People complaining that their wierd min/max hybrids are overpowered aren't really playing the game right. Here's some examples ...

A melee warrior would invest himself in his armor/weapons and the only crafting profession that would make sense is Blacksmithing. Think like a warrior, live like a warrior and you won't be using things like enchanting and alchemy to furthor augment your gear to ridiculous levels.

If you're a mage you focus on your spell schools and enchanting. Your spell damage doesn't scale as well as a melee weapon but your stun-lock perks, summons and severe magicka cost reduction make up for it.

Finally we have the stealthy theif who can front-load the most damage of anyone but doesn't have the defensive and restorative capabilities of a warrior or mage. You create poisons and sneak around, but you don't make sense as a smith or enchanter.

Now this is a completely open game where you can mix and match whatever you want to varying degrees of overpowered or unviable, but what I just described is where the balance is. Break that balance at your own peril.

Noted. Removal of classes means you may only play Mage, Warrior, or Thief. All other character concepts are strange hybrids that break the game.

This theory also explains the horrendous lack of dialogue and quest choices, it's the fault of the player.

I'm currently playing a warrior who has never made a single potion and never picks up any alchemy ingrediants (except salt as it's used for cooking). He only uses potions he finds and eats cooked meat for healing. It has made my game 100% better. He does smithing, but I'm leveling it evenly with his other class skills. He also doesn't join any faction that not combat related (no mage guild, thieves guild, DB, etc.). This playthrough is the most fun I've had in Skyrim.

Already I'm planning a rogue next who focus' on Alchemy and does the roguish factions.

By far the only way to really play the game.

Bethesda's problem was they made it too easy for people to ruin their own game. Adding classes back would have fixed most of the leveling and power-gaming problems I've read about.

You may play as whatever you want. It's a single player game and balance is only as much of an issue as you make it out to be, but the less convoluted builds will always feel the most ideal if balance is important to you.

No, lol.

Roleplaying is how someone wants to play their Character, leave them to play their game like they want to.

How do you know a Warrior might not also be an Enchanter/Enchantress? It's possible and even some of the Warrior people in the game use Destrcution School of Magic.

I think you're missing the point. I'm not telling you how to play I'm telling you that this game is balanced around roles that make sense. If you want to be king everything that's fine but don't be surprised when the game feels imbalanced.

I've done that and it was fun until level 50 sneaking when I became practicaly invisible to NPCs. You can even execute an enemy with another one standing 5 meters away and not seeing you.

I agree. People complain game is too easy when they use op perks and weapons. If its too easy then don't use that sword! This is a game that you decide how it will go. if you want a challenge don't abuse the AI, they are only limited.

I'm currently rolling with a hunter. And by hunter I mean a guy who runs around the wilderness in a fur loincloth shooting elk and wolves with a bow. I turn pelts into leather and sell the excess to traders. 99% of the game's content won't ever be explored by me. Am I doing it right?

Yeah, roleplaying balances the game better. My level 30 Argonian warrior still hasn't enough money to buy a decent house. A lot of money goes to food and potions.

I love how you think the game is absolutely fine and that in a supposedly open world "play as you see fit" video game your solution to the problem is to tell players they aren't playing the "right" way...

LOL...

Currently my sword and board warrior of 52 is running around in epic Banded Iron and a legendary Blades sword. Its quite fun knowing a dragon can one shot you if your not careful.

more than half of your post was teaching how to play, no wonder its misleading.

anyway

so... if there is 1 more difficulty above master to bring more challenge for the hybrid class (those demi-god build), does that bother you?

if i want to have fun with a mage, not a summoner, and want to kill stuff with destruction in a higher level 35+ish, am i forced to pick enchanting because thats how im suppose to role play?

Balance isn't a "problem" in single player games, but since people still seem concerned with it I'm sharing the solution. There are "right" ways to play if you need the balance to feel ideal.

Beyond that your min/max character is going to feel overpowered and your level 50 character who's only invested in speech, pickpocketing and crafting is going to feel underpowered.

Go away.

I play as a Warrior that will do whatever is needed to stay alive, including making potions and enchanting my gear although I will not take a perk in the trees.

