As an example, if you want a challenge, even with your "optimal" character...

Just go full heavy armor, dual wield, and smithing... I'm assuming you will sell stuff and pick locks along the way. But if you play that playstyle, and stick with that "character," (or as it's called in gaming, roleplay), then you max out at level 42. If that's too much of a challenge, then don't pick locks, and you'll max out at level 35.

In a game with this much freedom, Bethesda allows us to make overpowered characters. If you don't want that, don't overpower your character. Show a level of restraint and the difficulty on master will be more than sufficient.

Yes, you can make the game easy if you choose certain build paths. That is unavoidable. If players are to have freedom in character development without the game becoming unplayable, then challenge has to be scaled so that non-optimal builds can succeed.

If the game is designed to be a challenge to those who make combat their sole priority, then it would be largely unplayable to those who do not. This would force everyone to create combat builds, destroying the very freedom of character development that is the hallmark of the series.

Irrelevant when there are 5 difficulty settings, the last of which, is meant to be the most challenging. Sub-obtimal characters have no business walking around on master without being brutally punished for their decisions..however Bethesda's balance really is that bad, or they are too afraid or too lazy to make the hardest difficulty setting, truly challenging in a more interesting way than just inflating health and damage.

i agree with you that there are aspects to this game that could have been better implemented to make the game more difficult. however, if you're talking merely about combat then i'm not with you. in general, i don't want enemies to level with me, but, would like their to be a continuous supply of specific enemies that can defeat me when i'm at higher levels. regardless, i don't play these type of games for their combat, primarily. the old slider-bar difficulty adjustment method that increases their hit points/damage and reduces mine should be an OPTION on all games, imo.

I don't think they know how to adjust difficulty beyond inflating health and damage, while making it modifiable on-the-fly.

This might be because you power leveled the wrong skills for too long.

Well what do you mean by "more interesting?" I think that they probably want to stay away from changing too much beyond health & damage because they want all players to have similar experiences.

I don't think this game is meant to be difficult at level 70, because it's meant for all players to see most of the content. If they had specific enemies that only showed up at level 75, then lots of players who are playing an actual character would never get anywhere near that high. To get to those high levels, you've abandoned the "R" in the RPG, because you've got a character who switches from heavy armor to light armor to two handed to sword & shield, to sneaking and archery, to destruction & illusion...

So personally I don't want to see them doing a lot more than that (inflating enemies/handicapping the player). To me, all the difficulty level should do is tweak the experience so that you can make the game equally difficult for a heavily armored Orc warrior as a high elf mage or a wood elf ranger.

making what more difficult? modifiable? again, are you merely talking about the combat?

unless you're talking about a simple match of an enemies "stats" to mine what exactly would you change?

I want a more tactical combat experience.

Making enemies, react faster, stay alerted longer, heal and protect each other, attempt backstabs and control effects on the player, enemy mages using detect life, enemies using potions and scrolls, etc.

As well as altering it so that players and enemies cannot take more than a certain percentage of their health from any single attack...making things more tactically oriented instead of simply brute forcing the player or enemy to death with 1 shots.

But wouldn't it be better to do that for all levels, and still adjust difficulty by scaling their health & damage?

Not necessarily. One issue I have noticed, is that most npcs have remarkably weak armor. Even if they appear to be wearing heavy armor, it is actually less due to them having little to no skills or perks. Dragons, and other creatures also happen to have 0 armor. If enemy damage and armor penetration were increased, as well as them being given proper armor on all difficulties, inflating hit points might not be as needed, or required at the extent it is at now.

Why don't you throw away your high powered junk, get an iron sword and a hide shield and go armorless. That should take care of the too easy for you.

Why should players make concessions for a problem that is not on their end? If it was that simple, why have any difficulty settings at all if they had no intention of balancing them or the game itself?

i agree, have thought about the same things (as many others have, as well) and think they would be a great addition to a maximum-hardcoe mode. however, i eventually reason or assume the same result: technology, consoles, money or any combo thereof (i do not play with a mouse and key) will not allow it. i assume this because those ideas you state are hardly new, innovative ideas, yet, are obviously superb and would make for a better game.

I did that jump yesterday. There's a dragon shout that makes you ethereal (I'm sure this is not spelled correctly, sorry) which lasts for 20 seconds, I think. activate that and then jump.

