Exactly, there was no difficulty curve because everything leveled with you. While I would prefer a completely unleveled world I think the FO3 system is still miles ahead of Oblivion's system (which was, to me at least, one of the worst gameplay mechanics I have ever seen in a game).

I remember when I first played Oblivion without knowing anything about the inner workings of the game. My character had athletics, alchemy and probably some other non-combat skills as majors and I mainly leveled up due to these skills. I entered the Kvatch gate at around level 10 for the first time. It was quite hard and I ran out of health potions before I even reached the Sigil tower, so I decided to level up a bit and find some better gear. When I came back at level 15 (including better gear) it was impossible. That was the point where I found out something was terribly wrong with the game. Without mods I probably wouldn't even know that Skyrim was announced because I would have lost interest in ES games.

I guess I just must be an extremely badass gamer, because after hitting Level 10 in Oblivion, FO3, or NV, I basically couldn't die, unless I fell off a mountain or something. Oblivion was the worst. After Level 20, I could go into the Imperial Palace, kill a guard, then when the other guards run up and start hitting me, I would put my controller down, go in the kitchen and make a sandwich, come back, and my health would only be about a quarter of the way down. This is on the default difficulty, 100% Legit, no glitches or mods.

THE DIFFICULTY SLIDER IS A FOCKING JOKE ANY DECENT MODDER COULD CREATE THE SAME EFFECT IN A FEW HOURS OF WORK! I WANT THE DIFFICULTY SETTING TO ACTUALLY DO SOMETHING MEANINGFUL (MORE ENEMIES, MORE AGGRESSIVE AI, OR ANYTHING, REALLY) BESIDES MAKING EACH FIGHT A 5-MINUTE DAMAGE SOAK.

Whether it be Elder Scrolls or Fallout, I have been thoroughly entertained.

Remember a time when people played video games because they were fun, entertaining? What happened to that? Why continue to [censored] and gripe over what you have read, heard, or created in your mind and wait for the F***ING game to release. Then play it, then [censored], gripe, and complain if it is necessary to do so.

I've found hours upon hours of entertainment from various RPG's. From the aforementioned greats, to lesser ones like Fable and, the heavily rushed, Two Worlds!!

Stop leaving your decisions to here-say and speculation and play the game.

A challenge? Kickass! :trophy:

I had Blade, Restoration, Alteration, Conjuration, and Heavy Armor and Security. I always wore Light Armor, and used spells to open locks in order to control my skill gains.

In some areas the game kinda punished you for leveling over 25. I am going to post a thread on one aspect of that. As a magic focused character, I discovered that certain spells had a cap on the level of enemies they could effect. The max was 25, in keeping with the soft level cap for the player. HOWEVER, some enemy types had no caps and leveled with the player (goblin warlords, vampires etc), so I reached a point, for example, where more than half of the undead in the game were immune to the most powerful turn undead spell that the game allowed you to have or create. What a pissoff!

As long as they aren't just transplanting the system.

Fallout 3's difficulty curve and scaling was very good, compared to Oblivion, but I always felt that instances of weaker enemies got phased out too aggressively, though in Oblivion, they got phased out almost entirely. There needs to be more diverse use of lower-end enemies, in tandem with high-level enemies to mix up the linear combat dynamic a little. Overused word of the century comes up once more, but it really boils down to contrast between engagements.

Of course, the 'sweet spot' depends entirely on Skyrim's combat feel. Are they going to keep the tedious 10,000 slash battles of Oblivion? Or gravitate more torwards Morrowind and New Vegas's emphasis on quick, high-stakes battles? Maybe it's just a personal preference, but I seem to believe that keeping most of the battles brief, but high stakes, is the best, of course, you'll have Dragons in Skyrim to satiate your "Epic long-period battle", but it's important those are few and far between, to keep them rewarding.


