Yeah... it's probably not the game, it's probably just me. So I'm going to ramble as coherently as I possibly can, and maybe someone here can advise me...

I seem to have OCD about playing games. I have to do things a certain way. So here's where you can laugh at me. I took on Destruction again, knowing that it's not the best idea. But the reason why, is the Impact perk. Why? So I can stop dragons before they kill everyone on that farm, or in Riverwood, or wherever. Because dragons have the attention span of a... well, do they even have attention spans? They seem to want to attack everything EXCEPT me. Farmers, mudcrabs, deer, bandits, cows, chickens. They fly around in a circle overhead, swoop down, then fly down to the Battle-Born farm and attack that sort-of-attractive farmer woman, who then pulls out her dagger and fights back. Brilliant strategy, really... but the dragon AI is so annoying, I can't even begin to tell you how frustrating it is to get the damn thing to focus on me, and not chickens, farmers, or bandits on the other side of the freaking mountain... or M'aiq the Liar, in fact.

So, there. I care about NPCs dying forever in an Elder Scrolls game. I've always hated it, when I found a random NPC (a named NPC, that will never respawn) in Oblivion. And I hate to think that will happen in this game because of dumb dragons.

Hence, I take the Impact perk, so I can be quick enough to stop a dragon from killing NPCs. It is quite effective at this, and I don't know if there's anything that will work better. I've never tried archery, but I've read that you can't stagger a dragon with bows or melee weapons.

But I don't like Destruction. It's weak. It's not that, really, but for the amount of magicka one must spend to cast one stinking spell, even with the -50% magicka cost perk, you would expect this thing to hurt a bit more. But, no. You are practically forced to pick up Enchanting if you want to be a caster. Anyone who says otherwise has even more mental issues than I do. And here we are, several months after release, at patch 1.5, and the game is still as messed up as it ever has been. So now I'm going to complain more (oh, wait, that's what I've been doing).

What the hell, Bethesda? Okay, so enemy mages can still one- or two-shot me. Anyone who's ever gone to Winterhold (walked, not taken the carriage) will come across a fort on the right. You'll know you're at the right place when you see wooden pikes and a dead horse. There's a few skeleton archers here, and two enemy mages in black robes. They will mess you up! Especially if you're past level 20, there will be a Master Conjurer. I ran into one with a lightning spell who took me from full health to less than 10%, in less than a second. Death came very quickly after. These freaks seem to never miss with their spells, and never run out of magicka. So once again, I must master Enchanting and get the Resist Magic effect, 20% on two pieces of jewelry, to even stand up to these fools. Dragons are only 1/100th the challenge... how does this make any sense? I would love to see a dragon spawn here, and attack these guys... the dragon would probably die before it even got the chance to attack, and then ragdoll and flop through the air, all the way to Windhelm, and crash the game!

And yes, the broken enemy bandit archers who sometimes one-shot anything (and I do mean anything, I don't care how much health you have) are still in the game. They one-shot my summoned Daedra, then me. There's no way around it. I can't believe we're up to patch 1.5 and nothing has changed. You made Smithing harder to level? Oh, goodie. Because that was the most pressing concern, right? How about fixing Destruction magic, magicka regeneration (which is a freaking joke, it has to be), overpowered enemy spells and bows, and dragon AI? For starters, at least.

There, I'm done. I don't know if I want to play this game anymore, unless someone can offer me a good build that can survive, and that's actually fun. Destruction magic as a main attack is too pathetic, but straight up brawling with weapons and heavy armor sounds boring.

I care about the NPCs too. When I'm on my console I'm extra careful becuase of their dragon fighting suicide tactics. I hate being unable to complete quests because of it.

So you understand my insanity. In Fallout 3, I made mods to make the travelling merchants unkillable. I guess I care too much about spending so many hours in a game where people can die forever.

My first play through with a mage character always avoided that fort until higher level. It was a pain to clear out even at a higher level - cat and mouse with summoned flame and frost atronachs. My second play through as an archer - way easier. Poison tipped arrows can be quite useful.

I find my archer more fun to play. I deliberately did not run up my smithing and enchanting skills. I did focus on alchemy, more out of curiosity than anything else. I also opt for lower value armor like fur and hide. That keeps things interesting while limiting the uber-ness of my character. I also deliberately avoided destruction magic. I use illusion (muffle and calm), conjuration (bow), and restoration (healing).

I used to think like this but then I tried my first sword and board character. It was most fun I had. The battles are smooth and quick menu and hotkey works well. Magic and shield default to left hand while your main weapon defaults to right hand. I can quickly and smoothly switch between oakskin, shield, and healing while fighting without going into items menu. It's most multidimensional battle among all different styles, in my opinion.

