What mistakes do you make, every time?

[Ygern]

Mine is to always rush through every new game the first time.

I really do try to take it slowly because the first time in the game is always the one that has all the jaw-dropping moments in it. Nevertheless I always rush around too fast at first and get my butt handed to me by embarrassing things like a Cliffracer in Morrowind, an Imp in Oblivion and a bear in Skyrim.

The second time round I am always amazed at how I managed to get myself into so much trouble so quickly, I mean it's not as if I am new to these games.

So basically, my problem is rushing into traps while I'm admiring the butterflies.

[VirtualWeasel]

My first save in a new Elder Scrolls game always becomes a jack of all trades.
There is no avoiding this, I tried in Skyrim, but it's just not possible.

[Rook]

My first save in a new Elder Scrolls game always becomes a jack of all trades.
There is no avoiding this, I tried in Skyrim, but it's just not possible.

This, all of this.

But other mistakes? Beyond that, I really can't think of another....
Perfection level=99%

[Avron the S'wit]

Oh man, yeah, it's so hard to not be a jack of all trades. I try to carry around followers in Skyrim to avoid this, but somehow...nope. Never. I think my Imperial PC in Skyrim is the closest I ever got to stickin' on the straight and narrow, but it's a small stretch!

As for mistakes...hmmmm. My biggest mistake is I have a tough time being different. That is to say, my characters are different in terms of roleplaying and personality, but morality? My characters might start out different, but they usually end up being somewhere in the same range on the scale of good to bad. I have a hard time stickin' to real "bad" characters. I guess I find evil boring? (Or because I am always a paladin in D&D type games... Lawful Good, man, it sticks to you!)

[philfredobob]

Lawful Good, man, it sticks to you!

Hey, it's good to be restricted !!
hmm... something doesn't sound right....


Anyways, lets see... my biggest mistake? perhaps it's that i always seem to follow the same path of exploration, and thus quest completion, when i play these games. And a lot of the time it leads to me having a single faction questline left unfinished right up till the end.

[Mauin]

I have a hard time stickin' to real "bad" characters. I guess I find evil boring? (Or because I am always a paladin in D&D type games... Lawful Good, man, it sticks to you!)

I have the opposite problem. I can't not make an evil character. The good ones just never last.
Evil? Hell, my vilest character (rather well known in the Roleplayer's thread) has been with me for over a year and is on her fourth reincarnation (would be nice if my saves would stop going corrupt around the 100-150 hour mark). The other two are more neutral than anything, really. Sort of. Well, they're more neutral than ol' Vulom, that's for certain.

Little Vara is the only good one I've managed, and I doubt she will ever be recreated once her saves fail. I get bored rather easily when playing her, since I'm restricting myself from randomly murdering people in the streets and all the other things my nastier characters tend to do.

[&@%!]. I just realized all of my current characters are Dunmer women. My Morrowind character is Dunmer, so is my Oblivion character, and so are my three current Skyrim characters... Whatever happened to my poor Argonians? I'd make more characters in Oblivion and Morrowind, but I haven't finished either game with my current characters. Heck, my Morrowind character hasn't even touched any quests (aside from the Mages Guild).

*ahem* Topic.
My mistakes usually relate to leveling. The thing is that it doesn't happen every time. Just when I'm new.
I've screwed up Morrowind and Oblivion characters by not paying attention to what I was leveling. Nowadays, I purposefully spend the first part of my Morrowind character's existence leveling them so as to avoid any issues with their stats. For Oblivion, I do the same (but a lot faster) with the Leveler's Shack.

I also do the jack of all trades characters, but that's for a reason. It's for getting to know the game and figuring out what I like/dislike.
Oh, [&@%!], who am I kidding? All of my characters are jacks of all trades. It's my preferred way of doing things in Skyrim, and it sort of happens in Oblivion and Morrowind so I can continue increasing the attributes that I want.

Skyrim's lack of attributes and Legendary skills would actually help to get around that, but I kinda ignore it. Just because I have the Scroll of Perfection. Hence, unless I'm doing a "Dead is Dead" style character, they're all jacks of all trades.


