I always buy the Elder Scroll games by Bethesda the first week they are available. I play them for hours and really enjoy them until....I break them. Every one of them is breakable by some advanced skill or crafting technique(or other design flaw). In Oblivion, for example, I just made all my armor invisible. I was then invincible and suddenly the game was no longer fun. In Skyrim it seems that advanced crafting will break the game, although I'm sure there will be more ways.
I just don't understand why Bethesda lets all their hard work go waste, by allowing such preventable flaws to occur. Why would you want to play when there is no longer a challenge- especially when the problem could be so easily fixed?

I don't understand why a person that likes to game would do a massive exploit like making the chameleon suit for any reason other than goofing around for a bit. But to do it because the developer gave you the flexibility to try it, and then complain about it because you OPTIONALLY made yourself invincible in your single player game is actually pretty silly, if you think about it.

I like blueberries, they are my favorite fruit in the world. I can eat a cup of them and really enjoy them. Or I can eat a bucket full of them because they are there on the counter and make myself ill. Is it the blueberries fault they are so delicious?

Yes, yes it is their fault. They MADE me eat them! <_<

But yes, this is a very important point: ANY game that gets complex enough has ways you can break it. In fact, if they were entirely un-breakable, they wouldn't be as fun. And this really extended to older games, too, from the 90s and even 80s. (for instance, see: "Lord British Postulate," which was exemplified in Oblivion by the fact you could kill Mehrunes Dagon)

If one breaks the game to where it's no longer fun, then one should avoid breaking the game so far. It's kind of like cheat codes or the built-in command console in the PC version. If it makes the game no fun to just go in and "toggle god mode," then by all means don't do it! Kind of silly to claim that one can't resist... They're not blueberries, after all.

I disagree. There doesn't HAVE to be ways to become invincible. This is especially true today when they can use patches. Also, by simply improving your skills or doing things the developers INTENDED you to do at some point, you break the game. It's not some bug or exploit in most cases.

How can you call making the chameleon suit an exploit? Making your armor invisible was a designed feature of the game. An exploit is where you take advantage of an unintentional bug in the game to get an unfair advantage.

Irrespective of anything being an exploit or not, the fact is that you have the choice to be OP or not. I mean, when I found out that 100% chameleon is identical to invisibility, but it doesn't go away when you interact with things, I didn't rush out to make it just because I could: This is an RPG, and my character wouldn't do something like that. And hey, neither would I: I like challenge, so I keep it that way.

So why don't you just not do something that removes challenge from the game? I mean, that's essentially like turning the difficulty down, as was stated before.

This is YOUR PROBLEM, not the game's. Bethesda added the feature not because they INTENDED you to use it, but because they wanted it to be an OPTION for you. You aren't playing the game wrong if you choose not to get a big advantage in the game.

If it was an MMO these things would be a problem.
In a SP game they aren't IMO.
You have the choice to make the game a lot easier or harder depending on how you choose to play it without touching the difficulty slider. It allows the game to appeal to a much wider range of people.

Some of these flaws are difficult or impossible to avoid. If you've spent the entire game building on your skill/stats/amour etc. and now you've simply become invincible, that is a design flaw. Why should challenge disappear as you approach the highest levels of experience? In the single player RPG's I grew up with, the challenge actually increased at the highest levels. In other words, you needed to be maxed out in your chosen skills in order to do end game content.

I think you missed the point. You keep presenting the acquisition of permanent invisibility as an inevitability: The fact is, this is a game where YOU DO WHAT YOU WANT, and if you think that just because you CAN do something means you HAVE TO, then you don't understand how an RPG works.

Let me present you with something of an anology: In real life, you can "break" life by disregarding women and entertainment and focusing on nothing but acquiring currency. As you get more, all of life's challenges disappear.

Do you understand the problem with that strategy? You CAN do that, but it's BORING. It is boring to become OP like that. Besides, who says that "winning" means "beating everything"? I thought winning meant "Being as happy as possible"? Well in an open-ended RPG, there's no "winning", there's HAVING FUN.

