Only time this should be true is in "skill" based games.

Street Fighter, to name one.

Bethesda has designed a game where you can create and develop a character as powerful as you can imagine (by picking all perks in certain trees) or creating a weak character by not picking any perks. You don't even need to go beyond level 1. You can stay there until the end of time.

This was all done by design.

That's quite apparent and easy to see.

And you are looking at is like it's a bug.

Oh well.

Don't wear a Helmet, that right there will make the game a little bit more balanced.


Probably the reason why I love The Elder Scrolls Series so much.

Jpo, I'm sorry but allowing a player to stay at level 1 for the entire game is not a "design choice" much beyond choosing to not have a menu pop up immediately when enough exp has been gained.

Choosing to stay at level 1 is merely a by product of the developers including the courtesy of avoiding a menu that could hinder your gameplay.

A menu popping up right in the middle of combat, thus breaking up your concentration, momentum, etc, is a courtesy, not a "let's give them the ability to stay at level 1 forever if they want to!" It's a by product, nothing more.

Well...I may be wrong, but I can't think of any other game out there that lets a player stay at level one the entire way....other than Oblivion.

I have characters in both games that have stayed at level one for the entire game. I could bring them to any level I want and stop there.

I think it was done that way by design. Just like he other stuff I've pointed out.

Some players just have difficulty seeing and dealing with all the freedom...all the choices that Bethesda allows it's players when it comes to "how to play the game".

It's also pretty obvious that many players don't like to have all those choices available to them. They want the game's mechanics to force the limitations.

/shrug I like it the way it is.

Mass Effect.
Dragon Age.
Kingdoms of Amalur.

Any RPG that prompts you to go put your stat points in rather than just automatically giving you that +2 STR +1 DEX.

And where have I ever said Skyrim should force limitations, other than limitations that would make sense within the narrative of the game lore and current environment?

Ok are we talking about playing from lvl 1 on master and not exploiting and the game is not hard whatsoever? because im doing my 5th playthur on master and its hard, and i knwo how to play the game. im not gimping myself and up to lvl 20 if i atked a grp of bandits, there was a chance if i didnt heal at the rigth moment or back off i was gonna die, from lvl 20 toclose to 30, if i met a sabretooth, bear, giant and then its gonna be a close fight if up close, and mostly favored for the mobs side of winning. On up anytime i met a dragon priest by myself that was a hard as hell fight up til lvl high 30s or 40s, not counting the other mobs out there that were a challenge.

Case in point, some of the protesters here dotn have a leg to stand on because they even admitted to boosting thier lvls to max with the book glich, so thye bypassed alll the tough lvls. Now u saying that while lvling it on master, it was nt a challenge whatsoever, that udidnt die quite often or that the reason u didnt die was take advantage of the enemies AI by shooting and running to hide, shooting and running to hde and etc?

This game is tailored and made that when u are t high lvls u are SUPPOSED to be boss. Look at the old legend of the past champions of TES, the crazy forsworn commander that took down 1000 soldiers before he was taken down, Ysmr and his 500 champions off to face an ENTIRE country by themselves and freaking stomped thier asses. You are the dragonborn, u are supposed to be one of the most powerful creature alive atm and after u reach higher lvls its suppose to show in the game that "hey, all those skills i maxxed and perks i took, i a freaking boss, i am wtfpwning most thigns in sight."

The challenge atm is not the destination, but the journey to get there. By using exploits and gliches, u bypassed the challenging and fun parts. And if u didnt do that, then u have to admit that while lvling up that it was a challnge for awhile.

Its not designed to be straight up difficult ALL the time, its suppose to show all those perks and skill u maxxed that u are freakign leet. You telling me that one of the most powerful creatures alive who took down the [censored]ign world eater suppose to still have problems with the common bandits or such? Its designed that we eventually end up EPIC like the legends of old, that we were different form every other creature and npc in the game.
For our leet charectors, thats what DLCs are for. they will offer new creatures and npcs into vanilla skyrim and the new areas like they have with all their other games to challenge us then, but right now with everythigns thats going why shoud a bandit or such be just as difficult as a dragon priest or the world eater?

For the limitation thing, while not directed at me, I actually am faintly in your court.

While I enjoy games that have the hard class systems, like many of the Final Fantasy games, WoW, etc, I do believe Skyrim should have a "soft" class system and soft limitation system of its own.

Currently there is no limitation system save for the player, and unfortunately in some areas I feel that is very bad because it goes against the narrative of the game as well as the environment it is putting you in.

I don't believe, for Skyrim, in the "onl High Elves can be X Mages" or "only Orcs can be tanky Warriors," what I do believe in is adding "soft" limitations.

What do I mean by "soft" limitation?

Well, currently we have racial abilities and racial traits, correct? Orcs get Beserk and get a base boost to skill levels.

