I'm afraid Stonedsoul just cannot be appeased. As their argument boils down to an opinion, of which there are many and they differ, one persons notion of balance deviates significantly based on play style and use of the games mechanics to another. The OP can argue that the game is unbalanced, they me even provide strict mathematical proof of said imbalances, but when that is done with wilful ignorance as to their own interaction with the system the argument degenerates into personal desire and nothing else.

I hope the OP finds a way to continue their enjoyment of the game.

Drastic sliders wont help failing scaling.

the idea is not to remove any current playstyle, its to stop restricting them. I should not have to build my toon in function of how hard I want the game to be: if I want to be an elemental nuker, why cant I be?

Funnily enough I just ventured in to these forums for the first time in a long long time tonight, to see if it was just me. Reading some replies on here I just would like to add my point of view. I avoided all the hype and all the news regarding skyrim until I could get it upon release.
So not to have any pre conceived ideas or notions about the game.

I started a rouge thief character and did not want to rush the story so I did as many side quests as I could and minor quests.
I dabbled quite heavily in blacksmithing and enchanting because quite rightly I had no notions or expectations what so ever lay in wait for my progression , so I managed to get to 40+ before I started the main quests and already felt like I was murdering any who fell in my wake.

I must admit I was very disappointed to suddenly realise that my char was totally over powered without me realising that later on the scaling seemed to stop and my char turned out like a god.
Completely killing all immersion and fun, I would love to know what warning I was given this may happen when installing and starting my quest, because now I’m led to believe oh it’s your fault you exploited and over powered your char without any warning. It’s not like there was any inkling that when the main quest was started that nothing would get more difficult and scaling would appear to dwindle into thin air even on master.

But then again I was not born with 100% skill in hindsight like many on here.

In order to enjoy the game to the fullest its probably best to avoid using trade skills at all. I doubt Bethesda will balance this game so dont wait for it

Dont care about destruction and illusion. I have a lot in destruction but I'm also leveling conjurgation and bows

Sorry , buts thats bull.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_balance

Yeah i know, its just wiki, but at the end of the day there IS a definition of balanced, which is an equivalence in potency of the various options.

What you are arguing is that one may be please with and enjoy an imbalanced state. Not that we dont agree on what is to be called "balance".

Oh I did. If I didnt, I would not be posting, I would be playing something else. I have settled on a Conjuration/Archery character i really am liking so far.

That doesnt stop me from seeing issues with it.

Identifying the imbalances in Skyrim and providing the best solutions to them is no small task. If you are right (I'm too Skyrim-inexperienced to tell), I hope Bethesda listens.

So less than 24 hours after the game was released people already notice enchanting and smithing is broken.

Yet somehow during all the "Testing" and years of development none of the developers noticed it?

Either theyre the worst Dev's in the history of any game or they dont give a [censored].

I think its the latter.

Theres already mods out that fix countless problems already, so yes apparently it is the modders job to fix the game. Wheres Beth's patches
at? Not here of course.

strongly agree with first issue risen, crafting, but specificaly the stacking of multipliers of all forms, need to be capped.

strongly disagree with second issue, destruction is perfectly fine if you play it right, the only two issues I would like fixes, is the multipliers for mana and damage on the dual cast perk, and also the stagger followup needs to be a proc chance rather than a 100% thing.
some lvl 50+ +dmg items in the order of 10-20% more dmg total would also be nice, but over 50+ the game is over anyway.

never tried illusion but I dont like the fact that you either spec heavily into it or not bother using it at all (cuz of it being driven by the level of mobs.

as for the last issue, incentive to wearing robes is low, but there are incentives, for starters you dont have to invest into one or more skills (smithing and armor skill) to get the best benefit for it, meaning you save alot of perk points for other usefull stuff, you also have a easier time kiting and training mobs for the majority of the game, even if the lack of protection is more punishing

No I am not arguing any such thing. I am stating that you have your opinion and that I have mine and that they cannot be reconciled. When the argument revolves around issues of balance it follows that disagreements as to what balance is ensue. The difference in our respective positions is one of imposition.