Some people have fun getting 100% invisibility. Others don't. Skyrim, just like Minecraft and Legos, is about doing what YOU think is fun. It's only as difficult as you want it to be.


So, let me ask you a question: if this is so bad, do you think the presence of a difficulty slider is a bad thing too, since on easy you can basically never die?

I have no problem with the difficulty slider or making the game easy to beat IF I WANTED TO. I want to play the game straight up and NOT have my normal, high level gear and abilities(later in the game) remove all challenge to the game. I'm not talking about making invisible armor. I'm talking about just leveling up my gear and skills as one normally does in any RPG. Simply getting high level gear and the inevitable high level skills should not make combat trivial.

Do me a favor: Turn the difficulty setting up a notch. Try it out, you might like the results.

They maintain a particular level of difficulty scaling in Skyrim that allows players to feel more powerful as the game progresses. This is because in Oblivion, the game got too hard at higher levels because they scaled it another direction, so you felt powerless, and in Morrowind, you were locked into playing a particular order of quests because they were leveled without scaling, so you were stuck playing the same low level quests before the higher level ones EVERY TIME YOU PLAYED.

Think of it this way: An RPG is all about character skill, not player skill. So, in a player-skill based game, as you get better at playing the game, you turn the difficulty up. In Skyrim, when your character gets more powerful and it gets too easy, you turn the difficulty up.

I'll give it a try.

They are not. They are neither difficult nor impossible for me to avoid. They are difficult or impossible for you to avoid.

You assume that since you have a problem everybody has a problem. This is a logical fallacy, as Leydenne has already pointed out with her blueberry example.

Lets look at another example. When people want to regulate movies or video games they point to a tiny number of people who exhibit violent behavior after viewing a violent movie or playing a violent video game. They extrapolate from this that everybody is in danger of becoming violent after viewing one of these movies or playing these video games. And therefore, they say, violent movies and video games ought to be regulated. Of course, as we all know, normal, well-adjusted people do not exhibit violent behavior after watching a violent movie or playing a violent video game. The problem lies not with the movie or video game, but with an individual who could not control his impulses.

It is the same here on a smaller scale. The vast majority of us feel no compulsion to make a chameleon suit. We are not tempted. It is not fun for us, therefore we do not do it. Most people do not do things they don't want to do just because the opportunity is available.

So the question is: should all of us be regulated because something causes a problem for a tiny percentage of us? I say no. Movies, video games - or chameleon suits - that cause problems for a tiny percentage of us and are harmless for the rest of us should not be regulated.

Yes it is the blueberries fault.

I am quoting myself here because you apparently didn't read or comprehend this entry. As I said, it's not all about the invisibility suit. Many other normal advances in the game make combat trivial. Some examples I've read on this forum are a) advanced smithing making armour over powered, b. advanced enchanting making items too powerful, and c) the 1000+ damage from the rogue backstab ability. All of these occur from natural progression through the game. You don't have to try to break the game or do anything outside of normally advance your skill trees. Each one of them will make combat trivial for most people.

Actually he has a point. Hear me out on this one: If the game is made in such a way that a character inevitably becomes invincible after a while, then that IS kind of a game flaw. If the character makes a chameleon(invisibility)armor, then that should not automatically make him invincible - instead you should start meeting enemies wearing chameleon armor too! Eventually someone will make a "dispell invisibility"-helmet, and that is the end of the exploit! The problem here is not with allowing players to get very powerfull, but the problem is a game that not scales with his power.

note: That said - I hated the fact that Daggerfall became impossible to complete as you reached a high enough level (invincible opponents). But imagine how cool Skyrim would be if there was a digital 'library' in-game where you could reas:
"Sir Lancelot the Thief was the first person to make 'jump-boots' with a 'featherfall'-spell at the magical academy. He used it to jump from roof to roof and avoid the guards. As a result we have ordered a set of like boots to be distributed to every guard in the city."

