Well it's official. I cannot make up my mind. It makes me sad when I see people talking about how cool it is when they reach level 66. I have tried playing the typical Nord with sword and shield, I've tried going ranger with bow in hand and I have tried going full on destruction mage. Now I am finally playing a great sword, wielding Orc. Knowing me, I will probably change my mind at level 9. (average mind changing level)

I'd like to know how many play styles you guys went through before settling on one?

I've mostly stuck to the main character, which I had decided upon before release. I have a 2nd alt, because the lag issue is starting to creep up on the first (PS3... sigh...)

Maybe you haven't invested enough into your character... do you consider personality, motivations at all rather than just statistics. It helps if you feel a personal connection to the character rather than looking at abilities.

It may also help to vaguely plan how to approach the game. My main decision was to be noble, bright and bold with a single character, warrior/companions/legion, and my second, will be thieves/dark brotherhood/wizards, and choosing quests that fit each archetype, rather than "try to do everything with one character".

Anybody who tries to do it all with one character, often has problems when they are overpowered and they blame the game.

As Cerddor said, I think you need to invest more time in one char'.

Also, hi Cerddor, nice to see another Newcastle player!

It's odd, because usually I'm the sort who make multiple characters fairly quickly. I don't delete any, but I start to get curious what the other races or builds might play like etc.

But in Skyrim, so far I've stuck to the very 1st chr. I made. I don't know if it's because the lack of "classes" means I feel less like I made a mistake, or if I've mellowed over the years, or if it's something else, but yeah...haven't had the urge to constantly restart this time. It's kind of refreshing, for me. I don't know if I'll reach the 50's before restarting, but probably at least the 40's. I'll definitely make other characters...I'm just not in a hurry this time.

I dont blame the game, the game blames me. I just did the quests from the first 2 citys I visited and reached about level 40 or something and had the dragonarmor already. Now I'm 62 and just reached my 5 city, Rifton. The levelsysthem is to imbalanced. They should make a game without any "max-skill", so you'r not forced to hunt for some "points", you just could play your gamestyle the whole game, without becoming overpowered :dance:

Zero.

I have only made 1 character and I am still playing him.

I am the type of Elder Scroll player who makes 1 guy, and if I want to try a new way to play the game, I train that one guy in other skills until eventually I am a Jack-of-All-Trades.

I think you guys are right. Level 9 aint the best time to up and leave. So I shall now start one more time, except this time I will make a few important decisions before I start.

I always start out a new TES game with a sneaky, light armored bow + sword/shield character. And that's what I have. I like this toon, so restart-itis hasn't kicked in yet.

Apologies, my comment wasn't meant as a dig. I've more or less done the same as you, 30 hours of gametime, except I've just hit my third city and I'm level 20, and I'm in dwarven armour, so I haven't really felt the level system unbalanced at all. It makes it very hard to understand the problems others have had, approaching the game differently.

But I really don't think the game was ever designed with a single character experiencing the whole content of the game, and master-of-all-trades mentality.

EDIT: Hai Naevy! Geordie Nords in ur Skyrim looting ur caves!

Im about to restart because I am already level 32 and have done the complete mages guild. Its not that I wanted; I just did one quest every 10 hours and suddenly it was over?

Now Im thinking about restarting with a slower leveling mod.

I've started 5 characters...however I always seem to go back to my first one, a dual-wielding nord in heavy armor...he's lvl 32 now and makes minced meat of anything foolish enough to attack him.
To balance it out a bit I turned up the difficulty and gave him some lower lvl gear. He now dual-wields a skyforge steel axe and sword (enhanced to legendary with smithing), enchanted nordic steel bracers and boots and fur armor (the one with the bare upper body)...oh and an Ancient nordic helmet
Now, not only does he look SOOO cool...I also have to think instead of just hacking and slashing away, against the more powerful enemies. Imperial Soldiers still die like flies, but what can you expect? *shrug*

I did around 10 different destro mage builds ... still looking for the right one.

I've gone through 3 characters so far, but I played each fully through they're given stories. Did my first sword and board Nord character to go through the fighters guild and main quest. Had my Imperial Thief/Assassin go through the Thieves Guild and Dark Brotherhood. And Lastly had my full on Altmer Mage go through the Mages Guild.

