I <3 this post. A lot of the posters arguing about over-powered this, face-rolling that, balancing blah blah blah are maybe not used to this type of game - or perhaps simply thinking in terms of, in particular MMOs, where this stuff matters - but then again, you have to build to a certain spec to be competitive in raids and pvp. I care about this stuff on my WoW characters, in Rift and probably will when I play SWTOR. In Skyrim, I find it a pure, absorbing joy to just... make my character and see how the game goes.

And nice to see you around FlightFlyFlea

@Cerddor
While I totally appreciate the well thought out and politely written reply, I fail to understand why you seem to consider those two concepts (roleplaying and challenging gameplay) as being mutually exclusive.

That is not true. I am being forced down a route because I want to keep the game challenging. In fact, my entire argument this entire thread has been "I am being forced down a route because I dont want to maximise my statistical DPS, because that DPS would triviallize this game".

Honestly I find the RP value of Skyrim to be a problematic issue on its own, one we barely brush in this thread when we talked of Speechcrafting (its a big enough subject for an entrely different discution). There is generaly a single outcome to quests with no alternative whatsoever to develop your character's personality. I am a Stormcloak, yet I cannot clear imperial camps because of immortal characters. I am the Harbinger and the Thane of Whiterun, but this guard just asked me if I was the new guy around. And I am not getting into the guards' telepatic abilities.

I agree pointing out issues without suggesting anything is not as useful, so I'll try to add too:

1) Crafting: You should be able to craft only gear that is according to your level, or at least make it very hard to surpass that default level. For example, if you're level 5 and can find in the world only up to dwarven gear, then you should not be able to reach smithing 100 and craft ebony so soon. Even with this kind of change, smithing is already powerful enough just by allowing you to improve gear better than normal and don't depend on merchants, so I don't see any issue with this restriction. Also you should not be able to grind your skill with only daggers, low level items should stop giving experience at some point. If someone really want to grind to be able to craft for instance ebony when dwarven is the current maximum merchant gear, then at least they should have to spend lots of money to do so by grinding expensive gear instead of daggers (even added synergy with the money-making skills here). Same with enchanting and alchemy.

2) Destruction: Destruction spells are really nice in relation to variation, there are single target, AoE, large AoE, traps, etc. But since you're obligated to use your higher tiers spells to keep your damage high, then in reality this variation is almost nullified. I would like to see Flames useful till later levels, since it has no similar higher levels spells. And to accomplish this, spells have to scale in damage according to your skill level. Also, I think that items should not decrease spell cost, but instead increase spell damage. This way destruction mages would be able to deal high amounts damage, but at the cost of having to manage magicka. Today they don't have to manage anything after crafting a few items, but the damage is lacking.

3) Illusion: Making enemies able to resist is not bad, but I really don't like binary spells that work or do not work. I would make the duration of calm/fear/frenzy spells to widely vary according to the level of the target and the level of the spell cast. This way a specialized illusionist casting high level spells would be able to keep weak enemies controlled for a long time, but not so long against strong enemies. For example, the ultimate frenzy spell would last 60 seconds on low level mobs, but only, say, 5 seconds on a strong enemy. In the same way, even a novice illusionist would be able to control high level enemies, but only for a very very short time.

4) Robes: Considering that the destruction skill and enchanted items would increase spell damage instead of decrease spell cost, then wearing robes could be a way to allow spell costs reduction modifiers. So, pure mages that are all about not depleting their magicka would for sure like to wear robes instead of armor.

5) Unused perks: Three money-making skills is too much. But since they're already there anyway... Money is too easy to find in the world, and chests usually are not that charming regarding good loot. I never even considered getting perks in pickpocket (other than additional weight), lockpick and speech simply because I never need it. I'm sure that if someday I scroll through a merchant, see there's a pretty good weapon on sale, and then notice I do not have money to buy it, then I'll for sure at least take a look at the money-making perks. And this is even worse if you can craft your own gear. So, money has to be much harder to acquire and easier to spend (even buying a house is pretty cheap), so that players feel the need to look at those constellations. Also, there could be a few perks in those trees that in fact help in combat or exploration, this way even the players that don't care with roleplaying would at least consider additional options. For example, lockpick has synergy with traps, so a few perks could allow you to disable traps, ignore their damage, etc. Speech has synergy with questing in general, so it could allow alternative shortcuts and solutions. And pickpocket has synergy with thievery and bluffing (sort of), so it could in some way give you the ability to distract enemies and help sneaking.


