No, if you do either, the game should still be challenging, if it was properly balanced like it should have been for the higher difficulties, like most every other game ever made has been. Players who enjoy creating strong characters within the normal game mechanics framework (power gamers), and people who actually like to continue leveling up their characters past 30 to see how far their character can go and improve themselves, are a pretty large segment of the gaming public, i would hazard to guess. At least they are in my experience, in games that actually encourage that sort of play and reward it with appropriate challenge. But, Bethesda just doesn't do balance, and unfortunately some TES fans seem to have taken this perrenial failure as 'normal' in games. It isn't normal in games. Only in TES games, because they simply svck at it.

As for the maxed-health, maxed-armor character getting one-shotted at higher levels, that very infrequently happens. I play a lot on my lvl 53 and 62 chars at master diff, and something like that happens maybe once in ever 100 encounters, and only if I wasn't paying attention or got stupid in some way. Unless you are gimping or playing carelessly, it is extremely rare- and the play is indeed extremely easy. The only thing worth continuing to play for, at that point, is to finish seeing the last bits of the gameworld, and the last few dungeons I haven't cleared yet. After that, there is no point in continuing to play them, really. Which is sad.

You know... are we playing the same game? Id say im a Elder Scrolls Veteran, ive been playing Morrowind for 10 years, so this is not new territory.

However.. Im getting Rofl Stomped... constantly... Dragons, Draurg, Mages.. F-ing Mages....

I have smithing at 100, its my only 100 skill so far, my blade and destruction is 75 ish, My gear Dragon scale chest, with Dragon bone hands, feet and head, no enchantments. Some of my weapons are past the 100 smithing (not a ton) and none have enchantments.. i get one hitted alot.

I am playing an Ice Artificer (which in skyrim... ice is bad news bears) Mages ice spike spell, usually 1 or 2 hits me, my ice spikes do virtually nothing...

Maybe its how my character progressed. I got my smithing to 100 while my blade was around 70 and my destruction was 50. I was trying to balance sword and destruction, because destruction was not being viable. oh ya, im playing on Master. So for people saying this game is easy. I really dont beleive you.

Even with enchantments and smithing at 100, if you not making weapons with 9000+ weapons, its not easy

it would be interesting to examine your skills, perks and m/h/s distribution because everything Smokey said in the post above yours (his response to savlian) is absolutely true for me, as well.

the game gets way too easy way too fast and, yet, has 81 levels.

there is no difficulty balance in skyrim. that is provable fact.

Sounds like you picked the worst type of play there is, for getting killed a lot. Spellsword. One-handed destruction casting is awful weak, and meleeing with just a sword and no blocking is a recipe for getting 1-hit killed VERY frequently, no matter what armor you have. Not an expert spellsword player myself (never done it, heh), but I'm sure some of the more experienced players can give you some tips on how not to die so much, when playing one. A spellsword slaps together two completely different skillsets that are both quite powerful by themselves, but inherently weaker when combined, until you gain the skills and strategies needed to compensate for the weaknesses. Congratulations, you have found one of the few Skyrim playstyles that might actually give you a bit of challenge.

For those that want a challenge play on Master, nekkid, use only your fists as weapons and never use any of the crafting or perks. Enjoy!

For those that want to limit themselves partially do so, for those that don't then don't.

In the end there are probably hundreds of tweaks to the game folks would like Bethesda to make, but even if they did they would never be able to satisfy everyone with the ones made and how they were made.

Regardless, still and playin' like a fool!

Cheers!

Seriously?
You're whining about the game difficulty while playing with a 60+ lvl character?

im not sure to be happy or sad about this lol

how ever it is my fav playstyle in rpgs rigt now so i had to stick with it . Truthfully im obviosuly holding back with enchantments and what not cause im not sure what i want yet and want my enchanting to be at 100. Also im trying to find my perfect look. If i find some lowbie armor that i can use and enchanting and smithing to make it comparable to glass for example, i will.

now, i also have a khajit necro-ssassin, level 16 Also getting stomped, but im a lowbie, when is the game supposed to get easy?

When you learn how to play it. It can be challenging at the lower levels, but once you get the better perks, get good weapons and armor and improve them and figure out how all the skills work together in the best ways, then it rapidly gets easy, out past 20-25. Not referring to going out of your way to 'exploit' anything, either. Just using the regular tools Beth put in the game, in a normal fashion. But if you choose not to do anything good to improve your character, aka 'gimping', then the challenge will remain. Great way to build a game, eh?

Where is it written that higher level characters should no longer get any challenge out of a game? Without gimping, that is. Lots of other games have managed it, since the dawn of gaming. They balance the gameplay so that no matter how far up in level a character gets, the higher difficulties of the game continue to be challenging and risky for your characters, thus maintaining long-term interest for all players, not just the gimpy's and short-attention-spanners who never bother getting past lvl 30. If the higher levels were indeed truly challenging for a properly equipped character, you would see an awful lot less of both of those other styles of play, I'm betting. The fact the difficulty goes into the toilet pretty quickly, is the biggest reason that people DO gimp or give up on chars so frequently at relatively low progression levels. I see much room for improvement here, as opposed to just fatalistic acceptance of the lame status quo.

