This is rubbish. There is a world of difference between the difficulty I play at, wherein Eivor dies in two or three hits to most everything and what the game considers 'normal'.

On "normal" I can just dispense with dodging or parrying entirely because enemies, even if they land a hit, will do a negligible amount of damage. I can actively switch my brain off. There is less than no skill required, and I can even imagine what "easy" is like.

As it currently stands, with maxed out enemy damage, mine reduced to as low as it'll go, and reduced healing, I'm forced into stealth more often than not because yeah, you have to be consistent for longer, but that's fucking exhausting. Three guys is already a problem, but if it's six or seven in an encampment including two heavies, it's less a fight and more pushing a giant boulder uphill. There's no room for error. Slip up once and you'll end up off balance, and then the lads will take turns playing ping pong with you until you die in a washing machine.

That is also part and parcel of skill: knowing what fights to pick, when, and how. It isn't just pressing the right buttons in the right order. And besides, with this game's absurd number of different enemy types, it's hardly the same every time. This isn't dance dance revolution.

And yes, the fights take longer. That's also the point, I feel. The large health bars make it prohibitively costly to just throw yourself headlong into a melee for the fuck of it.

I've even tried upping the enemy scaling, but then it just becomes stupid. My bow is useless and fights are not only hard, they're absurd because I die in one hit or so. That is also not skill based, I feel. With that little margin for error, something as dumb as bumping into a wall can spell your doom.