I've tried a lot of mods, and basically what I'm trying to find is a mod that, whilst making the game more challenging, also makes it more rewarding, and maybe includes a few larger overhauls that make the game feel a little different. This could be one mod or a selection of smaller mods.

Like I said, I've tried lots. SkyRe is the one I've used the most, and whilst I like what it does, I've played it so much I'm kinda used to it now, and it doesn't feel that different to vanilla. I've watched people stream with Requiem and hate it, it makes the difficulty scaling ridiculous. I'm currently playing with SPERG, Duel Combat Realism, ASIS and a few other little tweaks I've forgotten, with ASIS encounter zones. Whilst I like what SPERG does to the perks, it doesn't seem like there's enough, in my opinion.

I've looked at things like SkyDie but don't really see what it does apart from make it harder, not more rewarding. I've tried Skyrim Unleashed and noticed little difference. Argh.

Any ideas?

Define "more rewarding". I have been thinking about this too for months and have only a few ideas left.

1. Use Lootification with Immersive Armors and Immersive Weapons to distribute enchanted armors and weapons to the various NPCs. It makes no sense to me that magic exists, you (pretty much) must use it, but almost everyone else (like the companions) eschews it. That would be like modern gangs eschewing guns and going with machetes. It's idiotic that anyone would not want some thing that would make them much more powerful.

2. Fix the economy some how, so everything is much more proportional than it is now, taking into account that thee are now more enchanted items in the world.

3. Once NPCs have more enchanted items, tweaks need to be made to make sure they aren't too powerful for you at various levels.

#3 is the hardest. All overhauls I have tried, except SkyRe make the game so hard in the beginning that I gave up right away (like ACE, where it took me 10 swings with a sword to kill a chicken). SkyRe makes the game harder in some ways, but then adds things that make it too easy in others. I play on Adept with the damage done to me set at 1.2 and the damage I do remaining at 1.0 (so it's I take more damage than vanilla but do vanilla damage).

Everyone has their own idea of how hard things should be.

You should reconsider Requiem. You mention its 'level scaling' but there is no scaling, period. You start a wimp but will start becoming strong around level 10 and by level 30 you can roll almost everything but the highest level enemies.

Its a very rewarding experience if you're willing to start fighting mudcrabs and reload when you make a mistake.

I guess by reward I mean not going out for every quest and getting no sense of fulfillment from things. I go, chop some people up, make a few hundred gold and maybe get some stuff to sell, then go to the next one. When I level up, I put a meaningless perk down that just increases my damage or something else you barely notice, and carry on. I've lost those moments where I'm like yeah, that was worth it, I got a really good reward for something I spent my time on.

Maybe level scaling wasn't quite what I meant, I mean that I find it ridiculous that an arrow can one-shot you, but you can get hacked on by swords much more. Or enemies can kill you with one blow and your health never regenerates, whereas you hit enemies over and over and their health regenerates. Also I hate going in and dying over and over and over again, it gets frustrating and repetitive. I want something that feels more responsive, where combat is faster paced and whilst I can make a dangerous mistake, so can my enemies, something that makes combat more visceral than just repetitive bashing from you and one-shots from enemies.