That's not the case and not how modern gaming works. SKyrim already had patches. Morrowind had patches. Mordern games are patched and rebalanced, that is the REALITY of gaming.

Asking for balance fixes is NOT "I don't like the game". Skyrim has been dumbed down enough, we don't need further reduction in complexity with "if you don't like it don't play it"

Fault? No one is at 'fault' because aside from a few bugs (which we ALL complain about) the game isn't broken... Yet.

However, if Bethesda are taking the 'exploits that I'm quite clearly taking advantage of are ruining my game' whinges seriously, and I hope they are not. Then the game WILL be broken for the players who play the game correctly and not give into the temptation of powerlevelling a skill to 100 and becoming overpowered too quickly, and we WILL be blaming the whiners.

It just so happens that the whining going on on this forum happens to resemble the kind of nerf begging found often on MMO forums. Which is fine because expolits in an MMO might give one group of players an unfair advantage over another group of players. However, this is a single player game, where players can do whatever the hell they like. If they want to exploit smithing, fine, exploit it. Just don't come running to these boards whining about it and say the game is broken.

This is EXACTLY the point that the OP was trying to put across.

They are noisy; it doesn't mean that they are a majority. I can't believe Bethesda might be influenced by their most stupid players. :wink_smile:

See you in Pandaria.

Aren't we allowed to voice our concerns that the game rules are bad and should be improved?

Meh....You know that alot of love is coming from long time tes players too?....

I played WoW, and my first character in Skyrim not only exploited Smithing and Enchanting, but I was in "quest grind" mode, not really listening to story line just going toward those little arrows and finishing up as quickly as possible. It was a bad experience. By level 35ish I was fully decked out in full legendary dragonscale armor, 1-shotting everything in my path with a legendary glass bow enchanted to the max. The kills were satisfying, but getting to where I was was nothing but exploiting.

Now I have a new character (on the PC version, yay!)-- a stealth based Khajit archer. I play on Master difficulty, I avoid fast travelling, I won't use companions, I will not buy crafting ingredients from merchants (only from the wild), and I will not cast magic of any kind whatsoever. The game is SO much more fun now.

Now, more to your post: It seems like your gripe is that Master is too hard. Master is supposed to be hard, that's why you can scale difficulty down if it's too bad for you. I would like one setting harder than Master to be honest, as even Master can feel too easy at times (and no, I'm not cheating.) As for the "MMO whiners," WoW has what? 12 million subscriptions at least? That's a whole lot of people drawn to RPG gaming, so it's safe to say that there are TONS of MMO players currently playing Skyrim. Just try to ignore the elitists.

Balance issues?? Am I the only player on these bloody boards that hasn't experienced any Balance issues? Or did I get an extremely limited edition of the game that HAS NO BALANCE ISSUES?!

Aside from the bugs (falling Mammoths, texture issues and so on which need patches and damn well deserve them) I'm having a rather perfect experience in Skyrim, and I'm looking forward to what the future holds. If you're not satisfied with how the game has turned out as I am, then maybe, just maybe this isn't the game for you. If you feel I am wrong and this is the game for you, then please explain to me exactly what balance issues you are having. Because either I'm playing this game with my head shoved up my [censored] or I'm actually playing it in a way where the so-called balance issues are not affecting my game. Yeah, MY game, on MY machine, which is situated in MY home, and is not shared by the miracle of the internet with half the world's population. In otherwords, and please try to absorb the fact that this is a single player game, and unlike an MMO, single player games can be played exactly how the player wants to play it with no risk of being flamed, banned or griefed

Okay, there might be 'balance issues' that I may not yet have come across, lucky for me. But don't expect me to be okay with it if, as a result of all this complaining, a patch is included with a peice of future DLC that I might want to play that gimps my game.

And please don't expect the devs to patch these 'issues' that the individual has with the game.

If you play games to beat them, then TES might not be for you. If you play games for the exploration and story then TES is probably for you.

