Does Skyrim have a leveling problem?

[logansrun]

Maybe it’s not as apparent, but it always seemed to me that some serious disparity developed the more I played and leveled. At some point the difficulty peaked, and then suddenly, once I got over the “hump” or cleared some indiscernible hurdle I found myself seriously overpowered. I’d be hard pressed to quantify exactly how or when, but I’ve experienced it enough times on enough play-throughs that I’m reasonably confident it exists.

I don’t think its confirmation bias either because I wasn’t looking for it in the first place, but gradually and slowly became aware of it. At first, I simply chalked it up to poor skill and perk management on my part, but when I kept running into the same problem on different characters and different builds, it began to dawn on me and became rather apparent that Skyrim must have some kind of leveling issue like Oblivion did, just not as overt.

The common rabble (bandits, etc.) would never pose much threat, but the boss fights got increasingly tougher, and I found the only way to “keep up” and keep the boss fights on an even playing field in a one-on-one fight was to put all my attribute points into Health. Otherwise, I’d invariably be outgunned and get overpowered in a boss fight, and find myself getting curb stomped.

I’ve tried repeatedly to figure out a way to quantify this and come up with some sort of formula that would let me maximize my attribute distribution, and I think I finally figured out one possibility. The easiest way is to compare my character against leveled NPC classes to see how they stack up, and I found one possible cause right off the bat.

From the “Skyrim:Classes” wiki page
“Note that 5 points per level are always added to Health, in addition to any health points from the shared set of 10 attribute points.”

So if I’m reading this right then NPCs automatically get a free 5 Health/level on top of the normal class distribution, regardless of class. That would make sense as to why they continued to get so much stronger than me if I didn’t contribute everything to Health, and why I eventually got stronger than them considering that at some point they generally “cap out”, so to speak, while I continued gaining levels and experience.

[CBR JGWRR]

WAI - you start out as some random Joe/Jane and end up a borderline omnipotent Demi-god/goddess in a typical character's run through.

[logansrun]

WAI? What does any of that have to do with the Web Accessibility Initiative? Also, beside the point, and what do you define as a "typical character's run-through"? Playing as a Warrior who dumps all his attribute points into Health, a Mage who relies more on Magicka, or some combination hybrid that attempts to split the difference? There's no such thing as a "typical" run-through. Please elaborate and be a little more concise than the snub you just woefully attempted.

Edit:

The question is, to what degree does it exist, and is it enough to influence attribute distribution? I think those are both fair and legitimate questions since I've certainly found that to be the case, and if it's enough to influence a player's attribute distribution, then it certainly affects how different players with different play styles experience the game.

[Nord85]

I've noticed the same thing. It seems like the game is the most difficult somewhere around levels 22-27, depending on the build. Having skill points and perks spread around, not concentrated on a few main skills, definitely makes this worse. Raising the character's health is one solution, but there are others, too: I've noticed the the "hump" is cleared when the player character reaches expert level on his main weapon and armor skills, and/or has nearly mastered one or two of the crafting skills. So, maximizing damage output and/or minimizing the damage received also works to keep up with the bad guys. For instance, I managed to survive very well with a destruction mage with only 200 health at level 30-something, and am doing great on my current alchemist/alterationist whose attribute increase ratio is 2:1:1 (health/magicka/stamina).

[logansrun]

I've had to use those tactics as well, so it affects more than just attribute distribution, but skill and perk selections as well. I've basically resorted to playing a straight warrior focusing strictly on maximizing Health and perking up three main skills, Blacksmithing, Heavy Armor and Two-Handed, to see if they can stay on par with the various bosses in a one-on-one fight without getting my bell rung.

Edit: Er,wait. An alchemist/alterationist with 2 Health to 1 Magicka? I'd expect it to be the other way around.

[CBR JGWRR]

WAI? What does any of that have to do with the Web Accessibility Initiative? Also, beside the point, and what do you define as a "typical character's run-through"? Playing as a Warrior who dumps all his attribute points into Health, a Mage who relies more on Magicka, or some combination hybrid that attempts to split the difference? There's no such thing as a "typical" run-through. Please elaborate and be a little more concise than the snub you just woefully attempted.

Edit:

The question is, to what degree does it exist, and is it enough to influence attribute distribution? I think those are both fair and legitimate questions since I've certainly found that to be the case, and if it's enough to influence a player's attribute distribution, then it certainly affects how different players with different play styles experience the game.

