Okay so I'm going to take a different approach and describe my skyrim experience and why I'm frustrated with both the difficulty levels, as well as the system in place. Before that, lets just look at the ways each character is defined.

1. Race - Different choices give different races and abilities
2. Health/Stamina/Magicka selection - kind of obvious
3. Skill Level/Perk Selection- Your skill goes up, you become better at something, perks give you big bonuses
4. Equipment you're wearing/wielding - How high a weapon is smithed, enchants on it and your gear can make a huge difference in defining your character.
5. Potions being used - Using poisons can boost damage and debuff your enemies, as well as boost your skills and H/M/S.


Okay so when I first started playing, I started out on Adept just like everyone else. I'm big on customizing my character and making them my own, so I was really charged at the idea of being able to place two seperate enchantments of my choosing on my character. I was shocked at how quickly the skill levels up, any efforts to actively level enchanting result in it surprassing any skill in speed it levels.

You get that enchanting all of the way up (easy to do) and with smithing, you're hitting like a truck, got enchantments on everything, and with potions, you can quickly make a mint as well as not have to worry about buying a potion ever again.

So after not too long, not only did I go from Adept, to Adept but turning it up to Expert for Dragons, then Expert all of the time, then Expert but Master for Dragons, now I'm Expert or Master at all times. I don't do Master at all times because of the difficulty system, playing a destruction focused caster on Master is akin to ramming ones head into a wall.

So then my first thing was to not bother with alchemy any more, so thats out. Then I don't bother actively leveling enchanting, but it still goes up with little to no effort. And then I stop actively leveling smithing. Essentially, I find myself using less and less skills actively, using items that exist in game that look cool and building characters around them (Helm of Yngol for example).

The issue is not just the difficulty, its that the enemies don't use those same skills and perks you use to be competitive, so the only choice you have is to crank up the difficulty and turn them into a wall of health, or to use a smaller and smaller group of skills in order to play the game.

Some people are fine with this, but if someone complains about Super Mario Bros, someone saying "Well just don't get any Fire Flowers, stop complaining." is kind of ridiculous, but for some reason, this is a perfectly acceptable response. "Gimp Yourself".

I shouldn't have to play with one hand tied behind my back at all times, because someone else wants to be able to handle everything with easy. If they want to be all-powerful and not have a challenge, they should have to turn the difficulty down, not have me not use certain skills, or not perk them, and have to crank it up at all times in order to maintain challenge.

There's nothing wrong with self-limiting to a degree, but I shouldn't have to gimp myself completely and only use two-thirds of the game system in order to keep it interesting.

That's kind of the way TES works. The reason we got level scaling in the first place was because forum goers complained that they were basically a god by level twenty in Morrowind.

Difficulty is never going to satisfy people, because if you aim it at one crowd you're going to alienate the other.

I'm not expecting perfection, but it certainly be a lot better then it is.

I leave off certain enchantments and dont use potions to increase my smithing or enchanting skill, and play on master. I guess you can call it gimping, but whatevs. I'm still having fun, and dont see anything wrong with it. The op factor is the same as it was in Morrowind and Oblivion, so I dont see why all of a sudden its such a big deal to some people. I just cant wrap my head around why people just cant leave off a few things. Whats the big deal? I know people say "I shouldn't have to do blah blah" But thats just the way it is. Either move on and enjoy the game or wait til TES 6. Its not like they're gonna change it anyway. Not that it needs to. Skyrim is about freedom. If you wanna "gimp" yourself so that the gameplay is challenging, then go ahead. If you wanna mow everything down, then go ahead. Thats the beauty of the game. I would like to see a harder difficulty then master. That would be better then effecting the already set difficulties, and making others who enjoy them angry. Either way, I play this game for the immersion, not solely for combat.

And I will post what I said in the other thread: you are not the only person playing this game. There are many people who have never played an RPG before, and both Bethesda and this community of gamers want them to have a great experience. The default level has to be something that is a 'middle ground' so that people don't feel intimidated by the game too soon. You can change the default to whatever you wish, but for a new person to see the default level is expert, it makes them question if this game is a good fit for them, since they're obviously not experts. It makes them feel a little inadequate to have to turn it down three levels instead of two. It's fine the way it is. Critique the difficulty of Expert and Master and what Beth should change about those all you want, but leave the default difficulty alone please.

It still shouldn't be the new 'default' I like Adept the way it is. What should happen though is there should be a new hardest mode for people that want it, and I still think maybe a good way to do that, have some certain hard things like enemies or environmental things that only appear in that mode so that unless you play that mode it is totally unexpected. I think the great kind of difficultly is the kind that hits you out of left field and you have to really learn ways to get around it.

Really? Am I misunderstanding something, or are we at the point now where people are complaining because they have to go into the menu (gasp!) and adjust a setting (ZOMG) to make the game more challenging than it is when it loads up for the first time with the defaults in place?

The mind, it boggles.

If crafting wasn't used in any capacity then Adept is pretty much perfect. It doesn't help though that Beth has made the game easier by putting in the ridiculous Health Regen that makes the game a cakewalk or getting rid of Weapon/Armor Degradtion, now the only time I have to worry about losing my weapon is if a Dragur disarm shouts me. What we need is an optional Skyrim mode that makes the game harder instead of Player 50% less damage, Enemies 200% increase in damage.