Skyrim – Beat the Main Quest.. Still so Much to Do
December 1, 2011 by: Anthony Damasco
I went into Skyrim with a mission and a set of rules.
One, I would not pick up a single weapon. I started the game with my fist and the ever so useful flames spell. I ran around getting into mischief, running away from dragons and looking everywhere for magical loot.
Two, I wouldn’t get side tracked with side missions unless there was a potential for gaining spells or things that would make my character a better Mage. Many NPCs did their best to side track me from my goal, picking sides between storm or imperial being the biggest distraction. I instead ran directly for the College of Winterhold approx 100 miles north of the starting location. ( At least it felt that far )
Three, Focus on magic until you can 1 hit kill most anything with a spell. I killed everything and anything with magic to rank up my destruction skill as fast as I could. I hit level 20 with 70 in destruction alone and at level 20 I finished the main quest by simply spamming firebolt / fireball / flame elemental conjure skill.
What did I learn from playing the game this way? It was extremely fun, however Bethesda did a great job of balancing magic. I found myself still struggling to take down even mid size enemies. 500 mana / maxed out destruction skill tree and every spell I could find and still I had to rely on macro to take things down. Even with my slave character friend in full ebony gear as a human shield I found my self struggling, especially towards the end.
And now my character sits on the throat of the world. Level 21, can call dragons to kill his enemies, best Mage gear he can get and he is doomed. He is doomed to be forgotten simply because I want to experience the game again with a melee character. This time around I plan on doing everything that can be done before finishing the main quest.
Skyrim let’s you play the game your own way. This is both the best and worst part about the game. If I didn’t plan on starting over, I would feel cheated as I was able to knock out the main story in about 20 hours. Allowing me to play it my way ( grind the main mission and forsake all else ) let me hit the fast forward button on the game and really miss a lot of amazing side story and game play.
The obvious plus side to allowing the player freedom is letting all of us with A.D.D. completely get side tracked and find amazing things and after 5 hours of running around looking for bunnies you start to think “I was suppose to be doing something.. but I can’t remember what that was.. oh well, BUNNIES!”.
How long did it take you to beat the main quest? For me it took 10 hours and 2 mins.
So much to 30 hours+.
Too fast, but I played it again with a melee character, total about 60 hours. I only skipped out on the bard quest and the thieves guild. Did everything else tho.
beat the main quest with about 4-5 hours of play time, character was level 44 when i beat alduin… i feel cheated simply because i rushed through side quests (leader of companions, brotherhood, thevies guild, and became a nightingale) trying to get my character ready to do WORK on the main quest, only to soon find out it was all a waste of time considering the main quest is easier than the side quests and i ripped alduin within 5 minutes… also it didnt exactly make me happy to get the dragon call shout after ive basically exhausted any opportunity to need it
@kyle As soon as I got 100 in smithing and legendary dedra gear with +300% one handed weapon damage with enchantments, everything dies in one hit – its almost like i have hacks on, so i know how you feel.
I was realy dissapointed wen I finished, I realy expected a way longer game!!:(
I am more than 100 hours in the game and I havn’t finished the main quest or joined a side yet, just playing side quests and joining guilds. Not better than Morrowind but damn close
I became the Arch Mage of the college and did many other side quests and it still only took like 10 hours, i was sad to find that it was that short.
Alduin was too easy i thought, i have more trouble beating Draugr Death lords, i end up having to sneak them and one hit them for 30 times damage with the legendary deadric dagger…
Play on higher difficulty.
Syrim is way to short. Main quest needs to have attunment/prerequisites for every few steps, and the total steps to get to final boss needs to be far far greater. Lame that u can focus on main quest for a day and literally have nothing meaningful to do afterwords. Alduin does not need to appear on throat of the world right when u learn dragon rend. You should have to play your ass off to learn dragon rend and u should have to play your ass off just to get to the final encounter. Game is great and all but way to shallow.
I beat Skyrim today and arrived at this site after Googling “what to do in Skyrim after main quest.” I was at level 46 and found the battle with Alduin fairly easy. However, I have logged 109 hours in Skyrim and probably spent no more than 4-5 hours total on the main quest over that time. I was very satisfied with my first Skyrim experience though. But as a heavy armor, two-handed melee character, once I hit 100 smithing and enchanting I figured it was time to end the game. It was well worth the $60 and I am continually amazed by how awesome the game looks and how many things there are to do, even if I won’t do 100% of the side quests.
