Which would be... sort of like a game, right?

*facepalm*

Sincere. Honest.

It's hard to tell without smilies, isn't it?

But yes. I'm actually starting over again. I was naive! I didn't stop to think that potions might be overpowered, too. Also, soup. No, really. You can spam bashes and power attacks if you're under the effects of vegetable soup, I discovered. It's these experiences that keep the hot-topic of 'balance' quite relevant, even when I was making a conscious effort to avoid it.

Anyway. I genuinely wasn't sure how to handle potions -- at first I just thought not using alchemy would be fine, but apparently full-health potions get rather abundant, and for some obsessive OCD reason, I feel that I need to have a rule for them, rather than just make a judgement call as I go. Also, I might try crafting again -- it's a little overpowered during the 'steel' era, though, because even with only the materials you find, it levels so fast off of pelts>bracers, etc. It just seemed easier to avoid altogether.

In my opinion, truly roleplaying would have the exact opposite effect. Imagine yourself really in your character's shoes. You're forced to travel a hostile land with dragons, giants, and angry bears all out to kill you on sight. There's no quicksave/quickload to resurrect you if things go wrong, you're just dead, and not only that, there's a good chance of extremely dire consequences for the rest of the world if that happens. Are you really going to gimp yourself because you "consider yourself a warrior"? No, you're going to do everything you can to maximize your odds of survival.

The concept of fixed classes seems unrealistic, an artificial game mechanic that breaks immersion and inhibits true roleplaying. I really like having the option to come up with novel builds and skillsets, as well as having the option to fully round out my character by retroactively building up my unused skills once I've maxed my character's chosen specialties. You are first and foremost a dealer of death, and anything that improves your proficiency is going to interest you if you're given the time to develop it (which you definitely are in this gargantuan game.) As for balance, having all combat disciplines maxed shouldn't be a gamebreaker, since for the most part you can only use one at a time. You'll just be a little better prepared for diverse combat situations (and in a position to have more fun as a gamer.)

I don't think it would take much to get rid of the gamebreaking ubergear, just a bit of a nerf to the magnitudes of some of the crafting buffs. Enchanting should not be able to improve your combat damage by twice as much as your combat skills perks. Rather than a max of around +50% archery/onehanded/twohanded damage on 4 pieces of gear, restrict it to +10% for four, or +50% for 1. Since that would probably make low level enchantments nearly worthless, maybe make their strength progress non-linearly, i.e. diminishing returns as you approach the max.

Currently playing as a Bosmer Hunter, joined the Companions and that's it. Nothing for from the main quest (not even the first dragon as I don't want that anytime soon) and I only do quests that I think my character would do.

I play with no HUD which makes it challenging for bow shots and makes me explore more.
No lockpicking, no enchanting, no blacksmithing, no magic at all.
I change to werewolf only once every 15 days and only at night (to stick with the full moon and all).
I only use leather armor even at higher levels. And I use an Elven Bow with Elven Arrows.
It's very hard at master. Specially with no potions and just food (which I eat only out of combat and in camps).

I'm having so much fun playing like this, it's almost like a new game.

I hadn't really given potions that much thought, but you made me realise how big a part they actually play. The more I think on it, the more I think I should really limit the amount of health and stamina potions I carry. Its so easy to fall back on chugging in the face of death. Even the buff types, an imposed limit would train myself not to waste them. No one could realistically carry countless vials of funny liquids. My one concern right now is the enemy kill animations. It worries me that I'll start dying by them too often when my health goes low. I think this is something that's worth testing.

There are a few obvious mods that would help against chugging reflexes. The potions being heal-over-time instead of instant, would be a great start.

The reason I level blacksmith isn't so much for the overpowered top-tier weapons and armor, but rather because I want to keep the armor I love competitive. For example, on my first character, I just wasn't able to part with the Studded Armor. I love the look of it on a big two-hand wielding barbarian warrior. And since I was using heavy armor for hands and feet, I was unable to make use of the deep armor perks. So I had to keep the base values competitive. Its sort of the same with my sword and board character. I'm doing blacksmithing more to keep my not so great but oh so gruffly awesome Iron armor competitive.

