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Skyrim Master Difficulty Experience

Gord

Arcane
Joined
Feb 16, 2011
Messages
7,049
abija said:
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.

Again, shameless hyperbole.
As I wrote I'm level 25 and my stealth skill is barely 70 even though I'm pretty much sneaking all the time inside dungeons. At low levels it was one or two hits with my bow and the enemies noticed me. Granted, once your skill goes into the 50s you can stay hidden pretty easily, but multiple strong enemies will still reach me most of the time before I can kill them.

However, why shouldn't I become very difficult to spot at high sneak levels?
It would be pretty pointless if they effortlessly manage to spot me even if i should be a master at sneaking. I want some noticeable progression. I want my character to feel more powerful at higher levels, everything else would be pointless in terms development of my character.
A boss together with one or two minions will almost inevitably reach me before I can kill him and then I'm in trouble - which is nice, because yes, there is challenge even for a sneaking character (which might not be the case if you spam illusion spells on top of it).
 

Black Cat

Magister
Joined
Jun 1, 2009
Messages
1,997
Location
Skyrim .///.
I'm still enjoying the game, but there's something definitely wrong with it.

Like, I restarted. After doing the basic stuffies I'm on my way to Winterhold to join the College, etc. I'm a level 7 and full Magicka pure sorceress. I am somewhere between Stillborn Cave and the fort nearby, running while Lydia keeps the evil wizards and their skeletons and Atronachs at bay, because I just wanted to reach the city to save and go for a walk. A couple of winter wolves and normal wolves come down the slope of a mountain, okay. My horsie can outrun the fuckers if I play my cards well enough.

All of a sudden a dragon swoops in. Things get ridiculous: Evil mages, their summons, winter and normal wolves, and a dragon, all fighting it out. Lydia and my Atronach, too. I dismount and horsie joins the battle, alright. After a little while of running around the mountain, through the forest, down and up slopes from cover to cover it's down to me, my horsie, and the dragon. And the dragon's still has three fourths to four fifths of its health left. Yikes.

I dismount again. Horsie rushes the dragon. I cast courage on her. Dragon and her start ducking it out. I heal her. The battle goes on and on for several minutes: Sometimes the Dragon takes to the air and bombards horsie with its magical dragon breath thingie, sometimes it lands and attacks horsie with breath and claws and fangs. Everything is pretty confusing, too, given I can't survive it's breath for more than two seconds, so I can never leave cover for long. I keep healing her, and every now and then I recast Courage on horsie.

So I'm at my last couple of potions. I know I will not be able to heal horsie for long with so little Magicka. For a moment I contemplate making a run for it, but I really like the black horsie you get on Whiterun, the others aren't just as pretty. And she fought so bravely! So I charge the dragon casting as many of those second tier's lightning spells as I can with my little remaining Magicka, decided to journey down to Sovngarde along my horsie. I sure hope they are taking Breton witches and really angry equines.

The dragon takes to the sky, draws some circles, attacks with it's breath again, I duck behind a rock and start throwing potions down the hatch. The dragon lands. Horsie rushes it, it breaths on it. Horsie! Then it dies. The dragon, not horsie. Horsie just, like, killed him. Or something.

Best.Horse.Ever.

However, what? A level 7 sorceress with no magical equipment other than a +20 Magicka diadem and a horse killed a Dragon by themselves? Indeed. What did just happen? How come Falmer are epical battles that make the world tremble, yet dragons are... I don't know, horsephobic? Did it die from a heart attack or something?

My immersion is destroyed. :(

Somebody MOD the shit out of this fucker, please.
 

abija

Prophet
Joined
May 21, 2011
Messages
2,892
Gord said:
Again, shameless hyperbole.
As I wrote I'm level 25 and my stealth skill is barely 70 even though I'm pretty much sneaking all the time inside dungeons. At low levels it was one or two hits with my bow and the enemies noticed me. Granted, once your skill goes into the 50s you can stay hidden pretty easily, but multiple strong enemies will still reach me most of the time before I can kill them.

