For me food and cooking were one of the main things I noticed. For example you have various archetypes for consumable items in Skyrim.

Potions: Gives buffs and various effects as well as instantly replenishes resources.
Scrolls: Much like potions but a one time use and typically very potent especially since the effects are not dependent on the skills of the caster.
Weapons: Buffs and deal damage
Jewelry/Armor: Protecting from damage and buffs

Food: instantly replenishes resources just like potions and gives buffs just like potions...
While some foods do give more interesting buffs MOST food is nothing more than a very weak potion. So with that said I am leaning in the direction of suggesting that food should be about increasing your out of combat regen for magicka and hit points. This combined with greatly reducing the regen that hit points and magicka have should make you think more about keeping some food on hand. A decent sized cooked meal should give a buff that lasts upwards of 20-30 minutes.

Just a thought

Smithing
-Swap daedra and Dragon in skill requirements. Daedra should take 100, Dragon should take 90, imo.

OK, I've been going over various ideas for Smithing and Enchanting and what I've come up with so far,

Heavy Armor
-Full set of Iron should reduce Magicka regeneration by ~20%, Full set of Daedra should reduce magicka regeneration by 90%. This is a per-piece thing, based on a percentage based on armor.(What I mean by this is - Your chest will have the bulk of the reduction, while your feet and gloves will have the lowest - As chest has the bulk of the armor, and gloves/feet have the lowest.)
-Swap Coushioned and Conditioning (to match Unhindered in Light Armor tree)

Light Armor
-Full set of bottom-line reduce magicka regeneration by ~10%, Full set of Dragon reduce magicka regeneration by 50%. This is a per-piece thing, based on a percentage based on armor.

Destruction is all around a poor damage build. The damage is low compared to ..everyone else, and at least 1/5th of the spells are either useless because of limitations(Rune spells - only 1?) or are too mana intensive for anyone to really be able to use(it takes me ~6 FULL mana bars to take down a dragon on master.)
-Damage scaling isn't there..at all. 1 Destruction or 100 destruction - I believe this is a bug.
-Mana Cost Reduction from Novice to Master perks increased from 50% to 75%.
-The perks are lackluster. +50% damage? Every other tree gets +100% + crit chances/increased damage/other misc effects. If It's possible I'd like to make this 35% 25% per perk - with 5 points. This will force people to be more specialized while bringing destruction on par with others.
-With my prior change, This would be the squishiest build in the game(it already practically is...but you can still wear full heavy) - and as such should be a power house, not a wimp.
-Impact Replaced - Increase damage when Dual casting by 200% 100%, Cast time increased by 2 seconds. - This would be the casters response to "Sneak Attack".(Stunlocking dragons is kinda lame, I think this is a much more elegant solution that doesn't rely on cheesing)
-Fire's Fear, and Frost's Deep Freeze changed. Now instead of happening under a certain amount of hp - Always has a 20% chance of happening on all but the largest targets.
-Rune Master changed. Now allows you to place up to 4 3 runes, ontop of its current effect.
-You can no longer Dual Cast runes.(They're just too powerful with these changes)

Conjuration/attacking skill scales FAR too well.
-Double Scaling(from Attacking skill, then from conjuration) it makes it FAR too powerful early-game. Maybe base Bound Weapons on level, rather than conjuration level? With other suggestions this should balance out.
-More damage from Fire pets, Less from Ice. The tanky pet shouldn't do more damage than the caster =/.
-Ability to companion share with the Master Conjuration Undead minions.

Alteration
-Alteration perk to increase duration increased from 100%, to 400%. Dropping deep in the tree should allow you to recast less often.

Illusion
-Illusion spells now have an inherent chance to fail based on skill vs enemies level. {I need to know if this will be possible with the kit as well}
-Continue up to level 50, rather than stop at lv 30(Illusion).
-Would like to add a long-lasting damage over time effect. Something to let Illusion be played stand alone - just be slow on bosses.

Restoration
-Needs more reason to actually use it... 3 points for +250 hp when dying is the only real use I can find for it =/
-The increase to undead damage really needs to raise. A lot. Talking like quintuple whatever it is now.
-Novice - master perks should reduce magicka cost by 75%.

