I guess it's realistic. You may be more skilled as you level up but you can still die in one hit. My assassin is fragile and has always died in one-hit from the minute I started.

I have experienced this too. My character was about 40th level or so and had an AR of around 420 and about 350 or more of health. I got one hitted by some random bandit in a cave (not the boss) who was wielding an ordinary steel battle axe. I kept reloading and he kept doing it. Finally I killed him before he could hit me. Later that day I ran into the three Imperial Soldier Imposters who demand 100 gold, and when I refused, one of them one shotted me with a two handed weapon. Ever since then I have been very careful not to get hit by a two handed weapon power attack.

How is this a bad thing? Just recently i went into a cave with my 46 warrior, and the inhabitants (really powerful vampires) sent me running. I was not one-shotted, but i got my as kicked. A pleasant suprise!

That's level scaling. Something done to please the FPS and action game crowd.

RPG players know it's a rewarding experience to grind your way to high levels so that yesterday impossible fiend can be easily trounced today.

FPS/action game players expect continuous challenges least the game becomes "boring".

I submit to you if you can be killed like that out of the blue. Enjoy the feeling of accomplishment when you aint killed. You just kept your ass alive during a tough fight. When you cant be killed, no satisfaction. Like mick jaggar say.

I got one hit all the time from the surface of cliff! (that I just fell down)

pehaps your just not using right perks??? try leveling up armour a bit.

Now that is a matter of opinion.

I'm a roleplayer and I prefer my games to provide a challenge at all levels. I found Morrowind after a certain amount of levels to be extremely boring as I seldom found anything that gave me a challenge. I don't need a game to provide 24/7 challenge, but when I have to spend hour after hour to find one mob that is powerful enough to give me a challenge the game gets boring fast. I don't play RPG's to become the mightiest character in the world, so for me to find myself in a situation where nothing is a threat that means the game will be extremely boring.

I use 2 mods in particular that makes my current playthrough very much a challenge, SkyRE and Skyrim monster mod. At level 32 I have spent most perks on sneak, some on fingersmith* and some in light weaponry* (*new perk names in SkyRe). I lack the armor and the health to fight dragons one on one, Arrows do very little damage to dragons so it means I have to get close and personal. As a dualwielding dagger assassin getting close to a dragon means I die easy. Same with some of the higher levels of bandits and draugr also, I have to kill them in the first Sneak attack or power attack I do. If that doesn't work well the whole situation is turned around and I literally will have to play the best I can to avoid being killed. No perks yet in Light armor so my armor rating is low which means a lot of mobs can easy two-three hit me and bosses can easy one hit me. And the thing is I love the challenge, no longer will I sneak about killing stuff without a worry as I did in Vanilla version of the game. I actually have to plan my combat and plan my approach, and the bestthing is enemies now scale up to level 100 so that means I can have a challenge throughout the playthrough. Dragons was seriously easy in Vanilla version, for me know they are an absolute threat and I have to use terrain, obstacles and movement in each fight. They actually feel like dragons should feel like, dangerous and a creature you don't just walk up to and smacka few times in the face.

Sounds like they're getting a fatality on you. I think everything gets the chance of scoring a fatality on every attack they make. Its stupid yes, but you just have to live with it.

Challenges must be cleverly arranged by the game designers who also act as a dungeon master for the player. Where's the 'role' in playing a hard earned master of some trade when everyone in the world scales with you and yesterday rats have become today frost trolls?

If I'm at level 50 and all the guards in the towns level with me, that's a BIG problem. Tell me you never witnessed a puny guard winning against a dragon because they scale with the player or said dragon being beaten by the Dovakin at level 10 again because they also scale with them.

I doesn't matter if the battle feels evenly matched. Some battle should be easy, some matched, some extremely difficult. If I always face the same level of challenge, then why leveling up at all?

If I want a challenger there should be certain areas (mostly dungeon) where I will be trounced to pieces unless I opt for an humiliating retreat. Explore, work hard, level up and -finally- it's time to reap the results of your hard earned work.

This.
Niamh is in the mid 30s and frequently gets 1sk'd.
I would far rather this happened because it means she has to think about what she's doing and how. because sometimes it happens in the most surprising of places.

If you don't want to get 1sk'd then don't get yourself into a position where you can be, it's about you playing the game.
If you played it and walked over everything at a high level you would soon be complaining.

learn to adapt.

Same here. This is TES, if the player dont focus on only a few skills, then he will be weak at higher levels.

