To a certain extent, the OP is correct.

What people don't seem to understand is that the game is balanced around being able to do damage in essentially one of three ways: melee, ranged, or magic. If your character does not somewhat specialize in one of these three, he's going to have a harder time. That's just the way Skyrim and most other RPGs work.

So, in understanding this, if you are a person who wants to have some chance of survival, you will focus on one of these three areas. Too much focus on one will make the game easier, not enough will make it harder. All other non-combat skills simply add to, whether directly or indirectly, to better combat strength.

Roleplaying, btw, is an excellent way to play a character that, while perhaps not balanced, will be more fun to play.

Learning enough about game mechanics to roleplay a character that will "work" is part of the fun of playing an RPG.

Sure some level of self restraint is called for in an open world game. My rule of thumb is use self restraint to avoid loop holes and exploits. Like do I care that someone can make a 4,000 danage sword by exploiting the potions/enchanting/smithing system? Nope, not one bit. Just don't do it. Do I care that illusion on its own is broken, yeah yeah I do. Perfect crowd control is a bad idea in any game Telling someone avoid these 5 or 6 skills out of 18 skills because they are broken is a lot different than saying hey this one little loop hole don't do it.

Read my post above. And I'm from Commodore 64' generation, by the way.

You can roleplay in this game and still have complaints about things, including the difficulty. It hurt my experience to kill Alduin with zero effort. I can imagine away the boring fight with something more exciting but at what point does it become absurd to imagine away every flaw and to ask for better design?

Open world games will always be rife with abuse I'm afraid; you can't create no limits then expect every concoction to be equally valid. I personally don't feel the need to use absolutely everything on every play-through and it's probably one of the main reasons I vibe with this kind of game so well.

I've always felt that attempting to play a character who lives in the world, as opposed to an external who gleans unnecessary advantages from game mechanics and player-oriented resources, was the point. Power-gaming, and the balance decisions resulting, are better left for competitive online games.

Well put. Some posters seem to be unable to grasp the concept that it is very easy to become completely overpowered on Master difficulty without even trying to "powergame" or "min/max". If you aren't "roleplaying" exactly as they are, you are simply dismissed as a powergamer. Sad and unfortunate failing on the most basic level to understand what roleplaying, and the associated freedom of choice, truly is.

first off hello all my first post.
im playing a dual wield warrior type, i have a 97 smithing and have just started to enchant my own made arms and armor, ive made an armys worth of potions and contiue to make them. in my opinion its a game and skills and all are tools to make the game easier or harder, seems to me you just wanna make things harder on yourself, cheers to that just please don't rag on us that like the diveristy.

Warrior, the warrior, freshly escaped from a beheading and dragon attack at Helgen, finds himself in the City of Riverwood. Hoping to find a quick job to buy some travel supplies before heading off to warn the local Jarl, he decides smithing would probably be the most suitable job and stops by the blacksmith to see if he can lend a hand. The blacksmith accepts the help and teaches Warrior how to forge and improve basic armor and weapons. Warrior recognizes the value of his new skill and decides to continue to practice it. Warrior sells the dagger and helm he earned as wages, purchases needed supplies, and heads north to request defensive aid from the Jarl.

Upon informing the Jarl, Warrior is directed to speak with the court wizard and assigned a further task. Before he departs, in curiosity, he idly asks the court wizard about enchanting. The wizard explains it is easy if you have the aptitude, that you merely use an arcane enchanter to destroy a magic weapon and learn how to reproduce the enchantment. Presumably, this reverse-engineering process saves vast amounts of time compared to studying and learning new enchantments.

Warrior heads out on his new mission and while delving into the dungeon, comes across an enchanted dagger. As he is more proficient with 2H weapons, he knows he will never use it, but remembering the court wizard’s explanation of enchanting, he decides to keep it to see if he has the aptitude. If not, the dagger will still catch a fair price. Upon his return, tries his hand at enchanting, and lo and behold, discovers he has the aptitude.

Warrior, through life’s adventures, has now learned he is skilled at both smithing and enchanting. Warrior accepts his role as dragonborn and has no desire to live a sedentary lifestyle as a smith and enchanter. However, he recognizes the value of good equipment in keeping him alive during his adventures and vows to continue to hone his smithing and enchanting skills.

Next, warrior stops by the local potion shop to buy some potions for his continued journey. While waiting for the shop owner to fetch his wares, he picks up a book lying on a table and starts to read. It shows a picture of and explains that when mixed with it makes a potion of magic resist. Warrior realizes he has seen those ingredients many times and on his next trip, decides to pick them and try his hand at mixing a magic resist potion. It works! Of course, the quality isn’t very good, so Warrior is better off buying potions, but the next time he stops in the potion shop, he discovers the proprietor has a demand for cheap potions and will gladly purchase his low-quality potion. Now warrior has yet another way to make money, which merely requires him to stop and pick herbs as he travels the world. Not one to miss an opportunity, Warrior picks up alchemy as a hobby, eventually becoming skilled enough that his potions exceed the quality he can purchase in the store.

There you have it. By merely roleplaying a warrior interested in self-preservation, and stopping to talk to people, Warrior, before hitting level 5, has already discovered he is a 2H/Smith/Enchanter/Alchemist.

Now, if you are unfortunate enough to start roleplaying Warrior before reading the forums, you won’t realize Warrior will become too powerful until it’s too late – after he finds gloves of smithing and gloves of alchemy (he already knows fortify enchant potions form the same book that taught magic resist).

