Cowardly? What would your suggest - standing right there and melee'ing it out with a guy who can one or two shot you? I do a variation of this when fighting ice trolls and other tough foes out in the open. I can't very well stand there and beat them up so I circle something like a large rock. As they chase, I hit them with arrows or spells or whatever I have for range.

I had only fought him a few times prior; it didn't take long to learn how to beat him. Honestly I think the only skills you need are basic movement control skills and 20 odd minutes of practice. And I didn't even do it that well, look at how many times I got hit!

I remember a quote saying that specific elements and fights of skyrim are especially designed for higher level players. So far I found none. Not even on master. We're not talking about "punishing" players but rather encouraging them to improve skills, equipment, spells and use a variety of combined strategies to bring down a high level opponent. I never regarded it as punishing not to be able to solo a Level 50 boss on the highest difficulty right away after "skipping the tutorial". It does not feel like an accomplishment to bring down a Dragon Priest, since then only thing you'll have to do is "sit back, wait, kill".

It devalues a lot of gear, progress, leveling, quests - well basically the whole game, too. Because my main thought would always be: Nice, but I don't really need that for anything. I've tried to find some way to make the game challenging by limiting myself not to use Followers, Enchanting, Smithing, Alchemy, Potions... - up to a point where I played on master and not even used any Level Up or Perks (we talked about that in the minmaxing thread).

But at moment I feel somewhat puzzled since "challenging gameplay" seems somewhat impossible in Skyrim. So I am considering getting a copy for the PC and wait for mods to implement where designers failed.

Try melee only with no armor... that should be somewhat challenging. Also, there's always DiD (dead is dead) to help fill your shorts with stool.

-Loth

I guess people will defend this game to the bitter end, even in the face of evidence that its not hard on master.

I'll agree that the game isn't difficult. A few hours of gameplay, and you've learned 90% of the game mechanics necessary to beat it once. Until you learn those, it can be a little challenging... But difficulty has never been the draw of a TES game.

So I guess, yes, you are rIght OP. The game isnt hard. It's not something you can fix with a mod. It would also require another 6+ months to improve the AI engine, and implement reasonable tactical responses. And most of the customers dont care, since theyre here for the open world, not competative gameplay. So, what do you propose at this point?

since when are "time and patience" no longer valid strategies?

I agree with what the poster said earlier, difficulty comes in many different forms. I would say spending thirty minutes on one foe because it was the only way to avoid death being a valid difficulty.

The game has had its fair share of difficult moments in my experiences. I can recall countless times running into mutliple drauger deathlords who shout you across the map and smite you with a couple of ebony arrows. I think Skyrim hit the difficulty appropriately. Nothing is truely out of this world difficult, you cant go autopilot, and there are enough sections that provide you a challenge to keep the combat immerse and interesting.

I dont think waiting out a magic dude to run out of magic on level one really provides a large enough sample of "in-game difficulty"

I say well done to the OP

That is funny, kinda cracks me up =)

Perhaps in one or two instances Skyrim is less difficult than it should be, but overall, for me at least, it's much more difficult. Morrowind was a doddle, a cakewalk. Oblivion had a couple of moderately difficult battles but nothing exciting... I could have played "dead is dead" if I wanted as I don't think the player ever died outside of playtesting.

Skyrim? Forget it. Die all the time. Much more preparation and caution is required. There are plenty of enemies too difficult to face otherwise.

If you think it's too easy, go do the Azura shrine quest "The Black Star" for example, specifically the finale. It's nuts.

Your mileage may vary.

Edit: I always play on default "developer-intent" difficulty.

Skyrim is good at catching you off guard, and fighting inside Azura's star is a prime example, If you go in completely unprepared, you have no chance.

another good instance was fighting the dragon priest in the mages guild questline that had the lightning staff from hell, i had to hide from it and cast atronochs that died in two hits because the lightning would halve my health and magic.

And then in the Honeybrew Meadery that crazy guy in the bottom. He isnt so bad by himself picking him off with arrows but with those skeever around they instantly run to where you are the moment you hit one of its buddies with an arrow. was pretty difficult to do starting out in the lower levels.

No using cheats or cheap tactics?

Then you proceed to hide behind a wall.

Yeah...

I'd have to say there are a few times I've felt challenged while playing the game normally. My old character, a level 28 archer (playing on Master) was in a Dwemer ruin and had to face groups of Falmer and I didn't bring quite enough health potions (did manage it in the end though, and the Dwemer Centurion Guardian at the end was a doddle LOL). So my suggestions for increasing the difficulty would be to increase the mob sizes and force you into more battles unexpectedly, maybe with ambushes or something. People playing on Master would have to face Krosis with a bunch of undead buddies firing arrows and magic at them from all sides and the Novice/Adept players could just have Krosis alone with his recharging staff.

As for AI improvements I don't know. I've noticed the enemies can't jump (am I right?) so it makes evading them too easy as they have to go round rocks and such all the time.

...what?

(Contradiction much?)

Well.....not really. Just because one strategy wouldn't work doesn't make the fight not too easy. The strategy I used was pretty easy to implement, anyone could do it really and come up with it themselves without much effort.

Indeed. There's nothing cheap about not taking fireballs to the face voluntarily. Krosis only shoots a Fireball, once he establishes LoS. So you'll have to get out of your cover to make him fire and miss. No cheats or cheap tactics.

