The first order of business in improving the difficulty settings should be that on Expert & Master level enemies learn how to jump. That'd be awesome. No more standing on 3 foot high rocks to confuse them.

I dont know.. When they told meto go to every damn city and shut oblivion gate after oblivion gate in tedious succession... It got pretty damn challenging to keep playing.

That's funny, because you didn't really mention anything in particular that I had in mind. I was thinking more along the lines of timing, movement, learning enemy attack patterns, being aware of your surroundings to further supplement your footwork as to not run into something and get stuck, consistent execution, versatility, etc. You're not exploiting the AI if you're doing something besides participating in a stand-still turn based style of combat, you're just playing the game.

Seriously, nearly every Youtube video I've seen of Skyrim combat consisted of players just standing in front of their enemies without utilizing any movement what so ever and then spamming their attack key while getting hit countless times unnecessarily. Forget using footwork. Forget using block. Forget using distance. Forget learning enemy attack ranges and your own attack range. Forget playing the game, just mash your buttons with your super awesome gears yo!

PS. In practice it doesn't feel like absurd health at all, that is unless if you don't have something to compare it to. If you only ever play Master and are lacking in some areas you might think, Oh hey, I bet Adept is much easier than this! It's not. Compared to Oblivion where you would do 8 TIMES less damage and receive 8 TIMES more damage, Skyrim's Master difficulty setting is nothing. Now that was a severe case of absurd health. Skyrim is no where in the same ball park.

I would suspect it could not be done with the current gen, at least not at significant cost of other resources in the game.

Just a guess though.

Okay. Toodleeyloo. And though you didn't outright say it there I took it that you're disassociating difficultly from roleplaying which if so would be quite wrong.

Movement is terrible in this game, you can infinitely kite many enemies with little effort so I don't see how this is a strong argument for Skyrim's combat. Strafing and backpeddling are still too fast - better than Oblivion but that's not saying much. There's no real dodging, you just happen to move fast enough in all directions to avoid most attacks anyway. Enemies also have pretty simplistic attack patterns, it isn't like Monster Hunter or similar games in which enemies give important cues and you have to avoid several different attacks. Most enemies in Skyrim have one or two attacks that are pretty straightforward and which they spam.

I'm not sure if you're responding to me specifically or to the OP with the latter part, I can't argue that standing still and exchanging blows is smart. That doesn't mean it takes a smart person to abuse the many extreme limitations of NPCs in Skyrim though.

And in practice it does seem like absurd health to me. Although I suppose it entirely depends on what weapon you're using and how high your smithing was when/if you improved it, if it's enchanted and if so what with, how many weapon skill enchants you've stacked, etc. etc. Weapon damage is as screwy and all over the place as most aspects of the combat are, there are characters that will one shot most things on any difficulty. Regardless, many, even poorly armored or unarmored man/mer, enemies on master are major damage sponges if you're not using a legendary+ daedric weapon or whatever.

I'm not disassociating difficulty from The Elder Scrolls series or role playing games in general, I'm saying it's not the main focus for The Elder Scrolls series. It's hard enough to balance one universal setting, let alone have well thought out, fleshed out differing difficulty settings in a game that is the scale of The Elder Scrolls. Especially when it's not even the main focus of the series. A game like Ninja Gaiden or Devil May Cry definitely has difficulty as one of it's main focuses.

I don't care what game genre you are talking about, challenge, is a huge driving force behind the game. To say it is not a focus of TES is silly. I agree, to balance a game and scale the difficulties just right in a game that has varying playstyles and variables is quite a task, which is why Bethesda should not be making that decision for the player. The more control options and rules they give players, the more enjoyable experience the playerbase will have. Giving us the ability to change how enemies scale, how often enemies spawn, encounter sizes, enemy types, the types of abilities and spells they use would be very much welcomed. What they chose instead is a difficulty option that simply turns up or down your damage and the enemy damage. Of course there are going to be issues if that is what you think makes for a good challenge or not!

I am so awesome that I play on master with no clothes and just a dagger. Seriously though, chipping away at every enemy like it's a tree isn't what I call fun. But to each his own. What I really wonder is why people like to save and load all the time. There is no challenge in master if that's what is done all the time. Playing hardcoe (no loading after death) on normal or expert is more interesting. But what I wish Beth would do is just increase the spawns #'s to increase difficulty. Why do they not do that? Probably PS3 can't handle it.

If we're going to speak relatively, Skyrim's combat is a huge leap forward to that of the combat in the previous games of the series. I'm sorry if you don't find it satisfactory enough when compared to a game who's sole purpose is combat, like say, Ninja Gaiden.