I will probably try it again and seek a different outcome for the civil war and also play as a thief with some magic.
i defeated alduin today – 55 hours, level 31 just as i beat him, half of the mage, thieves and brotherhood quests done and i feel like i should have left alduin until i was completely bored of the game. curiosity dragged me to defeat him but as they say, curiosity killed the khajiit and now i dont feel like finishing any of the side quests… may just to start as a different race and save alduin until everything else has been done.
I haven’t touched skyrim in about 3 weeks, I have it installed, I’m hoping I get the craving to play through it a 3rd time, we’ll see.
clearly, you need to up you difficulty, mate. on master difficulty, you need to macro pretty often with *all* skills maxed out.
Im maxed out 1 handed, maxed out smithing, maxed out blocking and maxed out archery. As George above me said, Curiosity killed the Cat and out of curiosity i beat the main storyline. Sure I beat the companians main questline and joined the Dark Brotherhood, but I only got about 12+ hours of gameplay. Im really wishing i didnt rush things. SURE, I was level 48. But I still feel thoroughly dissapointed in myself for rushing things. Without the main storyline, i dont feel like i have anything to work towards and i dont feel like doing any side quests anymore. Maybe ill start a 2nd account as a different race and take things a little slower.
Ive been gaming for about 25 years and this has been my favourite game. The thing I like about it is that, unlike WoW for example which nearly killed me, there isnt any rush – and in my humble opinion you shouldnt rush to finish it in X number of hours. I never use the horse because I like to run between destinations as there is always something cool to find and kill along the way.
lvl 39 2 handed Orc
i had played the game for almost 49 hours n i have completed every side quest along with main quest. i was so strong that i only needed 4 hits to take down that damn alduin by my enchanted deadric greatsword. i had dragonscale armor fully enchanted for two handed weapons which ncreased my damage level . but still i m very depressed with the ending . i was expecting a very big stretched story.
nd i was level 74 with two handed 100,smithing 100,alchemy 100,pickpocketing 100,sneaking 100,one handed 74, enchanting 100, destruction 100, conjugaration 100,illusion 100,alteration 100 n more in the range of 90 above.
+100 hours, did not use any guides . went duel wielding and ran everywhere when i could be bothrered. finished all guilds and loads of side quests . played alot of it on master setting. ive been nearfly everywhere. completed alduin not so long ago .. well too short .
WHOA! I see everyone’s like level 30-50 when they beat Alduin, but I was level 18… The game is too easy and I feel cheated because there was no proper ending.
Oblivion was a major improvement to Morrowind. I think the game developers have hit a creative/technological wall. Dragon Age 2 was inferior to the original as well. SW:TOR is mildly better then WOW. We may need to face the fact that every game is going to be like “been there done that”. I beat main quest (Alduin) at level 18 just conjuring Astronoch and firing firebolt/fireball. Shouts are too powerful. Never died cause if I ran out of Magika I could use firebreath shout or sprint shout which was not in previous installments of the game. Oblivion and Morrowind I died all thetime. I remember quick saving after defeating each enemy. Hardly saved at all.
i feel the same! i kept thinking to myself “watch this, im gonna beat alduin and then hes gonna be trasnported back in time or something weird and ill have to get there to kill him 1v1″ then NOPE, i just beat the main quest..took me like 8 hours for the quest itself..like 20 hours for the whole game cause i became arch mage.. (i did finish it on the difficulty below adept, but in my opinion difficulty doesnt matter, it just means it takes longer to kill enemies, theres no skill involved in killing enemies) i just wanted a longer main story
I was a level 48 and able to enilate most enemies with a couple hits, waited till I was bored with all the other missions to do final. Was leader of thieves guild, college of winterhold, companions, killed off the entire dark brotherhood, won the civil war for the imperials, but I really wish the makers would heve built in somereally cool reward/celebration for the dragon slayer upon returning to Skyrim at the end. But no. You just show up at the throat of the world and (if you didn’t kill him like the blades tell you to, which you shouldn’t kill him) Parthanaxx is just like “OK, see ya!” Game over
The main story is way way way way too short!!!!! and why no celebration for the dragon slayer at the end?? Not Cool, not cool at all. Was awsome until I realized there is no reward, or anything fun to do once you defeat Alduin.
