mutonizer

Dude, in your video, it's not 1 hot hit, it's Shout Power that puts you on the ground for 5-6 seconds, then you get back up. All high level Draugs have it. It's cooldown is fairly long. Just avoid it, then block the arrow :) But in any case, you play on Master. When I did, stuff started almost one hitting me at level 8, so why is it new to you now? :)

That's the biggest issue yes: tons of quest but they are pretty much all very, very linear. I tried playing a neural good char at first, you know, reasonable hero that doesn't go nuts with daedras and stuff, protect the weak, etc. But then I realised that you couldn't actually do s***. You had "good" quests, you had "bad quests", do them all, nobody cares. With Daedras, it's either join/submit, or ignore quest totally (that house quest bummed me immensely). Same beef with Thief Guild. Companions are frikkin beasts and you can't even join the Silver Hand to help destroy them? And as said, most NPCs for these are unkillable and even if not, it doesn't matter anyway since it's not quested. Heck, I joined the legion and wasted Ulfric in his castle at level 11, he just got back up. Elder Scrolls always has been a very good design, and a terrible design at the same time. It's a RPG that's not a RPG, it's a sandbox open world that's completely stacked full of emptiness and doesn't care, a tabletop with the most moronic game master ever. Basically: The worst best thing we love to hate and hate to love. It's digital heroin :)

Everthing can be "easymode", depending on how you play since there is no ironman mode. If you play on Master, then you can be one shotted by a lot of things unless you're in full heavy, and even then it doesn't take much. Per se, that doesn't spell "easy mode". That said, there are ways to make it easy, which is what everyone does, when confronted with difficulty (that's part of solving the difficulty process). If something is insanely hard and you find ways to make it easier, than does it become easy? No, you just overcame the difficulty, that's all. Adding hardcore realism mods just adds to that difficulty, but you WILL find ways to make it easier. You want over the top REAL hardcore? Go Master & Ironman. Disable ALL saving systems and only save on quit. - You lag 1/2 a second when facing a storm master? too bad, one shotted, you start new. - You're 30cm too close to that Briarheart dual wielder when he combos, too bad, one shotted, you start new. - Those 3 Draugr shout you all over the room while you get two shotted by random archers? Ah well, you start new. Skyrim isn't really designed for that however and you can potentially become Dragonslayer by level 7 or 8, maybe earlier. It's not meant to be that hard of a game overall. Last time I did Ironman was for Temple of Elemental Evil (one of the only real games with Ironman) and man..tons of fun, but never got to the end that way, ever. And no way I'm ever doing that in Skyrim, it's just nuts since there is no end.

It's not 100% AI problems but more pathing nodes missing. With a gameworld like Skyrim has, which pushes the player to explore behind rocks and whatnot, the AI has to follow possible paths, which often don't go over rocks or steep terrain. Try staying on "normal terrain" (roads, flats, etc) and avoid going over rocks, then the follower will come no problemo. Likewise in dungeons, do not jump down in a room or something, just go normally. That said, there are a couple places in dungeons where the AI will become stuck because there are no pathing possible. Had one in a dungeon and Eoal would just NOT be able to leave the platform, even using commands. Had to manually push her for a minute or two. Other than that, my follower is pretty responsive. I'd LOVE a set of hotkeys for follower commands though! Anyway, it's a problem for sure and doesn't encourage having followers. Maybe they'll release some patches that puts a newly baked land with better pathing nodes, but I doubt it.

Well, that fixed the icebolt in the head... ...and replaced it by an arrow in the shoulder, which is not going anywhere either apparently.

Hmm, cheers I'll try that and post back the result. Never occurred to me since I always play in 3rd person.

My current save (and it's a level 35+ one, so kinda bother me really) is stuck with my character having a huge icebolt just behind/in the head. Been like that for hours, despite reloading, un-equiping all my stuff, zoning, exiting and loading back, etc. Can't seem to find a way to get rid of it and it's driving me nuts. Any console command I could use or something? Anyone else having this issue? Cheers

Probably not that but since I wondered about some freezes I was having, I thought I might share. Did you check the autosaving option? Personally, I had a freeze once in a while outside and couldn't figure out why. After some time, I realised that it was just the autosaving option so I disabled it, and no problem now. Just saying.

Totally there with you on that mate. Level 38 melee char, been in hide armor till a bit ago when I finally changed to Plated hide armor because I liked the look and yea, I can craft dragon, glass and whatnot, just don't like the look of them for this char, so I don't use it. Nothing but yourself is forcing you to do anything and Legendary upgraded leather or hide armor, with a couple enchants, will do the trick at higher level just fine even against rough enemies (and on hard difficulty).

Ever faced a Forsworn BriarHeart? Dragons can't one hit me and mages can't either with proper resist, but these guys can, and I'm playing on Adept only. At high level (38 currently), they're maxed out on Dual Wielding perks...and they are just....the hurt. Hardest hitting enemy so far for me and they run so fast, as if on PCP or something. One hit and it's mostly all over. Like that, little montage of my fight against this insane dude:

Just get a companion that will do the tanking stuff for you. Use the wait command when you want to go and sneak about, then pull the baddies to him. Nothing better than unleashing dual wielding daggers of hell stamina & magicka drain on someone attacking your friend. Also, if you go shield, get a mage companion. They'll rip everything to shred :) Make sure to stock up on healing potions for them though, as well as resist frost/fire/poison salves.

