Skyrim Route FAQ

Q: What difficulty is this on?
A: Easy because it's the fastest. Harder difficulties just make the run longer and more boring.

Q: What level are you?
A: 1, you stay at level one for the entire run because level scaling makes Alduin beatable at this level.

Q: How are you moving so fast without sprinting?
A: There is a glitch where if you start a sprint, quicksave, then end the sprint and quickload at the same time you keep the speed of the sprint without using any stamina.

Q: How do you jump so far?
A: The glitch listed above allows this. You move at the speed of sprinting while still being able to jump.

Q: What was with all that saving and loading after Helgen and meeting Esbern?
A: This is called a load warp. You can pause the game right at the same time you enter a load zone. Then, if you quit to the main menu and load up a different save, the game will load that character and warp them through the load zone as if you just walked into it. This lets us make a save at the back of Helgen, then go inside and get our hands unbound, then just warp straight out of it instead of running all the way through. We also use it after getting Esbern.

Q: Why is the game stuttering every time you go through a load?
A: Normally after a load the game has a second long fade in where you don't have control. If you quicksave and quickload during this fade in you instantly skip it. Since quicksaves and quickloads are counted out as per our timing rules, this is faster.

Q: Why are you saving at a tanning rack(or grindstone/workbench/etc)?
A: The properties of crafting stations are being used here. You have no collision, and your altitude is always going to stay the same. Then, we use a glitch called "Horse Tilting", or "Tilting" to apply speed to that save file. (see next question for horse stuff)

Q: WHAT HOW DID YOU GET OFF A HORSE AND SUDDENLY YOU'RE GOING A MILLION MILES PER HOUR???
A: If you tilt your horse to a 90+ degree angle and get off, for some strange reason, the game gives you ridiculous amounts of speed. You can load a save during the dismount animation to stop gaining speed and be able to somewhat control yourself. The save must be 3rd person as you instantly stop in 1st person.

Q: You were just under Thalmor Embassy/Throat of the World, how did you teleport up to it?
A: When you're underneath the world, quicksave->quickload will "upwarp" you to the ground level.

Q: Why did you take from the chest at the Embassy?
A: Normally you can't enter the embassy until much later in the game. Inside the chest is a plot item you're supposed to get then. If you get it, it will advance straight to the Cornered Rat quest, skipping a good portion of the main quest.

Q: What did you just do with that vendor?
A: If you click and drag your mouse from your inventory to a vendor's, you stay in sell mode while having their inventory open. This lets you sell their own inventory to them, taking all their gold for free.

Q: How do you have multiple Dragonbanes? Isn't that a unique item?
A: There are multiple methods of duplication, but the fastest in this case is to just spam the pickup button(E) after creating lag from a quicksave->quickload.

Q: Did you just get married???
A: No. The main quest usually has an unskippable 4.5min long cutscene where you learn Dragonrend. It turns out whenever you fail to attend your marriage, the game gives you back control (since there's usually a cutscene). If you combine that with a glitch that lets you read the Elder Scroll anywhere to start the cutscene, you can warp into the cutscene during your marriage ceremony, fail it, regain control, and do things to make it significantly faster.

Q: Why are you travelling to weird places during the cutscene?
A: This skips dialogue during the cutscene, manipulates the time of day in-game to something favourable for later events, and lets us discover fast travel points for later use.

Q: How are you continually doing power attacks without using stamina?
A: While dual wielding weapons, if you start a power attack with both and immediately hit the attack buttons again once the animation starts, it'll do the power attack without using stamina.

Q: What's with all the stream lag during council?
A: Another method of skipping dialogue is to quicksave and quickload, which will skip ahead to the next line of dialogue. You can do that repeatedly in council to make it significantly faster.

Q: Hey streamer what's the alduin thing?
A: Tune in and find out, viewer.

Q: Are there any mods?
A: No, mods are not allowed in speedrunning.

Q: What is the fastest time?
A: You can see all times at: http://www.speedrun.com/skyrim