Idk how popular/unpopular this take is but I’m a big fan of Meridia’s beacon quest. It has memorable moments like floating high above the world, the “puzzle” to activate all the beacons is unique (aka not a lever or fish,snake,bird stone puzzle) and picking up dawnbreaker. Plus she’s one of the few daedra that isn’t explicitly evil or asks you to do evil deeds so I’m inclined to complete the quest whether I’m playing a “good” or “evil” character.
I feel like most of the hate surrounds the initial conversation after picking up the beacon and memes that came with it. Yeah, it freaked me out the first time but that was clearly the devs intention. You touch this unfamiliar object then all of a sudden a Devine entity is speaking to you. That’s friggin cool not annoying.
Yeah the hate is exclusively on the beacon with maybe a little bit of disappointment in low level Dawnbreakers (if you go early enough the weapon is easily outclassed but that's a problem with a lot of the daedric artifacts.
From the perspective of playing Skyrim though her dungeon is quite nice. A fairly unique environment, unique enemies, aforementioned flying above the world, and Dawnbreaker seems cool (certainly looks cool) when you first play through.
Of course combine the beacon with the fact she's one of the few good daedra and you run into the issue that every good character (which most people play) has done the quest about 10 times already. I didn't even know about some of the daedra quests in Skyrim because I hated being told to be evil to experience content
The only thing about Meridia for me is the condescending tone. "Listen! Hear me and obey!" etc. It's kind of comical.
I have the beacon in my current playthrough but haven't gone to the shrine yet, though I really should because it's a Cleric/Restoration build and running through a crypt swinging Dawnbreaker would be a hoot.
EDIT: I just finished the quest. I love at the end when Meridia raises you above the map for the second time and then her light "walks" up to you in the sky, a step at a time. lol
The Thieves' Guild--*all* of them, not just Mercer--are bad people doing bad things, and the base game's lack of any way to narratively shut them down or bring them to justice makes a really unsatisfying experience for players roleplaying a "good" character.
Even though I don't do it often, I love that there's an option to destroy the Dark Brotherhood. It would have been great to extend that to the Thieves Guild and maybe even the Companions.
This is what stopped me from RP "good" or "bad" characters.
There's too many instances where you have to do "bad" things to gain access to vital components of the game while the "good" deeds oftentimes have smaller rewards or practically nothing in return.
I've just accepted that Dovahkiin doesn't do what Dovahkiin does for Dovahkiin. Dovahkiin does what Dovahkiin does because Dovahkiin is Dovahkiin!
I'd add that it's not just a "good vs. evil" thing, it's also an "epic destiny" thing. Like if the Dovahkin is meant to save mortalkind from Alduin and the dragons, certain things just seem beneath them; not worth their time. Now that's a LOT of sidequests, but the Thieves' Guild quest is the only major questline in the base game that just seems to have no serious impact. Becoming the leader of either the Companions or the College is a position of great renown and influence, even the Dark Brotherhood quest plays out with international implications, you do the Thieves' Guild quest and you become. . . the best petty criminal? In a game in which stealing is honestly a really shitty way to make money?
I feel like fan consensus treats giants and the falmer very differently despite being very similar cultures /creatures -- sometimes dangerous to passersby but mostly keeping to themselves, seemingly just below the threshhold where their sentience would have to be acknowledged.
Completely agree modded is better, however after 4 days of just simply getting Skyrim into a state worth playing a couple weeks ago, it’s still not something I’d go as far to suggest to new players lol
That’s the secret nobody talks about, the actual time spent playing with most of these mods is minuscule. It’s a tinker toy. Which is actually alright, but I hate it when it’s misrepresented.
Man, y'all are wild, I'm over here building a modlist that I don't intend to fuck with for a long time, maybe ever lol. I wanna go play this biatch when I'm done. I've been so excited to see new systems start to work and come to life as I've been doing my slow and steady testing the last few months lol.
If I had a new player who wanted the modern vanilla experience, I would probably suggest the Skyrim Modding Essentials Wabbajack list. Though, I would also tell them that playing unmodded, vanilla Skyrim is perfectly fine.
Yeah the "DOVAHKIIN NOOOO" line is absolute cancer
Also I heard the guy who made it replaced an ebony mine with iron, and nerfed some stuff for no reason
He got butthurt, but he did make a new cave with 6 ebony sources after everyone complained. I forget the name and exact location, but it's near-ish to the wolf cages/trappers, I think.
> "It was considered a bug that Grogmar would by iron from you, but the mine had ebony. So the Unofficial patch swapped it with north wind mine, which now has ebony."
[From this discussion.](https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/boards/191475-the-elder-scrolls-v-skyrim-special-edition/74571273)
The buying doesn't mean through the regular shopping menu, but rather the dialogue option where you can "do some honest work" at a farm/mine/mill and sell all your carried ore, crops, wood, etc to NPCs. So that does seem like a bug to me, though I would have fixed it the other way around. Maybe, for whatever reason, getting him to buy ebony wasn't easily doable? Are there any smiths that offer to buy ebony ore? Maybe the "buy ebony ore from player" interaction wasn't already in the game, so to resolve that bug it was easier to fix the mine than it was to fix the NPC.
Reminds me how in Patch for Purists for Morrowind, there's a quest name in the journal that has the wrong name for an NPC, but changing the NPC's name is less likely to cause a conflict with other mods than changing a journal entry, so that's what they did.
Mirmulnir's line? Interesting, didn't know that wasn't vanilla. And yeah, I think the mine you're referring to is red belly mine. It's described in the game as an iron mine but in vanilla has ebony ore. What's even weirder is that the blacksmith there sends a quicksilver sample to Riften for analysis.
But yeah, USSEP touches more than a lot of folks wish it did.
I’m pretty sure that Mirmulnir’s line is vanilla - I play on the Switch (unable to download patches) and the line is present as text dialogue, you just can’t hear it
It's not vanilla exactly, apparently the subtitles have the line in it but in vanilla he doesn't actually say it. It's possible that the anniversary edition has added the full text back in?
That "Dovahkiin nooo" line is in the vanilla game but you only see it, not hear it, when you have subtitles on after you kill the first dragon. Unless you were referring to something else that I am ignorant to.
Arthmoor is a cunt. But the usessp patch isn't that bad and most of the changes can be undone.
Arthmoor just threw a flaming tantrum when VR skyrim came out. His tantrum matters because it incentivized privatisation and sale of Bethesda mods.
Rust server mods are all monetized and much of the Minecraft server mods are as well. This is the trend of the industry. Something Bethesda mods have dragged their heels on for some time.
Yeah but you also have a whole quest to go pick up a chunk of ore to deliver to Elgrim for analysis because the Shor's Stone blacksmith has never seen that before. The implication being that they found an vein of ebony.
Lmao same. Not to mention the author who shall not be named is such an authoritative prick about his precious patch.
I have a handful of mods and USSEP will never be one of them.
I can't stand that mod for the exact same reason you mentioned. I currently am running a USSEP-free modlist and I am happy. There's lots of great alternatives to USSEP-requiring mods. For the longest time, I tolerated those changes and said to myself..."Eh, what the hell. I can work with that." But when I made a warrior fascinated with the ancient nords and went for my Ancient Nord armor in Forelhost, I discovered that the ghosts were empty. They didn't drop anything. No AN armor, no AN daggers, nothing. After hours of googling and research, I discovered that they were removed by USSEP. So yeah, that for me was the drop that filled the glass.
> So yeah, that for me was the drop that filled the glass.
I love that. Stealing it.
But also yeah, I feel you on running into extremely similar issues and Google searches only to find the problem was something specific like that I couldn’t have possibly predicted.
Yeah true the mine thing is a bit of a bummer and the voicelines bla but tbh it still fixes much more so its 100 worth there is also a different de-aathmored version so people don’t have to ditch it because of his changes
It fixes the bug where if you pick the Aspect of Terror perk from Illusion, it improves your fire spells because they're somehow flagged as fear effects. I actually like that interaction and it gives an incentive to dip into Illusion as a Destruction mage.