NOTE: Please notice I'm not paid to design games. For sure someone in Bethesda can make much better changes than we can suggest.

I've created game worlds for RPG's in my life, and nothing would leave a nasty taste in my mouth as much as creating a difficulty level for powergamers that involved mud crabs that decimate a normal person in one hit unless they specifically aimed for a specific build of character. It would make me vomit a bit in my mouth.

Like I said, I think our viewpoints are however, mutually exclusive. Making the game more difficult to cater for those only in it for the challenge, reduces options in creating original characters not focused on the challenge of the game. Find a balance that actually works without punishing either, I think is a hopeless goal.. if it could be done I would be all for it.

This is entirely my point, its not trivialised at all, based upon the combat difficulty slider. By asking for increases in difficulty, you force others that don't view the game as a challenge to be beaten to reduce the difficulty. This is exactly the same argument as forcing those who don't view the game this way to choose a route less powerful. Its all about how the game is perceived, and sadly, I think the future may be in your point of view, and I think gaming as a whole will be weakened by it. This is one of the few games that don't demand challenge.

I'm not saying they are mutually exclusive exactly to balance roleplay and challenge, but rather the demands to implement this, would be at expense of content. Its lose lose from my situation.

Also, I never said it was a majority opinion. I don't know how many people share my opinion in relation to the whole. I know many do, but neither you or me have any sort of actual stats on this.

Mud crabs should never be dangerous.

Here is the gamut of difficulties that I would like to see on Master difficulty, given that you as a player are trying as much as possible to improve your character and skills.

-Easy Monsters
-Normal monsters
-Semi-hard monsters
-Hard Monsters (semi-rare)
-Bosses (rare)
-Optional Superbosses (aka not needed to finish main quest) - Extremely rare (maybe 2-3 in the whole game)

Right now this is what Skyrim has on Master, if you are trying to make the best character you can (part of the fun of an RPG for many people):

-Easy monsters
-Normal monsters
-Semi-hard monsters
-Easy bosses

Also, I never said it was a majority opinion. I don't know how many people share my opinion in relation to the whole. I know many do, but neither you or me have any sort of actual stats on this.

Very true. If it could be done, I wouldn't care less. What I care about is the implementation of more features that focus on this solely being a game.. the only losers are those that play to immerse their characters, and respond thusly. Character is so much more than skills and mathematical optimisation, which, I wholly admit, is very respectable.

I play poker, and semi-competant at it and statistical anolysis on optimal playstyles is very much my thing.. but not for a game like this.

Again, I respectfully disagree. I am not suggesting creating a game with one difficulty option and that being challenging for everyone. I am suggesting that a player should be able to find a challenge if he sets the difficulty at the highest difficulty, while another player would also be able to find the easyer-going environment he needs to fully enjoy role-play based character developpement if he chooses the lower difficulty settings.

As for the content, I consider character developpement to be part of that content.

Quit tapping the tank.

it order to do so however, without making the difficult of the world appear absurd, would require developer resources better suited towards game content. The reason I object is that the more we focus on a playstyle that this series has never been focused on, a point of view I have yet to see refuted, the fewer resources are used on the content which made the series popular in the first place. .

it order to do so however, without making the difficult of the world appear absurd, would require developer resources better suited towards game content. The reason I object is that the more we focus on a playstyle that this series has never been focused on, a point of view I have yet to see refuted, the fewer resources are used on the content which made the series popular in the first place. It may even be possible to design it as you wish it, but it detracts from the purpose of the game, and likely, although admittedly, not definitely, to the detriment of my style of play.



