The lesson I learned about difficulty is that you do really have to look at your build and your gear. You cannot just throw on whatever has the highest armour rating. You have to look to how it complements your play. My Nightblade found himself handicapped by stamina shortages and so getting stamina boosts on gear made a huge difference.

I plan on really working at crafting from the get go as I'm just a casual player and don't have the skills needed to take on elite bosses on level. Picking the right things to research etc.

Just a few hours in Cyrodiil at L10 helped a lot in terms of nice rewards. A scouting mission paid off when I found a skyshard and an advanced chest in my solo explorations.

True. But Norien for instance is pretty quick with the hamstringing and if you cannot interrupt him (he seems uninterruptible) then he keeps spawning more adds. You're right - in this game you really have to watch the quest level and measure it against your own abilities.

I guess people differ because (among other things) of their background. I've played a lot of MMOs (Guild Wars 2 story missions at launch were a real pain) and action oriented RPGs (much faster action than Skyrim), so maybe because of this I had no problem with Norion, Doisha or Gutripper. I also think it depends a lot on your "class" and ability loadout. Doisha with a ranged fighter, especially one who has the Fighter's Guild "Silver Bolt" ability slotted is easy. Same goes for Gutripper.

It also seems you have to keep your gear up-to-date. And as quest rewards do not care about your class and item drops don't happen too often (maybe I was just unlucky), crafting is your best friend. Problem is: Certain professions have difficulties obtaining the materials in the numbers needed (leatherworking was a nightmare ... enough leather to make a set of armor for level 10 ... oh my).

The only quest that I really had a problem with was the one where you infiltrated the Veiled Alliance's headquarters and had to kill 3 bosses ... not much room to maneuver, lots of enemies coming at you at the same time ... I died three times in there.

In general I'd say TESO is another very soloable MMO (as I play at strange hours, I have nothing against that). I remember when you could hardly set foot in front of the big cities in Everquest 2 at launch because all mobs were grouped. But today, WoW, LotRO, Age of Conan, Guild Wars 2, SWTOR ... and TESO are (as far as I can see) very solo-friendly and it should be possible to get to max level without (a lot of) grouping.

I can attest to the inadequacy of the level ratings. A bunch of level 8 quests were impossible for me at 8 or so. A breeze at 10-11.

This is largely due to extra levels in skills + skill points.

I suspect that if you farmed skill shards, and carefully levelled know what content to expect, then these quests would be doable at level.

The key thing here is that they are not new-player-friendly, and anyone who trusts the level ratings will be deeply disappointed.

I found it solo friendly up until boss fights mostly, i either had to level up and come back or when other players were there just tagged along with them which made some fights easier, i found the game got better once i got to level 10, i'm a long time Elder Scroll player but this is my first MMO, i loved the world, but i played it like a single player game which it isn't, but i still enjoyed it once i got higher, but i think the game would be best played with a group of friends.