However, why shouldn't I become very difficult to spot at high sneak levels?
It would be pretty pointless if they effortlessly manage to spot me even if i should be a master at sneaking. I want some noticeable progression. I want my character to feel more powerful at higher levels, everything else would be pointless in terms development of my character.
A boss together with one or two minions will almost inevitably reach me before I can kill him and then I'm in trouble - which is nice, because yes, there is challenge even for a sneaking character (which might not be the case if you spam illusion spells on top of it).
No it's not shameless hyperbole. Go ahead, kill every npc in the mine right after you exit intro area (they even have a decentl little chat that you'll probably miss on normal chars), all the npcs on the way to the barrow and inside with stealth attacks only. And when you are detected don't reload or fight, run a bit away and wait for "hidden". I had 67 sneak when I got the claw, might be a bit lower for archer since you need to get closer as melee.

And no, you're not in trouble unless you're in a VERY small room with no decently sized objects or in a big plain field in broad daylight. You move fast and a small investment in stamina allows you to run a lot due to the light armor. Most of the time you just roll a corner or two behind and wait for npcs to finish the search.
 

Nael

Arcane
Joined
Dec 12, 2005
Messages
11,384
Location
Indy
I agree on both counts, BC. I am hoping that someone mods the dragons to be more difficult and honestly i don't think horses should be rushing into battle so often. They need to spook like a real horse would when confronted with monsters. I could see them realistiically rearing on a melee bandiit or wolves in its face but a horse willingly fighting a dragon, troll, giizzly bear, etc just strikes me as effing retarded. And thing is the horse sometimes DOES spook, but it only does intermittently and randomly with no rhyme or reason to it. Personally i just LARP with my antiequine Dunmer character who would just as soon eat a horse as ride it.
 

Captain Shrek

Guest
Nael said:
I agree on both counts, BC. I am hoping that someone mods the dragons to be more difficult and honestly i don't think horses should be rushing into battle so often. They need to spook like a real horse would when confronted with monsters. I could see them realistiically rearing on a melee bandiit or wolves in its face but a horse willingly fighting a dragon, troll, giizzly bear, etc just strikes me as effing retarded. And thing is the horse sometimes DOES spook, but it only does intermittently and randomly with no rhyme or reason to it. Personally i just LARP with my antiequine Dunmer character who would just as soon eat a horse as ride it.

Play Master. At least there is some challenge there.
 

abija

Prophet
Joined
May 21, 2011
Messages
2,892
Get shadowmere, you can larp easy that it's a demon horse :D
 
Joined
Dec 19, 2007
Messages
4,338
Location
Bureaukratistan
So I too decided to mass-produce Iron Daggers because I wanted to see if all those dragon bones I have been hoarding are actually used in the Dragon Armors. Level 29 before, 32 now I think. So now with my legendary dragon armor I die in three shots instead of two, and the Ebony bow kills things slighly less fucking slow. Mmkay. I'm not so impressed.

Maybe you need the enchantments for it. Whatever, I'm not going to touch that shit because you can't do enchantments fast enough.

I also devised a new tactic. I kite tough opponents to high places, towers, mountains, whatever and shout them down, falling some 10 meters apparently does much more damage than five hits from a legendary ebony greataxe.

I'm just saying. The great smithing hype let me down.

@ BC : How did Lydia die, to me it seems like the followers only die if you kill them yourself? Anyway that reminds me of a battle I had against a dragon in some Stormcloak camp (Darkwater or something). The Dragon attacks, gets bored after a while and then kites some bear and some Sabrecat to the camp, which I ally with that one shout. Now for whatever reason the Stormcloaks kill the Sabrecat, and Lydia starts killing the Stormcloaks. The dragon is still attacking some random fox or something and after a while, all the Stormcloaks are dead because they never finish Lydia off. Then the dragon attacks again and I fuck up with the sprint power and get breathed to death. Then I reload and the dragon never once attacks me when there are juicy NPC guards around who never die to it's attacks.

