I think that I've noticed that the more I level up,the harder the game gets.
I play on medium/adept dificullty and currently I am level 12.
I meet very often creatures that are very hard for me... :confused:

e.g. they kill me with 2 hits,they need more than 20 hits from my sword to die.

The problem is I find creatures like these very often.. I tried to beat a dungeon for a quest from the Companion's guild and gave up thinking it would be better to leave it for later after I level up somewhat.
So I started wandering around,and I visited 2 more dungeons,but again I meat creatures like the Draugr Overlord all over the place and I can't beat them!
I kinda loose hope as things like these seem to have gotten everywhere.

Looks strange because dragons seem to die so much easier.. Their health goes down faster and their breathes do me less damage..
I have 170 Health,140 Stamina,and 110 Magicka,many One-Handed perks,a few in Block,and one in Light Armor and one in Heavy Armor.
I also have 6 shouts.

What's wrong ?

Is it because of balance issue,or perhaps there is a bug and the game spawns to me more powerful enemies than it should,or I chose the wrong perks ?
WTF is going on ???

You are running into high level enemies. Level scaling works like this. Some areas have a range say 20 to 30. If you go there at level 12, then enemies will be lvl 20. Go there at 24 and they will be 24. Go there at level 50 and they wI'll be 30. Also the enemies lock there level.

Well its not only gaining actual player levels that helps but skill levels (perks not included). Its quite easy to level up player wise with very little skill practice or variation of skills early in the game and therefore give you some areas with enemies scaled to that level. Personally I level up when I find the challenge is getting a bit lackluster and need to see some higher level mobs

Life svcks when your level 12. I am now a level 37 mage and it is very rare for an enemy to even get near me in combat. I have yet to feel this "imbalanced game" symptom. I think those that look for an imbalanced game find it.

From your point and perk distribution, seems like you are trying to do everything at once. If you don't use sneak and ranged attacks at all, you have to have very good offense and defense. If you are just walking into the room and saying "I will feast on your heart", you need to be able to kill things in a few hits and have very high armor class. That generally would mean smithing and enchanting. If you have sneak and the ability to attack at range, then you can be more tactical. Illusion magic might help you.

So it was just random that I visited high-leveled places ? Hmm.. then most hard places seem to be West then,cause I started a journey to Markarth planning to make a few stops in the way.

I play on master difficulty on my level 45 thief/flurry-warrior and it is quite a challege, but definitely doable. The problem exists that when I log onto my alt and play her (level 8 or so) I get two shotted or even one-shotted by mobs, as well as it taking an infinite number of hits to kill. Many monsters in this game are at a set level, as well as some that scale, but the ones on a set level will be incredibly hard (realistically you think a person who JUST started training with weapons or magic could take on a 600lb mountain sabre cat?). Just keep playing, do more dungeons, but i would definitely reccommend NOT changing your difficulty-- it will make it too boring. Hey, i can even go so far as to say I enjoy the ever-so-often one hit death; It keeps me on my toes.

Yes if you see a deathlord at level 12 you should run. Unless you're running some abusive build which would let you kill em.

ok, I am a level 12 mage. so much harder than a sneak thief (really not, but harder at different times)


so I went to fort kastav at level 10 and got pwned hard. but then I went to two bandits camps. one was a cake wake of flame and death (for them)

the other one was hard. I had to get better at combat. I used sneak, threw out a atronach, used some potions, ran like hell, etc. I killed them all.

(lesson learned was wear mage armor. it helps! and the lord stone)

does the prima guide say what levels different places are? that would be nice to know, might make me buy guide.

Your character level is a curse... you want it low. But you want perks, and they only come with levels, so it's a trade off. What people do is the say "hey! this makes my level go up! I'll do that some more!" and they don't realize that they're not gaining skill levels in the areas they need, like offense and defense. You should try to keep 4-6 skills all at about the same level rather than taking one or two skills to 100 at first. The balance in this game is up to you... not up to the developers.

@kelt: Yes... it specifies "suggested level".

unlike MMO where you hit auto attack and stand there until the npc dies, this game requires a little more skill with combat. If your not blocking you have to move around a lot more. Even with a shield block I still the occasionally 2H npc that gets lucky and kills me.

