The OP was complaining about being underscaled just as a consequence of not playing "right", so deliberately underscaling yourself for a bigger challenge isn't what I was talking about. Bethesda designs their games on the easy side - probably because they're focused on player freedom and want to emphasize there's no "wrong" build. If you're looking for a ball-busting challenge, Bethesda games aren't for you.

And even if you don't like the mix of RPG and FPS mechanics (in an action RPG with guns - what else were they supposed to do?), you won't be able to say it hurts their financial trade - Bethesda's sitting on a mountain of money from this game.

Many games have had open world style, and while thier original offerings were closer to the first open world style, if you go play them, they are not nearly as much fun as their more recent open world games, or even other games of their time (compare Arena to Ultima 6 or wizardry 5).

If you look at the Ultima or Might and Magic series (6 in particular from both franchises oddly enough), they are both very open world games, that let you explore in many directions. In M&M, you definately have to use better tactics if you go certain directions before others, but that is part of the fun. In Ultima, the level progression is flat enough that you never entirely outgrow the initial difficulties by large amounts. Bethesda hardly invented the genre, but they certainly have been leading it for the last decade or so. The Wizardry series is another good older game with a lot of open world exploration style in I think around wizardry 5 or so onward.

Its actually kind of funny that if you go back enough years, open world exploration style games were the more popular ones, then RPGs sort of migrated to a very JRPG feel following success of games like final fantasy, and now with bethesda leading the way, open world style is becoming increasingly popular again. Either way its great because the style has always been my favorite.

Grinding is often avoidable through good tactics, thats probably the one thing I do like about leveling systems in games, is being able to figure out a way to complete an area or boss well before it was intended to be beaten through interesting tactics. The weapons in ff7 are a good example in that good materia selection and tactics meant far more than leveling, or at least mitigates that amount of grinding you needed to do considerably.

Overall, the FO4 system achieves its goals, level wise. I dont feel like there is any point in the game where I thought to myself, "I'd really like to do this quest, but I need to go grind out some levels first". Or in general a feel that you need to go level up before attempting anything. You just play the quests how you like, and you will be fine. There was a bit of 'oh god this is stupid easy' when doing quests in areas you had already visited though, which was unfortunate. In general, while the enemys level up with you, they feel weaker at every level, and once you reach around 25ish, nothing feels particularly challenging again. And of course if you wear power armor the whole game is trivial, but thats a different thread entirely.

yeahhhh, no, lol i really disagree with you. Fo4 compare to Fo3 and NV is a huge improve on the "core" system as u call it.

Nobody ever said "all Fallout games need to follow the standard RPG format" they could have made it into a fishing game if they wanted, why do you care if it is not your idea of what an RPG should be? Bathesda can make whatever game they want man, it is their game that they made.

Perks actually seem to matter less than getting good equipment really. I mean, they matter dont get me wrong, but you would be fine if you picked most any combination of perks, at least as long as you didnt just take level 1 of every perk or something, and even 'unoptimized normal people' tend to at least follow a theme when developing their characters. You will get a far bigger boost by laying your hands on your first combat shotgun or gause rifle than you will from any given perk anyhow.

As for crafting skills, they are far more about convenience than power really. If you take mods off of guns you find, and cram them into the one gun (preferably a legendary) you want to use, you can usually make the same guns as a person with the crafting perks within a few levels of them. But playing with yanking mods out and moving them around is tedious, so many people (myself included) just take the perks.

Firstly, enemies leveling with you is an overall good thing. Skyrim did a great job with it. Fallout 4 does a great job with it. Oblivion did a terrible job with it.

Secondly, the personal part of the leveling system Bethesda has never gotten right but they have the ideas to do it right. It's kinda a combination of Skyrim's and Fallout's leveling system honestly. Hell, Elder Scrolls Online does it and does it pretty well.

Lastly, I've said my thoughts on this subject way too much that I need to type it up one last time and just copy it down somewhere... It's annoying to repeat the whole entire paragraph every time almost.

I think Oblivion was the worst offender as far as enemies leveling with you - going back through the same areas you'd ransacked as a lower-level character and then running into those very same bandits, only now they all have glass armor. The issue I found with Skyrim to some extent was that your character level was based on raising your skills. So if I spent a couple of levels smithing and crafting, enemies would also scale with me, and here I am with no combat skills to match the gear I've crafted (which probably isn't awesome enough to make up for that gap.)

I haven't noticed that much of an issue with Fallout 4, though. Still haven't had time to get through much of the game yet, so someone correct me if I'm wrong. But it's supposed to be more strictly zoned this time, isn't it? Enemies within an area will scale with you to a certain extent but only within certain ranges. (ie, one area would have enemies between level 15-25 or so. So if you're level 1 yourself you'll be seeing level 15 creatures, and if you're level 50, you're seeing level 25 opponents.) Which reads to me an awful lot like the old D&D modules, actually.

