LE Skyrim Difficulty Balance Overhaul

[Nokturnalex]

I'm a power gamer. When I find a way to make my char the best, I do it. The problem is i did this in Skyrim and by the time i hit lvl 40ish with every char I get insanely bored cause my weapons are hitting way too hard, my destruction magic costs no mana (so it's a non-stop stunning spam-fest) and I have wayyyy too much money.

 

Things that should be tweeked.

 

*Note on Carry Weight: Lets face it, using carry weight to slow how fast you gain money is pointless, you just end up wasting time running back and forth between town when you'd rather be clearing out a dungeon. Companion NPCs have infinite carry weight, so to avoid having to constantly trade things to them I set my carry weight to over 9000. Yes it's unrealistic, but it's a massive time saver. So in order to nerf how much money people can get, NPCs should totally rip off players.

 

Less money, NPCs should be buying items from you for 1/10th of what they are right now. Also NPCs should have a lot less items in stock, you shouldn't be able to goto town and buy an Uber Sword of Uberness or just buy a ton of Ebony Ignots and make your own Uber Sword of Uberness.

 

This will make mining feel a lot more rewarding as well as making items you find a lot more rewarding. I get bummed out when I did a really long quest only to get a unique item that does no damage compared to what I've made/bought from a store. No more buying tons of crafting components from stores. They shouldn't even sell crafting components, get it yourself. To save time, (so you don't have to run around town all day) every npc has tons of extra gold so you can sell everything you don't want to them. (Remember, they're buying everything for 1/10th the current selling price though)

 

Blacksmithing needs a major nerf, upgrading your weapons/armor makes them do way too much damage or have way too high armor rating. Being able to spam create iron daggers and leather armor to level it is also boring. The xp gain from making low level items should be lowered by a lot. You should have to make dwarven, orcish, ebony etc to level your blacksmithing.

 

Enchanting, I can make all my spells cost 0 mana? Needs a major rework. I personally think reducing spell cost besides using the perk should be removed and mana regen while in combat should be buffed, so you don't cast 2 spells and have to wait a minute or 2 to get enough mana to cast another one. Also the impact perk for destruction needs to be reworked to only being a small chance on a critical hit. But every enchant stat needs to be lowered, so you can't stack +50% damage items and have your bow/2h/1h hit for 500 a hit.

 

Alchemy, making a potion that increases how much you can upgrade an item by around 150%? That's crazy. All stats on created potions needs to be lowered.

 

For all 3 of these Tradeskills the items you sell from creating them need to have their prices reduced. E x:Slow potions shouldn't cost so much, enchanting an item should only improve the cost of the item by how much the soul gem you used cost.

 

Basically, you should have to quest for the best items in the game, not create them yourself. The items you create should be good, but not the best. (Buff all the quest gotten gear in the game and nerf all player made gear)

 

Mage NPCs. I'm sure everyone who didn't stack magic resist has this problem. Every physical mob in the game is somewhat challenging at the start, but mage npcs will insantly one or 2 shot you with their spells before you can even close the distance on them and even if you do close the distance if you don't power atk quick enough you're dead. Damage nerf on mage npc spells. So stacking magic/elemental resist isn't required, but it helps.

 

Spawn Rates, i've seen other mods change this up. Basically have mobs spawn within 10 levels of the player, when the mob is high level it's by itself, if the mob spawning is low level, spawn multiples of them.

 

Anyone remember Oblivion XP? No more using skills to level, doing quests and killing things is the only way to level. You then add to the skills you want once you lvl. It's a must have for Skyrim.

 

Ability to turn off friendly fire. This guy is my companion, I'm not trying to shoot him but until AI becomes good enough to not jump right into my fireball it's unavoidable. Basically the ability to make all AoE spells/shouts unable to hit your companions/friendly npcs. (Even setting npcs to essential doesn't fix the friendly fire problem because they get pissed off and leave/atk you.)

 

A mod that includes all these things would be in my eyes, the perfect difficulty balancing mod.

