Skyrim's Balance

[Deleted3103979User]

Hey everyone,

 

I hope for a lot of opinions on this topic cause i may be wrong but:

 

The higher you get levelwise the harder the quests are.

 

I give you an example:

 

I have some warrior with blocking (shield + sword) atm lvl ~28. It's a pain in the ass to kill an enemy and it's really huge to beat a boss, which normally knocks down my companion like 10 times, and make me use ~20 poitons of kinda like "higher healing" stuff. Very often i get oneshotted by some bosses e.g. (not me in this video but kinda sums it up):

 

It was for me like that when i took out the dragon mage in the near of markarth or how this west city is named where you have to unlock the coffin. He just oneshotted me with a lightning bolt everytime until i got lucky, bugged him and killed him with like 100 arrows (no kidding!). I was like lvl 25 then.

 

Also I played on lvl sorta 20-21 the companion questline where you can see the one guy turning into a werewolf. It was absurdly hard and took me like 75 times ( again - no kidding!) of realoding until i defeated the 6 siler-buddys who fights under you after you walked over the steel "cage" and then downwards. So now i made this quest with a fresh toon again at lvl 8 to 9 and it was absurdly easy. These former 6 guys who attacked me and my companion at the top of the stair in that dungeon were all except of one at full healtj with lvl 25 and were now all dead. So the undeads were no threat whatsoever.

 

I have to take a look at the other dungeons i had so much trouble with my "highlevel" toon and will report back but that was absurdly easy.

 

So what i want to point out is, that in my opinion the leveling of your enemies around you is in no relation to the questlines and "special" "scripted" dungeons where you have to fight against some enemies which are either bosses or in combat with other groups. Due to the nature of some enemies being better than others the better ones improves much more than other ones which leads to the point where you go in a dungeon and there is such a huge gab between were the game "was designed to suit your level" and where you are now. Like e.g the quest i just made for the companions was so damn easy that i think it's designed around lvl 10-11 and i got there 10 levels later which completly screwed the balance.

 

This whole issues makes it sometimes impossible to defeat certain kind of enemies or bosses while maintaining a fair balance to trash.

 

To give you guys two examples:

 

"A night to remember" the part where you get in that cave to fight like 5 or 6 mages and get through a portal afterwards. With my highlevl toon i tried this at like lvl 19-22 (dunno exactly) and while the first mages outside and the ones before the whoule group of 6 with 2 unfeareable "kinda bosses" where no real problem whatsoever (mages are hard anyways but i had no trouble) but as soon as i attacked thos mages i just got onehitted EVERYTIME by the mage boss there. So that's in absolutly no relation to the trash IN and infront of the dungeon.

 

I crafted myself some ebony gear than and got back at lvl 28 to find out that is was really hard but doable. I will try this again asap.

 

Another example i gonna test right now is the bandit chief at "haltred steam camp" north of withrun. I got to him around level 16-19 and only defeated him by using my special ability as north to fear all enemies for 30 seconds cause otherwise i was a 2hit by the boss (the trash was beefy but no real threat). I will check out how it is at level 9 to confirm my thoughts as proven in the companion questline.

 

Hopefully you guys share what you think cause i'm tired of getting owned at highlevel without having a chance while lowlevel is sooo easy comparted to highlevel.

Especially the difference between bosses and trash on highlevel is often just nuts.

 

Difficulty is master if i've not alread mentioned that.

 

PS: I stopped all times at the quest (not doing it) "the way of the voice" so my lvl 9 toon is there while my lvl 28 toon is there, too. Might have to do something with that mess but i do not think so.

 

Edit: The bandit boss is in now way a match to the one i had to face with the highlevel toon so this leveling is srsly fu.cked up.

Edited November 14, 2011 by Guest

[antisphere06]

I have noticed this and i would like it to get patched.

The only way i found to not make your weapons be tickle sticks is to max out sneak and get Cicero's gloves or dark brotherhood gauntlets and back stab people. with the gloves you do 30x weapon damage and if you have one handed maxed out with smithing, your daggers can have upto the high 60 range of damage so it's nearly impossible to live through that especially with enchants.

[Vagrant0]

Know what it is? It's that Skyrim is not a level 1-30 game like Oblivion. It's a 1-80 game. Level 30 is actually about the point where you stop sucking so bad and can finally do reasonable damage. Some of those things you mentioned are meant for characters 20-30 levels higher than you, and who usually have enchanted gear to keep them alive. Those dragon priests are meant to be a right *censored* to kill. Bosses in general are.

[Vatras]

Level in Skyrim means really nothing as guideline on what you can take on.

 

Let me explain:

For example, I level up to level 20-25 by sneaking, stealing and smithing, put on heavy armor and wander into a cave with undead. Since all my relevant combat skills are like non-existent, I will get owned. It matters a lot what is your actual skill level, not your character level, which you can raise all too easily with skills that don't matter when the steel meets the meat.

 

I got owned for that reason by many critters, since I didn't focus on a combat skill, but did some magic, some in melee, some with bows, and did too many levels on non-combat skills. Once I got heavy armor and 1H weapons to 50 (plus some perks there), things looked a lot better than with 25-30 skills.

 

On the other hand, mobs get their skills according to their type. So a fighter type critter of level 25 has a skill set for that level which focuses on melee. If you have diversified and not focused like the NPC, he will appear to be way harder than his 10th level counterpart did in the past (who didnt have damage bonuses or defense features). Gear, perks, and routine can even or better that, of course.

