Skyrim Master Difficulty Experience

[Black Cat]

@ Captain Shrek

The problem with heavy RPG elements in action games is that they actually make the game easier every time you level up, and action games are all about the challenge and player skill. I remember a little game by the name of Erst Kerf, a little Shmup with role playing game elements where no one ever uses the role playing game elements because leveling up makes the game easier, lowers your score, and makes you lose respect from other players.

In Skyrim the combat's way too static as there are no rolls, no rushes, no jump dodges, no blink dodges for mages, etc. They should fix that, not give us the option of throwing points into strenght or intelligence. There are no combos, no throws, the enemy patterns are easy to see through. They should, again, fix that instead of wasting time with character building in a game in which it would do no good. The skills you get don't change the way the game is played, and the enemies, thus, can get new maneuvers to pull on you because you wouldn't be able to adapt. Fix that, who cares about more numbers in a bloody action game?

If you play as many pure action games as I do you will notice that enemies need not be smart, and enemies need not be complex, and enemies need not pull awesome tactics on you. That's actually effort spent in stuff that will not make the core game better, as if the player's good enough the enemies will not live enough to make use of their awesome intelligence and tricky tactics. And, in the end, the player will always have an advantage over AI.

The best action games are those who have a lot of different enemies, each with a single role and a single behaviour they do really well. When you put several different types together in high enough numbers thingies get crazy, and the complexity grows by itself out of all those single roles converging.

For complex battles is that you have bosses. :3

Oh, and you should play DMC III. It is the very best cinematic action game on the PC, period. DMC IV is pretty good too, but III's still better. But they are a different kind of action game than those you mentioned: If you need to think about what to do you are already dead, so you better fine tune those instincts and reflexes and trust them with your life.



@ Cutesede

Awwwwww.



Oky Dokey, then let's make instead the Dovahkin takes to the sky every time a new dragon appears and awesomeness ensues.

 

[shiggidyshwa]

In Skyrim the combat's way too static as there are no rolls, no rushes, no jump dodges, no blink dodges for mages, etc. They should fix that, not give us the option of throwing points into strenght or intelligence. There are no combos, no throws, the enemy patterns are easy to see through. They should, again, fix that instead of wasting time with character building in a game in which it would do no good. The skills you get don't change the way the game is played, and the enemies, thus, can get new maneuvers to pull on you because you wouldn't be able to adapt. Fix that, who cares about more numbers in a bloody action game?

If you play as many pure action games as I do you will notice that enemies need not be smart, and enemies need not be complex, and enemies need not pull awesome tactics on you. That's actually effort spent in stuff that will not make the core game better, as if the player's good enough the enemies will not live enough to make use of their awesome intelligence and tricky tactics. And, in the end, the player will always have an advantage over AI.

Awesome.

Yes the combat is a little stale after a while. I posted earlier that seeing as most enemies fall into a few categories (humanoid/4-legged carnivores/spiders/etc...), creating 5-10 maneuvers for each enemy category could make the game more dynamic.

 

[Kraszu]

@ Captain Shrek

The problem with heavy RPG elements in action games is that they actually make the game easier every time you level up, and action games are all about the challenge and player skill. I remember a little game by the name of Erst Kerf, a little Shmup with role playing game elements where no one ever uses the role playing game elements because leveling up makes the game easier, lowers your score, and makes you lose respect from other players.

That isn't the problem, getting stronger is part of what is fun in crpg, that is one of the difference on why those games are action rpgs not action games. Risen did action rpg pretty good, power attack that you get near the end of the game is over powered but other then that it is balanced nicely, especially when played with staff. Many enemies are to strong for you at start so you have to level just to be able to fight with them effectively. Action rpgs aren't action games, just like TB rpgs aren't strategy games.

In Skyrim the combat's way too static as there are no rolls, no rushes, no jump dodges, no blink dodges for mages, etc. They should fix that, not give us the option of throwing points into strenght or intelligence. There are no combos, no throws, the enemy patterns are easy to see through. They should, again, fix that instead of wasting time with character building in a game in which it would do no good. The skills you get don't change the way the game is played, and the enemies, thus, can get new maneuvers to pull on you because you wouldn't be able to adapt. Fix that, who cares about more numbers in a bloody action game?