 

What do you guys think?

 

Basically I just want to make Skyrim more fun overall.

Edited December 1, 2011 by Nokturnalex

[alteregoa]

Def agree with your points about making smithing harder....making powerful items far more rare....that gives a much greater sense of achievement

[ninga_express]

I agree the game gets way too easy once I make uber weapons, hell I keep a set of normal weapons for fun.

[ramnozack]

Also go ahead and throw in higher health for all enemies in game. But i have to disagree with you on the quest xp lvl up deal. I think its more realistic to get more poweful by actually doing things rather then getting someones sweet roll back from the mean bandits.

[charamath]

I agree whole-heartedly on the turning off friendly fire. Using any type of magic attack is pretty much out when your idiotic npc is leaping in the way. I've even managed to hit them when they weren't near the target.

 

 

I would add two things, though- no locking the dungeons. I remember reading how they decided to level lock a dungeon as soon as you enter it so that if it turns out to be too hard you can leave and come back later when you're leveled up a bit better, and the enemies within will be locked at the levels they were at the first time you entered. However, I see no point in that when some dungeons TRAP you inside. I made the mistake of heading into Volskygge at level 12. Now I'm stuck on the second to last boss because I keep killing my dog and follower while running around trying to kill this guy (if I try melee, I'm dead in two hits, sometimes just one)

 

Secondly, something to call the damn horse to you. It randomly takes off and it's annoying as hell chasing it down when you're overweight.

[nesquiker]

Wow I agree w/ you on pretty much every point. You must be a genius lol.

 

-Less money from selling-

This will eliminate sooo much time wasted on tedious actions. In that if stuff gets less expensive I can visit fewer vendors and be more picky in dungeons.

 

-No smithing/enchanting materials at vendors-

1. This would make mines really useful

2. Would discourage power leveling

3. True sense of accomplishment (cheesy but true).

 

-Lots of vendor gold-

The majority of the speech skill tree is aimed at doing this. Try that tree out if the vendor gold is giving you issues. That being said I've never used it myself but anytime the game forces a trade-off is good from a character development stand point. Found a mod for this <http://www.skyrimnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=769>.

 

-Nerf blacksmithing-

Game should definitely discern between the items being created when giving experience, I don't think anyone can really argue w/ that. The boosts from improvements need to be nerfed to a point that a non-mage character has a logical alternative to smithing. As it is if you want to be super powerful you get smithing and enchanting.

 

-Nerf Enchanting-

Certain effects need to be removed or capped. Spell cost should have a max cost reduction of say 70% and damage buffs should be capped at around 50% (pulling these out of my *** btw). All tradeskill improvement buffs need to be capped at say 50%. To remove the subsequent abuse of smithing and alchemy.

 

-Created item pricing-

Created Items should be the cost of the materials as a rule. Stupidly expensive enchanted daggers and potions need to go.

 

-Nerf NPC mages-

Don't really agree w/ this one. I've played through w/ a mage, archer, and warrior and I've never found them op. Mage NPC's are challenging, but in a good way, makes you actually think about your magic resistance and battle tactics.

 

-Mob spawns-

Skyrim does this already but w/ the application of level max and mins according to the current area. Oblivion used an absolute level relativity formula and got a lot of flak for it. Are you also saying that you want in general a greater number of enemies in the mobs? Might be tedious killing like a random group of 10 wolves. Looks like this mod toughened up mobs quite a bit <http://www.skyrimnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=1269>. Toughens NPC mages though lol.

 

-XP leveling-

That would be fun. Would give more choice in how the character develops.

 

-Friendly fire-

O yaaaaa I was raging about this last time I played... actually EVERYTIME I play. I don't use companions for this reason. Game is just funner w/out having to worry if they're gonna step in front of my spell and waste my precious mana. Doing the empire/rebellion battle sequences is where this really shows up though. I find myself dancing around trying to not hit my own guys more then hit the enemy.