To be fair.. I'm a MMO relic now. Context-wise, I got WoW after playing Morrowind until I'd had enough.. and that was a long, long time. I ONLY launched WoW in 2004 because as a lvl 100+ Khajiit who blew through tribunal and Bloodmoon, I was looking for something new. WoW was my first and only MMO, to which I finally unsubbed two weeks ago.
I unsubscribed to WoW because the story was blowing(and is blowing). I played it FOR the story. For the roleplay and story within raiding and PvP. I must have generated over 400 pages worth of blog stories with fellow gamers on our rp server, only to finally give up after Blizzard torpedoed their own lore beyond what I could stand.

Skyrim reminded me that it was possible to launch a game and have FUN. Not clock in to my second job.

The way Skyrim works is beyond gorgeous. The 'class' based on playstyle, the Radiant AI.. I don't really miss WoW at this stage, though I troll the Story Forum to shake my head in increasingly detached sorrow to see what crap is being foisted off now on the playerbase who once cherished that story.

So all of this said, it can take a little bit to shake off the MMO mentality. It took me a day at most to stop thinking of things as per WoW whilst re-acquiainting myself with the Tamriel I adored in Vvardenfell. (sorry, Oblivion never made me feel immersed, though it was purty as hell).

About the only thing I miss is the RP multiplayer element. Being able to sit in a tavern and roleplay with friends as opposed to game generated characters. That I admit I do miss.

Having a reaction from other 'characters' based on who you are. By which I'm not referring to the "I done downed Ragnaroz lookit meh!11!' thing. I mean that as the Archmage of the College at Winterhold, it's irksome to enter Solitude and be unable to stand there, magic swirling, and demand that the execution of Roggvir be halted. Not that there's that freedom in WoW, but within the sandbox which is Skyrim, I do wish more recognition was made of a character's achievements beyond guards whispering Hail Sithis or noting my Thieves' Guild armor.

The first issue.. I don't know. Maybe someday something like a closed 'instance' where players can come in, and share a tavern space to interact? I don't know. I'm sure Steam could somehow enable that somewhere down the line. I don't mean unbalanced questing, but just stuff for lore nerds like me to wallow gluttonously in. It just sometimes is a shame to be able to craft a theoretical driving motivation for my character in the gameworld, and know that no one else will know or care about it. That's one thing the MMO format gave me which I valued immensely. I'm less keen about the problem of 'I'm the Dovahkiin!' 'So am I!' then the more RP stuff of being a sneakthief in the Guild and interacting with another thief or something.

I may just be blathering to the wind. I blame the Neo-Citran and the cold I have.

What specifically would break the game? The suggestions I've made all pretty much revolve around nerfing crafting skills significantly as well as retooling the magicka system so that it's relevant and manageable without the need for -100% cost enchants vs enemies that take longer than 2 seconds to kill(like those on master difficulty). I don't want to see all the enemies scaled up so you HAVE to abuse the resto potion loop or something like that.


I'm not arguing the fact mods will fix everything. I'm quite confident they will. However I will NOT sit by and let a developer think it's ok to let mods fix things that are fundamentally wrong with their game. Mods should be there to add more awesome to a game. Not fix the core game.

Yeah, you're actually totally right!
The only problem is: Competing with yourself isn't fun!
You always win. There's no challange, no mystery, no fun.

Oh my god ... please, PLEASE finally stop with this incredibly stupid pseudo-argument!

What you're basically saying is, that nothing matters. Having the "choice" to have 100% chameleon in Oblivion equals having an integrated cheat-menue. And this actually denies other -much more important and fun- choices!
Every "choice" on the actual elements of the game becomes completely meaningless, if the player has to tweak the strength of every element himself.
This is absolutely terrible. It destroyes the whole purpose of leveling, character development, exploring and looting, ... it destroyes the core elements of what RPG stands for.

^ This

And neither of them made me feel sick. I mean, about the only way I notice I'm sick in Skyrim is when I'm being told that I am. What's up with that? In real life, when I'm sick - I notice - trust me! Annoying that it can't even be annoying.

To those who exploits the smithing and enchantments. Do you think its fun to max smithing and enchanting? Does it make your game experience better? No?
Then why did you do it? Because you can, is that it? Why do something only because you can if it makes the experience boring?