I played dual-wielding first, which was not too fun for me because for me the battle consisted mainly of spamming power attacks. But sword and board slows down the battle and gives time to think. Sword and board sacrifices damage output in favor of defense, so I can take my time in battle and not worry about dying immediately and you can work on whittling down your enemy slowly. Most opponents do very little damage as long as you block, although some enemies with stronger attacks like Draugr Death Overlords and Frost Trolls you have to focus on dodging as well, especially in early game. While blocking and dodging, I can think about what would be most effective or fun way to take out the opponent. That often includes dragon shouts. I think shouting goes really well with sword and board play. I like Unrelenting Force, which is super fun. And Become Ethereal is useful when you are outnumbered or in danger of dying. Elemental Fury is amazing for hacking a very tough enemy like an ancient dragon to death. And Marked for Death is great fun too.

There is a book called The Mirror in the game. It's a great fun little story and a nice inspiration for a sword-and-shield player, and here is a little snippet from it. http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:The_Mirror

I understand your frustration with the mages in that fort. It seems they're more powerful than dragon priests. I now play with a spellsword and I can either start a strafing battle with everything that hurls magic attacks or arrows at me or equip two blades and furiously use dual power attacks to end every battle in no time: usually I don't even have to gulp a healing potion in between.

There is one neat shield called "The Spellbreaker" which is probably glitched too and this glitch is the key to survive. Its description says: wards against spells for 50pts. The effect doesn't match the description, though: it wards against any spell (be it an amazingly powerful bolt from a master mage or the fiery breath of an ancient dragon). Sometimes the ward would break with sound and all that follows but, if you keep the block button pressed, the shield (and ward) will still protect you. Once you spot an enemy you reckon it will be a pain in the ass, equip the shield and keep it pointed towards the enemy; cover the distance between you and him always with the button pressed and then stagger him with a bash before unleashing your frustration with whatever melee weapon (one handed) you deem appropriate.

Destruction isn't weak at all, if you work at it. And it's very satisying:
"Aargh! I'm on fire!"

"It burns...!"
dual-handed flames rock.

I have never found a one-shot bandit, ever anywhere. And so what if Mages can do you over with one or two shots. Retreat to the shadows and rethink your strategy, that's the brilliant thing.

It's possible to get your Destruction magic spell cost down to zero with a little planning.

My mage isn't having any problems with Destruction magic. There are lots of ways to build a character like that...and if an NPC dies, I reload and do things over again too. Now about Destruction. My mage has never picked up a sword and wears only cloth. She uses Shock mostly this time; she conjures and uses Illusion and has Mage armor. Impact is actually the perk she'll be taking next. She doesn't enchant things because she finds so many.

It's very important to have as much Magicka regen going on as possible. If it regens a lot, you don't need as much because it's coming back faster. Magic Resist is important too and that's why she's Breton. The Alteration tree is always vital to my mages and I've been finding Destruction to be powerful, with staves or without. Maybe you'll find a build like this interesting to explore, good luck.

I don't understand the not wanting dead NPCs thing - I mean how can you achieve any immersion in the game where people are effectively immortal?
It makes no sense to me.

Few people understood the crux of the OP: enemy mages are demi-gods and deal damage which is not possible to attain. Theri magica pool is also seemingly infinite.

Enemy mages can be quite the problem, however there IS a solution....get the SpellBreaker shield (http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Spellbreaker) and spell casters will no longer be a problem.

I love this shield!

What levels are you thinking about on this? Also, there are a lot of variables as in are you fighting alone and are you in armor and is it enchanted and have you augmented all of your Destruction and do you have a high Magic Resist and are you a good fighter?

Until the magicka regen problem is fixed I'll never play another destruction mage. What use is rapid magicka regeneration if it only happens outside combat? As far as I know the only use destruction magic has is when trying to kill enemies. And if it its regeneration is slowed to near nothing in combat then it's useless. Only by carrying buckets of restore magicka potions is Destruction a viable school.

As for non-essential NPCs, I don't care if they croak. That's just more stuff for me to pick off their corpses.

Okay...

It's not so much that NPCs die, it's that they die for stupid reasons. An ancient dragon swoops down, and you think your dirt-farming, clothes wearing, iron dagger-wielding self, is going to go toe-to-toe with it? Yeah... no. Run into your little farm house and be safe. Who wants to spend over 200 hours in a virtual game world, only to find yourself in a desolate wasteland, with empty farmhouses? Not me. That's depressing. But the main point was that dragon's have AADD. They've always had AADD, and nothing has changed.

Onto other business... I am not new to this game. I know that you can reduce the magicka cost down to 0%. My point was that the game pretty much forces you to pick up Enchanting and max it to 100, so that you can do this. And that's exactly what I had to do. Otherwise, after 3 dual-casted Chain Lightning spells, my magicka is gone, and that Giant still has 85% of his health left. And yes, if I put Magicka Regeneration enchants on two pieces of armor, my magicka regenerates *almost* reasonably fast enough during combat. But those enchants are over 60% each, AND I have +50% magicka regeneration from the 2/2 perks in Restoration. That's pretty close to +200% faster magicka regeneration, just to get to "reasonable". It's absurd. End of story. FIX IT!

