I think Bethesda did a pretty good job of balancing the difficulty. I've played through the game for 90 hours or so and I'm having a grand ole' time of it. Some things I can kill with ease, others nearly vaporize me in an instant. It's fun. The point is, though, I'm just playing the game like a normal person. I'm not powerlevelling or grinding or skill spamming in order to max out my character's potential.

Some, however, do. I appreciate that Bethesda included some tougher difficulty levels, but I don't think they went far enough. The game's difficulty should go all the way up to the point that it's actually impossible to finish. That way, nobody on earth will find the game to be too easy. Even with the best equipment, max spells, enchantments, skills, and perks, there should be enemies that crush your soul on the highest difficulty.

There's no reason not to include that, because some people certainly want it. Even I might have some fun tinkering around in a world like that, for a bit. It would be interesting to see how long you could last. Also, it would be purely fascinating to see if anyone comes in and complains about the ease with which they can sneak past everyone or something.

It has been my opinion for some time that every game needs a difficulty level of 'Impossible'.
But then again, I'm one of the people that has actually beaten Nethack.

]Never played Nethack, but played other roguelikes (Stone Soup mainly) and I have to give you respect for that... Must have played that game upwards of 1000 times and never gotten close.

The difficulty slider needs to be changed to do more than just draw out already mechanically boring fights. I'd even be in favor of having advanced difficulty customization -- I know a lot of my friends who are playing on console are finding the game to be easy as well and without going through the hoops of making self-limitations, they're just blazing through the game and will soon hit that wall where they're waiting for new content because they were allowed to devour what is there now so fast.

• Merchants should be shrewd
  
• Enemies should utilize more tools (similar to what would be avaliable to a player, perhaps, but not to the furthest extent -- you are dragonborne afterall)
  
• Skill gains should be slower
  
• Every dragon encounter should put you in the position of being terrified of them
  
• Nearly all traps should be deadly

I dunno. I was kind of just brainstorming there. I figure mods will make this possible eventually, but damn if I figured maybe that kind of stuff would be an inherent option in the games at some point, especially with more difficult games getting a revival lately.

Lol 100% realism. Sword slashes and arrows are 90% fatal. Get burned by a dragon=dead. No health bar, you're hit and didnt block, youre dead. You cant carry more than 60-70 lbs of stuff tops. You have to eat drink and sleep. No fast travel.

That would be hardcoe. Totally wouldnt play it long term, but just like you said. Just to see how long you could last.

BTW most insane diffiuclty? Witcher 2's highest difficulty setting deletes your savegame if Geralt dies. <- DAYAM.

WOW

That's brutal. Dead is dead eh? I've never heard that. I wish bethesda could make "hard" modes more intelligent, but they can't. Way back in the day harder difficulties used to imply a slightly less idiotic opponent. Not true anymore today, games are so advanced that it takes our most complex AI routines just to play them at all.

So I agree with one of the above posts, the difficulty should do more than just bad guys do more damage. Give them more potions, give the player less experience per skill, make the player suffer a penalty (opposite the "well rested" boost) for not sleeping.... etc.

Would be awesome. Like most, I would get sick of it eventually. But it would do a couple things:
Give me something fun to do from time to time.
Give the more hardcoe guys on here something to do instead of complain that there's nothing to do

Enchanting,Smiting,1handed,and block is overpowered i dont recommend anyone to play with them.

Game is not easy for mages on 25-40lvls cas destruction not scale, but still not impossible.

Would like a hardcoe mode (separate to difficulty).