I don't think anyone says that it that sense. Of course you should make your character strong, progress is part of the point isn't it? But the rules that govern that should be sensible, currently they aren't. Masters degree in smithing from crafting iron daggers? How many mathematicians does anyone know that got a masters degree in mathematics from doing algebraic addition 100 million times? Answer: They don't. They either get stuck as a preschool teacher or they have to advance the challenges to gain additional knowledge.

It's also not about overcomplicating the rules (maybe the devs think otherwise, as applying it in practice with programming limitations can be a bit more challenging than people realize), it's about applying common sense to the rule sets. If the rules made sense, there would be far less complaining as well.



Well, I'm not one of them, even if I sometimes get the feeling I'm exploiting something quite unintentionally. But still, I think the rules are badly defined as long as it even allows it. A GM tend to counter power players. The game's underlying rule sets is our GM, and should try harder to act like one.

I'm also well aware that this cannot be balanced 100%, due the differences in playing style. It will be too easy for some and too hard for others. Still it requires a bit of attention.

ROFL you're basically admitting that your agenda is to keep broken imbalanced exploits and glitches at the price of balanced gameplay? I mean... :spotted owl:

I already debunked your generic "if you don't like it don't play it" strawman. Games get patches. That's the reality of TES, you're the one who has to deal with that since you are obviously against it.

yes, you seem to be the only one blatantly pretending to ignore the broken balance.

surely you must like the reasonably sized levers and "hidden" buttons ?

with my eyesight i am glad the buttons are the size of dinner plates

I've yet to see a balance patch in TES. But I wouldn't dismiss the posibility of one for Skyrim.

Even though this is no MMO and it's single player, a game always needs a certain degree of balance. As it is now, some perk trees just aren't worth it except from a roleplay point of view. Pickpocketing, lockpicking and speech for example. These are mainly intended to get more loot and subsequently more gold, but there's nothing to really spend it on. This makes the skills pretty useless and makes investing in them unrewarding. And the goal for any game is to make the player feel rewarded for time invested in the end.

Some other skills - like smithing - are really powerful and just not really rewarding to level as it currently is. Because even from a roleplay perspective - why would my character make more expensive weapons if he can learn as much from making cheap ones? There's nowhere he can sell them (due to lack of merchant gold and a low amount of merchants) and the materials for cheap ones are much easier to come by.

These issues exist and make the game less enjoyable for me and probably for other people. I can easily overcome these problems by forcing rules and limits on myself, but I can see how other people don't like to do this and would like it to be genuinely challenging to reach a certain point in the game where their character is really powerful and geared to the max. On top of that, if you don't mind that there is unbalance, would it hurt you personally if there was balance? I don't think it would, so I think people pointing out unbalance aren't really doing harm. Of course, a lot of them are a bit over the top and expect it to be like an MMO, but I don't think Bethesda pays much attention to that.

As it stands now, the broadening of the TES audience over the years has led to many different views of how the games should be designed. Some see it more as a single player MMO, others see it as an exploring game and others as an action game. That's why a lot of people like it, but also why there are so many different views and opinions about what Bethesda should improve. They're walking a fine line and I think they did great with Skyrim, but I can see where a lot of complaints are coming from. But with the all-round nature of TES games (a sandbox open-ended free-roam quest and exploration-based single player melee/ranged/magic/stealth action roleplaying game - also known as SOEFRQEBSPMRMSARPG) , conflicting opinions like you see in this thread will probably remain for as long as the TES lasts.

For one, that's who Beth marketed to in a way. Secondly the only people I see bringing up MMOs whether for or against, are MMO newbs.

That kind of whining is not relegated to this particular paradigm. You will find humanity is rife with it.

People do indeed say:

Noone force you to take up on smithing after you have maxed two-handed and heavy armor on your pure tank battleaxe character.

...

Seriously.
WHAT ELSE are you supposed to take when playing a pure tank?

Two-handed
Heavy armor

...
What else?
Sneak?

Sneaking with a battleaxe?

