Hi everyone, I've tried my hand at Skyrim and I like it so far. TBH it isn't the game mechanics that are truly revolutionary or anything, but after Morrowind, Oblivion, FO3 and FNV, in Skyrim the Master difficulty level (highest, called other things in the other games) really felt challenging. Any of you crying about the smithing/enchanting cheesiness, don't powerlevel those and play the game like a game, let your character grow naturally.
On Master difficulty level, I find myself exploiting terrain which some of you might hate. But let me clarify. Basically at level 25 with full flawless orcish armor and fighterish/tankish perks, mammoths and giants 1-2 shot me. You might say that's just crappy and artificial but I felt truly panicked when 2-3 giants + pet mammoths chase me over the tundra, and I have to hide in a small deserted hut which they are too big to enter. Then I have to either snipe them (really slow because they have tons of hp at that difficulty, and I didn't develop archery), or hit them and retreat into the hut quickly to avoid getting pummeled into the ground. It's all very exploitish if you look at it in a certain way, but if you give that difficulty a try, it becomes less of an exploit and more like a realistic way of dealing with giant things with speed and brains rather than standing your ground and magically withstanding giant leg stomps.
In dungeons, I always have to back to narrow corridors to take groups of enemies one by one, and you will realise they actually flee a little distance if they are low on hp, so it becomes a conga line of hurt and you must somehow queue up a combo to end a guy when he is low hp or he'll just go to the back of the queue and use range attacked on you if available. You also learn to use terrain (again) but this time in a more acceptable manner. Bear traps, the spiked gateway thing (scared the shit out of me), etc are more useful than ever at this difficulty. A bear trap basically means a free stagger on the enemy = free time for a power attack (trust me these are rare to execute on Master, without taking some life-threatening blows when you release the block button), and the spiked gateway thing (1 use only, can't be reset) can instagib 1-3 enemies depending on how well you time their approach.
And boss fights become truly epic. The Skinner woman in the Gallows place during the Companions werewolf quest was BRUTAL. Her 3 hit dual wielding power attack combo 1 shots non-blocking stance, and she can use it over and over again probably due to high stamina, even if you are blocking. So basically in Master you can't toe-to-toe her and chug potions (i'll come to consumables later) and save/load to win. What I did was to lure her into a spiked gateway trap, which took a good chunk of her hp, shifted to werewolf (that's the dungeon where you first learnt to shift at will) which seemed thematic for the occasion, and used speed and the ww form powerattacks to confuse her power attack combo directions and knock her down (sprint, power attack pounce for 100% knockdown). In this way you avoid the life ending combo, but it has to be perfect execution. Fun.
Getting too long, so I'll summarise other things. Consumables become utterly precious. Gold goes to potions etc. so you remain kinda poor and the economy balances itself. Dragon fights become an exhilarating cat and mouse game where you dodge behind rocks/terrain to block breaths (full blast = 1 shot), arrow the bitch, heal, etc. They feel like real dragons now. If their spawn timing catch me at a bad time (when I'm leaving a dungeon - all dungeons at Master are crazy - with depleted resources) I actually have to flee from them (even if you cheese their health low enough that they land, you still must have some way to deal with the melee). Blocking, regular attack, power attack, strafe timings become VERY important. If you get the blocking perk that slows down time when enemies execute a power attack, it gets easier to dodge them, for e.g.
There are many more things to say about Master difficulty, but I believe it's one of most fundamental 'mods' you can apply to your game to get most out of Skyrim. It slows the pace of exploration down, dungeons feel like dungeons, and enemies are ALL fearsome. Also, you must utilise all sorts of tactics and semi-exploits to win in hairy situations (trust me, terrain exploit only goes so far - it lets you live, but you won't be killing anything at a realistic, non asperger speed). To be exact, it seems difficulty merely increases enemy hp and damage (like previous installments in this engine) but the actual repercussions on gameplay is truly immense (again, unlike previous installments where things just get tedious). Many times you will feel 'WTF this is stupid I might as well lower the difficulty and ENJOY the game' but then if you go through enough in the game, surviving a bandit ambush, escaping the attention of a dragon, etc. becomes all the more dramatic and memorable, and you will think twice about lowering the bar ever again.
And for those that hates chore and tedium and meaningless (probably how many will feel without actually trying Master for an extended amount of time, and seeing the effects it has on your character management, resources usage, fight reaction, etc.) gaming, here is a more down-to-earth mod. It's a shadow fix I use that is quite satisfactory.
In the Skyrimprefs.ini file, change to the following:
iBlurDeferredShadowMask=20
fInteriorShadowDistance=2200.0000
fShadowDistance=1800.0000
iShadowMapResolutionSecondary=1024
iShadowMapResolutionPrimary=2048
iShadowFilter=4
fShadowLODStartFade=1800.0000
bTreesReceiveShadows=1
bDrawLandShadows=1
bDrawShadows=1
iShadowMapResolution=2048
fShadowBiasScale=0.4400
iShadowMaskQuarter=3
These settings avoid the crazy CPU hogging 4096 resolution fixes on shadows (which also reduce shadow distance significantly to work), and instead go the other direction. It lets shadows remain at low resolution, but blurs them alot to get them to look smoother and non-intrusive with the jagged edges and all. As with all shadow fixes so far, it works in most situations, but there are times where things still look abit ugly, but it's rare. So in regards to performance and eye-candiness, it's a good compromise. Here's a screenshot of these settings and the shadows ingame:
Shows outdoor shadows of character, flora and buildings.
Shows indoor shadows of character and of course showcase my Master difficulty lizardboy.
Hope the information helps! :D
P.S: Just had another scenario which should demonstrate how Master difficulty changes things. The Radiant story thing assigned me a Save NPC from Location quest. The location is the Valtheim Towers (two towers that sit by a wide span of river with a very narrow bridge high up that connects them. What happened was that when I reached the location, said NPC was escaping from bandits that were chasing her down the far tower, where she would get trapped sooner or later and die (knowledge due to save/load). In a normal difficulty, what you would do is charge up the tower, across the bridge, and slay the bandits as you move, right? Not in Master. The snipers (archers) who are well positioned on the top of the near tower, the far cliffs, and on the narrow walkway, in addition to several melee brutes that charge to meet you on the bridge out of the far tower will 100% prevent you from saving NPC before she dies if you choose to fight them (it will be slow and VERY dangerous, since you are exposed to archer fire on the bridge from all directions). What instead worked was me rushing past all the fuckers in the near tower, and then unto the bridge. NPCs in combat rarely budge unless you sprint knock them, and on the narrow bridge it's 1v1 all the way vs 3-4 enemies with archers sniping you. I can't fight and win them in the open and vulnerable, nor have the time for it. So what happened was that I had to shield bash them OFF the bridge (which was really satisfying, watching them fall side to side into the rushing waters below), and feeding the sniper on the far tower with a nice knockback dragon shout that made him fall unfortunately not into the river but slightly on the jagged, rocky cliffs killing him instantly. The whole saving the NPC and killing the rest of the bandits part is another long adventure, but I hope you get what I mean; Master difficulty by itself just increases HP and damage bloat, but somehow in the mechanics of Skyrim as a whole (combat moves, economy, etc.) it is strangely effective for emergent gameplay.
, maybe
- haven't tried it, doesn't work well with 360 controller apparantly.
