People's complaints run the range from "too easy" to "too hard". And it can change throughout the game. Here is how it works:

Enemies and monster encounters scale based on your level. The game assumes a "balanced" approach is being taken. However, sometimes we go different routes. At level 25 if you've been entirely focused on combat and your armor and weapon skills are in the 70's, the game is going to seem easy. If you've been focused on crafting, the game may seem to hard.

It DOES balance out however. If the game seems really east in the 20's because you've focused on building combat, slowly enemies will scale and be challenging again. Similarly if the game is too easy, you will catch up if you spend the next few levels focusing on combat. Make sense?

Yes in theory.

I disagree; the balance and difficult is all over the map in this game. I am at level 37 now with 66 hours put in the game... Level 1-10 on expert was way too easy, then it got fairly difficult with huge wide swings in difficulty; tougher opponents could kill me in 2 shots while absorbing and endless amount of damage. This lasted between 10-30 and I put the game on adept, beyond 30 it feels as if enemies stop scaling up entirely because EVERYTHING becomes super easy 35+ ... i have cranked it back up to expert and am still steam rolling through every enemy, quest and boss effortlessly... This system is flawed and unbalanced; good in theory but needs a lot of work. I had always worked to balance my character from start to finish working on both combat and crafting skills equally.

The theory is nice. Probably what Bethesda expected.
But for example when someone get a good two-handed sword, add a huge fire damage enchantment, stack several items with + two-handed damage, and drink a few potions, this guy can break the balanced progression for a very long time.

They decided to give us a lot of freedom, such as being able to easily grind skills, enchanting and crafting anything, etc. Which is nice. But the price is the possibility of uncontrollable effects in the long run.

I think it's mainly people who have chosen play-styles that don't involve having to absorb damage who find this easy. Archer's and Assassins who stealth kill; Conjuration mages; People who let their companions tank; People who exploit crafting to make overly powerful weapons; People who don't play on Master difficulty.

Having played a melee character who doesn't exploit or use companions it's ridiculous how much damage NPC's can dish out on master. You get 1-shotted through heavy plate so easily you may as well just use light armor for the extra mobility. Even with 300 hp and near 300 armor you'll be getting 1-shotted by level 25+ creatures. It's doable if you're fast and patient but it's definitely not easy.

the game certainly seems unbalanced. i started off as a mage and am now a mage/warrior because the enemies seemed to get stronger while the mage powers remained the same. using an axe for a few levels helped, but now enemies seem far too easy (level 17) the dragon fights are easy too as well as far too frequent. bandit chiefs still kill me in 2 swings though! sabre cats are insane too, while at the beginning they weren't that hard. the difficulty is all over the place, like soulmancer said.

Wouldn't it have just made more sense to exclude skills like enchanting and smithing from contributing to your character's level?

You forgot to add that some mobs/area's are static levels, so they will pound you into dust early on, but will fall over dead from seeing you at later levels.

The "problem" I'm having with the game is that mobs are always either one-hits or they two-shot me, with rarely anything inbetween. Ideally, I'd like the pushover mobs to be a bit harder and their big companions to be a little toned down. This would give me a better, less erratic gaming experience.

Great game, nevertheless.

I actually like the scaling in skyrim. Playing 51lvl assassin on expert atm and theres a lot of variety. Some mobs drop from 1 dual attack and others give plenty of challenge. Not like oblivion where every bandit is wearing full daedric..

I agree with you. My first character was a sneaky thief, and I'm now playing an Orc 1H Mace/Shield on Master level. Needless to say...not half as "overpowered"

Yes, that's the main imbalance problem many players are talking about. Players are having vastly different impressions of the game simply according to the skills they decided to level. I'm not even enter the merit if this is good or bad, but for sure is the very definition of imbalance.

Both of them have a tremendous effect on a character's strength and combat power. What could have been excluded are skills like pickpocketing and lockpicking, perjaps alchemy too (though it does increase power, both directly and indirectly through the other two professions). But once you start making exceptions for skills, the whole system loses consistency. I think it's fine the way it is, though. Not perfect, but I prefer it much over the alternatives. If you don't powerlevel a non-combat skill, you'll be fine anyway.