Telltale's writing is highly overrated. If these games are not worthy of your time, why the fuck have you been defending Fallout 3? Also your " the writing's bad because I read books" argument is laughably pretentious. Which RPGs are you playing that are allegedly balanced?
I don't play Fallout for the story. Maybe for atmosphere and design. Most games that I play or design do not even have a story.
Once again, the logic is: Fallout 3 story is bad compared to FNV. True. FNV story is bad compared to myriads of things, like books. Yet FNV is praised as masterpiece. Moreover, Fallout 2 is no better than Fallout 3 in terms of story, why is this a masterpiece? Logical explanation: games are complex works of art with writing being only one component. Both Fallout 3 and FNV are mainstream games with great emphasis on things besides story. One of those has better story, but the game in general is not that better. Fallout 3 is worse than FNV in some respects, better in some (fewer), but if you hugely prefer one over the other that's purely a matter of taste. I hugely prefer FNV over Fallout 3 but it doesn't make me blind to the facts.
As for balanced RPGs - say, Dragon Age 1 was ok, it had a difficulty curve unlike Fallout games (1-4 and FNV). Same for more linear RPGs like Dark Souls 2 (not 1) or
Gothic 2.
Books are shit, so reading them is hardly something that would elevate your taste. Smart people don't expect to find good writing, be that books, games, or movies, they focus on what is good beneath the surface. In the case of FNV - the interactivity and sense of being part of momentous intrigue, making choices and role playing.
Smart people don't expect to find good writing - that's very funny. So you suspend your disbelief to ignore bad things in FNV but not in Fallout 3? Are you one of those people who argue that Fallout 3 is shit and FNV is one of the best RPGs ever? This interactivity and roleplaying is a small, almost invisible part of the game. And roleplaying is questionable in FNV as your character is much more defined than F3 one and has much more linear paths.
What you've said about Skyrim can be said about Morrowind and Oblivion. I've first played Morrowind before the patches and didn't have a difficulty choice, but then I've tried it later, experienced everything you've described and was horrified. I wouldn't say Skyrim is too hard on normal, the problem is there's no real difficulty curve and people change difficulty level gradually during the game which sort of fixes the problem. Changing it at the start of the game throws balance out of the window - you have to fight without getting hits cause you die quick, so you never develop armor skills and quickly gain weapon ones.