Okay, so that would increase the complexity of the game, but the system could be like in Mordor (old game for Win 3.11 - Win 95) where a digital library on every item existed:
"Sir (1623-1675 AD) was the first to slay a in the dungeons."
or
" was the first to find a 'Sword of the Winds' in the dungeons. It is now for sale in the local market."
Ha, imagine something like that for an expansive game like Skyrim

Anyway; that solves the problem of items that make heroes invincible. Just build the game to grow with the heroes

When the game becomes "breakable", you have three options:
1) When your character becomes "invincible" just make a new one
2) Change your playing style. Limit yourself. Role play. Something like "I will kill my opponents only with fists" or "My character has magic allergy, it will not use any magical item" or "I'm a pacifist, and I won't kill ANY creature or person". The list goes on and on.
3) Install a mod that will offer you a challenge once again.

Hope this helps!

If all else fails, dont wear armor, stop using magic, only heal up when you sleep and use your bare fists to kill everyone with MAX difficulty....that my friend will present you with a challenge. :toughninja:

Ok I'm fighting naked with my bare fists this time....

Seriously, I did buy the game today and look forward to many hours of fun. I'm just trying to avoid that "let down" feeling I get after many hours of building my character, only to find the combat has again become a breeze.

This issue drives me crazy. It's not that TES games are poorly balanced - that's perfectly fine in a single player game. It's that TES games aren't balanced PERIOD. Like, not even an attempt is made. One of thousands of examples: in Oblivion, Speechcraft's entire functionality is completely trumped by a single spell in Illusion or a few gold pieces. Any developer would have realized after five seconds that the skill design is totally out of whack. But they didn't care.

"Balance is pointless in a single player game! If you don't like being too strong then don't do things that are too strong!" <-- this argument falls apart when I have to pass up like half the skills, spells, and items I find if I want there to be gameplay in my game. In Morrowind this was pretty much literally true. That is not fun.

We should not have to choose between having awesome skills and weapons and having a decent challenge.

I should be able to think and act strategically without worrying that I'm going to destroy the game.

I've learned my lesson by now.. I'm definitely going to buy Skyrim eventually, but not until some modders who give a damn about gameplay work on it.

Modding things out is one solution but choosing not to abuse poorly designed mechanics is just as effective. Both are a choice you make.

I've been playing the game for a few days now, and even on the Easy difficulty, with high end armor and weapons, combat is challenging, they truly did improve on everything in this game, including the combat system.

I disagree with this, totally. The developers have provided our characters with multiple ways to achieve the same goal, because it is a roleplaying game.

None of the "issues" raised in this thread affect my games. Why? Because I roleplay. And I think that's the crux of the issue here: a difference in play styles and expectations between roleplayers and non-roleplayers. Roleplaying is all about self-imposed limitations. A roleplayer takes some actions with some characters and avoids those same actions with other characters.

Take this Speechcraft example. Some of my characters would die before they even thought about bribing someone; I don't bribe when playing that character. Some of my characters do not use magic; an Illusion spell is not an option when playing that character. A mage character wouldn't lower himself by bribing. A thief character, on the other hand, might prefer to bribe before he tried any other avenue of persuasion. These options allow me to roleplay different types of characters.

There is no right way to play this game. If a player does not choose to roleplay, that's fine. These games can be fun when we powergame as well. I've done it a few times myself and had great fun. But we need to stop and remember: this is a roleplaying game. If one chooses not to roleplay when one plays a roleplaying game, that's fine. But don't complain that the game is not balanced if one does not play the game the way it was designed to be played. That's a little like saying that Half-Life is "fatally flawed" because it doesn't allow me to level my character through skills and attributes.

From a Skyrim perspective, I think that the balance is great. I'm currently finding things can be as hard or as easy as I want them to be as I sneak around in light armor for the most part, I use the restoration spells (only 1 perk) when I need them, switch from daggers or bow to sword and shield on difficult fights. If I feel like challenging myself on a dungeon crawl, I will equip regular clothes and a single dagger in my main hand and try to complete the dungeon as an unarmored thief. That is the beauty of the game.

I actually intend on taking a character from start to finish with just regular clothes and a dagger, specialising in speechcraft, lockpicking, pick pockets and stealth.