I have nothing against PC users getting mods. The issue I have is when said mods becomes a requirement to play the game with a decent challenge level and without the bugs. That is no longuer added functionality, as becomes funtionning vs not functionning.

Modding should be about adding to the game, not fixing it.

Mmm, it might down to your particular build. I have been playing Sword and Board since level 1 on Master difficulty. I have not even enchanted a single piece of gear nor is alchemy even past 50. Im currently level 34.

I also have no perks in heavy armor. Only in Blocking just shy of the speed increase and battering ram one. I have specialized in swords. I have used smithing, but only up to 80 to get ebony. I have put five in health and five in stamina since leveling up to my current level.

I honestly have only been moderately challenged. Still havent faced off against an Elder/Ancient dragon, but all those previous yes. As long as I keep my shield up and bash appropriately; I will not die. I dont abuse it either. I play as a Nord as well for the frost resist and use the damage resist stone.

I haven tried other builds on Master.

The thing is that many seem to willfully ignore.

1) Your choice of build should not dictate the difficulty of the game. The game should not become a cakewalk because you took crafting skills. I shouldn't have to limit my choices to keep the game at an enjoyable level. I'm not even playing on anything higher than adept and most of the game is watching someone else kill things for me when it comes to "boss" types or rolling over everything else with a single 1 hand cast. There is no sense of balancing and raising the difficulty right now only skews it further.

2) The difficulty slider should be what is dictating how hard the game is. If you want it easy and play god OHKO'ing everything, keep it lower. Those of us that want it harder and to stay harder while using our full repertoire can set it higher. I shouldn't have the cripple myself and act like half the game isn't there to keep it hard. That is eliminating any choices I have over my build. It probably wouldn't be a bad thing either is shops didn't carry every bloody item in the game at higher levels on Master.

The only people being selfish around here are the ones that feel they have to be capable of 1 shotting everything on master with minimal effort

I don't really like how Bethesda relies on the community to be its bug and balance testers. I can't fathom how something as broken as smithing and enchanting was left like it was. I'm tired of the stupid "zomg don't use them then" excuse. You shouldn't need to hold back or restrict yourself knowing certain skills are absurdly OP, its just bad game design.

the good part is these are extremely easy fixes, would literally take 1-2 days to fix most of these balance issues via CK.

About mage's robe and every other piece of armor, yes they still have their use. Do you know what is called immersion? Yes I can enchant my Daedric armor to give the exact same bonus as a robe would, but does your character feels right? It could, but personnally I prefer mage wearing robes simply for the look of it. I wouldn't wear Heavy armor as a Sneaky Character even though there is a perk to remove armor weight, because it doesn't look right on a stealthy dude. This is what Open World means to me: I can make a character the way I want that looks how I want and still have combat capacity.

For the life of me, I'll never understand players who want to to have the developer place controls on them and told how they should play a game. Any game is exploitable. The game is balanced by the player and the decisions he or she makes. In other words, the player decides how they want to experience the game. The idea that some of you want to take that away is baffling.

If you want a game where your decisions are irrelevant when it comes to character progression relative to the game world, you should find a different game.

No. That's not it. What the real crux of your issue is is below. You're concerned with how others play their game.


Quit worrying about what everyone else is doing, and worry about your own game.

It's not fun having to identify all the broken op mechanics in the game so you can avoid them. It's just not fun.

Well said. Like I keep posting, in different iterations....

YOU. THE. PLAYER. CAN. CHANGE. THIS!

The solution is in your hands....

If you're a warrior and you're not willing to go back to an iron greatsword and fur armor, I can only assume you don't really want a challenge, you just want to come here and tell us all you want one.

When you come to the forum and every other suggestion to how to play destro is to level enchant and get 100% magicka reduction on spell cost, it's sad.

So you spend hours and number of perks on smithing and then you just abandon the whole thing ... that must feel good.

Who'd a thunk if you spent all your time crafting or practicing one skill it would breaks the game. The only thing that is broken are people exploiting or playing the game to maximize their character, instead of actually playing for the experience and enjoyment of it. There is no other reason to spend hours upon hours crafting and enchanting. And if you did for "role-playing" reasons, you have no reason to gripe when you can not swing a stick in battle effectively or you have that awesome dragon armor so early in the game that it makes you overpowered. If you want to be good at everything in the game relative to game world at all times, I think that's pointless and so do many other people. However, the developers gave the option to the players to explore if they so choose.

I have no problems with the balance of the game. I die a bit less than I use to but the challenge is still there for me. Want to know why, I play the game not to maximize my character, but rather to play a role that has pro's and con's. Some of you kids I guess can not understand the limitations of video games in general an do not understand what a truly ground breaking experience it is to be able to do what ever you want and dictate how your experiences will be. I digress, you much rather have gamesas control your experience so they, not you, can keep your character "balanced". That is until you read about how to best maximize and exploit the game to make the most efficient use of your character, which is not role-play but playing a game of level up with mindless decisions that changes very little in the game world, making it less dynamic.

Tell me about it.

Two weeks ago when the exploit was announced everyone on the forums denounced it and called it a cheat. Back then everyone was low level, and Destro's short commings were unknown.

