So has anybody else gone back to adept difficulty after playing tones on master and legendary?

I use to really enjoy playing on master difficulty, but switched to legendary for my last play through which I ended at about level 55. I'm really finding legendary (and the other difficulty levels) more annoying then challenging. When the old lady at the alchemy shop does 12x more damage than my Barbaric Nord in unarmed damage it really kills the buzz of being rough (those companion quest)

or when Sven tanks like a boss in a t-shirt and you roll up in Nord plate and get Mehrune razored :S

Now I'm not saying it's hard, but the higher difficulty settings throws the game balance (yes there is one) out of whack where things like deadly shield bashes, damage shouts, certain skills go under developed, and unarmed combat are a waste of time.

The real question is how does going back to adept solve any of these issues and what have you done to improve your experience?

I'll wait to let you guys answer because I'm interested in what you have to say then I will list some of the things i have done to improve my experience.

p.s. its great to be playing Skyrim near the holidays again plus it feels like Skyrim outside

I normally stay on Adept until I feel the difficulty is getting to easy. So then I go to Expert, then Master, and only Legendary for certain characters.

I am not sure, but I believe that at adept, everything is 50/50. You get as much as you give. I have always played on adept, and never changed it. To me, that suits my gal fine.

Off topic, how cold is it there?? We got snow on the ground, snow on the mountains and it is presently -12 degrees.

Same here. I pretty much never go to legendary. I find it really useless for pure mages and really I think most who claim the play legendary is just trying to do an online "my pee pee is bigger than yours because I play only legendary " type if thing going on.

The entire reason I switched back to adept was the whole 1/1 ratio with damage taken vs damage given plus I was tired of my punches only doing 1 point of damage without perks or gear. What can I say I love the kill cam moves in unarmed combat. I also don't improve weapons or armor since that is the root of all evil, nobody else in the game does it as far as NPC's go. Reaching the armor cap is very hard and your damage should top out at 70-120 (giants do 60) depending on your weapon type, perks, and enchanted gear. I still use enchanted gear though since the ebony warrior does.

@miss ashelyclark

You might laugh at me but it's 41 degrees, which is really cold for here and it will probably drop to 34-35 degrees in the next couple of hours.

For my playstyle Adept is usually about right, But I do adjust depending on how the flow of combat goes. The major issue is the Hand to Hand combat which on higher settings 98 year old grandma can kick your butt in no time on Legendary.

41 Degrees what is that in Centigrade. Since in Centigrade that is hot very hot.

In Toronto it is about -1 Degrees Centigrade or just below freezing, which for this time of year is about average around midnight.

I've never left Adept. Personally I think the higher difficulties in Elder Scrolls games are pointless.

I almost always play on Adept. Any lower, and my character is being buffed while all NPCs are being weakened, which feels like cheating to me. Any higher, and I'm intentionally weakening my character, which doesn't feel right to me. I do see how others might want more of a challenge, or more of a casual experience, but I'm usually fine with "normal" mode. That said, I may bump up the difficulty if I feel like something is just too easy, or I'm in the mood for a bigger challenge. The vast majority of the time, though, I'm on Adept.

I don't see a point going higher then Adept. Making the enemies do more but you do less is not difficulty but artificially extending the fight for the sake of extending the fight. Personally I just gimp myself and put it in a situation where I can kill the enemy in a couple of hits but he can also kill me in a couple of hits. It's not 100% perfect but it's better then going up to Master and taking 5 minutes to kill a group of bandits, all the time your kiting casting fast heal while trying to dodge blows. That's not difficulty, that's the definition of tediousness.

Well as I play a heavy modded game, even start on adept is hard. if somewhat I find not enjoyable as the game progress I put it to expert. But beyond, it takes very long time to kill anything.

Lol ... yeah it would be 5 celsius in the matrix system here

That's how I'm starting to feel, honestly I would rather have larger or higher level mobs instead. Imagine wolf packs with 12-15 wolves, or walking in a certain dungeon and there are 40 skeletons instead of 8.

I find adept to be good because people aren't sponges, but you got to watch yourself at the higher levels to prevent yourself from steamrolling over enemies because the balance of power shifts pretty heavily after a while.

Off topic

Got you all beat. This is the 4th night of these temps. Wind chill is presently -22 and so far it has not gone above 3 degrees since Wednesday. It will be close to -20 by morning with all the stars out.

Back on topic

Like I said, I always stay at adept, except for the first time I did the Dragonborn dlc, and went into a dungeon with 6 deathloords and had to turn it down to apprentice. lol

Never played any difficulty level other than Expert, and it suits my style perfectly, so I did not need to switch to anything else.

I know that Higher difficulty level only make the game more of a bash-fest and lower difficulty levels make it even easier than how I like to play it, so it is only Expert level for me.

If higher difficulty levels did not alter damage ratio, but gave monsters more proficient AI, or more perks, spells and abilities, then I would surely have tried the higher difficulty levels, but in current implementation, no, I do not need that.

I oly up the difficulty if i feel im killing too quickly. After all it just affects enemy health/damage.

Lol. You must be here in Los Angeles where I sm . It's FREEZING here.

I recently regressed to expert. If I feel the game's too easy, I might bump it up to master or legendary.

I almost always used to play only on adept, for most games. However, I turned the Skyrim difficulty up to master about 18 months ago and never changed it.

I implement mods to rebalance the game and make it absolutely brutal, as it is. I never had the attraction to adjust to a Legendary setting. I actually found it utterly ridiculous to have to hit a rabbit five times with an iron dagger to kill it.

or punch Bersi Honey-Hand 109 times to beat him in a fist fight!

Legendary = needing a new mouse soon

I'm always at master with a small change, PC is dealing on all but easy difficulties 100% damage

I always play on expert and never change the setting. Suits my play style perfectly and keeps the game challenging but not a headache.

I used to play on Master after a long time of sticking to Adept, but then I realized it wasn't fun trying to take down damage sponges. Nowadays I play on Expert.

Gives a bit more of a challenge and you're slightly less overpowered by the end, but it isn't totally unfair. Fist fights still last a stupid amount of time, so I turn the difficulty down to Adept for those. If changing the difficulty actually, I don't know, added real difficulty, I'd consider playing on Legendary at least once.

Although I will play on Adept on characters that are supposed to be more skilled than normal.

I have always played with Expert and never even bothered trying the other difficulty levels. But then my playstyle includes several things making the game more challenging and enjoyable (no HUD, no healing in combat, limited amount of arrows, inventory I have with me always weights less than 100 and I choose my armor/clothes and weapons by their look and feel not by their stats - this usually means non-enchanted low-level stuff).