My character is a Nord who does not hate magic and instead is quite interested in it, but at the same time he is a true Nordic Warrior. Thus, it makes sense for him to have both Enchanting and Smithing. I abandoned Destruction for Blocking halfway through the game due to gameplay and personal preferences.

Actually, incredibly enhanced gear can help roleplaying instead of destroy it. For example, I'm roleplaying my role as Dragonborn and Legate right now (and a little Harbinger maybe) so I found it fitting to wear Imperial Armour. However, if I wore normal Imperial Armour at my level I would get slaughtered, so my Legendary Imperial Armour keeps me as powerful as I could be (maybe more powerful though) with normal Daedric Armour. This allows me to roleplay the role I want better because I can choose armour due to lore/aesthetic/character background reasons instead of having to use better grade armour for survivability.

Sometimes I like to get out of my armour and dress like a noble, visting cities and their Jarls. At these moments of roleplay my character becomes more vulnerable but I sometimes take a bodyguard along.

In other words : "it's completely open, but you must follow a very strict and defined path for it to works properly".
That's a rather amusing definition of open.
Considering Bethesda made a lot of noise about how you "should be able to play exactly as you like it and not be constrained by classes" and even REMOVED classes from the game, I'd like to point to you that your reasoning has been defeated by the VERY CREATORS of the game - who then went and defeated their own design by making their mechanics breaking as soon as you actually follow it...

I don't play any of those with my character and it's still very challenging. You just have to roleplay a little.

The game doesn't force you into 1 of 3 archetypes, you can easily hybridize and still role-play. What's with all the "bethesda failed at this game, you only find a challenge if you play one of 3 archetypes." This game is as hard as you make it.

I couldn't agree more.

Some people are complaining "But I'm a warrior-mage-thief and smithing is too OP!". Well, if you come to think about, smithing is something very hard passed from generation to generation of smiths.
Just pay attention to most NPC warriors in the game and tell me, how much of them are also smiths?

There's a lot to think about relating roleplay.

Well to be fair, the claims that the game become to easy / abilities and characters become too overpowered have a lot of truth to them. The game's not perfect. BUT. Its become a staple for the series. I really wish I could believe Bethesda were listening to us, but I saw these same debates in Morrowind and Oblivion days. The trend only continues its downward slide.

I sincerely hope that new blood will be added into the development team at the management/production level. Some of the people running the show seem too content when certain of issues that rear their ugly head game after game. Without a new vision, Elder Scrolls 6 will again be more of the same. So its ok to be vocal about what we dislike. But people should stop being on extremes. Its either THERE'S NO PROBLEM or I REFUSE TO TRY HELP MYSELF ENJOY THIS TERRIBLE GAME. I was accused of trying to shut people up earlier here, but I certainly had no such intention. Its ok to voice yourself either way. Just stop trying to keep people from (or worse ridiculing them for) trying to find ways to enjoy the game they paid for.

Honestly even with an RPG if you don't have balance then it breaks immersion. Kinda hard to role play when there is no immersion. If you want to play stupid builds and role play that's cool, you can use adept difficult for that. Master difficulty should require you bring the full power of a character to bear to be able to overcome challenges. However if you do that you there is no challenge. I didn't like Dark Souls because I could one shot everything...

My next character I'll roleplay broke their leg jumping from the tower into the inn. Might've been able to make it unscathed but was atrophied from extended time in binds. Won't be able to move and shortly after the inn collapses. Hard game!

Not that a big, burly Nord was my first choice, but I'm warming to him. I'm a huge fan of the cinematic's aesthetic, so I'm probably going to stick with Ancient Nord Armor, myself. It feels weird, but after some mental gymnastics, it's win/win. I get to look good AND enjoy a challenge. I might even have to lower the difficulty when the gear starts to fall behind, ironically.
Bonus -- if I can make it challenging on lower difficultly levels, then I have room to dump it up to master when a dragon pops up, to make them as deserve their spotlight. ^_^

That's probably one of the first things I would look in to, as a something I might actually mod for myself -- scaling, enchantable outfits. I ended up making my own outfit for Fallout, but I had to fudge it and re-mod it as I went along with the stats of armor I found, to make it feel useful, but still 'fair.'