Those are the extremely talented TES players, probably the 1% extraordinary out there, and that's why i am asking them to make video link tutorial. I envy their talent.

To those say easy on master level with low tier gear / no crafting / no hub / no potion / no health regen, link please, thank you!

see post above yours

If someone with high level fully crafting perks skills legit god gear still find the game is difficult, doesn't that means the game intented to make players do crafting skills? So all the highest difficulty level players will all make their build: enchanting 100 alchemy 100 smithing 100 + 1 or 2 optional skill tree. Oh or you mean you want a difficulty level is intented for crafting skills only? Thats interesting concept i admit.

the game becomes easy on master without using ANY smithing, enchanting or alchemy.

I dont know whats going on with people who wont accept the game is unbalanced. maybe skyrim is supposed to be perfect or something but im ok with it having some flaws.

If you ask me rarely in any other game i have played, have i ever not used part of the game for fear of becoming to powerful.
the only thing i can think of is counter strike, not using the awp's, because they are overpowered.

Imagine playing mortal kombat as scorpian and being like i cant use his "get over here" spearthing because its to powerful. or mariokart and thinking ohhh i cant use red shells thats cheap. Never. Never happens. My favorite game are like civ, frozen throne. because they are hard. endlessly hard and there is no cheap way to win. ive never even played on the highest difficulty of civilzation and ive played it for years (on pc).

So the fact that if i play this game on Master difficulty, and can't "abuse" 70% of the freaking game, sneaking, powerful weapons, powerful armor, potions, attributes, armoring, perks or encahntmented items, is absolutly ridiculous. Thats pretty flawed if you ask me.

And for all those thinking we are some PETTY people trying to look cool or something, get over yourselves. no need to attack us just because we can play the game at a higher difficulty and have some complaints about it. How did the game being to easy, become flaws in us as players? maybe bethesda can listen to its loyal fans and players and add a higher difficulty, its that simple.

or i dont know maybe your right and it is my fault, and im suposed to roleplay a fish or something to make it harder. give me a break.

The game can be rather easy if you choose to make it easy, just like it can be rather challenging if you choose to make it challenging. There is a grey area in the land of master difficulty where if you don't watch where you invest your perks and how you craft things the game can become really easy or really hard. And I think that is where the key lies for making the game hard or easy. Through experimentation with the exploits I have found that comfortable area for me where I watched where I put perks so as to not become a god with say one-handed weapons and I enchant / smith my gear to counter balance the "one-hit" kill that NPC's wearing leather and using an iron swords can do to me wearing ebony and wielding daedric weapons. Now through my experimentation I have found that sweet spot on master difficulty where the fights last as long as I would like, my strikes are just as lethal as the NPC's and when facing a higher Lv. dragon/boss I have to think before I act. But like I said, it works for me but might not work for you.

Firstly, I would like to see those crafting skills redone so that they aren't all so stupidly overpowered, like they are now. Simply doing that, would remove a huge chunk of the current imbalance problems, and add to the difficulty at higher levels. If the most you could improve your weapon with all applicable crafts was, say, +50% max, then crafting would still be fairly useful as a skill, weapons and armor would remain within a much more reasonable power range, and hence you would need to gimp very little, if at all, to play at any difficulty, even at higher levels.

A certain amount of tweaking of player/monster relative damage and health amounts might also be necessary to acheive good balance levels for all the difficulties, but it could certainly be done. No, I wasn't talking about a special difficulty just tweaked to accomodate the crafting skills in their current awfully broken state. That would be silly and counterproductive. You don't fix something by breaking everything else to match up with the broken parts- you readjust and fix the broken parts.

here's a perfect example of the absurd difficulty balance of the game: when dragons appear in towns i sometimes turn the difficulty down to its lowest. well, i proceeded to kill an ancient dragon in a few hits. i thought, oh crap, i forgot to reset it to master.

yep, it was on master. this was around level 30 with some basic good gear and a good offensive build.

i have no idea why some people become apologists for skyrim. pointing out the deficiencies of skyrim is not an attack on the gamer so it's baffling.

in the same way, its interesting to read the posts of people who mock or get angry towards those of us who feel master is easy. we aren't making personal attacks on them.

btw, how is the civ game for the 360? i've been wanting to buy it since it's release.

Better then the ps3 ( I kid) but I find it looks just as good as the vanilla PC version and have not had any major bus/glitches that I couldn't fix myself as of wet(knocks on wood).

For the ps3, It wasn't really to my liking. It was a very streamlined game compared to the other games released on pc. The console game is independent in its own right, its called Civilization Revolutions or something. but on the other hand, if you just want some turn based casual time, you should check out the demo for it. Im not sure how it works on 360 but there probably should be a demo available!

