Does anyone else find Skyrim challenging?

[Brandy1123]

Sorry for how the posts sounded. We were just trying to help somewhat. With that being said, I do appologise for not reading through and seeing what you wrote.

 

The tower is not a great idea. The dragon will spray you on its pass and even breath down the stairway. You will be restricted in your mobility and they have extremely un-natural flight paths. I guess being from Akatosh, the physics of velocity, accelleration, mass, lift and drag do not have to be abided by. The Dragons will grab gaurds on fly bys, but I have yet to have one physically attack me while in flight. Watch the guards and the direction they are looking for a good idea on the dragons location. The guard archers will track it for you.

 

Try using the broken wall on the back side. You can dart in and around the end of it avoiding its Thuum and time your bow shots as its breath dwindles down. If you can use a familiar, cast it, the beast will go for it first. Its enough time to Give you a shot or 2 prior to it making another pass. Dragons will heal, but at a much slower rate then you. Let it be an epic battle. At lower levels, as you know, you just can't take it on in the open or presume its going to be a quick decisive battle.

 

There is at least 1 NPC person during that attack who cannot be killed. Once you figure out the person or persons, you can use that poor soul as a meat shield.

[FittyStim]

Here's a little secret concerning the first dragon at Whiterun:

 

Hide inside the tower (in the game) and go make some coffee (in the real world).

 

The Dragonborn doesn't actually have to fight the dragon. The guards will do it for you and at least two of them can't be killed. When the dragon is dead, then walk up to it and absorb its soul.

 

But that's beside the point. I agree that the best part of any game is the beginning when one is quite weak and a rat and/or mudcrab could effectively end the game in one bite! That's when it's exciting. Later on, it's a cakewalk.

 

IMO, the game gets too easy too soon - even playing on Master, which I do exclusively. That's why the only mods I use (that affect gameplay) are the ones that slow down leveling (and remove alchemy, enchanting and smithing from the experience pool).

[odculteln]

the game is too easy, but sometimes, at early levels, you come across some enemies that are just unbeatable. that's the weak spot of skyrim imo.

[Northanui]

As far as my experience goes regarding difficulty in skyirm here's what I think. i think that overall the difficulty is good, although in very late game with high smithing/alch/ench your character does end up doing too much damage. However I think that monster damage (esp caster type mobs) is already quite strong in itself and wouldn't need increasing.

 

 

I am currently playing a lvl 30 or so Orc dual wield warrior (skills in heavy armor, one handed, restoration, smithing). I played on adept difficulty all up till lvl 25 where I found that with around 160% enhanced one hand damage (through some sweet as hell item finds + perks; i don't use enchanting) I can 1-shot mostly anything that comes in my path. So ever since then I've been playing on expert difficulty, and I find that it sort of fits my comfort level. I could play on master as well, however I find that elemental damage even on expert is so stupidly overpowered on enemy casters that I just don't want to deal with the frustration of turning it on Master and doing every fight against a mage over and over again 10 times because of idiotic enemy spell scaling and the stupid way resistances work in this game. (Take for example the Dawnbreaker quest where I had 40% cold resistance, and at the end fight on ADEPT difficulty, the mages frost storm literally ONE SHOT me even if it so much as touched me. Is this balanced? Or take the Black Star quest boss fight, I went 1handed with shield of ysgramor (20% mres) + fire resistance potion (+20% res) and the god damn demons he summons still 3-shot me. If this is "balanced" then I don't want to know wtf would be considered imbalanced)

 

And for the people who boastfully state that they've had the game on master since level 1 with a stealht based character (esp using ranged), please try the game with a build that isn't easymode. I used to play a dark elf archer (also stealth but without daggers) on adept difficulty till level 40 or so, and the game got so easy that it lost every sense of challenge. But that wasn't because the game itself is too easy, but because some builds (especially stealth noob builds) are way too easy.

 

I now have lord stone and so a total of 45% base mres (with my magic res shield) on my warrior on expert, and I find any caster fight still challenging as hell. Not only do i have to make sure to avoid 80% of the spells, I also have to use the right shouts, healing pots, healing and kiting, and several other tactics.

 

If you try the same on full stealth char + daggers, set it on master, then 1shot the same mage boss that I'm working my ass off to kill and then boast the game is too easy on master, you are a noob...

Edited April 12, 2012 by Northanui

[vertex23]

The challenge in Skyrim, for me, isn't hard fights (MMO style Boss scripting), the challenge comes from not having HP, not wearing armour, and a lack of survival.

 

I wear the Arch mage robes, Krosis, and some Leather gloves and boots. I have no armour class to speak of, and don't even have 250hp. Playing on Master difficulty, a bear can sneeze on me and I'll die. That's the challenege though. I'm playing a stealth archer (because that's what you do in TES) so all my fights have to be planned out with escape routes, Rune traps, and kiting space. If the target doesn't die before they reach me, I better be able to switch out my healing spell and Whirlwind Sprint away because I won't live to see a second attack.

 

However, I thought it was just because I made my character like that, so I tried a Paladin. He's sporting nice armour class (200+ Iirc) in full smithed Steel Armour. Has a lot of HP, and is pretty tough to kill.