I'm sort of wishing the dragons would just go away so I could resume filling soul gems with rats, because they sure don't bother too much with this dragonborn business.
 

Black Cat

Magister
Joined
Jun 1, 2009
Messages
1,997
Location
Skyrim .///.
@ Nael

Yes, they do spook sometimes. It's kind of random, though: I have had my horsie run away from a wolf or a bandit, and once I had to swim in a quite fast river to get to her because she had jumped in during the attack of a Dark Brotherhood assasin. Yet she bravely and very Nordishly charges dragons and giant spider. Something has to be broken about the horsie's behaviour.

I wouldn't be able to play without horsies, though. I do not use fast travel, as it is kind of cheating and defeats the purpose of an open world, exploration heavy game, so horsies are the only thingie standing between me and really looooooong walks through areas I have already seen before, and then I like those big and heavy and hairy and fluffy horsie kinds so much! Much more than the competition ones, who are more elegant but less plushie like and huggable.

@ Captain Shrek

I do play in Master. Maybe that's why horsie got turned into a machine of murder and anihilation.

@ Abija

Is it also fluffy and plushie like? :oops:

@ Demnogonis Saastuttaja

She did not die. Sometimes, if you leave her fighting, she may need hours to reappear or respawn or whatever it is she does, especially if she got on her knees surrounded by enemies, as she will stand, attack them, fall, stand, attack them, fall, stand, etc.

However, companions can die, it's just rare. Very rare. Once they are down on their knees any hit will kill them. This isn't common, given once they are down the enemies focus either on your Atronachs or you or your horsie, but sometimes, when several enemies are fighting your companion, one will hit them and drop them on their knees a frame or two before the others' attacks hit. I believe damage over time will also kill them if they suffer a lot of it while on their knees, like getting frozen or on fire or poisoned just before falling to the ground.

With my previous character, the one I used to try the game and be sure I liked it before spending ten hours on the character creator, I lost Lydia in Stillborn Cave, Faendal fell in (and kind of from) the Seven Thousand Steps, and a mercenary I recruited on Windhelm died on Sightless Pit. I also lost two horsies. Horsies! :(

Lydia and the Windhelm guy fell to groups of Falmer and Chauruses, though, so those are the most dangerous ones in my experience, though I haven't seen but the start of the game.
 

Drakron

Arcane
Joined
May 19, 2005
Messages
6,326
abija said:
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.

Rubbish.

Mages should not depend on potions to up their offensive firepower, the fact is your spells have a fixed damage output and do not get better because the only thing the perks do is lowering mana cost and since there is no spell crafting its not as if you solve the issue by creating a more powerful version of the basic spell.

Worst is NPC mages seem to have no such limitation on damage output, they can one-shoot you with low level spells and that is ridiculous.

This is a problem for Destruction path, your argument about potions and enchanting simply does not reflect the fact fighters also get potions relevant to combat and, worst, they can do better with the gear they find/is awarded because your enchantments are worst that the ones the world gives you.

In fact there is no staff creation or enchanting and you cannot improve mages gear the same way fighters can improve their, not to say there is no unarmored skill to improve the robe wearing mages.
 

Captain Shrek

Guest
Drakron said:
abija said:
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.

Rubbish.

Mages should not depend on potions to up their offensive firepower, the fact is your spells have a fixed damage output and do not get better because the only thing the perks do is lowering mana cost and since there is no spell crafting its not as if you solve the issue by creating a more powerful version of the basic spell.

Worst is NPC mages seem to have no such limitation on damage output, they can one-shoot you with low level spells and that is ridiculous.

This is a problem for Destruction path, your argument about potions and enchanting simply does not reflect the fact fighters also get potions relevant to combat and, worst, they can do better with the gear they find/is awarded because your enchantments are worst that the ones the world gives you.

In fact there is no staff creation or enchanting and you cannot improve mages gear the same way fighters can improve their, not to say there is no unarmored skill to improve the robe wearing mages.