While I tend to take full advantage of said crafting skills I do agree they could stand to be reduced a bit, because the level of power they confer, especially when stacked, is rather excessive compared to that of even the toughest opponents. That said, without the adjustments enumerated below such cuts would just be punitive, depending on the degree thereof.

If nothing else, the AI needs a complete overhaul; it's pathetically easy to completely annihilate a pack of opponents that would otherwise be way out of your league by using either stealth or hit-and-run tactics, because it does not understand how to deal with them. Not coincidentally, it's those of us who use such tactics regularly that complain that the lower levels are too easy on Master, because doing so gives us time to regroup and/or rethink our approach due to how readily the AI gives up pursuit in almost all cases.

What should be happening, though, is that the AI maintains pursuit because it knows it has the advantage; some Draugr spawns do this, because they're classed as ambushes and have the code for it, but they're by far the exception rather than the rule. And even they don't actually use any tactics of their own, which, combined with the fact that breaking LOS screws with the aggro code, makes it all too easy to take them down. This is at least partially countered by the fact that such a group can kill you if they get surprise, however it doesn't solve the issue so much as replace it with another: whoever has initiative automatically wins, because the other side has no way to react.

Case in point:

There's a massive Draugr ambush at the end of a particular quest, that should have a high chance of killing almost any character due to sheer numbers; unfortunately it doesn't turn out that way, because all they do is repeated zerg rushes that are not that hard to avoid due to how slowly they move. They do use a little archery, but not enough to be particularly dangerous in most instances. If they actually used encirclement tactics and/or increased ranged combat, they'd be a lot more dangerous.

The game should anolyze our progress and combat abilities, and scale accordingly. Not to the point where there are no more impossible or super easy fights anymore, but the general feel of how tough it feels. Also not like Oblivion where powerful creatures would spawn pretty much all over the place.

One of my game masters once said "if you powerplay with me, you'll eventually pay the price - I'll typically reward good roleplaying and punish bad/stupid/cocky roleplaying and power players - you are easily noticed". He scaled combat so that the next battle would be easier if we used what we had available (rewarding good role playing), but if we got sloppy and cocky then o'boy did the battles intensify.

Also, I don't believe there was any kind of armor restrictions wrt enemy combat loot, instead if would prove near impossible to obtain and easy as hell to loose. I can't recall ever "feeling lighter" in Skyrim

So what makes these old dice games all that much better? Simple; these mechanics didn't have to be programmed, it might be mentioned as text and tables, but ultimately it boiled down to game masters imagination and intent.

My biggest annoyance is how quickly the challenge drops off to a mere minimum (master), not the fact that it does so. With good game mechanics in place, I would get a challenge pretty much all the way (some utterly impossible, some easy) unless I actually used every trick that character had available. Did I go for all the crafting? Doesn't matter, the game adjusts. Do I keep using potions? That would be good role playing and then the game lowers difficulty (for the next battle, measuring average over time). Did I get powerful enough so that I get cocky attitude and rush into a camp full of bandits? Then punish me for being stupid and not playing well. That's a pretty basic mechanic in dice role playing that I attended.

It's not written anywhere and I agree with you that there's a lot of room for improvements in the crafting skills, enemies and leveling mechanics.
Anyway, as the game is now, lvl 50 is considered godlike, the most powerful creature in the game are all lvl 50...so basically that's the treshold. Above lvl 50 you ARE actually more powerful than everybody else and frankly I prefer the game this way than having random bandits still kick my ass when I'm as powerful as a 10k years old Dragon Priest...

As for me, I'm not thinking my char as "gimped"...I tend to roleplay a lot in TES games, so I build my character out of an idea of roleplay, if I want him to be a blacksmith, I don't give him also alchemy and/or enchanting. If I want him to be an assassin who's expert in poisons, I train him in alchemy and not in blacksmith.
I played this way in Morrowind (where you were GOD by lvl 20...), Oblivion with OOO and now Skyrim and I've always had fun.

The real trick to dealing thousands of damage per second is less about smithing and more about stacking 4 Fortify One-handed enchantments.

I dont play skyrim for a challenge,never played any TES game in that way before x)

I don't think so.

You're saying that because you've no "auto-control" you need someone else's decision to control you.
But i'm curious - and i think even the Beth developers would be what is your idea of a well-balanced game ?

Let me guess..well balnced on YOUR needs ? everyone have his brilliant "ideas" here but (unfortunately for you) in the end are the developers to decide.

Even for me the game is not well balanced in some aspects- but instead of the useless "j' accuse" or even before criticize i try first to understand what have bring the Dev at this decision.

And usually some good reason -even if debatable - will emerge.


I don't know if i'm "clever" or not neither i pretend to judge someone else's opinion like you

but i'm sure on one point: you and your mate above have completely misunderstood what i'm stated on my previous post

I have the strange feeling that unfortunately someone on this forum write before read carefully or even thinking