now you're not only talking about the lack of difficulty balance but how they go about making a game difficult in the first place.

on master, the game should be difficult throughout. it should remain a challenge.
but, how should it remain a challenge? gimping can be associated with the current system because higher difficulty is merely a damage output and hitpoint equation. however, if added difficulty meant better a.i. mechanics and other combat factors then it wouldn't be gimping.

either way, those who want the game challenging througout can't have it even with 'gimping' and those who want it easy throughout can.

You are not "gimping" yourself if you go to a higher difficulty. I'm not sure where that person got that idea but it's plain wrong and makes zero logical sense.

If Adept is the "norm" and the player feels they can breeze through the game easily, using any (or every) build, then they move up to the next highest difficulty to test their skill against that. It is not "gimping" because the player is trying to see if they can defeat the game on the next highest difficulty.

That's the key term here: Player trying to defeat the game.

When you "gimp" yourself, i.e. by only equipping Iron gear and nothing higher or specifically not using crafting, you are making it easier for the game to defeat you... not you defeat the game, because you are not raising yourself to the next bar that the game sets for you with higher difficulties.

When you "gimp" yourself you are creating a situation where you are making it so the game has a better chance of defeating you. It's not the same as selecting a higher difficulty. While it may be the reverse it's not the same.

The game is supposed to be beaten by you and is supposed to make it harder for the player to do that through difficulty and balance.
The game is not supposed to beat the player because the player makes it easier for the game to win.

It's like going to Vegas and asking the house to never deal you an Ace in Blackjack.

Yes you are. Your own damage output is 50% on master and enemies' is 200%. That's the only difference. It was the same way in Oblivion, except it was a more extreme effect.

Look in the creation kit game settings:

fDiffMultHPByPCVE = 2.0
fDiffMultHPByPCE = 1.5
fDiffMultHPByPCN = 1.0
fDiffMultHPByPCH = 0.75
fDiffMultHPByPCVH = 0.5

fDiffMultHPtoPCVE = 0.5
fDiffMultHPtoPCE = 0.75
fDiffMultHPtoPCN = 1.0
fDiffMultHPtoPCH = 1.5
fDiffMultHPtoPCVH = 2.0

that's what i'm saying, lol.

you have to play in a way that is unacceptable and absurd to get the game to remain difficult at higher levels.

like others have found, probably the best and most realistic way to do this is by not giving yourself a lot of health and instead going with magic/stamina and/or no hud, but, both can be very tricky.

but, don't get too overconfident. the hardest part on master is from about 10-20 or so and if you get hit one or two times you will die.

I am not sure that I see a big distinction between imposing a self restriction (like using only unimproved iron weapons and armor) so that the PC will do less damage and the NPCs will do more damage and adjusting a difficulty slider to the right so the PC will do less damage and the NPCs will do more damage. Sounds like the old saw about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. But as you pointed out, that was not really my issue.

My point was only that if the player moves the difficulty slider to the harder side of default setting the game should be hard throughout and the simple fact that the player is playing above the easiest setting can in is in no way be considered "gimping".

So... the reason you completely skipped the basis behind the point was...?

Again, "gimping" yourself is like asking the Blackjack table to never deal you Aces.



Yes, this is the point of balance.

Currently, none of the difficulties are balanced very well because the mechanics given to the player break the game, even when playing normally.

The fact that Master is still easy is the giant elephant in the room. That's a sign of bad balance.

some people think that actual in-game functionality built within the mechanics of the game are the same as things done by us, the players, with our minds.

I don't think that should be necessary, and I think gimping yourself is a bad way to increase the difficulty. And gimping yourself by not wearing armor or using underleveled skills is the same as multiplying the output damage in the NPC's favor. I think it's a bad way to increase difficulty because it just prolongs your encounters, you don't actually have to think more about what to do or use a better strategy, you just have to bring more items to the fight.

Which is very much incorrect.

I would like to pose a question to all of you:

How in the world would you react if Wolves were as strong as Dragon Priests?

btw, for clarification- i agree that it is an absolutely incorrect belief.

But... it's not, it's exactly what happens.

Say you ignore the damage perks for a weapon skill. You're just intentionally making your weapon do something like 60% of the damage you could potentially do. Setting your difficulty to master makes your weapon do 50% of the damage you could potentially do. What's the difference?

