We all read and heard about the new dungeon system (6-10 level dungeon, 11-15 lvl dungeon, and so on).

I will start my point like this: In the game-world of TES I always like to see how the world seem to make sense, you can travel to anywhere from anywhere and explore, seeing how things are balanced and all-natural. The environment is just at its best, you will never feel or think the world is somewhat doing it wrong.

Now, what I fear of is this - we are starting as level 1 characters at some point in the world, lets assume this starting point is the "East side of skyrim". My biggest fear is this - they will make everything easy and low leveled near the starting point, everything we wil explore at this area will be leveled as 1-5. And we will feel very safe. Then, as we will get farther off the starting point, things will get annoyingly harder in progress. Very pokemon like. And lets say there is a small village at the farest edge from the starting point - What logic is there for villagers building a village surrounded by level 40 foes who each one of them can take the whole village alone? Or - lets say the village is heavily guarded by troops of soldiers because of the fact strong foes gather there - what is the sense for this foes to stay near the heavily guarded village when they can simply travel to the east and get no disturbance from the leveled 1-5 foes, and take over villages easily?
When I play ES i like to get my mind tuned into the world, feeling like a part of it. I will never be able to feel like that if such thing will happen, and my wonderful series of believable fantasy world game will end. Seriously, I just wont be able to role play it anymore.


thoughts?

I agree. I don't want a levelling system that would effectively keep you in an area until you are a high enough level, and then you move on to the next area. That would just be a subtler version of GTA's area unlock mechanic, and it would be terrible.

I would assume it would work in a more radial pattern, the further out you go from town, the harder it gets.

If you mean the difficulty of everything precisely being a function of some multiplier of the distance from the starting area, then no, both to my wanting it and to the realistic expectations that Bethesda would do such a thing.
But if the alternative of that becomes "all areas are reasonably traversable at any level," then we've got problems. I want portions of my world to be foreboding, and I don't want to be able to just waltz on into those areas w/out getting my head ripped off if I'm not yet prepared enough to handle them.

I don't think we need to worry too much.
The fairly even distribution of cities should prevent there from being any unambiguously "easy zones" and "hard zones", and I doubt Bethesda would make that mistake.

I hope it's like Fallout 3 where the starting area was easy although you still could be killed if you were not careful and the farther out you went the enemies got tougher although they were still easy at low levels but head too far to the west well there's a Yao Guai coming, head too far to the east well there's a super mutant brute shooting at me or Mirelurks if I got too close to the rivers, etc.

I do agree that we probably will start off in the Eastern part of the map which is no big deal for me.

I wouldn't mind going intto difficult areas without getting ripped as long as there is reason behind it. something like - the giant is just not interested in you.
It is already confirmed that some foes will always attack you no matter whats your level (Giant spiders)

So....what's the problem? It's called progression.

It is called an unrealistic (yes I said it) mechanic that doesn't really make any sense. IMO.

Sounds good; we're in the rear of the battle zone
Why is that annoying? The further you go into a wilderness, the tougher it may become to survive. Erm, because there are needed resources? Because some stupid King told them so? Because they were being persecuted in their homeland?
Again, desired resources, points of tactical or strategic interest, some dumb REMF General told them too? Holding a battle line?
Erm, not sure about this. So what would make things right for you? Could you adapt to thinking that you're surrounded?

I think that you think too hard :nod:

So now you have some ideas for making the setting more believable...enjoy!

I'd rather have a more natural structure.
Such as the wilderness is fine for level 1-6.
Bandit caves 6-12.
Tombs, etc. 12-19.
Daedric ruins 20-27
Dragon temples/whatever 25-35
etc etc.

Not that specifically, but that kind of system. And some variation as well, of course. But that means the environment is believable, the player can visually recognize dangerous areas but can travel freely, and certain difficult areas are blocked off. Though I wouldn't mind some specific areas being particularly dangerous (far north, some secluded/mountainous areas, etc).

How so?

Which one? The radial progression outward? Or the various not-necessarily-adjacent regions that steadily get more difficult?

I agree with the former, but the latter is what you get when you have pockets of civilization surrounded by difficult to traverse and not-accurately-explored wilderness. The civ pockets and the means to go between them will be safe, and the outlying areas will be progressively more dangerous because dangerous things have had time to develop without interruption. It's perfectly sensible at a base level, and it can be tweaked and twisted to make any kind of region-danger-patterns one wants.

