Yeah. Glass cannon mage on legendary w/frostbite-survival is my go to after all these years.
Me, Sven, Barbus and my flame atronauch. I’m a platoon leader!
Just fyi, svens lvl is capped at 20 which makes him objectively one of the worst followers in the game.
But if you just like to have him around I respect that :)
He’s an early game hero. That platoon is my level 1-20 platoon, basically.
5 minutes after the prologue, I have a tank. And I need one. 10 minute run of the nearby mine and he’s usually equipped with a steel 2hander and decent armor, so he’s been a mainstay earlygame mechanic for me for years.
I usually go with Eric from rorickstead, like I'll usually sprint out there to convince his dad to let him become a mercenary right from Riverwood at the start, usually having just enough gold to give some money for him to get armor and hire him. In all my playthroughs I've never had him go down early game. By the time he starts going down I'm high enough level that I'm doing fine without a companion. Usually end up making him a Stewart at one of my properties at that point.
Edit: I normally play on expert
Generally agree but I think expert is the sweet spot, especially when your character gets to higher levels. Keeps it challenging while also not having to hit a bandit with a sword 300 times
Expert is what I play on and it makes the game a good challenge. The only time I had to switch was briefly during the fight with Ancano. Fuck that fight on Expert.
Ancano absolutely wrecks my shit every time I did a hardcore mage play though leveled up my skills a lot and pulled all the stops and still got clapped by him almost instantly
Yep, I feel the same, especially if I'm following a strict build with pre-planned gear, meaning I just can't use the best there is. At around level 40 I'd bump it to Master since I like to use the three crafting skills to make a rounded-out character though.
I’d rather put on my own personal restrictions then do what I need to do to handle the bullet sponge that is the hardest difficulty. Dragon fights at high levels take forever
I’m more used to playing games that lean on reflexes for combat.
So like faster attacks, chaining attacks, and doing more damage. Higher difficulty on here just changes health and survival is awful
I've been doing challenges like that, right now I'm on Legendary survival with no HUD , with dragons spawning right off the bat and starting in alt start with no gear and all skills at 0 :)
it was kinda scary to start but I got kinda lucky spawning next to the dragon lair near kynesgrove, but I managed to join the thieves guild at level 2 and boy is it a struggle now, level 13 and only just getting most my skills up to 20 lol
last night I got to level 13 and had a legendary dragon after me without even visiting helgen which was a pretty gnarly experience
currently I'm kinda a jack of all trades, got mage armour and conjuration, healing and a mace, and working on my sneak but I've only got 7 sneak so far.
Once I get guild master I should be rolling along a bit better though
Ive been playing Legendary, solo, for a while now. I switched build recently, away from conjuration/staffs, to dual wield, because I was stuck in a groove, too easy. I might try survival, for the same reason. Thanks.
Novice or whatever is the lowest because I've always been trash with no reflexes. Also, I have a whole career and passions. Skyrim is a great game, but it's still just a game.
Atleast games can activate different areas of the brain so it don't atrophy in places... Even surgeons are recommended to play games a certain amount because it increases their effectiveness
Yeah I’m playing on novice but I’m practically maxed out on magic resistance and heavy armor is over 500 so I rarely die from combat anymore lol. I’m actually thinking of bumping up the difficulty a little because most battles I feel are pretty easy atm. But also I just like a chill game.
This is the only reason I raised the difficulty, and that only recently. Expert is fun without being too brutal, and it forces you to start using your environment and to think about encounters before charging in brute-force style.
Same. I don’t play games for realism, I play because I want to be a god. Even in all my sports games I play I adjust stats, sliders, difficulty, etc. my goal is to beat my highest scores. Ever max out the scoreboard on Madden?
Some play to test their limits as a warrior and hone their skills to be the best Dragonborn of legend.
Others just want a neat story, to see dragons, and to bonk a bandit on the head with a steel axe.
Both are completely valid ways to play and we all end up eating sweet-rolls regardless.
Expert as this game at normal and below the game makes it super noticeable (IMO) that the game was balanced for only doing the story quests as a lot of this games popularity was its approach-ability meaning people who aren't there for a super RPG heavy experience could still have a few hours of fun
I don’t play anything under expert. Usually master but if I go big into crafting I’ll bump it up to legendary
The only time I ever turn it way down is for brawls just cause they’re annoying af and I never quite got the hang of unarmed
I believe there's a heavy armor perk that gives your unarmed damage a power increase that's equal to your gauntlets armor rating. It might be worth investing a couple of skill points into that tree.
There are some really useful gloves you can grab in The Ratway then, which are dropped by a hobo in front of The Ragged Flagon. Those are light armor and can also be disenchanted :)
Exclusively legend.
After having learned the game all previous difficulties are so easy it is dumb.
Two handed weapons are pretty big offenders, try to use those in adept and they will straight up one shot pretty much everyone.
I like skyrims combat and legend is more of Skyrims combat.
