Is raising the difficulty level adding more fun to the game?

[miyel19]

I mostly played with the normal default Adept difficulty throughout a whole run.
Experiencing at a certain level that you get overpowered because most of the enemies that level up with you don't level up anymore past level 50 or so.
It has its own thrill: building up your character and feeling that you become almost invulnerable at some time, as a reward to the skill choices and Enchanting and Smithing you did.

For example, in my current rerun, specializing in Combat and Stealth, I did the reputation quest Silver Lining for the Thieves Guild at level 27. Wow, that was hard and fun! The Pinewatch hideout is HUGE, with a lot of strong bandits. Several times I almost died, using all my potions, even if I thought that I already had a decent armor rating and decent attacks. The fun thing keeping the same difficulty level is that at some point you can return to this place and take your "revenge" by killing all bandits more easily :)

So I always took the overpowered aspect as a reward and was quite happy with it. But replaying the game several times makes me wonder. When you are level 50, 60 or more, you have generally done most of the quests, So what is the point of raising the difficulty level for the few quests remaining?
Or do you suggest to choose a higher difficulty level right at the beginning of the game, or at least when you are level 20 or so and starting to have some good resistances? Maybe the second option raises the fun, allowing you to have challenges left until the last quests?
How do you deal with this?
Anyway, I hope that in the next Elder Scrolls, enemies will level up with you until the end, or that there will be more stronger enemies like the Ebony Warrior or Karstaag to keep challenges left without changing anything!

[alexander_dougherty]

increasing the difficulty just downgrades how much damage you do while increasing how much damage enemies deal.... past a certain point it isn't fun, just tedious.

[Lady Aeleanor]

I have always found that if I up the difficulty level, I have no trouble with bandits and the like. But now the game will throw tougher dragons at you, like Serpentine, higher-level Ancients and others that you wouldn't have normally encountered at a lower level. Then you die, or come close to it. I have found that vampires can really knock your health down with cold spells, even on a lower level, regardless of cold resistance items you may have. On higher difficulties, and more than one on you, your health can drop SO fast.

[SpeedFreak1972]

Nope it changes very little it's just a damage multiplier nothing more. I would say (as said) find the sweet spot and use mods to make it more interesting

[Vlad 254]

I start with Legendary difficulty and with mods. But finding the sweet spot did not happen overnight for me, matter of fact it might be never ending as the goal posts seem to keep shifting. Experiment.

[Haethei]

The game isn't exactly balanced and certain builds work way better for higher difficulty than others, even if your game uses mods like Wildcat and Ordinator this is still true, and obviously it depends on how good you are at different play styles

On Legendary in unmodded game, you're basically expected to use every single tool you have available to win. Since you have most tools available to you without any requirements, you end up doing the same things every time you play. Make god potions, level enchanting, level smithing, start fights with stealth archery before using melee or spells, lure enemies into OP traps that deal insane amounts of damage

I suggest trying a mod that changes combat up and modifies the difficulty curve. Wildcat is a great combat mod that makes things less braindead (blocking is useful now) and you can modify all of the difficulty multipliers to be closer to something you enjoy. Some people enjoy fights that take a long time to finish, which just isn't usually something that happens in vanilla. The final boss dragon always dies in less than 20 seconds any time I fight him unmodded.

I also suggest combining the Wildcat mod with other mods by the same author. Ordinator for new perk trees, Apocalypse for new magic, Growl for new werewolf gameplay, Sacrosanct for new vampire gameplay. "Character Creation Overhaul" is great too if you enjoyed how every character was actually different from the others in older Elder Scrolls games

[miyel19]

Originally posted by TotallyNotABot:

The game isn't exactly balanced and certain builds work way better for higher difficulty than others, even if your game uses mods like Wildcat and Ordinator this is still true, and obviously it depends on how good you are at different play styles

On Legendary in unmodded game, you're basically expected to use every single tool you have available to win. Since you have most tools available to you without any requirements, you end up doing the same things every time you play. Make god potions, level enchanting, level smithing, start fights with stealth archery before using melee or spells, lure enemies into OP traps that deal insane amounts of damage

I suggest trying a mod that changes combat up and modifies the difficulty curve. Wildcat is a great combat mod that makes things less braindead (blocking is useful now) and you can modify all of the difficulty multipliers to be closer to something you enjoy. Some people enjoy fights that take a long time to finish, which just isn't usually something that happens in vanilla. The final boss dragon always dies in less than 20 seconds any time I fight him unmodded.

I also suggest combining the Wildcat mod with other mods by the same author. Ordinator for new perk trees, Apocalypse for new magic, Growl for new werewolf gameplay, Sacrosanct for new vampire gameplay. "Character Creation Overhaul" is great too if you enjoyed how every character was actually different from the others in older Elder Scrolls games

Since I had bad experiences with mods on my PC which almost died, I don't install them anymore ;)
Generally I prefer to make the best of a game as it is anyway, without mods.