Some people also enjoy being overpowered and its a valid playstyle as well. Thus it is impossible to balance a TES game.

We can only hope for more difficulty levels.

I'm not looking for pure balance. I'm just looking for the easiest exploits to be fixed. Also you shouldnt be able to break the game by just playing normally like by doing trade skills

Could it just be a way to do the game balancing that you cannot develop a single overkill-fireball, which will kill whatever creature in the game? Even if you are on a very high level.
Instead to become a more powerfull mage, you need to develop yourself more.

These are always questions about everyone's favorite way to play and of course the devs cannot create the game to meet everyone's wishes.
But that's why we'll have the possibility to create mods.

This is a very good, and often overlooked point. "If the only reason you hate socialized medicine is because it pays for abortions, then you need to argue against abortions, not against socialized medicine." Classic confusion of the issue. It happens a lot, we all do it, and lawyers love to nail you on it.

The game can be incredibly enjoyable. The game might even be perfectly playable in all respects. That, however, does not mean that it is adequately balanced. A lot of players have a great time playing any build, at whatever difficulty, and don't mind the differences at all, myself included. However, that subjective appreciation of the game does not actually mean that the game is objectively balanced in the sense of various strategies having, overall, the same effect.

In fact, this is certainly not the case. Skyrim is very unbalanced. It's fun, in fact it's marvelous to play. But it is still very unbalanced. And balance is a question of math, not opinion. Numbers can demonstrate that a game is balanced or it isn't, and the mathematics of Skyrim are very skewed. Some back-of-the-envelope calculations have put Melee and Destruction at a 500:1 power ratio for a level 55 character. That's pretty horrible balance. I'm not saying it needs to be 1:1, or even 5:1, but five hundred times the combat effectiveness is egregious.

See that there.....your doing it wrong.

The problem is that this "overpowered" playstyle is one that can be re-created with the use of a correctly balanced difficulty slider. A well built character in the hands of any barely competant player will feel EXTREMELY overpowered in Novice difficult.

Which comes back to the question I have been asking this whole thread, still unanswered: "Why do you want to do the god mode on Master so bad? How would it be different to have the exact gameplay but have the slider on Novice?"

Meanwhile I am being accused of trying to ruin the games for others while these characters would have me believe that there is no way to make magic scale or to balance crafting skills so they can be used by those who dont want to be overpowered.

P.S. yes, those synergies, you can find them out purely by mistake. I did on my orc, and within 24 hours so did everybody else. Level enchanting, notice you can have + smithing enchants, craft a set of it and use it every time you are at the forge (you can even keep it on your companion mule). To anyone who has played any kind of MMO, that will come as the instinctive thing to do.

This isn't the point. If you were correct and the game designers did not intend for mages to be able to cast a single fireball that could do 500 damage, then they also should not have allowed warriors or archers to do that. However, what we see is that archers and warriors can do that sort of damage, while mages can't. However, for trading away that ability to do damage, mages are not getting anything else in return. No increased defense, no increased evasion, nothing of the sort. This is why it's a lack of balance.

I'm very happy with the current balance, playing as a warrior, so I hope they don't change it

http://memegenerator.net/instance/11620889

Wait, they're not fixing Destruction Skill in next patch? That svcks, I thought they were cause it was my fav out all the skills. Got sick of it because when I leveled up I felt weaker then stronger. Your not suppose to get that from an RPG. Got him to 48 and felt like a waste of time. I have no clue gamesas didn't find out how gimp it was, all you had to do was make a 40+ pure mage and try destruction to see how bad it was.

I play on 360 sadly so no mods To make a game like elder scrolls more challenging would be kind of difficult because of how game plays. Not much strategy, sure there can be a bit of timing in melee, and what spells to use and shouts to use at a certain time. Making game harder by inc health or inc enemy damage would just overlong fights or make it into a cat and mouse game, that would just make it annoying. Be nice if you could Improve AI, but of course were talking about Bethesda lol. I don't play Elder Scrolls for combat, I play for immersion, I do think the combat is FUN, but it's not great, if you get what I'm talking about.

