Don't worry, there will be more.

Many more.

Forever.

Why anyone would max out the crafting skills is beyond me. It's just a boring rigmarole. I play on expert with the weps and apparel that I find, and it's a challenge. If I was forced to spam daggers and wait 48 hours for the shops to re-stock I'd straight up sell my copy.

Well the power-leveling benefit of Oblivion was so obvious it was almost as if the designers had intended for you to this. There was no benefit to leveling up unless you overcompensated with power-leveling. My level 5 barbarian is much better at what he does (crushing enemies in melee combat) than my level 15 barbarian, unless my level 15 "barbarian" is actually an illusionist.

I guess my big point here is that a game has to be balanced, or it isn't a game, it's a toy. People shouldn't have to take a handicap in order to have the game be challenging. Like I said in reference to Supreme Commander 2, if the game was so easy I had to never use nukes or experimentals in order to have a challenge, then they made the game too easy. The player shouldn't have to make a game challenging, that's the developers' job.

Assuming you have enchanting:

+25% to smithing on 4 pieces of gear to make your weapons and armor
If you have alchemy then you can make +smithing potions with at least +100% smithing very easy
+40% damage for your Sword on up to 4 pieces of armor/jewelry
+20% Magic Resist and you only need it on 2 pieces of gear so your shiled and something else, because ...
Agent of Mara +15%
Lord Stone +25%
oh and if you're a Breton, another +25%
I have a mage who is nigh invincible to magic (fire/frost/shock) damage.

Enchanting, while fun sometimes, feels like cheatmode in many ways. I have character that do not use enchanting and there is quite a difference. however you can purchase really good +smithing and + alchemy gear in the shops so you can come quite close to producing these benefits without even taking enchanting.

I didn't even get into enchanting weapons ... (and franky I skip weapon enchanting even with my characters that use enchtanting, it just becomes way over the top) .

All I can say is, your alls "master" must be broken, because master wrecks me hardcoe. Two shot by mages and I get finishers performed on me constantly.

Are you using smithing and enchanting? That seems to be the biggest complaint - that smithing + enchanting makes even Master difficulty easy.

I really need to test this out.

Why do you keep throwing out irrelevant information?


/sigh.

You know nothing of how game balance works.

Seems to be a habit of his. XD (I've seen him posting in the FO section like this.)

I however definately would liek to see reasonable caps on max boosting levels. So we can have good but not game breaking bonuses.

OP= $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

Ignoring the shambles that was DA2, BioWare did this in DA2 straight off the bat. They gave you the best weapons, best gear and best skills to try out before the game properly started. they hoped if the masses experienced the good stuff, they'd accept the weak stuff.

it was like they were saying "oh look, this is how uber you become, so bear with us"

Over powered huh?

Your only overpowered if you choose to be... not choosing all three crafting perks does not equate to " nerfing yourself "

In fack giving up essential role playing perks to comletely completely fill out the crafting tree's is more of a self nerf in as so far as your sacrificing the role play exreriance for dmg/defense...

Mabey they shpuld just add a higher difficuly setting where the only way you could possibly survive is to max out all crafting....

I do all 3 crafting skills but limit the perks... to be honest I think things would seem alitle more balanced if the skills in the game took more work to level up.... but that dosent equate to them being over powered.

Level 17 and I don't craft or do magic. I almost never even use the standard fire spell I was apparently born with. I don't need to be the most powerful character. The game is just as much fun for me without developing these abilities but knowing I could. That's roleplaying to me.

Dear God... do you know how dumb the logic of "you're only overpowered if you choose to be" is?

We're fine, or at least I am, with a character becoming overpowered... the thing of it should be that you have to work for it. Currently, becoming overly powerful is extremely easy and makes the game extremely easy. Hell, I'd say it might even be easier to get Smithing, Enchanting, and Alchemy all up to 100 than it was to make a full set of Chameleon Armor which broke Oblivion's challenge.

If you're actively not picking things so you do not become overpowered... you are nerfing yourself, because you're actively choosing to not pick things that will make you more powerful. Not just "more powerful," as that's the point of the leveling system, but too powerful.

Please learn something about game balance. There's a difference between picking something that is powerful and picking something that flat out makes the game challenge~less.