Therefore look to your combat skills and not to your level for what you can take toe-to-toe.

 

(Mages are a different thing, and I have major troubles with casters sometimes, like the fireball casting daedras in the cleansing of Azura's Star.)

[Deleted3103979User]

I guessed that but:

 

First:

Why the hell are the 2 sidebosses you have to kill to get to the dragon priest just easymode to kill and the trash as well? While the Boss onehits me? That makes absolutly no sense at all. Also you miss the point that this "random bandit boss" two hits me on highlevel and has like "seemingly infinitiv health" while it is no problem on lvl 9. That balance in this point is screwed and...

 

Second: ... it makes less sense if you look at the way TES Games are ment to play like "you can do what you want whenever you want, but mhh wait this boss onehits you after you spend like 20 Minutes to clear the dungeon, guess that's not true".

 

You know that is absolutly frustrating. Going through a dungeon spending like 20-30 minutes or so for it, and get to a boss which one or twohits you. Great. And that would be ok cause you have to come back later but if you come to that boss earlier and are WEAKER then you are not weaker you are STRONGER cause the boss itself scales better on lowlevel and is sorta "the right difficulty", not easy mode but challenging on lowlvl and not challenging but nearly impossible on high level.

 

As it is right now, the lower your level is the better of you are... and the more balanced this game is.

 

Also there is simply a tue huge range between random dungeons you just clear btw and some sorta "maindungeon" (like the dragon mage) in relation to your gear. I crafted myself ebony to test things and i twohitted trash in the random dungeons with it while the mages at the "night to remember" quest were a good challenge. That's no balance at all - that's totally screwed.

 

Edit at the one above me:

 

I thought so, too. The problem is that this game does not recongnize if you are about even with the enemies in like "your main skills" or leveled by doing smithing etc. it just (in my opinon) scales with your character level. So this leads to the point where you HAVE to focus on ONE or TWO skilltrees to not fall behind at all cause if you do not have these perks on level X you will be screwed cause you take too much damage and do too less.

 

This in itself is absolutly not a well designed leveling system for the enemies which itself manifests in the difference between "mainbosses" and "sidebosses" or "dungeonbosses" and "dungeonsidebosses/trash".

 

You are basically forced to level only through combat the frist levels so your damage and armor is pretty much maxed out while you THEN may focus on things such as archery or smithing or sneak etc.

 

My lvl 27 toon is at:

Heavy Armor 50

Block 62

One handed 75

 

Smithing 69

 

Dressed in orc armor mainly

 

So that is (after your logic at least) not the way this game was meant to play and i have not focused on anything else, sure i get some healing points or lockpicking or some sneakpoints for sneakattacks with the bow as well as archery but i NEVER focused on them. I allways went meele with nearly everything, as long as the boss was beatable and switched to bow than. So i did not made any "random i want to try everythign and are not good in anything" type of character and still am way to weak for SOME mobs i face. Balance?

 

The main point though is that some mobs onehits you whily you threehit some...

Edited November 15, 2011 by Guest

[Vatras]

I hit 28 too now, and my skills are a little worse than yours...Heavy Armor 40 and 1H 50, but I am using epic ebony gear (smithing 100) - the better gear does even out some things after all :)

 

I have stopped getting one-hit (mostly) since I wore improved armor, but I have started to encounter the opposite phenomenon now: I sometimes one-hit foes, which I should not be able to. For example I ran into a bandit leader, the type who has a ton of hp. I can usually beat them without too much trouble, but it takes some blows. Now the mob comes round a boulder and I hit him when we close and he takes like 5% of his hp in damage, and my next blow slays him instantly (showing the kill animation, which doesn't happen often). It made me wonder, if there are critical hits in the game or something like it? My handbook does not say anything about it, though.

[aaroncox]

i ran into some of those problems twice so far in the game i had to switch the difficulty down to novice, and then after i beat them up to adept, so i would have atleast 1 potion left by the end of the fight. rofl

[aaroncox]

i tried being a mage character my second turn and it turns out i have to have a decent one hand level skill, or two hand and plus be decent with a bow just to survive, or else i'm running around the place like a mad scientist waiting until my magic is high enough to cast another spell. it's tough man

[Gugus0]

Master is meant to be really really hard, why don't you just reduce the difficulty?

[Jupitus]

I think that a lot of it has to do with how we build our characters. I go for the perks that will help my gameplay the most and it works out ok so far but Im only at level 19. I have Destruction at 53 and eight perks (nearly half of them) One handed at 51 and four perks, Enchanting and Smithing at 42 each, Archery, Heavy Armor, Speech, Lockpicking and Sneaking at around 30, and the rest mostly unchanged. I would focus more on Heavy Armor but the perks seem not so useful to me, I imagine that will be my characters biggest weakness as I level up.

 

If you are saying that we are limited in our character builds as far a combat level then I agree. It wouldn't be so bad if say a character like a thief who majors in things such as Sneak, Lockpicking, etc. could avoid major combat scenarios like you describe but the truth of the matter is you cannot advance the game quests very far without doing so which means we are rather limited in character builds that can keep up. I am hoping for some magic and weapon mods that help tip the scales so that I can put more points into a more balanced character.

Edited November 16, 2011 by Jupitus