I do belief that crafting skills are extremely OP as well, giving my warrior the ability to lawnmower over almost anything, but a few mobs. Yet my mage struggles to have mana and survive after almost every fight. IT NEEDS FIX NOW. This is reason I like Dark Souls so much, sure spellcasters were OP, but I played melee it was engaging, fun, and VERY challenging. You had mix with your roll dodges and blocks at certain times, position yourself, or if your full on warrior learn to use your shield at right time. Know when to stop blocking to regain your stamina and how many times to hit or when to hit. If you messed up you would pay the price lol. Look up a melee build on last fight in Dark Souls you will see what I'm talking about.

The majority of the posters in this thread who are seriously suggesting that this game is fine and that it's the player's fault if they break the game are completely absurd and missing the point entirely. Why should I be punished via the difficulty dropping off the map because I chose to spend perks in a crafting profession or two? I should be rewarded, not penalized because I chose to use my perks to their fullest. Insrtead of feeling any sense of achievement (both smithing is way too easy to level and the weapons too strong when combined with enchanting), all I feel is annoyed, because those perks end up cheapening the game to the point in which I may as well have the difficulty all the way down. Which is what the TC already stated.

Your solution is simply "Well don't take and use those perks then!". But I want to, and telling me that the only way for me to enjoy the game is by refusing them is absurd. I actually stopped bothering with smithing after it ruined my second character, and this was before the huge enchantment + alchemy stacking was well known. The game is supposrd to be about choice, but now I have to play as though smithing is not even there...and that is one less option I have to choose from. The game is nowhere near balanced, and yes, people can impose stupid regulatios on themselves, but they shouldn't have to in the first place.

they didnt intend mages to be able to exploit to get free cost spells either Im sure...
yet if anything needs to be fixed is the exploit that allows bows and weapons such high damage ranges (abuse of smithing+enchanting+alchemy) and the mages no cost cast of spells, by putting a cap into how mych % a multiplier can get by stacking stuff.

rest is fine if people have the will to learn how to use it.
because if they dont, the time is long past to whine about it on forums as there are already noo... erhm I mean customer friendly mods to change game mechanics.

personally my master difficulty pure mage, was a completly awesome experience, not so much at start, but once I got gear to cast stuff properly... my warrior's damage just couldnt beat it, and only at lvl 50's did he start out damaging my mage in single target, cuz in support control and aoe, my mage STILL was king and STILL being very damaging.

lol.

First you say it is too hard to kill people with Destruction.

Then you say the game is too easy.

So, which one is it?

Both; contingent on subjective experience. The game can be completed regardless of build.

The game is too hard if you play destruction (and dont want to be a summoner archetype).

The game is too easy if you want to be a melee use crafting, or an Illusion mage.

Hence this crazy situation where the game's difficulty is decided by how you build instead of by the difficulty slider.

P.S. i would like to point out that other then crafting, there is no way to increase melee performance. As melee you focus on stamina and health, so you have little mana for spells, and none has offensive synergy with physical damage builds anyway... So no crafting actually restricts your choice by quite a lot if you want to play melee.

My first character was a Destruction Mage in Heavy Armor, and I did not use Conjuration or a companion. Around level 20 I realized something was horribly wrong with the game. I could not play the character that I wanted to play because it was completely inefficient. When I could kill things faster with my fists than spells, I knew it was time to stop. I then decided that the game was horribly skewed towards melee and that if I was going to be forced to play a Mage as a Warrior, that I may as well just play a Warrior. The game became laughably easy in comparison, but then at level 29 when I crafted my Ebony set, I had to turn the difficulty up twice, and that still was not enough.

I never have to use any companions for any of my characters either unless that character focuses on Destruction, and I am also forced to take Conjuration just to deal any damage in the later levels. Mana is also an issue because the spells actually get even more inefficient as you buy the next tier, and the Dual Casting perk is one of the worst damage perks in the game. Just because I can eventually get infinite mana by exploiting an obviously not intended feature, that does not make everyrthing ok. What am I supposed to do in the meantime? What use is the mana I ended up dumping points to after it's no longer neded? Does gaining infinite mana allow me to kill faster?

Since when has any TES game been about difficult fights?