Plus the leveling system itself is different than the Elder Scrolls. It's also designed to be fairly flexible. Sure, maybe if I only focus on non-combat Perks at level-up or disregard raising my attributes to a level I want them I may suddenly find myself facing something I can't handle, even though my level would describe a character that should. And if I find myself lacking then great - I only have to gain another level before I can start to invest in something else. In my own playthrough, I only pick the damage-raising Perks when I start to notice I need to be doing more damage to these guys.

As far as the proper amount of challenge - I don't think the ruleset or level scaling is at fault, here. I think that's more to do with a lack of nuance in the difficulty levels, really.

My only issue with it is that after you expend all of your dmg increasing methods you start to get weaker and weaker as you level. Doesn't make combat any harder just more tedious and time consuming. Personally I'd rather have consistent standardized dmg/health because that "powerful" feeling you get from leveling doesn't last long enough to justify so many obligatory build choices. Getting a +20% damage perk doesn't feel like an upgrade it just feels like something you have to do to prevent yourself from getting weaker. Hoping for a mod that gives all enemies static health and gets rid of all dmg scaling perks for a more consistent experience. Bugs me a bit from an immersion standpoint as well. Very early in the game I was 1 shotting roaches with my 10mm, and immediately after I leveled up they started taking like 5 hits to kill from the same pistol. Feels like either my gun is magically getting weaker or all roaches are magically getting stronger.

Basically same thing as playing a pure mage in Skyrim, you go from Gandalf to Jesus to Neville Longbottom

I have a different experience than you. I feel I get more powerful than my enemies as I level up. So much so that even at level 70 on survival mode, I limit my weapons to basically non-legendary modded weapons you have access from the start of the game; primarily the 10mm pistol and .38 / .45 pipe rifles. The exception is a .308 combat sniper rifle; I think combat rifles starts popping into the game when you are somewhere between level 15 - 20, but I could be wrong.

Last night I took on a deathclaw that dropped on top of me with nothing more than my 10mm auto pistol and .38 auto pipe rifle. I would have died if I had not injected two stimpaks which took their sweet time to heal me. Now that was a challenge and adrenaline rush. If I equipped myself with my best gear (weapons and armor) the fight would have been pretty quick and anti-climatic.

I do not consider myself in the top 5% player base since I do not play that many games anymore. Since 2009 I probably only play at most 2 or 3 games each year; Fallout 4 being the only game I purchased in 2015.

Hey look! I can now open Master level locks...Sweeeeeeet.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but what exactly is the problem with that?

FO4 does indeed use zones, and only the very south part and NE of the map, can have enemies scale infinite with your level. Roughly speaking, the map is divided in semi-circles radiating out from Sanctuary, meaning that in whatever direction you bee-line from the get-go, will eventually give you a hard day on the job. Bridges, rivers and lakes, usually, as a go-to rule, divides difficulties in levels.

This colour coded map, will show the level limits within those zones; http://i.imgur.com/SxKOjio.jpg

Sure. My level 65 char will soon be parked, he's way OP. Just like the other 3D Fallout games, at a certain point, I'm so OP I lose interest and roll another char. Today I think I'll do that.

Then don't play the game...

the issue isnt the lvling its the lack of choice which should be at the CORE of very rpg especially open world rpg

lack of choice with the character system, quests, factions, behavior etc.

It's ruining all RPG's

Seems a bit extreme. lol

RPGs for people who don't like RPGs. That explains a damn lot

Except there is choice. You can choose what factions to support, you can choose what quests you want to do and what happens in the ending, you can choose how your character acts. Sorry but did you actually play this game?

You know about virtual choices and real choices?

Yes, yes I do. again, Bethesda's core system as you like to call it supports choices, consequences and character acting.

There is only one faction choice and this is the one when you choose who you FINALLY kick in the ass and attack. The rest are only virtual ones not affecting the gameworld in any manner.

Personally, leveling and level scaling is only a big deal if you want it to be. Fallout 4 is too new for me to really say much about higher levels, but here's the thing... RPG should be fun, should be played in character with the type of character you've created. EVerything else is secondary. So, why spend all that time worrying? Hell, half the time I can't tell you what level my character is in anycase, or how far it is to the next one. I just play the game, choose my perks to suit my character, and have a good time with it.

I played Skyrim DiD mostly on Adept, but a fair amount of time on Legendary (especially in the DiD competitions) and some people spent inordinate amounts of time grinding. I just could never see the value of it. Looks to be the same in FO4 as far as I can tell... except I'm not certain how "grinding" is done in FO4 since using skills doesn't get you XP or levels.

Now see this makes me believe you actually didn't play the game because yea, that's totally wrong lol

yeah right.... the mass effect 3 kinda choice

Nah not really.

Ok, what faction decision changes the gameworld BESIDE the ones where you directly decide that you don′t want to be bound to one of the factions anymore (break with railroad, break with bos, break with institute)?