From what I've seen the difficulty levels break down like this:

Master: Challenging
Expert: Manageable, about right for most people
Adept: Fairly easy after a few hours of gameplay
Apprentice: Very Easy
Novice: Extremely easy

Basically, people who play skyrim tend to fall into two general groups: People who want a true challenge and have to gimp themselves on purpose in order to make it this way, and people who are perfectly fine steamrolling everything and want their Daedric Armor ASAP and their 100% cost reduction.

Essentially, they should either add a new level of difficulty, or remove all of these cheap exploits that you don't even have to really try at to get in order to make the game too easy. For example, I have a character right now who's enchanting is as high as her one-handed and I haven't soul trapped anything and I have the Warrior stone on that character. They should also cap spell cost reduction at 85%, and not allow people to upgrade past the first tier of Legendary on smithing as well.

They should remove these types of exploits, and if people want the game to be a cakewalk and not present any challenge, they can play the game on Novice.

Why do you care what difficulty other people play on?

What we should have is some sort of Skyrim mode where the game is naturally harder such as No Health Regen, Weapons/Armor Degrade over time of use, Arrows have weight, normal Weapon swings also decrease stamina, no natural magic regen, can only drink 2 potions at a time and then you have to wait 15 seconds before you can use another 2 potions (Using one potion and then backing out counts as two), etc.

Depending on playstyle (Which I think you got at) is another factor. In Morrowind, my Nightblade is a god at 100 difficulty. Oblivion, my Knight is somewhat fair on around 25% difficulty. As for Skyrim I had to tinker with it for a long time. I had it at apprentice for a while but recently upped it to Adept. A tad hard for my Assassin but I get by (Dragons are the only problem though).

I play on adept because i find it difficult enough. I don't appreciate you basically saying i like to steamroll through everything. The way i play, I have some rather tough battles, and its just the way i like it.

I find that I generally had to increase the difficulty up to expert when I reach the mid-20s. However, that was for my first few playthroughs, now that I know what I am doing, I play almost exclusively on master.

Edit - so what I'm saying is, I think difficulty should scale better as the player unlocks more powerful skills and perks. It seems like the difficulty really falls off around level ~25.

I don't see the big problem, I have characters where I just decided that in order to get a challenge I would just stop getting the newest stuff and stick to lower tiers of armor. I am not a fan of using exploits, but it's a singleplayer game so they don't really hurt anyone and if they change it now people who enjoy steamrolling stuff will not be too happy. If you want a harder game you can always limit yourself or mod it, I limit myself and it works fine.

I am only Lv 51 and I am at Adept. But like I said, it may be my playstyle since I am a light armor/weapon Assassin.

I play on Adept although I'm doing a level 1 playthrough, can't imagine going up to Expert or Master as that would be Dark Souls level of difficulty at Level 1. I'll have no chance to kill a Draugr Scrouge at level 1 on a difficulty higher then adept setting. I might rise the difficulty up to Expert if I do decide on a normal playthrough run as I usually have no problem killing enemies after level 30 with the exception of some bosses.

Where do you get this from? The polls I've seen show that most people play either on Adept or on Master; while so called gamers will surely up the difficulty at least to Expert right after creating their first character, "normal" difficulty should be tailored to an average player. I believe Adept is just right.

Some characters are more powerful than others (most notably abusers of crafting skills), but they can change the difficulty at any moment if so they choose. The problem isn't in default settings, not even in the exploitable skill system, it's in the game's inability to provide a decent challenge for powerful characters.


Then it's a good thing Draugr Scourges don't appear until you reach level 13, and even then only as bosses

There are videos on youtube of guys killing giants on 1 level on master difficulty. The game overall is not that hard if you're well practiced at the game.

May I see one of these videos? I want to get the idea of what this player had in terms of wares and skill.

No it shouldn't lol. But the difficulty changes should be even stronger for the people that do like difficulty.

To be fair though. Nothing is hard when you are well practiced at it lol.

