for all my games i always crank up the difficulty. makes the experience so much more interesting. playing Skyrim on Master now...battles actually matter.

Originally posted by Homitu

 

As a final comment, I'll simply add that any complaints about the balancing of TES games is complicated by the fact that all the tools to rebalance are made available to the responsible user.  If you truly find something is seriously underpowered, you're free to bolster the power of your spells or increase your magicka regen via the console commands.  Obviously, you could send your character into unstoppable god mode, but that's not what I'm trying to suggest.  I'm just saying that you could make honest, small tweaks of the variety that the developer might consider making, without compromising the integrity of your game or diminishing the difficulty.  

Sure you can argue that the developer should have done it right the first time.  But contrary to a popular sentiment, this is not laziness on the part of the developer.  Sometimes balancing mistakes just happen.  (LOL Final Fantasy 7 with the bug where all armor actually gave zero magic defense, despite what the armor's tooltip said.)   In this case, it's pretty awesome that the tools to retweak the coefficients and fix any issues you perceive are made available to play around with.  To give an example of "responsible" use using my FF7 example, if this system were available for that game, you would have been able to manually increase each item's magic defense by the amount indicated on the tooltip to make the items actually work as intended.  Of course, if FF7 were released today, an error like that would be patched rather quickly.  

Well, I intend to make dragons "slightly" more powerful. I mean, they need to be taken down because you need to fuel your shouts. And though some of them have been a challenge they haven't been a huge challenge.

As far as mages go, I have limited experience in Skyrim as I just made a pure mage character last night. However, I suspect that part of people's problems (and this is just shooting in the dark so don't beat me too badly) is that people  might not be using or have discovered all the spells that one might have in their arsenal. Also taking advantage of hirelings could help.

Using Frenzy on an enemy, summoning a Daedra to help, and moving, always moving, seem to have helped me a lot.

More on my mage character at some point as Im curious if it will be unplayable at some point.

Originally posted by Kuraphimaru

 

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Originally posted by Kisra
i agree the Difficulty are well balanced if someone doesn't agree go fight Gaint (in adept ) while you are around level 5-8
that what i saw in my way while going to the Temple of the monkes learn the shout of the dragons he hit me 2 times and i am
dead (i was in block mod thats why it takes two hit with shield) my friend he die from only 1 hit hehe ...
maybe the normal mobs are a littile easy but when they come in numbers u can die easy

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2 hits? How the hell did u manage that? All I got from giants so far was a one shot and me being airborne. After that I avoid them like a plague.
 
On the other hand, once you get higher level and fight harder humanoid enemies, there is a good chance you might get executed in a fight. Was doing a dungeon and got really surprised when a skeleton chopped my head off with death kill animation. 

 

about 2 hits i was in block mod plus i have not bad amount of HP

Today was talking to a freind on vent while we all like 5 ppl playing Skyrim (yes we are nereds lol) i got attack by Dragon(fire)

and seems in the same time that dragon was attacking Gaint (poor dragon!! ) coz when i found that happening i found the dragon are around 50% HP and the Gaint are like 85%HP as i said POOR Dragon so it was free kill for me about the dragon ofc .... but the NPC which carry my stuff (follower whatever you call him) attack the Gaint (Q.Q) and wouldn't stop so i have to attack him too and it was a long kite Bow and sprent (with Alt) and using shout's too to Push him away

but at the end i manage to kill the Gaint that at lv 9 (adept) my items aren't that good all normal but got only 1 item with 20% one-hande weapon increased dmg so that wouldn't count  coz i was using bow (orc bow)

but tbh i wasn't solo my follower helped me Alot too while i kite she was attacking while i am attacking she was tanking him to near death ofc :D

I play on the default and think it's hard enough.

I'm in it for the story, quests, exploring and less for the combat, so i don't care it's slightly easy.

Playing on Master, orc with an orcish warhammer with fire enchant. Most fights are a cakewalk, usually just one or two power attacks. But occasionally I run into some that just destroy me. Berserker Rage is pretty much an I.W.I.N. against those, but it sucks when it's not usable (cooldown).

Potions help a lot as well. My highest skills are two-handed and heavy armor, but alchemy is catching up quick. Which is good, as I chug them down like crazy.

To test, I made an imperial focusing on block and one handed and set it to Adept. I basically ran through the intro and all of Black Hallow's (I think that's how it is spelled -- the spot for the golden claw quest) without ever needing any form of healing, or really even thinking, until the very last Draugr. But even then, I only needed a little bit of help from the starter healing spell.

But I think in the end your time with it is just going to depend on what you focus. People focusing on non combat skills first, like Oblivion, are going to start having a rather hard time as you begin to level up. But if you level the combat skills above the rest, and stay prepared (with spells, staffs, or potions and food), you're not going to have too much trouble with it, even in Master (save for the occasional fight against some bandit boss that executes you from 3/4 health even while blocking!).

