so these difficulty settings are stupid as horse dung. why? because all they do is increase the hit points and damage of the enemies. now... diablo does that too... why is that any better than in skyrim?

1. it makes no sense that you, the person in full daedric armor is two or sometimes even one hit by a some random bandit npc with an iron battle axe. while you have to dodge and hit like mad, they'll just tank your hits and laugh in your face... with their axe. it would be ok if they'd have approximately your hit points... but at that stage their armor becomes just another texture without any meaning or use. while you stagger them with a mighty two hand power attack, you are immovable and stuck in the attack animation almost just as long as the guy is staggered, leaving you with no option but to turn around, run and heal. it really doesn't even make much of a difference if they use two hand or one hand, they'll just cut you in pieces with two or three hits. the only way to win such a completely unfair (unbalanced) fight, is by exploiting the games mechanics and ai to an extend where it becomes meaningless if the npc has 200 or 20.000 hp. it only takes longer to bring them down. there's no real tactics or clever manoeuvring involved. "clever" usage of the environment becomes meaningless if you just stand on a stone and shoot the guy in front of you who's stuck between running back and not being able to go after you. where's the challenge in that? the only challenge there is, is finding a spot, where you can exploit your enemies ai. the same goes for assassin play style. either make the 30x dual attack backstab hit count and the enemy is dead, or it's you who will die in the next two 2s. it's not a challenge, it's kill or reload. it's not even a problem, that the enemies maybe too strong for your current level... no because they will level with you anyway and at level 40 my gear and crucial skills will all be maxed so i won't be getting much stronger past that,

2. diablo will give you the means to defeat your enemies by making you find stuff, that will allow you to stand a chance. not that there are no ways to exploit the engine. there have been tons and tons. but it's a difference if you do it because you want to cheat and get an easy reward or if you are required to, to even remotely stand a chance. if exploitation becomes the only means to win you take out all the challenge and fun off the game,

3. this is supposed to be an rpg, not a action-rpg, right?

so what is this difficulty setting good for? to test out unbalanced skills like illusion. at the moment, all it does, is making playing certain play styles impossible (2-h melee), boring (assassin) or plain stupid (archer). this difficulty slider is a lazy programmers way of saying [censored] you release deadline and [censored] you players, i'm to stressed to make it do something meaningful.

yes i don't have to use it, yes i won't use any more and yes i will go and play diablo 2 now, yes cool story bro and yes unfair does not equal challenging.

Can't say I've had any problems facing anything other than a single dungeon boss when on Master difficulty. Truth be told, I'm not sure I can even tell the difference between Adept and Master. You certainly do not need to use exploits to survive, but you do need to shake off that point-click-kill D2 mentality.

i do agree especially playing mage/rogue. even with rogue on 400 armor. i still have difficulty staying alive from normal bandit 2h weapon. quite often they can 2 shot me. and if i try to fight against dragon they can one bite KO me.

against bandit normally i can kind of stagger lock them with power attack, but this get repeating and can get boring. against dragon... the only thing i can do is using bow. if i try melee them seem like guarantee death to me

Well being 2 shot sounds cool.. i usually die 1 shot to those arrows from *some* bandits. Weird thing is in a pack of mobs some are extremly beefy while others you can kill in one spell or sneak attack. Say bandit X has 100 HP while bandit Y with the same name got 1000 HP. Nice scaling.

I'm having no troubles at all to be honest on master =/
I'm playing an assassin/thief.

I actually find a nice way to fight dragons aswell =D

(No exploits whatsoever).

I've only used smithing to upgrade my dagger that's it! (I only use whatever armor or weapons i find in the world).


Oh i've played a two-handed warrior aswell, didn't find any roadblocks there either.
Stamina, health, powersmash into the face of the unknowing foe!

No.

First thing I learned about Master difficulty:

Mages, Thieves, and Warriors die horribly.

Stop thinking in these class boxes. I have got the level 53 on master and other than the Hired Thugs in the early game I've never had to exploit the terrain. But I also use:

Bow, Sneak, Alteration, Conjuration, Destruction, Illusion, Heavy Armor, Block, One Hand, Restoration, and of course shouts.

I don't use them all all the time but I do use them all frequently enough they're all between 50 and 90 right now with most having at least a few skill points invested.


Note: I do use Smithing, Alchemy and Enchanting but I have some http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1292467-a-few-rules-i-use-to-solve-some-balance-issues/page__p__19480027#entry19480027. Smithing is only 92, and enchanting is 73.

found that a 1h+shield warrior combined with conjuration and restoration can pretty much faceroll master difficulty, throw some smithing, enchanting and alchemy into the mix as well if you can be bothered!

1. Yes there is. You can circle arround your opponent and even get behind your opponents back if your timing is good. You can get a rock or a tree between you and play hit-and-run. You can hit-and-silent roll...
2. Finding a good spot is the key to being sniper. Besides enemies that can't reach you run to cover. I've never seen them stand still.
3. You have never tried a steallth character.
4. You have to keep killing boss mobs until the drop generator gives you equipment good enough to withstand the waves of mindles mobs that rush you on every step. D2 was no fun compared to 1 where you could win with poor equipment if you used your brain a little.

edit: Use your smarts. Go to college.

You are bad, l2p ... o wait, nvm,carebear gone back to D2 for cheese and hack.