What a "soft" limitation would be is that the Orc would also get some additional racial bonuses outside of what they currently get, basically a means to prompt the player to know that being a Warrior is what an Orc is really good at, but not limited to.

For instance, if you gave Orcs the racial trait of bonus physical damage with melee weapons based on how much Health they are missing, which would prompt a player to the idea of taking their Orc the "tank" route so they can soak up damage to deal more damage. And this would be a constant effect, not just the once a day.

A "soft" limitation won't hinder a High Elf from becoming a Warrior and won't hinder an Orc from becoming a Mage, but it will in the end place one race above all others in that races' "best" field of play, according to lore.


Only problem: In real life there will always be someone better than, or equal to, you. Always. Video games should, and often do, emulate this with enemies who are always at least slightly stronger than what the player character can achieve.

lol that was a bad example. ill go ahead and delete that, it was in my head but just like bethesda wording sometimes could be taken for different meanings lol.

It can be challenging untill you've reached level 35 and up. After that it's sweat sailing all the way. This why I usually fall asleep during missions. zzzzzzzzzzzz


You're supposed to be capable of beating Alduin, not [censored] slapping him into the Void. I can beat him in seconds without a scratch! This is unnacceptable. zzzzzzzzzzzz

FYI, games are not about challenge nor do they require challenge. I would suggest that everyone read the MDA document presented at the GDC a few years ago that explains that there are many aspects of game design, and challenge is merely one of them that MIGHT be used (but there are many examples where it is omitted, just as there are examples where an element such as narrative is omitted).

Here's the link to the PDF, so please read.

http://www.cs.northwestern.edu/~hunicke/MDA.pdf

One point that must be made regarding the selection of apparel, weapon, and other equipment versus choosing class is that your class dictates what you would wear, arm yourself with, etc, at least to a goodly extent, assuming that you are actually role-playing a character in a role-playing game. For example, if you happen to want to choose to play a spellcaster who specializes in distance effects, you would not be running around in ebony armor wielding a giant, two-handed battleaxe. The game allows it, but your view of your character does not, so the game must support such a choice if it is to honor it's claim to "be anything you wish." Obviously, we know this is a completely false claim even just based on character visual aesthetics, let alone choice of class and equipment. However, the point is that it is not true that choice of class and choice of equipment are different elements because they are actually the same (i.e., role-playing a character concept) or at least closely interconnected and interdependent.

By the way, I've also noticed comments on the board lamenting the lack of RPGs. Some people haven't been following the global game market, evidently. There are other world markets than America or Europe, and RPGs are quite common in East Asia.

I don't really disagree with anything you have in this post

So, if Skyrim wasn't designed to cater to players who want to build a powerful character yet still be challenged by the game, then why did they put in so many features that make it so easy to make a godlike char, just by playing the game the way it was designed to be played? No devious 3rd-party exploits, no late night sessions calculating min-max formulas, just a common gamer dork like me using the standard crap laid out in front of everyone else who plays the game, and without even trying or even really thinking about it at all, I quickly end up with a char that laughs at everything and has little challenge left at all. Even on master.

This same obvious observation has been made by scores of people who've come through here, gaming noobs and old timers alike. No, I have to agree with Darkside Eric. and look towards Beth with expectations that they will indeed "continue to release regular updates for the game — through full title updates, as well as incremental gameplay updates to fix whatever issues come up along with rebalancing portions of the game for difficulty or exploits." *That*, is what the game desperately needs. Rebalancing for difficulty, and taking out some of the more egregious exploits that they themselves built into it.

I'm not quite sure what you mean there.


It is a flaw in the game if balance isn't there. If the game presents no challenge, it's a poor game. If it's a game that is fun and presents a challenge...unless you do X, Y or Z, then it's probably a good game, with a really big flaw in it.

Games should present a challenge. Certainly the harder difficulties should be a challenge for almost everybody. If not, then there were problems with how it's balanced. Anybody that says "It's up to the player to make the game challenging by playing with one hand behind their back" is just trying too hard to deflect any and all criticism of the game, even from friendly sources - and I'm definitely a friendly source. I've gone hammer and tongs numerous times defending Skyrim from complaints I considered unjustified or exaggerated.

Skill based, meaning the game is more based on a player's dexterity skills than a number system in the game.

Street Fighter is an example of this because you are good at the game because of your reflexes, muscle memory and thinking skills.

Skyrim is not skill based, you do better because you select a Perk or piece of equipment that does more damage instead of you learning how to properly time a combo like in Street Fighter.

This is not entirely true.

The vanilla game on default settings doesn't require a lot of twitch-based skill, and I don't think they ever intended that it should. If you crank up the difficulty and gimp yourself, though, you can play Skyrim as a largely skill-based game. I play on Master with 100 Health and Magicka and no combat/magic/stealth perks. My character can sustain at best two hits before she dies, and typically one hit is all it takes, even with relatively (though not maxed out) armor. Without buffs, she can only cast Novice spells. With buffs, Apprentice. Whether or not I survive a fight depends largely on how well I predict the enemies, how quickly I respond, and how accurate my blows are (and believe me, accuracy is important when it comes to power attacks). Needless to say I've also gotten very good at using sprint and shouts.

