Hello. Let me start off by saying I think this is one of the best RPGs I have ever played. I always play single player games on the maximum difficulty because I find it the funnest. Why is the AI in Skyrim so TURRIBLE (charles barkley)???? I play an archer/thief and so far most of the game has been easy smeasy. The AI is so bad, if I do get into a tight situation:

1) I can run into the water and the NPCs have no idea what to do, then I can pop out shoot them a couple times and retreat back into the water like the swamp thing.
2) I jump down a 1 foot dropoff and they have to run all the way around, then I can jump right back up when they get to me.
3) I can kite them into my companion or horse which will then tank them while I finish the job with arrows.

On a side note with thievery I have plenty of gold to buy houses, tons of potions (no cap, I can use 10 while pausing the game), and the best gear gold can buy. I have never played TES on PC before but do some of the mods increase difficulty?

So basically you are intentionally exploiting the game in a sense and then complain its to easy?

Does that sum it up? lol

To all who are having an issue with the game being too easy. Play on Master an don't use potions and food. You're welcome.

Addendum: use only basic iron weapons and amor and put all your level up points into stamina. (you're gonna run a lot)

well i am on master and its still little ridiculous how bad the AI is and how easy it is to sneak on someone. i can be literally 2 feet away sitting in pretty much plain view and have them walk right by me, even with super high sneak thats just bad AI. also my unless my horse has some crazy dragon frenzying hormones theres something wrong with the dragon following my horse miles away while ignore the guy pumping arrows into it and trailing behind like a puppy. I've gotten off my horse to combat a dragon and then i just end up walking away to do what i was originally doing because the dragon decides to follow my horse over a cliff and miles away from where we started.

kiting is a cheap strategy that works/breaks AI in almost any 3d world game. nothing new here. I would think that mages and dragons will still kill you though.

guys complaining about it being to easy when he purposely is cheating the Games weak points. Go figure

this

I remember seeing a YouTube video about how the waypoint pathfinding system needed to be passed up for vector pathfinding featuring, among other things, Oblivion, Half Life 2, and WoW. It showed obvious flaws (to the tune of Yakkity Sax) in pathfinding exactly like the ones you are exploiting in any waypoint pathfinding system. He also demonstrated by doing things like going behind a boulder near a cliff (where no waypoints were nearby), where the tiger chasing him would have to go all the way around the other side of the boulder. Likewise, crossing a stream would send a gorilla all the way back up the bank of the stream, across the bridge, then back down the bank to try to take a swipe at the player, who would then just move back across the stream, forcing the monster to stop, turn around, and go back the way it came. Also, it featured a flying gargoyle getting "caught" on a 1-foot rise while trying to fly after the player in Oblivion, in spite of flying at least three feet off the ground.

Sadly, I either can't search for it, or it was taken down.

Anyway, "Expert" only makes the enemies have more health and damage, as far as I know, so it won't do a thing for your actual difficulty if they never reach melee range because of bug exploits. Hence, it's not a matter of "making something harder than expert" to begin with.

Those are just examples of the crappy AI. I try not to use any cheap tactics but I can kill almost any enemy before it can hit me simply with a crouch shot with applied poisons. I can even kill a pair of giants before they can kill my companion at level 25. I think I will try to not use food/ potions like a previous poster suggested.

Yes mages are the biggest challenge so far but health potions and food make that trivial. Dragons have not given me too much trouble but they have attacked me near the watchtower and the rebel camp east of whiterun, they mostly ignored me and were attacking npcs(edit spelling). I could see a solo fight against a dragon being a challenge though.

if the game is so made that enemies can't adapt to the player's legitimate tactical moves (running into water, jumping of ledges), the game should be improved. I'm enjoying the game a lot but the OP has a valid point. These issues have been in beth games since MW at least.

if you say "enemies don't follow you into water, so don't go into water" that's like saying "melee fighters don't try to close in on you when your a ranged fighter, so you have to go to them. otherwise it's cheating"

I actually not think it is too easy , but bad balanced , at high difficulty that I play the max and the one befoure the enemies are uber strong and can kill me with one blow or two ... but what bohers me is that also the peasants , the guards , and anyonelse in the world is stronger than me so to make me rely on those tricks like shooting from a high rock or from the water to win them wich is turning my melee fighter in a Robin hood of the province as I am only using the bow when I am perking the 2h sword ...

All making it harder because you can just run around kiting NPCs would do is make you run around longer.

Play as a mage.

Yes I think melee would be very difficult on master, because the only thing the difficulty meter seems to do is increase enemy hp and damage. As a 2 hand wielder your cannot really avoid damage because even blocks mitigate only so much. I tried a melee in oblivion and it was frustrating then I rolled a conjurer and it was easy, when I got to 100%www chameleon it became a joke and wasn't fun. Even with the poor AI in this game , I must say I really really enjoy playing it.

Playing as a mage seems like it would be easy since you can essentially have two companions plus your range dps. I have read the underpowered posts but I think a lot of that is people going with straight destruction and no support magic.

Yep, if you abuse the AI, its going to be easy on whatever level. Its up to you, if you want a challenge then give the AI the advantage. They are AI after all.

I've been annoyed by the AI a couple times. The most frustrating was, after I managed to kill my horse from fall damage, but not me, I decided to just walk everywhere for a bit. After a while I decided, eh, screw it, I'll drop another 1k septims on another horse. The first quest I did after that was kill a dragon. The dragon was located near the top of a mountain, and I came up on it the back way. I stopped on top of a small cliff, dismounted to look for the dragon, dragon breaths fire on me and my horse from behind, and my horse jumped off the cliff to his death. I mean, he could of at least ran off the other way x.x

Yes I fell off a cliff with my horse too and haven't bought another. For some reason while standing still on a horse and trying to push 's' to walk backwards still makes the horse go forwards....

I got a chuckle when I saw the words "Master" and "to easy" in the same sentence. First of all, I don't use nay of the design flaw exploits such as the one foot drop off thing you were talking about. If you want a potion cap, only drink the amount you set yourself to per battle. Key: Don't use things just because they are there.

My second and final point is simple.

Level 14 Nord Spellsword + Master Difficulty + Blood Dragon = Death

I was even killed by a Blood Dragon on adept when I was just getting the ropes of Dragonslaying. Maybe it's because you're using a keyboard and mouse on the PC? I don't know. I don't think this game is even remotely to easy.