Ok so starting my new play through as a warrior (mage before) im trying to decide if i should go master or just stick to expert for this one. In fallout the highest difficulty was "hard" for like,10 levels, then all it did was make fights last longer (aka more tedious as i won them anyway). In the tutorial dungeon and on my way to riverwood the fights wen't hard, just long. I hate the system of (enemies do more damage i do less) and prefer systems where enemies do the same damage to me as i would to them if i had all their stuff equipped, not including skill related stuff.

Also this playthrough im doing no fast travel except for caragies (their is no way that if im in markarth im walking ALL THE WAY to riften , at least not every time) and caragies are lore friendly (though fast travel is too technical)

Dragur with Ebony bows often one-shot players at above level 50 on master

Honestly, Master is more annoying than difficult. HP and damage are bloated, which forces you to exploit AI and be more defensive to succeed. I find it tedious rather than enjoyable.

oooooooooooook........ what im really asking is it going to take like 10 min to fight one person? I want a chalenge but at some point it becomes a grind and COMPLETELY unrealistic. I know this is a fantisy game and all but if two people sword fight irl it doesn't normally go past 4-5 strikes before one of them is killed/out/whatever.

Why not? Worst case scenario you can just change it back to Expert.

k.. what about expert?

Shouldn't be too difficult on master to play a combat character, mages are probably the hardest class to play, although some fights might become tedious

I play on expert. Damage is high enough I need to watch myself without having random one-shots happen, but enemies don't take years to kill.

Ditto. It didn't make the enemy smarter, just made the fight last longer and wasn't more fun.

This.

Expert seems to be the sweet spot for many people. I played master and found it to challenging, but stupidly so. The fights took forever, one mistake and I was dead, and so on. My character did lvl up pretty fast though.

sounds like im keeping it on expert then..... no fast traveling will add some difficulty as well

Does the dificulty change how fast you level up?

Early on... say the first 20 - 30 levels... Master is a chore.

Try switching over to Master past that, and fast travelling doesn't really add or subtract much anything from difficulty.

If you're worried about fights taking too long, then you probably wouldn't mind fast travelling all that much.

It is a sweet way to find new stuff though when you don't use it. Try following a fox, sort of an Urban Myth.

I've been playing on adept (I think??? whatever the default difficulty is) and I was wondering if expert was a good idea. Thanks guys.

In the sense that it takes more swings to kill something, yes.

i hear yea

Master is a chore at low levels, for sure. You don't have much in way of crowd control at that level, so if you're a light armor guy - a couple hits and you're skeever fodder. At level 40, I found it pretty exciting. I had more poisons and shouts to help me control the combat better.
I don't see that walking instead of fast traveling does anything for difficulty - immersion and fun (if you like that) - for sure. I prefer to walk around, I just find it more fun. But it isn't some added challenge to walk, you can pretty easily avoid threats.

Tough, but not soul destroying like Master is.
On Master if you see someone coming at you with a warhammer and you are low to mid level, best just turn around and leg it. They have a very high chance of one shotting you and you better be prepared to see the slowmo death animation over and over and over because they will keep on pummeling you every time you reload.

I have played near full games on Normal, Adept, Expert and Master and I found Expert to be the best overall balance. I usually play a mage so I typically start on Adept until LV15-20 then up it to Expert.

I find expert to be a happy medium. That is where I am playing all my characters right now. I did the same thing in Oblivion. Master level was doable, but battles lasted so long they became more annoying than fun. Half way between normal and master seems to be a good spot, at least for me.

Couldn't agree more, Expert is a happy medium indeed.
Adept is great for the early game, but once you get decent gear and trade skill buffs, Expert naturally takes its place.

Personally I only use Master for Dragons since I like them to have sh!tloads of HP and damage, but other than that it's more annoying and immersion breaking than anything else.

Good luck nuff said.

Played on Master since I bought the game.

I don't really think it changes much. Mobs deal double damage and you deal half. They aren't smarter, there aren't more of them, it's all just boring stat changes.

It doesn't make things "harder" so much as it simply makes things "longer".

On the flipside, enemies are actually tough (unless you go for some "cheat" build) which adds to the atmosphere.

What do people mean when they say fights take "forever"? 5 minutes? 20 minutes? I play on master and I don't think fights take very long. The only ones that take a long time is the damn dragons and only because I'm running after them as they land here or there or trying to hit them with something as they circle overhead.

Since fallout 3 always seemed strange to me that in a game where your damage output and health are determined by your level that you ever had the option to change the difficulty! Im so used to playing on adept it seemed strange to up the difficulty because it jsut made me feel like a weakling again. Its not that I cant handle the harder settings it just seems weird that everyone is swingn from my nuts calling me dragonborn this and saviour that and some freaking no name bandit cheif can kill me in a few hits and im hackng away with 100 in one handed and hes just spouting oneliners at me! Why don't you go get him to deal with the dragons I'm sure with his 700000 hp he can manage!