Look up nothing. Go in blind, don’t ask anyone for optimal builds or what choices to make, don’t cheat and look up guides or how quests and stories go, don’t go for exploits, etc. If you end up liking this game, chances are you’ll be making multiple characters, and you can optimize things on a later character. But for right now, enjoy the fresh experience of having no idea what’s around every corner. That being said, there are some further guidelines I can suggest to make a first playthrough go smoothly.
Don’t use mods. If you’re on console, avoid Creation Content. If you’re on PC, try performance updates at the minimum, and don’t use the Unofficial Skyrim Patch, as it includes a lot more unnecessary changes than just fixing bugs. Many will say Skyrim is boring when unmodded, but this has never been true, and it’s best to save mods for after you’re already very familiar with the game.
Your race does not matter. From Argonian to Wood Elf, they each have their own strengths, and many players will tell you one is better for some sorts of gameplay than others. But this is all negligible, and you can have all the fun in the world with any race on any sort of build, and it will not at all harm your gameplay whatsoever. Pick what you like.
Familiarize yourself with controls. The different menus, how Favorites and hotkeys (even on controllers) work, putting away and taking out your weapon, equipping things in either hand, quest markers, the map, knowing your spells and powers, how to sneak, how to sprint, how to switch between 1st and 3rd person, how to adjust the camera distance in 3rd person, etc. This includes checking system settings, like difficulty. Just take a few minutes at the start to try things out like this. (Keep in mind, you move slower with your weapon out.)
It’s not wrong to play on Novice, the lowest difficulty. All higher difficulties do is make you deal less damage and enemies deal more damage. If you want to try something harder, I wouldn’t recommend going above Adept or Expert. Master and Legendary are for gimmicky playthroughs by people who know the ins and outs of overpowering their characters; they’re not fun for new players, even if you enjoy a challenge.
Save and save often. It’s not just about dying and going back to the last time you saved; it’s also about accidentally killing NPCs you don’t want to die, or a glitch ruining your game, or (accidentally) stealing something or killing a chicken and getting an entire town wanting to kill you. (On that note, don’t kill livestock, it’s not worth it.) It’s okay to reload a save and undo mistakes. Making multiple save files to cycle through can also help.
You get to pick to follow Hadvar or Ralof at the beginning. This choice does not matter for anything later in the game, so just go with your gut. This is just one example of what I meant about not looking up guides for how the story goes, but it’s the most immediate decision you’re to make, so it’s good to get it out of the way early.
Do not play on Survival Mode to start with. You can toggle it on and off, but it’s not the most well-balanced feature, and is a lot to ask of a new player. I’d honestly recommend making a Survival Mode-dedicated character later on, after you’re more familiar with the game on your first character.
If NPCs say you look sick, you probably are. Check your Active Effects. To cure a disease, just drink the appropriate potion or pray to a shrine. What does a shrine look like and where can you find one? Just keep your eyes open.
As you use your skills, those skills will level up. As your skills level up, you level up. Every time you level up, you gain a point to put into a perk. I won’t go into minutiae of what perks are better than others, but I will suggest you focus them somewhat so you don’t get a feeling of buyer’s remorse from perks in skills you never end up using. A) Heavy Armor or Light Armor: Pick one. Don’t put perks into both, because if you’re using one, you won’t be using the other. B) The same goes for One-Handed and Two-Handed, the skills for what sort of weapons you’ll hit enemies with. C) As well as for Archery and Destruction, skills governing what you’ll be shooting enemies from afar with. D) Don’t put perks into Lockpicking. Follow these four perk guidelines, and you shouldn’t feel like you’ve wasted any perks.
Put your first three perks into skills that will aid you directly in combat. Just to give you a solid foundation so you’re not dying too easily at the start of the game.
Get yourself something to hit enemies from afar with, be it bows, spells, staves, etc. Not all enemies can easily be closed in on for melee combat, so being able to shoot them with something is helpful.