Working As Intended.

Vol. 1.
Character arrives at some fort-village. Nearly gets executed. Wanders through a burning wreck and a cave. Arrives in a different village. Arrives in a city. Wanders through a ruin to collect a decorated rock. Hands in rock. Fights dragon. Meets some hermits. Finds a note. Returns to village 2. Fights another dragon. Wanders round an Elven Embassy. Wanders around Riften sewers. Finds some old wall carving. Returns to hermits. Meets old dragon. Finds insane bloke in an ice cave. Wanders around some Dwemer ruin. Wanders through a cavern. Finds a Scroll. Reads Scroll. Watches a battle. Fights a battle. Captures dragon. Flies dragon. Wanders through Nordic ruin. Defeats dragon priest. Wanders through a mist. Finds a whale bridge. Meets some long dead folk. Slays dragon. Returns to 3rd dragon.

Vol. 2.
Meets Vampire hunter. Meets second Vampire hunter. Meets Vampire. Meets Vampire Lord. Either is banished or turns into a Vampire if they weren't one already. Stuff. Claims bow. Kills Vampire Lord.

Vol. 3.
Builds a shack or 3.

Vol. 4.
Wanders round an island. Never gets a nice nights sleep. Cleanses a few stones. Reads a few books. Beats other Dragonborn.

Typical run.

[logansrun]

Hrm, so if Skyrim were linear I'd whole-heartedly agree, but its not and I haven't followed that particular pattern you outlined as "typical" in any of my playthroughs.

Some I did CoW first, some TG, some DB, some DG, some CW, but in almost every case I've tried to postpone the MQ until dead last.

[CBR JGWRR]

Hrm, so if Skyrim were linear I'd whole-heartedly agree, but its not and I haven't followed that particular pattern you outlined as "typical" in any of my playthroughs.

Some I did CoW first, some TG, some DB, some DG, some CW, but in almost every case I've tried to postpone the MQ until dead last.

Yep.

Now consider why I used typical - because the above is typical. You start off as a newb with only your racial skills boosting you and end up an unstoppable demi-god/goddess if you play the story through to its conclusion.

[logansrun]

Ok, fine, except that hasn't necessarily been an accurate or complete portrayal of how I experienced the gameplay during any of my play throughs. Now, what does that have to do with the topic of this thread? Would it be equally fair to dismissively minimize the Oblivion leveling issue in this manner considering gameplay could be summarized roughly the same?

[CBR JGWRR]

Ok, fine, except that hasn't necessarily been an accurate or complete portrayal of how I experienced the gameplay during any of my play throughs. Now, what does that have to do with the topic of this thread? Would it be equally fair to dismissively minimize the Oblivion leveling issue in this manner considering gameplay could be summarized roughly the same?

No, because in Oblivion you got worse over time unless you min/maxed - In Skyrim you get better over time.

[logansrun]

That's not exactly true. You didn't get worse. Your skills didn't degrade, and min/maxing wasn't exactly the issue because I never had to do it. The main problem was taking and leveling non-combat skills and neglecting combat related ones to the point you were far oustripped in combat by opponents whose skills were levelled according to what the developers thought should be a "typical" progression, so it is precisely that mentality of "following A, B, C will get you to X, Y, Z ..." that caused the problem in the first place. Maybe someone should inform the developers that TES isn't a linear game with linear progression in all the same skills.

Sarcasm aside, they obviously addressed much of the issue in Skyrim, but it seems to me there's still a bit of an issue that shouldn't necessarily be ignored or shrugged off.

[Nord85]

Edit: Er,wait. An alchemist/alterationist with 2 Health to 1 Magicka? I'd expect it to be the other way around.

Well, I should've be more precise. The character is, strictly speaking, an alchemist/light warrior/alterationist. He wouldn't survive without potions and spells (especially due to how his perks are distributed), but archery and in emergencies sword-and-board fighting are the centerpiece of my current build's style. That's why health gets the most points.

[spin]

I've not noticed a problem. Of course, I didn't ever notice one with Oblivion either. I always increase my combat skills way more than non combat ones though. And if there wasn't any fights that were hard, the game would get boring quick. But it seems to me the fights stay roughly the same difficulty through most of the game. Except when you fight Alduin for the last time and you can sit there and do nothing till he dies from it.