With the big stuff out of the way, I've gone back, and made a new character with a race I've NEVER played before, a Khajiit. He looks almost like a Black Panther, and his name is Do'khaj (lame I know, but I like to think it translates to "warrior of the desert" or "desert warrior" for short. Not much of a Khajiit language buff, considering this is my first.) He's a mixture of what I liked out of all the playthroughs so far. He's a Hunter, a Thief when he has those moments of greed, and a Warrior/Mercenary. Due to his greedy nature, he doesn't mind taking the odd job for some extra coin, but he's also very prideful, so anyone that makes a snide comment may find either a knife in their back, or an arrow in their face. He specializes with the bow, and is great at sneaking and stalking his prey, where his hunting nature comes into play. But that doesn't mean he can't hold himself in battle when it starts going south. While he may like to use two daggers for quiet work, he'll use a Sword and Board when the action gets heavy. However, what gives him a unique appearance, is the fact that he doesn't like to wear armor that isn't fur/leather in origin. So he resorts to Light Armor only, and Scale armor being the highest grade he'll go. Not only this, but he hates helmets. I don't know why, haven't been able to get a single word out of him about it yet, but he just hates them. So he wears a hood that he bought from a mage a while back (don't like the current light armor hood equivalents, they hug the head too tightly for my liking. Blame Assassin's Creed for my need of baggier hoods. xD) He's currently joined the Companions (and for spoilers sake, lets just say he's always wondered what it would be like, if you catch my meaning).

http://cloud.steampowered.com/ugc/595828491700148931/5F8197CCCE930EAAE85369B377AEF23D3B51222F/

But yeah, I'm sorry I rambled a bit, but you wanted to know about the playstyles I went through to get where I am. I'm currently loving this character MUCH more than any other that I've EVER created in ANY Elder Scrolls game (tis probably due to the uniqueness I've given him.) I love being able to be a hunter, stalking through the woods and dropping prey nearly without a sound. I also like sneaking up close and personal, pickpocketing the occasional bandit before I slit their throat, just to test my skills. But I also like having the option of being able to play a warrior, being one of those at the frontline in a pitched battle, or staying back and acting as a support with my bow. I however don't really care much for magic with this character. It's not that I didn't like it, it's more of that it just felt TOO surreal for me when I'm flinging spells and raising the dead. It's my personal preference, though. I've never really been a mage type person, but I would be lying if I said that I didn't have fun with it.

For those of you that are wondering how my character specializes in so many skills, it's cuz I do cheat with the perks. I give him an extra perk every other level, just so he doesn't fall behind due to spreading my skills out.

To the OP, if you're having trouble sticking with a character, try giving them some kind of special characteristic. Maybe he was in a bad accident as a child and can't use his left arm for anything, ever (a bit too drastic, but it's an example.) Give him a characteristic that you like, or maybe that you would find funny in situations, or heck maybe even a characteristic that you hate (sometimes that works for people -shrug-). As for the actual playstyle issue... all I can say is just keep experimenting till you find what you like, or can at least deal with. You may just need a character that you can get more attached too, I don't know.

Exactly like me. I call it a Ranger (from AoC)

I'm kind of the same way. I first started a regular melee dual wield/sword and shield Red Guard and I kind of liked it, but it all got repetitive and then I saw everyone else's awesome mages and stuff. I got to a certain quest point, around level 8, and it was glitched so I couldn't progress any further into the main quest. So, I started over as a High Elf pure mage and I'm loving it so far, but...I had the urge to start over again as perhaps a dual dagger assassin or some kind of archer. I just wonder how they all play, so I know exactly how you feel. It's a curse. Good luck, man. You'll eventually find your play style...Eventually.

I have two that I started with, took them both to about level 7 and then picked the one I liked the best. My Orc Artificer (blacksmith, enchanting, two-hander, and heavy armor). I liked this one the best because when it came to hand to hand it was just fun to one hit bandits. Now that I'm up in the upper teens it's becoming challenging as I branch out into other skills.

Eventually I will make another character, trying to decide between a sneaky necromancer or a board and mace priest/cleric build. I just love how this game lets you do almost anything that you want...

0. First char is perfect, same char as in every TES game at the start.

However I also wanted to try magic, so when my main char hit 41 and was trouncing everyone on Master difficulty, I decided I would try a new char.

