Starting a new character and playing through the game on Master difficulty has made Skyrim ten times more fun! Post your opinions!

I agree with this sentiment.

I had never tried any other setting beside Master until I recently started a new character for the Patch 1.6 Beta and for some reason it automatically changed the difficulty to Adept.

For a little while, I thought it was some kind of bug, because I was suddenly one-shotting everything as a level 1 character.

I'm actually on my first master difficulty play. It's definitely much more fun than adept since there's a real threat. It's also better for leveling.

To each is own. Some people don't like their games hard. Personally I do. A challenge is way more fun then an easy wall in the park, this is for any game I play.

All it does is make enemies sword sponges. I'll pass.

Depends if your playing for a challenge or something else.

I personally play on adept or expert because I like to role play and don't want to min/max.

ehh i don't find bullet sponges or swords sponges in this case a challenge. If turning on master made the AI improve i would use it though.

For you Master players out there that are werewolves, isn't the problem of being underpowered even more evident on this difficulty level?

I think on my next character that I make, I'm def going to try that.

I guess this has never been part of the tes universe, but I really liked the added hardcoe mode that they had in fallout new Vegas. I wish my skyrim characters would get hungry, then I'd have a reason to actually hunt animals and use a cooking pot

I don't find it challenging when I know all it does is make my weapon weaker and theirs stronger. That's just cheap.

If they had improved AI, or made combat better so they make opponents more dangerous with a weapon, then I'd like to play on Master.

Werewolf gameplay seems to be better suited to low levels, or at least it was when I tried it shortly after release date.

With Dawnguard there will be a lot more progression for playing as a werewolf at a higher level.


There are some mods like ASIS, that help to improve the A.I. by having NPCs use potions and heal their allies, etc.

I suppose in my case, I don't really enjoy combat unless I'm dying and reloading frequently. And even on Master, once you get up to level 30 or so, you start to feel overpowered, so I have been starting a new character each time I get to that point.

However, I recently installed Deadly Dragons, ASIS and a few other mods that help to make the game more challenging at higher level, so I will be trying to play a bit longer with my newest character.

try it out without any armor perks. go with steed stone for increased mobilty

I prefer Expert. Perfect balance of challenge for me.

I prefer adept difficult with no points in health, through modding. Enemies don't become damage sponges, but the possibility of dying actually exists now.

I have never put any perks into armor skills or any level up points into Health, for any of the characters I've played - only Stamina or Magicka.

I have played Adept, Expert, and Master.

Of those I think Expert is best. The only "challenge" with Master is that you can get "one-shot" killed by many high level opponents even when the Play Character is at at high level with tons of health points.

That is, in my opinion, contrary to role play. Because you need to exploit lots of game features to stay alive.

Expert in contrast is a great balance.

im guessing you rely on flesh spells?

No I rely on killing my enemies before they kill me

If you are playing an archer, get Steady Hands and Critical Shot. If you have a large pool of Stamina, you can wipe out a crowd of advancing enemies before they even get close to you.

If you are playing a mage, as soon as you get the Impact destruction perk, you can easily stunlock any enemy. This is way too easy and a bit boring IMO, so I've been trying to use other more creative approaches instead. (In fact, I installed a mod that makes it so you only have a chance to stagger, not 100% of the time.)

If you are playing a warrior, you've got to get right up to enemy spell casters and stagger them with a block to interrupt their spells. This works with 2-handed or sword & shield, but not dual wield, of course.

If you are playing a melee stealth character, you have to sneak up on enemies and backstab them. If you get caught, you have a high chance of getting killed, which in my view is the best part of the stealth gameplay.

Agree.

Then you must be one-shot killed by many "boss" characters. Because on Master that happens all the time even if you do put lots of points into health and smithing. So Master means "reload" or min-max.

Yes, the kind of combat gameplay I enjoy most involves dying and reloading lots of times with almost every battle. I could never play Dead is Dead, because either the combat is going to be way too easy (not getting killed), or I would never make it out of Helgen.

When you get up to level 30 or so, with the vanilla game, I start feeling rather overpowered and a lot of the combat encounters are too easy, so I retire the character and start a new one.

ha yea, i dont like using expliots like the stunlock/slow time effects of steady hands, i need a bit of a challenge. i use the archery tree for my sword/board build alot but dont use it in any fashion that i would consider cheapining the experience, like i said i need a challenge or id get bored way to fast

I tend to play the beginning of the game on Adept until I get to the midpoint, then I switch to Expert, then finally to Master. Since I didn't have a powerful enough character to do the hardest difficutly in Oblivion, I have come to enjoy it for Skyrim instead. I usually try to wait to switch to Expert until I have Ebony gear, but it doesn't always work like that. In fact, I just switched it to Expert probably not 30 minutes ago on my current playthrough and I'm still in Dwarven gear. When I get Daedric gear (maybe sometime before that point), then I switch to Master.

I just like the challenge of the highest difficutly.. it might seem easy with how I build my character, but if I get cocky or careless...
And that makes it all the more fun.

Dead is dead, to mean means don't take risks. If i see enemies I want to see if I can deal with them. If if played "dead is dead" I'd avoid a lot of difficult and challenging fights. That does not seem like fun to me. I prefer to challenge my character in ways that dead-is-dead prohibits.