I finished the Main Quest last night. I quite enjoyed it, just as I had the last Bethesda title I played, Fallout 3. But I feel like I'm missing something, based on all the discussions and guides I read. I want to hear your experiences, so I'll share my own just to show you where I'm at.

Skyrim's a great game, I really enjoyed the Nordic atmosphere for a fantasy setting, and the dragon fights which were quite a focus were brilliant. I played on the default setting and I'm wondering if that's too easy. My main character was an Orc, Heavy Armour, One-Handed Weapons.

I tried and retired other characters as well. I tried mages, light armoured sneaking archers, and double-handed weapons, etc. I think I spent about 20 to 30 hours just finding what suited me, then once I settled on a main character, I beat it in about 30 to 40 hours, around 2 weeks, ending at level 19.

I had some tough battles, "dying" perhaps a dozen times. My 1st "death" was against a blood dragon, but after that, dragons weren't the biggest threat. The worst were the ice troll on the 7,000 Steps, some mages that I just failed to kill fast enough, and snow sabretooth tigers.

I read a great a lot of posts about the importance of smithing. It wasn't something I really wanted to do, so I put it off until when I felt the story calmed down, but at some point the momentum of the story kept me going. I just used weapons I found, the best being a regular glass mace.

I really want to replay, now that I know the overall story and some tricks to make it flow better, so what would you suggest? Just some requests:

- I don't want to grind, I know many think every RPG requires grinding, I don't
- Is there an easy way to make armour out of all those dragon bones/scales? I don't want to grind
- The Orc's Berserker Rage is so useful for the few tough battles I had, what other race compares?
- What is there "realistic" difficulty level? I noticed Bandits were way to easy to kill, even at the start
- On the other hand, I want a difficulty setting where I don't need to use potions mid-battle, it seems unrealistic
- Are mages much harder at higher difficulties? Because I suspect they scale up in difficulty much more

Thanks in advance for any feedback.

1. Don't grind smithing, enchanting or alchemy if you don't want to, but if you do smith weapons, you could get the steel smithing perk.
2. Not really. The dragon armour kinda requires grinding.
3. Well the Argonian's Histskin (Very fast health regen) and the Redguard's Adreneline Rush (Very fast stamina regen) have saved my life many times, but I don't have much experience with others.
4. Adept - Expert, for me anyway. Your opinion may differ.
5. You will likely need to take them for tough boss fights, but nothing else really.
6. Some are. A good tactic for a warrior is to rush in quickly.

I would definetly restart on master.Playing on this level is much better as you will learn to be cautious in your approach to enemies and chance encounters on the road and you will find you become a much better fighter because of it.Some locations will have to be revisited at a later date because you can quickly find yourself in over your head in some locations.The upside is you will start to really appreciate your skill increases when previously unbeatable foes become manageable.I also never used potions mid battle as it seemed cheap,so if i was getting battered i'd withdraw.

I really enjoyed smithing in this game.I didnt spam iron daggers or set out to create anything uber - I just used to enjoy it as a break from all the fighting with a nice cuppa and a cigarette.

I have always played as a Nord warrior in previous TES games and it's really good in Skyrim because the place just feels like home.It really helped me enjoy the atmosphere.

Mages on master are tough and will probably be your biggest nightmare to begin with.Finding or buying magickal resistence equipment becomes a priority - especially as a warrior as it helps you close on them.

I would also wait until much later to begin the main questline and much later to join a guild.

These are just a few off the top of my head.

You *completed* the game in about 35 hours after you found what you were looking for?

I think that's your problem. You said you felt like you were missing something. Content besides the main Q perhaps and the more obvious optional quests? I'm over 150h now and I've only completed the trek to High Hrothgar for the first time. I just put all that aside and go out to enjoy myself, while disabling quest markers so I'm forced to explore and encounter all sorts of things, as opposed to chasing after markers, turning the Skyrim world into a linear "Go from A -> B" experience.

My advice then:
-If you're on PC: Download Immersive HUD and Better Quest Objectives. Disable the compass entirely if you like (though I keep it since BQO often uses cardinal and ordinal directions), but definitely disable quest markers altogether.
-Skyrim in fact doesn't really require any grinding at all unless you want to max everything out, which often results in far too powerful Enchants etc.
-All races do fine enough at almost everything. Haven't found one racial that seems to blow all the others out of the water, except perhaps for Eye of Night when you're playing a Thief/Assassin archetype.
-Expert is, in my experience, a proper baseline difficulty level. Master is sufficiently challenging without being so hard it just aggravates you.
-On Expert and Master you will need to eat/drink during battle, at least when you're not cheesing with Enchanting and Smithing.

I can't believe that you put this:
And this:
... in the same post.

To me, it sounds like you've "grinded" out the MQ rather quickly.

I know right,some unanswered questions in the main quest.
I want a part 2 of the main quest :3

My suggestion ? start at least on Expert -or even better straight on Master - and play the Mq only partially -perhaps some of the "unanswered questions" are dlc related

The only way to get Dragon Armor is to grind out smithing, unless you want to take forever making Leather armor and other items. I agree with Expert being a good level, I've been thinking about upgrading to that level of difficulty although I'm having a lot of fun on normal.

You don't need to "grind" smithing to level it up in a natural way. What I do is while I am adventuring I collect pelts from animals I kill and ore that I mine. I also collect armour that I find in dungeons or loot from dead enemies. When I go back to town I improve the armour before I sell it back to merchants. This levels up my smithing and my speechcraft and gives me more money without having to grind for hours on silly daggers and getting bored. The skills level up slowly along with my other skills because they level depending on my activities of exploring and winning fights.