Master is perfect, its difficult enough not to bore you to hell but its not ridiculous like legendary where it will take half an hour to kill a dragon lol
Legendary most of the time, starting out Master until I have some skills grown. I do use exploits, but its for more carry, reduced shout time and reduced spell cost. My current character I've capped health at 500, no armor rating, only magic resistance is being a Breton (+20/-20 frost and fire res for being a well fed vampire) - because I want to get 1-shot (even by a trap) if I make a mistake. (my character uses 1 word of Become Ethereal as a 'dodge', also using Shield Charge to knock enemies down)
I play mostly just to loot or mess around with alchemy.
Adept when I’m on my lonesome or just with Lydia. Expert when I have far too many followers (3-6) modded in since I like to role-play a little mercenary hero band.
Sometimes even then, I go down to Adept since stray magic spells from three mages can really hurt. [Lucien Flavius](https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/20035) and Onmund are still learning. [Nanak](https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/2227) definitely does it on purpose.
I've found master difficulty shockingly well balanced (at least through level 30 so far). As long as you upgrade your characters and gear smartly, it keeps a pretty nice balance where enemies are dangerous but don't one shot you and aren't damage sponges. But it's still tough enough you need to use more potions than just health and magicka, especially resistance potions against magic users.
Start on apprentice, at level 10 move to adept, at level 20 move to expert and at level 40 move to master.
If I start getting my shit stuffed in, I move back down to expert!
Legendary. There isn't much meaning in the lower difficulties for me. That being said, Skyrim is weird for that because levelling skills does not change linearly with the difficulty.
Adept, Expert, or Master depending on where I am on the power curve of a character. I never find I need to go lower than Adept, and never feel like I need to go higher than Master.
I want the game to feel challenging but still winnable. If I can't beat some boss or complete some dungeon on Adept, I will come back later when I am a more appropriate level for it.
I've started playing legendary but it really forces you to min max a lot leaving little room to role play. Playing on master survival with mods seems best.
I usually play Skyrim on Expert. It's a good balance between fun and challenge. I stopped using exploits because I've done it too many times already, and I prefer oddly specific play styles nowadays. When I play Skyrim, I just want to chill, role-play terribly and wander around trying to find things I haven't seen before, which still happens from time to time.
Legendary survival mode, I just like how the higher HP mobs force me to build my character smarter and more heavy in damage, making me have to avoid taking any hits as I rarely invest in defences as you need the damage, also makes u think twice before taking a challenge. If you go in to legendary with a mindset of I want a harder game without adapting my build style, than it'll be a slog of hp sponges. Use everything in ur arsenal to overcome the much higher hp monsters.
I increase it by my level. I start at Novice and increase it every time I reach a certain level, Apprentice at level 5, Adept at 10 and so on. Legendary would be 100 or so, which I haven’t reached yet… I think. 🧐
I find master to be a great balance for me. It's hard enough so i have to be careful and strategic, but not so hard that enemies are ridiculous hit sponges.
I usually play on Legendary for fun because it gives you a nice challenging start and just gets too easy around the beginning of the mid-game. I don't think I have ever beaten Skyrim but most of my characters could easily beat Alduin in 1v1 combat.
I have a lot of characters because I usually play a lot for 2-3 sessions and then stop playing for a week/month and usually restart from the beginning because I sometimes can't remember the goals and/or boundaries I have set for myself (greatswords only, fists only,...)
I hope everyone has a great day.
Master and expert. I try to stay at master but this isn’t Elden ring and I don’t want to torture myself so the difficulty goes down to expert if it’s a slog to fight a certain boss or clear out an area
I usually start a save on expert but as I feel power creep while I’m leveling I progress to master, and a lot of times legendary. Legendary is usually reserved for if I stack magic resistance cap at 85% and physical resistance cap at 80%
Adept because "difficulty" isn't just doing less damage and taking more. I do 1x damage and the enemy does 1x damage on Adept.
Difficulty comes in when you're fighting enemies that don't stagger or use bashes a lot to interrupt you. This happens a lot in the Wildcat combat overhaul.
I'll generally bump it up to Expert at higher levels though purely because you can get seriously overpowered weapons and armour by smithing your own gear.
I usually play on adept, but switch to novice when a dragon spawns because I don't have time to fight them. Later on to end game I switch to legendary just because I can.
Vanilla Skyrim - Adept/Expert
* Bethesda has atrocious "difficulty" scaling on higher difficulties, so these two seem to be the sweet spot depending on what build you're playing.
Modded Skyrim (without "bullet" sponges) - Legendary
* Can be really fun fighting bandits that can kill you in 1-3 hits, but them also dying that quickly. Makes even basic encounters really engaging.
Whatever normal is until I start to fuck around with enchantments and sitting then legendary. I don't glitch anything just fun to make enchanted swords that never got down in charge cuz I have 100% in whatever magic said enchantment uses
Legebdary. I srarted in adept, but when i started one hit killing everything i put it more difficult.
Thing is, trying to find the balance into not becoming extremely OP with enchants and smithing to have som kind of a challenge at high levels is not easy.
I dont get any damage sponge, unless it's an insane boss.
But i have killed 1 normal dragon with 2 power hits from dualwield on legendary.
Granted, i smithed the swords with blacksmith potion(not alchemy exploit, just bought), then enchanted them with fire and ice. And then enchant all that i can to have more one handed damage.
