LMFAO what do you expect? As difficulty goes up, the damage remains constant? That makes no sense. Master difficulty is designed to challenge people, rather than increase health or something like that. It is made to make the game harder and more tactical because now you cannot just gun in with guns hot killing people left and right.

I find Master Difficulty a lot easier with my TWO Dremora Lords backing me up!

^ This

From what I can discern upping the difficulty only turns things into damage sponges ^^

Truth be told, expert is probably the sweet spot between challenge and "realism". But master = more swings = faster levels :3

Edited due to inexperience.

Exactly right but for the wrong reasons. This game is not broken, you can play it any way you like. If you like to a badass overpowered dude with 100 sneak and invisibility no one will stop you. If you want 100% spell or damage reflection and play on master no one will stop you from doing it. It's the freedom you'll get in this game that is truly great.

Complaining that the hardest difficulty is hard?

What is wrong with some of you people? If you get two-shotted, it's because it's MASTER DIFFICULTY.

Play on lower difficulty?

Don't listen to people saying L2P. All they're really saying is learn to exploit crafting, exploit stealth or exploit your summoned minions. The truth is that playing a melee character that's anything but armor cap + shield is suicidal on master; you can't take the ridiculous amounts of damage NPC's put out without those 2 things.

If you're not going to build your melee character like a tank you HAVE to avoid taking damage from anything at all costs on master.

well...it's master difficulty....what do you expect from it??try build a new char using shield+one-handed and invest your points on:

1. one-handed
2. block (quick reflex if you want to dodge or bash easily)
3. heavy armor
4. alteration (mag res perks)
5. alchemy
6. enchantment

and take a Lord Stone effect and Agent of Mara for phy dam and mag res (with a breton you can have 85% mag res, and mages will be nothing at all)

this build in general is the most easiest to play on master difficulty..right now i'm doing a re-run with dual-wield

ooh and btw, you should choose your companion according to your build,in this case ur a melee and a tanker,so if i were you i would go for Illia (mage) or anyone who specialize in range (Aela maybe)

don't be discourage by it,if anyone can do it on master,so can you..you just need to try a bit harder and play with more careful and use your surroundings to take the advantage...

right now i'm using extra mod for difficulty, PISE, it improved AI and mobs spawn are 50% more...

my advice,keep using skills that would benefit for you in the near future...at level 4 when i fight Milmunir,even with a shield raised she bite me and my health went down almost empty,but before i reach level 10 i can take out standard dragon without getting hurt at all..and when you get the Elemental Protection on Block perks (50) you can raise shield against dragons breath and watch you're health going down very...very slow...and trust me before you hit 20,you'll feel unsatisfied by the master scaling and want more challenge..LOL

cheers bro and good luck

Haven't even read the entire post (which is unusual for me) but I only have this one thing to mention which I'm sure has been mentioned before.

When master difficulty is hard, it's not broken. No, it's working as intended.

Read the whole pages and agree with this

level means NOTHING other than you have more tactical tools, this is not Dragon Age, the higher level > lower level kind of logic does not hold true in Skyrim

try not to get hit you smart thief, if you want to fight like a warrior with nightingale then play smarter

OP, you are using Light Armor and no shield, and then you comaplian about getting hurt from arrows and melee. I'm sorry, but DUH?
Light armor svcks compared to heavy in this game, and that makes sense. Why should some sillly feather armor have more protection than daedric plates?
If you go dual wielding you have to expect to get hurt more, it's a trade-off with that extra damage, and you should be able to dodge arrrows...

You've mentioned that you play a sneak-thief, I play a 52 warrior badly at master difficulty, that is to say I RP and don't worry about min/maxing so my stats probably aren't dramatically better than yours...but take it for what it's worth:

http://youtu.be/Ka_haEweNXg

This was done literally within 10minutes with no staging, and certainly no tactics...just finding an enemy and rushing in blindly while face-rolling the controls.

I don't wear the best armor or buff up prior to a fight or use exploit weapons, I could have bashed the dragon after every blow and avoided damage...but it's survivable damage and I only have 413 armor rating. The only thing that changes with attacking mages is that I put on resist jewelry.

I shouldn't think a sneak-thief played properly would have any harder a time than a poorly played warrior? Resist gear, poisons, shouts, mage staves, creative use of terrain, you've a lot of options, master rewards less durable types for exploring them. I think you'll find, after doing so, that master isn't so hard.

Recorded and edited on my phone...so apologies for poor resolution.

You are basically teaching him how to play.

