What Difficulty Do You Choose in TES Games?

disky

I am creating this poll in order to gauge the overall forum interest in challenging gameplay. I am using the Skyrim scale because it's demarcated with names for each difficulty setting.

ACamaroGuy

Adept

I've played the overland content at 100% success rate over four different toons. Why would I want to replay overland in a more difficult mode? There's no benefit other than getting bored because it's now more difficult. I just want to burn through stuff & collect what I have to get & be done.

colossalvoids

Modded (Harder)

Not exactly "harder", but different. I do not enjoy hp sponges and prefer mechanics instead, dodges, parries, perfect block and deflection etc. kind of "Souls/Sekiro" thing more or less. Basically increased hp and reduced damage from me isn't considered a challenge or a fun gameplay, just a thing that makes enchanting/crafting loop mandatory which is akin to bug abuse to me comparatively to using interesting unique items or enhancing weapons/armour by other means like spells, for example.

Vanilla adept/expert are the most balanced around not using any exploit-like things and feel alright, but still can be trivialised easy if playing a bit more optimised (which is rare for me personally as I do themed characters and not optimising single player games).

SeaGtGruff

I always play TES games on their default difficulty settings-- those that have a difficulty setting.

Ugrak

Modded (Harder)

Been a while since I played Skyrim, but I've played Starfield a lot lately. Specifically using this addon as the main difficulty modifier.

https://creations.bethesda.net/en/starfield/details/39e0ebf8-11a6-44d9-b82d-907e1a613862/Immersive_Gameplay_1_04

Quoting some key points.

Spacesuits and combat outfits, provide greater protection and have nanites that upon receiving damage instantly heal and repair the wearer from 0% to 100% in 6 seconds(Applies only to humans).

The world is unleveled.

Humans’ health ranges between 300-410, with no extra health on level-ups.

You and your human enemies deal the same damage to each other, without any hidden advantages.

AI- Humans are more aggressive and will try to flush you if you’re hiding. Robots Love to close in while firing on you. Monsters are relentless.

Playing on normal and starting a new character, the shootouts really felt like some PVP games like Hunt Showdown at some points. Plenty of deaths, but quite a rush.

In the past the harder difficulties just made the enemies into bullet sponges, where you would unimmersively empty several magazines into an enemy's head with little effect. The ability to fine-tune damage done vs damage taken was a great improvement where I'll generally increase damage taken and damage done to make combat more fast paced in unmodded combat.

Also had some enjoyable ship combat where I can't remember the difficulty used, but it was unmodded. I used the default ship (threw away the useless missile launcher and replaced the ballistic gun with two auto versions). Was level six and encountered three or four level 12 Ecliptic ships in an asteroid field. They blew my shields away very fast so I had to creep along asteroids for cover to regain and preserve shields while maneuvering for position to take down one ship at a time. I quite enjoyed that. The higher level ship combat tends to be too easy even on extreme settings if you have a good ship and high ship combat perks.

Last time I played Skyrim though, I was using the survival mode setting. First thing I did was set across the mountain pass from Helgen toward Riften, a blizzard forced me to take shelter from the cold in a cave, where I got infected with vampirism by the inhabitants. Made the whole experience feel more like an adventure writing itself, and very immersive.

Koshka

Adept

Default difficulty with some combat mods sprinkled in. I wouldn't say that they make the game harder, just more varied and interesting. And a lot of mods include powerful gear and spells which balances things out.

Soarora

It depends. I think I played Oblivion on the easiest difficulty, but I don’t know because I actually played with god mode on the entire time and used console commands to kill trolls specifically. I haven’t played Morrowind yet because I’m intimidated by it, so waiting for Skywind. But Skyrim I think I played on master? I tried legendary but its a bit too rough at the start so I turned it down and turned it back up later. Its been a while though so I’m not certain.

TaSheen

Novice (Easy)

Used to be adept until I got this old and decrepit in hands.

xXCJsniperXx7

Adept

In Skyrim I know how to make legendary easy. So to, I know how to make it balanced. The difficulty is a multiplier, if you equal out the multiples all difficulties can feel exactly the same. Simple math really. Adept is the easiest to 0 scale since it has a multiple of 1. The trick is not limiting the games stats, but rather yourself.

Koshka

Adept

Soarora wrote: »

It depends. I think I played Oblivion on the easiest difficulty, but I don’t know because I actually played with god mode on the entire time and used console commands to kill trolls specifically.

To be fair, Oblivion's scaling was horrible, especially if you weren't very efficient with getting +5 to important stats every time you level up.

Soarora

Koshka wrote: »

Soarora wrote: »

It depends. I think I played Oblivion on the easiest difficulty, but I don’t know because I actually played with god mode on the entire time and used console commands to kill trolls specifically.

To be fair, Oblivion's scaling was horrible, especially if you weren't very efficient with getting +5 to important stats every time you level up.