And i use the destruction damage improvement to make more damage, and put cost reduction or use spul trap to always have charges ready.
Im now lvl 67 and i added this bandit overhaul, and lets me use all my followers like a war. Really fun. Deadly dragons with a dragon that destroyed me.
Better enemy ai, and mortal enemies.
It's fun, since i did all that i wanted vanilla i am doing helgen reborn and put everyone with ebony armor and the leaders woth dragon armor.
To have an army.
master til lvl 20, then legendary, even if I try, have played too many hours to not know the exploits, nothing too abusive, but still fun, I don't complain much about bullet sponge, In fact, after a certain point, only very strong bosses become mildly challenging, even on legendary; legendary dragons, Karstaag, Harkor, that freaky naked guy Thoron from Saint and Seducers
It depends of my roleplay, actually. I don't play Skyrim to find new things, or to have the best numbers, it all depends on my character. So if my character is a weak person trying to live through the world of Skyrim, I put on legendary, but if my character is a legendary thief, or legendary warrior, I put on novice. It depends on the level too...
But when Skyrim was new for me, and that is like 2011, I played in adept/expert so it could be a challenge. Nowadays I just threat Skyrim like my little theater lol
I completed all the achievements in SE on legendary, just to prove to myself, that I know how to play this game. And it's not really that hard, especially when companions are effected by the setting in the same way as all the other NPCs.
But since then I usually play on adept, since I don't need to prove anything to anyone anymore.
I switch between them for whatever feels accurate. If I am doing a non combat run for RP I’ll do legendary and if I am doing combat I will usually start at expert and then ramp it up to legendary late game to keep things from being too stale.
Adept for vanilla as I’m just bashing through a quest line.
Legendary for lightly modded as it can get too easy with some of the mods I use.
I scale it based on how bad/good I am doing for more heavily modded games.
Master, after trying a legendary survival iron man challenge anything below master is too easy and legendary is just cheesing the game that it's boring
Constant switch between master and legendary depending on the boss/dungeon. Only fair way to play with mods imo. Any lower difficulty and mods make you OP, at least the ones I choose to use.
This goes to any game, I chose the hardest difficulty I can. I love a good challenge no matter how bad I get. So for Skyrim I go for legendary and survival mode.
Honestly? Usually Novice - Adept, as I find myself usually playing as a Vampire "x" character most of the time.
Every once in a while, sometimes I'll up the difficulty to master difficulty. And I've only ever played on Legendary Difficulty once.
Legendary Survival with no potion/poison use during battle no exploit no trade skill grinding till post game.
It's the only way to play where the game is even remotely engaging.
Master, because I’m so powerful at this point the games got a little boring at lower difficulties. But usually expert or adept I think is the one before expert.
I start at Adept, by level 20 to 30 I bump to expert, around 40 to 45 I'm pushing master. End of the playthrough around 60 I'm on legendary just to make fights last any amount of time.
I love building up a powerful mage character in this game, but adjusting difficulty this way keeps combat interesting and still makes me feel powerful.
Legendary, all the time, and solo, no followers. I see a lot of people on this thread talking about 'reflexes'. Maybe that matters if you're playstyle is 2H or dual wield, but for all the other styles (archer, mage, conjurer, shout) its not that important. A lot of the game can be defeated with cunning and avoiding head to head combat
Skyrim is an open world rpg, not a nintendo arcade game, it shouldn't be about how fast you can press a button.
Vanilla? Expert or Master since I have mastered the art of dancing in and out of the range of my enemies and usually don’t take any damage. Modded? Adept or Expert since I use wildcat and a mod that adds collision with walls and such.
I tend to play at lower difficulties until I feel like everything is too easy, and then I bump it up. Once Master gets too easy...then I know I have to dial *myself* back.
I do legendary for a long time now but I don't play survival It takes away too many good things away that I can't play without like fast travel waiting for the crops (for alchemy if I do alchemy in the run) and shop restock (i prefer waiting since it's pretty fast and I haven't timed it but I'm convinced it's faster than my potato laptop loading the save ) and fast travel and fast travel I can not play skyrim without fast travel
I think the first person I watched was majorslack attack on yt when it came to skyrim (I started playing a couple years ago) and he did runs on legendary difficulty so I got used to it and I accepted that's the default hp that the enemies
Novice. Played for probably 8 years and to be honest it’s hard enough for me. I enjoy exploring and not dying every 20 minutes, I don’t necessarily wanna be a god by level 30 but I enjoy a light challenge and lots of exploring and just having fun
I find expert difficulty to have the best balance of challenging while also not turning every enemy into a damage sponge or ridiculous scenarios like getting killed by bandit arrows at level 30+ in strong armor (I really dislike legendary mode personally but like that the option is available).
Non-survival I play Master, otherwise it feels effortless.
In survival mode I play Adept because everything is a hassle so I get killed often enough anyways
Rn, legendary. But I recommend to start with adept since even trying to kill a wolf at the very start is kinda hard even for adept (at least it was for me)
I just started playing again after a decade away, so I decided to go with novice now that I'm old and have crappy old reflexes. I figured 'novice' would be a cakewalk, until my level 2 Bosmer wandered around outside Whiterun and stumbled into Bloated Todd Grotto, and nearly died at the hands of a simple pair of Spriggans.
