I got an idea for a good way to imporve the difficulty of the game, it would be to make armor more rare, more powerful and more expensive. for instance there are the basic levels of armor steel leather ebony glass and so on. my idea is that each piece of armor should be a lot more harder to find or buy(really expensive) so that when you have a complete set of ebony or dragon armor it reallly feels like you earned it, and it gives you that feel of accomplishment.

so not only should the armor be rare but it should be more powerful. for instance. your odds of surviving against that main dragon alduin(?) should drop significantly if you don't have higher level armor on. I think this is something that could add to the dificulty, rather than only having the health/damage slider way of raising dificulty. Also this would make the armor in the game more valuable to us as players rather than just how it looks. It would be cool to open a chest or something and be like YES! I finally found my glass boots. Instead of just playing the game through and once you reach a certain level you can pretty much get the complete set of armor with no fuss. Also this would make the perk of all the same armor really powerful and more desireable(?), because ive played through two characters and haven't used that perk either times.

So to wrap up, more rare, expensive, and slightly more powerful. because as of now, armor and weapons for me is pretty plain, and i dont even really think to hard about what im using and they dont feel special enough. even if its plain elven armor, it could feel special if it were much harder to find.

on a side note. im using a named sword in the game and that has vastly improved my enjoiment, i like its power and the way it looks,and i wish they would have more of these weapons/armors, most are not powerful enough, just new look with some enchantment.

what do you think?

Difficulty for me seems to be based more on how much time you spend smithing/enchanting. I play on one of the easier setting and I have a tough time getting through some average enemies because I only use perks to make my weapons/armor more effective. So even though I play on an easier setting the game can still be a little hard at times depending on what I am fighting.

I've only found 2-3 pieces of Daedric equipment in chests in my 600 hours with the game, now of course I didn't spend a lot of time above 50 in my games but high end loot is already rare enough. I'll agree about smithing though, as it's too easy to get incredible armor. All it takes is Gloom mine, a couple daedric hearts, and bam Daedric lord in the flesh.

That would be nice, since Dragon / Daedric weapons and armor are already really hard to find, they'd be legendary stuff as glass is as rare as they used to be

the only thing I felt accomplished finding was a Water breathing enchantment that I had to keep looking for.
wasn't as cool though, I found it by a Khajiit caravan selling it

I sort of wish that Skyrim's Merchant system was like Oblivions where their merchandise was more unique and didn't change completely after 2 days, that way you can go on an epic adventure and save up money for something you want and not come back to see it gone.

No. What they need to do is make the enemies smarter. That's why i love the combat mods. They make the enemies smarter in battle. There is actual strategy involved. You have to out think your opponent.

I'd agree with that, Borderlands 2 is a perfect example of this. Huge AI jump from the 1st game and it was a great decision.

Skyrim's difficulty is something I have virutally no issues with. I have a pretty solid method with the difficulty slider that I find works quite well.

I don't play games for "dificulty."

Only one of my characters did Smithing and none of my characters did Enchanting. I found the Adept setting to be challenging enough for me.

This applies for me.

As for Skyrim, some "classes" are capable of more survival then other. On Broad and Sword warrior, with heavy armor, block and one handed at 100 I lazily play on Master, being in basicly RP gear vs Ancient Dragons, and I am really not pushing this too far, it is true. All about staggering with shield slam, then fast slicing with a sword. Never used a pot.
Dragon priests are not much of a challenge aswell. With blocking perks, and Sanguine Rose it's rather simple and bit boring to fight against a Dragon Priest.
Basicly whole concept of heavy armor, shield and one handed as primar is silly and OP. I am not even using smithing nor enchanting on it.

On the other hand, with my destro mage, I struggle a lot on master, even easiest opponents can best you if you let your guard down, gotta be focused all the time in order to put up crowd control, eventually summon some atronach, or cast fury/calm/fear, all in all very challenging playstyle.


There is always a way to raise/change difficulty on Skyrim. When I want a real challenge, I just put the most simple dovahkiin concept armor on my warrior, and hit with iron sword and shield. Pulling bigger amount of mobs can be really tricky then.
So yeah, basicly no matter how easy/hard Skyrim can seem, it can always be harder/easier if you really want it. Yeah, sometimes I wish Master was 4/4 instead of 2/2, but that is when I adept to it.
And after all, Skyrim isn't about difficulty, I don't think difficulty determines how good player is, I think it's all about having fun on Skyrim. More fun you have, better player you are, in my opinion.

If I was playing on the PC the first mod I'd look for is a weapon/armor rarity mod. I've used one for Oblivion for years and wouldn't think of playing without it. It makes ebony stuff very rare, at all levels, and daedric almost impossible to find, so when you do eventually find something it's genuinely exciting.

Yes, it would be nice but the smithing perk tree is IMO very flawed. I would have liked it better if you got the ability to smith certain armors through quests or challenges, because as it is you grind with iron daggers till you get the top armor; daedric or dragon.The smithing perk tree should have been there for you to personalize your armor as well as making it stronger and better fortified, or less depending on your character.

On top of this it would be nice if armors had a bonus, so you just wouldn't always pick the armor with the best defense. Maybe if you had a full certain type of armor your character would have better defense against ghosts and the dead. This would give the opportunity of making armors more unique and useful given the situation.