Beginner pitfalls to avoid

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Makes you wonder if they designed hard mode with the assumption that players would be suffering from vertigo from watching all that dazzling scenery. If I had my way I'd make it so that hard mode dragons were constantly flying to and fro just above you, forcing you to look up constantly and hopefully triggering dizziness and/or causing your character to fall off cliff.

Though I concede the land of Skyrim is pretty awesome.

 

All in all, I'm pretty pleased that the game delivers on the premise that most archetype characters can be played without all too huge differences in how hard it is to get things done.

Although Baldur's Gate series has received good criticism for the ability to play as any character and yet expect to complete the game, I just can't bear the clunkiness of some play styles. Dual wield is cool but makes any sort of ranged attack a chore, spells and a handfull of novelty items excluded. Stealth is hugely powerful but fails miserably against many of the Really Tough Dudes (tm) and/or plays hazard on the game scripts. And no matter what you play as, you have other teammates to negate your weak sides. (Soloing is a different beast altogether, of course.)

Not so in Skyrim. All but the purposefully ill-chosen skill combinations get you a character well suited in tackling what the game throws at you. Even if you never, ever physically hit anything yourself, there's usually a method of bringing down the opposition. An oil lamp hanging above a puddle of oil just waiting to be dropped amongst the horde of skeletons waiting there in ambush; repeating pressure-sensitive traps swinging a spiked door or a log/ejecting darts/causing a roaring flame; Fus-ro-dah'ing mobs off cliffs and into traps. Sure, some of these would take some serious time, but you CAN. That by itself is no small feat in a game as vast as Skyrim.

Now, of course there are some WTFBBQ moments out there. Like, why can't you pay a Blacksmith to sharpen your blade or improve your armor so that you don't need to do it yourself? The difference between base items and Flawless anything (available to anyone with nothing but the skill, no perks, no potions, no enchants) is mighty huge already. Suspense of disbelief takes a grievous hit when the acclaimed Master smith, the true pinnacle of anything Blacksmith Eorlund in Whiterun sells you the same crude stuff any apprentice anywhere else.

Poisons are a nice idea, but since you get exactly one use out of them (two with perks, whee) per pop, doesn't that sound oddly.. expensive? Surely a seasoned poison cook should be able to concoct something that can at least approach the durability of an average enchant, with much cheaper ingredients to boot. At least put them poisons on a reasonable timer, say 60 to 180 seconds per application?

Finally, there's something horribly wrong about destruction spells in general. Considering the extra resource cost (mana), wouldn't it be prudent to at least expect similar dps to someone using a half-decent bow?

 

Still way better than Oblivion, now can you actually do dmg with spells and the fact that dual cast stuns EVERYTHING you can kite indefinitely or simply keep the target stunlocked with low mana cost spells, potion chugging or enchanting abuse.

While I like you to some extent miss the ability to buy enchanting or enhancing services that possibility would kinda make the professions themselves redundant so I can see why they removed it from the game.

As for poisons I am starting to get some pretty nasty poisons now, poisons who stun for 10+ seconds combined with 60+ dmg is nasty but the worst are the lingering damage ones. I have poisons which does 150dmg over time and another 60 immediately and I am not even maxed or using a full set of fort alchemy gear. Sure they are worth hundreds of gold but money isnt exactly an issue and they are fairly easy to make.

 

Poisons are particularly useful for their debuff effects: slow, resistance penalty, etc. The extra damage to HP is just icing when my concoction does something like destroys all the target's mana and stamina, forcing boss-level mages to try and kill my minions with their +0 rusty daggers.

Destruction is deadly with alchemy. Alchemy boasts a +% destruction damage potion, and a -% elemental resistance poison. Combine with Restoration, Necromage and Vampirism (vampires count as undead, potion effects count as enchantments). Dual-cast stun is just too powerful, and it even works on Alduin.

Making poisons is easy once you have enough capital to go and visit every hold in Skyrim for supplies, selling just a few potions to cover the costs.