As a roleplayer, I consider a world to be the content, and the character my choice within the confines of the lore and build of the world. If destruction mages do less damage than a warrior, thats part of the society of the world. I find it interesting to have disparity between chosen professions, for them to be unbalanced it forces players to be inventive and develop character beyond the number of their skill.

I'm going to leave this thread. The future of the series will come down to the opinons of the majority. I hope I'm in the majority but its difficult to tell based solely on forums, but I don't blame Bethseda if no matter which direction they take, its a company who will base the game on maximising sales.

I saw you saying ppl play to win. I assume 'win' here is equal to becoming more powerful in damage right?

Part 1: http://forums.bethso...r-game-for-you/
Part 2: http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1289512-bethesda-why-must-we-rebalance-your-game-for-you-part2/
TD;LR: Why do I have to choose how to build my character in function of how hard I want the game to be instead of how I want to play?

Crafting is out of control: If i want to make a warrior and still have a challenge, I can't use all three crafting professions (and even 2 is iffy). The synergies between them are so powerfull that they make the very idea of min/maxing as a type of gameplay completely absurd. You cannot take the best character developpement decisions, the ones you know you need to be the best at what you are doing, without turning the game into Hello-Kittie-Adventure as far as difficulty goes.

Destruction is a flippin' joke: The tree does not scale! That means that, unlike every single other combat ability in the game, there is a point after which you will -never- hit harder, while everything keeps scaling up. What that means is that we have a situation where a destruction mage, at a certain level, will actually do more damage with -unperked- bows then with -fully perked- destruction spells. Now it wouldn't be a that big a deal if that level was very late, but that level is 35. On a game with 81 levels in total, you will always hit as hard as a level 35 mage.

What that means is that mages are forced to turn themselves into summoners by taking up conjuration, effectively completely changing the gameplay and restricting their possible options. And guess what: Even that doesn't scale!

Illusion trivalizes the game: Here is a skill I am quite happy to see finally shine... except they overdid it! It trivializes all form of content, same as crafting synergies. The problem is that there is no element of damage nor resistance involved. What that means is that once you have the master spells and the appropriate perks, you can just invis in, frenzy, invis out and grab a popcorn. Then just calm + shoot the last man standing. Nothing can resist it, nothing can counter it, nothing can mitigate it. With destruction spells you need to kite, with arrows you sneak, with weapons you need to stagger them first if they have a shield or are blocking, etc. Illusion is an "IWIN" button; the only strat is "press it".

There is no incentive to ever wear robes: Even as a mage, there is absolutely no reason whatsoever to wear more then a single piece of robes, because you gain absolutely nothing from wearing them over a light armor piece with the same enchant. If I have a cloth glove with -20% cost to Destruction spells, and a light armor with -20% cost to Destruction spells, then there will never be a question that the Light armor piece will be superior. Sure there is the Alteration perk, but again, the mage issue: it stops scaling really fast, and then falls behind. Hell, all the masks (best mage helmets) in the game are Light Armor!

As it stands the only Cloth piece worth wearing over anything else is the Robes from the College quest line, because you cannot reproduce its stats through other means.

Some perks are made pointless by the very game they are in: I am looking specifically at Lockpicking and Speech-crafting here. The issue is that one is made redundant by the ability one has to open any lock he see's from level one, while the other serves as nothing more then a source of income since its gameplay value is rendered moot by the option of bribing everyone as an alternative to persuade/intimidate options. I would understand if one was to tell me they are there for roleplaying reasons, but the fact is that Speechcrafting has nothing to do with roleplaying since the quests offers little to no option in terms of alternative developpement. You cant talk people into doing stuff, you cant talk your way out of situations. The RP value of it is greatly diminished by the game's lack of real "choices" when questing.

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I keep reading on this forum about how the game is supposed to be about Choice...

Then why is it that every time someone brings up any of these points they are told to just not use them? So far, if I had listened to these boards, I would say that I cannot use: Enchanting, Smithing, Alchemy, Illusion, Destruction, Sneak and Dual Wield. Those are just the ones that I have personally read here.

