It is astonishing how overwhelmingly ridiculous you people are. Do you understand what the term exploit means? Leveling your Smithing, Enchanting, and/or Alchemy is not exploiting. Sitting in town and waiting until a vendor restocks ingots and ore is not exploiting. Crafting Iron Daggers exclusively to level a skill is not exploiting. The use of Alchemy potions to Fortify your Crafting abilities to improve and craft superior gear, is again not exploiting. The only thing that can "sort of" be viewed as exploiting is looping the potions to achieve a benefit that seems unintentional (which to me seems like a huge oversight if it is not intentional).

It is a very valid complaint to say that the game is too easy and therefore not fulfilling once you acquire certain gear or levels. This complaint does not mean someone has exploited, and the majority of the time it does not. People are not using console commands and then complaining, or taking advantage of terrible pathing issues within the game and complaining. This game DESPERATELY needs a slider that allows players more control over the game difficulty. Personally, I would love to see players be able to set the level offset of enemies (ie be able to scale enemies to be at least 10 levels higher, or 10 levels lower than your avatar and any increment in between). This does absolutely nothing to affect your gameplay or force you to do anything. Any sort of argument against this, is completely and utterly stupid.

*Yawn*

You continue to kick ass? What do you want to hear? You still don't have to make your characters super powered if you want a challenge. Stop using ridiculous armor and switch back to iron. Go have fun if that is what you want.

Not the way I play the game, maybe the way you play the game they are.

Whoa, this thread is moving fast.



Not sure what you're basing this on, my level 40 mage hasn't retrieved the horn for the greybeards yet, has completed one civil war mission, is Thane of two cities, and has only completed a couple of guild quests for the Dark Brotherhood and mage's college. I'd say he has a long way to go, this game is gargantuan (which is part of the reason I care enough about it to post in these forums.)



Off the top of my head I'd say Witcher 2, Dragon Age, Dragon Age 2, Mass Effect 2, Crysis, and even Oblivion got it about right (Oblivion kicked my #$% even with the difficulty slider less than half the way up). I've completed Dragon Age 2 with quite a few very different builds, on nightmare, and found it challenging but possible for all of them (yeah, the game has problems, but difficulty and balance are some of its strong suits.)

Such people are pretty much non existent so who cares.

/sigh

There are so many awesome facets to this game:
companions
potions
poisons
cool spells

loads and loads of AWESOME things and yet.....if I want to properly use them, I can't have a proper challenge at the same time.

That is weak and 'its a role playing game' is not a valid excuse for an essentially malfunctioning difficulty slider.



If the game was too hard, even on novice, you wouldnt be on here saying "well just role play it is impossible then!"...No, you'd (rightly) be complaining on this very forum.

hold on, its their game, and on top of that a single player game too. i and the only way to level blacksmith, enchantments, etc is do to it over and over. so calm down kids.

Arguments like this are...sad. So you are saying, create arbitrary rule sets to alter the difficulty? I don't think you quite get it. Do you know how much complaining there would be if say, only Two-Handed weapons were viable and it was nearly impossible to kill an enemy otherwise? I could just as well use the argument "Yawn, why don't you use a Two-Handed weapons since this is how the game was meant to be played - derp derp derp."

That is exactly what you are saying.

Some of the people who've been posting over the last few months, complaining about difficulty and "how dare they" have to "self gimp" or "play like an idiot" to get challenge, have really implied that asking them to not play at full-bore super-min-max powergamer level is a terrible burden, that the game is ruined by the fact that they're "constantly having to think about playing worse".





I'm starting to feel somewhat insulted that, apparently, I've been playing a "complete buffoon" without trying. Implying that I must be an idiot if I'm not finding the game pathetically easy while playing "naturally".

Clearly, I'm Doing It Wrong?.

You're clearly not paying attention to the issue or the debate. You don't need ridiculous gear to trivialize the challenge of the game. But even if you did, you should not have to entirely avoid a skill tree to preserve the challenge of the game.

They didn't. In fact, they over calculated it is probably closer to the honest truth. There is a perceived story arc for a character, and its normal, from theirs, and quite of lot of players, to be reaching character climix at about level 40-50, based on the monster level cap, for the stories that character would tell. You aren't really supposed to be archmage, master thief, companion leader, thane of all skyrim, leader of the dark brotherhood, stormcloak saviour all at once. That being said, I agree, they maybe over calculated it, as you are powerful slightly before is optimal for the majority of players.. but I wouldn't like to be responsible for that calculation.

They didn't really build the game for a single character pushing the levels as high as they can go. By level 40-50 you should have mastered some skills, and therefore have the abilities to overcome the challenges that the story presents, which would have initially seemed unsurmountable. Heros Journey.. you know, story, believable story arc etc..

Now before anyone gets their knickers twisted, obviously this is not how every player plays. But its really is just optimisation, but story optimisation instead of skill optimisation and thats the crux of the argument, which should the game focus on.

As a side note, on story optimisation, there was a reason that D&D adventures, when written and sold, advised a "suitable for levels 8-12", or for grander adventures, "suitable for levels 6-16". Skyrim really should just come with a sticker that says "suitable for levels 1-40"

There was no offence intended, merely that the advice often given here is to make illogical, indeed crazy, decisions from an in character perspective.

Who can REALLY say that any sane individual would find better weapons and better armour and think "nope, not using those, that's unfair".

What caster would NOT use their best spells?


