Bethesda, why must we rebalance your game for you? : V - Skyrim

» Mon May 21, 2012 10:43 pm

I ended up just making restrictions on my character, I just use padded armor with a hood because i like the look, I pick up a few but not a lot of potions and i play on master. I can't even kill dragons but the game is much more fun when it's actually dangerous. I made this character after finishing the main quest with a warrior that felt like god and I wasn't even crafting or enchanting anything and was playing on expert...the game is just too easy you have to make it hard yourself.

» Mon May 21, 2012 2:55 pm

OP, you're absolutely right, and I especially like your point about the purpose of sliders. The problem with the discussion is that more people play for cosmetics than for balance (i.e. cost-benefit strategies and interest in game mechanics).

A cosmetics player applauds the improved color, the better effects, and the simplicity of the new spell-casting system. A cost-benefit player (who is not necessarily a min-max player) deplores the loss of spells and spell-crafting, even if they wanted the spell-crafting exploits removed.

A cosmetics player wants choices of different looking armor. A cost-benefit player wants different armor to not only have different stats, but different in-game effects (different movement styles, tanking vs dodging, etc). Everyone appreciates the cosmetic aspects, but a cost-benefit player will never be able to explain balance to a cosmetics player. Obviously most people are a mix of both types, but weighted more heavily to the cosmetic side.

The truth is that you have more _real_ options in play style if you have a balanced game, but it's just about impossible to explain that to someone who doesn't think like that, and honestly, just doesn't want to think about it. And that's fine because we're just talking about a video game here.

The classic example that I've used in the past is weapon reach. In Morrowind (and to a lesser extent, Oblivion), daggers, short swords, long swords, and two-handed swords were all the same length. They looked different because they had different models, but in terms of actual game mechanics, they were exactly the same length. The only way to fix this was with mods. Why would BGS design a weapons system where nearly all weapons in the game were the same length as daggers? Because very few players cared, and only a few people even noticed.

The same is true for game balance in general. As soon as people get the CK and start looking at stats, it will become very obvious that the system is a mess (it's pretty obvious now, actually). There will be mods to fix it. To a certain type of player the mods will greatly improve the game, especially in terms of replayability. But most people won't care.

» Mon May 21, 2012 3:52 pm

Yes, there will be mods. Tons and tons of mods. I play on Xbox. I will never get to use a single one of them, yet I paid the same price for my game.

P.S. sorry for the typing/grammar/spelling mistakes, english is not my first language.

EDIT:

Not really, considering that I paid much more for my PC than you did for your XBox...In other words; it will take 2-3 XBoxes @ $300-a-pop to equal the same smooth (Full FPS) gameplay in order to play on a PC

» Mon May 21, 2012 10:24 pm

Not really, considering that I paid much more for my PC than you did for your XBox...In other words; it will take 2-3 XBoxes @ $300-a-pop to equal the same smooth (Full FPS) gameplay in order to play on a PC

And you also get much more utility out of the PC, not speaking about the better graphics. Lets not go down that road. Bethesda did not make your computer, they made a game, and the game is what we are talking about.

» Mon May 21, 2012 8:12 pm

Its funny to see people moan about balance in a single player game. Its probably the same people that moan about it in every MMO. Most every game on the market that has build options, has a build that will make your life easier. If you want to play hard mode, then svck it up and don't choose combinations that trivialize the game. How many warriors are going to be Smiths, Enchanters and Alchemists in a realistic universe. If they were, they probably wouldn't have the hit points that you built your warrior with.

If you are seeking immersion, skip the "uber" builds. Because this game gives you sooo many options to spec however you want; you need to be responsible enough to handle it. I hope if they do patch the game, they make it so you can't be alchemy, smith, enchanter or any combination of the 3 because they are in different schools. That would show the whiners to shut up.

» Mon May 21, 2012 4:38 pm

This is why I feel sorry for those that play on consoles.

You will be forever restricted by what is given to you by the devs, while those of us on PC can enjoy mods that actually solve any issues anyone has about balance or the game in general.

