How do you feel Skyrim's difficulty is? And how do you think it should be?

[gabrielrock19]

In my exp, Skyrim allows the player to feel powerful if they level up and get the best perks for their class (efficient leveling). I think it's way too easy once you do that, though. Maybe the game should be divided into regions: most of the known world is automatically set at "Adept" difficulty (Normal) while special areas of the map are set to Expert, Master or Legendary. The default system of difficulty where you can modify the multipliers to make yourself weaker and your enemies stronger on a global scale feels extremely disconnected from the game, giving the impression of a cheap solution to the issue.

In Dark Souls - one of the most difficult battle oriented RPGs out there - the game is set to an extreme of difficulty where everything can and will be very hard, except if you already know enemy patters and perfect strategies and timing and etc. BUT the game doesn't offer the experience of what would be like to play as a Black Knight, for example. I think it's a genius approach to medieval RPGs, yet it's understandable that a single game won't be able to offer every pleasant gameplay available out there. In Skyrim maybe you can feel more like a Black Knight to most enemies, or a Nameless King or a Sister Friede. HOWEVER I find myself installing mods just to give me more of a souls-like challenge (or other difficult combat challenge that follows another style and approach).

That's why I think a combat focused RPG should offer both scenarios if possible. One where you are very powerful if you hone your skills through effort and at the same time fight very difficult enemies out there (probably the minority except if it's a high level area set apart from the main world) who can either match you or greatly overpower you.

I'm trying to mod my Skyrim SE game so it can fit this scenario (if any of you can point me to a few mods that do this besides getting involved in the discussion, I thank you in advance).

[Karna5]

I think Skyrim (SE/AE in my case) is one of the few games where the five levels of difficulty make a significant difference.

If you play at the lowest setting, it's almost impossible to lose a battle.

If you play at the highest (5th) setting, it's almost impossible to win a battle until you get strong skills and good weapons, and even at that point it's easy to die in one shot against even weak monsters let alone against hard ones.

You can play at level 5 difficulty, but I recommend the use of a death alternative mod like Acheron because you're likely to die 20+ times in hard fights before you finally win.

I find level 3 difficulty an almost perfect balance. I die (or lose) frequently, but if I'm careful, the battles are actually fun and challenging, usually where an open battle ends with me having a sliver of health left by the time all the enemies die, or with me dying/losing and having to work my way back to the fight to complete it more carefully.

[Karna5]

Post Script: there's a mod called Stress and Fear which goes very well with a level 5 difficulty playthrough and a death alternative. If you lose too many times to a monster type (super easy to do at that difficulty), you get penalized with a phobia against that monster. So you have the incentive to do your best not to fail without actually breaking the game if you do fail.

[Karna5]

16 hours ago, gabrielrock19 said:

to feel powerful if they level up and get the best perks for their class (efficient leveling). I think it's way too easy once you do that, though.

You may want to consider using a mod like Experience which unties character level from skill perk progression. With that mod you don't go up in levels by working smithing, for instance. You simply become a better smith and no more. I've been using it for a couple of playthroughs and am enjoying that my character doesn't break and get overpowered if she builds up crafting skills. In fact. leveling overall is much slower now, but good enough to feel progress on a long playthrough.

[anjenthedog]

One way is to purposely de-rate your equipment. A Shiny Uber-sword with a hit value of a wet sock, An Axe or Hammer that might as well be made of paper machete (for all the good it does), Bows with the equivalent of foam arrows (de-rated bows and arrows), armor (figuratively) made of rice paper (one layer of rice paper worth), rings, necklaces, and circlets with no enchantments, etc. 

Magicka might be a bit more problematic, since I'm not sure if there are mods that can be used to de-rate spell effects. Then again, I haven't looked so maybe there is. Shouts as well.

But it's not just about your own stats, it also includes the equipment you use. Idc if my health, stamina, and magicka are 2000 each, if I can't hit with force, it's going to be a long fight.

[Karna5]

44 minutes ago, anjenthedog said:

One way is to purposely de-rate your equipment

Along those lines, there are mods like BaboDialogue (which ties in with other mods like OSL Aroused which sets skimpy keywords on skimpy armors). BaboDialogues has an MCM setting called "Realistic Armor" which makes skimpy armor essentially useless. If your armor is skimpy, it's not treated like armor at all, and you take a lot of extra damage even without being at level 5 difficulty.

With level 5 difficulty I already die in one shot from a giant rat a lot of times, and the tentacles in some of the hell areas one shot me as well, but with the Realistic Armor setting, the difficulty level goes off the roof if you're wearing skimpy armor.

[anjenthedog]

I use Proteus to "adjust" my "accoutrements" (mainly turning clothes into armor for the Light armor combo rating value, so for the opposite, or at least a different purpose), but yeah, if a mod can do it in an automatic, programmatic manner, that's even cooler, at least for this purpose of *de-rating the player for the desired, increased battle difficulty.

 

PS> Didn't realize Babodialogue provided that feature set. thanks for the pointer.

[gabrielrock19]

On 10/1/2024 at 3:19 PM, Karna5 said:

Post Script: there's a mod called Stress and Fear which goes very well with a level 5 difficulty playthrough and a death alternative. If you lose too many times to a monster type (super easy to do at that difficulty), you get penalized with a phobia against that monster. So you have the incentive to do your best not to fail without actually breaking the game if you do fail.

Ok, now that is insanely creative. I'll download and see if the mod implements the idea as expected.

I'll repay you by sharing my own recommendation. It's about other area of the game that deserves much change and tweaking: economy. And I found an insanely creative mod that gives Skyrim an economic depth that is unheard of in gaming as a whole.

Basically this economy mod (called Supply and Demand) enforces real life economy's most important law: supply and demand. If you sell too much of the same item its price will decrease drastically due to a sudden influx of availability. If you do the opposite - taking or stealing too much from the same item, ingredient or weapon - the prices will skyrocket. And according to the author, because Skyrim is facing a civil war, the princes return to normal on a daily rate of only 5%. That is an eternity of gameplay time unless you skip it intentionally (by doing nothing else but waiting and counting). You can tweak the value of how princes return to their base value in the MCM though.

[gabrielrock19]

On 10/1/2024 at 6:48 PM, anjenthedog said:

I use Proteus to "adjust" my "accoutrements" (mainly turning clothes into armor for the Light armor combo rating value, so for the opposite, or at least a different purpose), but yeah, if a mod can do it in an automatic, programmatic manner, that's even cooler, at least for this purpose of *de-rating the player for the desired, increased battle difficulty.

 

PS> Didn't realize Babodialogue provided that feature set. thanks for the pointer.

Wow. What's this?

Two insanely creative mods on the same thread? Plus the one I already knew and recommended.

Sometimes I find myself wondering how a mod is even possible. Yep. Proteus is bookmarked. Skyrim's modding community is genius. It's what I've been saying and it's true.

[LatinGames]

I've always played at legendary level 5, and compared to Dark Souls, Skyrim is a walk in the park

But if you include Mods like Revenge of the Enemies 2.2, Realistic AI Detection, Strongest Boss etc, that's the only way you start to level up.