I'm not really sure higher difficulties are needed. I believe what's needed is to tone down the skill system a little. Skills level up just a wee bit too fast. Slow that down and the game will get more difficult on all levels of play. Here's something to think about that I haven't seen mentioned anywhere. When playing on higher difficulties, your skills get used more which causes faster leveling. After doing that for awhile it will definitely be easier to oneshot just about anything in the game.

And I don't believe the so-called "smithing/enchanting/" exploit is actually an exploit at all except for the fact that people use it as such. I believe the problem is that skills progress too fast. Slow down skill progression. Do that and Skyrim becomes a much more dangerous place. A lot of people have an MMO mentality when playing this game. So I say go along with it. I don't know of any MMO where you can go from level 1 to 50 without putting in a lot of serious time questing or grinding. Slow down the skill progression so that every skill level and every character level actually means something. IMHO that people are able to level up way too fast in Skyrim and that's why we have all the complaints about the game being too easy.

I guesse that's a solution to enjoy the game as a challange, svcks as a solution when you love your character as a warrior and whole. Played the roll and just need a challange now....
All in all, im kinda bummed out. It's why I am not playing recently. I can't restart, I must finish!!! But It's this mundain 1 hit smash and grab questing im doing now. And without the long battles, it feels like load screen after load screen. lol. Playing a mage doesnt seem like it would make combat MORE fun, I enjoy combat as a warrior, had I not picked perks or leveled, Id be happy lol... The entire leveling process is counter productive really lol... I svck at playing Dungeon master! I'm good at video games...

I'm so bummed out the thought of PC is weighing on my mind. Specailly after seeing that guys difficulty mod. http://www.skyrimnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=1269
Give up a 140 hour save file for a mage that challanges me? Rebuy and restart my exact character for the PC with mods?

And if anyone else feels this way, It would save us all alot time if Bethesda read these forums and says, "Hey guys! Heres a new ticker to kicker!! We modified a few multiplyers and now you should beable to kill a dragon in ATLEAST 10 or more hits on the new Grand Master and Champion Settings!"

Thank you and goodnight, Bethesda <3
I'm done, retiring these forums. Goodbye world!

I retired!!..
lol, Your right! you are! But even then.. People like me would still be where we are now, but just later on... lol. So now it takes longer to become the boss with the 1 shot baby rattle. On that note, people would be even more furious that such a game which requires so much dedication has no epic challanges in the long haul.

I agree with you, you make a good point. But bthey can't really go back on making things harder to level now. It is what it is, making it five times harder, would mean those who did it on release cheated.. It's counter productive for them to really tweek the leveling system around. So I think they should just toss us a Hard ball (Grand Master / Champion) and we get on with life. lol.
I'm removing myself from my own thread now. cause I cant take it anymore lol.....

yeah, makle it harder,

This guy here actually makes sense of alot of this... He talks about the level cap of enemies being capped at low levels and such.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pxsWgbLGtEE

after watching other videos, I see alot lower players murdering everything. Being high level isn't even the issue after all.

lol well try not wearing so much armor, i'm a mage and wear a robe and its challenging, sure if you have tons of heavy armor, dumped all your points into health and endurance, then saying, oh its too easy ROFL wear some different clothing and don't put every point into health and then come and talk to me about the game on master level,lol you won't be saying its easy with 180 health and endurance and wearing a robe.

Errrrm, he was supporting your argument, albeit with an overly sarcastic tone. Bloody hell johnny, I agree that the game is too easy but your silly replies only serve to help trash your own argument. Take the time to read what people say!

Yes they can make things harder just like I said. And it would change all of the difficulty settings. They really aren't starting from scratch with the leveling system. All they need to do is slow it down. It gets rid of the exploiting too. The problem with the game is that it's too easy to level up. By slowing things down you really aren't going to be able to oneshot things because you'll be having more fights at about your own level. If you can play Master and oneshot things that are of equal level to you then I would agree that another difficulty setting is warranted. But at level 81 you are 40 levels above just about everything else. You should be killing things in one hit. I'd also like to point out that it really doesn't really matter about cheating. This is a single player game not an MMO. There's no race to the highest level or anything. If BS tweaks the speed of skill leveling it's not as if you cheated. You played under the rules at the time and those rules would be adjusted to better the game.

