Poll: Are Skyrim enemies overpowered?

[ColoursBleed]

I'll be honest, some enemies do seem extremely overpowered. Like, Bandit leaders and also Mages to some degree. But i think it's also down to the fact that, in my opinion, magic has become so much more powerful than conventional melee weapons. Don't get me wrong, I don't think the game's too difficult or bad, I love it <3, but balance issues are frustrating.

 

[spikeyjoey]

As an Oblivion fan, I'm loving how Skyrim is more balanced.

Like Oblivion, I'm playing on normal difficulty. I actually find myself dying quite a lot. Bandit leaders sometimes take a few tries, finding the best strategy. The combat is more fun since you have to try different strategies sometimes to triumph.

For example, I'm a straight up 2hander warrior Orc guy. I can kill most things in 3-4 hits like Giants and the weaker varieties of Dragon. I can take on 10 bandits at once with not much trouble. However, I can still find Bandit Mages/Hagravens which can take all of my hp in 3 seconds before I even get close to use my axe. The stronger Necromancers are especially deadly. While some may call it OP, I say it's great design.

Mages casting frost spells are gonna slow heavy warriors to almost a standstill and they won't stand a chance. So now you've gotta find different ways. I often have to use all kinds of spells, potions and shouts to kill the harder casters. Personally, I use the Spellbreaker shield with the Elemental Protection perk against casters. The combined 50% reduction of spell damage and 60 pts spell ward stops most spells scratching me, provided I hold block. It's a good method for warriors.

As for the other Monsters... they aren't so hard really. Trolls are fun to fight, and so are Bears. Sabre Cats were tough bastards when you encounter them at low level, but become complete pussies at higher levels. I thought I would never kill a giant either, but get a decent block skill and they're dead. Their attacks are laughably slow.

This is actually a fantastic point.. i was going to point out that bandit leaders are too strong (being able to kill you in 2-3 hits), like the OP, and only just recently it took me 3 or 4 tries to kill one.. but 3-4 isnt bad, i never got truly frustrated (apart from that ice spike guy in the tunnels under the honeymead brewery!! ), and it was quite satisfying taking him down in the end (frost shout ftw).

Having to think a little and vary my strategy was one of my favourite aspects of one of my favourite games (baldurs gate 2), so i think skyrim deserves the same credit

 

[Ryank1908]

Sometimes it can feel like it's overpowered but those moments are generally against enemies that are supposed to be very difficult, like Dragon Priests and such. You do have to switch up your approaches for different enemies. I'll bring out my magic-resist shield for casters and down an appropriate elemental resistance potion, match my shouts to the enemies weaknesses, bring out my dual-wield set for large groups of weaker enemies, and whip out my bow to pick off the strongest enemy before the fight begins in earnest. I love the difficulty curve. It works so much better than it has in any other Bethesda game.

 

[nin_ninja]

Not really, aside from that motherfucking troll.

Bastard hit Lydia off a cliffside!

OT: Not really. The only really strong monsters are trolls (which are giant ass bastards), Giants (again), Mammoths (again), and magic users since they cut through my armour so quickly.

 

[Saviordd1]

Not really, aside from that motherfucking troll.

This. I can fight a god damn dragon and walk out ok to some degree.

Fight a troll? I'll be lucky to come out with more then a quarter health.

 

[The_ModeRazor]

CRY SOME MOAR!!!
(for full effect, remember that this is the dragon shout that summons a heavy-set and oddly cartoonish man wielding a 150kg minigun that fires 200 dollar custom-tooled cartridges at ten thousand rounds per minute. expenses already paid for in advance)

But yeah, I have to agree with ya. Some enemies take funny amounts of bashing in the face or melting in the face to go down.

 

[Knusper]

It started off a bit tricky, but as I levelled up it got quite easy, so that I turned it up to hard, but I'm using a sneaky archer, which make the game a bit too easy. Overall, I would say that they have nailed the overall difficulty. However, some things like bandits and spiders are too easy whereas trolls and giants are hard, so it all balances out.

Occasionally they have fights that are perfectly balanced and require a strategy of sneaking, shooting, timing of shouts and dodging. A good example is in the second Thieves Guild quest...

Spoiler: Tiny spoiler

and there's that lunatic breeding an army of skeevers, his ice attacks ... well... iced me.

Also, those bandits you run into in the Ratway in Riften.

 

[spartan231490]

I haven't run into anything like that. Frost trolls are a ***** if you aren't focused on fire magic, but with strategy you can take them without too much trouble. Bandit leaders and stuff like that can be tough, but I feel that's appropriate, it would be boring if there wasn't some challenge.

My only real problem is the dragon's breath weapons. Their sustained breath does way too much damage, if you don't have some hard cover you are screwed, even with dual-casted healing spells and potions of health and potions of magicka and a good ammount of health or magicka or both.

True, there's usually cover, but sometimes it's just rediculous.

