Bethesda doesn't learn lesson, makes same mistakes with Skyrim
I don't want my games to remain equally hard regardless of what I do. I want them to be a challenge that I have to solve using the tools given to me by the game. Instead Skyrim punishes you for gaining levels by leveling the mobs with you.
To add insult to injury, Bethesda included perks and levels in non-combat skills like alchemy and enchanting. These increase your level just like a health increase and heavy armor skill increase would, but enchanting doesn't work like heavy armor or weapons skills do! In other words, if you work on your enchanting and smithing skills, you end up with mobs that are almost impossible to beat without incredible effort. All this after they were easily beatable with almost no planning at level one when you get out of the first cave!
Yep, you get punished big time by using the new smithing and enchanting system of Skyrim. It's almost like they want you to just be a guy with a big sword or the stereotypical mage without ever daring to use alchemy or enchanting. So if you want to smith that Daedric armor set and enchant it with the higher level bonuses, you better plan ahead and do Azura's star quest early. Otherwise you'll be spending hours and hours running from the mages that kill you in one hit.
Bethesda didn't stop there. They also took the apparel system of Morrowind that let you wear numerous pieces of armor and clothing underneath and dumbed it down to just boots, body armor, helmet and gloves. That's it! Just 4 slots. If you go for a shield you can have that too, but besides that it's just one amulet and one ring. No longer will you be able to wear a shirt, pants, cuirass, greaves, boots, gloves, pauldrons, and a helmet. Speaking of dumbing down, why can't I bind spells and items to the number keys anymore? Why do I have to open up a "favorites" menu, scroll through the items, select a spell, and exit out instead of just pressing the "5" key on my keyboard? 4 motions instead of 1? That's hardly what I would call progress.
I understand they wanted to make the world seem more alive, but I wish some of the characters would just shut up. Yes, thanks for letting me know that you advise your dad who works at Dragonsreach and how you want to get a fair chance at your trade, but can I please just buy some ore in peace, Whiterun smithing sales lady? The selection menu also feels like crap as some speaking options disappear and get replaced by some other options I have to click before I can get to the sales menu. I miss Morrowind's instant menus.
That reminds me, why does the plot suck so much? Sure, dragons are cool and everything, but I miss the Daedric princes of Morrowind and how they were integrated into the main plot. But back to the mechanics.
To make the leveling system worse, you can increase skills as much as you want, but you can never get all of the perks. So get ready to restart a bunch of times because you thought you could get to dragon armor smithing perk by going through the Daedric smithing perk having already spent perks in light armor. Really, why the limitation? You could get all the skills in Morrowind, but now you have to carefully plan out what you will get because the perks are limited and really need them for some of the abilities, like in order to be effective in heavy armor.
Bethesda, I want a game that presents a challenge and let's me solve it. I don't want level scaling. I want a challenge and a means to solve it, not to win it at level 1. And by challenge, I mean I want to be challenged to find a way to defeat an enemy, not a way to level myself to avoid accidentally leveling my enemy more than myself. If you're going to add skills that I need to grind, don't punish me for grinding them. And let's face it, you'll never make dragon or daedric armor without grinding like crazy.
Oh yeah, crashes, missing mountain faces, glitchy video effects, etc...