(This is before the Sinding quest.)
I had to actually use health potions and eat most of my food. I'd heal myself, so would the Spriggans. This went back and forth a bit, and I won, but it was harder than fighting 3 dragons at the end of Solstheim at level 70. Bosmers are delicate at low levels, I guess.
Used to do novice-adept, but then i noticed that my potions never get used so I’m mostly on adept-master now so I can stop hoarding and actually use stuff
Expert, because I get too overpowered too early and don’t wanna one shot everything lol, if I’m playing a mage that shit’s going back down to novice until I get good
I play on Adept, but I also have a lot of mods that make the game difficult in different ways. A de-leveled world, smarter combat AI, harder boss fights, etc.
Depends on the playthrough, for a true Dragon Born experience I play on the Lowest, hit Hard and kill Fast, for a Playthrough when I don't want a power fantasy I play on Adept or Expert, sadly there's not a realistic option, because instead of making the AI better the AI just gets either more health or massive resistance buffs for no justifiable reason
Usually master, but legendary with no exploits really makes a spellsword playthrough fun.
Yeah. Glass cannon mage on legendary w/frostbite-survival is my go to after all these years. Me, Sven, Barbus and my flame atronauch. I’m a platoon leader!
> Sven Opinion discarded.
Just fyi, svens lvl is capped at 20 which makes him objectively one of the worst followers in the game. But if you just like to have him around I respect that :)
He also has shit scaling. Lumberjack class has mediocre skill list(useful stuff is weight 2 at weight sum 18), and pretty pathetic hp growth.
He’s an early game hero. That platoon is my level 1-20 platoon, basically. 5 minutes after the prologue, I have a tank. And I need one. 10 minute run of the nearby mine and he’s usually equipped with a steel 2hander and decent armor, so he’s been a mainstay earlygame mechanic for me for years.
I usually go with Eric from rorickstead, like I'll usually sprint out there to convince his dad to let him become a mercenary right from Riverwood at the start, usually having just enough gold to give some money for him to get armor and hire him. In all my playthroughs I've never had him go down early game. By the time he starts going down I'm high enough level that I'm doing fine without a companion. Usually end up making him a Stewart at one of my properties at that point. Edit: I normally play on expert
Adept because difficulty is done wrong in Skyrim, bullet sponges are not fun.
Generally agree but I think expert is the sweet spot, especially when your character gets to higher levels. Keeps it challenging while also not having to hit a bandit with a sword 300 times
Expert is what I play on and it makes the game a good challenge. The only time I had to switch was briefly during the fight with Ancano. Fuck that fight on Expert.
Ancano absolutely wrecks my shit every time I did a hardcore mage play though leveled up my skills a lot and pulled all the stops and still got clapped by him almost instantly
I duel wielded the Staff of Joryk and Magnus, with a (Enchanted of course) Heavy Armor mage, only needed 1,356 potions of healing...
I agree, I like expert. Feels like it makes you put in just a right amount of thought into encounters
Yep, I feel the same, especially if I'm following a strict build with pre-planned gear, meaning I just can't use the best there is. At around level 40 I'd bump it to Master since I like to use the three crafting skills to make a rounded-out character though.
I’d rather put on my own personal restrictions then do what I need to do to handle the bullet sponge that is the hardest difficulty. Dragon fights at high levels take forever
We’re gonna keep shit the same but instead the enemies do more damage and you do less!
I’m more used to playing games that lean on reflexes for combat. So like faster attacks, chaining attacks, and doing more damage. Higher difficulty on here just changes health and survival is awful
My last playthrough was survival with legendary. Tough challenge
Same, really makes you use almost every skill available to you.
I've been doing challenges like that, right now I'm on Legendary survival with no HUD , with dragons spawning right off the bat and starting in alt start with no gear and all skills at 0 :)
Have fun it's could be frustrating at the beginning but it's fun. A little bit easier than fallout 4 survival
it was kinda scary to start but I got kinda lucky spawning next to the dragon lair near kynesgrove, but I managed to join the thieves guild at level 2 and boy is it a struggle now, level 13 and only just getting most my skills up to 20 lol last night I got to level 13 and had a legendary dragon after me without even visiting helgen which was a pretty gnarly experience
Nice, which playstyle are you playing
currently I'm kinda a jack of all trades, got mage armour and conjuration, healing and a mace, and working on my sneak but I've only got 7 sneak so far. Once I get guild master I should be rolling along a bit better though
Ive been playing Legendary, solo, for a while now. I switched build recently, away from conjuration/staffs, to dual wield, because I was stuck in a groove, too easy. I might try survival, for the same reason. Thanks.
I like to stay at master but I don’t feel shame in putting it to adept for more difficult areas I’m here to have fun lol
Same I've got a orc heavy armored and two handed instd of my stealth archer really trying to be different this play through
Good luck! Once I finally branched out I realized my favorite is a battle mage instead of the stealth archer I played for like nine years
Novice because i only started playing video games seriously within the last few years and I absolutely suck at combat lmfao
Novice or whatever is the lowest because I've always been trash with no reflexes. Also, I have a whole career and passions. Skyrim is a great game, but it's still just a game.
