So you hate the game... guess what! There are plenty of other games out there, without the constant sniping and childish insults flung Bethesda's way by people who come off as spoilt little children. I'm more than happy to criticize Bethesda where it's due, but I've had a gutful of brats like you casually flinging around insults. The amount of unwarranted self-entitlement some of you guys have... oy!

Given how easy it is to balance the gameplay however you like, if you still find it too easy, I have to ask... who's really the lazy or stupid one...?

Your gear gets better, your skills get better, and thus your character gets better. I don't think there's anything wrong with that. What you need to do is increase the difficulty setting. On my main character I have the difficulty set at master and things seem relatively well balanced. The character is melee oriented and uses heavy armor with a one-hand/shield combo. Even then, at some point your character will be so durable with armor capped and resistances capped, that if you want to be more vulnerable you'll just have to use weaker equipment.

Hate the game? No, but I am not a blind, loyalist, white knight like most would have everyone be. Telling them "it's all fine", "everything will be okay" when they have clearly made poor choices, and blunders in areas is arguably far more destructive than calling them out on it before they commit to doing it again. At least those calling them out are honest.

If anything here is childish, it is your apologetic defense of them. I'm sure Bethesda can do their own defending, and don't need you to soften the blow for them, the same way they shouldn't need modders to fix their own game for them, if they truly took pride in perfecting their own work.

Then again, I suppose it's now a crime to want Bethesda to improve in areas they are weak at.

i was with you on wanting the better a.i. and combat mechanics but you make me wonder why you even play bethesda games. you know what you're getting. obviously, i want games to improve and i will never cheer or defend any game or develop that i feel put out badly designed games. however, bethesda games like morrowind, oblivion, fallout3 and skyrim ARE the best console games of their type. of course they have flaws. all games do. i try and replay mass effect and kotor and can barely get anywhere before i get unbelievably bored with them. who cares about dialogue choices in mass effect when a game like that not only dictates everything but provides me with no relevant gameplay choices or so few that i don't even care. with bethesda games, you are given huge amounts of choices and ways to make the game challenging. you can actually, gasp, roleplay a huge number of different characters. and, i can manipulate the game to suit my style of play.

the writing, story, main quest and physics of beth games blows others away. the freedom you have to explore their worlds is obscenely obvious when you play other similar games. the loot is huge, limitless, and other games don't come anywhere near beth games.

all games should strive to become better designed and improved upon, but, if you play a character that is too powerful as a stealthy alchemist, enchanter, smithing, conjurer and you find it too easy, how about next time you roleplay a character with other skills.

Your sig tells us everything we need to know about you.

Plenty of things you can do to make the game harder for yorself, if you're not interested in doing such simple things no one wants to read your crying.

And thus, apathy and complacence wins the day. Status quo, maintained.

CONSOLES only: my problem is that you are coming down on the one developer that does the best job of providing true roleplaying games with freedom and multiple choices. no other games come anywhere near the 4 big beth games. not even close. some may have some small aspect that was better, but, overall they aren't in the same realm.

True to a point, but only because they have no real competition. They are not threatened by anyone as they have essentially cornered their market, thus people are willing to overlook whatever blunders they make due to the lack of options elsewhere. If someone in theory were to manage to offer something similar, but with far more care and polish, would it not be bad form for them to only then, tighten up their own work in lieu of this new competition, where they were complacent to release their products in poor or simply serviceable condition before?

obviously, i don't know beth's mind or decision making process, but, in theory, yes. however, understand that i agree with you on some of the issues and do not overlook them, at all. there are always things to improve upon. yet, i still enjoy their games more than ANY available (console) and feel they are the best at what they do by a longshot. nobody, not even bioware, is close, imo.

i monitor improvement vs regression and that's why i see lockpicking as a regression and something to complain about, while, optimal/suboptimal character development is, in many ways, improved upon in skyrim since we now finally level up skills used in gametime. regardless, i wouldn't complain about it because it is not inferior, imo.

Sure, that'd be great, but it's all make-believe for the time being! Seeing as there is no one doing this. IT's also worth mentioning, very few companies have ever done games like this, there are a few over the years..Origin sticks out in my mind, but companies that can truly create worlds are pretty rare it seems..so whatever their failings, it's best to view them as diamonds in the rough...rather than just rough.

I think by this time the glaring problems with Skyrim are obvious, trying to be a crusader in the other direction is just as obnoxious as the people who are blind to the games weak spots.

Everything depends on the definition of "easy" in regards to Skyrim. For me, I never define "beating" a game as getting to the end of the storyline, and beating the last boss, and watching the ending credits. That is not what "beating" a game is to me at all.

In skyrim, you can define the challenge of "beating" it, any way you want.

If you ever want to reach 100 in ever skill without glitch exploting, then you are up for a challenge.

I have not "beaten" an elder scrolls game until every possible skill and stat is maxed.

Also, I have a goal to collect every single item in the game. Every color hood, style of clothes, pair of shoes, all the way to type of ingredient, and so on.

Really, though, I don't believe in any such thing as beating this game. There is no definition. Even with completing every possible quest, there are still goals.

Clear out every single dungeon, cave, mine, fort and ruin.

Or just walk, run, fish, hunt, eat and role play. There is no definable end.

I have always treated the difficulty level as just a way to increase or decrease the speed at which you raise your skill number.

That is what it is there for, in my opinion as the difficulty setting directly impacts your rate of skill increase when performing skill related actions such as melee striking, casting, etc.

I cannot express how annoyed I get anytime I hear someone say, "I beat this game!"

My response is always, "really, how do you define beating a game?"

The OP has not mentioned about enchantment nor alchemy. Too many people are assuming he is.

To the OP, try master level against magic users, they would be a bit harder.

Master should be adept difficulty. Then if you want it simpler, lower it. On master it requires you to focus quite a bit on combat, whereas a jack-of-all-trades character probably wouldn't stand a chance. But still, maybe related to my (topside exploring) play style, I tend to feel over powered in the 30-40, and the game becomes boring. On master, at least the beginning is interesting where I have to flee combat numerous times. The downside is that you have to lower the difficulty in order to get a fair play out of jack-of-all-trades characters.

Smithing can definetely enable easy mode, especially with legendary daedric gear.

Oblivion is not hard. Oblivion is tedious.

Up the difficulty?

Up the difficulty makes the AI stupid. Bethesda needs to learn that such beasts are very hard, like Dragons and Giants and at no point should you be able to defeat them in about 6 hits. The game is easy and the only things I found hard were the Falmer and some of the higher ranked bandits. Some of the bandit chiefs are harder than Dragons.

The animal's in this game are pathetic and it's only when you start off that they are hard, like bears and cats.

sigh....

bethesda says "you can be who you want"

forum says "stop being who you want, its an exploit"

you are supposed to have to think hard and develop a character meticulously and carefully to be overpowered in a game, not do all that to instead make the game balanced. choosing skills that happened to be terribly balanced is not a [censored] exploit. its terribly balanced skills.

OP, like the last two elder scrolls games, you are going to have to wait until mods rebalance the skills and combat. until then, you either have to artificially gimp yourself in some way, or use a character that specializes in speechcraft, lockpicking, and destruction or some other horribly ineffective build.