Forums » Elder Scrolls

What difficulty do you play Skyrim on?

    • 490 posts
    May 10, 2013 10:19 AM EDT

    Most of the time I play on Master, although Expert is probably the most balanced if you aren't a smither/alchemy/enchanting nutjob. Legendary was fun at first, but now it is just stupid. I would much rather have MORE enemies present in a fight than them just doing more damage and me doing less, kind of like my lrvious reference to Doom's Nightmare difficulty, coming out of thw woodwork!

    I did try to make an Orma character, where I lowered the brightness all the way down to simulate their blindness. That was weird, but the detect spells was cool to use for it.

    • 62 posts
    May 10, 2013 10:20 AM EDT

    I play on master or the new legendary setting if I'm using crafting skills, expert if I'm not. 

  • May 10, 2013 10:26 AM EDT

    There's a mod for that kind of difficulty, basically everyone does 200% damage including yourself.

    I play on master now but I have to say, the first levels are really annoying. Bandits 1 shooting you with iron weapons, and instantly locking the kill move animation right off the bat, it's just horrible.

    I'm playing a tanky character in heavy armor and using a shield... was in block mode, and a bandit marauder still managed to ignore the block and skip straight to the kill move. There's nothing to be done about it.

    Though by level 40-50 you're completely overpowered no matter what build you're playing.

    • 62 posts
    May 10, 2013 10:40 AM EDT

    I'll also echo what many others on here have said, Expert is the most balanced difficulty setting of the lot. I often gimp my character out of certain skill trees (enchanting and alchemy, I'm looking at you) just so I can have fun on that setting. Master with no crafting is certainly possible, but it's a chore more than a pleasure.

  • Tim
    • 89 posts
    May 11, 2013 1:06 AM EDT

    I feel a bit lame saying I usually keep it locked on Adept. I'm more of a RP man, so I spend most of my energy on characterization and getting inside my character's head, so I like to keep it on the easier side

    • 2 posts
    May 11, 2013 1:24 AM EDT

    I haven't touched Legendary Difficulty at all yet myself. Not really looking forward to it simply because it sounds like a great way to increase tedium rather than difficulty.

    I normally sit on Expert, but, in addition, use a few mods to alter enemy difficulty/AI, such as ASIS , Deadly Dragons, and High Level Enemies. So far, it feels like a good setup, as I can explore all the perk trees as much as I want, and still have enemies who can kick me in the face, but not just because it takes a billion years to kill them.

    • 80 posts
    May 11, 2013 2:12 AM EDT

    I used to play on master for the longest time but it became very tedious after awhile so I lowered to expert.

    • 106 posts
    May 11, 2013 2:30 AM EDT

    Always master, except for mages cause I don't wanna sit there lighting a skeever on fire for 15 minutes

    • 24 posts
    May 11, 2013 6:45 AM EDT

    I play on adept for helgen and a few starting dungeons then I bump it up to master. 

    • 1 posts
    May 11, 2013 12:49 PM EDT

    I play on Insane and Master, from levels 1-30 Insane and 30+ Master because once you hit bout level 30 you start becoming overpowered.

    With that mod "Hardcore Mode" you guys would be amazed at how much you can do with the scripting and Creation Kit in Skyrim, there are mods that turn a singleplayer game into online, there are some that add ALL of Morrowind (Skywind) and all of Cyrodil (Skyblivion) Skyblivion stopped development though.

    • 106 posts
    May 11, 2013 1:05 PM EDT

    Helgen is annoying, we've gone threw it numerous times, but it ruins immersion for me to go from easy fights to harder fights like that. That's just me though

    • 14 posts
    May 11, 2013 1:18 PM EDT

    I play on expert mostly, but I'm getting bored so I'm thinking about bumping it up to master for a bit, see if that reperks my interest in Skyrim a bit 

  • May 11, 2013 2:44 PM EDT

    The good thing about playing on Master is that then you'll be good enough at Skyrim to go for a DiD in Expert.

