This is always a thing with Bethesda games. Once I get to a certain point, I achieve what is basically demigod status, and I either have to start over from scratch, or, if I want to see the endgame, slog through a bunch of boring, broken feeling stuff that can't touch me.

Since level 50, I've felt like I'm swatting flies, even in survival mode. I'm not actually that good a player, it's just a thing with this style of game. I like to poke around at my own pace, investigate the nooks and crannies, and generally ignore the main story most of the time. But by the time I get around the main story, I can pretty much kill a deathclaw by farting on it.

I should've waited a few months. I have no doubt modders will fix this. Wish I knew how to do it myself, but even if I did, I've barely got time to play the game, let alone mod it.

I think most non-linear open-world games with character development have this. People like power fantasies, right? . I mean, I like that as well in some cases, but it shouldn't be there at the highest difficulty.

You could have some self-imposed limitations. Like not wearing an armour or whatever...

u could start new character using self limitations or play DiD mode

some of my limitations are:
-No Vats ever
-no perks affecting damage or damage resist
-remove target crosshair
-won't carry more than 1 of anything in AID section except 2 rad-X & rad-away and 5 stimpacks
-no fast travel
just to name a few

It's not only other games, Bethesda's games have always been like this, maybe they are guilty for doing this more than any other dev. And I have no problem with it, in fact I believe they've been nerfing the endgame power of their games if you compare to everything you could do in the past, back in the day you could really feel like an untouchable deity, flying everywhere and nuking [censored] at full speed without being scratched. That level of OPness has been decreasing more and more with each of their new games.

I like Bethesda for allowing their players to become godlike beings to such extremes, but I hate the fact that they nerf the endgames more while buffing the begginings. Their games have to make you start as a weakling that dies easily by everything, but let you end up as a walking deity after you invest time and work. The way they create games now, you start as terminator and end up as superman. And that makes it less rewarding. If it's for balancing purposes they have to add secret bosses and quests for endgame that require impossible feats. But I would hate to see future games with more limited endgames because players keep complaining about becoming too OP.

I think Bethesda deliberately designs their games on the easy side so that you can never have a "wrong" character build. I can understand why they'd go that direction for their games, and it does seem like they're trying to improve the challenge and balance the endgame, but yeah it'll still be easy. Especially if you pick a more ideal build for the game.

Spot on. It's a problem with most open world rpg's. I was godlike less than halfway through Witcher 3, as the latest example. Dragon Age Inquisition was more balanced in that respect, but I was still a force of nature long before the finale. With freedom comes responsibility.

As you have choices how you build your character,

the 'godlike' nature of your character really falls at your own door.

Any game that allows you to build and customize a character will suffer like this. The only solution is a doom/half-life type shooter where you just find better weapons along the way but your avatar stays the same

The game must be playable for all playstyles. Even those 1 END super smart and charismatic water tycoons who just build stuff. Also DLC might add some challenges. I remember getting eaten several times by the new dragons they put in Skyrim post release and those characters were well past 50.

that's really not possible. Especially in a game many will play for over a hundred hours on one run

I HAVE gone through places whacking Super Mutants in my Atom Cats outfit, just to make it sporting. After the power armor, it feels like I'm fighting in my skivvies...

But that's kind of the problem with ALL of the helpful suggestions in this thread, some of which I have done. If you're deliberately hosing yourself to make it a challenge, that's not fun. I know this is a thing, with open world games, gotta take the good with the bad. But as another poster said, Bethesda always seems to have it tilted extra hard in the beginning, extra easy at the end.

I agree. To some extent, gotta take the good with the bad. It's an open world game, meaning they've got to accommodate all skill levels, all styles. But I've always felt that Bethesda could ramp up the difficulty better, from start to finish. An area like the Glowing Sea, you'd get stomped flat if you went straight there. I think 3/4 of the map should be like that for a low level character. Personally, I'd be glad to sacrifice a smidge of the Open World thing if it meant that, for example, getting to Diamond City alive felt like a major, mid game achievement.

I am not sure if you made a mistake when quoting me or what, but you quote me twice to say different things. In your last post you even mention something I say like if I was another poster.

Something to help late game would be for things to actually start to level up too since you eventually backtrack to most locations frequently and it murders the difficulty to flatten the same level 17-23 enemies over and over. At least make it so old locations be 5 levels behind you once you reach higher levels.