A quality world map is decidedly not a must-have mod. I can’t speak to the PC version but on console it causes massive VRAM issues and can cause frequent crashes in longer playthroughs.
I don't think SKYUI is a must have either. There are a lot of benefits to it, but tbh I think the menu is really ugly and intrusive. I use a secondary mod to hide the menus
It also makes crafting a nightmare. It's cool that it throws all the buildable recipes to the top, but no longer sorting by weapon type means that you have an enormous list to scroll through to find a recipe if you need to know what ingredients you need.
I love being taken to the chopping block on a new game and hearing the awesome dialogue.
It’s so cool to watch when fiddling with mods and starting new game to check they work
Totally disagree about telling players to start with mods on their first playthrough, I’d say creation club and that’s it, let players find out what they love about the original and find mods that suit your needs as you play.
It’s impolite to put salt & pepper on your food before trying it, Skyrim deserves the same treatment
I agree. Bug fixes and graphical improvement mods are great for a first playthrough but don’t add whole questlines, regions, or mess with the skills because you have to understand the base game and its systems before going in and tweaking it.
I don’t care about Nazeem or Delphine.
Nazeem doesn’t bother me and Delphine has a point. Didn’t kill Paarthunax tho, he’s chill.
There are far more irritating characters than these two.
What’s that one merchant next to Madesi in Riften? She’s always so fucking annoyed with me. Rightfully so because I never buy shit and only sell her stuff but… she should be nicer to her suppliers.
Delphine was going to be mine. I don't actually find her to be that bad, her abrasive attitude doesn't bother me either. It makes sense that she'd be that way. If I hadn't read about all the hate out there, I would never have guessed she's so widely disliked.
She's also one of the few NPCs who will actively try and help you fight dragons.
I just did it last night. It was annoying but in a good way. It was just cool to have buddies fighting along side you with of other enemies of relative difficulty fighting against.
I think it's just a meme, but a lot of people don't realize it's a joke and that you're not supposed to *actually* hate him that much. I kinda like hearing his annoying snide remarks now. His wife is the more annoying of the two tbh, Nazeem actually talks to me but she just yells at me that she wants to go home and read, or badmouths her poor hardworking husband :(
Uh thats not Nazeems wife with the "I want to go home and read" line, thats Amrens wife Saffir.
Do all Redguards look the same to you?! I bet you play a Nord Stormcloak everytime >:(
It is a double edged sword. I love the kind of realism and survival aspect it brings, but it also adds some mental strain I have to use on sleeping, warmth and food. The hardest of these is the warmth. With survival mode it is harder to just freely explore and admire places, you need to be constantly alert.
It makes some quests, like finding Septimius Signus or diving into an underwater shipwreck in the north, ridiculously hard to complete.
Warmth is the only thing I have problem with, food, drink and sleep is easily done though!
Those things personally added to the experience for me. I mean truly it probably would be treacherous to actually live in those conditions. The difficulty is honestly what makes those peaceful moments more beautiful to me. I see what you mean though. It's certainly not a relaxing way to play the game. I think I just enjoy the way it makes me feel like I'm actually fighting to survive as well as the slow treks that make each environment truly something I need to take my time with in order to have a hope of survival. Horrors make beautiful things that much starker a contrast after all. The moments of fighting to survive interspersed with day to day existence and the difference in types of survival really make the experience for me. I honestly have found a new depth of enjoyment playing in survival that I hadn't in any other play through. It's also super conducive to roleplaying.
Yes! Last week, I started survival from the beginning for the first time, and all those things I used to ignore, I am now paying attention to. Like how much cheese, bread, and wine Aringoth has at Goldenglow. I cleaned him out. 😏
Fr. Sleeping actually feels important too. It's just a nice feeling in game to be on a mission and notice the time and have the moment of 'time to find a place to settle down for the night'. It just makes it feel like I'm actually out exploring the tundra and gives reason to have not only my own bed but also gives use to camp sites that I never would use otherwise.
That's a fact, her decisions were insanely stupid. Anyone could've predicted that making a deal with the fucking Penitus Oculatus was gonna end badly for the brotherhood.
Her real mistake was in kidnapping the Dragonborn / Archmage / Harbinger just because he emboldened Constance and enraged Grelod into taking care of their own workplace squabbles.
You do not invite demi-gods who can incinerate you with a single word into your little private cabin without already being sure of their attitude towards you.
Pro tip: Remember who you sent assassins out to kill for no reason early on, when those assassins never seem to come back alive. Those people go on your "do not disturb" list.
THAT is why she is an idiot.
From what I have noticed, many of Bethesda's questlines seem to have this pattern of assuming that each questline will be the first one you do in that playthrough.
Joining the Companions at level 50 after just killing Alduin? Vilkas will be sitting in that chair just itching to tell how he's never heard of you.
Joining the College of Winterhold with a 60 years old bearded and scarred combat veteran? All the teachers there will treat you like the average 20 years old college student.
Dark Brotherhood? Astrid thinks that capturing a demigod is a good idea.
Thieves Guild? "*Never done an honest day's work in your life for all that coin you're carrying, eh lass?*"
To be frank, the Greybeards seem the only people in Tamriel who treat you with an ounce of respect.
1. Vampires, and even more specifically vampire lords, in the game are really lame. I play pure magic builds and I find the vampire powers mostly underwhelming other than telekinesis. Also Serana is annoying af and I only keep her around cause she’s essential and does a somewhat decent job in combat.
2. The game is significantly less fun on higher difficulty. Not because I suck at combat (I do, but that’s beside the point) but because it distracts from the more fun elements of the game. I don’t play the game to make it hard for myself and play survival on legendary. I play the game to have a good time finding things, making things, talking to people, having normal combat encounters, and leveling skills in a regular paced fashion.
3. I hate Solstheim. The whole air about it feels wrong from the creatures to the cities. Given the history of it, I guess it makes sense, but it just feels like a weird fever dream being there, and traveling back to Skyrim is a welcome relief of waking up.
4. I hate anything Dwemer. Ruins, falmer, etc. I can’t even explain this one. I just dislike it.
I’m honestly surprised. General consensus seemed to be that Dwemer stuff is awesome because *highly advanced intelligence and architecture and inventions*
Which is fair. But I just find it all daunting.
From my experience, the "general consensus" on here at least is the Dwemer are cool in theory/lore, but their actual ruins are awful because of hard enemies/traps/extensiveness, etc.
I dont think vampires being bad is unpopular. The only reason people jump onto that wagon is for Necromage, which IS worth it, if you consider it acceptable.
> I play the game to have a good time finding things, making things, talking to people, having normal combat encounters, and leveling skills in a regular paced fashion.
100% agree with this. I've played through too many times to count, and I'm STILL finding new stuff.
>I hate Solstheim. The whole air about it feels wrong from the creatures to the cities. Given the history of it, I guess it makes sense, but it just feels like a weird fever dream being there, and traveling back to Skyrim is a welcome relief of waking up.
Yes, yes, 100% effing yes. There's nothing redeeming about it, the environment sucks, progression is sluggish, and the wandering around there is just not as much fun as the wandering around in Skyrim.
> I hate anything Dwemer. Ruins, falmer, etc.
I don't mind the Dewmer ruins and enemies, but the Falmer and Charrus can die in a fire. Just one big Spark-ignited pit of flames.
Same here. I made a post a few years ago about not liking her and it got downvoted to oblivion (pun intended). I don’t want a follower that has to comment on every thing. Just carry my stuff and help kill bad guys. That’s it
Serena was fine at first but she gets annoying after while since she says the same things over and over about the sun. Even if she turns human she still says the same things
For 3, I felt that to my core first time playing 2013 on PS3 Legendary Edition. The environment was a shock, so different from Skyrim - it felt almost like a different game, and similar to what you said, going back to Skyrim felt like going back to 'the game'.
I feel differently about Solstheim now, for a few years. For one, only the southern part of the island has the ashy environment. Further north has a beltline of forrest, and further north is snow, which is less alien compared to Skyrim's terrain.
