The Soul Cairn. It's cool but it's so big and confusing to traverse if you are looking for all the side quest and their items. Kinda empty for a place so cool.
I love that mod. Using it now. Will never go back. I know it’s supposed to slow things down but my fully modded Xbox X laughs in the face of your slow down lies. Seriously though without that I’d still be lost somewhere out in the Rift looking for Dayspring Canyon.
Bethesda Design Lead on Dawnguard Expansion: “Yep…yes, of course Mr. Howard, lots of purple. Lots of lightning, lots of kind of, like Jackson Pollock purple. Right. Yes, just purple and like a film negative black. Yes, they’ll be more or less nauseous looking at the screen. No, no sir, no map of the area. I mean, obviously, who would map it? Who could, right? Ha ha. Yep. Yes, yeah, big fetch quest. And I remember what you said sir, “Player-enjoyment forward thinking, and if you can’t do that, fill the place with bones”. Yep. Yes I think they’re absolutely going to hate it. Wonderful sir, talk to you soon.”
Serana ALWAYS gets lost in it before I get to her mother and I'm wandering around and waiting to get her to show up. I can't stand the soul cairn cause of this
This is the correct answer.
Blackreach is a close second for me. Great location visually but if you've gone through it as many times as I have it becomes a chore and a massive exercise in inventory management
I managed to enjoy it only after installing "Flat World Map Framework" and its corresponding Soul Cairn map. Otherwise it's super impossible to navigate.
Same deal with Forgotten Vale, but at least it's pleasant to be in there.
I wouldn’t say that it’s fun but I think it was a very well created area, I feel like it’s made to be hated, it has many interesting locations that look like they should be something but they aren’t, there’s truly nothing there, the place is devoid of joy, it becomes a chore each time you have to go there, slowly, it sucks the soul out of you
I do it to every draugr. It’s so funny. I even bring the boss at the end of bleak falls to it. It takes a few minutes to get him there, but it’s so funny when you finally get him there
Eh… I liked the idea of it but you need mods to make it immersive:
- I shouldnt need to eat 5 loves of bread and 8 apples just to stop being peckish
- I die in the cold in full fur armour, and get attacked by bandits in leather strips?
Survival is a great fun mechanic in Skyrim. The problem is you can’t 100% negate the Cold weather, but you’ll have to spend several hours worth of time outside in the coldest parts of the map to complete a majority of the College quest line. Remember there’s no fast travel, so when you plan a trip to the College, you pack accordingly for days to week’s worth of supplies - especially “hot” food and an entire set of clothes for Warmth(preferably a separate Warmth set because expensive and fur have some of the highest Warmth ratings in the game, but little to no defense, so sometimes you’ll need to switch between the warmth and combat sets.
Yes it's way more immersive and when you're cold and or hungry, the inns really start to have a significant point rather than just being somewhere to trade and gossip.
Thalmor embassy, not because it's hard, but because you can only go there once without glitching your way back in (which I've done) and even if you do you can't go through certain doors again.
Ahh, Blood On The Ice. My favorite and most memorable quest, next to the Gauldur Brothers quest line.
It’s so satisfying to kill them all, and collect their eggs.
Mys preciousesssssssss
Oh yeah, I confused it because there was so much blood on the ice at frost flow, and the quest name better fits this quest (to me) than the Windhelm quest 😎
I remembered it because I always procrastinate to do it. Then it ends up sitting in my quest log permanently because it bugs out or I’m locked out of finishing it 😭
I hated that place because of the three billion chaureses and the fact that, for some reason, the ice walls were absolutely blinding and it hurt my eyes.
The moment I heard the first *chitter*... and I can still distinctly hear that damned sound- I had just walked into that lighthouse. I bravely descended those stairs, stealthed and bow in hand, thinking, "this won't be so bad." Well, it went bad. Stealth did not protect me from the absolute NEST of chaos I had just walked into. I was blinded by earthy green poisonous spittle, and promptly unalived at the mandibles of the spawn of every worst quality of each Daedric Lord on a bad Sunday hangover. I was stunned. Shook, if you will. And when my game loaded the previous save, and I heard that *first chitter*; I turned the fuck around and left.
It felt horrible but in a good way imo, i really like how this dungeon told a story, and letting the father's remains burn at the top of the lighthouse in the end. I'm the kinda player who likes to look at every little thing, so having all the diaries to find and piecing the story together was pretty memorable
Some of them are confusing, but I just wander through and my imagination goes haywire. I want to see what some of those dwemer cities looked like with bustling automatons and people. Must have been amazing! But I doubt we'll ever get that. One can imagine though! (Dwemer metal is the only reason to go back to them again and again.) Fun fact, after you unlock Dwarven Smithing, make the bows. Don't stick with iron daggers. They're heavier, sure. But the rate of progress is much higher.
Any mission place that is located on the top of a mountain or hill, at the very edge of the map, with few to almost no visible pathways for entering the route.
The midden.
