Let me preface this by saying that the difficulty you play on has nothing to do with validity of opinion or eliteness of a player.

But I'm curious, what difficulty do you prefer and why?

I prefer adept because I feel that's how the game was meant to be played. There's an equal chance of me killing the enemy as there is of them killing me. I do just as much damage as they do, as it's a 1:1 scale. When I'm kicking the crap out of them, it's more realistic to me since I'm a prophesied hero that's supposed to save the world by slaying the firstborn of the God of time. Mooks shouldn't stand a chance, some more master level bad guys (Volkihar Master Vampires for instance) should.

Adept. I haven't actually tested out any other difficulties. I keep meaning to change it but keep forgetting, so it's just stayed on adept for me. I'll be trying out a dead-is-dead game soon, most likely on Master.

I actually accidentally made the game a bit harder for myself anyway. Until recently, I enchanted all my armour with fortify health enchants, so whenever I leveled up and got to choose an attribute to advance, my health was always at like 400+ and I was like "well my health seems to be high enough, I'll use it on magicka and stamina then". Later, in the level 70s, I change to magic-based combat with a new set of armour, this time without any fortify health. Only then did I realise my actual health was only around 250.
Makes some of the tougher enemies still a bit of a challenge without some decent armour.

Adept, for similar reasons.

I find most people on here who feel the need to tell everyone they play on master do so purely for e-pee points.

Depends on my current play style:

• Stealth Archer: Master, even that felt easy at times. I'd wear light armor, keep the skill at default level and not perk it. This way, I HAD to stay hidden as most enemies could 1-shot me.
  
• Cleric (current character; see signature): Expert, it just feels right. Master is frustratingly hard with a melee no-sneak character at my level, but Expert feels just right. I HAVE to block/inturrupt power attacks, and retreat to heal up or I'll die. I can't just mindlessly swing my weapon and kill things, I have to use strategy.

I find most people on here who feel the need to tell everyone they play on master do so purely for e-pee points.

Not at all, some people like a challenge-- myself included.

Master + PISE + Duke's Combat = Awesome!!!

Since Bethesda's idea of "difficulty" keeps being increasing enemies' hitpoints, default.

If want to kill an enemy with 64.000.000 hitpoints, i'll play Final Fantasy

Actually, damage input and output is modified with difficulty levels... (i.e. you do half the damage and take twice the damage)

Expert. That's as hard as I want it to get with an unarmoured character, thank you very much.

Practically it has the same effect

Was aimed at those that feel the need to stipulate it when they attempt to describe a scene. I've noted a few names on here that do it regularly. As if to grand stand...

Master.

Master, while seriously gimping/restricting/roleplaying my character.

Still too easy.

My next character will be something totally different, I hope it'll bring back the challenge.

I'm guessing you're either a stealth archer or assassin?

Adept. And when things get out of hand, usually because the level scaling caught up to me, I'll crank it down to Novice to get through an unexpectedly difficult fight that othewise would kill my character (better than reloading!).

Maybe I'm just not as "good" of a player as others who talk about wanting a greater challenge, but I suspect it also has to do with the fact that my characters rarely make it beyond level 25 or so. By that point, my characters have usually explored most of Skyrim, and it feels too tedious for them to be retracing their steps over and over. So I have never experienced the "godlike" feeling of playing into the 50s or 70s.

The other reason is that I have never played a character who used more than one craft skill - and I've never "spammed" those skills. So my gear has always been pretty standard, if competitive.

Oh, and I've never played a stealth "assassin" character - the closest would be rogues or thieves, who haven't really pumped up their combat skills.

So I have no desire to play on anything harder. The fights on Adept seem to have a good rhythm to them, and higher difficulties would just mean a lot more scurrying and healing while I whittle away at the damage sponge trying to kill me.

Fallout3 had a mod that increased damage across the board - for both the player *and* the NPCs - without really touching health values. Combat felt deadlier than in vanilla; you could get one- or two-shot, but you could also kill a lot of things with a couple of well-placed shots yourself. I think it was the Fallout Wanderer's Edition mod. If Skyrim (or any Bethesda games) used a model like that for increased difficulty, I would be more inclined to try it out. As it is, I'm finding Adept a good challenge.

Nope, I'm a pure mage (no armor, no weapons, no potions) using only conjuration, destruction and enchanting.

This combination seems to be too powerful for me to enjoy, but I couldn't see it coming when I started playing. And I've played too far to stop now and start everything over.

Adept.

Same with MW, Oblivion, FO3, FO:NV, and almost every other game - I play on Normal/Average/etc. Play games for fun/enjoyment/relaxation, not to feel "satisfaction" at finally overcoming a million deaths.

Sometimes I'll drop a game to a lower diff, if I'm no longer enjoying the game mechanics but I want to see how the narrative ends. Dragon Age:Origins/PC, for instance. Combat got tedious, and my non-efficient party kept losing it to cheap shots & impossible situations. (Open a door - fireball/icestorm/chainlightning, whoops, party dead. Repeat; Or the sidequest that threw you into a fight with 15+ baddies, with NPCs who rushed forward and triggered them all rather than letting your rogue/archers pull them carefully. With no AoE in the party. etc.)

You're still not God-like at level 58...well, it depends on how you made your character...and the number of health, magicka and fatigue potions you have...

All of the difficulties are relatively the same. It just takes longer to kill stuff the harder settings you put it on. Expert is right around where the damage taken v received should fall.

I was God-like at level 30. I did not powerlevel Enchanting or Smithing. The game became completely trivial then and I did not ever fear dying except if it was rolling off a cliff accidentally.

Adept. I try going for the greater lethality of Expert, but since it also reduces my damage to pitiful levels, not for me.

I still get beat a lot.

I play on Master just to play. I like to play all my games on the hardest difficulty level.

All varies by player....and it comes down to how much they are abusing the craft skills

Master. Skyrim is my first Elder Scrolls game, and I accidentally set it that way when I started. Anything else feels wrong now.

I like to play on the easiest setting.

I've been playing on Expert and find it a good setting for my self. That is without using smithing or anything though.