Prior to the release of DLC material, I acquired the platinum trophy. In other words, I'm not new to the game and understand a great deal about its mechanics. This knowledge doesn't prevent from being paralyzed with indecision -- more or less, what to do. Let me explain.

01. To gain access to the best steed in the game, the PC must join the Dark Brotherhood and complete that quest line.

02. To gain access to the wealthiest merchants, the PC must join the Thieves Guild and complete that quest line.

03. To gain access to the most powerful spells, the PC must join the College of Winterhold (Mage School).

04. To become a werewolf, the PC must join the Companions.

05. To have largest supply (more choices) of souls to fill the Azura's Star with Grand Souls, it's better to obtain the dark version. Mammoths are the only souls I know of that are Grand for the light version.

So, there you have it. A player wanting things to make sense can effectively be paralyzed and effectively winds up with the same character every single play through. I don't want to limit myself to merchants that only carry 1500g; nor do I desire to invest perks into the Speech tree -- the most unnecessary perk tree in the game. And yes, I want the best horse I can have along with access to the only followers that level beyond 50 -- DB Initiates. I really could care less about the werewolf; but it's fun and useful in some situations. Finally, what is the point of getting 100 in Illusion if the master instructor is tucked away inside the College of Winterhold and never goes for a brew in town?

I also have problems deciding whether I should purchase the spells I need to start with --- like calm and courage -- or find them naturally.

No matter how I start out, I always Sneak, melee, use Bows, and cast protective and healing magic. It's hard to get away from. Oh yeah, let's not forget about Smithing and Enchanting. I got to have that too.

So, how do you go about dealing with these issues in your own game?

Edit: I also tend to make a bee-line for Falkreath to obtain property before heading to Whiterun. (PS3, Base game and Hearthfire).

As you i got the platinum long time ago, in the journey i made a "too mix skilled character", in the end, i don't like it very much, to gain the platinum i concentrate on skill/quest that in honesty not very interested.

Now i delete the save (don't mention the hours, you blame me as fool!), installed all the dlc, and begin a character as i would like for the first time.

My choice? Never use fast travel (call me crazy, but it ruins the game, in my opinion), never use any spell (sorry friends mage, but in skyrim i dislike magic spells), and use only the skill i want to use (goodbye alchemy).

So i am the greatest fan of the new legendary skill system, it allow me to grow up without using useless skill.

Sad to hear no more dlc, hope for new patch as everyone, but fear that we will have no more skyrim stuff after the recent news.

I play different characters each time and don't try and do everything with one character.

If you're only going to have 1 character I can understand the appeal of a jack of all trades but why replay if you're just going to repeat everything?

It's the game structure of the game that let you decide how you play it. It's not so open as you think or you believe it is.

Yes you must fulfill some conditions, and then you will be honored accordingly. !!!! (as you say on your five observations.)

The base idea of this game is pretty simple, and yes that makes the whole game a little repetitive after a while.

As you say (I always Sneak, melee, use Bows, and cast protective and healing magic. It's hard to get away from.)

So the only think you can do, is choosing different options in your second walk-trough - they are many of them anyway.

You know my friend, do not take it too seriously, after all it's only a game that last's forever (?!?), and probably it makes a lot of fun.!!!

or you could play an RPG like an RPG. Wow! What a concept!

I appreciate those who have chosen to provide an outlook to the question posed. However, I knew someone would come along and make a comment similar to Curate's. The problem with comments like that is the game doesn't allow for it for the reasons mentioned above and quests that send you places you must have an affiliation with in order to complete ( there is one I know of given by the mage at Mistveil Keep). And your comeback is to easy to detect -- "You can choose not to do those quests or follow up on any quests placed in the journal automatically -- like join the legion." That is a true statement. But, unlike you, I don't want a ton of lingering quests in the journal that I can't get rid of. It's a nuisance.

I'm trying not to take it too seriously. I'm even trying to play straight and not cheat. I haven't made use of the chest in Dawnstar. I will cast spells over and over to raise the necessary stat since there is a lack of methods to practice. To be honest, without grinding skills in some way, the player finishes the game way before reaching level 81. So please, refrain from comments that are -- oh I don't know -- umm obvious.

It's almost like me taking you to a Mexican resteraunt and telling you to role-play that it is Italian. But, you just can't get that Mexican taste out of your mouth and have a hard time keeping it Italian.

