Yes because obviously 99% of the player base isn't going to seek out better armor than iron or leather.

Bethesda should balance their own damned game, not expect us to do it for them by forcing us to alienate and ignore certain elements of gameplay that they themselves bothered to implement. FFS, one of the above posts advises against blocking to prevent from feeling OP. There's clearly a problem and redesigning their childishly simplistic armor system would fix it.

Balance is boring. Having the ability to be weak, average or OP is better. Skyrim allows you to be weak, average or OP.

Please explain to me how either being oneshot by every other enemy or being incapable of dying is "fun."

It gives the player the freedom to do whatever the [censored] they want to do.

Like die repeatedly. Sure, ok.

Thing is, a balanced armor system and the ability to svck or be overpowered (in a sense) are not mutually exclusive; you CAN have it both ways. Likewise, there's absolutely no reason whatsoever to plan a weak character in Skyrim because if you truly wanted to be oneshot nonstop for whatever reason, you can just fully perk your armor and take it off when you feel like being a masochist.

But again, there's plenty of games - well-balanced games - where you can do the exact same thing: take off your armor, use crap gear and you'll feel weak. This isn't some new luxury that Skyrim has painstakingly developed for us: it's standard, it's just Skyrim fails to have a significant middle ground and exists SOLELY in "too strong" or "too weak" for the most part. You can also provide the player with the means to FEEL overpowered without actually making them overpowered to the point where all challenge from the game is now gone. Typically, to do this, you want to provide the player with exceptional offense but NOT exceptional defense. That way, they feel a sense of power and accomplishment for how fast they can drop enemies, but they're still at risk of dying themselves. Alternatively, you can give them new tools to avoid damage, but damage should still be a very real threat.

The reason why other games are balanced and Skyrim is not is because In those, you have multiple ways to play the game which feel completely different but are relatively similar in strength. In Skyrim, you have limited styles of play that either feel exactly the same in practice or one build is undeniably weaker than another (two-handed, destruction magic), and hell some builds are so ridiculously broken that you'd have to TRY to die. (stealth, maxed defense and dual-wielded sword-dagger)

LOL. It's like we're not even playing the same game. My strongest and most fun character was a near pure 2H Nord, moderate enchanting and no armor. This gave me my preferred style; strong attack, weak defense so that your success is strongly based on your personal tactics. Seems perfect to me.

I agree with longknife, it shouldnt be too hard to make a game where you could chose difficulty without having to balance it yourself.

but having to do it yourself gives you more freedom to make your character how you want it.

I can agree to this, but marginally. People who are unfamiliar with the game and its mechanics, and expected a properly balanced game, discover many hours of playing their game is capped and there's still plenty more to do.

You can argue this is a "fair" system, but it's not. No one should have to feel OP by doing what the game expects of them.

I also felt the rage of discovering this "feature" on my first game, and needless to say, trying to find the balance when the leveling system is poorly designed is not fun.

Longknife's post speaks the facts, not an opinion.

Exactly. I do the opposite and bump it up to Master/Legendary to fight dragons so it's more epic and they feel dangerous like dragons should be.

The overpowered complaint is stupid (no offense OP) as you do it to yourself, the game doesn't automatically make you overpowered you actually have to do things to become so like max perks, smithing, enchanting, etc. Only once did I allow myself to become overpowered and that was because I wanted to make a demi god, the other characters were all balanced nicely to how I wanted them to be.

What are you talking about? You act as if there's no way to balance the game between extremes, either the best armor fully perked/upgraded or naked. Does the game force you to spend every perk point? Skyrims system is far from perfect but it leaves room for the player to decide on how they wish to progress. Say if you want to be a moderately skilled swordsman then simply only perk 1 or 2 of the skills that make you do more damage with a 1 hand weapon and leave the rest of the 1 hand tree alone or smith your blade a bit when your smithing is low and then never touch the grindstone again....I could think of countless ways to balance out every play style but you seem to want the game to do that for you like other games do which personally I would not like at all. As for you wanting all play styles to be similar in strength, that's also something that I wouldn't want as why should a dagger wielding rogue be on par with a mighty 2 hand warrior? I really don't understand how you play as everything you say here can be balanced with a bit of effort and understanding on the players part.

Right.

Now replay and make him a dual-wielding Nord with enchanting and armor. The new character will curbstomp your old one; dual-wielding almost completely invalidates two-handed as an option because it provides you with a guarenteed stagger from power attacks while dealing out superior damage per second. The ONLY advantage Two-handed has over dual wielding is that you can block, which is rendered ridiculously minor when you consider dual-wielding doesn't NEED to block because it can stagger-lock opponents. Yes, you can stagger lock because again, Skyrim's brilliant core system design only requires you to have ONE stamina to use a power attack. FFS, you don't even need to MIX potions; just mass farm ingredients that give stamina (any amount) and you're set to spam the power attacks as much as neccesary.