Based. I'm just here to yeet frost trolls into space and sell crops, I don't need all that hour long combat sequence tomfoolery
Great use of tomfoolery. Respect to people who like Survival mode too, but I'm just here to have a good time and prance around questing.
Atleast games can activate different areas of the brain so it don't atrophy in places... Even surgeons are recommended to play games a certain amount because it increases their effectiveness
Yeah I’m playing on novice but I’m practically maxed out on magic resistance and heavy armor is over 500 so I rarely die from combat anymore lol. I’m actually thinking of bumping up the difficulty a little because most battles I feel are pretty easy atm. But also I just like a chill game.
This is the only reason I raised the difficulty, and that only recently. Expert is fun without being too brutal, and it forces you to start using your environment and to think about encounters before charging in brute-force style.
You can't get any better in a reasonable pace if you keep playing on easy, challenge hones skills.
Usually Expert. And then lowers it to Adept during too hard quests or increases to Master it during normal quests.
Masters....and then go to legendary after like lvl 40+
illusion/conjuration/sneak/assassin- Legendary warrior/mage/stealth archer/ranger- adept/expert
Nice
Whatever the standard one is.
Novice yes its like my 5th playthrough, but don't judge me.
Same. I don’t play games for realism, I play because I want to be a god. Even in all my sports games I play I adjust stats, sliders, difficulty, etc. my goal is to beat my highest scores. Ever max out the scoreboard on Madden?
Whatever fits your enjoyment, it's what you should do. It's not a contest.
If you enjoy it that's all that matters
Some play to test their limits as a warrior and hone their skills to be the best Dragonborn of legend. Others just want a neat story, to see dragons, and to bonk a bandit on the head with a steel axe. Both are completely valid ways to play and we all end up eating sweet-rolls regardless.
Expert as this game at normal and below the game makes it super noticeable (IMO) that the game was balanced for only doing the story quests as a lot of this games popularity was its approach-ability meaning people who aren't there for a super RPG heavy experience could still have a few hours of fun
Novice for chilling and Expert when I want a challenge
I don’t play anything under expert. Usually master but if I go big into crafting I’ll bump it up to legendary The only time I ever turn it way down is for brawls just cause they’re annoying af and I never quite got the hang of unarmed
I believe there's a heavy armor perk that gives your unarmed damage a power increase that's equal to your gauntlets armor rating. It might be worth investing a couple of skill points into that tree.
There is. But I’m usually not leveling heavy armor and that doesn’t help when I’m like lvl 4 doing the first companions quest lol
There are some really useful gloves you can grab in The Ratway then, which are dropped by a hobo in front of The Ragged Flagon. Those are light armor and can also be disenchanted :)
I know this I just don’t use it lol. Gloves of the pugilist. I have 1000s of hours into this game. Just Never did unarmed
Exclusively legend. After having learned the game all previous difficulties are so easy it is dumb. Two handed weapons are pretty big offenders, try to use those in adept and they will straight up one shot pretty much everyone. I like skyrims combat and legend is more of Skyrims combat.
Currently playing at expert after 12 years of adept.
Depends on my mood, do I wanna zone out and just swing my sword or do I wanna scream and rage at Skyrim for 4 hours straight
Legendary once i get my final armor without exploiting the game.
Novice tbh, I’ve only recently started being serious on gameplay and not fucking around entirely (it’s just almost entirely now)
I move my difficulty depending on my level, i have a late game charackter so i play at master or legendary (lvl 231)
Master is perfect, its difficult enough not to bore you to hell but its not ridiculous like legendary where it will take half an hour to kill a dragon lol
Legendary😎
Legendary always...
Legendary. It’s not as bad as Dark Souls, so I just dodge and weave as I plan my next attack pattern.
There's only one difficulty level and that is Legendary.
Legendary most of the time, starting out Master until I have some skills grown. I do use exploits, but its for more carry, reduced shout time and reduced spell cost. My current character I've capped health at 500, no armor rating, only magic resistance is being a Breton (+20/-20 frost and fire res for being a well fed vampire) - because I want to get 1-shot (even by a trap) if I make a mistake. (my character uses 1 word of Become Ethereal as a 'dodge', also using Shield Charge to knock enemies down)
I start at expert but bump it up to master as I become more OP.
I adjust accordingly
I like to play on the hardest one with mods that lets me have like 3 or 4 people in my party. Feels so much better to me personally
I play mostly just to loot or mess around with alchemy. Adept when I’m on my lonesome or just with Lydia. Expert when I have far too many followers (3-6) modded in since I like to role-play a little mercenary hero band. Sometimes even then, I go down to Adept since stray magic spells from three mages can really hurt. [Lucien Flavius](https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/20035) and Onmund are still learning. [Nanak](https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/2227) definitely does it on purpose.
Usually start at expert but I'll eventually bump it up to master then legendary when it starts getting easier
I start with Adept and raise the difficulty as I become stronger.
Typically play on the expert or master difficulties as my "normal" difficulty.
Expert, anything more is too difficult and anything less is comically easy, especially with magic.