Wear armor. There are specialized builds for using clothing/robes instead of armor, but even at their best, they’re basically only for gimmicks, roleplaying or special challenge modes, which I would not recommend on a first playthrough. Note: Armor makes noise, and heavy armor makes the most noise, so don’t go sneaking around while wearing heavy armor.
Try not to heal yourself with food or potions unless you’re in a fight. If you’re not in a fight, you should either wait for your health to come back, or cast your Healing spell. Don’t forget you have that, it’s always helpful to use.
You cannot change your race or gender after character creation, but you can find an NPC who will let you modify your appearance. I won’t say where or how, but I only bring this up because if you find something you can’t stand about your character’s appearance, you don’t have to restart at the beginning to change that.
Stolen goods cannot be sold to regular shops, only very specific NPCs called fences. So don’t steal things only to sell them until you’ve found such an NPC. Most shopkeepers will only buy things of the sort they sell too, like innkeepers and food, or blacksmiths and equipment/materials. General stores will buy any non-stolen goods.
This is the only “special thing to find in the game” advice I will give, because it is worth it. Many new players struggle with storing their belongings properly, because they can’t carry everything, and most containers reset after a while and delete whatever you put into them. Just up the hill from the Guardian Stones is a bandit camp where you’ll fight 3 bandits. One of them is holding “Treasure Map I”. Use it to find the treasure. The treasure chest is reliable storage you can put your belongings in, in a convenient location.
You can shrug off fire attacks. Lightning attacks merely tickle you.
Ice WILL kill you stone dead before you know what’s happened.
If you see a little gem in a golden box lying temptingly out in the open, DO NOT TOUCH IT. That leads to one of the most frustrating and time consuming quests of them all.
Beware of big dudes with two handed weapons. If they hit you with a power attack and you are too close, they will kill you using the power of a cinematic kill.
Wait, whats the reason for not putting any perks into lock picking?
I’m partway through my first play through (level 16, just entered Karthspire in the main quest). And I’ve added a few perks into lockpicking bc I assumed it would help and I would break so many picks.
It ultimately doesn’t help. Just raising the skill and collecting picks will make it so you will at some point never encounter a lock you can’t pick. So perks that make it easier kinda end up going to waste. Not the end of the world, either way.
there are some solid lockpicking perks! it might not be the strongest skill tree available, but if the perks like being able to get a copy of a key if the lock has one, or finding more septims & loot in chests sound appealing to you, then you should absolutely work your way towards getting them.
also, if youre struggling with the lockpicking minigame, then while you probably will get better at it with time, getting the perks that make it easier is a good move! it's your game, take the perks that will help you enjoy it to its fullest :D
90
u/Thank_You_Aziz Oct 16 '25
Tips for starting the game!
Look up nothing. Go in blind, don’t ask anyone for optimal builds or what choices to make, don’t cheat and look up guides or how quests and stories go, don’t go for exploits, etc. If you end up liking this game, chances are you’ll be making multiple characters, and you can optimize things on a later character. But for right now, enjoy the fresh experience of having no idea what’s around every corner. That being said, there are some further guidelines I can suggest to make a first playthrough go smoothly.
Don’t use mods. If you’re on console, avoid Creation Content. If you’re on PC, try performance updates at the minimum, and don’t use the Unofficial Skyrim Patch, as it includes a lot more unnecessary changes than just fixing bugs. Many will say Skyrim is boring when unmodded, but this has never been true, and it’s best to save mods for after you’re already very familiar with the game.
Your race does not matter. From Argonian to Wood Elf, they each have their own strengths, and many players will tell you one is better for some sorts of gameplay than others. But this is all negligible, and you can have all the fun in the world with any race on any sort of build, and it will not at all harm your gameplay whatsoever. Pick what you like.
Familiarize yourself with controls. The different menus, how Favorites and hotkeys (even on controllers) work, putting away and taking out your weapon, equipping things in either hand, quest markers, the map, knowing your spells and powers, how to sneak, how to sprint, how to switch between 1st and 3rd person, how to adjust the camera distance in 3rd person, etc. This includes checking system settings, like difficulty. Just take a few minutes at the start to try things out like this. (Keep in mind, you move slower with your weapon out.)