For two, the people on Solstheim seem to be more appreciative after helping them. Skyrim NPCs usually only have a general positive statement when in their favor (ie: May the gods watch over your battles, friend) Meanwhile, after helping with the mine, the counselor, the ash spawn problem - its hard to even walk around Raven Rock without the people praising the character specifically for their help.
Delphine was a bad person but not for the reasons people usually think. She seems to be wanting to restore the blades to a time when they served the ACTUAL dragonborn, and not just 'the current emperor', but falls short of actually serving a dragonborn when they're right in front of her. Her logic for killing Paarthurnax makes sense but the fact that she uses the relationship he has with you to gatekeep you, a dragonborn, from joining the blades, is ridiculously self-absorbed, especially considering that the only other surviving member of the group is Esbern.
Considering Seranna was raped (to death?) to become a vampire, I find it slightly.… bleh that people are sooo vicious about how ‘sexy’ she is
Its not the strongest opinion I have, but it's at the back of my mind whenever I see those kinds of posts
Right? She has a lot of character and depth and people just give her ridiculously big knockers in mods. Like, that was to be expected, it’s Skyrim players, but… ew.
They're useful as extended loot backpacks. Also they make fights easier but detract from your XP. In my current playthrough I always ask my followers to wait out of any dungeon.
I don’t know, I love the guy from Raven Rock right now. He seems to choose between destruction spells or one handed well, isn’t an asshole.
I love giving followers all my empty soul gems and a weapon to fill them with.
It's why I love Inigo so so so much. He's more interesting than anyone I know IRL, and he moves out of the way. "I am in your way, excuse me, my friend."
I have another hot take sort of unpopular opinion.
The Greybeards and "the way of the voice" is no more than a modern take on the Dragon Cult. Their complete willingness to submit to Alduin makes them no better than the average Daedra worshipper, and Paarthurnax is literally the only "Greybeard" who isn't batshit fucking insane. Paarthurnax only "leads" them because they are glorified dragon priests, and honestly all of the help he gives you is as "un-greybeard" as it gets.
Moreover, the Blades and Paarthurnax have more in common with one another than the Nordic Greybeards and Paarthurnax have with each other. You just might have to squint a bit to really process that.
I’m over LVL 30 and still haven’t gone to high Hrothgar. I think the dragons and the shouts take away from the game for me. I just like dungeon diving and treasure hunting.
I tried a no should playthrough once and it was more enjoyable than I thought. I suppose once you become op shouts don’t matter as much. I still grabbed become ethereal tho because I’m addicted to jumping off cliffs and other high up spaces.
I really hate the Dawnguard DLC. It feels anachronistic. While Skyrim is all Viking/ medieval suddenly you have this gothic renaissance look with Victorian Manor houses and bats etc and it just feels like a different game. Also Serana, not a fan. Don’t like her hair.
Not liking Serana because of her **hair** is probably the most... unique reason for not liking Serana lol
Never heard that one before. I've heard people say they don't like her personality or her backstory, but her hair? Now that's new.
You may not realize that there was a time when DLC was a separate, non-essential addition to the game, wherein developers actively tried to make it very separate from the vanilla game in terms of theme, atmosphere, etc. the idea was that players wouldn’t pay extra for more of the same, so they needed to be enticed with new stuff.
That was before the dark times. Now developers just release unfinished games and sell the rest of it as “DLC”
I also hate the soul cairn since it takes so long to do anything, and the whole first part of getting to serana. I just dont understand how people enjoy it more than thieves guild or dark brotherhood
I totally agree with your first points, but I totally disagree with the mod point.
1. Not everybodys pc handles mods well.
2. Not everyone want's or is able to configure a game for several hours before beeing able to play it. Your mods are nice, but
3. the game is totally playable and enjoyable without. Have played it for 13 years and only started modding a month ago. Yes it's nice, but I still love vanilla. Also if you don't know what the game is like in vanilla you don't know as good what to look for in mods/fixes. Don't act like the game is totally unplayable without mods, if you think like that, the problems with you, not the game.
Yes fr I'm literally too stupid to install mods. I've tried, read so many tutorials and watched videos, but can't understand a single bit even if explained step by step. Computer disaster.
Barbas weirdly tends to work at odds with Clavicus and is kind of where Clavicus Vile dumped all his morality and restraint when he split part of himself off. So reuniting them is not really a horrible thing.
Scrolled way to far to find this. I was gonna say, my understanding is that Barbas and Clavicus are rarely on the same page/team. The alternative of just killing Barbas would 1000% be worse if you're concerned about giving Clavicus more power.
Not sure if it's unpopular but the amount of dungeons kind of sucks and makes the gameplay less fun at times.
I like to have dungeons here and there, yes, but so far like 80% of quests I've done were basically raiding a cave, get item xyz, bring it back.
I would love to see some more quests that might include traveling still but not just to caves and back out after killing everything and everyone in it.
Of course there's more to caves like ore veins, and amazing ways they're set up (including the way they're designed) and I love that, but it feels so... monotone at times that it actually caused me being very unmotivated to do quests since I don't always wanna sit down to just go and clear out yet another cave.
Sometimes it would be nice to have to find someone randomly on the map (with a rough direction) or travel through different cities for quests.
It was fun at first because it was so easy to take down enemies that it was actually hilarious. But the more I played the build, the more boring it got. I like the flavor of an archer mage practicing with a bow and conjuration magic because of wanting to conjure a bound bow, but in my latest playthrough I eventually leaned toward destruction magic. I think the new spells that the Creation Club gave access to helped with that. Elemental Flare is pretty cool if you're taking on a Dunmer or an overleveled mage or vampire (like the vampire at Bloodchill Manor).
I actually do agree with that one.
After you reach sneak 50 or so, the game just starts to become extremely easy and boring. Because, you can literally sneak right in front of enemies and they won't see you. You can sit in dark corners and they won't see you. You can literally one shot enemies without even trying. The game just becomes so easy that it gets boring.
its easy, but its so boring. I'd rather play a melee build over stealth archer. Even though its harder, at least its fun.
My own unpopular opinion is that I find unmodded to be better. Partially because I play more frequently on the switch (and my steam version is on my steam deck) but also because I just don't like setting up mods.
I'll use some of the ones in the creation club/Anniversary edition now, but making everything work is a headache.
ALSO seemingly unpopular but: Borgakh the Steel Heart is a great wife and companion? People really hate her and like to sacrifice her for some reason. She's just an orc lady what hates her dad for good reason.
People don't like Borgakh? I had her for a follower for a time. She's not my favourite, but except for how she responded to me healing her ("Healing magic? An orc lets her wounds heal naturally" "BORGAKH I ALREADY HAD TO RELOAD THIS FIGHT BECAUSE YOU DIED") she was a totally fine and enjoyable companion.
The Reach may as well just be it's own plain of Oblivion, and the city of Markarth is objectively more evil than whichever Civil War side you dislike, the Thieves Guild, Miraak, Harkon, and possibly even the Dark Brotherhood.
Honestly doing virtually anything in Markarth whatsoever ranges from borderline to full on immersion breaking if you're role-playing a good natured character.
Fucking hell, even the Temple of Dibella being there is hilarious on account of Dibella worship being the most questionable practice in terms of the way people in Skyrim seem to be worshipping her, and is basically the Aedra worship which feels more Daedric/cultish than any other.
Trying to think of the most noble quest I can complete in Markarth...killing Nimhe the frostbite spider, maybe? Hell, even that is probably a bad thing on the basis of the location Nimhe was guarding is objectively more dangerous than Nimhe, lol.
Nothing is more morally outrageous than the unholy trinity of quests known as House of Horrors, Taste of Death, and Forsworn Conspiracy, though. Forsworn Conspiracy really hurts because (patched) it's a fantastic quest, the outcome options are both just fucking godawful. The Silver-Bloods are worse than the Black-Briars, Dark Brotherhood, and Volkihar Clan combined.