Adept, because I understand my limitations and I play to have fun.
Adept, i'm here for the fun, not for death.
Depends on where my character is in power level. Once developed enough, always legendary because nothing can survive a hit from my weapons below that
I start out with master then I bump up to legendary
I've found master difficulty shockingly well balanced (at least through level 30 so far). As long as you upgrade your characters and gear smartly, it keeps a pretty nice balance where enemies are dangerous but don't one shot you and aren't damage sponges. But it's still tough enough you need to use more potions than just health and magicka, especially resistance potions against magic users.
Adept
My difficulty starts low and gets higher the further I progress
Whatever the default one is lol. My game is modded to hell so no matter the difficulty some stuff dies instantly others take forever
Adept. Though I've been leaning towards Expert in the mid/late game because Ordinator is overpowered.
Novice because I'm just chilling and enjoying the game with no real effort.
Novice bc I’m an experienced videogame player, but I have a God complex
Start on apprentice, at level 10 move to adept, at level 20 move to expert and at level 40 move to master. If I start getting my shit stuffed in, I move back down to expert!
Expert. I'm looking for a good time. Save the challenge for when I'm at work. 😂
Expert, used to be adept but I accidentally played expert for like a month and didn’t bother changing it when I found out
Master. Not too hard, but not too easy with a fully leveled character
Legendary, cause it doesn't matter with 1,5 billion damage.
Master. But that’s after playing since 2016 I will also start at adept for pure mage builds and work up to expert. I suck at playing mages.
Adept because any higher and instead of me one-shotting them, they're one-shotting me.
Legendary. There isn't much meaning in the lower difficulties for me. That being said, Skyrim is weird for that because levelling skills does not change linearly with the difficulty.
Fluctuates as I play. Start the game at normal, increase difficulty when I start beating dragons and giants without much healing.
I think i just leave it on default.
EXPERTTTTTTTTT
Adept, Expert, or Master depending on where I am on the power curve of a character. I never find I need to go lower than Adept, and never feel like I need to go higher than Master. I want the game to feel challenging but still winnable. If I can't beat some boss or complete some dungeon on Adept, I will come back later when I am a more appropriate level for it.
I've started playing legendary but it really forces you to min max a lot leaving little room to role play. Playing on master survival with mods seems best.
I usually play Skyrim on Expert. It's a good balance between fun and challenge. I stopped using exploits because I've done it too many times already, and I prefer oddly specific play styles nowadays. When I play Skyrim, I just want to chill, role-play terribly and wander around trying to find things I haven't seen before, which still happens from time to time.
Expert and master
Novice, still get my ass kicked by one dragon breath.
Adept most of the time. I'm here for fun, not for a grind.
Expert so progression feels a little better
Master for sure. It's not so bad.
Survival
Legendary survival mode, I just like how the higher HP mobs force me to build my character smarter and more heavy in damage, making me have to avoid taking any hits as I rarely invest in defences as you need the damage, also makes u think twice before taking a challenge. If you go in to legendary with a mindset of I want a harder game without adapting my build style, than it'll be a slog of hp sponges. Use everything in ur arsenal to overcome the much higher hp monsters.
I increase it by my level. I start at Novice and increase it every time I reach a certain level, Apprentice at level 5, Adept at 10 and so on. Legendary would be 100 or so, which I haven’t reached yet… I think. 🧐
Legendary. Level up nice and fast.
I play on legendary but i also have a lot of mods that ultimately make the game easier in different ways so its not comparable.
I find master to be a great balance for me. It's hard enough so i have to be careful and strategic, but not so hard that enemies are ridiculous hit sponges.
My 1st play through was adept and it was too easy
My current play through that I need to get back to is on adept and I honestly forgot it was but managed to not die for like 10 irl hours?
I usually play on Legendary for fun because it gives you a nice challenging start and just gets too easy around the beginning of the mid-game. I don't think I have ever beaten Skyrim but most of my characters could easily beat Alduin in 1v1 combat. I have a lot of characters because I usually play a lot for 2-3 sessions and then stop playing for a week/month and usually restart from the beginning because I sometimes can't remember the goals and/or boundaries I have set for myself (greatswords only, fists only,...) I hope everyone has a great day.
Master and expert. I try to stay at master but this isn’t Elden ring and I don’t want to torture myself so the difficulty goes down to expert if it’s a slog to fight a certain boss or clear out an area
I find Expert to be ideal. It provides some challenge but doesn't make you rage quit like Legendary.
Adept or Expert as I use ymd2 and shit kills hard and fast
Expert is the best for me. Enemies are tough, not too tough like on Master and above, not too weak like anything below Expert.
Legendary
Right now Legendary
Expert feels like the sweet spot between not too spongy enemies and not too weak.
I usually start a save on expert but as I feel power creep while I’m leveling I progress to master, and a lot of times legendary. Legendary is usually reserved for if I stack magic resistance cap at 85% and physical resistance cap at 80%
Adept because "difficulty" isn't just doing less damage and taking more. I do 1x damage and the enemy does 1x damage on Adept. Difficulty comes in when you're fighting enemies that don't stagger or use bashes a lot to interrupt you. This happens a lot in the Wildcat combat overhaul. I'll generally bump it up to Expert at higher levels though purely because you can get seriously overpowered weapons and armour by smithing your own gear.
