This isn't a complaint, really. This is just something that effects me, personally and I would like to see if I can get a bit of help with it because I love this game so much.

Playing my twenty-thrid character (I'm serious) I have decided yet again to start over and try something new. This has never happened in any TES game for me before.

The problem I am having is that my characters either end up being far too powerful - which is usually the case - or far too weak for trying to gimp them on purpose. It seems that if I make my character powerful enough to be able to take down the toughest enemies (Briarhearts, Ancient Dragons, Dragon Priests, Shadowmasters, etc.) which constitute maybe 5% of the battles for me, then the remaining 95% of battles are too boring. Conversely, if I make it so my character is challenged by more common enemies, I cannot even hope to take down the toughest ones.

I have played on adept first, then expert for a long time, and then even on master for the last few. I have played two hand warriors, sword and board, pure mage (which I dropped because I found I could not use destruction as my sole means of dealing damage, and I don't find summoning things to kill for me very fun), a pure archer, and sneaky assassin, etc.

I gave up smithing a long time ago, if that is what you are going to say. I also never enchant, and only used alchemy for poisons and health on certain characters.

I was thinking a light armor sword and spell "spellsword" might be good - not overpowered and quite diverse - but I am concerned that at high levels, the destruction won't cut it, especially casting out of only one hand.

Thoughts?

Lay off the Nord Mead then...

Well my current Vampire is level 50 and hasnt perked 1h/2h/Bow but Im still using those weapons and its rather fun. The hard fights I just have to think tactically, like fus them on to a trap or use the exploding pots etc. You could, ya know, move the difficulty slider around. Easy fights turn it up, hard fights turn it down. It takes like 5 seconds to do.

That isn't going to cut it. But thanks.

At higher levels your spellsword may have difficulties if trying to pump out damage with Destruction, as the more effective way to go about it is with dual-casting, but that is ridiculously mana-inefficient on higher difficulties unless you invest in some Destruction reduction enchants.

What I have found to balance things out is to go with a single of the crafting trees (my case Smithing), but not use the absolute best gear available. An example of this is what i'm doing, using Dawnguard heavy armor (which can't be improved to legendary) and going with something stylish for my off-battles, such as one of the mage hoods. This gives enough of a challenge to regular enemies (tougher bandits, trolls, bears), but gives me the added option of putting on a heavy armor helmet and shield to soak up more damage, while still being around 50 points shy of the armor cap. For this particular build I would recommend having some reliable ranged method to keep off of those tough sods, such as Ancient Dragons, and anything else that being in front of could turn badly,

If you have trouble balancing out with your character you can do the following

1. If you have a mage, warrior, thief, or assassin build character stick with there own perks and choose which of three Magic,Health, Stamina that you want to increase
or
2. If you are knee-deep in the game trying doing different things with your character like i use to do one-handed weapons but since i had that skill already to the max i use two-handed

Only 23 characters? I've played almost 200 hours of Skyrim and never got further in the main quest than High Hrothgar to see the Greybeards, never finished any of the guilds/companions/stormcloaks/imp legion, etc. Same problem as you. I get to level 10 and I have enough money to buy and fully upgrade the Solitude home, hundreds of potions, full sets of enchanted armour and weapons (that I either found or got through quest rewards) and generally just feel like I'm already so powerful that I've completed the game, there's no challenge left.

I've found a way that kind of makes it better. Play as an archer. Light armour, bow and arrows, dagger/sword/mace (not dual, just one) and no shield. Stick with the weaker bows for a while instead of upgrading as soon as you find something better, don't pick up every single potion you find, just the ones you'll use, like health and maybe stamina. Don't pick up everything you find so that you don't get loads of money too quick. Oh and no sneaking, it's far too overpowered.

It gets quite challenging eventually but not so challenging that it's frustrating. You only have light armour and a single weapon for backup with no shield so the enemies can hit quite hard, so you have to run away a lot and find a new position to fire from. You can use alchemy too but don't let it get too high too soon otherwise you have ridiculously high damage poisons and other potions.

Give it a go.

Yeah I had over 300 hours with only one character and still would have if that game hadn't become unplayable.

You cannot find balance in a bethesda game. To even suggest that they should have any, will bring down the wrathful vengeance of those who view the word and concept of balance as anathema.

I might try that. I have an archer right now, but I find I basically just sit in the shadows, fire and arrow, hide, repeat. No fun. I might stop sneaking, or limit myself to one sneak attack shot only.

Either that or I will try a destruction mage with no armor, no illusion, and only raising the dead. I don't know. I love this game so much, I just want to be able to play through with one character and experience all the things I haven't done yet.

This is what I was going to say. Balance doesn't exist in a Bethesda game unless you make it balanced for yourself by purposefully ignoring features of the game (and even then it's not gonna be super well balanced in some cases.)

QFT

To even try to attempt to find a balance, you only end up degredating your game play to the point it is no longer fun to play, but moreso a chore, hence why i just cannot get back into Skyrim anymore.
I was hoping Dawnguard would be more then a mere lackluster expansion where each quest has little meat and the characters and story aren't gripping, but no, just the same as the rest of Skyrim, if not worse, because if you are a Werewolf/VL it just makes things easier, which brings further imbalance imo, so yeah...

Skyrim should be in the action adventure section, not RPG.

Well, I've ditched smithing and enchanting (recharges are ok though) for my current playthrough, and spread my skills far and wide. It's certainly made the early days more difficult.

Sounds like you need a new game, TS.

To me, this is "normal" for an RPG. Even back in the days of pen-and-paper D&D.... once you got tough enough to fight dragons and giants? Kobolds and giant rats were no longer an issue. When you did run into them, you just waded through without much thought. So......


(As for the need to skip all crafting.... perhaps I svck at this game, but I don't find Smithing as overpowering. Of course, I've only hit 100 in the skill on my various characters somewhere between the high 30's and the high 40's. By then, having a weapon that does ~110 damage is "balanced". Haven't done as much with Enchanting - pretty much just sticking Soul Trap on weapons, and stacking some elemental resist on one character. Again, not terribly overpowering.)



I'm honestly confused how you do this. I hit level 10 on my characters, and I'm working on saving up the 5-8k to buy and upgrade Breezehome. Haven't started Alchemy yet (have gathered some ingredients, but since I don't have a house to store the stuff in, I'm not making potions yet), maybe have Smithing up to 20-25 (enough to add a couple dozen points of armor to my set of Leather or Hide strength armor), and haven't touched Enchanting at all. Anything tougher-than-basic level monsters will flatten me (like trolls, bears, sabercats....)

I truly have no comprehension of how the game can be like that for for you.

(Oh, and this is on Adept.)