 

a lot of good ideas Nokturnalex. These all seem entirely doable as well even w/out the ck. In fact some of these are already out there to an extent. Surprised I couldn't find anything which lowered sell prices or nerfed smithing/enchanting o well maybe I'll do it myself.

Edited December 3, 2011 by nesquiker

[Blazord]

You know what I don't understand is how you can even complain about some of these things. I mean the way people talk, it's like your saying Bethesda is forcing you to utilize those professions to build your character, which is totally untrue. If you want more challenge, how about ignoring them entirely? Or how about limiting YOURSELF to not buying those crafting components and only utilizing what you find from ores / npcs? There are tons of games out there where people have done similar things, the final fantasy low level challenges, or single character challenges... blah blah the list goes on. Anyway I've been doing this myself personally not buying ingots for example from the vendors to level up black smithing, so there is no reason anyone else couldn't. Don't complain about something that's optional, it's silly. Set the game on master difficulty and only use items you find from mobs or out in the world, don't upgrade your items, don't use enchanting or limit yourself to only using items you find. I can guarantee you'll be challenged, and if dieing in two hits from a bandit isn't good enough for you. Then ask for a difficulty overhaul lol.

[nesquiker]

You know what I don't understand is how you can even complain about some of these things. I mean the way people talk, it's like your saying Bethesda is forcing you to utilize those professions to build your character, which is totally untrue. If you want more challenge, how about ignoring them entirely? Or how about limiting YOURSELF to not buying those crafting components and only utilizing what you find from ores / npcs? There are tons of games out there where people have done similar things, the final fantasy low level challenges, or single character challenges... blah blah the list goes on. Anyway I've been doing this myself personally not buying ingots for example from the vendors to level up black smithing, so there is no reason anyone else couldn't. Don't complain about something that's optional, it's silly. Set the game on master difficulty and only use items you find from mobs or out in the world, don't upgrade your items, don't use enchanting or limit yourself to only using items you find. I can guarantee you'll be challenged, and if dieing in two hits from a bandit isn't good enough for you. Then ask for a difficulty overhaul lol.

 

Lol your such a killjoy. These limits are what creates rules and therefore tactics. It's the games job to apply these rules and therefore create game play options. When the game has some rules which create limitations on choices they should be altered. The rules we seek to impose would create a unique game play experience. The point of a mod is to create unique game play.

I really don't get why you are so angry. Maybe you think of games in a completely different way than I do.

 

 

P.S. Don't think of the proposed changes as simply making the game harder (that's not the point at all) just making the options feel more open.

 

P.S.S PLEASE don't misdirect this thread any farther. Some of these ideas aren't even about difficulty and the ones that could be construed in such a manner are more like skill rebalancing (which i'm pretty certain, at least the effect capping, will be addressed in upcoming official patches).

Edited December 3, 2011 by nesquiker

[Dramonicous]

and here i was thinking of rolling a mage 2morrow cuz i thought they were the only ones balanced -_-

i got a thief archer khajit atm, and got daedric bow (improved) along with helm,ring,amulet each with 37% archery boost.

i think i can still improve the damage by about 60-70% but why bother? almost every mob dies on 1 hit, a few bosses require 2-3 shots but they never see me anyway.

 

we need some serious balancing mods ASAP.

 

i was thinking about some more realistic combat where its pretty much sudden death. like a sword swing, arrow, magic, that isnt blocked kills u

[Nokturnalex]

Thanks for all the feedback guys, I really like some of the ideas posted.

 

Mainly my idea is for a mod that makes the game more challenging for people who want to make their char as good as possible, but not waste your time

 

(carry limits are basically wasting your time doing boring tasks, least that's my take on it, rather be clearing a dungeon then walking back and forth from town or trading items to a npc/container that magically can hold infinite items)

 

The problem with vanilla skyrim is that when you make your char as powerful as possible, you become a god and the entire game becomes boring. I'd love a mod that would nerf a lot of the ways to become overpowered in skyrim.