Same sad story, I didn’t really care if i was bad or good i did EVERYTHING! Theives guild nightengales, college of winterhold, companions, imperials, leader of the dark brotherhood, all 24 stones, thane in almost every city (that would let me), i obviously killed aludin (but didn’t kill parthanaxx) i’ve been a vampire and then found the cure then became a warewolf, a cannible, a devil worshipper all the way down to home town hero, i own every house you can and now money means NOTHING…. now what do i do seriously because i’ve changed the same ledgers WAY more then once, stolen the same stolen stuff, met the same clients for murder, karliah is never around brynjolf never says anything and i really want to kill maven blackbriar but can you? NO! I’m the baddest B in the game and the chick has no respect erg. Any as far as no celebration…. B S! All i’ve heard is ONE markarth guard saying something like hey didnt you kill alduin? like WTF?!?! no special powers except the dragon call which i don’t need because its like a 5 second dragon encounter, calling the dragon would drag it out! Totally bummed over all. Once you hear endless game play you expect to not get repeat quests and a little boredom. By the way if you havn’t met the “whispering lady and her big bad sword” you didn’t miss much because it was a dead end apparently.
When I made this post, I didn’t expect to get so many comments! My advice to all of you who want more, is to install some skyrim mods http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/ there are tons of mods on here that give you a different playing experience, I’m going to try some out this weekend.
That’s not true Sissy, the bards actually sing a song about the Dragonborn defeating Alduin after you defeat him.
If the game gets too easy for u… Put up the difficulty… that might help
Alduin was way to easy to beat, when I killed him I was level 15 with mixed skills high health and low stamina and magicka. After defeating him there is a bored and empty feeling. Start to think that it should have been longer but I hadn’t seen half of skyrim. I don’t think it’s possible for any one to have actually done EVERYTHING. Bored and need ideas of what to do? Try alchemy or enchanting or kill whole villages for fun. Best game ever
Alcuin was too easy I beat him at 24 and the main quest is too short but the side quests are quite good
i am 400 hours into the game and i just learned a new dagon shout but its grey how do i use
im pretty clos to alduin but i mainly hav been talking to npcs until now
i’ve beat every quest storyline in the game, am lvl 81 & 1/2, have an armor rating way higher than necessary & i’m still finding plenty of things to do. i play on 360, so i can only imagine the possibilities for you PC players. i’m working on reading every book in the game, getting 1,000,000 gold, and clearing every location. just yesterday i followed the headless horseman and found a couple easter eggs. i do hope that they’ll drop the expansion soon though, cuz i’ve found a bunch of glitches & exploits that i wanna release publicly afterwords so they have to make a patch to fix them. that way you don’t have to have the patch active to play the expansion content.
They really should have made a sort of an ending, I mean whats the fun in just running around doing hundreds and hundreds of quests…… erase that last part there preatty cool….. when at the end your left standing on a mountain and tons of dragons just fly around you. They should have made it like you, The Dragonborn, could become there leader.
GOAL : Beat game Become a Nitengale Restore Thieves Guild Side Quests BEAT ALL GULDS LVL 23 I just dont understand why my lvl is so low
To the Level 23 Nightingale: There’s no such thing as XP, you level skills by using them and when you level enough skills you gain a character level. So if you run around using the same skills over and over (e.g. sneak, archery, one-handed, and lockpicking) and don’t level your other skills, you’ll “cap” yourself pretty fast. The only way to reach the max level (81.5) is to get literally every single skill to 100.
To everybody else: You people are wierd, acting like there’s no reason to do anything once you’ve killed Alduin. You just saved the world! What on Nirn did you save it FOR? To ignore it?
Prioritizing the main quest makes Real Life sense, since the world is in peril, so I get that. But there are still dungeons with treasure, prisoners to liberate from the Thalmor, Falmer caves to raid, bandit camps to clear and make the roads safe, people in cities to help, and magical artifacts to display in your trophy rooms in all those fancy expensive houses you can buy. But you beat the main quest and then just want to retire? What is that all about?
What I *really* don’t understand is why a longer main quest would help, when you’d still have the same problem of not wanting to do anything afterward. *That’s* your real problem: thinking the game is over once you killed Alduin. Boredom sets into the boring mind. I just beat the main quest and wanted to make sure there wasn’t anything else I missed, and wound up here, and all you whiners are going on about “Wahh, wahh, I don’t wanna do anything now that Alduin’s dead, I wish the main quest was longer.” Well, like the OP says, *you* could’ve made it longer by doing other things along the way, like getting Daedric artifacts or pillaging ancient ruins. If you bought a role-playing game, a genre famous for side-quests, then blitzed through the main story and decided to call it quits because it was “too short,” you have nobody to blame but yourself. Even after you kill Alduin, there’s still a TON of content to play! If you don’t WANT to play it, that’s your own stupid fault.