LOL... your actively choosing which ever skills you persue in the game...you seem to have a have-not atitude... not choosing to fill out all three crafting skills doesent equate to nerfing... just choice... which is what the game is about... the game is pretey easy in the first place, its not like you have to persue crafting to be able to make it through. If you choose to smith/enchant/use alchemy your actually depriving your self of more role-defining skills and perks, your forced to up the difficulty to master... which is where the only TRUE unbalenced gameplay takes place as eniemy HP dosent corrilate to all forms of damage i.e. traps,poisions,spells. Thats where any gameplay unbalance lies.

I dont hanestly understand why anyone would choose to " over power " themselves in the first place... much less understand a jelous mindset over the fact that the choice to do so exists.

Choosing not to make my self Uber Powerfull is not the same a choosing to make myself Uber Weak... just not Uber powerfull.

It's not the skills themselves that add the " over powered " aspect anyway... it's the perks that you dump into them.

Apparently you're not getting it.

The game is about choice... not any major choices or any choices with any real consequence, but there are choices.

You are missing the key point: people actively not picking certain perks because they are too powerful. That's the key point. People actively not choosing something because it's too powerful.

You don't ever have to take crafting. You can take all the crafting you want. But the moment you get to a point where it's time to choose a perk and go "well... this one would mean I would do too much damage, so I won't take it," is actively nerfing yourself because you are actively not picking a perk that will improve your character to a point that the game becomes too easy.

Being forced to choose a higher difficulty to provide yourself a challenge because of the game mechanics means the game itself is unbalanced. The only time you should choose a higher difficulty is because of skill, not because the game holds your hand so much that all but the hardest difficulty becomes faintly relevant.

I don't understand why so many people only think difficulty applies to fps skills. You say you keep the game challenging by not using crafting, but the only part of the game that effects is first/third person combat. It's an RPG, there are whole other elements of gameplay that have to do with stats, character building, gear selection, resource management... I would like it if those were challenging as well. I guess I could try handicapping my combat skills - restrict myself to only swinging my sword once every three seconds or something. But to me that seems equally as absurd as gimping myself on the RPG side of things.

Perk in Heavy Armor removes the challenge of resource management of Heavy Armor because it's now weightless, you now no longer have any disadvantage for picking the most durable armor.

Perk in Lockpicking that makes all Lockpicks unbreakable... is pretty self explanatory.

Every level of magic can be cast for half cost, removing the resource management of that.

Arrows being weightless, more reduction of resource management challenge.

Normal attacks not costing anything, reduction of challenge.

Enemies having more health as opposed to more armor/magic resist, reduction of challenge.

Etc.

Where is the problem if using crafting skills won't make the game easy on master? You can't play a pure alchemist on master difficulty? Since it's a single player game, you can lower the difficulty. I don't see how wanting an overpowered build using non-powerful skills is impossible in that situation. You are free to play as you want, you just make changes to the difficulty level as needed. Conversely, if you need to avoid certain skills/perks on EVERY difficulty level if you don't want to be overpowered, that NECESSARILY limits your freedom. It does so in the important way (gameplay).

There is this strange hypocrisy in a lot of people saying that skills should stay the same way because nerfing them would limit their freedom to play builds. I don't think this would be the case though. The only way I could see it being a problem is if they want the beginning of the game to be really difficult for their pure alchemist, but want that same alchemist to be really powerful late-game. Even in that case, though, they could switch the difficulty as they progress. You can't do this if the build is overpowered at all difficulty levels (there is nowhere to increase the difficulty).

tldr: having the freedom to play any way you want is NOT the same as having the freedom to have an OP build with any combination of skills at EVERY difficulty level. Difficulty should not be chosen by your skills. Your skills should be chosen based on your character, not how hard you want the game to be.

Activly not doing somthing? Are you serious...? Really? LOL It takes an incredibly intreverted mind to actively not-do-something.

Let me ask you somthing... do you " actively" want to spend your prek points on filling out all three crafting trees? Because thats the only way they make a character over powered.

Because theres a limited number of skill points you dont " actively " not spend them on crafting... you " actively spend them on something else ".... presumeingly perks that are more defining of your character.

And how is it logical to think that on character would become a master alchemist-smith-enchanter and not become uber-powerfull?

Yes and no...