Anyone found a way to join either the Thalmor (I'm playing High Elf only for that option) but they treat me like a Nord so far. Also, the Silver Hand? I know you can join the Companions for Werewolf stuff but I don't want to, I want to wipe them out and help the Silver Hand, possible? Thanks.

Let's be honest - parrying a warhammer with anything is a bad idea. Perhaps, only a shield would really help against that. One sword or two swords doesn't matter - the warhammer will disarm you at least if you try to block it. When you're dealing with someone, who uses a big weapon, you need to either have an identical weapon or be fast and evade the blows. But since the game actually lets you to parry big weapons with one-handed ones, it's just unfair that two 1H weapons aren't allowed to do the same. Maybe a good solution would be giving big weapons high chances of disarming your opponents with a successful hit? It'd be also nice to take the distance into account. If the distance between you (armed with two 1H swords or even one 1H sword) and opponent (armed with a warhammer) is about the range of warhammer hit, then blocking will almost never be successful. But if you are face to face, opponent has no space to hit you with the head of the hammer, you can block it, as at close range the warhammer doesn't get that much inertia. But I'm afraid, this is to difficult to work. You still get hurt when you block, even more if you just block/parry with a weapon instead of a shield. If you block a big attack from a 2hder with your dagger, you'll still get hurt quite a lot (especially in master mode). As a note as well, the act of parrying is not really with the blade like you can see in movies but mostly with the guard (slide along the blade, block in the guard, etc). That why stuff like parrying dagger exist and they are REALLY good at parrying because no matter the weapon you try to parry, it'll lock down in the guard and you'll just have to handle the actual strength of the wielder. Works against heavy 2hder as well and you can actually disarm them quite easily if you do it right. Sooo, what I'm saying is that a mod making a parrying dagger for off hand that actually allows blocking would be nice :)

2hder and heavy seems for sure easier in a way due to the big damage burst if you land the power attacks right especially since you just need to up stamina and hp (and armor cover resistance to most damage) I only play light or no armor and after trying 1hd dagger rogue/utility mage on master, I quickly switched back to adept because as said before, 1 mistake and it's one shotted by 2hder wielders bandits and whatnot. Even now on adept, around level 18, casters nearly 2 shot me with these ice bolts and I have 190hp and 20% cold/fire resist. I might try against on Master once I'm done with my current character but for now, Adept seems the way to go.

I believe anything done via console stops Steam achievements yes, even changing the POV (and that'll screw you're entire save apparently).

My list since everyone's running into it: - Companion & Horse UI: can call them up, tell them to meet somewhere, load them up with items (even horse), sort what they wear, use horse as pack mule, send them to town to sell stuff, and have a hotkey for "wait here", "do this" as well as "manage inventory" (F1, F2, F3, F4 would be great). The number of times I've died because my "companion" is blocking the way out, "bowing" stuff, while I'm being chased by 2 VERY angry saber cats and whatnot...it's not even funny. - General UI overhaul: Current one is nice and all but man, it's NOT mouse friendly. Biggest grip so far with the game. - Inventory overhaul: Need sorting options (value, weight, quality, alpha). - Quickkeys revamped: Would be nice to hotkey using alt and shift as well. 8 slots for hotkeys is not enough, especially when you're playing an utility mage. - Temperature realism mod: Need to keep track of ambient temperature, wetness (if you go in water at some point, etc) and need to be REALLY deadly, with ways to fight against cold. Swimming naked in a Fjord in iron armor is not really....well, real. Would be nice to have fur overcoats, fire to raise body temperature, etc. - Food/water/sleep realism mod, like the ones for fallout 3. As it is now, you can go from 1 to 50 without even eating or sleeping once. - Cart companion: ability to hire a cart driver or some sort that follows you around (normal horse pace, no running) and that you can load up with stuff. - Vault/Bank system/guild: If you don't want/need a house, no way to store stuff safely. Would be nice to have some sort of private vault that you can rent in the holds' capitals, and where you can store stuff. Of course, vaults are not linked. - Jarl's position. Massive mod but if you're a Nord, would be nice to be able to challenge Jarls, take over their hold, etc. - Imperial vs Stormcloaks overhaul: Ranks in both, as you raise in ranks, you must lead raids on some places (can use bandit forts and towers as control points, so many of them). - Settler mod: as in Fallout, would be neat to just be able to settle somewhere and depending on how you do, people would come. Fight of bandit raids, set taxes, build store and farms, etc. Or just build yourself a cabin somewhere for your peace and quiet.

Started on Master as well, playing High Elf (1hd/light armor/shield/bow/defensive magic) and it was a blast difficulty wise until level 8 or so. After that, I was getting almost 1 shotted by some Bandits with 2hders because they were using a move that apparently rooted me as soon as they started it (camera paning around, etc) and on Master, 2hder enemies hit like trucks. Saber cats were 2 hitting me while blocking as well, etc. So now, Adept difficulty and level 15: It's better, still kinda hard here and there, but not 1 shot hard. Dragon breath hit for about 3/4 of my hp though usually and they have a very, very long range. That's kinda bull unless you're using a very rare and powerful 2hder against enemies that didn't level up or you're just spamming power attacks and crits. Bandits on master difficulty can take 5 or 6 hits no problem with a normal 2hder, at least in my game. Meanwhile, they can 2 hit you :) Oh, and remember, you CAN run away! The game is designed around this somewhat since it allows you to come back later on and beat them (they won't level up once you activate them). I ended up in a Spriggan's cave at some point at level 7 and man, I bailed (1 hitting me with a fly swarm spell). Came back at 15, was a good challenge. So you CAN run away! :)