So after playing around with the various trade skills, thief skills and trying a bit of everything else, I find myself at level 10 with no combat skills past level 31- and only 'Sneak' and 'One-handed' have got that far. I got jumped by some hired thugs outside of Whiterun and got the tar knocked out of me about four times before I got lucky. Since the only way to improve my armour and block sills is by getting hit, and since everything that hits me is now able to damage me quite badly, I'm quite annoyed that the non-combat skills are causing the combat to get harder. I shouldn't have to worry that selling my stuff at a vendor is causing my Speechcraft skill to improve, or that mixing a few potions is going to have trolls everywhere before I know it.

Anyone else got this problem? I've gone back to the standing stones and picked 'The Warrior', and I'm going to try walking around with just a shield and a destruction spell for a while to keep everything else low. It's slightly better than Oblivion, but it still feels like I'm going to have to play the system a bit.

I am lvl 10 too, and destruction at 30 is my highest skill, with alteration at 28, sneak at 27, restoration, illusion, enchanting and conjuration at 20-25. I have leveled speech a few times like you, and also smithing (twice), alchemy (four times). Plus skillbok levels to two handed, block, heavy armour that does absolutely nothing for me. So i think i am in a similar spot as you, but i dont feel that it is limiting me at all so far.

I've put four perks into destruction already which i guess gives me some punch, but to me the difficulty feels very good. I've found some places that were just too difficult for me forcing me to backtrack, but in general things seem to be moderately difficult. I dont know if it is because i have been towing a follower a round a bit though? It does feel like a follower can help out a ton, and likely i would have had a lot of trouble without a follower with me if the battles would have been the same.

Compared to Oblivion yes, but with the new level cap being a lot higher it feels pretty right. 1-20 from oblivion feels about the same as 1-50 in this game.

I flew through levels 1-10. On level 15 now and it's definitely slowing down a bit.

I would be inclined to agree but when I reached level 11 it suddenly felt it was going a lot slower, like triple the time before.

I'm level 17 after 18 hours. Seems about right to me.

The leveling system is perfect in my opinion. Not too fast and not too slow.

I'm level 20 after a good while. Don't know how many for certain, because I left the game running for a while, when I left my room. I put most of my points into Archery and Sneak though, so the game has been [censored] AWESOME, so far! GJ, Beth.

I'm level 10 and my one armed combat is like 45, my blocking is 30 and my heavy armour is 35.

That's after 1 day (9 hours playtime)

So it's a little quick, but no doubt it'll slow down.

The key to leveling in this game is to do what you want to be good at, and not side stuff exclusively. Limit yourself to a couple levels here and there in support skills each level, otherwise you'll be good for nothing but.