Breaking Games: Leveling Skills in Skyrim

So, I was playing Skyrim, and I did what any responsible hardcore player would do. I looked at all the perks I could buy, and decided what I was going to buy before I leveled up even once. That kept me from going about willy-nilly and having a horrible hybrid player.

The problem is this: I needed to reach level 52 to get all the perks I wanted, but just playing through only gets you to about level 30ish, depending on how you play. So, I decided to break the game a little bit, and level more skills that I don’t normally use, or that are hard to level up.

NOTE: You can use the stones to level up your skills faster, and fast travel to the stones to change which skills level up quicker. However, this will lead to tougher enemies without the payoff of better items/gear early on. Use them if you want to, but just keep that in mind.

Credit for a couple of these goes to Stephen Johnson at www.g4tv.com

Skill trainers: There is a huge exploit that needs to be addressed right at the beginning. This little exploit can actually be used on all skills to level them quickly. There are some restrictions (some forward thinking by the developers, no doubt), but the higher the skill is already, the less restricting it gets.

Basically, you need to use the exploit listed below to get your pickpocket skill up. And then go to any skill trainer and train. The nice thing is, once you train at a skill trainer, the amount you paid goes into their pickable inventory, meaning that you can get your gold back by pickpocketing them. The restraint is that you can only train any combination of skills 5 times per level, meaning that you can’t do this indefinitely without actually playing. However, once the skill is high enough, leveling the skill will increase your level greatly.

Pickpocket: I suggest doing this at the very start of the game. Make your way to Riften, a city in the far south east part of the map. There you will be given a task by a random person. Perform the task or not, and you get an invitation to join the Thieves’ guild. Once there, there is a pickpocket trainer. You can use him to level up pickpocketing pretty quickly. If you reach the 5 train limit, simply go out into Riften and pick pocket everyone you can until you level up. Then repeat. Once you reach 51 in pick pocketing (or any skill), however, it gets very hard to steal your gold back from him without getting caught, due to the jump in price for training. Also, make sure to save your game after every successful steal.

Sneak: The natural way to level this skill is simply sneak everywhere. There’s really no way to break this, other than the skill trainer / pick pocket idea. But, as long as you are sneaking, you should level up ok. The first option for the next tip also works for sneaking.

One handed, Two handed, Archery: There are ways to exploit this, and I will explain them, but these should level automatically as you use them. But, to speed things up, there are a few ways to do this. First, you can start right at the beginning of the game. When you are following your rescuer (whoever you chose) through a cave, you come upon a place where there is a bear, and he gives you the option to sneak around it. At that point, he simply crouches, and waits for you to choose to sneak past the bear, or fight it. Instead of doing either, you can hit him over and over again to level your skills. This doesn’t work as well for archery (use the second option for archery), simply because you don’t have many arrows at this point. If you crouch and hit him in the back, this will also level your sneak skill.

The second option for these skills is to buy a horse. A horse will help level all weapon skills, as well as destruction and restoration magic. You can hit the horse over and over again (or use magic), and let it heal (or heal it, to get your restoration up) and keep going.

The third option is to fight enemies that won’t deal much damage to you, and turn the difficulty all the way up, so it takes a while to kill them. This is the most risky way to do this.

Destruction: Again, you can use the horse idea, or you can simply let it level naturally by fighting enemies. Or, you can cast spells on your companion at the beginning of the game. Alternatively, you can join the companions, and early on you will be given the task of fighting a character. If you use destruction magic on him, he won’t retaliate saying something about the companions not using magic.

Restoration, Alteration: If you quest for the College of Magic, you can eventually gain access to a spell which turns health into magicka. You simply wield that spell on one hand, and a restoration spell on the other, and cast them simultaneously. One will heal the damage done by the other, and one will take that health and make magicka to fuel the spells. This isn’t exactly a one-for-one swap, so you’ll have to rest every once in a while.

Speechcraft, Blacksmithing, Enchanting: You can use some materials to make iron daggers (1 leather straps and 1 iron ingot). This is the quickest way to leveling blacksmithing. Then, go to the enchanter’s table, and enchant the daggers. Sell them, and use the money to buy more materials to make more daggers and enchantments. Make sure you sell the daggers one at a time, as your speechcraft levels per transaction, not per item. If you do this, you should make some money as well.

Alchemy: There is not an easy way to level this. Just pick up all the ingredients you can, and use them to make potions, and it will level naturally. Alternatively, you can try buying ingredients, making potions, and selling the potions to buy more ingredients. Just experiment with which ingredients make the potions that sell for more than the ingredients. You can make money, level alchemy, and level speechcraft in one shot.

Light Armor, Heavy Armor, Block: These are as simple as letting people hit you. Skyrim uses a system that levels your armor based upon how much damage you take, not how many times you are hit, so if you turn the difficulty to easy, you won’t level as quickly. However, if you can find a ring of regeneration, you can regenerate health as quickly as the enemy is taking it. This way you can just leave it on overnight to level your armor. If you rubber band the block button and leave it, you can do that too. But you can’t level armor and blocking together. Any damage that is negated due to a successful block does not count towards leveling your armor.