Although not entirely true (since mages DO have perks that improve damage) this rings true. Mages are a bit difficult to play, and by that I mean that they depend on potions a LOT.
 

Drakron

Arcane
Joined
May 19, 2005
Messages
6,326
Captain Shrek said:
Although not entirely true (since mages DO have perks that improve damage) this rings true. Mages are a bit difficult to play, and by that I mean that they depend on potions a LOT.

50% more damage, Armsman have 5 ranks and each gives 20% more damage so your output could be 100% more damage.

Sure its not entirely true but if we compare Mages perks and Fighters perks the mages still lose out and that is part the problem ... if mages had the equivalent of the entry level of Two-Handed/One-Handed/Archery perks it would be a more viable class, a possible fix (easy) would raising ranks on the Augmented perks to 5 (or 6) instead of just 2, this would allow mages to up their damage potential (and be glass canons instead of glass .22 revolvers) to about the same level as fighters.
 

hiver

Guest
Im not using horses at all. I just got use to running around and i really didnt want to see my badly animated, badly designed horse killing everything or climbing vertical cliffs and so on.

But it is a known issue, all together.
Its going to be one of the first mods to come out after CS, i suspect.
 

Marsal

Arcane
Joined
Oct 2, 2006
Messages
1,304
Black Cat said:
The dragon takes to the sky, draws some circles, attacks with it's breath again, I duck behind a rock and start throwing potions down the hatch. The dragon lands. Horsie rushes it, it breaths on it. Horsie! Then it dies. The dragon, not horsie. Horsie just, like, killed him. Or something.
I thought dragons can't fly with less than half (or so) health? Are you saying that a horse can 3 shot a dragon?
 

Black Cat

Magister
Joined
Jun 1, 2009
Messages
1,997
Location
Skyrim .///.
Marsal said:
I thought dragons can't fly with less than half (or so) health? Are you saying that a horse can 3 shot a dragon?

I never had that happen to me. In my game dragons keep very mobile until the very end.

My game's as very modded as it can be right now, but I don't remember installing nothing about that. Most of my mods are things for better looks and clothes.
 

Drakron

Arcane
Joined
May 19, 2005
Messages
6,326
Black Cat said:
My game's as very modded as it can be right now, but I don't remember installing nothing about that. Most of my mods are things for better looks and clothes.

Well considering there is no CS yet its not possible to create "less deathly motherfucking snow bears" ... also, dragons scale to your level but creatures dont seem to scale so your horse could kick a dragon ass at lv 7 but at lv 27? He is not going to scale but the dragon will.

Besides I read stories of motherfucking snow bears soloing dragons ...
 

MajorNova

Novice
Joined
Mar 7, 2011
Messages
43
I larped as Sauron on my first char, mage in heavy armor forging rings of power in motherfucking Whiterun, and game was silly easy on master difficulty, especially once u break 100 enchant and blacksmithing and start making legendary daedra armor with godly stats thanks to +smith enchants and potions. Also being a mage was boring as fuck, could literally kill anything with stun lock with dual casted firebolt, literally no challenge at all. Then i tried unarmed khajit , just clawing my way through game, never used a weapon or offensive spell, just summoned atronachs and used armor buffs and such, story is the same, once you get high enough blacksmith and enchant game gets broken beyond repair, there literally isnt any better gear than ones i can make myself.

tl;dr leveling blacksmith and enchant is sure way to win win win the game without literally any fucks given.
 

Kaol

Educated
Joined
Oct 14, 2011
Messages
253
Just discovered the sprint button on my 3rd playthrough.
 

shiggidyshwa

Novice
Joined
Nov 26, 2011
Messages
72
Marsal said:
I thought dragons can't fly with less than half (or so) health? Are you saying that a horse can 3 shot a dragon?

Ya dragons land after hitting 1/2 hp. Then it's just a matter of stun locking them with dual casted destruction spells, power attacks, or block bash.