Yep, I put the wrong quote in there. Oops.

Don't know why you would consider it 'hosing' yourself...like it's a bad thing.

It's just a different way of playing and completing the same game.

Not many other games give you the ability to finish a game without doing anything to your character except playing. You can take zero perks and wear underwear, or create a god character with perks wearing power armor. Or anything in between.

On top of that, you don't even need to do the main quest. Ever. And you can still play for 100s of hours.

ALL styles are playable. What other game gives you so many options and so much freedom in what to do and how to do it?

Hey, I HAVE spent hundreds of hours on open world games, so you're preaching to the choir there. But what I'm saying is that deliberately handicapping myself to create a challenge feels self defeating. What's the point of cool loot and better skills if I have to set them aside to enjoy the game. If I know any further advancement will make me even more overpowered, why go on. This is usually the point at which I get bored and stop playing.

Don't get me wrong, I spent stoopid amounts of time playing, and enjoying Skyrim. But I never did finish the main story, because of this late game problem.

What level are you? There comes a point where it's good to just start over and take a new path with your character development, knowing all the things you know now. And maybe not put off any quests you want to do?... at this point you'd be questing just for the story, I imagine.

Meh, its a natural side effect of these kind of games, even the old Fallout games had this problem if ya knew where all the good loot was.

To me this is the key. People play on Survival, then increase all damage output and resist. It's a bit counterproductive. Don't invest in those (as a bonus you can invest in other perks and get to use ALL weapons without penalty) and then adjust. Normal too easy? Try hard. Hard too easy? Very Hard too easy? Well then, go survival without any damage increase or resist.

You realize you don't have to pick perks anymore, right? It's entirely optional? Turning your character into an unstoppable walking harbinger of death and chaos is entirely on you? No one's turning your character into a demigod but you.

Here's what I'd do if I wanted to play a regular, average Wastelander.

- Wear regular clothes sans armor with no buffing whatsoever.

- No perks whatsoever.

- Only use a basic, unmodded weapon.

- Only carry what an actual human could feasibly carry. A baton and a pistol (ie, like the ones you find in Vault 111) and a handful of rad x/radway and stimpacks.

- Set special to all '4's so you're basically an average joe.

Enjoy!

I hate this.

Bethesda can't balance their game proper so the players had to avoid using content in order to have semblance of balance.

It's a shoddy job on Bethesda's part.

Self-limitations should be an option, not a necessity for balance.

Its not just Bethesda though. Most RPG's i've played the last few years have this problem. TW3, Pillars of Eternity, Wasteland 2 etc. You become godlike late game and its super silly.

So you want the game to set the limitations for you...which has the same result as you setting the limitations you set yourself.

With the massive amount of choices, self limitations, perk.options, gun options, armor/clothing options....it's limitless what you can do.

And using the word 'balance' when on a single player game makes no sense. No such thing. There isn't a single player game that has the options to self-adjust the player experience like Bethesda games.

I like Dark Souls...a lot...but it isn't 'balanced' either. I'm forced to upgrade my weapons and armor and I'm forced to place stats in the right areas in order to succeed. If I don't do it right, I'll probably fail and die a lot. In Bethesda games I don't have to do any of that of I don't want to...or I can only do part of it.

I'm curious what the "no self-nerfing" people feel about all the other various "self imposed challenge" things various people have done in the past in order to create more fun for themselves? Like Diablo 2 "naked" runs, or the various types of speedruns, or playing through Doom with just the chainsaw (or pistol)...... people making up new ways to do things, because they found a game either too easy, or no longer interesting the regular way, has been around in gaming since the beginning.

I know that a lot of people who do that, see it as a point of pride/honor/accomplishment that they managed to succeed at these private goals.

(heck, how about the "only one health bar" playthroughs of FO3 and NV that I saw articles about this past year....)

edit: anyway, in the end, Bethesda is never going to be From Software or 80's Nintendo. They're not going to provide a face-smashingly difficult "ub3r h4rdc0r3 d00d" experience. That's not the company they are. For the people who think that Arwen's maschism Mod is "more realistic" or a fun day at the park, that's going to be the only solution - mods. Which have the additional advantage that they're infinitely adjustable, so they can match each player's idea of what "hard" is (since it's different for everyone, and even legendarily "hard" games have Internet Tough Guys strutting around mocking them for being too easy.)