This is why the game has difficulty levels. FIVE of them. I don't know how things are on low end (I haven't seen any posts from people complainaing about game being too hard to Novice, so I guess it's ok), but on Master the challenge simply isn't high enough.

Yet you missed my next sentence...
There are difficulty settings (luckily you pointed that out, I might have missed it had you not). The game is balanced around the majority, the difficulty settings do not assume you will take the extreme choices in character development as MOST people don't, you might see that as bad design, others will not (the game also isn't catered to those without motor control even on novice either). The slider offers challenge to the vast majority of people, if it doesn't offer you challenge then mods will fix it. However expecting game companies to cater specifically to the individual who shouts loudest and longest is what probably has led to so much forum activity

I didn't miss your next sentence . But the point with difficulty settings, at least when there are so many present (most games have 3, so it makes the situation a bit different) is to make the lowest and highest for people who don't fit the profile of average player.

Maybe yes, maybe no. We have coexisting 'non combat' trees here with the ability to go godlike overnight and everything in between.

I've said before, the problem I have is it is too simple to become too powerful. One need not do anything fancy or anything requiring spreadsheets to trivialise much of the content challenge. If it was more tricky to become a walking deity, then the challenge would then (effectively) rise in relation to that. This would not see any net effect on the more hardcoe RP player, the players looking for a challenge would either find it or need to look a bit harder for ways to become "broken".

Point being, one doesnt need an uber difficulty setting to make a challenge, the same thing can be achieved by making it more difficult (but not impossible) for players to become 'too powerful' (I concede the term is subjective).


Edit: Although I do think overall the game is a bit too easy, calming the relative ease of getting godlike ability a bit would make a bigger difference.

I spent like 5 hours on Sunday night, smithing some equipment from stuff I saved up (basically pseudo-min/maxing; instead of loading up items and smithing them casually, I save them and cheat some levels since I can only play 15 hours a week instead of 50 like some people). This is about after 25 hours of game time at level 23. With 47% enhanced smithing in play from gloves and a 30 second potion (at 47 skill) I managed to up my damage resistance from 30% to 39% making the most super awesome armor I could. Maybe damage resistance should cap at like 50% or something instead of 80%, since that is the problem many are having with difficulty.

At level 35, I don't have a single skill at 100. 75 right now is tops and that's only in my One-Handed.

So... you power-leveled. Whatever you've done here is very likely only what other power-levelers would do.

I've used Smithing, Enchanting, and Alchemy, but I use them only as necessary (new weapon -> sharpened; new armor -> improved; poison for the upcoming hargravens -> created) so I am fortunate that I'll never have to worry about the game being too easy for me. I spend 97% of my game actually playing it; another 2% in shops selling swag; and the last 1% on crafting. And it's a pretty good formula.

I disagree, I am about 38 and I have two skills at 100 and one over 75. No 'power levelling' whatsoever. And none of those are crafting skills.


I suspect your 1H is so low because stuff dies so damned fast it is harder to level it up. My melee was the same, middle level 2H skill, low armor skills and low everything else because he killed so efficiently.

I'll watch the video, but first I want to respond to this:


Healing potions are fine for the opposite of your style. For alchemists, only crafted potions allowed because all spells, excluding shouts, are banned.

Alright, going to watch now...

I've already stated a couple of my challenge goals in an earlier post, and these are more in keeping with the theme of the series.

I concede that its a little too easy to level up smithing, but neither is it the gamebreaking problem people make it out to be. Levelling up skills in a roleplaying game is always a representation of effort. When armour degradation was taken out, smithing replaced it with an ability that most characters would not focus on strongly, because how often do you need to make armour? Its not very often, and it makes me laugh when people claim they were roleplaying their character because their character would want to be the best, so would study to become the greatest blacksmith the world has ever seen, just so they could create daedric armour. Seriously.. thats the character? ... its .. not a normal character is it.

A better balance would be that daedric armour makes town guards attack you for wearing the armour of the demon race that tried to destroy the world 200 years ago. It'd be like turning up to a war veteran meeting in a nazi uniform. That would make me smile. That .. would be awesome.
Yes you have the best armour in the game.. but you best take it off before heading into town....

:-) Obviously it depends on how you approach the game. My own outlook is very very much biased, and I admit it, because I've played three characters now, and not once have I ran into a problem with balance. Often, proposed changes make the game worse for me.. so selfishly, I would like to retain a game I love. Some of the smithing solutions aren't bad thou, but frankly completely pointless. If someone wants daedric straightaway, diminishing returns won't stop them from gaining daedric at the start of the game, it just takes them longer.. it makes no difference to their game experience other than you made it more boring for them.

At the end of the day, grinding a skill like smithing, enchanting, alchemy is not affected by game difficulty, its always done in safe areas and the materials can be obtained without difficulty affecting it... making it harder.. just makes it more of a grind, and I think Bethseda wanted to avoid WoW grinding. I don't see what making it harder really achieves.

Uses best armour, best weps in game, upgraded more than 100%.

Try using steel plate. More risible claims from those who refuse to exercise self control.

This is why the Creation Kit cannot be released fast enough. I either make enemies, according to their size and strength, very powerful (like a mammoth having 4000 health taking max 100pt hits) that can dole out 200 pt damage attacks. etc. Or, balance the skills to be more reasonable where if a perk is used, the weaker perk are at the beginning of the trees. Still, this is one fun game though, I am loving it. It's interesting, I get these enemy power mages that can take me down with three or four shots of their sparks, or fireballs, yet I can take a giant down in three hits. But, as a mage, I cannot have fireballs or sparks near that powerful.

@Cerddor.

It's not just smithing though, my mage/rogue type is beyond powerful, for example, and has nothing special or power-levelled about her.


I'm not too fussy that it is easy or otherwise to level smithing, just that what it provides 'vanilla' creates too large a gap between the players and the world. Reel in the items it can create period, unless people start going out of their way to go mad with the looping/stacking in which case you went looking for it.