Rebalancing Skyrim

[chrismgtis]

I really hope mods don't make daedric armor more relevant. I hate the way it looks. I'd prefer dragon armor to be improved instead. I wish daedric entities and items would be removed from Elder Scrolls.

 

Enemy archers at no point in my 60-ish hours have been "overpowered" whatsoever, but instead are easily avoided and don't do any real extreme damage.

 

While what we have as perks are nice, it's not what I was expecting to see when it was announced. I was hoping for something more like what we got in Fallout.

[RavingRavec]

I really hope mods don't make daedric armor more relevant. I hate the way it looks. I'd prefer dragon armor to be improved instead. I wish daedric entities and items would be removed from Elder Scrolls.

 

Enemy archers at no point in my 60-ish hours have been "overpowered" whatsoever, but instead are easily avoided and don't do any real extreme damage.

 

While what we have as perks are nice, it's not what I was expecting to see when it was announced. I was hoping for something more like what we got in Fallout.

 

First my main character that is level 71 right now and capped in pretty much everything but the magic schools, is wearing Dragonplate boots, chest, gloves, shield, and im 250 armor above the armor cap. If I wear a dragonplate helmet aswell my armor goes up to 1280 (because of the 25% armor perks) Since I'm always using a shield I could even run around in just dragonplate boots + gloves + shield and have my body naked and a nice visual-purpose-only head slot. Daedric armor is overrated.

 

I think the best armor on a female = Dragonplate. Best armor on male character : Wolf Armor (no helmet) yes, you can easily get the armor cap with wolf armor, while not wearing the complete set.

 

I've started a new game yesterday on which im going pure mage focusing on : Enchanting, Conjuration, Destruction, Restoration, and Alteration for the magic resistance (I'm a breton aswell, so alteration+racial+25% from the Lord stone will pretty much leave me unharmed by spells) I'm just wearing Clothing items now, and I'm playing on master difficulty. Fighting anything is quite the challenge, I have to kite and hide behind walls throw a couple spells and hide again, enemy archers do 80 to 100% of my health in one hit but since they are archers and im not a moron, I avoid most of their attacks.

 

I'm thinking about grabbing some heavy armor though, just boots, gloves, maybe helmet (if I get my hands on the dragonpriest masks) that should provide me with about 30-40% damage reduction vs melee.

 

So yes, if you're a pure mage with no light/heavy armor, relying just on your strong offense (in early game atleast) and your restoration spells and not armor, and you cant avoid getting attacked since you'd rather stay in one place casting then you should stop crying and play a heavy armor class or a different game.

[LoneVandal]

I really hope mods don't make daedric armor more relevant. I hate the way it looks. I'd prefer dragon armor to be improved instead. I wish daedric entities and items would be removed from Elder Scrolls.

 

Enemy archers at no point in my 60-ish hours have been "overpowered" whatsoever, but instead are easily avoided and don't do any real extreme damage.

 

While what we have as perks are nice, it's not what I was expecting to see when it was announced. I was hoping for something more like what we got in Fallout.

 

First my main character that is level 71 right now and capped in pretty much everything but the magic schools, is wearing Dragonplate boots, chest, gloves, shield, and im 250 armor above the armor cap. If I wear a dragonplate helmet aswell my armor goes up to 1280 (because of the 25% armor perks) Since I'm always using a shield I could even run around in just dragonplate boots + gloves + shield and have my body naked and a nice visual-purpose-only head slot. Daedric armor is overrated.

 

I think the best armor on a female = Dragonplate. Best armor on male character : Wolf Armor (no helmet) yes, you can easily get the armor cap with wolf armor, while not wearing the complete set.

 

I've started a new game yesterday on which im going pure mage focusing on : Enchanting, Conjuration, Destruction, Restoration, and Alteration for the magic resistance (I'm a breton aswell, so alteration+racial+25% from the Lord stone will pretty much leave me unharmed by spells) I'm just wearing Clothing items now, and I'm playing on master difficulty. Fighting anything is quite the challenge, I have to kite and hide behind walls throw a couple spells and hide again, enemy archers do 80 to 100% of my health in one hit but since they are archers and im not a moron, I avoid most of their attacks.