» Mon May 21, 2012 3:45 pm

Its funny to see people moan about balance in a single player game. Its probably the same people that moan about it in every MMO. Most every game on the market that has build options, has a build that will make your life easier. If you want to play hard mode, then svck it up and don't choose combinations that trivialize the game. How many warriors are going to be Smiths, Enchanters and Alchemists in a realistic universe. If they were, they probably wouldn't have the hit points that you built your warrior with.

If you are seeking immersion, skip the "uber" builds. Because this game gives you sooo many options to spec however you want; you need to be responsible enough to handle it. I hope if they do patch the game, they make it so you can't be alchemy, smith, enchanter or any combination of the 3 because they are in different schools. That would show the whiners to shut up.

I could write a wall of text to counter-argue, but instead i'll just give you a simple challenge:

Design an effective Dual Wield build that has adequate stamina and health while utilizing every single perk point (lets say to level 50). Ignore the crafting skills.

http://skyrimcalculator.com/

Annnnnnd. GO!

You'll see the problem soon enough.

» Tue May 22, 2012 6:10 am

I completely agree with this thread. I am the type of player (due to all the old school RPGs) that wants to do everything and see everything. I don't want to miss a thing the game has to offer. That's just how I play. The issue is that I am playing on Master and just skipping along merrily. Things just die around me. Sure, sometimes I get 1-2 shot, but then I come back and DESTROY EVERYTHING IN THE VICINITY! rawr...

Games have trained me to be very careful of what I do, where I go and how I do it. Otherwise I might miss this super ultra cool item/quest/person/view/etc and I just hate that. I am now an OCD gamer that just needs to do it all. I obsess with the maximum build, the best perks, the most awesome spells, the hottest items. Even if this means spending 3 hours grinding out Enchanting... or 5 hours collecting herbs on mountains so I can then grind away Alchemy. Heck, the first time I played the game,

Spoiler

I spent a few hours beating up my love Hadvar cause he would not attack me. I actually attacked him and saved the game until I found he would fight back. Then I would reload and lay off and do it again. I then found that he didn't ever fight back while in stealth.

LOVED IT!

I think it took me around 30 minutes to get from the keep to the first town the first play through since I had picked up everything that was not bolted down. I had no idea how much stuff sold for or about the speech skill so I had plates and bowls with me. I had enough cabbages and carrots to last me a lifetime. I also crawled around the mountain side collecting all the herbs I could find. Hadvar waited for me like 2 seconds then was gone. >_<

Anyway, the balance in this game is horrible. To someone like me that just has to do everything they possibly can with their character, the slider just means gaining more skill points before something dies. And even then, they still die in a few seconds.

» Mon May 21, 2012 11:06 pm

I could write a wall of text to counter-argue, but instead i'll just give you a simple challenge:

Design an effective Dual Wield build that has adequate stamina and health while utilizing every single perk point (lets say to level 50). Ignore the crafting skills.

http://skyrimcalculator.com/

Annnnnnd. GO!

You'll see the problem soon enough.

I never said ignore ALL crafting skills. It would be perfectly viable for a dual wielder to be a smith. But, how likely is it that a musclebound warrior blacksmith is also an enchanter. Its not hard to make Uber builds in any ES game.

» Tue May 22, 2012 1:29 am

I never said ignore ALL crafting skills. It would be perfectly viable for a dual wielder to be a smith. But, how likely is it that a musclebound warrior blacksmith is also an enchanter. Its not hard to make Uber builds in any ES game.

Its VERY likely, considering that musclebound warrior is being controled by a college nerd.

» Mon May 21, 2012 9:36 pm

For me the difficulty setting should represent how hard the game is during the process of building up your character and going through the quests relative to the other difficulties. That is to say there should eventually be some point, no matter the difficulty setting, where your character becomes extremely powerful assuming you take the steps to gain that power. In my opinion the game should not always be hard no matter what just because you have it set to Master. Would balance benefit the game? Yea probably. But, to me there are better things to do with that time.