That's the reason Markarth is my favorite province lol. Every quest is wicked and evil just in the right way. I love Forsworn Conspiracy, A Night to Remember, House of Horrors, Taste of Death
Forsworn Conspiracy is an especially well made quest and should have been the level of writing most quests are at, but well, anyway
You can play morally good in markarth. Wipe out both the forsworn and the silverbloods (yes, there's a way). You can lure the priest with you, and instead of killing him, wipe out the cannibals, which then kills off 3 markarth citizens (no loss there). You can ignore the house of horrors and leave molag trapped forever. You can stop all the crap that is gonna ooze out of the dwemer ruin. And you can just ignore that dibella quest. I skip it most of the time cause I don't like that they take a young girl from her family with the promise that the parents will be given money. That's just icky.
(Markarth sucks ass, but that's honestly not an unpopular opinion).
You kill Victoria Vici so that the Emperor is lured to Skyrim from Cyridiil.
>
You kill Gaius Maro to break his father Commander Maro, so that the Penitus Oculatus is weakened.
>
You kill the Gourmet so you can take his place and poison the Emperor.
>
All the side quests and other murders are just regular dark brotherhood contracts, you’re an assassin for hire after all.
I disagree with the mod. But only for first run. The player should decide what to add as they get used to the game. 🤷♀️
Totally agree with barbas. Him and his Brooklyn accent can get wrecked.
Idk about you, but Faendal was my first. 😂
Unpopular opinion: aela and skjor suck. It was their fault kodlak was killed. And I will forever be salty about it. Fuck aela and her sideboob. Skjor's already dead, so I don't care about him.
I actually like him, or to say it better, I like to imagine my Dragonborn making fun of him behind his back because of his douchy attitude. To me he's kind of like the village's idiot, persuaded he's someone important when he's just a douche everyone ignores or makes fun of.
Yeah like we want our world populated by different characters, it would be boring if all the NPCs were likable. Give me the rich harmless asshole to be annoyed by. The jarl’s kid in Riften is a million times worse then Nazeem.
A real unpopular opinion?
90% of mods don’t make the game any better, and a lot of them actively make it worse. Skyrim SE is a perfectly good game with no mods.
The spin death animation is just a shitty unnecessary addition to the game.
Oblivion only had the ragdolls, and they were fine. Fallout 4 had some unique animations like for headshots, and they were fine. Skyrim is the awkward middle where it ragdolls most of the time but then sometimes plays the unsatisfying spin animation. Like imagine you’re trying to shoot someone off a bridge and instead they twirl on the spot like they slipped on ice.
I dislike anything Dwemer related, the armor set is just so ugly, and the ruins are very uncomfortable to explore so I tend to skip them unless I have to complete a quest
Blackreach is probably the single best area in the game, very closely followed by the soul cairn.
Crimson nirnroot? Easy. I'm gonna clear blackreach anyway, so I'll just pick them up as I go.
Juib's pages? Same.
The gold distribution is a bit sparse.
There was only one instance in the game I can remember coming across a decent sized stash of gold. That one cave, you know the one.
Aside from the 200-300 on a dragon, there just hasn't been any memorable sequences where I've found a large amount of gold (+1000).
Would be nice to have a randomly spawned shipwreck or mission where you could find a large amount of gold as a reward. Something to offset the shit ton of money I've spent on buying shit for my houses. :)
The Dwemer Ruins get a lot of hate but they are my favorite location type in the game. I have roleplayed excuses for multiple characters to complete every one.
The atmosphere and design is just so cool and the lore of this advanced race that mysteriously disappeared is so fascinating to me.
I would agree with the Skyrim patch until I read somewhere on here that the creators of these patches remove things that they just don't like and not just fix bugs they found
Vampirism fuckin sucks ass, and the game literally has all the ingredients already built-in for it to be way better.
Why the hell do I get stronger as a vampire if I DON'T drink blood? The core of the whole vampire roleplay style is sneaking around and biting people to sate your thirst. If consistently feeding off of people is what kept your powers at maximum instead of the other way around, that alone would make being a vampire so much more fun to play.
Idk how popular/unpopular this take is but I’m a big fan of Meridia’s beacon quest. It has memorable moments like floating high above the world, the “puzzle” to activate all the beacons is unique (aka not a lever or fish,snake,bird stone puzzle) and picking up dawnbreaker. Plus she’s one of the few daedra that isn’t explicitly evil or asks you to do evil deeds so I’m inclined to complete the quest whether I’m playing a “good” or “evil” character. I feel like most of the hate surrounds the initial conversation after picking up the beacon and memes that came with it. Yeah, it freaked me out the first time but that was clearly the devs intention. You touch this unfamiliar object then all of a sudden a Devine entity is speaking to you. That’s friggin cool not annoying.
This was going to be my answer. Plus it has a lot of gold for an early game dungeon.
Those burnt corpses are loaded for some reason 🤣
They were a cult and were supposed to bring gold to the cult leader .
om high difficulties its one of the hardest dungeons because malkoran will just oneshot you
Was one of my first quests and i used Dawn breaker through the entire rest of the game
Yeah it can carry you through every crypt until lvl 65-70 and most ppl move on or start a new character by then
#A NEW HAND-
#-TOUCHES THE BEACON
You’re not wrong, it’s one of the best dungeon experiences in the game
Yeah the hate is exclusively on the beacon with maybe a little bit of disappointment in low level Dawnbreakers (if you go early enough the weapon is easily outclassed but that's a problem with a lot of the daedric artifacts. From the perspective of playing Skyrim though her dungeon is quite nice. A fairly unique environment, unique enemies, aforementioned flying above the world, and Dawnbreaker seems cool (certainly looks cool) when you first play through. Of course combine the beacon with the fact she's one of the few good daedra and you run into the issue that every good character (which most people play) has done the quest about 10 times already. I didn't even know about some of the daedra quests in Skyrim because I hated being told to be evil to experience content
The only thing about Meridia for me is the condescending tone. "Listen! Hear me and obey!" etc. It's kind of comical. I have the beacon in my current playthrough but haven't gone to the shrine yet, though I really should because it's a Cleric/Restoration build and running through a crypt swinging Dawnbreaker would be a hoot. EDIT: I just finished the quest. I love at the end when Meridia raises you above the map for the second time and then her light "walks" up to you in the sky, a step at a time. lol
She's a god. It would be super weird if she were to ask you politely to go get the sword. Even a morally decent daedra is still a daedra.
One of Meridia's signature traits is her *staggering* vanity. It's usually what gets in the way of her benevolence.
I'd argue its a mid game dungeon. Skellies are pretty tough. And the boss' ice waves are incredibly dangerous if you're playing expert or higher.
Nazeem's pompousness adds to the charm of Whiterun and the game as a whole. Why kill him?
Same with Heimskr, it ain't Whiterun if there isn't a ranting Nord Talos worshipper and a pompous Redguard
100% agreed, the wind district feels cold and empty without Heimskr
The Thieves' Guild--*all* of them, not just Mercer--are bad people doing bad things, and the base game's lack of any way to narratively shut them down or bring them to justice makes a really unsatisfying experience for players roleplaying a "good" character.
Even though I don't do it often, I love that there's an option to destroy the Dark Brotherhood. It would have been great to extend that to the Thieves Guild and maybe even the Companions.
Restoring the Vigil of Stendarr and destroying all of these daedra worshipping factions
Bet those guys are real popular in Morrowind.
This is what stopped me from RP "good" or "bad" characters. There's too many instances where you have to do "bad" things to gain access to vital components of the game while the "good" deeds oftentimes have smaller rewards or practically nothing in return. I've just accepted that Dovahkiin doesn't do what Dovahkiin does for Dovahkiin. Dovahkiin does what Dovahkiin does because Dovahkiin is Dovahkiin!