I don't see why you would need to remove stats for that, you can learn new moves from teacher like in Risen, or spend points on STR or INT. You need both STR, and new moves but you can decide on what you need first.

 

[shiggidyshwa]

I don't see why you would need to remove stats for that, you can learn new moves from teacher like in Risen, or spend points on STR or INT. You need both STR, and new moves but you can decide on what you need first.

Do you like rolling stats? It seems like quite a few people on these forums do.

I can respect that. I have friends who love stat rolling RPGs, and I've played a few myself.

I just think we should be able to also respect a game developer going in another direction with character development. I think usage-based skill improvement can streamline the character development in a game like Skyrim. There's a lot of refinement to be done though.

It just seems too easy to level smithing, alchemy, and enchanting compared to the risk involved with leveling your combat attributes. I think that's why there's such potential for abuse with those 3 skills. It basically turns you into a weapon, armour, or potion factory. I'd much more appreciate a system that makes it more challenging to craft things while making sure that the products are of the best quality for my character's current level of crafting.

As boring as some may say the combat is in Skyrim, crafting is a million times more so. It's grinding at its worst. These aspects of character-driven games need to be infused with some creativity because in most games I've played (and it's not many tbh), they're all grindfests that I suffer through so I can get better items.

 

[halflingbarbarian]

Crafting is put into Skyrim without thought by the devs, when the truth is that the game as it is now (w/o further patches etc.) is better off without crafting at all.

Hopefully a mod comes out with some fixes along the lines of:

1) No fortify alchemy, smithing or enchanting. So absolute max is 100.
2) Skill leveling requires making 'harder'-to-make items, relative to your current skill level.
3) No bloody vendors selling ores/leathers/etc. (materials). Might make that whole tanning and hunting and mining minigame meaningful, to boot.
4) New items/enchants/potions requires recipes.

 

[sea]

The big problem I have with crafting is that, aside from using it a few times throughout the game and for enhancing existing equipment, you will so very rarely use it for anything meaningful. 99% of the items you will make are filler designed to level up and nothing more. The fact that the system encourages quantity over quality is get another sign that things were not thought out well, as the fastest way to become a master smith is to craft hundreds of Iron Daggers.

Unfortunately, crafting systems without grinding don't make much sense logically, and you can't even make good money in the meantime as the raw materials you have usually sell for more than the items you make. With something like Arcanum, at least you could make powerful unique items like the Machined Plate, the Pyrotechnic Axe, or the Goggled Helmet, ones that had few other analogues in standard gameplay. Leveling it with character points was a bit weird, but at least theoretically you had to work your way up to the truly awesome stuff.

In Skyrim, what does smithing mean? Oh, you can make the same Glass Armor you'll buy in a store, even though you could just as easily find one in a dungeon or sell a bunch of loot and buy it. Yes, you can probably get it a bit earlier, but it's not like the goddamn Power Armor where you become a walking god, it's just a slightly better set of armour before you really need it.

For Alchemy and Enchanting, well, you might use those a bit more, but they're still the kinds of things where 99% of it is grinding and the remaining 1% is actually useful (Alchemy even less so as potions are so easy to find and buy). They have more use due to the potency of potions and enchantments, but that still doesn't change the fact that there's nothing particularly fun about it. Oh, I can kill a dragon in 5 hits instead of 6. Brilliant.

 

[shiggidyshwa]

Maybe make smithing/enchanting/alchemy more challenging? Currently smithing is a gold grinding game, alchemy is pure guesswork and tedious gathering, and enchanting is a luck and gold grinding game.

