Hi, folks,

I've been reading posts for the last couple of days, between playing Skyrim and the various other activities which occupy the bulk of my time. While I don't have solutions for many of the gripes folks are having, I have come up with something that has worked for me in regards to level-scaling.

Where I'm coming from: I don't like level-scaling. That having been said, I understand the necessity of it to appeal to a wider audience, and accept it. Personally, I enjoy struggling mightily at the outset of a game, slowly gathering resources and training (in both levels and understanding of the game system,) until I am, eventually, though lots of time and reflection, able to lay waste to 98% of the inhabitants of a world with ease. If everything around me levels up with me, however, I don't feel rewarded for having trained, reflected, and invested my time. If my level 40 mage with protective spells can get one-shotted by the same Draugr Overlord with a bow that one-shotted me at level 2, I feel something is wrong. The reverse is also true. If it takes me several spells to waste an unnamed bandit at level 1, and still takes me several spells to waste an unnamed bandit at level 30 (because both the bandit and the spells have gained in strength,) I feel frustrated.

I acknowledge that this is personal opinion, and here is what I have done to compensate for it:

Start the game on Master difficulty, and every 10 levels thereafter, lower the difficulty one notch.

I know, I know - "I shouldn't have to! This game is flawed! I shouldn't have to touch the difficulty slider! It's not balanced!" I felt the same way, at first. Then, I stopped, reflected, thought about the game system and what I wanted to experience, and came to the conclusion that to play the game I wanted to play, I had to fiddle with the mechanics under the hood. Thank you, Bethesda, for including a 5-point difficulty scale, instead of a 2- or 3-point one. It lets me adjust the game to feel the way I think it should feel. As a pen-and-paper RPG player of 15 years, and an avid video gamer since my atari 2600, I have come to develop a pretty keen notion for how I want my games to feel, and I appreciate when tools are included that let me make those decisions for myself.

Many of the threads I have seen discuss setting the difficulty to master, or implying that the upper difficulties are the only ones in which valid complaints and observations may be made. I submit, however, that the difficulty slider is, at the most basic level, the first (and for consol gamers, only) game editing tool most of us get access to. We should not be afraid to adjust it so that the game feels how we want it to. We can use this simple, 5-point scale to alter every aspect of the virtual world we are spending our time in. That's pretty powerful.

I'll reiterate: the above is based on the opinions of one gamer. I don't expect everyone to agree, and I'm certainly not saying everyone should. I am simply hoping to improve the gaming experience of some of the folks out there who are of like mind. Have fun in Skyrim!

Lamberton