Also, Unrestricted enemy Scaling = Always bad. As the example above, Goblin Warlords/Vampires. If you have to scale something to keep a challenge to the player late in the game, it's better to just scale the damage the enemy can inflict, rather than it's HP or defense. A pretty good example of this, is in Point Lookout, where a lot of the swampfolk gain a large (And mostly unreasonable, since it circumvents defense) damage bonus. With maybe an HP reduction, that's sort of the direction combat should be headed in at higher difficulties.

Yes, I am 27 years old, I do remember the good old NES, Super NES, and Genesis days. And you know what? THAT'S WHEN GAMES WERE ACTUALLY CHALLENGING, UNLIKE NOW WHEN EVERY GAME DEVELOPER WANTS TO REACH THE "MASS MARKET", SO THEY MAKE THEIR GAMES GEARED TOWARD 12-YEAR OLDS, SO THEY'LL ALL BEG MOMMY AND DADDY FOR IT THIS CHRISTMAS.

Hate to burst your bubble here, but I heard that the dragons are possible one-hit kills, you can slash it's neck after you "use a dragon shout to engage slow-mo." (?) Also, I agree with you on the thing about high-stakes battles. I don't want a 5-minute damage soak to be required to kill one enemy. I just don't want my own character to have an absurd amount of HP, as has been the case after I reach only Level 10 or so (which takes only about 10 hours of play) in OB, FO3 , & NV. I hope the Skyrim command console is available on launch day, I'll just nerf my own HP level again like I did in all the other Bethesda games. My Level 30 Fallout 3 and NV characters now only have 100 HP each, and it's still easier than, say, Halo on Legendary mode.

I usually reached between 44 and 50 with my OB characters, depending on how much time I wanted to spend with each. It did take absolute Attribute control to get to 50, which was a pain in the ass.

The new system will fix that.

As for difficulty - Never once did I have an issue with it, aside from the level-scaling, difficulty bar, and crazy weird weapon damage. Aside from those, OB was fine. And Skyrim is all about fixing those issues, so I'm very happy with what we've been shown and told.

EDIT: Also, DarkBrotherhoodofSteel, go play Ninja Gaiden 2. Or just stop [censored]ing about how games used to be. Hell, you should be happy they passed the "cheats" phase of videogames and at least they're headed back in the right direction. Games are entertainment, and they are made to be enjoyable to their audience. What's enjoyable to you is sometimes not what's enjoyable to the millions of other people who will buy a game. Stop judging everyone based on your opinion, please.

You want a challenge? Join the military and try to be a Ranger, SEAL, Marine Force Recon, Fighter Pilot, etc. If videogames are the epitomy of a challenge that you seek to surpass in your life, you need better goals.

Daggerfall difficulty please. :hehe:

FUNNILY ENOUGH BETHESDA DON'T MAKE GAMES FOR A SMALL NEGATIVE GROUP SUCH AS YOURSELF , BUT ACTUALLY MAKE GAMES FOR MONEY BECAUSE THEY ARE A BUSINESS .... Jeez some people are so ignorant and selfish.

And where did you hear that?


Anyway, that's not necessarily bad, and trust me, it's not bursting any "Bubble" of mine. Honestly, That's how I'd prefer it, over the infamous damage sponges of Oblivion. Maybe a "Win the game" trick like that isn't necessarily what I'd like to see, but as long as it's properly balanced, as in, you have to use the Highest-tier of Slow time, with the correct timing so that the Dragon has left itself open, and then, you have to score a Critical-hit with an already-powerful and max-perk'd weapon to achieve the "One-hit kill".

LOL. With the right Major skills & some occasional jail time, level management was easy.
Got to level 64 on Oblivion for 360

Personally, I don't want the dragons to be easy. At all. I don't want to fight one until my late 30s. Even then it should be incredibly challenging.

I have played Ninja Gaiden 2, I enjoyed it, and no, I couldn't beat it. I'm okay with that. I had fun while playing it because it was a challenge. I'm not really sure how you brought the military into it, I said I wanted a challenge in GAMES, not REAL LIFE. I will just jog a few miles to the local rock climbing spot when I want that kind of a challenge, or maybe have a good dirt bike race with my friends.