 

I'm thinking about grabbing some heavy armor though, just boots, gloves, maybe helmet (if I get my hands on the dragonpriest masks) that should provide me with about 30-40% damage reduction vs melee.

 

So yes, if you're a pure mage with no light/heavy armor, relying just on your strong offense (in early game atleast) and your restoration spells and not armor, and you cant avoid getting attacked since you'd rather stay in one place casting then you should stop crying and play a heavy armor class or a different game.

 

I would like to make Mage spells more interesting by adding secondary effects to some of them, like if you use the initial tier Destruction spells having enemies drop their superheated weapons and shields after being burned for 5 seconds, having the frost spell slow enemies so they may be kited while it is on them and for 5 seconds after, and the lightning spell causing an increasing chance of inflicting paralysis for 5 seconds the longer you channel it on them. This is just a quick example of how the spells could become more tactical and interesting without increasing their damage output. It does seem to me like any mod to damage in this game needs to pick a difficulty level and say "this mod is balanced for difficulty mode x" or have separate values for each setting, which would be a pain in the ass to do (who has time to rebalance a mod 5 times?).

 

I can't freaking wait for the Creation Kit.

[rooj]

I can certainly agree that there is some balancing to be done, but I can't say that I've run into many of the problems others have.

 

I notice a lot of people complaining about their mage characters being underpowered. My first character was a mage and while I didn't level it very high, I didn't feel underpowered. One think I did notice that others may not, is the channeled spells, like Spark (you hold the button down to spray an endless stream of lightning). It seemed to be a waste of mana to hold the button down to use this spell, and instead to tap the button. The damage is still done but the mana drainage is not.

 

Another thing to note, is that I've noticed enemy spells that do frost damage will slow my character's movement speed. I never used a frost spell on my mage, but I'm sure you can use this to kite melee enemies.

 

I'm also wondering what type of equipment these mages are using... because there is plenty of gear and jewelry with +destruction spell damage% on them.

 

My only complaint about my mage was the companion AI. I'm sure based on what your own character is doing, they change their own strategy - since I am a long range character, they will melee more. Problem is, they'll run right in front of me while I'm shooting spells. -_-;

 

My own ideas though... I think Illusion should probably be scrapped and all the spells added to Alteration... Possibly also combine the Lockpicking skill with Sneak. I think that maybe even a Cloth Armor tree should be added. I would definitely like to see more spells/abilities added to the game for both players and enemies, because there is a serious lack of strategy involved in combat.

 

Quite honestly I found most skill trees just... useless, or boring. I just wasn't motivated to do Smithing, Alchemy, or Enchanting. There was no reason to, it would've been a waste of time... The Lockpicking and Speechcraft trees seem like a waste as well. Does anyone use 2 handed weapons? They seem too slow for my tastes. :P

Edited November 21, 2011 by rooj

[bobo40k]

Firstly I should mention, that I love Skyrim.

Why else would i waste 100+ h on one game? :)

 

 

 

--------------------- WALL OF TEXT AHEAD. ONLY MY IMPRESSIONS SO FAR. ON TOPIC AT THE BOTTOM -----------------------

 

I am currently playing my third character.

 

My first was one was a shield using, sword swinging powerhouse on adept difficulty. Whom I played till lvl 45, main quest finished but sitll a lot to be done.

I maxed the one-handed +% damage perk as fast as possible, put a few points into blocking and a few into heavy armor. Though the majority went into enchanting and smithing. I pushed my damage through the abuse of fortify smithing and one-handed damage enchantments and potions. Reaching about 850 armor and 320 one-handed damage. (You can increase the damage of weapons even further after "legendary" by fortifying your blacksmithing and improving them + the 160% one-handed damage increase I got through my self-made gear).

