^^^^^^ This


Thank you.....well that makes two of us at least....and plus Sah (I know) so three then

Edit : foot in mouth disease

I personally disagree, and I disagree with calling the option "idiotic". It's optional, and it's there for a reason, it's not idiotic just because you personally don't find any use of the function. I personally find TES games' default difficulty to be too easy. The only serious isue was it's implementation in Oblivion where it was almost impossible, even outright masochistic to play on the difficulty bar set to highest possible spot.

Master

Beth should really go back to the slider rather than incremental difficulty settings. Skyrim is easily the least well balanced game in the Elder Scrolls series.

well... I agree about the "to each their own" argument.

There are so many ways to enjoy Skyrim and everyone should choose what he likes the most.

There are tons of mods like Requiem and SkyRe that beat Bethesda's difficulty system.

The thing I disagreed with before was the "Master and Legendary is a grind... the combat is only longer but not tougher" argument.

I can only speak from my own experience... but up to level 30, two-three hits from a bandit, draugr, bear means death to my character.

Staying more than a few seconds near an enemy is not an option, which makes the game feel challenging to me.

Which is also why I never felt like Master would be a grind.

Rick - I am not sure but I don't think that is what glargg was saying. I took his meaning to be that a lot of folk just don't have the time to invest into Legendary. Because it IS so deadly you have to do a lot of things in order TO survive that you don't on the lower ones.

For instance if I was going to try and play legendary, I probably couldn't get much done in 3 months. I have *maybe* 3 hours during the week and 4-8 hours on the weekend. Depending. It's usually 4. If I played at your level I'd never see a good portion of Skyrim for months.

Well, yes, this is part of it, but there's a point that is being missed here. My problem with Legendary is not "lack of time." It's more like "how do I want to use my time?"

Rick talks about Legendary's lethality of combat at low level (which is perfectly true), but he misses my point that the solution to that is spending more time building the character. So, playing at higher difficulties, both combat and preparation for combat take longer.

At level 42, fully crafted-out, a Legendary character is pretty much the combat equal of a level 42 Adept character, against the same enemy; this is true because the Adept character didn't take the TIME to max out smithing and enchanting, and is thus less well-equipped.

My point here is that TIME is the significant difference between these difficulties. Time of crafting, time of preparation, and the actual time spent in combat.

For myself, it really comes down to what is best for roleplaying and story-telling. Grinding is hard to justify for a roleplayed character who is supposedly a "hero." How is one who is weaker than every NPC in the game realistically regarded as a hero? I can rationalize it for DiD competition, but not easily for character story/roleplay.

When one roleplays at Adept, the artifacts that one finds in the game actually have meaning. They are better than what one can craft, because one hasn't raised crafting to game-breaking proportions. My level-42 warrior, in modestly smithed Ebony, can actually use Dawnbreaker as a functional weapon, so the daedric quest to acquire that object was worthwhile.

And, for non-DiD play, I'm not impressed by Legendary at all; how is it any "harder" to play at Legendary, if one can just reload over and over until things come out right? Unless one is playing Dead-is-dead, Legendary is only more time-consuming.

If using the exact same strategy on all "difficulty" levels works for you great. Me? nah.

That's fine.

What I'm taking from this is that you look for exploits at higher difficulties. Why even bother? Yes, I jump onto rocks where Snow Bears can't reach me. I can do that at any level. Master does not make that "strategy" more difficult. It makes it take longer to slog through the HP.l

For me, Legendary is nothing. I just die more often which for me, does not equal more difficult. A one-shot at any level is the same. Combat for me is "not that fun" that I want to prolong it just for giggles.

It's fine that you disagree with me. I stand by my previous statement: More Health/Less Damage =|= Difficult. It equals longer combat.

adept, but with mods that improves AI and makes combat generally more deadly.

Glargg my friend. Of course Legendary requires grinding up to be safe (ish) and viable....no dispute. God knows Sah and Adella spend around 15 hours at each comp start just preparing for battle.


And I am not decrying your adept play because you want to just "get on with it"....and.....for good measure my friend, I have previously openly said for mage play Adept is far more preferable if you want destruction spells to have some ( any) efficacy.


No.....the issue I was taking with was whether or not Legendary (or master for that matter) is actually MORE DIFFICULT to play..or survive than a much lower level such as Apprentice or Adept.


REMEMBER what kicked me off was AlbQ saying Legendary was NOT more difficult to play......combat simply took longer.

The other related issues you argue were not part of my bone of contention!


Apart from the obvious that making anything take longer be it building a shed, driving across state or killing a sabrecat could be said to be making things "more difficult".......what is being ignored here is that while it is taking LONGER to kill the foe....you are taking more damage for that whole time AND at a greater rate (3x Adept).