Well, I for one am not power-gaming, theorycrafting or min-maxing (to be honest, I don't even know what those are), I'm role-playing just like you are, I just role-play slightly different, which is kind of the entire selling-point of the game. Unfortunately, this has made my game way, WAY too easy anyway, despite my efforts in role-playing a perfectly viable and sensible character. Everything I have done in Skyrim I have learned by myself, none of my knowledge of the game comes from anywhere other than the game itself. I haven't even read the manual. The game is just too easy, even on master difficulty, and that is sure as hell not my fault.



I read it, my point still stands; if I don't want to one-shoot everything in the game, I have to role-play an illiterate idiot, is in my opinion not a balanced game. It just isn't.

The problem isn't that I don't know how to role-play computer games, it's actually precisely the opposite, I DO know, which is why I'm so bloody good at it, and I should be, having done this for 30 years. And I'm from Philips G7000 generation, by the way.

:laugh: So true :thumbsup:

Personally, I always find it difficult to roleplay a character that is vain to the point of stupidity. As a dragonborn and adventurer, I find it unrealistic that a character would forego enchanted dragonscale armor because leather is more stylish. Now, you are free to roleplay unrealistic characters, but I don't understand why roleplaying a realistic character is punished by poor balance.

The construction set balances the game.

It may me a surprise to the action gamers how an RPG works, but an Action game is what you do, an RPG is how you do it.

I find the game challenging on Master difficulty, maybe to some people a challenge is dying every 5 seconds at level 40 to every single enemy. But to me that breaks immersion if my character is constantly dying or my swords are turned into wet noodles no matter what I do.


To the people who complain the game is ridiculously easy on master dificulty. Play a D.I.D if you feel so unchallenged and then come back to me and complain. BTW, D.I.D. means Dead is Dead, reserved only for the elite. You can find the D.I.D. thread in the search function.

And if that still makes you feel unchallenged, wait for Arwen's Realism mod, you'll be crying home to Mama.

Most of the opinions on this games difficulty are a mixed bag between too easy and too hard.

I've played a warrior character through master with no companion and for the majority of the play-through I was leaning towards too hard. Keeping my smithing parallel to my other skills I was a 3-4 hit kill for an unfavorable amount of mobs in the game and took what felt like hours to kill anything. The only way to get through many encounters was a 40 minute shield/retreat/slash dance if it was even possible to take down in melee range. Numerous times I had to just leave the cave or dungeon because I had no shot at killing what was inside, and nothing was very far above my level.

I have to admit I'm curious to hear how you're waltzing through everything on master without power-leveling any of your crafting or otherwise important skills.

If the too easy crowd had their way, perks would be nerfed and weapons turned into wet noodles.


Action gamers are the reason why RPG players can't have cool stuff in games. There getting their action all over our game.

150 hours in, I've mastered both enchanting and blacksmithing on my clvl 51 thief/assassin, just by casual use of the disciplines. One arrow takes down a giant. One hit with my dagger does as well. It has gone so far that I stopped using sneak in dungeons, because my skill is apparently good enough I only need to crouch next to them for my sneak bonus. Sometimes I get discovered, but even then only Draugr Deathlord's give me more than an ounce of difficulty, and I can easily take him down with my dagger in about 15-20 seconds without using a single potion, shout or power. Shouts by the way, never use them, have no use for them.

Like others have said, you can become a demigod without min/max or even taking smithing and or enchanting. Its just like Morrowind in that regard. The only thing that doesn't keep up is Destruction.

Well you're level 51; I think most of the mobs in the game stop scaling after 40. Giants are in their early 30's. With the dual crafting synergy and the fact that you out-level most everything by a good margin it's obviously going to be ridiculously easy. I found the game was most difficult at levels 1-30ish.

this^
how dare they say we play this wrong, its all in opinion, you tell me in doing it wrong? too bad i think im doing it right as being a jack of all trades kickass player, so ha,ha...ha!

I agree. Bethesda has given the player the chance to be as balanced or so called unbalanced as they want to be. Its really a great system and rewards focused study and training just like in real life. A jack of all trades is fun but am finding more fun and completeness in limiting myself. It kind of reminds me of the legendary mod OSCURO'S OBLIVION OVERHAUL.

I have 100 in all skills, and playing on anything but novice is challenging. Maybe I'm just not playing right...

So I suppose this is where you declare allowing his character to progress to level 51 was "min/maxing" and he needs to "roleplay" to balance his gaming experience... right?

Every role player I know knows that some degree of balance is important. There is a reason they added a saving throw to the sleep spell in later versions of D&D balancing the player against the environment is important. Every open RPG especially Pen and Paper ones have exploitable loop holes, pen and paper has a check for them the DM, in computer games you have to be your own check. And that works great when it is a loop hole, it does not work so great when it is a basic function of a skill, or basic gear you acquire while adventuring. When basic rules are screwed up in pen and paper you can house rule them in a computer game you have to rely upon mods to fix it or for console types they have to what just ignore large segments of the game, that does not seem like a good solution tome.

The problem is that it has been like this the entire time. It was a bit funny when I decided to raise the difficulty from expert to master when I was around clvl 25 only to realise I was already playing at master difficulty. I obviously flicked through expert when I raised it from adept around clvl 15 without even noticing it, either in the menu or the difficulty in-game.

I say it again, the game is by far too easy.

Good post and very true. Any semi-intelligent character would try to do those things. See there are no barriers to starting smithing/enchanting/alchemy. If you had to have a base magic skill to enchant the warrior would not enchant. If you had to a weapon/armor skill to smith a mage would not smith. Personally I feel the crafting skills should have requirements outside of their skill. Otherwise the stongest build is always your core class (warrior/mage/thief) plus the crafting skills.