I don't get it. What do you mean by min max? I can see maxing out a stat or skill, but I don't get the min. HOw can you min and still call the game easy?

As for maxing out stuff, then don't do it? You have the power and the option of not choosing the easy way. You telling me you can't do this? Do you need someone to wipe your bum after you do a number 2? Come on people if you find the game too easy and want to keep playing it, do it a different way. Why not try playing a PURE THIEF, and then tell me the game is too easy.

Exactly. My last character was to buff with the heavy armor so I switched to light and didn't cry about making a "smart choice". Also I can wipe my own [censored]. Lol

Min-maxing is a RPG playstyle where players attempt to maximize their character's power through taking advantage every game mechanics available. This attempt excludes console commands and any other methods that bypass the game mechanics, as the whole point is to accomplish maximum character potential within the boundary of the game rules.


Armor perks are almost purely optional and light armor is actually smarter choice. Guess you didn't know that lol

The question is where does minimum in min/max come in? Sounds like just Max.

I have no idea. Kind of like "the bell went off" when it rings, funny language.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Min-maxing


Anyhow.. What do you expect, the game to get harder when you go out of your way to become a god? Your complaint doesn't make sense.

Hehehehehe....

I see what you did there.

mmo player eh?

The number one cause of an argument... is two parties presuming two different definitions for the same word.

More than any other franchise, The Elder Scrolls has retained the original definition of 'RPG' among it's majority fanbase.

In today's modern world RPG just means "fantasy game with numbers in it".

Hell, I've heard League of Legends called an RPG.

But RPG actually used to mean roleplaying game... now I ask you OP, honestly... what role did you play in this game?

Part of the deal with a good RPG (in the old skool sense) is that we take responsibility for our own characters weaknesses.
As players we have the maturity and desire to impose limitations on ourselves to enhance the sense of immersion in the role.

That sense of immersion is why we play... perhaps you may have noticed the word crop up from time to time in connection with TES hmm?

You... like to win.
We... like to play.

You like to 'beat the game'.
We like to finish a story (but... not too quickly eh?).

I wonder how many hours you took to achieve your godhood?
Less than the total amount of hours I've been playing I bet... and I haven't even been to see the graybeards yet.






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The "Min" part of Min-maxing in TES games is keeping your actual level low (To keep enemy levels low due to the world's level-scaling), and now avoiding perks in "fitting-or-useful-but-not-effective" areas (Such as ALL the lockpicking and speechcraft perks, the Light Armor side of the Smithing tree, or both Weapon skills).

Actually, as an old-school Tabletop gamer myself (I fit "The Real Man/Butt Kicker" Roleplayer Archetype as opposed to Storyteller or Psychodrama), I can contend that old-school RPGs actually had weaknesses become inherent to your character due to game engine restrictions, and the game system and GM, rather than require you to make yourself underpowered, were the forces that balanced the character: You could min/max to become excellent at what you do (For a Batman Wizard, that's everything. For a Fighter, that's Rerolling a Wizard ), or you could "cover your rear" by strengthening some weak-points through "simple" multiclassing (A fighter taking a level of Wizard for a bit more arcane power, multiclassing Thief for some extra utility, or taking a Feat to offset another weakness).

Skyrim and TES games, however, don't put an upper limit on what you can do, except for Skyrim's perks.

Take that armor, and weapon and stuff it in a storage chest. Make up some role playing excuse like "True nords would never wear Dragon armor" or "magic is for milk drinkers" and do not use enchantments. Role play that someone broke into your house and stole your gear, and that shops don't sell ingots any more. Sorry but you should expect to feel over powered when maxing something out.

Best post ever. I'm not a hardcoe RPer, but I still put like 15-30 side quests in between main quests, and I beat the main quest at 100+ hours.

This is also the only ES game I've played, and I too made the same mistake of making my first char insanely overpowered. Do what I did, start a new game. With the knowledge of your previous game, create a character that revolves around the things you enjoyed the most from the last one, but give yourself the following limitations:

No buying ores/ingots/leather/soul gems/alchemy ingredients from merchants
No using the wait function (or the other method) to reset vendors

After my 1h/shield come dual wield heavy armour powerhouse killing machine, I'm having a much more enjoyable time on my sneaky light armour archer assassin!

as a stealthy you don't even need to min max to become invincible.

It seems to me that a game like this is very difficult to balance for both role play and for min/max. Even with difficulty settings.

It was the same with Oblivion, and other similar open world games (Fallout 3, Morrowind, etc). I wondered about before Skyrim with those other games. And it because clear to me that Bethesda seems to make these game for people that really want to role play. Unfortuantely or fortunately, the game does not force roleplay on your character, so it also allows min max. And that is such a variety of play styles it seems to me that it's rally not possible to balance for everyone.

By roleplay I mean limiting yourself to what a character in a particular role would do. So let's say your a Thief. You'd focus on sneak and maybe archery. But you'd probably have no armor or light armor and no shield/blocking. So it will be challenging in that if you are detected by an enemy or multiple enemies you'd have little defense. Now the game does allow you to be a min/max thief sneaking around in full enchanted Daedric armor with the proper perks and enchantments. But that would be unrealistic for a thief. If you do that then maybe the game will be too easy.

Another example for me. Right now on my first Skyrim playthrough I have a typical Nord warrior. A warrior might be good at smithing by not enchanting or magic. So I avoid enchanting or magic. I could have my character do everything, in which case I suspect I will be way overpowered.

So min/max'ing just naturally leads to an easy game. That should be expected. Maybe take satisfaction that you've built such a powerful character, and then start a new one?

I'm not asking for validation for the way I want to play my own game . . . I posted this thread to get the attention of the moderators in hopes that my plea would be answered. I'm not telling any of you guys how to play your own game, so please don't try to be rude. I like playing this way, and if you aren't okay with that . . I don't really care.

Not sure I understand the "minimizing" part of this thread O_0

I understand the "maxing" part just fine.

Well you used crafting and enchanting to break your game. Bethesda cant stop people from breaking their own games but hopefully they will make it so that normal players cant do it accidently

We all want to be gods but its no fun if it happens to early.

... I broke Dark Souls, and there are some people who even effectively min-max their way through NetHack.

I'll throw in my guess as to min/max. I took it to mean that your character will concentrate in only a few things and you max those things out and yet keep the others to a minimum. To put it in a slightly D&D context, you keep charisma and wisdom and stuff at their minimum and yet pump all points into strength and dexterity; rather than create a well-rounded characters. Something along those lines. To max something, you have to take away from elsewhere which is the "min."

The moderators are not Bethesda employees.

They can't do anything about your plea.

It's not cheating... it's maxing out as much as you can within the games limits.

Pretty much this.

The end result of min-maxing is well, yeah you should dominate the game environment.

Problem is that in Skyrim, you get to that point wayyy too often and easily that it's no longer about planning to become a god, but rather, you must plan to not be a god.

Go kill a bandit. Place your isnanely OP weps/armour on said bandit. Walk away. After a number of ingame days, the game will despawn the body, and your items along with it.

Sick of these threads, in b4 people blame Bethesda for their lack of self control.

My smithing is at a decent level right now. I'd be annoyed if i had to spam daggers just to see a return. Most people dont want to spend an hour hitting X to improve smithing. i smith when i get to a town and i smith until i run out of resources that ive gathered. To me thats enough of an investment into that skill without it becoming tedious. I think the game is balanced for the AVERAGE (sane) player, not the min/max nerd that loves to pointlessly grind game mechanics.

If smithing required any more pointless grinding, im sure most would just forget about it all together. Thats not how the game was designed.

Gotcha ;] thanks