This pretty much sums my impression of this thread.
Also people who post crap like "Game is fine, you are playing it wrong", should be locked up in Asylum together with Joker.
It is their only rightful place.

I'm telling people how to build balanced characters who will create an ideal experience with the games direction and mechanics.

I suppose they could include an impossible mode for people to use their broken weapons in and an infant mode for people who want to be able to kill dragons and giants with their maxed out speech and pickpocketing trees. Not likely going to happen, though.

This being a single player game and all I think the best solution would be to stop being so focused on balance. If you're going to min/max then be overpowered and stop complaining about it. If you want the challenge of playing your role in an ideal way then I've given you the blueprint.

Sorry, OP, but this won't mash it through their thick skulls. I've tried, and tried, but the balance-is-important group don't get the reason TES is so incredible, and they're whining about it.

Would you agree that it would make sense for a spellsword to be a blacksmith AND an enchanter? Why do you assume that the only 'classes' we can play are warrior mage and thief? Besides, blacksmithing on its own is stupidly overpowered even if you don't power-level it. Enchanting and alchemy on top of that results in sheer hilarity.

Here's the problem though - it need not feel that way. There are many, many, video games which provide a challenge to RPGers who are min/maxing. One could try and argue that making it challenging for min/maxers would mean that casual RPers wouldn't stand a chance, but the problem with that argument is that there is a difficulty slider.

Simply put the difficulty slider should provide a challenge for everyone, from the casual RPer on the low end, to the most hard core min/maxer on the high end. Why not? It is just poor design and laziness on Bethesda's part frankly.

It's good to see a post that makes some sense. The bad thing is that for a lot of people, if they have the skill there, they HAVE to use it, and then they are going to complain about it being too powerful. Like all those complaining about Acrobatics, saying it was overpowered, and at same time saying things like "I'm glad I don't have to go around jumping all the time anymore". Completely nonsense. I wonder why jump all the time, if you think the skill is overpowered...

Right now I play a rogue (sneaking archer) with no alchemy, no smith, no enchant, no nothing... I wanted it to be the typical char: Archery, Light Armor, Sneaking, Lockpicking and Speech. I didn't pick Pickpocket because it's not a thief (at least not for now). It's just the usual hero, wanting to help the world, not doing anything bad or evil, but very capable of unlocking chests on dungeons and sneaking around. This means I don't pick items from houses that may interest ME, simply because my char would not do it. Neither kill an NPC "because he has that cool bow that I want". This is not how I chose to play this game.

I plan on avoiding blacksmith even with my warrior, unless I decide to give it a try just to see how it works. And Alchemy for a mage sounds good, same than for an assassin. But I don't plan on putting "add-on" skills to my chars that overpower them too much, unless I think it fits the profile and that using them can make my gameplay more pleasurable. In any case, normal and casual use, while playing, not sitting there crafting and crafting just for skill increase.

Warrior, mage and theif are the 3 ideal directions. Focus down their trees, play their roles and joing their guilds to have what would be the most ideal, form-fitting experience for each character. Hybrids are fine but they won't ever be balanced; it would be an impossible and ultimately pointless endeavor to balance everything in a free-form single player game like this.

Blacksmithing is fine on it's own; it's powerful but not broken. All of those 3 directions will be pretty powerful by the end of their development.

Define this notion of "roles that make sense." It sounds to me like you're artificially adding in some fake notion of "RP" and acting all proud about it.

As I can observe in Skyrim, I may enter the world as a warrior, but within moments realize that magick sparks from my fingertips. I appear to be amazingly skillful at determining the properties of alchemical ingredients, and when I work at the forge, the hammer on the metal sings to me. I find that everything comes naturally to my character. Its all so easy to learn. And who am I to say anything against how the world works.

Players in P&P games don't tell the GM how gravity should work. Players don't dictate the rate of progress of their characters growth to a GM (that is to say, players don't assign XP to themselves in a "normal" game).

If the world is set up in a certain way, why shouldn't it be used?

Role playing? That's what the story line is for. Next time, why don't you pick up a twenty sided pair of dice instead?


Gamers just want to explore, loot, kill stuff, story line, customize, try different things when they get bored and loathe the idea of starting over. Meh, I'll probably just trade this in when Soul Calibur 5 comes out.