I guess my 'mistake' is doing the same damn thing every time.
Skyrim: do the dungeon diving/exploration, Daedric quests, Companions, College of Winterhold, Thieves Guild, Dark Brotherhood, Civil War, Dawnguard, Main Quest, and Dragonborn.
Oblivion: create character, go through dungeon, head to Leveler's Shack, choose gear for character, head to Kvatch, close all the Oblivion Gates, continue Main Quest, close Oblivion Gates... etc etc.
Morrowind: create character, explore while working on leveling (still what I'm doing with my current character. I've covered most of Vvardenfell and Solstheim and have reached the level 40's), Main Quest... Wait, what was I doing again? Dammit. Well, let's just run around. I'll figure out what I'm doing eventually.

[Br3admax]

Buying the console version......

Also the Jack of All Trades things. Well rounded characters always get the most out of the game though, so I don't know if that is a mistake or not.

[VirtualWeasel]

It becomes a mistake to me because there's no longer any roleplaying in it. When your character is master of everything, all choices have been made and he simply no longer has much substance left.
You can't pick both good and evil, you only get left with stale bread.

[Mauin]

I respectfully disagree with that. If you're a good storyteller, there's a roleplay in everything, even a character that's a master of all.
Whether or not that truly counts as a mistake is going to depend on the person and how they play (or write) their characters.

[Avron the S'wit]

I think you get to a point where you do run out of room to include everything, but you can certainly rationalize a great deal, if you roleplay creatively. I remember having my Champion of Cyrodiil eventually stumble upon the Dark Brotherhood, completely by accident: the glitch where you

Spoiler:

defeat the Grand Champion in the Arena, which counts as a murder

prompted a little visit from our favorite rumor-creatin' man in black. Up to that point, my character had really only done the MQ, Fighters Guild, the Arena (of course), and bits of Shivering Isles, and I had no reason to make my good-hearted Dunmer into a cold blooded murder.

I gave it a week or two in game, but eventually rationalized that the whole affair and Lucien may have actually made him think he really was a devilish little [&@%!], and, given that he felt a bit adrift after the end of the Oblivion Crisis, it seemed reasonable to watch his - albeit awkward at first - descent down the path of darkness. And it was actually really fun.

Great, great character, with whom I had a blast.

[Dohva.]

My mistake is that I get distracted/bored and don't search rooms thoroughly for treasure. And about jack of all trades, I think to each their own but I play my characters as having 1-2 specific trades (2 if they use magic). Being able to do it all is so dull to me.

[Br3admax]

You can't pick both good and evil, you only get left with stale bread.

Hidden:

[VirtualWeasel]

I respectfully disagree with that. If you're a good storyteller, there's a roleplay in everything, even a character that's a master of all.
Whether or not that truly counts as a mistake is going to depend on the person and how they play (or write) their characters.

Well....
I mean, currently I'm playing a character that will eventually segue into evil from a good-guy place, and sort of deal with the mental battle of all that biz.
Just saying, jack of all trades needs to be done well if it's going to be done, but in my personal experience it doesn't work as well as trying to focus more on a certain type.

[Mauin]

Well....
I mean, currently I'm playing a character that will eventually segue into evil from a good-guy place, and sort of deal with the mental battle of all that biz.
Just saying, jack of all trades needs to be done well if it's going to be done, but in my personal experience it doesn't work as well as trying to focus more on a certain type.

Ugh. I worded that comment rather poorly. I didn't mean to imply that anybody was a bad writer/roleplayer. Everybody has their individual style/preferences.

I can see why you'd say that.
The problem I have is that I can't really focus on one thing. It's related to the same issue that prevents me from keeping any good characters: I get too damn bored. I feel like I run out of things to do too quickly when using a character with a strict build (like basic warriors, mages and whatnot) and who is following a very specific roleplay idea. Hm. I guess the way to say it is that sticking to one thing and one thing only feels too... Confining. There's no room to move around.