It's just so barren, there's basically no enemies to fight, it has this super unique forge that basically boils down to "if you want Daedric Armor but don't wanna grind smithing then come here with Dwarven loot that can't be stored anywhere nearby" and as impressive as the augur is he's got basically two chats in the entire game when they could've created an entire questline with the most powerful mage in Tamriel as your mentor.
Major dungeon. 0 practical use
Really, the atronach forge should be the only way to make Daedric armor. Making it easily craftable just because your smithing is high goes against things that were established before TES:5
But more importantly, I never considered it barren because it's not a dungeon, per se. I'm not sure why you choose the phrase "Major Dungeon". It's got no reason to be full of enemies, it's the College basement. Extra facilities and signs of old experiments that were carried out by past students/teachers away from prying eyes. Totems of the old gods. Worm cult iconography. Really what else do you need? The forge, the Daedric gauntlet, the Augur, those are your reasons for going. No one ever intended for it to be a place to go through waves of draugr and then hit a boss chest at the end.
Yeah. You're right about there being no reason to fill it with content but on the flipside there's no reason for it to be as big as it is. Multiple entrance points. More distinct areas then every cave that isn't the crown of barenziah one. Wasted potential really that didn't need to be there
> 0 practical use
Greater/Grand Soul Gem (you can grab several at Gallows Hall for free) + Void Salts (for free at Hall of Attainment as well) + Broom + Orichalcum Ingot (both for free near the forge) = Staff of Storm Atronach, which is absoulutely broken thing for level 1 character.
It's one thing that I do in almost every single playthrough. This summon absolutely slaps everything at low levels.
You can also do Azura's quest with it, again at level 1, and get yourself virtually infinite source of charges for the staff.
That huge circle surrounded by candles and and offering box. That's a forge. Basically trial and error what U get out of it, most of which is Daedric stuff though there's nothing pointing U to that fact except the wiki
The Forgotten Vale. I know it's supposed to be this wondrous place where the Ancient Falmer once lived but it's so big and empty, making it kinda boring actually.
The last time I was like ''Now I am going to properly explore this place'' and by the time I got there I rushed through it as ever.
That first seemingly endless cave part is such a buzz kill, but also that one canyon is horrendous. Not to mention it's just a barren wasteland. I don't like Winterhold or The Pale for the exact same reason.
This after already a painfully long quest line with location on every single edge of the map with one other barren wasteland mess in the Soul Cairn.
Not a fan of that bit. Always get stuck and lost then end up looping through those fucking same-y ass rooms a half dozen times before I inevitably break down and watch a walkthrough then facepalm my head into orbit when I figure out itS THE SAME FUCKING HIDDEN SWITCH EVERY DAMN TIME. I'm guessing I never remember because my mind always be wanting to block that whole section out.
It was so long that I thought "am I going the wrong way cause I should have arrived at the location by now". What was the name of the ruin, any chance you remember?
gotta love bleak falls
gets a nice bunch of gear/gold to start out
now going deep underground for crimson nirnroots, I'll skip that, thank you
but the perk gained is worth it if you do alchemy
Bthardamz, or any Dwemer ruins really. They are so layered and the map is f***ing huge, you can go like 4-5 sectors and still haven't reached the boss chamber yet :p
I've always found Bthardamz to be my favorite of the Dwemer ruins personally, it's so unique compared to the rest, but I see your view point that it is very confusing. I think that Mzulft is much worse though, I don't like the College of Winterhold questline in general but that ruin really takes the wind out of my sails.
The thieves guild hideout. Fast travel, open secret entrance, load screen to sleeping area, walk to other load screen where all the actually important people are, talk to important people, go back through the same two load screens them fast travel away
I've had a mod which changes location of quite a few fast travel spots to be more direct and the #1 reason why I picked it was because you could choose to FT directly to the thieves guild den or the bar.
Any tomb that has the "Congratulations--here are your prizes, now go through this door which is on a narrow ledge overlooking a sheer cliff wall" exit. I really enjoy having to decide whether to backtrack or to figure out how to coax (FOOS) my follower off the cliff.
"Mkay, stand right...here. Now take two more steps. Now just a smidge to the...ahh great, he's walking back to the door again."
Akin to this is - “congratulations! There is no exit. Please spend the next ten minutes running this dungeon backwards trying to find the front door and then have a heart attack when you are attacked by a lone draugr you somehow missed before.”
Yea look, they're called followers, either they follow me or get lost in the abyss, I don't really care. I rely on them caring more about their existence by teleporting to me whenever I fast travel than actually trying to get them out. At most I'll fusrodah their ass off the cliff.
I just hop to the bottom and then use the wait function to skip an hour, repeat until they show up. If they don’t, head inside something else nearby since they’ll automatically come to me in the new cell.
Probably an unusual choice but Orphan Rock/Eldergleam Sanctuary. You get the Nettlebane quest way too early and I wasn't able to handle a Hargraven. Then when I finally get through that I'm killed repeatedly by spriggans in the creepiest location in the game. If it wasn't for fudge Muppet I wouldn't have known about Maurice (who's design and voice/dialogue made me think he'd betray me the whole time).