In my current rerun, at level 31, I chose to upgrade my character through Smithing, Enchanting and Alchemy, by finding the required ingredients, without cheating and using the codes to get more gold or whatever. As for mods, I don't like to articificially enhance my character by acquiring material that I didn't earn by myself through the current game.

This way, I'm near the armor cap with enchanted Orcish armor and weapons, and with the Ancient Knowledge ability via the "Unfathomable Depths" quest in Riften. I didn't do a lot of quests yet. So the feeling to be strong for the remaining of the game is better, because it's more "earned". And I think I will enjoy more to do the many quests left with the character I built, even if it will seem too easy without changing the difficulty level.

I will continue to experiment. Maybe I'll increase the difficulty at some time, or maybe I'll start a new rerun and try to upgrade my character even more sooner as described to see if it's boring to be overpowered too soon or not, considering the merit you earned by doing this :)

[Tita Rolly]

Take the approach of raising difficulty can give you more immersion?

[Mr. Californication]

Originally posted by udUbdaWgz:

Finding the sweet spot for you is obviously the key.

When a game is easy for me Im bored and wasting my time unless the other aspects of the game are good.

Vanilla skyrim doesnt have much else going for it as the writing and quests are dull and generic and there is almost zero rpg components to the game.

Thus, I suggest a good couple combat mods as they will at least address that huge aspect of the game.

Well-made combat mods do not just create damage sponges, but, add rpg mechanics and proper gameplay.

This is like whats keeping me from fully enjoying elder scrolls games, or latest bethesda games in general. Either the writing is ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ or the gameplay is dull and generic. Crimson Desert looks like the perfect answer to this.

[ladyeternity]

Originally posted by miyel19:

I mostly played with the normal default Adept difficulty throughout a whole run.
Experiencing at a certain level that you get overpowered because most of the enemies that level up with you don't level up anymore past level 50 or so.
It has its own thrill: building up your character and feeling that you become almost invulnerable at some time, as a reward to the skill choices and Enchanting and Smithing you did.

For example, in my current rerun, specializing in Combat and Stealth, I did the reputation quest Silver Lining for the Thieves Guild at level 27. Wow, that was hard and fun! The Pinewatch hideout is HUGE, with a lot of strong bandits. Several times I almost died, using all my potions, even if I thought that I already had a decent armor rating and decent attacks. The fun thing keeping the same difficulty level is that at some point you can return to this place and take your "revenge" by killing all bandits more easily :)

So I always took the overpowered aspect as a reward and was quite happy with it. But replaying the game several times makes me wonder. When you are level 50, 60 or more, you have generally done most of the quests, So what is the point of raising the difficulty level for the few quests remaining?
Or do you suggest to choose a higher difficulty level right at the beginning of the game, or at least when you are level 20 or so and starting to have some good resistances? Maybe the second option raises the fun, allowing you to have challenges left until the last quests?
How do you deal with this?
Anyway, I hope that in the next Elder Scrolls, enemies will level up with you until the end, or that there will be more stronger enemies like the Ebony Warrior or Karstaag to keep challenges left without changing anything!

When I played default, I just had the slider on expert to start then upped it to master once I started making my own things and enchanting.

Now, modded is a completely different tune. After so many thousands of hours playing Skyrim....LE and SE, I have settled on the following to make my game challenging:

The Curse: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/13176

Difficult Archery: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/56022

Realistic Melee Range: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/3378

Wildcat (do not always run this-have to disable most features to not conflict with Curse): https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/1368

Mortal Enemies: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/4881

Archery Gameplay Overhaul: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/24296

Experience (Very important): https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/17751

Skyrim Skill Uncapper (Very Important): https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/8889

Ultimate Deadly Encounters and Spawn (SoT or Sands of Time)(I do not always run this): https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/3093

KS Dragons Overhaul 2: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/19051

All the Wenches Mods -Deadly, Hateful and so on- ( I don't always run these): https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/595

High Level Enemies: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/3231

So basically I don't level unless I get exp through doing quests, exploring or combat. Skill use does not give exp. The uncapper allows me to control not only how easily skills increase and such but also at what stage they do so. I have it set up to be easier low level and very hard at high level. The experience mod caps your skills per level, so you cannot go over the cap for that level unless you...level. This slows you down and makes the game more challenging. It took some effort to set the experience mod up and the uncapper till they were just right and working the way I wanted. The Curse is an overhaul mod ( and is just completely amazing ), I have my entire load order built around it.

Anyway, not sure if any of this helps. :-)
After playing like this for so long, playing 'default' kinda feels like cheating :P Hehe

[SailaNamai]

Originally posted by ladyeternity:

Anyway, not sure if any of this helps. :-)

Totally agree on experience coupled with the uncapper and some of the others. Pretty much always running wildcat even if only for ai and the custom difficulty.
By chance have you found a mod that decreases/eliminates low level spawns? With almost level 60 i still encounter like level 20 bandits. Currently i have the game set to legendary and wildcat player damage to x0.25 (lowest possible) and enemy damage to x6.5 (i think times 8 is max).
Don't get me wrong getting stronger is certainly part of the experience but i'm running out of wiggle room to make the game harder...