1. Add extremely hard encounters, challenges, and optional epic quests for powerful characters. Also, maybe some raids where you would need to bring multiple mercenaries along, or a party, or be extremely powerful to defeat an opponent. Or be able to join the war as a general or leader of a city and fight in epic battles against many opponents.
2. Add an infinite dungeon or dungeons that keep getting harder and harder forever. Like the one in Torchlight for example.
3. Improve on the skill trees not only with balance in mind but with fun factor and character diversity and roleplaying in mind. Balance should be secondary in a single player game.

Those are my opinions and suggestions.

» Mon May 21, 2012 5:04 pm

I freely use all the skills in the game that my character needs according to the role that I play. Whether I buff those up to max or not is my choice.

No one is arguing that, we're saying we should be able to make the most of skills instead of having to restrict ourselves in a variety of ways just to not break the game. Maximizing character efficiency, even just using some skills that are inherently broken without min/maxing, is not a choice for people who want the game's combat to be relatively balanced and reasonably challenging. Some people, believe it or not, want to be able to make their character as effective as possible in their role because they enjoy that as one part of rising to the challenges of combat. It's not possible to do so right now and still have challenging combat. We don't want our character's build to be a second difficulty slider.

» Mon May 21, 2012 10:13 pm

Crafting is out of control: If i want to make a warrior and still have a challenge, I can't use all three crafting professions (and even 2 is iffy). The synergies between them are so powerfull that they make the very idea of min/maxing as a type of gameplay completely absurd. You cannot take the best character developpement decisions, the ones you know you need to be the best at what you are doing, without turning the game into Hello-Kittie-Adventure as far as difficulty goes.

Dont power level those 3 crafting trees and your gonna be fine. Let them level up naturaly this way even if you combine the crafter smithing pots/smithing gear/alchemy gear you wont go to far to quick. If you dont loop the positive exploit then your normal gear will be ok, after all it was planed to help you on higher levels not on low levels.

Destruction is a flippin' joke: The tree does not scale! That means that, unlike every single other combat ability in the game, there is a point after which you will -never- hit harder, while everything keeps scaling up. What that means is that we have a situation where a destruction mage, at a certain level, will actually do more damage with -unperked- bows then with -fully perked- destruction spells. Now it wouldn't be a that big a deal if that level was very late, but that level is 35. On a game with 81 levels in total, you will always hit as hard as a level 35 mage.

Weapons dont scale either, your gonna get the best weapons after some time and its gonna stop on Deadric weapons. Smithing upgrades and %dmg meele enchants and %dmg pots are just a way of buffing your output further. The same can be done to destruction magic except we can only use a %dmg destruct potion and %weaknes poison  so we are short on custom %dmg gear and enchants but we compensate with % less mana spell enchants and potions.

What that means is that mages are forced to turn themselves into summoners by taking up conjuration, effectively completely changing the gameplay and restricting their possible options. And guess what: Even that doesn't scale!

You didnt know about the potion-poison synergy so you tought that you cant make destruction more powerfull thats why you think that way. Now that I enlighten you ,you can finaly stop using summons.

Illusion trivalizes the game: Here is a skill I am quite happy to see finally shine... except they overdid it! It trivializes all form of content, same as crafting synergies. The problem is that there is no element of damage nor resistance involved. What that means is that once you have the master spells and the appropriate perks, you can just invis in, frenzy, invis out and grab a popcorn. Then just calm + shoot the last man standing. Nothing can resist it, nothing can counter it, nothing can mitigate it. With destruction spells you need to kite, with arrows you sneak, with weapons you need to stagger them first if they have a shield or are blocking, etc. Illusion is an "IWIN" button; the only strat is "press it".

Agree to that illusion is to OP

There is no incentive to ever wear robes: Even as a mage, there is absolutely no reason whatsoever to wear more then a single piece of robes, because you gain absolutely nothing from wearing them over a light armor piece with the same enchant. If I have a cloth glove with -20% cost to Destruction spells, and a light armor with -20% cost to Destruction spells, then there will never be a question that the Light armor piece will be superior. Sure there is the Alteration perk, but again, the mage issue: it stops scaling really fast, and then falls behind. Hell, all the masks (best mage helmets) in the game are Light Armor!