Doesn't that actually restrict my choices considerably?!?

Yes, you should be able to become God if you want to, but you should also be able to have a good level of challenge as well if you want to. You should not have to restrict your own options to keep the game interesting, if anything, that is sort of killing it for me (as in, my opinion, I know its not everyone's).

Isnt there already a difficulty bar setting?!?

What is the point of there being a difficulty setting if the acutal in-game difficulty is dictated by wether you chose the OP or the UP build? You want the game to be very easy? Shouldn't you obtain that by putting the setting on "very easy" ("Novice")? You want the game to be very hard? Shouldn't you obtain that by putting the setting on "very hard" ("Master")?

Yes, there will be mods. Tons and tons of mods. I play on Xbox. I will never get to use a single one of them, yet I paid the same price for my game.

P.S. sorry for the typing/grammar/spelling mistakes, english is not my first language.





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EDIT: It was pointed out to me that I had not explicitely expressed any suggestions or ideas as to how to fix the issues I am describing. That person was quite right, so I decided to do just that. Keep in mind those are just my own personnal opinion, and therefore I can only offer my own experience and reasoning as a justification. Not everyone will agree, and I accept that. Thats why forums are there to discuss those things. :

1) Crafting: Crafting needs to be brought in line. There is no other cross-tree synergy in the game, so the fact that those 3 trees do share them makes them inherently more powerfull then anything else in the game. Remove them, or at least put a cap on it. But lets say we ignore the exploit issue and leave it as is for the sake of people enjoying it, we still need to tune down the regular crafting's potency because they simply bring too much. There are two ways of doing that:

- You can reduce the power of the resulting items/enchants
- You can make it harder to obtain the best items

I personally would advocate a mix of both. Reduce enchant's potency for 1h/2h % damage chants, while making it harder to obtain maximum level smithing by making the experience gain corellate to the item's material worth, for exemple, or by making the materials for the best items rather rare and/or hard to find.

2) Destruction: Make destruction spells do a bit more damage for every level in the Destruction skill, and introduce the magic skills' equivalents of + % damage enchants through the Enchanting tree.

3) Illusion: introduce Resists to the game, so that it remains a challenge. If you pop frenzy, but say 1 mob or 2 still stick to you because they resist it, then you have to start reacting by kiting, using various spell effects, etc. Those resists can be adjusted with the difficulty level selected by the slider, preserving the god-mode feeling as an available option.


4) Robes: Let there be an advantage to using robes. If Alteration actually scaled, that would not be such a problem because then you would get good amounts of mitigation at high levels through Mage Armor. Another way would be to make wearing full robes give you an inherant or casted bonus (perhaps through deep alteration perk?), like a big magika regen bonus or a -% cost to all spell bonus, something that will be noti?able enough that one could actually consider Alteration as the robe wearer's "Armor skill".

5) For Speechcrafting, I would implement actual options through the game that one could use actively to complete the game's various objectives. That would include giving Speechcrafting perkers options to complete quests differently, talking themselves out of fights with ennemies like bandits, manipulating/tricking people into helping you, or to achieve your own selfish goals. I do not think that damage and big bangs are the only important things: quite the contrary, I would kill to see speechcraft become a valid way of completing the game without always resorting to violence, as it currently is the case.

As for Lockpicking, its a bit more complicated because you have to consider that you cannot put a limit on the level of the locks themselves (ex: requires 67 Lockpicking to open, or requires Expert Lockpicking perk to open) without limiting the sandbox experience (altho it would be the perfect solution in another setting). In all realism, the only way I see to make the tree more impacting on the gameplay, without just merging it with another like sneak, would be to make unlocking something dangerous. If it did not "pause" the game, or if there were various traps on locks, then one could quickly see the value of a tree that would offer perks countering those dangers (slows time by 75% 3/3 while LPing, -% chance to spring traps, can disactivate traps, etc).

Pardon me, what content are you talking about?