[Pilaf The Defiler]

Honestly, I think all three of the most recent games suffer from this, including Morrowind and even Oblivion. Some people claim Oblivion is way too hard at high levels, but I keep the difficulty on medium and focus on combat and really just plow through everything.

Arena and Daggerfall had the opposite problem. It seems like like you were always underpowered no matter what. Of course, those games operated off some very unforgiving old school rpg mechanics. Baldur's Gate - the first one - is the most difficult crpg I've ever played, but TES 1 and 2 aren't far behind.

[urthdigger]

I've noticed this as well, but especially in Skyrim. Any time you level a skill that doesn't increase combat ability, you're hurting yourself. Especially if you put perks into it. You're basically playing a game of keeping up with the monsters, and unlike Oblivion you can't just keep all your non-combat skills as minors to keep them from increasing your level (or just never sleeping).

This also makes it annoying if you're trying to get more perk points and either level a new weapon skill or legendary your old one. You've got a low level skill versus high level enemies, so literally your only choice is to cheese your leveling and smack something like Shadowmere that won't fight back.

[Evil-i]

I've never understood any of this. I've always let my characters level up "organically", and have never bothered with "efficient leveling" or any other strategy. I can't say I've ever felt that my character has been too weak, too strong, or gimped somehow. Gameplay has felt reasonable and enjoyable.

[ElderSkillz]

I've never understood any of this. I've always let my characters level up "organically", and have never bothered with "efficient leveling" or any other strategy. I can't say I've ever felt that my character has been too weak, too strong, or gimped somehow. Gameplay has felt reasonable and enjoyable.

I found it to be this way too. I never touch the difficulty settings. The default setting always provides me with weak enemies to skillfully dispatch, and skilled boss enemies that require a little more strategy to beat. I've moved away from pure character play-throughs as well. The only time I conciously avoid leveling is a save before I read a skill book to learn if it's a skill I actually want.

In Oblivion you had to avoid leveling your major skills to get attribute points from other skills in the same skillset in order to get the most out of your next level. I didn't mind it since you could get very strong at fairly low levels, but it was definitely a grind comparing it to Skyrim's leveling system. Now you level only from gaining a certain amount of skill levels, and simply get to choose a perk that has a skill level requirement. It doesn't force you to level up certain skills. You can do whatever you like and end up in the same place. The perks are the only thing that require certain skills to meet a level.

[Evil-i]

I've never understood any of this. I've always let my characters level up "organically", and have never bothered with "efficient leveling" or any other strategy. I can't say I've ever felt that my character has been too weak, too strong, or gimped somehow. Gameplay has felt reasonable and enjoyable.

I found it to be this way too. I never touch the difficulty settings. The default setting always provides me with weak enemies to skillfully dispatch, and skilled boss enemies that require a little more strategy to beat. I've moved away from pure character play-throughs as well. The only time I conciously avoid leveling is a save before I read a skill book to learn if it's a skill I actually want.

In Oblivion you had to avoid leveling your major skills to get attribute points from other skills in the same skillset in order to get the most out of your next level. I didn't mind it since you could get very strong at fairly low levels, but it was definitely a grind comparing it to Skyrim's leveling system. Now you level only from gaining a certain amount of skill levels, and simply get to choose a perk that has a skill level requirement. It doesn't force you to level up certain skills. You can do whatever you like and end up in the same place. The perks are the only thing that require certain skills to meet a level.

I leveled organically in Oblivion too. Never had an issue with it.

I honestly believe the problem might be largely self-made, when people feel compelled to play and groom their characters in certain obsessive ways.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not a Bethesda apologist. I've never given the leveling systems much attention. Whatever skills I use are what I use and they get leveled up, things I don't use get ignored. This laissez-faire method works just fine for me.

[ElderSkillz]

I've never understood any of this. I've always let my characters level up "organically", and have never bothered with "efficient leveling" or any other strategy. I can't say I've ever felt that my character has been too weak, too strong, or gimped somehow. Gameplay has felt reasonable and enjoyable.

I found it to be this way too. I never touch the difficulty settings. The default setting always provides me with weak enemies to skillfully dispatch, and skilled boss enemies that require a little more strategy to beat. I've moved away from pure character play-throughs as well. The only time I conciously avoid leveling is a save before I read a skill book to learn if it's a skill I actually want.