I never said the weaker ones weren't doable, I simply said they have no chance in hell of competing with the stronger ones. It's a special kind of frustrating to make your first character a dual-wielder, then to want to replay as a two-hander, only to realize that a two-handed is nothing but a severely gimped dual-wielder.

Again: name ONE RPG game that prevents you from gimping yourself and making yourself weak.

There isn't one, because any RPG under the sun can be made difficult by simply taking your armor off. If you truly want to be weak, you can do so with ANY system.

The problem with Skyrim's is that it accomidates for the weak to make them viable options, the result being that the strong literally cannot die unless the player has a stroke at their keyboard. The % damage reduction only polarizes weak and strong, and if they'd develop a system that were more flexible, then BOTH weak and strong could be viable while offering more challenge for the strong while still making weak builds possible.

Take Dark Souls for example. You can get the best armor in the game defense-wise and you truly notice you're wearing it because you take less damage. You can then use the best Greatshield in the game and block attacks that no other build in the game is capable of blocking. On the flip side? You can run around naked with a tiny parry shield. Yes, you take more damage, but the damage gap isn't SOOOOOOO huge that the heavy armor guy isn't taking any damage while the naked guy is being one-shot; the heavy armor guy is probably, at MOST, taking 60% less damage. The naked guy however moves much faster, can dodge and roll for less stamina cost and while his shield isn't good for blocking, it DOES parry better, so a skilled player can still utilize this character in such a way that it's viable and dangerous. If he's unskilled though, yes, he'll probably prefer just wearing his armor and blocking.

Take New Vegas. Yes, armor helps. You will find Old World Blues much easier and MUCH cheaper to navigate if you use power armor instead of light armor. However, power armor is not the end-all, do-all. Infact, both light armor and power armor are susceptible to headshot criticals from AMR's being instantly fatal on very hard difficulty: the damage it deals is much too strong for your armor to matter. Ironically, Light armor specializes in crit and dodging crits, so with the right perk, the light armor character has a better chance of walking away from that headshot alive because the headshot is far less likely to critical at all vs. Light armor. But yes, in standard gameplay, you'll notice power armor being more comfortable and less costly in typical fights because it takes less damage on average, whereas light armor is gonna make the standard fight more difficult for you, BUT when you DO fight that enemy that's really dangerous and scary, he probably won't oneshot you like he might on the power-armored player.

Both of these systems offer up an armor system (New Vegas does direct subtraction from incoming damage instead of % reduction, meaning you eventually become god-like vs. weaker enemies and small firearms, but major enemies are STILL threatening; running around naked only means the minor enemies remain somewhat threatening) or range of defense (not capping at 80%, but rather ~50% and the trade-off of moving much slower; in this sense, the best armor is definitely nice to have, but NOT wearing it isn't suicidal, and there's a plan B via movement speed and dodging in place for if you opt out of wearing it) that allows for both the "weak" and "strong" builds to be completely viable and "strong" in their own unique way. This promotes diversity in playstyle and gives you a reason to try out that new build: because it truly plays different.

Skyrim does not promote diversity. Ebony curbstomps iron, Glass curbstomps leather. Using either iron or leather does nothing to change the core gameplay mechanics or style, but rather just makes you die more. You want to experience everything? Make an overpowered character, take your armor off if you feel like being weak. Wanna be strong? Put it back on. And if you're a masochist, work your butt off trying to find "the right balance" in a system that Bethesda themselves should've bothered to balance for you.

Two-handed is not "different" from dual-wielding anymore than scrubbing the floor with a toothbrush is "different" than scrubbing the floor with an actual cleaning brush. There's no "freedom" to being able to scrub the floor with a toothbrush instead, but there is freedom to being offered an alternative to scrubbing the floor that you can choose to take at any time.

Why?

Why would you want to be a moderately skilled swordsman if it plays EXACTLY the same as a skilled or un-skilled swordsman, cept the damage is slightly less/more.

That's part of my point: your idea of "diversity" is the ability to determine how much your character svcks. My idea of "diversity" is being given multiple, viable options on how to play my character. I want multiple combat styles that are equal in strengths and weaknesses, but all Skyrim offers is "dual-wielding, sword and board or stealth if you wanna rock, destruction magic or two-handed if you're a masochist."

That's not diversity, especially not if you play the strong character types before experiencing the weaker ones.

