Bethesda admits Skyrim's difficulty was "influenced" : V - Skyrim

» Sun Apr 04, 2010 5:55 pm

"Bethesda admits Skyrim's difficulty was "influenced" by Fallout 3. Do you think this is a good thing?"

If you want Skyrim to fequently be described as "stupid easy," sure. Otherwise, no.

The first Fallout 3 was some sort of never-ending comic relief- you could walk through it blindfolded with your starting weapon and do pretty well, take off the blindfold and dominate.

Then along came ~~Broken Steel~~ Borked Steal (aka "the second Fallout 3") and the Attack of the Bullet Sponges- and it was still asburdly easy, until you ran into a Ghoul Reaver, Albino Radscorpion, or other bullet sponge- then it just became tedious. Same monster, massive armor and insane number of hit points.

No, I don't find the whole Fallout 3 comparison comforting in the least. :shrug:

Poll is biased, my vote is a plain unadorned "No."

» Mon Apr 05, 2010 8:04 am

This thread would have been alot more focused if the OP had said "Level Scaling" instead of "Difficulty".

While one does influence the other, they're not the same thing.

» Sun Apr 04, 2010 11:38 pm

I only played New Vegas but it was an improvement over Oblivion, and the AI seemed a lot better. I want Skyrim to aim for realistic difficulty, not just kill anything that moves cause it moves. Maybe there could be a survivability mode, giving the game difficulty more like a survival game.

» Sun Apr 04, 2010 11:23 pm

As long as there are no death claws. Unless I get a rocket launcher or sniper rifle.

Deathclaws was simple enough none of them survived a VAT session.
And you don't get a rocket launcher but a summon deathclaw spell

However with Fallout 3 difficulty I hope they also think of broken steel as I don't want the game to become a walkover at high levels

» Sun Apr 04, 2010 8:22 pm

Anything better than oblivions lol

» Mon Apr 05, 2010 4:38 am

I found several parts in Fallout 3 rather difficult, especially some of the longer "dungeons". The broken down old school was one of them. That place is very long and pretty difficult for a lower level character.

» Sun Apr 04, 2010 8:36 pm

There was essentially no difficulty curve in Oblivion, the only thing that determined difficulty was what skills you leveled and how many attributes per level up you got from them. You could make the game extremely easy by choosing major skills that you didn't need and could control level ups in, or extremely hard by having frequently used non-combat skills as majors.

To be fair Morrowind had much of the same issue, no NPC was not levelled but most hostile npc had crapy equipment anyway. random monsters who was the most common enemy was levelled Oblivion style, the lack of high level content made the game more forgiving at high levels as you did not get the 1000 HP goblin warlords.

» Mon Apr 05, 2010 2:59 am

Oh, I agree completely that there should be a better difficulty adjustment system. The one in Fallout 3 svcked. I still doubt that they could come up with one that would satisfy the most "l33t" people on the forums who're always complaining about how trivially easy the games are.

(Also, given how Beth has dealt with "difficulty" before - the Oblivion and Fallout 3 sliders, the "harder" enemies in Broken Steel and the other DLC, etc... I don't really have that much faith in them being actually able to make that "better difficulty system". :shrug:)

No argument there, I don't think it's possible to come up with a perfect leveling system. TSR/WOTC have been trying to do that for years with D&D.

But I'm pretty confident that with Skyrim leveling will no longer be such a chore. I can start thinking "My character needs to get better with a sword" rather then, "I need to hit that X5 Agility multiplier by sneaking around a dungeon even though that goes against my character design."

I still love Oblivion, planing to play it as soon as I finish typing this, but the leveling system svcked some of the fun and immersion out of the game.

» Sun Apr 04, 2010 8:12 pm

Im really not liking the fact that dungeons will 'set' their level based on when you enter them... This whole leveled thing just plain svcks, they should stop wasting their time on it imo. Im probably the minority in thinking this though.

» Mon Apr 05, 2010 6:56 am

It would be better if the difficulty was more like fallout new vegas or simply harder. In fallout 3 after like 3 hours of gameplay your character can make just about every creature you encounter explode in tiny bits except of course deathclaws. svck if skyrim is same deal, replace deathclaws with dragons.