Try class roleplaying instead of just smithing up the best gear possible and enchanting it to hell and back.

Come back when you're playing a fur armour wearing iron battle axe wielding barbarian on master difficulty. This isn't GTA: medieval, it's TES.

play on master
don't use any + smithing gear or potions
only use 2 + dmg enchants

enjoy a hard game

and btw, the Civil War quest doesn't scale, so it's just a bad example
you cannot oneshot an ancient dragon
even with min/maxing, unless you exploit/cheat

if on PC, wait for tomorrow, they made atleast dragons harder then before

This is such a poor argument. I would loooooove to see someone one shot everything in the game on master difficulty without grinding the Hell out of their character and using exploits.

Unless my game is just broken. Because right now I'm playing master and I am level 45 and I can tell you right now the only thing I one hit is rabbits and deer and wildlife. Or people without armor sometimes.

I'm not saying its your fault. I'm just saying its not bethesdas. Oh and BTW. Good luck on getting that new difficulty setting.....seriously. Lmao. Good luck.

I think if anything some of the skills could be balanced. It should be harder to improve smithing and enchanting, or they should be less powerful. Same with a few other skills perhaps. Other than that I can't complain

This is a bogus troll thread for a few reasons.

1). There is NO WAY IN HELL the draugr scourge lord with the crown died in FIVE HITS. If he did, you are on novice and not master.

2). From 3 bandits and one dragon you lost 20% health? Also bogus, if a dragon strafes you one time it can be near fatal on master difficulty.

I'd like some rebalancing also. I personally think the silly overpowered stuff should be available, but not through regular skill progression.

The crafting magnitudes really should be nerfed. If an update added a few new enchant effects, new alchemy ingredients and new smithing abilities but also cut the magnitudes by 50% or more, I'd be happy. Removing the first 5 magnitude increasing perks for alchemy and enchant would do wonders.

I'd also like more tiers to the destruction elemental mastery perks.

Edit:

And the issue isn't so much that the game is too easy, since I agree it is only too easy for people who grind skills to 100. The issue is that crafting skills are more powerful than entire sets of perk trees. Destruction potions increase spell damage by over 150%... the same for other schools and for weapon damage. Enchants make you more than 40% better at sneaking and pickpocketing etc and you can usually stack 4 of them for a single skill at a time. Smithing increases magnitudes by as much as 4x. These multipliers are way too big for regular skill progression in my opinion. Maybe they should exist as difficult quest rewards or something, but not just because you made a bunch of daggers in the marketplace.

I'm not against a difficulty setting above the current master setting that massively gimps the player's damage output and buffs the enemy's damage output too truly insane levels. Toss in a achievement on the side for finishing the MQ without ever leaving this setting.

Oh and make it DiD as well. Your character dies your saves get deleted.

No. That's not what we want, and I think it's confusing OP as well, since he talked about 'beating' the game on Master. It's not about this at all, frankly I couldn't care less if they completely removed all achievements. I (and others of similar opinion probably as well) just want the game to be challenging enough, simply because it gives me a personal sense of enjoyment when I beat a hard monster. I don't need any kind of confirmation in form of achievements or praise from other players.

edit: Oops, I mixed the OP with some other topic . But the point stays, no on achievements.

32900 sneak attacks would suggest it is entirely possible to kill things that quickly. If one is inclined.

Im trully enjoying the game the way it is....playing on master since the biggining and yes it is hard the first 50 hrs...

Not sure I'm getting this.... I play on 360 and on expert.

For most of the game it was a challenge, I could make the game easy by exploiting the fact the AI isn't comparable to a human mind.... and if that's the way your making your argument then adding more health to a monster isn't going to make the game harder, just a bit more tedious.

If I played to what I saw as fair the game gave me a decent challenge. IE: Do not stay in sneak and just 1 hit kill everything every time because the AI isn't smart enough to take cover after watching their buddies take arrows to the neck.

