually faster to just bypass the mob and move on.

I understand the concern. See edited OP.

Thanks for your support and contributions XD. I was expecting such a reaction, to be honest.

All of these posts have given me a bit to think about. Especially the three not trying to dissuade me. On keeping you posted - I won't get the game on release - I'm not able to. So I won't be able to let you know how it went for a while. But I certainly will post it in the forum and send PMs.


@Vampires Bane - I've always been more enthusiastic about one handed weapons - hence that would be my preference. That being said, seems like I should rethink and replan a little bit.


@Valamyr - I agree with you about aggressive magic or aggressive melee, not stealthy. That is the main issue XubXub with going stealthy. I'd turn it into a war of attrition, and because of the speed run I simply don't have the time to afford to do that. Unless of course aggressive would give me early gains but harder to continue later on. Personally I think the opposite is true - First stealthy Oblivion character failed pretty heartily in the middle game. .
On speech and conjuration - both skills were first and foremost to get support from NPCs. Speech was to gain companions cheaper, conjuration to summon minions. Every little helps. Certainly a defensive or stealthy character would not be a great playstyle.

Going in blind is part of the objective. If I am not blind, the playthrough is not valid to say whether or not Sk. is dumbed down.

@Valamyr - thank you very much for those racial suggestions. I personally was going for a character who was going to be more versatile, but a jack of all trades won't succeed. I'll probably flip a coin closer to the time as to whether I go Altmer or Orc. That being said, I'd lean more towards Altmer.

I'm quite hesitant about going for magic though, with magicka running out making fighting impossible, and magicka resistance stopping things somewhat.. Then again - potions. Although it has good ranged/melee capability, arrows probably aren't affected by weapon resistance.

Edit: Oh that's right. My other concern about magic is obtaining spells - it is generally rather expensive. Hopefully spell tomes should offset this a little, but I'm not hoping for much. I have never found a spell that has become frequently used from a spell tome in OB.


@XubXub
I probably won't sell armor and carriage my way. I'll make the funds as need be - there should be a half decent haul in bleak flats barrow which should set me up well, plus all the lootable equipment from the tutorial dungeon. I've heard companions can carry gear, so I'll share the load with my first companion to avoid being over encumbered and slowed down.

I don't think you're proposing a speed run on the level that Beth did it. I think you're just talking about playing through the game as quickly as possible - and there's a pretty massive difference.

A speedrun you avoid everything unnecessary, yet you're still talking about hauls from dungeons and whatnot.

In that case, I'd say just make sure you max out the skills that'll keep you alive and able to kill stuff - and don't focus on extravagances like speech. They'll be unnecessary in the long run.

Maybe a better term for what you're doing is a quick run?

Sell loot for gold.

Buy carriage fare to city on opposite side of map to complete main quest.

instead of walking.

I think that is more conducive to a speed run than a quick run. Ever played Freelancer?

From the Freelancer Speed Guide


There will be a point in the main quest where I have the chance to obtain loot quickly and easily, and there will be a chance further down the road to offload my stuff on some random merchant. The first dungeon will have a decent volume of loot to equip any character - and as we know from the E3 gameplay, you have to traverse Bleak Flats Barrow to progress the main quest. It will add time in the short run, but has a massive capability to save time in the long run.

Opinions dear forum goers.

How difficult do you think my challenge is going to be?

I seek Opinions dear forum goers.

How difficult do you think my challenge is going to be?