» Mon Apr 05, 2010 7:38 am

This is exactly correct. It wasn't just that enemies became more powerful as you leveled, it was that, for a time, they became more difficult for your character to kill than their counterparts had been when you were at a lower level. Levels 10 through 18 were probably the most difficult and dangerous time for your character to exist in the world. Too strong to run into many weak enemies, too weak to really pawn the stronger ones. And maybe there was some sense in that, but it soon ran off the rails and got carried away.

And it hurt the game experience. It not only made your character seem less powerful and unique once they had attained a certain level, but it also made powerful enemies seem less special and unique as well. When EVERY dungeon you enter is completely teeming with some of the most powerful enemies in the game ( half-a dozen goblin warlords in every goblin cave you come across, or half- a dozen gloom wraiths and liches in lurking in EVERY other room of EVERY dungeon, Daedric Forts where the Valkynaz [Dremora Princes] and Xivalai outnumber the Kynmarchers[Dremora sherieffs and field seargents] by seven to one). . . it makes game play tedious, and completely steals away the intimidation and awe that the games more powerful denizens are supposed to command.

Constantly scaling up everything damages plausibility.Its like if in Lord of THe Rings, Gandalf The Gray returned in his more powerful incarnation. . . and in order to balance it, Saruman sends, instead of uber-orcs, and army of Balrogs to assail Helm's Deep, or if Luke masters his Jedi skills, only to find that the Death Star is manned ENTIRELY by an army of hundreds of well trained Sith Lords. For one thing, it tends to defy logic. How in the hell would Saruman have gotten a hold to an army of ancient Demon Lieutenants? Also it marginalizes the advancement of the heroes and the granduer of their enemies. What would the point of Luke mastering The Force have been if the end result was that every enemy he encountered would also have become a master of The Force? And if every soilder in every enemy force is a Captain among Ancient Demons or an evil master of The Force, then what is so special about a Balrog or Darth Vader, anyway?

And that ties in to what the OP said about how at level 20 it took the guards a long time to do him in. In a phrase, after level 20, its supposed to. The 20th level doesn't mean the same thing in gaming circles that it used to, but there was a time, in the ancient days of Dungeons and Dragons and game boards with multiple players campaigning as a party of heroes in an old school RPG game, when Level 20 was a big f******** deal. Lesser mages, for example, could only cast spells so many times before they would have to memorize them again, but at level 20 you could cast lightning bolts out of your fingers, your butt and your eyes all day long without a backwards glance. 20 was where you went from being a hero to being a virtual demigod. To reach the 20th level was to shatter through the glass ceilling between heroic and Legendary. And legendary meant you were smarter than the average bear, and tougher than the average goblin warlord.

This

» Sun Apr 04, 2010 7:39 pm

This thread is founded on misconception and tarnished with troll juice

» Mon Apr 05, 2010 10:05 am

I just hope that the ennemies make leveling feel like an achievement. that's all. I don't care how "easy" or insanely difficult it can get. I just want to bite the dust at level 1 and be almost unstoppable at level 70.

And please don't make rats have more HP than I do... that's just BAD

» Sun Apr 04, 2010 10:19 pm

People always go on about how broken oblivions difficulty was but I left it on normal and didn't find it very hard at all. Around level 40 I did notice that fights with enemies took a long time, but they weren't hard. I just felt that the enemies and I had to much health. So I wouldn't have cared if they had kept it the same.

» Sun Apr 04, 2010 11:24 pm

This

Glad to be of service. :tops:

» Sun Apr 04, 2010 6:04 pm

Glad to be of service. :tops:

I was about to say Ainur, you took the words right out of my mouth, but I said them anyway. ^_^

» Mon Apr 05, 2010 4:44 am

Personally I think the fallout 3 difficulty curve was much better , some peope may think it was simple but just think back to when all you had was a hunting rifle and you were having a turf war with an army of super mutants , like rileys rangers , that was a hard mission , now i while a bit difficult , one or two tries of the same approach but a little more prepared which is what i found but if its not challenging enough then go to setting and set the gameplay to hard ( i know thats facepalmingly obvious) but playing through fallout 3 on hard , you really had to use your head , lots of ammo and stimpaks wasn't all you counted on , you really needed to think it through. I found oblivion with normal setting , challenging enough in some aspects but put the difficulty up to very hard it is not an understatement , it's impossible !
I know my answer is obvious "turn up the difficulty" but it is that simple , but it's because it is , the customizable difficulty is there so it fits the skills of everyone , of course it's gonna be too easy if your playing well past your skill level.

