Hello. Really enjoying this game and writing an extensive review as we speak. However, I found a really annoying thing I want to share with you that should be improved. It has to do with power scaling on the main quest or, lack of thereof.
I kind of disregarded the main quest and when I went to do the killing Runt mission I was close to max level. I had 19 Sword skill, 20 warfare and 20 strength. Suffice to say, my first battle was underwhelming to say the least. I could literally charge in and kill full plate enemies in one stroke. Even Runt was a one shot kill, I parried his attack and without even using a master stroke, gave my risposte to the head which he had no chance of evading. One shot kill.
As I have in my document:
My best combat experience came from the second camp you fight with the missions given to you by the Bailiff in the monastery. That camp’s leader was really hard and they kept killing me. Even when I managed to disarm him once (he lost consciousness due to headcracker perk and his weapon disappeared which is a recurring bug). But even then, he was able to punch me and dodge me like nothing. I died several times in that camp until I had enough, sneaked in and killed him in his sleep. The rest of the camp was easier but I still lost half my health due to numbers and how long it took to kill them due to all the armour. And I love it. Why wasn’t the main story quest like this I wonder, Why not have this hard as nails enemies that can hold you down and then the not so armoured ones in Runt’s camp be able to swarm you and kill you? And people in any form of mail + padding shouldn’t fall to a single longsword bow.
No level scaling for Runt either. Whole first battle was anticlimactic as hell. I was so powerful that I killed everyone who stood in my way. Killing Runt at least should be a climatic point where we take revenge after arduous battle (which was not at all as I could take the entire enemy forces alone) but I literally killed him in one blow. This should not happen. One of the biggest selling points of the game for me is that you are not a super human however, I certainly appear to be one on the main quest line. The game clearly did not consider that someone could spend hours and hours practicing combat and gaining a lot of levels before undertaking the main quest. I love the main story line but the pivotal set piece moments currently feel like a joke and are non-immersive as hell as I was able to finish them without any stress or worry. I think that some opponents need their level adjusted to match yours, sure Runt wears no helmet and a sword blow to the head should kill him but many of his followers were in heavy armour and it was as good as wearing paper. I could kill them with one blow of my longsword without even pausing.
Mind you, the text needs clearing up but I wanted to leave this here as it is basically taking me out of this historical setting back into Skyrim. I am now doing main story line quests until I am faced with a challenge but it doesn’t appear to be coming any time soon. I think on high warfare, defence and swordsmanship levels we get too much slow motion time to counter blows and the damage that goes through opponent blocking is too high.
Please consider this as I love this game so very much.