Really? The character is not a sponge? Last time I checked, you can gain like, 5 skill ranks in smithing just by freakin looking at a forge.

Who are you to actually say what my character is and is not capable of?

Roleplaying is also growing with that role, not picking a static concept and doggedly sticking with it.

Your beloved warrior still walks off the wagon with flames and healing literally at their fingertips. Or do you pretend like its not there, close your eyes, cover your ears, and say "lalalalalala" when looking at that part of your character's description.

My point is, its quite obvious that the world as its depicted in Skyrim makes it quite easy to be a blacksmith. So easy anyone can do it. A mage might not bother, but once he realizes he gets a 250% improvement to his survivability by practicing with it...

While I agree with the notion that people need to stop complaining about "breaking the game" and losing the challenge when they go and power rush certain skills so that they become uber, who's to say that a melee warrior WOULDN'T invest in Enchanting or Alchemy?

The entire purpose of Elder Scrolls is to break out of those D&D archetypes of "warrior", "mage", and "thief", which are rather boring in their own right, but when combined to create different and unique builds, is amazing.

I for one do play a warrior who invests in Enchanting. My warrior is a dual wielding tank, who is a master of certain arcane arts, as well as Enchanting. It's a character build, it is who he is, it is what he would do.

However, I don't have a problem with Enchanting being unbalanced, because I haven't power leveled Enchanting to the max. At level 33, my Enchanting Skill is at 68 I believe. I've leveled Enchanting (and all of my skills, for that matter) naturally, only using them in time when my character would actually use them, not spamming a bunch of iron daggers from Smithing and Enchanting them just to grind my skills. Instead, I use Smithing when I want a new weapon or piece of armor, and I Enchant when I get a new item and learn it's enchantment, and want to put a new enchantment on a new item.

I do believe that much of the unbalance comes from user error, but telling someone that a warrior wouldn't invest in Alchemy is 100% wrong and flies in the face of everything that Elder Scrolls stands for.

No one's telling you what can't and can't do.

What we're telling you are suggestions on how to enjoy the game better. How to not ruin your experience with min-maxing and foolish combinations that are bound to make yourself overpowered.

Yes, its easy. Its game mechanics. You need to suspend your sense of disbelief. If you cannot seperate game mechanics from your character/roleplay, you're not going to get much enjoyment from a Bethesda rpg title.

Because they're [censored] who are unable to accept that their belowed game has faults.

There's also another aspect to the Skills screen that I've noticed...

Obviously, the sign of The Warrior is behind all the combat skills, the sign of The Mage is behind all the magic skills, and the sign of The Thief is behind all of the stealth skills...

But if you pay close attention - Enchanting is in between The Mage and The Warrior, Archery is in between The Warrior and The Thief, and Alchemy is in between The Thief and The Mage, and the way they line up with the constellations leads me to believe that they are meant to be "hybrid" type skills - Enchanting is a Warrior / Mage hybrid skill, Archery is a Warrior / Thief hybrid skill, and Alchemy is a Thief / Mage hybrid skill. It's a little detail that I noticed, and it seems really intentional, as those skill and hybrid combinations totally make sense.

The point?

There's no such thing as a "pure" build in Elder Scrolls. Elder Scrolls is intended to be a mix and match mashup of skills to create a character and build that's just right for you.

No.

Roleplaying doesn't balance the game. Avoiding what's unbalanced balances the game.

Telling people to avoid what's unbalanced, when they're complaining that they're having to avoid what's unbalanced doesn't mean that game is balanced.

So you're telling me to suspend my disbelief while playing a game where I'm already suspending my disbelief...

And you're trying to also say this shouldn't be fixed?

And don't worry, I get plenty of enjoyment from Skyrim. My point is just that as the game is right now, every character I ever make is going to end up taking roughly the exact same 17+ perks.

It's a game; everything is accessible and mastering a trade doesn't take an actual lifetime out of necessity. The key is if you're actually roleplaying you're not some person playing a game where you don't age and everything happens in accelerated time.

Your role is that of a warrior and your immediate concerns are your weapons and armor. You don't realize you can powerlevel enchanting to mastery in a day so it's not something you're concerned with.

Pretty much this, such a simple fix really. Add more difficulties after master for the player that wants to min/max. NO ONE loses out, and the min/max crowd isn't screwed over with a ridiculously unbalanced game. Everyone is happy.

All these "solutions" you people are giving, like "Don't enchant or smitth" or "Don't wear that powerful sword" are such a joke. You realize those "solutions" are just limiting the CHOICES you have in the game, a game that is supposed to be about choice in the first place.. See what the problem is?

The game is terribly balanced, period.

I'm not saying the game is perfect. I even mentioned in my first post in this thread that this game has a lot of pitfalls. Its incredibly easy to fall for one of the many traps that'll leave you overpowered or ruin an aspect of your gameplay.

Should Bethesda try to improve this? Yes. Definately.

Will they? After 3 iterations of the same idiocy, I don't think they will. They repeat the same mistakes after each game.

Terrible optimisation. Sub-par graphics. Flawed roleplay mechanics. Its all there. Each time.

My intention was merely to give tips on how to enjoy the game DESPITE these flaws.

Glad you are enjoying the game though

I'm trying to figure out what "stereotype" my character fits. He is a one-hand blade master High Elf who is a master of enchanting and makes effective use of alteration.

OP is right.
Lol at all the people disagreeing with him just for the sake of an argument...either that or they're just missing the point, one or the other.