Dragons where dead in 3 hits. Other stuff in one or two strikes. The magic resistance boost on my gear + the high armor made me almost invincible. For testing purpose I set the difficulty to master, but he was still steamrolling everything. The damage I took increased a bit, but only cause I ramboed everything and didnt avoid hits or used block. Giants still fell in one to two hits. To much power bores.

 

So I decided to limit myself in the second playthrough. I decided I wouldnt use smithing and enchanting, neither would I fast travell. For further pain I disabled the compass and set the difficulty to master :D

Took a wood elf and decided to play a sneaky archer/thief.

Fights took an eternety. Random low level bandits shrugged of 10+ arrows without dieing and beat me to death withing two hits. With a lot of willpower and patience I played through the thieves guild quests.

But a random ice wolf sealed that characters fate. I wasnt prepared. The wolf got my by surprise. I died. I couldnt kill an ice wolf with my archer without the advantage of surprise (sneak attack) or by using potions.

For researchs sake I powerleveled smithing to a decent level. Resulting was a much stronger archer, it would be playable like this. But a smithing thief? No way... So i stopped at lvl 24.

 

My current character is a mage on expert difficulty. Well not a mage in the classicle sense. I use a sword, thou its conjured. The idea of a "spell blade" was tempting and sounded playable as the conjuration skill-tree offers some bound weapon boosting perks.

In fact the character is very playable. Right hand conjured sword, left hand for pre-fight buffs and destruction magic in fights.

Soon i discovered that Skyrim lacks bound armor. But alteration offers good protection if one only wears cloth. The perk "mage armor" (i hope thats the one) offers tripple the effect of armor boosting spells if no armor is worn (100x3=300 Armor through the expert spell).

Even thou I am partly in melee, I couldnt afford to put many points into health or stamina, as spells in Skyrim use so much magicka. Bound sword cant be improved much (the perk in conjuration and the one-handed skill/perks, but no smithing) therefor I heavily rely on my destruction spells to lay waste to my foes. At level 29 right now. I upped health by 80 and the rest went into magicka. 20 level into magicka. I still run dry on a frequent basis, like every fight :D

Pure mage would have been hardcore in the beginning as the magicka aint sufficient to allow constant spellcasting (at least on expert). I am jet to push enchanting, but time will tell if the spell blade will prevail.

 

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

 

 

I would love to see more perks. Different ones. Specialized perks!

Maybe even hybrid perks which are only available if you have skills in different trees.

 

Maybe a further layer of "perks" would be usefull. Like in Fallout. Every few level you can pick from a list of perks which are opened up by your choisses in the trees and maybe even ingame (" You own the spell fire atronarch and got 90+ in destruction? Your attronarch could be an upgraded, more deadly version if you pick this perk"-Perk ).

But thats far fetched.

 

 

What I would like to see is a hard nerf to smithing and enchating. Both are super easy to power level (iron dagger is equal to ebony armor, or something like that, in the progression of the smithing skill at the moment. And super easy to produce on mass) and ridiciously overpowered. Further you lack options if you dont want to take them. Why cant the local blacksmith improve my weapon to a certain degree? Its mandatory to level at least smithing if you want to play a decent weapon based character, which SUCKS!(The reason why I conjure my sword as a Spell Blade. I dont want smithing....)

Its just limiting right now.

 

The spells are too expensive in magicka. The damage is ok in my eyes. Maybe a slight overall buff and a bigger buff to dual casting.

 

All in all the perk-trees lack interesting, decision forcing, options. The masteries in the magic-trees are no-brainers, you cant even use the next better spell without em.

Instead spell could need its own few perks to power em up with more effects or something. Mastering the basics instead of reaching the next higher step should be an option somehow.

 

 

Some combat focused "skills" would be awesome too:

The only valid way to play an archer in my oppinion is to hybrid with stealth. Archers lack crowd control. More then one enemy rushing at you will no doubt force you to retreat.

Might add a perk for piercing arrows, or the ability to craft special arrows. Fire salt + firewood = 10 explosive arrows? Would spice up the game and open up more options.

 

Adding durability to weapons and armor would add another value to smithing. Instead of using the pricy service of the blacksmith people could repair their armor on their own.