As it stands the only Cloth piece worth wearing over anything else is the Robes from the College quest line, because you cannot reproduce its stats through other means.

If the magica regen wasnt gimped in combat then wearing robes would be more beneficial. Still using arch-master robes gives a +15% less mana on ALL spell shools, +50 magica and +100% magica regen so its not that bad really.

» Mon May 21, 2012 6:38 pm

I've been playing Elder Scrolls games since Morrowind and have run into this issue in each one. I think part of it has to do with just the vastness of the game, how open it really is. It leaves a lot of things to be exploited. I remember in Morrowind, spending a couple minutes just trying to kill a rat at level 1, to being an unstoppable killing machine 20 levels later(hello paralyze daggers!). Same with Oblivion, even as it skilled as you leveled, using enchants and alchemy properly, you could remove any challenge from the game at all... Oblivion gates were just a stroll in the park. I feel Skyrim, in its Vanilla state, is much more balanced than the previous ones, but it's still easily exploitable. I actually thought the game was almost perfectly balanced until I leveled smithing to 100 and then started working on enchanting. Once I crafted some Dragon armor, I took two glass swords with the Elemental Fury enchant to a camp of Giants who would previously give me a major headache and outright destroy me if I wasn't careful, and cut them both down in a couple of seconds. I reloaded a previous save at that point and switched some skill points around.

- Crafting is way to overpowered. It should be important, and powerful, but as it stands it provides to much of an advantage when maxed out and used properly(not talking about exploiting either). Takes away any type of challenge, even on master.

- The design behind Destruction is awful, which made me sad. I Started out as a pure mage, and was one up until about 25 because I saw where it was going... which was straight into a brick wall. I don't understand how, in 2011 after the release of hundreds of RPG games over the years, developers don't understand the need for damage scaling. The enemies get stronger, do you really expect me to stick with a class where as my character levels and gets more experienced, he actually becomes weaker? I'm fine with differing views on what makes a good design, but that's just straight up bad.

Not everyone has the same view as to what constitutes balanced, which is why mods are great and you can customize the feel to how you like it, and Bethesda has to make the game they envision, but they really should have scaled spells and toned down the crafting bonuses.

» Mon May 21, 2012 2:02 pm

TD;LR: Why do I have to balance the game for the devs? Why do I have to chose how to build my character in function of how hard I want the game to be instead of how I want to play?

Your standpoint is summed up in these sentences, although I wanted to toss in the min/maxing as a gameplay end unto itself as I don;t agree with that type of gameplay being "normal" play. So I will leave that alone

Why do I have to balance the game for the devs?

What you mean is "Why is the game not balanced for the way I prefer to play?" The answer is: the game cannot be all things to all people.

The inference you make is that you know better than the game developers because the game doesn't suit your playstyle. That's an arrogant attitude in my opinion

Why do I have to chose how to build my character in function of how hard I want the game to be instead of how I want to play?

My answer to this is because you appear to prefer to game the game. I for one am happy that the developers didn't balance the game for this style of play, because I'd be forced to use the "best" of everything and only ever choose the "proper" perks to support those builds. No room for error, fit this mold or be crippled. I feel the majority of players do not care for that

» Mon May 21, 2012 4:04 pm

@ DieBySword (not quoting all that haha)
The issue is that reducing cost does not in any way improve your actual damage output, just the lengh of time you can keep it up.

What I mean by this is that it gets to a point where it takes me so long to kill a single mob that, sure, i can cast as many spells as i want, but the gameplay itself is broken.

Also, we are talking about the same robes haha

» Mon May 21, 2012 4:42 pm

^^ That is probably the most annoying post I've ever tried to read. DieBySword, would you mind doctoring that up so that your own words aren't in CODE brackets? That way I won't have to use a scrollbar to read everything you wrote.

» Mon May 21, 2012 3:00 pm

But I want to be a warrior/enchanting/alchemist, but when I do that, and get the best out of my character by enchating alchemy items to make better alchemy items so I can create better alchemy potions so I can enchant better enchanting items so I can create better alchemy potions so I can enchant better enchanting items so I can create better alchemy potions so I can enchant better enchanting items so I can create better alchemy potions so I can enchant better enchanting items so I can create better alchemy potions so I can enchant better enchanting items so I can create better alchemy potions so I can enchant better enchanting items, I end up with a sword that does 5,483 damage!

