Last night, I switched my difficulty from adept to expert after slaying a dragon that was rather too easy. I attempted the master difficulty, but seeing that I didn't do much damage and I died in two hits by an orc in full heavy armor with a mace, I went to expert. I am a level 42 nord, Jaldian, in full Nightingale armor with the Nightingale sword equipped; no shield. In my observation, master difficulty calls for the best of your skills, equipment, and abilities. Nightingale armor is light, and my light armor skill is in the 30s I believe. Daedric is of course heavy, while I'm sitting on 87 or something on that skill. Were I to go to my house in Whiterun and pick up my daedric armor, I think I could handle master difficulty. I like the higher difficulties because now there is a sense of danger and you don't want enemies sneaking up on you.

So what is your preferred difficulty? If your reasons are not accurate with those on the poll, please explain why you play on this difficulty.

Most of the time I play on adept. I bump up the difficulty to expert or even master if I feel the enemy should be extremely challenging. For example: If I get a regular dragon, I bump it up to expert. But if I run into an ancient dragon, I set it to master.

I "ended" my first playthrough yesterday after 120 hours by finishing the main quest (playing a little more for the sake of the level 50 achievement as I finished the MQ at level 49). It was in adept difficulty (I never change the difficulty of the game for my first playthroughs) I didn't do everything (thieves guild and DB unfinished, half of the daedric quests not even started) but I was annoyed by the Windhelm house glitch and deciced to restart from scratch.

This time, I am playing in Expert. So far, so good. Feels easier than the first time because I chose the perks far more wisely.

I'm sticking with adept and that's how I usually play. I'm at Level 33, battlemage/healer, Arch-Mage so I have the robes and I've taken perks in the schools of magic. My Sneak skill is high so I can avoid a fight if I want and I have Lydia along for help along with the Sanguine Rose and other Conjuration spells. With all of that, I still die. I die often enough that it's still a challenge in difficult areas. Some areas are easy and that's how the game was described earlier this year. I'm ok with that. I love the long dungeon crawls and those Dwemer ruins are great. I'm still learning what I can do with the skills I have so when I die, I try something different. I guess because I'm wearing robes, my difficulty level is just high enough for now. I have enchantments and the mage armor perk, but I'm definitely not invincible and that's fun so I chose Expert.

:tes:

All seemed well when I was on adept until the random dragons. I may just change it to master when it's a nameless dragon.

Expert, w/no exploits/alchemy

Since I used smithing pretty early in the game I turned it up to master after that, and I'm having an ok challenge. The mages are killing me in a couple of hits so I'm not too overpowered I guess.

Damn, I didn't think of the mages. They were damn nuisance on adept.

Master, but I don't use all my skills to the max, I still avoid overpowered stuff. I don't use enchanted weapons either, and I like the basic looking armours hide/iron. So yep it can be challenging at times, but it's fun.

Oh and I play on master because expert ended up not being very challenging, and I ended up on expert for the same reason (I started on adept) Not all classes are treated equally though I found. Master treats my mage pretty badly when I get piled. My rogue can get twoshotted by an iron mace. My warrior has the easiest time of it with his block, and once I get some elemental resistances stacked onto my armour, mages should be slightly less annoying.

Master - Hard at the start but it's getting easy, I'm now at level 38/>90 hours.

I think there should be more REALLY hard boss battles, so I have a use for companions. Or at least places in dungeons where you'll be assaulted by fifteen draugr overlords. I want enemies that are nearly impossible, giving me a reason to level up. More of those places where you might want to come back later once you're stronger, you know?

I changed my difficulty (and my vote for that matter) to adept from expert. Jaldian tried exploring a bandit infested dungeon and my biggest problem were the bandit marauders. I can take them on in a 1v1 battle (with healing and maybe one "fus"), but in the event of a bandit horde of even two, the fight is overwhelming in an enclosed area. This is the way I see the difficulty layout:

Novice - From the enemies' perspective... They're playing on master. By ratio, you hit much harder and have higher health.
Apprentice - Enemies are playing on expert. The health and damage factor is in your favor.
Adept - The default even balance on both sides.
Expert - Enemies hit harder and do more damage, as if they're playing on apprentice.
Master - Enemy difficulty is on novice for them.

