Anyone else find the game abit boring at high levels?

Loot and money were a big part when starting out. Loot to get better armor/weapons, or rare stuff to sell them at a high price so you could buy weapons/armor and improve stuff like Smithing

Im level 44 now tho and no shop has decent weapons better than the ones i have at the moment, and loot is poor too. Given up looting bodies or chests as i know they wont have anything better than i current have.

So for a game that uses loot as a big game mechanic, it becomes pointless later on

This is one of the big problem of skyrim...

I enjoyed my first character all the way until I retired them at lv56 / ~90-100 hours, having finally gotten around to finishing the MQ & Civil War. Looting the whole way. But, then, I enjoy looting in these games, even if it's just random stuff I'm going to sell.


(Also, in TES games, I don't tend to buy stuff in shops. Oblivion, only thing I buy is repair hammers and spells needed for enchanting. Shops don't have great gear for me at high level? I wouldn't expect them to. I'll find those or craft them. Actually, when my first character ended, she was wielding Dawnbreaker and a looted Daedric sword. Improved with Smithing.)

That's pretty much the same with all TES titles.

Skyrim got boring by the mid-30s.

Hmm... well, that's definitely a matter of opinion. I don't agree, but it may have been my build. It was actually at level 30 and beyond that I started playing daily.

I'm on level 73 with my main playtrough and i still find new places/quests and new incentives to play it; sometimes i switch to another character/playtrough for obvious reasons.

Of course i don't play the game with the same excitement of the first days,its normal; however,as soon as i got bored i will not play it anymore until the Dlcs will come.

This is extraordinary if you consider that for the developers even 100 hours of gaming its a goal. And even more if you've played the old Tes games too,'cause at the end its the same soup with some new ingredient.

Boring at "high levels" ? its normal,what games last forever ? but if you're at level 44 you've yet a lot of stuff to discover,i'm sure. Even from "looting".

Did you level smithing by any chance? If so, there's your problem.

This is common with all Elder Scrolls games. At high level, rewards are less significant, encounters are less dangerous and as a result, exploration is less interesting.

Oblivion's level scaling attempted to solve this, but opened up a whole new realm of problems. Instead of the game becoming boring when we already experienced it (Morrowind), the game became boring much earlier, because we could predict what was around the next corner before having even been there. (Oblivion)

They could probably solve the issue with a little more creativity, and a lot more time.

-Ultra-high level enemies
-Much better economy balance (Oversaturation of gold kills 93% of the quest rewards in the game)
-Unique items more common, they don't even have to be leveled, or even good. Just finding rare stuff is often motivation enough for a lot of players (Treasure-hunter mentality) but they have to actually be unique. Example: Cleaver of Saint Felms in Morrowind. A mediocre axe (Also tied to a Temple quest, but not exclusive to it) that looks like no other axe in the game. Worth mounting on my wall if you ask me.

Not necessarily. I leveled Smithing on my character who still enjoyed exploring and looting into the 50's. Of course, I didn't level it too fast (hit 100 @ lv48), and I didn't level enchanting, so any magic gear I found was better than anything I could make.

But still.... my current character has been speed-leveling smithing (70 so far, at around lv29) so that I can try out a bunch of mod armors that are obtained by crafting. Still enjoy looting and exploring. But I guess it's a personality thing. Even if I go through a dungeon and just find stuff to sell, I still enjoyed the search and the looting.


I know what you're talking about, I just had that experience on my latest Skyrim char. Did for the first time, and got some of those transparent "ghost" weapons. They're not great to use, but they look excellent in the weapon displays. It would be nice if there were more "unique" models & textures.

There is a reason NPCs stop leveling at around level 35. It's because by then, you will have maxed your primary combat skills, and hence your damage and defense won't increase very much (except with item upgrades). Beyond that, leveling other combat skills won't make you much stronger, because you can't swing a sword and shoot a bow or fire magic at the same time.

The big problem is that the crafting skills add tremendous amount of power to a character, and the level scaling isn't designed to cope with that beyond level 35, particularly if you level multiple professions. So, if you want a consistent challenge, it's best to steer clear of smithing and enchanting.

The problem is that the game has to cater to 2 different types of players. One type is the player who just messes around, does some quest, walks around to see stuff. The other type is the player who tries to "minmax" his character. Such players will keep a sharp eye for every upgrade they can get. They will do alchemy, enchanting or blacksmithing. Or most likely, all 3 at the same time.

In some games, notably MMOs, the developers keep a very strict limit on how good your character can be. What gear is available, what enchants can you get, how strong can your stats be. They balance this between classes. And against opponents. To make sure that the "endgame content" will be challenging. They have to, because MMOs are multi-player games. And you want the game to be fair between all players.

Single-player games are different. So is Skyrim. As the game is not competitive, there is no need to balance everything strictly. There is fun to be had in making your character very strong. But it takes away the challenge of fighting some (or all) enemies. It is up to the player to make sure they don't make their character too strong. There is not much Bethesda can do against this, if the player ruins the game for himself. Example: suppose you bring 100 strong health potions. And you keep drinking them every 5 seconds during a fight. It will be very hard to die. What can Bethesda do ? If you decide to spend a lot of time picking flowers for ingredients, and spend the time to level alchemy a bit, that is a valid play-style. Should Bethesda put artificial limits on potions, and put in a 2-minute cooldown ? That would make alchemy useless.

I am level-49 now. 130 hours played. Playing on expert level. My character is getting pretty strong now. But still, once in a while, I run into a situation where the NPCs kick my [censored]. Especially casters, I need more resistance gear. I have 3x Fortify One-Hander on on my gear. I kill enemies in a very fast pace. It's my choice. If I wouldn't use those enchants, my attack power would be twice as low.