These decisions and restrictions have their place; they absolutely do - but that place is not in the best (only?) way to make the game present a balanced challenge.

Then you put a level cap at 40. Since the level cap is not 40 and that the difficulty is seemingly trivialized for me at least in the late 20s I find the game poorly balanced. Others might not. Depending on what perks you take, you will have varying experiences.

Of course they shouldn't be taken seriously. They're the ones who do it to themselves!

We'd complain because, if the game was too hard on novice, it would detract from the ability to play it. The game being "too easy" does not detract from the ability to play the game, especially since you can regulate your equipment to make it even more challenging if you wish.

I have no problem with a further difficulty mode, but the topic at hand is whether the game is broken due to the power that can be achieved through exploits and/or maxing skills. Its not broken and the current set up regarding these powergaming features/exploits should not be fundamentally changed because it involves the choice of the player whether or not to use them, and choices are almost always a good thing in sandbox style games. Adding extra features to increase difficulty is somewhat besides the current topic, though would probably make a welcome topic itself.

Which is part of the problem, really. There's so much possible variation, both in possible playstyles and in skill level/desire for challenge among players, that coming up with a difficulty system that can adequately address them all....... wow, that's a herculean task.

So basically, your solution to the problem is for everyone to adapt your playstyle. In an open-ended sandbox game. :rolleyes:

It can be broken with trivial ease, likely possible even using a NAKED character, never mind 'exploits'

I'd venture that's a problem.


Walking into a dungeon knowing the only way my character is in any 'danger' is if I suddenly have to go AFK rather svcks the thrill out of it. Its about as dangerous as a jaunt down the local shops for my mage

"Ohhh be wary there adventurer, two dozen souls went in there and never returned, its the domain of the lord of the damned"
"meh, stay here, I'll be back in 5."
...
5 minutes later: Is this the artifact?


Maybe that's not immersion breaking for some, but I quite like there to be a challenge/risk about an 'adventure'. Dungeon quests should hold more risk than a courier mission using fast travel. They do not.

That's actually kind of interesting. One thing that bugs me is the cop-out where difficulty just adjusts damage ratios. It would be awesome if it also reigned in things like the fortify skill enchantment magnitudes.

i 100% agree with what your saying here.

the decisions and restrictions come from the player. for me, i'm not gonna 'power level' smiting as a level 1 to get best gear/weapon in game. but for others that have done this and complain shouldn't be taken serious imo.

the game is what you make of it, like life, make the best of it.

Unfounded claims should never be taken seriously. About those made on purpose, well, it is hard not to abuse any game mechanics in some obnoxious way or another. Sure, it can be changed but just you wait and see how many mods will come out to please each one's tastes. Don't take me wrong - vanilla works great for me.


Many who complain could be taking advantage of a situation (like waiting for ingots to replenish). The only game economy is stuff magically appearing into NPC inventories. Perhaps sometime in the future we can have actual carriages in the game that carry goods between the holds.

Or the complainer could be "spread[censored]ting" optimization ratios to exploit advancing faster and call that a legitimate game breaking experience. It seems the point of this thread is calling the attention to that matter. One may wonder if gamesas staff is not already vaccinated against such things. I bet they eat them for breakfast. :tongue:

edit: pages overlapped, @ just_the_flu

I power levelled nothing, my mage is absolutely unchallenged.

Do I like it? No. I started a new character. Should that be my recourse? I do not think so.

Which is why the best system you can possible implement is one that is player controlled. Really, it is not difficult at all to do. City of Heroes has been doing it for forever, granted it is an MMORPG but that really does not matter, the concept is still the same. You put in a few options:

1.) Enemy Level Off-Set Slider: Set enemy level to be AT LEAST +10 -> -10 levels from your character's level. (The number range is arbitrary and can be tweaked accordingly to player testing)
2.) Allow Elite Enemy Spawns: Yes/No (With this option allowed, more difficult versions of enemies have a chance of spawning with regular ones. These enemies have higher stats and use more damaging abilities than regular ones)
3.) Spawn Amount: Set POSSIBLE enemy spawn to be +1, +2, +3, +4, +5 (This means packs of enemies may be larger for added challenge, the number range is arbitrary and can be tweaked accordingly to player testing)


If you really wanted a flexible game, you can implement more rulesets in. I should not be having to make up my own in spite of the game. I should have that control from within the game itself.

Based on the creature level cap of 50, you're at the upper echelons of what the game considered normal in the balance of mortal power.



Witcher 2 = Multiple complaints you were overpowered by Act II, by the end two-shotting a lot of things - again, story arc progression, powerful at the end of the game
Dragon Age = Mages were very overpowered, Blood Magic plus some combos just made you into a monster destruction kit.
Dragon Age 2 = Never played this one, so I can't comment, but I very much doubt it doesn't have the same ability to be godlike as the first game
Mass Effect 2 = Can't comment, not played

I have no idea why Crysis is in this list.

Being overpowered at high levels, is normal for an RPG. The problem is, the definition of what a high level is.. I would say level 1-10 is low, 2-30 is mid, 31-40 is high, and 41-50 is god-high. Thats just the way it appears to me thou

My solution is that there is no solution. Everybody plays differently, and the game was designed to appeal to the majority of players. The question is whether they got it wrong. I don't think so, you do, and without an unbiased poll, neither of us can prove the point fully.

But I do like your cute "oversimplification" method of argument. It means you don't have to construct an actual refutation.