Background:

I literally heard about this game the day it was announced and became extremely hyped about the game. I preordered it as soon as I could and the day it came out I got it (Xbox 360 Version, my PC wasn't good enough at the time). I jumped right into the game with a pure mage, like I normally started an Elder Scrolls game, and completed the Mages Guild quest, Boosted my level up A LOT, and had a wonderful time. Then I got around the mid to late 30's and decided that I wanted to try out a warrior, mainly because blacksmithing looked so bad ass but also I wanted to be a part of the Companions Guild and it wouldn't feel right to do it as a mage. The same general thing happened and I spent a good three or so days on the character, completed the Companions Guild questline, got my blacksmithing to maximum level, and found my self ending up with what I thought was the best equipment in the game ( Full Legendary Dragon Plate armor ) and an amazing Daedric Two hander at again around the level 30's. Then I decided that I wanted to make an assassin and complete the Dark Brotherhood as well as the Thieves Guild. You can probably guess what happened next; completion of both guilds, best equipment I can achieve, and got once again around to the level 30's.

After all of this I realized that I haven't even touched much of the Main Questline, barely any of the side quests / daedric quests, and that I'm not really having fun with the game! Maybe this is due to me looking up guides when needed, hearing about how is Overpowered / Underpowered, using Fast Travel, Doing the same thing over and over again, not sticking with one character that I can trully immerse my self with, etc. So then I took a break, a long break. I purchased and played other games (Dark Souls, a revisit to WoW, various RTS games I've found on the web). And now here I am.

I desperately want to get back into the game, but I just can't, whenever I think about it I feel completely turned off from putting the disc in and grabbing the controller for it.

Concerns:

I fear that by going into the game again as a new character so I can try to immerse my self, I'd remember everything and not have that amazing " First-Time-Playing " experience I'd want with a first character, even though it's been a good 1-1.5 months since I've touched it. Little things that I'd otherwise be oblivious to if not for spending an enormous amount of time on these forums and looking up stuff about the game, would annoy the hell out of me and ruin my gameplay (This goes with the whole is overpowered / underpowered, and various bugs that occur ingame).

Posessing the knowledge that I'm able to Fast Travel, Boost a skill, change the difficulty, and do other sorts of methods many of you, as well as I, consider "cheating", hinders my gameplay in that I'd have to place restrictions upon how I play the game in order to avoid this. This is a lot harder than you'd think. I mean lets face it, if I'm on my way to complete a quest and it's on the otherside of the map, that fast travel will certainly seem rather considerable. And when I'm fighting that annoying draugr lord that I spent two hours in the dungeon to reach but he's kicking my ass, that difficulty slider will become rather tempting to change and that restoration skill might be rather tempting to boost. In my mind, having urges to do these things is wrong and ruins general gameplay, but it's pretty much unavoidable.

Everyone within the forum discusses how is rather underpowered or overpowered in the game. This was another reason I decided to make multiple characters as I found my other character(s) would be gimped as I got further along. I was watching DSPGaming and the way he played the game interested me, he played it as a Spellsword type of character ( Heavy Armor, One handed Weapon, Destruction Magic + Restoration Magic ). Those are three different skills for combat, I'd fear that one would eventually outlevel / outperform the other(s) by endgame. Maybe I'd eventually say "Hey my is 5 levels above my , in order for my character to be the way I want I'll have to use my more than the other or even boost!" Again applying restrictions within my game, causing for a controlled experience which is not what a lot of us are always after.

Playing multiple forms of combat styles on the same character, basically somewhat of a jack-of-all-trades character, would ruin gameplay. Probably by mid game, I'd find that since I'm not particularly great with anything, I'll be punished and hindered within the game, which is the main reason why I made a pure mage, pure thief/assassin, pure warrior, in the first place.