The perk-trees should force someone into the use of a specific kind of weapon. Maces, axes and swords should all have their own, GOOD, and totaly different perks. Not only one but more. And maybe earlier in the tree.

 

 

 

s***. Those are a lot of unsorted thoughts in probably difficult to understand english. I am sorry :)

A further thing I should mention: I am thinking of the difficulty setting experienced all the time. Not sure if everything fitts into adept. Sadly most of my wishes are what the are, wishes.

[Shadowclaimer]

If I may make one major request there is one thing that ruined your list for me near the bottom.

 

Instead of Heavy Armor lowering a random elemental type per type of armor, just make it a general resistance drop. To know that if I wear Daedric Armor I'm going to get one shot by all Ice users but fine against others is.. annoying. I'd rather just be weaker to magic across the board.

[Levgre]

I don't like the level scaling on the harder difficulties. I don't like to power game, focusing on my primary weapon and armor skill right away, and neglecting everything else, but I still like raising the difficulty so I haveto play cautiously and be resourceful. But if you get to say 50 one hand, 50 armor, 30 pickpocket, 30 shield, 30 bow, 30 alteration, you are basically screwing yourself over. Visiting a trainer to get proficient in a non-critical skill hurts you. You will be level 15 quickly, and bandits and dungeon mobs will go from being similarly powered to the hero of Skyrim at levels 1-5, to being 20x tougher and 10x more damaging.

 

A freeform RPG like Skyrim simply should not punish the player for dabbling around, for using some conjuration/destruction because its fun, or spending their money on a trainer.

 

A possible fix could be to make the experience needed to level up more linear. Like instead of needing 50 skill points to get to level 10, and 1000 to get to level 50, make it 150 skill points to get to level 10 while still 1000 points to level 50.

 

I guess some skills might need balancing regardless, for example there's little reason to not do smithing (for stealth/combat characters at least) or enchanting. The stealth skills will get you money, but what you get from smithing and enchanting is better than money could ever buy.

 

I agree that some of the stealth skills should be combined. Pickpocket, lockpick, and stealth is too much of an investment to be an effective thief. At least perhaps combine perk trees, for example one perk will give you bonuses in pickpocket and lockpick.

Edited November 21, 2011 by Levgre

[RavingRavec]

I am currently playing my third character.

 

My first was one was a shield using, sword swinging powerhouse on adept difficulty. Whom I played till lvl 45, main quest finished but sitll a lot to be done.

I maxed the one-handed +% damage perk as fast as possible, put a few points into blocking and a few into heavy armor. Though the majority went into enchanting and smithing. I pushed my damage through the abuse of fortify smithing and one-handed damage enchantments and potions. Reaching about 850 armor and 320 one-handed damage. (You can increase the damage of weapons even further after "legendary" by fortifying your blacksmithing and improving them + the 160% one-handed damage increase I got through my self-made gear).

Dragons where dead in 3 hits. Other stuff in one or two strikes. The magic resistance boost on my gear + the high armor made me almost invincible. For testing purpose I set the difficulty to master, but he was still steamrolling everything. The damage I took increased a bit, but only cause I ramboed everything and didnt avoid hits or used block. Giants still fell in one to two hits. To much power bores.

 

So I decided to limit myself in the second playthrough. I decided I wouldnt use smithing and enchanting, neither would I fast travell. For further pain I disabled the compass and set the difficulty to master

Took a wood elf and decided to play a sneaky archer/thief.

Fights took an eternety. Random low level bandits shrugged of 10+ arrows without dieing and beat me to death withing two hits. With a lot of willpower and patience I played through the thieves guild quests.

But a random ice wolf sealed that characters fate. I wasnt prepared. The wolf got my by surprise. I died. I couldnt kill an ice wolf with my archer without the advantage of surprise (sneak attack) or by using potions.

For researchs sake I powerleveled smithing to a decent level. Resulting was a much stronger archer, it would be playable like this. But a smithing thief? No way... So i stopped at lvl 24.