It's all in technique and skill. Frex, I killed giants early on playing on Master but 'cheated' by doing things like running until I found a large rock or hill and then doing the circling / hitting until the giant was dead. The A.I. is predictable in many situations which lets you take on strong foes at low levels. The only diff between low and high levels is that it takes more hits at low to kill the foe and you can get one shotted early on where you can't later on.

Just like any other game, some people are better then others. Yes you CAN steamroll things on adept, but maybe someone isn't that good/ new to the game/ playing a unique play style. That's their business.

I personally had a great time destroying things like a god, but now I've found that expert gives me a fun play through from 1 to ~25 then I'll switch it up to master. But everyone is looking for something different; I've read threads about people spending hours cutting wood and cooking.

I see no point in playing other difficulty there is no extra bonus/reward for playing master, self satisfaction I guess but I like bragging rights lol

I can definitely encounter them at level 1 in Dragon Priest Draugr ruins (Not the one outside of Solitude) and that Volunrund dungeon. They are incredibly hard to fight and I have to run if they summon a Frost Atronach against me. It's a good thing they don't use Ebony/Honed Ancient Nord Weapons or I won't be able to beat them at level 1.

Dragur Deathlords on the other hand (Yes I can encounter them at level 1 in the same ruins minus Volunrund) is Skyrim's version of a New Vegas Deathclaw. They have Ebony Weapons which makes them impossible to beat at level 1 unless you use strategy such as sneak attack arrows or launching Firebolts at them in sneak mode or spam a Staff of Fireball/Chain Lightning. The latter I hate doing because it's cheap, although the former could also be considered cheap too.

This, yes they might want to add an nightmare difficulty on top as some people makes overpowered builds, are unable to restrict themselves and then complains.
On sub optimal builds as pure werewolf or destruction mage normal might be to hard.

Thats basically how i killed my first steam centurion. His steam blast would kill me in one hit, so i chickened around a pillar tossing a spell at it. It took a while, but i survived.

I play with light armor and, usually, a sword, and i don't upgrade or enchant, so some battles can be a real pickle.

Why stop there and have both the difficult and exploits removed and focus on a much more realistic model?

I will never understand why people have such a problem with how this game is delivered. Those exploits are a matter of choice. The game doesn't force players to use them.

And these discussions all come down to the same thing: the lack of self control to play the game as realistic as people truly claim they want it.

I'm aware of the unfair over-balance the game delivers, but I'm also aware this takes a fair amount of leveling to get to before it's seen.

A level, for what it's worth, that's selected by the user.

If people truly want a realistic game: stick with level one, no perks, no enchanted items, and stop using the same weapon throughout the game.

Go fight a dragon with a one-handed skill at 25 while stuck at level one.

That'll wake anyone up to realism very quickly.

I play expert and it is just about right for me, I hardly play pure melee chars so the challenge for my sneaky typés are going toe to toe with melee heavy opponents. Last night I stormed a Stormcloack fort by myself and died a couple of times by not planning my strategy correctly...I can still get killed by a well placed hammer power attack, or going head to head with more than 2 opponents, so timing my power attacks and weaving and hitting are a must to stay alive...all these combat mods sure look nice for melee fighters but for me giving them a few extra HP in expert is challenging and fun. If I tried just using my sneaking and bows it might be way easier but I like to spice things up
As a side note,I think that people who complain about the combat beign too easy are exactly the kind of people who exploit every weakness and powerlevel their skills...give me my Ghostblade and glass dagger, a couple of healing potions and my nightingale armor and I am more than happy to layeth the smackdown

In direct response to the thread title: No. Normal difficult is only super-easy if you use (or abuse) enchanting and smithing, or if you're high level.

I play on Novice. I don't play Bethesda games for challenge. I play them for exploring, relaxing, and making stories. I wouldn't mind adding a new difficulty level, though. Options are always nice. And yes, I am aware that some find master difficulty relaxing.

I agree with this !