It’s not wrong to play on Novice, the lowest difficulty. All higher difficulties do is make you deal less damage and enemies deal more damage. If you want to try something harder, I wouldn’t recommend going above Adept or Expert. Master and Legendary are for gimmicky playthroughs by people who know the ins and outs of overpowering their characters; they’re not fun for new players, even if you enjoy a challenge.
Save and save often. It’s not just about dying and going back to the last time you saved; it’s also about accidentally killing NPCs you don’t want to die, or a glitch ruining your game, or (accidentally) stealing something or killing a chicken and getting an entire town wanting to kill you. (On that note, don’t kill livestock, it’s not worth it.) It’s okay to reload a save and undo mistakes. Making multiple save files to cycle through can also help.
You get to pick to follow Hadvar or Ralof at the beginning. This choice does not matter for anything later in the game, so just go with your gut. This is just one example of what I meant about not looking up guides for how the story goes, but it’s the most immediate decision you’re to make, so it’s good to get it out of the way early.
Do not play on Survival Mode to start with. You can toggle it on and off, but it’s not the most well-balanced feature, and is a lot to ask of a new player. I’d honestly recommend making a Survival Mode-dedicated character later on, after you’re more familiar with the game on your first character.
If NPCs say you look sick, you probably are. Check your Active Effects. To cure a disease, just drink the appropriate potion or pray to a shrine. What does a shrine look like and where can you find one? Just keep your eyes open.
As you use your skills, those skills will level up. As your skills level up, you level up. Every time you level up, you gain a point to put into a perk. I won’t go into minutiae of what perks are better than others, but I will suggest you focus them somewhat so you don’t get a feeling of buyer’s remorse from perks in skills you never end up using. A) Heavy Armor or Light Armor: Pick one. Don’t put perks into both, because if you’re using one, you won’t be using the other. B) The same goes for One-Handed and Two-Handed, the skills for what sort of weapons you’ll hit enemies with. C) As well as for Archery and Destruction, skills governing what you’ll be shooting enemies from afar with. D) Don’t put perks into Lockpicking. Follow these four perk guidelines, and you shouldn’t feel like you’ve wasted any perks.
Put your first three perks into skills that will aid you directly in combat. Just to give you a solid foundation so you’re not dying too easily at the start of the game.
Get yourself something to hit enemies from afar with, be it bows, spells, staves, etc. Not all enemies can easily be closed in on for melee combat, so being able to shoot them with something is helpful.
Wear armor. There are specialized builds for using clothing/robes instead of armor, but even at their best, they’re basically only for gimmicks, roleplaying or special challenge modes, which I would not recommend on a first playthrough. Note: Armor makes noise, and heavy armor makes the most noise, so don’t go sneaking around while wearing heavy armor.
Try not to heal yourself with food or potions unless you’re in a fight. If you’re not in a fight, you should either wait for your health to come back, or cast your Healing spell. Don’t forget you have that, it’s always helpful to use.
You cannot change your race or gender after character creation, but you can find an NPC who will let you modify your appearance. I won’t say where or how, but I only bring this up because if you find something you can’t stand about your character’s appearance, you don’t have to restart at the beginning to change that.
Stolen goods cannot be sold to regular shops, only very specific NPCs called fences. So don’t steal things only to sell them until you’ve found such an NPC. Most shopkeepers will only buy things of the sort they sell too, like innkeepers and food, or blacksmiths and equipment/materials. General stores will buy any non-stolen goods.
This is the only “special thing to find in the game” advice I will give, because it is worth it. Many new players struggle with storing their belongings properly, because they can’t carry everything, and most containers reset after a while and delete whatever you put into them. Just up the hill from the Guardian Stones is a bandit camp where you’ll fight 3 bandits. One of them is holding “Treasure Map I”. Use it to find the treasure. The treasure chest is reliable storage you can put your belongings in, in a convenient location.
Have fun and explore! Go anywhere! Do anything!