Has anyone else feel like they've hit a brick wall in terms of enjoyment from the game? I loved oblivion and fallout 3. I realize Skyrim is a great game as well. I'm about 20 hours in though and for whatever reason I am having a hard time continuing on with the game. I find myself wanting to play it less and less and losing motivation to continue. I feel like I've hit a difficulty spike as well...which led me to turning the difficulty down a notch as well. I'm already a good chunk of the way through the companions and college quests. I just can't put my figure on what the problem is. Has anyone else started to lose their desire to push through with Skyrim?

I am about 40 hours in and haven't played in about a week. For me it is mainly because I have been busy, and when I do play a game it is battlefield 3. Personally I am not that anxious to get back into the game because I am a bit tired of the character I am. So I am going to try and rush through the story, the thieves guild and then start a new character.

I had to stop playing it. I got to lvl 52, but just the many glitches and bugs have worn me down. My Companions questline is broken, so I can't finish it, and my Civil War questline was just buggy as hell, even though I was at least was able to complete it. Gonna give it a good rest, and start another stealthy assassin type character to do the Thieves and DB questlines later on. But yeah, for me I think it might also be the massive hrs I've played of Bethesda's open world games. Just burnt out on 'em I guess.

I have over 120 hours in the game, and for now I'm gonna stop playing, of course i will return to Skyrim pretty soon. Right now I've started Neverwinter Nights 2 again, bye bye sleep.

@TheDudeOfGaming: Is that game pretty good? I've never played it. How does it compare to Dragon Age: Origins?

no not really, i've been playing it more than battlefield 3. but i'm a completionist and enjoy clearing the thousands of caves littered throughout skyrim (disclaimer: i know i can't complete skyrim, lol)

if anything start tanking through the main story, its pretty interesting and has enjoyable unique missions

@TheDudeOfGaming: Ah okay, thanks. I will definitely check it out if I think my laptop can run it somewhat.

Also, I feel bad for being the one to derail this thread, so I'll contribute. I stopped playing around 30-40 hours in, because of the framerate problems on my PS3. I started playing it again on a PC at a friends, but I cannot play it as much as I'd want. With that said, I don't really want to anymore. It's hard to capture the magic twice, and the things I don't care for are more glaring if I am not invested 100% into the game.

60 hours in and I was able to stop playing. But I still want to go back.

I hadn't played it in a week and I fired it up a couple days ago to see if I still loved it, 4 hours went by before I knew it. Game of the Year indeed. Hopefully their DLC (expansion packs) is awesome and the Creation Kit makes some great stuff.

Agree! I'm about 50 hours in, and hardly touched the main quest. I don't think I'll even bother finishing it. I've started playing with different Mods to get some fun out of the game before I inevitably quit and start playing something else.

I have 3 characters and two of those are well over 100 hours. I'm going to give it a rest for a while.

I have hit that wall, yes. I think it's when I realized I've seen everything, and that nothing from here on is going to be different. I am always going to fight the same draugers in the same caves.

I made a bunch of characters and ended up burning myself out through that, then I went back to playing Morrowind and Saint's Row 3, and now I have those two in the back of my head whenever I try to play again and I just can't do it. Maybe when the mods start flowing I'll be able to.

i've taken a break from it to finish out my year goal of 50k gamerscore, but i'm not bored of it, 100+ hours and i'm still having fun.

56 hours and it still feels fresh. 
 
The secret, IMO, is to keep jumping between the infinite aspects of the game. Do a main story quest, then go explore some cave, then a couple of minor quests for the peasants, then a mind-fuck quest, then learn a couple of things from the magic college, then go kill a bandit leader, etc... 
 
With the amazing goosebump quest lines of The Dark Brotherhood and whatnot, the game still excites me.

@Aronman789: I did that with all of the Bethesda games. It's a huge mistake that is hard to avoid, because I want to see all of the characters and their differences firsthand. Also, sometimes I'm just not satisfied with my character's looks, or I read a piece of lore and go another direction, etc. So yeah, I understand this very well.

54 hours in and still going strong this game steals my weekends away dam it I will S Rank it though.

People still seem to no understand, anything more than 20 hours in this day and age is a very long single player experince. I've heard people saying they got bored after 60 hours and feel like they wasted there money, how can 60+ of your time that you enjoyed be a waste?

Yeah, but it came around 120 hours in, so I don't feel too bad about it.

