Razgon
1821
A game that is so obviously moddable isn’t about balance at all - With two keystrokes you can become a god using the console commands. With the toolsets in the Elder scroll games you can do anything, so no, its not about balance at all.
Its a singleplayer game, and its mean to be an experience, and its meant to be an experience like you want it to be, thus, the 1000 different ways you can tweak and modify the game.
Frankly, MMO’s have skewered people’s perception on games regarding “Balance” and the need for it.
StGabe
1822
I agree that there should be some/better balance. First of all a lot of players can’t/won’t mod because they play on consoles. Secondly, there should be a good core game there no matter what – modding is an optional experience. I’m not playing this game so that I can get a game balance patched in by some armchair game designer 3 months from now. I’ll have moved on to other games by then.
I still don’t like the level scaling. It’s ok some times but then there are times when you pick up a quest or go to an area early then head back and find out that you’ve locked in trivial scaling. I don’t see what’s so bad with just setting difficulty settings for areas. I like going some place and getting my ass handed to me. It makes it that much more satisfying when I return and vanquish.
Other than that it’s a pretty solid game. I’m just getting bored because the content is so trivial and my only other option is to restart (no thanks). I bumped the difficulty up but didn’t really notice much difference. I’ll keep playing for the story but I’m probably going to do a little less exploring and focus on just the main quest (I’d already done quite a bit exploring so I’m content with that).
Tony_M
1823
I actually wish there was more level scaling. I’m constantly pushing the difficulty level up and down. I sleepwalk through a bunch of fights on Expert, then get destroyed in the next fight. If they’re not going to have level scaling they need to have more consistent “dangerous areas” and “easy areas”, not such a consistently mixed set of encounters everywhere I travel.
Razgon
1824
Level scaling is there to allow an open-world game exploration game, which is what the Elder Scroll games are all about. Locking in difficulty funnels the player in his/her options.
Can I ask what level you are since you find all content trivial? At 43 Elder dragons are still a tough fight, and some others can still make me sweat.
That said, this is after 85 hours of gameplay time, so yeah, pretty damn great game.
Sebmojo
1825
I turned off the compass and floating quest arrows in the .ini (skyrimprefs) and it’s vastly more immersive. You really don’t need the compass with the map right there.
I think it works amazingly well. I feel generally quite powerful but often have to retry tough fights. And I can explore the world in the order I like. Have a look at the Gothic series if you want areas you can’t safely enter til you are levelled up.
noun
1827
I am deliriously happy with this game.
Agreed (although MMOs aren’t the only games that do need it). This “it’s so unbalanced” is a constant complaint with every Elder Scrolls game, and I just don’t get it. Don’t want to break the game? Don’t break the game. Do you people really have so little self control that you can’t just not do the things that will make the game stop being fun for you? If you’re complaining about balance and playing on the PC, was your first act after installing the game to open up the console and make yourself an invincible superdude who one-shots everything in the game?
Guys, the entire purpose of these games is to give the player lots and lots of freedom, including the freedom to break the game if that’s what they want to do. It’s not balanced because it’s not supposed to be.
What are you folks’ strategies for soul stealing? I now have the ‘can refuel’ perk, for what it’s worth.
I have a flaming sword of mucho damage that requires a lot of recharges. I’m tempted to make another that requires less as it gets fiddly to use. I also don’t yet have the ability to dual-enchant, so I’m thinking of maybe grabbing this glass dagger I picked up and sticking a 3 second soul suck on it and using it as a combat opener on stuff I want to nick before switching to the flaming doom. Alternately, make two awesome swords, one flames, one soul stealing and just whip out the flaming one for particularly challenging enemies. I’d be happy with that also as once I get toe-to-toe with bad folks I’m easily about to nobble them.
Yeah I found a dagger with 6-seconds soul steal so I switch to that when I have enemies I want to trap almost dead. I could also cast the spell, but that’s not really my style
Best way to do it as a non-caster is to find a weapon with soul trap on it, disenchant it, then enchant a good weapon of your preferred type with soul trap 1 second. Even a lesser or common soul will give you hundreds of charges for that, so you don’t really need to worry about running out. Then just carry that along with your main weapon and equip it whenever you want to start accumulating souls… just make sure you have a lot of empty gems of all sizes so you don’t end up wasting your better ones.
DeepT
1832
Just DE the dagger to learn the enchant, then put it on your main weapon with a 1 second duration and like 200 charges. I found it was far to hard to try and fight the right monsters with the right sized soul-gems. I just buy grand soul-gems from vendors already filled.
How to afford that? Just enchant iron daggers with something like stamina damage which makes them very valuable to sell. Sell them to the blacksmiths and general vendors. Buy all the empty petty and lesser soul gems you can. It is a big money circle with you getting rich and gaining enchanting skill.
Ta. I have a sword like that already but I can’t help think a sword of dooming magic users would be jolly nice to have around. A dagger would be light so I should try a 5 or so second souls steal on one and then use the other blade for the real business.
I don’t really know how people can play this game without modding the carry capacity. Between weapons, shield, heavy armor, bow, magical staffs, ingredients, potions, food (both “raw” and processed), books, mineral ore and processed metals, and stolen items you can’t sell easily, it’s almost impossible to play without doubling the capacity first.
Yes, you can choose a place of operation and do frequent travels to store and use items, but that’s annoying and it doesn’t adds up anything to the game, having fast travel.
I suppose it’s also because I am doing a “do everything” run, which will be the only one I will do, so i am a heavy warrior / archer / alchemist / smith / thief.
I won’t spoil why, but also the College of Winterhold quest line is extremely lucrative in terms of Grand souls. Which are the only souls. All of the other ones are strictly for skilling up only.
Aren’t you going to find that too fiddly? Putting it on a good weapon lets you just kill everything with it and have dozens of souls the next time you check your inventory, instead of having to equip/unequip/reequip your soul trap weapon for each enemy.
Razgon
1837
Yeah - Grab two weapons…one with the soul trap and then use it for 20 minutes or so on enemies, and then you have a bagfull of soulgems and can switch to your Sword of Uberdamage +1, +3 vs ice demons.
Agreed. This is like the old complaint of saving anywhere ruins the tension. Don’t like it? Then, don’t do it.
I tried turning off quest markers at first. Then I missed an item on the ground during an early quest, so I turned them back on. I haven’t noticed too many other situations like that. But I’d hate to have to check the map all the time, especially with the stupid local map overlay that needs to be toggled.
I found with the compass showing goals I tended to make a beeline for them, whereas without it I make more effort read the terrain and use sensible routes, which feels a bit better.