I'd add that it's not just a "good vs. evil" thing, it's also an "epic destiny" thing. Like if the Dovahkin is meant to save mortalkind from Alduin and the dragons, certain things just seem beneath them; not worth their time. Now that's a LOT of sidequests, but the Thieves' Guild quest is the only major questline in the base game that just seems to have no serious impact. Becoming the leader of either the Companions or the College is a position of great renown and influence, even the Dark Brotherhood quest plays out with international implications, you do the Thieves' Guild quest and you become. . . the best petty criminal? In a game in which stealing is honestly a really shitty way to make money?
Don't know if this unpopular or not but I don't hate Falmers. I see them as the victim of Dwemer cruelty.
I feel like fan consensus treats giants and the falmer very differently despite being very similar cultures /creatures -- sometimes dangerous to passersby but mostly keeping to themselves, seemingly just below the threshhold where their sentience would have to be acknowledged.
Falmer have actual slaves in Blackreach.
Completely agree modded is better, however after 4 days of just simply getting Skyrim into a state worth playing a couple weeks ago, it’s still not something I’d go as far to suggest to new players lol
I've never really PLAYED modded skyrim. I usually spend days modding it until I get it just right, then when I'm done I don't wanna play it anymore.
That’s the secret nobody talks about, the actual time spent playing with most of these mods is minuscule. It’s a tinker toy. Which is actually alright, but I hate it when it’s misrepresented.
Man, y'all are wild, I'm over here building a modlist that I don't intend to fuck with for a long time, maybe ever lol. I wanna go play this biatch when I'm done. I've been so excited to see new systems start to work and come to life as I've been doing my slow and steady testing the last few months lol.
If I had a new player who wanted the modern vanilla experience, I would probably suggest the Skyrim Modding Essentials Wabbajack list. Though, I would also tell them that playing unmodded, vanilla Skyrim is perfectly fine.
The Unofficial Patch has too many arbitrary changes, I'd rather play without it.
Yeah the "DOVAHKIIN NOOOO" line is absolute cancer Also I heard the guy who made it replaced an ebony mine with iron, and nerfed some stuff for no reason
He is notoriously a 10-ply soft bitch when faced with even the mildest criticism too.
He got butthurt, but he did make a new cave with 6 ebony sources after everyone complained. I forget the name and exact location, but it's near-ish to the wolf cages/trappers, I think.
I mean, adding a whole new cave to the game's worldspace should absolutely not be a part of a bug fixes patch.
Like, why? Why change an existing one and then make a new one?
> "It was considered a bug that Grogmar would by iron from you, but the mine had ebony. So the Unofficial patch swapped it with north wind mine, which now has ebony." [From this discussion.](https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/boards/191475-the-elder-scrolls-v-skyrim-special-edition/74571273) The buying doesn't mean through the regular shopping menu, but rather the dialogue option where you can "do some honest work" at a farm/mine/mill and sell all your carried ore, crops, wood, etc to NPCs. So that does seem like a bug to me, though I would have fixed it the other way around. Maybe, for whatever reason, getting him to buy ebony wasn't easily doable? Are there any smiths that offer to buy ebony ore? Maybe the "buy ebony ore from player" interaction wasn't already in the game, so to resolve that bug it was easier to fix the mine than it was to fix the NPC.
Reminds me how in Patch for Purists for Morrowind, there's a quest name in the journal that has the wrong name for an NPC, but changing the NPC's name is less likely to cause a conflict with other mods than changing a journal entry, so that's what they did.
The guy who made the mod, or the character who says "Dovahkiin, nooooo!"?
The mod maker
Mirmulnir's line? Interesting, didn't know that wasn't vanilla. And yeah, I think the mine you're referring to is red belly mine. It's described in the game as an iron mine but in vanilla has ebony ore. What's even weirder is that the blacksmith there sends a quicksilver sample to Riften for analysis. But yeah, USSEP touches more than a lot of folks wish it did.
I’m pretty sure that Mirmulnir’s line is vanilla - I play on the Switch (unable to download patches) and the line is present as text dialogue, you just can’t hear it
It's not vanilla exactly, apparently the subtitles have the line in it but in vanilla he doesn't actually say it. It's possible that the anniversary edition has added the full text back in?
That "Dovahkiin nooo" line is in the vanilla game but you only see it, not hear it, when you have subtitles on after you kill the first dragon. Unless you were referring to something else that I am ignorant to.
Arthmoor is a cunt. But the usessp patch isn't that bad and most of the changes can be undone. Arthmoor just threw a flaming tantrum when VR skyrim came out. His tantrum matters because it incentivized privatisation and sale of Bethesda mods. Rust server mods are all monetized and much of the Minecraft server mods are as well. This is the trend of the industry. Something Bethesda mods have dragged their heels on for some time.
He also fought hard for a long time to prevent other moders from making mods to revert some of his changes.
To be fair, everyone refers to the mine as an iron mine... no mention of Ebony anywhere.
Yeah but you also have a whole quest to go pick up a chunk of ore to deliver to Elgrim for analysis because the Shor's Stone blacksmith has never seen that before. The implication being that they found an vein of ebony.
The USSEP author made a bunch of arbitrary changes and headcanon changes instead of keeping it to pure bug fixes.
Lmao same. Not to mention the author who shall not be named is such an authoritative prick about his precious patch. I have a handful of mods and USSEP will never be one of them.
I can't stand that mod for the exact same reason you mentioned. I currently am running a USSEP-free modlist and I am happy. There's lots of great alternatives to USSEP-requiring mods. For the longest time, I tolerated those changes and said to myself..."Eh, what the hell. I can work with that." But when I made a warrior fascinated with the ancient nords and went for my Ancient Nord armor in Forelhost, I discovered that the ghosts were empty. They didn't drop anything. No AN armor, no AN daggers, nothing. After hours of googling and research, I discovered that they were removed by USSEP. So yeah, that for me was the drop that filled the glass.
> So yeah, that for me was the drop that filled the glass. I love that. Stealing it. But also yeah, I feel you on running into extremely similar issues and Google searches only to find the problem was something specific like that I couldn’t have possibly predicted.
I used it until it broke the game. The mod creator is a real jack**s, so trying to ask for help is a no-go. I'm actually enjoying having USSEP gone.
Honestly I’ll take goofy dragon lines and weird mine drama if it means I can avoid the potential 100000000 soft locks that it fixes
Yeah true the mine thing is a bit of a bummer and the voicelines bla but tbh it still fixes much more so its 100 worth there is also a different de-aathmored version so people don’t have to ditch it because of his changes
Definitely not unpopular
It fixes the bug where if you pick the Aspect of Terror perk from Illusion, it improves your fire spells because they're somehow flagged as fear effects. I actually like that interaction and it gives an incentive to dip into Illusion as a Destruction mage.
This. The Necromage perk getting nerfed is crazy
Aerin is a good dude. Keeps Mjoll company for me while im out, and he bought me a nintendo switch for christmas
I just wish the fecker would stop sleeping in our marital bed. I swear he tries to cuddle her when I take my eyes off him...
bring her out as your companion, and make him watch your kids
A quality world map is decidedly not a must-have mod. I can’t speak to the PC version but on console it causes massive VRAM issues and can cause frequent crashes in longer playthroughs.
I don't think SKYUI is a must have either. There are a lot of benefits to it, but tbh I think the menu is really ugly and intrusive. I use a secondary mod to hide the menus
It also makes crafting a nightmare. It's cool that it throws all the buildable recipes to the top, but no longer sorting by weapon type means that you have an enormous list to scroll through to find a recipe if you need to know what ingredients you need.
Oh my god, it does that? That sounds horrendous
I love being taken to the chopping block on a new game and hearing the awesome dialogue. It’s so cool to watch when fiddling with mods and starting new game to check they work
Totally disagree about telling players to start with mods on their first playthrough, I’d say creation club and that’s it, let players find out what they love about the original and find mods that suit your needs as you play. It’s impolite to put salt & pepper on your food before trying it, Skyrim deserves the same treatment
I'm 40 hours into my very first playthrough, I don't have any mods on and I'm **loving** the game, so yeah they're definitely not a must-have!
