This is my third char and he has gone further than the other two.

Now at level 36, sneak-archer and only halfways through enchanting, alchemy and smithing. As a sneak archer, which I love, he can kill big dudes in 3-4 shots.
But as a sneak archer, he can also defend himself with the mace, if critical. Atronach is a spell I use too.

Just to explain the other 2 chars I dumped, one was sword-board and the other a mage. Didn't really know the game then. Both killed by me around lvl20.

So I'm riding the horse around Falkreath and everytime I meet someone on the road, I gallop. This time, 3 guys kill my horse in 2 shots when I'm leaving them, then they 3-hit kill me.

Is not even funny, it was like the Daedra I killed before was like butterflies. I met really strong bosses on lower levels, but this was in the wilderness and there was no reason for them to be there, really. Just a random encounter.

So today after work, I wanted to play through that again. And that feeling came over me like with the other 2 guys....Why even bother!

And I didn't start up the game, even if I was thinking about it all day at work.

I just didn't feel like it...and that comes from someone that spent 4-500 hrs on the game.

I think that last meeting with whatever they where, sortof made me lose a little bit of interest in the game. You work so hard to get where you're at, and the game just randomly create stuff that would kill Daedras in a blink of an eye.

5 hits it took them to kill my horse and myself, never seen that before.

what difficulty?

And they say this game is too easy.

I'm not a lever-gainer, so plain Adept level.

It was just crazy, in one spot i kill 2 Daedras with lots of thinking, then on the road. BAM!, you're dead.

Maybe my mood will swing tomorrow, I don't even know what killed me.

Yea, the game makes sure to put you down on earth again when you are feeling cocky. To me, thats a good thing. It makes sense that not all bandits would mysteriously be equally skilled.

What killed you is you put too much time into enchanting, alchemy and smithing early on. Play the game naturally. Of course you are going to be pulled apart if you have low armor rating. I've played that build, and in my experience you are so busy killing things from a distance that your armor skills don't increase at the same rate as they should.

Biggest tip for you is to ditch the horse. It's easier to sneak around and get the drop on people if you don't have a horse slowing you down.

A bit tricky if you meet a foe you can neither escape nor kill, however...

Do you mean those archers on the bridge? They have arrows better than the usual steel stuff, and those do hurt.
Just like you can kill a bandit marauder with a couple of arrows, they can kill you just as fast. I call that fair, in fact there're too few of those encounters

Meeting difficult enemies is a challenge, and that's fun. Believe me, I had a melee char using double enchanted and improved maces, and that was so overpowered it was just boring.

My suggestion: Play without horse. Really, those ruin the game. The fact that every single enemy is confident that a player owned horse is enemy number one is just beyond ridiculous. But it also doesn't fit your sneaky archer type very well.

If you have no armour and no armour skill then in an up close fight your head is going to be parting with your shoulders. The only thing that doesnt feel quite right about that is armour skill armour is armour you cant wear it differently to anyone else. The only way you could justify it is to say its how you move combined with your stance.

Enchanting unfortunally is because of my Bow, that captures souls, Enchanting is around 60. I've hardly touched Smithing, still my skill there is 33.
Alchemy I can admit I used it in a rush one day and levelled twice, and it's on 48.

See your point, light armor is only 44 and the wielding mace is about the same. Not good enough for scary stuff in the wilderness.

Ok, I find myself some wolves tomorrow and improve armor...and maybe kill draugrs for Mace-skill?

Atm, I just checked.

I only used the horse to get to Markath, so maybe just sneaking through the woods is better.

Find a dungeon you cleared out some time ago to see if it has re-spawned. Sneak in with your mace and plank and let one of them wail on the shield, assuming you aren't taking too much damage. The other path is to level up past 50 then visit a camp of Forsworn. With dual-wielders playing your shield like a snare drum, you can watch TV while block levels up. For the 1H skill, that will take some more effort and creativity, like hitting a troll and healing yourself, but you get the idea. And ditch the horse. Make sure it dies. Those things broadcast your position to all hostiles within 13 cells.

There's some good advice already in the thread. I would point out, though, that feeling a slight lack of interest in a game after putting 500 hours into it is really quite natural.

You say that you "gallop", do you mean that you use the "sprint" key? If so, they shouldn't be able to kill your horse. How many times have I escaped bears, tigers, trolls and so on, thanks to the sprint key!

When I hit level 29, I started getting attacked by the Zealot of Bolethiah (or something like that), and that guy was brutal! He saw through my sneak, he chased me all across the map, and he could kill me with 3 hits. I finally beat him by dragging him past numerous guards (which he killed), hunters and their horses (which he killed), and bears who all helped to whittle down his health for me. There are some tough dudes out there just waiting for you to gain certain levels!

