I was in a cave, trying to go toe-to-toe with a sword and board against three bandits. I quickly dispatched the archer before an orc with a greatsword was upon me, the other attempting to flank with a dagger. I doubled back, opting to put down my blade and shield to unleash a torrent of flames while they attempted to close the distance.

By the time I readied my original armaments, the orc had released a particularly brutal overhead. With a snap judgement, I lunged forward to strike at the thief beside him, narrowly avoiding the decapitating blow and crippling the lightly armed and armored threat. The orc still staggering, I faced him and raised my shield, ready to bash him for his fatal error.

Suddenly I was ripped from my body, and watched down in horror as the orc nonchalantly pulled my unresponding body to his sword, running me through with a single thrust.

Why Bethesda. I had near full health and stamina, blocking even, but NOPE. Silly me, thinking I would be able to do something like block or dodge attacks. If you're in melee range at any point, you're expected to deal with the lowliest warrior in Skyrim being able to stun and oneshot your heavily armored juggernaut while he is in the most defensive stance possible, even when the enemy is recoiling.
These mods cannot come soon enough

Maybe the sword was highly enchanted.

A wizard did it? Those silly guys always ruin my immersion!

I love that, honestly. Knowing that I can die at any time just makes the game more tense and exciting,

I agree. If you can always dodge, it isn't very suspensful is it...

I'm looking forward to mods that increase the danger of the game & combat.

I feel your pain. Many times as a thief caught in a hairy situation I escape only to be magically pulled backwards into a kill move....

Because he was initiating an attack that would've owned you either way unless you were going to pause right then and start popping potions. Also, this has only ever happened to me if the guy is a lot higher level than me. For instance i tried using the disarm shout on one chief and it told me that bro is too powerful and then he impaled me as i gave him a hug.

This may be correct. The first couple times it happened, they were guards, and I sort of assumed it meant I shouldn't really be fighting them. But nope, run-of-the-mill bandit with his little steel greatsword was literally pausing after missing a power attack on me for a second or two, and, yknow, I sort of assumed it would be safe to advance with my shield up while he brought his sword back to the neutral stance. Adding insult to injury, the execution attacks are almost always initiated at a distance greater than the actual range of the animation, making it clip terribly.

To the people who like the danger? Play master. "Fun" is subjective, and I realize that.

But just five minutes before my horrible death, I had stepped a bit too far into a giant settlement and could not backtrack before a couple mammoths aggro'd onto me (but no giants). I tried arrow and spell on them, but realized it was futile. I ran, noting the cave in the distance that would surely give me respite. As I made my way to it, I came across all manner of fauna, and together with mudcrab and sabre lion and wolf I was able to take down one of the mighty creatures before finding my quiver bare. I thanked the creatures of the wild for their sacrifice (as they had made only a few strikes at the mammoth before being crushed), and entered the cave before meeting a similar fate from the remaining titan.

THAT was fun. COMBAT is fun. Getting ripped out of the game through no fault of your own is jarring, humiliating, frustrating, and tedious.

I had problems in FNV and Oblivion with save scumming, redoing bosses or dialogue because I felt like I used too many consumables or didn't get the desired result. But never did I feel like I had to save after every two enemies. Even in Deus Ex: HR, where on the hardest difficulty, it is insanely easy to be oneshot by a well-placed grenade or shot to the head. If I did the same with Skyrim, I would have already spent at least an extra thirty minutes fighting the same group of enemies with laughably poor AI over and over. I don't want to do that.


I don't want to change my playstyle (up in people's grill with a sword and shield, backing down only when a change of tactics is truly necessary) for some roll of the die contrivance either. Once again... can't wait to mod the hell out of this, I don't expect Bethesda to even concern themselves with what us PC users nitpick, and I'm happy enough to slog through the terrible UI and gimmicks and consolitis that is Skyrim, because it really is an amazing game despite this. Just really punishing for certain playstyles, for no reason in particular. Can't imagine I'll be this enthusiastic about it for long, because I don't doubt there are some things that the modding community will have issues resolving before they can truly begin changing the game.

Edit: Just reading it over again, and I realized that vanilla Oblivion was extremely easy for certain playstyles (namely thieves/mages) due to poor mechanics (such as 100% chameleon) and, at times, mind-bendingly frustrating for others (warriors) due to poor mechanics (level scaling). I still have nightmares of when I did damn near everything, including all the guilds, before the main quest on my first character. Kvatch was... for lack of any word that can truly describe the horror, the worst part of any game I have ever played and not immediately quit.