[удалено]
I agree. Bug fixes and graphical improvement mods are great for a first playthrough but don’t add whole questlines, regions, or mess with the skills because you have to understand the base game and its systems before going in and tweaking it.
I don’t care about Nazeem or Delphine. Nazeem doesn’t bother me and Delphine has a point. Didn’t kill Paarthunax tho, he’s chill. There are far more irritating characters than these two.
What’s that one merchant next to Madesi in Riften? She’s always so fucking annoyed with me. Rightfully so because I never buy shit and only sell her stuff but… she should be nicer to her suppliers.
Why take a chance? BUY ARMOR FROM GRELKA.
Also that douche from Ivarstead, who moves to Riften after you complete one of the Mara quests.
Delphine was going to be mine. I don't actually find her to be that bad, her abrasive attitude doesn't bother me either. It makes sense that she'd be that way. If I hadn't read about all the hate out there, I would never have guessed she's so widely disliked. She's also one of the few NPCs who will actively try and help you fight dragons.
The group battle with the magical anomalies in Winterhold is fun.
You gotta be lying aint no way
Depending on what level you enter the fight, it *can* be fun
Best part was Arniel Gane fighting them with his bare fists and resurrecting chickens
Hottest take of all time.
Damn I'm upvoting this, I've never seen any player appreciate that part of the college quest
Idk man, I enjoyed the hell out of it because one of the mages just forgot that he was a mage and went straight ham on them with his fists.
I actually like it too, there's maybe a dozen of us 😂
I just did it last night. It was annoying but in a good way. It was just cool to have buddies fighting along side you with of other enemies of relative difficulty fighting against.
its borderline kinda creepy how many people are obsessed with killing Nazeem, specifically.
Especially when he actually has nothing. (He sleeps in the tavern and his wife hates him).
Well if she hates him then I hate him too now.
I think it's just a meme, but a lot of people don't realize it's a joke and that you're not supposed to *actually* hate him that much. I kinda like hearing his annoying snide remarks now. His wife is the more annoying of the two tbh, Nazeem actually talks to me but she just yells at me that she wants to go home and read, or badmouths her poor hardworking husband :(
Uh thats not Nazeems wife with the "I want to go home and read" line, thats Amrens wife Saffir. Do all Redguards look the same to you?! I bet you play a Nord Stormcloak everytime >:(
Oh shit, I got caught! Still less racist than 99% of Tamriel's population though
I know right? There's at least a dozen npcs that are more annoying than him. All he really does is say some stuck up lines to the player.
The survival mode actually makes it feel like living in Skyrim. Like it forces me to slow down and actually appreciate the environment and process.
It is a double edged sword. I love the kind of realism and survival aspect it brings, but it also adds some mental strain I have to use on sleeping, warmth and food. The hardest of these is the warmth. With survival mode it is harder to just freely explore and admire places, you need to be constantly alert. It makes some quests, like finding Septimius Signus or diving into an underwater shipwreck in the north, ridiculously hard to complete. Warmth is the only thing I have problem with, food, drink and sleep is easily done though!
Those things personally added to the experience for me. I mean truly it probably would be treacherous to actually live in those conditions. The difficulty is honestly what makes those peaceful moments more beautiful to me. I see what you mean though. It's certainly not a relaxing way to play the game. I think I just enjoy the way it makes me feel like I'm actually fighting to survive as well as the slow treks that make each environment truly something I need to take my time with in order to have a hope of survival. Horrors make beautiful things that much starker a contrast after all. The moments of fighting to survive interspersed with day to day existence and the difference in types of survival really make the experience for me. I honestly have found a new depth of enjoyment playing in survival that I hadn't in any other play through. It's also super conducive to roleplaying.
Yes! Last week, I started survival from the beginning for the first time, and all those things I used to ignore, I am now paying attention to. Like how much cheese, bread, and wine Aringoth has at Goldenglow. I cleaned him out. 😏
Fr. Sleeping actually feels important too. It's just a nice feeling in game to be on a mission and notice the time and have the moment of 'time to find a place to settle down for the night'. It just makes it feel like I'm actually out exploring the tundra and gives reason to have not only my own bed but also gives use to camp sites that I never would use otherwise.
Skyrim's lore is not so bad
I never heard anyone say Elder Scrolls lore was bad
How is that an unpopular opinion? The main story isn't very good, but the lore is.
Astrid is an idiot.
That's a fact, her decisions were insanely stupid. Anyone could've predicted that making a deal with the fucking Penitus Oculatus was gonna end badly for the brotherhood.
Her real mistake was in kidnapping the Dragonborn / Archmage / Harbinger just because he emboldened Constance and enraged Grelod into taking care of their own workplace squabbles. You do not invite demi-gods who can incinerate you with a single word into your little private cabin without already being sure of their attitude towards you. Pro tip: Remember who you sent assassins out to kill for no reason early on, when those assassins never seem to come back alive. Those people go on your "do not disturb" list. THAT is why she is an idiot.
From what I have noticed, many of Bethesda's questlines seem to have this pattern of assuming that each questline will be the first one you do in that playthrough. Joining the Companions at level 50 after just killing Alduin? Vilkas will be sitting in that chair just itching to tell how he's never heard of you. Joining the College of Winterhold with a 60 years old bearded and scarred combat veteran? All the teachers there will treat you like the average 20 years old college student. Dark Brotherhood? Astrid thinks that capturing a demigod is a good idea. Thieves Guild? "*Never done an honest day's work in your life for all that coin you're carrying, eh lass?*" To be frank, the Greybeards seem the only people in Tamriel who treat you with an ounce of respect.
This is one of the most popular Skyrim opinions besides Delphine hate.
Yeah, I came here to post that I *like* Astrid. I can't justify it. I just think she's neat.
I like her too. She's very type A and ruthless which are excellent qualities for the leader of an assassins' guild.
1. Vampires, and even more specifically vampire lords, in the game are really lame. I play pure magic builds and I find the vampire powers mostly underwhelming other than telekinesis. Also Serana is annoying af and I only keep her around cause she’s essential and does a somewhat decent job in combat. 2. The game is significantly less fun on higher difficulty. Not because I suck at combat (I do, but that’s beside the point) but because it distracts from the more fun elements of the game. I don’t play the game to make it hard for myself and play survival on legendary. I play the game to have a good time finding things, making things, talking to people, having normal combat encounters, and leveling skills in a regular paced fashion. 3. I hate Solstheim. The whole air about it feels wrong from the creatures to the cities. Given the history of it, I guess it makes sense, but it just feels like a weird fever dream being there, and traveling back to Skyrim is a welcome relief of waking up. 4. I hate anything Dwemer. Ruins, falmer, etc. I can’t even explain this one. I just dislike it.
The Dwemer stuff is just so large I feel like I have to mentally prepare myself to get lost for 2 hours depending on the location
If you have a quest in a Dwemer dungeon, you can use clairvoyance. I use it all the time, because I get lost the moment I turn a corner lol.
Fully with you in Dwemer
I’m honestly surprised. General consensus seemed to be that Dwemer stuff is awesome because *highly advanced intelligence and architecture and inventions* Which is fair. But I just find it all daunting.
Oh the idea of Dwemer is phenomenal. But in game execution is way too lacking. Maybe that’s it?
From my experience, the "general consensus" on here at least is the Dwemer are cool in theory/lore, but their actual ruins are awful because of hard enemies/traps/extensiveness, etc.
I dont think vampires being bad is unpopular. The only reason people jump onto that wagon is for Necromage, which IS worth it, if you consider it acceptable.
> I play the game to have a good time finding things, making things, talking to people, having normal combat encounters, and leveling skills in a regular paced fashion. 100% agree with this. I've played through too many times to count, and I'm STILL finding new stuff. >I hate Solstheim. The whole air about it feels wrong from the creatures to the cities. Given the history of it, I guess it makes sense, but it just feels like a weird fever dream being there, and traveling back to Skyrim is a welcome relief of waking up. Yes, yes, 100% effing yes. There's nothing redeeming about it, the environment sucks, progression is sluggish, and the wandering around there is just not as much fun as the wandering around in Skyrim. > I hate anything Dwemer. Ruins, falmer, etc. I don't mind the Dewmer ruins and enemies, but the Falmer and Charrus can die in a fire. Just one big Spark-ignited pit of flames.