1. That "Best Steed" is connected to the DB, from earlier games already, so where the hell did you expect to find it? Its found where its supposed to be found. Well, given to you, not found..

2. Thats 1 of the benefits for being a thief so you could sell more of your stolen items as there are far fewer merchants who buy stolen goods than there are normal vendors across Skyrim, so again, expectable situation

3. Well, where else would a mage hope to learn the highest level spells anyway? So yet AGAIN, its absolutely normal

4. Now this 1, i do agree there should be a secondary method to contract lycantrophy besides the Companions. While the werewolf business is all their main topic, there couldve been atleast some random wilderness encounters with werewolves in which you can get the disease, or something like this.

5. There are more creatures with Grand souls. The soul levels are dependant on the level of enemies, f.e. Draugr Death Overlords should provide Grand souls etc. But obviously there are more human enemies than creatures, hence the black start being faster method of gaining them, yet somewhat boring IMO

you clearly have misunderstood the whole concept of Skyrim... one does not simply finish it. one does NOT need to get to level 81... one does not need to complete every single quest you can get yourself on to, if you dont want a cluttered journal, dont pick up the quests in the 1st place. as you said in your OP, you "understand a great deal about its mechanics" so this should not be an issue for you now should it?

however your "great deal of knowledge" seems to be more along the lines of "LACK of any kind of knowledge or independant thinking ability on this game"

Yes avoiding core game mechanics can be difficult I suppose.

How did I solve it?

I platinumed with a day one 400hour character, then walked away from the game, simples.

There is a difference to understanding the general game mechanics and knowing everything there is to know about the game because one eats, sleeps, and breathes everything there is to know about Skyrim. You obviously mistake me for an utter fan-boy.

@Litter1 - I don't really disagree with your statements. However, in Oblivion, master instructors weren't necessarily kept away from the player. I could be mistaken about the mage's guild.

@Prowler690 -- Umm, 400 hours? I'm guessing -- which is always a bad idea -- you have every DLC and obtained level 81 with your day one character. Otherwise, you would have walked away once "completing" the core game. You wouldn't have held on to your day one character and completed every single dungeon in the game. Kudos for being a completionist. That is your cup of tea -- not mine. I merely want to have fun with the game and not feel the imaginary pressure to do things that is Bethesda. Many of the things you hear in Skyrim are rumors and should have been tracked as such and not quests. That's my opinion. Maybe you disagree.

Examples of Rumors that given as quests:

Azura's Statue

Join the stormcloaks

Join the legion

Mistwatch

Aventino

Visit the College of Winterhold

Those are pieces of information you obtain through conversation or random events -- not quests you sought out. Tracking these things as quests actually plays upon the natural tendency of individuals to "complete" lists. Therefore, Bethesda is actually nudging the player to "do" things. Once again, you don't have to and can choose to ignore. But every time you look at your quest list, there those items sit waiting for your attention. You don't think that wasn't done on purpose? You don't think they spent several hours in discussion talking about it?

And Prowler690, Why should I have to work my butt off to avoid Brynjoff in Riften? Shouldn't the player have some "control" over whom they interact with? The same goes for the guy leaning against the post that initiates a conversation the second you walk into his trigger zone. Yes, you can avoid these things if you know of their existence. I don't contest that. I contest the mere fact that they are forced upon me.

I'm aware that there will be no more work done on Skyrim. Bethesda has moved on. It doesn't mean the product has been left in great shape. And my problems may not exist for you. But, I'm sure you have a list of your own.

And how you imagine, that the game would be good enough for you. (i only asking, so don't get me wrong... )

I mean the greatness of that game is exploring the waste land of skyrim and find different kind of challenges.

Otherwise it would be a 30 hours game only, and i thing that was not the primary purpose from Beth, anyway...

If you want a more linear game with more substantial engine core you should try Demon's Souls and Dark souls, instead.

"Those games has a more minimalistic plot. Events and their significance are often implicit and left to player interpretation rather than fully shown or explained.

Much of the story and lore of the world is given to the player through dialogue from characters within the world, item descriptions, or the scarce cut-scenes.

It is up to you to put the pieces together."

Nope, I have none of the DLC's, I refused to spend any more money after the long running and sometimes extremely heated disagreements some of the members here had with Beth over what was advertised as the Skyrim experience on PS3 and what we actually got. Not revisiting the proven poor performance, ignorant PR twitter statements, getting called out by IGN, inflammatory pictures at games award events etc etc but suffice to say I found myself done with the game after completing the vanilla game and haven't moved beyond patch 1.05.