They're easier to fight than most high level mages because they're so immobile. Run around a rock and heal and they can't follow you, no matter what difficulty level you're playing at. Dragon fighting gives you a lot of breathing room to heal and charge up shouts/powers/spells because they fly around for another bombing run. Ground enemies on the other hand follow you all the time.

Fighting against your own class is easy as long as you've been leveling the obvious attributes. The only challenge I have these days is my warrior vs an arch necromancer spamming ice spike and slowing me down. As soon as I get within hitting range, it's just stunlock him into submission with my atronach burning him up.

I think people don't play master difficulty because the first 20 levels can be genuinely challenging for the average player. After that, there are a few tough bosses but nothing to write home about.

Some of the more challenging enemies as a level 35 axe/shield warrior:

- Arch Spellcasters
- Forsworn Briarhearts
- Dragon Priests
- Bandit Chieftains
- Snow Bears
- Sabre Cats

Nothing too bad. I could use my atronach to tank while I shoot arrows but that's no fun, so I tank it myself. It's cool experimenting with different shouts and using the terrain to my advantage. Mages almost pose no problem now with my Become Ethereal shout because I become invincible until I get within melee range. I have a feeling that had I found that shout at level 10, I would have been sorely disappointed at the game's difficulty.

Regardless of how high your dps is, taking on mobs will still hurt you tons without a companion/summons.
 

abija

Prophet
Joined
May 21, 2011
Messages
2,892
Rubbish.

Mages should not depend on potions to up their offensive firepower, the fact is your spells have a fixed damage output and do not get better because the only thing the perks do is lowering mana cost and since there is no spell crafting its not as if you solve the issue by creating a more powerful version of the basic spell.
But the retarded numbers you see listed for warriors are also an effect of potions, including a bugged archery potion that amplifies all damage.
You have like 160% destruction damage pot and 100% dmg taken debuff that allows you to kill ancient dragons in 4-5 thunderbolts. You wait more for them to land and die than to take their hp down.

not to say there is no unarmored skill to improve the robe wearing mages.
Isn't alteration providing high armor when using robes?

Some of the more challenging enemies as a level 35 axe/shield warrior:

- Arch Spellcasters
- Forsworn Briarhearts
- Dragon Priests
- Bandit Chieftains
- Snow Bears
- Sabre Cats
Wierd, I never had any issue with shield warrior with bears or cats. Hell I tank killed a mamoth at lvl 13 (and ended up lvl 15 or 16 in the process :p). Did you focus the block or just using shield mostly as extra armor?

@ Abija

Is it also fluffy and plushie like? Embarassed
And with burning eyes. http://i.imgur.com/HaDtp.jpg
 

shiggidyshwa

Novice
Joined
Nov 26, 2011
Messages
72
abija said:
Wierd, I never had any issue with shield warrior with bears or cats. Hell I tank killed a mamoth at lvl 13 (and ended up lvl 15 or 16 in the process :p). Did you focus the block or just using shield mostly as extra armor?

That's impressive. I focus on block which probably explains why it outranks my heavy armor 80:60. I can solo cats and bears using stoneflesh and a few potions. I guess that's what I mean by challenging - marginally more so.

If I were a modder, I'd like to focus on refining combat and crafting. Any chance of someone pointing me in the right direction to learn? I've never done it before but I have a decent grounding in a few programming languages and I'm a graphic artist by trade so I figure it wouldn't hurt to try.
 

abija

Prophet
Joined
May 21, 2011
Messages
2,892
I just used that time slow from block to avoid every power attack and hit them during it. Most fauna seems to spam power attacks.
I had less than 30 armor when I capped block, since it seems armor doesn't account at all when you block, not even for dmg that bypasses it.
 

sea

inXile Entertainment
Developer
Joined
May 3, 2011
Messages
5,698
Kaol said:
Just discovered the sprint button on my 3rd playthrough.
How the fuck are you people finishing this game so quickly?
 

hiver

Guest
They dont. They just start over with different character after a while.
 

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