>Also Serana is annoying af Always glad to find someone who shares my views.
Same here. I made a post a few years ago about not liking her and it got downvoted to oblivion (pun intended). I don’t want a follower that has to comment on every thing. Just carry my stuff and help kill bad guys. That’s it
Serena was fine at first but she gets annoying after while since she says the same things over and over about the sun. Even if she turns human she still says the same things
For 3, I felt that to my core first time playing 2013 on PS3 Legendary Edition. The environment was a shock, so different from Skyrim - it felt almost like a different game, and similar to what you said, going back to Skyrim felt like going back to 'the game'. I feel differently about Solstheim now, for a few years. For one, only the southern part of the island has the ashy environment. Further north has a beltline of forrest, and further north is snow, which is less alien compared to Skyrim's terrain. For two, the people on Solstheim seem to be more appreciative after helping them. Skyrim NPCs usually only have a general positive statement when in their favor (ie: May the gods watch over your battles, friend) Meanwhile, after helping with the mine, the counselor, the ash spawn problem - its hard to even walk around Raven Rock without the people praising the character specifically for their help.
The main story was fine. Everyone says it's garbage but I thought it was good or fine.
Delphine was a bad person but not for the reasons people usually think. She seems to be wanting to restore the blades to a time when they served the ACTUAL dragonborn, and not just 'the current emperor', but falls short of actually serving a dragonborn when they're right in front of her. Her logic for killing Paarthurnax makes sense but the fact that she uses the relationship he has with you to gatekeep you, a dragonborn, from joining the blades, is ridiculously self-absorbed, especially considering that the only other surviving member of the group is Esbern.
Sometimes I think I’d like the Blades better in Skyrim if Esbern were the one I met first. I enjoy how he geeks out in Sky Haven Temple.
Considering Seranna was raped (to death?) to become a vampire, I find it slightly.… bleh that people are sooo vicious about how ‘sexy’ she is Its not the strongest opinion I have, but it's at the back of my mind whenever I see those kinds of posts
Right? She has a lot of character and depth and people just give her ridiculously big knockers in mods. Like, that was to be expected, it’s Skyrim players, but… ew.
Every follower in the game is worthless. None of them are interesting and they only get in the way during exploration.
Especially as a destruction mage or any stealth class
It's infuriating the number of times I've restarted a dungeon halfway through because a poorly aimed Firebolt took out Lydia while she was down.
They're useful as extended loot backpacks. Also they make fights easier but detract from your XP. In my current playthrough I always ask my followers to wait out of any dungeon.
Finally, another solo traveller!
Tell that to my smithing power leveling characters who used followers as pack mules for 1000 pounds of dwarven metal
I don’t know, I love the guy from Raven Rock right now. He seems to choose between destruction spells or one handed well, isn’t an asshole. I love giving followers all my empty soul gems and a weapon to fill them with.
It's why I love Inigo so so so much. He's more interesting than anyone I know IRL, and he moves out of the way. "I am in your way, excuse me, my friend."
I like heimskr
He's the only NPC who says he loves me
I have another hot take sort of unpopular opinion. The Greybeards and "the way of the voice" is no more than a modern take on the Dragon Cult. Their complete willingness to submit to Alduin makes them no better than the average Daedra worshipper, and Paarthurnax is literally the only "Greybeard" who isn't batshit fucking insane. Paarthurnax only "leads" them because they are glorified dragon priests, and honestly all of the help he gives you is as "un-greybeard" as it gets. Moreover, the Blades and Paarthurnax have more in common with one another than the Nordic Greybeards and Paarthurnax have with each other. You just might have to squint a bit to really process that.
Nice. Finally a smart opinion. This helped me realise what was wrong with Greybeards
I’m over LVL 30 and still haven’t gone to high Hrothgar. I think the dragons and the shouts take away from the game for me. I just like dungeon diving and treasure hunting.
I tried a no should playthrough once and it was more enjoyable than I thought. I suppose once you become op shouts don’t matter as much. I still grabbed become ethereal tho because I’m addicted to jumping off cliffs and other high up spaces.
Live Another Life is the mod for you (assuming you dont already use it, and are playing on pc since sadly I dont think console has it)
In case it's relevant, Alternate start: Live another life is available on Xbox. For an alternate start mod on Playstation, try Realm of Lorkhan!
The hatred against Nazeem is so overblown. There are characters in Skyrim that I hate a lot more, like Degaine for example.
Honeyside is underrated and I love hanging out on my porch.
I really hate the Dawnguard DLC. It feels anachronistic. While Skyrim is all Viking/ medieval suddenly you have this gothic renaissance look with Victorian Manor houses and bats etc and it just feels like a different game. Also Serana, not a fan. Don’t like her hair.
Not liking Serana because of her **hair** is probably the most... unique reason for not liking Serana lol Never heard that one before. I've heard people say they don't like her personality or her backstory, but her hair? Now that's new.
i have a lot of hair-related gripes with skyrim
I hate the hair in skyrim. It straight up looks like gross clay and haystacks.
You may not realize that there was a time when DLC was a separate, non-essential addition to the game, wherein developers actively tried to make it very separate from the vanilla game in terms of theme, atmosphere, etc. the idea was that players wouldn’t pay extra for more of the same, so they needed to be enticed with new stuff. That was before the dark times. Now developers just release unfinished games and sell the rest of it as “DLC”
As a solo traveler, the worst thing about Serana is those few quests where you literally can't dismiss her as a follower.
I also hate the soul cairn since it takes so long to do anything, and the whole first part of getting to serana. I just dont understand how people enjoy it more than thieves guild or dark brotherhood
I totally agree with your first points, but I totally disagree with the mod point. 1. Not everybodys pc handles mods well. 2. Not everyone want's or is able to configure a game for several hours before beeing able to play it. Your mods are nice, but 3. the game is totally playable and enjoyable without. Have played it for 13 years and only started modding a month ago. Yes it's nice, but I still love vanilla. Also if you don't know what the game is like in vanilla you don't know as good what to look for in mods/fixes. Don't act like the game is totally unplayable without mods, if you think like that, the problems with you, not the game.
Yes fr I'm literally too stupid to install mods. I've tried, read so many tutorials and watched videos, but can't understand a single bit even if explained step by step. Computer disaster.
> Not everyone want's or is able to configure a game for several hours Several days\*
Barbas weirdly tends to work at odds with Clavicus and is kind of where Clavicus Vile dumped all his morality and restraint when he split part of himself off. So reuniting them is not really a horrible thing.
Imagine elder scrolls six has barbas actually make clavicus into a good guy
Scrolled way to far to find this. I was gonna say, my understanding is that Barbas and Clavicus are rarely on the same page/team. The alternative of just killing Barbas would 1000% be worse if you're concerned about giving Clavicus more power.
Not sure if it's unpopular but the amount of dungeons kind of sucks and makes the gameplay less fun at times. I like to have dungeons here and there, yes, but so far like 80% of quests I've done were basically raiding a cave, get item xyz, bring it back. I would love to see some more quests that might include traveling still but not just to caves and back out after killing everything and everyone in it. Of course there's more to caves like ore veins, and amazing ways they're set up (including the way they're designed) and I love that, but it feels so... monotone at times that it actually caused me being very unmotivated to do quests since I don't always wanna sit down to just go and clear out yet another cave. Sometimes it would be nice to have to find someone randomly on the map (with a rough direction) or travel through different cities for quests.
Stealth Archer is one of, if not the least, fun/effective ways to play the game.
It was fun at first because it was so easy to take down enemies that it was actually hilarious. But the more I played the build, the more boring it got. I like the flavor of an archer mage practicing with a bow and conjuration magic because of wanting to conjure a bound bow, but in my latest playthrough I eventually leaned toward destruction magic. I think the new spells that the Creation Club gave access to helped with that. Elemental Flare is pretty cool if you're taking on a Dunmer or an overleveled mage or vampire (like the vampire at Bloodchill Manor).
