On lvl 51 master, I don't find traps very bothersome at all. Scaling output of a sprung trap sounds really odd. But I agree they should feel more severe, even if I was smothered in my early days on occasion. The cool thing now is I'm starting to feel over confident, and lucky even, because I never set off traps anymore because "I'm aware how they're setup" - but try telling that to my companion who keeps setting of just about every trap there is - and I'm the guy taking the "damage"

I agree some of the crushing and spiking traps could be insta killers no matter the level. It's about the only annoyance factor we could get from them at this point. But I'd rather have them vary in type based on your level. So if you're in a place (your character isn't supposed to have a memory of these things, even if we as players sometimes do), at low levels you may get a bear trap which can be dangerous at low levels, but the traps themselves change nature at different levels. Making them more difficult to spot and survive depending on build and selected perks.

Remember FONV in hardcoe mode? Traps, if not always deadly, would at least force you to take more action than wait for 5-10 seconds for the auto heal to complete. Poison in Skyrim I don't feel is any dangerous at all, and I have no resistance whatsoever. What if "poison darts" was actually deadlier poisons AND had diseases you could get from them (also more severe effects wanted on these). Still if they don't always kill you, they would be more annoying to deal with and have an impact. Carry some cure disease potions suddenly makes sense.

At least traps based on mass and fire (not darts) should be able to ignore armor. I've invested a bit in health, so maybe that helps me out. But I do believe that armor helps me out a bit too much. It's just a feeling, and I haven't checked though.

But, I guess the game is made for the masses. In order for it to feel real, I guess we have yet another pretend we have to perform

I guess I never considered followers terrible AI charging recklessly through traps. I never use them as a thief.

Guess Mods are the only way to go then because Bethesda won't make Followers not stupid and banzai into traps ahead of you.

Not sure how realistic it is for every log to kill you, but at least in TES4, when you had darker dungeons and deadlier traps mods, you had hard time seeing the traps, and they killed you when you didn't. Good way to make those boring dungeons a bit more scary. I used them and will use same mods for TES5 when they're out.

Really need darker darkness. I try to sneak with my khajiit only to realize there's not a single dark corner in the whole place. Good (?) thing that enemies are almost blind so you dont need darkness -.-

The main thing I want it for the traps to be hard to see or impossible to see and have the open lock skill(security) give the ability to spot and disarm them.

They, like many things in the game (like certain shape-shifting abilities...) lose all efficacy once the player levels up to a certain point.

Spells, shape-shifting, and traps are some examples of things that SHOULD scale with player level.

Let's review:

Bandits that scale with you and wear daedric IS BAD Bethesda, mmmkay? Traps, spells, and things that are supposed to make you feel powerful or humble you even at high levels SHOULD level with you.

Equating getting older with becoming more stronger and experienced and more armored through combat and pilfering (or crafting, I guess.) Obvious syzygy.

I had an Oblivion mod for 1 hit trap kills. It was a lot of fun.

However, I imagine that a follower would make this a big problem, because they are clearly [censored] when it comes to traps.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=euLhZo1aA1c

Evidence!

I think traps don't go up in damage from increasing difficulty at all. I remember killing enemies with traps on adept, and they barely scratch enemies on master. I think I'll go back to Adept because I enjoy using the environment to kill enemies rather than shooting all of them with my bow.

Think they should always do the same % of damage. 33% from bear traps, 75% from spikewalls, etc. The Dwavern Catapults are already evil, as are the rotating blades.

Funny I was insta killed by two traps yesterday playing on Master.

-One death to a whirling blade that came out of the floor and cut my head off
-One death to a Frost ward that was placed preaty sneaky by Beth (actually 4 of them..oneo n each side)

I agree with the poster completely. First time I stepped on a trap, it made me think twice about looking around before I proceed onwards, which is really the essence of dungeons when we think about it. Traps are there as a method of punishing carelessness, if you can walk through them without fear it kind of defeats the point of the trap to begin with. It should be lethal regardless of level (even on enemies).

rofl. instant kill? really? lol how funny will it be if your in full daedric heavy armor and gets killed by a mouse trap

I dare you to step on a bear trap, and see how "little" damage it does Bear traps are a joke in this game. If they had a complex injury system, where if you stepped on a bear trap, your leg would be injured and you'd move slower, they would makes sense. I don't know why this wasn't included, it was in Fallout. Anything present in Fallout should be pretty easy to port over to Skyrim.