However, I may be able to see AlbQs "angle" here (and I am trying).


In his last few lines he says "Legendary is nothing.....I just die more often.....which is not making it MORE difficult"

So what he MEANS is Legendary just makes him RELOAD more often.....which he does not see as a problem.....just an inconvenience.

Now in that sense....he has a valid point. He doesn't mind reloading, but having to do it more often (at Legendary) is a bind !


And there-in lies our disconnect......

Because in MY play, dying is not only wholly "unacceptable" on DiD it is more than just an "inconvenience"


Therefor I see the difficulty setting in a different light to him!


However....there is I am afraid STILL a bone of contention.....because the assumption is that AlbQ can just keep reloading a few times until a Legendary foe is defeated then he saves and moves on. He suffers only the boring nause of many attempts......which he now avoids by playing adept which IS therefore quicker to reach the same end goal.


What this ignores however is that some foes really are NOT defeatable on Legendary no matter how many times you reload it !!! Until...you either grind up or level up or (usually) both.


Those foes absolutely ARE more DIFFICULT on Legendary ( or master).....

Do you want one?

Kvenel the tongue at Volunruud. Try him on Legendary without all the preparation and you will not beat him. On Adept you might.


THAT is because Legendary is more.....wait for it......Difficult !


However you play, enjoy your day

..

Kinda why I pulled my post, I miss read a lot of what was said.


Master... I can role play or DiD at... Legendary. ..DiD only and then only if the rules say I must. Can I do it... yes, just don't want to.

It's not about "getting on with it." It's about gameplay that is consistent with playing an actual role, rather than "beating a game." Your Legendary "hero" is made of tissue paper, and needs lots of super-enchanted armor, several dozen perks, and a bunch of super-potions just to survive. You have to "break the fourth wall" to do such preparation; you have to know the game, and prepare for it.

*We're in agreement. The preparation is the difference, and taking the TIME to do it.

This. Exactly this. "Harder" simply means longer combat sessions. Which gets really tiresome "Damn you, just die already!"

But to answer the question whatever the default is to start with and later on, Master, but not Legendary because that really is tedious.

Well stated, Rick! Yes, that's my "angle." You should be worried you understand AlBQ-speak

Kvenel is majorly difficult for me on Adept. I'm sure he's equally difficult on Legendary

I did have a thought, though... Is "Difficult" the same as "Hard?" I admit that those levels above Adept are "Harder", but not "Difficult-er" (to match word tense)

For me, difficult is about AI & strategy, not health loads. Legendary difficulty level Dragons should use more then 2 or 3 breath weapons. They should not be distracted by every damn thing in a vicinity (deer, mudcrabs, giants). They should never land. This is difficulty increases to me

PS: I wanted to point out the defensive posts" came about because you asked to "laugh a bit" in your previous post, about the adept players.

Ohhhhhhhh ok. Yup. I did miss that point. Sorry!

I agree with you. TES games' "difficulty" is really a pretty weak form of customization for challenge.

Difficulty in other games involves smarter AI behavior, adjustments to loot, skill "checks" in dialog, higher-level traps, limited resources, alignment penalties, and class restrictions. For example, Pillars of Eternity has settings that range from a "Story Time" walkthrough mode to the "Trial of Iron," where there's only one save file and it gets automatically deleted on death.

By comparison, TES has no difficulty control at all. Just a "damage valve."

Adept.

Like some of the others here, I don't like the way the difficulty options work in Vanilla Skyrim. If I want a challenge I use other ways to get it.

It's "idiotic" because it's such a blunt instrument that affects very little. It doesn't, for instance, make enemies fight smarter. It doesn't affect regen rates. It doesn't add requirements to eat/drink/sleep. It doesn't disable fast travel. It doesn't make lock picking, pick pocketing, sneaking, illusion, conjuration or speech any more difficult --doesn't affect those skills at all.


There are so many ways Beth could have offered better difficulty adjustments. The one they chose is kinda crappy. Even just adding one more slider, so damage dealt could be adjusted independently from damage taken would be a vast improvement.

Rick, you don't know me very well. In fact, hardly anyone knows anybody around here, except from what we post to each other and everyone.

You're not protecting legendary difficulty's difficulty, you're protecting your own sense of accomplishment. I'm not going to try to convince you about what will happen once you get there, only post it for everyone to see.

Legendary is difficult, at first. I've done all sorts of things to get by, I've even chopped countless stacks of firewood. I've said in the past that, maybe I should've taken up alchemy instead -more gold that way and speech training. See, I may not be playing DiD, but this doesn't mean I like getting killed -and I did everything to "achieve" just that.