I spent some time leveling alchemy. And getting a few perks (so I can discover effects). I have only the "potions are 20% stronger" perk. I found some Fortify Alchemy items. I made 2x +16% stronger potions items. Then I made a Fortify Smithing potion. It gave me +52% stronger smithing !! That was ridiculous. I used it on my glass sword to try it out. Well, not gonna do that anymore. Combining Fortify Smithing potions with smithing will ruin my game. Even when my alchemy isn't that high yet (amount of perks). It's my responsability.

One thing I can suggest: get the Deadly Dragons mod. (If you are playing on a PC). It makes dragons really hard and challeging. Great fun.
http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/downloads/file.php?id=3829

Basically, you're suggesting that RPG developers avoid "Horizontal" character growth, which is a huge factor in every RPG. That's really not a good idea.

Vertical Growth: "Physical" Character development, Level, HP, stuff like that.

Horizontal Growth: Augmentation with increasingly powerful gear.

I'm a level 29 mage and still struggling, so the game's still *fun* I guess. So yeah, I sat in a corner and power leveled a few skills. I'm at the College practicing my skills in a safe and controlled environment. However, I lack the funds to buy any spells. Currently got Illusion and Conjuration maxxed out, but I'm going to have to summon Atronachs at birthday parties at this rate. Thank goodness mages can put drakes to good use!

I support it, as does the game, but smithing and enchanting take things too far so there is no way to keep the game challenging unless the level scaling factored in your skills (which would send people into a rage, a la oblivion). You just can't please everyone all the time. This time around, Beth left the responsibility of keeping the game challenging (or not) to its players.

Well, I can definitely agree with you, Smithing and enchanting are broken naturally. Meaning you don't have to exploit, or even synergize crafts to overpower the character.

I should probably point out, Oblivion's actual scaling theory wasn't bad, they just applied it overzelously. An occasional enemy with scaled stats to serve as an "Overboss" or something isn't a bad idea. Morrowind featured one such enemy, Gedna Relvel of Tribunal.

But coming across 50 such enemies in one hour of gameplay was overkill of the most thorough degree.

I had a profile who used both smithing, enchanting and alchemy. I didn't bother with any fortify smithing, enchanting or alchemy stuff but just used them regularily. Even with an enchanting/smithing skill of 100, I still don't feel as invincible as everybody says, and I play on adept! It's not the skills that are OP, it's the exploitation. I have maxxed my gear as best I can such as my favored Orcish Armor or Blades Armor and even when legendary, they have nowhere near the ungodly stats as people post on Youtube. I made a char who maxxed out smithing right out of Helgen but didn't mind that since the damage/armor rating increases easily makes up for the lack of damage and lower tier gear.

If you're on PC, I recommend the "Deadly Dragons" mod. Looting won't really get much better, but at least there are very high level fights that may entertain you.

What exactly does Deadly Dragons do? I don't play on PC, but I hear it recommended a lot, so I was just curious.

Games are not about challenge, necessarily. TES is certainly not about challenge. Nor is any other RPG (hey part of "role playing game" is "role playing" not "challenge").

Bethesda has always allowed players to choose. Or so they think (they don't allow choice of character aesthetics, so they really need to fix that problem). Basically, there is no way that an open world developer can consider the infinite possible perceptions of their players. They have to leave it up to the players as much as possible (again, Beth, fix the lack of choice of character aesthetics to improve your games!) This is particularly true on PCs with mods. That's totally up for for grabs.

As for offering more content, there is no need for unique items and such, or not as is mentioned here. All that is needed is more collectibles. Players want their characters to collect stuff. This could be almost anything, but popular items are things like outfits, weapons, books, spells, and yes, even unique/artifact items. Heck, just collecting ingredients for alchemy or crafting is something a character would do if they are in one of several archetype personalities. For long term play, collection is king.

Example: in Morrowind, many people tried to collect one of every single type and variation of soul in soul gems. What did Bethesda do starting in Oblivion? They took out the naming of captured souls so that this is no longer a possible play style for anyone. Yes, they actually went backwards as far as adding potential play possibilities.

I'd suggest reading the mod description from the Nexus link already offered. IT will give you a mch better idea.

Basically, Deadly Dragons makes the dragons much tougher plus adding in some new dragons, PLUS the possibility of a random event happening within a certain time span set by the player. There are seven random events from stuff like a dragon appearing randomly to an Arch Lich to Ice Storms and Fire Storms. Coupling this with mods like Real Wildlife - Skyrim, Realistic Animals and Predators, Skyrim Creatures Alive, and SkyMoMod, PLUS Automatic Variants and PISE+ASIS makes things very unpredicatable no matter what you are doing.

Yes. See the link in my signature ...

There is no endgame content in Skryim. And none of the content there is is very difficult at higher levels, even on Master diff. So you either have to put up with being overpowered and having boring fights, or gimping your char like so many will point you towards, or just giving up your char and starting a new lowbie one again. TES doesn't do game balance, so yer screwed if you expect the game to give you a challenge all the way through without you intentionally doing things (or not doing things) to make the gameplay harder on yourself.

But is that such a bad thing (gimping)? People have been doing it for years, with games they really enjoy but no longer provide any challenge because they know it so well. Check out the vid in my sig to see how much fun I have with self-gimping.

You only need to gimp if there is such an imbalance. I have played quite a few RPGs where even at end game with top tier equipment, it's not exactly a cake walk but my power still shows.