Finally, finding a middle ground simply isn't realistic. There's going to be a point where your character is either frustratingly strong or frustratingly weak. There's going to be a point where you ask yourself why you're bothering to swing your sword 60 times when you could just spend your perks and only have to swing it 10 (of course assuming you're not needing those perks elsewhere). There's going to be a point where 80% of enemies die at the exact same speed they die regardless of if you took 2 of those perks or all 5.

But in short, I don't see how different levels of damage = totally different characters to you.

EDIT: Or just higher it to master, but lower it to expert/adept when fighting Ancient Dragons?

This is what I do when playing OBLIVION with OSCURO'S OBLIVION OVERHAUL MOD. Really keeps the fun coming and the frustration away.

So the solution to a balanced game is to intentionally gimp myself?

Freedom is nothing without consequence.

Verily as my broken heart can attest

True story here and why I spoke up in this thread:

I actually played Skyrim last week for the first time in ages, and as I ran around slaughtering enemies, I felt like they weren't nearly as bad of bullet sponges as I remembered, and damn I was NOT taking damage. I checked my difficulty settings and sure enough, I'd accidently set it on the easiest setting somehow, not the hardest. So, I turned it all the way up to legendary and braced for enemies that hit me for half my health.

It felt almost EXACTLY the same. The only thing that was noticeable was that now it took ~thrice as long to kill enemies, but the damage I was taking was basically the exact same.

That's what 80% damage resistance does: it renders everything moot. If a dragon deals 300 damage on normal but 900 on legendary, I'm just taking 180 damage instead of 60. Sound like a big difference? Unfortunately, that's the largest difference you'll see in the game; even a Dwarven Centurion only deals 150 damage tops, so Legendary vs normal in the face of 80% damage reduction becomes 30 damage vs 90; not exactly significant if you assume most players have ~500 HP.

And some will say "then don't add HP, leave it at 200."
Personally, I think "self-nerfing" is bogus. I think it's bogus because the moment you start losing or struggling, that's the moment you'll STOP self-nerfing and you'll start giving it your all. And in that moment, the entire plan falls apart.

And really, it is a bogus idea. You don't encounter any sports or races that encourage participants to limit themselves, do you? No, because that's ridiculous. Nobody likes losing because they stacked odds against themselves, and if they do lose because they stacked odds against themselves, they stop doing so. We want to prove we're capable of winning, so if it's in our power, we do so. If you lose over and over, fixing your damned perks is within your power. The result is....they people don't do it; self-nerfing only lasts so long. And listen, I'm all for self-nerfing in the sense of "my character isn't a mage so he can't use magic," because that makes for an interesting character archetype and yes, I wanna see how my non-mage warrior stacks against the challenges of the game. But a mediocre swordsman? I cannot for the life of me fathom why playing a swordsman who svcks more than other swordsman would be fun.

If you guys are gonna sit here and preach to me the virtues of playing a character that svcks and is DESIGNED to svck, then sorry, but I'm just not convinced.

so what? You want a game that makes mudcrabs as challenging as legendary dragons? Oblivion had insane level scaling, that might be what you're looking for.

And now we get hyperbolic nonsense. Bravo.

Also, if you think Mudcrabs in Oblivion were challenging on any difficulty setting I advise you to try a different game. Maybe The Sims would be right up your alley.

I've found that smithing your gear to Legendary and enchanting stuff worh fire/frost protection isn't overpowered when you set the difficulty to legendary. And the fire/frost resistance, coupled with good armor, makes Dragons less of a threat while still being one (unless you exploit alchemy/enchanting).

I'm trying to follow your reasoning here, what's wrong with 1 style being stronger then another (dual wield vs. 2 hand) when the gap between the 2 can be bridged by the player purposefully making 1 stronger/weaker? Even if you can't resist but to make the best out of each character, I find it equally fun to go from playing a powerful dual wielding berserker beast to a more calculated single sword and empty hand style or anything in between. We both use the same flawed system yet I see it from the side of making it my own and customizing it to how I prefer while you find it frustrating that there's gaps between the styles/equipment that force you to make tough choices if you want to narrow them (I can understand that much being annoying though).

Also a difference of damage and defense pretty much makes all the difference between characters but there's small things in the game that can also affect it like racial bonuses, blessings, active powers, etc.

As for your Dark Souls reference, I feel that the gap between the best armor and naked should be huge and I feel it's more realistic to be one shot when you're in the nvde or at least a near fatal effect as there's nothing stopping their steel from gutting you. I haven't played Dark Souls but what you say about moving quicker without armor also exists in Skyrim but once again the player can choose if they wish to counter the heavy armor weighing you down by using the proper perk or Steed Stone and can somewhat add to the birthday suit armor with the Lord Stone and other powers/blessings. When you're nvde you can easily dodge arrows and power attacks so a nvde 1 handed swordsman can make this a viable playstyle by dodging and countering with quick attacks.

