What Is the Best Difficulty in Skyrim? Here’s What We Think
Like most other action RPGs, Skyrim has several difficulty settings. And while difficulty does not drastically change how the game will behave, it changes how you will experience it and the level of enjoyment. Having said that, most people have individual approaches when it comes to choosing difficulty, as newbies will struggle when playing on “easy,” and sometimes veterans don’t feel challenged enough even on legendary difficulty. If you count yourself among the average players and don’t feel strongly toward any difficulty, you might wonder, what’s the best difficulty in Skyrim?
Adept difficulty in Skyrim seems to be the best and most optimal approach when balancing enjoyment and the overall challenge that the game delivers to you. Most players play on adept difficulty due to moderately strong enemies that keep them engaged during combat but provide just enough challenge to feel they accomplished something after taking down the enemy. The adept difficulty seems to be the “golden middle” when it comes to leveling as well, as it provides you with just enough experience so you can level at a reasonable pace.
Now that we’ve covered the best difficulty in Skyrim, it’s time to analyze it in more detail. Before we go on to explain why an average player would want to give adept difficulty a try, we’re going to have to explain how difficulty works in Skyrim in the first place. If you’re interested, stay with us and keep reading!
Skyrim has five difficulties adjusted for different types of players
As we’ve mentioned, Skyrim doesn’t have a single approach toward all players. You’re welcome to choose between five difficulty levels starting with the novice (the easiest) and ending with the legendary (the hardest difficulty).
Upgrading or downgrading difficulty in Skyrim will not add some drastic changes to the world, nor will it add some special moves or extra mechanics to the boss fights. It will simply adjust how much damage you can do to the enemies and how much damage they do to you.
Novice difficulty will turn the odds largely in your favor, and you will be, with appropriate gear, able to steamroll just about any NPC and boss that comes your way. Legendary difficulty turns the tables in favor of NPCs, as you will be significantly weaker than them, and you will need to resort to helping yourself out by using additional things at your disposal, such as enchantments, scrolls, and potions in general. These are a must if you plan on surviving the master difficulty.
Easy difficulty is not challenging enough for the vast majority of players in Skyrim
Skyrim is inherently not a difficult game, but sometimes players are not confident enough in their skills, so they go for the easiest difficulty in the game. Especially if they don’t have previous experience with action RPGs or games of similar settings and genres. However, the easiest difficulty proved to be far too boring and uneventful for my personal liking and many other players’ liking.
It’s not that interesting to be able to steamroll just about anything that comes your way. You’re also lacking the incentive to upgrade your gear and develop skills such as enchanting, alchemy, and smithing since there’s no real need to upgrade your gear further than what the game throws your way.
You’re not going to put emphasis on building the perfect character, either. Enemies are far too easy to defeat and provide no real challenge. There are some exceptions, but usually, just about any boss fight ends in your favor relatively easily.
Legendary difficulty delivers too much grind and not enough rewards
Legendary difficulty makes all your encounters more difficult to overcome. Enemies hit harder, and you are able to soak up less damage. Enemies also have more health which means that your damage is going to scale differently. And you are going to have to hit them more times in order to defeat them. This can get repetitive after some time, and on higher levels, it gets especially boring because you are able to handle the damage better. It makes fights long but not a real danger to you.
Greater difficulty does not affect leveling in such a drastic way that we would have hoped as well.
The only positive way when it comes to greater difficulties is the fact that you have to develop your character properly. You need to strategize when it comes to investing in your perks. You are also forced to explore alternative skills besides focusing mainly on combat skills.
You need to craft potions, perfect your armor and rely on enchanting more often than you have to on easier difficulties. But still, it feels like too much grind for not enough rewards.
With that said, what is the best difficulty in Skyrim?
The adept difficulty seems to be the best and the most optimal choice for most players. It’s easy enough for most players to adapt quickly to how things work and hard enough for the average player to feel stimulated to strategize and develop alternative approaches to fights.
It’s also the most optimal difficulty to level up some offensive skills, such as destruction. You don’t have to spend most of your time crafting, but it’s recommended. You’re also not going to lose too much time on the boss fights because if you’re skilled enough, you’re going to be able to take on and defeat anything that the game throws your way in a reasonable time.
If you are interested in some challenge and don’t like the way in which Skyrim’s difficulty system was designed, I strongly recommend Requiem mod. This mod aims to make Skyrim’s gameplay more difficult but not through regular means. It aims to force you to play with more immersion in mind and make the world overall more dangerous. You can download the mod for Skyrim: Special Edition from this link. And if you’re interested, here’s the mod description in the author’s own words.