Granted, the stats play a role in the combat, but if you have good reflexes and a good strategy you can defeat opponents that are well past your own stats. I've been doing it for 43 levels now. If everything were scaled to every aspect of my character, I wouldn't have experienced any added challenge at all and the game would have lost its interest a long time ago.

If I understand him correctly, he means that challenge should only apply in games where the player's skill is all that matters. Thus his example of fighting games, in which (with the occasional exception) the character's skill set does not determine the outcome but the player's application thereof does. In RPGs, on the other hand, the character's skills are usually the determinant, since even the best players can't do much with a low-skill character due to the inherent limitations thereof.

Well said, and I don't understand how folks can't see it. Case in point:

My most recent character actually was deliberately gimped for much of his leveling, as I wanted to see how that played out, but playing him wasn't very satisfying. The problem was that I knew that what difficulty doing so did add (which honestly wasn't that much, even though I play on Master) was artificial, due to being a result of using sub-par gear rather than any inherent difficulty of the encounters themselves.

If the encounters themselves were difficult on higher settings then using sub-par gear would make it a 'challenge' run, which I actually enjoy doing once I understand how a given game works. Unfortunately that's not the case, so I don't have any reason to try; that's a real shame, since a proper 'challenge' run is a good test of one's skills and knowledge of the character's abilities.

You've simply created an "in-house" mod.

The vanilla game, as you said, was never intended to be skill based. You have influenced the game meta because you are using your knowledge outside the game to affect what you do inside it. Skyrim still, in general and as a whole, is not skill based.

Yes you can. Used to be that's all I could do. Read a book with no pictures, except the cover, and the covers were good. But game's are cool aren't they? I mean the stories are usually not nearly as good as fantasy novels, but the visuals take up allot of that slack.

Unless you were being sarcastic. But that would mean you think it's stupid to utilize your imagination.

Yes it is a solution. It's the ONLY solution. Changing the game IS NOT going to happen. That money is spent already. Work on this game is mostly completed, except for some finishing up with bugs, and DLC bugs. They are NOT going to go back and change a game already released.

This is not WoW, where they have the continuing income from subscribers to tweak the game every 6 or 8 months. The money is already spent.

Whatever Bethesda said about continuing to release updates to the game...they are dissembling...or straight out lying. Where does the money to pay a staff to keep re-balancing a single-player game, come from? No subscribers. Once the game is bought...it's bought. No more money coming in.

Learning how to challenge your self is the ONLY solution. if you find the game no longer fun. Or....play something else

In my original post, I made a couple of suggestions on how to do this. Think of you own ways

I will never try to get to level 81 ... just what is the point

Yes and no. Sure, my knowledge of the game rules allows me to choose a particular experience, but I'm not using the rules in an unusual way. I set the difficulty to Master, I pick Stamina every time I level up, and I don't pick any perk that improves my attack/defense scores. Every one of my choices is a valid choice and falls within standard game parameters. I've simply chosen to play the least optimal (combat) build I can create to see if the game does, indeed, remain balanced at the outer-extremes of valid player choices. I'm just playing a non-combat stealth build. I'm doing less meta-gaming than someone who maxes out smithing to get good armor. My conclusion is that the game is playable no matter how you build your character, though I wish it were more challenging. They just need to make the difficulty sliders a little more robust.

Well, they have a vested interest in maximizing return on their DLC. As long as they are working on DLC, they will continue to invest in bug fixes and minor tweaks. That's well worth the money they spend on it. If they hadn't released any patches after the first release, how many people would pick up the DLC? I bet it's at best half of what they will get by demonstrating a commitment to correcting their mistakes. I doubt they'll make any significant changes to the game, though, since they already know the formula works.

As I read all these posts about the "hating" of Skyrim being to easy. All I feel is sadness for you, all you want is challenge in a new style gaming community. If you look back to older games you, yes, you can see challenges. But only due to the demand of the gamers of that time. Today, gaming is apart of normal life, it is everywhere. And if you bother to look at most of today's new games you see a big pattern, no challenges. If you want a challenge, don't blame the people doing their job, blame the people telling them how to do their job.

As said before for Skyrim, be what you want to be. If you want stats that could kill anything in one hit, that is your choice. If you want to play DiD, that is your choice. They give you the choice of how to play, did they every tell what they wanted? No, they said be what you want to be, if you have to play with both arms tied behind your back then fine. They never said you couldn't or shouldn't, Its all about how you see the game.

If you want you challenge so bad in today's generation, make you own mod for Skyrim or find a new game that might appease you. Just stop your annoying complaints about the system that was made for varieties of gameplay styles.

Or, stop playing this game like a shooter and play the story instead.