I was also focusing on the story (less exploring so less leveling) and playing a class I wouldn’t normally go for haha. I tend to sneak archer (ofc) or play a mage but I went for a sword with minimal magic use.

SeaGtGruff

Koshka wrote: »

Soarora wrote: »

It depends. I think I played Oblivion on the easiest difficulty, but I don’t know because I actually played with god mode on the entire time and used console commands to kill trolls specifically.

To be fair, Oblivion's scaling was horrible, especially if you weren't very efficient with getting +5 to important stats every time you level up.

Oblivion can be brutal in the early game on default difficulty, but once you've leveled up and better gear finally starts to drop, it gets to be more of a cakewalk-- although some enemies (I'm looking at you, goblins) tend to scale in difficulty along with the player, making them extremely brutal in the later game.

disky

Modded (Harder)

Soarora wrote: »

Koshka wrote: »

Soarora wrote: »

It depends. I think I played Oblivion on the easiest difficulty, but I don’t know because I actually played with god mode on the entire time and used console commands to kill trolls specifically.

To be fair, Oblivion's scaling was horrible, especially if you weren't very efficient with getting +5 to important stats every time you level up.

I was also focusing on the story (less exploring so less leveling) and playing a class I wouldn’t normally go for haha. I tend to sneak archer (ofc) or play a mage but I went for a sword with minimal magic use.

My original options for this poll were going to be:

• Stealth Archer
• Hard

But I felt that was a little on the nose. No shame, I've definitely done it too, haha

Kyip

Novice (Easy)

I think there are so many option in this poll that it might skew results.

whitecrow

Novice (Easy)

Any game that has an option, I choose the easiest level. I am more interested in exploration, story and discovery than combat. Random encounters are especially a nuisance.

Sakiri

Modded (Harder)

I mod the ever loving crud out of my games, even jacking up the difficulty on top.

In ESO it's different. In Skyrim for example, I can tell you where safe spots to harvest are, and where every encounter trigger is. Here, stuff is EVERYWHERE and sometimes, I like to farm without having to buzz around with trash mobs.

Soarora

disky wrote: »

Soarora wrote: »

Koshka wrote: »

Soarora wrote: »

It depends. I think I played Oblivion on the easiest difficulty, but I don’t know because I actually played with god mode on the entire time and used console commands to kill trolls specifically.

To be fair, Oblivion's scaling was horrible, especially if you weren't very efficient with getting +5 to important stats every time you level up.

I was also focusing on the story (less exploring so less leveling) and playing a class I wouldn’t normally go for haha. I tend to sneak archer (ofc) or play a mage but I went for a sword with minimal magic use.

My original options for this poll were going to be:

• Stealth Archer
• Hard

But I felt that was a little on the nose. No shame, I've definitely done it too, haha

Haha, can’t forget modded stealth archer too where you get Inigo and make HIM the stealth archer!

disky

Modded (Harder)

Kyip wrote: »

I think there are so many option in this poll that it might skew results.

I considered this but I figure it's not impossible to group difficulties into Easier and Harder, and create averages to get an idea of where people sit. I'm not trying to be scientific about it.

Ugrak

Modded (Harder)

whitecrow wrote: »

Any game that has an option, I choose the easiest level. I am more interested in exploration, story and discovery than combat. Random encounters are especially a nuisance.

Sometimes I do both.

Such as increasing the difficulty and intensity of combat, at the same time as toggling on immortality mode in the console so that I cannot actually be defeated. Depends on the mood really. Sometimes it is just nice to play with no stress.

Tandor

Adept

I'm equally disinterested in selecting a hard difficulty level or modded one in games, indeed I never use mods/addons in any game. I play the game as designed and probably at least in large part because of that I never experience the performance/stability issues that seem to plaque some players in all the games I play. I only tone down the difficulty level in rare cases like Starfield where space combat really isn't my thing so I make it easier to get through that part of the game.

I would have zero interest in opting for a higher difficulty setting for overland content in ESO.

Kyip

Novice (Easy)

So... this is a bit of a trick question.

I do mod single-player TES games to make some parts more challenging at times.

I absolutely do not want to see a difficulty increase in the base ESO experience.

We have no control over modding difficulty in online games. Also, the difficult parts of the single-player games are still scaled for a single player. Online games getting more difficult frequently forces you to group.

Not everyone wants to be forced to group up for hard content all the damned time.

Sakiri

Modded (Harder)

Soarora wrote: »

disky wrote: »

Soarora wrote: »

Koshka wrote: »

Soarora wrote: »

It depends. I think I played Oblivion on the easiest difficulty, but I don’t know because I actually played with god mode on the entire time and used console commands to kill trolls specifically.

To be fair, Oblivion's scaling was horrible, especially if you weren't very efficient with getting +5 to important stats every time you level up.

