I find the difficulty spikes just make the game impossible.
Trying to fight dragons is way too hard. I must have a build that the game wasn't optimised for. Archery is too slow. Takes forever to switch back to your bow, trying to shoot them is next to impossible in the sky. When they land, whever you are and however you move, their firebreath tracks perfectly - even with that whirlwind sprint. So you cannot avoid getting immolated. I've tried stocking up on resist fire potions, but there aren't any and even the few in stock are not powerful enough. Switching between magic and bows to heal myself is again not quick enough.
It just feels there is soemthing that isn't quite right in the game; you just come across mobs that are really overpowered. I have no idea what level you are meant to be to take down mobs or what perks you need because the game gives no clue as to how to build a character or what level you need to be for a given quest or task. Most mobs aren't too much trouble, but you just come across some that, without warning, are really relatively overpowered.
I've concentrated on Archery. I have the score in the mid 40's at level 14 and all the perks i can afford. But I find there are some situations where some mob will appear that completely outguns you. The foresworn ice mage was one, while trying to find the red eagle sword. The rest of her allies were easy enough, but she could kill me (and did) in one hit! I couldn't do her enough damage at all using anything, and I have fairly decent gear (not enchanted as i don't have any filled soul gems).
It's situations like this that leave me complete scratching my head. I can't find a synergy with any of the things my character can do or starts with, having tried to play to his strengths. Aside from sneak i don't do much with most of the thief skills other than sneak and light armour and, despite it's ineffectiveness, alchemy. I don't really need to upgrade lockpicking, speech is easy enough to increase, and i haven't done much pickpocketing.
With magic i have started increasing restoration but even that will reach a platuea because unless i concentrate on increasing magicka (which means at the expense of stamina) i will only be able to use low level spells. After a while that's going to render them ineffectual as i face more tough mobs.
On the one hand the game gives you the freedom to choose how you play and level up accordingly, but on the other it seems to penalise you for not levelling up differently. You assume that you should focus on a few skills or a certain style, but then something appears that you cannot deal with.
Concentrating on Alchemy seems a bit of a waste of time, not because it isn't useful or fun to mix potions, but because it's like trying to find a needle in a haystack to regularly source ingredients enough to make it viable. The rare stuff is just that - I an find lavender almost everywhere, but other things i need i have no idea how you find them and you then have to memorise where they were. It becomes self defeating. I haven't bothered with enchanting because i'm not a wizard and i have no filled soul gems nor have i found any.

All the problems you have, I don't. Dragons are okay too fight, not too hard or easy, archery becomes faster with the required perks.

Most other mobs are too easy, I'm currently level 31 and I have since I've passed the level 10 mark, almost always felt like this. I think you just have to experiment more, get better equipment and perks.

Go to options and lower the difficulty. Buy a guide. Those sound like crazy ideas but it might work...

The game is set on default difficulty, I shouldn't have to lower it.

Such as what?

Also as an Archer I noticed that Dragons are quite hard to fight. There seems to be no way of dodging that breath of theirs. I have just spammed healing until they eventually land, there is a neat little skill that you get get which slows time when you're zoomed in with your bow - this helps. But I don't really think fighting a Dragon is supposed to be a walk in the park anyway.

Hear that Todd? He's still confused. Better make it a little more "accessible."

The lower difficulties are there so people who can't handle the game can use it...This post is refreshing since most I read claiming dragon being too easy on default.

As for dragon, there are numerous things you can do. When dragon breaths, you can hide behind rock, use ethereal shot, cast protection ward, use shot to stun dragon, etc..

ps. no offense, but your post is so hard to read

As an archer, fighting dragons isn't hard but it's time consuming and quite boring. Usually, you'll find some kind of cover, when a dragon comes to breath fire/frost, try and predict where he's going to be and position yourself to be in cover.

Sometimes the dragon won't breath if you're obviously not in his cone of sight, so pop out, let him see you then go back then avoid the fire. Pop back out, you should have an opportunity to shoot an arrow (two if lucky) before he either flies or breathes again.

Another way is to stand right in front of the dragon, and when it's going to breath fire, use the "Become Ethereal" shout and aim your bow towards him, once the fire/frost is gone release your bow.

At the end of the fight, dragons usually drop down to the ground, and usually at this point you can find a good spot of cover where you're safe to shoot a part of his body without getting hit by him.

The default difficulty is Adept and if that is too hard then you should lower it and change it when you become more powerful. Rethink your tactics atleast.

How do you make alchemy effective?

Wrong. This is not a linear game where difficulty is balanced a certain way. Anyone's level 20 character could be completely different from each other, and Bethesda honestly puts very little thought into the difficulty slider.

The difficulty slider is simply a handicap adjuster for combat.
If you lower it, it doesn't mean you're bad, it means you've been leveling up in a way that makes the autobalanced enemies too strong in relation to you.
A pure bard would probably want to lower the difficulty, while a warrior would want to increase it.
It's solely combat difficulty. Lowering it because you're playing a character that isn't focused a ton on combat isn't bad.

