With the new addition of the scaling option, it looks like Ubi is trying to give us a more challenging experience while all the skills they release make the cakewalk game ever cakewalkier.
But the scaling options are very artificial - scaled up enemies simply make you feel like a little girl fighting Gods as even the simplest enemy is tougher than you in any way except his brain. This doesn't feel right.

Here are multiple changes to the game that can increase difficulty if tuned right.
These changes are NOT new mechanics, not new animations, no new content. If modding was possible im pretty sure a modder could do those in a day (if he knew the variables to change) so this should be easy for the developers to change, only takes time to test:

Stamina Changes:

• Make lite attacks regen less stamina or none at all.

Health Regeneration changes:

• The player should regen less health or none at all when finishing an enemy.
• Health consumables should only be possible when Eiver is actually able to play the consuming animation. So not when falling, attacking, rolling etc.
• Health regen from consumables should take a while. maybe 5 seconds or so. not instantly.
• More plants should be picked to gain a single consumable item.

Attacking changes:

• You shouldn't be able to cancel an attack in favor of a parry or dodge. Maybe only after the moment of impact on the enemy. This will make players think about when to swing and not be so easy on the trigger when being attacked by multiple enemies.

Defense changes:

• Parry should only work on one enemy - the one who attacked first. If two enemies attack at the same time - the first will be parried and the second will hit eivor. This will make players more mindful on when to dodge and when to parry.

• Parry window should be smaller. maybe 0.1 of a second shorter, so on nightmare it should be 0.3 of a second instead of 0.4, or any other value that is smaller so parrying a slightly harder to pull off.
• Dodge should have a shorter invincibility duration so it's not that easy. or maybe even not have invincibility at all unless you're rolling or something. This is probably too harsh but I wonder how dodging would feel if it's realistic - which means you can't dodge into the enemy's weapon and get away with it.

Enemy Changes:

• Enemies attacks should be sped up a bit. Not all enemies (like the ones who use knives) and not all attacks, but some attacks are really really slllooooow (like the 2 handed axes and hammers or the heavy attacks by the regular grunts, and all Red Runes attacks by regular enemies). They could be sped up by 10% or 15%. I made such a change in AC:Origins in the GREAT tools they released and combat just became a LOT!!! more fun.
• Make enemies who fall to the ground get up much faster, so if you're not quick to stomp or execute them - you'll miss the chance. I think an enemy on the ground of 1.5-2 seconds is enough.
• Maybe make enemies able to get out of your combo in the middle sometimes. For example, if an enemies Guard or Health is above 50%, they can attack through your combo to force you to go on a defense and react to them instead of attacking till dead, or the enemies could dodge backward. A lot of enemies have this sort of "escaping" animation if you hit them with the last combo attack but they don't die. So this same animation, only happening randomly after 2-4 hits.

Changes to counter the above suggestions:

• Bosses and zealots should do less damage and take less.
• Bosses and other large enemies should stagger more often, perhaps.

Not all changes should be made. Im sure that if ALL of them are done the game will be impossible. But tweaking some of those should contribute to a better experience. This can be a toggleable option in the menu that you can toggle on and off and it's applied to whatever difficulty setting you're using. Just like how Scaling applies to all difficulty settings as well.

What do you guys think?

@topeira1980 great changes, all things that i would see in a deep game.
And i say something that could improve gameplay:

- weight should affect dodge lenght and speed, more weight = less speed and lenght of dodging,not only stamina consume.

- all weapon should have different perforation and laceration stats, with a sword we should not be able to kill easy a armored enemy,but we should have to use a high impact weapon like Hammer or 2h axe.

- iframe of dodge sould be influenced by weight, so a " fast" pg could dodge faster and have more ifrane, but be killed in 2 hit instead 4/5 of a armored pg.

@xx-artorias-xx Yes! I forget to mention that weight should have more impact and i think a heavy build should have slower moves, attacks, dodges etc.
However such a change requires more differentiation between armors and changing the stats of them so there are really heavy armors with a lot of protection and lite armors with less and the current stats of armors do not lend to such a thing, i think.

I tried mostly to suggest changes that do not require new values or mechanics but use the mechanics we already have. It doesnt look like UBI is into making an effort into the gameplay so I tried to offer something that is easy to do. It only takes a bit of time to test.
And in this day and age we are all Guinee pigs so they can produce something "close" and let us test and comment.

@topeira1980 yes, game have a great bases but is not so deep in mechanics and gameplay.

Like you said, weight armour should protect more but have sone impact in moves, ability, and will be good if impact climbing .

If you play like a light armored pg, you can be fast, climb veey well, and play stealth.

If you want to be a warrior, you can be "rock solid" , but slower, not climb well, but kill enemy in melee fight:)

Yeah I agree they could do more and the weight of gear should affect your speed, at the moment I feel like it does impact speed and stamina but only marginally.

The other stuff I think would just make it feel less enjoyable, I would prefer if they didn’t turn it into For Honor as that wasn’t very rewarding to me. It just slowed down the pace of combat and I think combat in Valhalla right now is in a good place.

The simplest way to increase difficulty IMO would be to fix the enemies backing away forever bug and increase enemy aggression and numbers.

Right now you’re only every attacked by two enemies at once, in older AC games you could have many more and that made it harder and more fun (although the combat itself was janky feeling), you couldn’t always parry or even dodge if you got yourself into trouble. Higher level enemies should be more aggressive, attack more frequently in greater numbers and do more damage. They don’t need bigger health bars, they just have to be more dangerous.