On adept, some battles are too easy, and some challenging. It's all a matter of balance and how you view it from perspective. Your hero (typically) has better equipment than your enemies therefore portraying your superiority to them. Apart from the obviousness that players want a challenge, in my opinion, the diffuculty setting is for players who feel overpowered and are looking for a better match. Perhaps with my best equipment, I may be satisfied with playing on expert.

I play on Master. The game is really challenging at low levels, before your gear and talents start to stack up. It's fun while it lasts.

I've been playing on adept. No real reason for it, I dunno... just never changed it.

Adept is way too easy master is boring because you have to reload a lot. so expert is perfect for me.

I started over level master at level 4 i have died 1 time.


(now this is also based on your character classe and choices.)
Adept must be rough for a mage.

Master and Dead is Dead!
Play Skyrim like a BOSS ...

I think difficulty depends gratly on your fighting style. As a warrior, I faceroll master, so I'm forecd to wear less than 400 armor.

novice :blush2: i'll get my coat/wizard's robe/armour :facepalm:

Expert.

I'm playing an Archer type avatar with light armor and the balance seems perfect and punishes me nicely when I stuff up. Tried Master but it was one-shot city, might try it again when I roll a heavy armor character.

Normal settings. Challenging, nothing to prove...

Master difficulty makes it more fun to be a stealth archer (and I play using NO magic whatsoever, and no point in light armor). This way, if I'm seen I have two options: run or die :foodndrink:

It takes two hits.

On Master my level 27 Nord, with 300 health, and full set of Exquisite Steel Plate armor, died in one hit from a Bandit Chief.

My conclusion from experimenting with Master is that you need to completely avoid any hits from any higher level enemy. That doesn't quite seem realistic.

Adept.

I'm starting to feel a bit overpowered, though, in that I kill most foes rather easily. That to me is just an indication that I need to adjust my character, not the difficulty. For the next few levels I'll put perks in Crafting skills instead of combat skills, and things should even out nicely. No reason to mess with the difficulty slider, and at the same time my character develops more personality and different skill sets instead of just pommeling through the game on combat skills alone. Very nicely balanced IMO.

I've found Adept to be quite fun for the most part. I did try master for a while on one of my characters, but couldn't defeat the spider boss in the first dungeon, no matter what I tried- I spent probably a couple of hours trying different things, so I scaled it back again. I also had to drop the difficulty to novice for a while, because I wasn't able to defeat hardly anything. I'm not sure what the issue was, but I again moved it back to Adept after a while, and haven't had the problem again.

Lately, things have been a bit easy on my warrior, so I'm thinking of upping it again, but probably only to expert this time, and see how it goes. I know it wouldn't work well for my mage though. I wish the game kept the difficulty setting per character, instead of the same across all characters.

I'm playing three characters on Expert. For the thief it's a little bit too easy, for the Orc juggernaut it is quite a bit too easy, for the mage who still has 100 health and 0 armor class at level 39 it is just right.

turthfully, half of the gameplay depth only surfaces on expert and above!! expecially if you've played other Bethesda RPGs before!!, it's more than just "oh, I need more meds and use more arrows, that's it"..

the way u have to out think/fight or out run overpowered foes, attract them to better fighting grounds (with more cover, higher grounds, towards other NPCs or animals), the way you have to stealth unnotices more often around overpowered animals/foes, the fights/hunts ect. have more variety ect. ect. ect... the general survival feeling and methodes are so much more intens and ask for more variety
(a bit like L4D on expert, extremely said..)

DO NOT WAST THIS GAME OF THE DECADE ON ADEPT (NORMAL)!!! it's like playing Halo on easy! (if you're the slightes RPG Veteran)... might was well just watch the whole game on youtube instead of playing it!

and the fact, that you can save anytime/everywhere should make u play it on MASTER!!! save often, set the auto-save to 5 Min...

just at the beginning you have to flee/run often from overpowered foes..., later on you might do a dungeon till almost the end, then have to turn back before finishing it .cause it gets too difficult (and either refresh some meds/drop some weights, get some help or just level up a bit..), that's one of the down sides, otherwise the game has many more upsides on EXPERT or MASTER!!!

and use magic & the bow!!

playing on Master without NPCs as possible (except when bumping into some NPCs half way thru dungeon/quest, then it's cool to have some back up, others it's feels better/more intens playing "alone")

the game on master is still easier than Dark Souls, but just as intens (like mentioned before, just have to know, when to "run" and when to "fight"... even "running" is intens!! and often "just running for the moment" works, till you have the upper hand/advantage ect...)