My main jack of all trades and master of all is Vulom and the way I've got her set up is so that she, to make this short, uses the 'good' questlines to disguise the 'evil' ones, basically making her look good to the general population. That allows her to continue her practices in secret.
She's also driven by the will to dominate. Eh. It's a long explanation. I can't really sum it up all that well right now.

[Yaije]

>.> don't see what's wrong with progressing into multiple fields. That always seems like a logical progression to cover one's short comings.

My mistake is I tend to get very important seemingly pointless characters killed... like the carriage drivers in skyrim, creeper in morrowind... well at least in oblivion it was hard to kill most important people

edit: though the main problem with unfocused characters is I don't believe the the games have enemies designed to challenge you at a certain point.

[Mattbott]

Oh man, yeah, it's so hard to not be a jack of all trades.

As for mistakes...hmmmm. My biggest mistake is I have a tough time being different. That is to say, my characters are different in terms of roleplaying and personality, but morality? My characters might start out different, but they usually end up being somewhere in the same range on the scale of good to bad. I have a hard time stickin' to real "bad" characters. I guess I find evil boring? (Or because I am always a paladin in D&D type games... Lawful Good, man, it sticks to you!)

i agree, evil and specialised characters are for replays but all of my first playthrough heroes are good ish jack of all trades. Part of it is familiarising yourself with a new world

i think playing good is more interesting because the game worlds are usually filled with aggressive evil monsters - so the hero is the rebel/different one

[VirtualWeasel]

>.> don't see what's wrong with progressing into multiple fields. That always seems like a logical progression to cover one's short comings.

Multiple fields =/= Every field

[Yaije]

>.> don't see what's wrong with progressing into multiple fields. That always seems like a logical progression to cover one's short comings.

Multiple fields =/= Every field

Depends on how long you continue to progress.

edit: the master of all is the ultimate endgame. Most of us die or retired before then.

[dzio]

I've only completed the MQ once so far and that character only did DB and CoW. Multiple fields are fine, but I wouldn't want to play the "master of all".

My mistake is forgetting about some of my options, especially with magic users. It happens to me over and over - I get slaughtered and only then do I realize I could have used a racial power, a scroll, a spell, a potion, a shout... It happen less often with more focused characters, but the closer I get to jack-of-all-trades, the easier it is for me to forget that I have some extra options. That's probably one of the reasons why I dislike characters like that.

[Dohva.]

I seem to forget my thief and assassin characters carry an outrageous amount of poisons. They mostly go unused, though I'm getting better about it. I think right now, my Bosmer has 63 Frostbite venom vials and that's not even counting the other types of poisons she crafts and steals.

Because who wants to buy potions when you can just steal them? *talk to the hand*

[BetaB17]

Me.. my mistake I have made in every game of TES I have played.. forgetting I have to save the world or something and end up doing nothing but trading and selling like a mad merchant. I get rich yes, but it ends up taking too much time>_<

I also am at fault with player homes, they must be overly organized.. as so that I can with ease sell and store certain items. The bigger the house.. the more organized it shall be. It's all nice aside from the fact that I'm a hoarder... and it's troublesome to move to a new home..

[Jeelius-Tei]

I never understand how do be a successful full mage. I play how I do my other PCs, yet I always run out of magicka. It is a bit easier in Oblivion and Morrowind with spell creation, but I find it just impossible in Skyrim. Why did you have to remove simultaneous magicka and health leveling and spell creation Bethesda?

[VirtualWeasel]

Being a mage requires a lot more heavy calculation in Skyrim than it does in Oblivion. You really have to plan things out if you want to be a full-fledged mage, and it wouldn't hurt to be versed in alchemy as well, given you'll need a lot of magicka potions to keep yourself going.

Being a warrior would have the same problems, if there was more penalty for loss of stamina.

[Jeelius-Tei]

Honestly, I really wish the stamina system worked like it does in Chivalry Medieval Warfare; You can't attack as much with no stamina, and do less damage.

[VirtualWeasel]

Technically you do do less damage with depleted stamina, but it's so minuscule that it doesn't make a difference.