TLDR , but I play master just fine with my psychoticly powerful Death Knight character who has 100 smithing and 100 enchanting , so his gear allows him to deal with the insanity quite easily

I agree with the OP, I have full daedric armour on the chest piece alone has 554 armour value and my Daedric sword is on 300 damage all my gear I made with enchantments on the Xbox 360 all legit, yet when fighting Falmor which are the biggest pain in the backside in the game on Master they are using weak stuff to hit me with like 4 bow damage and take huge chunks out of my HP even though I have over 500hp!
It makes no sense because the baddies in the game don't have amazing gear or weapons and just can hurt you a lot regardless of what you are wearing which makes no sense.

Also I have found even on Master setting the dragons are way too easy to kill, in fact the dragons in the game pose no real challenge at all, they fly around breath on you, come down breath and or bite you they really dont feel like much of a threat.

Now comparing to DragonAge wow Dragons were very challenging they took a long time to kill and you could really use all your powers and spells to do your best to take one down.

But in this game even your shouts feel worthless, although the game is fun I wish the shouts had more of a use in the game, take the dragon you summon the most useless of all powers if you ask me he just flys about doing nothing! And when he does his flame breath hardly hurts the enemy I mean seriously its a DRAGON!! NPC's dont even run screaming in terror that its a dragon they act like its nothing.

To be honest I think this game needed at least another 6months of work if not a year...

1. Enemies do a lot of damage... So what exactly do you suggest the difference between adept and master setting should be?
2. What else do you suggest they could do?

Yeah , I do mine as a Death Knight... 100 Enchanting 100 Smithing 100 Conjuration , like 70 2 handed and like 70 Heavy Armor

Really hard to stop me when I'm armor capped , have psychotic enchants on my gear , 2 permanant frost atronarchs that are 50% improved (So its like I have 3 atronarchs really) , and have Lydia in full Daedric gear also following me around.... we are an entire force to be reckoned with not just 1 guy... so in total its OP me + 2 OP atronarchs , + OP Lydia....they are the death squad

One of my weapons 2 enchants is absorb health too muahahaha

On master there just is no point in trying to save and reload. There are places that can only be cleared some levels higher than you are. Run for your life. Then come back later. Medium-normal difficulty does not impose that kind of "threat" to the character. If you find it too hard, play on a level that satisfies you. There is no such thing as better or worse. The objective is to have fun. There is no achievement to how many dragons you kill on master or how many deaths your character had. So just go be an idiot but have fun, like the rest of us

Don't play on Master would be my advice then.

So let me get this straight.....

You are complaining that the Master difficulty is too hard?

There is an easy solution to that you know. TURN DOWN THE DIFFICULTY. It is obviously too hard for you to enjoy, so turn it down to a point where you can comfortable hack and slash your way easily. I don't understand anyone ever complaining about the highest difficulty setting being TOO hard. That is kind of the point to having difficulty settings. I would FAR rather have them develop games where the hardest difficulty setting is above my playing ability than (like most games) where the hardest difficulty level is still an unchallenging cake-walk.

Edit: trust me.... once the CK is released, the REAL difficulty mods will be made. My own planned mod is to remove all instant healing from foods and potions. Foods won't heal you at all just give very tiny stat/skill buffs. Healing potions will only be regenerative in nature.

Try playing on Expert instead :icecream:

:D

OP (and whomever agrees with him), did you by chance level a group, or even 1-2 non-combat skills rapidly?

Because if you level non-combat skills like speech, lockpicking, etc., your character will level up but your combat capabilities will not. And, the NPCs/animals out there will level with you, but their combat capabilities/skills will also level up. This means you're suddenly behind them instead of ahead or even.

I level my skills very carefully, and I don't have the intricate knowledge to know if that statement is correct, but I've seen it said several times in the past 3 weeks, so there must be something to it.

Good luck.

my level 28 breton archer playing on master difficulty takes offense to that! granted, i do often take advantage of the AI as an archer

1. Pretty much every game with a difficulty slider deals with difficulty in the same way (mobs hit harder, mobs have more hp, you do less damage etc). Until theres a breakthrough in AI programming, that provides a more cost effective solution than the current model, we will be stuck with it.
2. You don't have to abuse or utilise any exploitive play for master, it makes it easier if you do but some get by just fine. Don't get me wrong there are lots of ways the difficulty could have been done better (not having summons / companions scale up with the other NPCs would have been one - in my opinion).
3. It's a game. If you are having fun great! Calling it an action RPG, or an RPG, won't make it any more enjoyable if not.

This is why I play on normal difficulty. Master difficulty should be something like Demon's Souls, i.e. enemies are very strong but they are not bullet sponges.

I have to agree that the harder difficulties should be more realistic than just increasing stats. One such realistic way to increase difficulty would be to increase the number of npcs.

More enemies in one spot, harder for an assassin to sneak attack them all.
More enemies in one spot, harder for the warrior to defeat them all.
More enemies in one spot, harder for the mage to defeat them all.

More enemies means more loot, i.e. better rewards.

More enemies is a more realistic form of difficulty, and correctly rewards people with better rewards in the form of more loot. It is already an elegant solution.

You really are terrible at this game if you are that close to the armor cap, with high level swords like that and your struggling. Even on master.

I would love it if they handled it this way.