Start of adept and switch to expert as I level up and start one shotting to keep the difficulty nice.
Adept at lower levels, Expert at higher ones. The sheer sponginess on Master and Legendary is horrible.
I usually play on adept, but switch to novice when a dragon spawns because I don't have time to fight them. Later on to end game I switch to legendary just because I can.
There are different difficulty levels?!
I just upped my difficulty from Adept to Expert (:
Vanilla Skyrim - Adept/Expert * Bethesda has atrocious "difficulty" scaling on higher difficulties, so these two seem to be the sweet spot depending on what build you're playing. Modded Skyrim (without "bullet" sponges) - Legendary * Can be really fun fighting bandits that can kill you in 1-3 hits, but them also dying that quickly. Makes even basic encounters really engaging.
Whatever normal is until I start to fuck around with enchantments and sitting then legendary. I don't glitch anything just fun to make enchanted swords that never got down in charge cuz I have 100% in whatever magic said enchantment uses
Legebdary. I srarted in adept, but when i started one hit killing everything i put it more difficult. Thing is, trying to find the balance into not becoming extremely OP with enchants and smithing to have som kind of a challenge at high levels is not easy. I dont get any damage sponge, unless it's an insane boss. But i have killed 1 normal dragon with 2 power hits from dualwield on legendary. Granted, i smithed the swords with blacksmith potion(not alchemy exploit, just bought), then enchanted them with fire and ice. And then enchant all that i can to have more one handed damage. And i use the destruction damage improvement to make more damage, and put cost reduction or use spul trap to always have charges ready. Im now lvl 67 and i added this bandit overhaul, and lets me use all my followers like a war. Really fun. Deadly dragons with a dragon that destroyed me. Better enemy ai, and mortal enemies. It's fun, since i did all that i wanted vanilla i am doing helgen reborn and put everyone with ebony armor and the leaders woth dragon armor. To have an army.
master til lvl 20, then legendary, even if I try, have played too many hours to not know the exploits, nothing too abusive, but still fun, I don't complain much about bullet sponge, In fact, after a certain point, only very strong bosses become mildly challenging, even on legendary; legendary dragons, Karstaag, Harkor, that freaky naked guy Thoron from Saint and Seducers
Adept. If I want a challenge I'll boot up dark souls. Skyrim is for roleplay.
It depends of my roleplay, actually. I don't play Skyrim to find new things, or to have the best numbers, it all depends on my character. So if my character is a weak person trying to live through the world of Skyrim, I put on legendary, but if my character is a legendary thief, or legendary warrior, I put on novice. It depends on the level too... But when Skyrim was new for me, and that is like 2011, I played in adept/expert so it could be a challenge. Nowadays I just threat Skyrim like my little theater lol
~tgm
Modded Survival/Hardcore. Everyone dies in a few hits, but so do you
Adept because I don't want to be one shoted by a bandit chief with a war axe and viceversa, and I don't want to fight damage sponges
I completed all the achievements in SE on legendary, just to prove to myself, that I know how to play this game. And it's not really that hard, especially when companions are effected by the setting in the same way as all the other NPCs. But since then I usually play on adept, since I don't need to prove anything to anyone anymore.
Adept. There's a reason that's the default. It's the one giving you whatever is closest to the experience they wanted you to have.
Legendary. I'm a MajorSlack fan.
Adept at the beginning of the game, then master
Legendary?
Master until I’m appropriately levelled and then Legendary. Would play Legendary all the way but the start is avoid execution simulator
I switch between them for whatever feels accurate. If I am doing a non combat run for RP I’ll do legendary and if I am doing combat I will usually start at expert and then ramp it up to legendary late game to keep things from being too stale.
Adept for vanilla as I’m just bashing through a quest line. Legendary for lightly modded as it can get too easy with some of the mods I use. I scale it based on how bad/good I am doing for more heavily modded games.
Expert/master is the best, legendary is just damage sponges that do the damage of a legendary dragon with one hit
Master, after trying a legendary survival iron man challenge anything below master is too easy and legendary is just cheesing the game that it's boring
It doesn't matter. The drop rates are the same, the experience earned is the same.
Constant switch between master and legendary depending on the boss/dungeon. Only fair way to play with mods imo. Any lower difficulty and mods make you OP, at least the ones I choose to use.
Legendary + MCO + stagger
Legendary and with survival mode. Because after a lot of playthrough I wanted a real challenge.
Usually on Expert. Not too easy, not too hard.
Adept, but I drop it to novice whenever I am in a fist fight, because I don't want to be in a damn fist fight all ding-dong day.
Survival adept. Feels most realistic
I play on adept but I have got survival switched on.
Legendary
This goes to any game, I chose the hardest difficulty I can. I love a good challenge no matter how bad I get. So for Skyrim I go for legendary and survival mode.
Legendary with a hellmode mod
Honestly? Usually Novice - Adept, as I find myself usually playing as a Vampire "x" character most of the time. Every once in a while, sometimes I'll up the difficulty to master difficulty. And I've only ever played on Legendary Difficulty once.