I really want to replay, now that I know the overall story and some tricks to make it flow better, so what would you suggest? Just some requests:

- I don't want to grind, I know many think every RPG requires grinding, I don't
- Is there an easy way to make armour out of all those dragon bones/scales? I don't want to grind
- The Orc's Berserker Rage is so useful for the few tough battles I had, what other race compares?
- What is there "realistic" difficulty level? I noticed Bandits were way to easy to kill, even at the start
- On the other hand, I want a difficulty setting where I don't need to use potions mid-battle, it seems unrealistic
- Are mages much harder at higher difficulties? Because I suspect they scale up in difficulty much more

Thanks in advance for any feedback.

1. I do use smithing, alchemy and enchanting, but I keep it on a realistic level.
2. nope, sorry you either have to grind or wait.
3. each race has their own "perk's" so to speak.
4. I start my play on default, adept and if it seem's to be to easy somewhere along the game I bump it up. ( IMO you didn't play long enough, dragon's change around lvl 20, and so do alot of the enemies lvl's)
5. Mage's can both get harder or easier depending on your build. my mages are all harder to play, ie die easier, at lower lvl's.

If you want to do the MQ again and I have started doing it again, I just don't do it in a straite line. Side quest's, jarl's quest's, etc. The 1st character I did the MQ with I did the companions at the same time, back and forth between the two plus some exploring. It's up to you, I have different style character that I am doing it with this time. I think it make's a difference, some people might disagree.

Also I would do another questline, explore or something else and don't even start the MQ til lvl 20 or so. Some of your enemies will have lvl'ed up and be harder to kill or their may be more of them. JMO

Just play a character that you really want to play, don't feel like you have to use certain skills if you're a certain race. Just pick some skills and use them and see how it plays out

Now what I personally think about your suggestions:
- This is something I do as well, especially with the crafting skills. Smithing, enchanting

- apart from being a smith, I don't believe there is, you can find the armor, I'm unsure if you can purchase it though. What I do is just take my time with smithing, only use materials that I find, and I set myself levels when the next perk will come in to play.

- Berserker rage is extremely helpful, but some of the other races also have really helpful powers. The argonians "Histskin" Power Is helpful, 10x health regen . Basically, every single races abilities and powers are good if you know how to use them.

- For me the difficulty is between adept/expert and sometimes master. I find that with Novice and apprentice, you are too God like, there isn't a real challenge. But with master the game is also unrealistic, as you can train to be a master at a skill, and then still get obliterated by weak enemies, just find what is right for you. If you do not want to use potions mid battle, maybe adept?

- Lastly, mages in the game are very hard foes, or at least I have found them to be. Take a look at this to find out a bit more. http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Warlock

Thanks for the feedback. Based on what you said, I'll probably do the following:

- Restart a game once the DLCs are out, assuming they're at least decent
- Use Expert difficulty at least, I played on just the default Adept
- Do Smithing in a natural way from the ore and pelts I come across

I basically underestimated how quickly the Main Quest could be completed. I didn't feel like I was going straight for just the Main Quest, as I performed most of the sidequests I came across, when they seemed like how my Orc character would react (example, she didn't do the Thieves Guild one as she sees herself as a warrior not a thief, but she did save the Mage College to protect her new school friends). However, Skyrim's Main Quest just seemed more urgent, with every new revelation pushing you towards another important task.

Yeah the game really works hard to push you right into the main quest ASAP. But that is not the best way to play. On this my first run-through I got to Whiterun about like you did, at level 10ish. When they told me to go find the Graybeards I flipped and ran from my responsibilities. I delayed to go see them till about level 30, doing all kinds of other things and getting to know the game world. Even though I delayed for about 6 months of game time there were very few consequences. Dragons kept attacking of course, and occasionally killed off non-essential NPCs or demolished buildings. I worried about that. But it doesn't seem to have mattered and now, at level 50, I have finally dispatched Alduin and feel pretty satisfied with my character. I delayed on other major quests like the Civil War as well so I still have plenty left to do.

When I feel like this character is finished, I will probably start a new one who will play on an Expert setting and do some of the quest lines like the thieves that his one avoids for Roleplay reasons.

One of the things I've found myself doing now is to just wonder around in the wilderness, I'm hundreds of hours into the game and I've still found new places/dungeons to explore.

Meh, Skyrim is no Oblivion that's for sure. In oblivion questlines amazing and wonderful, in skyrim they lack content and feel much more shorter than its predecessor.

Master difficulty is really too hard until around Level 10 +
But Expert is much more realistic than Adept (right from the start).
Usually, once you can smith enchanted items, you need to be on Master difficulty right there.
Adept is pretty tame, and the chances of dying are slim.
Good for n00bies though...

But the graphics! The graphics! Heheh...
Too many artists - not enough playtesters.

Graphics aren't really an issue for me, considering I play on xbox and everything is dumbed down. The only 2 things I prefer over oblivion from skyrim is the lock picking and parts of the engine (the way you shoot bows and swing weapons and killcams). I also hate the fact that every bandit has the same crappy fur armour. I understand that skyrim gets cold but it's always [censored] loot. I don't wanna run around dungeons for 10 minutes in order to find chests. Sorry for the rant, but it just really bugs me.

This for sure!

Yeah really Bandits don't ever go on quests and get or smith decent armor? Every once in a while a bandit chief might have Steel Plate Armor, but thats about it. I bet they have tons of unused perks.