Part of that is me trying ordinator fur the current run, while in the past i had mostly used adamant, which i much prefer. Ordinator is so stupidly broken from a gameplay perspective...

edIt: i realize you posted high level enemies, but i prefer a less intrusive solution.

[ralphtobybob]

I only use vanilla weapons and armor, except when a mod adds a weapon better than what I'm already using or capable of creating. In my mind though, nothing beats a dual enchanted dragonbone dagger.

The game gets stale once you've finished most of the quests. The highest level I've gotten to in vanilla is 84. My first play through was on Brokenrim, so I never finished some of the major storylines.

Leveling up before tackling the main quests is the way to go. Hair of the dog, in the form of dragon armor and weapons makes sense, too. I'm always running out of lesser soul gems and they seem to be scarce, so I try to get a stockpile ahead of time. At times the caravans will have multiple empty petty soul gems for sale but few if any lessers. The same goes for merchants and mages.

If you get to a relatively high level like 25-30+ and want to play some more before starting the main quests, try mods like Genesis, Sands of Time, Populated Cities etc. (legendary, hell and civil war editions) , Warzones, or Skyrim Immersive Creatures.

Most of them allow changing settings for time intervals and power settings.

[ladyeternity]

Originally posted by SailaNamai:

Originally posted by ladyeternity:

Anyway, not sure if any of this helps. :-)

Totally agree on experience coupled with the uncapper and some of the others. Pretty much always running wildcat even if only for ai and the custom difficulty.
By chance have you found a mod that decreases/eliminates low level spawns? With almost level 60 i still encounter like level 20 bandits. Currently i have the game set to legendary and wildcat player damage to x0.25 (lowest possible) and enemy damage to x6.5 (i think times 8 is max).
Don't get me wrong getting stronger is certainly part of the experience but i'm running out of wiggle room to make the game harder...

Part of that is me trying ordinator fur the current run, while in the past i had mostly used adamant, which i much prefer. Ordinator is so stupidly broken from a gameplay perspective...

edIt: i realize you posted high level enemies, but i prefer a less intrusive solution.

I use Curse for a ton of things. It has hunger (not obnoxious), it has specializations in the skill trees and you choose one per tree. It has overhauled perks. It's add tons of content, including crafting. It adds special mobs in that are 'cursed'.

https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/13176

However, even with all the mods I have in for balance the gameplay still drops off around 65-70. That's about when I increase the difficulty with KS. But you know, nothing really helps the killing too fast except a mod my husband uses. I don't use it but he swears by it. It's called Enemy Enhancer. He downloaded for SE a long, long time ago. I don't think it's available anymore however. You can still download it for Oldrim. Other that I don't know what can be done about the low level mobs. I've always thought that having an unleveled mod that at highend becomes a leveled mod would be great. So once you cap out...everything rises to that level. This way you get the best of both worlds. Until something like that I'll continue to restart around level 65-70ish.

Sorry for all the edits, was talking on the phone at the same time as posting, which made my post sound like I was 2. hahaha

[unweptbuzzard16]

I've noticed that for me, the funnest difficulty is expert, difficult enough to where everything feels rewarding, but not so difficult that the game is impossible.

[Haethei]

Originally posted by unweptbuzzard16:

I've noticed that for me, the funnest difficulty is expert, difficult enough to where everything feels rewarding, but not so difficult that the game is impossible.

Yes I usually prefer to run Adept at the very start of the game when your character is weak, then Expert once I'm ready for it, usually only like level 5-10

[SailaNamai]

Originally posted by ladyeternity:

I use Curse for a ton of things. It has hunger (not obnoxious), it has specializations in the skill trees and you choose one per tree. It has overhauled perks. It's add tons of content, including crafting. It adds special mobs in that are 'cursed'.
https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/13176

I checked it out and saw your comment on the nexus
I do agree it looks interesting but it's more of a build your game around me mod. I might do that. For now that's not a feasible option though i did save it for future consideration.

Originally posted by ladyeternity:

Enemy Enhancer

Did have a quick look at it and seems promising. I'd have to look at it's scripts first and then decide. Don't know maybe it's just me but i always need to be carefull about not adding too many (heavy) scripts. Thanks :)

Originally posted by ladyeternity:

I'll continue to restart around level 65-70ish

That's what we have to do. I guess it's a good thing in a way. Used to run out of stuff to do because there was not enough content, now i have too much stuff to do. In a sense the content has finally beaten the leveling system.

Originally posted by ladyeternity:

I've always thought that having an unleveled mod that at highend becomes a leveled mod would be great. So once you cap out...everything rises to that level. This way you get the best of both worlds. Until something like that I'll continue to restart around level 65-70ish.

Pretty much what i'm looking for. Hm i guess uncapping the upper end of the level range for dungeons and the like would be somewhat of a remedy. I'll take a look at it in xedit. Shouldn't be hard to do, just possibly tedious...
edit: Thinking about it that would obviously be detrimental to low level characters. I guess some research is in order.