Lockpicking: This one isn’t easy to exploit. You just have to pick locks. Fortunately, you can pick some houses’ locks, enter, and then exit, and the house will be locked again. Make sure to stock up on lockpicks. Another good thing is that even failing to pick a lock will level your skill some.

Illusion: Simply buy the spell “muffle”, and then cast it a lot. Too easy.

Conjuration: Buy the spell “soul trap” and then kill something. Then cast the spell on the dead body hundreds of times.

Enjoy!

   - Sapper Woody

Breaking Games: World of Warcraft "Mobile Auction House"

Even though this isn't strictly "breaking" the game, this follows my same lines of thinking of using something already in the game to your advantage.

In World of Warcraft, there is a wonderful thing called the Auction House, or AH. Just like a real AH, you list items on there for sale, and other real players buy them with in game currency, and the AH takes a cut of what is made.

Well, this is all well and good, except the AHs are only located in major cities. This presents a hassle for players who are questing far away from the major hubs.

Fortunately, a simple solution exists that players can exploit. It's called a "Banking Toon", or simply "Bank". All you have to do is to make a level one character and have them walk to the nearest major city. Then, any time your main character gets an item he wants to sell on the AH, he simply mails this item to his bank. The bank then lists the item, and gets the profit. This has effectively turned any mailbox into a "Mobile Auction House".

   - Sapper Woody

Breaking Games: Fable 2 Infinite Experience

Unlike the infinite money exploit in the Fables, this exploit for Fable 2 will COMPLETELY break the game for you. It makes it so easy that it is no longer fun. If you want to play the game and experience it fully, do not read any further.

However, here it goes.

Playing through the storyline of Fable 2, you will come to a bridge that you have no choice but to jump off of. After going through a cave, you will come to a town. The first building on the right (where you can become a woodchopper) will give you a skill bonus if you sleep in the bed.

The game also allows you to sell back bought powers at a percentage of the buying price. However, if you try to sell back the skill bonus you got from sleeping, you get the experience refund but it does not take away the bonus. This means that you can sell it back infinitely. I am sure that you can do the math. Infinite sellbacks = infinite experience. Infinite experience = max on all abilities. Enjoy being a demigod.

   - Sapper Woody

Breaking Games: Fable Economy

As much fun as I have playing all three Fable games, I can't help myself. I have to have more money. Fortunately, all three feature easily broken economy systems. The first is the most obvious, with the second requiring some underhandedness, and the third title actually requiring a bit of work. But, here they go:

Fable: The original Fable uses a unique pricing system which lowers prices at a merchant when he has an overabundance of items, and raises them when he has a lack of items. This was put in place in order to allow the player to be a sort of merchant; buying items when they are low, and selling them when they are high. But what if the player creates the supply and demand?
   To perform this, simply play until you get to the first town. That very first vendor will allow you to do everything you need to get rich quick. First, simply buy everything he has. Make sure you use the button that allows you to buy everything at once. This allows you to purchase his entire stock at the same price without raising the price each time you buy something. Now that you have bought his entire stock, he has a deficiency. He will offer you a higher price to buy back his stock than what you bought it for. Just make sure to sell it all at once.
   Once you have made enough money to clean him out, buy everything he has, and go to the nearby inn and rest for three days. Now, sell everything to him, so he has double his stock, driving his prices to the basement. Buy it all back at low prices, and sell it all back. Rinse and Repeat.

Fable 2: Fable 2 allows you to break their economy with less work and time, but you have to be connected to XBOX live. Since Fable 2 pays your character his rents even when he is off the game, all you have to do is tell the system that you've been off thegame for years.
   First, rent as much property as you can. Second, get out of the game and set your XBOX clock back a few years. Log into the game. Log out, and set your clock forward several years. When you log back into the game, you will be paid al those years' worth of rent, making a fortune instantly.

Fable 3: Fable 3 actually requires you to use the old "set it and forget it" trick. All you have to do is buy as much property as you can, and leave your XBOX on overnight. Next day you'll have amassed quite a sum. Use that to buy even more property and you'll be able to make millions in a single night. Unfortunately, Fable 3 has a degrading system, where your houses have to be repaired every so often, so you'll have a hefty repair bill every morning. But your shops will not.

   - Sapper Woody

"Breaking" Games Defined

Me and a friend were playing Neverwinter Nights 2 together. We had gotten pretty far in the original campaign, when we had this epiphany: we were playing a role playing game, but our character builds were far from roleplaying. We had done what zeroand09 calls "breaking the game". We had looked at all the rules and had decided how to best optimize our characters. Instead of playing a Wizard, I was playing a Wizard/Fighter combo that allowed me to cast any arcane spell without any armor penalties. For those untrained out there: this allowed me to be super overpowered. I could cast all my wizard spells, and still wear the best armor and shields.

Although sometimes referred to as "breaking the game", I utilize a method that I have perfected over the years. I call it "optimizing the game". Sometimes, yes, my characters get so powerful that I am beyond what the game was intended for and it ceases to be fun. But, most of the time it allows me to enjoy extremely hard content at a moderate difficulty.

As part of this blog, I will frequently have a segment called "Breaking Games" where I will attempt to explain loopholes and workarounds that I find.

WARNING: This will change your gameplay forever. Once you know how to "break" a game, it takes EXTREME willpower not to do it every playthrough.