Anyhow, as for the absurd health, why don't you try lowering the difficulty to Adept and see if you still feel that they have absurd health. If you do, then there's obviously some other issue besides the difficulty setting. Going from Adept to Master you shouldn't really find health levels to suddenly become absurd because mathematically speaking it's impossible.

That is unless if you have a low threshold for absurdity. Dealing half as much damage is not that absurd in my opinion. Feel free to disagree.

Skyrim has some of the worst combat for any AAA game really. Could just as easily compare it to Arkham City, The Witcher 2 to cite a few games that don't have combat as the sole focus and were released somewhat recently. Skyrim is poorly animated and clunky looking and feeling by comparison. and Witcher 2 had a lot of room for improvement still. Problem is that Skyrim is built on the same poor base as Oblivion, Morrowind, and FO3/NV. Skyrim is also heavier on the combat than many RPGs, the dialogue is pretty limited and most significant quests involve dungeon diving or combat of some sort. It's not like the combat is "on the side" in Skyrim.

I also do disagree on what is absurd, half damage isn't a big deal against some things, but against ~500-1000+ health enemies(the only ones that really matter as the rest are fodder) it's quite a few extra spells or arrows or blows and it ends up feeling absurd within the context of the game since many of those enemies don't have an appearance to suit such durability. Enemies taking 10 hits vs 20, is far more noticeable than 1 vs 2 or 3 vs 6. The same reason an hour in a waiting room feels much longer than 30 minutes in a waiting room. As I've said though, the damage of weapons varies so much I'm sure some people have a different experience. Regardless, it's a poor method of increasing difficulty and it favors certain cheesy builds and methods heavily. Master makes literally no difference for some builds - an Illusionist or Conjurer for example would have largely the same experience on any difficulty.

Skyrim has some of the worst combat for any AAA game really. Could just as easily compare it to Arkham City, The Witcher 2 to cite a few games that don't have combat as the sole focus and were released somewhat recently. Skyrim is poorly animated and clunky looking and feeling by comparison. and Witcher 2 had a lot of room for improvement still. Problem is that Skyrim is built on the same poor base as Oblivion, Morrowind, and FO3/NV. Skyrim is also heavier on the combat than many RPGs, the dialogue is pretty limited and most significant quests involve dungeon diving or combat of some sort. It's not like the combat is "on the side" in Skyrim.

I also do disagree on what is absurd, half damage isn't a big deal against some things, but against ~500-1000+ health enemies(the only ones that really matter as the rest are fodder) it's quite a few extra spells or arrows or blows and it ends up feeling absurd within the context of the game since many of those enemies don't have an appearance to suit such durability. Enemies taking 10 hits vs 20, is far more noticeable than 1 vs 2 or 3 vs 6. The same reason an hour in a waiting room feels much longer than 30 minutes in a waiting room. As I've said though, the damage of weapons varies so much I'm sure some people have a different experience. Regardless, it's a poor method of increasing difficulty and it favors certain cheesy builds and methods heavily. Master makes literally no difference for some builds - an Illusionist or Conjurer for example would have largely the same experience on any difficulty.

Seriously? The Witcher and Arkham Asylum? I would argue those are both games with a MUCH larger combat component than Skyrim, and, they are both comparatively very linear, which makes scaling enemies obviously much easier.

I really don't find the combat akward at all, it's one thing to argue the difficulty levels and the AI, the combat may not eb quite on a par with something like Witcher 2...but for the scale and type of game it is it's fine, you just like to nitpick.

Another note: Difficulty setting affects NPC skill levels, which affects damage they take as well. They'll end up taking more than twice the hits because they'll have higher armor skills along with you dealing half damage to them. Probably not a major factor but I'm still technically correct.

Wow, your really negative. More health for enemies means battles last longer and more fun. I like to toy with my enemies, not have them instantly die the moment I cough.

Those games are linear in comparison, I agree, however technically, 50% or more of Skyrim involes interacting via combat in some way, as the majority of quests are radiant story generated affairs that send you to caves, forts and dungeons. Combat is one of the major pillars and backbones of any typical RPG, as it defines the very way and purpose of our character's progression of power and ability.

I've been playing the game on master difficulty for a while now, because I enjoy a challenge, and I think it's much easier to judge the balance of a game when you pit various play styles against the toughest possible scenario, as opposed to an easy one. (For example, lots of people maintain that shields are useless and melee is easy because they play on easy difficulties, where your armor easily does all the work, or that destruction magic is overpowered, because on easy difficulties it burns through any number of foes with ease)

The issue I see with Master difficulty is that the way the difficulty is raised in the game is in the absolute lamest, most unimaginative, and cheesy way possible. All the game does is simply increase the damage and hitpoints of enemies, in many cases to an absurd degree.