Ideas:

The main plan I have to get back into a game like this with my given situation is to apply those restrictions I talked about earlier where I don't do this or that even though I could, create a new character and do what I want in combat and stick to it so I can immerse my self in the game, avoid all forms of guides and even stay away from the forums as well, and use my previous characters as "Fun Characters" when I feel like goofing around and do things my newly created character I'm immersed with wouldn't do.

That's about all I've got... thanks for reading and hopefully responding with feedback and advice!

I had a similar problem. I beat the game and just started playing CoD, BF, Shogun 2, Mass Effect 2 and so on. I ended up coming back for some reason and finished up some things on my old character, he is no level 39 and somewhat retired. I got bored of him and wanted to create a new character so I had to decide what to do.

Basically I ended up making a character (that never ended up like this unfortunately) that would try to rarely fight but instead would use others to fight for him. My character is sitting around 25 right now and he has yet to actually live up to that. I may start a new character that is focused on all indirect forms of combat. My plan is to create a character that's good at sneaking, lockpicking, pickpocketing, illusion and speechcraft (as well as alchemy, enchanting, and blacksmithing). Once he is proficient in those I'll fill out direct combat skills. As I said my character hasn't really become this as of yet as I had to focus on combat to stay alive and I never went with illusion. I'm too far along now to quit (although I may).

Other restrictions I gave myself is no fast traveling which really helps to make the world feel fresh. There are places I've been to before that feel like I've never even touched. I've also forgotten many of the quests and puzzles as such. Outside of the first area (and maybe Whiterun and such) the game still feels fresh which is why I'm glad they spent so much time on the world and made it as detailed as possible.

lvl 41 and full dragonplate.. btw daedric armor is the best loool, take your time lvling up and playing the game... took me probably 2 weeks or.. much more to get me where i am, i had same problem as you with wanting new characters.

Didn't really get many comments, figured I'd retry. Bump!

Tl;dr.

Download mods, if you're on the PC. It's like a whole other game with certain mods. I recently got back into Skyrim, but only because of mods.

You make suggestions for how to "fix" your issue, but then say you can't do them. So I don't really know what others can tell you. =/

Random question, what are your PC specs and whilst playing ultra settings what's your average Frame Rate?

I'm sorry, I didn't build mine myself so I can't tell you specs off the top of my head (not on my home computer). =/

I do know I have two higher-end graphics cards. My FPS is usually around 40-50 on average.


I guess, in spite of my earlier comment, one thing I will ask is, have you tried creating a personality you'd be interested in sticking with? I posted something similar to this in another thread...a brief idea of your character's background, and how that shaped their outlook, goes a long way to making a character stay interesting for me. Their hopes/disappointments/fears, etc.


EDIT EDIT: If you're looking to improve your game appearance with no performance loss, though, imo http://www.skyrimnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=4323 is a lot of bang for your buck. You'll need lightsources at night/in dungeons, though.

Thanks for the response, and by personality do you mean like talking to my TV / Monitor and actually like roleplaying?

Well, I don't talk to my monitor, but if that's what it takes to get into your character, sure! lol.

No, more than that I mean...well, an example. My orc girl doesn't share traditional orcish values. She wasn't raised among her people, so she has a very different outlook on the finer things and on magic and intellect over brute strength. She's got a chip on her shoulder from having people assume she's a thug because she's an orc, etc., so she's out to prove herself.

Before you start playing, set out some core values. Will you steal? If so, will you steal from anyone, or just the rich? Will you kill in other than self defense? Will you kill for money? Other small personality quirks like a soft spot for animals or an aversion to lying or avoiding a fight when at all possible (try to talk things out first, etc.) can keep things interesting.

Don't take an option that's offered if it doesn't fit your character's personality. IE, there's a certain city overrun by thieves. It's extremely obvious, so my girl (not being all that street savvy, and knowing it) got out of there as soon as she'd restocked her supplies. Another character might revel in that atmosphere, etc.

I dunno. It may not work for everyone, but it's how I've stuck with one character for...well...way more hours than I'd care to mention.