I was also focusing on the story (less exploring so less leveling) and playing a class I wouldn’t normally go for haha. I tend to sneak archer (ofc) or play a mage but I went for a sword with minimal magic use.

My original options for this poll were going to be:

• Stealth Archer
• Hard

But I felt that was a little on the nose. No shame, I've definitely done it too, haha

Haha, can’t forget modded stealth archer too where you get Inigo and make HIM the stealth archer!

I play stealth archers but because of my mods mobs are pincushions and don't get one shot. I often have to dump a quiver into bigger Bois.

Taril

Modded (Harder)

Normally I always play games on their highest difficulty. Even for games I have no experience with, I'll jump in on Ultra Nightmare difficulty if it's available.

I played a lot of Skyrim on Legendary. But at the end of the day, being forced to abuse the massive sneak attack modifiers to not have to spend 5 minutes whacking away at random trash mobs (While even bosses were a joke for difficulty, just long and tedious grinds) just got old.

I recall specifically using console commands to limit my leveling and keep me at a relatively low level so that Legendary was still interesting, before the massive hp bloat kicked in.

These days, there are mods to provide a better difficulty experience. Where there's less hp bloat and more emphasis on actually fighting things.

Though TES games tend to still include many ways to absolutely trivialize combat either way (For example in Skyrim you can get health potions en masse so easily, you can just tank through everything besides Dragon one-shots by mashing the quick-potion button constantly).

While being based around a very basic combat system (You can block, you can bonk and you can charge bonk. Maybe you have some snazzy Dragonshout or some cool spells to throw into the mix but that's about it. There's not even Chivalry/Mordhau style dynamic bonks it's just basic bonks)

Soarora

Kyip wrote: »

So... this is a bit of a trick question.

I do mod single-player TES games to make some parts more challenging at times.

I absolutely do not want to see a difficulty increase in the base ESO experience.

We have no control over modding difficulty in online games. Also, the difficult parts of the single-player games are still scaled for a single player. Online games getting more difficult frequently forces you to group.

Not everyone wants to be forced to group up for hard content all the damned time.

I’ve been playing gw2 again lately, the overland enemies are much harder than ESO enemies, but I’ve never had to group up for anything, I can still run past enemies at times, it doesn’t feel like a slog. I’m also new and do not know what I’m doing. So, a harder overland difficulty could work just fine without forcing people to group up.
We also don’t know OP is polling to see anything to do with ESO overland difficulty but rather it could just be curiosity.

Sakiri wrote: »

Soarora wrote: »

disky wrote: »

Soarora wrote: »

Koshka wrote: »

Soarora wrote: »

It depends. I think I played Oblivion on the easiest difficulty, but I don’t know because I actually played with god mode on the entire time and used console commands to kill trolls specifically.

To be fair, Oblivion's scaling was horrible, especially if you weren't very efficient with getting +5 to important stats every time you level up.

I was also focusing on the story (less exploring so less leveling) and playing a class I wouldn’t normally go for haha. I tend to sneak archer (ofc) or play a mage but I went for a sword with minimal magic use.

My original options for this poll were going to be:

• Stealth Archer
• Hard

But I felt that was a little on the nose. No shame, I've definitely done it too, haha

Haha, can’t forget modded stealth archer too where you get Inigo and make HIM the stealth archer!

I play stealth archers but because of my mods mobs are pincushions and don't get one shot. I often have to dump a quiver into bigger Bois.

I’m just constantly trying to figure out the balance between realistic combat and not making it too difficult. I wish Skyrim sneak archer effectiveness depended on where you hit them; head or chest and they’re out, disarm if you hit their hand/arm, set them off balance and slow them if you hit their leg, etc.

Edit: I think red dead online has given me a better sneak archer experience since you actually have to take out enemies in a certain order based on where they’re looking or else they’ll just, yknow, look at where the arrow came from and come after you. I think it also has different damage based on where you hit them.

SilverBride

I don't see the relevance of TES single player games to ESO. They are different games with different gameplay.

amig186

Modded (Harder)

For Skyrim at least, since there are a lot of combat revamping mods that make it harder but more engaging than vanilla. I played all the others on default (medium) difficulty. That is unless you count Deadly Reflex for Oblivion as easier or harder. Vanilla Oblivion combat is just awful in my opinion, and cranking the difficulty up to make enemies spongier wouldn't make it any more enjoyable. Morrowind on the other hand is very strangely balanced, there are a lot of exploits to take advantage of, and then there is BS like having most daedra and ash creatures have a built in reflect to add another layer of wonky RNG to combat. Things can go from easy to hard in an instant which makes me reluctant to push the difficulty slider either way. A similar case with Daggerfall, you can be breezing through a dungeon and then all of a sudden, an ancient vampire.

ZOS_GregoryV

Greetings al!

After review, we have decided to close this thread as it is not in regards to The Elder Scrolls Online.

We thank you for your understanding,
-Greg-