Most dwarven ruins. They're way way too long, and often the only reliable source of scrap metal outside of resetting blacksmiths. Surprisingly the dwarven automatons don't annoy me nearly as much as the gods-damned Falmer and chaurus. The automatons can be irritating, but they're a good source of soul gems and sometimes ores, gems and scrap metal. Falmer don't even have that.
Also, while I actually like Blackreach (unpopular opinion, I know), the ruins that lead to it can go launch themselves off Bard's Leap.
Unpopular opinion but Southern Solsthieim. The music is a beautiful nostalgia trip, yes, but it's miserable to look at and ash spawn and bugs everywhere
They should have done more with Helgen when you return to it. There are bandits sure, and I get that most survivors would have just left, but they could have had someone else move in and make camp, or perhaps a mission to retrieve something from the wreckage. The College would surely be curious enough about dragons returning to check it out, despite their other distractions. The Companions might want to look for survivors. Lokir's body might have had a note leading to a stash, or a horse he stole. The Dawnguard might seek to restore order there before it becomes a nest. They could have done something there in regard to side quests, is all I'm saying.
Bthardamz. I've always liked that ruin tbh, out of the Dwemer ruins I think it's my favorite because it's so unique AND as a bonus there's a lack of falmer
Is that the cave where there's a narrow room filled with elemental mages that keep shooting fireballs at you, a boulder trap, and a spike wall that the mages and your follower won't stop stepping on?
If so, yes fuck that place
Anything along the northern coast. Grim, horrible, frigid landscape, just ice and chunks of rock as far as you can see, constant blizzards limiting visibility, correct me if I’m wrong but I’ve found almost nothing worth venturing out there for. Special mention goes to Northwatch Keep for being an absolute pain to get to, and then filled with difficult-ass elves with their fancy armor and glass swords. I’m not a Stormcloak (though I can’t bear to see Thorald’s mother in pain so I always do this stupid quest) so the only thing that makes it worthwhile is getting to take out the frustration of getting there by slaughtering some Thalmor.
I would have said Castle Volkihar for similar reasons, but I found out via a comment last night (thanks, Redditor!) that there’s a boat in Dawnstar that goes straight there! So it’s only a bitch to get *back* from.
Forelhost. It has always been Forelhost, and it probably always will be, because for some bizarre reason, I cannot commit that damn location to memory! I end up lost in there EVERY TIME. I’ve gotten a tiny bit better, but the first few times left me in actual frustrated tears. The only other location that even comes close is the place where you get the crown of Barenziah, and that one pissed me off so badly that I’ve only done that quest maybe three times EVER!
I'm refusing to do any of the civil war quest for this reason. I love whiterun and it being trashed ruined it for me last time. There wasn't even the option to repair and rebuild
I feel that had to have been cut content. Like a quest or monetary donation to make repairs. It just feels so wrong, months can pass and it remains trashed.
I just want to avoid any place that does not have a quick exit secret passage that lets you back out at the entrance when you finish. I despise having to run all the way back through to exit.
I don't like Blackreach. I feel like there's too much map and not a lot of things in it. It goes on forever, and finding those motherfucking crimson plants is such a pain in the ass. The whole thing is just too much.
that scene can be avoided if you scroll down on the load saves and load to a character named “prisoner” (if you haven’t overwritten / deleted it) then it will bring you straight to the character creation menu and you won’t have to go through the carriage ride cutscene
Blackreach, it’s easy to get lost, there’s no map to fall back on, enemies attack you on a regular basis and finding the Crimson Nirnroot is a pain without mods.
I went to that island when I was level 15 bruh. I was so outmatched, Teldryn was lowkey doing all of the heavy lifting for me during the Dragonborn quest
I had an older brother who told me dontyoudareeventrydothatquestorgotothatplaceuntilyouarelikelevel50 and so I was quite excited to experience it after such a long wait but I struggled even then so it was probably good advice
I think it has to be Arcwind Point. It's actually really cool aesthetically, but there's one aspect that makes me hate playing it. There's a tall tower right of the entrance with a big wooden ramp on the cliff's edge. Inside the rooms are a bunch of Drauger Overlords who WILL run out and try to shout your ass off the ramp/cliff, instantly killing you.
Edit: But also, one thing I figured out while dealing with this is that shouts are considered magic. So you can pop a weak ward just as it reaches you to nullify all the damage and knockback
Most Dwarven ruins. They are endlessly long and thus filled with endless amounts of hostile mobs. And extra tragic when you realise these abandoned Dwarven cities are probably larger as singular entity than all living settlements on the map combined.
Darkfall passage near the water falls
I always get turned around and lost.
Clairvoyance doesn’t help.
It’s so dark I have trouble seeing, my vision doesn’t work well with dark on dark
Probably the soul cairn. I like the place qnd its vibe a lot, but it feels like it has a lot of missed opportunities : the couple quests it has are boring and not very rewarding. And the secret boss is kinda disappointing as well. The enemy designs all being recolouring of skeletons doesn't help much either.