100 hours, only stopped temporarily to avoid burn out. I'll definitely want to continue since I haven't even started the Dark Brotherhood, didn't finish all the Daedra quests, didn't choose a side in the war, didn't learn as many shouts as I'd like, and didn't even get to see Falkreath yet.
On the other hand, I got tired of every other Bethesda game that came before this in no more than 30-40 hours and ditched them completely. I'd say that's an improvement.
 
As far as difficulty, once you get to a higher level it gets even weirder. Since some mobs cap out at a certain level and others continue scaling up along with you, the difficulty level is never consistent even in the same area. I've been to caves as a level 50 where I've one-shotted everything in sight, then got to a non-boss mob that I expected to do the same to only to have my ass handed to me for my arrogance.

I kinda hit a brick wall after playing through the main storyline quest. I just felt like I had "beaten" Skyrim in the sense that the imminent threat had been dealt with. Also it really didn't feel rewarding after the fact, no one addressed you any differently, and you didn't get any cool gear. 
 
Then about a week later I got addicted again when I started doing the guild quests, after which I hit another wall because I felt I had completed everything major.
 
THEN I got back into it when I decided to just go exploring and start clearing out caverns and forts and such. After which I hit ANOTHER wall because I felt I had seen everything there was to see.
 
AND THEN I got back into it because I wanted to play the side quests, and I'm still going strong there.
 
It's a weird sensation, really.

The mods actually dont help me, I keep putting off going back into skyrim because theres always a huge list of mods to install.

I'm 224 hours in and still going strong. Started my third character just a few days ago.

Downloaded Deadly Dragons and I recommend it. It makes Dragons terrifying.

I'm onto my second character. Still going but I haven't played it over the last week cause I've been playing TOR. Probably for the best since I was starting to feel a bit of burn out, which is natural when playing a game for as many hours I had.

I played up to 35+ hours, am lvl 33. This was either the week it came out or week after, played non stop.. But after awhile I just lost any motivation too continue, played maybe two or three times after that in very short bursts and this was maybe 2-3 weeks ago. Don't think I will come back to it.

The same happened with Fallout:NV btw, only that one I got to the end off the main quest and just stopped playing after that and never finished it.

Fallout 3 however I played through 3 times, where one time(last time I think) I tried playing all the quests possible(while using the interwebs as a helping hand to find them).

I'm 120 hours into the PC version and the only reason I've stopped playing it is because I have other games to play. I kinda feel sorry for people who can only play the console versions as neither the 360 nor the PS3 versions are ideal due to the fact that they a.) can't fun as well and b.) can't have mods and c.) don't have a command console (I know because I spent over 100 hours with the 360 version which is time I wish I had spent on the PC version instead). On the PC I can fix most quest glitches by pulling down the console or with mods. As for the difficulty, I've actually had to turn it up, not down since the game was getting too easy at some points.

There is a weird limit I hit with it around level 50 so I dropped it for a week or two, plus there were exams. But I installed some mods and it's getting some of the fun back. Especially from that better magic mod (and the cleaner ladies of course, you got to have clean ladies, you have to, it's essential).

I'm about 20 hours in and I took a break because it completely drains my life away. I became glued to the tv, so I went out and bought BF3.

I'm about 45 hours in and it's getting pretty repetitive. Same fucking dungeons over and over again.

I did about 112 hours, and got all the achievements, but that was a couple weeks ago. I'll definitely go back, some time next month when the modders have gone crazy on it a bit more.

There's certainly grindy stretches (the draugr trawls being by far the worst culprits), but for me there were always enough great unique moments thrown in there every so often to keep things interesting. I think it's one of those games where you get out as much as you put in - if you're not prepared to mix things up or let yourself get sidetracked, and instead just go Route 1 through the questlines then you will get bored.

I do wish they had pushed the boat out more often though, because when they did (such as Blackreach or... the main questline ending area) the results were pretty stunning.

I just hit the 100 hour mark and I'm still having a great time. Didn't really notice any difficulty problems playing through, maybe your character build is making things difficult?
I also took a few breaks though, once to beat Saints Row and another to beat MW3 (that was a short one) maybe put it down for another game then come back to it. Or maybe it's just not your thing. That's cool too.

I burnt out a little bit at around 150 hours in. After taking a break for a week I really fancy jumping back in now.

You can burn out on anything if you do it too much at once.

This one time I got so sore from... hmm wait. ok thats inappropriate never mind.

Mine came after 160+ hours.

