http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G2y8Sx4B2Sk

Also, next time write "in my opinion" before saying something like that.
Your post will be taken more positively.

You are misinterpreting.

On 'winning the game': When we choose Master difficulty, we level up smithing and enchanting to improve our character, with the expectation that on MASTER there will be difficult challenges to overcome, challenges that require a strong character.

Then we find out that there are no such challenges, and that all the effort we put into making this strong character is wasted. Not fun.

We didn't make a strong character to make the game ezmode. If we wanted that, we would play on Easy. We played on Master and made a strong character to overcome challenges.

Also, no, most people complaining don't powerlevel these skills. I didn't get 100 smithing/enchanting until lvl 35 (never waited for vendors to restock, only bought materials to craft when I came back to town with a full inventory to sell). And I don't appreciate that there is nothing that can really challenge me left in the game, because there is still about 15 levels to go before I wanted to be done with this character. Crafting is simply too powerful.

Or you could say that Master is too easy, but if you made Master harder and made it so that you HAD to choose smith/enchanting even more than now, that wouldn't be a good thing. But I do strongly wish for very hard optional bosses, like Ruby Weapon from FF7.

I just wanted to say, this ISN'T an issue of balance. Because, I'm playing the pc version: I could just about kill even the strongest foe in the game just by actually typing "kill".
Nay, this is an issue of making a game that works. When Destruction spells are useless, this isn't me cheating or something. This is the actual game being like that and telling you not to use those spells wether you want it or not.

Nice topic. Whine much?

"Worst. Game. Ever. Skyrim is falling! This Skyrim is falling!"

I think how SPOILED its fans are is tribute to how great the TES series, including Skyrim, really is

What else even comes close? How many games could you take for granted that all the freedom and features that you want would be included to the point of being surprised if they are not? What's better, Fable 3?

Gimme a break.

Then what are you guys looking for? That's another problem I have with these threads. You voice
your concerns, and then the threads descend into madness because there is no direction given.
Constructive criticism isn't that without suggestions. I read the op, and what it says to me is "Beth.
Your game is broken. Fix it." That't not enough for me, or bethesda to seriously consider what you are
saying. Why is it enough for you? You know enough about the game to complain it's broken, but not enough
to make suggestions.

I'd be fine with them adding another difficulty, but I'm not willing to have them alter the current skills/perks.

I've never planned on having all crafting skills on all my characters. Alchemy for my sneaky guy, smithing for
my warrior, and enchanting on my mage. I'd hate for them to be changed / nerfed because of this.

There you go making the same amateur league mistake. You equate "power" among the trees like there is any sort of comparison to make because you hold dear to your heart a very narrow view of how you can play this game. You have a very young, CoD bred mentality, that gunsbangbang power is what dictates everything in the balancing and usefulness scheme. Let me ask you, if someone wanted to play a rogue/thief and do a lot, if not all, of the thieving quests in this game, along with other things like the Radiant repeatables in the guild, why would speech be bad for them? If anything, never being able to get in trouble for stealing anything, from anyone, from anywhere when you're caught - helps make the "thief" aspect of their character unbelievably strong (though not flashy because your swords arent stronger I get it). Also, being able to sell anything, to anyone, for far better prices, helps this thief-ing based character powerlevel smithing if they so choose so they can be a narrow character like you think they should be. Why would pickpocketing be bad for them since, lets say they play the game on easy mode since their character isnt combat oriented, they actually have to rely on and lean on the pickpocketing poison perk to get their kills in on the humanoid creatures out there. Or they actually have to be able to steal equipped weapons off of bandits so theyre fights can be won. I'd normally ask if you get my point, but I know you won't. Pickpocketing a Bandit Chiefs enchanted axe off of him so he doesn't smash you into the ground doesnt make your dual wielding swords; crits higher, so you think its bad. Your extreme lack of imagination when it comes to playing a game like TES leaves me dumbfounded as to why you bought it in the first place.

Your points are valid on some aspects as destruction is weak without enchanting on a difficulty higher than adept, but then again, the game isn't balanced for anything higher tha adept. If you want to shoehorn in a higher difficulty for your gunsbangbang mentality when playing this game, then you will probably have to also enchant your gear so that the under-powered destruction (only at difficulties higher than adept) can get you through the game.

All the freedom in the world and features of the world are nothing if the game is boring.
I'd rather have a linear game with just a few features, that is compelling, rather than a game with a zillion features and freedom, that is boring.

good thing skyrim isnt boring

Probably because they assume you are grown up and capable of making your own decisions Bethesda has given you the tools, how you use them is up to you. As with every other game they have ever made, if you want to be god you have the tools, if you want to be a mortal you have the tools, make the choice on which tools you want to use and stop complaining about having options.

Moderately lowering the effectiveness of high end crafting isn't going to screw anyone over. You think your characters will become useless because you can't enchant a +100% smithing gearset anymore?

And apologies, I edited my post, I made a request for optional super difficult content/bosses, to give powergamers a sense of accomplishment and fun.

Oh brother.

You mean like the almost universal praise the game has received from crittics and players all over the world?

Your pretence for having to find something to complain about is why YOUR problems are so bad.

Did I say that?



That is very sensible in my opinion, and a step in the right direction.

It's pretty easy to pick a master lock with minimal skill and no perks.

My current character has never pickpocketed or stolen anything, and has stopped collecting most loot, because he's got plenty of gold.

So yeah, pointless is a pretty accurate word. I'd love it if I couldn't pick locks so easily, or actually needed to think or choose perks to acquire riches, but that's not this game.

It would require game _balance_ to make these mechanics work, which, oddly enough, is what you're arguing against.

Translation: It doesn't bother me at all, but why not complain about it if other people are?

I wish you people could step back and listen yourselves.

