I just ran into a roaming group of bandits yesterday with two Bandit Chiefs. I died 3 or 4 times before my lone Nord finally got the best of them. It was awesome! I love the Bandit Chiefs, they put up a good fight and make you work for your loot.

This is a world of victims, Its never a persons fault for something bad that happens, its always someone else, so everyone who is like this guy, They blame the Developers for the reason the game is too hard and "unfair" to them.

Those two bandit bosses are part of a random encounter which are designed to be more challenging. The scavenger and the group who had killed imperial troopers for their armor are pretty tough as well.

Having a few tough encounters in the game should be a good thing.

Were you a werewolf when you confronted said bandit? If so, there's your answer right there. I was level 81 when I did Companions, went to test werewolf, got one-shotted by a silver hand. That's when I learned Skyrim is a "go vampire or go home" world.

Well at least they scale enemies's level without giving them very powerful gear. Do you still remember the glass armored bandits from Oblivion? In Skyrim bandits stick to leather and basic plate armors.

And in the game called Real Life you could die tripping down the last step on a staircase after defeating Tyson in his best days the day before. You know, randomness is in everyday's life.

I don't think he's complaining about the difficulty, he's complaining about how a lowly bandit is now more powerful than a dragon due to the leveling system. I can somewhat vouch for this as the most dangerous enemy I can find in Skyrim for my heavily armored level 60 warrior is a pack of bandits with 2 archers in their group. The archers can nearly one-shot me so when there is two I am in real trouble. It almost seems like arrows bypass my armor rating, when I would think that heavy armor would be most effective against arrow attacks.

You mean the decision about the value of this game has boiled down to a bandit killing the player with two hits?

I'm sorry, but in a world of real grief and real issues, and in a game where the depth of character choice has been cut, this is the reason for a bad grade ?

If a Bandit killed me I'd move the difficulty until I figured out what was going on. I'd check my resistance. Maybe this is a glitch unknown till now.

A bandit can't kill a level 30 character, unless playing on a higher difficulty. All bandits are level 1. Unless of course you are fighting one of the other bandits.

http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Bandit

It's a common misconception that Morrowind didn't have leveled scaling. Because it did. Most hostile creatures in the wild scaled with you. They were spawned from creature spawn points which had leveled lists. The difference is that in Morrowind NPC's didn't scale with you. NPC's were static in level, skills and gear.

Sure Skyrim has some balance issues, but other than that I don't understand your complaint. It seems to me the game is actually giving you a challenge. Whereas the common complaint on these forums seems to be that the game is too easy. Go figure..

Way to be a wiseguy, obviously the bandit had a little more to his title.

usually internet jargan is not exactly right for the forums...but..."LULZ U new player!!"...i couldnt resist

anyway, jargen aside, there is nothign wrong with level scaling, but when they use it waay to much and never have any static rewards/enemys/NPCs ever, then it gets annoying

1. Try to dodge the arrows.
2. Bash or try to avoid incoming two handed power attacks.
3. Don't just look for health potions. Buy them, craft them and steal them too!
4. During/after a tough fight, find a safe distance to rest for an hour to regenerate health, magika and stamina. This also auto saves if you want it to.
5. If all else fails, turn down the difficulty or (gasp) run away and come back when you're stronger!

I love this game, and I love this guy... and that is NOT sarcastic... that is a very honest and balanced dislike for the game... with good points to back it if but abit untested

Level scaling has ALWAYS been an issue with "senor Beth" and I notice after 4-5 repeats of the companions quests... that I agree with the wierd variety in difficulty...

I have not found it too hard at any point... I have found it unbalanced at points...
what I will say is this

due to the level scaling, it doesn't move up seemlessly... my same character on one save did the quests at lvl 10-20 on expert with ease... only getting tough at points.
lvl 20-30 doing the same quests on the same character with the same (but improved armour and perks defence and attack) the enemies seemed to have dramatically different damage and health potential... and not in a way you would expect from that kind of level gap...