Why haven't the designers catered for this? I'm just trying to be the best character I can be! I also refuse to not do these things, because that would limit my in game freedom.

:rolleyes:

» Mon May 21, 2012 7:20 pm

The members of the Skyrim defence force really should try to understand that constructive criticism such as the OP's is a good way to improve the games we all love. To call him a whiner as some have done is quite pathetic when his post is actually well thought out and brings up some valid points.

There are many threads with people saying crap like "omgz magic suxxxx" without explaining why. That is whining. The OP is simply giving constructive criticism. Whether you agree with it or not he is no whiner.

» Tue May 22, 2012 2:25 am

Mages definately go absolutely screwed in Skyrim.

Robes are not worth using at all since you can simply enchant armor to have the same perks, plus an armor rating AND a bunch of useful buffs from the armor skill if you take that up. There aren't even any matching sets of robes in the game, there are three kinds of cloth gloves, and one is a quest item, all the unenchanted robes you can buy have attached hoods, so you can't wear most headgear with them, and only the college robes have matching boots, but no matching gloves...

Also spells scale horribly at high levels.

And illusion does not scale infinitely, at some point in time enemies will surpass the maximum level of what you can fool and nothing works anymore. Especially fun if you try to level up illusion later in the game and you can't actually use it on anything...

» Mon May 21, 2012 7:23 pm

The members of the Skyrim defence force really should try to understand that constructive criticism such as the OP's is a good way to improve the games we all love. To call him a whiner as some have done is quite pathetic when his post is actually well thought out and brings up some valid points.

There are many threads with people saying crap like "omgz magic suxxxx" without explaining why. That is whining. The OP is simply giving constructive criticism. Whether you agree with it or not he is no whiner.

I disagree that it is simply constructive criticism.

When somebody asks a a person "Why do I have to do your job for you", that is not constructive criticism

» Tue May 22, 2012 4:26 am

The big joke with the difficulty setting is that all it does is change the health and base damage of the creatures. Maybe it even effects what spells they have access to.

Thats simply [censored]e, A real balance slider would change things to do with the Player as well, maybe on master it would have diminishing returns on an item you craft over and over. Or it would take away Health regen.
Or it would make your damage scale slower even for magic (if magic [censored] scaled in the first place -_-

)

Hell, have difficulty change how MANY creatures spawn in a dungeon, not just what type, the difference between a Druegr Wight and a Scourge according to the current balance is setting it to master and calling it a day. Ridiculous.

» Tue May 22, 2012 4:41 am

I disagree that it is simply constructive criticism.

When somebody asks a a person "Why do I have to do your job for you", that is not constructive criticism

Yes he could of used a less arrogant title, that still doesn't change the fact his actual OP is constructive criticism.

» Tue May 22, 2012 1:01 am

Hey guys, I can't believe you are still discussing in this thread. That's great! Just shows how this game is attracting every king of player

The whole thing is that there are players who play games for immersion, and they really don't care about a few flaws in the system because this does not impact in the story, the landscapes, the exploration, etc. Those are the guys that say "if you think smithing is overpowered, just don't use smithing", and they say this because for them is pretty easy to do that. On the other hand, other players seek a game for the challenge. Me included. So our goal is to overcome the challenge created by the developers, period. In this case, we can't just ignore smithing, because the developers gave us this tool to overcome their challenge, so we want to use it. If by using this tool the challenge becomes too trivial, then either that challenge created is flawed or the tool is flawed, which is exactly what the OP is saying in this thread.

In the end, just different play styles, nothing more. And Skyrim is pleasing everyone in most cases for now. But can be improved. And threads like this can help that.

» Mon May 21, 2012 5:18 pm

I'm gonna make an off topic remark so please forgive me. To the OP, no need to apologize for your English, it's rather quite good. If you don't mind me asking, what is your native language?