Did you go over to the ghost after you jumped and listenend to him? Supposed to get 1 level up in speech, I think.

I was really disappointed that that place was only accessible on the outside. When I saw it from afar, I thought "Wow, that's going to be one large dungeon." Sign, no such luck.

Yea I would have to agree with this, the game would be easy if you just roamed the wilds killed deer and wolves, then went back and made a bunch of leather braces, enchanted them, then sold them. Rinse, Lather, Repeat.... and then you are level 20 without ever entering more than a couple of easy bandit lairs, and you smithing and enchanting are at 100, but you placed the perks to increase weapon damanage and armor effciency. So yea, by level 30 you would be god like... I am level 20 Nord, Warrior with a sword and sheild setup, and I have died on several occasions, just because of some strategy errors heading into a fight, and I play on adept as well. But I try not to over exploit the Smithing and Enchanting skills just to get quick level ups.

Nixher, I just showed your post to a bunch of college babes and they WANT YOU! They cannot wait to meet you and are squealing right now.... they are HOT.

Whew, yes, my friend, for YOU it is this easy.... but not for us nerds. Oh no.... just you and a few select others who rarely post here.

But I'm glad you posted b/c I otherwise wouldn't have realized (as my character struggles through the grit and dirt and slime of Skyrim barely able to live) that such demi-gods roam not just in Elder Scrolls but, dare I say it, in real life!

J

By the way if you play the game through (all guilds, civil war and MQ) from Adept through Master 3 times it unlocks a secret Elite level that is supposed to be nearly unbeatable. (I pass out just thinking about going to Expert .... oops.... (thud))

I`m on Master and it still feels easy, but I do die quite a lot... Those Trolls still batter me on level 20 even with a Follower.

But I ROLEPLAY, I don`t POWERPLAY (I don`t have the best, just because it`s the best) which often means I can still end up quite weak even by level 40. The only thing I modded tougher were Dragons.

I guess if you powerplay it then it will be easy.

Try cranking up the difficulty. That might make things a bit more challenging at least.

If you want it harder then don't use max-smithed duel enchanted everything, if you're not willing to do this then don't waste my time by whinging.


Yeah, that's it, they're just lazy and stupid and cowardly and SCUM. Here, make a difference! http://jobs.zenimax.com/

Yeah, yeah.

Don't use Alchemy, Enchanting, Smithing, Conjuration, or Stealth, ignore the main quest, ignore the pacing of guild quests, ignore the level scaling, ignore the cases of repeated voice acting, ignore the lack of choices and dialogue options in quests, ignore the writing, ignore the physics, ignore the weak loot, ignore how easy Alduin is, ignore the bugs and glitches, and you will enjoy Skyrim!

That seems to be the mantra around here as of late. But you can't defend stuff like that, when it's 2012 and we're talking about a pretty big developer. You just can't.

People defending Bethesda's laziness and poor design decisions are the worst kind of people, because they're the reason they will keep churning out badly designed games. Because they know they can get away with it, with people cheering them along the way, instead of people rightly pressuring them to improve and do better.

Bethesda's games have always been designed in such a way that they can be easy if you want them to be. It's part of the beauty of them actually. For my mage it could be easier but I choose for it not to be. It's all in how you play. Want it harder, fine, make it harder for yourself. It's only easy because you have made it that way. Some people want it easy. They want to breeze through and wtfpwn everything in sight. It makes them happy. You won't find those people here complaining that it's too easy. But if you want it to be harder you'll have to use some self restraint on how you set yourself up. That's the only way to make this game truely hard. Tone down the armor, remove some enchants, limit what you can use during fights, decrease your weaponry. You can't really complain that it's too easy when you have the power to make it otherwise. I know it svcks that you can't use all your uber gear and still have it be hard but that's just how it is.

I don't see what wrong with it being easy, you can always bring to master difficulty if you already haven't. I play the game on novice and I had all legendary daedric gears with my 2 handed max out at level 31 and I still find it fun. No fun playing if it take you an eternity to one quest and dodging mob attack all the time. Skyrim is big enough that you can be a god and still have fun.

You can't really complain that it's too hard when you have the power to make it otherwise.

There. Are. Five. Difficulty. Settings.