Enchanting - breaking the game since day 2.
-Disallow Skill(pickpocket, hide, smithing, alchemy, etc) enchants.
-Reduce damage enchants by ~ 30%.(One-handed, Two-handed, Archery)
-Make enchanting level a little faster. Enchanting skill ups based on the level of soul gem you use. Petty gives half the skill ups it does now, While black/grand gives double, and everything in between gives between .6-1.9.
-Reduce Magicka Regeneration over 100%, This shouldn't go above 300% - even with a full set of enchanted gear. - Testing around with this I actually think you should be able to go higher.
-Remove -magicka spell costs from being able to be enchanted, aside of Restoration. Paladins should still be viable imo.
-Black Star shouldn't absorb White Souls. It is clearly a bug, since as it is there is no point in selecting Azura's Star over Black Star.
-Change the entire left side of the tree
- Elemental Prowess: Increase the effect of Fire, Lightning, and Cold enchants on Weapons and Armor by 25%
- Staff specialisation: Staff are now 25% more effective. 5 points.
- Soul management: Staff and weapon consumme 50% less charge.
-Remove Muffled enchant since this completely eleminates the need for points in Sneak - or lower its effectiveness, or simply replace with +20% sneak bonus.
-Addition: In addition to reduce damage enchants by ~30% I would also place a cap here at lets say max 50% more damage.
-Weapon enchants that make enemies not attack now only have 5 charges per Black/Grand Soul Gem down to 1 per Petty soul gem. Such as: Calm, Fear, and Paralyze.


Alchemy
-Disallow Skill(pickpocket, hide, smithing, enchanting etc) Potions
-IMO sell value is fine, Making gold off of searching every alchemist ingredient to make potions is a fair way to make gold.
-Include the Experimenter Perk into the first one (or remove it completely)
-At the spot of Experimenter Perk should be Green Thumb (with skill level 60 requirement)
-Snakeblood should make you 100% resist to poisons (hey, it requires skill level 80)
-The top Perk should be something else, no idea atm I think the top perk is pretty fitting. A secondary effect is probably in order here though.

Smithing
-Swap daedra and Dragon in skill requirements. Daedra should take 100, Dragon should take 90, imo. Add Dragon Weapons to be on par with Daedra, also require some rare reagent.
-Make smithing skill gains dependent on material usage. If you use 1 iron ingot + 1 leather strips, it should have 1/4th of the effect of making something for 4 iron ingots and 4 leather strips. Also of course more advanced materials would help the skill gain tremendously. Basically, make it a long,long grind to get to 100 smithing from making iron daggers and leather bracers.
-There is no Perk that lets you double the effect on Leather Armor (e.g. Thieves Guild) and Iron(?), the first Perk should do that - rename to "Basic Smithing"
-Cap Smithing improvements at Legendary (don't go further)

Lockpicking
-Treasure hunter should be 2 points, 50% and 100%.

Pickpocket
-Reduce chance to pickpocket gold exponentially by its value. Over 1k should never be pickpocketable. This would stop the exploit of pickpocketing trainers after skill 50, roughly. This seems like the simplest solution.
-Replace "Extra Pockets" with a short-duration(4/2 second) paralyze, or sleep. Ineffective against targets over level 30 without points in illusion.

Speech
-If possible, something to reduce the cd on shouts by 5/10 seconds.

Shouts
-Double all cooldowns

Powers
-Place a more reasonable cooldown on these.(I'm thinking 10-15 minutes)

Companions
-Give them a heal spell, some magicka, and remove their kneeling to full hp(if this will be possible - really not sure). They're practically immortal right now.

Enemies
-Increase Dragons Resistances, and Armor dependent on the level of dragon. Blood Dragons should receive health from hitting people.
-Beyond the first dragon - Increase dragons' breath damage so that without resistance they are deadly(thinking about ~30% here).
-Increase Dragons HP by 75%.

Please put any suggestions, changes, or arguments below! I'll update this post as the thread goes on!

-Remove Enchanting potions.(They outright break the game. Hi2u +1000% enchanting)

-Swap daedra and Dragon in skill requirements. Daedra should take 100, Dragon should take 90, imo. Add Dragon Weapons to be on par with Daedra, also require some rare reagent.

- The enchanting master perk totally breaks the whole skill. Either change it so you can't place the same enchantment twice, or change the perk entirely.

You can't place the same enchantment twice on one item.... although you can come close with the -reduced magicka cost per school (there's 1 buff that's a straight - reduced magicka cost % and another that's a lesser - reduced magicka cost % with an added + magicka regen)

I see. Didn't know that. What makes enchanting inherently overpowered then, except for reducing spellcost to 0? Is it the synergy with alchemy's fortify enchanting?