If you run from one end to the map to another then you will run through different leveled zones. In general: the further away from the starting zone the harder enemies get. Of course it isnt always noticable as some weak creatures are always low leveled. But some creatures like Sabre Cats can be really strong in some areas.

Great thing is, you level locked them for that area. Meaning you could rethreat, gain levels and come back as a god. What you might be doing wrong is fighting in areas that you obviously are too weak for. In a more liniear RPG like for example World of Warcraft you could also wait with going into a new zone until you are ready. So if you notice you are too weak then move to another zone and gain in strength first. Or you could lower the difficulty if you like it to be a more easy going experience. The choice is entirely yours.

Skyrim's balanced, your just running into high level areas.

Hey ronnet, I know you from the Gfaqs board. Good to see some of the more intelligent posters from there drifting over here. (this is runner5676 btw)

Generally the lower level enemies are in the vicinity of your starting area, but in skyrim its a bit of level scaling and area. Normally more dangerous dungeons and areas are in the higher mountain regions.

I had a lot of trouble with boss fights when I went through lower levels (10-20) too, and felt that they cut through my armour like it wasn't there.

I'd suggest you make a choice between light or heavy armour and put some more perks in armour (like more Agile Defender and maybe Custom Fit when you can if you choose the light armour way) to bring up your armour rating, and if you have enchanting you can buff up your offensive power too.

You can also bring a companion for dungeon diving, as they are great decoys and carrying mules.

I tried doing the Azura quest, and without spoiling anything, at the end my warrior simply cannot do it, it's too tough, the enemies magic is far too destructive and the open corridors leave me little room to survive their attacks.

What did I do?
I reloaded a previos save before this part of the quest and I went out to do other stuff, I'll return when I'm stronger and have more potions.
I suggest you do the same.

^ Definitly this. Some areas are basically labelled as lets say a level 20 area and if you wander in at level 10 you are probably toast. I believe that some enemies in these discovered areas will then scale with you after you "unlock" them but only when you reach certain "milestones" in the leveling system for scaling like level 25 , 30, 40 etc. But they should never surpass you at that point. I think I just confused myself but thats how I understand it lol So coming back 5 or so levels later will put you on equal footing or better.

Which I find to be refreshing change from Oblivion.

I beat that with my warrior by using 2 staves(fireball, and chain lightning) that I picked up earlier in the quest.

It's certainly possible to do the Azura quest at low levels, you just have to be careful with the Dremora.

As people have noted, enemies have a level range that approximately corresponds to yours. Occasionally you'll run into enemies that are tougher than you are.

Another, possibly bigger, issue is that difficulty depends on your skills and perk selection. As you increase level, your enemies get tougher. If you're investing in perks or raising non-combat skills, that means that you're creating a world where you're going to fight much tougher enemies. An easy way to deal with this is to balance your skill gains, so don't just gain a bunch of levels using speech, lockpicking, or similar skills. Don't put all of your perks into non-combat skills. Your damage from archery/1h/2h weapons scales as you level, and then gets bonuses on top of that from perks. So make sure that at least one of these skills gets attention.

Skyrim leaves a lot of leeway for different character types. You don't have to focus entirely on combat skills, but you can't ignore them either. Also, use a little strategy. For example, if you're fighting a giant, you need to either keep your distance, or you need to run in, stun them/slow them if possible, take a couple of swings, and run away again, timing your attacks so that you don't get hit. The same general idea applies to other boss-type enemies. And keep potions handy for healing and for fire/frost resistance at least.

Everyone has been very helpful to the OP so far, so my little addition:
You perked things that need stamina, but you haven't leveled stamina much.

Mostly, it's the scaling, and the fact that you're in the "tough" part of the level curve - the teens are awkward (like IRL!)

@kelt the prima guide suggests level 6 for fort kastav. I have no idea what pipe they were smoking. I played a sneak thief there about that level and their spells ate my lunch.

I went to fort kasta as a thief with companion at low levels and got murdered. tried it at level 10 as mage, got murdered.

I since have gotten agent of mara and lord's stone, but those frost spells were hard on my dunmer.

I have been powerlevelling my destruction...bought 7 levels, that was expensive, but the tradeoff is I cast adept at half price.

I never paid to train combat stuff as thief, just let bow and one hand go up naturally, but as a mage, I had gotten my conjuration up high and same with destruction, but was just a few levels short of much cheaper spell costs, so training seemed to be the way to go. we will see.