 

My current character is a mage on expert difficulty. Well not a mage in the classicle sense. I use a sword, thou its conjured. The idea of a "spell blade" was tempting and sounded playable as the conjuration skill-tree offers some bound weapon boosting perks.

In fact the character is very playable. Right hand conjured sword, left hand for pre-fight buffs and destruction magic in fights.

Soon i discovered that Skyrim lacks bound armor. But alteration offers good protection if one only wears cloth. The perk "mage armor" (i hope thats the one) offers tripple the effect of armor boosting spells if no armor is worn (100x3=300 Armor through the expert spell).

Even thou I am partly in melee, I couldnt afford to put many points into health or stamina, as spells in Skyrim use so much magicka. Bound sword cant be improved much (the perk in conjuration and the one-handed skill/perks, but no smithing) therefor I heavily rely on my destruction spells to lay waste to my foes. At level 29 right now. I upped health by 80 and the rest went into magicka. 20 level into magicka. I still run dry on a frequent basis, like every fight

Pure mage would have been hardcore in the beginning as the magicka aint sufficient to allow constant spellcasting (at least on expert). I am jet to push enchanting, but time will tell if the spell blade will prevail.

 

Somehow, smithing and enchanting should get some nerfs or atleast a form of diminishing returns when used on light/heavy armor, your first character and mine are similar, with smithing and enchanting I managed to get me 80% magic resistance and 1280 armor, even though the armor cap is 570 (80%) this is still a big deal because it allows you to play the game without having to wear a matching armor set to get the perk, heck I can even wear 3 pieces of plate and 2 pieces of cloth and still be armor capped. This makes chosing to use light/heavy armor just not really a choice, more like something you require to get through the game.

 

Even worse is how you are able to upgrade your weapons in the same way as armor, this just makes the scaling of 1h/2h/archery so high/good that mage characters cant even come close. Aswell as bound weapons become s*** next to this (at 100 conjuration, all the bound weaponry perks, the bound 1h sword has about 40 damage, and 80-100 if you specialize in the one-handed tree. Same goes for the bow) compare that to the 420 bow, and 406 1h axe I got.

 

As for archery, if you are going with the path of a pure archer you need either capped out blacksmith and enchanting to reach the damage cap on bows, or specialize in sneak and run around x3 dmg 1 shotting your opponents. To make archery strong enough to stand on its own they should do something like increasing the bow damage perk 5/5 to another 100% damage, but limiting the amount of damage to be added by improving the weapon as blacksmith, aswell as the 15% chance to paralyze perk to be increased to something like 20-25% so you can keep enemy's at bay.

 

If you're playing a pure mage on Master difficulty Enchanting is just a must, you simply can not play the game without the %decrease in <magic school> and atleast a bit of increased regeneration.

 

Myself I got a robe with 100% regen, 50 magicka, 15% reduced cost on every school. Head slot with 28% reduced cost on destruction, 70% increased magicka regen. Necklace: 28% reduced cost on Destruction and 28% reduced cost on restoration. Ring: 70 magicka & 70% magicka regeneration. Boots: 70 stamina, 42% frost resistance. Gloves: 70 magicka & 42 carrying capacity. And even with all that, on Master difficulty, on level 44 I still manage to get out of magicka when in a serious boss/multi enemy fight.

 

Note that my gloves and boots are made of Ebony, If you're playing a mage going with heavy armor blacksmithing & 5 points in heavy armor, you should be able to get a base armor of 150-200 when fully upgraded. Giving you about 25% reduction against physical damage.

Edited November 21, 2011 by RavingRavec

[RavingRavec]

I can certainly agree that there is some balancing to be done, but I can't say that I've run into many of the problems others have.

 

I notice a lot of people complaining about their mage characters being underpowered. My first character was a mage and while I didn't level it very high, I didn't feel underpowered. One think I did notice that others may not, is the channeled spells, like Spark (you hold the button down to spray an endless stream of lightning). It seemed to be a waste of mana to hold the button down to use this spell, and instead to tap the button. The damage is still done but the mana drainage is not.

