I'm finding it difficult to get immersed in the game. Absolutely loved Morrowind and Oblivion but I'm trying very hard to get into Skyrim and haven't had much success. It's a beautiful game but I feel very under powered a lot of the time. An example would be a quest to clear a cave of Bandits that have been raiding trade caravens to Windhelm. I headed along, cleared the cave fairly easily until I reached the bandit thug in charge. Suddenly it was like an infant fighting Muhammed Ali, he knocked me around for a while (eventually I beat him but it required a reload.) This happens a lot in the world. Another example would be on travelling from Windhelm to Riften I was attacked by two dragons at different points. Dealt with them pretty well but then I ran into a couple of cave bears who were incredibly stronger than me. Is it possible that I've spent too much time exploring and not enough doing bigger quests? Is that a better way to get really svcked into the game? Thanks for any help, I'd really love to be enjoying Skyrim as much as I know I should be.

You can change the setting from master to novice at anytime.

By horse.

Real helpful, thanks.

Morrowind was very tough, so you should have some sort of idea what to do.

Dont be affraid to run away from one strong enemy or a group, and then come back later or when your stronger or hire a companion etc...

I usaully concentrate on one portion of the map early on, like the area between Falkreath - Riverwood - Whiterun, for quite a while.

Be aware of where you are travelling, some enemies are going to be scaled differently, and sometimes theres ones which are scaled above your level from the start of the game. Avoid higher altitudes to avoid dangerous creatures at low levels and learn fighting tactics for your 'class' of choice.

Sounds like you just need to get more familiar with how your character works and use more tools available to you Eg: alchemy poisons to help bring that thug down faster....he wont be doing much with a paralysis poison working on him.

make a character with a backstory, or a character named after you, change the difficulty to master, add rules that you have to abide to, and a new one for me is to keep the health relatively low so that it doesn't take more than 3 shots to kill me.

Hmm I might try that, I've been moving around an awful lot now that I think of it. Good advice.

Haha I suppose I've always been terrible at using poisions, I like alchemy but always forget to use them in a fight Some very good advice though, I think I've been travelling around an awful lot and been coming across a lot of areas with higher scaled enemies.

Its always a learning experience though so travelling around alot is not always a bad thing. Oh and don't be afraid to use tactics like cover and landscape to your advantage.

You can try to avoid any quest or any quest that you don't want to do and just walk around skyrim. Do anything that pops in your mind and don't hesistate to use your imagination.

I'll certainly try that too! I haven't been great at taking landscape or anything into account yet so I'll definitely give it a try.

If you don't like getting killed turn the difficulty down there's no shame in it. If that doesn't work there's no point in playing a game if you not enjoying it.

Encountering a military patrol and being sent to the block in Helgen.

create a backstory and make a custom character beforehand with 2-3 major (max) and 2-4 minors (50ish only) with one major offensive and strictly roleplay with appropriate self-governing rules that make sense for that character.

then, slow down and begin to level your skills and explore the immediate landscape and taking on a limited amount of appropriate quests. learn the land around you before you start moving on to, say, riften or windhelm. or, if you do go there then as a beginning character would you really roam the land to get there? i doubt it. take a carriage and again, settle down and learn the area while gaining skills.

i've been doing this and i find it very fun in becoming this character. i don't play like i've done in the past where i just take on everything, do it all and roam wherever the controller takes me. i'm playing as the character more systematically and it makes sense if i was dumped into this gameworld.

Been gaming for years and have played much tougher games than this. My issue is that the likes of a dragon is rather easy while a bear is much tougher (at least from what I've experienced so far) I know this gets better the more I level up but it has made it tough to stick to the game.

I like some of these suggestions. I've never really tried with the whole creating a back story but that certainly could help it!

I've had the opposite experience. I struggled to feel really engaged by Morrowind and Oblivion, but Skyrim has me hooked. Dispite its flaws, it ticks all the major boxes for me - combat is smooth and intuitive, and satisfying; story is generally good; skill and level system are easy to grasp and tailor.

As for advice, I would say set yourself some limits - don't try do everything, go everywhere with one character. Save some of the game for future playthroughs.

If you're finding it hard, consider adapting your playstyle, and don't forget underused resources (potions, other spells - eg, even if you never want to be a conjuration mage, having the ability to spawn a helper to soak some damage while you run away is always another option).

That's interesting actually, I was hooked on both Morrowind and Oblivion! Funny how things like that happen. Yeah, when I think of it I've been overlooking some of those resources a bit now, I'm not sure why but I have been.

You need to think more strategically, both about battles and about how you want to build your character. If certain enemies on quests are dropping you really fast, think of ways to keep that from happening and try them out. I play magic-heavy characters and I used to have very much the same problem earlier in the game. I started thinking of ways to keep melee enemies away from me so I picked up a melee companion, started to sneak, and focused on conjuration and destruction so I could put plenty of obstacles between myself and opponents, then take them out from a distance.

Now (Lv. 58) I can pretty much let my companion, dog and Dremora Lord do all of the fighting (I could, but I don't- I like to get my hands dirty).

It will get better if you're tactical and anolytical. One of the cool things about this game is that if you come up with a strategy, the game has ways of making it work. That's also how you figure out what skills to focus on- how you play will level certain skills, so you put perks into the skill trees of what you use and later on you will be unstoppable.

Very interesting! Thanks for this, really helpful advice here. I can't wait to try this out now and see how it goes.

The best method for getting into Skyrim would be to fly over the mountains in a plane, then parachute out into the center of Whiterun. The Whiterunnians (Whiterunners?) would absolutely [censored] themselves and worship you as a god.

Be a pure Mage and try to max every skill.

Cheers

If you are a warrior type, then be sure to improve your weapons and armor through the use of smithing. Adding a single smithing perk can add a handful of points to both your your offense and defense. I'm not recommending that you grind the smithing skill and overpower your character as some folks do, but judicious use of that skill can certainly help keep you alive.

Also, if you haven't already, try the enchanting elements of the game to add bonuses; as with smithing, I'd avoid grinding it to overpower your character, but it helps to experiment with it every so often when it makes sense with your character's role. If you are playing your character role as one that is not very intelligent, then enchanting might be out of the realm of what you'd consider reasonable, but smithing might be.

And, as mentioned above, I've found that taking a companion with you can be a great help. Occasionally a companion can get in the way, but wow, they are extremely helpful during some battles!

J.

Roleplaying is a great idea, i made a female Redguard, researching all the background and stuff in advance for the race as this is my first Elder Scrolls game, and gave her a full backstory up to getting caught by the Imperials and getting sent to the block.

I also did one for the Bosmer, which was quite interesting. I had quite a few restrictions on that, for example, Bosmer are not allowed to harm nature, which meant, no mining, no cutting down trees, not even picking wild flowers. He had to buy everything from store. Bosmer were naturally cannibalistic so i had no qualms about making him a cannibal.

Unfortunately i had to format my PS3 after a dodgy update and am now starting over.