Going back to what I said about how leveling combat skills is way more involved than leveling these crafting skills, I think they could be minigames in and of themselves. Nothing as tedious as picking a master lock, but something creative and genuinely fun. Besides that, tie numerous quests to these crafting skills. Have a warrior walk into town one day and come asking you to craft some nice armour. Have a distraught mother beg you to make a potion to cure her daughter's rock joint. Have a mage go to you to disenchant a daedric artifact. These would be mad fun -- if the crafting systems were.

I honestly have no clue how to make crafting fun in a game like Skyrim, but it should involve motor skills and puzzle-solving. The hacking in Bioshock comes to mind.

I have another master level experience to share. Got in a fight with a couple of bandits and a blood dragon swooped in. After killing the dragon with the help of the bandits, one of them ran away cowering. I chased him down a hill into a small cave and offed him. All of a sudden 2 cave bears and 2 wolves come out of nowhere and I'm stuck in the middle of nowhere with no companion because I asked her to wait at my house. No clue what to do because I used all my health and armour potions. Purely by luck, I noticed two scrolls of blizzard and one guardian scroll in my inventory. I pop the guardian scroll, blizzard, turn on my Redguard stamina perk, and take everything on god mode. It was an amazing experience and watching my char use the scrolls (with the epic summon animation) was leet. The wolves died during the first blizzard and brought the bears to about 1/2 life, so I was able to power attack them into submission.

 

[Marsal]

I honestly have no clue how to make crafting fun in a game like Skyrim, but it should involve motor skills and puzzle-solving.

BRO speaks the truth! EVERYTHING can be improved with a mini game involving motor skills and puzzle solving. Add some QTEs and it would be MAJESTIC!

 

[shiggidyshwa]

BRO speaks the truth! EVERYTHING can be improved with a mini game involving motor skills and puzzle solving. Add some QTEs and it would be MAJESTIC!

Yup total ignorance here. I only know as a player that crafting in Skyrim is a weak game dynamic. I've gotten into alchemy but only because I'm richer than the entire empire now so managing my gold to buy potions has gone out the window. Otherwise, alchemy is just as weak.

Maybe Bioshock's QTE doesn't fit into Skyrim. I'm actually ok in saying I don't know. But I do know that in Bioshock it turned an otherwise tedious piece of the game (like locks in Skyrim) into something a bit more enjoyable. With the obvious game-breaking capability of amour and enchantment crafting in this game, there was a serious lack of forethought put into creating those systems. In stat-rolling RPGs, that issue isn't there because points into smithing = points not into armour/etc.

 

[sea]

So mini-games are the answer to uninvolving mechanics? What makes an RPG interesting is the interplay between statistics and risk/reward involved. Crafting in Skyrim is rather risk-free and has massive effects which unbalance the game, yet the only cost is time involved in grinding; compare that to Gothic where rare alchemical ingredients have powerful effects (including permanent stat boosts which ultimately make up for the XP spent and then some), or where hard-to-find ore needs to be prospected and mined in order to gain better equipment, which is far more relevant given the cost and scarcity of that new equipment otherwise. Also note that in Gothic or Risen, you only have a few different levels in these skills, whereas in Skyrim you have 100, same as the others - even though the skill doesn't really warrant or support it.

Both are mechanically identical (just combining stuff in menus), but one manages to be more interesting than the other solely because it has a place within the game and because there are worthwhile rewards for players who wish to seek them out (and exploring in itself is its own reward as a result) - and if you ignore them, that's no big deal either, you aren't missing out on the ability to magically make your equipment 30% better or boost your stats 50% beyond the maximum values.

 

[shiggidyshwa]

Oh boy. I think the word 'minigame' sealed my crucifixion orders.

The devs are at a crossroads. Do they please stat-rollers, twitch freaks, or take a middle road? As long as the system is engaging without being:

a) A Calculator / Encyclopedia simulator.

b) Overly hokey and patronizing.

Then I'm in. I want to be as challenged by crafting armour as I am solving a Prince of Persia puzzle, which is actually what I'd like for every aspect of Skyrim. Please no cheap shots. I was genuinely challenged with the puzzles as a kid playing PoP. It delivers on a few fronts but not all. I think playing this on master helps bring combat closer to that ideal.

