You must be very new to gaming if you think this is a "WoW kid" thing.

lol

First it's the "CoD kids" and now it's the "WoW kids". Honestly it's the "TES kids" I'm finding to be the dumbest, most annoying people here.

lol, ya know. People have wanted level and character skill exclusive content since before there were ES. As for actual balance, in any aspect, that's been active for just as long.

Trolling forums is fun right? Reported

Balance is badly needed in a Single Player RPG. Let's say Fallout 3 for example, I can't play that game regularly because I'll get broken due to the amount of skill points I get at level up, even if I nerf myself I will still get broken. Skyrim thankfully has some balance, although it isn't perfect.

Nope, quite an old gamer but since WoW is the popular one these days I use it. Shall I use Everquest or Ultima to make you feel better?

It's kind of weird, there are quite a few (insanely popular) balance mods for Fallout 3/New Vegas, and I'm sure Oblivion. FWE, Arwen's Tweaks, MMM, FOOK, nVamp, Project Nevada, XFO - some of these had hundreds of thousands of downloads, articles in gaming magazines dedicated to them, and all were geared towards making the game more challenging. I have never heard WoW or "single player games don't need balance" brought up, ever, in the hundreds of pages of forum posts and Nexus page comments generated by them.

Dungeons and Dragons would work better. The game that has basically had its developers dedicated to constant revamps to better balance it.

Balance is one of the core features that makes RPGs fun. It can't be perfectly balanced otherwise there is no room for min/max and your choices are largely irrelevant, but it has to exist to a degree for the player to feel like he can make choices instead of needing to use X or he's gimping himself out.

Also, in terms of difficulty, if you have to MAKE the game harder for yourself by making bad decisions, the game is doing it wrong.

That's just setting the bar really low.
Just because the other TES games were even't buggier and more imbalanced doesn't mean Skyrim should get a free pass. Especially with easy to fix things.

Don't get me wrong, Skyrim has improved *a LOT*. I can actually enjoy it greatly now even without mods. But for the OP to rant on min/maxers just makes him look like a simpleton and/or a fan-boi.

If a game at startup gives you boots of invincibility in your inventory, is that stupid game design or intended feature because 'some' might enjoy that playstyle? I'm all for a lot of freedom in a game and I understand how certain freedoms can cause problems when min/maxed but there should always be a balance between the two. Bethesda is notorious for not finding that balance and there is a group of players who, instead of just accepting it, has the urge to improve the game for the better.

Which plays into my theory that the people referencing WoW, whether for or against, are probably the real newbs. Hell, they've been 'balancing' with mods since Daggerfall. When Warcraft was an actual good RTS.

I enjoy the irony of the op calling anyone a kid. I play WoW and I enjoy Skyrim. They are fundamentallt different experiences with differering aspects that I enjoy. Balance is something that anything that uses statistics and five rolls souls require. Min/maxxing is simply a different style of play, in the same way I may roleplay for hours another gamer could spend his time trying to attain the best gear and the highest stats; who am I to judge. When the challenging overhaul mods come out min maxing does add a level of strategy that tends to be missing from TES combat.

The OP should reexamine himself....or not. It's not my place to say what you should do..ahem..

Well, lots of lofty-toned remarks slagging players of WoW or MMOs, some random completely pointless posts, some mish-mash theories merging balance and min-maxing, which I think are kinda separate, at least the way I view it... so really, this was not a good thread. OP, if you want to discuss why people min-max in a single-player RPG, or what concerns they have about balance specifically in Skyrim... those might have been decent topics, if the title/ opening post didn't sort of put people's backs up in the first place.

I play a lot of single player games and quite a few MMOs. My gameplay and reasons for playing one or the other remain quite different. But still fun - I game because it's fun, not because it's math homework.