I think i've broken all 3 builds i've tried. I really need something I can't break =/

1) DW light armored tanky dps. Ran into some problems beating quests so I maxed smithing. got the light dragon armor and 2 daedric swords all upgraded to legendary when i was ~ lvl 22ish.
2) Destruction mage. Ran into problems with sustainable casting (gotta fix in combat magicka regen!) and ended up using 100 enchanting to make destruction spells free.
3) Dual daggers/bow assassin. I didnt allow myself to use smithing or enchanting. Ran into problems getting through combat alive after being detected, so i picked up illusion and leveled it to 75 for invisibility. I haven't been hit by anything since.

I love min/maxing but it just breaks this stupid game in SOOOOO many combinations! I'm going to complete more content on my assassin so i learn the quest lines a bit better, then i'm going to reroll.

http://www.ign.com/builds/the-elder-scrolls-5-skyrim?d=00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000011110111121010101111130000000000000000000511111005111111110000000005011

This is my plan for my next char. I'm going to limit myself in the following ways:
1) No making potions just for cash. Too easy to make tens of thousands of septims without killing anything.
2) No enchanting, period. There's just no way around it; enchanting is too f'ing powerful in this game. I will use the enchants that i find.
3) No blacksmithing, period.
4) No DB or thieve's guild.
5) Master difficulty

I kind of like the dwarven armor look, especially the shield, so I'll probably stick with that deep through the game. Alteration will provide my "oh [censored]!" buttons at master level, and the oerks add to general survivability against enemy mages. Restoration will be heavily used, since I plan on spending a lot more time exploring dungeons (in other words, killing tons of undead) than doing faction quests.

LMAO - I do this ALL the time.... I have gotten beyond 20+ level and then started over. As a result I'm sticking around Whiterun b/c I don't want to see too much of the game piecemeal with different characters.

I often will be happily playing and then stumble across someone, like a Vigilant of Stendarr, and then I get a jones to roleplay a completely different person. I have multiple characters - but would really like to pick one to go through the game entire for once.

I feel OCD.

J

To the OP: Welcome to my world.

It's just terrible to play like this. I know. But I finally think I settled with my sneaky archer. Level 14 now

Please take note I said 'think'.

im on my 3rd. first was a mage, restarted at lvl 8 cuz mage seemed hard to master so i wanted to be a warrior to learn to be an effective mage later. got level 40 on my warrior with 100 smithing (but no enchanting/alchemy) and restarted as assassin archer because i was using a bow more on my warrior and liked it, plus I had done a lot of the storylines (DB, Compansions, Stormcloak civil war side) and got the explorer trophy on that one so I didn't want to "beat" the game and all that jazz so I made archer assassin. Only problem is I need to raise smithing to get a better bow. I find it not very assassin-like to take 3 shows with an orc bow + steel arrows to kill an armored thug at 2x dmg (almost at perk for 3x dmg). I may just end up doing the 15x dagger damage, that should be fun.

I tried that sneaky playstyle. Your options are:
1) Be too easy to spot. You can kill a couple of things in a room quickly, then get spotted and hope you can take them down before they get to you. Going from 3x bow damage to 1x means you're grossly underpowered after you get spotted.
2) Be really difficult to spot. You kill everything in the room without them able to find you. Grossly overpowered. Bosses will just stand there, looking confused.

If you want to be sneaky and use a bow, you need a melee face to face skill to compliment it, otherwise you're stuck with the second option, and the game is just ruined. Daggers are awesome looking for assassinations, but if you're too sneaky the game ends up being broken just like option 2, above. IMO you might make this playstyle fun if you only put 1 point into the first stealth skill and go up the right side, then only use stealth to kill the first bad guy in the room. After initiating combat with one enemy down, switch to sword and shield and be a scrappy, tanky, agile dpser.

Just a warning: relying too heavily on sneaky bow or dagger assassinations results in being way too underpowered or way too overpowered. Hitting a boss for 1/4 his health in a single bow shot and then not being able to take him down svcks. Hitting a boss 4x for 1/4 his health each time while he just stands there svcks just as bad.

I'm on my 5th character; my last one I got to lv 52 when I decided I wasn't happy with it. The others, in descending order, were levels: 36, 24, 22, 13

I have yet to get higher than level 24 before needing to restart. I will likely not be satisfied until the CK is released. I simply level to fast for my liking.

I really dislike playing an over powered character. When I am almost halfway to the soft cap and I have not even touched 90% of the game world... then I feel overpowered and need to restart.

My first mod will be to cut the speed of levelling in about half. I hate being level 10 by the time I even make it to Whiterun.