This is tangentially related to the subject at hand, but does anyone expect the Construction Set to allow us to mod the Radiant AI? I don't recall that being possible in Oblivion...

It drives me crazy when people complain about the game being to easy and they play on master. Let's be real, it's hard. Challenging and thats the truth

Cheers

why wouldn't krosis have a dagger or something handy? bound sword, anything. also no offense but you couldn't speed that video up?

The one thing I do not understand about these type of posts complaining about difficulty is where this unreasonable idea that the game was going to be "Suitably" difficult for what I have no other word to describe as elitists comes from.
I assume a lot if not most of these players have been with the ES series longer than this game yet they seem puzzled and exasperated at the difficulty with this particular instalment of ES when none of the others where any more difficult to play and in some cases where a lot easier.

What seems to get lost in these rants from people as well is the fact this is a solo game and it was never touted as being a punishing experience. The whole min/maxing as well seems totally misplaced in what is an R.P.G and not an MMOrpg, A lot of the talk I have seen comes across like a typical MMO forum in regards to theory crafting and taking the game way too seriously and ignoring the fact that it is a game and not a job or a competitive space where you get your name on a leader board to show off to your friends and brag about how cool you are.

The great thing about any of the Bethesda open world R.P.G's is that you determine the world around you by how you play and interact with it and to push at this world like it was an MMO will only leave a bad taste in your mouth and ends in threads like this with pointless complaining that does not belong attached to a single player R.P.G experience. If you desire face melting difficulty go buy yourself an old school 8 bit console and play some of them games, Deal with some of those bugs that shipped that never got fixed because hey-ho they didn't have to fix them back then when there was no message board for you to rain tears onto. Above all else remember this is a game for FUN, Bethesda provide the sandbox you determine the outcome.

Nobody is talking about "punishing" and for what it's worth: It has got five difficulty Levels. But if even the hardest offers no challenge to players who'd like to have a challenge - with all of the in depth gameplay features like different resistances, stones, shouts, potions etc. then something's wrong. And I support this critizism since this fact takes most of the fun out of the game for me.



Actually I find statements like this something between ignorant and offensive. The game offers those possibilities, there is a lot of in depth gameplay and some players really enjoy playing a game as "min/maxer". If you don't like it, don't do it. It's as simple as that - but please save yourself the time and the effort to lecture people about "how to play a game".

]quote]The great thing about any of the Bethesda open world R.P.G's is that you determine the world around you by how you play and interact with it and to push at this world like it was an MMO will only leave a bad taste in your mouth and ends in threads like this with pointless complaining that does not belong attached to a single player R.P.G experience.]/quote]

The fact that "understanding the game mechanics and playing accordingly" trivializes the game even more is further evidence of bad gamedesign in terms of balance but is not even the topic of this thread. The OP did no "minmaxing" at all. He killed one of the supposedly toughest bosses as a Level 1 char on master and not with a Level 60+ full resistance max weapons char.


Why would you implement game difficulty settings at all if your advice to players who say "it's too easy" is "play a different game? Is it so hard to understand this imho very valid critizism? I am really none of those "make it as tough as possible" players.

I did not play any ES games before - played FO3 and FONV. Especially New Vegas felt nice. Death Claw valley was really challenging for me and I kept avoiding it up to a point where I had equipment to deal with the deathclaws. I have yet to find an even remotely compareable encounter in Skyrim.

OP not as clever as he thinks.


Boring video, snarky title, bad content.

Guess what? Normal setting is plenty difficult for me. Easy setting might be difficult for someone else.

You cheesehogged Krosis on Master level. Congrats. Guess you can sell the game back now and work on something else. Go on, shoo!

Firstly nowhere in my post did I suggest other games as an alternative if people claim they find this game too easy I suggested an older console generation that would maybe lend itself to the challenge you seek. In regards to giving a lecture as you put it I simply gave my perspective on the complaints that have been abundant from the "Game is too easy" crowd, This is a forum for opinions after all. I also pointed out why in my opinion people are making the complaints in the way they do, If you set out to play this like an MMO and max out skills that almost make you a god you are going to find the content trivial. The same goes for any game from any genre if you approach it in this way. In that eventuality you only have yourself to blame for how you feel about the game.

I made my point about that and how it takes a change in perspective on your play time and style that needs to change or you will end up moaning about something that very few people will relate to.

Theres a bell curve to this: one side thinks the game is too easy, one side thinks the game is too difficult, but most feel the difficulty is appropriate.

I have invested about 175 hours into three different characters of this game, One warrior, one mage, one theif/archer. Each had challenges that at standard difficulty that I felt were adequate.

To use one sample of a in-game boss fight where a player out smarted the AI is not enough evidence that the game is "too easy." Each class you choose interacts with separate foes differently.

I will say if you take all the time required to fight this guy on level one, upload it to youtube, then post it on bethesdas forum, you may be missing the point of the game.

Granted, there will always be people that will go out of their way to find breaks/glitches/flaws and try to shine a huge light on it, but thats not why the majority of the people play a game like this.

Congratulations on your endeavor, but you have not proven this game to be "too easy" based on the evidence you provided.

I love how when a person criticises this game, all of the forum members freak the [censored] out.