I gave in to temptation and finally picked up the game for the PS3 on Saturday night...played it all day Sunday...and now that Monday is here, I'm debating on starting a new character with lessons learned from only about 12 hours of playtime...

So my question is if you had to start over again today, knowing what you know now, what would you do differently?

1st - don't do civil war until you finished all other quests you need
2nd - don't use exploits to become overpowered, overpowered=boredom

Don't Grind your character. As long as you just play the game, things will level up as you need them to.

Make lots of save slots. Do not rely on one or two saves for this game. Even fully patched up a quest will glitch from time to time and the only way to fix it is to reload an earlier save from before you got the quest. Have at least 5 save slots to cycle through, if not more.

Don't listen to the factions when they say that you have to go do the next part of their main quest. Instead take some time and do some of the radiant quests offered by the other members of the faction before doing the main parts of the faction quests.

Save before you travel to any town/settlement (if you are after the part of the MQ where the dragons appear). Save first, if you get a dragon attack in town, then reload, travel somewhere else in the hold (maybe one or two places in the hoid) deal with the dragon, then save and travel to the town.

This is a good idea. Unfortunately, if you like to free explore from the beginning, you are going to randomly hit issues many hours in... I don't think a lot of things have been patched yet, some... but not all.



Especially in the College at Winterhold. Everything in the main line sounds drop-everything-important, but I think the whole thing would of been much more impressive in scope if, like Morrowind, helping your fellow mages was a requirement of progression. Not "you must do everything", but do 1-2 quests outside the main College quest-line between each step in the College questline.



I just FT to a nearby area outside the cities, it's enough to keep the cities from losing their merchants.

I would do nothing starting mine over but I can give you some tips.
1.Try not to fast travel as much so you dont miss stuff
2.play on at least adept so leveling up is a little easier
3.do side quest more than main quest but still do main quest a little every so often
4.Do not level up all the easy skills up first try to even the skills out.

Hope that helps.

Don't power level blacksmithing, alchemy or enchanting as you will destroy everything in the game on the highest difficulty without it being a challenge.

I've started a lot of characters now, and I feel that I pretty much still do the same things. First I head to the Guardian Stones LOL The only thing that's different though, is that I usually don't touch the MQ, and I create characters with different personalities in mind. Say, one of them heads straight to Riften to join the Thieves Guild, one picks up a rumor about the DB and then follows up on that, etc etc So, just think of what type of character you want to play and then just treat Skyrim as a world filled with possibilities.

Choose some perks differently (not all 5 of heavy armor, none in lockpicking).

Do more radiant quests in the Thieves Guild before continuing with the Main Quest (it seemed like they pushed you to do the Main Quest, but then it left a lot of side quests left).

Not save the Dark Brotherhod for last (would fit in the story better).

I power leveled a little bit with blacksmithing, but things ended up alright and my character did not seem overpowered.

Head to Shrine of Meridia soon after starting. (some might consider this too strong too early).

I agree with saving before traveling to a town, especially Riften (there are three quests I cannot do because of deaths caused by thieves).

I would plan ahead better by allocating my perks in a more efficient manner, even though at the moment I'm sitting at lvl 79 with 17 or 18 unused perks...

I already started a new character and he is pretty the same as my first.
But on this character i am not going to cure any companion members from the werewolf sickness.Or i am not going to kill parthunaax,And not going to get married. or not going to do college of winterhold quest.
And i have played for this new character for 40 hours already x)

I'm about to restart after 150 hours on my first guy and this is what I'm going to do.

Do not buy a horse, unless you want to role play or have them just to have them, but they're not that much faster than just walking and if you just walk you see a lot more of the world. Also you can't fight on them so when an enemy inevitably comes out it takes a while to get off your horse and retaliate.

When doing the daedric quests always try and get the artifact even if it means doing something evil. I can't get 3 of them because I thought it was the evil way and now I can't get achievements.

If you want to use magic at all, lvl that up quickly so that later you don't feel like a week spell user.

Be careful about a side quest in Windhelm, when I first did it. it was buggy and got messed up. It's called Blood on the Ice, at the end you can buy the house that was involved with it and before you start buying upgrades choose the option to clean it out.

The last thing is if you really want to do the civil war quest then just know that certain places get destroyed forever and will have damaged properties. When I restart I'm gonna skip that quest line because I already have the achievement and I don't really care about the conflict.

I really regret popping open this game and not waiting a year for the community to mod it up. If i could do that over, it be at least a year before i was on this forum b and m'ing about steam.

I would have assigned my Perk points using the console from the get go, not use Enchanting, Alchemy, or Sneak.

Sell the PS3 copy and buy the PC version.

Join the Imperials. I joined the Stormcloaks, and i'm halfway the questline now, but I start to hate them.

Purchase a different game

Lol, just kidding.

Great game and I love it. It has some quirks, but nothing I can't "console" around.

OP, you're doing it right. I got my first character to level 10, and after studying all the perks (and the areas they go in), I deleted that character and started anew. I'd decided where to put perks and where not.

My assassin/thief/archery/sneaky girl is now level 43 and doing well; and I also have pure destro and conjurer mages (mid-30s levels), and an orc warrior in waiting (level 20-something).

Deciding where to use your perks is one of the bigger decisions you make in this game.

I also recommend playing at least two characters, they must be different types - and as soon as possible on different quest lines, and they should be exploring different parts of Skyrim. Switch every day between them. Keeps the game fresher and it will last longer. I'm closing in on 500 hours played, and I don't play as much as I used to.

Good luck.

Switch sides then, there areva couple times you can switch during quest line.

Make quests in Windhelm before starting the civil war quest line. Wait for a good anti-DB mod before visiting the kid. Also wait for mods(or DLC) that might give alternatives to some quests, including the thieves guild.
There might be others too but they don't come to mind right now.

Avoid horribly imbalanced skills like blacksmithing.

The only two things I regret are killing Cicero and doing the Civil War quests before the MQ

I would avoid a few of the Daedric quests and the Civil War altogether. I would also kill a certain person in a certain abandoned shack...

I did start over today haha...i started over because i discovered a game breaking exploit that makes overpowered sound weak
I'm starting fresh with a barbarian nord build and i'm gonna stick to rp with this 1...only meat and mead for me, no fancy potions or daedric armor/weapons. I think a skyforge steel battleaxe will do nicely all game once i can get 1

I'm always starting over as it is. lol

I would join the stormcloaks, use a one handed warrior build, not using any potions just food, and no blacksmithing, alchemy, enchanting, or magic. Come to think of it this sounds like fun, lol....

I've got 4 characters on the go now, so I'm far past the "what would I do differently stage". However, here's a few lessons I learned on the way.

1) Don't use a Guardian Stone that buffs XP for your primary skills
2) Leave your follower at the entrance to a dungeon if you don't want them getting in the way
3) Walk to all the major holds and High Hrothgar at least once in a while. As big a fan I am of fast travel, the random encounters, and exposure to Skyrim's vastness really are worth it.
4) Don't bother looting stuff below a certain weight/value threshold.
5) Don't rush!