I never felt anythin was wrong with Skyrims lvl-scaling. (Exept casters)

Think this is why I keep restarting. Highest level I've reached was in the upper-twenties. Fought my fair share of strong enemies, but I fear the stronger variety will kick my ass.

this "must focus and specialize" dogma i read about on this forum everyday is simply FALSE.

you do not have to specialize to be the most powerful character possible. without using any of the trades you will create the most powerful pc by creating a jackofalltrades hybrid.

why? because too many of the skills and perks are useless, including, the high level perks, and, there are too many pc levels compared to enemies.

Such as?

It's really impossible to balance the game for any kind of character based solely on level. Some things are hard for different types of characters (mobs of melee characters are hard for a mage, mobs of magic wielding mages are hard for a fighter, etc.). So there's nothing Bethesda can do to make it perfect, just better.

That said, the level balancing works toward a "generic" charaacter who has taken the usual perks. You get this in D&D too when the players have made their characters in a non-optimized (or really well optimized) way. The game is too hard or too easy for them. But there you have a human gamemaster to compensate. Here you don't.

My first playthrough, I started out as a mage and then started mostly swinging a 2 handed sword. Because of that I was not very well optimized and the bosses would sometimes kill me (the ones listed above). I had to keep moving the difficulty down to survive ... at first. Then I started grinding the smithing and enchanting and that put me ahead of the power curve and I was able to handle the deathlords on even terms. My second playthrough (about L30 on this playthrough) I was a warrior from the start and the super bosses are challenging, but not terrifying like they used to be. They seldom kill me, though they can wear me down. The minions are easy unless they're in a really big group. But like last play, I grind on my crafting so I like to get ahead of the curve so I can feel like I can walk into a battle with a reasonable chance of survival.

It's really a matter of what you like. If you're a hardcoe type and like to play on master, etc., then you are getting what you want already. If not, grind on smithing, crafting, and enchanting and your worries are over. I'm a fan of flame breath and slow time too. Really great force modifiers in hard fights. Fire breath gives you some room to think as the bad guys reel away on fire for a few seconds. Slow time lets you hit them a lot before they can respond, or it lets you withdraw.

seriously? remember, i'm talking about creating the most powerful hybrid and so rping and variety perks do not matter.

how about lockpicking, speech and sneak skills and perks, for starters.
all paralyze perks.
with many of the base perks you only need the initial 25%.
pick 1-h vs 2-h. pick light vs heavy. there's 2 perk trees and skills that are useless.

how's that for starters.

again, i'm talking true power perks. taking shield bash perks are a waste because they don't do enough damage and using my primary offensive skill is more powerful.

if you're going to give your opinion on these i really recommend you think about the difference between a perk that adds true power to your character, like, taking 5/5 on the base perk for your primary offensive weapon and adding paralyze. paralyze is needless and can be accomplished with a potion. taking a paralyze perk doesn't add power to your character. it adds rping and variety and fun.

as well, i can create this all-powerful hybrid by about level 60 or so and i still have 20 more perks to go that i can use to flesh my pc with ones that add rping, variety and entertainment value.

This. So much so much this.

I understand that action gamers require challenges throughout the game, but scaling puny enemies to level along with you is clearly not the answer

Challenge should be given by pre-determined sets of enemies. Enemies in 3rd town is hard, while the enemies at 4th town is a bit easier, enemies at the last town is VERY hard, and so on

The challenge should be in trying to progress, not the progress itself.

I find it VERY ironic that people screamed at Bethesda for experimenting with Oblivion, yet here action players beg Bethesda to implement "full-on challenge, fast-paced-reflex-based action" all the time

Wasn't RPG about "grinding so I can tank this annoying Gate Keeper" and not "training like a ninja so I can evade all of enemies' attacks"?

Wasn't RPG about "grinding so I can get stronger than this Gate Keeper" and not "traveling the world where everybody is as strong as me"?

Diablo II was about that, Final Fantasy series was about that. Just about every classic was about that. The challenge is not because enemies everywhere keep up with you, but because you're progressing further from the starting town., in other words, enemy difficulty has been pre-determined

I find that Skyrim's implementation is a step towards the right direction. Dungeons scale themselves to your level the first time you step on them, and stays that way. I'm not saying it's perfect, but it's better than Oblivion (a.k.a. challenge everywhere everytime)

skyrim becomes ez around level 30 with the right skills and perks.

the game goes to level 81.

the game has multiple difficulty settings with one being called master.

i expect a challenge throughout the game. i'll settle for a challenge to level 60, lol.

Would you kindly define "throughout"?

What are you talking about, just being a petty dike it seems.

I never said I'm against strong enemies, I enjoy fighting them as I have to plan to survive, the op is complaining.

Didn't mean that as a response to you, I just used the examples you talked about to make a point, sorry if that was misunderstood. My bad.

*Fixed