It's true that I'm speculating too much about a game that isn't even out. My problem here is that I am looking forward to Skyrim as much as you all, but given Bethesda's RECENT TRACK RECORD (OB, Fallout 3, & NV) I am expecting there to be very little, if ANY challenge in this game.

I guess I just must be an elite gamer.

THANK GOD SOMEBODY UNDERSTANDS WHERE I AM COMING FROM!

Obviously it influenced Skyrim's difficulty... it was the last big game they did. The devs even said they see FO3 as a technological sequel to Oblivion, and Skyrim a technological sequel to FO3.

I actually found that in Oblivion, if you waited until you were around level 20 or so, and then stated the main quest, you encountered the same number of enemies as if you were level 1... but WAAAY stronger ones. Basically you were screwed when you got to Kvatch. Because of this... I really didn't care for Oblivion's difficulty system. I felt forced to turn it down... and frankly, I can't stand to play on anything below normal. However, that's really more so a problem with leveled creatures as opposed to difficulty.

Yes, but an extreme Bias is given to enemy damage output, instead of a perfectly linear progression. Also, anchor points are a lot easier to focus test to find a good balance.

I hate the leveling system in Oblivion. I stayed at level one as long in the game as I could, which wasnt benefitting but at least I wasnt getting killed by highwaymen who had NO business killing me in the middle of my work. But I am not too impressed with the Fallout system, that game was easy other then Deathclaws... maybe too easy. But it wont make the game bad, I think they know what they are doing

It wasn't so much the HP alone, as it was the whole Damage Resistance mechanic that The Elder Scrolls games, and Fallout 3 tend to favor. I really hope they adopt a "Damage Threshold" approach like New Vegas. It's just all-round a better system that differentiate weapon strengths, as it does Armor choices.

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.

EDIT: Above post = Win. Level-Scaling is stupid.



The military is a good real life example. :shrug: I'm not going for put downs, btw, just making a point about differing opinions.

Anyway, on that note, while you may be a self-described "elite gamer", that doesn't exclude others from having enjoyable gameplay that fits their tastes. Options are king. I would be very happy to see Skyrim be somewhere between OB and Ninja Gaiden, actually. :toughninja:

The issue is that TES games are OWRPGs, not action games, or FPSs, or anything else. They don't require the experience to be tremendously difficult to get through to fulfill the purpose of the game as an entertainment media. The TES games are also not multiplayer games, therefore they're not designed to be competitive. The experience is key, not the difficulty.

And btw, you should finish NG2. It feels better to get it done than any other game I've played. Then you'll be "elite".

You dont want to fight dragons for the first 200 hours..in a game about dragons? :-/

Same deal with the OP, give it a rest, Bethesda is your DM. No one wants to play your cRPG. The player would never make it out of their prison cell. The key to combat challenge in a GIANT game like this is balance. BGS has been improving their systems with every game, keeping them deep while making them more accesible to people who like fantasy but not spreadsheets, providing everything from cannon fodder to "Jesus a DeathClaw!" and now giants and dragons!!! BGS is white-hot right now and only a fool would doubt them!

Not to mention...this games final boss? AKATOSH?!?! Methinks it will be an epic finale. (Alduin is a physical manifestation of Akatosh, yes? Ive been scouring the lore for clues as to why the creator and protector of man is going to eat the world. It sounds old-testament, like he finds men lacking, and breaking the amulet of kings gave him an excuse to get get all wrathful.) Sounds like a helluva fight to me...

Be seeing you!

Wow. This is incredibly selfish. Its you mister OP, have dedicated your life to the difficulty of the game. Going as far as to edit a Skyrim symbol onto an easy button.
Bethesda cannot cater to one style of gameplay. There are those that find it hard and those that find it easy. The best Bethesda can do is give us the difficulty slider.
Oblivion was so much hard as it was repetitive, I would lose patience with the game at higher levels. Enemies would have huge chunks of health and it would wilt away as the battle progressed, after fifteen minutes you bring it down to near death, then they'd heal and its all over again.
Fallout 3 was only easier because of VATs.