Today everyone calls it a REQUIREMENT that only "skilled" players know about, and if you don't use it you are using the wrong "mage build" as if this was some min/max MMO.







Ugh.

just skipping to add my 2 cents on my experience of the game thus far. For my first play through (still going) i'm playing a spellsword So i'm seeing all aspects of the game and i'm also specializing. from what i've seen there are some things that are indeed not very practical. Clothes are indeed crappy armor because, duh, they're a piece of cloth. If you're being an uber mage then there are spells that give you the armor rating that you need you just have to invest in them. This is where the RP aspect comes into the game, if you're a mage you need to study magic to get stronger so that you can have all the appropriate magic to survive in the big bad scary world. If you don't want to master the proper defensive spells then you're going to need to get some armor. I know good and well that there are some mage mobs i've had to hack away at because they put on an armor spell, you just have to play the character type accordingly.

I don't know how all the tree's skills turn out because again I specialized my character to play the type of character i wanted to play and am enjoying the game thoroughly. except for the lag issue, you guys need to fix that mess. I didn't min max anything my character grew steadily throughout levels and teh game constantly provided me with a challenge. I ended up concentrating on working out smithing to 100 in my late 30's but the game still kept up with giving me stuff that could still kill me. Don't min/max the game and you'll enjoy it a lot more, unless that's how you enjoy playing it then by all means go for it. The game can only adapt to your style of play so much it's not reality and if you want to out run the game it won't be able to keep up.

That's life. As so many people here seem to delight in saying to people who complain they got their perks wrong... choices have consequences.

Unlike some MMORPGs where you have your "class", or no class but limited skillpoints to distribute in your character (which in some way defines your "class"), in this game you have no limits as far as I know, so it's the player the one to set those limits.

We have crafting, magic, different weapons and armor skills... one cannot pretend to gain them all and not feel like and uber hero... For my first character I clearly defined my profile: knows how to wear a light armor, uses bows efficiently (but hopes to learn how to use a single hand sword sometime), is an expert sneaker and knows how to pick locks, but it's not a thief. Has no interest in alchemy or any crafting skills (at least at this moment of his life). I also set him with good speech, which I know will benefit me when buying/selling, but also fits in the profile. Besides, it's a skill naturally learnt while selling, but it's up to the player to increase perks or not. In my case, I will, as it's a smart character.

This translated into this: I will focus on using a bow, sneak, using only light armor, never stealing from innocents, buy potions from shops and sell any ingredients to traders. No magic, or additional perks that would only bring me power to "beat" the game. I'll just play my role.

Of course I plan to create other characters in the future, but with a similar tactic. For example, a mage with knowledge in alchemy, and maybe able to handle a sword... or a heavy tank warrior with interest in alchemy too (EDIT: in this case, with no idea of sneaking or lockpicking, which will mean he will miss some stuff and won't be able to hide so easily), and not so smart. And possibly a crafter that likes all about it (smith, alchemy, etc.).

If someone creates a warrior that is an expert blacksmith, it's obvious that it will be overpowered if it uses its own weapons and armor... I don't see where is the unbalance here. It can also become an expert in alchemy or other skills, and it will be even more "unbalanced".

This is the kind of game that, because it's not linear neither tells the player how the character is going to be, you need to be careful when playing, and choose in advance a profile for your character, or else you end up knowing a lot of everything and then, yes, its overpowered.

You should be able to have your cake.... and you should be able to eat it! Don't you see how what you want here is impossible. You want a game system that allows you to become godlike if you want to. But doesn't allow you to become godlike if you don't want to? How on earth can it do this in any other way than by giving you the choice.

The problem is that you want everything. I've yet to see a game that can do this in an open world environment. You either have games where there is little to no actual character development (GTA type stuff) or linear level based zones (WoW) or an open system like the TES games where you have a lot of choice, but that choice can be abused. Take you pick and play the game you want. By buying Skyrim you're playing the latter.

I have no issue with the fact that some apects of Skyrim spoil the game for you. But the problem is the fact that these issues exist is a side-effect of the reason a lot of other people like the game so much. You're not asking for the game to be fixed, you're asking for it to be something it isn't.

From my point of view the answer is "Hell no. Leave my game alone. You can go play loads of games that offer a more restrictive "balanced" experience. There aren't many games around that give you this much choice, can't you let us keep just this one as it is!"

@OP elegant post.


I've only read about half way through, it's going the predictable spiral.


My 2cents are as follows:

As someone else said, it's a bit odd to plan a character that's not too powerful. Now this doesn't bother me but I can see why people are a bit perplexed/frustrated by it.


I am fully supportive of people being able to do whatever they want (be that making half dead hobo characters, or walking gods), however, I have noticed in my playtime that it is a bit too easy to accidentally overcook your characters power.

Turning up the difficulty is a perfectly legitimate way to deal with that. On the highest difficulty it don't think it's easy to accidently do this at all. You'll have to intentionally power-level certain skills with a specific goal in mind. If you just play the game organically it doesn't really happen.

To rehash a prior reply.