Also, yes. Heal-over-time potions would be very nice. I might just try to avoid them altogether. See how it goes.

Edit: I'm quite used to making my own game of Bethesda's messes. It's honestly their niche -- there aren't really any other modder-friendly titles out there, with a broad enough foundation to build off of. Doesn't mean people behaving like the OP don't irk me all the same.

I actually played with an immersive fun attitude like this at first. The game was amazing. Now I've reached the EVERYTHING MUST BE THE BEST point. I should have gotten the PC version so I can just enter commands to instantly have what I want to test. At that point, it's about testing things which I don't want to spend hours grinding to do. Then, after I find the ABSOLUTE BEST single character possible I can die happy and/or move on to the next game.

Or I could appreciate Skyrim instead of demanding the most complex, skillful gameplay possible. If you want intelligence and skill to the utmost then you should play and demand games that have no story or extra decoration. Instead, play games that replace story and decoration with more intelligence and skill. You can truly test yourself there. We need to demand more of this out of the game industry if this is what we want.

Intelligence and Skill to the utmost.

Roleplaying is a lot of fun and adds more to the game. Trying not to overpower yourself will make the game a more fun and challenging experience.

The game is a journey not a destination. It isn't just mages that are very powerful when all maxed out; level 50 stealth characters can breeze through dungeons popping in and out of stealth to 1-shot things, and level 50 warriors are stepping all over everything. Some minor tweaks to things like conjuration and stealth wouldn't hurt, but for a single player game being very powerful once you've hit the mechanical maximum of your abilities isn't that big of a deal.

I've played through master as a mage and warrior and it's not that easy. An up and coming mage has constant magicka issues and gets 1-shotted the second something looks at him. A warrior spends his life in melee range getting 1-2 shotted every time a blow gets by his shield. When you don't power-game your crafting and skills playing through is actually quite difficult.

Just one thought for difficulty; your equipment has much to do with it.

You could stop wearing that top armor (Daedric), pimped out with smithing and enchantment and instead use your awesome blacksmithing and enchanting skills to make another lesser armor competitive. That one armor appearance that you love and wish it were stronger.

ROLEPLAYING?! In my Roleplaying games? Sir, you have offended me!

But seriously, I completely agree. It's been this way for as long as I can remember. Personally, I usually have one "main" character that tends to be overpowered, but other than that, I tend to let my characters stick to roles. And I'm not going to complain about when I overpower myself.

Skyrim is extremely difficult when sticking to roles, imo.

I also tend to go for armour I like the look of, over something with good bonuses. Currently I'm using an Adept Hood over the Dragon Priest hood that gives +locking, Marksman and Alchemy. I'm also using the early thieves guild armour over Nightingale armour and late Dark Brotherhood armour, because I think it looks significantly better.

Also, I don't know if there was something wrong with my copy, but my manual doesn't have an entry that states "You MUST abuse Enchanting, Alchemy and Smithing to play this game". I'm pretty sure every TES game ever released (At least the main 5) have all had systems I can abuse, if I so choose to. I could understand if I were given nothing < daedric weaponry and a +500 health perk at level 1, but this is hardly a required part of gameplay that I'm forced to use.

Even for the dumbest, brutest warrior, using enchanted weapons and potions is hardly some weird, convoluted, min/maxing strategy found only in this game.

In pretty much every RPG ever offered over the past 3 decades, you're supposed to upgrade/customize your weapons with enchants or whatever they are called in that game; and you are supposed to use potions.

Also, this technique of buffing yourself with enchants and potions is not something that was only discovered because a single mad genius "theorycrafter" figured it out and posted it on the forums, where upon hordes of otherwise dumb players got a tip they would never have thought of for themselves.

First, if we're talking about roleplaying than a warrior deciding to become one of the best enchanters in skyrim for min/max purposes is particularly convoluted. You need to master these crafts.

