Game too "difficult"?

[Imbaland]

The title is a bit misleading, but I know it will draw a large number of elitist epeen measurers, who can no doubt give me some semi-valid input. Because I have only ever played this game on master difficulty, and even then I only have one character, I didn't know whether to specifically complain about the difficulty of this setting, or whether the game as a whole was like this, However:

My experience of Skyrim has been one of ups and downs. On the one hand, the exploration is amazing, and Skyrim does it better than any other in my opinion. On the other hand, the combat has been the single most depressing aspect of any game I have ever played. Let me go into some detail.

I play an archer (82 archery, 87 sneak), and as mentioned previously I play on master difficulty. Fighting enemies has been horrendous from the start. My first strategy was to shoot as many arrows as I could, then fight with 1H+shield (I didn't know about sneaking yet lol). This was a joke because in most cases I would take a power hit directly through my shield which would kill me in one shot. This is how almost every encounter went. Because of the pitiful stamina, I could interrupt 2 to 3 power attacks before I was completely drained. If I somehow managed to survive an entire hit, an execution animation would almost always follow shortly after, with my character becoming uncontrollable, as he waited to be skewered.

As I learned more about the game and became less of a noob, I learned that the best (see: only) way to defeat powerful enemies was to exploit the poor AI as best I could. This would entail shooting an NPC 2-3 times in the head, and then sneaking away into the shadows, waiting for him to attribute his new head jewellery to "the wind" or "jumpy nerves". I would need to repeat this 8-12 times before the NPC died, taking about 10 minutes. Now this combat was painful and thoroughly un-enjoyable, but I did it because I liked exploring.

However, now I am expected to fight dragons. I've killed two dragons so far, both of whome were apart of quests lines, so they were really easy as someone else was around to tank the hits. At the moment however, I'm fighting a dragon without a designated tank, and it really is just plain stupid to be honest. One of three things seem to happen. The dragon circles over head and never lands, just flying at full speed, unable to be shot. Or, the dragon flies overhead, and whenever he chooses to, does a flyby frost breath, instantly killing me. Or, he lands and does a frost breath. If there is a nearby rock, I hide behind that, and get off 2-3 arrows before he flies away. This will often happen maybe once every minute or so, and those 3 arrows will deal about 3-4% of the dagons HP. I am not willing to wait this long to kill the dragon. If there isn't a rock nearby, he does a frost breath and I instantly die.

So, what I want to know is: am I missing some fundamental part of this game? The combat has seemed impossible from step 1, and it just isn't enjoyable. At the moment I do not bind 1-2-3-4 to all the various health potions and spam them endlessly, because I don't feel like reducing the combat to an even more stupid system.

[Smeikle]

The title is a bit misleading, but I know it will draw a large number of elitist epeen measurers, who can no doubt give me some semi-valid input.

This is probably not the way you want to lead into a question asking for help, as it probably (see: will) drive people away and/or take away any interest in offering you assistance.


That being said, what I gather from your summary is that you may need to upgrade some armor perks a bit. Since you are going the archer/sneak route, I am assuming you are using light armor? That stuff is like paper early game and will need some boosts to help keep you competitive, especially against baddies with two-handed weapons.

Secondly, the master difficulty is insanely challenging early game, so what you are going through is normal. I had a mudcrab one shot me, it was certainly an eye opener.

When you level up, are you dumping into health/stamina? If so, how much?

[UniversalCypher]

i do agree that combat can be a little bland at times, but i also find myself understanding of the fact that there are only so many ways to go into sword/shield/bow/magic combat. of course, bethesda could have spiced it up to make it more interesting, but the game design appears to go more towards the world > combat. i dont find it too bad, there is a lot to say for keeping your wits about you and figure out ways to compete in combat without going at it head on. i once lead a dragon half way across the map just to get into a good position to fight it, because i knew that i couldnt take it by myself and i needed help from the environment. i felt it was a satisfying battle after i won, because my plan worked.

that being said, take the combat for what its worth and try your best to maximize its potential..i know its pretty straight forward without any bells and whistles, but i believe that gives you more room to be creative.

im not so sure if this helps you. my suggestion is more philosophical than mechanical, but sometimes thats what battle is all about..



