Skyrim: Game Balance Issues?

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Yefo

New Member
First of all, I love Skyrim. I've only had it for a not quite two weeks and already have 80 hours logged lol...

However, I've come to notice two big problems with Skyrim's game balance.

1. Destruction perk "impact".
This perk allows you to stagger enemies when dual casting most destruction spells. However, it allows you to stun lock pretty much any enemy in the game, including dragons. The stun part needs to not happen 100% of the time or not work against certain enemies in order for it to not be over powered.

2. Stacking magic resist makes you invincible against Dragons and Dragon Priests
These are supposed (I think, I'm not done with the game yet) to be the toughest enemies in the game. However, if you have enough magic resist, it's nearly impossible to die (dragons can still kill you if you get too close, but they're pretty slow moving once on the ground and easy to avoid). As a Breton, if you get the Lord stone, Otar Mask (30 res to fire, frost, and shock), and a magic resist ring, you're basically invincible.

I guess the beauty of a game like this is that you don't HAVE to use things that are overpowered. However, between stun lock and being nearly immune to magic, my Breton no longer has any challenging fights.

Anybody know any good mods that address balance issues?
 

Dagmar

Defender of the Bunnies of Skyrim
What difficulty setting do you use?
 

Yefo

New Member
I'm on Adept. I guess I could bump that up, I kinda forgot about it.

However, I don't need the dragon priests to be any harder for my characters when I'm NOT stacking magic resist lol, they're hard enough. I guess I could just move the difficulty slider around for each character.

Although that still doesn't solve the problem of impact being an OP perk. I could just not use it, but it'd be nice if instead it worked 50% of the time or didn't work on certain opponents or something.
 

Windress

Active Member
Your best bet here is just to up the difficulty level from here for all your characters.

Does upping the difficulty affect the consistency or effectiveness in perks in addition to making your opponents more difficult? It'd be kind of cool if it did, but I've never researched the possibility.
 

Dagmar

Defender of the Bunnies of Skyrim
Does upping the difficulty affect the consistency or effectiveness in perks in addition to making your opponents more difficult? It'd be kind of cool if it did, but I've never researched the possibility.
No. The difficulty setting only affects your damage and damage inflicted on you by mob attacks.
 

Couthful

Tamriel Adventurer
I have personally found the biggest imbalances with the crafting skills, especially when used together, the player must hold back in order to NOT become an unstoppable beast.
 
The only thing I find unbalanced are the overpowered perks:

-Conditioning: Heavy armor weighs nothing and doesn't slow you down when worn.

-Unhindered: Light armor weighs nothing and doesn't slow you down when worn.

-Unbreakable: Lock picks never break.

-Perfect touch: Can pickpocket equipped items.

-Silent roll: Sprinting while sneaking executes a silent forward roll.

These perks are so unrealistic and they ruin the game, the only exception is silent roll, what makes silent roll unbalanced is that you can use over and over again, immediately after each time.
 

OoieGooie

New Member
The thing is, some people like to be invincible. It shows in many games where people will cheat to beat the game. On the other hand you have those who like a challenge (me) and will gear\skill up accordingly.

In Skyrim, its important to role play a little. Give your character some personality and do things your way, not the game way. I don't use Alch, Blacksmith or RuneCrafting at all and find the game far better. Plus it removes the annoying "crafting" concept. No need for mods to force you to play a special way.
 

Couthful

Tamriel Adventurer
The thing is, some people like to be invincible. It shows in many games where people will cheat to beat the game. On the other hand you have those who like a challenge (me) and will gear\skill up accordingly.

In Skyrim, its important to role play a little. Give your character some personality and do things your way, not the game way. I don't use Alch, Blacksmith or RuneCrafting at all and find the game far better. Plus it removes the annoying "crafting" concept. No need for mods to force you to play a special way.
Agree with what you've said especially about adding a little of your own RP to TES, it goes a long way and factors into your play style changing each play through.
 

Windress

Active Member
The thing is, some people like to be invincible. It shows in many games where people will cheat to beat the game. On the other hand you have those who like a challenge (me) and will gear\skill up accordingly.

In Skyrim, its important to role play a little. Give your character some personality and do things your way, not the game way. I don't use Alch, Blacksmith or RuneCrafting at all and find the game far better. Plus it removes the annoying "crafting" concept. No need for mods to force you to play a special way.

I agree completely, and I just wanted to add that I think Bethesda is keeping in mind the mainstream nature of gaming as well. Now more than ever before, people who do not typically play video games are becoming interested in RPGs like this. These casual players may not have the tactical perspective or hand-eye coordination to bring the gameplay experience of Skyrim to its (hypothetical) knees. I imagine this type of player rather appreciates the "assistance" that some of these more forgiving perks offer.
 

BIGwooly

Well-Known Member
Windress is right on the money. Bethesda has consistently 'dumbed down' the series since I started playing with Morrowind. For a hardcore role-player it kind of sucks, but I can't totally fault Bethesda for wanting to reach a larger sales market for their game.

I find a lot unbalanced in Skyrim, but I just choose to play with restrictions to make the game more realistic, challenging and fun for myself.

I would agree that smithing/enchanting are the huge imbalances, but I would argue the carry limit is equally unbalanced. Because you're allowed to carry so much right off the bat (300 no matter what race you choose as I understand it), you can literally clean out entire dungeons and sell it all off. Next thing you know you're only level 5 and you've already got more gold than you can spend. Game broken (unless you just like being a rich god, lol).

I think restricting your carry limit is the first step (other than avoiding smithing/enchanting) to a more balanced game experience.
 

brandon

Active Member
i have the perk that makes destruction magic stagger opponits. but it only works on the lower enemies. it doesnt do much to the bigger bad guys. it only makes a blood dragon shrug his shoulder and then hes right back into his attack. but im playing on adept right now. i tried the next difficuly above it and i die more then i should. but the way i play with my mage is ill hide and use fury on the first person i see. that way ill know how many people are around them. if they just run back and forth looking for someone then ill lay down a lightning rune and go in with conjured swords. if a battle ensues i reposition and use fury till one person is running around looking for someone. as for over powering my character i did this on my first guy. and he didnt get way over powerd till i was at lvl 30. i had dragonscale armor deadric bows and maces. my sneak was at 100. i was 1-2 hitting ancient dragons and giants. dragon preist couldnt hurt me and i got bored before i got to lvl 50. so after that i started restricting my characters to only play and wear what i thought looked cool and fits their personnality. i dont let my mage carry more then 200 lbs. i didnt let my theif/assassin use anything other then the blades swords and daggers, bows. that sorta thing. i made my mage wear clothes till he found someone to train him in armor. now hes wearing ancient nord armor. cause he learned how to wear heavy armor. he has a sword because of the dude in whiterun tought him how to use it. so yes its easy to make someone over powered. if you do it and dont like it then start using some restrictions. itll still be a fun game and you dont lose that sense of accomplishment you had after a hard fight.
 

brandon

Active Member
You can pretty much caress an npc's balls without them even seeing you.
oh that feels good. whats going on????
 

brandon

Active Member

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