It might be harder for some studios to do this. I get it. But it should still be the ideal.

Back on-topic, does anyone on master find that the Become Ethereal shout is one of the most effective ones for fighting high level dragons?

 

[Majestic47]

Solution - only steel, iron, silver and gold are sold by merchant. Anything else is spawned from nodes around the world. With specific area giving specific ore yield. Hell, I thought the dragonscale was pretty neat idea, but failed in its execution because players need to grind up their smithy to 90 before they can actually use it.

Try as I might I cannot advocate the skilling up aspect of smithing. It's just too influential with regards to gained perk point - and level scaling of the world. Perhaps if Players can simply submit their raw materials and pay master smiths to craft it wouldn't be so broken.

 

[shiggidyshwa]

Solution - only steel, iron, silver and gold are sold by merchant. Anything else is spawned from nodes around the world. With specific area giving specific ore yield. Hell, I thought the dragonscale was pretty neat idea, but failed in its execution because players need to grind up their smithy to 90 before they can actually use it.

Try as I might I cannot advocate the skilling up aspect of smithing. It's just too influential with regards to gained perk point - and level scaling of the world. Perhaps if Players can simply submit their raw materials and pay master smiths to craft it wouldn't be so broken.

I agree with yours and a few other takes on how to fix smithing in this game. Would you agree that they're all band-aids? If you think about what it would mean to be unable to buy other types of metals just to fix the utterly broken smithing system, it seems weird, no? It would be like limiting the amount of points I can level Sneak skill per level - purposefully gimping an integral part of the game instead of completely retooling it.

Maybe I haven't been very clear in my reasoning. What I want is a complete retooling of the crafting systems, and for me, no amount of backstops are going to fix that. If I need to wade into dragon priests to level my already high block skill, I expect a similar challenge when leveling my similarly tuned smithing. However, that's not the case here. I'm still just buying ingots with my hundreds of thousands of gold to craft iron daggers - I could even craft dwarven sets with relative ease now.

I get it though. Devs are not gods, they have a budget and a timeline, and compromises must be made. I just wish that the compromise didn't fall to a traditionally key aspect of the gameplay.

Ummm... by the way, anyone know if General Tullius = this ol' fella?

 

[halflingbarbarian]

Solution - only steel, iron, silver and gold are sold by merchant. Anything else is spawned from nodes around the world. With specific area giving specific ore yield. Hell, I thought the dragonscale was pretty neat idea, but failed in its execution because players need to grind up their smithy to 90 before they can actually use it.

Try as I might I cannot advocate the skilling up aspect of smithing. It's just too influential with regards to gained perk point - and level scaling of the world. Perhaps if Players can simply submit their raw materials and pay master smiths to craft it wouldn't be so broken.

I agree with yours and a few other takes on how to fix smithing in this game. Would you agree that they're all band-aids? If you think about what it would mean to be unable to buy other types of metals just to fix the utterly broken smithing system, it seems weird, no? It would be like limiting the amount of points I can level Sneak skill per level - purposefully gimping an integral part of the game instead of completely retooling it.

Maybe I haven't been very clear in my reasoning. What I want is a complete retooling of the crafting systems, and for me, no amount of backstops are going to fix that. If I need to wade into dragon priests to level my already high block skill, I expect a similar challenge when leveling my similarly tuned smithing. However, that's not the case here. I'm still just buying ingots with my hundreds of thousands of gold to craft iron daggers - I could even craft dwarven sets with relative ease now.

I get it though. Devs are not gods, they have a budget and a timeline, and compromises must be made. I just wish that the compromise didn't fall to a traditionally key aspect of the gameplay.

Firstly, Bethesda is not known to retool entire gameplay mechanisms, so it's better not to expect that. Mods, however, can change current mechanics into something playable and sound, even if it means relegating crafting skills into a different kind of leveling, because there is no fundamental advantage in wanting to keep combat and crafting skills leveling the same, just for the sake of being the same.

