The game feels more or less realistic when played on the default difficulty, where you can one-shot bandits with an arrow through the head, beat an adversary with a few two-handed swings, etc. But we know the game most of the time becomes too easy, so we go up in the difficulty slider.
It's pretty nice when played on Master difficulty, but the realism takes a strong hit when you see completely unarmored enemy mages casting spells with tree arrows in their face, or when you have to hit a bandit leader 20+ times with your two-handed sword.

And this is pretty much an issue with all games that allow harder difficulties.

I'd like to discuss with you guys what you think that can be done to allow harder challenges in harder difficulties, yet still keeping the realism of the game? (not necessarily only for Skyrim)

What I did:

1. Level my crafting skills so I could enchant my guy with enough power to destroy opponents in a few hits.
2. Use very low defense armor (I'm using unimproved fur armor atm)

Result:

You can kill everything in a few hits and the leveled mobs can kill you in a few hits. Note that this is at a high level on master difficulty.



In Oblivion there was a damage multiplier I increased six-fold that basically did the same thing and I could play the game naturally.

Hmm, I've not had a huge problem with my characters, but others have, and at least its a constructive thread on the matter. Bearing in mind I don't feel the need for any changes, if I HAD to I would...

Expand the level ranges on Dragons.. the game rushed you into popping off the first one which is almost a shame. Would have impressed if they had levelled dragons so that you couldn't even THINK about taking one on for a considerable amount of time, and then level scaled them from Level 20 to Level Run The F*** Away. Just for extra epic points.

I always thought adding more enemies instead of changing damage done/taken was the best option. The mobs are usually what give people the problems, not one tough enemy.

This game don't know what scaling and difficulty means so you have to improvise and alot. In wow example quest difficulty lvl scaling, spells scaling is working out all time against any monsters. If you take +5 lvl quest you most likely won't make it. If you pick green quest you can allmost 1 shot mobs, orange quests are hard but always beatable.

Thanks for the replies so far.

I'm also with increasing the amount of enemies instead of simply buffing their health and damage at higher difficulties.

I think this would keep the realism, and at the same time make you feel more epic than bashing the same guy for half a minute.