As for the Perks , it's nothing like fallout in case any were wondering , it was stated that the perks are more like the WoW talent tree oh and you can get 50 perks per playthrough but there are 280 in total , hear it from Todd himself -->
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hfRe16V3YA8

» Sun Apr 04, 2010 7:25 pm

"It's similar now to what we did in Fallout 3," he revealed, "where we changed it a lot. We now have the ability to set a dungeon and say that 'this dungeon is this hard', so when you come in it will look at you and adjust its difficulty level. But it might be much harder, just because of what it is.

"It also saves the state of the monsters. So if you come in and at the side it says, 'okay, this is going to be hard for your character' - and it might be much easier because of how we set it - but it won't change its difficulty if you leave."

______

I sort of like the idea of certain dungeons being difficult for you character, but I also like choosing my difficulty some times.

» Mon Apr 05, 2010 5:21 am

I created a Fallout 3 overhaul mod that fixed all these issues [my Realism Tweaks], but it took me FOREVER before I was able to play the game in the way that I felt it should have been made in the first place. Now I'm worried that Skyrim won't be any more challenging than Fallout 3 was for me . . . and I really don't want to spend months working on another major overhaul . . . just so I can play the game in the way that I feel it should be played. [Making huge overhauls on my own is VERY time consuming . . .I'm still releasing updates for both my FO3 Tweaks and my FONV Tweaks. I'd much rather just play the game, but it is no fun for me unless the game play is challenging.]

You make it sound as if the developers must actively consult you for every decision they make with their games.

I don't need the game to provide all the challenge for me. I can always make weaker characters and/or use weaker items. The developers can never know what I find challenging, since my personal skill and experience keep changing, making things that seemed to be difficult feel easy.

» Sun Apr 04, 2010 10:28 pm

How in the world did you get THAT from what I wrote?

Apparently you just enjoy insulting people here. Go bother someone else.

» Sun Apr 04, 2010 9:08 pm

Personally I think Fallout 3 had really good difficulty. Tbh, Fallout was really difficult for me at first. I hadn't played a game like it before and struggled to adjust to it. I wasn't really good at the game, but once I started to level up and get perks and get power armor the game became very easy. I think it's good for a game to start off hard and should be easier later on as a reward for your character leveling up.

» Sun Apr 04, 2010 10:38 pm

And please don't make rats have more HP than I do... that's just BAD

Not this again. Why do so many people still think that there was such a thing as level 20 Rats, that simply wasn't the case at all. In Oblivion, rats were never more than level 1 and a minor nuisance at best. If you had a higher level than that, they were just replaced by some other, more powerful creature that more closely matched your level. And sometime not even that happened, a level 1 rat would still turn up since all levels in a list were possible. Too many people carry on about the evils of level-scaling without having a clue how it actually works.

» Mon Apr 05, 2010 8:50 am

How in the world did you get THAT from what I wrote?

The point that he was trying to make, in a most untactful way of course, was that one person's difficulty can be another person's impossible game. Everyone has different degrees that they'll tolerate when playing these types of games, and while it may have seemed too easy for you, other people may have found it to be challenging. Just like graphics, game difficulty is highly subjective.

» Mon Apr 05, 2010 8:27 am

Double post.

» Mon Apr 05, 2010 3:18 am

A working difficulty slider would be a nice start. Both Fallout 3 and New Vegas were ridiculously easy, and a difficulty slider that only increases enemies hitpoints does not increase difficulty!

FWE and Arwen's tweaks are the kind of difficulty i want. Enemies aren't that diffcult to kill, but neither are you, and since enemies always outnumber you you better not be seen, much less hit. Two Powder Gangers throwing dynamite with Arwen's tweaks are whole lot more dangeous than Old Olney in unmodded Fallout 3 :lmao:

However i too am of the last century's gamers who grew up with ridiculously diffcult NES games. I acknowledge the fact that mainstream games will can not be made that diffcult, which is why i'll buy Skyrim for PC and let the modding community fix the game balance

Or play S.T.A.L.K.E.R. [censored] poltergeists! :swear:

Bethesda admits Skyrim's difficulty was &#34;influenced&#34;

Bethesda admits Skyrim's difficulty was "influenced"