Secondly, unfortunately as well, you can level combat skills by grinding like crafting skills, it's just not as blatantly accessible. You can find a couple of skeevers and hold down block with some sort of hp regen: voila - Block 100.

 

[shiggidyshwa]

Firstly, Bethesda is not known to retool entire gameplay mechanisms, so it's better not to expect that. Mods, however, can change current mechanics into something playable and sound, even if it means relegating crafting skills into a different kind of leveling, because there is no fundamental advantage in wanting to keep combat and crafting skills leveling the same, just for the sake of being the same.

Secondly, unfortunately as well, you can level combat skills by grinding like crafting skills, it's just not as blatantly accessible. You can find a couple of skeevers and hold down block with some sort of hp regen: voila - Block 100.

Ah ok then. I have no experience with this studio so it's good to hear it from someone who does. I never really held out hope for them retooling it anyways. I always knew it was gonna be up to the modding community.

I hear you on the combat skills. Is it as fast as leveling your smithing? I can go through 100 iron daggers in less than a minute, and I would have leveled maybe 20 ranks. I think that's an important distinction to make - the speed at which you can break that game dynamic. If it takes me an hour to grind my block 20 ranks on a skeever because anything else would be too dangerous, I'd steer clear.

 

[Tigranes]

How exactly is crafting overpowered/broken unless you are making things repeatedly with the express purpose of levelling up?

If you're making 50 daggers or whatever in one sitting then of course it's broken. That hardly matters - if everything else works it's a pointless complaint, if other things are broken then that's what matters. I'm curious as to whether/how broken it turns out if people either just craft for their own use, or craft some surplus to make profit. In my game, I've had to invest tens of thousands of gold to get smithing up to 60 at level 30, which is fine with me. But maybe the rate of skill increase is way too fast? I'm using a slower levelling mod.

As sea pointed out, I think the bigger problem is where crafting sits in terms of the in-game loot economy. Combine store generation with smithing and random loot tables with Bethesda(TM) Level Scaling, and what you get is a lot of redundancy. Throw in entire suits of armour from guilds and you've got players swimming in lots of pointless gear they don't need, getting unique quest rewards from daedra and Jarls they immediately throw away, and gaming the enchanting/smithing system yields far better rewards that the loot in the world becomes pointless.

What would be interesting - maybe possible as a mod - is underpowering standard enchanting and make ore/materials much rarer, so that (a) you have to make choices about where to use your materials, and (b) if you enchant frost damage, you will rarely get a better enchantment than items you might find in a shop or in a dungeon at your level, unless you've really dedicated to levelling enchanting. What happens then is you have to consider whether to take a slightly weaker weapon in return for customizability/flexibility, or go with what you find that is stronger even if it's not exactly what you want.

Then combine that with a few rare recipes scattered around the world that use unique ingredients (e.g. Eye of Falmer) that are a lot more powerful *and* require high enchanting skill.

 

[sea]

If you're making 50 daggers or whatever in one sitting then of course it's broken. That hardly matters - if everything else works it's a pointless complaint, if other things are broken then that's what matters. I'm curious as to whether/how broken it turns out if people either just craft for their own use, or craft some surplus to make profit. In my game, I've had to invest tens of thousands of gold to get smithing up to 60 at level 30, which is fine with me. But maybe the rate of skill increase is way too fast? I'm using a slower levelling mod.

Well that's really what it is - 100 levels of nothing. Why have 10 levels when 1 level is the same in terms of benefit, due to the way perks are staggered? Oh, right, because then you'd level up too fast and it wouldn't be consistent with the larger system. Well, then won't the player have tons of stuff to sell, and wouldn't that break the economy? Oh, so then merchants charge more for raw materials than the finished items. But then doesn't that ruin any incentive other than level grinding to get to the very top of the tree?