I don't know how to feel. Maybe my expectation was that this game would keep me going for a lot longer, but seeing as how I have 60+ hours playing this game, I feel pretty ok about it. I mean, no game since Oblivion has kept me that long so I have to say that I got what I wanted out of it. Guess I hit it hard too fast, playing for really long sessions.

I played for shit loads of hours then one day loaded it up and just felt no motivation whatsoever to keep going. Weird feeling.

yes i have put in over 150 hours..now its getting bad with freezing and locking up unless i turn off the xbox for awhile and frame rate dropping. other than that i still have the dark brotherhood to go

150 hours I feel ready to move on, but only because I did everything I wanted to do and I barely have any quests left to do. I'm sure I'll come back to it with a different character or when they release an expansion, whichever come first.

I hit a brick wall of fun as well. I played a huge number of hours in a short period of time, but suddenly I feel like there is nothing interesting and structured to do and creating a new character seems less interesting because you can basically do everything with a single character during the quest structure. Unless I feel like doing random dungeon diving, there just doesn't feel like there is a whole lot left. I understand that I've played a very large number of hours, but still, I feel like the "hugeness" of Skyrim is somewhat overstated. There isn't enough long, interesting, structured content to keep me playing.

I find that with these kinds of games, I'll play them exclusively until I feel like I had my fill. I'll stop and play something else and forget about it for a bit then pick it back up and play it like crazy until the end. It's all about pacing my man.

Meh I kinda felt burnt out after the second playthrough...  Ive just been using my fists but meh...  I guess I should actually enter more caves but Ive felt like I had a better time with Uncharted 3

I enjoyed the game very much until i had become too powerful and combat was a choice basically. I could one-shot anything (even dragons) and i might be right in front an enemy and they couldn't see me. I think i'd like to restart and play as something more challenging than a stealth class at end-game. Maybe a caster or an archer, i'm not sure.

Thanks for the responses guys. Much appreciated. Maybe I'll put it on the back burner for a bit and come back to it in the new year. Like I said, I realize it's a great game...just need to recapture the motivation to keep going.

I tend to get burnt out after I spend too much time on any one game.

I say just try going elsewhere. I've gotten burnt out on Skyrim so I went and played The Binding of Isaac for a bit and now I'm back up to playing Skyrim for hours at a time.

i played ALOT. like i dont want to look at how much in steam cus ill probably get all depressed rofl. but i havent played in a few weeks. but ill probably jump back in soon. ive been wanting to

@Hizang said:

People still seem to no understand, anything more than 20 hours in this day and age is a very long single player experince. I've heard people saying they got bored after 60 hours and feel like they wasted there money, how can 60+ of your time that you enjoyed be a waste?

Internet. Bitching. Oh, and people don't understand the value of money.

I put 300+ hours into Oblivion and Fallout 3. I have played around 60 hours of Skyrim and i haven't played it in 2 weeks, i just don't care for it anymore. I keep hearing on podcasts that the world is so amazing, but after spending so many hours dicking around, and doing quests, the world has become pretty sterile and boring to me. But i think the reason for that is the boring ass combat. Once you get a high enough skill in weapons or magic, the challenge in combat goes away completely. And none of the choies you make seems to have any effect on the world what so ever, so the illusion of that fantastic world starts to crumble.

In a million years i would never have thought that i would get bored by a Elder Scrolls game, but here i am finding it a chore to get through. It doesn't help that the same kind of stupid things that was wrong with Oblivion still exists in Skyrim.

Oh and Radiant AI my ass.

Everyone keeps posting their time am I missing something in the game I don't see my time played anywhere.

I'm at 40 hours or so and I'm still enjoying it a lot. I didn't plow through 80 hours of the game in a week like I did with Fallout 3, but I didn't have a job back then either, so that's no fault of the game.

I think I had "fun" with the game for about a week; which is the time it took me to get to around level 25 (about 35-40 hours ?). This is when the exploratory aspects were fresh; and the non radiant quest pool wasn't empty.

After this point; the little details and failing of the game became all too apparent.

That and the fact that enemies were dying in just a few hits.

I think I'm going to try new vegas; finish baldur's gate 1, try alpha protocol or finish mask of the betrayer for nwn2, or finish shivering isles for oblivion. Or maybe just play an fps. With so many good games to play; a wandering simulator seems to lack incentive for me, personally.

Maybe once mods come out next month, I'll start a new stealth or magic character and give it a whirl.