Hold on now, a "leveled list" is just a random placer and the nature of what it is placing is defined independently from that, meaning that it can randomly spawn a static object or creature from a list as well as spawning a leveled object or creatures from multiple lists. So exactly the way we are thinking about it can be done on the Oblivion engine and the FO3 engine.

I'm really hoping that they have added some variables to the leveled lists and who knows maybe that's what Radiant Story is at it's core. A universal variable distribution system, doling out variables to various game systems based on gathered data("it watches everything you do").

I too can see the possibility for folly here but I just can't get down about it because i see so many pieces present, a foundation if you will of all the mechanics I ever wanted in OB, air and water animal mechanics, multiple body meshes, animations out the wazoo, I will happily spend the next 5 years (along with 10,000 or so other people) trying to rearrange those pieces (and add a few new ones) into a complete and satisfying game experience.

Ok, i admit it, I actually have more fun modding the game than playing it. That's why I'm going to avoid the CK like the plague until I've experienced all i can stomach of the vanilla game.

I can't play oblivion without OOO either because the whole idea of your enemies leveling with you was ridiculous. But to me thats another issue not so much balance. When I think of balancing I think of it as Ok you got three choices, Stealth, Strength or Magic...Which every you decide to choose all three have their pros and cons but all three will also allow the player to play the game to its full potential without feeling left out because they didn't choose a certain class. For example you start running a long questline and near the end the quest requires you to smash a evil relic but you need a strength of 50 to do so! Now no mage or even thief will have that kind of strength. So what are they doomed to leave the quest unfinished? (Now to add balance) Ok so you need a strength value of 50 but being a mage you do not have those stats so instead you cast a spell that increases your strength but penalizes you in other areas for a select amount of time.

That to me seems fair but if your talking about balancing enemies with the character....come on that is easy just make certain areas monsters stronger (or just monsters in general) than other areas. I thought it was sad to be able to go into the oblivion gate at level one and massacre everything in site.

Yes. Balance is much more broader subject than just giving the player a fair fight, or that they can only get items at appropriate levels.

Making sure a powerful weapon is guarded by a suitably strong enemy, or is not just left out in the open for anyone to pick up without trouble, is balance. Making sure that, no matter how deep into a dungeon you get, you'll have the ability to flee if things become too tough, is also balance. Making sure the game does not strongly favor mages over fighters is also balance. Making sure the difficulty curve is not too sharp (or non-existent) is also balance.

Oblivion was actually a fairly de-balanced game, not a balanced one.

I agree absolutely and it is a shame that it wasn't balanced on its own because I worry for Skyrims sake lol

I agree with the original post very much.

"Balanced" to a lot of people means "takes two minutes to defeat anything, and you are extremely weak in comparison to thew world."

I also feel the notion of magic being balanced against melee a tad ridiculous. It's MAGIC. Sure you don't want it to be able to just destroy everything with no challenge at all, but in my opinion magic should have an advantage over pure melee. Some big brute swinging around a big weapon should somehow be an equal match to a skilled magician with supernatural power? I think not! Sure the divide shouldn't be so large as to be outright broken, but I think some things should be more powerful than others. Perhaps a melee focused character would be better at taking on a single brutish enemy and a magic focused character would be able to take on crowds better, etc., but I think balance taken too far just means nothing is special in any way.

I'll give a clear example of "balance" taken to the extreme: "Trivial loot code" in some MMORPGs. It's really, really stupid in my opinion. Everquest has survived over 10 years without trivial loot code, and it was removed from the only server that had it a couple years ago. Yet many if not most new MMORPGs magically make it so that if you defeat a lower level creature it drops nothing of worth. That's just stupid in my opinion, and it makes no sense whatsoever. Imagine if in TES only things equal to you in power dropped anything of worth at all, and lower level creatures suddenly only dropped spoons etc. That's trivial loot code in a nut shell.