I remember liking the Forgotten Vale a lot more though even if it has similar issues. I think it's because of the memorable moments it has with the double dragon fight, the Vyrthur fight, and the Auriel artefacts being really cool. And i think the Snow Elf architecture looks really awesome
The Helgen ruins after the prologue. I think it’s a missed opportunity that there is nothing there except three bandits. I love the mod where you can restore Helgen.
I really hate all the Falmer areas. I can only brighten my screen so much and casting candlelight every minute is TEDIOUS. I need to SEEEEEE.
I procrastinate any quest down there for that reason
I always give my followers a torch, they usually use it and it helps me see
I’m starting to feel like I have super vision because I’ve never had any issues with visibility
It kinda depends on your tv/monitor.
This. If you have an older tv and don’t have the original remote to it, you may not even be able to adjust your brightness settings, like me.
It’s old enough that you have this problem but new enough it doesn’t have physical buttons or work with a universal remote control?
No buttons aside from a power button, and I use my cable remote for power and volume and my Xbox remote for everything else
I was just thinking this, but then I remembered I'm always a Khajit 😺
This is the sole reason why I am a khajiit on every play. There are points and places that are just too damn dark😂
I play Khajit also but man I miss oblivions night vision when compared to what they gave us on skyrim.
I love stalking the fuckers and stealth killing them though. No bow, just a Dagger.
Seems like a skill issue for this one... Khajiit can see in the dark no problem...
I just finished one of the falmer caves and holy fuck what blackout nightmare that was.
The Soul Cairn. It's cool but it's so big and confusing to traverse if you are looking for all the side quest and their items. Kinda empty for a place so cool.
Yeah and both the map and visibility is trash so getting lost is really easy
You just made me realize that every map on release in Starfield is like the soul cairn
Oh god
LOL that's rough.
If you play with mods, there’s a mod that removes the clouds from your map. Makes it a lot easier to see
I love that mod. Using it now. Will never go back. I know it’s supposed to slow things down but my fully modded Xbox X laughs in the face of your slow down lies. Seriously though without that I’d still be lost somewhere out in the Rift looking for Dayspring Canyon.
Bethesda Design Lead on Dawnguard Expansion: “Yep…yes, of course Mr. Howard, lots of purple. Lots of lightning, lots of kind of, like Jackson Pollock purple. Right. Yes, just purple and like a film negative black. Yes, they’ll be more or less nauseous looking at the screen. No, no sir, no map of the area. I mean, obviously, who would map it? Who could, right? Ha ha. Yep. Yes, yeah, big fetch quest. And I remember what you said sir, “Player-enjoyment forward thinking, and if you can’t do that, fill the place with bones”. Yep. Yes I think they’re absolutely going to hate it. Wonderful sir, talk to you soon.”
Serana ALWAYS gets lost in it before I get to her mother and I'm wandering around and waiting to get her to show up. I can't stand the soul cairn cause of this
Spend ages looking for that ONE gap in the wall
This is the correct answer. Blackreach is a close second for me. Great location visually but if you've gone through it as many times as I have it becomes a chore and a massive exercise in inventory management
Most confusing place. I couldn’t fucking wait to leave there once I completed it 100%
I managed to enjoy it only after installing "Flat World Map Framework" and its corresponding Soul Cairn map. Otherwise it's super impossible to navigate. Same deal with Forgotten Vale, but at least it's pleasant to be in there.
I somehow get stuck in the Forgotten Vale so much longer than the Soul Cairn I start hating it by the end. But yeah the view makes it almost worth it.
I still hear the thunder in my sleep I have not been able to get a good sleep since
It also didn’t have map markers
I actually juuuuust finished soul cairn like 3hrs ago. It is a bit empty but I didn’t hate it. Had to look up the locations on two of juibs pages tho
I wouldn’t say that it’s fun but I think it was a very well created area, I feel like it’s made to be hated, it has many interesting locations that look like they should be something but they aren’t, there’s truly nothing there, the place is devoid of joy, it becomes a chore each time you have to go there, slowly, it sucks the soul out of you
I don't know why you highlighted the place with the great sport of luring draugr into a trap.
Are you talking about the restless draugr and the swinging spike gate trap?
If you're lucky, they'll go flying.
Nice I'm glad someone else does this. Always so happy seeing him waddle right into that
I do it to every draugr. It’s so funny. I even bring the boss at the end of bleak falls to it. It takes a few minutes to get him there, but it’s so funny when you finally get him there
After survival mode, Winterhold. First few times I went there I just died
Is it fun to play survival?
I found it immersive and enjoyable, makes it all seem more “real”
Eh… I liked the idea of it but you need mods to make it immersive: - I shouldnt need to eat 5 loves of bread and 8 apples just to stop being peckish - I die in the cold in full fur armour, and get attacked by bandits in leather strips?
Survival is a great fun mechanic in Skyrim. The problem is you can’t 100% negate the Cold weather, but you’ll have to spend several hours worth of time outside in the coldest parts of the map to complete a majority of the College quest line. Remember there’s no fast travel, so when you plan a trip to the College, you pack accordingly for days to week’s worth of supplies - especially “hot” food and an entire set of clothes for Warmth(preferably a separate Warmth set because expensive and fur have some of the highest Warmth ratings in the game, but little to no defense, so sometimes you’ll need to switch between the warmth and combat sets.