Think about what skills represent and their place in the world. If the argument that its sensible for a warrior to try to become the most powerful they can be, and its terribly simple for them to do so ignores the premise that the world is full of warriors who don't... and why not?
The reason is that they are. not. special. You're are special. For whatever roleplaying reasons you wish to attribute it to which are really the sideproduct of making it a playable game, the player is capable of advancement above and beyond the capabilities of the world in a timeframe that is unrealistic to true development of skills.

Skills themselves represent the most inept, to the pinnacle of human achievement. The flaw is the juxtaposition of presenting a believable world, and the ability to present a heros journey in a timeframe so the game doesn't take 30 years in real time to complete and THEN balance it so that the player does not feel artificially hindered in progression. Its not possible to do that... no matter what rules you place on a game.

A skill ranked between 0-100 by definition represents the progress to the ultimate achievement in human ability. The fact that a human whom was the power, to learn skills at such a rate is capable of reaching the PINNACLE of human achievement in more than one skill is by itself.. a game breaking mechanic. Roleplaying games.. are flawed in this respect. Any tabletop roleplayer will know fine well the arguments about certain powers being overpowered compared to others, and most of the time, know the exact method in any particular game, to create a character who is unbalanced powerwise with the rest of the party. The phrase powergaming, and min/maxing originated with tabletop, not computer games.

Even in tabletop this can be balanced over months or even years of a game to reach these levels, in the instant gratification video game market, bethseda don't have that luxury.

Oddly, enough.. you know what the solution is in 99% of these instances? A party of roleplayers, and GM tend to inflict social pressure, and often in game pressure upon the powergamer to .. not be "munchkin". A munchkin is the sort of player who will deliberately focus their character to abuse the system of the game so that they can walk through killing everything with no repercussions barring social constraints because they outbalance everything around them. This is not always deliberate, but a mindset to "beat the game". Sound familiar?
Munchkins are the bane of any roleplaying game. fact.

With a single player RPG.. social constraints are removed, and "munchkins" are free to do so without repercussion, but it defeats the object of a roleplaying game, and I'm sorry, but I've played this game enough to know that its not easy to max it out without effort, its not HARD, don't get me wrong but you have to do it deliberately, buying every ounce of iron and moving on to the next source for the sole purpose of maxing it out. If you did it by accident, truly... then its a shame, but its not the game. The game wasn't designed for what you did by accident, and fixing it simply inconveniences other players to suit your own needs.

Also in response to why are items all the more powerful created than items crafted by deities? I think its fair to say that the items are not as powerful as the deities COULD have made them, simply in their wisdom refused to grant that much power to a single mortal. Mortals lacking this wisdom (we could quote reply after reply as evidence here) sought to exult themselves beyond the gods, to their doom and despair.

The consequence of focusing on smithing is caused solely by Beth developers being unwilling to balance the game properly. It's not an informed choice you are doing. Game allows you to do it, you trust devs created system that does not break if you go for it ... and the joke is on you.

I very much agree with the OP.. Though I'm not as "upset" about it I think.. I do think these are issues that need to be addressed.

Smithing, by itself, is not broken. "Standard" Legendary equipment is great stuff, and still does not become overpowered when a powerful enchantment(s) is applied to those weapons & armor...

However, stack 4 pieces of gear with +25% Smithing & drink a Blacksmith Elixir... You now can craft items that the gods themselves envy.

Enchanting can be exploited very easily (stacking the same modifier), but if you purposely don't do this and take a more balanced & all-round approach to your gear.. It's perfect.

Bottom Line: To fix the broken & exploitable synergistic mess that Smithing, Enchanting, and Alchemy have on each-other, put in place some sort of % cap that a player can receive from enchanted gear.

Examples: Player can stack up to +162% bonuses to Smithing, but only receives the bonus from the first 80%

Player has 100% reduced cost in "XXXXX" spell tree, but is only affected by the first 80%

Player can stack +120% Damage to a particular melee-range type, but only receives bonuses from the first 80%.

I actually think 80% is a good number for all these things, it would allow for specialized builds but wouldn't become nearly the broken & exploitable mess it currently is.

Good post OP.

I agree about robes - there should be an Enchanting perk to double the effect of magic enchantments on robes alone, and/or there should be a cap on enchantments on Armour that gets more severe as the armour's weight increases. So robes could have massive enchants, Light armour big enchants and Heavy only medium enchants.

Also armour weight should be linked to magicka regeneration rates. It should regenerate far faster IN COMBAT in robes, and far slower in Heavy armour.

I disagree about Conjuration though - I may be wrong but I believe it DOES scale with level, in that your pets get more health and damage as the skill gets higher. If anything this just reinforces your point about how gimped Destruction is, though.

Well, exploits and broken op mechanics is what I/we are trying to avoid. What you kid don't understand is that there are so many things in Skyrim that have to be avoided or are underpowered that it is a bit tiresome. Companions are op, conjuration is op, illusion is op, enchanting is op, smithing is op... on the other hand wards are useless, runes are useless, alteration is pain to use. I don't see who do these unbalanced mechanics cater to.