 

Another thing to note, is that I've noticed enemy spells that do frost damage will slow my character's movement speed. I never used a frost spell on my mage, but I'm sure you can use this to kite melee enemies.

 

I'm also wondering what type of equipment these mages are using... because there is plenty of gear and jewelry with +destruction spell damage% on them.

 

My only complaint about my mage was the companion AI. I'm sure based on what your own character is doing, they change their own strategy - since I am a long range character, they will melee more. Problem is, they'll run right in front of me while I'm shooting spells. -_-;

 

My own ideas though... I think Illusion should probably be scrapped and all the spells added to Alteration... Possibly also combine the Lockpicking skill with Sneak. I think that maybe even a Cloth Armor tree should be added. I would definitely like to see more spells/abilities added to the game for both players and enemies, because there is a serious lack of strategy involved in combat.

 

Quite honestly I found most skill trees just... useless, or boring. I just wasn't motivated to do Smithing, Alchemy, or Enchanting. There was no reason to, it would've been a waste of time... The Lockpicking and Speechcraft trees seem like a waste as well. Does anyone use 2 handed weapons? They seem too slow for my tastes. :P

 

You haven't read the posts right, Magic is overpowered in low levels, and can be very underpowered in higher levels. I created a mage, and within 10 hours I reached level 40 with 100 conjure, 70ish destruction 70ish restoration, 100 enchanting, 100 speech, and some other random skills.

 

I doubt you play mage on Master difficulty like I do, which is a significant change since it actually drains your mana bar completely for one mob, resulting in you needing to sprint away to regen mana.

 

Gear that modifies spell damage, or healing, does not exist. Where'd you get this from?

 

You arent motivated to level the 3 best, strongest skills in the game: Smithing, Alchemy, Enchanting? You clearly don't get how the game works then.

 

My playstyle at the moment is all about 2x Flame Thrall, right hand : Incinerate/Fireblast, depending on single/multi target, and left hand Wall of frost. Melee enemys, even on master difficulty never reach you this way and you're able to dish out burst damage with fire spells and constant damage by keeping them on the wall of frost. Great kiting, even got me down a few dragons, kiting them around on the ground.

 

Companion AI could be better, more in the way of them not always standing in front of you while you're trying to go through a door/small passageway though. The combat AI works perfectly fine if you ask me, you can simply strafe your character to the left/right, problem solved? Also, as a mage try specializing in one school. Myself I'm a pyromancer/firemage with 100 conjuration and dual Flame Thrall pets, allows me to cast the exploding firespells just directly on my Atronachs, killing my enemys and leaving the atronachs unharmed.

 

I disagree with what you said on Illusion/Alteration magic, if you use these properly (which rarely anyone does because they can't be bothered taking the time to, including myself) these are probably the strongest forms of magic. Combining them would mean you could focus on Conjuration/Destruction and that illu/alt tree combined to create a mage that does incredible damage and cant be touched by anything.

 

My highest 2h skill on any character is 50, I don't have any perks in it, but I tried it a couple of times and it seems extremely bad. I ran into a camp of Foresworns with bow/1h-shield and killed about 20 of them with my health bar going down 50% in total. I returned to the save i made before I went there and tried it with 2h and got pretty much one shotted, even though I'm armor and magic resistance capped. 2h is so slow and I think even with the hitting multiple targets on power swing (with the perk) just isnt worth it. The ability to block melee attacks doesnt make up for this at all.

 

 

People with 100 Conjuration should be able to summon this

 

[Fluzing]

I would love to see bosses harder. The endboss took me zero potions and about 45 second of bashing with my sword to kill on expert difficulty. Havent seen such an easy boss in a very long time. It should take all your skills, buffs and pots to take an endboss down. What is the point of having all these buffing potions in the game when you don't need them?

 

Also, at higher levels you still encounter low level creatures in dungeons filled with harder creatures. In a dungeon with bandits I often encounter normal bandits that require 1 hit to kill and much higher level bandits that need more than 20 hits. Why are these 2 mixed?

Edited November 21, 2011 by Fluzing