    • 1483 posts
    May 11, 2013 4:38 PM EDT

    Playing Destruction mage on Legendary is a thing for the most patient people in the world. I tried to kill an Arch Necromancer with Lightning Storm. Was shooting him for almost 3 minutes and didn't even lowered his health to half! 

    • 89 posts
    May 11, 2013 7:07 PM EDT

    Expert. Still provides a decent challenge on DiD, but still lets me roleplay and go for aesthetics on my equipment.

    • 14 posts
    May 11, 2013 7:50 PM EDT
    Legendary's pretty fucking retarded. I'm a stickler for going hard at the highest difficulty in games I play but this is one case where it's just more of an arbitrary means of gimping yourself than any actual increase in challenge, so I don't give a shit about it.

    So I'm with Ponty on this one: Master or Expert depending on which is better suited for the build I'm playing, since the difficulty slider is really more of a weapon damage & armor rating modifier than an actual challenge increaser.
    • 26 posts
    May 13, 2013 6:15 PM EDT

    I play master most of the time, I have played legendary from the release with a couple of characters and find the over reliance on companions to be a tedious and non enjoyable yet necessary element (unless you are playing a sneak character). I don’t think legendary is that spectacular it just forces you to re-evaluate what you can and can’t take on. I would have preferred it if they over levelled the enemies and gave them additional skills rather than give the player 25% damage and scale the enemy to 300% it doesn’t add anything to the experience.  Imagine a bandit flicking an ice storm at you right off the get go that would make life interesting.

    • 49 posts
    January 15, 2014 2:23 PM EST
    I always play Skyrim on Expert. I only change to Master if I feel the games become too easy or if I've 'completed' the build, then I'l boost it to Master.

    I've never played on Legendary, think I may have to load up my Obsidian Sentinel for that.
    • 661 posts
    January 15, 2014 3:06 PM EST

    I play on Master because it is the perfect difficulty for the game through and through. I imagine Spells doing that kinda damage, but I dont imagine the bullshit kill cams that happen on me though.

    • 194 posts
    January 15, 2014 6:54 PM EST

    Adept unless I'm making a "power character"... Fact of the matter is I wish I had mods so I could adjust the combat to be more deadly all around. As I've said on here before, novice damage output for everybody would be ideal. An easy to kill easy to die difficulty.

    Gopher is doing a let's play with a load of great mods, including one that does locational damage such as headshots, which sometimes instakill. Makes sense, eh?

  • January 15, 2014 7:29 PM EST
    I play mostly on Adept. But my characters either have no smithed and enchanted armor, carry less than 5 potions of a type and aren't Tanky(Heavy Armor + Shield combo) if my character seems strong enough I go up to Expert.

    I tried Legendary. Took me 2 hours just to get out of Helgen! I used poisons, potions, restoration spells, sword and shield and the best armor I could find and couldn't kill one enemy alone. And the wolves near Riverwood where stronger than the people in Helgen. I even poisoned the bear with the frostbite spider poison(wich did more damage than my sword!) and ran more than I wanted to. Once I reached Riverwood, I retired the poor guy...
    • 95 posts
    January 16, 2014 6:58 AM EST

    For me, the difficulty depends on what character I play. There are characters that are very awsome and exciting to play, but aren't viable on Master or Legendary. With Conjuration-based guys I play on Master or even Legendary, as the damage input-output modifier only applies to the player but not to summoned minions.

    • 40 posts
    January 16, 2014 7:24 AM EST

    I usually play on expert these days. If the character is really weak, like in all cloth and I don't use alteration then I might go down to adept but even then if the person is carrying a bow I stay on expert.

  • January 17, 2014 7:30 PM EST
    My opinion has changed actually over the moths. I find Expert to be properly balanced, i always feel on adept that I do more damage but master i do too little. This is without crafting.
    • 74 posts
    January 17, 2014 10:20 PM EST
    I play Adept, I'm not very hardcore, though I do play Dark Souls. I don't mind taking double damage, I just can't deal,with doing half damage. I rarely use game breaking exploits so even on adept, some enemies don't seem to take damage.