You serious about the Deathclaws, though? They were also pushovers once I got sufficiently diesel. I mean... Chinese Stealth Armor + The Terrible Shotgun = everything dies. It was awesome.

It's the mark of a Bethesda game that, once you get sufficiently powerful, nothing poses much of a challenge. They allow you to become that powerful if you choose to, and that's why I generally love their games. I want to be able to destroy everything in the world once I've put in 160hrs. I'm the Dovahkiin, for [censored]'s sake.

Honestly, Deathclaws weren't that bad on higher levels. One VATS round of A3-21 plasma rifle, plus some quick shots were enough. In Skyrim i got one/two-shoted often enough with Ice-Storms to fear briar hearts just as much as deathclaws.

Exactly how it was in Morrowind. There were plenty of enemies that were impossible to kill at lower levels. Which, in my opinion, is how it should be.

if your finding enemies to easy to kill increase the difficulty, try fighting a dragon priest on master difficulty, not easy.

As an extension of the OP; while I am really enjoying Skyrim and don't have any real complaints, nothing in this game "scares" me like some things in FO3 and FO:NV did. Maybe it is just the setting, Fantasy vs Post Apocalyptic, that makes the FO stuff seem scarier.

Please do not bypass the autocensor, I've already had to correct the OP and you've been around long enough to know better.

I was specifically discussing ambush enemies. Bears and wolfs usually call out if you get close, giving you a chance to back away. Making a bunch of warning noise is generally a poor ambush strategy. Yes you can blunder into them if you're sprinting around, but that's different than an intended ambush.

Enormous spiders will ambush from above, but this situation only seems to exist in dens, which are plastered with webs. I'd consider that warning enough that you should be keeping an eye towards the ceiling.

Sabertooths are very nasty at low levels, but around level ten or so I stopped thinking of them as anything but furry mobile speed bumps.

I do increase the difficulty. I am mainly talking about that enemy that can come out of nowhere and kill you almost instantly.

Could we change it to "Oh Crap!" so people know what I'm talking about?

Don't dare to question the Hungry Donner.

It seems they give you that luxury almost all the time no? for me I maybe 70% of the times get warnings, usually they just charge the sin out of me, Bears Sabertooths and Spiders, Ambush like crazy. I get caught off guard because they're sleeping and do not register on the compass, by the time I realize whats happening, they've gotten up and are clawing my face off. the Jump factor is times 10 ;p

Todd mentioned that the dlc would take place after the main quest was finished. I bet they include some bigger baddies like they did with FO3, albino scorpions à la Skyrim?

Volikhar (sp) Master Vampires

Even at lvl 65 with a daedric set enchanted for all 4 resist types they can wipe me out fairly quickly.

I get pwned by Ancient Dragons unless I go for the armor cap and become ethereal every single time they spit fire.

Yea, you svck bethesda, your notion of being powerful at high levels is antiquated and just stupid...


OP I hate you.

I have no complaints about powering up, but you do it so quickly in Skyrim that you overpower the enemies that are so few in numbers. There really needs to be some superduper baddies - or else more of them. Where are you Oscuro?

Man, you really grasped the concept of the thread. I'm glad I inspired your hatred.

But it seemed most of the enemies released in FO3 DLC were damage sponges, except the Feral Ghoul Reaver, who was a damage sponge and a frightening foe.

The thing I liked about Deathclaws were they had a pretty big weakness. If you could injury their leg, it would slow them down exponentially and make them unable to pounce. If you weren't smart about it, you were probably going to die.

The only enemy that reminds me of them are Frost Trolls, and even once I level I can take on multiple of them at once.

As i played the first time i went to close to a Giant..... ^^ You know what happens.

My first Deathclaw encounter in Fallout 3 was pretty shocking/fun and gave me a genuine "WTF?" moment. Nothing in Skyrim has done that. Of course they were easy to deal with once you knew the trick, but if you were blundering around at low levels and one charged up on you it was pretty much all over. Still, this isn't FO3, so that's fine.

I just know the Deathclaws from New Vegas. I had two creatures i never liked in the game!!! Cazadores! and Deathclaws. As the miner said "You should go another way!" i was like "Haha no way i go this way!" I was really well equipped with a 9mm Pistol saw a Deathclaw - fired and O.o didn't i hit it?? fired again....recognized OMG....i can't hurt it!! Ruuunnn but it was faster then me -.-

Those things are worse than cliff racers. I always replace their damage strength spell with a drain strength one with a mod.

This is the classic conundrum faced by level designers since Day 1, and doesn't really have a satisfactory solution. On the one hand, if you make it so that the 'ultimate' challenge can be beaten by all then those who heavily tweak their characters will obliterate it, but if you don't do that then said 'tweaks' are the only ones that can beat it, which kills build diversity if you actually want to participate in the end-game.

In the case of Skyrim Bethesda has clearly chosen the former model, which isn't too surprising after the lambasting they received for their ham-handed implementation of level-scaling in Oblivion. That doesn't mean it's a better choice, as witness the multitude of threads about the game being too easy once you have top-end gear, however the latter model only works if implemented properly, which is tricky due to how easy it is to overdo it.

I got a sample of that while working on my scaling overhaul mod for Oblivion; while poking around and taking notes I discovered that the problem was not that things scaled, but rather that the modifiers given to the various stats of certain creatures and NPCs were way too high compared to the rest. Once I dialed these down, the 'arrow sink' problem disappeared completely save for a few bosses with high armor or shield spell ratings, and those were supposed to be a pain anyway. It took a while to get the settings right, though, as dialing them down too far made high-level combat a total joke. Prior to undertaking said overhaul I was adamantly opposed to scaling due to how insane some enemy HP pools got, however once I started tinkering with it I understood why they used it.

Obviously, the ideal would be a combination of both; some creatures/NPCs would be relatively static, others would scale to varying degrees, and yet others would more or less keep pace with the player so that top-end characters would still be able to find challenging fights. This begs the question, of course, as to the extent to which each would be employed, and that's where things get messy.

I agree with this. If this game had an enemy that challenges you throughout the game, low level or high, it should be the dragons. Not complaining, but it feels kinda cheap when dragons are easier to defeat than certain Draugr enemies.

i don't find ANY combat ez in this game (lower level). i don't use smith/enchant/alchemy (except the poisons i find for loot) as exploitations and get blasted to yap every single play session multiple flippin times. and, i love it.

power/optimal character development is ez and, not my thing any more. multiple characters, somewhat strict rping rules and let it go.

But General you're optimal example is exactly whats going on in Skyrim, some are static, some are leveled, but what is and what isn't is jumbled and don't really make a whole lot of sense.

Dragons the big bad bosses of terror are scaled to fit you no matter what, and yet the Bumbling troll at one of the highest remote sections of Skyrim that is High Hrothgar is static and can beat tail. so whats going on here, why does everything else as well as the main attraction that is Dragons so constrewed?