But once again, you can CREATE that challenge for yourself! You have the option and many paths of exploring that option. If they do it YOUR way, guess what? Those people who actually like to be legendary at high level WON'T have that option AT ALL! You tell me which seems more fair?...

Either create your challenge, mod it in when possible or go play another game.

Oh yes it did. The answer is Bethesda makes it possible to make the game not difficult if you so chose because some people want it that way. And you reinforced my point that some people don't want that freedom in the game.. for themselves nor for anyone else.

Nope, it's not "self gimping", it's equivalent to choosing "Easy" in the difficulty settings.

Self-gimping is entering the match without a goalkeeper, which you wouldn't and shouldn't have to do because it's not fun, it's STUPID...


All RPGs should give you the ability to potentially become OP, but only if you are intentionally trying to or are overleveled. They shouldn't just hand you the best armor in the game in a silver plate by level 30, for simply taking 2 minutes every now and then to train in smithing (and before anyone mentions dagger spam, I got to 100 smithing on my 1st playthrough by trying to craft profitable stuff instead of daggers - it was still almost as fast)
Skyrim lets you be OP way too fast way too easily. And that takes a lot out of the enjoyment, since no effort=no satisfaction, and purposely avoiding training the powerful skills=frustration=no fun. It's not about being advlt and restricting oneself or not - it's simply bad balance.

In the end, if I have to gimp myself to set the game difficulty, wtf is the role of the difficuly slider in the menu?

Symantics.

Choosing to get Alchemy/Smithing/Enchanting to 100 and tricking out your character is the same as putting in a ringer at goalkeeper.

Has anyone considered the idea that...you outlevelled the challenge?

When they were discussing this game before release, they said there was a 'soft cap' around level 50. You guys remember that? I see a LOT of people on this board complaining about how overpowered they are...at 70.

You put 200 hours into this game, you're going to eventually OUTLEVEL EVERYTHING. That's not the game's fault. The design steers you toward the main quest again and again- it's telling you to face the challenges now, rather than bounce around and do every sidequest, guild, dungeon and cave first. OF COURSE you're going to be beyond everything at that point.

But...that's your CHOICE. You CHOSE to go out of your way and find every word wall, become the head of every guild, level every craft to 100, and then wow, I'm overpowered!

Really?

No way!

I personally don't see how people get to level 70 unless they grind the hell out of the extra skills that they aren't focusing on.

Also: for the love of the Nine, STOP SAYING THIS GAME IS DUMBED DOWN compared to previous TES games.

They have NEVER had challenges. NEVER had difficulty. In fact, Skyrim put in place restrictions that force you to actually USE the skills rather than stand in the wilderness throwing spells at the sky to level.

Nothing was hard in Morrowind. Take off your rose colored glasses. You could get 100 in destruction in about six hours. You could level sneak with a paperweight while you watched tv.

Those choices were YOURS to make. And if you wanted to be overpowered by level 5, it was absolutely there for you to have. NOTHING HAS CHANGED. Stop wishing this game was some other random game you have in your head.

I think that's the most frustrating part- watching people talk about how 'easy' the game is, how they have 100 in smithing and alchemy when the only way to do so is to camp a vendor for 12 play hours' straight and they're level 81. WTF? What the HECK have you been doing in the game to get to 81? Oh yeah..grinding.

This is NOT an MMO. People have been talking about 'grinding' out this skill or that crafting specialty in this thread and it makes me want to stab people. Grinding has absolutely no place in a single player game.

this

no, you just stated the exact OPPOSITE of my point, thereby, proving my argument: who cares about making the game LESS difficult. the game already is less difficult. being able to make the game less difficult is not the issue and should be an available option, regardless.

the game is NOT difficult at high levels no matter what you do. gimp, no "cheating", roleplay, suboptimal, no armor, fists, whatever.

beth DID NOT give us the option to make the game difficult throghout the game. and, THAT also proves another of my points: the burden falls COMPLETELY on beth to create a game that is difficult throughout on the highest difficulty OPTION.

edit- here, come buy my product. it's of subpar quality, but, we'll give you the tools to make it better and make it more customized. we won't, however, build you the best product that we can.