My experience is that this guy has done it once and it's really ticked him off and i'l give him that, but on the other hand you can say on another play through it would be different

for example... I did the second/third companion quests (no spoilers) straight through start to finish and it was easy... my save game got screwed and I restarted from the previous save (what a pain in the ace)
I RE-did the 2nd/3rd quests again, at the same level, at the same time I did before... it was like doing it THE EXACT same way... and the enemies were actually different... they were tougher this time... and the boss at the end of both were both easier and harder... first time the boss had a 2Hander, this time he had a sword and shield... and was staggering the hell out of me... and I play carefully... I beat it and enjoyed the challange but that difference with the same circumstances was unexplainable... so I understand this guy....

but I believe replaying the game multiple times will yield different difficulty and different results EVERY time

due to some wierd lvl scaling engine... perhaps it was the route i walked... or the coffee I drank... or the food I ate... but it seems if that were the case... many skyrimmers drink the same coco and eat the same food as me... who knows... but this kid seems to have a point *ahem*


TELL YOU WHAT give it a try... before starting a quest... save game... do the quest... save it... reload the last one... start the quest and do it again... and tell me that its the same...

I BET there will be mixed results for some of you ive tried and tested this a few times and it seems to be the case.... some people dont like It and i understand why... but i do... it keeps me on my toes...

especially when you go.... "oh this guy again? hmm il just hit him with .... wtf, how did he just do a finishing move! he could hardly scratch me last time even if I stood still!"

So skyrim has ever so suddenly become a 'bad game' because a certain group of bandits are bypassing your hack and slash fest.

Its suddenly become a ' bad game ' because its just too damn hard for you.

Unbelievable really...... but then you're the type of person that would still be here crying that the game was too easy.

From the OP I would assume he is fighting the silver-hand.

I find what little level scaling there is in Skyrim to be a welcome change of pace, because honestly I feel as though dragon shouts, dual wielding and the lack of penalization for inadvertently being a well-rounded character have made most non-levelled encounters laughably easy. I played on Expert and was still able to kill ordinary (non-suffixed) "Bandits" with what must have been 5-8 swipes of a dagger. Is something amiss here?

Morrowind was honestly the last game that felt as though it had a cohesive sense of difficulty progression - admittedly it ran its course too quickly, and you were a god by level 15 or so, but the attempt to bring it and Oblivion's systems together has made Skyrim feel even sloppier yet.

It's not the presence of these "weak" enemies that frustrate me, so much as it seems like in Skyrim it's the NPCs who are both the strongest and weakest inhabitants in the game, making your character feel inherently, unrealistically more powerful than 90% of Tamriel right off the bat (and at other times, completely feeble). It's very unnatural.

It has nothing to do with difficultly level, it has to do with these specific scaled enemies, which not even your level 50 character would be able to kill, since they go through plate armor and almost 300 hit points in one swing. I don't know if it's maybe a bug with the companion quests in general (maybe someone check out the companion quests at a late level to verify or whatever), but there's nothing that changing the difficulty would do. NO ONE, regardless of your supposed "skill", could do anything but die instantly when that happens.

Sorry you're all so unhappy that I don't like this game for a totally legitimate reason, but I didn't expect much else.

You're right about it only being that one issue though, which is to say that I love the game otherwise. If it's a bug and they fix it, I'll be more than happy to recant everything I said and apologise. If not, then yeah, I hate the game.

Sue me.

Edit:

the thing that bugs me the most about this, is that Bethesda emphasises the fact that you should play YOUR way, meaning that if I want to be a jack of all trades type of character, that's what I should be able to play. This encounter, even though my character SHOULD be perfectly suited to it, being a tanking warrior type, STILL gets its ass handed to it. What does that say for the poor guy trying to be a sneaker or whatever?