Unless you were referring to... the damage difference being the same as knowing what to bring to a fight and what items/spells to use to win. It's not the same thing, but it doesn't take much thought to know what you need to bring. If the amount of thought needed increased with difficulty, instead of the quantity of stuff, then it would be better. Instead you can just bring 50 healing potions and master difficulty is no problem, because it just makes it more difficult for your character, and not for the player.

Again, asking the house to never deal you Aces.

When raising the difficulty you are trying to meet the next bar the game sets for you.

When you gimp yourself you are allowing the game to reach the next bar you set for it.

That's not good balancing. That's asking the player to choose between challenge and fun.

I'm sorry but you are not a good player. Just what you said I already know.

I meant Novice, but since you put it that way, I think I'll switch to Adept. Darkside Eric has me thinking that moving the difficulty up might not be gimping, despite what mathematics alone shows. It's one of those darn vocabulary things. Gimp-speak is new to me.

It looks like I was mistaken. I agree that player intent matters. Players will play on higher difficulties because they want to test their skill against the game on those settings, not because they want to gimp their character to create a bigger challenge. They aren't gimping when they do it.

Often, however, players choose a higher setting as a reaction to finding the game too easy to beat on lower settings. At that point, they aren't trying to test their skill against the game so much as they are trying to give the game a better chance to beat them. They do that by choosing an option that reduces their character's damage output and boosts his enemys'. Because they know that gimping the character is how the game creates greater difficulty, and because they are choosing to have the game do exactly that, one might think they are gimping. Technically, though, because the game does it and not the player, it is the game nerfing the character, not the player gimping the character. Right?

In any case, adjusting difficulty only by nerfing character damage and boosting enemy damage does not strike me as a satisfying way to manage things.

My thoughts exactly, someone with some common sense backed up by cold hard numbers

Bolded part is exactly the way I feel.

Unfortunately since this is the easiest way to manage difficulty, your second paragraph is somewhat correct.

In order to test my skills against a tougher game I have to let the game weaken me due to the ease of which difficulty is handled in most games, however I am still not "gimping" myself.

The advantages would be in that you could still improve everything, including those great 'found' items or quest reward uniques, and raise their stats significantly enough to be quite worthwhile. I'm of the belief that crafted items should never be better than the best found/unique items in a game, but this would still allow smithing to be valuable, nevertheless. If you can use your perked-up smithing to improve that best-in-class 70-damage unique sword up to 110 damage, then you'd most definitely want to work up smithing to be able to. So b is still a win-win, if you allow for that.

There we go. And by the time you feel saucy enough to try Master difficulty, you should have to utilize every tool and feature the game has to offer, to gain enough advantage to survive. There are 4 other perfectly good difficulty levels with which to indulge those who wish to pass up on the best things in the game and play weaker characters (or who just don't have the skills or desire to use them in a truly difficult setting)... at least take the one difficulty level that is truly supposed to be tailor-made for using the best of the best, and make it tough enough to challenge those who want to play that way.

You mean they actually fit you?

I've just started another character and I'm deliberately gimping myself by spreading out my perks instead of focussing on one tree. I'm also using leather armor and Steel swords with no enchants and Imperial Bow with steel arrows even though I have seen everything up to Dwarven, Orcish and Elven weapons and armor being sold by traders. I have to say, it's still not that hard and I can still two shot the enemies with the bow at level 11. The bosses and dragons are the only ones I have a bit of trouble with but even they go down eventually, sometimes, I even have to use a health pot to do it. I normally snipe targets using the bow with sneak mode but this time, I'm doing it more head-on with the swords.

I'm not trying to big note myself, I very often have trouble with games that other people can sail through without even trying. With Farcry, I had to use cheats to get past a couple of sections even on easy mode. Trust me, if I find a game easy, then it's EASY!!! I'd be the first to admit that I like combat games even though I totally svck at them, I'm more of a sniper because I can then take out targets from a distance without really getting into combat.

Hehe, I feel exactly the same way, Tryst. I'm the farthest thing from a pro gamer that you can get. I've hardly ever even attempted the 'Master', 'Hell', or 'Deity' difficulties, in any games I've played- and that's everything from Doom to Half-Life to Civilization to Diablo to Far Cry to you name it... I usually select 'normal' mode, and that's where I finish out most games at. So when I felt the need to boost Skyrim up to Master, and then felt like even that was pretty easy-cheesy... you know damn well something's just plain wrong, there.