Morrowind was the last TES-Title with content of quality and quantity level (though much of the loss in quantity is caused by the totally overrated voice-actoring of everyone and everything.).

I have to keep asking you if you ever do come back to this thread: what is it then that you consider content? Only when we both agree on the definition of the terminology involved can we even begin to discuss this, and obviously we dont agree on it.

Also while you seem to hint at a massive ressource cost, keep in mind that it is simple tweaking at this point. The only "fix" that would need more then mere adjustements is making Speechcraft a valid way to complete the game by implementing options in character behavior and personality roleplaying, which I cannot believe even you would qualify as not being part of "content".

I have to keep asking you if you ever do come back to this thread: what is it then that you consider content? Only when we both agree on the definition of the terminology involved can we even begin to discuss this, and obviously we dont agree on it.

Also while you seem to hint at a massive ressource cost, keep in mind that it is simple tweaking at this point. The only "fix" that would need more then mere adjustements is making Speechcraft a valid way to complete the game by implementing options in character behavior and personality roleplaying, which I cannot believe even you would qualify as not being part of "content".


No I dont, otherwise I would not be suggesting making Speechcraft a valid model of character building. By "win" i mean "attain the maximum level, complete all the quests, explore all the dungeons". By "win" I mean "complete the game,", whatever that means to you.

You know what really is the issue? There is no such a thing as "balancing" in sandbox-type games. It is easy to beat the "system" aka game mechanics because you have all the freedom to do whatever you want. Players can always find easy ways to make powerful characters no matter how Skyrim is designed because its... a sandbox.

Agree. But the devs should still give smarter ways to allow players to do what they want.

For example, allowing players to be blacksmiths and create their own gear is great.
Then comes a player that really want to have ebony gear before anything else. Ok, we can't deny that because in our game "you can do what you want". But then, there is a huge difference between (1) allowing that player to create his ebony set with 1000 gold in 10 minutes grinding daggers; or (2) requiring that player to go collect some expensive materials in a mine, motivating him to get a few speech perks to buy materials cheaper from the merchant, etc. I bet that player will even feel a lot more rewarded after working hard to get that epic ebony set when you build a balanced system allowing him to go for it. The player is still doing what he want to do, but through a much more pleasant and rewarding way.

I don't know.. I can really really be wrong here, but in my mind this is simply basic game design.

I disagree with that validity, its more than 1000 gold, its specifically waiting, searching out the materials to do so. 468 daggers if sources are to be believed.

This is like the wound you can't help poking Too much alcohol tonight I think.

The weird thing for me is that I was the basher, arguing against diehards in the last installment of the series. Its a strange reversal of roles.

Would you call that triple range merging or just balancing the range?

I disagree with that validity, its more than 1000 gold, its specifically waiting, searching out the materials to do so. 468 daggers if sources are to be believed.

This is like the wound you can't help poking Too much alcohol tonight I think.

The weird thing for me is that I was the basher, arguing against diehards in the last installment of the series. Its a strange reversal of roles.

People shouldn't have to rely on the game to tell them not to play the game in a boring way.

I for sure understand your point, but do not agree with this last sentence.

IMO, a good game is absolutely obligated to avoid putting pitfalls in their mechanics that could lead players to frustration. And we have many many feedbacks here in this same forum from random players who got frustrated soon after deciding, for instance, to increase their smithing and create stronger weapons. So one can argue that it's the player's fault, since he decided to do that. But obviously the player was trying to have fun by creating stronger gear, not become bored, and the game simply failed to offer smart mechanics to help that player to have fun. Instead, the game basically motivated the player to become overpowered, and everything from that point on became pointless, thus bringing frustration.

Please, I really don't want to change your point of view here
Just trying to show how important is game design to motivate players to have fun with good balance and mechanics. Some people don't see it because there are subtle important things.

But in fact, I don't think I even need to give more arguments to why there are some game mechanic issues in the game. And for a simple reason - if there weren't any issues, the forums wouldn't have so many players talking about it.