And then a mud crab shows up and rips his face off...I'm seeing the same thing in Skyrim as I did in Oblivion. There is no "challenge" in the game, there's only monsters having a ton of HP and a ton of attack damage.

 

Perhaps I'm just spoiled with Fallout3 mods when it comes to "challenge". When I played Fallout3, I used the overhaul mods that made it so if you broke a limb, you were screwed unless you had medicine skill or caps to heal it. In that game, it was all about actually surviving. Not just the fight in front of you, but the after effects of what that fight brought. One mis-step meant you had to limp back to town and spent 200 caps to heal yourself back up. In Skyrim, it's all about living through the fight in front of you. Once you do that, you have nothing to worry about. There's no need for future planning if something goes wrong; you just have to kill the guy and move on as if nothing has happened.

Edited April 12, 2012 by vertex23

[RedRavyn]

Brandy_123, I fought from the top of the tower on playthroughs 2 through 8 will no difficulty at all. Playthrough 1 was a fiasco with me getting owned over and over (I think I restarted that battle about eight or nine times) because I thought I was supposed to stay down with the guards and fight the dragon on the ground. In my last playthrough (just yesterday, in fact), I stayed out of the tower and fought it from the ground.

 

Playthrough 9 worked better than playthrough 8 because I'm smarter about how dragons behave. I don't have a problem anticipating where the dragon is going to land because I kept on the move and kept my eyes glued to the sky -- more often than not on the dragon, himself. Until you become good at fighting dragons, I still say that taking your position on top of the tower so you can fire down on the dragon when he lands is the best tactic. Sure, he can strafe you on the tower. Sure he can breath down the spiral staircase. You don't just jump down a few steps, you know. You jump down the stairwell, well past where he can get an angle on you.

 

chaospearl, let us know how fighting from the top of the tower turns out. I'd certainly like to know I'm not the only one who can use that to advantage. I really don't know why the dragon always goes aggro on you and ignores the guards, as it seems he's doing. Perhaps you have a mod installed that alters the AI of dragons? I don't, so I'm seeing vanilla behavior, and he attacks the guards frequently. The only time he attacks me is when I'm in his direct line of sight on the ground, or when I'm exposed, out in the open.

 

Also, don't underestimate the importance of health regen and resist fire potions. One of the things I do early on, before I ever go to Dragonsreach, is to find me some garlic, juniper berries, luna moth wings, and Namira's rot for "Regenerate Health", and some bone meal, dragon's tongue, elve's ear, fly amanita, mudcrab chitin, and snowberries for "Resist Fire", before I take on Mirmulnir. I won't talk about how I usually wind up forgetting to use them, but they're there if I really get into trouble.

 

You want challenging, go hunting in the Riverwood/Whiterun area with nothing at all in your inventory. Nothing. No armor, no potions, no weapons, nothing. I also have "SkyTEST - Realistic Animals and Predators" installed, which makes encounters with predators quite challenging (try taking on a pack of six wolves at low level and with no armor or weapons, sometime). I did that last night, just for the fun of it and managed to survive using nothing but my wits and my limited repertoir of spells, and my character is primarily an archer and not a mage. It was fun, if a little humbling at times. I did a lot of running away and hiding, since I don't even have any "sniping" spells. I even took out a giant using nothing but footwork and Flames/Fostbite spells. I did get some snide remarks from a few people about running around naked, and then realized I had forgotten to put on some clothes, but the local wildlife didn't seem to mind.

[chaospearl]

Okay, question. Nearly all the advice I've gotten here has been specific to the Mirmulnir fight at the Whiterun watchtower. Use the broken walls as cover, let the guards work for you, hide behind the invincible Dark Elf. If all else fails retreat into the tower itself where the (censored) can't get at you even when you're shouting insults that imply its mother had intimate knowledge of a mudcrab.

 

What the hell do you do when you meet your second dragon a few hours later, in the middle of F'ing nowhere? Nowhere to run, nowhere to hide, and your only allies (if you're lucky enough to have any) are delicious crispy townspeople whose best fighting instinct apparently involves a pitchfork?

[fraquar]

Gotta be honest here, my first reaction when I got to the watchtower was to climb to the top of it and look for a shooting perch. There was no way I was wading into the fray with Stormcloak armor and an Iron Greatsword, and no resistances whatsoever. I might be a dumb@55 Nord but I do know right from wrong......

 

When the dragons health got low then I'd run down and try to get the classic sword killshot - but not before then.

[fraquar]

The 2nd Dragon is easier than the 1st in my book, because by that time I have much better gear and more health - and am smart enough to get a little fire resistance (and have an inventory full of health pots to boot). In essence, I'm just better prepared. the 1st dragon is a little harder to prepare for because it's so early. Edited April 13, 2012 by fraquar

[jordanLoL]

the game is too easy, but sometimes, at early levels, you come across some enemies that are just unbeatable. that's the weak spot of skyrim imo.

 

Yep, the boss for Meridia's quest was one shotting me with ice storm no matter what I tried. I had around 200 HP and 50% frost resistance from being a Nord. Even with added resist potions I was still getting one shotted every time. Enemy mages are way too overpowered in Skyrim at times. A seemingly infinite magicka pool, able to cast high level spells extremely fast, and the ability to tank hits like a warrior while wearing robes? What was Bethesda thinking?