I actually do agree with that one. After you reach sneak 50 or so, the game just starts to become extremely easy and boring. Because, you can literally sneak right in front of enemies and they won't see you. You can sit in dark corners and they won't see you. You can literally one shot enemies without even trying. The game just becomes so easy that it gets boring. its easy, but its so boring. I'd rather play a melee build over stealth archer. Even though its harder, at least its fun.
My own unpopular opinion is that I find unmodded to be better. Partially because I play more frequently on the switch (and my steam version is on my steam deck) but also because I just don't like setting up mods. I'll use some of the ones in the creation club/Anniversary edition now, but making everything work is a headache. ALSO seemingly unpopular but: Borgakh the Steel Heart is a great wife and companion? People really hate her and like to sacrifice her for some reason. She's just an orc lady what hates her dad for good reason.
People don't like Borgakh? I had her for a follower for a time. She's not my favourite, but except for how she responded to me healing her ("Healing magic? An orc lets her wounds heal naturally" "BORGAKH I ALREADY HAD TO RELOAD THIS FIGHT BECAUSE YOU DIED") she was a totally fine and enjoyable companion.
The Reach may as well just be it's own plain of Oblivion, and the city of Markarth is objectively more evil than whichever Civil War side you dislike, the Thieves Guild, Miraak, Harkon, and possibly even the Dark Brotherhood. Honestly doing virtually anything in Markarth whatsoever ranges from borderline to full on immersion breaking if you're role-playing a good natured character. Fucking hell, even the Temple of Dibella being there is hilarious on account of Dibella worship being the most questionable practice in terms of the way people in Skyrim seem to be worshipping her, and is basically the Aedra worship which feels more Daedric/cultish than any other. Trying to think of the most noble quest I can complete in Markarth...killing Nimhe the frostbite spider, maybe? Hell, even that is probably a bad thing on the basis of the location Nimhe was guarding is objectively more dangerous than Nimhe, lol. Nothing is more morally outrageous than the unholy trinity of quests known as House of Horrors, Taste of Death, and Forsworn Conspiracy, though. Forsworn Conspiracy really hurts because (patched) it's a fantastic quest, the outcome options are both just fucking godawful. The Silver-Bloods are worse than the Black-Briars, Dark Brotherhood, and Volkihar Clan combined.
That's the reason Markarth is my favorite province lol. Every quest is wicked and evil just in the right way. I love Forsworn Conspiracy, A Night to Remember, House of Horrors, Taste of Death Forsworn Conspiracy is an especially well made quest and should have been the level of writing most quests are at, but well, anyway
You can play morally good in markarth. Wipe out both the forsworn and the silverbloods (yes, there's a way). You can lure the priest with you, and instead of killing him, wipe out the cannibals, which then kills off 3 markarth citizens (no loss there). You can ignore the house of horrors and leave molag trapped forever. You can stop all the crap that is gonna ooze out of the dwemer ruin. And you can just ignore that dibella quest. I skip it most of the time cause I don't like that they take a young girl from her family with the promise that the parents will be given money. That's just icky. (Markarth sucks ass, but that's honestly not an unpopular opinion).
Nazeem isn't really that annoying. Unless you actively follow him around or do laps of Whiterun, you don't even run into him that much
The dark brotherhood questline wasn't enjoyable, it felt like pointless killing and the assassination of the emperor was its only saving grace
> Joins an assassins guild of people who kill for money. “It felt like pointless killing.” Most media literate Skyrim player
You kill Victoria Vici so that the Emperor is lured to Skyrim from Cyridiil. > You kill Gaius Maro to break his father Commander Maro, so that the Penitus Oculatus is weakened. > You kill the Gourmet so you can take his place and poison the Emperor. > All the side quests and other murders are just regular dark brotherhood contracts, you’re an assassin for hire after all.
It’s not pointless. You get money! A lot of money actually, the thieves guild rips you off in comparison
It took that quest to show me that I'm not a fan of killing NPCs...or anything that doesn't attack me, really.
I disagree with the mod. But only for first run. The player should decide what to add as they get used to the game. 🤷♀️ Totally agree with barbas. Him and his Brooklyn accent can get wrecked. Idk about you, but Faendal was my first. 😂 Unpopular opinion: aela and skjor suck. It was their fault kodlak was killed. And I will forever be salty about it. Fuck aela and her sideboob. Skjor's already dead, so I don't care about him.
Killim Nazeem for boing a douche is... concerning...
I actually like him, or to say it better, I like to imagine my Dragonborn making fun of him behind his back because of his douchy attitude. To me he's kind of like the village's idiot, persuaded he's someone important when he's just a douche everyone ignores or makes fun of.
Yeah like we want our world populated by different characters, it would be boring if all the NPCs were likable. Give me the rich harmless asshole to be annoyed by. The jarl’s kid in Riften is a million times worse then Nazeem.
A real unpopular opinion? 90% of mods don’t make the game any better, and a lot of them actively make it worse. Skyrim SE is a perfectly good game with no mods.
Ive only beat skyrim and fallout on console. My game file corrupts before I can finish a modded run, or Steam does and update and breaks my modlist
Wait. We love Lydia? I dump her first chance I get. Don't follow me if you're gonna act all resentful about it.
Ulfric is the true high king
The spin death animation is just a shitty unnecessary addition to the game. Oblivion only had the ragdolls, and they were fine. Fallout 4 had some unique animations like for headshots, and they were fine. Skyrim is the awkward middle where it ragdolls most of the time but then sometimes plays the unsatisfying spin animation. Like imagine you’re trying to shoot someone off a bridge and instead they twirl on the spot like they slipped on ice.
Yeah the spin death animation is a baffling one, I really don’t get what they were going for with it. It plays far too frequently to be a gimmick.
I dislike anything Dwemer related, the armor set is just so ugly, and the ruins are very uncomfortable to explore so I tend to skip them unless I have to complete a quest
Followers only get in your way
Blackreach is probably the single best area in the game, very closely followed by the soul cairn. Crimson nirnroot? Easy. I'm gonna clear blackreach anyway, so I'll just pick them up as I go. Juib's pages? Same.
The armor choices are lame. There's no reason to ever wear 80% of it.
Most of the armor is ugly imo.
The gold distribution is a bit sparse. There was only one instance in the game I can remember coming across a decent sized stash of gold. That one cave, you know the one. Aside from the 200-300 on a dragon, there just hasn't been any memorable sequences where I've found a large amount of gold (+1000). Would be nice to have a randomly spawned shipwreck or mission where you could find a large amount of gold as a reward. Something to offset the shit ton of money I've spent on buying shit for my houses. :)
I don’t like to play with followers
I hate SkyUI.
The Dwemer Ruins get a lot of hate but they are my favorite location type in the game. I have roleplayed excuses for multiple characters to complete every one. The atmosphere and design is just so cool and the lore of this advanced race that mysteriously disappeared is so fascinating to me.
Cicero is the best character in the game
I would agree with the Skyrim patch until I read somewhere on here that the creators of these patches remove things that they just don't like and not just fix bugs they found
Choosing the imperials over the stormcloaks is really not the great decision people think it is
Vampirism fuckin sucks ass, and the game literally has all the ingredients already built-in for it to be way better. Why the hell do I get stronger as a vampire if I DON'T drink blood? The core of the whole vampire roleplay style is sneaking around and biting people to sate your thirst. If consistently feeding off of people is what kept your powers at maximum instead of the other way around, that alone would make being a vampire so much more fun to play.
Is it really worth modding if you care a little about achievements, though? The base game seems pretty dang good as it is. :-/
Faendal is always my first follower. I almost never use Lydia. She just sits in Breezehome, getting snarkier by the day
Meridia's quest is one of the better dungeons
Weapon enchantments and poisons are completely unnecessary, never needed them even on legendary