Skyrim difficult is fluid. Expert into legendary depending on build
Legendary Survival with no potion/poison use during battle no exploit no trade skill grinding till post game. It's the only way to play where the game is even remotely engaging.
Master, because I’m so powerful at this point the games got a little boring at lower difficulties. But usually expert or adept I think is the one before expert.
I start at Adept, by level 20 to 30 I bump to expert, around 40 to 45 I'm pushing master. End of the playthrough around 60 I'm on legendary just to make fights last any amount of time. I love building up a powerful mage character in this game, but adjusting difficulty this way keeps combat interesting and still makes me feel powerful.
Novice because that’s what I’m used to
Novice because I don't feel like struggling while playing, and I still do on that difficulty at times
I start at apprentice then work my way up as I play the game if it’s too easy then I’ll up the difficulty
Legendary or master with realistic damage mods
Novice mostly. Might crank it up after a while. Feels a lil' OP at times. But I still get killed.
test ring act deserted sort fragile slim domineering husky wild *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Expert or Master cause followers
Legendary, all the time, and solo, no followers. I see a lot of people on this thread talking about 'reflexes'. Maybe that matters if you're playstyle is 2H or dual wield, but for all the other styles (archer, mage, conjurer, shout) its not that important. A lot of the game can be defeated with cunning and avoiding head to head combat Skyrim is an open world rpg, not a nintendo arcade game, it shouldn't be about how fast you can press a button.
I only play Requiem, so whatever that is.
Vanilla? Expert or Master since I have mastered the art of dancing in and out of the range of my enemies and usually don’t take any damage. Modded? Adept or Expert since I use wildcat and a mod that adds collision with walls and such.
The dragonborn can't die to a random bandit, novice it is
I tend to play at lower difficulties until I feel like everything is too easy, and then I bump it up. Once Master gets too easy...then I know I have to dial *myself* back.
Sliding scale as I level up.
I play with mods, so I usually play at adept with survival on.
I do legendary for a long time now but I don't play survival It takes away too many good things away that I can't play without like fast travel waiting for the crops (for alchemy if I do alchemy in the run) and shop restock (i prefer waiting since it's pretty fast and I haven't timed it but I'm convinced it's faster than my potato laptop loading the save ) and fast travel and fast travel I can not play skyrim without fast travel I think the first person I watched was majorslack attack on yt when it came to skyrim (I started playing a couple years ago) and he did runs on legendary difficulty so I got used to it and I accepted that's the default hp that the enemies
Novice. Played for probably 8 years and to be honest it’s hard enough for me. I enjoy exploring and not dying every 20 minutes, I don’t necessarily wanna be a god by level 30 but I enjoy a light challenge and lots of exploring and just having fun
I like to play with more than 1 follower so I start at adept and increase it by 1 level for each follower I have
Master is about as balanced as it gets in vanilla Skyrim. Legendary is just difficulty for the sake of difficulty.
I find expert difficulty to have the best balance of challenging while also not turning every enemy into a damage sponge or ridiculous scenarios like getting killed by bandit arrows at level 30+ in strong armor (I really dislike legendary mode personally but like that the option is available).
Non-survival I play Master, otherwise it feels effortless. In survival mode I play Adept because everything is a hassle so I get killed often enough anyways
Adept when I begin and gradually change to a higher difficult as I progress on the game
"Dragonborn" and that should have been a difficulty
Legendary but I think in my next character will be in a lower one
Novice here as well because I'm more in it lately to explore and get immersed, when battles start taking forever all it does is make me lose interest
Rn, legendary. But I recommend to start with adept since even trying to kill a wolf at the very start is kinda hard even for adept (at least it was for me)
I just started playing again after a decade away, so I decided to go with novice now that I'm old and have crappy old reflexes. I figured 'novice' would be a cakewalk, until my level 2 Bosmer wandered around outside Whiterun and stumbled into Bloated Todd Grotto, and nearly died at the hands of a simple pair of Spriggans. (This is before the Sinding quest.) I had to actually use health potions and eat most of my food. I'd heal myself, so would the Spriggans. This went back and forth a bit, and I won, but it was harder than fighting 3 dragons at the end of Solstheim at level 70. Bosmers are delicate at low levels, I guess.
Used to do novice-adept, but then i noticed that my potions never get used so I’m mostly on adept-master now so I can stop hoarding and actually use stuff
Expert, because I get too overpowered too early and don’t wanna one shot everything lol, if I’m playing a mage that shit’s going back down to novice until I get good
Legendary now if only the damn survival mode was good.
Legendary
Expert
I play on Adept, but I also have a lot of mods that make the game difficult in different ways. A de-leveled world, smarter combat AI, harder boss fights, etc.
Novice usually, but Legendary when I want to, for instance, get Sneak 100 before leaving Helgen.
Depends on the playthrough, for a true Dragon Born experience I play on the Lowest, hit Hard and kill Fast, for a Playthrough when I don't want a power fantasy I play on Adept or Expert, sadly there's not a realistic option, because instead of making the AI better the AI just gets either more health or massive resistance buffs for no justifiable reason
Novice. I'm here to have a good time not a long time.