No thoughts on mage classes since I haven't played any yet, but I will say that I've seen some pretty damn cool spells from the enemy mages that could kill me very quickly. Maybe there are some more powerful spells that people haven't picked up, forget or notice? I know I sometimes forget about my shouts and powers until after I die (I hate it when that happens :P).

The most important perk in Destruction magin in my opinion is Impact. That will stagger your enemies and stop them from doing anything at you. The damage you do is not very high, but you stop enemies on their tracks from attacking you with any kind of attacks and thus the only limiting factor becomes the size of your mana pool (and thus taking the Apprentice, Adept, etc perks become quite important.

You do have issues with multiple enemies when using the above strategy, but you also have other tools in your arsenal, like traps, or summons etc.

From beginning i play master lvl as mage with high mana low health in robes and i love it. Sometimes i bite the dust yes but enough fights that are intresting some are easy becouse of dumb AI :(

Dragons till way to easy even on master lvl:(

Beleive it or not, I ve barely touched the story/open world adventuring. I m all addicted to crafting, been pumping perks into smithing, and I can make some good stuff already. Will be nicely geared when I get out there.

Originally posted by Leucent

Beleive it or not, I ve barely touched the story/open world adventuring. I m all addicted to crafting, been pumping perks into smithing, and I can make some good stuff already. Will be nicely geared when I get out there.

All crafting with no Combat skills could lead to some very hard times ahead for you my friend. The world does scale somewhat to your character level so if you are level 10 from crafting with level 1 combat skills be prepared to reload a lot. Powerleveling one skill at the expense of others is not such a great idea in Skyrim.

Bren

Originally posted by Brenelael

Originally posted by Leucent

Beleive it or not, I ve barely touched the story/open world adventuring. I m all addicted to crafting, been pumping perks into smithing, and I can make some good stuff already. Will be nicely geared when I get out there.

All crafting with no Combat skills could lead to some very hard times ahead for you my friend. The world does scale somewhat to your character level so if you are level 10 from crafting with level 1 combat skills be prepared to reload a lot. Powerleveling one skill at the expense of others is not such a great idea in Skyrim.

 

Bren

Well I have done some here and there, but I will admit, I m way ahead in smithing. I haven t enjoyed crafting in a game so much. I ve been clearing mines etc, to keep my smithing going, so I have fought more then I lead on.

Originally posted by Leucent

Originally posted by Brenelael

Originally posted by Leucent

Beleive it or not, I ve barely touched the story/open world adventuring. I m all addicted to crafting, been pumping perks into smithing, and I can make some good stuff already. Will be nicely geared when I get out there.

All crafting with no Combat skills could lead to some very hard times ahead for you my friend. The world does scale somewhat to your character level so if you are level 10 from crafting with level 1 combat skills be prepared to reload a lot. Powerleveling one skill at the expense of others is not such a great idea in Skyrim.

 

Bren

Well I have done some here and there, but I will admit, I m way ahead in smithing. I haven t enjoyed crafting in a game so much. I ve been clearing mines etc, to keep my smithing going, so I have fought more then I lead on.

I personally have tried to keep Smithing at about the same level as my combat skills. This seems to be the way it was intended as I can usually make and improve stuff that is apropriate for my level. Of course the temptation to power level to Dragon Armor is great but as a general rule I like to play through a game at least once as the developer intented it to be played. I've also heard some pretty scary stories on these forums and others how people have thrown their gaming experience all out of balance by putting to much time into one skill or another.

Bren

Originally posted by Brenelael

Originally posted by Leucent

Originally posted by Brenelael

Originally posted by Leucent

Beleive it or not, I ve barely touched the story/open world adventuring. I m all addicted to crafting, been pumping perks into smithing, and I can make some good stuff already. Will be nicely geared when I get out there.

All crafting with no Combat skills could lead to some very hard times ahead for you my friend. The world does scale somewhat to your character level so if you are level 10 from crafting with level 1 combat skills be prepared to reload a lot. Powerleveling one skill at the expense of others is not such a great idea in Skyrim.

 

Bren

Well I have done some here and there, but I will admit, I m way ahead in smithing. I haven t enjoyed crafting in a game so much. I ve been clearing mines etc, to keep my smithing going, so I have fought more then I lead on.

I personally have tried to keep Smithing at about the same level as my combat skills. This seems to be the way it was intended as I can usually make and improve stuff that is apropriate for my level. Of course the temptation to power level to Dragon Armor is great but as a general rule I like to play through a game at least once as the developer intented it to be played. I've also heard some pretty scary stories on these forums and others how people have thrown their gaming experience all out of balance by putting to much time into one skill or another.