You can find a balance though throughout the game between god and gimp, you just have to work within the crap system setup for this

That may be true to you and many like minded individuals but I enjoy the challenge and like to stick with specific characters and a specific set of equipment and rules...understandably not everyone does but I'm 1 of those who won't be tempted to make myself stronger because I'm getting spanked by a particular enemy. My most entertaining yet frustratingly challenging build was my back to basics battleaxe barbarian who only used a Skyforge steel battleaxe (once obtained) and used no enchanting, potions, magic, armor, etc...well hide bracers for the look but I wouldn't really consider them armor. Sure it was a pain at times (the damn deathlords were a nightmare in Skuldafn) but I still enjoyed feeling strong yet vulnerable at the same time. My axe was only OP to basic bandits but didn't devastate the more powerful enemies like they devastated me.

Bottom line is to each their own

I would personally just love to see the damage threshold system from New Vegas adopted for all future Fallout and TES titles.

Why?

Let's say I'm wearing power armor in New Vegas and it has a total of 40 damage threshold. Any hit I take that doesn't exceed 40 damage gets reduced to 20% damage, AKA this is EXACTLY the same as Skyrim's current system. However, if I take a hit that deals 150 damage or the like, then I'm taking 110 damage still. In Skyrim, that 150 would be reduced to a mere 30 damage, because that's 80% damage reduction across the board. With damage threshold however, the system reacts in such a way that it recognizes minor damage and reduces it to a mere annoyance that will only kill you if you're INCREDIBLY careless or have a large swarm of such attacks on you all at once, while the stronger attacks are ALSO recognized and basically allowed to bypass your armor to a certain degree.

If Skyrim were to adopt THAT exact system, mudcrabs and bandits with iron daggers would hit you for the exact same amounts they're hitting you with the current system, but Dragons, Centurions and Draugr Deathlords would suddenly be threatening again.

In that sense, the system just seems far more practical and flexible. Bethesda's current 80% damage reduction system though? Go load up Oblivion, Morrowind, Skyrim, FO3....doesn't matter. I promise you, by the time you get end-game armor, the game is rendered boring as hell simply because it's basically impossible for you to die now.

Carry on or up the difficulty, what other choice is there?

Great. Another person who has never played Oblivion, spouting crap they've read on the internet.

Mudcrabs did not scale. Neither did mountain lions. Neither did Berserker Goblins. They remained base. The difference is when they appeared in the game, and this depended on the player level. Bersker Goblins showing up generally meant fewer Goblins were seen.

In addition, and this is the entire point of the discussion, players trying to be OP by doing everything under the Oblivion sun paid for it dearly, since they gamed their overall level without realizing what the game was doing behind the scenes. Yet, every single player who built a character and stayed in the role were rewarded with a well balanced game, until the mid 20s.

Oblivion did it right. Skyrim did it wrong because too many people think Oblivion did it wrong, and voiced their objections to the "too difficult" leveling system.

Most enemies didn't actually level scale. As you said, it was about when they appeared and at what spawns. Minotaur Lords start off completely absent from the game, slowly appear in a select few spawns, then by level 36, you'll struggle to find a wolf but a minotaur lord is around every corner.

I don't think leveled enemies are bad, they just need to control their spawns well. There needs to be designated spots in the game where the player can recognize that yes, the enemies that spawn there are strong, do level, and that's where the player needs to go if they want a fight. Putting such spawns everywhere though simply becomes annoying though, because the combat becomes too frequent and repetitive to be exciting.

Again, not to sound like a broken record, but I like how it was done in New Vegas. Leveled, powerful enemies = go to a DLC area. Non-leveled enemies that you can kill quickly = base game. Only way they could've made it better is if they'd left at least ONE or two areas in the base-game that had leveled enemies, so players had somewhere to go and fight no problem.

Oblivion did it right? ha that's a joke, I loved me some OB and played it up until Skyrim but there was nothing "right" about enemies wearing the best armor or using the best equipment once you get past a certain level. There was nothing right about the pick 3 level mentality or the class system that was set in stone after the sewers. There was nothing right with the major and minor skills that were also set in stone. There was much that was wrong and inflexible with that system which is why it had to be changed the same way that system is completely different from Morrowind.
Don't get me wrong, there were alot of things that OB did better but level scaling and such weren't one of them.