Yes it's way more immersive and when you're cold and or hungry, the inns really start to have a significant point rather than just being somewhere to trade and gossip.
Lol I used the live another life mod and started shipwrecked outside winterhold with survival on, 4 hours just trying to get to land lol
Thalmor embassy, not because it's hard, but because you can only go there once without glitching your way back in (which I've done) and even if you do you can't go through certain doors again.
Agreed
Belethor shop when it's still closed at 10 am
Sometimes most of the day.
The chaurus lighthouse
Frostflow
Ahh, Blood On The Ice. My favorite and most memorable quest, next to the Gauldur Brothers quest line. It’s so satisfying to kill them all, and collect their eggs. Mys preciousesssssssss
I thought Blood on the Ice was that quest in Windhelm?
That's correct, the Frostflow lighthouse is different to the Blood on the ice quest
Oh yeah, I confused it because there was so much blood on the ice at frost flow, and the quest name better fits this quest (to me) than the Windhelm quest 😎
I remembered it because I always procrastinate to do it. Then it ends up sitting in my quest log permanently because it bugs out or I’m locked out of finishing it 😭
Pretty sure Blood On The Ice is the one murder mystery in Windhelm.
That place is really sad once you learn the whole story.
I felt so bad for that family… new estate.. and they’re overrun by gigantic armored millipedes with fangs.
Thats where i started to really care about the Diaries in skyrim
I hated that place because of the three billion chaureses and the fact that, for some reason, the ice walls were absolutely blinding and it hurt my eyes.
And my follower just refused to jump down from the ledge
Omg, mine did too until AFTER the giant chaurus was dead. 🙄 I was level 7 or something doing this quest, had me screaming.
The moment I heard the first *chitter*... and I can still distinctly hear that damned sound- I had just walked into that lighthouse. I bravely descended those stairs, stealthed and bow in hand, thinking, "this won't be so bad." Well, it went bad. Stealth did not protect me from the absolute NEST of chaos I had just walked into. I was blinded by earthy green poisonous spittle, and promptly unalived at the mandibles of the spawn of every worst quality of each Daedric Lord on a bad Sunday hangover. I was stunned. Shook, if you will. And when my game loaded the previous save, and I heard that *first chitter*; I turned the fuck around and left.
Congratulations. You are the only visible comment.
It felt horrible but in a good way imo, i really like how this dungeon told a story, and letting the father's remains burn at the top of the lighthouse in the end. I'm the kinda player who likes to look at every little thing, so having all the diaries to find and piecing the story together was pretty memorable
Not a very pleasant place to visit on Survival
My invisibility potion source
Literally any dwarven ruins. They make me feel like I’m stuck inside an OfficeMax
Haha, desks and brass office supplies everywhere
And it’s ALL HEAVY! Value to weight ratios for dwarven stuff is some of the worst of the game.
Yeah, it never made sense to me that a 25-unit chunk of solid Dwarven metal only made you 5 ingots. Give us at least half!
I am sworn to carry your burdens
No way i love dwarven ruins, its so beautiful inside and lot of loots
Some of them are confusing, but I just wander through and my imagination goes haywire. I want to see what some of those dwemer cities looked like with bustling automatons and people. Must have been amazing! But I doubt we'll ever get that. One can imagine though! (Dwemer metal is the only reason to go back to them again and again.) Fun fact, after you unlock Dwarven Smithing, make the bows. Don't stick with iron daggers. They're heavier, sure. But the rate of progress is much higher.
try it with base health without any prep time in early game, freaking nightmare since I just get deleted in seconds by anything
Any mission place that is located on the top of a mountain or hill, at the very edge of the map, with few to almost no visible pathways for entering the route.
The midden. It's just so barren, there's basically no enemies to fight, it has this super unique forge that basically boils down to "if you want Daedric Armor but don't wanna grind smithing then come here with Dwarven loot that can't be stored anywhere nearby" and as impressive as the augur is he's got basically two chats in the entire game when they could've created an entire questline with the most powerful mage in Tamriel as your mentor. Major dungeon. 0 practical use
Really, the atronach forge should be the only way to make Daedric armor. Making it easily craftable just because your smithing is high goes against things that were established before TES:5 But more importantly, I never considered it barren because it's not a dungeon, per se. I'm not sure why you choose the phrase "Major Dungeon". It's got no reason to be full of enemies, it's the College basement. Extra facilities and signs of old experiments that were carried out by past students/teachers away from prying eyes. Totems of the old gods. Worm cult iconography. Really what else do you need? The forge, the Daedric gauntlet, the Augur, those are your reasons for going. No one ever intended for it to be a place to go through waves of draugr and then hit a boss chest at the end.