Perfect.


If you're doing your best to rise to it, seems like the game is challenging enough and it is not really its fault that you happen to be such an Awesome and Terrible and Monumental Majesty of Gaming, oh Enlightened One.

Grinding does have some purposes in Single Player RPG's but in Skyrim's case it's mostly for exploiting certain skills like Smithing.

I never use alchemy - it's boring and too slow to level. And the game is still too easy once I get to 40-ish...

Choosing to max all these is the equivalent of signing top players for my squad. The problem is, nothing in Skyrim is in CL - level except me, so instead of being able to win against bigger teams, I simply win against the same teams but without thetrill of the game...

The problem with Skyrim is it doesn't have proper difficulty settings. It's only damage modifiers, not AI. And that is because the full enemy AI is already so dumb they cannot possibly make it easier without ruining the whole game...





15 minutes total divided into a few 2-minute sessions after you come back to Whiterun from a series of quests/dungeons does not qualify as grinding. And still you get to lv100 at lightning speed...

This series has been so watered down since Morrowind, I can hardly taste it anymore. Yes, it has been dumbed down.

Dumbed down's not the correct term, I would refer to it as Evolving the series.

No, that is unacceptable. You want to make that claim, back it up. I'm tired of people just saying "yes it was". That's not a discussion.

morgue-

so now you are one of those who feels playing the game as beth developed, or playing it "normally" is considered grinding to you?

so self-gimping is now "normal."

how sad.

Crafting being overpowered is nothing new. Alchemy and Enchanting were ridiculously powerful in Oblivion. Alchemy and Enchanting were also ridiculously powerful in Morrowind. Spell crafting was also ridiculously powerful They're options. Some people like putting together potions that give you 9999999 strength and making spells that destroy an entire town with one cast. That's why those options are there. And if those sort of things don't appeal to you then all you have to do is not make a potion that gives you 9999999 strength.

This is a RPG. Eventually you're going to get to the point where you overpower everything else in the game, unless enemies stats are based entirely on your own stats in which case there's little to no sense of progression and you might as well not have the RPG elements at all. RPGs aren't meant to be equally challenging at all levels, the entire point is that you slowl get stronger and stronger and there are less and less things that can stand up to you. What you're asking for is an action game, which Elder Scrolls isn't.

You're playing on Master Difficulty, as a character build that trivializes the Master Difficulty.

Congratulation's - you're a master of Skyrim! You figured out the playstyle that makes it trivial and figured out how to win!

The same could be said for ALL games that offer difficulty levels. Some people whine about Halo's "Legendary" being Trivial after a while.

How...how in the world would you consider camping a vendor, buying out all their supplies over and over again for hours at a time in order to make 600 items normal gameplay?

Please, I'm dying to know.

Should those bosses also require special methods of being dealt with and some even requiring raids?

Sure, but only after unlocking daily quests that reward tokens upon completion that can be used for pre-raid quality gear.

=P

(for those not into mmo's, Akesh - I believe - is being sarcastic, and I most certainly am)

Yes, eventually. Not right away like in Skyrim.
Serious RPGs make you work for it, have the strongest gear in insane dungeons etc... Skyrim is like "Oh, who cares, here's the best gear in the game, spend 5 minutes every time you come back to the city and you'll be invinsible by the time you fight your first boss..."

The problem I see is this: in a game such as Skyrim or Oblivion or Morrowind, the whole point of the game is to make your character stronger and more skilled. Therefore, it is perfectly normal to be powerful at the end of the game. That's just how it works. The game was designed so that you could get to level 50 with the best possible gear and the best possible set of maximized skills. Then it is over, although technically speaking it doesn't end.

I see people with level 60 characters all clad in enchanted daedric armor and branding a Mega Super Daedric Greatsword of Giant Woe and these same people complain that the game is too easy and boring. Yeah, right.

The series would need a combat system that involves more than mindless click spamming before they could have any "boss" enemies that amount to more than just giant blobs of HP. Hidden boss enemies are fun in other RPGs and action games because they require advanced tactics and skills in order to beat. The best I could see being done in Skyrim is an enemy with stats so high that you need to chug some mega potion to not get instagibbed.