This doesn't even begin to make any sense. Do these guys even know what balance is all about?!! I'm pretty convinced that they're mistaking "balance" for simply being conservative. But that's not balance, that's what we call "safing" - making sure everything is played safe from the devs and marketers' perspectives. Nothing whatsoever to do with balance.

Balance is when it's equally rewarding for a player to play with a Twohanded Axe as it is to play with a Bow or a small Dagger. If so, then the player makes choices based on his personal and aesthetic playstyle instead of being dictated by the game on how to best play the game. Typically, whenever you're being told by the game environment itself that "this is the only right way to do something", then that's a sign of bad game balance. There are circumstantial and typal factors as well, which are exceptions to this - e.g. that you need to use bows or ranged spells to hit a certain type of enemy. But in those cases, the balance have been predetermined by the existence of those enemies and the rate at which they spawn, and where. Traps require disarming, but you still have the choice of just stepping over them or trying to avoid. Bladed weapons might deal more damage, but blunt weapons often have more armor penetration and daggers are used for stealth attacks.

The idea is that, in a balanced medieval RPG, you should be able to get a similar difficulty of play, regardless of you being a Mage, Fighter, Thief or whatever. There might be strengths and weaknesses to all classes and playstyles, but those come on top of the core balancing and are also largely derived from and thus dictated by it.

I'm all for variety and challenge. I do believe you should have it cut both ways though. On one hand, you should be able to win a fight you had no business winning, thru luck or great strategy. Otoh, you should also have your lunch handed to you every once in awhile, or go into places where you have no business and that Vampire Lord creams you. I'm actually a bit concerned about Dragons being present from the beginning. They may be nerfed somewhat to your level, so it's conceivable that you would defeat a dragon in the first 5-7 levels, which is nuts, if you ask me. I'd have felt better if they kept dragons at bay until level 15-20. Back to your original point, I agree, balance is overrated and can make the game redundant. Like you, I'm an FCOM fan and it's the only way I can play Oblivion. I actually enjoy DF and MW much more than Oblivion nowadays. Hopefully we get back to that with Skyrim.

I would also prefer a less linear armor and weapon progression, with for example silver and steel having some bonus that differentiates them from the high-end materials and makes them useful even when high-end material is available.

I also love the dagger treatment.

OK, how on earth can you call DA2 "balanced", when according to you most talents and abilities are useless? That's the very definition of being unbalanced.
Balance means that every ability and skill has it's place and no type of character will be severely disadvantaged or ridiculously overpowered.
It means maintaining decent challenge level without being punishing, but also giving the player a clear sense of progress and achievement.
It means keeping things interesting and varied, rather than boring and repetitive (i.e. same enemies, same tactics, same quests, same loot).

Balance isn't overrated in the least, it is just difficult to attain. TES in particular has always suffered from lack of balance, because it always touted freedom and "do what you want" and then it turned out that certain types of characters could do very little, because the quests (which, let's be honest, were mostly of kill X variety in MW and DF and even when they were "fetch X" required a lot of killing along the way) weren't geared towards a lot of skills at all or because certain skills were frankly broken/much weaker than others. Obl was a little better with more varied quest design, but IIRC killing stuff was still the most preferred quest goal even there.

You responded to my post and my compliant was just that. Mobs can't jump or run when appropriate. This is not about high ground giving you an advantage, its about enemies not acting realistically. They should try to get on the rock/high place and fight you, not just stand there. And if they cannot reach for whatever reason they should run, not stand there as you blast them with magic or arrows. I want high ground to give me an advantage, I don't want high ground to make me a god.

Exploits should never be in, and always be weeded out as a sign of good developers.

Balance however can be a problem when too much or too little, and has to be done perfectly. Each skill should be as viable as the next, you shouldn't have one skillset that excels any class into godhood and another that noone ever picks - thats bad balance. Your character should get more powerful, eventually becoming a Titan at level 50 - obliterating most mobs...but still have some very difficult challenges to face at that level.