Indeed. Tired of hearing about min-maxers and power gaming, those terms are much too lofty and very disingenuous for describing what it actually takes to make this game easy.

I think I missed something... So a warrior shouldn't be able to cast magic? Want about the spellswords and battlemages that are found in the game and are about of the lore? Most races have skills bonuses in different "classes" meaning that most characters are technically hybrids, ex. every race except Altmer.

Well put, OP. Bravo!

Avioding something put in the game for the sake of not being overpowered makes a bad design.

You should be able to do whatever you want. If I want to play a sneak archer theif with smithing/enchanting/alchemy on the side (for improving stolen goods etc) I should be able to without worrying about how stupidly easy the game has become.

The problem is not with the players, the problem is with the game.

How about I just give the OP my account instead, he seems to want to tell me everything I can and can't do so he might aswell just play the whole thing for me instead.

I won't pretend I have no hands to swing a sword, no tongue to use shouts, no brain to use tactics if those are the only qualities a character can have for this game to be challenging. Stop trying to obfuscate real problems, you're standing in the way of a better game.

I've finding the game to be very hard at level 40, even though I have totally mastered enchanting and wearing and using some very nice equipment and using alteration often. Maybe because you should up your difficulty to Master....or not invest so many points into health. Like my level 40 character has only 310 health. Stamina is more fun.


There's a huge difference betweeen roleplaying and metagaming. You want to metagame, not roleplay obviously.

"Gimp your character to get challenge (on master)"
"Don't use the weapons/armor the game offers you to get challenge (on master)"

These two want to make me facepalm badly. They are amoeba-class arguments and people need to stop this trend, copying them and presenting them whenever they want. Min-maxing is a completely different thing and people need to understand that. Not min-maxing does not equal gimping your character on purpose, damn it!

I'm a roleplayer and that's the way i play this game.
Instead of making an effort to raise the crafting skills, i make an effort to keep them at bay so that i don't break the game and "give value" to the loot i find here and there. For example:

I pretend that iron does not give me skill points after 30. Dwarven doesn't after 50. Orcish doesn't after 80 and so on.
I pretend that petty shards don't give me skill points after 30 and so on.

This svcks for my immersion and for my gameplay. I want to scavenge, explore and TRY to raise a skill in order to become good in it. Instead i find myself wanting to use this skill and saying to myself "yea great if i make these amulets/rings i will get 5 points right away so i won't" so i avoid using it. It is sad and definitely not RP-friendly when you have to force 100 self-imposed restrictions in the game to make it challenging on MASTER difficulty. Would it be so hard to make the skill points scale with materials/quality of what you crafted?

We're not standing the way of a better game.

Bethesda is. Todd Howard is. Because the same people have been working on the Elder Scrolls series for too long and repeat the same pathetic mistakes itteration after itteration. They are content to sit on their laurel and pump out more of the same. They don't understand what that their fanbase want innovation. And what little innovation they bring to the series usually falls very flat. They don't get what challenge is. Challenge isn't making enemies with more health and that hit harder. Its making it harder to get money, making easier to die when you run blindly forward caring not for traps, ambushes, etc. Its punishing you for your mistakes. Until they understand that, it'll be the same easy crap. Difficulty in a game like this should be all about survivability, not just killing damn monsters.

Until they shape up (and I fear they never will), we're merely trying to suggest how to improve your enjoyment.

To be honest, I feel like that is the most constructive way to approach this situation. The game's done and dusted, and it isn't going to change until there are mods out there to change it.
Besides. No one's actually been disputing that the game's poorly balanced, as far as I've seen, and that's what people are complaining about.

Roleplaying fixes most things for me, this is why you never see me complaining about the game.

E.g I seen a guy complaining he was forced into the Nightengales, my character joined but if he didn't I would have pretended that my character said he isn't some
servant to Nocturnal and walked straight out of the Hall, taking the armor with him... :celebration:

I'm just going to say this one more time:

There is a huge difference between metagaming and roleplaying. You can turn any game into a pile of lame easy if you exploit the system enough for the sole purpose of that.

New Vegas, metagaming?

or

New Vegas, hardcoe mode, Dead is Dead, Very Hard, And a Dozen Mods that make it much harder.

Tell me which is more challening. Obviiously, metagaming. The problem isn't the game. The problem is the player.

So does that mean I am not allowed to enjoy my game because I don't want to roleplay my character to a serious fashion?

The game is flawed, too easy and many mistakes were made when it came to balance.

I play on Master already, and at level 48 I have 250 health. After that point I just started putting everything in Stamina for the carry space because of how challangeless this game is.
I should be able to play the game how I like, investing in the skills that I choose and still have a challange.

Thank you for starting this thread. I totally agree with your point. It's nice to see a positive thread.

I am getting really irked at all these people on here calling the game broken or saying that it is too dumbed down with no freedom, when really they added to much freedom and people don't no how to use it.

At first i thought pick pocketing would be pointless, then i started seeing the assassin threads about reverse pick pocketing a strong poison in to someone while their sleeping. Now im going to make a Hunter/assassin cause it sounds fun to me.

If your game is broken (not by glitches) then it is most likely your fault, since i along with other people took the RP and leveling and just spent some time thinking about it a little more.

Now I have a badass mage that is good at one handed as well as enchanting and is still weary of heavy armor warriors,

and a Bad ass warrior who's personal goal is to figure out how to get that dragon to crash land without Fireballs.

Next im doing a Assassin/Hunter that will use the pick pocketing witch I originally thought was stupid... but now i know better.

The more thought you put in to this game the more fun you have.