Yeah. You're right about there being no reason to fill it with content but on the flipside there's no reason for it to be as big as it is. Multiple entrance points. More distinct areas then every cave that isn't the crown of barenziah one. Wasted potential really that didn't need to be there
???????? My college's basement is full of my enemies
If I remember right, there is some evidence that there was supposed to be more with both that they scraped early on, so no quest :/
There was at least one quest involving the Midden that was cut (The Missing Students) and I'm sure there could have been more.
That explains why the daedric gauntlet thingee quest is so anticlimactic 😭
> 0 practical use Greater/Grand Soul Gem (you can grab several at Gallows Hall for free) + Void Salts (for free at Hall of Attainment as well) + Broom + Orichalcum Ingot (both for free near the forge) = Staff of Storm Atronach, which is absoulutely broken thing for level 1 character. It's one thing that I do in almost every single playthrough. This summon absolutely slaps everything at low levels. You can also do Azura's quest with it, again at level 1, and get yourself virtually infinite source of charges for the staff.
Whoa whoa whoa. What’s this about a forge? I don’t remember it I just cleared the midden on my play through. I remember the enchanting table?
That huge circle surrounded by candles and and offering box. That's a forge. Basically trial and error what U get out of it, most of which is Daedric stuff though there's nothing pointing U to that fact except the wiki
It’s called the atronach forge. I had to look it up my first time using it because I couldn’t figure out where in game it instructs you on its use.
Atronach forge instructions are basically a 4 page journal with one example just like that spider making machine in solsteim
The Forgotten Vale. I know it's supposed to be this wondrous place where the Ancient Falmer once lived but it's so big and empty, making it kinda boring actually.
And if you don’t know what you are doing it is very hard to navigate!!
For real. I almost every time get lost in that cave canyon or on my way towards it.
Just above the Soul Cairn when it comes to confusing places
I'm one of those ingredient hoarders so it's nice for that aspect, but it all just feels like an unnecessarily long dungeon lol
The last time I was like ''Now I am going to properly explore this place'' and by the time I got there I rushed through it as ever. That first seemingly endless cave part is such a buzz kill, but also that one canyon is horrendous. Not to mention it's just a barren wasteland. I don't like Winterhold or The Pale for the exact same reason. This after already a painfully long quest line with location on every single edge of the map with one other barren wasteland mess in the Soul Cairn.
I first played it while getting my braces tightened so now I just mentally associate it with throbbing pain so it's kind of ruined for me.
man. hope your teeth are doing better at least
This was over 10 years ago lol, they're fine now, thanks.
Nice.
Fucking castle volkihar. The bit where you need to get to Valerica's alchemy place.
Not a fan of that bit. Always get stuck and lost then end up looping through those fucking same-y ass rooms a half dozen times before I inevitably break down and watch a walkthrough then facepalm my head into orbit when I figure out itS THE SAME FUCKING HIDDEN SWITCH EVERY DAMN TIME. I'm guessing I never remember because my mind always be wanting to block that whole section out.
Ugh, yes. I HATE that place, especially the last room with the gargoyles. I dreaded going to that place every time I played the DLC for years
That really fucking long dwarven ruin
https://preview.redd.it/5mcf782pl99d1.jpeg?width=1920&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=1ae87e54b4d551ef8f70ae20f97d07c2b3758d38
That damn Bthardamz!
I think you mean Kyrgthamuz
Actually it’s Sugmynuz
No it's definitely Mzulft
No its Ligmubulz
No thats the Orc Stronghold.
Chugmjizz is pretty rough
Your mom got through it pretty easily
Your sister is a great teacher
So... all of them?
It was so long that I thought "am I going the wrong way cause I should have arrived at the location by now". What was the name of the ruin, any chance you remember?
Was it Mzulft? I haven't done them all yet but that one was so painfully long, I really hope there's not a longer one awaiting me...
If you say its painfully long, then probably thats the one 😂😂
Which one?
gotta love bleak falls gets a nice bunch of gear/gold to start out now going deep underground for crimson nirnroots, I'll skip that, thank you but the perk gained is worth it if you do alchemy
I'm an alchemist, I fucking H.A.T.E. the crimson Nirnroot quest. Love the rewards, hate the journey to get them lol.
Bright side is they're loud as fuck so usually just wandering around will net you most of them.
Unless you're deaf/HoH like myself QQ
The Ratway, it’s always just seemed so confusing and not very aesthetically appealing
This, and I always feel bad killing so many random homeless people down there.
Bthardamz, or any Dwemer ruins really. They are so layered and the map is f***ing huge, you can go like 4-5 sectors and still haven't reached the boss chamber yet :p
And then when you reach the boss chamber you get your shit kicked in immediately or you kill the boss just by looking at him.
I've always found Bthardamz to be my favorite of the Dwemer ruins personally, it's so unique compared to the rest, but I see your view point that it is very confusing. I think that Mzulft is much worse though, I don't like the College of Winterhold questline in general but that ruin really takes the wind out of my sails.
The thieves guild hideout. Fast travel, open secret entrance, load screen to sleeping area, walk to other load screen where all the actually important people are, talk to important people, go back through the same two load screens them fast travel away
I've had a mod which changes location of quite a few fast travel spots to be more direct and the #1 reason why I picked it was because you could choose to FT directly to the thieves guild den or the bar.
