Sorry all but i do share the same pain of the OP.

Pretty much the same stuff.

I built a sneaky character, absolutly no magic used. Conjuration/illusion stuck at initial values. Then i went for crafting stuff, enchanting and smithing.

Ok at level 46 at master the game is a joke. Actually, it was a joke 20 levels or so before.

You all yell at this guy "then stop to do X" "stop to use Y".

Sure. This is NOT how it is intended to work.

I'm running hugely def capped with dragonbone leather. I take no damage from melees and magic attacks . Actually, i don't even stab with daggers anymore, since i do much more damage stabbing with deadric swords.

Def magic is like 26+26+26+25 %, and i also have +50% frost resistance on boots. Cool, it's OP gear, won't use it.

Fine, now i'm running with nightingale (best looking armor, btw), mostly def capped, average magic resistance. Still pathetic easy.
Stopped using even my nightingale, i'm now running with a leather armor, like 520 armor now, 30% magic def. At least i got some damage from flying drake. I can spam healing pots, so i stopped using them. I also stopped using conjuration heals. In fact, i don't heal at all now, just the rec from 33% higher health regene. Not using abosrb health enchant nor the paralyze one.

I used to go around with fully enchanted deadric maces. Damage was insane, i had like 890 total (i refused to use the alchemy - enchanting loop bug). Was hitting so hard that i actually stopped going sneak. Stabbing with 12*880 was much higher the stabbing with 210*30 daedric daggers. Stopped using those blades, reverted to just a single dagger. Still one shotting (or very close to) with just a daedric dagger. Still to much, now i use dwarven maces. it takes me some more attacks, but it's like 4 attacks to an ancient dragon, 3 to a giant. Still to much, i stopped using marked for death shout to at least have a challange in the very few times i'm forced to go open melee.

Yeah, because i also had to not use Invis pot, shouts or magic.

Since higher sneaking and mufle stuff almost make you undetectble, i quite stopped enchanting/upgrading things. At least now if they do see me, i'm dead. Cool. Stopped placing poisons on othesr pockets, stopped usiong CC-Shouts / talents.

Last two days i played as a marksman. Like 62 skill level, daedric bow, 2 perks invested. AI took ages to spot me, i kept steam rolling every elite and boss i met.

Now i'm playing as a caster. 31 or so destruction, a caster set entirly brought from vendors. It took me ages to kill an average bandit. Dieng almost every 6 seconds.

I invested loads of hours as a rogue, loved the class, but for the challange i felt forced to go mage.

50 euros spent and, if i want a challenging master-difficulty run i need:

-Avoid using daggers and/or dual wielding "almost" high end craftable gear.
-Avoid using high end armor
-Avoid using enchants : absorb health, paralyze, stacking +one hand damage, stacking +fortify light armor, fortify magfic resistance
-Avoid using combination of poisons/pots --> no alchemy
-Avoid using Shouts: No marked for death, no disarm shout, no gap closer dash, no freeze shout.
-Avoid using unique armor sets like the DB ones or Nightingale.
-Avoid using high end Bows
-Avoid using two different magic schools.
-Avoid using "unique" power such as the nightingale stealth, and the immolation thing from DElves (yeah because of the insane AoE damage or damage @ weak-to-fire foes)


I can actually keep going forever, yet you have no right to criticize this guy for his play style, because we can't dump this game so much to the point half of the features are "ethically" taken away by our love for this game and the efforts to keep it challenging.

This is the same of a sneaky or not marksman as well, and i dunno if the games just get totally broken even when playing a caster with unique +fortify spell school +fortify magika regen stuff stacked stuff. It for sure became utterly broken for a warrior that, even by mistake, got to the defense cap + average magic defense.

In this department, Skyrim failed so hard it's hard to believe.

This.

My warrior-like character blocks giants strikes like they're hitting me with feathers. On master.

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH


EXPLOITING WHAT?

Rising 100 sneaking with some perks on it? Enchanting my gear? Crafting a pair of daedric mace?

what the fu** did i exploit, can u kindly point me that?

Did i exploit a game by using sneak attacks?

Did i exploit a game because of +magic resistance gear?

Don't make me laugh. In my playstyle there's no exploitation. I tuned down my experience to the point my stealthy toon doesn't use its strenght anymore and it still totally unbalanced.

You just have to be honest and admit the combat system is a utter fail, untill some modder will fix that.

No LoS restriction, overpowered talents, absurd gear scaling. Poor AI, old and inadequate combat system. Is that hard to understand?

Stop with the "you exploit the game" lie. I did not, the game failed, plain and simple. No one of us who played decently a sneaking character exploited the game. It's just THAT bad, no matter how hard you try to defend this side of Skyrim.



In my next play thru i'll be sure to build my stealthy rogue/thief toon by not using Stealth at all, because some incredibly smart people said i'm exploiting the game. Makes so fu*ing sense.