The unique legendary loot in the game should be better than anything a character with smithing = 100 can knock together in a forge.

On the flip-side, some weapons do too much damage as it is. Dragons should take a minimum of 50 swings/casts of the highest end weapons/spells.

The unique legendary loot in the game should be better than anything a character with smithing = 100 can knock together in a forge.

Nope, that actually was all hype. You can't make +1000% stuff like everyone kept thinking. You can enchant +alchemy gear and then use it to make enchanting potions which you then drink to make better alchemy gear ONCE. After that it's maxed out. The best + enchantment potion you can make is +32% which = +29% alchemy gloves, ring, amulet, hat. Which wearing all 4 with the alchemy perks just makes another +32% potion, it doesn't keep increasing upwards like people kept fearing.

However there's still a small handful of problems with enchanting that make it overpowered.
1) Reducing spell costs to 0 which can be fairly overpowering when you are casting master level destruction spells for 0 mp.
2) Being able to make +47% one-handed/two-handed/bow damage gloves, ring, amulet, and boots (then add perks and +130% smithing pot and 4 pieces of +29% smithing gear)
3) Being able to excel at ANYTHING, need to pickpocket a bit? Throw on 4 items with +47% pickpocket, need to sneak 4 items with +47% sneak
4) Nigh-Invulnerability - Shield with block +47% and frost resist +54%, ring with frost 54% and shock 54%, amulet with shock 54% and fire 54%, boots with fire 54% and magic 23%
As a Breton with the Lord's Stone, a handful of specific perks, and smithing and you've got > 100% resists in fire, frost, shock, magic and over 1500 armor not to mention a shield that blocks basically everything. Plus you still have your gloves, chest, and helm to enchant however you like.
5) Double enchanting weapons - Absorb health + paralysis or absorb stamina.
Needless to say enchantment is definitely overpowered, it's just not able to be mixed with alchemy to infinite loop like some people feared.

I think that "master" difficulty should disable the "Save" menu and put a 10 minute cooldown on autosave after load.

But without some detailed thought about alternative builds and alternative playstyles, you are not "fixing" balance, you are destroying it.

I will add this: fighting an elder dragon with a light armored stealth specialist at level 35 was something I gave up on. When I got down to about 200 health, I was dead. The combat was probably not unwinnable, but not without abusing game mechanics (healing myself to full after each injury and repeating the battle until I could do that without running out of potions and without dying).

Anyways... if this mod is about making the game challenging for people that use load-from-save? Or if it's about making the game moderately challenging even without reload for someone with a specific set of perks and gear?

Argonians svck. I've always wanted to play Elder Scrolls as a dinosaur, but there's not enough diseases or underwater stuff in Skyrim for the Race abilities to help. Bonus-wise, they're weaker thieves than the Khajiit (and why wouldn't a dinosaur have as strong hand-to-hand skills as a cat?) and weaker mage-thieves than the Dunmer, leaving them almost no racial advantages whatsoever.

Suggestions:
- Hand-to-Hand bonus (a perk tree for this would dramatically improve game play in general, but that's another topic altogether)
- Bring back blade, alchemy, agility/athletic, illusion or mysticism bonuses from Oblivion.
- More diseases and water... this would probably be a little more difficult.

There's a history of balance mods for TES games so you should take a look at them to get an idea about some of the assumptions and core ideas. OOO would be a good place to start, there's plenty of documentation and discussion.

My personal take is that balancing mods are created to make sense out of a jumble of poorly conceived noise. BGS stats tend to not be thought out so the idea that balance would be destroyed by a mod is pretty amusing. (god mods don't try to balance anything, they're just about the opposite of a balance mod, and usually just amplify BGS sloppiness).

The reload issue is separate, and IMO not related to balance. Balance usually means cost-benefit anolysis, understanding trade offs, and normalizing stats-- for items, skills, perks, etc. This way, all skills and items have some value, rather than the world being clearly divided into a lot of junk and a few gems.

One simple, random example would be daedric vs ebony. BGS just sets daedric to be better and calls it good. Balance mods might do something like make daedric do more damage and be more durable, but less enchantable than ebony. The result is that ebony becomes a viable choice thoughout the game, and no longer just a step on the path to daedric.