Over time, I saw it gradually turn into what adept would've been, if I hadn't done what I did. There was no danger anymore. Nothing could come even close to killing my character -not even the Falmer Warmongers we've talked about in another thread. I knew what to expect and I would kill them faster than they could ever hope to kill me. Nothing stood a chance.

This is what awaits you in the end. You'll be standing there, with your accomplishment at hand -and you'll feel good for a while at least. Then, maybe you'll start wondering "why did I get into this in the first place?"

But you have to do it, you need to see for yourself. I can respect that.

how is that an exploit? ^^

If you'd face a bear in real life, your first thought would also be to run to the nearest rock/tree and try to get it between him and you... by climbing on it, jumping of it when he comes near and tries to reach you.

You would try to use the landscape to your advantage to survive.

To me the difficulty lies in not dying. The higher difficulties actually make Skyrim a dangerous place. You can't run anywhere you want, fight who you want.

Things like smithing/enchanting, potions actually start to matter. You're not the god that can slaughter the whole Skyrim in a single rush anymore.

I don't think I had to ever "slog" through an enemy... if there was an enemy that required that many hits, it was better not to go near him, as he'd murder you right away.

It affects so few things in the game itself... and yet it changes so much in the playstyle that you have to pick to survive.

Eventhough the difficulty system isn't a great one, I would still be annoyed if we only had Adept as a choice.

It's great that everyone can pick what he likes the most... having options can never be a bad thing.

Not using fast-travel is once again an option... just as the great mods that force you to eat, drink and sleep.

Conjuration is actually heavily affected by the difficulty... your spawned things deal way less damage to the enemies and die way quicker.

Your fire atronach won't do anything to that bear and will be gone quicker than you'll have your magicka back to spawn another one.

I think Rick's post was on point and has everything that I'm trying to say here

Yep.

For me I don't die any more often, at least once I'm beyond the lowest levels I've got too much experience and know how the game/enemy AI works you can actually predict what they're going to do next, even the cheating side-jumping before the arrow has even left the bow, so can avoid the pitfalls/pratfalls, but it still takes longer to dispose of npc's, ergo its tedious. Obviously being able to one-shot enemies yourself is tedious too, so finding that sweet spot is what its all about. For me its about at Master, at least once I'm on the higher levels.

The game gives us a single damage slider and plenty of different ways to overcome the early difficulty of the higher settings. With the Legendary damage setting we got the ability to level up almost indefinitely, allowing the player to perk everything and build massive Health/Stamina/Magicka pools. I’ve found that long-term satisfaction with my games comes with the discipline to not over-craft gear or over-level my character at any damage setting. For me difficulty comes from a very few mods, roleplaying the character (which eliminates the exploits or “gameplay shortcuts”), and my own playstyle restrictions. There’s no difficulty that the vanilla game offers that it doesn’t also provide a way to easily solve. As has been mentioned before, higher settings take more time to mitigate.

I usually start at Expert and move the damage slider up as the character gains perks and starts to out-level their world. That brings a slower increase in their perceived skill, which is what I prefer. I like to bump the slider up one setting for dragon fights to make them more epic.

I would like in future games at least two damage sliders to adjust incoming and outgoing, and hopefully true difficulty settings which limit resources, offer more environmental hazards, and provide increased enemy spawns and more complex enemy AI.

Edit: argh, spelling

What I liked very much, is the way Bethesda handled difficulty in Fallout 4. The higher the setting, the enemies not only deal more damage, they also react a lot smarter. They become relentless, they use grenades a lot more often -on very hard, they really want to kill you and it shows.

I even liked survival difficulty. Besides needs etc, you can only save when going to sleep. That's the middle ground between DiD & reloading like there's no tomorrow. It's perfect.

that's a very good point by the way

There are many ways to slow it down though.

Just as an example:

I refuse to use enchanted gear to fortify my smithing... and also don't use any potions for the same case.

And I also don't use any potions to make my enchantments better.

Those things just feel a bit weird when roleplaying... even in the Skyrim universe.

How can a potion suddenly make you a better smith... for just 60 seconds?

That doesn't make any sense... especially because smithing is a process that should take several hours

Taking all those things into consideration makes your gear stay somewhat "balanced" for a very long time.

And even when you become 'overpowered' at a point... it will be after a very long time.

You'll have a long journey behind you and your character will feel like a veteran, who explored a lot and survived for a long time.

It feels 'realistic' for him to be good at the things that he's doing.

It also really depends on what type of character you're playing.

If you decide to play a Warrior who is already old and experienced a lot before coming to Skyrim, choosing one of the higher difficulties might not be the most 'immersive' decision.

An old Warrior should be able to handle Trolls and Bears from the start on.

Playing a random Breton who wants to become good at the Conjuration magic and get better with weapons on the other hand is very suitable for a higher difficulty.