This leads to two things happening:

1. Enemies can shrug off blows like they are nothing, you can smack them with a power attack from a great hammer and they just don't really care all that much, it takes a couple millimeters off their life bar, but they keep right on rolling. That completely screws up the game however, because it destroys the way a lot of mechanics work. For example, shield bashing someone to open them for a flurry of attacks - useful if the enemies is gravely wounded as a result, pretty much pointless if they still have a mountain of HP left, but it still costs a good chunk of your stamina. Using Fus Ro Dah on an enemy is even significantly cheapened by their inflated hitpoints, because while lying on the floor helpless for a few seconds might be a big deal in regular difficulty, on master difficulty the enemies will simply get back up and keep fighting, since they can take a couple dozen wacks from a decent weapon.

2. Enemies do insane ammounts of damage. This is also gamebreaking in a lot of ways. For example, the first "miniboss" you will encounter in Skyrim on a usual play-through is the big spider in bleak falls barrow. It has a poison attack. Poison attacks ignore armor and blocking. On regular difficulty this spider is a pretty mean foe, no doubt, but on master difficulty it's one bite and you're dead. The only way to survive its poison attack is to instantly pause the game and throw half a dozen health potions in your mouth. The same is true for dragon breath, enemy mages, and high end enemy fighters as well. They end up doing so much damage that your defenses become meaningless.


The result of those changes are that certain play styles become infinitely more potent than others. Stealth becomes incredibly powerful, since the enemies are no better at detecting you. Conjuration becomes an easy way to avoid taking blows, and of course all the various cheese and exploits with alchemy, smithing and enchanting can easily turn master difficulty back into a cakewalk.


I think it's a shame that the difficulty setting in Skyrim are so uninspired. Sure, they make for much harder fights, trying to play through master difficulty as an unsubtle fighter without ludicrously enchanted gear is damn near impossible, since every other enemy takes a minute long beating to kill and can do more damage to you through your shield than you can do to them with a well placed hit. Ultimately the difficulty setting utterly fails at making things more difficult in all areas though. The vendors have the same prices, locks are equally easy to open, enemies are still unable to detect a semi competent stealther.

I really hope Bethesda will take a look at the difficulty setting and reevaluate how they work. Master Difficulty should be more than just making fights absurdly hard for characters that aren't made of cheese and lols, it should make the whole game harder. Bribes should be steeper, vendors prices harsher, locks harder to pick, enemies harder to trick. Playing through master difficulty should mean that skills are more meaningful as a whole, not that everything is skewed towards characters with high DPS and avoidance. If you want to be rich on Master difficulty you should have to invest in some merchant perks or lockpick skills for example. Every individual aspect of the game that is confronted by a skill should be harder to some degree, not one singular aspect that is best confronted by only a hand full of skills harder by an insane amount.

Perhaps we can get the moders on creating a "Genuine Challenge Mode" and not just an "Inflated Enemy Numbes Mode".

Yes, but you need to introduce the mechanics to allow for this. Combat is one dimensional. For Melee characters it just means more Blocking or taking a step back to dodge an enemy. For ranged characters it just means exploiting pathing and running further. There is no real kiting. There are no real combat skills or abilities. You cannot use spells in conjunction with most weapons. You cannot reverse or fear kite. You cannot control pets. No real snaring, or rooting/disabling. I could go on.

I absolutely agree with what you are saying, but the Combat mechanics are not set up in Skyrim to sustain long fights.

Yes it does, but it involves 'interacting with combat' in a way that is not nearly as predictable as those games. Seriously, not a reasonable comparison.

Would I have liked to see an A.I. that was smarter? Yes. But compared to the A.I. in New Vegas, the new A.I. is a genius in comparison. The A.I. from gamebryo engine was soooooo dumb.

I'm fairly certain that's wrong. Where's your source? Furthermore, don't tell me that Arkham City doesn't have combat as one of it's main focuses. What the hell dude. Come on. Arkham City builds on Arkham Asylum's combat which definitely had combat as one of it's main focuses AND neither of those games combined are the scale of Skyrim. Now I can't speak for the Witcher because that's not a series I have played.

My source is using the getavinfo heavyarmor (or lightarmor) console command.

Arkham City has combat as one of it's main focuses but it's not solely combat focused, there's a fair amount of puzzles, travel, and story related content in the mix. They also actually made Arkham City open world style albeit the main attraction is still linear.

Skyrim also has combat as one of it's main focuses however, so I don't feel it's unfair to compare them. The ratio of combat to other content is close enough. The Witcher 2 is probably a closer comparison since it's an RPG with a less technologically advanced setting. I hate to say it but it's just true, it also has better dialogue and characters than Skyrim. It's a quality vs. quantity thing though, Witcher 2 was much smaller than Skyrim I'll give you that.