Alteration?
Alteration-tank?
Speechcraft? ... A talking tank?
Lockpicking? It's a real shame battleaxes cannot break chests, but not bloody likely.

Archery?
With a two-handed axe and heavy armor?

...

Blacksmithing?
... obviously.

3 skills down.
You need one more to even have a shot at hitting the soft level cap.

...
What else could POSSIBLY help the class which runs at base mana, kills a lot of creatures point blank, and makes his own non-enchanted gear?

...
Well, enchantment obviously, because all the enchanters are too busy enchanting THEIR OWN daggers and selling them to stupid merchants to help you add simple enchantments to your gear.

So the game shoehorns your character into going:

Two-handed heavy-armor blacksmith enchanter. Add on alchemy for good measure.

That is one possible class.

Here's another go:

You're a pure mage.

...
Obviously you are going to use destruction.
But equally obvious, you are going to take conjuration.
When going conjuration, you may try out bound bow -- upon which you decide to restart as an archer -- unless you know about the 100% reduced mana cost exploit which makes destruction viable.

I don't have a problem with fixing things that are redundant or just flat out make no sense. 100% decrease in magicka cost makes perks pointless, except unless you're looping, you'll only get 90% reduction cost. Which as you said, on Master, that's damn near necessary. Now if master level spells would continue to scale, then you could cap magicka reduction around 50-60% and it would be just fine. Then those perks are completely useful, as they could add to that, without going near 100%, and it would be okay since your spells actually got more powerful. I see no problem with what you're saying. What I can't stand is these people are saying stuff like, "just remove it, it shouldn't be there." Remove what? Magicka reduction? You're crazy. If someone wants to have a constructive conversation about what we could do to fix the game so that it still works for both of us, then I'm all for it. But when people (not you) act like they're some high and mighty professional gamer, who just knows oh so much more than me and yet won't give any real advice on what it is they even want, and don't even seem to be considering a route that makes sense, I get defensive. You shouldn't just remove anything, ever. Even MMO's don't generally remove things. They instead fix them. But you can read all through every post in this thread, and see over and over again, "remove unbalanced things," yet you'll barely see anyone making an actual case for fixing things, instead of just removing it. In fact someone actually stated something like, "removing is the best type of balance" or something. Yeah right. My issue has only been that I enjoy playing my character as immensely powerful, enough to kill gods. I've always been able to do that since I played Daggerfall. When people start screaming about removing things, it hurts that for me and others who do that. If you want to fix it, then that's fine, and we can come to a fix that doesn't hurt either of us and enriches the game for us both.



I agree with this too, I was mostly talking about just the difficulty issue people seem to have. There are just as many threads about how Master is not hard enough as there are threads about how master is way too hard, because blah blah blah. The problem isn't really the difficulty at all. A mod can give you the hardcoe version you want, while not making Master too ridiculous for other people. If you can fix my spell scaling and cap crafting at a reasonable number, one that lets me still be a god if I want, but doesn't somehow overdo it in your eyes, then fine. But I don't want to see it made to where I can't be a god until I'm level 80 if I so choose.

Note: When I say "you" and "your" I'm not referring specifically to you, just in general. I can't pretend to be speaking for or against you, since I don't know entirely how you feel, you've just brought things up in my mind I want to say.

Except you reach -100 spell cost from store-bought items.

Chest, head, amulet and ring -- 25% each.
Enchanting yourself, you can reach 35% without exploits, making it 3 items instead of 4.

...

As for grinding smithing:

IMAGINE if the ONLY WAY to level up one-handed was to hit those combat-dolls near forts.
...
How much would you level up before going into the game world?
Skill level 25?
50?
75?
100?

Would you make up a rule: One point per enemy killed?
One point per ten enemies killed?
One point every hour?

Why doesn't the game set the pace for natural blacksmithing and enchantment progress?
It just sais:
Do whatever you want.
Reach level 15 without seeing the outside of whiterun, fine!
But why is that even possible?!?!?!

How boring would it not be to self-level every other skill without having to face a single enemy?

What does it ADD to the game to be able to become a master god-smith 4 hours into the game, before finding your first book that even mentions advanced smithing techniques?