First impressions

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Playing my stealth character now and having a blast. Staying as far away as possible from the crafting skills except alchemy and I must say that the game gains another level when you actually appreciate and use the gear you find instead of just making better yourself.

I am struggling a bit with alchemy though, I pick up everything I can and see and I try to make potions in big batches with the thief stone and well rested but it is still very slow and the potions are kinda shoddy. Do not have points for a while to put them into the alchemy tree but I am mostly interested in some good poisons. Dragons are pretty rough for my stealthy little thief and some nice lingering poisons would help my terrible aim. I do love to slit the throat of bandits though. Very satisfying.

 

The leveling of Alchemy is a bit borked. Your skill increases depend not on the amount of potions you create but the value of them. (Why, oh why is this not the case for Smithing??) Every point in the first alchemy perk increases the potency of your potions and thus their value, so you're in a bit of a catch 22 situation if you want to level your alchemy without devoting perks to it.

For reference, I'm rather keen on picking any and every ingredient I come across, even making detours to reach some. Still I'm only at around 70 skill in Alchemy.. and I'm already level 59 myself. I do, however, have a sizeable stash of ingredients waiting for the day when I can start devoting perk points into the Alchemy tree. I've only put three perks there to reach Benefactor recently, and a quick "let's make some cash with my exceedingly numerous ingredients" turned into 20+ skill ups, much faster than any other time I've dabbled with it.

Also, Giant's Toe + Wheat. Try it. (Or not if you want to avoid feeling cheap.)

 

To level alchemy effectively you'll need to think like a businessman for a bit.

First you need capital. Picking herbs and catching butterflies is good and all but the bulk of your alchemy ingredients should come from alchemy stores . You'll want to start by buying all ingredients worth 20 gold or less. There are alchemy NPCs in Riverwood (the inn), Whiterun (merchant's square), and major holds like Winterhold and Riften. Visit them as often as you can, like right after doing a quest. Note that some general goods stores also sell ingredients.

When crafting potions/poisons, I suggest you use your most abundant ingredient as your "base". Combine this with other common ingredients that you have, and save the rarer ingredients for later. Once you've run out of common ingredients to test your "base" with, check the tab on the right for the most expensive poisons/potions you can craft (pay attention to which type gives you the most $$). Try combining the ingredients you would need to make that poison/potion with a third ingredient. With a little luck, you should end up with a very expensive combination. There are many alternatives to Wheat + Giant's Toe.
Try to keep an eye out for +alchemy skill items, these improve the strength of your potions (and thus, their value).

It's easier (up until your alchemy skill is a bit higher) if you use the gold you make from alchemy to buy poisons (and even health/mana potions) from NPCs rather than waste ingredients by trying to make them yourself. Poisons tend to sell for lower than even the total value of the ingredients you used to make them, except for persistent effect poisons (slow, HP/MP damage over time, etc).

 

Unfortunately it doesn't appear that I'm going to be able to get into this game. I find that when I'm playing it I'm just thinking of all the more responsible stuff I could be using my time for.

I guess the big open world thing is something that I'm just done with. I used to enjoy this in certain MMORPGs I played a long time ago, but now I'm finding that fighting the random whatever in whatevers-ville is not excactly compelling to me. I've never like first person games much to begin with, but decided to try Skyrim just because it looks so amazing, and has been getting so many great reviews. But alas, this game's hook never managed to snag me. I find the leveling system to be particularly odd.

Maybe I'll find some time to give it more of a chance in the future... but after 5 hours or so of gameplay, I have really no motivation to go any further. Ah well....

 

I thought there was a core storyline? I mean, I know it's open world, but I was under the impression that there was a rather linear quest progression along the main storyline, and how much you branched off from that was largely up to you.

 

There is, but if it's anything like Morrowind or Oblivion, it's rather insubstantial and the general sandbox nature of the TES games undermines any importance that they may try to provoke in the storyline.

 

They have done their best to make the main quest line mandatory and something you feel obligated to do. On your first play through you have to make conscious decisions not to go on it. Not to spoil anything but voices thundering in the sky and heard all over the world summons you to get really started on the main quest. The game does it best to keep you focused and make the main quest interesting without actually forcing you to do it. Hard to RP not to follow the main quest if you have started it. In my current game I have refused to start it which means ignoring the summon from the thunder men on top of the mountain.

But it is a hard thing to balance and at the same time what I like the most in ES games and what I like the least.

 

I am resurrecting this thread only for an "I-told-you-so" moment, by quoting myself fron post #59, where I was responding to DR's whining () over the fact that this forum wasn't very active:

I told you so.