# Teach me to enjoy Skyrim? What did you like about it? **URL:** \ **Category:** The Game Room\ **Created:** [February 9, 2013, 10:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teach-me-to-enjoy-skyrim-what-did-you-like-about-it/649778 "2013-02-09T10:57:47Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![SenorBeef](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senorbeef/32/2220_2.png) [@SenorBeef](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SenorBeef)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2013, 10:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teach-me-to-enjoy-skyrim-what-did-you-like-about-it/649778/21 "2013-02-11T10:13:48Z")
> [@Jragon](#): > > Well… unless you have the computer from heaven and are willing to spend hours fiddling with graphics mods. Skyrim is actually super easy. You don’t need a “computer from heaven”, my video card is pretty long in the tooth now but I can run the game at max detail at 2560x1440 with like 15 graphics mods and never drop below 60 fps. It’s not challenging at all for a PC to run even a heavily modded skyrim. It’s also super easy and requires almost no tweaking. You can just click “subscribe” in the steam workshop and have the mod automatically installed, or use the nexus mod manager, click the link for the mod, and click “activate” within the manager. Ignoring download time, you can go through someone’s recommended list of graphics mods and have them all installed with about 5 minutes worth of fiddling. Or if you use someone else’s compilation of steamworks, about 5 seconds. ---
**Author:** ![Plumpudding](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/edb3f5/32.png) [@Plumpudding](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Plumpudding)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2013, 11:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teach-me-to-enjoy-skyrim-what-did-you-like-about-it/649778/22 "2013-02-11T11:41:39Z")
> [@Dave\_Hartwick](#): > > Here’s my tips for enjoying Skyrim more: > > 1. Turn up the difficulty. People are complaining about the dumbed-down combat, so unless you’re already on Master, you probably want to turn it up. The higher difficulties mean you have to rely on resources like potions and powers, and sometimes even retreat from a dungeon, returning only after leveling up. To me the combat feels quite like how Oblivion felt, in that there’s quite a lot of stuff happening, but none of it makes the combat feel any more fluid than say Morrowind. To me at least, the combat feels static and unresponsive. Popping potions, switching between gear spells actually slows the combat down because of the UI(what happened to just using a hotbar?), making it even less fluid. Look at f.ex. Dark Messiah of M&M. It’s not a very good game all things considered, but the combat is amazing. Every encounter can be done in a different way, you can utilize traps, kick people off ledges, into spikes, and even just one on one melee feels incredibly responsive and flexible. If someone tries to, lets say axe you in the face, you can dodge it, you can counter-attack, kick him, block then attack. Every attack has a multitude of valid respones. In skyrim I feel like I’m just clicking a lot, trying to move erraticly and dodge without much succes and then pausing to pop a potion. I will however not call it dumbed-down… it’s not. The combat is just as dumb as Oblivion. Even though skyrim has more complex combat than Morrowind, I feel it’s unnecessary since it’s basically just as static and unresponsive anyway. ---
**Author:** ![hogarth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hogarth/32/1773_2.png) [@hogarth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hogarth)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2013, 4:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teach-me-to-enjoy-skyrim-what-did-you-like-about-it/649778/23 "2013-02-11T16:25:28Z")
I just finished Skyrim (the different guild quests, the main quest and the civil war quest, at any rate) and I enjoyed it. I’ve played Morrowind, Oblivion, Fallout 3 and Fallout: New Vegas (all on the Xbox), so I mostly knew what to expect going in. Out of all of those games, my least favourite was definitely Oblivion. I didn’t find the beginning any slower than the beginning of Morrowind, so I can’t comment on that. And I actually thought the levelling-up system was an improvement over Morrowind and Oblivion. Losing the ability to make your own spells was a slight disappointment, but I adapted to it pretty quickly. I wasn’t a big fan of switching back and forth between weapon/shield and casting, but it added a little bit of tactical interest. The one thing I miss from Morrowind is the story incentive to go through the game multiple times. In Morrowind, you could only join one noble house, but in Skyrim you can get pretty much everything done in one play-through; I suppose you can only support one side in the civil war, but I suspect the quest line is quite similar no matter which side you choose to support. ---
**Author:** ![Sicks\_Ate](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/258eb7/32.png) [@Sicks\_Ate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sicks_Ate)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2013, 4:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teach-me-to-enjoy-skyrim-what-did-you-like-about-it/649778/24 "2013-02-11T16:36:58Z")
I really enjoyed Skyrim for bit, couldn’t wait to get time to play. Then I got to Winterhold, headed off somewere else…and just never loaded it up again. It just wasn’t compelling any more. It was fun exploring, but what do you find when you explore? Another same-old dungeon, stocked with the same-old enemies. I totally agree that there was nothing about the NPCs that drew me in. The quests weren’t all that interesting. It seemed like a lot of the quests were kind of filler. G/f ran out of intersted at around the same time, though she had progressed a little farther. I think I’ll grab a copy of Fallout III and see if I can get her into that. I think FO is a much better game than Skyrim. ---
**Author:** ![Jragon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e19b73/32.png) [@Jragon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jragon)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2013, 11:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teach-me-to-enjoy-skyrim-what-did-you-like-about-it/649778/25 "2013-02-11T23:57:59Z")
> [@SenorBeef](#): > > Skyrim is actually super easy. You don’t need a “computer from heaven”, my video card is pretty long in the tooth now but I can run the game at max detail at 2560x1440 with like 15 graphics mods and never drop below 60 fps. It’s not challenging at all for a PC to run even a heavily modded skyrim. > > It’s also super easy and requires almost no tweaking. You can just click “subscribe” in the steam workshop and have the mod automatically installed, or use the nexus mod manager, click the link for the mod, and click “activate” within the manager. > > Ignoring download time, you can go through someone’s recommended list of graphics mods and have them all installed with about 5 minutes worth of fiddling. Or if you use someone else’s compilation of steamworks, about 5 seconds. Like I said, for those specific mods, the guy has SLI GTX 670s and said the game still runs at 5-8 FPS, so you won’t be getting THAT good performance (though I can say first hand that you can get pretty damn beautiful performance) out of it any time soon. ---
**Author:** ![drewtwo99](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d07c76/32.png) [@drewtwo99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drewtwo99)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2013, 4:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teach-me-to-enjoy-skyrim-what-did-you-like-about-it/649778/26 "2013-02-12T04:10:46Z")
I agree that the plot and characters in skyrim are boring and tedious and there was literally nothing interesting or memorable about the whole game. I did play it and did a few of the guild quests and did the rebellion quest… but, it wasn’t a very memorable game overall. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teach-me-to-enjoy-skyrim-what-did-you-like-about-it/649778.md?page=1)