 

[Pinstar]

Not really, aside from that motherfucking troll.

That Troll was nothing. On my trip up the great stairs, I rolled a freaking dragon random encounter. The troll was a mere mudcrab compared to it.

I did, however, abandon my first character due to faceplanting way more often than I wanted to. I had spread my perks thin and thus was way weaker than my foes in combat.

My new 80/20 Warrior/Mage Redguard is doing MUCH better. No cakewalk though.

 

[Rule Britannia]

I find some of the bosses a little too powerful but that's because they're bosses. Regular enemies, bandits and such, are a little too easy :/

 

[justnotcricket]

I find there's generally a good mix, although I will agree that the mages get *really* annoying, since they seem to be able to endlessly spout flames/lightning/ice and stick to you like glue if you get too close. A good bow bash to the face (I'm a Bosmer archer/sneaky type) usually brings them up short though, especially after I picked the lock on that display case early on and got an elven bow...

...which made the first dragon fight a bit depressing - I'd kind of got distracted onto side quests and things for a whikle (like stealing everything that wasn't nailed down), and when I finally went to fight the dragon, it went down with two steel arrows. Two. I was level 8 at the time and I was gearing up for an epic battle...

...I even got my arrows back =P Still fun though.

 

[IamLEAM1983]

Hm. While the enemies aren't all that OPed, I'd have to say the player's magic is. Gimme Flames in both my hands and a healthy supply of Magicka potions and my Argonian becomes the truest, closest-to-being-literal Dragonborn ever. I can eat through at least three dudes before they manage to hit me.

 

[Frost27]

Yes and no. Toe to toe, not really as long as you play smart. Allowing a saber cat to charge straight in and pounce as a cloth coated caster will likely get you two shotted but if you play smart, side-step and come at them sideways, they are cake.

The yes part of my answer is more the fault of the level scaling. I am playing a sword and board Nord and at level 28 I decided to work on my 2 hander skill. In other words, I decided to get my face beat in by dragons and bandits because my warhammer does literally half of what my waraxe does per hit and I can no longer block and bash properly.

I will admit to coming across a bandit camp with a caster and being 3 hit killed by never miss fireballs but that was nothing the save feature couldn't fix. When I came back, I charged past the melee, sprinted, and he was the first to die.

 

[Stainlesssteele4]

I'd say that they're just right. Not too difficult as to be OP, but not too easy as in most of the push-over enemies of Oblivion.

 

[Soods]

The caster enemies are almost as OP as in Dragon Age: Origins. (And that's not a good thing!)
Or maybe I should get some magic resistance and stop crying...

 

[Exius Xavarus]

Actually, as a magic user, I find everything to be stupidly underpowered. Either that or I'm stupid overpowered. I've been running around dualcasting Firebolt for God knows how long, and with Impact from the Destruction tree, they stagger. So all I have to do is time my Firebolts and everything dies without so much as scratch the ground I walk on. Unless it can kill me in 1 shot in a ranged manner, nothing poses a threat at all. Except the ward assholes. The ones that can just fire away at me with magic while they have a ward up. Fuck those guys. >> Literally the only thing that ever gives me trouble.

 

[Jnat]

No, not at all. I think they are way too weak, at least the dragons and regular humans (except maybe mages). As for the trolls, there's a book named "Slaying trolls" or "Killing trolls" or something which describes how to kill one.

 

[babinro]

The game can be somewhat unforgiving based on your build choices (particularly melee ones).

I focused on heavy armor, block, one-handed weapon and restoration. I was finding the game surprising challenging until I changed my focus on to enchanting and smithing. Turns out I needed more than just those primary skills and corresponding perks. The game certainly isn't easy...but I feel like the challenge is manageable.

My friend on the other hand is playing a Destruction mage and finds the game to be very easy so far. I get the feeling ranged focused builds are the games unspoken easy mode.

 

[ChildishLegacy]

Get 100 smithing
Get Dragonbone armor
Get Daedric Maces/Bows
Eat faces.

 

[fanklok]

A lot of enemies seem to be completely random as to how strong they are which tends to be a problem for me.
This isn't like any other game where you can look at an enemy and be like oh ok they're wearing this armor and wielding this they must be around X strength.
Also the "bosses" of a group of thugs pretty much can see stealth from a mile away which is aggravating because it is completely unfair for stealth classes. The same with the frostsworn, I don't know why but no matter what they also see you from insane distances, I'm like 90 stealth, tons of skill points in the stealth tree and yet they damn near instant detect me every time.

I really hate bethesda for screwing with stealth characters and if someone ever comes out with a custom mod or patch I'm going to install it without a second thought.

The same goes with pick-pocketing, it says I have like a 90% chance to pick something and I'll still fail persistently on like every other person.

I'm playing stealth and the only problems I have with being detected are around guards, wolves, and NPCs that are themselves stealthy. It doesn't matter how high your stealth is you won't be able to hide if your bathed in torchlight or it's the middle of the day.