However, if you ARE playing a very combat-oriented character (meaning you've leveled up so far through combat), then you should be able to handle at least medium-expert difficulty. Because you're built for it.

I've experienced exactly what strangeotron is talking about.


There's nothing wrong with YOU, there's nothing wrong with the DIFFICULTY.

There's ALOT wrong with the game however.

There's nothing wrong with the game, jesus. You guys want a non linear game, you're gonna get non linear difficulty. You want to level smithing and speechcraft, and then wonder why you cant beat level 30 enemies? Use the difficulty slider they give you or stop complaining.

I have killed dozens of dragons without archery. I duel wield single handed weapons and use healing potions if I need them. I just keep moving when its in the air and let Lydia do the archery.

It seems to me that certain builds give you an easier time of it, while others (archery based, i'm betting) don't.
Archery is just badly done. It wants to be something it isn't and in realtime combat it's just too slow. It's easy to miss, slow to fire, and with no real advantage for doing so other than range which is easily negated by enemies closing in. Maybe when you have all the perks you become unstoppable, but i haven't reached that point and getting there is a chore. Combat overall is kinda bland, but then i've tried focussing on melee. Stamina regeneration is also far too slow. I shouldn't have to rely on potions all the time, they should be a help not a crutch.
It's difficult tio know how to build a given character, Wood elf sits on the cusp of warrior and thief with a bit of magic. What do you do?
Playing the game feels like two steps forward and 2 steps backward. It's hard to get into a groove and find a good build. Alchemy is just rubbish. You don't know where to find stuff to craft with, it doesn't seem practical to sink perks into it when i could spend them more immediately usefully. It feels more like a guessing game, like searching for needles in a haystack. A bit like the crafting in new vegas where you couldn't reliably source ingredients regularly enough to make it practical. You can craft based on what you find, and sell that for a few extra gold, but that's about all it's good for, and just buy the potions you need from the vendor.

You can manually adjust the difficulty.

I am playing an archer on expert difficulty and doing just fine. There are times I have to try an encounter several times to beat it, but this often involves rethinking my strategy and coming up with a better plan of attack, which I love challenge of. Playing an archer in Skyrim can be difficult if you don't have good twitch gaming skills, since there is no auto aim. You have to be fast and on target. I have been gaming for 29 years, and it is the type of gaming I really enjoy. If you are struggling with an archer, I do recommend changing the difficulty setting, or switching to another class. Twitch gaming isn't for everyone and there is nothing wrong with it if you don't enjoy that style of gaming, just try another class and see if you enjoy it more.

Yeah I'm about where strangeotron is at. My archer just turned lvl 15, playing at Adept difficulty, and basically while I can handle most of the run of the mill bandits / creatures / things in dungeons, there's always a one-hit end boss that makes it impossible to complete whatever I am doing. It's exactly the same problem as in Oblivion - sure, you don't have to minimax your skill increases to get all +5's etc, but it boils down to the same problem, that if you don't advance your combat skills to the exclusion of everything else you get screwed over because the world moves past you. I found Oblivion super frustrating until I started playing characters that were basically one-dimensional killing machines, either pure sword and shield fighters who did almost nothing else, or pure mages likewise. I was enjoying my sneaky archer but at this point I'm starting to get bored with the game because every quest leads to a dead end.

It's because the difficulty setting in this game is pretty bad. Bethesda has always been lazy when it comes to difficulty setting and enemy combat; all it does it turn enemies into damage sinks and make them kill you in 2-3 hits. Developers know there is criticism of this system in all the previous open rpg titles but don't seem to be up to the task of doing a better difficulty system... They should change difficulty setting to level of annoyance/frustration.

It really has nothing to do with twitch gaming skills. It has to do with the fact that even if you are 100% accurate with arrows, some opponents simply are too durable and cause too much damage for you to kill them before they can hit you with their completely overpowering attack.

If you're having a problem fighting dragons with a ranged weapon, you're doing it wrong, plain and simple.

Use the terrain. You should never be shooting out in the open. If you're next to something you can fire then step behind it safely. You're an archer and you don't have slow time/aim perks? You don't have faster speed with bow perks? Or are you just level 4 killing your 3rd dragon and think this is what the game is going to be like forever?

Look there has to be something about the game here that people aren't fully grasping yet. I'm a level 21 thief with archery and light armour, and drgaons along with most of the NPCs have never given me any problem on the default difficulty. It take a few minuets, a lot of arrows, and a lot of running around a large area, but I can dodge the worst of their breath and slowly shoot them down.


If you've speced into archery and light armour then my advice is to use the terrain to your advantage to restrict the dragons movement. Bring along a companion to tank, or just run if you cant face them. I'm really not trying to gloat or brag here, but I don't have anything even close to the hard experience the OP seems to be having on default difficulty, and I don't wear heavy armor and most of my damage potential comes from a bow.

Why not?

If you find it too difficult, then you should.
That's reason why difficulties are there.