There is literally no way for me to not get killed by the 1 guy who kills me in 2 hits, the other guy who kills me in 1 hit, and the wizard who's lightning take off 80% of my hitpoints in 1 hit. Believe me I've tried (boy have I ever)

If you think this is related to difficulty level, you are crazy. As I said, I have no problem with anything else be it dragons or giants or whatever. If you have 600 hit points, then the guy kills you in 2 hits instead. Congratulations, genius.

It has nothing to do with difficulty level, or not being "ready".

Sounds more like a bad gamer than a bad game to me. I encounter plenty of enemies I can't defeat, but I don't whine about it. I run away and come back later with a companion or better gear or more combat perks. svck it up, mate, and get back on that horse.

I've noticed this too. The best guess I've come up with so far, in general, is that some of this is indeed due to humps in the level-scaling (e.g., PC reaches lvl. 12 and suddenly dwarven gear appears on enemies), but there also appears to be some small percentage that allows for random npcs to even be a gear level (or two), scale-wise, above the PC's level.

When my current character had barely gotten started (lvl. 5'ish), I was around Whiterun with Faendal in tow when three bandits rushed out of the scrub. Now, get this, they were all bandit chiefs in steel plate. Wth?! I hadn't done a single quest yet, hadn't murdered anyone nor stolen anything (i.e., noone to put a bounty on me), yet three chiefs in lvl. 18 gear appear out of nowhere. Fortunately for me (and Faendal!), we were near the Western Watchtower so a brief sprint up the road meant them bad ol' chiefs were now fighting a bunch of Whiterun guards instead of me.

But you know what? For me, that experience made me appreciate Skyrim even more due to its unpredictability. Part of keeping it "fresh" means occassionally bumping into enemies that you can't handle either alone or with your usual tactics. Just mho, of course.

Regarding the Original Post, I really don't think level scaling is the problem.

I had the same problem with Bandit Cheifs at around level 30 with most points in heatlh and some in stamina, none in magic. Two Handed, Heavy Armor. About 310 health and 400+ armor rating. A Bandit Chief was able to one hit kill my character. However in another 10 or 15 levels (leve 40 - 45) Bandit Chiefs were not much of a problem. That is the opposite of level scaling.

The real issue the OP is running into is, I think, that there is an extremely wide range of the power of enemies. Regular bandits (and other enemies) are pathetically easy but Bosses are vastly more powerful.

I think that is the problem, level scaling is actually realtively well implemented I think (better than Oblivion and Morrowind). So I disagree with the OP's assesment and recommend the OP give the game another chance with that in mind.

There are so many reasons as to why this game can be hated and you chose the silliest of them all, personally I run away if it gets to hard and come back later. Not throw my hands in the air and give up and forever hate the game.

So wait-

I've seen at least 3 other threads on the board today complaining that unless you purposefully gimp yourself, the game in unchallenging and boring, but this guy says that lowly bandits kill him because of level scaling (hint, they aren't plain bandits. bandits are always level 1, but there are other bandit types: bandit mauraders, bandit thugs, etc, that are higher level).

I don't get it... which is the truth????

SIGGD.

I read more of your posts. As I said, if this is a bug, I'm more than willing to apologise if they can validate this as a bug. It seems more and more likely that it's a bug, because even at level 30, hell, even at 100 these enemies would be impossible to kill.

As I said, I was very angry when I wrote the first post, and I apologised then, and now for how it came across, because I knew in my current state it wasn't going to be pretty.

However, looking back on what some of you have said, this does seem to be a bug, in which case I can try to avoid all the campanion (because so far, ALL of them have this "bug") quest line and go do something else. I've been able to handle bandit mauraders, for the record, it's just these particular ones that curb-stomp me.

Must be a bug, but I'm not sure.

Are they just called "Bandit", or are you fighting a swarm of bandit cheifes or something? Because you should be able to tear through normal bandits like a hot knife through FLESH