For example, I think how Morrowind's regions handled its difficulties is a great example of the above working fine.

I would still like to visit tombs who will challenge me at level 40

Why is it unrealistic?

You start out in the "rear" and move towards heavier fighting.

You've been surrounded, and the near baddies are at the end of their logistics train.

other?

What? And having all of the low levels in one area and all of the high levels in another does not make any sense at all. Did all of the bandits, rats, and mud crabs decide "Ok, we are going to stick to the west side" while all of the daedra, dragons, etc. were like "We are all going to be in the east of Skyrim"?

Exactly.

Yes, that's what I meant by variation. I just mean that generally, the player will know what they're getting into. If it's going to be vastly different, then you might see variation in the environment to hint at the added danger. Or sometimes maybe it's just a surprise. Not 100% predictable, but a recognizable pattern.

Bah, :biggrin:
So the deer, rats, etc. are at home in the less war-torn east where there's relative civility. The weak pickpockets are there too. Now, as you move out into the wilds, perhaps the food chains change due to different habitats; perhaps you run into the front lines; perhaps the stronger bandits are at their base camps. As you move further from your origin, you hit something uncharted that hasn't been explored; you hit the enemy's reserves, you find shock troops.

There are many ways to think about it: warzones, wilderness, different ecosystems or habitats, colonization, lack of exploration... :nod:

Just for kicks, does it make sense to have an even spread of levels everywhere? Does it make sense to have everything the same RELATIVE level as you? My thought is that when you start out, you're near relative safety. As you get more brave and venture forth, you run into more difficulty. Works for me!

Thats a nice idea, I would change it a little tho... I just want to know what difficulty im getting into, i don't want to know it all. So id make it - low leveled dungeons will have skinny wooden doors as entrance, medium leveled dungeons - thick wooden doors. High leveled - steel doors, and so on

So, apparently strong bandit camps and forts have somehow devised a way to make them entirely rat free, when civilized areas are completely infested with them? :facepalm:

Food scarcity in the former, unsanitary conditions for the latter

That's kind of how I like it. When you saw a door in Morrowind, you didn't always know what was.

Most normal doors were smuggler dens. But they could have been renegade mages or a 6th house base. But you know right away after entering if it were a mage hideout or a 6th house base. Same with the dunmer strongholds. Some were 6th house, some were daedric, some were smuggler/criminal dens. But you could usually tell right away which it was after entering. The 6th house is always obvious. The Daedric one had skeletons impaled on spears right inside the doors.

The ones that were harder to tell were vampire dens, where often there were no signs. I don't mind surprises, but they're only really surprises when you have an expectation of difficulty.

The environments weren't compromised to create progression, and the player is able to recognize what kind of place they're in (as long as they pay attention to the signs).

Look(YOU! YEAH YOU!), I wouldn't mind that it will get harder and harder as i get farther from the starting point as long as its making sense. I just really doubt it will make sense, Its alittle silly to think that entire areas of skyrim are X strong while others are Y. why wouldnt Y want to take X's place if he is capable of doing so?

The civil war as badass as it sounds shouldn't extinct the entire low leveled foes. And whats the logic of only the weak will drive out from the war? what? Is there no strong people who dislike the civil war?
Also, bandits should be ANYWHERE and with all of the variety of strength. Its not logical that all of the strong bandits will fight over the suffering poor west who is in a civil war while they will leave all the treasures of the east to the weak ones. why shouldnt they go there too? fighting over 1 territory who is also wanted by others is just not logical when you are capable for more.

erm, that makes the assumption that the goal of taking the new place would be worth it. Like I said, tactical or strategic value might come into play.

Not quite following you here.

Perhaps the bandits are based in the west, have their strong ones there, etc., and are sending out the weaker bandits to attack the weaker targets? Why waste strength on the weak? Keep your battled-tested and smart ones to the rear where they can train the new ones and plan to take over the world. Biding time. Who says that all must be on the same time path?

And, please, I hope you're NOT getting frustrated. It's just that when I see people who are entrnched in one view, I try to see if I can come up with alternatives. Perhaps mine are wrong, perhaps they can work. But really, It's all a bit silly, right? A story or scenario can be made up to fit any other scenario, and it's no use trying to devine what the actually story will be. At least that's my story, and I'm sticking to it! If you want me to bug-out I will :nod: