Difficulty VS Exploits

[surg23]

If there's one thing i have learned about Skyrim its that there is no (Static) difficulty level, it is ALWAYS situational.

 

 

Master Difficulty on a global scale is very hard and very easy, in the sense that most generic mobs can be 1-2 shot killed in certain level brackets, even for a balanced character, while at the same time at earlier levels the player can be 1-2 shot killed by generic mobs. It goes from one extreme to another, one can never use difficulty as a benchmark for the entire game.

 

 

 

People that complain about the difficulty, are just capitalizing on the freedom of choice given to them, they complain that even on Master they can dance around a rock/tree and kill a dragon or boss with 200 arrows at lvl 1, but that is merely just exploiting the limitations of the AI. No one could argue that it's too easy when there are dragons in the game that hit for 600+ damage, unless you are simply over indulging in the flexibility of the character building system, which is essentially your choice.

 

 

 

The question now that might be asked is, why put these mechanics into the game if using them breaks the game ? ... which i will answer with another question: Did the same mechanics make Morrowind a bad game ?, which was even more lenient with character development, no it didn't and it was for this exact reason why most people prize Morrowind on being the best of the series, as it gave you full unrestricted control over how powerful or weak you wanted to become. The elder scrolls was never about giving players a challenge, this is emphasized by how little attention was given to level scaling and balancing, this facet was and has never been their concern until Skyrim. The earlier TES games were really about one thing and that was mastering the creation of a true open-world RPG which nobody done better, had they of focused more on balancing/difficulty issues, would have Morrowind been the brainchild of all RPG's that it was? Oblivion was the first in the series to try and implement dynamic combat to the game. Skyrim means to improve on this and in my opinion has done so quite well, i think people are asking too much to have the best role playing experience ever and still demand a combat simulator.

 

 

 

Let's say you just rolled out of Riverwood for the first time at level 1 and decided to pay a nearby bandit camp a visit on Master, which is scaled for low level characters. Depending on what setup you have you will most likely kill the weak bandits in a few hits, then the higher tier bandit which will kill you in 2 hits, so if you are an Assassin at this point, you can't sneak around them because they will see you 100 yards away, so you go into Melee which you cannot win, so you hide behind a tree and fire 50 arrows at him for the next 5 minutes, this situation right here is a prime example of how global difficulty cannot make the game balanced.

 

 

 

You simply cannot adjust the difficulty level on a global scale and expect a good, balanced experience. If anything you have to balance out the AI class tables individually, which probably cannot be done without more tools. Though there is one certain thing, the game will only be as hard as you want it to be, the game is governed in this way by it's very nature, if you tamper with it, you will loose the purity of what makes an elder scrolls game what it is.

[LuDux]

" Did the same mechanics make Morrowind a bad game ?, which was even more lenient with character development, no it didn't"

 

Maybe not, but it sure didn't make Morrowind a /better/ game, either.

[Stormcrown]

I would really like a difficulty level that didn't just make it harder by making you swing your sword 4x as much, and take more damage.

 

I'd rather play where me and my enemy had low hp, and high damage.

 

Instead of a hack'n'slash, it'd be more strategic.

 

And on the topic of exploit vs difficulty, I'd use Civilization 5 as an example. At the highest difficulty, you can't use any strategy in the game. At that point, it is merely who can exploit the AI the best.

 

I don't play games by exploiting, It's just not how I think. I feel bad for video game testers who probably can't help it.