That being said, after level 50 the game did get a bit easier... and theres at least a decent chance that was planned. I saw a few posters earlier talk about "No other TES game did this, their games are supposed to get harder as you level"

And to that I would remind you that scheme is a relatively new trend, go brush up on Arena and Daggerfall. By the end levels you were God-like and that's how it was supposed to be.

If you want to make the game as I see it, unrealistically hard then play on a PC and make a mod, TES construction sets are just as popular as the games themselves so I'm sure you knew about them beforehand.

But the game difficulty curve is where it should be as judging by early TES games and alot of other RPGs.

If I put 100+ hours into my guy, have achieved mastery of different fighting styles (IE: archery/one handed)... coupled with the fact I am a legendary man (Dragonborn, Chosen One, Etc) and I have amazing armor/weapons from my travels or crafts.... Can I really expect some poorly trained bandits to still offer a challenge to me? If I have killed 75+ Dragons in my lifetime already along with their leader... can I still get angry if a random one I happen upon doesn't offer the challenge it did when I was experiencing my 1st dragon fight?

To me it just doesn't seem reasonable, past level 50 your sort of an "Ultimate Warrior" type, the best at what you do.

Yet you expect the local innkeeper to all of a sudden say "Hey Dragonborn, Changer of Tides, Killer of Kings, Master of Thieving, Shadows, Magic, and Close Quarters Combat..... There's a cave of bandits you need to kill a mile from here and they are all more badass than you!!!"

I read another person's approach was playing on master without any crafting skills. Seems like a good fix to me. This way you use materials as strong as those available to your enemies and if you want the powerful potions and enchants, you need to buy ones for a lot of $, and only ones that are also available to the enemy. I'll probably try this.

only problem I see is a whiny little brat who likes to exaggerate and get attention.

I think sabat is correct. The forums are polluted with these types.

Then again. They always were

Yes, it's simply terrible that people might ask for options that wont affect you. Simply terrible.

Isn't the game have a soft level cap of like 50? I know you can level up to 81 by getting all skills maxed to 100. I leveled my first character up to 54, which took me about 140 hours, still haven't done everything but since I was finding myself bit bored able to sneak through almost anyone I made another character (first character being archer / thief type). Mind you this is in adept difficulty. I know where my skill lies so I don't want to put it too hard.

My second character and the one I am currently playing is still level 26 and its a mage type. I have made myself a self rule to only use mage equipment which consists of only using staff and wearing only cloth armor. Its quite a challenge to be honest... since almost any mob can 3 shot me if I am not careful or caught by surprise. I remember my first random dragon I fought virtually 2 shotted me cause he caught me unprepared. These challenges are set by you and not by the game, specially after your first run. Well that is until they release the construction kit and mods starts to appear like other elder scroll / fallout games.

If you want a challenge, go through the game without spending any gold, bribing people or stealing any items (unless required as part of a quest). Use only what you find or make. You can't purchase weapons, ingots, potions, etc.

This approach will definitely slow down the game and make it more challenging.

Based on the blinding pain i got when i wore upgraded blades armour compared to conventional Ebony armour, i'd suggest either wear stronger armour so the game programming balances, or based on the previous epic doom i suffered (Level 30 character versus Ancient Dragon doom level) carry a spare, as strong or stronger set of armour... not sure why it affected me but it seemed to.

wearing the Ebony armour with skyforge sword i had little problem. wearing blades... well, took 4 tries at odahviing, all 4 failed.

So assuming Ebony mail is roughly near Ebony armour level... well. other way to kick-start balance would be chuck a strong-ish follower in. Strong, not weak. weak followers result in Draugr Deathlords with the same gear as the Bleak Falls Barrow boss.

this is me assuming things grow in pain same as normal though and offering my best guess at ways you can get boiled in your own armour again and again for your amusemant.
Personally had to downgrade my armour to survive a trip past the average dragon location.

if it's ineffective, the various RP handicaps listed might work.
far as a higher difficulty, much as i like the idea of being a Grand Master, based on modding fallout way back when it gets incredibly tedious even copy-pasting stats that should override certain mods, so might take a while to pop up as a patch.

honestly though i thought it was a standard RPG issue that at max level YOU ARE THE GOD OF DEATH AND DAMNATION.