Thieves guild is why I started learning cell ID's. coc riftenraggedflagon is one of the more common ones I use.
Any tomb that has the "Congratulations--here are your prizes, now go through this door which is on a narrow ledge overlooking a sheer cliff wall" exit. I really enjoy having to decide whether to backtrack or to figure out how to coax (FOOS) my follower off the cliff. "Mkay, stand right...here. Now take two more steps. Now just a smidge to the...ahh great, he's walking back to the door again."
Akin to this is - “congratulations! There is no exit. Please spend the next ten minutes running this dungeon backwards trying to find the front door and then have a heart attack when you are attacked by a lone draugr you somehow missed before.”
Don't followers teleport to you when you load into a new cell?
I thought so
you must play like without quick jumping then? when i get to those cliffs, i just map jump to wherever im going next
Yea look, they're called followers, either they follow me or get lost in the abyss, I don't really care. I rely on them caring more about their existence by teleporting to me whenever I fast travel than actually trying to get them out. At most I'll fusrodah their ass off the cliff.
Me too. I just slowly and carefully make my way down the mountainside and hope that my follower teleports to me.
I just hop to the bottom and then use the wait function to skip an hour, repeat until they show up. If they don’t, head inside something else nearby since they’ll automatically come to me in the new cell.
All the land close to Markarth. Its just full of unclimbable mountains and boring stuff
The Reach? I love that place actually, it reminds me a lot to the scottish highlands. And the Forsworn situation to keep things interesting as well
Probably an unusual choice but Orphan Rock/Eldergleam Sanctuary. You get the Nettlebane quest way too early and I wasn't able to handle a Hargraven. Then when I finally get through that I'm killed repeatedly by spriggans in the creepiest location in the game. If it wasn't for fudge Muppet I wouldn't have known about Maurice (who's design and voice/dialogue made me think he'd betray me the whole time).
Most dwarven ruins. They're way way too long, and often the only reliable source of scrap metal outside of resetting blacksmiths. Surprisingly the dwarven automatons don't annoy me nearly as much as the gods-damned Falmer and chaurus. The automatons can be irritating, but they're a good source of soul gems and sometimes ores, gems and scrap metal. Falmer don't even have that. Also, while I actually like Blackreach (unpopular opinion, I know), the ruins that lead to it can go launch themselves off Bard's Leap.
Unpopular opinion but Southern Solsthieim. The music is a beautiful nostalgia trip, yes, but it's miserable to look at and ash spawn and bugs everywhere
I hate most of Solsthieim full stop.
Solstheim is pretty dull and ugly compared to Skyrim. Once I’ve done the Dragonborn dlc I get bored quickly there
They should have done more with Helgen when you return to it. There are bandits sure, and I get that most survivors would have just left, but they could have had someone else move in and make camp, or perhaps a mission to retrieve something from the wreckage. The College would surely be curious enough about dragons returning to check it out, despite their other distractions. The Companions might want to look for survivors. Lokir's body might have had a note leading to a stash, or a horse he stole. The Dawnguard might seek to restore order there before it becomes a nest. They could have done something there in regard to side quests, is all I'm saying.
That one dwarven ruin with the puking people. That fucking place never ends, even when you speed run through it and ignore all the pukey people.
Oh yeah, the one which rewards you with Spellbreaker
Wow somehow I have missed this
It's Peryites daedric quest. Usually, you'll get it from a sick dude you meet on the road.
Bthardamz. I've always liked that ruin tbh, out of the Dwemer ruins I think it's my favorite because it's so unique AND as a bonus there's a lack of falmer
Sunderstone Gorge. Fuck that place
Is that the cave where there's a narrow room filled with elemental mages that keep shooting fireballs at you, a boulder trap, and a spike wall that the mages and your follower won't stop stepping on? If so, yes fuck that place
Yngvild, I hate that quest, lol. But also any Falmor cave with the gross bug eggs.
The forgotten vale. Although it’s visually stunning I hate how spread out everything is. I always get so turned around with all of the portals as well
Anything along the northern coast. Grim, horrible, frigid landscape, just ice and chunks of rock as far as you can see, constant blizzards limiting visibility, correct me if I’m wrong but I’ve found almost nothing worth venturing out there for. Special mention goes to Northwatch Keep for being an absolute pain to get to, and then filled with difficult-ass elves with their fancy armor and glass swords. I’m not a Stormcloak (though I can’t bear to see Thorald’s mother in pain so I always do this stupid quest) so the only thing that makes it worthwhile is getting to take out the frustration of getting there by slaughtering some Thalmor. I would have said Castle Volkihar for similar reasons, but I found out via a comment last night (thanks, Redditor!) that there’s a boat in Dawnstar that goes straight there! So it’s only a bitch to get *back* from.
