After some very fun beta time on previous weekends it seems like Beth have decided to throw away the working code and stab players repeatedly in the face with hate.
I made the silly mistake of trying to bring new players in this weekend after claiming the only glitches were around phasing and crafting - now it seems starting/learning experiences have been removed. level scaling has gone crazy, soul gem respawns equal instakill and the EU server is running a different code level from the US.
Did someone at Beth get scared of success and decide to break the game?