In Oblivion you had to avoid leveling your major skills to get attribute points from other skills in the same skillset in order to get the most out of your next level. I didn't mind it since you could get very strong at fairly low levels, but it was definitely a grind comparing it to Skyrim's leveling system. Now you level only from gaining a certain amount of skill levels, and simply get to choose a perk that has a skill level requirement. It doesn't force you to level up certain skills. You can do whatever you like and end up in the same place. The perks are the only thing that require certain skills to meet a level.

I leveled organically in Oblivion too. Never had an issue with it.

I honestly believe the problem might be largely self-made, when people feel compelled to play and groom their characters in certain obsessive ways.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not a Bethesda apologist. I've never given the leveling systems much attention. Whatever skills I use are what I use and they get leveled up, things I don't use get ignored. This laissez-faire method works just fine for me.

Mostly what I was trying to say was that leveling your skills in Skyrim doesn't really matter as long as you level skills you want to get perks for. The only situation where that philosophy would create a combat problem for your character is if you only leveled non-combat skills for too long with a (suppososedly) "combat oriented" character. Of course that's difficult to actually do unless you spend all your time picking locks and picking pockets or something.

Skyrim is very forgiving when it comes to letting you develop your characters at whatever pace you feel like. It's accumulative and you gain nothing from leveling skills that you don't wish to have, whereas in Oblivion the rewards for leveling a whole bunch of skills you never intend to use can vastly change the effectiveness of your character.

[Dark Spark]

In any game where you're allowed to venture around after the ending credits roll, you're bound to turn into some demigod in pixel form. It's the nature of the beast.

[CreeperX]

I never was a fan of the level scaling of the world though it's not nearly as bad in Skyrim as it was in Oblivion. In Oblivion I actually managed to ruin several characters because I leveled up "wrong" and only got to put 2 points (3 if I was lucky) in my attributes. So there I was gradually getting weaker while the enemies grew stronger. My archer was an especially sad case.

Something like this happened in Skyrim too with my first character. I didn't really know what I wanted to focus on so he ended up being a very jack-of-all-trades type of character with rather spread out skills and attributes. Somewhere around lvl 20-30 it seemed to bite him in the ass since while he did have several skills, he really wasn't good enough in any of them and the high level enemies the game kept spawning easily bested him. It was nothing compared to Oblivion though since at least Skyrim still keeps popping up low level enemies regardless of your level (and doesn't throw bandits wielding daedric weapons & gear at you) so I could actually see the progression. Still... I did notice the game getting harder the higher level I got.

My following characters were more focused so I never really encountered this problem ever since. Nowadays I can't really even judge if there is a leveling problem since I have been playing with "unleveled world" mods so long. I'm getting curb stomped all the time on lower levels but the progression is really rewarding

[Raynil dralas]

One thing that always bugged me was how quick level related things accelerate. I love the early levels of the game when you have crap gear and not many skills and you really have to scrape together every last septim to buy new things. It seems that early on you level so fast and leveled items are introduced so quick that its only a matter of hours before you start finding elven maces of major death and gilded armor of the unholy gods in wooden crates. Then it all of a sudden slows right down. so you go from Iron to glass in a few hours but after that it takes foreeeeeever to get to ebony and daedric. it throws the balance off if you ask me.

[ElderSkillz]

I actually like how rare it is to find high level gear. Mostly because I never go above plate steel armor or leather guild armors.

I shudder just thinking about all those deadric armored bandits in Oblivion.

[Fabio95]

I shudder just thinking about all those deadric armored bandits in Oblivion.

To not talk about those who equipped enchanted daedric/glass stuff. I mean, with a single cuirass one of these bandits would be able to repay the bounty of every outlaw in Cyrodiil.

Skyrim's leveling system is just fine to me. I play with a Imperial warrior on Adept skill and I never died because of too much powerful enemies. Actually, the only problem is with spellcaster, but since I've got the ability to diminish damage from magic attacks with a shield the game is much easier.

[GoatLiver]

I would say the main problem, at least in the OP's case is that the main attribute of a warrior class is stamina and not health. Putting all your attributes into health means you can take a beating, but there are plenty of high level enemies out there more than willing to hand out the punishment. The key is you need enough stamina to be able to power-attack and block bash as much as necessary without running out. Power attacks will stagger your enemies leaving them helplessly open to more attacks, and block bashing during their attacks will stagger them and ensure that you take zero damage which is the main reason you don't need a high health attribute.

The only levelling issue you get with this approach is that your primary attack will increase very fast while your armour will increase very slow as you basically don't get hit by enemies.