One problem compounds on another due to the conventions of the Elder Scrolls gameplay, the desire to keep things nice and neat and consistent, and it ultimately ends up broken precisely because of that. I like crafting in concept but it just has no place in a game like the Elder Scrolls, where it's already geared towards dungeon crawling. I mean, I get it - you want to give the player alternatives, and to provide non-combat activities, and all that good stuff. The problem is that crafting, and especially smithing, is just so out of place in the larger game experience, being both useless and game-breaking all at once.

I guess on some level it's okay to say "players want to craft? let them craft" but that isn't good game design. Ultimately the argument can be made that this shit doesn't matter because it's a single-player game and just meant to be fun, but judging from discussion here and elsewhere, people care about the Elder Scrolls games not just as hiking sims and virtual worlds, but as genuine games as well. When you're making an RPG, choice and freedom and options are important, but only in so far as they lead towards a particular goal and fit into a the larger game systems, and that's something Bethesda's "it's cool, put it in" philosophy completely overlooks.

Besides, the LARPers can just pretend-craft anyway.

 

[abija]

Why do people keep repeating smithing (crafting) is overpowered and breaks the game?
Yes it's broken as a mechanic being too easy/boring/retarded to level, but the resulted numbers aren't broken. Leveling smithing won't break your experience. They're balanced against the combat skills because the result of leveling up is exactly the same.

Daedric greatsword: 24dmg
With 100 weapon skill and the first 5 perks: 72 dmg
Updgrade with 100 smith: 34 damage
With 100 smith + best potion from store + best +smith items from store: 52 damage
With 100 smith + maxed out +smith gear and potions made with alchemy/enchanting circlejerking: 70dmg

Even borderline exploited (which also takes quite a bit of mats farming and 2 more maxed professions) smithing is a bit worse damage wise than 2h skill.
Enchanting is the same, 4 weapon enchants give close to 3x damage (at max).
Alchemy is a bit worse because it doesn't add a fully new effect, just replaces store bought making it better better but allows that extra bit of edge.

So yeah, when you add everything up, it gets broken you're the ultimate killing machine. But so would an equivalent 400 2h skill tree be.
It's most likely a bad idea to design crafting skills as equivalent with combat skills, both in bonuses and leveling. That doesn't mean crafting breaks your game if you do it.

 

[Majestic47]

It's not just the raw numbers that gets changed you see, chests gets scaled up as you level. Monsters spawn pool are upped, quest rewards as well. Even shops start carrying ebony ingots which is the rarest metal of all in less than a week of your adventuring.

If you had leveled weapon skill first, you wouldn't be able to take advantage of the rare metals due to your smithing skill being low. But if you focus entirely on smithing - then enjoy your full legendary ebony set at level 10-15.

That is the definition of broken for me. I had to suspend my belief a hell lot to not notice this glaring issue. Regular characters that start with 20 smithing would gain at least 8 levels to hit 100 smithy. That's not counting other combat & magic skills leveling up as well as Speech increases as you sold daggers after daggers.

 

[hiver]

I personally haven used it after i got to a perk that allows me to upgrade magical armor and weapons into superior versions.

I wouldnt have done that either if there was a possibility to pay the Smith to do it for me.

If its not something that can be fixed, at least that option should be available so i can avoid it completely if it doesnt fit with with my intended play style.

 

[abija]

Except legendary ebony set at lvl 10-15 is weaker than the equivalent steel set (or I think dwarven it's already sold at that level) + combat skills.
From the threat titled: 2419 armor/6399 damage

Don't just power your crafting skills right out of the first dungeon... you want to make sure your weapon / armor skills are at least keeping pace or you will get out leveled.

 

[sea]

Why do people keep repeating smithing (crafting) is overpowered and breaks the game?

Because the amount of damage you can do with the right perk selection borders on the obscene and completely trivializes the game when combined with sneak attacks, enchantments etc. This isn't a case of exploiting, this is using the system as intended giving characters massive advantages over others. Combine that with, say, playing an Orc, and you can take that already broken amount of damage and literally double it. Decided to roll a mage instead? Too bad, hope you enjoy going melee, because that's all you'll be able to do past level 30 when your mega-awesome spells suddenly become near worthless (unless you're a High Elf with Highborn, but that means you need to rest 24 hours before every battle).