You are absolutely right that a game has to be balanced. But saying it is the developer's job is a step too far. Of course the developer could do it, and a forward-thinking developer would do it, except Bethesda's role in the "open-world" genre might ultimately prove to be bringing the genre into the mainstream, nothing more. Whether Bethesda can continue to push the genre forward with ingenuity and creativity remains to be seen. Using the same formula may work for a while, which it has indeed done, but the real question is how much longer can it last?

As "open-world" systems become mainstream, and even perhaps the norm, demands and expectations of players will increase far beyond producing a huge open world. An increasing number of developers will get involved and the inevitable competition will weed out the unworthy. Specifically, improvement may not be the developer's job so much as another developer's job. Whether Bethesda remains the daddy, or even in the running at the end of this process, only time will tell.

Luckily for Bethesda it appears other attempts to produce "open world sandbox" type games also seem to be falling far short of their potential. Take for example Spore, where the idea was to evolve a creature from the cell stage and ultimately reach and explore the stars with a unique player-created species. The first time I saw the galaxy screen with all those beautiful stars my brain almost popped a sprocket. For a few wondrous minutes I believed that video games had finally come of age. Then reality bit, and bit hard, when I realized the entire game was nothing but cosmetic fluff. Evolution? The devs clearly had no understanding of the word "evolution" other than in terms of marketing hype. No, this was simply Mr Potato Head going galactic.

But make no mistake, now that particular box has been opened sooner or later someone will improve on Spore. Eventually the job will be done properly.

Similarly, regarding the open-world RPG, the box has been opened and there is no way to close it now. If Bethesda either cannot or will not do what is required then other developers surely will. Human greed and ingenuity guarantee it. Our voices as players count for little given the current state of affairs, yet as soon as significant and dangerous competition enters the arena then our spending power as consumers will suddenly count for everything. Either way we win (as players and consumers).

I'm not exactly sure what point you're trying to make. These are just a bunch of examples of arguably poor game mechanics.

Yeah.... while I agree with your anolisis, I dont agree with your conclusion.... Skyrim is as easy and as shallow as it is in order to pander to a wider customer base... and it has... look at the sales figures....

I met alit of Bethesda virgins that started oblivion.... felt over'whelmed by the complexity of the game mechanics and gave up very quickly.

I don't know how this is so hard for you to grasp...

If I have Perk A and Perk B, I choose Perk A, I just actively choose Perk A. Because well... I chose it instead of B.

Now, let's take Perk A and Perk B again when held up against your progress in the game.

You already have 40% bonus damage to One-Handed Weapons.

With that 40% you already cut through enemies like a hot knife through butter, aka the game is already easy in terms of combat.

Perk A would take you to 60% bonus damage.

If you think to yourself, at any point, that picking Perk A would make the game even easier than it is now, to the point where you would have to change the difficulty just to feel faintly challenged, so you won't pick Perk A...

You've just actively decided to nerf your character.

Instead of improving your character in combat you held them back.

Get it yet?


You said you think things outside of combat should be challenging. I gave you examples of things outside of combat that are made less challenging.

They've already said that they will do balance tweaks, and fix exploits (crafting loop for sure will be gone). If you want to feel overpowered, you can always play on novice. But when we find master difficulty trivial because we happened to level sneak and smithing, for example, what recourse do we have?

See, this is what I love about free market capitalism. Other companies are free to make competeting products, and then the market (that's us) decides which is best. One or the other may fade away, or there may be enough customers for both to survive.

Bethesda HAS discovered a winning formula for role playing games. Almost every game they have produced has been phenominally successful. For it's time, each one sold incredibly well, and garnered award upon award, including GOTY's from many different web sites. There is absolutely no way to say that Bethesda's forumla for RPGs has been anything but a full blown success story. From everything I read, they are ALL like this: it is easy to become over-powered. Obviously, people like it. Beth has no reason to change it, and every reason to leave it alone.

I very much welcome other companies to make RPGs that are much more "balanced"- i.e. much harder to become OP in; designed to be challenging no matter how you build your character. Then the market (us again) gets to decide if one formula is better than the other, or if indeed, there is room in the market for both. I LOVE that! (What true capitalist wouldn't?)

You guys can suggest to Bethesda to change their formula all you want, but I guarantee their not going to listen to you. Why? Because the way they're doing it now makes them stupid rich. They aren't going to screw around with their golden goose, and I can't say I blame them. It WORKS.