The Elder Stats

I love the game, and I never stop really playing it however I have to say I'm disappointed with changing the games difficulty. All the slider does is adjust the percentage of health of you opponents and the amount of damage you do. I would have liked to see maybe enemies like atronachs or minotaurs at an earlier level. or something. If you could make the game harder what would you guys do?

I agree, that's quite a shame. The difficulty of the game should not simply be placed on the strength of your opponents, but on the overall experience becoming more difficult in multiple aspects. I suppose they didn't see it as much of an issue, but that's not a true difficulty setting for a vast game such as Oblivion.

It would be better imo if you have to choose a difficulty at the beginning of the game and can't change it afterwards.

Difficulties:
Easy - Recommended for people who are inexperienced with role-playing games
Normal - Recommended for people who are new to Oblivion but do have some RPG experience
Hard - Recommended for RPG veterans
Realistic - Only for hardcore players. You can die in one hit but you can also kill enemies in a few hits. You have to use spells and stealth to survive.

Realistic difficulty example:

You enter Vilverin and suddenly you are attacked in your flank by a bandit. You try to dodge his attack but his axe still lands in your left leg. You kill the bandit with your dagger. Just like in Fallout 3, your left leg is now "crippled" and your moving speed is decreased (and in 3rd person there's a crippling animation).
You continue to explore the Ayleid ruin and spot a bandit. You can kill him in one shot with your bow. While you're looting his corpse you accidentally trigger a "swinging log" trap and you die.

josjie wrote:Realistic - Only for hardcore players. You can die in one hit but you can also kill enemies in a few hits. You have to use spells and stealth to survive.

Realistic difficulty example:

You enter Vilverin and suddenly you are attacked in your flank by a bandit. You try to dodge his attack but his axe still lands in your left leg. You kill the bandit with your dagger. Just like in Fallout 3, your left leg is now "crippled" and your moving speed is decreased (and in 3rd person there's a crippling animation).
You continue to explore the Ayleid ruin and spot a bandit. You can kill him in one shot with your bow. While you're looting his corpse you accidentally trigger a "swinging log" trap and you die.

This would be cool. I would definitely try this out because sometimes enemies can take forever to die.

The more realism, the better. (This being said about a Fantasy game may seem funny, but I'm sure you understand what I mean.)

Adjust the AI of the opponets. Like no matter how many times they stab me or lob fireballs at me they never pick up that I have 101% reflect melee and 105% resist magic and it's all in vain.

I suppose that's a good idea. However, if you think about it the other way around, if you were fighting an AI with a full resistance to a certain attack, how would you know that he or she has full resistance to it right from the beginning? Maybe you could figure it out after seeing that the AI's health is not dropping after multiple attacks of the same type, but it's more realistic that AI's would not be able to see whether or not an attack is effecting your health. I can still see where you are coming from, but maybe this is just something worth considering.

Hmm, good point. I suppose in realism aspect if your wounds were hurting him he'd be bleeding and such? Maybe if the NPC is immune they could either boast "That has no effect on me!" Or say the game gives one of those subtitle style warnings that he/she/it is immune to your attack? Of course we also might have to worry about the game sticking it to you too hard if we go overboard.

The game does tell you if an there is no effect on an enemy. its appears in the top right corner of the subtitles.

Oh yeah.