-UC

[Imbaland]

When you level up, are you dumping into health/stamina? If so, how much?

Pretty much 50/50 at the moment with 230hp 220 stamina or something similar. I started off going completely into stamina, as none of the stats seemed particularly useful for an archer, and I never intended to be hit in the first place.

[Sick_of_This]

I have only ever played this game on master difficulty

and it just isn't enjoyable.

Solution: Master difficulty isn't for you. Lower it to Expert, then Adept if you are still having problems. You can also raise it back up to Master later in the game when you're more powerful.

Pretty much 50/50 at the moment with 230hp 220 stamina or something similar. I started off going completely into stamina, as none of the stats seemed particularly useful for an archer, and I never intended to be hit in the first place.

Oh dear. Don't add any more to stamina. You don't need any points in stamina as an archer.

[Imbaland]

Solution: Master difficulty isn't for you. Lower it to Expert, then Adept if you are still having problems. You can also raise it back up to Master later in the game when you're more powerful.



Oh dear. Don't add any more to stamina. You don't need any points in stamina as an archer.

BUT
THE THINGS
I NEED TO CARRY ALL THE THINGS

On a more serious note, nothing seems to be that useful to an archer. As mentioned before, light armour is so weak that if you are taking damage, chances are you are already dead. Also, the skill trees (light armour in particular) seem badly thought out and kind of irrelevant. What I mean is; light armour is worn by thieve/archers/agile fighters. The reason you wear light armour is because you don't want to wear heavy armour. You don't particularly need all the extra armour because you aren't fighting head on for the most part, and because you need to be light. However, the light armour tree seems to completely miss this point, and try to turn the light armour into heavy armour. Why? I think 75% of the light armour tree points are for increasing the armour contribution of pieces, which kind of defeats the point in taking light armour in the first place. It should be a tree which increases damage/detectability/speed.

[Sick_of_This]

BUT
THE THINGS
I NEED TO CARRY ALL THE THINGS

On a more serious note, nothing seems to be that useful to an archer. As mentioned before, light armour is so weak that if you are taking damage, chances are you are already dead. Also, the skill trees (light armour in particular) seem badly thought out and kind of irrelevant. What I mean is; light armour is worn by thieve/archers/agile fighters. The reason you wear light armour is because you don't want to wear heavy armour. You don't particularly need all the extra armour because you aren't fighting head on for the most part, and because you need to be light. However, the light armour tree seems to completely miss this point, and try to turn the light armour into heavy armour. Why? I think 75% of the light armour tree points are for increasing the armour contribution of pieces, which kind of defeats the point in taking light armour in the first place. It should be a tree which increases damage/detectability/speed.

Light armour is really no weaker than Heavy armour. though with my play style I've barely touched the perks. However the idea is that it's viable for melee and direct combat just as much as Heavy is.

The left side of the perk "tree" increases speed, lowers weight and the final perk is one of those that could make the difference between living and dying. Feel I should note, that increasing your speed and lowering/removing the weight of armour both benefit stealth directly/indirectly.

As for tactics, are you making liberal use of Alchemy? You should be using poisons a lot, especially in the early game where your attacks will be quite feeble.

[Imbaland]

Light armour is really no weaker than Heavy armour. though with my play style I've barely touched the perks. However the idea is that it's viable for melee and direct combat just as much as Heavy is.

The left side of the perk "tree" increases speed, lowers weight and the final perk is one of those that could make the difference between living and dying. Feel I should note, that increasing your speed and lowering/removing the weight of armour both benefit stealth directly/indirectly.

As for tactics, are you making liberal use of Alchemy? You should be using poisons a lot, especially in the early game where your attacks will be quite feeble.

I either one shot the NPC, or shoot 3 arrows and hide. This is the only strategy I use. Its just very very boring.

[laquak]

Skyrim combat in a nutshell yo.

melee = hack n slash
archery = ♥♥♥♥ n shoot
magery = ♥♥♥♥ n shoot

It wins greately in exploration though.

I'd like a game like Skyrim but set in the chinese dynasty era where you learn forms and manuevers or fighting. Sure Skyrim has a power attack and a backward attack but its like i dont know you just do it. *shrugs*