Skyrim Difficulty

[deskchairlamnp]

Hello Everyone,

 

So, after playing Skyrim for quite some time I started to feel that it's very, very hard to die in this game, it doesn't present any challenges. For example, my character, an archer/swordsman is a breeze on normal difficulty(apprentice and adept) and nothing presents much of a challenge in expert as well (expect for OP (in my opinion) spell caster npc's ).

 

When I experienced this, I though "Ok, it's time to ramp the difficulty scale up to master". The problem here is that on Master, everything isn't more difficult, it's just that enemies have a lot more HP and takes 10 minutes to slash one down (I'm not using any op weapons or anything). Naturally, it gets quite booooooring slashing at the enemies. In addition to that the A.I. is quite bad and your companions never seem to die, when they are on low hp they "surrender" or something, and enemies don't finish them off, they just attack you. Not to mention enemies survive multiple shots with a daedric bow and arrow to the head, on a level 100 archery skill (should I aim at their knees ? ).

 

So my question : Is there a mod that makes the game challenging in a natural way, the A.I. better and one that tries to dodge your attacks ? Example, Dark /Demon Souls - excellent combat, very difficult, but not in a annoying way. Maybe lowering the health of both PC and NPC, so that fights wouldn't be tedious (seriously, played dragonborn, was fighting one of the quest bosses on Master, it took 5 minutes to slash him down, while I took minimal damage and would not have died in the first place, having around 50 potions of health). Also, why all enemies seem to use only 1-2 attack types, I never saw them shield bashing or anything, never saw them getting out of the way of a 2ft greatsword too.... or out of a dragon , clearly preparing to burn them.

 

I hope I'm not the only one feeling like this(Dragons though, dragons have pretty awesome fighting mechanics, the only ones that you can really enjoy, since they supposed to have a lot of health and all). 

 

TL;DR - Skyrim too easy; A.I. too stupid; Master difficulty just adds Health.

 

Sincerely,

DeskChairLamp

 

P.S. : Sorry for my grammar mistakes, English is not my first language. 

[Randgríðr]

[ Requiem ] is in Fact a massive Overhaul, which greatly increases Difficulty (, imo).

I also got it, cause I'm rolling on Master Difficulty and the only Things able to kill Me are some Caster that sometimes even onehit Me (prior to Installation of Requiem).

[Guest ThatOne]

Unfortunately, as with Oblivion (can't talk about morrowind, never played it) and many, many other games the challenge lies in the early-game, where you have less options available to you.

When you just start out, traps on master difficulty can probably one-hit-kill you, or exploring a dwarven ruin at level three might get you a level thirty end boss (this actually happened to me. Not that I got killed - see below).

 

Yes, the AI is incredibly bad; if you just press back and keep attacking you'll notice that 90% of the melee opponents can't hurt you. Found a melee boss vastly above your level? Hit the back button and just attack in melee forward and they'll just walk up to you and maybe hit the air once in a while. Maybe.

As for your companions, that's actually a feature... Because the developers realised the AI was bad, they made your companions "essential", which means they can't die.

 

As for master difficulty taking too long to down opponents... Try using smithing to enchant your weapon, enchanting to give yourself bonus damage percents etc. You'll notice everything dies in one or two hits then. Dragons take all of two seconds with the attackspeed shout.

 

The game has a few more flaws (such as the calm spell being a little too effective, invisibility allowing for infinite sneak-attacks, multiple enchantments allowing for free spells, the freakishly powerful attack speed shout that allows you to cut down entire armies without being hit once etc). You'll have to balance it out yourself by role-playing, because otherwise you are God of your game.

 

... And, about magic, try using the atronauch stone. I found it "levels the playing field" coupled with an element resist potion when dealing with very powerful bosses at low levels.

 

If you want a challenging game, try DotA 2 - because only a human opponent can outplay you on the same grounds.

-TO

[Remy]

I was using e.r.s.o (http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/26217/?tab=3&navtag=%2Fajax%2Fmodimages%2F%3Fuser%3D0%26id%3D26217) and it did a pretty good job at making the enemies really hard, sometimes i had to lower the dificulty to novice to survive...well i tried many mods that changed ai and difficulty, but to be honest...skyrim simply isnt made to be challenging and even with these mods i never felt im playing tactically, its press action button all the time...but give it a shot you might like it.

[Dude500X]

Skyre is what you want.  ASIS as well and I "think" the two work together but I know ASIS has had an update, also, Skyre will likely get a Dragonborn update soon too.

 

Skyre also requires Dawnguard.

[Incandescence]

I've had this problem too. I've tried ASIS and a plugin for Skyrim Monster Mod(not updated for ages...) that increases spawns. I'll definitely try out the other mods posted here too

 

Increased Spawns plugins tend to cause CTDs for me, not that often and its irregular... I dunno what the glitch is because it won't log, but it's something to be aware of. I've found it's generally safe in dungeons but outside in Skyrim I can sometimes CTD, both ASIS and Increased Spawns plugin.

 

There's a good mod called Enhanced high-level gameplay(steam), which adds some higher level draugr and such for when above Lv 45. Also: Skyrim Overhaul: Enemies(steam) adds scaling to enemies, I've only just installed this one so I can't really comment yet.

 

Master Difficulty comes with both increased health and damage. The problem you're having is because of the abusability of armour, so if you do exploit it your characters toughness will increase exponentially, while difficulty increases laterally.

 

I prefer increased spawns to combat this. But really all you need to do for a challenge is not go above 1000 armour total.

 

Lastly: if you're a mage and you've installed overhauls or extra spells, beware of that. I totally agree mages are underpowered in vanilla compared to other options, but even something like adding an extra potential conjuration can break the game... 3 dremora lords ruins a lot of enemies all on its own...

[squints]

Only real big stick I have with Skyrim is the Stealth attacks. Kind of wish once you hit someone with a stealth attack, the npcs around the target would stay alert in a similar fashion like in Far Cry 3. Currently we have this

 

[Kashked]

[ Requiem ] is in Fact a massive Overhaul, which greatly increases Difficulty (, imo).

I also got it, cause I'm rolling on Master Difficulty and the only Things able to kill Me are some Caster that sometimes even onehit Me (prior to Installation of Requiem).

 

 

^

That. Requiem is probably the best mod around when it comes to gameplay IMHO. I used 5 companions for bleak falls barrow and still had to reload a bunch of times. Battles are intense, and generally, SHORT. Either you win or not, 2-3 hits kills you as a low level character. 

 

I've gotten to lvl 7, light armour, and any bandit I run into can kill me with one or two well placed hits. Dragons and the like one-hit kills me. I don't even want to talk about my run-in with a Storm (I think it was called), which I encountered at level 5, as Requiem totally removes all aspects of adapting the game to your level. 

 

So yeah, get it, and feel the pain.