Also, there are bandits in the game who can one-shot you. If you haven't ran into these guys, you must not have explored very much. They are archers, and one arrow will kill you. I brought this up here months ago, and there were two responses: 1) Yes, I've ran into these, too, and 2) I don't mind that we have enemies who can one-shot us. That's it... not, "Why doesn't Bethesda fix these broken bandit archers?" Put one of these archers up against a Master Conjurer with lightning spells, and I still don't know which one would win. It's absurd. Giants, dragons... nothing compares to these two enemies. They must be broken, but no one seems to want to acknowledge it, and we're up to 1.5.

Oh, and P.S. I'm a Breton with 25% magic resistance. I still got 2-shot by this Master Conjurer. You cannot "run away and rethink your strategy". I doubt anyone will do this, just to prove my point... but if you ever start a new game again, don't go near that place. Just get to level 20, then go there. Yeah, do it. I want you to come back and tell me how you fared against those two casters. I would love to hear it, really.

People want to complain about Smithing/Alchemy/Enchanting, but don't realize that without these, the game would be so freaking hard at times. I still haven't even made a weapon before, but I can see how smithed weapons, even without using alchemy, would still do more damage than Destruction spells.

In case it gets glitched. The skyforge area disappeared for me and eorlund fell into nothingness and died. That is why I brought him back using the console.

I think it has become worst in skyrim for me. Probably because of the dragon attacks and the fact that the khajitt caravans travel so close to bandit forts. I don't usually mind quite so much if they are a one liner npc, but if they are quest related I try my best to keep them alive.

That little goat (the one that was apparently sold to a giant while I was on a drunken rampage with Sanguine) was killed by a dragon!
After I got it back to its owner again... I felt really bad.
Then I noticed the woman (owner of the farm) dead too, with her little Iron Dagger still in her hand...
Bloody dragons - sure I felt bad for her too, but she was just stupid.
Why is the default behavior not to FLEE dragons?
In real life you bet everyone would be hiding in the cellar!
But the goat was an innocent. I restored from savegame because he liked me, he was kewl.
Now he's back doing goat-things again...

OP - I get what you're saying, and I agree. If you, the hero of the game, cannot achieve (even with maximum effort and buffs) the same level of magic proficiency and damage as an NPC enemy, then the gameworld makes no sense whatsoever. I've even noticed that these same kinds of enemies rarely carry the possessions that would be necessary for their magic output.

I also agree that NPC reaction to dragons is not always what it should be. Why should a farmer suddenly grow a backbone and think that he or she can suddenly kill a giant fire- or frost-breathing beast with a single dagger? Town guards, I understand. Regular citizens? Not so much.

The latter can and should be fixed... but I fear the former never will.

I can see your reasoning, but I do find I disagree.
Because: If you became as powerful as them, where would the challenge be? They should be more powerful than you - because that's the way it should work.

Yes, but HOW do they do that? They have the same spells you do. How are theirs more powerful, when all spells are the same? How do they seemingly have unlimited Magicka? Or, alternately, if they do not have unlimited Magicka and are simply getting to cast spells for 0%, how come they are not carrying the appropriate gear to perform such a feat?

If there are specific rules to how a gameworld works, such as it works in Skyrim, they must apply to all within the gameworld. It would be different if they actually carried the appropriate gear... or even possessed some Daedric artifact that allowed them to do such things... but they don't. Therefore, the criticism is well-earned. Is it a game-breaking problem? No. In fact, it's a relatively minor problem in the grand scheme of things, but it's rather annoying.

Those bloody Khajiit! A dragon practically landed on Windhelm's bridge one time and about 15 NPCs, including the whole Khajiit caravan, charged into the fray. I had to resurrect seven of the little buggers by console. >__< It doesn't so much unsettle me that NPCs die, but that nobody does anything with their bodies. If an NPC dies on your watch, you have to walk by their corpse repeatedly over the next few days until finally, mercifully, it vanishes. That's just gruesome to me. Imagine someone dying in the middle of one of our cities and nobody bothering to so much as move the body. It's unthinkable!

Kiir Srinna and Lydia had a most awesome battle with Morokei last night at Level 19. The entire way into where he was, his taunting, the enemies, I kept thinking that I have no idea how my mage would be able to defeat him because I didn't feel like Kiir was very strong in her cloth robe and he uses the Staff of Magnus on you. I used a few tips that others had posted here and everything I found along the way against him. Guess who has the Staff of Magnus now? Good times - and one I'll remember forever.

My level 81 assassin/thief just now did that quest early this morning. I was 1 or 2 shotting every enemy... and when I got to Morokei, I 1-shot both of his shield-charger buddies while sneaking, then shot the priest himself once, which paralyzed him, and then the 2nd shot killed him. The subsequent challenge with the Staff of Magnus was far harder to get through than fighting that dragon priest. His stealing of my Magicka was laughable at best.

Of course, my story differs greatly from yours in terms of character level and the fact that I wasn't using magic, but an enchanted Daedric bow in conjunction with a 100-level Archery skill.

Exactly, this is frustrating. And it's bullcrap.