What difficulty is Skyrim meant to be played on??

[mytomanen_bre]

I've serached the internet far and wide and i only get "play as you wish" and "it's scaling, just play as you want to"...

What difficulty did bethesda intend skyrim to be played on? Adept (medium/normal)?
Because i've run through the games tons of times (600h+) and i really want to experience Skyrim the way the devs intended me too, not too easy, not too hard..

[SpeedFreak1972]

adept or expert comes to my mind.

[UnderDog]

Yeah same here.

[granim]

Adapt is too easy, play at expert. The harder difficulties can be played as well, but for me they border on frustration over more enjoyment b/c of the challange.

[gnewna]

The game is balanced for Adept to be the default, Expert to be the more challenging but still basically balanced mode. Master was the original 'hardest' difficulty, Legendary was patched in because apparently people like damage sponge enemies and weaksauce Dovahkiin who can be killed in one shot by a crummy bandit. Of course, it's fairly easy to become OP on Adept if you use all three crafting skills and grind them up early, at which point, you can up the difficulty a notch to Expert, or Master if you really went overboard.

[mytomanen_bre]

Upon further investigation,i found that adept makes the player damage 1x and player damage taken 1x, so adept is possibly the way the game is meant to be played, because moving the difficulty up or down makes the damage +/- and damage taken +/-, so adept is "normal".

[Archnecrotyr]

Novice = To Easy

Apprentice = To Easy

Adept = To Easy

Expert = To Easy

Master = To Easy

Legendary = The only sensible way to play.

[gnewna]

Nah, Legendary's just tedious, if you want difficulty and you're on PC then there's far better ways to make the game tougher than just making everything way stronger than you but still basically the same level etc.

[Archnecrotyr]

Originally posted by gnewna:

Nah, Legendary's just tedious, if you want difficulty and you're on PC then there's far better ways to make the game tougher than just making everything way stronger than you but still basically the same level etc.

For sure. I already use a ton of mods that make the base game actually tougher. I use all the SkyRe modules, Dance of Death, Duel Combat Realism v7 Hardcore to name a few of my favorites.

You can really use any of the difficulty mods out there. But, at the end of the day, turning that little "slider" up to Legendary will give you the biggest increase in difficulty over mods.

Turning it on while using those mods may just be suicide in your opinion, which is fine, that's how you view it. For ME though, it is the ultimate challenge.

[raubrey]

Adept is suppose to be "Normal" difficulty, (as the name implies) which means for persons experienced with ARPGs. But for many, Expert is closer to Normal.

The thing is that people get tied up with difficulty levels when they are going to vay by player and also do little to make the AI different. As stated, that is what mods are for -- if you really want more challenging play that is smarter and not just a damage/health modifier.

What Bethesda does right is allow you to change the difficulty in-game on the fly. The game is pretty gear-dependent too, unless you're an alchemy whiz or a thief that finds enough potions. Flame and Frost resists (or even Magic resist) becomes rather essential but also eventually really impacts difficulty. Nords, Dark Elves and even Bretons seem to have an easier time of it with their resists.

There are some spikes in difficulty with certain creatures and named enemies. Dragon Priests, Frost Trolls, Mini Bosses like The Butcher, Deathlords, Dwemer Ruins (until you reach higher level) etc.

Also, if you do things like craft, start building your house right away, or even take up thieving, you're going to level up without improving your combat abilities much so that will make the game harder initially.

A lot of people here have played the game double-digit times and forget what it was like the first time. I say, start the game on Adept and adjust the game as/if needed.

To me the game was meant to be fairly easy going whereas you're encouraged to explore but may well get your rear-end handed to you with some enemies -- such the perils of sticking your nose into caves and ruins.

If you're enjoying the game, I'd stick with vanilla as many have for many hours before modding. But if not, the world of modding really changes the game (for better and worse).

To me, Fallout 3 (less so Vegas) easy mode is "harder" than Adept/Epert in that every encouter gives me pause until well into the double-digit level and even then with the need to repair gear etc. That kind of difficulty require modding.

[TSense]

Legendary is madness.
Half naked human takes, no joke, 50 arrorws.
Dragonborn vampierlord in steelarmor with magic takes 1

[gnewna]

Yeah, it's not the difficulty of Legendary that bothers me (Requiem is one of my all-time favourite mods, and I play as an Altmer mage with no armour and only 190 HP which is more 'suicidal' than any Legendary setting), it's the fact that it makes NO sense. I'm supposedly some kind of goddess on Nirn, yet I am weaker than literally every other human, elf etc I might ever be likely to fight? Even in steel plate armour with elven weapons going up against bandits in fur kilts with crappy iron daggers and hunting bows? Nah, that's not 'difficult', it's just silly.

[Blixa]

raubrey and gnewna put it right - if you balance your skills (combat / crafting) very carefully you might have fun even on expert to master level. Legendary, i guess is supposed to set after you have gear that one-hit most enemies and making the game boring for you.
imo Bethesda want you to enjoy the game - if you like it easy go down, if you need the challenge turn it up :) - if they didn´t want you to have that choice, why giving the on-the-fly option?!

[mytomanen_bre]

Thx for the replies guys.

[Oh No I am now a snake demon!]

Originally posted by Archnecrotyr:

Novice = To Easy

Apprentice = To Easy

Adept = just right

Expert = oh god why is everything so invincible?

Master = 1 shotted by everything even at full heavy armor and even your most powerful attacks do nothing

Legendary = if you can call it playing.

FTFY

How anyone can find anything past Adept even playable is beyond me. Everything is just too tough to the point of not even fun. Hell even at adept your pushing it. I almost got destroyed by a random mage after killing Miraak while as vampire lord. DAFUQ

[Archnecrotyr]

Originally posted by Wildest Memes:

Originally posted by Archnecrotyr:

Novice = To Easy

Apprentice = To Easy

Adept = just right

Expert = oh god why is everything so invincible?

Master = 1 shotted by everything even at full heavy armor and even your most powerful attacks do nothing

Legendary = if you can call it playing.

FTFY

How anyone can find anything past Adept even playable is beyond me. Everything is just too tough to the point of not even fun. Hell even at adept your pushing it. I almost got destroyed by a random mage after killing Miraak while as vampire lord. DAFUQ

Was the mage using fire? Cause you get the same weaknesses as a vampire lord that normal vamps do. Also, the vanilla games vampires/vampire lords are retardedly weak.