Second, though the mechanics are easy to figure out the process of leveling up all of the crafting skills and allocating the rest of your perks for min/maxing purposes can be difficult and time consuming. The specific, made-easy methods out there are from theory crafters and likely are heavily borrowed.

This still does not mean that over the course of a "lifetime" of adventuring (this is highly abstract, as yes, the passage of time is simply poor when it comes to crafting), a warrior will not eventually come to practice alchemy, enchanting, and smithing.

My issue with what you're saying is that you are hindering a good half of what it means to be roleplaying with your message in this thread. You appear to be saying that people do not learn things over the course of their life. That characters remain static. I highly disagree with this notion. I find that it is a strong method of RP to show the minor shifts over time that eventually add up to create a character that may very well be unrecognizable from when they began.

I could begin play by joining the Legion, working as a hardened warrior. Upon winning the war, my character could become disillusioned with the Empire, join the Dark Brotherhood (being that this is not the spoiler board, cannot provide details as to why this matters, but I imagine most understand the issue with this idea), with a complete shift in skill focus over to the stealthier arts out of necessity for the type of work (or maintain the warrior style, as that still has a place in the DB).

What I disagree with, is some sort of notion that you're RPing better than I am just because you're imposing artificial restrictions on yourself for almost purely metagaming reasons (X is OP). Its the doctor with the horrible bedside manner "Doctor, it hurts when I do this with my arm!" "Then don't do that with your arm." That doesn't solve the problem, it merely buries it.

Yes, this will probably never be fixed. No, it is not acceptable to say "just don't do it." RP is not something as static as pick generic class X and stick with it, imposing artificial restrictions on yourself. All this means is that yes, Skyrim has flaws. And that's OK. The game is still amazingly fun. No, player made mods will not solve this problem, at least, not in an acceptable solution to me. I feel that the vanilla game is at core what needs to be balanced. Skyrim is basically a game where the GM can't tell the player "No, that's not going to work," or one that fails to cheat on that one roll in order to keep the game interesting. Its fun for the player for a time, but eventually breaks down.

Also, just saying that the other NPCs in the game don't smith/enchant/brew potions does not mean that inherently the PC cannot. The PC is Dovakhiin, they are unique, a prophesied individual who appears at the proper moment in history. They are beyond legend. So yes, it is acceptable that the PC become god-like, and that the PC is infinitely capable of learning anything they set their mind on. Or are you saying that "True RPers" also get to ignore exactly what occurs in the game (i.e. people that claim to say their character is not Dovakhiin)? Gee, I wish I could tell my GM at the table what is and is not true in their game world.

Part of RPing is working within the provided constraints (not doing so is to Mary Sue oneself, to god-RP). The issue here is that Skyrim does not provide the appropriate constraints to the appropriate skills. My recommendation is purely for the removal of the fortify crafting effects, as their synergy is the main problem. Each skill individually on its own is sufficiently powerful to justify itself. The synergy is what causes the heavy OPness.

Enchanting seems pretty evil to me. You're ripping souls off...

As for blacksmithing, I think it would have been better to have more restrictions. Top tier armor shouldn't be upgradeable, while lower level should be able to be boosted to be competitive.

How the frak do you learn to build daedric armor in the first place? Its a shame that it was even shoehorned into the game when the game has very little to do with daedra's in the first place. And they made it the best armor to boot. They don't seem to give these things much thought process.

According to M'aiq it is just "not very pleasant." :teehee:

I do have a bit of an issue with people who say they're "roleplaying" a character who wanted to be a master smith, did it, then wanted to be a master alchemist, did it, then wanted to be a master enchanter, did it, then wanted to be an archer, sword and shield wielding, healing conjurer. Unless the role your playing is that of an indecisive person who's playing a game in accelerated time it just doesn't fit into anything.

Playing a role isn't doing everything you want as a gamer, it's creating a character and realistically portraying his life within the context of the game. There's a reason each town doesn't have 1 guy who's a master of all crafts, those crafts take A LOT to master. There's also a reason most NPC's are focused on only one type of combat.

Frantic min/maxing and power-gaming every inclination you have isn't really roleplaying; not in my opinion anyways.