The issue isn't that the system itself is fundamentally broken (though it isn't much fun to grind at all), but rather that within the context of the larger game and in relation to other skills it is both useless (since you can't make any money, you can find and buy equipment elsewhere) and brilliantly powerful (once you get it leveled, you get a huge damage bonus at basically no cost). Enchanting is similar in that finding items to learn enchantments from requires a lot of luck, you need to grind to level your skill up, but then in the end the payoff is massive.

 

[Gord]

Why do people keep repeating smithing (crafting) is overpowered and breaks the game?

Because the amount of damage you can do with the right perk selection borders on the obscene and completely trivializes the game when combined with sneak attacks, enchantments etc. This isn't a case of exploiting, this is using the system as intended giving characters massive advantages over others.

And I still think this is NOT using the system as intended. Bethesda probably (naively) intended you to play a certain archetype and do not use too much out-of-character stuff. If you combine everything then yes, it's getting overpowered.
And doing so is probably too easy. Still my impression is that it's mostly people bordering on OCD that cannot refrain from maxing everything in one character that gives them an advantage, even though it is not necessary.
Well, obviously it's wrong to expect people to find that out by themselves.

Maybe I've found the one working "class", but my sneaking archer (lvl 25 or such, only some minor magic use and some alchemy) doesn't feel broken at all to me, neither does the game playing with this character.
I'm not one-shoting everything even though supposedly "sneak is totally broken", neither can I stay hidden all the time. And once I'm not hidden anymore...

 

[Rhalle]

I'm still playing the same character on Master difficulty. At first it was really difficult. I used lots of potions and re-loaded many times. Now I'm lvl 46 w/armor almost 2x the cap, with resistances at the cap and enchants that give me 70% stamina and health regen, and 70% one-handed and block improvement.

It's not challenging anymore. It's still fun, but it's not challenging.

Bethesda probably (naively) intended you to play a certain archetype and do not use too much out-of-character stuff.

I think they implemented the crafting stuff and simply decided against scaling it, because it would be too much of an obstacle to "fun" for consoloers.

 

[abija]

Because the amount of damage you can do with the right perk selection borders on the obscene and completely trivializes the game when combined with sneak attacks, enchantments etc.

Did you even bother read the values I posted? You take something that's a result of 4-5 skills and their perks and pin it on one of them and call it broken.

If you mean is overpowered because it's too easy to level, it's not the only one. There are combat skills that are quite a lot faster to level. Illusion for example atuolevels just refreshing the skill, blocking with a shield for example skyrockets if you go and kill a mammoth. You do the very first mine in the game and that golden claw dungeon using sneak and you're getting towards 70 already. That's just from what I played and those don't even remotely feel like exploiting as say casting soul trap on dead targets or using detect life in cities.

Sneak attacks trivialize the game by themselves, the combat result is 10 times more broken than any profession combo and it's given from start without barely any work.

Mages (and I assume you mean destruction) also get really powerful if you use alchemy and enchanting since you get no mana cost, % dmg and if you really want to, you can debuff at the start with a poisoned arrow.

It's a game full of broken combos yet somehow people can't play it because everyone trips on smithing(crafting) even though your standard melee or destruction char that gets the most damage from crafting has a harder time than assassin/archer/summoners/illusionists etc.

Maybe I've found the one working "class", but my sneaking archer (lvl 25 or such, only some minor magic use and some alchemy) doesn't feel broken at all to me, neither does the game playing with this character.
I'm not one-shoting everything even though supposedly "sneak is totally broken", neither can I stay hidden all the time. And once I'm not hidden anymore...

Thing is, if you play it bow + sneak only, at lvl 25 you're a lot more strong. And no, bow doesn't 1 shot stronger enemies but you can clear the rooms from stealth. With a bit higher sneak you sit in a dark corner and shoot and the npcs come near you and don't detect you.
And once you're not hidden anymore... you roll away a couple of times, hide behind an object and wait til you are hidden.