I have seen a variety of people express frustration with how leveling works. In particular, when you level a non-combat skill you get to face opponents with stronger combat abilities.

And... sometimes that is the right thing for the game to be doing.

If you are playing a "thief" character (which is where most of those non-combat skills come from), game combat is supposed to be harder for you. There has to be a reason you are sneaking...

Put differently, if you reach level 50 without taking any combat perks, this means you are playing a character who is not interested in combat. This is going to make combat difficult for you, but there are ways to deal with opponents without combat, and you should be using them. For example, you should get other people (ideally your enemies) to fight those dragons for you. Or, just run away and avoid them. And, yes, this means you cannot complete every quest line on that character, but something similar happens when you fight your way through and wind up destroying or alienating your quest givers.

Put differently, there are dragons in the world, and time is passing, and everyone that wants to survive is having to deal with dragons (or deal with others who have been dealing with dragons), or die (or hide, or... whatever). Levelups represent time passing, and represent your choices in how you have passed your time.

(And, of course, when that's not good enough, there's always mods.)

Mind you, I do have my frustrations with the game, but they are different...

I woud agree if this game wasn t so centred on combat.

I do not understand what you agree with.

First, how is it possible to level your character to 50 without getting some decent combat perks if the game is centered on combat? And, why would you suddenly decide to engage in combat if you got to level 50 without any?

Second, if you are playing a non-combat character, why wouldn't you be using your non-combat skills and approaches? Getting NPCs to take down the dragons works reasonably well, and the game even gives you tools aimed at making that possible.

Third, if you are playing a non-combat character, you probably should avoid quests and quest lines and locations that require you to single-handedly fight large hordes of monsters, no? This means staying off the tops of mountains, and staying out of any place that your companion can't fight through for you, but the main quest seems designed to give non-combat characters ways of getting through it.

Edit: fourth -- after reading the spoilers forum