The bolded part is a good illustration of why our complaints are misunderstood by some of the folks in this thread, as well as why self-gimping is not the answer thereto. It assumes we do not want to test ourselves against the game, which, as the following quote shows, is incorrect:


Thus our desire to see the higher difficulties actually live up to their name, since then we might actually be able to conduct said test. The whole point of the top difficulty in a given game is to give maxed-out characters (in terms of gear, skills, and player ability) at least a run for their money, and the whole point of optimizing a character is to pit it against said difficulty and see what happens. When properly done this means that things like extreme crafting are actually not so extreme, since you need them just to have a reasonable chance of success.

As for claims that getting what we want would ruin it for other players: that's a load of horse crap, since they wouldn't be playing on the difficulties where this would be a factor in the first place. We don't want to change the default difficulty, since that's fine the way it is; rather, we want the highest difficulty to actually be difficult, like it (falsely) claims to be.

Yep. That's been my experience exactly. I could have used the exact same words to describe my experience. Skyrim is the first game I've ever moved the difficulty slider up on and it's too easy. I have much more difficulty playing Demon's Souls on normal settings.

And to all the people who mistakenly claim that we're 'big noting' ourselves, I can't speak for the others, but I'll be the first person to admit that I am not a great player (decent, but not great). The difference between you and I is that I like more risk and adrenaline. I probably die a lot more often than you, but that's the kind of gameplay I enjoy. I find it mind-numbing to play a game knowing I'm going to win almost every combat without trying. Where is the excitement in that? You: "OMG, I almost died!" Me: "Um, yeah. I want that feeling after every combat, not once in a blue moon." The difference isn't "who's the better player" but "who wants to die more frequently". It's not a value judgement, it's a gameplay preference. So, please, do me a favor and get over yourselves.

P.S. Why does everybody assume that every single person who complains about Skyrim being too easy is exploiting crafting? I'm doing everything in my power to make the game more difficult, why on earth would I abuse a mechanic that does the opposite? Logic, it does not follow.

They should launch new difficulty options. One option that says, only male!

I'm obviously somehow TES retarted in that I'm mindboggled you found Doom and Half-life so much harder than Skyrim. On adept I'm good. On expert I die too much. Doom on hard no biggie though. I guess I should count myself lucky I can play all these hard games so easily ( Batman Arkham Asylum is my closest differculty match to Skyrim of my present stuff) but an Skyrim retarted enough to find it fun and challenging, Carry on with your options. I should realize by now I'm NEVER the norm.


I admit I don't like dying a lot. I do like it coming really close plenty though. If I pull it off with 10% health I feel really badass. If I pull it off after dying six times I find it frustrating. So my preferance my vary.

I have to agree. Dying once or twice teaches you to use new tactics. Dying loads of times only teaches you to quit and load a new game. There has to be a balance between ridiculously easy and totally suicidal. It does depend on the game in many situations though but there should be a point in the difficulty slider where it becomes challenging to someone who finds lower levels too easy. If you can push the difficulty slider to the top limit and still find it easy, someone hasn't done their job properly.

This doesn't require more enemies to overwhelm you, just lower damage on your weapons, higher on theirs, higher hp on enemies and maybe better AI so they duck and weave more, making them harder to hit. I think the AI lets Skyrim down some, quite often they just stand there and hack away at you hardly moving to throw off your attacks. Draughs {sp} are the worst for that but even mages do it quite often. One stated, "you have no idea of the power I wield" then started blasting me with flames so I ran straight up to him, back slapped him once with the sword and he was dead and lost only 15% of my health. I had leather armor and no resistances to magic, fire or anything else. It made me think, if he was considered powerful, I had nothing at all to fear from the others.

Incidentally, is there a way to get rid of the cutscenes when you kill someone, especially with the bow. In sneak mode, I want to shoot and get out fast to hide and wait for the next target when they've all calmed down again. This damn cutscene means I often get detected because it forces me to wait until the dead guy has stopped moving before I can move. Just trying to see how far I can push up the sneak skill on another character, getting detected too often means you don't get the sneak bonus when you are hidden again.