No, you didn't, sorry. But that would be a suggestion I would make, to reduce the easy synergy between crafting professions.

Nobody likes nerfs though, I suppose, so maybe harder content and buffing destruction (maybe allowing you to perk/gear for more damage) would probably be the best things Beth could do if they ever did do a balance patch.

Imho, there's asimple solution to the claims regarding crafting:
Don't level them to ridiculous amount right when you encounter your first smithy/alchemy table/enchanting table.
Nobody forces you. Likewise just because it might eventually make an powerful character, there's no reason to use every crafting skill at once.
Some people seem to have some kind of OCD over the issue, though.

Just play the game the way your character would - unless your character is a magic blacksmith who is interested in alchemy in his spare time, in that case you are out of luck.

I don't suppose I would have a big fat problem with any suggested changes.
At the most I would be mildly annoyed to any inconveniences brought about
by changes in this department, and I'd be over them quickly. I'd rather there be
an added difficulty. Barring that, if they carefully hash out nerfs or optional content
I'd be ok with that after a bit.

I just become frustrated with forums as of late. The rampant widespread complaining about
everything, and anything has gotten on my last nerve. I can't quit because I'm
a writing / debate junkie.

Bethesda is on unstable ground regarding this though. I think their choice with this
situation will be a big decider in how the future of this series plays out. I'm interested
to see what their reaction would be.

I was kind of surprised at just how "unbalanced" the game is, but realised it was designed to cater for console gamers.

This game is about single player RPing, not balanced competitive multiplayer.

I hope one day Bethesda have the initiative to evolve their product to include multiplayer as it will both increase their sales ( many refused to pay for skyrim solely because of no multiplayer ) and provide a more balanced gaming experience. There is no balance in single player, its all about god mode.

In the absence of competition, there's no reason you must choose the most powerful option all of the time. Many of the complaints by the OP seem to assume that if one option is more powerful than another, there is never a reason to take the less powerful option. Taken to extremes, this mentality justifies abusing every possible loophole in the system and every unbalanced gimmick, from crafting loops to skill training follower abuse. Yet in a single player game, you don't need your style of gameplay to be the most powerful, but rather just powerful enough to get through the game. Sure, putting a few perk points into Speech or Lockpicking is probably not going to help me as much as Enchanting or Smithing, but it's also not likely to kill me if those skills fit my character's play style and I decide to go for them alongside my character's usual combat skills. The existing system supports quite a few distinct character archetypes already, definitely more than Oblivion, and while some archetypes are better than others, most of them are still viable and playable on their own terms.

Do I wish all of the skill trees are more balanced so that they're equally powerful and equally interesting? Absolutely. But in a game like this, the developers only have limited time and resources to devote to it, which means less important aspects of the game, like balance, take a backseat to other issues as long as it's already in a playable state. I will certainly be downloading mods that fix some of the balance issues that trouble me, and I may even make some of my own. But I would not fault Bethesda for not fixing every balance issue the game has, especially relatively minor ones like higher level enchanting/smithing abuses and the power of certain illusionist archetypes, since the vast majority of players playing the game would not encounter those issues without specifically looking for them. (The game's horrible PC interface, on the other hand...)

Note, based on what others have said, I am not quite as certain about problems of the Destruction skill. My personal experiences are that Destruction spells are a blast to use and the skill has little problem being viable, but I'm also only in the early level 30s, so perhaps it does scale much worse from here on out. Still, it's only a problem with pure Destruction mages who are high level, so it's understandable that the developers missed it. Annoying, but understandable. I'll certainly be downloading/making mods to fix the issue if it does become a problem.

Fair enough, you are right. I did not make any explicit suggestion because I figured they were pretty implicit in the way i described specific problems, but let me try and do better here (I'll answer that arogant post from integra88 at the same time) 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. Unlike what you accuse me of preaching, 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).

I would never, EVER play an elder scrolls game that was multiplayer. I would avoid
that game like the plague. I've seen what multiplayer does to my favorite video games.
I don't want it to happen to the elder scrolls.

You think the forums are bad with complaints now? Just you
wait 'till TES goes multiplayer.

Tell me one thing, how did you reach high levels in smithing? How did you train it, specifically?


Destruction looks indeed as if it could use a slight damage increase through skill levels. OTOH I have also read statements that it's overpowered as you can keep your enemies stunned all the time if you do it right.


Maybe, yes, although even as it is illusion spells won't work on all enemies, I think. I would add some difficulty to invisibility, though, maybe a cooldown.


Yes.


I'm a big fan of speech-skill in RPGs, too bad Bethesda has centered Skyrim pretty much around combat and exploration. Doubtful to happen in a patch.


Personally I would prefer not to use mini-games at all here, or at least offer a sufficient, skill-based %-chance to open a lock. Otherwise I'd make it much more difficult.

I went dungeon crawling right after the first town, had a pick on me so i mined a ton of iron ore (and a bit of gold) from various mines and caves, along with many pelts from the [censored] wolves/bears/cats that keep attacking you everywhere you go. I went back with those and crafted everything I could (since it was my intent to level smithing on my warrior), which got me level 55ish smithing. By then I had enough [censored] to buy a horse, so I did the MQ till I got Lydia and went back to exploring. Since now I could load her, I basically lost myself in the wilderness, came back 10 hours later and had enough iron and bits of dwarven metals to get smithing to 97, altho I admit to buying some leather to use all the metal I had. I remember the number because I remember thinking "damn, so close only 3 lvls wtf!".

So basically this thread is about someone getting mad they can't loop +50 Fire Damage, +100% Weakness to Fire, +100% Weakness to Magic in Skyrim?

Gotcha.

Or you could read the thread. Please dont bother posting if you are unaware of the actual discussion that is taking place.