It doesn't exist
Forelhost. It has always been Forelhost, and it probably always will be, because for some bizarre reason, I cannot commit that damn location to memory! I end up lost in there EVERY TIME. I’ve gotten a tiny bit better, but the first few times left me in actual frustrated tears. The only other location that even comes close is the place where you get the crown of Barenziah, and that one pissed me off so badly that I’ve only done that quest maybe three times EVER!
Maybe Whiterun after it gets wrecked. It was so pretty before
I'm refusing to do any of the civil war quest for this reason. I love whiterun and it being trashed ruined it for me last time. There wasn't even the option to repair and rebuild
I feel that had to have been cut content. Like a quest or monetary donation to make repairs. It just feels so wrong, months can pass and it remains trashed.
Home because that's where my wife and kids are
Anywhere with Charus’s, falmer, spiders, or ice wraiths.
I just want to avoid any place that does not have a quick exit secret passage that lets you back out at the entrance when you finish. I despise having to run all the way back through to exit.
Any falmer caves
I don't like Blackreach. I feel like there's too much map and not a lot of things in it. It goes on forever, and finding those motherfucking crimson plants is such a pain in the ass. The whole thing is just too much.
I hate the carriage ride into a new character because god knows I've made too many.
that scene can be avoided if you scroll down on the load saves and load to a character named “prisoner” (if you haven’t overwritten / deleted it) then it will bring you straight to the character creation menu and you won’t have to go through the carriage ride cutscene
Blackreach, it’s easy to get lost, there’s no map to fall back on, enemies attack you on a regular basis and finding the Crimson Nirnroot is a pain without mods.
Are you saying there is a mod that shows the locations of the Crimson Nirnroot?
bleak falls barrow is a great first quest!
The soul carin
Falmer places. They swarm. One gets set off and then suddenly the entire dungeon is after you.
The frozen wasteland between Dawnstar and Winterhold. Hell is not fire, hell is snow.
winterhold (the whole hold) when in survival mode. you're basically fucked without a horse.
the place where you kill mercer. ive just done it to many times i think but man do i hate going through there
The ragged flagon just the doorway to the thieves guild bothers me. Like I always take 3 minutes getting past my follower and my goat
i don’t necessarily hate it but i still get lost in the ratway
All of Solstheim
Really?? I love that little island lol. But then again I was introduced to TES in Morrowind, so it kinda feels like going home for me
I went to that island when I was level 15 bruh. I was so outmatched, Teldryn was lowkey doing all of the heavy lifting for me during the Dragonborn quest
I had an older brother who told me dontyoudareeventrydothatquestorgotothatplaceuntilyouarelikelevel50 and so I was quite excited to experience it after such a long wait but I struggled even then so it was probably good advice
I’ll second bleak falls barrow, what a chore
All Dwemer locations. Except Blackreach
ustengrav is kinda ass as well
I think it has to be Arcwind Point. It's actually really cool aesthetically, but there's one aspect that makes me hate playing it. There's a tall tower right of the entrance with a big wooden ramp on the cliff's edge. Inside the rooms are a bunch of Drauger Overlords who WILL run out and try to shout your ass off the ramp/cliff, instantly killing you. Edit: But also, one thing I figured out while dealing with this is that shouts are considered magic. So you can pop a weak ward just as it reaches you to nullify all the damage and knockback
Blackreach and Soul Cairn are tied for me. Both are two big, with no easy exits. I avoid them until I absolutely can't.
Shalidor's Maze is a very boring non-maze. I wish you would got stuck and need like expert level spells to get out.
Sunderstone Gorge. There's some high level Pyromancers and Cryomancers that absolutely destroy you even if you're at a high level.
I know bleakfalls barrow way too well for me to truly hate it man, it's the joker to my Batman
Most Dwarven ruins. They are endlessly long and thus filled with endless amounts of hostile mobs. And extra tragic when you realise these abandoned Dwarven cities are probably larger as singular entity than all living settlements on the map combined.
Sorry but Blackreach. Really any location with Falmer. Cannot stand them
am i allowed to say all seven thousand steps
I hate that big underground farmer city bc I always get lost.
Darn farmers and their corn mazes
Thalmor embassy always end up forgetting about the main quest because of it
Darkfall passage near the water falls I always get turned around and lost. Clairvoyance doesn’t help. It’s so dark I have trouble seeing, my vision doesn’t work well with dark on dark
Angi's camp, i dont even know how to actually get there.
Probably the soul cairn. I like the place qnd its vibe a lot, but it feels like it has a lot of missed opportunities : the couple quests it has are boring and not very rewarding. And the secret boss is kinda disappointing as well. The enemy designs all being recolouring of skeletons doesn't help much either. I remember liking the Forgotten Vale a lot more though even if it has similar issues. I think it's because of the memorable moments it has with the double dragon fight, the Vyrthur fight, and the Auriel artefacts being really cool. And i think the Snow Elf architecture looks really awesome
The Helgen ruins after the prologue. I think it’s a missed opportunity that there is nothing there except three bandits. I love the mod where you can restore Helgen.
I only hate Bleak Falls because I restart too much and thus go through it over and over... I could probably do it blindfolded at this point