My 400 hour character is not L81 but you are right I am normally a bit of a completionist in my games but oddly enough I have no inclination when it comes to Skyrim (A proof of the pudding being more sour than sweet maybe?) - Note that I have played Elder Scrolls games since Daggerfall and Skyrim has had the shortest lifespan by over 12 months compared to Morrowind and Oblivion so it's not as if I only play RPG's casually.

I agree you shouldn't get railroaded or nudged along certain quest paths in an "Open World RPG" but Skyrim has proven to be more of a stepping stone minefield game where if you take a "Wrong" path you end up in a bug explosion. Beth PR said long ago that the way you play can affect the performance of your game - I mean HUH? explaining that gets you into a world of sloppy code arguments hurt so not going there.

Yes my game had issues, stuck quest items, quests I couldn't clear, questlines I know I couldn't touch as they would bug out, I just ignored them and called the Platinum trophy closure.

I don't necessarily disagree with the points you are making but I don't think you will get satisfaction either unless you can take a character, decide what it will do in the main and just accept that there will always be "Uncharacteristic" actions and requirements to be dealt with.

What Prowler said... I would add that the writing and design of quests actually make you play a character that is "evil". An example is: There is no alternate reward for doing any of the Daedric quests and resisting the Lords and doing the "right" thing. Also... You have to become a werewolf to eventually "cure" the companions. There's no option to help them without becoming "infected", even though you can do the whole questline without really using your werewolf powers. I have sited other instances in the game over many posts (as has Prowler).

BETH was just lazy with Skyrim all the way around... period.

Edit: Oh and you definitely cannot ..."go anywhere and do anything" or "explore, explore, explore". These play styles will break the game. Open World? That's a laugh.

Nice summation Trainwrecker mate, I don't think an alignment such as Lawful Good was ever thought about as something people would like to play.

Also, given the nature of Skyrim and the majority of the forums in here......

How the hell did we get saddled with pink hearts as a ranking graphic?

Bethesda's ego trippin?

If I had to take a guess at the hearts, I'd say it's like this: you're dealing with the folks who beta tested 9 Bethesda patches over nearly a year and a half, most of whom also bought and played the game in its original state with only the day one patch and, as a result, lost one or more of their characters due to broken questlines.

And then, on top of that, even when the patches and support started rolling in, they had to deal with the backwards flying dragons, the broken magic resistance, the water crashing, etc. And to this day, even after nine patches, somewhere, at this exact moment, some poor sod is about to put a hood on his/her vampire character that's going to make him/her go bald and there's *nothing we can do to stop them*.

So, let's face it, if any group of people in a video game forum deserves to be tagged with the universal symbol for stamina, fortitude, and endurance, it's the folks in the Skyrim forums who went through all that and are *still playing Skyrim*. =) At least, that's the way I see it anyway.

nice speculation, if not concidering the fact most people on these forums joined this place way before Skyrim's release...although recently there has been a rise in noob accounts for some reason

You know, you're absolutely right, And, for that very reason, In order to compensate for the fact that most of the accounts predate Skyrim, I was just about to submit a post earlier that started out by pointing out some of the most notable glitches in Gridiron!

It would have eventually delved into discussing some of the major bugs in Arena, and proceeded to briefly summarize every single possible problem anyone could have conceivably ever had with every Bethesda game ever made before finally making the lighthearted point that maybe the hearts were a reward for people's patience. Unfortunately, that post would have been 137 paragraphs long, and, overall, I felt that the buildup to the joke was excessive relative to the punchline, and so I edited it down to what I actually posted.

I started to leave it in its entirety anyway, but I said to myself something along the lines of "well heck, I'm posting this in the Skyrim forums, not the 'every Bethesda game ever made' forums. Surely I won't need all 137 of those paragraphs to make the point. I'll just talk about the problems with Skyrim and Skyrim alone, even if it means I might not sum up every single experience that every single forum member might have had with a Bethesda game. I mean, it's just a joke anyway, what'll it matter?"

That was clearly a miscalculation on my part and I apologize. =)

dont worry i did get the idea already..im just a smarta** like that i guess

LOL looks like someone agreed with me, we clearly are stars for sticking with things for so long.

Don't you go fluffy on me now.

Ooh gold stars now, we are blessed