Balance in Skyrim

[sukeban]

Do you feel like vanilla Skyrim is balanced? If so, why? If not, why? What do you think is the most unbalanced aspect of the game?

 

Personally, I feel like Skyrim is heavily imbalanced compared with other RPGs/previous ES games. Characters fly through the first twenty or so levels in no time flat and leveled gear saps most of the thrill out of exploring as a bandit chest = a Dwarven chest = a Falmer chest = a Jarl's chest, etc. Crafting, as people have said a zillion times before, is rather exploitable in vanilla, allowing the player to smith godlike weapons/armors out of even the wackest of base equipment (iron weapons/hide armor, etc.). These factors combine to create bland gameplay that, in my games, leads to a quick retirement for that character.

 

Or at least it used to. Before I began modding, I'd severely self-nerf my characters in order to avoid careening into inevitable dissatisfaction. Now, in an RPG, difficulty is far from everything, but it is still very important. I mean, without any sort of meaningful difficulty gradient, what incentive does the player really have to search out better loot or to improve upon their skills? There's only so long that a player can keep their mind occupied by nice graphics before they ask themselves why their gameplay experience is so shallow.

 

This sort of answers my own question, which is that I think that the loot in Skyrim is the most egregious offender in terms of generating a "whatevs" relationship with dungeon-diving. Given that all loot is more or less the same for your level, why press yourself and loot a difficult dungeon? Wouldn't a far better way to handle this have been to keep certain dungeons "hard" and effectively closed to the player until he/she is strong enough to survive them? Then you could stash all manner of unique loot in them and really give some meaning to exploration and questing.

 

But I'm not really trying to rant here. Instead, I am interested in finding out what people think leads to a good, well-balanced game. Because well-balanced games are fun, and a fun game means loads of replay-value.

Edited June 16, 2012 by sukeban