Master Level running a pure destruction only build, while I'm not as high a level as you are, I get 1 shotted by everything. Master's can be very difficult it can also be very easy depending on your build. That's sort of the point, to have fun and do what you want. I want to do 30 minute battles with dragons multiple times until it is perfect and I win. If you want to 2 hit a dragon on master's you can do that too.

I play on master too.
I use much (but far from everything) the game have to offer to increase my survivability.
But still I find it usually a bit too easy.
Sometimes I'm one shotted by special NPCs and ancient dragons can be hell.

So even if I'm occasionally being one shotted by powerful mages (I have no resistance except a certain shield, which is usually tucked away as I'm primarily a hunter/archer), or even some sword wielding characters - I'm still enjoying it! I fought an ancient dragon last night for what must have been an hour of reloads - and I loved it!

The difficulty option is there to be adjusted to the level which makes the game just as challenging and enjoyable as you prefer. And perceived difficulty may vary greatly depending on what game features you use. If OP had the game adjusted to what he think is acceptable, the game would be far too easy for me, at the hardest difficulty. Which forces me to nerf my playstyle where he could just adjust his difficulty downwards.

The point is, I'm already nerfing somewhat, and it's still too easy. Don't complain about a game being too difficult on the hardest setting, especially when it's done as neat as this - waaaaaay better than the infinite fights in Oblivion.

God this is annoying. Haven't we had enough of this yet?

"I set the game to master and now it's too hard." - Well genius, what's the easiest solution?
OR
"I set the game to master and now it's too easy." - Well, good job, you win.

Either way, these people are mad about the game. :facepalm:

What do you want? A cookie? You're an average American, selfish to the extreme and impossible to please. I hate our society. :banghead:

So...

Everyone in the Bethesda forums is illiterate, now?

methinks you need to look at yourself, bub.

The game is supposed to difficult in Master...


You have to use potion that increases your skill, potions of extra protection...
And you need to work and hunt to earn money...

Take your time. Playing on Master is all about patience. Strategies before entering a combat, and in the middle of the combat.

Well, I'd hope for a harder master difficulty. As of now, I play with 490 armor instead of the 567 cap I can reach even with steel just so I need to use the shield. The only things hard to kill are ancient dragons, but using Become ethereal cleverly makes them rather easy.

I crafted for the money. I crafted only the best things I could craft. Don't think I ever made an iron dagger. I never took daedric because it doesn't suit my build. I regret putting points into light armor crafting though, because those also doesn't suit my build.

I'm fairly skilled in alchemy, since I need all the potions I can get. But I didn't put any points in it. At high levels though, I don't bother anymore since what I find is much more powerful and in plenty supply.

I've done a couple of enchants, and I've spent a couple of soul gems on recharging, but this is mostly to see the system.

Exploit stealth? I don't even know how that is supposed to be exploited? Pretty much all my builds are careful, and you'd pretty much have to in order to survive on master. Btw, it's part of any good confrontation, even in modern world armed conflicts. Using a games' feature is not the same as exploiting. Crafting is not exploiting. Crafting in a way that doesn't make sense, however, is exploiting (when rules seems to be poorly defined allowing such exploits to take place). Using a games features is called gaming. A good GM knows how to value good players versus power players. The game is our GM, and being single player shouldn't affect that.

I summoned a fire thingy (lol) so that I could get to see the Collage, but I think I was level 10-15 until I got the magicka required to do so.

So, by that information, do you seriously think I'm power gaming or exploiting features?

Well OK I went back and read it.

It reads like you're butt-hurt not that you're playing a difficult game, but that bandits labelled a lower level than you are beating you. I guess the difficulty slider should just label all opponents your level + 2? Would that make you happier?

It's not a failure of the game (in this case) it's a failure of imagination. You're focussing too much on what level everything is.

Lower the difficulty slider.

Wait, you are a thief/assassin on Master difficulty that doesn't want to use sneak?

These sorts of posts can be helpful for others looking for brainstorming tips on how to survive master, or to gauge their experience at that setting with others. For those reasons, and others I'm sure, these sorts of topics are useful. In that spirit...

Probably the most helpful tactic in dungeons while I was getting the feel for things on my thief was luring draugrs/falmers into the various traps or shouting them off ravines/lofty bridges...running for better position was not infrequent.

My thief also uses poisons and potions as compensation for a lack of a shield, heavy armor, or high-level smithing ability. Magicka drain poisons in particular are usefully applied to bows (in lieu of an enchanted bow with that effect) prior to closing with mages if sneak isn't an option. These are all obtained and stockpiled from previous dungeon excursions.