I agree, that "standing on a rock", pelting an assailant with arrows, and he just stands there, or worse yet, keeps impotently running at the base of the rock, svcks. But it's the failure of the A.I. that svcks. The concept of jumping on the rock, or using the environment tactically, or trying to get into someplace in a way you feel wasn't expected, or "scripted" is awesome. Bomb-jumping up to the out-door of Kraid's lair in Metroid was awesome. It didn't do much for you, but you definitely felt that, through your own "brilliant" creativity, you managed to sneak in, and beat the system. Any time you feel you have managed to shatter the sequence in which you feel you were being funneled, score one for freewill!

I did not say it was balanced to me... far from it my whole point was that DA:2 was imbalanced for the sake of trying to "balance" it.
I said it attempted towards some strange gamer idea of balance.... and failed, that was my whole point.
Companies claim "balance" when they mean "difficulty", I'm against the misuse of the word balance.
That it is used by those who seek to make things harder in general for all, by screaming about overpowered player builds and skills / spells.
Those that always take the same path, always go for the best gear first, those that play to numbers for advantages, then complain that it easy to do so.

Look at the sniper rifle in FO:NV, many started screaming "nerf it", "it's too powerful", "I'm one shoting everything"...
So they patched it and everyone screamed it's not powerful enough now.
"Difficulty / Balance" is brought in due to people not being able to restrain themselves from making overpowered builds all the time, or using exploits.
No one forced the NV players to always use the sniper rifle, many did not but got penalised for the sake of those that had no restraint.
Many created other builds and found ways to challenge themselves and make things harder on themselves.
With just making weaker characters and not using the best gear.
Some however find it easier to complain about it than actually not become the best at everything.
These are the ones that game designers listen to for some reason.

I am starting to get confused....are we talking about balance or game play design? Balance in itself is necessary in a game. You don't want one class to have a huge advantage over another. You don't want to quest with one class only to find out you cannot complete it do to X reason. Balance is what keeps the player challenged but definitely able to do everything any other class can do. And that includes npc's monsters etc.

Oh god no.
Why should every part of the game be equally do-able for each build?
Why must mages be able to do everything warriors can?
Then what is the point of having mage/ thief/ warrior at all?

On the contrary, I would love quests that only a thief can do. Or a quest a Dunmer can never do, because the Argonian quest giver just hates all Dunmer.

I want possible build that have it a little easier or harder.
Having everything equal for every build would just make it all bland.

My view of balance is that gameplay should not over penalise heavily based on player choices,
Choices should still matter and have cause and effect however, you should not be able to do everything.
Those options and choices should be different, not always equal in strength on everything and of various use.
However they also need to be at least within the same margins of power as each other.

What if in Skyrim you decide for fun and a challenge to make a pure mage healer and not take damage spells... which I have and do in many games.
Then you find out that due to balance healing has been gimped far weaker than Oblivion as a player could spam healing spells.
Then see Illusion and alteration are gimped as well as many complained about imbalance, so it is not a challenge but suicide to attempt this build.
The game then becomes about dealing the most damage as you'll take less yourself and not die as often.
It makes destruction twice as powerful, as you no longer have to heal and you kill at the same time, meaning the choice is made for you.

The problem is, we each have our very own definition of balance.
Earlier I found something that describes well my definition of balance: "A harmonious or satisfying arrangement or proportion of parts or elements, as in a design." What's your definition?

I definitely agree, balance is overrated.

While I do like challenging games, I also like being able to just roll through areas for fun. This is one thing that I really felt was a void in the Oblivion system where your enemies level with you. While it allows you to pretty much go anywhere and do anything at any time, it also takes away the thing that really brings me back to games like this, being able to take a break from the challenges and just kill masses upon masses of things that quite frankly don't stand a chance against you.

That article perfectly sums up everything I feel about video games, excellent! I hope that Skyrim has some of the variability and excitement that this article talks about. If it does it would make a very happy camper and keep me playing it for a very long time.