For my part, I just killed Alduin, and I’m already the Harbinger, Arch-Mage, Nightingale, Exterminator of the Dark Brotherhood, Unificationist Extraordinaire, Thane of the Nine Holds, and max level in about 200 hours (Block to 100 was an hour of a bear roaring, a woman grunting, and rhythmic slamming sounds… at least, that’s what my roommates heard…). You know what I’m gonna do now? KEEP EXPLORING. Killing Alduin’s no reason to quit! Buncha quitters, all o’ ya. “Wahh, wahh, I don’t wanna do anything in a game that’s programmed to ALWAYS BE ABLE TO GIVE ME SOMETHING TO DO.” Cry some more.
@a nonny moose: Haha! Great reply, your right, I am spoiled, I want the game to spoon feed me story line to keep me interested, I have been playing again, I’m at about 120 hours, the mods really add a lot to the game. My favorite mod so far is factions, it makes the mobs go to war with each other, spiders attacking, gaints and dragons attacking mudcrabs,
very fun.
I agree with the moose.
If you think the entire game is racing through to kill alduin then you’ve missed the point.
If you want a cool ending then become a god.
Or didn’t you realise you could?
Don’t only talk about the bad things in the game, you have to admit, Goining to Sovngarde was AWESOME. As for the gameplay, It was better than Oblivion, thats the main point of a sequel anyways right? To be better than the one before.
Lvl 15 duel one handed kajiit … Just beat alduin but I wanna rule this land dammit lol …. There is plenty to do … There are still dragons and people to slay … Ge out there ….its up 2 u what u find and what u do
i feel as though half the people hear haven’t killed Alduin in Sovngarde…. the game does not end on the mountain… i did that early too, but it takes a bit longer to fight alduin the final time in sovngarde after entering the portal
I was a breton, beat the dark brotherhood, thieves guild, companions, and main story line along with the civil war within 150 hrs, so I took forever
Finished start to end in 1 day level 23 killed Alduin in Sovng
I killed alduin in no more than ten seconds at being level 47 on the hardest difficulty, I should have done the main quest earlier!
If you power level everything and just speed run the main quest, duh its gonna be short! Take your time, do side quests… explore…. pick some flowers. This game isn’t like halo… you are supposed to immerse your self in the game not beat it. That’s how I view skyrim… 143 hours level 43. Not even halfway thru the main quest. And I am having the most fun I have EVER had with a video game. <3 this game and can't wait for the next.
help,
somehow I did not manage to give malborn any items to place in the chest so I end up with an empty chest at thalmors ambassadors manor does anyone know if there is a way I can meet up with him again as he has left the pub or is there another way to complete this quest
thanks
andy
i dont see what everyones problem is. i beat the game over 6 times and i still say its a very fun game =D i mean hell like what a few people on here said its a “RP” game so learn to use ur imagination! hell most of what i do is jus roam around and see if i can find things to kill =P i mean idk what all my levels are cause i really dont care to look. itsa game. its ment to have fun and enjoyment not sit around and complain. i mean hell i know there are horrible games out there but this one isnt one. also i have found a few glitches 2. especially with the water how by some places parts of the water isnt there o.o but hell i forgot what that underground city is but dont any of u think its cool to explore? i do wish though that the story would change each time u played.
played skyrim beat the story glitched the game and all skills became lvl 100
good game but it gets to boring and repedetive if u play to much.
9/10
ONE OF THE BEST
Been reading every1s reiveiw
People say there underleveled thats cause u didnt do much.
Beat alduin at lvl 14.
But now lol i found so many glitches im lvl 81.
Not even halfway through side-quests.
If u wanna no glitches email me at ronanhill12@hotmail.com so i can post them and no if u r intrested in them
Oh if u need help contact me
Andy all u need is unbound sword and oakflesh cause once u kill some people u can get there armor.
SCrew you all. any person who hacked sucks.
I found the Main Quest not very long but the whole game I believe is very long! It took me 4-5 hours to do the Main Quest.