 

Bren

Hehe, ya my wife has been enjoying watching me play, but now she s on me to go kill stuff :) I promised her I would today when she gets home from work. She said, why the hell do you craft so much in this game and in MMOs you use me as her crafting whore :) She s right though.

Im playing on Default and i actually really enjoy it as, like someone previously said, enemies skills very. One moment im running to unobjective and i get stopped by a band of bounty hunters, or soemthing like that who had a contract on me, and i easilly dispatched them. But, the as im walking i encountered a Mage and he blew my ass up like i was a fly on the wall full of sticky paper and he had a flame thrower. 

I like this as the player walks into every fight never knowing just how difficult the enemy trully is. I guess in its own respect its kinda realistic. I mean no two humans fight as well let alone two different species. 

Skyrim for me gets a 9/10. i give it a nine because too many times i wish i could invite my best friend into my game so his mage and my warrior could play the game together. Such a game would be the perfect setting for 2 player coop. nothing more. no special games modes, no stupid scores and stats just 2 player coop.

So i sit read so much about  this that and your damn comments and i loved the game only compliant i come up with is  no damn coop yet for realz damn them but ya so here i am walking along and oh whats this a ruined tower with some shade from the sun and some pretty damn flowers hmnn i think more pots oh yeah then sudenly  the wind kicks up a sound of leaves  and then a scream  and what comes to like before  more some damned plant creature made from magic  im hit  ouch damn it hurts i run back start flinging arows at it hmnn plant thing need to set it on fire i set it on  fire oh yeah burn  babey burn  looking ouch nearly dead drink  potion after potion it dies i live saved from death was a good fight,  then how about them times your riding your damn horse and what looks to be like a pile of  damn rocks comes to life as a saber tooth damn tiger cat thing and it jumps on you and your damn horse and your horse  freeks out and runs off the damn cliff we both die cat wins try again.  ya so i moved my dificulty to  the hardest lv and i scene a huge difrence  in how the game plays  i stil sometimes get my 1 shot sneek kills  but most part it is very fun enjoyble and i must what use tacticts now hmnn lots of pots heal there here yep good times too bad i cant run around with a damn friend only complaint

I could never understand using cheats until I came to the last boss in Vampire the Masquerade and Christof could not kill that freak and I tried and I tried and I gave up and used a cheat. To this day in spite of finishing the game fairly without cheats until that point it has always tainted my memories of the game.

Difficulty depends on your build. The game is unbalanced as far as classes go. Spells don't scale nearly as well as weapons. The game was fairly easy on master with my first character, archer with sneak, smithing and enchanting. Once I got Smithing high enough (which is ridiculously easy to do). I crafted myself some of the best bows and improved them. Then enchanted my gear with enchantments that increase archery damage. I was able to one shot a lot of the NPCs safely from a distance.

My pure mage was a completely different. For starters, there are no enchantments that increase spell damage. The best you can hope for is for decreased magicka cost. Even then it is still a lot easier to run out of magicka then arrows in a fight. While all classes have access to perks to increase their damage, weapons get even better as you progess. Spells stay more or less the same.

I am playing it on Master as a battlemage setup.

I've got decent 1h weapon skills, alteration and restoration is getting up their. My conjuration is also moving up only because I use the bound weapon.

I've got cloth armor and I'm using the Stoneflesh skill in alteration to give me 180 armor rating which is pretty damn good. I use bound weapon and the heal. I will no doubt shift to real weapons as opposed to bound weapons eventually however.

I so far have had to play a trick on one guy and switch to using bows as it simply just was to anoying chipping away at a Bandit poacher who one shotted me with ice spikes. I couldn't melee him as being one hit wondered sucks. So I did some creative jumping to get into a place where the NPC couldn't get me. He would run away and hide when I did this so I would jump to a place he could get me, he would come at me, I would hit him with a few arrows then I would hide on the ledge again. Glitchy yes but it worked :D

Originally posted by Enerzeal

I am playing it on Master as a battlemage setup.

I've got decent 1h weapon skills, alteration and restoration is getting up their. My conjuration is also moving up only because I use the bound weapon.

I've got cloth armor and I'm using the Stoneflesh skill in alteration to give me 180 armor rating which is pretty damn good. I use bound weapon and the heal. I will no doubt shift to real weapons as opposed to bound weapons eventually however.

I so far have had to play a trick on one guy and switch to using bows as it simply just was to anoying chipping away at a Bandit poacher who one shotted me with ice spikes. I couldn't melee him as being one hit wondered sucks. So I did some creative jumping to get into a place where the NPC couldn't get me. He would run away and hide when I did this so I would jump to a place he could get me, he would come at me, I would hit him with a few arrows then I would hide on the ledge again. Glitchy yes but it worked :D

Yeah there are a lot of rather interesting glitches in the game.

I had this happen to me earlier tonight when I was caught pickpocketing (90% chance of success WTF)