J.

I like that. I don't want to WIN WIN WIN constantly. I am playing a thief that can't really fight well and a spriggen spawned and as soon as I saw it move, I ran so fast. I had to decide how to get around it because there would be no way I would kill it. It bring some realism when you find an enemy that can rock you.

He's talking about those 3 hitmen that get sent to kill you (can't remember what they're called) after you have murdered some NPC (vengeful family member I guess). For some reason, they grossly outlevel the PC. I had trouble with them too, so I just ran from them until I came upon a small village. The guards and farmers helped me finish them off. But OP, this is one of very few cases where I encountered such out-of-depth NPCs.

O those guys a toughies unless your a tank.

Exactly. OP, you gained a bunch of levels with non combat skill increases and the world leveled up around you. Enjoy the challenge. Your weapon and armor skills will catch up soon but those bandits are just about at their level cap.

This is exactly what I was thinking. I've had these guys drop by on two characters. Both times it was a bloodbath. Had to reload 4 times when they first got me. They walk up all casual. They say something about wanting to talk and then BOOM! Well, I learned my lesson.

If you see three to four heavily armed guys heading right for you, don't wait for them to get close. And the don't look like any guards or such. You'll know when you see them.

I had a similar encounter, but those were "Hired Thug"s iirc. Three or four shady characters, met them at the Riften fishery. I was running around the fishery ...more than once
The letter on their corpses identified them as hired by some guy I robbed. Are those the same guys?

Heh I had those guys visit my character at the worst possible time. They showed up right when I left a dungeon I was doing a quest in, and as soon as you get out of the dungeon, the NPC you do the quest for is standing there and initiates a rather long dialog.

First time I came out of the dungeon I seen the 3 guys standing there along with her and figured they were all together.. until a few words into the dialog with the girl and they started whacking on me, killing me in a few hits. I had to reload a few times in order to hit the skip button fast enough during the dialog (I couldn't tab out of it) so that I could chug some healing potions (they'd still get in a hit or two) and then get my bearings on wtf was going on, and then actually be able to defeat them. One bonus was the quest girl would try helping me out, although she would get incapacitated pretty quickly, at least she kept a little heat off of me initially. I play an assassin that uses sneak & archery mainly as well, but I used dual-wield as back up and made sure to use it from time to time on easier enemies to keep it somewhat trained up.

<sup>Thanks all for your advice, I feel better now!
I'm gonna dump that horse and find out what killed me in the first place. I'm playing a sneaky guy, so I better use that .

I didn't even have a chance to see what they were, but I will now. Even in 5 minutes I will.

I feel so much better now. Again thanks to you all, playing a game for endless hours can burn a person out, But I feel I'm not
in any way finished with this game....simply because I haven't finished it yet.

I'll be back with a report in a couple of hours, was it hired guys or vampires?...can't wait to find out.</sup>

A Volkihar vampire once destroyed 3 Vigilants of Stendarr.
I ran all the way to Falkreath with her behind me, she butchered a LOT of guards and eventually caught up. Dead in about 2 swings of her sword and lightning.

Watch out for bandit chiefs with War Hammers! 3 hits! You're done

Not so! I had cleared Fort Amol only to step outside and have those three show up to "teach me a lesson." This was on my new mage character. I jumped down from the paraqets and cast fury on one (took a couple of tries to actually hit him) and ducked into the fort. That took care of one. I ran back up to the second level and stepped out. I heard one of them say, "must've run off." Heh. I ran to where I could get a clear shot and they spotted me. Unfortunately, they ran around and up some stairs so I had to wait for another chance. Again with the fury! Dropped down, popped into the fort and took a breather. After a while, I stepped back out, again on the higher level to find the last guy. By jumping onto the roof of the forge then back to the wall, I was able to blast him several times without him closing with me. Clean living and fancy footwork is all that's required.

It was a Volkihar vampire with 2 thralls, I engaged the fight and they just shot me dead in 3 seconds.

The horse left at Kastwasthen, I sneak around the area, see them and try to find a good spot to hide,

First attempt, flame atronarch near them to see if they're really evil. Just rp-ing. They kill the atronarch in one shot.

Ok, I'm in deep crap here, look around and find a nook. First shot hits, barely scraqed the girl with glass arrows! She's
coming after me now, somehow my sneak at 90 is worse than hers. So backpeddle a bit and continue.

It took me 9 shots to kill her, her mates like 3-4 shots.

Really, I can kill Draugr Deatlords in 2-3 shots, same with Giants. They just can't find me before it's too late.

But this Vampire "whatever" can survive 4 times the shots I do against other big dudes. And seem to find me easier.

Just not quite right.

But all in all, I'm feeling happier now... thanks to all your advice.